The Sister Queens (30 page)

“Call off your knights before someone is hurt,” I plead.

Charles d’Anjou stares at me incredulously. “This rabble attacks us,” he says with a sneer. “A lesson must be taught.”

“These men attack
you
,” I reply. “Perhaps you ought to ask yourself why.” I turn again to Louis. “Your Majesty, it is unseemly for knights well trained and well armed to turn blades meant for killing Saracens upon Christian tradesmen and farmers.”

For a long, dreadful moment Louis looks out over the scene. I can hear blows from every direction, voices cry out in pain and anger, and somewhere a woman sobs. Then, to my great relief, he stands in his stirrups and calls to his constable, who is near at hand.

“Bring the men to order! Make it clear to all that I will tolerate no violence against the crowd. We are not some collection of street urchins to be incited to riot by a few pieces of rotted fruit or a coarse word. Run them off by all means, but do not hurt them.”

It takes time for the whirl of jumbled motion around us to slow. But at last, the mob begins to yield to the wall of my husband’s mounted men, scattering back toward the city. Some, injured, are carried or dragged by others. I feel something wet on my nose and raise my hand, wondering who can be throwing something at me
now that the crowd is departing, only to realize that it is the first drop of a summer shower.

A moment later I am drenched. The downpour speeds our attackers’ retreat. Shouts and curses fade, and then without warning a sharp cry rings out, a wail that rises and then settles into a steady keening. The little Countess of Saint-Pol, whom I never gave thought to other than as a pawn in my denouncement of Beatrice, is off her horse not twenty yards from where I sit. Off her horse and on her knees in the rain, pulling with small white hands at the sleeve of a figure on the ground. It is Hugh of Châtillon, her husband. The people of Provence have made her a widow for the second time in her short life.

“Why?” Beatrice’s shaky voice startles me. I turn to her, dirty and sodden, and raise my open palms as if I too seek an answer. The fact that she asked the question is all the proof I need that she would not understand my answer, even if prudence did not dictate that I remain mute.

E
LEANOR
J
ULY 1248
C
LARENDON
P
ALACE
, E
NGLAND

U
sually I enjoy my garden. But today, despite the gorgeous blooms of my roses and the fact that English sun shines as if it has forgotten that this is a country of rain and fog, I am not having a pleasant time as I sit on the stone bench and watch Henry pace in short steps before me.

“Eleanor,” he says in exasperation, halting for a moment before me, “have you not taught me that family is everything?”

My own words and deeds turn on me. Of
course
I have preached family to Henry these dozen years. But I meant
our
family. And
my
family. Not his half brothers. But I can hardly say that!

“But they do not behave as family ought,” I reply, trying to distinguish the Lusignans, who have arrived on English shores like an invading horde, by their behavior from my own kin. “Rather than supporting your reign, they upset everything, riling the barons and spending your money like water.”

Henry pouts. “I seem to remember expending considerable sums on your kin when they arrived. Did I not make your uncle
Peter the Earl of Richmond as soon as his feet touched English soil?”

There is no use reminding him that Peter himself saw the danger in that hasty gift and worked hard to quiet the angry murmuring that Henry’s impetuous generosity stirred. “Henry, you have been exceedingly gracious in your favors to my relations. But have they not in turn given you good service?”

“Of course, Eleanor, and so shall my brothers.”

“They are off to a bad beginning!” I try to keep sarcasm out of my voice because it is the quickest way to anger Henry, but I find it
very
difficult. Henry can be resolutely blind to the truth of a situation when he wants to be. “You know that your barons were not in the least pleased when you gave the Countess of Pembroke to William as a bride. They complained about such a plum title and such lands going to a foreigner—”

“Just as they complained when we married Alice de Saluzzo to Edmund de Lacy,” Henry interrupts defiantly. “They are only greedy and want all the best heiresses for themselves and their sons.”

Henry is right; the English complain about every “foreign” marriage. But, unlike my husband, I believe that the recent vituperative nature of such protests is very directly related to the appalling behaviors of his Poitevin kin, so I return to that subject. “We are agreed then that your barons objected. But, had William shown proper humility and behaved like a true servant to Your Majesty, they might quickly have forgotten. Instead, your half brother throws his weight and your name around everywhere.”

Standing up, I stalk off to the nearest rosebush. I try to pick a pale yellow blossom for myself, but, though I bend and twist, the cane will not break. Instead, I succeed only in pricking myself until my fingers bleed.

I round on Henry who has remained standing silently by the bench—perhaps hoping I am finished. “You know he is whoring about openly while Joan de Munchensy sits in misery at Hertford Castle, growing large with his child!”

“Eleanor!” Henry’s face colors. I am not certain whether he is embarrassed by my language or angered by my accusation.

“Yes, whoring!” I repeat, tossing my head. “And as if
that
were not enough, he behaves like a common criminal, breaking down locked doors and taking what belongs to others. The poor bishop of Ely was at his wits end when he wrote to Uncle Boniface. The doors to His Excellency’s cellars forced, his servants threatened, his best wines poured out to your half brother’s servants or left to run upon the ground. And what punishment have you meted out to the perpetrator? None. Instead, you secure nomination to the bishopric at Winchester for Aymer, a man equally debauched.”

“They are my
brothers
, Eleanor.”

“
Half
brothers, the sons of a man who betrayed you and opened you to mortification during our campaign in Poitou.” I have never forgiven the Count of La Marche for beginning the battle in Poitou prematurely, before English troops arrived, or for abandoning Henry and surrendering to the French precipitously after Taillebourg, even if my husband has.

“They are also the sons of my mother, Eleanor. My
mother
.”

Henry’s voice drops, and I see the pain in his eyes. I cannot understand his sentimentality over his mother, which has only increased since her death. Isabella treated him pitifully while she lived—deserting him to remarry and flouting his interests whenever they did not correspond with her own. I hate her for how she neglected my husband, and for how she played upon his loving nature. But right now I hate her even more for the brood of noisome, oafish sons she allowed Hugh of La Marche to breed from her.

“How can I turn on my brothers? Would you want Edward to turn on Edmund?”

Henry’s question brings a sudden flash of clarity. Henry
wants
these brothers, and he needs to believe they are good and that they love him. This complicates things—not the least among them my feelings. I know how Henry ached for family before I came to him. He has said it to me a thousand times—how sorry he is that he and Richard grew up strangers; how he would have our family be as close as the one I came from; how much he wants to know his sons as his father never knew him. Now it is my turn to feel the sting of tears.

Henry walks to my side and, in a single deft motion, breaks the stem I was struggling with and hands me the flower. “Invite the Countess of Pembroke to court,” he suggests, looking sheepish, “and I will suggest to William that if he cannot abstain until his wife is delivered, then at least he ought to be less public in his activities.”

I know this will not be the end of our troubles with the Lusi-gnans. Yet what is damage to the stores of the bishop of Ely, or any of the damage caused by William de Valence’s bad behavior for that matter, compared to the serious heartache Henry will suffer if I press my point? Surely my own people can work round the Poitevins or just ignore them, as can I personally. And should they do something to more directly damage me, there can be no question as to the winner in such a battle. The Savoyards will not be bested by some drunken riffraff no matter whom they are related to.

UPON RETURNING FROM THE GARDEN
to my apartment, my first order of business is a letter to Uncle Peter. He is stopped at
Windsor to settle a matter with Edward’s tutor and will be waiting for a report of my conversations with the king. To be honest, he might have resolved the issue that takes him to Windsor by letter, but with the Lusignans’ sniffing around for everything they can get, it is more important than ever that Peter and I assert control over matters pertaining to the Lord Edward.

Protecting my son’s lands and interests is the great work of my life. In fact, in addition to discussing the Lusignans with Uncle Peter by letter, I must write of Edward’s Gascony. My uncle and I are supporting the candidacy of Simon de Montfort for seneschal there. It is our opinion that he is the perfect man to put that critical but ever-troublesome part of Edward’s appanage in order. But, despite my ongoing attempts at persuasion, Henry does not, at the moment, see things as we do. Henry wants to send Richard, but I know that gentleman will have Gascony for himself if he can. He has always angled for it, and all the more so since it was given him and then snatched back five years ago.

No, Peter and I must continue to press most firmly for de Montfort. Simon will wish to be paid, and paid handsomely, but he will not poach the territory itself. This suits me as I will never rest until Edward is invested with those lands and holds them secure from threat.

I sit down at my writing table and look down on the garden I just left, but, instead of thinking how best to set things forth for Peter, I find myself distracted by my new windows. My eyes follow their delicate silver-gray grisaille pattern. I wonder if I might have something similar done in fabric for a patterned gown. Perhaps in the lovely gold and warm pink of my new tile floor—or am I too old at twenty-four to wear pink? I get up and, ignoring the inquisitive glances of my ladies, hurry to my bedchamber to consult my mirror. No, by God’s coif! My looks are as good as they ever were.
Moving to my dressing table, I eye the finely carved casket I keep there. I need not open it to know what is inside—every letter that Marguerite has written me since Beatrice was married. Although I have not answered a single one, I have not had the heart to dispose of them. Running my finger over the box’s top, I think how strange it is that before I broke with Marguerite, I felt no pressing need to keep her letters. A few, to be certain, are tucked away, but most, once answered, I simply burned.

I take out Marguerite’s last letter. Like so many before it, it pleads for an answer. And in its closing lines, my sister posits that perhaps I do not read her missives at all anymore—that they are sent in vain.
Just because I do not speak, Sister,
I think,
does not mean I have not been listening.

Family. Henry forgives his
everything
, and I am the loser by it. I, on the other hand, am more wary of clemency. I have repaired my relationship with Boniface because practical and political necessity demanded it. And my relationship with my mother is mended as well, a task materially assisted by a recent visit during which she assured my husband that, whatever the rumors to the contrary, she did not surrender the rights to castles pledged to us to secure Beatrice’s marriage.

Yet I have not forgiven Marguerite. Perhaps I cling to my anger at my sister because her betrayal hurt me more than the others and deep cuts are not easily healed.