The Sister Queens (50 page)

I want to cry. But Jean already feels worse than he deserves to. I know he would stay if he could. I rise, give him a quick kiss, and in a voice as cheerful as I can make it say, “Take care of your person, my lord, until we meet again. I shall be very angry at you if,
when I disembark from my ship at Sidon, I find you dirty and blanket-clad as you were when your ship pulled into Acre.”

FROM THE DECK OF MY
nef
, I see a castle sitting in the sea. Doubtless it is on an island, but, as it covers every inch, it appears to be floating; glimmering white in the morning sun. A ribbon of stone ties it to land, a causeway. And on that jetty the figure of a knight grows every minute clearer. He is alone, but I can see half a dozen figures on shore near a small cart at the place where we must disembark, and beyond them a city of tents flying the assorted banners of my husband’s men. As we enter the harbor, we pass closer. The lone figure is Jean—another promise kept. He raises a hand in greeting, then starts briskly to join the rest of the party waiting for us.

Holding little Jean’s hand, with two-year-old Pierre in Marie’s charge and my new daughter in the arms of the nurse, I wait impatiently for the plank to be lowered. I can see now that the others are lackeys and foot soldiers doubtless come to carry our things. Jean is the lone gentleman here to welcome us.

I let the others descend before me. I watch how Jean greets each earnestly, even as his gaze flits repeatedly to me. When I reach the bottom of the plank, he says, “Your Majesty, welcome to Sidon.”

“Where is the king?” I am not worried that Louis was killed or injured in whatever took place here, for Jean wears no sign of mourning.

Jean takes our son’s hand, passes it deftly to Marie, then gives an instruction to one of the soldiers who begins to lead the women of my party toward the camp. The remaining men head onto the ship to retrieve our trunks. When only the two of us are left motionless in the sand, Jean says, “His Majesty regrets that he could not come down to meet you.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“We were too late.” He hangs his head as if the shame of the thing were brand-new. “The sack of the city was complete before we arrived and the infidels gone. We have been burying the dead every day since our arrival, and we are still not done.”

“Dear God.”

“The king carries the bodies in his own arms. No task is too loathsome for him. He blames himself.” It is clear that Jean is moved by Louis’s behavior. I am not.

“Another failure for which he will wish to do penance,” I say with a sigh. “But surely you could not have come more quickly than you did.”

“No. But when those who perished are interred, we will refortify this city in their memories.”

We begin to walk toward camp in silence. All I can think about is the prospect of a prolonged stay at Sidon while Louis builds walls and towers to salve his conscience.

After a few moments, Jean says, “You look well.”

“I am better for being here.” And I realize as I say it, this is true. Being with Jean ameliorates every other circumstance.

He offers me a broad, open smile. “I missed you too.”

“My Lord of Joinville,” I tease, “you are very presumptuous. I merely missed living in tents, and having everything I wear and own always full of sand and dust.”

I am rewarded with the laugh I love. “I will help you shake the dust from your clothing one of these evenings to be sure. I have placed your tents on the seaward side of the camp. Just there.” Following the direction of his finger I can see my standard. “If threat comes, it is unlikely to come by water, and the sea castle is the fortress we would hold in last resort in any event.”

“And I thought you wanted to give me a lovely view.” I lay a
hand on his arm just long enough that he can feel its weight but not so long that I might attract attention of any onlooker.

“A view and a little distance from the tents of the
preudommes
and His Majesty.”

“I do like the air to stir around my tents.”

The small cart with my chests on it rumbles by. We are nearly upon the camp. Our time can be measured in steps.

“I must return to the king. Shall I come tonight and take you for a walk by the sea?”

“Come tonight.”

“If you need anything in the meantime, send Marie and I will secure it for you. I am lodged not far from His Majesty, across from the Count of Eu. The count’s tent can be easily spotted as some fool has given him a bear.” He laughs again. “The noise the thing makes is criminal, and if my people do not keep their eyes out, it will eat all my capons.” Then, serious, he adds, “You must tell the children to stay away from it. They will be curious, but the thing is not tame.”

“Never fear, Sieur.” Allowing Jean to hold back the flap of my tent for me, I can see Marie and my
béguines
shaking out sheets in preparation for making up my bed. “I did not come all this way by sea alone to let my children be eaten by bears.”

“SO YOU ARRIVED THIS MORNING
with the princes and our new daughter.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” I sit at dinner beside Louis on the dais under one of his pavilions. A collection of his favorite knights, Jean among them, eat at tables below us.

“Would you like to see the Lady Blanche?” Again I have named a daughter after the dragon—in irritation that her delivery delayed
me in Jaffa but also in hope that her grandmother will force Louis’s hand and bring us home. “I can send for her.”

“Tomorrow will be soon enough.” Louis’s expression makes me doubtful he wishes to see our daughter at all.

“Just as Your Majesty wishes.” Looking at my husband’s profile, I can see that he loses weight once more. Burying the dead is dangerous work; every sort of pestilence attends them. It has long been my fear that Louis will die in the Holy Land; that, in fact, he intends to. “Will Your Majesty not take some more figs?” I lift the platter from between us and hold it in his direction. “I understand from the Seneschal of Champagne that you all work strenuously in this heat. Your Majesty must take care to keep up his strength.”

Louis turns in my direction, his eyes for a moment unguarded. I see his weariness, his guilt, and his feelings of unworthiness. “We do not suffer at all compared with those we were too late to aid.”

I nod my head. “Yet you offer them Christian burial, and that is a worthy task that cannot be completed without your strength.”

Louis stretches out his long, thin fingers tentatively and takes a fig as if it might bite him. “I see the Seneschal of Champagne keeps you well-informed.”

There is an edge to Louis’s tone, as if he resents the fact. I am immediately cautious. “It was kind of Your Majesty to send him to see my ladies and me safely ashore.”

“I did not, madam, but I knew where he was going when he took his leave. And as he is a gentleman of the first sort who always knows what is fitting to be done, I thought it best to let him go, even though it meant delaying my priest’s sermon against his return.”

The king looks at me expectantly, as if I ought to be pleased by his information; ought to thank him for his magnanimity. I am only thankful that the meal will soon be concluded and I will be
away from him. It is without question easier for me to talk with and understand nearly anyone other than my husband of nineteen years.

IT DOES NOT TAKE LONG
for me to feel settled at Sidon. A great part of me longs to go home, but if I must continue to live like a Bedouin, I am, for the moment, comfortable and happy. In this latest crowded camp, Jean and I live even more freely than we did in its predecessors. Louis, tired from his ceaseless manual labor in the heat, retires early to scourge himself, pray, and finally to sleep, leaving Jean and his other gentlemen to their own devices. Those men who would drink, gamble, or participate in other noisy amusements are as careful to stay away from my tents as they are to stay away from His Majesty’s, so my edge of the camp is largely deserted as dusk falls. Jean comes and goes freely to pass time with me, his visits given a veneer of respectability by his position with the king and by the presence of my women, my children, or both. We play chess, talk of France, read to each other, and dine together as if we were a married couple. And when we would do the other things that married couples do, Marie admits Jean to the tent where I sleep, deserts her pallet at my feet, and crouches outside in the darkness until we are done.

Today is laundry day. My
béguines
laugh as the wind blows the wet things they are hanging into their faces. Marie has all the sides of my main tent raised. Jean Tristan and Pierre play queek, using my chessboard on a blanket on the ground. Pierre is really too little to understand the game but enjoys casting the pebbles nonetheless, and little Jean is unfailingly patient with him. The sea sparkles in the distance with a light so dazzling, it is nearly painful to look at.

Jean is not at Sidon. He left more than a week ago on a
pilgrimage to Our Lady of Tortosa. He departed in the highest of humors and left me likewise, despite his impending absence, because the king ordered him to purchase lengths of cloth to pre-sent to the Franciscans when we go back to France. Neither of us can remember Louis’s mentioning his return to our country since before he left Jaffa.

I am trying to write to Eleanor. I have not received a letter from her in more than half a year, and I cannot say that she gets mine. At first I blamed the winter seas, and now I presume the fact that the king moves us so frequently from one city to the next explains this matter. I certainly know I am not the only one who no longer dependably receives correspondence. Still, writing to my sister is a habit formed over many years and so I continue, or would do if the strong wind from the sea did not try to take my page every moment.

“Your Majesty.” Looking up from my efforts, I see one of my Lord of Joinville’s knights. He carries a flat parcel wrapped in white cloth. Darling Jean! He must have sent me a relic, something from the shrine built by Saint Peter to the Holy Mother. I told him how jealous I was that he should see the place and I should not!

Rising, I go forward to the knight and kneel before him.

Giving me a look of utter confusion, he sinks to his knees as well.

“Pray, sir, rise. The bearer of holy relics need kneel to no one.”

“Your Majesty,” the knight says, blushing scarlet, which I think very odd for a man hardened in battle, “these are not relics, but rather a fine piece of camel hair cloth my Lord of Joinville sends for your pleasant use.”

Now it is my turn to color. Scrambling to my feet, I try to look dignified, then abandon the attempt, collapsing in laughter into Marie’s arms. Both of us shake until we weep; then, wiping my eyes, I turn back to the knight, who smiles merrily.

“Tell the Seneschal of Champagne he had best be wary of me
when he returns from the north. He is out of my graces for making me kneel to a bolt of cloth, however lovely.”

“Your Majesty, you may tell him yourself, for he is not more than a day behind me.”

“Be assured, good sir, I shall.”

Jean does indeed arrive late in the afternoon of the following day. I only hear of the event; I do not see it or him. Jean’s first duty is to call upon the king, and Louis, it seems, is not inclined to release him. As the afternoon draws to a close, Marie gets surreptitious word from Caym that Jean has been dismissed, but his respite will be brief as he is expected to return to His Majesty’s tents to dine with the king.

When Louis has the tables set in his large pavilion, there is always a place for me should I choose to have it. I go when there is something interesting to be seen, as when the Greek Lord of Trebizond arrived bearing gifts and begging for a French bride. This evening, as the sun begins to slip toward the horizon and the night winds cool the air, I go because I cannot bear to spend Jean’s first evening back apart from him.

Louis is in an excellent mood. In addition to the cloth he commanded, Jean brought him a strange stone that can be split into slices. When opened, it reveals a tiny stone fish, perfect in every bone and detail. Louis’s enthusiasm for the marvel extends even to me. “Look, lady wife. Is it not a wonder? Stone, yet just as if it were alive and could swim away this moment.”

“Wonderful!” I reach out one finger and gently touch the rock creature. “It is as if an artist painted it.”

“It is better, for it is painted by Our Lord. The Sieur de Joinville is a man who knows what pleases.”

He is indeed,
I think to myself, and give a little shiver. After nearly two weeks without Jean’s touch, I look forward to him
pleasing me this evening. The stars are spread like jewels in the darkening sky, and I hope to tempt him down to the shore so that we may lie beneath them. The look he gives me when he arrives at dinner and bows to Louis suggests he will be agreeable to my suggestion.

The bowls are brought to begin the meal. As I hand over the linen with which I have dried my hands, I hear the hooves of a horse riding hard. The king’s guards stiffen at their posts, peering into the oddly shaped bits of darkness that separate the light cast by the torches at the corners of the king’s tent from that cast by the torches of tents nearby.

A man wearing the arms of the Count of Jaffa comes into view. Jumping down from his horse, he strides into the pavilion and stops before the king. “Your Majesty, I apologize for intruding, but my master bid me find you when I reached your camp, be it day or night.”

“What is the matter?”

“This letter arrived for you from France.” He holds out a most official-looking missive tattered at its edges but heavily sealed. “The man who brought it to the count had been looking for you for many months, and seemed always to arrive where you were not. He told the count the matter was urgent, and, hearing this, my master took it upon himself to see it safely to your hands.”

“We thank you.” Louis’s voice trembles slightly. He takes the letter. Nodding to the nearest servant, he orders, “See that this man is fed.” Then turning to Giles le Brun who, along with some of the other
preudommes
and councilors, has crowded to the dais, he says, “It bears the seals of both my brothers.”