The Sister Queens (55 page)

“My Lord of Joinville,” Louis begins—is there malice in Louis’s look or do I merely imagine it?—“I was saying to Her Majesty only this morning that you take prodigious care for her and I am thankful for it. But I have more faith in God than in the machinations of man. I am content to place my life in his hands, and so too the lives of my wife and children.” Then turning to the mariners, he says, “It is settled. Begin what repairs you think prudent. All who are on board now will rest there.”

“HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, HE
knows
something.”

“No,” I say, pushing aside the fact that I myself felt the same the morning after the grounding. “And you must not really believe so yourself, or you would not be here.”

Jean is in my cabin. Having come to the conclusion that there is no safer place for us to be alone together, we have fallen back on the cover that may be given by good and loyal servants. So Caym
will tell anyone seeking Jean this evening that he sleeps within his cabin while Marie sits placid in the smaller forward chamber of my own to insist that I likewise have retired if called upon to do so. Still, the arrangement is fraught with risk, and we both know that. The closer the shores of France draw, the more willing we are to defy common sense and ignore what used to be for us inviolate rules of conduct in order to be together.

“Listen to me, Marguerite,” Jean replies, sitting down heavily on the edge of my bed. “When the repairs were finished this morning, and even as the anchors were being drawn up and sail raised, Louis called me to sit with him upon a ship’s bench and told me that, according to the saints, such trials and near escapes are sent by God to remind us that he has the power to take our lives whensoever he wishes.”

“That sounds like Louis.” I stand before Jean, looking down on his disconsolate face. “But what has a religious lesson to do with your suspicions, or the king’s?”

“I am getting there.” Jean looks up, his eyes fairly pleading for me to be patient. “I told the king it was doubtless true that God could have drowned us had he wished. And he replied, ‘Yes, Seneschal, but are we all properly chastened by this reminder of our mortality? For make no mistake, God intends us to examine our conduct for anything displeasing to him that we may purge ourselves of it. Elsewise his warning has not accomplished its purpose.’”

I draw breath audibly.

“You see, we are discovered.”

Louis’s little speech is harder to dismiss than I would like, but still, I can drive down the sudden surge of bile that rises from my stomach upon hearing it, and hope I can quiet Jean’s doubts as well. “He could have meant a more general lesson. No man not a priest loves to preach as much as Louis does. Or he could refer to your
obstinate pressure upon him during our grounding to do other than pray for our relief.”

Jean shakes his head, clearly unwilling to believe me.

“If Louis knows about us, why not be more explicit? Why not move to separate us?”

“I do not know.”

“No, you do not. Nor do I. All this is supposition and conjecture. Would you give me up over that?”

“I ought to,” Jean responds. “It would be safer for you.” I put a hand gently on his shoulder, and he dips his head gracefully to kiss it. “But, heaven help me, I am not that strong. I will cleave to you until I have no choice, and I pray daily that moment never comes.”

E
LEANOR
M
AY 1254
D
OVER,
E
NGLAND

I
can see the ships from my window, magnificently fitted out and ready to go. And the wind, as if knowing I desire to be gone, is strong and favorable. I glance once more at the letter I hold telling me that the house in Bordeaux where I bore my daughter Beatrice a dozen years ago is ready to receive me again. Then Henry was losing in Poitou. Now we are
winning
in Gascony. Winning.
Edward’s birthright is secured just as we intended. I am not much familiar with the sensation of things going precisely as we planned them, Henry and I, and the fact my husband has not been thwarted or made a fool of in Gascony causes me to feel giddy with delight.

The door swings open and I expect to see Edward, back with another of his many questions. We sail in the morning, and the excitement of the event overwhelms my eldest. Instead, it is Uncle Boniface.

“This came for you. The messenger looked as if he would have swum the channel if he had been called upon to.” He holds out a letter bearing my husband’s seal.

“Come,” I say, reaching for it. “Surely it cannot be more than His Majesty’s fervent wishes that I should have a safe journey.” But my fingers shake as I try to undo the seal. Henry’s hand is as familiar to me as my own, and generally it brings me comfort when he is away. This time, however, it brings word I would rather not have. “Alfonso is mustering troops.”

“By the nails!” My uncle’s exclamation, so at odds with his standing as archbishop of Canterbury, expresses all the astonishment and frustration that overwhelm me at the moment. “Is Henry certain?”

“His spies say men-at-arms are gathering in large numbers. It seems Gascony is not yet safe from Castilian aggression and Edward may remain unmarried a while longer.” Though it hardly seems important under the circumstances, I feel a sudden twinge at the thought of my son’s disappointment. In this one thing, and not much else, he is exactly like his father—he has allowed his fancy to fix on his prospective bride and swears himself desperately in love with her though they have never met.

Reading farther, my eyes are stopped dead by the words, “As I
value your safety and that of my sons more even than my own life or the success of this venture, do not set out from England until you hear from me.”

“We are enjoined from sailing!”

“What?”

“For our safety we are to remain in England until the battle is past.” I feel like letting off a good oath myself, but instead, crush the letter in my hand into a tight ball. “How? How is it possible that we are perched on the edge of complete victory and yet may be thwarted?”

“Such a thing is always possible.” My uncle shrugs maddeningly. “Eleanor, you know the way of politics—allies of yesterday will tear each other to pieces today, and the opposite is equally true.” Boniface rubs his chin for a moment, then asks, “Does His Majesty command you not to come?”

I find it a strange question. Then I realize what Boniface is really asking—whether I will obey Henry’s admonition.

“You think I ought to go?”

“The decision is not mine, Eleanor. I merely suggest it calls for reflection, not blind obedience.”

I would laugh were the situation not so serious. When in all my years have I been known as blindly obedient? I drop the ball that is Henry’s letter on a nearby table and go once more to my window. The sun is setting, giving the furled sails of my fine ships a rosy hue. These sheets are ready to open and catch the morning breeze. Everything we have worked so hard to achieve in Gascony hinges on Edward’s arrival there and on his marriage. Beneath the ships, the water of the harbor offers a more glaring red, the red of blood. If I take my sons to Gascony against their father’s wishes, will the blood spilt there include theirs?

I reclaim the letter and tease it into a flattened state once more,
sorry for my impulsive action. Here is a missive that definitely bears rereading. When I have reviewed it, I look up at my uncle. “Henry says nothing of word from Alfonso himself. Whatever manner of man the King of Castile is, would he not feel constrained to issue a letter breaking off negotiations before attacking a man he promised to call family?”

“He may yet, once his troops are ready.”

“And what of Mansel? Henry makes no mention of him. Yet who should know the King of Castile’s mind better, at least among the English, than Mansel when he has all but lived with Alfonso for months while negotiating the terms of this marriage?”

My uncle nods. “But as we have just discussed, minds and plans may change in an instant.” I begin to think he is pushing me to stay, despite his protestation that the decision is mine, and I am on the brink of saying as much when he continues. “This, however, may counsel as much in favor of going as resting in port. After all, no matter what the situation at this moment, it may change for the better, for the worse, and even back again in the more than a week it will take you to make landfall in Gascony.”

“Well then, we will hope it changes for the better.” I crumple the letter once more, and this time I toss it onto the fire for good measure. It no longer has a hold on me. I love my husband, but he is not here, nor is his judgment always the most sound.

Taking my eyes from the blazing ball of parchment, I tell Boniface, “I am not some mouse to be kept in my hole. I am regent of England, and I will not risk a peace we have nearly reached merely because Gascony is, at present, more dangerous to us than it was a week ago. After all, even if Alfonso of Castile waited on the shore with open arms to embrace us, the sea herself might swallow us up between here and the coast off Bordeaux. Life is a dangerous business.”

WHEN WE DISEMBARK, THERE ARE
none to meet us but my steward, Bezill, and some lesser noblemen. I can hardly fault Henry for this. After all, he doubtless assumed that I stayed on English soil as he requested. Still, I get a lump in my throat when nine-year-old Edmund tugs on my hand and asks, “Where is Father?”

“What news?” I ask Bezill. “Have the King of Castile’s troops crossed into Gascony?”

Bezill looks perplexed for a moment and then says, “Oh, that rumor! It proved groundless. The men His Majesty’s spies counted so carefully were meant for the Navarre and are there now, giving trouble to young Thibaut the Second.”

Well,
I think,
at least Henry will not be vexed that I have disobeyed him when he sees me.

Bezill turns aside for a moment to give some instructions for the loading of luggage. Then returning his attention to me, he says, “His Majesty and the Earl of Richmond are at La Réole.”

“And John Mansel is still at the court of Castile?”

“Yes, and Peter d’Aigueblanche with him. But have no fear, Your Majesty. Everything is ready, just as I wrote.”

I try to smile gamely at my steward despite my disappointment. It seems I am the only one of any consequence in Bordeaux—at least of any consequence when it comes to matters of negotiating a peace and managing a marriage. A groom leads several horses forward and Bezill hands me up to mine. Riding through the streets of the city, where more attention is being paid to the ordinary business of the day than to our passing, I feel a sudden drop in spirits.
Look up,
I want to call at the people we go by.
A queen is passing, a woman who ruled England
toute seule
for more than three-quarters of a year.
Of course, I cannot do any such thing but must
confine myself to willing them to notice me. No one heeds my silent plea, not then nor in the days that follow.