Four Sisters, All Queens (8 page)

O
UTSIDE, WHEN THEY
emerge: Cheers and a burst of music. Jongleurs hurl sticks of fire; a golden goblet, filled to the brim with wine, finds its way into her hand. The king leads her beneath a spreading oak, up onto a platform ringed with candles; their light, reflected in his gold mail, makes him look aflame.
“Vive la nouvelle reine!”
people shout.
“Vive Marguerite!”

The king gestures toward the goblet. She drinks the sour stuff—not Languedoc wine, to be certain. But she squelches her distaste and lifts her cup to toast her new countrymen and women, soon to be her subjects.

“Vive la France!”
she cries. The crowd’s response rolls like thunder over the lawn. The king’s eyes shine as he accepts the goblet from her.

Two men ascend the steps, carrying a large trunk. From it they pull gifts, which the king presents to her: two new leather saddles; a golden bridle; a necklace dripping with diamonds and rubies; a bejeweled tiara, and, the
pièce de résistance,
a cloak of rich sable with fifteen gold buttons, each inscribed with the fleur-de-lis, the symbol of France, and sparkling with sapphires. Gasps and murmurs swirl as he drapes the soft fur over her shoulders, then fastens the buttons one by one.

“How beautiful she is!”

“See the roses in her cheeks—so delicate and feminine.”

“Only the best for our King Louis,
non
?”

The king hands the goblet to her; she drinks again, more deeply now, her blood warmed by the adoration, the cloak, or the wine—or all three. Then music begins anew, and the crowd begins to dance.

Her husband leaps to the grass, then turns toward her with arms outstretched. Marguerite leans in; he grasps her at the waist and twirls her down, sets her before him, she laughing, knowing the stars do not twinkle more brightly in the sky than do her eyes, and he gazing at her as though she were a gift he cannot wait to unwrap.

The music and the crowd sweep them along as if they were petals on a summer breeze, whirling them in a circle of dancers, his hand squeezing hers as they step and turn, his eyes never leaving her face even when his arm surrounds her waist and he swings her around. They laugh as the dance grows more frenzied, dizzy with the joy of being alive and young and together, until a small man with a balding head and shifting eyes taps on the king’s shoulder.

“Pardon, my lady,” he says, bowing before turning to Louis. “Your Grace, the queen reminds you that she is waiting.” Marguerite’s gaze follows the king’s to see the queen mother silhouetted in an upstairs window, looking over the festivities. Beside her, a familiar paunch-bellied figure with overlong hair: Raimond of Toulouse. Louis drops her hand as though caught in an indecent act.

“It is late.” He averts his eyes. His shoulders sag. “Let me show you to your room.”

He strides away so briskly that she must trot to keep pace, back into the palace, up the stairs, past the royal quarters to another set of rooms. He leads her through the door where her uncles sit at a table by a fireplace and sup on fish and vegetables. They leap to their feet, Guillaume nearly knocking over his goblet of wine.

“I have kept your niece too long. She must be tired and hungry.” Louis’s words tumble out. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. “Is everything to your liking? Are your rooms comfortable? Then I must leave you and attend to business. Good night, gentlemen.” He lifts her hand to his lips but he barely glances at her; his thoughts have already gone elsewhere, and then, just as abruptly, so has he.

Aimée brings over a chair and sets it at the table, facing the fire. Marguerite plops down, feeling like a sail that has lost its wind. This apartment is smaller than the royal quarters, and filled with wall sconces of shimmering gold and statues: grotesque heads of saints lining the ceiling, and, in the corner, a statue of a nude man with private parts so lifelike she blushes and tries not to look. Uncle Guillaume offers her wine, but she declines. “Dreadful stuff, anyway,” Thomas mutters.

“The king left hastily.” Guillaume peers at her from under his thick brows.

“His mother called,” she says. She does not mention Toulouse, dreading their response. They might want to know why she did not join the meeting—why she did not at least try. How could she tell them of the White Queen’s cold demeanor, of her condescending remarks?
Country bumpkin.

“Have you heard the tales about the White Queen and her son?” Uncle Guillaume dips his bread in his wine. “I never believed them, but now I wonder . . .”

“She said she needs to talk with him about matters concerning the kingdom.” Marguerite closes her eyes.

“On the eve of his wedding? They must be urgent matters, indeed.”

“Or maybe she is a mother who clings to her son. King Louis is
the very image of his father,” Thomas says. “Blanche’s passion for her husband was widely known.”

“Uncle!” She opens her eyes.

Guillaume grins. “Perhaps the son fills certain . . .
needs
that the husband once did. He adores her, for one thing.”

“And yet she would have sold him to gain a kingdom.” Thomas tells the tale: Blanche’s husband, Louis VIII—heir to the French throne—answered the English barons’ call to revolt against the English King John. They promised to award the crown to Prince Louis. Blanche urged him to go, although his father, King Philip Augustus, argued against it. The parochial English would never allow a Frenchman to rule, he insisted.
Their tyrant vanquished, they will remember their hatred against France—and turn against you next.
Prince Louis went anyway, but King John proved a cunning and brutal opponent. When Louis sent home for more funds, King Philip refused to pay. But Blanche, ambitious from the start, was determined to become England’s queen. If he would not send Louis the money he needed, she threatened, she would sell her children—his grandchildren—to raise the sum.

“She would have done it,” Thomas said. “The White Queen will stop at nothing to obtain what she wants.”

“She is passionate,” Marguerite says. “What is wrong with that?”

Her uncles grin. “We shall ask you that question in a few weeks,” Guillaume says.

After supper, the queen mother’s tailor, a fussy man whose wrists stick out from his too-short sleeves, measures her for her wedding gown. As Aimée prepares her later for bed, unlacing her tunic, helping her into her robe, and combing and plaiting her hair, she spills over with questions. Did the king please her? Does Marguerite like his mother? Which of her gifts did she treasure most? Is she excited about tomorrow’s wedding? Marguerite says nothing and, always sensitive to her moods, the handmaid grows quiet.

Yet she ponders the questions, and her answers. What does she think of her husband? He seems kind, he appears handsome, and
he dances well. He knows nothing of poetry, and his riposte is not as clever as she has hoped, but perhaps he was nervous today. His mother made a stronger impression—a number of them, in fact, and all contradictory.

Every woman hopes to win her husband’s love, but you have an added task: charming his mother.
Although King Louis is now nineteen years of age, Blanche still rules France—and, from what Marguerite has seen, she rules her son, as well. She, not Louis, gives money and men to Toulouse for the raids on her father’s castles. She is the reason why Provence suffers—why Papa suffers. To help her family—and to save Provence—Marguerite must befriend the White Queen.

Laughter floats upward from the lawn, and more music. Marguerite moves to the window for one last look at the festivities: the jongleurs doing handsprings and flips, rehearsing for tomorrow’s celebration; children chasing one another, darting in and out of the makeshift shelters; servants rushing about with filled goblets for their masters and mistresses; dancers whirling and spinning.

Below her window, onlookers clap in time to the music as a couple turns before them, fleet-footed and lithe, gazing into each other’s faces with delight. She watches for a while, wishing she had a rose or a token to toss down to the dancing couple. After a while, the song ends and they fall apart, panting and laughing, the woman’s hand on the man’s arm in an intimate caress. How lovely to be in love! Marguerite smiles—but her smile freezes when she recognizes the pair. Louis, dressed now in a red tunic and mantle, and his mother exchange a kiss, then join hands for another dance.

Marguerite

A Perfect and Holy Union

Sens, 1234

W
HITE-FACED WOMEN DISTURB
her sleep, clamping fingers of bone around her throat, pressing her into her pillow—
Hold still, you stupid bumpkin
—flashing long, curved knives, scraping their blades across her eyebrows, her forehead, her scalp. She awakens with a start, her pulse thumping like the foot of a hare. She snatches her hand mirror from the table, sees herself looking back, unmolested. It was only a dream. Then she sees the statue in the corner and remembers why she is here, and her heart begins to race again.

The lamps are already lit. Aimée, dressed in a tunic of pale rose, bustles about, bringing Marguerite’s gown in from the garderobe (“Today is your wedding day,” she purrs, as if Marguerite needed reminding), setting out a sop for her breakfast, pulling back the bedcovers and bidding her to rise for the prayer service, although the sun has not even begun to think about doing so.

“Is God awake at this ungodly hour?” she wonders as her handmaid combs her hair.

“I don’t know, my lady, but the French certainly are.” Outside,
the chapel bells ring. A moment later, Uncle Guillaume is at the door, eyes puffy. It is time, he says, for prayer.

“At this hour, one wonders what there is to say to God,” he grumbles.

“Who ever did penance employ before he sinned?”
Marguerite sings. Fully awake now, she feels filled-with-air light, as if she might float like a bubble to the ceiling.

“Your King Louis, that is who,” Uncle Thomas says as he joins them for the walk across the dew-damp grass. “Our friend Bertran d’Alamanon must have seen into the future when he wrote those lines.”

“Or he knew the king’s mother,” Marguerite says.

“Perhaps. But Blanche was not always such a model of piety,” Guillaume says.

How the rumors flew after Louis’s father died! The most popular—and tenacious—tale involved Blanche and the handsome papal legate, and an illegitimate pregnancy. Blanche finally stilled the wagging tongues by stripping off her clothes before the barons’ council to show her flat stomach.