The Sister Queens (11 page)

“Assassin! Assassin!” I do not recognize this new voice.

“To the queen!” This last shout is followed by a cry of pain.

“Stay here,” Henry commands.

The door to my bedchamber swings open, and I utter a scream of my own. But it is only Margaret Biset. I can see her ashen face by the light of the candle she holds. The same candle offers me a glimpse of Henry as he pushes past. My lady closes the door behind him, bars it, and then places her back against it, though why she should think she will stand if oak does not I cannot imagine. Her gown is torn, her eyes wide with terror. A Psalter dangles from the hand not holding her candle.

“Margaret, in the name of God, what is happening?”

“A man with a knife—”

“Where?”

“He charged into your hall, shouting and cursing.”

“Who is he?”

“I have never seen him before in my born days. Saints be praised that I was praying and not sleeping, or he might be here now!”

“The king, oh Holy Mary—he is not armed!” I jump from bed with no regard for my nakedness. “Help me dress.”

“Your Majesty cannot go out!”

“I can and will. Now be quick.” And to her credit Margaret is quick. After nearly two years in my household, she knows I cannot be gainsaid once I am determined. In a few moments, dressed but still barefoot, I crack open the door of my apartment. Not five yards away my doctor, Nicholas Farnham, squats over a prone figure. I can smell blood. I cannot see the figure’s face, but a glance at his apparel quickly convinces me he is not Henry. I draw a sharp, sweet, breath of relief.

In the distance I hear the sounds of men—raised voices, grunts of effort, and the relentless pounding of something upon oak. I follow the sounds at such a pace that poor Margaret pants with the
effort of keeping up with me. Suddenly there is a cracking noise, and I pass into the next chamber just in time to see men, carrying torches and with swords drawn, scrambling through a breached door. Henry stands just to one side of the opening with his chamberlain, William de St. Ermine, and John Mansel. For no reason I can think of I begin to sob.

I run to Henry without any thought for my dignity and throw my arms about his neck. He says nothing but puts one arm protectively around me as if to guard me from the sounds of struggle in the room just beyond. Then the commotion stops. My husband’s men emerge. Two drag a man between them. His garments are torn and his face bloodied, but his expression is defiant. It is the man from the road this afternoon!

“What are Your Majesty’s orders?” one of those holding the prisoner asks.

“Let him suffer; then let him die.”

As soon as we are back in my bedchamber and alone, Henry pulls me into his arms. I am calm now, but he knows without asking that I will not be satisfied with merely being soothed. “You saw the villain,” he says. “I thought to do my Christian duty in sending him here this afternoon. And my servants likewise, for after feeding him, they offered him shelter for the night in the stables. Apparently he is not mad, but very clever. He climbed through my bedchamber window and sought to slay me as I slept.”

“God and Saint Edward be praised that he did not find you.” I bury my face against my husband’s chest and draw in the smell of him as a drowning man gasps for air.

“I am thankful, not only to God,” Henry says, turning my face up to his and pushing back my wild hair, “but to you, Eleanor. You are my talisman. My need to be always with you has saved my life.”

And I am surprised to find I can laugh just as easily as I cried
earlier. “Perhaps now your brother will stop teasing you about your uncommon custom of passing the entire night with me.”

“I doubt so. You know Richard’s ambition. When he hears the news of this night, he may wish I conducted myself as other men do.”

I AM WAITING BENEATH THE
canopy covering my bath when the curtains part and Margaret enters, a triumphant look on her face. “The wicked man has confessed everything!” Though she is usually mild-mannered, Lady Biset’s voice brims with loathing, and this suits me very well. In the two days since the attempt on Henry’s life, my hatred of his would-be assassin has only grown stronger.

“Why then?” I ask.

Henry and I have pondered this question at length. Or rather I have pondered, and Henry has sought to soothe me. “It does no good to brood so, Eleanor,” he said to me only last evening as I asked him for the hundredth time how any man could hate him so much, and more especially a man upon whom he had never laid eyes before.

“Not on his own accord,” Margaret replies. She empties a bowl of rose petals into my tub while Willelma tests the water with her elbow. “He was paid by William de Marisco.”

“The outlaw who preys on shipping in the Bristol Channel?” I find myself more, not less confused. True, the king is the source of all law, but a man sought for piracy can scarcely have hoped to escape execution by killing the king. I let my ladies pull off my shift and lower myself into the steaming water.

Picking up a sponge, Margaret begins to wipe my shoulders and arms. “The same. The de Mariscos are still angry that His
Majesty’s grandfather gave their lands on Lundy Island to the Templars.”

Disinheritance—here doubtless is a motivation for many things. The loss of land leaves a long mark on a family, whether it be lost at war, by law, or by king’s command. My own husband has been shaped by such a deprivation. His father lost so many territories across the channel—Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou. All of my husband’s Angevin inheritance is gone, save Gascony and Poitou, with control of the latter much disputed. Henry dreams of regaining these lands. Not by assassination to be sure, for my husband is a man of great honor and piety, but he nonetheless brims with dislike for my sister’s husband, the French King, whose father and grandfather took this portion of his birthright.

With understanding of Henry’s attacker comes a surprising sense of relief. At last the questions plaguing me since that terrifying night are whisked away, and, closing my eyes, I relax fully into the warmth of my spice-scented water.

Later that afternoon, dressed once more and completely relaxed, I sit before my fire with my sister-in-law, Eleanor Marshal. It is another wet English day, precursor no doubt of another wet English winter. How I hate them.

“Eleanor, you must help me,” my sister-in-law begs, looking up from her embroidery.

I want to help Eleanor. I like her very much, and she deserves to be happy, poor thing. Her first marriage was so unpleasant that she took a vow of chastity when she at last was free of it. But more than this, I want to help her gain her heart’s desire, because the match she wants with Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, serves our interests—my uncle Guillaume’s and mine.

My uncle has been in charge of His Majesty’s Council of Barons for more than a year now. He and Henry are on the firmest
footing. I rejoice in this, for Henry will need help if he is to rise to the level of importance that he deserves, if he is to equal the reputation of Louis of France. But to make progress in that direction we must have the English barons in line, and too often Simon de Montfort and my husband’s brother Richard lead them astray in pursuit of their own interests. If only Simon were not so capable and so charming! Then again, the same characteristics that draw other gentlemen of rank to him have drawn Eleanor Marshal. She is in love with him, and if a marriage can be managed, Simon will be family, tied firmly to the king and to the king’s interests.

Yet I am hesitant to raise the subject with my husband. My security and the pleasant nature of my daily life rest entirely on Henry’s good opinion of me as, after nearly two years of marriage, I remain stubbornly childless. So, I am learning the virtue of self-restraint, though I am sure my sister Marguerite would not believe me. If I am to risk a modicum of Henry’s goodwill, I must be sure that my arguments are winning.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts. “Why not speak with your brother about the matter yourself?”

Eleanor blushes, “How can I speak to him of what is in my heart? He is a man.”

“He will be no less a man if I speak to him. And surely men love as fervently as women do. Does not the Earl of Leicester protest as much to you?”

Apparently he does and very prettily, for Eleanor’s color deepens further still and she looks down at her lap. Then, finding my eyes, she says, “Henry does not run over you the way he does me.” I cannot argue with this. “Will you speak to him?”

“Yes, but it is best to wait until Michaelmas day when Henry is full of goose. Then I can have no doubt of his mood.”

Eleanor puts down her needle and leans close to me, hardly
necessary as we are alone by design. “’Twould be better not to wait so long,” she whispers.

“Do you mean …?” For a moment I feel both sick and angry. It would be too unfair for Eleanor to be with child when I pray to the Blessed Virgin day and night to be so.

“No! I swear to you my courses come as regularly as yours. But”—and again she lowers her voice until I can barely hear her—“my vow is broken.”

“You have let him have you?” I cannot believe what I am hearing. “Eleanor?”

She nods dumbly.

“I will speak to Henry as soon as I can. But until a wedding can be managed, you must not yield again. Not even I can help you if Simon puts you with child. You know Henry’s sense of honor and his temper too well to doubt the truth of this.”

The rest of my day is haunted by my conversation with Eleanor. Now that I must act—my hand forced by my sister-in-law’s imprudent coupling with Simon—I am impatient to do so. But the marriage of a royal princess of England is hardly something I can bring up over dinner with the eyes of the court upon us. So I must bide my time.

In the evening Henry arrives in my apartment in preparation for taking me to bed. It is the first time we have been entirely alone since he left me in that same bed this morning. In keeping with our habit, we each take a glass of spiced wine and talk of the many little events and subjects that filled our day. The subject of Eleanor and Simon hums in my head even as Henry speaks of the English harvest. But still I wait, watching my husband’s face as he talks, considering his posture. Then, when I am certain by these observations that Henry has had sufficient opportunity to shed the cares of his day and that his wine begins to relax him, I put the question of his sister’s marriage to my husband.

As I finish, Henry’s brow furrows. “Eleanor,” he says, “de Montfort is a
preudomme
, but he is not English.”

Standing with my back to my fire, looking at my husband seated comfortably before me, I feel my blood boil. I draw myself to my full height. How dare he make such a point! “I am not English, Your Majesty, and I was not aware you considered it a deficiency!”

“Eleanor.” Henry’s voice is pleading. He holds out a hand and beckons me to him, but I am not yet ready to go.

“Simon must wife. Would you not have him wife to your benefit? Already my uncles only narrowly prevented him from taking the Countess of Flanders for a bride by making sure Blanche of Castile heard of the proposed match. As it was no more in the interest of my sister’s husband than it was in yours, that marriage was prevented. But what if Simon takes a wife allying him with France?”

“But my own sister? The barons will not like it. Already they complain that I favor Simon.”

“And ‘foreigners’ generally,” I say defiantly. My feelings sting still over Henry’s earlier intemperate statement. The English are so provincial, so closed-minded. There has been just as much talk among the barons about my uncle Guillaume as there has about Simon. And all the talk is ridiculous since many of the complainers are of continental stock, and even those families who came with the Conqueror have been on this island only 150 years. “What have the barons to do with it?” I plant my hands on my hips and stare a challenge at my husband. “Are you not
king
?” I can never understand all the conciliation that Henry offers his vassals. My father would never have managed things thus, consulting with those who hold their land only by his gift or by the gift of his ancestors.

Henry looks sullen. I am making no progress in this manner, so I must try another. Henry may love me well, but, like most men, he does not like to be pushed. I must be consciously and
purposefully the sweet and obliging Marguerite rather than bold Eleanor. I have been mimicking my sister on occasion as of late, and to great effect. I see now how she managed my parents with such ease.

Dropping my hands to my sides, I approach my husband and silently take a seat on the ground at his knee. I rest my cheek against Henry’s leg, giving him the chance to calm himself. If I inadvertently trigger a fit of pique, all is lost. Henry can be as obstinate and stupid as a child when he is taken by such a mood.

When I feel Henry’s hand on my hair, I at last glance upward to his face. “I am sorry, my love,” I say softly. “I will never understand your English government. But I do understand a woman’s heart. Your sister loves Simon.”

“She does?”

“Yes.”

“Loves him?”

“As I love you. And should not such love be honored?” I take Henry’s hand in mine, offering him a soft look and a softer smile. “Besides, granting Simon this marriage will secure his loyalty in a way that aught else can.”

“What does your uncle say?” Henry knows he is not the only one to consult with Guillaume on important matters.

“He wishes there were such an easy manner of taming your brother Richard.” I can see that Henry’s mind is turning to match mine. But he is not quite ready to concede.

“It will cost me money.”

“Promise it now; pay it later.”

“She made a vow of chastity, witnessed by Edmund Rich himself.”

“She was led astray by Cecilia de Sanford. A girl’s instructress always holds sway over her mind, particularly when, as with your
sister, her mother is far away. Mistress Sanford ought to have stopped your sister from removing herself from the marriage market at sixteen, rather than urging it! The lady did you harm, depriving you of a valuable gift that might be used as a diplomatic tool. You ought to have been consulted.”