The Sister Queens (15 page)

“Do you think the babe will be a son?” he asks.

“I pray so.”

Louis looks so serious and so handsome with the firelight in his golden hair. I long to reach out and stroke his locks, but such an
innocent and wifely gesture no longer comes naturally to me, so instead, I fold my hands in my lap. When he shifts to pick up his goblet of watered wine, I can see the top of a hair shirt peeking from beneath his tunic. I do not remark upon it. He is happy tonight, and I am happy with him. Why spoil things?

“And Her Grace the Duchess of Burgundy says the fact that I am carrying low indicates a son,” I add. I do not mention to Louis that my nipples have also darkened, a change that Yolande assures me is further proof my little one will be a prince. Louis would doubtless find such a comment shocking, and even after five years of marriage, I cannot imagine sharing such an intimate detail about my body with my husband.

Louis sighs contentedly. “It would be very good to have a son, little queen.” He has not used this endearment in a very long time, and I feel a surge of affection upon hearing it.
Yes,
I think,
I will give Louis a prince, and we will be happy as we once were.

I AM DYING AND NO
one will help me. Gasping, my wild eyes light upon the terrified face of my sister-in-law Jeanne, who is praying under her breath. Yolande places a damp, knotted cloth at my lips, and I pull water from it gratefully. And then the pain begins again. As it grips me tighter and tighter, I writhe and scream with all my might—howling like a rabbit caught in the jaws of a hound.

Where is Louis? Surely he can hear me. He has done this to me, and now he does not come. As the pain begins to ebb again, I hear the sanctimonious voice of Lady Elisabeth’s detested mother-in-law, Madame de Montmirall, say, “Your Majesty should not scream so; it only spends your vigor.”

With a strength I did not know I possessed, I struggle to raise myself semi-upright, grab the neck of the woman’s tunic where she
sits complacently at my bedside, and twist. I mean to choke the life from her before the pain takes me again, but I hear a ripping as her clothing rends and she escapes me.

“Out.” Yolande’s voice is firm. The midwife, taking advantage of the momentary lull in my agony, rips back my chemise, which has become hopelessly entwined about me.

Prying my knees apart, she barks to the women on either side of me, “Hold her!” Then she sticks her fingers inside me. I try desperately to twist my body away from those probing fingers, but my women have me trapped. The pain swells again. Holy Mary, Mother of God, how great must Eve’s sin have been to justify this! And then I feel a pulling, a pressure as if the heaviest of stones is trying to force its way out of me. As the pain subsides again, leaving me limp and whimpering, the pulling remains.

“It is time,” the midwife says.

Yolande takes my right arm just under my armpit and at my elbow. Robert’s sixteen-year-old wife, Matilda, a squat, thick-waisted girl, takes my left arm in the same manner. Though she has yet to be delivered of a child herself, she assisted at two of her stepmother’s confinements before coming to marry my brother-in-law Robert, the Count of Artois. Jeanne, my second sister-in-law, her hands trembling, follows Yolande’s instructions and places a polished ivory stick between my teeth. Faithful Marie de Vertus and my dear Elisabeth each place their hands upon one of my knees. The bishop of Paris, the king’s Garde des Sceaux, and an ambassador from my father’s house are shown into the room. Surprisingly, I feel no shame before these men—no shame that they see my nakedness, and no embarrassment that they hear my screams, which begin again as soon as the next pain takes me.

“Push,” the midwife commands, and no order could agree more with my own inclination. Teeth gritted around the stick, I
struggle to force my child out into the light of day and stop my own suffering. Again and again with all my might I push. I begin to feel consciousness slipping away from me between my efforts—in those blessed moments when the pain withdraws, only to come back more cruelly than before.

“You must stay with us, Your Majesty,” Yolande urges me. “Do you not wish to see your son?”

And I do, dear God, I do. I want a prince to reward me for my suffering; a prince to hold defiantly before his grandmother and to spare me the need of ever, ever, doing this again.

I shove with all my might. I can feel myself coming apart, tearing like a piece of cloth. Then something slippery slides from between my legs and I feel a blessed relief. A high long wail, not my own, breaks the air.

“Your Majesty,” Yolande says softly, as if she would not have anyone else hear, “it is a girl.”

I fall into darkness.

When I wake, the room is quiet and dark, and I cannot stop crying. A girl. In Provence, a daughter would be of some value. Our laws permit females to inherit and rule in their own right. But we are not in Provence. I have schemed and suffered for nothing. Louis will be disappointed, but will he also be furious? Will he be willing to repudiate me in my failure? Fear rolls over me in waves as pain did hours before.

“William of Auvergne,” my voice croaks out, mimicking the sound of a crow on the wing.

Yolande rushes to my bedside and tries to put a cup to my lips. I push it away. I am thirsty, but there will be time enough to drink once he is on his way. “William of Auvergne,” I insist.

“Get the bishop of Paris,” Yolande directs Marie. As soon as I hear the door close behind my
chambrière
, I greedily gulp what I am
offered. I am still tired, for I labored an entire night and morning. I must struggle to keep my eyes open until the bishop appears.

“Your Majesty,” he whispers when he arrives a short time later, taking the stool beside my bed and leaning in kindly.

“Your Excellency, you must help me.”

“Do you fear death, my child? For you need not; the midwife has no fear for you.”

“No. But I fear the displeasure of my kingly husband. I thought to give him an heir, and I have failed.”

“Your Majesty must not despair, for after six years of barrenness, your womb has been quickened. Moreover you have borne a healthy child. I examined her myself in case there was a need for immediate baptism, but there was none. You are not yet twenty. With the Lord’s blessing, your husband may yet put you many times with child.”

“Will you pray with me?”

“Of course.”

“And will you do more? Will you go to His Majesty and tell him of my despair, of my contrition?”

“If it will calm Your Majesty.”

“It will. Yolande, bring the silver ewer I keep at my table.” Once again, I curse the limitations Louis has put on my ability to access and dispose of my income. It is hard to build alliances when one cannot make generous gifts. “Your Excellency,” I say, placing the substantial piece of silver in his hands, “I wish to pay for some masses.”

“For your child. It is understandable.”

And I can hardly contradict him. Hardly tell him I want prayers offered that Louis will wake from the religious zealotry that stifles the man in him and leaves only the monk; that I will recover quickly and, yes, God help me, become pregnant again. So I
merely nod. Then, squeezing the bishop’s hand I plead, “You will see him?”

“As soon as we finish our prayers.”

When Louis comes to wait upon me the next morning, his disappointment is palpable. Yet he sits beside my bed and takes my hand.

“His Excellency told me of your distress. Told me you sought spiritual solace the moment your eyes were open again after your delivery.”

“It is true, Your Majesty.” I lower my eyes humbly. I am still in bed, of course, but I trust I look much better than I did for my brief audience with the bishop. All my linens are fresh, and over my chemise I wear a fur-lined pelisse of pale blue—the same blue in which the Madonna is so often portrayed. I want to look pretty. I want to look pure. “Has Your Majesty seen our daughter?” The child is not with me now as the wet nurse has taken her to feed.

“I have.”

“With Your Majesty’s permission, I would like to name her Blanche.” My sister-in-law Jeanne standing just behind Louis appears quite stunned by my pronouncement, and rightfully so. She knows I can have but little desire to honor the Queen Mother. Surely she must see, however, as a practiced courtier and wife herself, that my intention is not to please the dragon but to mollify my husband who adores the harridan even more than I loathe her. Besides, I think Blanche a perfect name for the mewling babe with her bald head and splotched skin. For who but a lady by the name of Blanche could ever have caused me such pain?

E
LEANOR
D
ECEMBER 1240
P
ALACE OF
W
ESTMINSTER
, E
NGLAND

U
ncle Peter arrives at court on a cold, gray afternoon. Henry makes much of him from the instant of their meeting, slapping him on the back, making sure he is offered everything first at the banquet held in his honor. My uncle smiles unceasingly and praises everything he sees or tastes. Yet I can tell by the way his glance is in constant motion that he has critical eyes that see much they do not speak of.

My uncle is not alone. He brought with him a large party of gentlemen—men of Savoy to be sure, but also men of Geneva, the lands of his wife and her father. I notice how the Englishmen on my husband’s council and those already swelling the ranks of our court in preparation for Christmastide regard these men with open suspicion. Perhaps they thought when word arrived that Uncle Guillaume had died suddenly on the slopes of Mount Cimini that the era of Savoyard influence in His Majesty’s kingdom was at an end. They understand as little of the Savoyard nature as I often understand of their odd ways.

As dinner draws to a close Henry says, “Lord Peter, I grieved deeply over the death of your brother. You have come to lift the
pall left upon my court and my heart by his passing, and you shall find me grateful for this. I think you must have a knighthood.”

The Earl of Gloucester, sitting within hearing distance, nearly drops his goblet and only just manages to recover himself. But Henry ignores him.

“Yes!” Henry smacks the flat of his palm on the table before him, delighted with his own idea. “I will knight you on the Confessor’s Day. And you must surely have land so that you may feel always at home here. Perhaps the Earldom of Lincoln.”

Even I am astounded by this. Lincoln is rich land indeed.

“Your Majesty is
too
generous.” My uncle’s reply is gracious but also serious. He can hear the rumblings around him.