The Sister Queens (19 page)

There is a great and collective gasp from those seated. Blanche knocks over her cup, and the contents, red as blood, run before Louis where he stands, spilling down onto the ground. The count raises his arm and then lowers it with force, striking the miscreant on the head with the hilt of his sword.

“Stop.” Louis’s voice is calm. He walks the length of the table and then around it, halting in front of the count and his captive. “Who sent you?”

The man opens his mouth, but instead of speaking, spits full in Louis’s face.

The count raises his sword, but Louis stills him with a gesture.

Lifting a hand to wipe his face, Louis remains composed. “Be warned, this is a serious business, and you will pay for it with your life. But if you are merely the instrument in another’s plot, your passing shall be made easy and those responsible for your wickedness shall also be punished.”

“Go to the devil!” the man replies with a twisted, defiant sneer. “I will tell you nothing, by Christ’s cross and nails, nothing!”

Louis’s face flushes scarlet, and I see the muscles in his jaw work and those in his arm tense as his hand clenches on the handle of his still-sheathed sword. “Get this man from my sight! He dares to blaspheme in my presence!”

I feel a need to laugh hysterically. “Dares to blaspheme”? And
this
is serious? The man dared much more! He dared to kill a king, to kill us all. Realization of the threat faced and narrowly escaped suddenly falls upon me forcefully. My body shakes uncontrollably, and the laugh that hung in my throat turns to a sob, which I muffle with my hand.

The count and a nearby knight drag the bold villain out. He continues to shout oaths as he is hauled away. Louis stands breathing heavily for a few moments and then, his face once more composed, turns to the second man still surrounded by French knights. In response to the king’s beckoning gesture, he is pushed forward. This one is younger and slighter of build. He shakes as much as I do.

“And you, will you tell us at whose behest you came? We do not know your face, and we do not believe we have ever wronged you.”

The man tries to speak and fails, then tries again. This time his voice emerges cracked with strain. “My mistress bid me hence.”

“And who is your mistress?”

I take my eyes off Louis and turn them in morbid fascination upon Blanche. She is paler than bread when it lies resting before taking its turn in the oven. I know the answer to Louis’s question before it comes. So does she.

“The Countess of La Marche.”

I do not go to see the men executed. When Marie returns, she tells me that the small man, the one who trembled so terribly and told all, died swiftly by the sword. But, at Blanche’s insistence, the spitter was fed a portion of the food he thought to serve us. He died in agony.

THE KNEELING WOMAN SEEMS SO
much older than when I saw her last. Gazing down at her bowed head, I think that it is neither her more than fifty years of life nor the birth of fourteen children, including the English king, that have taken their toll on her. What ages her are defeat and capitulation. She does not cry. Nor does she look up while her husband, weeping openly himself, makes a groveling apology to Louis. She merely resolutely stares at the floor beneath her knees. I let my eyes leave the bowed head of Isabella of Angoulême, Countess of La Marche, and the two tiny daughters who kneel beside her and glance at Blanche. The dragon is beaming. No doubt she is thinking of all the castles and territories that the count lost in surrendering—lands and castles now ours.

My mind is on other subjects. This war is nearly over. Without Hugh de Lusignan, Henry of England cannot hold out against my husband. Even with the Count of La Marche, the English had little chance.

Louis allows the humbled family to rise. They move down the dais and stop before Alphonse and Jeanne, Count and Countess of
Poitiers. Slowly and elaborately the Lusignans pay homage for the lands they have been allowed to keep. Again my eyes find Isabella. This morning as she dressed me, Marie told me that two days ago the Countess of La Marche tried to take her own life. Can this moment of humiliation really be worse than an eternity in the fires of hell? Worse than the agonizing death that would have preceded damnation? For Marie also told me that Isabella planned to take poison—the same type she provided to her chefs before sending them into our camp to attempt our lives. I thank God silently that my sister Eleanor shall never know a moment such as this! Not at French hands. If I have to crawl before Louis in sackcloth and ashes, I will prevent it.

E
LEANOR
J
ULY 1242
B
ORDEAUX,
G
ASCONY

H
ow can a duchy that makes such pleasant wine be full of such unpleasant people?

I have been in Gascony for two months, and my husband’s subjects do not impress me. I first settled at La Réole. But the people of that city, far from being honored by my presence, seemed to think my residence there might incense the French king to their detriment. Better they should have worried about incurring the anger of their own lord. Well, they will be sorry when Henry rides back from Poitou victorious and calls them to account! In any case, their ill manners drove me to Bordeaux where I now sit.

Yes, I am in Bordeaux and, I must admit, I am bored and sulky—a far cry from my mood when we sailed from Portsmouth on the ninth of May. Oh, my spirits were high as I went aboard the royal ship to begin this war—high despite my certain knowledge that there would be physical discomfort in traveling, as I was perilously near to delivering my third child. Neither Willelma nor Sybil wanted me to make the journey on that account. They begged me to give birth in London. When that failed, they tempted me to pass my time at Windsor with Edward and my little Marguerite, or Margaret as the English call her, who prattles away now more like her mother than the aunt for whom she is named. But I refused, vowing that I would not miss the war in Poitou even for the company of my children. And Henry indulged me—to a point.

When we landed, I wanted, of course, to go right along with him to meet the troops from Poitou, Gascony, and Toulouse. After all, if my husband was going to teach Louis of France not to flout English territorial claims, I did not wish to miss the lesson. But
Henry forbade that. “A military camp is no place to give birth, Eleanor,” he said. So ended the matter. Not even my wistful mentions of how much I longed to meet his mother, Isabella of Angoulême, or my praise of the lady as a great
virago
moved him.

He was probably right, though I have no plans of admitting as much when I see him. This lying-in was my worst. As if aware I am thinking of her birth, my new daughter, nearly a month old and named after my fair mother, grunts and snuffles in her cradle beside me. I rock her slightly to keep her from waking. Then I turn my gaze once more out of the window by which I sit to the flat, blue July sky. Now that I am not swollen in every limb, I long to fly like a bird to the battlefield and see what goes on there. I sigh.

Willelma, who sits nearby, perhaps hoping to cheer me, says, “Will Your Majesty not write to the Queen of France?”

I glance to the table where Marguerite’s last missive lies. Willelma cannot know this, but it is an unpleasant letter. Perhaps I
did
complain when I wrote to her last, upbraiding her once again for Louis’s audacity in provoking the English. But surely there was no need for her to get so angry. I have no desire to respond—at least not until I have some news from Henry. In his last letter he reported advancing to Tonnay-Charente. The French army was nearby and, as an exchange of letters between Henry and the French king had resolved nothing, battle was expected.

“Do you suppose they are fighting even now?” I ask Willelma.

“Who can say, Your Majesty.”

Willelma’s unruffled calm irritates me. I know
precisely
who can say—Marguerite. Her tent is pitched alongside those of her husband and his men. She will miss nothing.

Rising, I pace away from the window. Surely with the support of the powerful Count of La Marche Henry will be victorious. I suspect that Henry’s mother, Isabella, has the strength of will to
drive her husband the count to victory whatever the odds. I’ve heard that she barred the door of Hugh’s castle against him until he vowed to punish the French for the insult paid her last summer! And if Hugh and his sons are not enough, the Earl of Cornwall is with Henry too. God’s blood, Richard was angry when he returned to English shores to find that, even as he was rescuing French captives in the Holy Land, Louis had the gall to invest another man with his lands. His fury should make him fight like ten men.

Yes, Henry will defeat Louis, and then I will write to Marguerite. The high-minded tone of my response will nettle her, and that will serve her right, given her own recent, sanctimonious tone. This pleasant thought soothes me a bit, and I return to my vantage point at the window.

What if Henry does not win?
I do not know where the thought comes from. Actually, I do. My ladies and I every day hear murmurings from the streets beyond these walls, talk of the prowess of the French king; reminders that the Lusignans have a history of fighting for the French and not just fighting against them. In fact, the Lusignan men who are now my husband’s kin by marriage fought with Louis’s father when he overran Poitou. My breathing begins to trouble me. I feel as if I am being smothered by my sudden doubts. I press my hands to my chest where it grows tight and try not to panic.

“Your Majesty?” Sybil speaks from the threshold. She moves quickly to set a tray she is carrying on my table, then rushes toward me. Willelma likewise stands and moves in my direction. I wave them off. What good can they hope to do by crowding me?

Closing my eyes, I struggle to draw in as much air as I can. Then, closing my lips as tightly as possible, I push the air out again against their resistance. The process makes a dreadful and embarrassing noise, and I am well aware that I must look like a great bloated
bullfrog, but it has the desired effect. A moment ago I felt strapped round as with unbendable bands of iron like some barrel. But now the bands are loosed. I open my eyes, breathing cautiously and with measured slowness. Willelma and Sybil both appear stricken.

“The episode has passed,” I assure them.

“Come away from the window, Your Majesty,” Sybil urges. She always sees the air as author of my difficulties. “Take some nourishment.” Walking to the table, she begins to uncover the dishes she carried when she entered. Their aromas are enticing; yet I rise reluctantly, fearing I will miss something. Sure enough, I am only just seated when the sound of horses at great speed can be heard. Rising, I knock over my chair and run to the window. I am just in time to see a last dust-covered rider pass through the wicket below.

“They wear the king’s colors!”

“I will go and bring their leader here directly,” Sybil says.

“You will do no such thing.” The thought of waiting, even for Sybil to go and return, is unbearable. I move to my mirror, pinch both my cheeks, then, turning, say, “I will go myself.”