The Sister Queens (2 page)
Authors: Sophie Perinot
Tags: #General Fiction, #cookie429, #Kat, #Extratorrents
T
he map of thirteenth-century Western Europe was a mosaic of regional kingdoms. Some—including France and England—still exist many centuries later; others—such as the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Castile—were eventually subsumed into different political configurations. Each piece of this patchwork was made up of both lands held directly by the kingdoms’ rulers and lands held by vassals owing fealty to those rulers. As the High Middle Ages drew to a close, few of these realms resembled their images on maps today.
Early in the century, two young boys inherited the crowns of their fathers, ascending to the thrones of England and France. The boy who came to the English throne as Henry III was a Norman through his paternal great-grandmother, a descendant of Vikings who carved out a position of power on the peninsula of Normandy long before William the Conqueror set his eyes and ambitions on England. Henry was also a Plantagenet, and his grandfather, by his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, claimed lands in the kingdom
of France, including Poitou and various provinces from the Loire River to the Pyrenees mountains. Clearly then, though Henry’s relations had ruled in England for 150 years, the new king and his kin remained thoroughly tied to continental Europe.
When nine-year-old Henry III inherited in 1216, his territories were both fewer and less secure than when his father, King John, inherited. John had managed to lose all of England’s continental holdings with the exception of Gascony. He also depleted the powers of the English kingship by signing the Magna Carta under duress, and managed to lose part of his own island. At the time of his coronation, young Henry did not hold the eastern portion of England proper, not even the great city of London. Those territories were in the hands of a Frenchman, Crown Prince Louis VIII, who seemed poised to become King of England. As a child, Henry III had every reason to both dislike and fear the French. Years later, with the French driven from his shores and the initial challenge to his authority suppressed, Henry the man sought to regain English dignity and English lands lost before he was crowned.
A decade after Henry inherited, the second boy, the son of the Frenchman who had threatened to steal England, became the King of France. The ancestors of the boy-king Louis IX were no invaders. Rather, the first Capetian king was a man selected by his fellow barons to take up the kingship of France. Encompassing a realm expanded over the two previous centuries, Louis’s territories included lands seized from the English, such as Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, and Poitou. Most of the former English holdings were fiefs of the King of France, but that never stopped the English from asserting otherwise, either while they were in possession of the territories or after they lost them. As ambitious as his
predecessors, Louis IX worked to further consolidate Capetian power and expand the French realm. But in looking forward, Louis did not forget to keep one eye always on the English, wary of losing what his ancestors had gained.
As the first third of the century drew to a close, the boy-kings became men—men needing brides. Louis, guided by his mother, sought a connection that would give him more influence in the Midi, near the territory of Languedoc, which he already held. And what did Henry III want in a bride? On the surface, Henry sought a marriage that would strengthen his bid to regain English continental possessions. In the end, however, like most men who feel they are playing catch-up, Henry wanted whatever his rival had, so one family provided brides for both men. The queens of France and England were sisters, Marguerite and Eleanor, the two eldest daughters of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, and Beatrice of Savoy. And, while the Count of Provence was certainly neither a man nor a connection to be slighted, the girls’ appeal as “brides worthy of kings” stemmed in largest part from their relation through their mother to the House of Savoy.
While we tend to think of “celebrity” as a modern concept, the idea of a person or a family so successful, talented, and glamorous that everyone else wants to be them or at least to be near them is as old as history itself. The Savoyards were celebrities in the High Middle Ages. A family of considerable martial and political power, with members renowned for their personal attractiveness, much of what was said and thought about individuals of the House of Savoy stretched to hyperbole. One of the girls’ uncles was called “the second Alexander” by his contemporaries, while another was labeled “the second Charlemagne,” and their mother’s beauty was sounded in terms straight out of a troubadour’s poem. People
wanted to be like the Savoyards, and people, even kings and popes, wanted to be seen with them.
Louis and Henry, along with the ambassadors they sent south, were quickly beguiled by the Savoyard myth as displayed in all its shining, lavish glory at the court of Provence. Oh yes, there was glamour to be had in proximity, but would there also be love?
T
HE
S
ISTER
Q
UEENS
CHAPTER 1
M,
The sun is out and so should we be. Pray ask Mother to release us from our studies. She is sure to agree if you ask. You will be her “little queen,” so she indulges your every whim. I wish you yourself were a little less satisfied with the title that will soon be yours. When I wanted to write you this note, I had a difficult time finding a scrap of parchment in our room not covered with “Marguerite, by the grace of God illustrious Queen of the French” in your handwriting.
E
M
ARGUERITE
A
PRIL 1234
A
VIGNON
, P
ROVENCE
T
he sun is on my face and I can smell the spring squill as its blue blossoms, too numerous for the counting, brush against my gown as I walk. I do not stoop to pick them. My left hand already holds a bouquet of elder-flowered orchids, their orange throats glowing from within purple petals, their brown and orange speckles a happy reminder that spring has come to Provence.
We wintered here at Avignon this year. Not my favorite of my father’s castles, nor my sister Eleanor’s. We would have preferred to pass the colder months snug at Aix. But Avignon was more
convenient for Giles de Flagy, representative of Louis IX of France, who was tasked with paying a “surprise” visit to my father’s court for the express purpose of inspecting
me.
Of course, we all knew he was coming. My father’s great friend and adviser, the Catalonian Romeo de Villeneuve, has been negotiating with de Flagy for some time to see if I might not become Queen of France. So my father, a better host even than he is a diplomat, made certain that our lively court, always full of feast and fest, took on an even greater grandeur. Such dresses I wore! Such extravagant gifts were presented to the Frenchman! Such lavish banquets, each comprised of more than a dozen courses, were given in his honor!
And always the eyes of the French envoy were upon me. I was not the least shy at having such attention. Have I not been trained for this? Tutored in posture and dancing to improve my natural grace; instructed in chess, my native language of Lenga d’òc, and even Latin, so that I might be erudite in my discourse? Placed in the saddle hundreds of times to ride to the chase and given a falcon for my seventh birthday so that I might master that most noble of all sports? Have I not been given hour upon hour of religious instruction at Mother’s knee?
Yes, I feel well prepared to be a great lady like my mother, Beatrice of Savoy, whose beauty, piety, tenderness, and wit are known far outside the borders of my father’s territory. I am thirteen and well content to be looked at for a bride. But my darling sister Eleanor is less content. She has not my patience and could sorely use it, for she is second born, and, though she loves me dearly, Eleanor chafes to wait always behind me.
As if to confirm my thoughts, she bursts past me at a run—a blur of green and gold, skirts held nearly as high as her spirits.
“Ele-an-nor! Wait!”
The whining call is as inevitable as it is irritating. Mother insists that we take Beatrice with us on our rambles. But Beatrice is so very young—only three—that she is more of an annoyance than a companion.
Eleanor stops hard, turns with hands on hips, and regards Beatrice, who passes me with tears streaming down her face, with a saucy and somewhat malevolent air. “You had best stop your crying, Beatrice, before the Count of Toulouse hears you and comes to eat you.”
“Eleanor!” My exasperation is evident in my tone. For now not only is Beatrice sobbing in earnest, but Sanchia, so quiet that I had momentarily forgotten she walked beside me, has silent tears rolling down her face despite being nearly nine years old.
“Elle me rend folle!”
Eleanor responds defiantly, throwing up her hands.
It takes me a moment to realize what she is saying. We are not native French speakers, and both of us have just begun to learn. Or, rather, I have begun to learn so that I may converse easily in the court of my future husband, and Eleanor, quicker at languages than I, is helping me. Always a talkative bedfellow, she now ex-hausts me once the candles are out by initiating conversations solely in French.