The Sister Queens (26 page)

“Me?” And though I sit in front of a roaring fire to restore some warmth to my frozen limbs, the flames have no effect. The cold I feel at the moment cannot be dispelled by fire. How could I have failed to foresee this? “Do you mean my ten thousand marks? My castle?” The thought of forgoing the portion of my dowry still owed me raises an icy anger in my blood.

“Boniface and I would not have you blindsided.”

“But Louis promised to insist upon the payment of my marriage portion. He is prepared to help the Holy Father in his struggles to unseat Emperor Frederick. Surely that will be enough.” I feel as if I am pleading.

Uncle Philippe shakes his head. “When your mother made the pope Beatrice’s guardian, she likely saved Provence from being torn to bits. Even if His Holiness might consent to a division of Provençal holdings, we must take actions here to see that the county stays whole. It is in the Savoyard interest. It is in Your Majesty’s interest.”

“How can it be in the interests of
our
family to allow Provence to come into the hands of a member of the French royal family? Especially one as ambitious as Charles? Safety for Provence, for my mother and Beatrice, through an alliance with France by all means, but the surrender of Provence? It has always been an imperial fiefdom. The Holy Roman Emperor may tolerate our family’s bonds with the Capets, but surely he will not like to see the French king’s brother seize possession of imperial lands.”

I suppose it would anger my husband to hear me speak so, and anger Blanche of Castile even more. But the dragon has herself to blame for my divided loyalties. Her behavior over the years of my marriage, more than any other thing, has impressed upon me time and again that my interests and France’s are not the same. She has, more than any other person unrelated by blood, strengthened my sense of myself as a Provençal and a Savoyard first and foremost.

“You misunderstand me,” my uncle replies. “There is no question of that. If we Savoyards are to give our imprimatur to this match, it will be on the condition that Provence remain an independent county. The county may pass to Beatrice’s heirs by Charles but never to Charles outright. And I will personally make certain that the emperor knows as much.”

Beatrice’s heirs. My uncle could not be more clear. Not only is my promised dowry being set aside, but I will be expected not to contest my father’s will. How dare all my nearest relations treat my claims, my wishes, so cavalierly? I rise from my seat, pull myself up to my full height, and, giving my uncle what I very much hope is an imperious look worthy of Eleanor, say, “With all due respect, Your Grace and the archbishop of Canterbury are being played for fools.”

“How so?” My uncle’s voice remains quiet and without anger. “If you fear His Majesty will not abide by an agreement of his own making, an agreement stating outright that Charles may not inherit, it is best you tell me now.”

And like that, my momentary flare of anger at Philippe passes. He cannot understand the workings of the French court as I do, and he does not know my detestable brother-in-law Charles. “No. You will have no difficulty with Louis. Where he gives his word, he will follow it to the letter. But you do not take into account the groom himself. Charles is as unlike Louis as day is unlike night.
He is pompous, rapaciously ambitious, and capable of disregarding everything, even the commands of his king, to pursue his own aggrandizement.” I stare at my uncle intently as if willing him to understand as I do that Charles will take Provence for himself whatever terms are negotiated.

My uncle presses his palms together, almost as if he is praying, and rests the first fingers of his hands against his lips, contemplating. Then, letting his hands fall to his lap, he says, “If that be the case, it is better to have the count tied to the family than not.”

I sink back into my seat, exhausted with the effort of trying to make Philippe see the situation with the same alarm that I do. “It will be like having a wild animal. We may keep him in our menagerie, but we will never tame him.”

“I will expect you, Marguerite, to work with Beatrice; to school her, and keep her mindful of our interests. She in turn shall work on the Count d’Anjou.”

FOR A DOZEN YEARS I
have longed to see Aix again—to be welcomed into the embrace of its many towers, to find myself in the arms of my mother. This is not the homecoming I imagined. Charles has been strutting around like a peacock, styling himself as Count of Provence for days, though his wedding took place only moments ago. I can hardly look at my mother! She appears as smitten with Charles as my sister Beatrice is. Apparently both are so relieved that he is neither the Count of Toulouse nor the Prince of Aragon that they are blind to the size of his nose and his spoiled, demanding, bad temper.
Well,
I think with satisfaction, looking at the guards in the square struggling to push back an angry crowd of my countrymen,
I am not alone in my distaste for Charles
.

“Smile,” my uncle Thomas instructs, putting one hand under
my elbow and raising his other hand to acknowledge the crowd as if they were cheering rather than jeering. The Count of Flanders inspires respect. It is for this reason that he braved the January cold and traveled to Aix for Beatrice’s wedding. The Savoyards, united and glamorously attired, attempt to give the union of my sister and my brother-in-law gravitas and legitimacy—to prevent anyone from getting the notion that my sister was bundled up and handed over to the highest bidder.

“By God’s blood!” he declares under his breath as we stop beside my horse. “You would think we were in Marseilles.”

And I know what he means. Never in my father’s lifetime did any, save his subjects from that brazen port city, complain of his rule or protest his actions. Yet now as the bridal party rides in close formation and heavily guarded, from the cathedral to the castle for my sister’s nuptial celebrations, the crowd along our route jostles like a pack of vicious dogs. They do not like this match—not at all. I wonder if Beatrice, riding behind me, sees them and understands their mood? I suspect not. I suspect she has eyes only for Charles riding beside her in lavish silver and vermillion robes.

The wedding banquet is sumptuous and, like the five hundred knights Charles brought to rescue and secure my sister, Louis is paying for it. Still, as the last of many courses is cleared, Charles leans in the direction of his mother and says, “This is nothing compared to what I might have had at Paris.”

I see my husband’s jaw tighten, but he says nothing.

“You have a fine county,” Blanche responds. “Pray be content.” The dragon is generally very indulgent of the last of her sons. But her look now is far from loving. No doubt she turns over in her mind the cost and effort required to bring him to this moment.

“I do not see why I do not merit as fine a wedding as His Majesty had,” Charles continues, unchecked by his mother’s tone.

“Because you are not a king.” The words are out before I can stop myself.

Charles regards me across the stiffened form of his brother as if I were not a queen. “Well,” he drawls, “I am the son of a king as my brother was not.”

I feel as if I have been slapped, but Charles pays no mind, turning to his stony-faced mother for support. “Is that not the case, madam? My grandfather reigned still when His Majesty was born and our father was yet a prince.”

Blanche looks as if she would do murder. Charles leaves her in a most uncomfortable situation. She would never willingly take my part, but the Count d’Anjou insults her darling Louis. “Why not dance with your wife?” she says quietly.

“Yes, I may as well make the most of these festivities, meager as they are.” Charles extends a hand to my sister Beatrice.

She either has not heard the words exchanged or is not discomforted by them, for her cheeks show no stain of shame and her eyes only a bright delight at being the center of attention.

I refrain from commenting upon Charles’s behavior for the rest of the evening, though on more than one occasion I must clench my teeth to do so. However, I cannot help casting frequent glances at my mother and uncle to see if they are as irritated as I am by the new count. When at last I can escape the great hall, it saddens me to be so eager to flee a room that was the scene of so many happier occasions in my childhood. As I am prepared for bed, I remind myself that if I cannot think better of my brother-in-law, I ought to at least reserve judgment of my sister. After all, Beatrice is young and doubtless as in love with the idea of being a bride as she imagines she is with Charles. I drift to sleep, promising to make a concerted show of kindness toward the new Countess of Provence.

The next morning, setting aside our inequality of rank, I call
on my sister. Charles is not a stickler for doctrinal niceties, so it is certain that he had Beatrice on her wedding night. Remembering my own first experience of the marriage bed, and in keeping with my vow of the night before, I wish to be a support to my sister.

Arriving at the rooms of the Countess of Provence, I find her talking gaily, surrounded by her ladies. I am reminded again, and with force, that my sister is a stranger.

“Your Majesty.” Beatrice dips a curtsy, and then her bright, hard blue eyes devour me, going over every item of my apparel from my golden pearl-studded crespine to the toes of my patterned silk slippers. “We are so behind the fashion here! Before Your Majesty’s arrival I did not know it, but now I can hardly wait to bring the fashions of Provence into line with those at the court of France. I see no reason we should be behind anyone.”

Elisabeth, who accompanied me on my errand, shifts uncomfortably beside me, and I find myself unable to think of any fitting response. My silence has no effect on my sister.

“My husband says that everything in our county must be as in France, and he has brought so many Frenchmen with him that we will soon be as French as you are at Paris.”

“No one could be prouder of the Kingdom of France than I, but are there not many fine Provençal traditions and customs worth keeping?” I long to say more, to ask her what our mother would think to hear her speak so, dismissing as old-fashioned a court that has long set a standard for grace, hospitality, and artistic accomplishment. And at that very moment, before Beatrice can utter another inanity, Mother enters with Romeo de Villeneuve at her side. Her face is pinched and my father’s counselor… Can this be the same man who promised Louis Tarascon and set me on my way as a bride? I realize with a start that de Villeneuve must have been well into his prime a dozen years ago, though as a girl I would
not have noticed. If he seems old now, it is only the natural order of things. I wonder for the first time if the years have left any unbecoming marks on me.

“Marguerite.” Mother embraces me for a moment, then steps back and looks me pointedly in the eye. “Sieur de Villeneuve and I have been speaking with my new son.”

I give a quick glance in Beatrice’s direction, but she is completely occupied displaying to her ladies a particularly fine piece of baudekyn silk she received as a wedding gift. “The Count d’Anjou is a very singular prince,” I say, nodding slightly.

“With very singular ideas for how Provence is to be managed.”

I feel my stomach sink. Why would no one listen to me at Cluny?

A week later I have had the same thought recur to me so often that it begins to have the sound of a refrain from a familiar song as it rises to my mind unbidden. Not once, however, to my credit, have I allowed it to pass my lips. Pointing out my prediction that things would go badly will not lessen the pain that Charles is causing my family and my beloved homeland.

“It seems in addition to his knights, the count brought an army of lawyers with him.”

My mother and I are in my room—not the room I am lodging in presently, but
my
room, the room I occupied with Eleanor during the countless childhood hours we passed at Aix. I sit on the edge of the bed I once shared with Eleanor—Eleanor who does not yet know that Beatrice has married into the house of Capet—and watch my mother pace.

My mother is sick of Charles already.

“How can our manner of governing, which has been the model for our neighbors, suddenly be so totally deficient?” she exclaims. “Our trade and our revenues are the envy of many.”

“Ah, Mother, but therein lies the problem. Charles will not be happy until he controls them.”

“He will cause unrest among our lords, and then heaven help him.” The weak morning sun gives my mother a complexion of ashes as she stops in its rays.

Or, heaven help the noblemen,
I think.

“And the insults!” Mother resumes her pacing. “Only last night at dinner he said such things to His Grace the archbishop of Arles.”

“My husband’s brother has never been known for his charm. When he was a boy of seven, I watched him insult the King of Navarre as if he were that sovereign’s equal.”

“He knows nothing of our ways and thinks nothing of them.”

“What will you do?”

“Under your father’s will, I have the use and possession of substantial properties in this county for the rest of my life. I will establish my own court at one of my castles and do whatever I can to preserve this county as your father left it.”