The Sister Queens (43 page)

Bursting into tears, I turn. Jean, or what is left of him, stands before me. His hair, uncut since God knows when, is long and wild like a hermit’s. Dirty curls brush his shoulders and mingle with the thick, curly, matted beard that obscures his face. He is incompletely covered in the rough blanket he wears, and the naked limbs
that protrude are streaked with dirt. His right calf is scarred, clearly from a wound that festered before it healed, and I wince, wondering where else his beautiful body has been pierced and slashed. His feet are bare.

Yet Jean smiles. How can he smile in such a condition? “Angels ought not to cry.”

I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. “You look terrible.” It is the truth, but it is not what I want to say. I want to throw my arms about him and tell him that I love him.

“Thank you.” His slightly mocking bow very nearly undoes me. “I hope to find something more suitable for court when next I appear.” Then becoming serious he says, “You were safely delivered of your child?”

“A beautiful son.” A tear escapes Jean’s eye, leaving a track in the dirt that covers his face and disappearing into his unkempt beard. “I will introduce you when you have had some rest.”

“I must find lodgings.”

“No.” Putting a hand on his arm, I turn him toward a window. In its recess there is no one to hear me. “Rest, love,” I say, touching his shoulder as he sinks to the stone of the window ledge. “Let me care for you. Is that not what angels do?”

Leaving Jean, I set off with purposeful step, plunging back into the crowd. I know whom I am looking for—the bishop of Acre, who is present, condoling with the sick and offering last rites to those whose conditions seem to make that prudent. The bishop is a countryman of Jean’s.
Surely,
I think,
he will help.
And I am not disappointed.

Returning to Jean, I find he has fallen asleep leaning in the window’s corner. For the moment I do not wake him, but instead examine his once-familiar face and form more closely. Like Louis, he is but a shadow of the man who left me—underweight and
covered in dirt. But unlike Louis, when his face is in repose it seems very like his old self, not transfigured by grief and loss as my husband’s is.

I want to see to his dinner and to gather some fabric for clothing, but I am loath to leave him, fearing irrationally that he will disappear again for as many months as he has been gone. So I take a seat on the opposite end of the window ledge and watch my love slumber. The hall is clearing. Most of those who have returned have been claimed by wives, servants, or friends. A middle-aged servant approaches me where I sit, or rather, I realize as he draws closer, approaches my lord.

“Who are you?” I ask as the man quietly takes a seat on the ground beside Jean.

“Caym of Sainte-Menehould, Your Majesty. I am in the service of this seneschal.”

“Then serve him well,” I say, smiling.

The man nods.

I explain that the bishop has offered Joinville lodgings and bid the man go to the kitchens in my name and bring back something for his lord to eat. I know I must return to Louis soon; duty commands as much. When I see Jean’s servant returning through a door at the other side of the hall, I put my hand gently on Jean’s and call his name. His eyes flutter open.

“For once I do not dream.”

“Did you dream of me often in your captivity?”

“Constantly.”

“Listen, love, your man is coming with something for you to eat, and after this he must take you to the priest’s house in the parish of Saint Michael.”

“When will I see you again? It may be some days before I am ready to present myself before His Majesty.”

A few days would be an unbearable separation when I have just had Jean restored to me. Nor would a public meeting where I must share him with Louis satisfy. I have a thousand things large and small to say to Jean. I would examine every inch of his body until I am satisfied that he is whole and sound, and I would hear the story of every moment since he left me.

“Do you trust your new man?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will find your house after nightfall.”

“Ought you to be abroad after dark?” The thought that Jean worries for me in his present pitiful condition is unutterably touching.

“‘Ought’ has never entered into things where you are concerned.”

“MY DECISIONS WERE FAULTY FROM
first to last. So much blood and death, and it is all on my head. Can even God forgive such failure?”

This is
not
my husband. That is my first thought as I sit near Louis listening to his confession, as it were. He has always been a man plagued by guilt—but a man who doubted God? Never.

“Your Majesty, you have oft said yourself that God can forgive the truly penitent heart anything. And, if you will allow me to be the judge, whatever faults were yours in this campaign, you do not shy away from shouldering them. In fact, you accept the blame for everything; yet surely, as you are only one man, not all that went wrong can be laid at your door or at any one person’s. Luck and fate must also have played their parts.”

“But I am not just one man—I am a king. I must be held to a higher standard. I wish I had died in the desert.”

Rising, I go to Louis, crouch before him, and take both his
hands in my own. “Louis, you must not say such things. You are perfectly right, you
are
a king and therefore you have a duty to live and reign. The security and prosperity of France depends upon that, as does the well-being of such persons who remain with you here.” Louis does not respond. He will not even meet my eye.

I return to my seat, searching for something to talk about that will at least distract my husband from his misery. It is far too early to relate to him all that passed at Damietta or to tell him that I have written to the dragon asking her to gather the remaining monies necessary to discharge the terms of Louis’s surrender. “The Seneschal of Champagne will dine with you tonight.”

“Joinville? Where has he been?”

“In the care of the bishop of Acre.”

“I must chastise the seneschal for keeping away so long. He is a fine companion, and loyal. Madam, if only you knew.”

“Your Majesty, it is less than a week since your ship landed. Think how many of the hours since then you have passed in sleep. No doubt it was the same for the seneschal.” I find oddly humorous this shared devotion that Louis and I have to Jean. But it is providential for me as well. The fact that Jean is a known favorite of the king makes the items I have sent him in Louis’s name—camelin, fine soap, ointment, meat—seem entirely unremarkable. Even my personal visits, should they become known, might plausibly be explained. But they will not become known, I tell myself, shaking off the idea. Jean’s man, Caym, has proven as trustworthy as Marie. Last night he came for me, waiting in an alley near the castle gate, so that I would not have to walk to Jean’s alone.

“Yes, you are right. Have we any word how Joinville fares? He was very ill on our sea voyage, very ill indeed. Yet never did he complain. He thought only of my comfort, trying to find me a bit of food, seeing a bed was made up for me as my people were useless
and had not done as much. He was mortified when his illness forced him to leave me to go to the rail.”

Hearing such a tale of Jean pleases me abundantly. Louis has told me several grim stories in which other knights failed to behave as their duty and their nobility demanded, but apparently Jean was true to his nature even in extremis.

“I understand the seneschal is weak like Your Majesty, but is expected to recover,” I reply. Jean is frail—nearly as frail in body as Louis, but not as weakened in spirit. When I kiss him now, I do so gently, as if the force of my lips alone could break him. “He was delighted to hear of the birth of a new prince.”

“He must see Tristan when he comes. What a fine child. Really marvelous.” Though Louis spent little time with our children in France, he is greatly attached to this new one. The baby is the sole thing sure to rouse him when he sits in a sullen, fitful stupor. And even when Jean Tristan cries, Louis will not let me send him away.

Reminded of the prince, Louis rises and walks to the cradle at the other side of my chair, staring down with obvious pleasure at the swaddled form sleeping there. “What a fine man he will be.”

“A fine man,” I echo, “like his father.”

I AM BEING READIED FOR
dinner when the knock sounds. Marie alone attends me as of late. Those among my ladies whose husbands returned I have granted leave to be with them as they convalesce. Those whose husbands will never return I have granted leave to grieve as they see fit, instructing them to attend me only when they feel that they would not be alone.

“My Lord of Joinville!” I am as surprised as Marie sounds. Jean has always been the soul of caution about visiting me when and
where others might come to know of it. He slips in, beautifully dressed in garments made from fabric I had sent to him.

“I had to come,” he says, looking sheepish. “How could I bear to meet him first before fourscore pairs of eyes? To see him but not hold him?”

And then I understand. Jean has come not to see me but his son.

“Of course,” I say gently.

Rising, I go to the cradle and lift Jean Tristan from it. Though he is sleeping, I lay him on the bed and unwind his swaddlings. The activity awakens him and, apparently satisfied with his freedom, he kicks his small legs and grunts with pleasure.

Unlike poor Louis who always must be asked or urged, Jean sweeps the baby up into his arms, burying his face in the child’s round pink stomach. Then, raising his head again, he cradles the babe in one arm, touching the various parts that make up his son—tiny toes, hands, ears, dark curls of hair. “By God, he is the most beautiful thing my eyes have ever beheld. And so big!”

I laugh. “He never stops eating.” And hearing my voice, our son makes my point for me by rooting against Jean’s chest, making a smacking noise with his mouth. Jean hands him back to me, and seating myself on the bed, I unlace my gown, and the drawstring at the neck of my shift in turn, then put the babe to my breast. Jean sits beside me and places his arm about my shoulder.

Catching a glimpse of us thus in the mirror of my dressing table just opposite, he says, “We are a handsome family.” And I own that he is right—or we would be had the Fates permitted my hand and my heart to be bestowed upon the same man. Would that it could always be like this! Then I remind myself that only a handful of days ago I promised God I would never again ask for anything for myself.

I lean and give Jean a quick kiss. “You had better go. Louis will be waiting for you. He is eager to see you.”

“He is much changed,” Jean says, his face growing suddenly solemn. “When I was captured, I was held first with those other knights taken with me upon the river. The king, however, was held with those captured upon land. When my party was brought to that dreadful camp outside of Mansurah to join His Majesty and his fellow prisoners, I almost did not recognize the king.”

“He is not the same man,” I agree, “and it is too early to say whether he will become himself again.” I do not add that I would not have the old Louis back completely; that this Louis, sad as he is, has a touch of humanity about him that his former incarnation as God’s fearless and unbending warrior lacked.

Jean slips away, and I see him next in a far more formal mien and setting when he presents himself to Louis and me before dinner. My husband is genuinely delighted to see the Seneschal. When Jean finishes bowing, Louis reaches out a hand to him.

“It is good to see the signs of recovery already upon you.” Louis takes Jean’s hand in his own and squeezes it. Then looking about him at his brothers and the surviving
preudommes
who are well enough to join us at table, he continues. “Here at least is some proof of God’s mercy. I did not leave all my best knights dead in the desert.”

At the end of the meal, Louis takes Jean away with him for what I presume will be a long discussion of politics and theology.
No matter,
I think as Marie tucks me into bed, for while Jean risked a visit to my chamber to see his son earlier, he is not fool enough to return to my apartments by night.

Someone does come to me, however—Louis. It is a strange thing that he should recover his desire as a broken man, when at the height of his powers he often lacked it completely. Stranger still that, because I have resisted Jean on the grounds of his health when he tries
to begin such activities, Louis will be the first man to enter me in more than half a year.

The king is so unsure of himself, so tentative, as his lips seek mine that I find myself helping him. Stroking his hair, his face. Kissing him when he is hesitant. And then the most extraordinary thing happens. Louis whispers, “Thank you” as I help to guide him between my legs. I find that I am crying—for Louis, for myself, and for this glimpse of the tenderness we might have known had things been different.

“I love you,” I whisper fiercely in his ear. And I mean it, though I surprise myself. I would heal him with this act of love if I could. I can tell he is tiring, his weakened body unable to follow through on his sexual need. Gently I roll him to his back. He weighs so little that it is easily done. His eyes open wide as I climb on top of him and continue what he began. If he wonders at my boldness or at my knowledge of such a position, he says nothing. Instead, I watch with satisfaction as he relaxes into the pillows, allowing me to stroke his gaunt chest where the ribs show. Slowly, tenderly, I rock up and down on him as if I would soothe him by the action. As his excitement grows, his arms rise and his hands clasp my waist. When he experiences release, the pleasure on his face harkens back to the first days of our marriage. He is asleep before he can remember to leave, and I do not wake him.

I DRIFTED TO SLEEP LAST
night contented and awoke this morning refreshed, but my day is souring rapidly. Jean is in agony. “You withheld yourself from me, but gave yourself to him?” The expression on his face is both despondent and accusatory.

My face warms as if mine were an act of betrayal, then colors further still as I realize that it was.
Why,
I think to myself,
why did
I find it necessary to tell him?
And I cannot answer the question. I am used to being honest and open with Jean, yes, but when I arose this morning, I felt, instinctively, that what had passed between Louis and me was something secret. I woke my husband with a kiss and saw him off to his own rooms to dress with a smile. I reveled in his smell even as I washed it from myself. And I had no intention of telling Jean. None. But as I stood watching Jean eat the meal I brought for him, the confession slipped from me unbidden. Perhaps I knew I needed forgiveness.