The Sister Queens (46 page)

“YOU WILL ADVISE THE KING
to go home,” I say confidently.

Jean and I are once again reduced to meeting in odd places—this afternoon a small shed in a field of olive trees with Marie standing guard nearby. For some weeks after his dreadful illness I had an excuse to visit Jean. But now that he is completely and magnificently recovered, it would look suspicious for me to hang about his lodgings.
How unfortunate,
I think, feeling his arms tighten around me, for after watching him sweat off the fever and convalesce in his bed, we could now make much better use of it. And who knows for how much longer? Jean does not know that my womb is quickened, but I must tell him soon or risk his spotting the evidence of it himself. I fear his reaction, however, for the child is Louis’s, sown in me during those weeks the king touched me and Jean did not.

“You sound like the papal legate,” Jean says, beginning to unlace my dress.

“You have already seen His Excellency?” I ask with difficulty, for Jean’s mouth is closing upon mine.

“You want to talk about the legate?” Jean gives me a mocking look. “That is rather damaging to my feelings.”

“I
do
wish to talk about the legate. But I suppose talk can wait since it is obvious such serious subjects do not have your full attention at present.”

“No.” His eyes laugh. Having pulled my tunic off, he fingers my nipples through my chemise. “And in another moment they will not have your attention either.”

When we are done, we lie for a while on the pile of large nets used to catch olives during the harvest that made our impromptu bed. The weather is balmy, and, had I not more serious issues on my mind, I would be content to rest until Jean recovered enough
to take me again. Knowing his thoughts likely run in the same direction, I pull my chemise back down to cover my hips, rise grudgingly, and begin to dress.

“The legate?” Jean asks teasingly.

“The legate.”

“He came to me even before Louis’s summons for the morrow. Whomever he pays for information in the king’s household, the legate gets his money’s worth. His Excellency knew Queen Blanche calls the king home. He is of the opinion that Louis, being out of money and nearly out of men, should go and asked me to opine as much when His Majesty sought my counsel. He offered me my passage back to France on his ship, along with my board on the journey in return for such advice.”

“That seems a magnanimous gesture, to reward you for saying what you surely would have said anyway. But promise me not to travel with His Excellency, for I feel certain Louis will offer you a place on our ship.”

“Marguerite, I cannot advise Louis to withdraw to France.”

“What!” I could not be more shocked. “Why ever not?”

“Because of advice given me by my cousin the Lord of Bourlémont before I came to the Holy Land.”

“And what, pray, was this sage advice that it requires you, and indeed all of us, to continue in this land not our own?”

“He urged me to remember that a knight’s honor rests on more than his bravery in battle. ‘Recall,’ he said, ‘the words of the Lord, “As ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”’ No man can return from the Holy Land without shame if he leaves the humbler people who set out in his party in the hands of the infidels. How can the king return to France—how can
I
return for that matter—while the Saracens hold hundreds of archers, foot soldiers, and the like?”

I want to be angry, to disagree vehemently, but I cannot. Instead, I feel as if my heart is breaking, and I begin to sob. Jean pulls me against him.

“You are right,” I say, suddenly finding my anger and pounding my fists against his breast even as I continue to weep. “But I hate you for it. How much longer can you expect me to sit in this desert? Do you want little Jean to grow up here, in hardship? With no ken of his native land?”

“No. You know I wish neither of you to suffer. But nor would I have my son grow up to realize that his father, either the man he calls by that name or the man who owns it, was a self-centered coward who abandoned the very men he marched into danger to languish and die.”

I have no answer for this, and merely lay my cheek against his chest.

“I will speak to Louis,” Jean continues. “I will urge him to send envoys home with a call for more troops in case the Mamlu¯ks need to be held to the terms they agreed upon at swords’ points. And I will urge His Majesty to select noblemen for this errand so that they can accompany the wives and children back to France and safety. If Louis and I cannot go home without dishonor, it does not follow that you may not.”

“No!” My heart beats wild at his suggestion. “Do not ask me to leave you.”

“Why not? It is sensible and surely, with you to assist the Queen Mother in raising reinforcements, we will follow you before long. Only let us wait for the arrival of the balance of the ransom from France and let us celebrate the release of the remaining prisoners that the transfer of such monies to the Saracens ought to occasion—”

“What makes you think that task will proceed more smoothly than did the march on Cairo? Nothing in these wretched lands
goes as it is planned. Besides, can you know so little of Louis, you who are every day closer to him and first among his knights? He will do
anything
by way of penance for his failures, even die here. Mark me well—he does not stay merely to ransom prisoners. You have heard him say yourself that he will not leave the Kingdom of Jerusalem to be lost. And if he remains, I must remain to remind him—to remind both of you it would seem—of his duty to the Kingdom of France.”

Jean places a tender hand upon my cheek. I shake it off.

“But do not ask me to be happy about it. And do not ask me to concede the point yet. There are others besides yourself who will offer advice to the king. They may well recommend he go home. His brothers certainly will.”

“Now it is you who ignore His Majesty’s essential nature,” Jean replies. “He is a good king. He will not abandon those who serve him to rot in prison. Such a thing is not in his nature.”

“Nor is it in his nature to defy his mother,” I reply. God help me, but for the first time I am glad that the dragon is a bully and thankful that she exerts an unnatural pull over my husband.

THE COUNT AND COUNTESS OF
Poitiers and the Count and Countess of Anjou stand on the deck of their ship. Beatrice shed many tears over me at the bottom of the plank before she went aboard and Charles affected a long face, but I am not fooled. They are delighted to go.

As I expected, they advised Louis to return to France as did nearly everyone else. Only Jean and the Count of Jaffe urged him to stay, and their fellows lambasted them for doing so. And when Louis proclaimed that he would not desert the Kingdom of Jerusalem, his brothers—treacherous, disloyal brothers—declared that
they felt their crusade oaths fulfilled and would go to France with or without the king. As a departure against His Majesty’s wishes would be embarrassing to Louis and demoralizing to those who did intend to stay, my husband immediately announced he was ordering the counts home to assist Blanche with her regency and to raise an army and return. I suspect Louis even believes they will come back and bring more troops with them so that he can continue to crusade, but seeing Beatrice’s smug little smile as the plank is drawn up and the anchors weighed, I know we are being deserted.

I feel despondent. Not only are my royal brothers-in-law departing, but the sea around their vessel contains a veritable fleet. Despite Louis’s promise to dispense royal funds to allow those who wished to stay to do so, his surviving knights by and large have had enough discomfort and defeat and are going home. Even the royal council is depleted. Only the chamberlain, Lord Geoffrey de Sergines, and Louis’s new constable, Giles le Brun, stand at his side as the ships begin to pull away from shore. And, of course, Jean is also beside the king, more in favor than ever and newly retained for a further term in Louis’s service at a price of two thousand livres.

“It is sickening,” Jean says, moving to my side. “As if the Count of Poitiers passing out coinage and jewelry as he went aboard were not spectacle enough, he and Charles had the audacity to beg me to watch over Louis in their absence. If they were truly so concerned with the health and welfare of the king as to be moved to tears and entreaties, why not turn back at the dock and repent of their decision to go?”

Louis and his retinue turn their backs to the sea and make their way toward the city. He will not miss me if I do not trail along. With his frailty diminished and a new plan for redeeming his losses in battle by improving the fortification of Acre consuming his energies, I find the king increasingly his old self—the self that
neither needs nor appreciates me. This saddens me, but it has not the power to reduce me to tears as similar behavior did when we arrived in Cyprus two years ago, for now I have Jean whose love and friendship for me never falter.

“And if you are truly concerned with the welfare of His Majesty,” I say, turning away from my husband’s receding back, “do what you can to push matters along here. For mark me, those departing will never return, and if we tarry too long in concluding our business here, we may arrive in France to find one or the other of the counts king in all but name.”

“Not while Blanche of Castile draws breath,” Jean replies.

For the second time in recent memory I find myself grateful for the dragon’s fanatic devotion to Louis. Jean is right; she will not allow him to be usurped.

“And, while those knights who leave us seem unlikely to return, I would not be so certain that other men-at-arms are not forthcoming,” he continues, nodding idly to a knight who passes. “The Counts of Poitiers and Anjou may lack enthusiasm for raising an army for His Majesty, but the Queen Mother must surely understand that it is in her interest to send reinforcements.”

I try to feel cheered by his confidence but cannot. And Jean, who knows me better than anyone, sees as much.

“I will do all I can to press His Majesty forward while we wait. The Mamlu¯ks agreed to surrender the lesser prisoners as part of our treaty. Perhaps a timely reminder. I could go to Cairo—”

“Not you.” The only thing worse than continuing on here for an indefinite period would be doing so in fear of Jean’s safety.

“I forget,” Jean says gently, “that while His Majesty and I still have a circle of companions, this departure leaves you nearly alone.”

The memory of the second Lady Coucy’s tearful farewell this morning rises before me, but I push it from my mind. “I still have
the Countess of Jaffa, Marie, and the
béguines
in my service.” I wipe angrily at the moisture gathering in the corners of my eyes; then looking up into Jean’s face add, “It is worth the loss of many simply to be rid of Beatrice with her frivolous nature and fatuous conversation.”

Jean begins to laugh. I am about to join him when a wave brings a dead fish to shore close to where we stand. The odor overwhelms me and sends me retching. Jean’s eyes open wide and his laughter stops at once. “By God’s coif! You are with child!” His voice is more concerned than incensed, but when I nod my head, his anger breaks through. “Why did you not tell me?”

“You would have put me on the ship.”

“So I would have.” Jean considers me, his eyes dropping to my stomach as if testing himself to see if he should have noticed something and did not.

“His Majesty does not know.” It is a statement, not a question. “If he did, he would have put you on the ship as well.” Jean puts both hands to his forehead; then, remembering that though most of our party has disbanded, we are in a public place, he drops them again.

“He would not,” I say, feeling slightly defiant. “His Majesty will be delighted.”

Jean and I part. I see him next when those few and faithful who remained with His Majesty gather to dine. The challenge I read in his eyes spurs me to tell Louis about the baby. So, after dinner, I seek a private moment in the king’s oratory and reveal my condition.

His Majesty is
not
delighted. But nor is he displeased like Jean.

Looking up from his knees where he was arranging himself to pray he asks, “Are you sure?”

“Perfectly.”

I continue to stand where I am, waiting for happiness or even recognition to spark in Louis’s eyes. I myself am surprisingly happy
to be carrying his child, perhaps because I feel, after his delight in Jean Tristan, he deserves to celebrate a son born in the Holy Land who is really and truly his own. But Louis continues to look at me blandly. After a few moments he says, “Was there something else?”

“No. Shall I leave you to your prayers?”

“Or stay and pray with me if you like.”

If the request was warmed by even the slightest touch of real feeling, I would be tempted. But the man before me bears no resemblance to the man who lay with me to beget the child I carry. A few months after hobbling off a galley in the harbor, that man, I conclude, is gone just as surely as if he had boarded one of the
nefs
this morning and sailed for France.