The Sister Queens (56 page)

As a result, even after I have been in Bordeaux for weeks my spirits have not improved. My house is quiet and comfortable, and I feel utterly deserted in it. I know this is not fair to the ladies, faithful souls, who made the voyage with me and who sit about me talking while I stare moodily out of an open window at the afternoon sky. Perhaps my feelings are particularly unfair to my dear Maude de Lacy, who left her snug home at Trim Castle in Ireland to travel with me despite being with child for the first time by the new husband I found her. Unfair also to my Beatrice, presently out in the garden gathering blossoms for me, and to Edmund who sits at my feet playing with a small cat that seems to wander about the place at will.

Edward is not with me. He is housed elsewhere, in state, as a nobleman and future king. At fourteen he is accorded all the consequence and attention that I presently lack. And though I tell myself I am not jealous, I am not pleased either, particularly as he is surrounded by Lusignans. I have it on good authority that his uncle Geoffrey, whom Henry chose to bear royal greetings to his son and me when we arrived despite my known dislike for the man, is with him again today. Geoffrey seems to easily find the time to make the ride from La Réole. Henry, on the other hand, is too busy to make the journey. I have seen my husband but once since my arrival, and I do not expect to see him again for two more, long, boring days. And, as Geoffrey brought a handful of his Poitevin knights with him to call upon my eldest son, they are doubtless having a raucous time. Edward shows every sign of becoming as besotted with the Lusignans as his father. Apparently he forgets that only a few months ago I had to fight to keep some of his lands from being granted to that same Geoffrey who now
dines at his table. Nor will Henry’s half brother let the land matter rest. He continues to badger the justiciar of Ireland about that grant. If Edward is not chary, he will have his half uncle for good company, but his half uncle will have a goodly slice of his appanage in return.

Well,
I think, idly tracing my fingertip along the windowsill,
Edward does not ask my opinion.
In fact, since we have been here, no one does. Henry was very glad to see me when at last he arrived here to greet me, and he was sorry I did not bring his new daughter to meet him, but that is how I am viewed here—merely as the mother of his children and the woman who hems his shirts! It is disgusting; I who raised thousands of pounds for his support and consulted with the first men of the kingdom in his absence am now firmly relegated to the role of bedmate and ornament of the court. I did not anticipate how much I would miss ruling. I hunger for the responsibilities that were mine as regent, even those that felt onerous when I was actually contending with them.

“Lord Edmund, what do you do there?” Willelma’s voice startles me. Looking down, I can see that my son has been slowly and steadily pulling a thread from the hem of my gown until he has a goodly length with which to tease the cat. Under ordinary circumstances I would be angered by this, but I find myself extraordinarily disinclined to be vexed with my second son who looks up at me with a certain amount of anticipatory dread.

“Never mind,” I say, taking the thread from him and breaking it off where it joins the fabric of my gown. “Here, have it.” I hand it back, and, confronted with the disbelief in Willelma’s face, I add, “The boy is only bored. The hem can be fixed.”

Maude, sitting nearby with one hand on her swollen belly, laughs and says, “Your Majesty will, I presume, want a change of gowns before we sup.”

“Whatever for?” This elicits raised eyebrows not only from Maude but from all my ladies. I am renowned for my attention to dress, and all my ladies seek my opinions on fashion. The idea that I should dine in a gown with a portion of its hem dragging must seem incredible to them.

Doubtless I will go back to coveting a fine pair of slippers or a fur-trimmed
surcote
in the weeks to come, but right now these things seem trivial. I would gladly dispense even with the new ring Henry gave me on my arrival to be with the men, buried in the serious work of pacifying Gascony.

M
ARGUERITE
E
ARLY
S
UMMER 1254
I
N
S
IGHT OF THE
I
SLAND OF
P
ANTELLERIA

“M
y lady wife, you are very pensive.” Louis’s words surprise me.

“I was only wondering, Your Majesty, what island that is in the foredistance.”

“What is that place?” Louis asks Brother Raymond.

The seafaring Templar in charge of our ship tends to trail after the king in a manner much like a spaniel whenever His Majesty is
on deck. But, as he is also as good-natured as a dog, his presence does not appear to annoy Louis.

“Pantelleria, Your Majesty.”

“And whose island is it?”

“It is under Sicilian rule, I believe, Your Majesty, but it is full of Saracens who make imperfect subjects.”

“There, madam, now you may unfurl your brow.” Louis gives me a weak smile.

He has been attempting such little pleasantries this last week. I may imagine it, but it seems to me that the closer we draw to France, the more effort Louis makes.

I hesitate for a moment and then decide there is no harm in asking. “As Your Majesty knows from his own table, our stores are much depleted since we stocked them at Cyprus. Tristan begins to suffer from little sores in his mouth. I wonder if some men might not be sent ashore to acquire fresh fruit for the children?”

“Find the master of the boats,” Louis orders the Templar. “Tell him to send several with good rowers to Pantelleria for fruit.” Brother Raymond begins to stride off but is halted a few yards away by Louis’s voice. “Mind you tell them to be quick about their task. When my ship passes the island, we shall expect them to return to us.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I curtsy very prettily despite the roll of the ship, for having been so many weeks at sea, I am entirely used to the
nef
’s motion.

Jean, who was at the king’s elbow throughout our exchange, lingers behind when Louis moves off along the deck. “He is trying to win you.”

“If it means fruit for the children, let him think he is succeeding,” I reply lightly.

“He
is
succeeding.”

I open my mouth to protest, but, stepping to the rail beside me, Jean cuts me off. “This is not a criticism—either of you or the king. It is merely an observation. His Majesty treats you better of late than at any time during my acquaintance with you. And you, with your better nature, cannot help but be warmed by his newfound amiableness, however late or little it be.”

“You make me sound very easily won indeed.”

“‘I withhold not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor.’ You have striven always to be a good wife and worthy queen against much unjust resistance. If you are appreciated at last, why should you not revel in it?”

“By God’s coif, Jean, you sound as if you think I should favor Louis’s suit.”

“I cannot lose you to Louis. You are his already—”

“His?”

“But”—Jean holds up a hand to stop me from rushing forward in my indignation—“you are also mine. As I love you, I would give much to see His Majesty treat you as you deserve.”

When we are at last even with Pantelleria, there are no galleys. I can clearly see the island’s port from my window where I sit curled up with Eleanor’s letters—the few that reached me during my prolonged exile in the Holy Land, each of which I have read dozens of times.
His Majesty will not be pleased,
I think. And I wonder upon whom his displeasure will fall—on the sailors themselves or on me since I sent them forth. Perhaps our delay will not be long. I return my eyes back to my letters but am distracted by my perception that the ship is slowing. Laying aside the letters, I rise.

“You are not going on deck again?” Marie is perplexed by the hours I pass at the great ship’s rail. She dislikes the wind, the spray, in truth every part of a sea voyage, which I in contrast find exhilarating.

“You need not come with me. Stay here and enjoy your mending.”

“I will,” Marie replies with a touch of challenge. “
I
do not wish to arrive in France as brown as a Genoese sailor.”

I laugh. “We are all scarcely browner than we were in the desert.” It has been a very long time, I reflect, since any of us has looked French. We lived in Egypt and in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and we look like the natives of those places. Or at least those parts of us not covered by our garments do. Jean speculates on how exotic I might look if all my limbs were equally bronzed. For myself, I love the warm hue that Jean’s skin has acquired, and I find the sun has had a positive effect on Louis as well. Though at forty he is no longer a young man, thanks to the sun, his hair is as golden as it was on the day we met. And the color the sun imparts to his features is far healthier looking than the gray pallor of his face when he returned from captivity.

Quite a gathering of men surrounds the king when I come out into the bright sunlight. “It is best we sail onward. Neither Tunis nor Sicily is a friend to Your Majesty,” one of the gentlemen is saying.

“And the men I leave behind? What if they have been taken by Saracens?”

“Regrettable. But better a few than all of our party,” says the constable.

“We will give them an hour,” Louis says decisively, looking at the angle of the sun and the shadow of the mast on the deck.

The sailors disperse to their various tasks. But the king stands unmoving, a grim stare focused on the distant island. I find myself transfixed by his face. It is so fierce. And, though his eyes never turn to me, I am driven back to my cabin by this fierceness. Once
there, I am of no use to myself. It is with some relief, and after trying half a dozen entertainments, that I conclude the hour must surely have run.