The Sister Queens (63 page)

“Love,”—it feels good to address him so and good to take charge of the situation, for I can be queen and friend just as I promised and make things right—“if these are your worries, put them aside. You are beloved of a generous king and his queen. Make a list of those who are indebted to you and give it over to me. His Majesty and I will see it collected forthwith. Beyond that, can you have any doubt that Louis will wish to recompense you for your service now you are returned to court?”

Jean regards me with an intensity that carries me back over years to the first time we were alone in the gardens at Saumur. “You were ever my angel.”

“And you were ever a man who could be counted upon.” Does he remember the words as I do? Perhaps, for he smiles.

“France agrees with you. You bloom with vigor in native air.”

“It is not France but the effect of Eleanor you see upon me. Verily I believe she can cure me of anything, save you.”

“I can hardly wait to meet her then.”

“You shall tonight. Only pray, sir, remember that once, many years ago, you assured me that if ever you knew the Queen of England, you should still prefer the Queen of France.”

“To any woman on earth. My heart needs no reminding of that. It is for you that it breaks anew every morning.”

E
LEANOR
D
ECEMBER 1254
P
ALAIS DU
R
OI
, P
ARIS

“W
hat a marvelous banquet!” I smile at Marguerite and take her arm. We are retreating to her apartment to pass an hour reliving the glory of the evening, while Henry and some of the French king’s favorites have been invited to Louis’s apartment for discourse.

“Yes, it was, though I say it myself.” She squeezes my elbow, her eyes on fire. The vestiges of care and exhaustion that hung about her as a pall when I first saw her in Chartres seem to have fallen away at last. “How gallant your husband was.”

Now it is my turn to glow. Henry behaved magnificently. He showed not a moment of pique or peevishness, but complimented everything and was munificent to all. The high point of my evening came as we were being seated. A place of honor had been prepared for my husband, marked by the most gorgeous saltcellar of carved rock crystal, gold, and jewels, and he stood aside, insisting that Louis take it instead. It was nobly done and all remarked favorably upon it. “Your entertainments were superb. Such voices! And the leopard, clad all in silver and black, lying down to slumber pleasantly among a field of gilded lilies while the azure cloth that was the ground billowed around them—breathtaking and, I hope, prophetic.”

We have reached my sister’s hall. Bowing before me, she offers
her hand and together, without need of musical accompaniment, we mince through the opening steps of an
estampie
, much to the delight of her ladies and my own.

“You dance better than you did when we were younger,” Marguerite says.

“I
always
danced better than you.” I lower my eyebrows and mimic the sort of fierce glare I might have given her in verity when we were girls and I was subject to a challenge or unfavorable comparison.

She laughs, throwing her head back in delightful abandon. “Marie,” she says, “my sisters and I will take wine together in my withdrawing room. Ladies, you may make a party here with the Queen of England’s companions or away to your lovers or your sweet dreams as you like. I will see you in the morning.”

We leave our collected retinues clustered in a swirl of giddy conversation and color and proceed into the next room. Our mother has retired for the evening, so we are four sisters, together as in our nursery days. Marguerite pours out the wine, dancing her way to each of us in turn as if she wished the evening with its festivities were only beginning.

“You did not dance with His Majesty this evening,” I remark.

“The king does not dance since we are returned from crusade. He generally eschews such entertainments as we have enjoyed, but supported them in honor of your visit.” My sister’s voice is neither judgmental nor weary as it was this morning when speaking of her husband; rather it is matter-of-fact. I wonder at this and then recollect that Beatrice sits nearby listening.

“You were well partnered though by another gentleman, Marguerite. Who was he?” I ask just to see her reply, for I recognized the gentleman.

“The Sieur de Joinville.”

“Ah,” I say, “this then is Geoffrey de Joinville’s half brother. He was in Egypt with you.”

A smile softens the edges of my sister’s mouth. “Yes. He remained with us when others departed.” She casts a dour look in the direction of our youngest sister.

Apparently this is enough for Beatrice. She is already sullen and vexed for she did not at all like where she was seated for the evening. Such little things, Marguerite assures me, are ever giving her offense. Rising, Beatrice says, “I am greatly fatigued, Your Majesty, and with your permission would retire.”

“Of course,
Sister.
”—the word that when applied to me or Sanchia seems to encompass boundless warmth, sounds more like a taunt when addressed to Beatrice—“I would not detain you.” When the door closes behind the Countess of Provence, Marguerite stands silent for a moment as if she has forgotten what we talked about.

“You were speaking of the Sieur de Joinville,” I prompt.

“Yes.” Her tone is breezy once more. “He never abandoned Louis and is the king’s most loyal servant and closest friend.”

“Your friend as well?”

Do I imagine it, or do my sister’s eyes dart away momentarily from my face?

“Yes. The Seneschal of Champagne has been a faithful friend to both Louis and me.” Marguerite lays particular emphasis on her husband’s name, and I wonder what she is trying to intimate about the knight’s connection to the king. “The Sieur de Joinville was oft trusted with accompanying the children and me as we moved from place to place when the king could not do it himself. But generally he and Louis are inseparable.”

“How is it then I have not seen him before this evening?”

“He left us at Beaucaire on our journey home. He had his own lands and his own family to attend to.”

“Does he have children?”

“Indeed, two sons. I cannot recall their names. Why do you ask?” There is a sudden hesitance in my sister’s voice that I cannot account for.

“He seems fond of children,” I say, shrugging. “I saw him in the garden this afternoon with yours.”

For one unguarded moment my sister’s face shows a tenderness akin to that I saw on the Seneschal’s face this morning. Her expression could be the very like, and then it is gone. “The Sieur de Joinville is kind to every living thing.”

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE
night I wake disturbed. At first I think my stomach roused me, filled as it was when I retired with an overabundance of rich food and good wine. But shifting around in bed I realize that it does not ache.

“Eleanor?” Henry murmurs inquisitively. “You are indisposed?” Sated as my husband was at the banquet, he dozed off immediately after we coupled and I let him sleep, heedless of what gossip might be occasioned in this French court when the servants find his room vacant in the morning.

“No, I am fine. Go back to sleep.” I need not tell him twice. Almost at once his breathing is slow and steady again.

We are staying the night at the palace. The king and my sister had rooms made up for us and for our closest companions, so how could we refuse? Not wishing to wake Henry again, I slide out of bed. The fire is low, but I can see well enough to avoid running upon any furniture. Pulling on my fur-lined pelisse, I move to the
window. The glass is frosted over, and I draw my finger across it, tracing a pattern of I know not what. The moon is very large and shines brightly through those spaces I clear, enhancing the effect.

Looking down through one of the transparent patches, I realize the view is nearly the same as from my sister’s rooms. This is hardly surprising, as I am honored with a room very close to her own. The vision of a boy and a man come to me—the Seneschal of Champagne and the little prince, Jean Tristan. They are in my mind’s eye as they were this morning. The man has the boy on his back; their curls touch. Their curls are just exactly the same. Then I see my sister at dinner, eyes bright, high color in her cheeks. I see Jean de Joinville coming forward so that Louis can present him to my husband. His eyes are not on the king; they are on my sister. Everything he says is the very essence of
politesse
. Introduced to me, he remarks on my gown, my beauty. It is all smooth, courtly language; nothing more. But when he pays the nearly identical compliments to my sister, spurred on by Louis who insists his wife will be jealous if she does not have her due, they have a different sound—his voice is low and halting, as if he feels awkward saying such things, or as if he feels them too deeply to speak them aloud in company.

I shake my head to free myself of these images and thoughts. I turn my back to the window and its suggestive moonlight, and try to focus my attention on the embers of the fire, but another image comes to me. Jean de Joinville and my sister are dancing. His hand is on her waist, and they are the best dancers on the floor. Why? True they are both abundantly skilled in the art and handsome of face and form. But it is
not
that. I realize with a suddenness that causes me to gasp aloud, it is because they fit together. They are a pair as if they were made for each other.

My feet begin to move unbidden. Lighting a candle at the fire,
I am out of my bedchamber and into my sister’s before I know what I am doing. Like my own room, Marguerite’s is very nearly in darkness. I consider for a moment the seriousness of my intrusion. What if the King of France is here? How will I explain myself? Shading my light with my hand, I approach the bed. Marguerite is there, Marguerite alone. The force of my relief causes me to realize it was not the king I feared to find.

“Marguerite,” I say, my voice soft but urgent.

“Eleanor?” Like my husband’s a short while earlier, my sister’s voice is thick with sleep and confusion. She sits up, rubs her eyes, and swings her feet out of her bed. “What is the matter?”

Without thinking I say, “The Seneschal of Champagne is Jean Tristan’s father.” And though the truth of the words hits me forcibly as they come out, part of me hopes that Marguerite will voice a denial. Instead, she sits perfectly still and silent on the edge of her bed, her head tilted as she regards me. She does not so much as lower her eyes. I am crushed. My sister, whose equal I have striven to be since childhood, a woman I always thought above reproach, is an adulteress. “How could you?” I gasp. “You have a husband—God help you!”

“No!
You
have a
husband
,” Marguerite snaps, jumping to her feet and nearly knocking my candle from my hands. “I have a lord who cares so little for me and for our children that he would have let us drown at sea rather than distinguish us above his other subjects; a man who does not notice me for weeks at a time despite the fact that by
my
efforts alone he was saved from finishing his life as a miserable prisoner of the sultan.”

My heart pounds. Never have I seen my sister like this. Although I am taller, she towers over me in her fury. In response to her anger I feel an anger of my own. I am not the guilty party here. “Even if all you say is true,” I respond, raising my chin,
“‘what God has joined let no man put asunder.’ On Judgment Day what will you answer to God?”

Marguerite grabs me by both shoulders and gives a great shove, pinning me against the wall. The flame in my hand wavers as if it would go out but flares again. “
You
are not God, Eleanor. And I am not interested in your judgments! Only in your promise. You have guessed what Louis has not. Swear to me, by the bond of blood we share and on the lives of your children, that you will never tell a soul.”

Her face, illuminated by the angry, flickering light of my candle, is fierce. She takes several quick breaths, then continues, her lowered voice urgent. “If the secret had only the power to destroy me, I would not care. Dishonor, death—they mean nothing to me. I have given up the man I love to secure the safety of the son I love more. I walk through life as one half-dead already.” I can feel her arms shaking with the emotion of the moment, but her grip does not loosen. “Surely you understand that if you repeat what you have said, your words would cost the happiness and possibly the life of my child.”

I begin to cry. I want to break free from Marguerite, to run from this room, from this palace, from France. My sister is likely damned; she is certainly miserable and I cannot help her—I cannot repair the shambles she has made of her life. But I will not, I cannot, destroy her more than she has destroyed herself.

“I will take your secret to my grave; I swear it,” I whisper.

Marguerite is weeping too. She releases me, but instead of departing as I so urgently desired only moments ago, I set my candle on a nearby table and take her into my arms. “I will never tell,” I croon in the same tone I might use to comfort one of my boys after a bad fall.