Four Sisters, All Queens (41 page)

“He is a traitor to England,” Simon says. “His attacks on your castles have cost an enormous sum in repairs and fortifications.”

“Gaston de Béarn, where does your loyalty lie?” Henry asks.
“With England, or with Castille or Navarre, whose kings conspire to take Gascony from us?”

“I am loyal to Gascony.”

Eléonore smiles. With this clever response, he has managed to answer Henry’s question without answering it. His evasiveness will allow her to help him out of this predicament.
I will not forget,
she promised him after little Beatrice was safely born, after he saved both their lives in Bordeaux. She owes him a great debt, one which she will now repay, with hopes of gaining his allegiance for England. As Viscount of Béarn and the patron of the Church’s popular Order of Faith and Peace, he wields much influence in Gascony.

“Why do you resist English rule?” she asks. “Would you rather be beholden to the White Queen, harsh as she is, than to Henry and me, who have granted you so much freedom?”

“Freedom exists in the minds of men, and in their hearts,” he says. “It can neither be given nor taken away.”

“Then why fight against us?”

“My lady—my dear cousin—surely you know the answer. The people of Gascony are not unlike the inhabitants of your own home, Provence. See how the Provençales have fought the impositions of the Frenchman Charles of Anjou? We Gascons do not want a foreigner ruling our land, either. Nor do we care for the administrators you send—incompetent men, and corrupt ones, who extort coins from our barons to increase their own purses.”

“Simon de Montfort is impeccably honest,” she says.

“He may be honest, my lady. But he is also cruel.”

She shakes her head. She can believe certain things of Simon—that he is ambitious, that he is persistent, that he has a temper as volatile as Henry’s, that he stands with one foot in England and the other in France, where he is reported to love King Louis as a brother. But—cruel? Surely Eleanor would have mentioned it last night, as she and Eléonore supped in her chambers and talked like sisters into the morning.

“We have heard these accusations before,” Henry says. “Tell us more.”

Now the salacious smirk of Gaston de Béarn is gone. The cocksure swagger in his voice becomes a sorrowful quaver. Eléonore wants to cover her ears. Simon, he says, tied candles to men’s hands so that the fingers might be burned along with the tallow. He injected vinegar into their bodies, then watched as they screamed and writhed. He tied their hands behind their backs and attached heavy bars of iron to their feet, then hanged them from the rafters, pulling their limbs loose from their bodies.

“If these tales are true, then why have you escaped unharmed?” she blurts, interrupting his litany. “You are, after all, a leader in the Gascon rebellion.”

He bows his head to her. “I do not know, but I can surmise.”

She turns again to Simon. His eyes glint, as cold as flint. “I spared him my torments out of respect for you, my lady.”

So he admits the tortures. Eléonore falls back against her throne. What has happened to Simon? Once a noble man and a faithful friend, he has betrayed them both with these terrible—forbidden—punishments. Yet he expects them to hang her cousin for treason. Is this a test? If so, Simon is the one who is failing. And yet—she must keep his friendship. She needs him on her side more now than ever.

“You wanted information,” Simon says. “You wanted order. You wanted your taxes collected. Now you have all three, plus the rebel leader in your custody.”

“How can we retain him after hearing these tales against you?” Henry cries. “Don’t you see? By dealing so harshly with Gascony’s most respected men, you have stirred anger against us as never before. As for the taxes you collected, the sum does not begin to compensate for all you have so fruitlessly expended. You have wasted our time, our money, and our good relations with the Gascons.”

“The Gascons are liars and traitors.” Simon’s gaze careens about the room. His eyes, wildly blue like the sky behind a storm cloud, catch Eléonore’s for a fleeting moment before he turns to Gaston.

“I gave ample warning. They knew what they stood to lose
if they continued to rob, rape, and burn the houses of England’s supporters. And I did nothing without the assent of Parliament.” He produces a document, signed by the leaders of the barons’ council.

Relief floods her: Simon was authorized. The court will have to acquit him.

“See here!” With a laugh of triumph, he waves another parchment before Henry’s nose—the agreement he signed appointing Simon to Gascony for seven years and promising to reimburse him for the costs of fortifying the duchy’s castles.

“I have been there fewer than three years, yet already I am in arrears over these repairs.” He pauses and then, in a high, commanding voice he adds, “I demand that you repay all the money I have spent in your service.”

Henry’s face turns red, then purple. His eyes bulge. His lips press together so hard they turn white. Eléonore holds her breath. She, Henry, and their chancellor Sir John Maunsell spent many hours crafting this agreement; later, she spent hours more convincing Simon to accept it. “Henry will never pay,” he said to Eléonore then.

If only he would lower his eyes. A show of humility might gain him what he desires. Instead, though, the headstrong Simon glares at the king as though they were equals, or worse, as though he were the stern father and Henry a petulant child.

Henry sees the look. His gaze tightens.

“No,” he says, “I will not keep these promises.” A gasp sucks through the room. “I never gave permission for cruelty to the people of Gascony—people who serve me, who rely on me, their duke, for justice, not coercion and torture. You have betrayed me, and so now I will betray you. You will get no money from me.”

Simon steps forward, pushing aside the king’s guards who try to keep him at a distance. “Betray! That word is a lie,” he cries. “Were you not my sovereign, this would be an ill hour for you.”

Eléonore grasps the arms of her throne, feeling as if she might fall out of it. Henry, too, sits in stunned silence. Mistaking their
astonishment for weakness, Simon steps forward again and points a finger at Henry. “With lies such as these, who could believe you to be a Christian?”

Eléonore sits up in her seat. He has gone too far. “That is enough, Sir Simon!”

“Do you ever go to confession?” he says to Henry.

“Don’t answer him,” Eléonore says. Having laid many a verbal trap, she knows Simon’s game. As strained as her marriage has been of late, she does not desire to see Henry played for a fool.

“I do, indeed, go to confession,” Henry says, pride tingeing his voice.

“Tell me, O king: What is the purpose of confession”—Simon turns to face the crowd—“without repentance?” He folds his arms, pleased with himself in spite of all he has just lost: his friendship with Eléonore; his favor with the king; his chance to succeed in Gascony.

Henry leaps to his feet. “I have indeed repented!” he cries. “I am sorry that I ever allowed you to enter England, to marry my sister, and to take over lands and honors here. And, by God, I am sorry I ever sent you to Gascony.

“But you will return, and you will cease these cruel measures, and you will keep the peace without a penny from me. And if I hear any more slanders from you, I will hang you from the London Bridge and dangle you there until my duchy is at peace.”

A
ND THEN HER
dear friend Eleanor Montfort is gone. Simon, in custody in the Tower, managed somehow to send his wife away as if she were in danger of imprisonment, too. Eléonore wonders if she will ever see her friend again. Henry’s quick temper will soon subside, but Simon is a nurser of grudges. He may keep Eleanor from them, out of spite.

She paces the floor outside the chancellory, where Henry meets with John Maunsell and her uncle Peter to decide Simon’s fate. After the council’s verdict in his favor, clearing him of wrongdoing,
he tried to resign from his post—but Henry would not allow it. “You cannot extricate yourself from the seven years you promised simply by insulting me,” he said.

In the candlelit hall Eléonore walks and worries. What are they doing behind that door? How will Simon fare without her influence on their talks? How will Henry fare without Simon’s goodwill? He and the French king have become friends, Marguerite says.
Simon trots behind Louis as if he were a puppy and Louis’s pockets were filled with treats
. Indeed, he had planned to join King Louis’s crusade before Eléonore, hearing of his intentions, convinced Henry to send him to Gascony, instead.

She can do nothing for him now. She is excluded from the meeting, shut out because of her friendship with Simon. Henry blames her for the Gascony appointment, although, were the truth to be told, Simon’s decision to take the cross with France unnerved him, too. Simon knows Henry’s secrets. Might danger’s sharp edge cut loose his tongue, causing him to spill those secrets before the French king?

In the chancellory, Henry’s voice rises, then falls. Eléonore presses her ear to the door again.

“My lady.” She jumps, startled, and turns to see Henry’s Lusignan half-brother, William de Valence, twitching his lips at her.

“Sir William!” She hates her nervous laughter, the titter of a child caught in some naughty act. “What are you doing here?”

He puts on that infuriating false smile that he reserves, she knows, especially for her. “I am summoned to a meeting.”

She does not even try to hide her dismay. Looking pleased with himself, he sweeps past her and into the chancellory. “Lower your voices, if you would keep your words private,” she hears him say. “I caught someone listening outside the door.”

With a flaming face she runs up the stairs and into her chambers. Fortune, her hawk, turns its head to peer at her through its cage, hanging from a hook on the bedpost. She falls into a chair and stares into the fire, watches its capricious shadow dance on the walls. William de Valence’s participation does not bode well for
Simon. The men have hated each other since William married Joan de Munchensi, the heiress to Pembroke. William seized Pembroke Castle for his own, although William Marshal had given it to Eleanor Montfort before he died. The men have been fighting over it ever since, disrupting meetings of the barons’ council with their shouting and name-calling. And William’s complaints have harmed the friendship Simon and Henry once enjoyed. Simon’s “Charles the Simple” insult, for instance, made nearly a decade ago, might be forgotten if William de Valence did not so often repeat it.

A rift with Simon might bring trouble. Eléonore has warned Henry of this many times—but he doesn’t listen to her as he once did. He listens to William now, who speaks against her, coveting for his own family every title, every grant of lands, every marriage that Henry has arranged for Eléonore’s relatives. Thanks be to God that Uncle Peter has summoned to England three hundred Savoyard cousins, nieces, and nephews. Eléonore will arrange advantageous matches for them all, and they will support her when she needs them.

William’s aim is clear: to antagonize Henry toward her and her relations. Henry, so hungry for family, makes the task easy for him. That business involving Uncle Boniface at St. Bartholomew, for instance. Eléonore’s cousin Philip witnessed the whole ugly incident and told them what happened, but Henry’s mind was already set. He exclaimed in his usual red-faced way, pacing the room, hands flying about. An embarrassment, he said. After all he has done to help her family. If only he had listened to William and appointed their brother Aymer as archbishop of Canterbury. (Aymer, who cannot even read!) But he did Eléonore’s bidding, instead. As if she were a hen pecking at him, directing him.

Eléonore sat on his bed with her hands in her ermine muff, clasping them against the cold and reminding herself to remain calm.

“Archbishop of Canterbury is an important post,” she said. “I hardly think Aymer would have qualified.”

“At least he would not go around murdering monks!” Henry cried.

“Nor would Uncle Boniface.”

“Your uncle nearly killed the subprior at St. Bartholomew.”

“That report is exaggerated.”

“He threw him to the floor!”

“After the subprior attacked him with his cane. The subprior is an old man. He probably fell.”

“Your uncle drew his sword, Eléonore. The monks had to restrain him, or he would have run the poor man through.”