Four Sisters, All Queens (5 page)

Marguerite

The Light of Destiny

Brignoles, 1234

Thirteen years old

T
HE FALCON HOVERS
, its eye piercing through the trees and the long grass, abiding on invisible currents, waiting. Then: the sudden stoop, the scurry on the ground, the swoop and upward soar, talons clutching a fat hare. “I won!” Marguerite shouts.

“You did not.” Eléonore turns to the falconer. “Gaston. Tell her! My hawk had already exhausted that hare.”

From the château they hear their names. They race down the hill, mouths watering. Yesterday’s dinner consisted of brown bread, cheese, and a few leaves of the spring’s first lettuces; for today, they have been promised raspberries and a fish from the pond. Eléonore reaches the château first, as always. In the glow of victory she doesn’t notice Mama’s glare at her tunic, torn and dirtied in her rolling down the hill this morning. Or, more likely, she pretends not to notice.

The girls sit at the raised table at the front of the great hall, on their mother’s side. Beside her, Papa talks intently with Uncle Guillaume and Romeo, arrived today after a visit to the French court. Marguerite catches her uncle’s eye, but his wink doesn’t tell
her whether he has brought a marriage proposal. On the floor, minstrels play pipes and drums while jongleurs stand on their heads and turn cartwheels in bright short tunics and hose. At the tables behind them, knights jostle for seats closest to the front, while troubadours elbow one another and make sport of them. Papa’s favorite, the red-haired troublemaker Bertran d’Alamanon, scribbles a verse on his hand and shows it to the fat Sordel, who holds his belly as if bracing for the shock of a full meal.

“The King of France wants Margi,” Uncle Guillaume is saying to Papa, holding up a hand to stop the servant’s watering his wine. “The man they sent here last winter took back a glowing report.”

“‘A girl of pretty face but prettier faith,’” Romeo quotes, then beams as proudly as if he had invented the phrase.

Pretty faith? Her religious landscape is strewn with the burned and decapitated bodies of the Cathars, some of them poets. Labeled heretics for criticizing the pope of Rome. Slaughtered by the French. Her faith is a drop of blood on the tip of a sword, unglimpsed by M. de Flagy’s eyes as they admired her chest.

“But you said his report was glowing,” Papa says. “That tribute sounds lukewarm, no? As if our beautiful Margi were a plain-face destined for the convent.”

“That is exactly what we want the White Queen to think.” Uncle Guillaume quaffs his wine and gestures for more. “Blanche de Castille does not allow beautiful women in her court.”

A shout rises from the floor. The servants in their unbleached tunics and linen caps have entered the great hall bearing covered trays, which they place first on the count and countess’s table. Anticipating raspberries, Eléonore reaches for the plate before the cover is lifted. Marguerite kicks her. “Uncle is here! Remember your manners,” she whispers.

Eléonore’s hand falls away as Mama lifts the lid. Each round plate holds a dollop of cheese, a loaf of brown bread, scraggly bits of greens. Mama clenches her teeth so tightly, the slightest jostle might snap off her head.

“What is this?”

The servant clears his throat. Cheese, he says, and bread. And some early lettuce from the garden.

“We were promised raspberries,” Eleanor says. “And fish.”

The countess shushes her, but the servant responds: No rain has fallen in weeks. The trout pond is drying up; the fish have died. The garden is wilting for want of moisture, in spite of daily waterings. As for the raspberries, the birds have attacked the canes and eaten all the fruit. Except for milk and wheat, the pantry is bare—and there is no money with which to replenish it.

The countess stands. “This will not do. Girls, go and tell your maids to pack your belongings. We shall dine this evening in Brignoles.”

T
HE VERY THOUGHT
of peaches makes Marguerite’s mouth feel ripe and lush—and Brignoles makes her think of peaches, which drip sweetly from the trees there. The season is too young for them now, but other deliciousness awaits, for the rain and sun fall in perfect balance in Brignoles, bringing a bounty of vegetables and fruits all around the year. Beside her in the carriage, Eléonore tosses small stones onto the seat, playing at dice. Opposite them, Sanchia presses her cheek against Mama’s arm, unheeded as Mama sings to the baby:

When fresh breezes gather,

That from your country rise,

I seem to feel no other

Air but that of Paradise.

Brignoles belongs to Mama, its town, its orchards, its square, its white palace all given by Papa as a wedding gift. Marguerite hums Bernard de Ventadour’s
chanson
and closes her eyes, feeling the fresh breeze on her face. Which of Provence’s treasures does she love most? Moustiers, with its rugged cliffs of rock, so
thrilling to climb? She thinks of the lavender-scrubbed hills in Aix, where she and her sister have raced on horseback many times, kicking up fragrance; the fruit trees in Brignoles, not only peach but plum, from which she has gorged, and sickened herself; the blue-lapped Marseille shores, where Papa would bury his girls in sand from the neck down, then fashion for them mermaid’s tails; the Alps ringing the Provençal border like a strand of diamonds, in whose foothills she and Eléonore discovered a secret cave, filled with wondrous formations, where they pretended to be fairies. But no—her favorite has to be Tarascon, on the broad plain of the ribboning Rhône, the mighty fortress whose carved statues and gargoyles seem to spring to life in the moonlight (the fanciful Eléonore swears that they do), and where the troubadours and trobairitz fill the gardens with song. At Tarascon, they know, they are safe from harm, for no siege by mortals—by Toulouse—could penetrate its fortified walls.

He wants her. Soon King Louis of France will send a marriage proposal, and her life in Provence will end—for now. When Papa dies (in many years, please God), she will become Countess of Provence, and she can move between her county and her kingdom, caring for one, enduring the other. Until then, France will seem a purgatory and her life a dreary waiting. Provence is the realm of all her happinesses.

“Mama,” Sanchia says, “Margi is crying.”

Mama stops bouncing the baby.

“I love Provence,” Marguerite says.

The countess sighs, and gives Marguerite what she and Eléonore call her Smile of Infinite Patience. “Of course you love Provence. We are the envy of the world. But your family needs you in France.”

“Mama,” Marguerite says, “I have been thinking. In Paris, I would be far away. Couldn’t I help Provence more as its countess than as queen of another country?”

Her
maire
’s laugh is mirthless, as if Marguerite were a jongleur who kept dropping the balls.

“Do you think you could bring peace to Provence, and accomplish what your parents have not? Would you be like Cleopatra and charm the emperor into sending help? Perhaps he will invite you into his harem. Frederick loves pretty faces.” Marguerite’s cheeks burn.

“Or maybe you could impress the pope with your pretty faith, and convince him to crush the heretic Raimond of Toulouse like an ant.” Having chastised her, Mama has stopped laughing. “Would you be willing to pay the price that Rome demands—fees; knights and foot-soldiers for the pope’s battles; the loss of our independence?”

Eléonore’s cry pulls Marguerite’s attention to the sere fields outside. A peacock faces the carriage with its tail spread, looking as proud as if it had won it in a contest. Her hand closes around one of Elli’s pebbles; she hurls it at the bird.

“You missed, as usual,” Eléonore says. “Don’t be shy: Throw harder. Like this.” She leans over her sister to take aim with the second stone—and sends the bird off, squawking, in a flurry of blue.

T
HE PALACE STAFF
greets them at the door, then resumes setting up tables and benches in the great hall and setting down tableclothes, knives, spoons, and goblets. Shouts rise to the ceiling, and laughter. The aroma of roasted meat rumbles Marguerite’s stomach. Papa accompanies his knights and their horses to the livery stables. Mama, in the nursery, oversees the unpacking of the girls’ bedding and clothes. While the nurse consoles the crying Beatrice (awakened from a too-short nap), and Sanchia holds onto Mama’s skirts, Marguerite and Eléonore slip into the great hall.

“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Marguerite says. “Someone is sure to give us a bite of something.”

“If not, we’ll steal it.” Eléonore’s voice trills low with the excitement of thievery.

A man runs in, seeking Papa. The Count of Toulouse approaches
with fifty men, on horses and in full armor. They have been spied in the forest, building a siege engine.

“A siege now, when supplies are so short? We will starve,” Mama says. She sends Madeleine, with Marguerite’s sisters, to the tower. Marguerite remains, Mama’s shadow since her twelfth birthday, when she began preparing to rule Provence—and, these last months, France.

“Fetch the count’s armor,” Mama orders Papa’s chamberlain. “Fetch the count,” she tells Romeo, before rushing off to the kitchen with Marguerite.

“Our men will need nourishment to fight,” she says. She steps into the kitchen, claps her hands, cries, “Hurry! Hurry! Or we will be lost.” Marguerite stares at the mutton and trout, olives, cheese, lettuces, baby artichokes, warm breads, and—yes—raspberries. She swallows the water pooling in her mouth, dances one way, then the next to avoid being overrun by servants snatching up the dishes of meats, fish, fowl, and vegetables, baskets of fruit, and flagons of wine. Her mother’s voice blares like a trumpet over the cacophony of running feet, clattering dishes and silverware, knife blades scraping against whetstones. Mama thrusts a platter of roast mutton into Marguerite’s hands. She blinks: is she a servant?