Four Sisters, All Queens by Sherry Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

service she spied Toulouse lurking about the cathedral door—waiting for Blanche, no doubt. What did they discuss last night? Did he request more money, or troops, or weapons with which to attack Provence? When she is queen, will he dare to approach her for help? Let him try! She’ll send him home with a drooping scabbard and an empty purse.
    Aimée laces up the gown that Blanche has sent—lovelier, indeed, than the one she has brought from home—a confection of saffron silk with a cream surcoat embroidered in gold thread, and a green-and-gold mantle trimmed with ermine. Over her dark hair, worn loose for the ceremony, she lays a fine net woven with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Before her uncles, she turns slowly around. “ Trop belle! ” they exclaim from their cushioned chairs, over their brandies. “Madame, nous sommes enchantés.”
    Is she going to faint? She takes long, deep breaths, calming herself as she walks arm in arm with the uncles, across the lawn and through the gathered crowd of nobles. “What an elegant young lady the countryside has produced!” she hears someone murmur. “She looks as lovely as her namesake, the daisy.”
    “Lift your head,” Uncle Guillaume urges. “Walk like a queen.”
    Her step falters nonetheless as she forces herself to meet the curious stares, noting the nobles’ shimmering silks and swirling taffetas, their glittering jewelry—and their narrowed, scrutinizing eyes.
    “See how happy she is to marry our king.”
    “Who wouldn’t smile to trade Provence for Paris?”
    True to the queen mother’s word, the women wear ghostly white faces and rouged lips under cleanly plucked, prominent foreheads. How rustic she must appear with her golden complexion, inherited from her Aragonian father, and her simple necklace of pearls. She turned away the queen mother’s man today with his pot of palepaste and his curved blade. And yet: La reine belle jeune, they call her, the beautiful young queen.
    Queen Blanche, standing near the gate where the ceremony will begin, watches her approach with glinting eyes. Marguerite kneels before her to kiss her ring. “Mama,” she murmurs, but the word weights her tongue like a stone.
    “I hope you will consider me a daughter from this day forward, and your humble servant,” she says. Blanche’s stern gaze softens—until the murmurs begin again.
    “How gracious! The ‘daughter’ outshines the ‘mother’ in disposition as well as beauty.”
    “Blanche was never so sweet, not even as a child, I’ll wager.”
    “Was the White Queen ever a child?”
    The queen mother’s hand stiffens. She withdraws it from Marguerite’s grasp.
    But King Louis takes both her hands in his own as he kisses her. In his many, colorful robes, he reminds Marguerite of a peacock in full display. Today, though, he wears no gold except his crown and his fair hair curling softly about his chin.
    “I hope the festivities did not keep you awake,” he says.
    “No, my lord, I slept deeply.”
    He grimaces. “I, too, wished to retire early, but my barons insisted that I rejoin them in the merrymaking.”
    “I saw you dancing with the queen mother.”
    “Thanks be to God for sending her out with me. It was Mama who prised me from the nobles’ grip. Otherwise, they might have danced me through today’s morning prayers.”
    The archbishop emerges, clad in cloth as fine as the king’s and of the richest red, his chubby face shining under his broad-brimmed cap, his hands cradling an open book. He bows to them, then begins the ceremony atop the cathedral steps: the confirmation that they are both of age and not too closely related; and that they and their parents consent to the marriage. The wedding vows. The incensing and blessing of the bridal ring. Louis’s voice coarsens as he slips thering over each of her fingers—“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”—before landing on the fourth. The archbishop intones a prayer, then leads them