Four Sisters, All Queens by Jones Sherry

Author:Jones, Sherry [Jones, Sherry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2012-05-07T22:00:00+00:00

Eléonore

Liars and Traitors

London, 1250

Twenty-seven years old

IF SHE WERE dreaming, this would be a nightmare. But alas, the trial is no dream from which she will awaken with a laugh of relief. Simon de Montfort, Henry’s man in Gascony these past three years, stands before the barons’ council with a sneer and boasts of the cruelties he has inflicted against the people there. And yet, it is not he on trial today, but her cousin Gaston—who saved her life while she gave birth in Bordeaux—charged with opposing Simon and, by extension, the English crown.

Gaston, it must be said, is no innocent. His lust for power—and his unscrupulous pursuit of it—shows in his cocksure swagger, his haughty tone. Although he is here as Simon’s prisoner, he never hangs his head. Instead, he winks at her—winks! At her stern expression, he arranges his mouth in a peculiar shape suggesting that it has been somewhere not quite clean but highly enjoyable. His dark mustache only heightens the impression. With no beard on his chin, it resembles a smear of dirt that Eléonore itches to scrub away.

“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.

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