Four Sisters, All Queens by Sherry Jones Page A

abandoned for many years, and is in ill repair. The earl needs an income—a substantial one—if he is going to rebuild it.”
    “He needs to marry an heiress.”
    “It is his only recourse. Unfortunately, heiresses are scarce these days. And Montfort has little to offer except good looks and a golden tongue.”

     
    S EATED BEFORE THE scowling barons’ council, Henry gives Eléonore a look as if to say, do you see what I must endure ?
    He clears his throat, tries again. As ruler over Germany and Italy, the Holy Roman Emperor is a valuable friend to England, he says. The fifty or so barons, seated in the great hall before them, begin to mutter. Some fold their arms across their chests.
    “The pope is more powerful, and he hates Frederick,” says the gray-bearded Earl of Kent. “Why not follow the example of the French king, and remain neutral in their dispute?” He shakes his shaggy head. “As your former guardian, Henry, I thought that I had taught you to choose more wisely.”
    “You are not my guardian now, Sir Hubert, but my royal subject,” Henry snaps. “And you are to address me as such.”
    He is losing his temper again. It is time for Eléonore to step in.
    “The king has already pledged the dowry for his sister’s marriage to the emperor,” she says. “He did so in good faith, certainthat you would recognize the value of having Frederick for an ally. Was he wrong?”
    “He was wrong to pledge a dowry that he could not pay,” the Earl of Kent grumbles.
    “So you think the alliance is without value?” she asks.
    He bunches up his face. “I did not say that, my lady.”
    “How much is it worth, then? Five thousand silver marks?”
    “Certainly—”
    “Ten thousand? Twenty? Or perhaps we should ask how much we would spend to defend ourselves should the emperor attack? Because if we do not pay, he will attack.”
    Gilbert Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, stands to speak. “Do not forget, Your Grace: Your authority depends on your barons’ submission. We are loath to submit to another increase in taxes. What happened to the portion you took from us so recently? Wasn’t that supposed to pay the empress’s dowry?”
    “Spent on the king’s wedding to a foreigner, and her coronation, no doubt,” Roger de Quincy, the Earl of Winchester, says. “Thirty thousand dishes served at the feast, I was told.”
    “That is a gross exaggeration!” Henry’s voice rises. “As for my queen being a ‘foreigner,’ I wonder which of you has only English blood in his veins.”
    “You ought to know, having bled us nearly to death to fund your follies,” Sir Hubert grumbles.
    Simon de Montfort leans against a far wall, insouciant and grinning. “Ideas become follies when the bill comes due,” he says. “This council supported an alliance with Frederick when the king proposed it.”
    “That was two years ago,” the Earl of Winchester says with a sniff. “And he may have discussed the marriage proposal with us, but he gave the Lady Isabella’s hand before we voted.”
    “Is it my fault that the emperor grew tired of waiting?” Henry says, looking to Montfort as though he, and not Henry, were king. “While the barons deliberated, he would have married someone else.”
    “A council this large cannot meet more often than it does. We have our own affairs to conduct,” says Simon. “Our king must sometimes make decisions in haste, without our approval. Had he a smaller group to advise him, however, this would not be the case.”
    Having given Henry an entrée to announce his Council of Twelve, Montfort retreats back into the shadows, forgotten by all except Eléonore. Her sister-in-law is right: he is an extraordinarily handsome man. Only his eyes disturb the perfection—not their shape or color so much as their expression. Something hard lurks within. Something cold.
    The council sits wordless as Henry announces the names of those he has selected to serve. The Earl of Winchester’s name is not on the