Free White Heart by Sherry Jones

friends of kings, emperors, and popes. How did we achieve such feats? Not by brutish battles and conquests, but with shrewd alliances and strategic marriages. My children, too, would marry well, I determined, and increase our family’s influence as never before.
    Here is how I fulfilled this vow: I raised my daughters as if they were sons.
    Oh ho! I see shock on your face. Are you surprised also, then, to learn that I called them “boys”? Having taken my schooling alongside five of my eight brothers—in philosophy, Latin, astronomy, mathematics, logic, diplomacy, debate, hunting, archery, even swordplay—I recognized this: knowledge is the key to power. Why do you think men reserve it for themselves, leaving only fluff and nonsense for girls? What good to a girl are needlework, curtseying, drawing pictures, and feigning interest while a man prattles on and on about himself? These endeavors—the essence of feminine schooling—serve only to enhance men, and to diminish women. Wanting success for my girls, I taught them as though they were boys, endowing them with true power—the kind that comes from within.
    When Margi was nearly of age, I enlisted my brothers to find a king for her to marry. Being Savoyards, we plotted. Amadeus, Guillaume, and Thomas praised her beauty, intelligence, and piety in courts near and far, and before every guest they entertained. Meanwhile, I charmed Sordel, the troubadour, to write a song in her honor, then paid him handsomely—with gold and, yes, kisses, but not the prize he preferred—to perform it before the French King Louis IX. Thusly captivated, the king sought Margi’s hand—and before long, my four daughters were queens of the world.
    I would have made them kings, if I could. Instead, I made them mothers of kings. It was the best I could do for them, and for the House of Savoy—for my family—now and in the future.
    Family is everything. Nothing else matters. All other bonds may be broken—friendship, marriage, even queenship—except the ties that bind us to our relations. This is the second lesson I taught to my daughters: Family comes first. To my great sorrow, however, my words fell against their ears and bounced away, like seeds on a bed of stones.
    If only they would heed my admonishments now, and help one another. Instead, they seem intent on tearing one another, and our family, apart. And I? I cajole, and advise, and lecture—and avert my gaze from them lest I cry a weak woman’s tears. O, how it breaks my heart to see my girls suffer.

Marguerite
    Four Sisters, All Queens
    Aix-en-Provence, 1233
Twelve years old
     
    She turns slowly around.
    The great hall smolders, dimly aflame and smeared in an acrid haze. M. de Flagy holds a piece of white silk to his long nose and notes the cheap tallow candles, the stains on the tablecloth, the frayed cuffs of the countess’s gloves. Before him, Marguerite turns slowly, stifling a yawn. She has taken the monsieur hawking and horseback riding, has performed a country dance on her vielle, sung three chansons by Bernard de Ventadour, defeated monsieur at chess, recited from Aristotle’s new logic in the original Greek, and debated, in Latin, whether time has a beginning, she agreeing with The Philosopher that it does not, because God, the source of time, is eternal. M. de Flagy, seized by a fit of coughing, hurried from the hall and missed her father’s challenge: Does time, then, have no ending? Does it exist in the realm of the eternal, or is time an earthly function? If earthly, then how could it be without beginning, God having created the Earth?
    Now, for her final performance, Marguerite endures the stranger’s gaze on her face, her hips, her bosom straining indecently against the too-small gown. As Queen of France, her maire has said, she would never wear ill-fitting clothes again.
    His hand snakes out. “She appears to be perfect, but I have not inspected her teeth.”
    She steps back, out of his reach. “My teeth