White Heart by Sherry Jones Page B

won.
    I heard a shattering of glass then, and saw a ball of fire burst through a stained-glass window overhead, landing on the altar where I had, the moment before, knelt in prayer. The wood ignited immediately; as smoke filled the room I yanked off my mantle and beat down the flames. The siege had begun.
    I ran into the great hall to find Louis, and told him what had happened. “Pierre fought with your grandfather here, and may know of weaknesses in the walls or fortifications,” I said.
    “Guérin sealed them last night,” Louis said, “while you slept.”
    His accusatory tone struck me like a blow. Yes, I had slept, it was true, having learned from Philip Augustus the value of a clear and rested mind. Now, faced with my son’s surliness, I retreated to the donjon, where I might watch our attackers’ attempts to bring down our walls by hurling stones, digging tunnels, and throwing fire.
    Louis, I must say, proved a calm and capable commander despite our dearth of supplies. When the rebels dug tunnels under the wall, he sent men with bellows to blow smoke into them, choking the diggers out. Lacking archers, he found bows and arrows somewhere and stationed several knights in the towers to fire them, admonishing the men not to worry about hitting any mark.
    “We have plenty of arrows, so let them fly. We’ll make them think we have every man in the kingdom on our side! Their uncertainty will be our best defense.”
    Yet the rebels appeared far from uncertain as they built a platform beside the main gate, then began to hoist a number of long-nosed contraptions up the ladder. Guérin called them hand siphons—used in Constantinople, he said, for sending out flames of liquid fire. Our “archers” tried to hit the men as they climbed, but their want of skill showed as the arrows pierced only the air around them. When the rebels started shooting flames against the gate, burning its wooden doors, even Louis turned pale.
    “This, truly, is a time for prayer,” Guérin said. “We can do nothing to stop them now.”
    And then, in the distance, I saw a torrent of men in chain mail rushing our way like a turgid river, swords reflecting the sun, banners bearing the fleurde-lis of France. The men of Paris had arrived, not just one thousand, as I had urged in my speech, but many more.
    “Behold!” I cried. “Our rescue is at hand.” Tears sprang to my eyes.
    A smile filled my son’s golden face like the sun moving from behind a cloud. But he looked at Guérin, not at me. “Praise be to God,” he said, “for answering my prayers.”
    Never was such a procession seen in the history of France: thousands of the men of Paris swept around the castle, smashing the empty platform and the abandoned trebuchets, shouting Vive la France! Vive le roi et la reine! to the now-distant rebels running in fear for their lives. We threw open the gates and ran outside to them: the Parisian provost beaming at me like a proud suitor; the burghers all but leaping with joy, pleased by their easy victory; the soldiers hugging and kissing the women and children of the nearby farms and towns who’d lined the Orléans road to cheer them, and their wagons filled with provisions, with which our cooks prepared a feast for all. I longed to join in the revelry but contented myself with standing by, there being no one for me to embrace once Louis turned away, scowling, at the sight of my open arms. In that moment, I cared not about winning, or about kingdoms, or even about living. Of what use is life without love?
    We set out for Paris amid the beauty of springtime: the crocuses blooming purple against pockets of snow, the trees tipped with shoots so vivid they hurt my eyes. The tender breezes kissed my skin, reminding me of Romano, making me wonder if we would ever kiss. His arms around me, holding me close. Romano in Paris, for the rest of our days.
    I wore my queenly raiments for the journey home yet rode on horseback, there being no carriage, thank