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Dame Isabelle, on her first coming, had summoned my mother to surrender the Tower; and she, being affrighted, had resigned her charge, and was committed to the custody of the Lord de la Zouche. So we homeless ones bent our steps to Sempringham, where were two of my father's sisters, Joan and Alianora; and we prayed the holy nuns there to grant us shelter in their abode of peace.
My grandfather and she had many children, but I need only speak of one my hapless father. "King Edward of Caernarvon loved my father dearly. In truth, so did Edward of Westminster, who bestowed on him, ere he was fully ten years old, the hand of his grand-daughter, my mother, Alianora de Clare, who brought him in dower the mighty earldom of Gloucester.
"In order to obtain it," Alianora told him, "one must hard-boil an egg from the falcon's nest, then replace it in the nest, and secrete oneself near by with a crossbow, under a red and white umbrella, until the mother bird, finding one of her eggs resists all her endeavors to infuse warmth into it, flies off, and plunges into the nearest fire, and returns with this ring in her beak.
"My Lord of March is released of his prison, and shall be wed this next summer to the Lady Anne of Stafford, and his sister the Lady Alianora unto my Lord of Devon his son; and all faithful friends and servants of King Richard be set in favour; and 'tis rumoured about the Court that your Lady shall receive confirmation of every of his father's grants made unto her."
The English nobles, however, were very indignant that their King should think of espousing a younger sister of the wife of so mere an upstart as Hubert de Burgh. They grumbled bitterly, and the Count of Bretagne, brother-in-law of the murdered Arthur and the disinherited Alianora, took upon himself to dissuade the King from his purpose.
"Be thy tidings evil?" "As evil as they might be, Lady," answered the page sadly. "Two days before the feast of Saint Hilary, our Lady the Countess Alianora was commanded to God." A tumult of conflicting feelings went surging through Philippa's heart and brain. "Was thy Lord at home?" She inwardly hoped that he was not.
"Thou shalt know," responded Mother Joan in a choked voice. "But, child, name me Mother Joan no longer. Call me what I am to thee Aunt. Thy mother was my sister." And then Philippa knew that she stood upon the threshold of all her long-nursed hopes. "But tell me first," pursued the nun, "how that upstart treated thee Alianora." "She was not unkind to me," answered Philippa hesitatingly.
Raymond Bérenger said: "Now certainly it will be hard on you to have two sisters that are queens, and with perhaps little Beatrice also marrying some king or another when her time comes, and you staying only a countess, who are the best-looking of the lot." "My father, I see what you would be at!" cried Alianora, aghast.
"Just," he said, "and it is that which humiliates. Yes, you and I are second-rate persons, Alianora, and we have found each other out. It is a pity. But we will always keep our secret from the rest of the world, and our secret will always be a bond between us." He kissed the Princess, very tenderly, and so left her.
"I know that very well," Manuel replied, "but, none the less, a geas is on me to honor my mother's wishes, and to make an admirable and significant figure in the world. Apart from that, though, Alianora, I repeat to you, this scheme of yours, about poisoning your father as soon as we are married, appears to me for various reasons ill-advised.
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