Matilda Empress Page 11
†
My trunks are packed and I willingly depart for the Continent. Much to my consternation, and still more to my joy, I am full once more with my cousin’s seed.
I commanded Gerta to bring the Count of Boulogne to my chamber. I cannot exile myself without revealing what lies between us, even though it might mean alienating him once more.
As the bells chimed matins, Stephen stole into my room.
I longed to throw myself into his arms, but held back. “My darling, I am trembling to tell you something, for three years ago the like revelation cost me your attentions.”
He twisted his nose out of joint, for a moment, but did not appear to be very much disheartened. “Do you intend to present me with a second son of the night?”
“I will hurry to the Angevin’s bed, so that he will think the babe his own. I will be as false to my count as you are to your countess.”
“Not so, Empress. My various amours are all worthy of me. I freely worship Maud, as I do you. My affection for my wife is genuine and steady. I find release in her rounded, delectable flesh, just as I find bliss in your strong, finely made form. I am nowise unable to keep from enjoying your favors; I am likewise incapable of neglecting Maud’s.” The blackguard approached me, for the depiction of his harem had excited him.
I would not sate desire stoked even in part by my rival. “You want everything; your passion alights everywhere. You will not make any sacrifices.”
My cousin tossed his copper curls. “Why should I? Neither shall you. Bear our second infant as if it is Geoffrey’s. Our secret rests inviolate. On occasion, we will enjoy mutual delights. Divided by happenstance, we will please others.” He reached out for my hand.
I pulled it away. “I cherish you so strongly that I can neither mimic apathy nor overlook yours.”
“You have no choice. If you are to retain your credit in the eyes of the world, we must part as ordained. Do not despair; our lips will meet once again.” Perfectly content, the count exited my solar.
I was certain that he went to stuff Maud full of what I had refused, and a great rage swelled up in me. Setting my pen to paper, I scratched out my ire and dismay. Does destiny put forth into the field an army marching under my colors, or the pennants of mine enemies?
The Treasury of the Lion
Scroll Six: 1135
Remember, worthy ladies and noble gentlemen, that poetry is a heavenly science transmitted from heaven, a divine bequest. I hope that it pleases you to give me your full attention! It came to pass that the empress returned to the land of her husband, to serve him as she had undertaken to do before God. This period of her history brought peace, if not happiness, in the fulfillment of her duties. Still, hidden beneath the calm of her life, a deep tempest roared within her nature. Matilda was not scorched by the flames of perdition, but her soul smoldered, tainted by lust and pride.
†
Fall
In Angers, I spend my days chasing after three-year-old Henry and one-year-old Geoffrey, abandoning the cultivated pastimes of my station for the peasant enjoyments of my boys. The Count, sufficiently satisfied with his brood, presides ever more assuredly over his vassals, but I think as much of my sons’ obedience as of my political preeminence. Indeed, I enjoy the antics of my children more than I should. It was one thing to frolic with Gervase in the exile of a convent. To stoop to play with my infants amidst the life of a court is a great condescension on my part.
The birth of Geoffrey, my husband’s son and namesake, almost carried me to my grave, despite the assistance of several experienced midwives. In their anxiety at the unusually slow progression of events, they bathed me in a soup of chickpeas, flaxseed, and barley. Still the fetus would not come. With closed faces, they rubbed my flanks roughly with oil of violets. They poured a mixture of vinegar and sugar down my throat, and then a dram of absinthe. They resorted to waving ground pepper under my nose, so that I sneezed, but without dislodging the recalcitrant babe. Only my prayers to the Virgin made any difference. Despite my exhaustion and anxiety, I directed several bishops in attendance to sprinkle me with holy water, in Her Name, to purge me of whatever evil spirit hindered the coming of this child. Finally, I pushed him out.
The equilibrium of my humors must have been disarranged by so much ineffectual intervention at my confinement. For several weeks thereafter, I burned with fever and convulsed with pain. Night and day, candles blazed within my chamber, and smoldering incense choked the air. Wretched, recumbent upon my pallet, I struggled to breathe and to speak.
Many of those inhabiting our court at Rouen presumed that I underwent my final agonies, and gossiped accordingly. I received many notes of condolence, and none so dear as the one from my beloved Arthur to his Dameta:
O blissful angel, do not lose courage as you crawl toward paradise, like the parched, aching deer stumbling toward the babbling stream. Cling to your fortitude and your faith, for your path leads to eternal blessedness.
The Angevin’s elation at the healthy birth of another boy softened his feelings toward me. I recall him, at the foot of my bed, cradling the swaddled creature, and thanking me for my pains. “This infant redeems your suffering. You have laid down your life to bring forth my blood.”
His arrogance was enough to spur me on to health. My sudden restoration baffled most of our circle. The archbishop of Rouen proclaimed that I had been touched with the Lord’s grace, and that my two living sons were His seraphs.
My father’s joy in the elder, in Henry Plantagenet, his long-awaited male heir, knows no bounds. Of course, despite Henry’s assumed Angevin ancestry, and his place as my husband’s first-born, this precious child is the Count of Boulogne’s.
Numerous miracles accompanied his arrival in Le Mans, and my corporal tribulations were few. My first cramps elicited a vivid dream of annunciation: a shining Holy Mary heralding the hero’s appearance among us, and heaven’s bequest to him of a great throne. A talented crone mixed potent unguents; the baby slid out into her hands. Cutting Henry’s cord, she massaged him with salt and crushed petals. He roared with vitality, and every one present broke out into smiles. Even my husband’s face was clear of malice. As word of the successful conclusion to my troubles spread, a flaming star coursed through the sky over the town. Several monks, praying near the altar of the cathedral, witnessed a bright burst of light and heard strains of a celestial music.
Alleluia! I am overjoyed to have secured the succession. But, behind my public satisfaction, I have immured my private jubilation. A son of my perverse love, somehow declared legitimate, is positioned to rule after me. Norman, English, and Angevin barons have sworn to protect and keep the Plantagenet, the future king of the collective empire.
†
I learn to tolerate the continued presence of my husband’s mistress and her two children, the four-year-old twins Hamelin and Marie, who remain among our ménage. The Angevin, distant but respectful toward me, does not reinstate his leman to her previous status in our household.
Gerta snickers into her hands, and admits that she has lodged a broken candle between Denise’s mattress and its frame. Three white, stiff stalks of the count’s hair are concealed within its wax; his name is stroked onto the side of the taper with the blood of a cocksparrow. My maid was at some pains to sneak her charm into the slut’s solar, without being seen, but there is no one more cunning and adept than Gerta.
Lately, Geoffrey’s whore endeavors to reestablish his passion. To her credit, he still warms to her various seductions. Whenever my lord retires “to be bled privately,” he most certainly sports with his paramour. Yet I am grateful to be released from the penance of his amours. My husband’s nocturnal visits are rare; we fornicate infrequently. On these occasions, he abstains from abusing me, but I willingly dispense with such dutiful coupling. My dreams are all of my cousin’s touch.
†
Denise persists in detesting me, although I see the futility of our antagonism. Gerta is sure that the wench suspe
cts Henry’s paternity and worries that she will poison Geoffrey’s mind against his supposed heir.
This morning, in the town that presses close against Anger Castle’s outer wall, a traveling puppeteer perched on the back of his wagon, entertaining a crowd of children, courtier and burgher alike. Standing back from the crush, my maid heard the harlot humoring some town matrons with a yarn of her own.
A young noblewoman, oppressed with sadness, trekked south through the cold, jagged mountains that separated a northern country of sorrow and discord from its neighbor, a region of joy and peace. On her way to this Elysium, climbing high and hiking low, she was overcome with a great thirst. She broke off icicles from the boughs of enormous, gnarled trees, and allowed them to melt in her mouth. In this way, she drank her fill, only to find her belly swollen to a great degree. The weight compressing her soul was not lifted when she was brought to bed of a snow child, although she had been made welcome in the new land of felicity and harmony.
Gerta scanned the faces of the local women; they had registered the message. A child of nature is foisted upon some unsuspecting lineage. An infant generated in a northern territory bodes ill for a southern kingdom.
Unsure of what Denise knows, I keep my countenance. Graciously, I allow my husband to retain his concubine. For now, she refrains from overthrowing my hopes. For my own part, I do not tell tales, although everyone has surely heard about the woman whose twins were the result of her concurrent affairs with two different men.
†
Despite my difficulties with the leman, I feel some affinity for her daughter, Marie. Defying her youth, the girl spouts verse. Sometimes she comes to my solar, to wait upon me, and I encourage her to recite. Her rhymes usually concern events that transpire at a fantastical court of knights and ladies. Today, as she brushed out my hair, she warbled out: “In what castle does your heart live? Its walls and hearth are hid, and your eyes, masked by their lids, forbid.”
Unlike the other little ones, who cower at Gerta’s ghost tales, the child refuses to believe that demons swoop down in the night to dine upon the flesh of naughty toddlers. In her high-pitched voice, she reassures my maid that she is safe from harm, for it is grown-up ladies who are at risk of nocturnal beatings and feastings.
Some in our retinue whisper against Marie and her precocity, considering her a changeling, an imp substituted by the devil, come to work evil among us. But Geoffrey adores his darling poetess. He will not banish her to a convent, merely to appease his underlings and hangers-on. My esteem for her talents and defense of her purity win me his gratitude. I will be on my guard, however, lest her clear-sightedness becomes inconvenient.
†
All this autumn, Gerta has constantly nagged me to visit Avera, a witch who lives outside Angers, on the banks of the river Maine. County talk exaggerates her powers and embellishes her potions. Court innuendo has it that Denise patronizes Avera for salves, to secure her youthful charm, and brewing herbs, to enslave the count’s desire. My maid proposed that we journey to the sorceress’s magical lair, in order to benefit from her sagacity. I acquiesced, mostly out of curiosity and ennui. Geoffrey allocated us the protection of three men-at-arms, for what he assumed was a pilgrimage to a local “holy woman.” His mistress did not dare to enlighten him as to Avera’s true character.
Yesterday, on one of the milder days before the onset of winter, we traveled down the Maine. The enchantress is no haggard, loathsome crone, but a young peasant woman. Her dirty person is well-formed, underneath her torn clothes, remnants of once luxurious garments. Her face is grotesque or voluptuous, depending on the angle from which it is observed. I discounted the smeared face paint and the tangled mats of her yellow hair and judged her beautiful.
Avera’s one-room cottage of wattle and daub is thatched with reeds. Fumes from her hearth thicken the air above the mud floor. A wooden shutter bars the one small window, so that the only light comes from the smoldering twigs that emit so much smoke. Discomfited by the hovel, Gerta and I waited for the witch to greet us.
With one long finger and jagged nail, she indicated a grimy, lumpen bench.
Settling down, I was glad of my crudely fashioned traveling mantle, worn to conceal my identity. Yet I felt only distaste, not trepidation. “Woman, I have come to you for I know not what.”
Avera looked at me through wide eyes, circled with black powder. “Empress, you have many questions.”
Gerta coughed in annoyance at her indelicacy. Would all of Anjou come to know of the visit?
The sorceress twisted her lip, and dropped the shadow of a curtsy. “I am honored to serve you. Your companion may be assured of my reticence.”
This raised my waiting woman’s hackles. “You would do well to be mute about her business. You are fortunate that the Church does not forbid you to practice your dark arts.”
Avera smiled at me, revealing large, brown teeth. “Your bulging purse encourages me to respect your disguise.”
Quite unexpectedly, the girl threw back her head and arched her back. “The sight of your brother floods over me. The prince, battered by brutal waves, tosses aside a golden mantle, and sinks naked below the swells. He is ensnared in the weeds of the sea, rotting, consumed by the fishes.” Under the black and green striped fabric of her jacket, her huge bosom thrust forward.
Gerta laughed aloud. “There is no magic in that, serf. You speak of what is commonly known.”
I was not as quick to dismiss her eloquence. “The White Ship smashed itself upon the rocks. Will my future be likewise run aground?”
Avera’s lids drooped and she began to sway. The fire sizzled and emitted dirty steam. “I behold three kings, all tied to you in lust. The heat of one begot you, your own yearnings brought forth another, and the third lives for you in his sex.”
I reddened. “I am concerned with my own accession to the throne.”
The witch’s voice sank. “Many men will die so that you might be the Lady of the English.”
My heart unfolded, but the crown was not all that I needed. “There is a soul for whom my spirit longs.”
“In his service, you have made a human sacrifice, offering up the flesh of an infant to conceal your own sin.”
Now Gerta burst out. “Evil strumpet, you will burn at the stake! How dare you heedlessly accuse the empress of crime?”
I put my hand on my maid’s arm to forestall her ire. “I do not choose to admonish her allusion, or disregard her hallucinations.”
Avera stood up straight, opening her eyes. “I do not convict you, my lady.”
†
Lately, my father’s relationship with my husband grows cold, even discordant. Likewise, Geoffrey blusters against the English king. They dispute control over the Duchy of Normandy, which the count thought he had been promised when he wed me. His Majesty reneges on any such agreement, preferring to protect the interests of his Norman barons against the Angevin. The Normans remember the historic ties between Anjou and the French; they look fearfully to my husband’s border county of Maine. In addition to my husband’s voraciousness, the king suffers the fractious complaints of his Norman vassals, dissatisfied with my marriage and Angevin expectations.
Geoffrey contends that our marriage decides the Angevin-Norman rivalry in his favor. The future Henry II of England is a Plantagenet. Yet my father dissents, refusing to trust any Norman castles to the Count of Anjou’s keeping, not even those that were pledged as part of my dowry. His Majesty distrusts Geoffrey’s continental ambition, and looks to preserve the empire entire for his grandson.
Denise, distraught that anyone should trouble the peace of her knight, burns frankincense and saffron in the hearth of the great hall, invoking the angels to reestablish the concord between the English king and his matchless vassal.
†
Under the pressure of this political friction, Geoffrey and I rediscover some of our enmity.
Today he spotted me in the castle pantries, where I stood overseeing a clerk’s acc
ounting of the strings of dried mushrooms, jars of honey, and other stores. The count dismissed his servant, waving me down among the barrels and sacks.
I knew better than to anger him with a refusal. Fortunately, I wore one of my least favorite bliauts. I sat against a crate of onions. My eyes watered at their strong scent. “Noble lords do not usually linger in the bowels of their fortresses where the provisions are safeguarded, but in their towers where the arms are kept.”
Geoffrey lowered himself beside me. “Wife, I am glad to see you spend your days so productively, looking after the needs of our community. I am sure that you will do as I require to ensure its continued prosperity.”
Did the Angevin aim to copulate amidst his stocks? His carnal pleasures are always odd. From my forehead, I untied the leather band that fastened my long veil.
“I would prefer that you remain modestly dressed in my presence, while I tell you how you may abet my plans. It is no secret that your father’s death would be a boon, remitting to us the Duchy of Normandy.”
In my shock, I dropped my coif. “You speak treason against the great king to whom you have sworn fealty. Normandy will be your son’s.”
“Certainly it will, but the sooner it comes under my power, the better I can protect it for the boy.” The count ran his thumb along the rind of a cheese, pushing against its crust, attempting to bruise it. It was a perfect specimen, yellow not white, firm not runny, weighty and scaled.
Why would he spoil it? “His Majesty engages to preserve the realm intact. At his death, it is I, and not you, who will safeguard it for Henry Plantagenet. The magnates’ oaths of allegiance were to me, and to my line.”
My husband held up the cheese, sniffed, and winced at its pungency. “I can better shield our child’s birthright. You are no warrior earl.”