Matilda Empress Read online

  I picked up my veil from the floor and began to beat off the dust that clung to it. “Heave your sword aloft, but for me, not against me. We share a stake in our son’s future. He bears my father’s name, and your own.”

  My lord scanned my somewhat disheveled appearance. “Why should you be enslaved by His Majesty’s designs upon you? You have married out of his house.”

  “I serve my prince, not my king.” Nor my husband.

  The Angevin spoke harshly. “Accommodate my wishes, before any other man’s!”

  My stomach fluttered, as he rose and strode out of the kitchen. Does Geoffrey plot to conquer Normandy for himself or does he intrigue to defy the aggrandizement of Stephen’s boy?

  †

  Rumors fly through Angers, blaming “the virago” for the dissonance between the Count of Anjou and the English crown. Supposedly, it is my craft that stirs up their antagonism. Now that the two men are enemies, it is believed that my allegiance is to my spouse. Who is the source of this foolishness? Why are my husband’s faults held to my account?

  Gerta and I spend our idle hours debating these political developments and the meaning of our adventure with Avera. We puzzle at length over the mystery of the three kings.

  Anything covert is beneath the honor of an empress; I embroider clusters of three intertwined crowns on several of my corsages and on the borders of some of my mantles. Flattering my husband’s burghers, I purchase quantities of gold thread from various stalls in Angers town. This delicate work is well underway, despite our imperfect translation of the witch’s vision.

  This afternoon, as my maid made her neat, glinting stitches, she picked apart the sorceress’s conundrum. “The three kings are the three Henrys: your father Henry, your son Henry, and your first husband, Henry of Germany. Your father’s ardor sired you. Your misplaced passion gave birth to your son. You were the emperor’s bedfellow.”

  I threaded a glimmering strand. “What if that rogue of an Angevin wrests Normandy from me, then schemes to be elevated to the throne of England, in my place? Geoffrey could be the third king.”

  Gerta worked her needle much faster than I plied mine. “Preposterous! His family is descended from a she-devil!”

  I dropped my sewing onto the rushes. “There is only one man who ‘lives for me in his sex,’ and he is no king.” I fished about on the ground, so that she could not see me flush at the mere mention of Stephen’s embraces.

  Fingers flying, Gerta peered hard at me. “Do not reduce your life to a riddle of depravity.”

  †

  As the weather sharpens, my eldest and I often play together before the roaring fire in the great hall. Today, the boy recited a ditty, overheard in the town. “Pope, emp’ror, king, cardinal! Prince with jeweled, royal ball! Duke, archbishop in his pall! All these sit high, ’bove us all.”

  I laughed. “Where am I in this wonderful song?”

  Henry’s eyes grew round. He put his hand in mine.

  I enjoyed the tingle of his tiny fingers. “I am empress, wife of an emperor, and someday will be queen, which is a woman king. Before my first marriage, I was princess.” Tightly, I hugged him to me, before he wriggled free.

  With pursed lips, the Plantagenet murmured. “I am prince. One day I will be the king of many lands. Princes are sons of kings.”

  My mirth evaporated. “Or queens.”

  My son shrugged. “Is Father a king, Mother?”

  I sighed. “No, you will be a king of my territories, not of your father’s.”

  “Which title is his?”

  I looked at his face, so suggestive of my beloved’s. “None of them. Your father is count, standing beneath all the persons in the song.”

  Henry ambled away. “I do not think that he would like to hear me sing it.”

  †

  Dameta found herself impatient, and unable to withstand temptation. Hadn’t Arthur written, when he thought Dameta lost to him for all eternity?

  I preserve entire the whole of my precious love. I blush to recollect you, but instead of losing strength, I grow sure that our connection is sanctioned by heaven. Joyousness will be ours once more, perhaps forever.

  Arthur returned a letter, a model of circumspection, despite its affectionate tone. My cousin reports that he has cut off his superfluous amber curls, the red ringlets of my nightly reveries. I almost wept to suppose them swept into the countess’s hearth, but gasped in glee when I discovered a small, wound circlet of hair enclosed within the scrolled note. I placed the lock in my blue casket, among my other riches. Each evening, at my retirement, I kiss the silky tress, and pray to the Virgin that I will soon be enmeshed in Stephen’s arms.

  Gerta strongly discourages me from presenting a similar token to my beloved. “Empress, such a wild deed will do your obsession no good.”

  “I wish him to compare my coal black mane to that yellow mop of Maud’s. Are all my actions to be dictated to me by my servants?”

  “Think of your son’s future. Bend your own will, to serve the boy who is son to the man.”

  Once more I follow Gerta’s advice, despite my aches and longings. I offer him nothing but my intangible devotion. Have I gifted my heart to a worthy knight, likely to treasure it?

  The Matter of the Crown

  Scroll Seven: 1136

  The high merit of my subject, and my comprehensive account of it, must certainly be worthy of your patience, and your continued consideration. For in this momentous year, what was once fixed ceased to be. Heaven struck down one king and raised up another in his place. The empress was betrayed by her false idol; he stole from her that which she would have gladly bestowed upon him. His triumph over her was a blow of the worst sort, for it smote down her love as well as her ambition.

  †

  Winter

  Late in the autumn, the bells tolled until my head rang with their peals, announcing the death of King Henry I. Although my father had treated me harshly, I was shocked, then despondent at the news. With corroded spirits, I observed the frisson that convulsed the politicians and philosophers among my retinue, as England’s throne fell vacant for the first time in thirty-five years.

  His Majesty had hunted all day in the Wood of the Lions, near Rouen castle, and returned home to feast heartily upon his favorite dish, eels baked in cloves and fennel. Alas, the lampreys had been too long from the sea and were spoiled with age. Their succulent sauce masked any taste of their taint. My father was ever paranoid about the threat of assassination, and always equipped with his own utensils, previously blessed by his chaplain. He never neglected to sprinkle dried rose petals on his food, so as to ward off demonic influence. But this time, all his usual precautions were for naught, and he expired of a raging fever.

  His prolonged torments gave him ample time to make his confession to the archbishop of Rouen. He recited his sins and gave instructions for his burial, coming at last to a Christian end. At his deathbed were my brother and several prominent barons.

  In front of these assembled magnates, the recumbent, anguished sovereign again declared me to be his legitimate heir. In his final moments, he delegated Robert to ensure that I inherited the realm; Gloucester vowed to do so. His Majesty ascribed to me all his dominions, on both sides of the Channel, without mentioning the Count of Anjou. If he had ever previously intended that Geoffrey and I rule jointly, he did so no longer.

  And yet, and yet! Almost immediately after the king succumbed, the Count and Countess of Boulogne crossed the Channel to Dover, a quick wind in their favor. At Christmas, before my father had been dead a month, my cousin was crowned his successor in Westminster Abbey. The archbishop of Canterbury anointed the entire family, all three of them, husband, wife, and son. It is generally hypothesized that Stephen acted on the advice of both Maud and his brother, Henry bishop of Winchester, the wealthiest prelate in England. Whatever or whoever inspired him, the speed of the pretender’s assumption of power was decisive. The count snatched his chance, and sat upon his usurped thron
e, before anyone knew what treason he intended against his generous benefactor.

  Apprehending my beloved’s betrayal, cut to the heart, I have been wild with fury, then mute with hatred. I refuse to leave my solar, unable to shake either my shame or my loathing. Gerta avoids my indiscriminate ire, leaving me to mourn and rage in solitude. My jaw aches from the gnashing of my teeth; my heels throb from the stomping of my feet; my scalp tingles from the pulling of my hair. I shriek erratically, or whirl in a circle, before collapsing on the floor, dizzy and sick, unmoored. The days pass, but I do not emerge from under the stolid, dense cloud of my anger, which expands until it darkens every waking hour.

  †

  Did he ever love me? What he was to me—what he is to me—was I ever so necessary to him? He has been lodged in my mind, a great mass, but I must float through his thoughts, without weight or measure. And still he put his bare leg across my marriage bed, and planted his seed into the heart of my dynasty. Was this all he wanted? Was his name always his destiny—Stephanus, crown? Did he play at chivalry, masking his avarice under his armor?

  Demon, your face was the face of an angel! And I gave myself to you, body and spirit. But your soul lies in a locked tower, and I was pushed from the rungs of the golden ladder I set alongside it.

  †

  My sworn subjects, all repeatedly pledged to my cause, ceded the empire of England and Normandy to a blackguard, an imposter. Was it because they want no woman above them, or no Angevin? Where am I now, who stood poised between her first empire and her second? Dispossessed, who am I now? Holy Roman empress, I let my imperial garments slip from my shoulder, but stood naked and erect, ready to be draped in the mantles of England and Normandy. Bowing to circumstance, I graciously delivered the regalia of Germany and Italy to rapacious old men, eager to strip me of my power. Now, my future glory, my crown, and my puissance are thieved by an eager young man. Did none of them, old or young, see the purity of my white flesh, shivering without its royal cloak, waiting patiently to redeem it? Did none of them feel that I have been chosen by the Holy Virgin to lead?

  †

  Gerta scavenges the black root of a green hellebore, and presents me with a narcotic capable of calming the deranged. Ravished, I lie on my side, and she drips it into my ear, until I feel the iron band around my lungs release its cinch. Dark flecks compromise my vision, but my mind rests. The specks please me, for if they mar its mirror, they expose the imperfections of the world. The spots themselves are faultless points, indivisible, a beginning and an end in themselves.

  Under the influence of the hellebore, I spend hours chanting a rhythmic incantation, clapping the beat, oblivious to the listening ears at my door. “Mountain peaks do not tremble; towering, immobile, holy dominion. Mountain peaks do not tremble; towering, immobile, holy dominion.” How long will it take me to believe that I am strong enough to withstand his duplicity?

  †

  I have dispensed with Gerta’s attentions, calculated as they are to gag my complaints and deaden my outrage and anguish. I would feel more, not less, of the cruel treatment that he metes out to me, and my own abhorrence. I am foul, malodorous, rotten, guilty of sins of the flesh, and I must make amends by some sacrament.

  I hold my hand within the bright flame of a taper until a searing, streaming pain echoes and gives voice to my woe. And still I hold my palm over the fire, enthralled by the immediacy and simplicity of my suffering. I am luminous in my distress, incandescent in my agony. I am lustrous, noble, divine. He cannot touch me, for my affliction is no longer his crime. He cannot mark me, for I mark myself with stigmata, recording his infamy. I glow with misery, and yet I am washed clean, and shine. I burn like the sun and the moon and the stars in the firmament, shimmering in the heavens, praiseworthy.

  Wretched, but farsighted, desolate but full of clarity of purpose and pure penetration, I reach an ecstasy of understanding, and pull my arm back from its torment. Despite the black scars on my skin, and the feverish blisters, I am incorruptible, and suffused with a flowing, harmonious sweetness. I am transfigured, inside and out, gloriously transported by the mystery of mortification.

  I am honed, as the blade of a mighty sword is whetted and polished in the fire. I am unsoiled, resplendent, radiant with faith, and ready to cleave through the ambition of my transgressor.

  †

  I emerge from my solar, only to be frustrated by the inactivity and passivity of those who might have been expected to fight for my rights. I exchange vehement words with Geoffrey, and the castle seethes with the tension between us. Still my warrior earl remains at his leisure, neglecting to organize his cache of weapons or strategize over his maps.

  Today I was particularly incensed to find my husband in his chamber with his lector, discussing some fine point of the trivium. “You are dismissed, Master. Now is not the time for the count to ponder questions of grammar.”

  The wiry man had a neutral expression, as dry as his curriculum. He nodded and began to collect his slate and parchments.

  “Stay.” Geoffrey looked me over. “My lady rudely interrupts our disputation. I would talk further with you. The empress herself might profit from a lesson in rhetoric. Her words lack any elegance and hence any persuasiveness.”

  The Angevin’s disapproving glance and insults gave me pause. Perhaps my influence would be more sizable if I employed the female arts. “You are right, my lord. I did speak too harshly, too hastily. But I would parley with you privately about a matter that concerns me deeply. I hope that your tutor will forgive me if I ask him to retire.”

  The count lifted his eyebrows, perplexed at my submissive tone. “You change your tune mightily, but its new melody does ring more sweetly.” With a slash of his hand, he signaled the lector to quit us. “What is it, Matilda?”

  I inhaled, essaying to compose my features into a mask of gentility. “I am confounded by your delay in the defense of my kingdom.”

  Sighing, Geoffrey picked up his blackboard and chalk. He scribbled a list, then held out the slate. “The components of rhetoric. The first part: historia. Your speech lacks historia, literal sense. Take in the view; it is the winter. No wise commander begins a campaign in the cold months.”

  The window in his solar gave out onto the Sarthe River, winding its way northward toward the Angevin city of Le Mans, then on into Normandy. I saw nothing of the weather, only the currents flowing in the direction that I wanted to go. Why was I still? I would surge through the landscape, as the water did. “The pretender perpetrated his black deeds in this season. Last year, in the short, dark days, you warred with my father, and schemed to revolt. Indeed, it was your late rebellion against King Henry that lost me my throne. Your hunger for a few Norman castles has cost us an empire. Now you must rekindle the flame of your military ambition, but in my service.”

  My husband underlined the next item: allegory. “Do not attempt to indoctrinate me in your political cause; I am inured to your metaphors. It is Stephen who deserves your shrewishness. He grabbed for himself what was left to you.”

  I fought the urge to smash the chalkboard. “You alienated the Norman barons, so that they preferred my cousin to be their overlord. Your designs upon the dukedom have been as dangerous to me as the usurper’s greed. Which one of you has been more my enemy?”

  The Angevin brandished the next trope. “Your argument is especially weak in its sententia, or moral implications.”

  “I will be more clear. You poisoned the eels—you murdered my father.”

  Geoffrey dashed his tablet onto the floor. I suspected that he would have liked to smack me with the same force. “Watch what you accuse me of, bitch! I am justified in my wrath against His Majesty; he did not turn over to me the promised dowry castles. But I had no hand in his passing, which was the working of divine authority. Heaven corrupted the food brought to the old man’s table.”

  What could I say to stave off his violence? “The king’s dismay at your rebelliousness conquered his natural strength, pro
moting the potency of the polluted eels. My own husband vanquished the lion of wisdom and justice.”

  The count resumed his discourse. “We should move on from rhetoric to dialectic, since you are especially deaf to my opposing point of view.”

  I rubbed my temples. “On your behalf, I shall pray to Our Lady to forgive you your shame.”

  Geoffrey shook his white head. “Logic, my dear, logic! You jumble the victims and the villain. You conveniently forget that Henry I was a rapacious wanton, a cruel tyrant, who arranged his coronation before the properly designated heir, his brother Robert Curthose, could return from the Crusade. Plundering your kingdom, Stephen of Boulogne merely follows his example. Possession is the law.”

  With slow, steady pressure, the Angevin pushed me to the ground. The rushes smelled stale. I tried to sit up, but he pinned his knee against my stomach. “You are quick to blame me, instead of your cousin. How can you overvalue that devious fool?”

  Although prone, I did not quail before him. “Let us march together on England! Let us retaliate against Stephen’s affront! Let us force from him a renewal of the homage that he swore to me.”

  Geoffrey straddled my waist, one shin to my left side and the other to my right. “I will not permit you to navigate the Channel in winter, or to journey anywhere, while you harbor my seed.”

  From under the weight of him, I interjected. “What is this baby to you?”

  The count lowered himself upon me. “I will take you ferociously. Rough intercourse expels any ill humors from the womb.”

  I managed shallow breaths. “You violate me, to safeguard the infant? Now, it is your logic that eludes me.”

  Geoffrey shoved up my bliaut. For good measure, he placed his palm on my throat. “Such a shame, Wife, that you do not set my senses to throb.”

  I put my hands at my neck, to pull off his fingers. “Then it will not be possible for you to come to bliss.” I could not get enough air.

  “I will undertake to make the best of your slight attractions.” The Angevin pinched my breast.