Matilda Empress Read online

  On better days, I warmed myself in front of a blazing hearth, washed my extremities, and slept deeply in a featherbed at commodious, pleasant castles belonging to obsequious barons. In return for their hospitality, they plied me with questions about the state of the roads and the health and welfare of their neighbors and relatives. Eager to gossip, the baronesses squawked about the personal charms of my affianced husband. Tall, thin, and blond, with a nose like a hawk’s beak, he had ignited a flame in the breast of many a German damsel, but had not wished to serve and honor any of them. Certain noble ladies insisted that he had escaped the wounds of passion’s arrows; others claimed that he had a black stone instead of a heart and thus could not love any woman.

  Along the inhabited routes, burghers and peasants clamored for a glimpse of me, although I fear they saw little beneath my mud covered mantle and my generous veil. I proceeded slowly among them, keeping my white, Hungarian palfrey well in check, so that they might have some small chance of prostrating themselves before their queen-to-be. The swell of their commentary washed over me; many marveled at my beauty, but some made jokes at my expense.

  When our path wound through a forest, the gloom and cold unnerved us. It was a difficult thing to laugh when the sky had been hidden from view for the whole day. If we saw the scattered remains of a fire, we hoped that it was the former campsite of hunters, hermits, or wax gatherers, and not of fugitive serfs. Usually, however, we went hours without noticing the evidence of any habitation. The trees were a shadowy wilderness that emphasized our isolation. It was hard to credit my relevance to European affairs, my fame and significance, in the vast, uncultivated stretches of road. When we emerged, to travel through mountains and valleys, I was glad to see and feel the sun. Even then, the vastness of the landscape dwarfed the pretensions of our cortege.

  I had ceased childish games; my dolls and knucklebones remained behind me in England. Every day, from the saddle, I mastered German with the gaggle of imperial clerks, repeating verbs and mimicking phrases. With the German chaplain, I recited scripture and discoursed upon the wondrous grace of our most Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary, swearing myself to Her service, beyond the mere commemoration of Her feast days. Thus, I prepared myself to be an avid pillar of the German church, and a true daughter of Germany.

  I blush to admit that my juvenile oaths to Our Blessed Lady were those of convenience, and that every one of my pledges to Her was made with a puerile heart. When I spoke of the Virgin’s Five Joys, I thought more of my own recent annunciation, the announcement of my impending eminence, and my own imminent assumption of imperial glory. When I piously listed Her miracles, and venerated Her name, I considered Her as merely the most distinguished of my vassals, whose powers were at my disposal, and whose reputation was to be at the service of my own ambition.

  As the end of the journey approached, I sat taller atop my prancing white horse, and began to feel myself almost divine. At Liège, to honor my arrival, Henry V commanded so much fanfare that my head spun. The bells and trumpets rang out all day long. During the celebration, dancers tossed colorful flowers at my feet. My intended held my hand in welcome, yet his fingers felt cold and his gaze indifferent. Speaking from a dais, sitting alongside me, the emperor proclaimed the rights and duties of his consort. In front of the numerous assembly of courtiers and imperial administrators, he accorded me varied German lands and properties. Finally, he presented me with an enormous engraved seal for my official documents. Inscribed along the circumference were the words “Matilda, by the grace of God, queen of the Romans.”

  Despite my position, Henry rapidly dismissed all the women I had transported to form an English household. For my personal maid and companion, the emperor chose his milk-sister, Gerta, a commoner closely tied to him by affection. She was not uncomely, but she frightened me with her prominent brow, heavy features, broad shoulders, and capacious bosom. It was clear that she had been appointed the overseer of all my private occupations and ministrations. I was to be watched over, as I had been at home.

  Adapting with alacrity to her new role, Gerta became my familiar, harassing and haranguing me. In order to be a credit the to Holy Roman Empire, I had to be ruled by her advice. The woman insisted that I always act as if guided by the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: four for the mind—rationality, understanding, wisdom, and good counsel; three for the heart—piety, courage, and fear of the Lord.

  We traveled to Mainz; a short while thereafter, my coronation took place on the Feast of Saint James, the first martyr of the Apostles. During the lengthy proceedings in the royal chapel, Gerta stood beside me, attending to my dress and behavior, ensuring that I did not mar Henry’s dignity. The imperial crown was enormous, and we both were at some pains to keep it on my brow. My legs shuddered in fatigue, under my copious robes, but I was not permitted to take my seat on the throne.

  After the sacred rites, in which I was anointed by God, I was allowed to brush my lips against the preserved hand of the blessed saint whose name day it was. This trembling kiss consecrated my change of rank more than any of the Te Deums tolling above my weary head. In the chaos and jubilation that followed, Gerta somehow purloined the relic, hiding it first in her sleeves, and then secreting it in a lovely blue enamel casket that safeguarded my jewels. The Apostle, cherished, stalwart, and glorious, would gird my spirit during the ensuing years of marriage, fortify my soul to serve the empire wisely, and soften my heart to love the emperor, as well.

  The Treasury of the Lion

  Scroll One: 1126

  Do I command your interest? When the time was ripe, destiny approached the lovely empress in the guise of joy and sadness. A certain nobleman earned her devotion, but there are no earthly attachments that cannot give occasion to some evil. Matilda was not to be dissuaded from her whim, although the man himself thought the better of it. From this strong and somewhat unrequited affection arose many tragedies.

  †

  Summer

  I am the Dowager Empress Matilda, twenty-four years old and a widow. I travel on a ship bound for England, my homeland. I enjoy the sensation of speed, and relish the early morning fog that surrounds me like a cloak. I always stand upwind from the crew’s stench and stretch my face into the gusts of fresh air that swell our sails and tangle my veil and braids. I inhale deeply of the brisk breeze, for it is the breath of our Heavenly Father. To keep my mind occupied, I chant the blessings of Christ: “Tranquility, amour, purity, discipline, strength, form, rule, custom, terminus, road, counsellor, foundation, heart, blaze, majesty, essence, lion of creation. Amen.”

  Each day I scan the sky for the sea birds that will herald the coastline, as vultures are the harbingers of a corpse. Death and upheaval are two faces of the same coin. Cancer defeated my husband at Utrecht, revoking my whole future. If I had had a son, I would have reigned in his stead, during his minority. Instead, the Duke of Saxony is elevated to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. Having turned over most of the imperial regalia, all but one seal, I am put forth on the ocean, to a new beginning. Although many forget my English origins, I do not aspire to wed any of the minor German princes who compete for my hand, as a means to remain in my adopted country. Neither do I wish to immure myself in any European convent, to spend the rest of my days outside the ebb and flow of all the world’s affairs.

  As empress, I was praised for my lineage, my appearance, and my virtue. My marriage was celebrated lavishly at Worms; the highborn attendants who carried my train included five archbishops and five dukes. There were minstrels, jesters, and dancers without number; the elaborate feasting and novel entertainments lasted days on end. Our gifts glittered with costly gems. I myself marveled at the enormous size and elaborate rituals of our assembly. Only Gerta worried that the unruly flock of barons, prelates, and townsfolk, amassed at Worms to eat and drink and make merry, consorted purely for their own benefit.

  Henry, a reserved but respectful husband, rarely asserted his conjugal rights. My one pregnancy resulted in a stillbor
n child. Without a successor, his throne would either fall to his enemies or be subject to election. Our courtiers prayed for an heir, but the emperor was preoccupied with raising taxes, contesting the pope’s appointments, and crushing the insubordination of mutinous vassals. Henry sired several illegitimate children, but his aloofness to me did not portend a grand affair; politics consumed his spirit.

  The German nobility grieved over my empty cradle, but blamed our sterility on the emperor’s disobedience to the pontiff. I prayed for Our Mother Mary’s intercession, and was never named the culprit, but was instead esteemed and favored. Many of the meddling sycophants attached to our household muttered against their supreme emperor’s impassive demeanor toward me, and several of his advisors, those with the least to lose or the most to gain from the birth of a prince, went so far as to encourage him to attend more closely to his nubile wife.

  Despite his impartiality, I ruled alongside Henry, and together we vigilantly solidified our vast empire. From time to time, as was the queen’s privilege, I interceded with the emperor, either to gain his pardon or patronage. Those whose petitions and grants I sponsored were generous to me thereafter, winning me many friends and allies.Their accolades were many; I came to be known as “Matilda the Good.” First hearing myself referred to in this way, I flushed with pride and some discomfiture, but I gradually became accustomed to thinking of myself as a great lady, gracious in her charity.

  We had no set capitol, but traveled continuously with our court, a cast of many hundreds. Those fortresses chosen to house and feed us along our route were given six weeks notice to ensure that we received a proper welcome and suitable nourishment, amid appropriately august surroundings. For two years, we journeyed on a magnificent military progress across the Alps and throughout Italy, at the head of a column of fifteen thousand knights, easily securing many lands and towns. We conquered as far south as Rome, where I was again anointed and crowned Holy Roman empress in the St. Gregory chapel of Saint Peter’s cathedral. Another Great Seal was commissioned, inscribed “Matilda, Holy Roman Empress.” My husband returned to Germany, to put down various treasonous rebellions, but I was left to preside over Italy, as regent. It was wonderful to be always surrounded by pomp and circumstance. I thoroughly enjoyed my duties, formally dispensing the law and meting out justice, and was judged more than able to reign in my own name.

  In 1120, a royal messenger brought tragic tidings from England. My brother, Prince William, had drowned in the Channel, in a disastrous shipwreck that destroyed his vessel, the White Ship. The accident decimated the young aristocracy of my homeland, for the craft had been overly laden with more than a hundred knights, all relatives of kings and earls, and eighteen noblewomen. Every one of them perished in the water, to be devoured by ocean beasts.

  Many jongleurs now sing of the drunken carousing that preceded the debacle. The boat had been packed with William’s wine, and his courtiers were celebrating the imminent crossing with much abandon. Likewise, the crew had imbibed from the prince’s barrels. Due to their incapacity, the ship foundered on a great rock, concealed by the high tide.

  I envisioned Prince William, perhaps as petulant a man as he was a boy, struggling to swim in the currents that did not recognize his importance, shouting for the fates to justify this perversion of history. A Rouen butcher, the sole survivor, swears to a horrible tale. My brother, safely aboard a lifeboat, and departing the scene, heard the cries of our half-sister Maud. He turned back, in an attempt to deliver his favorite. The wench dragged and pulled at his frail vessel, so that it sank them both beneath the waves. William sacrificed himself for the sister he always preferred, even above his wife, the heiress of Maine. Now, his widow entombs herself in the convent of Fontevraud, to forget that she might have been the English queen. Minstrels declaim the destruction of the White Ship to be a punishment for the unnatural relationship between Maud and William, which, in their inebriation, had blossomed incestuously. What the Lord does not sanction, He casts down.

  Cousin Stephen and his wife, known as the Count and Countess of Boulogne, also planned to be part of the doomed voyage, but somehow disembarked from the ship before its passage. I have listened to the accounts of many poets, but whose version best approximates what really transpired? One narrative has it that Stephen distrusted the crew’s state of insobriety. Another troubadour imagines my cousin so sick with wassail that he stumbled down the gangplank, not choosing to remain aboard the rocking boat. A third chronicle declares that priests, on hand to bless the proceedings, departed in disgust at the intoxicated behavior of the passengers. The knights aboard tossed drunken taunts at their receding figures; this sacrilege prompted my cousin’s party to follow in their footsteps.

  My father’s letters keep me better informed about the present affairs of his court. Long-widowed, His Majesty remarried in 1121, in the hope of siring another legitimate boy to replace William. Unfortunately, in the five years since, his second queen has not born any offspring. Lately, the king sleepwalks, troubled by nightmares. He dreams that his peasants desert their furrows and his barons their fortresses, part of some violent revolt; he alone takes the field to reclaim the peace. In truth, his power is well established, yet fears for the future security of his empire plague him.

  His Majesty never hints that he might endow his throne upon Robert of Gloucester, his most promising and loyal natural son, although he dreads that the crown could devolve upon William Clito, his hated nephew. Clito is the legitimate child of Robert, Duke of Normandy, Henry’s elder brother, who was away on the First Crusade at the time of their brother King William Rufus’s accidental death. My father ascended to sovereignty in the duke’s absence, and was acknowledged king. Defeated and blinded by his brother at the battle of Tinchebrai, the duke languishes in His Majesty’s prison. England and Normandy are one realm under God.

  Despite the demotion of this branch of the family, some of the English magnates favor Clito as my father’s heir. It is enough for them that he is the eldest son of the eldest son of the conqueror. They remember an old hag’s fortune telling, and circulating the witch’s prediction: no boy of Henry’s will rule England and Normandy, for heaven cannot forgive his usurpation of the throne and Duke Robert’s lifelong incarceration.

  Now that I return to my native land, His Majesty determines that I shall be queen of England and Normandy, instead of Clito. The English and Norman barons must accept my father’s daughter, if he is to have no son. This new destiny suits my aspiring spirit. Educated to reign, I am well used to wielding authority. I will serve my father’s family, as I did my husband’s. I will be a splendid queen, worthy of praise.

  Often, I am spellbound by the waves breaking tumultuously around the prow of the ship. Do their force and crash echo my inner strength? Will I be able to sail into my father’s kingdom, and claim my due? Behind the stern of our vessel, the sea has been flattened so that a white trail of foam stretches out behind us. Need I fear that I am not the boat, but the water, deflated, suppressed, made quiet again?

  †

  Below the deck, in my cabin, Gerta ably guards my precious chattel and my foremost treasure, Saint James’s hand. Although the new emperor confiscated much of my wealth, I will not relinquish so holy and royal an object while my own holiness and royalty are in abeyance. It no longer lies among my jewels, in my blue casket, but is nestled in its own silver filigree box, set with a luminous toadstone, dislodged from the banks of the Rhine. Somehow, the sailors are aware that the sacred relic is in my keeping, on their vessel, and they rejoice that we are thus immune from pirate attack, fatal storms, and navigational error.

  This morning, I gently lifted the withered hand from its case, wondering at its fragility and its ugliness. How marvelous that it is no more than a desiccated, shriveled, deposed piece of flesh, and yet, in my mind’s eye, it blossoms and expands, quivering with its own power. With infinite care, I washed it in watered wine, reserving the liquid in a goblet, and then restored it to its safe haven
. Gerta and I dipped our index fingers into the cup, and wiped some wine into our hair and faces, before drinking down the remainder with heady gulps. Side by side among the stacks of luggage, we bent our knees in prayer to the Apostle, and allowed the swaying of the waves to raise our souls out of the cramped chamber, toward the light of paradise. “Most blessed James, risen above sinful, suffering humankind, welcomed into the shining infinity of heaven, be our guide and our salvation.”

  For good measure, we also addressed ourselves to Mother Mary, Star of the Sea.

  †

  Gerta does not malinger, nor evade her service to me, but she sometimes seems a bit woebegone to be so far from her native land. She is most content when bustling through our belongings in search of her utensils and tools, her mind set on a new project aimed at my advantage. She berates her own ignorance of astrology, examining the stars in the wide sky above us, but unable to decipher the meaning of the patterns in the firmament. Instead, she counts the calls of the swooping gulls, prognosticating my future wealth and fertility. She studies the glistening entrails of netted fish presented to her by the rough deck hands, and smacks her hands together in satisfaction, interpreting therein my glorious ascendance to the throne.

  I do not share her complete confidence in what is to come. For who am I? What is my worth? I am the Holy Roman empress; there is none who sits higher, or comes between me and the throne of heaven. But I am my father’s unmarried daughter, to be disposed of according to his will. I can walk among the English court with my head held aloft, with none daring to meet my eyes, and yet I resume my place as an ivory pawn upon King Henry’s chess set. On the other side of Europe, I dispensed the law with an iron fist. And now I shall be forced to sheath my mail in silk and manipulation. My face is struck from the imperial coinage. I have lost my currency.