Matilda Empress Read online

  †

  To plague Clito, Henry and his advisors sponsor rebellions among the Flemish burghers. They funnel money and men into the principle towns, fermenting dissatisfaction and starting trouble of every sort. Further, His Majesty levies an embargo against English trade with Flanders. No more of our wool feeds their cloth mills. Adeliza’s father, the Duke of Lorraine, also forbids his populace to buy or sell with those who suffer Clito’s rule. Our economic stranglehold upon the good citizens of Flanders will surely turn them against a prince who cannot guarantee prosperity.

  The king commands my cousin’s presence in Rouen. He charges my lover to close his Boulogne ports to the Flemish. He decrees that the truce with Clito be broken, and presses Stephen to go back on his word as a knight.

  I have as much to demand of him as the crown does. I intend that he shall renege on his vows to Maud.

  †

  It was not a simple matter to catch the disgraced Count of Boulogne alone in Rouen castle. I had to spy upon all his movements from the small aperture in my solar. Today, seeing him enter the steward’s tower on the far side of the bailey, I hurriedly climbed up to the parapet. I circled over to a small terrace on the other side of the keep, hoping that Stephen would find it necessary to take in the view. Men-at-arms came and went along the crenellated precipice.

  At last my cousin emerged into the bitterly cold afternoon. “Ah, Empress, are you here?” He glanced nervously to the right and left, as if afraid to be alone with me, or to be observed meeting privately with me. He stepped over to the far wall of the landing and leaned over the edge.

  I complained to his back. “How can you be so careless with the woman who has given you all that she has to offer? Your apathy pains me. Do not suppress your affection! You do yourself and me a great disservice by denying what has come between us.”

  Stephen kept his face turned outward, over the moat. “What we shared, my lady, lasted only one night. Our euphoria is best forgotten. We each owe allegiance elsewhere.” His unruly amber hair stood out against the drab stonework.

  I inched toward him. I could not see his hands, as the sleeves of his tunic dripped low for warmth. I placed my glove on his heavy mantle, gathering up a thick fold of fine brown wool. “Can you not call me by some term of endearment?”

  The count swiveled his neck to meet my eyes. “That would be very unwise and unseemly. We had best deny that we ever were more to one another than intimate kin.” He twisted about, tossed back his sleeves and firmly undid my grasp on his clothing. Then he stalked away, only to pause, searching for some polite way to quit my presence without my permission.

  The truth would prolong our encounter. “You shall not foreswear me! My honor is at stake. I am pregnant.”

  My cousin blanched.

  I thrilled to see his face register an emotion of which I was the cause. But his frigidity stymied me; I could have been jubilant by his side. “I will proclaim my unchastity from the rooftops, if it will keep you close at hand. I shall be a creature of unbridled wantonness, if it will please you.”

  “Hush, Matilda! If anyone guesses that there has been some connection between us, we will both be the worse for it. Geoffrey will not accept another man’s leman as his wife.”

  My heat thumped. Could Stephen hear it? “Always call me by my name.”

  He blushed. “I shall retire, to think hard upon our dilemma. Perhaps you will miscarry, and this great difficulty will be resolved.” With this excuse, the Count of Boulogne darted down the stone stairwell.

  I listened to his footsteps fade away, then turned out, toward the frozen landscape, over the snowy city of Rouen. Considering the panorama of life spread before me, I marveled that anyone should question my fitness to rule. I will not permit this pregnancy to undermine my birthright. Why should I not be queen, with this son and heir to rule after me?

  †

  For several days thereafter, Stephen continued to slight me in the great hall of the castle. Then he and his retinue slunk away, back to Boulogne. At the last moment, Gerta cornered my cousin’s page in the kitchens, in order to formulate a plan for exchanging secret messages between master and mistress. I am to append the name “Dameta” to my letters. If Maud becomes leery, and inquires into her husband’s infidelity, she will presume his paramour to be an unknown Norman commoner. He will sign his replies as “Arthur.” Gerta disparages these hasty arrangements, improvised rather than deftly arranged.

  This evening, my maid and I washed and readied a corpse, that of a young squire accidently killed during a mock battle engagement among the Rouen garrison. The victim had been armed only with a thick staff, and when he clubbed at the legs of two mounted knights from the opposing team, they whirled about and trapped him between their horses’ flanks. The boy was unable to escape the flat blows of their two blunted swords. Although he wore suitable cloth padding, and his skin was unpunctured, he must have sustained fatal internal injuries. The men of the castle are somber tonight, to have unnecessarily lost one of their number. It shall fall to me, perhaps, to send the ill news to his noble parents, who entrusted his education to our royal household.

  It was almost the hour of compline, when the godly retire to reflect on the fragility of life and the hope of salvation, but Gerta’s mind was not on our task, or eternity. “To dub your scoundrel with the alias of our ancient king! His page rates him too highly!” She sprinkled an extract of chamomile along the adolescent’s torso, which had not yet begun to putrefy.

  I dribbled an ointment with the odor of thyme. “I am grateful that my beloved agrees to correspond.”

  “Do not ask that rake for advice, or rely on him to unravel this knot. We will adopt other tactics so that you lose the baby.”

  “Why should I disdain the child that mingles my royal blood with my cousin’s?”

  “The higher the rank of any person, the more perfect should be his or her obedience to heaven’s authority.” Gerta’s words were swallowed up in the ringing of bells.

  Several servants straggled into the room, bringing with them a newly sewn, linen winding sheet. The women were in low spirits, for the winter boredom had come upon them and the night was dark and frosty. They chattered dolefully. Some of them attempted, surreptitiously, to kiss the feet of the slain youth, thinking to come by some miracle cure, without having to leave an offering in a parish collection box. Gerta swatted them away from the corpse.

  The eldest housemaid terrified the others. “When the late Count of Flanders was murdered, his assassins feasted on the very altar of the church where they had killed him. The body still lay warm, yet they sat down to banquet!”

  Gerta silenced the old fool. “Ultimately, the sinners were cast from a tall tower onto the ground, so that their bodies shattered to pieces.” She glared at the lazy ignoramuses. Huffing at their inutility, she placed the shroud under and over the dead body, before dispatching them on further errands.

  Alone once more, we waited for the monks who would recite the mourning dirge.

  Gerta could not resist another gibe. “Reflect, Empress; your exalted stature will not preclude you from the end we all face.”

  †

  My maid convinced me to douche with lead, in the latest of her stratagems to evacuate my womb. There is a privy chamber located in the castle’s inner wall, whose excrement collects in a cesspit in the ward, but there is another toilet in the outer defense works, whose waste drops into the moat. If I could expel a fetus there, it would be camouflaged by the muck and debris that clog the water.

  This morning, before dawn, Gerta escorted me to this farther garderobe. We glided through the frigid dark. The fortress was silent, except for the occasional whinny and lower from the stables and barns. The extreme cold kept all the inhabitants of the keep to their beds; even the guards on the ramparts had fled their posts for the interior.

  My maid had compounded a reeking abortifacient. She held out a flask. “Splash this medicine between your legs; try to ladle it into your woma
nly cavity. I shall watch the door, to ensure that you are unmolested.”

  I rolled my eyes. “The smell from this shit hole is noxious.”

  Yet I did as I was told. After several minutes, it was apparent that the vile concoction had had no effect. I felt no stirring or cramping of any kind. Relieved, I stepped out onto the crenellated corridor.

  Gerta palpitated my abdomen, visibly enlarged, and scowled.

  †

  Spring

  All winter long, my maid infested my food with coriander, but eventually she lost confidence that I would be able to rid myself of the child. We successfully hid my protuberant belly under the furlined mantles necessary to the weather. As the chill of the season lessened, we cast about for some escape from our conundrum.

  Ultimately, I petitioned my father for permission to visit the convent of Jumièges, ostensibly to retreat from the court and prepare myself for my new wedded life in Anjou. His Majesty agreed that solitude and the shelter of the church would be right and fitting for the bride-to-be.

  In truth, I shall abide there for the spring and summer, giving birth with the connivance of a Rouen midwife. Left at the nunnery, the baby will be raised by the holy sisters. Through fasting and prayer, and well considering the possibility of a large donation, the abbess of Jumièges came to the conclusion that it would be expedient to shield the infant and foster it.

  Dameta sent off a letter, bursting with passion and contrivance, relating the plot to secrete Arthur’s heir among the brides of Christ. She begged him for some mark of his solicitude.

  You never promised me your future, but I plead with you for some sign that the undeniable attraction between us will not be forgotten. I do not believe that you deceived me when you embraced me. Aid me, dearest heart, in my plans for this babe, who will pull down the barriers that keep us apart. Come to me at the convent, or send to him such items as will signify his heritage. Entrust to us your sword, or a ring or a manuscript with your seal. My lover you have been; my knight you must be.

  The response devastates my spirit.

  I grieve that both my honor and yours are lost. I dare not reveal the truth to any layman, but my attendants comment upon my solemn demeanor. Even my wife hears tell of my melancholia. Her messages to me are full of remedies. I confide only in my confessor, who advises me how to proceed, so as to ensure the salvation of my soul and my political prospects.

  I forbid you to publicize our iniquity. I will not abet such a disgrace by sending any token of mine. Once our error has been erased by the passage of time, we will meet without any recourse to our previous intimacy.

  Your time in the nunnery will be well spent. I imagine that you will profit from your removal from the temptations of the world.

  Is it too much to hope that this rebuff was entirely penned by Stephen’s chaplain, or composed by the Count of Boulogne in a fit of compunction toward Maud? I do not admire the rhetoric, the language, or the style of his epistle. And it is missing some of its requisite parts. Where does he essay to secure my goodwill?

  Gerta consoles me, calling my cousin a poor writer and a weak creature, easily swayed by the influence of the moment: sometimes lust, sometimes faith, sometimes a king, sometimes a bishop, sometimes an empress, sometime a wife. Virgil claimed that women are the most fickle of His creation, but a man with a pen in his hand is never to be trusted.

  †

  Jumièges is situated on the Seine and constantly refreshed by the breezes that come off the river. The convent is a large village of stone structures, including a chapel, hall, infirmary, dormitory, and kitchen. There are farms and barns, a mill and a vineyard. The hushed tranquility that I expected is nowhere to be found, for the complex resounds with the clanging of bells, the braying of animals and the comings and goings of the sick and the poor. The holy women sing and chant as they work and pray.

  For the most part, the nuns, born to aristocratic families, comport themselves respectably. Their abbess is a practical woman whose piety is none too evident. She runs her establishment with a firm, orderly hand.

  Now that I am growing fat and lazy, I spend my days much as I like: sewing, writing, and napping. Frequently, I receive word of the outside world. Adeliza finds nothing odd about my stay here. She assumes that seclusion will increase my humility and my serenity, judging me in need of both if I am to be a proper wife to Geoffrey of Anjou.

  The English queen reports that Maud has born a son, christening him Eustace, a name traditional among the counts of Boulogne. I am thankful that my own confinement approaches nigh. I do not quake before the coming torments, which will deliver unto me my beloved’s child.

  Gerta is quite taken with one mystical sister, Helewise, and often strolls with her around the cloister. Beaten and abandoned by her father and brothers when she refused to marry a neighboring landowner, Helewise preferred to preserve her chastity for Christ. My maid finds inspiration in this tale of forsaken carnality, but I see nothing to emulate. Helewise is prone to inane babble, imagined illness, and ecstatic rapture. I judge her no better than a drunken dairymaid at harvest fair, overeager for enjoyment. Deprived of the outside world’s ease and pleasures, she is rapacious for sensual gratification of any sort.

  Have I have consorted with my cousin, indulged in hedonism, merely to compensate for my own thwarted ambition?

  †

  Summer

  My labors began at matins, in the long hours of the night. Gerta sent quickly for the midwife. I called for the abbess to witness my travails, so that she can later testify to the baby’s identity. Uninvited, Helewise appeared, crowding my chamber with her disordered gown and disheveled hair.

  Wincing with discomfort, I tried to be rid of her. “Such a scene as this is no place for a virgin.”

  “You are right, Lady. The wickedness of childbirth is greater than all the other evils of the world. Out of your womb will come red ants and black spiders, and a torment of poisonous stings.” The mystic began to prod erratically at her own rib cage.

  From the passage outside, a chorus of nuns began to chant soothing and melodious music.

  In contrast, Helewise’s foolish, sinister words exacerbated my malaise. “Empress, surrender your body to holiness: to Christ, our king, and the Virgin, our queen!” She stretched her arms toward the ceiling.

  I thought to sigh, but a moan came out of my throat. “The king is my father; I am your queen. Be gone with you.”

  “What you are, you are, but by the grace of God.” Helewise exited the room, her eyes darting erratically around her face.

  The midwife guffawed. “Such ranting does no good at such a time. You will have anguish enough.”

  A sharp pain cut through me, so that I cried out.

  The abbess began to fidget, and inched toward the door.

  I motioned her toward a trunk in the far corner. “Mother, remain through my troubles. Your time and attention will be well recompensed; your convent will soon have a new refectory.”

  Stiffly, she complied.

  I yielded to the ministrations of the midwife, an old woman, well versed in the indecencies of this crisis. After rubbing her hands with grease, she stretched opened the mouth of my pelvis. I whimpered, but did not resist, remembering what was to come.

  Gerta compelled me to drink from a flask stashed among the folds of her jacket. I swallowed some combination of breast milk, olive oil, and foul physic that did not assuage my misery. Gagging upon its bitterness, I sneezed, startling everyone. Immediately the midwife pinched my nostrils closed, so that my strength did not escape me.

  As the night wore on, my difficulties increased, until my screams were so constant that they drowned out the hymns of the holy women.

  †

  As Stephen’s son lay swaddled in a cradle before the hearth, I dictated to the abbess a manuscript attesting to his parentage. At the bottom of the document, Gerta dripped a pool of red wax, and I impressed it with my imperial seal. My maid and the nun witnessed the parchment with their
signatures; the midwife affixed her mark.

  I rolled up the parchment with crimson ribbons, then presented it formally to the abbess. “Preserve this scroll; vow to me that this will be done. And send for a priest. He must baptize the boy, this very day.” I would wash my heir clean of all sin.

  The nun knelt before me, to swear, then kissed me in fealty. She hurried from my room, with its dank smells and gutted candles.

  Presenting a purse of gold, Gerta dismissed the midwife, and dispatched her to procure the wet nurse. “She had better be big-boned and bonny, with a rosy complexion. Give her vinegar syrup to drink, and hurry her back here.”

  Alone, we dabbed honey on the infant’s lips, to whet its appetite. Unmoved, my prince seemed to prefer sleep to sustenance.

  I considered his mute form. “Shall I call him Arthur, after his sire, and in reference to his future greatness?”

  Gerta looked askance. “Do not attract attention to him! His safety, and yours, depend upon disguise. Choose something more nondescript, appropriate for a convent foundling.”

  In Germany, despite all my exertions, I could only present my husband with a dead fetus. Had I forgotten to thank Holy Mary for her gift to me? “I am grateful for our deliverance tonight from death. I humble myself before heaven, and defer my aspirations. In return for the blessings of life and a robust child, I conceal his birthright under the guise of a noble but undistinguished name.”

  “Warin, Ingram, Gervase, Hubert—it does not matter, my lady.”

  “Gervase, then. I see in him that which has germinated from my passion. I feel for him all that I feel for his father, the flower of masculine perfection.”

  “The infant is yours, Empress, so he will rank high in beauty and talent. I say nothing of the Count of Boulogne. The measure of a man has never owed more to the delusions of love.”