Matilda Empress Read online

  Gerta wound a wide yellow belt over the gown, showcasing my willowy waist. “Your count is very young, Empress.”

  I picked up the dripping wrists of the bliaut, tying them into knots to make them more manageable. “He examines the applicable code, and would have us live together unpolluted, in a ‘white marriage.’ His philosophy will withstand your meddling!”

  Standing back to admire my ensemble, my maid dismissed my instruction. “Do not be taken in by his reserve. He preens over his new prerogatives as a knight and an earl. He is aflame with his adulterous romance. He will outgrow this woman, this Denise.”

  I shook my head. “I only begrudge him his love, for I have had to sacrifice mine.”

  †

  Slighted, I resent the preference Geoffrey consistently shows to his mistress. The girl is an enticing creature, with knee length red curls, pink cheeks, and a high bosom. Her mouth forms a small, suggestive posy. She often has a love bite on her neck or a bruise on her arm, trophies of the night that she does not bother to conceal. Consumed by her, the Angevin’s natural iciness melts away. I no longer puzzle over the chemise cajoule, surely my rival’s scheme to frustrate her paramour’s conjugal embraces. Geoffrey’s pious obligation to me is no match for his sacrilegious devotion to his leman.

  Sitting beside his harlot, my husband is the model of chivalry. He composes poetry in her honor, which he recites at length from the dais. Even I am expected to compliment the slut on the sentimental verses that her pulchritude has inspired. Most of them are exceedingly well-crafted, although Geoffrey sorely overuses the rhyme “pearl” and “earl.”

  Denise is the daughter of a petty nobleman, one of the Count of Anjou’s lesser vassals. They met some years ago, when her father brought her to Fulk’s court, so that he might offer her virginity in exchange for tax relief. Geoffrey took one look and burned to deflower her. Accepting the wench in payment, Fulk then sold her to his son, at a price equal to the fees and tolls owed. My husband may have violated the damsel, and exercised his droit de seigneur, but she insinuated herself into his heart. What a Greek tragedy! It is no wonder that an aging, secondhand widow, foisted upon him by political circumstance, cannot compete with this fixation.

  †

  Fall

  For many months, I have resided under his roof, yet it was only last night that the Count of Anjou again availed himself of his connubial rights. Quite late, he burst into my inconvenient chamber. I stood, wrapped in a blanket before a small fire, miffed at Gerta’s absence, which he must have ensured.

  For some reason, the Angevin seemed less distressed by my dishabille than he had been on our wedding night. Indeed, he would tutor me, emphasizing the greatness of Clito and my nothingness. “My spies in England inform me of an enormous groundswell of grief at the untimely loss of the only legitimate male heir to the throne. With Clito gone, who deserves allegiance? Even your father mourns his worthy nephew, and casts about for a successor.” Geoffrey sat his spare, well-shaped frame down on one of my trunks.

  A chill had worked its way up from my feet to my shoulders. “His Majesty laments the death of the true prince, my brother William, your own sister’s husband.”

  “That girl, long immured in a nunnery, is much better off serving Holy Mother Mary than sullying herself in the vice-ridden world. You overlook another of my sisters, who espoused Clito himself.” The Angevin had made no move to disrobe.

  I braved the drafts, drifting so close to him that I could feel his breath on my face. “Henry annulled that marriage.”

  The count did not flinch. “As easily as he assassinated his brother, King William Rufus.”

  I pulled my blanket more securely around my back. “His Majesty was killed accidentally, during a hunt, by an arrow gone awry.”

  “The shaft hit its target, guided by an ill star.” My lord stood up, brushed past me and kicked off his pointed leather shoes. In clipped movements, he flung off a jeweled brooch and peeled off his bliaut. Did he ever require the service of his pages?

  The rippling muscles of his narrow back jarred me. I tossed my hair off my neck, in order to clear my head. “Someday, I shall wear the English crown, by divine right.”

  Geoffrey stood naked in the low light. I looked into his eyes, avoiding the sight of his body. “Our union was solemnized so that you would defend my accession.”

  The Angevin stepped over to my bed and patted it. “On your behalf, I shall rule for you, and as regent for the boy who will be born to us.”

  Dismayed, I did not move. “Your role is to protect my inheritance. I shall reign, and my sons after me. There is no question of a regency. You must adhere to my interests and be content with your own county.”

  Geoffrey slapped the mattress. “Some man shall come to dominate the empire. Why should I not seize it for myself, as William the Conqueror, your own grandfather, did, as King Henry, your own father, did? They were not born to be kings of the realm.”

  I hooted at his vanity. “My vassals pledged an oath of fealty to me! Your body does not run with the blood of majesty. Anjou is an alien land; you would not be to any knight’s taste. Do not think me ignorant of your military history. Your family raised its sword many times against my Norman nobility.” In my agitation, my covering slipped, exposing me.

  The count snarled. “Someday, I will press Normandy under my thumb.”

  “You will have to wrest it from me, you rapacious villain!”

  Geoffrey shrugged, insouciant. “Verily, the continent shall sate my appetite. I leave England to you; leave Normandy to me.” Here he paused. “Come, wife. I am ready enough to furnish you with a son, even though my captivating mistress lies abed very near.”

  I complied, but with bad grace. “Your mania for that woman is something to behold.”

  In the dim chamber, his expression warped. “You belong to me, despite all your manifold sins, your pride, envy, and anger.” He smacked my leg and shoved me down.

  This I could not permit to go unremarked. “Does it irk you when I inventory your transgressions against me, against my father, and against the holy church?”

  With more vigor, the brute slapped me again, on my shoulder. “Carping bitch! Prating whore! You disturb my peace. I doubt that you would be to any knight’s taste, but somehow I have the burdensome job of mortifying your flesh.” Using his forearms to pin me beneath him, he drove himself inside me.

  I readied myself to withstand a trial by ordeal. I separated my thoughts from my body, letting them drift away, to Stephen. He is under Maud’s thrall. I doubt he subjects her to such loutish company.

  †

  The English queen writes me, to report that Brian FitzCount, long one of the king’s favorites, grows more prominent at court. Having completed an audit of the crown treasury, he is named a royal constable, and will preside over legal disputes in Henry’s name. Now Brian is to wed the heiress of Wallingford, greatly enlarging his wealth and standing.

  Her Majesty surprises me with her cynicism, her doubts that FitzCount is enamored of his bride. His behavior toward her is impeccable, but impassive, and she judges that FitzCount unites himself to the Lady Basilia merely because she casts some sweet glances his way, and he is too noble to decline her advances. In private, he confesses to my friend how proud he is of his vassalage to me, of the oath that he swore in my defense.

  Once, reminiscing in this way, he broke off in the middle of speaking, and grew mute, completely forgetting the courtesy owed to Adeliza. When he remembered what was due to her, he blushed. “Please excuse my waywardness. My vows of service to a fair princess should not prohibit my attentions to a charming queen.”

  †

  For all his veneration of the holy church, my husband resolves that it has no business intruding in his domestic arrangements. His zeal for Denise convinces him that adultery and marriage are morally equivalent. His ardor for his leman renders his affair with her just as venerable as his affiliation to his wife.

  Today, my lord inte
rrupted me, as I worked on a tapestry to enliven my solar. Colorful skeins of thread lay in heaps on the furniture and floor of my homely surroundings.

  Geoffrey wore only the cloth doublet that underpins his suit of armor. He must have shrugged off his squires before they had finished attending to him. Over my shoulder, he examined my weaving. “Woman, I find myself incapable of continuing in bigamy.”

  Incredulous, I glanced up at his luminous eyes. “So Denise is to be sent packing?”

  “You are befuddled! It is you who are to be discarded. Only the consent of a willing heart constitutes a genuine tie. Our connection is fraudulent.” The Angevin paced away from me and picked up the lid of one of my coffers, as if to commence my preparations for decamping from his keep.

  I arose and crossed the room to exhume my silver silk wedding gown. I held out the shimmering cloth. “It suited you to ally yourself to one of high birth. The Church sanctifies our bond. You cannot deny these things.”

  Dismissing my remarks, and dispensing with my evidence, the count waved his hand. “If both persons are noble, gradations of status are irrelevant. Religious institutions are unfit to legislate over the private organization of a family.”

  I still clenched the sumptuous bliaut. “You speak heresy.”

  “I do not mingle the carnal and the holy. I defend the purity of faith.”

  My husband’s piety seemed none too stringent. “Your hussy persuades you to forswear our licit liaison, so that you can abide in heinous lechery? She must tamper with your wine, and infiltrate her menstrual blood into your goblet. Does she knead the dough of your bread with her derrière? I do not resort to such devilry. With me, you can fashion a spotless life.”

  Unconstrained, Geoffrey kicked at the corner of my trunk. “No knight can be sworn to two women. Irresistibly, my soul warms to her; she transports my spirit. The inauthentic chains that bind us must be unfastened.”

  “Very well. I do not choose to be held fixed by a contract that you do not respect, in your turn. You whore in bad faith, but expect me to cleave to you, and be content with the scraps of your affection. I shall choose another husband, more suited to my dignity and virtue.”

  †

  Ejected from Angers castle, I am delivered to Normandy with a small retinue more appropriate to an ascetic pilgrimage. As our military escort is so woefully inadequate, Gerta and I pray that we meet no thieves on our way. Humiliated and fearful, I am consoled to be heading for the sanctuary of Jumièges. After my extraordinary largesse, I expect a hospitable reception from the abbess. I smile, in remembrance of my winsome baby. Of course, Gervase will be no longer the infant that I relinquished, but a toddler with no recollection of his mother.

  The Angevin writes to King Henry, demanding an annulment on the grounds that there has been no heir. Like my father, Geoffrey is adept at diplomatic evasion. To His Majesty, I compose my own letter, unsparing of my husband’s reputation, explicitly divulging his unjustified behavior, his flaunted ladylove and his beatings. But the response is clear; my father blames me for the failure of the match. The king needs a successor, and he worries that my separation delays its conception. It is His Majesty’s opinion that if I had been more ladylike and accommodating, Geoffrey would have embraced me and ousted Denise.

  †

  Life at the convent rolls on, with very little quietude, but many blank hours. Our retreat is bombarded with tenant peasants, come to tithe their portion of the harvest. Yesterday, I tripped over a sack of squash, which had not yet been stored in the cool cellars. It is but small compensation, yet I do relish the local cheese, and the abundance of fresh sage, delivered daily to the gatehouse.

  I take pride in Gervase’s antics and crooked smiles. I beam at his responsiveness to my fond kisses. As he drums his tiny fists upon my leg, I imagine him felling an enemy in hand-to-hand combat. He is the gift of my beloved; dandling him on my lap, I imagine what could be.

  Gerta also dotes upon the little one, but she is usually absorbed with the absurdities of Helewise. What can she see in that erratic fool, who regularly refuses the sisterhood’s plentiful and tasty nourishment, until she has starved herself into a euphoric trance? Blood streams from her nostrils, and she smears her cheeks with it, in a bewildering folly of madness.

  While I resided in Angers, an elaborately dressed nobleman materialized at the convent, eager to see Gervase. In lieu of his name, he proffered a purse of gold. The abbess cannot identify him, beyond noting his ginger hair. For two hours, the anonymous visitor lingered in her cloister, bouncing the babe on his knee, distracting the sisters from their daily occupations. After their glimpse of him, the nuns least content with their worldly sacrifices have been most unmanageable. The “red-haired prince,” they call him! Acknowledging that this mysterious man is the boy’s sire, I urged her to foster and condone such intrusions.

  I am eager to obliterate my interlude in Anjou, and the ludicrous notion that Geoffrey buttresses my political ambitions. I shall soon return to England, to safeguard my prospects. I ruminate much upon the future. If my marriage unravels so easily, why should notmy father’s authority disentangle the Count of Boulogne’s?

  My heart still stands Stephen’s. Closing my eyes, I picture his perfections. No other knight stirs my innermost self. I am his; he must be mine. Gervase is the proof that heaven intends for us to commit ourselves to one another. As we have one son, so we shall have another, born in the purple.

  Mother Mary shall guide me. I finally apprehend that She is not my vassal; rather, I am Her apprentice. Love for Her must be my uppermost passion. For Her sake, no man should trouble my peace.

  Indeed, I am Her first acolyte, for who is higher among Her servants? When I am queen, I shall remain Her apostle, and herald Her great glory throughout the empire. In return, She shall protect my throne and my love. I submit myself to Her teachings and Her solace, and receive from Her my honors and my happiness.

  The Treasury of the Lion

  Scroll Five: 1131

  Never docile, the empress undertook to reverse the course of her wavering fortune. The fair lady did not acknowledge the resplendent power of heaven. Yet even the highest cannot thwart its designs. The princess who knelt before the holy altar would not be excused her presumption. Matilda’s romance was nothing to the glorious force of the Lord. Ignorant before the onslaught of fate, she thought to find pleasure to equal her pain, but she was much mistaken.

  †

  Summer

  I spent almost two years, months empty of all adventure, sequestered at the convent of Jumièges. Retired from the world, my emotions cooled and congealed. I smothered my hot temper, my jealous spite, my unrequited passion, and my political obsession, masking my imperfect temperament with an apathetic expression adopted for the benefit of the good sisters. The wheedling abbess managed to extract all sorts of gifts from me; I underwrote the purchase of a chalice and a banner for the chapel, and even of curtains for her personal solar.

  I grew intimate with my son, but the Count of Boulogne remained distant, unable or unwilling to visit us. From Arthur, Dameta received one conciliatory letter, full of praise for Gervase’s russet curls and wide-eyed curiosity. My response, filled with news of the boy’s small achievements, went unanswered.

  Geoffrey sent word, as he set off on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Compostela and its cathedral, built in honor of St. James. I admit to a tinge of regret. Reconciled, we might have voyaged south together. The relic of St. James’s hand had suffused me with piety and confidence just when I first set out alone to reestablish myself, after the death of the emperor. I would have been happy to accompany the Angevin, if only to pay my respects to the “Jewel of the Apostles.” I wonder if Denise rode beside her lover to Northern Spain, or whether my husband’s journey was one of introspection, meant to lead to the repudiation of his sins.

  But it is no matter at present, for I have returned, one month ago, to the English court. I have done with stasis. I am all aboil, bubbling and se
ething with ire, envy, arousal, and ambition. Exchanging surreptitious, lingering looks with Stephen, I discover that he is more necessary to me than ever, and that I am no longer repugnant to him. It pleases me to woo him with my glances, but the seeming resumption of his infatuation confuses me. Does he smile at the mother of his child, or the strumpet he fancies?

  Most of my subjects reproach me for my ruined alliance. None of the noble courtiers pity a woman rejected by her spouse. Their wives are especially insolent. I suspect that Maud’s venom fuels the whispers against me. The countess, that bloodhound, immediately sniffed out my interest in her husband, and its reciprocation.

  My brother Robert lectures me about this “little strife” in my marriage, as he calls it, and the necessity of my reinstatement into the good graces of a man so important to the secure future of our empire. Such discussions fatigue me, but I see that there is no avoiding the issue. Somehow my ambiguous tie to the Angevin must be clarified.

  And now, amidst the stifling heat, the northern sky over Windsor Castle looms a lurid orange, as if a great bonfire lays waste to the land. Court astrologers argue and speculate, but the mystery of this ominous portent cannot be deciphered. It must foretell some “orange” calamity, perhaps conflagration or drought. Concurrently, a disease among the livestock escalates to dangerous proportions. None of the farmers have any oxen to pull their ploughs; our abundant fields lie unharvested. Corpses of pigs and chickens litter the countryside. The peasants foresee a winter starvation, deprived of their stores of meat, milk, and eggs. On the brink of some frenzy, the people fear that the end is near.

  †

  By the grace of heaven, I still have allies here. Paying his respects to my father, King David of Scotland resides at Windsor. Bemused to see me, my uncle acknowledges that I cannot submit myself to a clod. Adeliza endeavors to reprimand me, but she is overjoyed to have the company of an equal during these long, hot days.

  Today, in the fields, the queen and I reclined under a white tent. Gerta stood on the lookout for the approach of nosy idlers. Before us, King Henry’s younger knights wrestled, to retain and improve their fighting skills. They wore only light padding, given the weather, and no mail. Whenever a bout ended, squires on the outskirts of the makeshift arena roared their approval. There were minutes of protracted calm, but only until the shouts of encouragement and disparagement resumed.