“Send her away,” Joan said, her voice throbbing with anger. “I won’t be made a fool of.”
“My God!” He finally let go. A vein bulged purple against his temple. “Be quiet before you make a fool of yourself!”
“Send her away, or I’ll go!”
Tears still poured down Ermengarde’s ashen face. She turned slowly to Raymond, her mouth open in mute appeal.
“I’ll talk to her,” he said, so gently, so kindly, it broke Joan’s heart.
“Not for my sake,” Ermengarde rasped, the voice of a woman who’d been sobbing a long while. She walked toward the door with a slow dignity, as if she’d aged. When she reached Joan, she said, “You needn’t have me banished. I’m going to St. Gilles.”
Joan watched her go, feeling small in her triumph. Why bother fighting for Raymond? He wasn’t much of a prize. She faced him again, head tilted back to look down her nose, but something was wrong. He was staring at her with something akin to revulsion.
“What in God’s name is wrong with you?” he demanded.
“Wrong with me? Me? You’re a pig! She was my friend!”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word.” He hurled this at her, fists clenched as if he’d rather strike her. “Aimery was a friend. My friend.”
Her stomach heaved with fear. “Was?” Pray God she had misheard.
He turned his head from her, blinking. She whispered desperately, “Was?”
“He’s dead. Fallen from his horse.”
“Oh!” She couldn’t breathe. What had she done? “Oh, Raymond. I—”
“God damn it.”
“Raymond, I—”
“Be still.” Clutching his hands to his head, he muttered again, “I’m taking Ermengarde and her daughters to St. Gilles for the funeral. I’ll be there as long as it takes.”
AT WHAT AGE SHOULD A WOMAN’S COURSES CEASE? CERTAINLY, she was too young, but perhaps it happened earlier for barren women. After all, her body had never functioned properly. Her flows had always been erratic, sometimes earlier than expected but more often a week or two late, especially when she was ill or not eating. And when William died, and she’d thought—
But she had not bled since two weeks before her wedding, and she’d been married ten weeks. Ten weeks, and she’d already managed to earn her husband’s contempt.
Raymond had set out for St. Gilles the very day of their argument. While she understood his obligation to take Aimery’s body home as quickly as possible, still, it made her feel as if he could not bear to remain in Toulouse. The responsibility of being overlord of St. Gilles weighed heavily upon him, and she knew how concerned he must be about Ermengarde. She grieved for the ache in his own heart. Yet how busily he avoided her in the hours before his departure! When she tried to speak to him before he joined his guard, he only shook his head and put a hand on her arm. His face as haggard as an old man’s, he said, “We’ll talk when I return.”
And Ermengarde was worse. With her weeping daughters bundled beside her, surrounded by ladies offering condolences, most of whom were crying also, it was impossible to find a moment alone with her.
Joan could say nothing but “Ermengarde, I am sorry.”
And Ermengarde, drawn and so pale she appeared bloodless, looked away and said without emotion, “I know.”
Joan did not feel forgiven.
Raymond returned a week after Christmas, and she greeted him at the castle gate. With everyone watching, he was kind enough to kiss her. But he had other things to do. She went to their chamber and waited. She expected to wait a long time, but within an hour, he came to her.
“How is Ermengarde faring?” Joan asked, determined to air their difficulties.
“She bears it. I’m more worried about her mother.”
“Oh.” What else could she say? “What…what of Aimery’s wife?”
“She died two years ago,” he said, a little impatiently. “In childbed. Ermengarde didn’t tell you?”
Joan shook her head, embarrassed that she’d never asked Ermengarde about her own family. “Who will be castellan?”
“Aimery had a son. A good boy, poor thing. He’s seven years old.” Raymond sighed. “Aimery’s father is still healthy, for now. If he dies before the boy reaches maturity, Ermengarde will hold the castle as his guardian. In a year or so, I’ll try to arrange a marriage for her. She shouldn’t be alone.”
It sounded strange to hear him talk of finding a suitor for her. But that was a count’s duty, after all.
“Do you…do you think she’ll ever forgive me?”
“Of course she will if you ask. She has a very generous heart.” He sounded sad, but no longer angry. He shook his head. “But, my God, Joan, it was so hurtful of you.”
“I can’t bear to think of it. I know I hurt her—”
“You hurt me.”
“I’m sorry.” Her eyes prickled hotly with tears. “But you did love her once.”
“Everyone loves Ermengarde.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, Jeanne, I don’t.” He rubbed his cheeks hard, a sign of his exhaustion.
“When you kissed her,” she insisted. He had to understand before he forgave her. “In the garden. Before she married Anfusus.”
His eyes widened, and he dropped his hands to his sides. “She told you?”
“Yes.”
“Why would she tell you such a thing?”
“Not…oh, Raymond, not recently. She told me years ago. In Sicily.”
“Oh, for all the…” He exhaled loudly. “Well, there’s payment for my conceit.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was a child. She wasn’t in love with me; she only thought she was. I was her brother’s dashing friend, heir to the county.” He waved a hand in the air. “She had some notion in her head and chased me into the garden to tell me about it. What was I supposed to do? Laugh at her?”
“But you kissed her!”
“In three days her father was sending her off to England. I thought it unlikely I’d ever see her again. I believed she’d learn to love her husband. She’d grow up and forget about me. But in the meantime, there she was, with her heart in her hands and her eyes big as moons. Of course I kissed her.”
Joan sat heavily on the bench by her dressing table. “I’m a witch.”
“Is that a confession?”
“Oh, don’t tease me, Raymond. You don’t know. I have so few friends. My God, I have no friends.” She was as isolated here as she’d been in Palermo. Except there, it had been Marguerite’s suspicions that kept her secluded and lonely; here, it was her own. Joan decided to send a messenger to Ermengarde at once. She would go to St. Gilles as soon as Raymond allowed it.
He crept up beside her. “You have me.” His voice turned gentle, warm.
“How could you have married me?”
“I’m sorry, Jeanne. You’ve used up your self-pity ration.”
“I’m serious, Raymond, and you must be also. Aimery was young and hale, and look! If he hadn’t a son, Ermengarde could marry someone, and you could make him castellan. But—”
“But what if I fall off my horse?”
She nodded, unable to look at him. The very thought of him dying made her feel lost.
“My brother Bauduoin is my heir.”
“Everyone in Toulouse hates him.”
Raymond’s jaw set. “Be that as it may—”
“And you know how the younger lords love Bertrand.”
“Bertrand?” His brows knit. “Darling, you don’t understand him at all. He won’t—”
“And you have my brother and Philip waiting to swoop in and carve up everything between them.” She had to tread lightly. She should have realized he wouldn’t hear a word against his son.
“For the love of God, Jeanne. Is this what you lie awake at night and think about?”
“Someone has to. I saw what happened to Sicily. When William died, there were riots in the streets. Tancred and the e
mperor are still warring.” Her throat tightened. “Do you know how it makes me feel, to think this will happen to Toulouse?”
“Let me sit down.” He lifted her high enough to slide under her, then rested his chin on her shoulder. “I’m not a fool, Jeanne. At least not an utter one.” He laced his fingers through hers. “Did you never wonder why, when William died, Sicily had to look to his uncle’s natural son for a usurper?”
What was he talking about? “Because there was no heir!”
“But why was there no little William from the wrong side of the sheets? By all reports, the man was no saint.”
“What are you saying?” she scoffed. “William was barren?”
“Not barren exactly, but…well, he died young. How long was he ill?”
“Only the last year.” But, no—it had been longer. She remembered the first time she’d witnessed his nosebleed; she’d been but a child. How long had he suffered and kept it from her?
“Well, whatever the cause. God didn’t bless you and William with children. That doesn’t mean he won’t bless us.”
“Oh, don’t. Don’t build dreams on false hopes.” She had to tell him. It wouldn’t be right to hide it even if she could. Blushing hot with shame, she whispered, “There’s something wrong with me. I…I don’t even have my courses anymore.”
He stared. “Since when?”
“Before we were married.”
“How long? A few months? A year?”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks before we were married?”
She nodded, waiting for his repugnance, his pity. What if he didn’t want her anymore? Men prefer young wives.
But he was grinning like an idiot. “They’ll come again. In seven or eight months.” Then he started laughing. “‘Oh, the food tastes funny. Oh, everything stinks of smoke. Let me sleep, I’m so tired.’” His laughter turned to hoots.
He thought she was with child? “You mustn’t think it, Raymond. Don’t.” She had known too many false hopes.
“Tomorrow I’ll have the midwife come. But I’m right, Jeanne.” He chattered as rapidly as Ermengarde. “I’ve seen it before—and don’t give me that scowl. You’ll be glad one of us knows what he’s doing. I can’t believe you—” He stopped and puffed out his chest. “You know what they’ll say about me, don’t you? I can get a babe on a barren woman.”
“Shush.” She blushed all over again as she recounted his arguments and thought, prayed, maybe he was right. She was as stupid as a cow. But if he was right, she was willing to be stupid.
“Jeanne.” He poked a finger into the flesh of her waist. “I’ll bet it happened that very first time!”
WHETHER RICHARD BROKE THE LATEST TRUCE OR PHILIP, IT didn’t matter; the two continued to ravage each other’s lands. Richard had invaded Flanders, where he was enjoying success more typical than the misfortunes he’d suffered the past summer. Joan listened when Raymond repeated news he’d heard, but it sounded far away and unimportant. Her home was Toulouse, and Toulouse was not at war.
The weather was dry in the new year, drier than usual; but even though Raymond commented on it often, Joan didn’t give it much thought. She couldn’t think of much but the midwife’s cautious optimism and Raymond’s certainty. Her fatigue and illness dissipated, to be replaced by a mix of restless energy and contentment. At the end of February, with a pouch of a belly beginning to appear, she felt the baby quicken. She interrupted Raymond in conference with the bishop to insist he come to their chamber. Of course, when he put his hand on her middle there was nothing, but she maintained she had felt movement. He said, “I’m sure you did. I told you she was in there.”
“She!” Joan crossed herself. “It won’t be a girl.”
“Jeanne,” his voice sank to a low caress, “we’ll love the child no matter. If this one’s not Toulouse’s heir, we can always make more.”
The whole month of March passed without rain. Joan knew that would be a worry for the farmers, but she was surprised by Raymond’s concern. His meetings with the town councilmen lasted longer and longer. After going over reports with his chancellor, he seemed disturbed. Yet by suppertime, he always found a smile for her.
One evening, as he brushed out her hair, a task he insisted on performing each night, he sighed and said, “Thank God you’re in bud, Jeanne.”
“What do you mean?” she asked coyly, expecting to hear how much he loved her—how glad and thankful he was that she would be the mother of his son.
“We’re going to see a drought this summer. Already the shepherds are complaining they can’t find good pastures. It will mean thin fleeces and stringy mutton. If the grain yields are poor, farmers can’t pay their rents, lords can’t pay their taxes, tithes fall, the churches complain, and everyone blames each other. Old rivalries will flare, and some hothead young lord will attack his neighbor.”
“Huh.” He paid more attention to the weather than to her. She wanted him to share her joy, not haunt the palace, glum-faced. “Surely it’s too soon to predict all of that.”
He set down the hairbrush. “Perhaps. I’m praying there won’t be famine, but it will be a lean year. Fortunately, sometime in the middle of summer when everyone is moaning, we’ll have an excuse for celebration.”
“For heaven’s sake, Raymond. Is that all this baby means to you? Distracting farmers from their misery and providing the court with a summer celebration? This is our son, not some convenience for Toulouse’s—”
“My love, whether son or daughter, our child’s birth, life, and death are all dedicated in service to Toulouse…well…to God and Toulouse,” he amended.
He sounded self-righteous, so she scoffed, “Is that how you lived your life?”
“I served my father. Oftentimes against my will, but I obeyed my lord.” His answer was stiff, almost cold, but abruptly, he sighed. “I spent a lot of years imagining how I would do things better. Now it is my turn, and I miss his guidance.”
“You can’t mean it! He was a liar and—”
“Jeanne.” He put his finger on her lips. “He was my father.”
She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “I assumed you hated him.”
“Hated him? My father?”
How could he sound so aghast? Why shouldn’t he hate him? The man was hateful.
Raymond walked away from her, to the wall, where he pressed a hand against one of the tapestries. “I disagreed with him on many things. I hated the way he treated my mother. The way he treated Bertrand’s mother. I suppose there were times I didn’t like him. But he was my father. I loved him very much.”
Joan swallowed painfully. “I loved my father also.”
So had Richard. So had Henry and Geoffrey. Family bonds were strange, confounding things. She remembered her father talking about their family, his love for his children. But it wasn’t her father’s voice she was hearing now. It was her mother’s, reminding her not of love but of duty. She’d have to be a mother to this babe in her womb. She felt a twinge, like regret.
“Jeanne?” When she glanced up, she saw he had turned and was regarding her intently. “I loved my father and admired his strengths, but love did not blind me to his faults. I hope to be a better man.”
“You are,” she said. Of course he was. But then she understood he was not seeking reassurance. His gaze did not falter. Was he waiting for her to say something more? She tried to smile. “You are not your father.”
He nodded as if satisfied. He wasn’t smiling when he said, “And you are not your mother. Thank God.”
IN THE SMALL HOURS OF A STIFLING MID-JULY MORNING, JOAN woke with a shuddering pain in her womb. She rolled against her husband for comfort, but it was so unpleasantly hot, he rolled away without waking. She couldn’t be angry; he wasn’t supposed to be there at all.
She’d been lying in for three weeks, confined to her room—to her bed, if anyone asked. At least she was permitted visitors during the day. To her joy, her most frequent companion was Ermengarde. In t
he spring, Raymond had taken Joan to St. Gilles. She had prepared a few versions of an apology. None quite explained how she could have imagined Ermengarde capable of such deceit, but all begged for forgiveness. Her old friend would not even listen, but instead insisted on pretending the shameful event had never even occurred. Now Ermengarde spent hours telling Joan everything she needed to know…and more…about childbirth.
At night, Raymond pretended to sleep in the antechamber, relegating Charisse to a storage room across the hall, but each night he slipped into bed beside her.
Joan had almost drifted back to sleep when another pain gripped her. This time, weeping with fear, she woke Raymond. “Get the midwife. Hurry.”
“When your women come, they’ll make me leave. Wait a little longer.”
For the next few hours, he rubbed her back, sang troubadours’ songs, sponged her skin, combed her hair. He even helped her from bed to the narrow window where they watched dawn break over the city.
“It won’t be so bad. You’re strong. Like your mother.”
When her water broke and the pains came faster, he sent Charisse for the midwife. She arrived with four other women and banished Raymond, who swore he’d go no farther than the anteroom. Joan called out to him twice. In response, the door opened, but the women barred entrance. The second time the midwife slapped her hand and told her to stop.
“Do you want the count to see you like this?”
So she hung on his words. She was strong. Concentrating on the midwife’s instructions, on Charisse’s hand gripping hers, she pushed the baby into life.
“A boy,” the midwife said, as proud and smug as if she’d made the child herself.
Joan reached for her son.
“Just a moment,” Charisse said, lifting him. “We’ll dry him.”
“Raymond. Tell Raymond.”
The door was already opening. He came straight to her side and fell to his knees.
“Jeanne,” he murmured, laying his cheek against the back of her hand limp on the bed. His face was gray, his eyes sunken. His bravado had been for her sake. She loved him so terribly she thought her heart would split open.
“Our son,” she said, her voice raspy from hours of groaning. “Did you hear?”
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