From John.
“Come,” Marcel said, after she finally began to gather herself. “Pissaladiere awaits.”
Halfway down the stairs, she realized that they had forgotten about the Magdalene illumination and made a note to ask about it later. It was odd to think that one of “her monks” would come to such fame at court. If she could even call those gentle souls that. She never thought of them as “her” monks. She was just in awe at everything that they gave up to join an abbey. She couldn’t. She loved sensuality too much. Fabrics, fragrances, food and...someday, she hoped...fucking. John was out of the question. For a brief moment, she realized that she was staring at Marcel’s shoulders, realizing that he had certainly filled out since his days as a gawky colt. But, then, she hadn’t been all that much a prize herself in those days, either. Now Katya...
Caught between wanting to ask about Katya and what Court thought about the Brionde Way, she decided to sit, instead, and just float. Marcel was ordering a pinot noir – spicy enough to enjoy with their coming treat, he said. She just sat and watched. The room’s hub-bub of conversation buzzed all around them. At the next table, a suave man gave her a lingering stare, murmuring something to one of his companions. She nervously looked away. Then to Marcel.
He was definitely a lot more self-assured. His clothing was sumptuous – of a fine assortment of fabrics, dyed in masculine shades of lavender, lilac and purple. The short cloak, fashionable these days in Paris, was casually thrown over one shoulder. His dark goatee neatly framed his chin, complimenting his curls worn short, just long enough to make one want to reach out and smooth them back. Which was the point, she assumed. He was handsome. Not in that rugged, split granite sort of way that John had. No, Marcel had grown into the very picture of the sophisticate. He was the groomed courtier. Equally conversant in affairs of state and the best wine to serve with the latest fashionable recipe arriving from Rome.
And with that thought of the old Pope’s city and its pizza that one always heard about, their pissaladiere arrived, the olives, onions with a hint of anchovies steaming hot on the bread, served on a flat stone. Much like a pizza, just without all the melted cheese that went straight to a girl’s hips, she thought happily. The sommelier with a cast silver pin of grapes on his livery was pouring out the pinot noir, commenting that its notes of pepper would compliment their choice of entree perfectly. Lela let Marcel talk, idle gossip about how many lovers the Queen took before casting them all aside at the end of each season. “Much like cleansing one’s palate,” he said with a smile. She ate, she sipped. She relaxed. Whomever was sitting at the near tables, Marcel was clearly a master of this environment. She began to let herself go, luxuriating in his company.
Until he brought up the King. Her stomach, feeling happily full of the flavors of childhood, suddenly lurched. It was a moment before she caught what he was saying. Just that he was looking at her with one eyebrow arched.
She swallowed. “What was that, Marcel?”
“Oh, I was just commenting that you must be happy in having such a steadfast English friend.”
She swallowed even harder, taking a sip of wine to cover it. How could he know about John? Does Court know everything about Chateau Brionde? Coletta. She glowered.
He was still smiling. One corner of his lips was quirking upward.
She wondered how to broach this whole subject.
He shrugged. “I was merely joking, of course.”
She chuckled, confused, then coughed, then began choking. He lightly patted her on the back, gesturing with a brusque nod to the sommelier to pour some more.
“Goodness! I didn’t think my suggestion was that shocking!” he was smiling again, shaking his head.
She managed a weak grin in return.
“Don’t worry. No one at Court thinks that Chateau Brionde is searching for an alliance with Edward.”
What?!
“Jean le Bon” he continued, referring to the King, “has no illusions on that score, no matter how closely situated Brionde is to merry olde England, being just across the water, so to speak.”
She took another sip, still trying to cover, trying to nod as if she had a clue what he was talking about.
“I flatter myself,” he was saying, “that I had something to do with that.”
She felt like she was sitting through one of the Walrus’ geopolitical diatribes. Then, realizing that she knew how to handle this – having been through so many of them – she nodded brightly, made a murmuring remark, and took another bite of the pissaladiere. My, it was excellent!
“Thank you!” he beamed. “Everyone, and I do mean everyone, has an enemy at court. But I was firm with His Majesty. I explained that I had known you from childhood, that your father was a loyal Provencal and that his daughter had that same allegiance to the Crown. No English king, no matter what his silly aspirations to sit on the throne, no matter who his mother is, no matter how much coin promised, could ever induce you to kneel.”
Oh! King Edward III. John had mentioned him. She really should pay more attention to this kind of thing, she knew. She just found it tedious. She had during the Walrus’ time. It was always ongoing, never seemed to stop.
Now, a good fucking, she thought, abruptly caught by the sight of his chest muscles flexing in a laugh at the English king. She sighed. She was getting tipsy, she realized.
“That your husband’s fair weather friendship was one thing, your steadfast loyalty something else entirely.”
The Walrus had conspired with Edward III!? This was interesting to know. She wondered if the sack had had anything to do with that, and made a note to ask John.
“Of course, one has to admire the English sense of timing,” he paused again, his eyebrow raised again in that meaningful arch.
She nodded brightly, taking a sip.
“I agree entirely. You’ve had the free run of Brionde for, what? Half a year or more? Just to see all that delicious freedom cut short by being married off to some old crony without the stones to satisfy a lady?”
She stopped nodding.
“Well, Jean le Bon is quite taken up with other concerns now that Edward’s army is back in the country. So, plenty of time for you to sit back, have some more wine and enjoy your freedom.”
She looked away for a moment and tried to sound intelligent. “Yes. Quite.”
He took one last bite, sighed happily, and sat back, taking a sip himself.
“Besides, Lela,” his voice was lowering, softer. “I’m working on an idea in that vein.”
Intrigued, she looked at him.
“Not here, though. Let’s walk off our repast, else I shall soon look like my father.”
Taking her arm, he led her down to the riverbank. On the other side of the Eure, the great grain fields of central Francia stretched out as far as the eye could see. Her eye automatically noted that the closer fields were just a few weeks away from harvest. The river at their feet lazily flowed on, a leaf catching her eye as it was carried by the current. She felt much like that leaf.
The Summons was delayed?!
Marcel was telling her this ridiculous story of his recent return to Avignon, how fat his father had grown, chair-bound, suffering from the gout. He had been on an errand for His Majesty, Marcel said, his voice barely above a whisper. Securing the excommunication of a treacherous noble – not that the King hoped to use it as anything more than a threat to get the noble back in line.
She stared at him in astonishment. He was watching a boat, full of livestock, float by. The chickens were squawking within their coop, the calves lowing, trying to get to their mother’s teats.
Finally, she found her voice. “Marcel, you...?”
He darted a glance at her, shrugging. “His Majesty uses those whom he will. Father gets his satisfaction lining the right clerics’ hands with gold, I run my errand. Everyone’s happy.”
She nodded.
“Oh, your father’s gotten a bit fat, too.”
She chuckled a
t that.
“And he adores his coat of arms. After seeing it displayed everywhere at the villa, I confess that I found it a bit gauche to see it looking up at me from the bottom of the soup bowl.” He was giving her that roguish grin that she was really starting to like. “But then, your sister Abelia was never my favorite. Even if she did manage to catch a baron. Just.”
Feeling a bit roguish herself, she ventured, “Who was your favorite?”
“Your Viking goddess. She’s back at the Harp, I suppose.”
Stung, Lela felt split between happiness that he had brought up Katya, thinking so well of her. And...jealousy?
She pursed her lips.
“Yes, yes, I know that she is too old for me,” he protested, lifting his hands in supplication. “Still, a boy can dream.”
He watched her. What mixture of emotions were flitting across her face, she could not know. She was... What was she? Well, at least he thought Katya too old for him. Wait, she protested, this whole conversation was ridiculous. And not a little sad, she thought, chiding herself for such selfishness.
“Don’t worry,” he was already moving on, steering her back toward the city center. “Her virtue is safe with me.”
And then she was telling him. He found a bench, sat her down, held her hands as the tears flowed. Of the night attack, the condottiere on horseback, Katya’s capture. How she had searched for word for years, finally giving up. Her hope that her friend was a valkyrie. All the time she spoke, fighting for the right words, struggling to keep her tears – again! – from spilling out, her first feelings of wretched silliness gave way, slowly, to a heartfelt remorse for her friend, to end with a gratitude for the soft, honey-colored eyes listening very carefully to her.
After she finished, he sat there for a spell, not moving. Just thinking. She only breathed, finding herself caught in a different spell.
Finally, he sighed, saying, “A valkyrie. That suits her. I can see that. On the other hand, if she yet shares our burdens of this world, I’ll put out the word, and see if we cannot find her.”
And then, in the midst of her thunderstruck astonishment, as casually as if he were remarking on the robin she heard perched on a neighboring house, his words came. “After all, the Count of Anjou has to be worth something.”
*****
And then his story came out. Bit by bit. A noble’s daughter. “Don’t ask me whose,” he flashed that roguish grin of his. The King furious at the girl’s indiscretion. Some carefully laid plan of national strategy all cast aside. Gloom over-taking Court. Marcel’s idea followed by his sleepless nights trying to work up the courage. Finally, his heart in his mouth, making his suggestion. The King’s commission of which, Marcel freely admitted, no one truly expected anything fruitful to be borne.
A long trip, funded by his father and bootless at first, to Prague, the seat of the Holy Roman Empire. Being snubbed by the gathered families at their Court. Months of futility. Until...he smiled again.
He caught the eye of a daughter of the Hohenstaufens. “Don’t ask me which.”
Mistaking her pursed lips for disbelief, he hastily qualified, “Not the Emperor’s family, of course, but still royal. Royal enough.”
It was truly another spike of jealousy, but Lela held her peace, wondering where all this jealousy was coming from.
The long discussions at their Court to which he slowly gained admittance. The year becoming a second one. Horse-trading. A girl’s indiscretion suddenly, improbably, miraculously becoming transformed into the possibility he had imagined back in Paris. The possibility of a Golden Bull that – his voice dropped very low at this point – issued by the Pope in Avignon could give the King more sway in the election of the next Emperor. So long as the Pope could be convinced.
His trip to Avignon....
At this point, Lela just sat back, slowly shaking her head in disbelief. No, awe. For, she did believe him. And all by fucking a Hohenstaufen, whoever that was. She hoped the bitch was ugly.
In sum, his travels had taken three years. Several trips back and forth between Paris, Prague and Avignon. The King’s slowly dissipating disbelief replaced by a gradually mounting incredulity. Followed, one day, almost without warning, a sudden hope. Then, His Majesty’s unruly impatience to have it done. Message after message. Meeting after meeting. Coin after coin. His father, finally, thankfully, repaid. And it was done.
Almost.
The Golden Bull was pulled at the last moment by the intercession of the Pope in Rome protesting its validity. Not even Marcel could handle that. Still, the King had hopes and was grateful. And just at that moment, the Count of Anjou decided to fuck the wrong tavern girl. He didn’t wake the next morning. The girl was hanged for murder. And his chateau was empty.
The King gave it and the title to Marcel upon promise of twenty mounted knights and thirty supplied archers to be available whenever the King demanded them. Which the chateau, Marcel had quickly learned, was barely capable of supplying. Yet, he was happy to pay.
“So, you’re a Count,” she asked him, barely. She was speechless else.
He shrugged. “Come, Lela. It’s only Anjou. Hardly worth a back parcel of Brionde.”
* 5 *
And then he urged her to come visit. It wouldn’t be nearly so beautiful as the more famous Brionde, but it had its own charms, he assured her.
As he was talking, Lela had, in her mind’s eye, the flames shooting out of the roof of the Keep on the night of the sack. The rebuilding of the walls, including the redesign for better vantage of the Guardsmen should such a tragedy ever occur again. Louis had designed it, on the fly, in the midst of battle, when he realized that the attackers were on the walls, but he couldn’t get to them because of large stones blocking his view. John had, grudgingly, agreed to the redesign. Though, when he had gone over the cost with her, it was pretty clear to her how proud he was of his beardless ward.
John.
It would be nice to have a break from him.
She let Marcel talk about Anjou, its fields of hay, corn, mint, potatoes. Its village outside the chateau walls. Its headman, who had been so gracious, even meeting him halfway at Rennes with an honor guard of the chateau to escort their new count home. The chateau itself with its tall conical towers with their long streamers on a beautiful day in the sun. Not particularly suited to repel an attack, maybe, but breathtakingly magical to look at. His coat of arms on those standards that he let his father design, having funded so much of the adventure that purchased it. The coat of arms sported the traditional Angevin lion of gold on a field of blue bordered by coral red, of course. But his standard of Anjou was quite different. The lion took a distinct second place to a large golden key because, father explained, his son had provided the key for the King to unlock a puzzle of the ages.
She thought about John the entire time Marcel’s sweet tones washed over her. John would approve of the honor guard being sent. But he would have sent it all the way to Paris, not halfway. He also wouldn’t approve of a chateau without a vigorous defense. Would probably stare at the beautifully pointed towers with that glint in his eye that revealed his conviction they should be torn down. Or at least their cones replaced with flat tops on which archers could mount a defense. And John wouldn’t have given a damn about the colors or symbols of the standard. Just so they were honorable enough that the Guard would lay down their lives, if necessary, defending it.
She could hear his gruff tones running in counterpoint all through Marcel’s commentary. All at once, she knew that she couldn’t take John to Anjou. What had happened at the river was bad enough. Her pettiness had needlessly caused the death of two of her faithful Guard. Had injured four more. John’s injury alone had been scary enough. And the fact that he had gotten it by leaping in front of the arrow that would have surely killed her on the spot?
Over swimming?!
“But perhaps you are concerned that my Guard wouldn’t be enough. You could certainly bring your men-at-arms. Your maid, too, if you
like.”
She realized that she was looking at the ground as she listened to Marcel’s voice.
The thought of not bringing the Guard had never occurred to her. She looked up at him.
His eyes were looking at her, earnest, yet patiently waiting for her answer, she could see. When had Marcel, the boy, grown into such a mature man? The boy had been so eager to take precedence. In everything. He had demanded it. The best cuts of meat. The first place in line. The best seats at the festival. The best of everything, all for him. Katya used to laugh at “the mayor’s boy.” She had thought him a silly, jumped-up twit. Not now. Certainly not now. Maybe it was the years being a hostage at Court, something Lela was still eager to hear about. But not today. The years being snubbed at the Emperor’s Court probably added to this new sense of patience. Of humility.
Something to ponder another time. He was waiting for an answer. She cleared her throat.
But he jumped in. “Perhaps I should explain. I’ve sent ahead to the chateau. I have more Guard coming. If you come visit, we shall be escorted by thirty, many of whom are archers. There is no way any forest bandit will get close to us.”
Because your guest will decidedly not demand to stay out after dark, she shook her head, wistfully.
“And those same thirty will escort you, along with any Guard you wish to summon, on your return to Brionde,” he was finishing. “Indeed, as for any maids you wish to bring, we have plenty of room. In truth I was hoping that if you chose to visit, you could leave yours behind so as to whip mine into shape.” His voice was lowering again, conspiratorially. “The old bat was pretty dotty near the end. The ladies-in-waiting are a bit of a mess, but I really don’t know what a woman wants or needs. And its only a matter of time before the King orders me to marry.”
Shocked, her eyes widened at this.
He grinned. “Come, Lela, you didn’t think Jean le Bon would let me be fancy-free forever.” He watched some servant beat a rug out of a second story window, the dust tumbling down. “She’ll probably be the unwanted third daughter of some noble he needs to keep at his side in this tremendous battle shaping up.” He chuckled, “Probably ugly as a toad, too.”
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