Matilda Empress

by Lise Arin

  “The king still names her his darling mistress.” Dressed, Chester strode toward my seat. “I thank you for your attentions, and would kiss you to mark my fealty.”

  I lifted my arm up in the air, willing to accept his ritual show of partiality.

  The earl pressed his wet mouth into the back of my hand.

  I arose to depart.

  He blocked my path with his large figure. “Let us seal our mutual alliance, so that I can be sure of your loyalty to me.” Chester lowered his lips onto mine and took a short, clammy kiss.

  †

  Spring

  In joy, the very earth throws off winter’s persecution. The birds twitter; the worms disinter themselves from the soil. At Devizes, we exchange the stuffy air of the keep for fresh gusts of rain and wind. I am ready to plot and plan, to be done with inertia.

  My thoughts revolve to my son Gervase, lately appointed abbot of the monastery at Westminster. Although only eighteen, he is most prudent, scholarly, and religious, quite fit for the post. It has been several years since I have had any contact with the abbess of Jumièges; the Count of Boulogne saw to all of the arrangements. Some must suspect the young man is the pretender’s illegitimate offspring, but no one bothers to name his mother.

  I grieve to find that I can barely recall the child that I held in my arms. I should not have been content to grow a stranger to the first fruit of my grand passion.

  Just yesterday, from London, I received a description from the usurper himself.

  There is no real resemblance between us; the colorful locks of his infancy have deepened to an indiscriminate shade of brown. His dark eyes remind me of a lover I once had, and would have still, if it were not for her refusal. But my gaze is not in his face. His piety and sobriety are as foreign to me as his looks. Perhaps he is a changeling, not mine at all? Did the devil steal my son from the convent sisters? In fear and trembling, did they substitute this prig in his place?

  Gervase, steady and upright, seemed deeply suspicious of my interest. I passed off my visit as a courtesy call upon the head of his religious house. I asked him about his background, as if I were alien to it. He spoke of a mother who was lovely and kind, with black hair and noble manners. I believe that he is ignorant of his real condition and eager to remain so. He seems to sense that some stain attended his birth.

  Ah, my comely pet, so many years ago it was that I was Adam in the garden and you were my Eve. Though the Lord forbade us to eat the apple, in contempt we plucked and tasted it for ourselves. In our cupidity, we denied that there was any authority greater than our own. Together, equally to blame, we found bliss in rapacious sin.

  Rolled up within the letter was a sprig of white flowers, shriveled and wilted. Crushing the petals between my fingers, I inhaled a memory, savoring its flavor. With a sharp, searing pain in my chest, I let the vision evaporate around me, so that I stood once more outside the tower of love.

  †

  Summer

  Almost fifteen, the lawful heir comes back among us. Staking his claim, the Plantagenet marches at the head of a small army of friends, youthful Norman knights, and a larger group of hardy English mercenaries, recently hired on credit at Wareham. I hear it recited, by naive or conniving troubadours, that his saddlebags are stuffed with gold and gems, the better to reward his regiments. Yet the boy writes to me, asking for money with which to facilitate his offensive. Impressed with his bravado, Duke Geoffrey allows Henry to undertake this escapade across the Channel, but sends him off empty-handed. Such meaningless permission is yet enough for the prince’s green ambition.

  I do not know what makes my blood churn more, my husband’s ambivalence, and his sly transferal of the child’s safety to my oversight, or the shameful impulsiveness that my son exhibits, without thought for the risks of his enterprise. The Plantagenet dreams of rescuing me, of winning the crown, of plundering booty, but he lacks judgment and foresight. I cling to my only security, the belief, deep within me, that no man on this island will dare lay a violent hand on the legitimate claimant to his grandfather’s empire.

  The minstrels call him a beacon, marshaling us to safety, as we float, rudderless, in an obscure sea. Indeed. Those about me begin to raise their heads, suddenly awash in a rosier light.

  †

  This evening, at compline, when the sun had finally begun to set on the long, hot day, I slunk out to a remote corner of the kitchen garden. A large terrier, usually employed to hunt down rats in the storerooms, trotted eagerly at my heels. He could smell the slab of meat hidden within my basket, next to a spool of twine and a sharp knife. I found the aromatic plant for which I had come, the pungent mandrake, and knotted one end of rope around its bushy leaves. The other I tied to the collar of the dog. I tossed his viands, some feet away, and the hound leapt to his dinner, exhuming my prize. The poor animal did not seem to mind that I had diverted the vengeance of the mandrake onto his narrow canine shoulders. Crushed, the root dresses the worst war wounds; we may soon rely on its curative powers.

  Although Chester and I make ready for the upheaval to come, and husband our stores, my insipid courtiers while away the hours in scuttlebutt and calumny. They are all agog over the Plantagenet’s misadventures in Wiltshire. Despite his bloodline, Henry fails to conquer even one village. At Cricklade, Stephen’s garrison put his force to flight; three miles south, at the royal fortress of Purton, the prince and his men were routed from the field and retreated, desperate and terrified. His small, inexperienced band, lacking suitable armor and weapons and not particularly loyal to our cause, cannot triumph.

  The boy has no coin to pay the incompetent army with which he surrounds himself. There are no battle spoils to requite its service. The child must be in a fine bind. I hear that his adherents idle about the countryside, drinking and fucking, waiting for the restitution that must come from some quarter. Some of the more cowardly Norman striplings run off home. A few of the British mercenaries, a rough lot, threaten my heir. He pacifies them with empty assurances.

  Denise’s son, Hamelin, is among Henry’s entourage. I fear his influence. Landless and penniless, Hamelin schemes to make his fortune. His brother’s safety will not be foremost among his concerns.

  †

  This afternoon, Ranulf lowered the gangplank over our moat, admitting my brother into Devizes. Gloucester had arrived to discuss the Plantagenet’s frantic entreaties for funds, delivered to every one of our circle who might be inclined to underwrite his mishaps. Gore-stained couriers hand over these solicitations, describing his efforts on our behalf, and the ignominy of being unable to support men employed to fight in his name.

  In the great hall of the palace, Robert discounted his nephew’s plea. “Unfortunately, the boy is not ready to be our figurehead. His mistakes jeopardize our plans, so many years in the making. We should not allow his blunders to alter what has gone before.”

  Chester shrugged. “If you withhold your aid, he does not have the capacity to succeed where you have failed.”

  A mother’s heart beat in me still. “While the prince remains in England, he is every moment in danger of being killed or captured.”

  My brother waved his elegant hand. He did not meet my eyes. “Given the impoverished state of our coffers, our remaining money is best spent buttressing Devizes or sponsoring defensive garrisons at our other strongholds.”

  Ranulf clutched Gloucester’s forearm. “Your castles are all held in trust for the Plantagenet; he is here now to take what is his. Yet you will not help him? For what else do you sit and wait, but for him?”

  The tone of Robert’s rebuff was quiet, measured. “We should not enable the child to prosecute his intention too soon.”

  Chester scoffed, but said no more.

  I did not like to hear my commanders at odds. “I am anguished for him, the infant whom I swaddled up to shield, and rocked in a crib to soothe. Someday soon, I intend to bequeath the Plantagenet with my father’s throne. For now, I would end his distress if I were a
ble. But our gold would dwindle to nothing in his hands.”

  †

  Unsuccessful in his attempts to pick my pocket, my son has the audacity to submit an appeal to the Count of Boulogne, who forward his letter to me. Has young Henry discovered our secret?

  Sire, you must remember me and pity me, for I am overcome with calamitous distress. You, who are placed so high on your throne of gold—could you, would you, rescue me from my weighty financial difficulties? It pains me as a knight and a prince to earn the opprobrium of a wastrel and a beggar. From the majesty of your heart, and in consideration of the nearness of our relation, might you aid me?

  I think of you warmly, in so far as it relates to my own honor, and would hope that you recollect the mistakes of your own early life, and put yourself in my place.

  Holding the parchment, my hands shook. For some moments, I was speechless, but with what emotion? Dismay, envy, fury?

  Stephen boasts of the boy’s diplomacy and of the boldness of his petition.

  The lad hints at the mystery without betraying it. I admire his dash and his discretion, and would have him think me chivalrous in my turn. Although the young man is my rival, and would usurp my sovereignty, and beseeches me to pay off men who have fought to overthrow me, I would not have the country think that such a headstrong stripling challenges my divine authority. Without coin, he and his insolent bunch will continue to aggravate my barons, but my contribution enables him to hasten back to his father’s duchy. Such noblesse oblige does not lessen me, but he who stoops to receive alms.

  The knave! The pretender will not name his true heir, nor apportion to the true prince all that is his by right, but allots him only an infinitesimal piece of it, calling it charity!

  Father and son, the two halves of my heart: shall they do evil unto one another, or good? Which one of them shall come to atone? They are two of a kind, both full of conceit, taking and taking, trading between them what is mine. Someday, the Plantagenet will perceive how cheaply men rate their vows to one another, and how expensive is the gift of heaven’s grace.

  †

  Fall

  Flush with his handout from the royal treasury, Henry compensates his mercenaries and tears home, to Normandy. My son finds nothing in this escapade to humble him, treating it as a grand adventure that begins to make his name as a man of action. Descending upon the convent of Bec-Hellouin, where Marie finishes her education, he basks in a hero’s greeting. The smitten girl measures him a gallant soldier, devoted and puissant enough to defy her parents, and his own.

  Marie heaps praise upon him, her Messiah Prince. The Plantagenet encloses her paeans in his dispatches to me.

  All shall pay you homage, strewing posies of myrrh and frankincense at your feet. Already, a great king could not avert his face, to deny you. The very Lord anoints you.

  I am asked to trust that the two do not lie together.

  There is no longer any tomfoolery between us, no lewdness, now that she has had her flowers. In the past, I have wrongly courted my sister, beguiling her with sweet speeches and gifting her with affectionate tokens. But in this I take your Christian advice, and resolve to be chaste in her presence.

  †

  How I abhor the inveterate, intemperate, insinuating jongleurs! I cannot escape their outrageous verses. The newest arrivals to our court narrate a splendid dubbing ceremony, orchestrated by the Count of Boulogne to emboss Eustace’s status. The pretender girded his nineteen-year-old son with the belt of knighthood, at the same time generously endowing him with territories, manors, and a numerous entourage of warriors, lifting his dignity to the rank of count. Finally, Stephen presented his own sword to that runt of a boy, lacking even the beard of a man.

  My household avidly debates Eustace’s merits, and the significance of his enhanced position. I imagine it cost the usurper a small fortune to bribe the minstrels, whose songs deem Eustace worthy of his elevation. They elaborate upon his “soul of steel,” his “heart, so buttressed with courage that it cannot flail,” wildly overstating the accomplishments and courtesy of Maud’s uncivilized brat.

  My cousin must be anxious about Eustace’s hunger for fame and power, if he attempts to sate it. It is said that he pressures the archbishop of Canterbury to crown the false prince as the next king, while the pretender yet lives. This is a French idea, to be sure, alien to our notion of the accession. If only my father, the Lion of England, had organized my coronation before his own death! No upstart would have been able to steal the throne from the declared heir.

  Praise be to Mother Mary, who stays the archbishop’s hand in this matter. His Grace refuses to act hastily, and wishes to think long upon it before performing an indelible unction.

  †

  Today, an itinerant peddler accosted Gerta in a neighboring village, waved a stained, folded parchment, declaring it a missive for the empress, and offered to sell it to her for one piece of silver. My maid, suspicious of forgery and extortion, haggled him down to a copper.

  We are nonplussed to find that the dirty paper delivers tidings from Avera.

  Most Gracious Highness, I have had a vision, a revelation, that concerns you and yours. I have seen three horses stampede across a field, waving with green stalks of golden corn. The first steed is black; its rider carries a set of scales. In his wake gallops the second, bright red. Its rider brandishes an enormous sword. The third stallion is white. Its rider holds a bow, and wears the laurel of victory.

  The ambiguous omen of the three crowns is here repeated, and obscure to us no more. The three kings are all English. My father, evenhanded and just, rides the black animal. My cousin, redheaded and war mongering, sits atop the second mount. My son, the white prince, sure to hit his mark, will make all right before him.

  †

  I am crippled with despair and stagger under the weight of my pain. Robert, Earl of Gloucester, worthy son of King Henry I, dies suddenly of some foul rot, without being shriven, without asking the Lord’s forgiveness. How much this must be mourned!

  Such a deficit to our cause cannot be tabulated, even by the troubadours who compose hymns to the earl’s days. Their words only weakly memorialize he who was my first, my most preeminent, illustrious vassal. On this occasion, they cannot overemphasize the significance of Robert’s guidance, or the value of his deeds done in fealty to me. My brother had a general’s military talent and the mercy, circumspection, and learning of a sovereign. His manners and beneficence were such as even his foes should emulate. Knights on both sides of the Channel revere him, as a great example of pure nobility. Their squires yearn to hear and to repeat the tales of Gloucester’s exploits and the refinements of his courtliness.

  Surely, he was blessed. God preserves him now among the angels, in service to Christ. Heaven opens its gates to the Earl of Gloucester; it must be so. He desired wrongly, but understandably, in thrall to the beauties of the Creation. It was the Lord himself who fashioned the female body, from the rib of Adam, so that the pair, man and woman, mirrored the divine harmony. In my wisdom, I held my brother back from the abyss. Uncorrupted, he bloomed still, despite the weeds of temptation that wound around his stalk.

  †

  In her terrible grief, Amabel interred her husband immediately, so that I might have no excuse to descend upon her castle. The countess sends me an intemperate, scathing scrawl, dispensing with the need for my presence at Bristol.

  You are a pagan trollop who plotted against him. For you, bitch, he attempted, again and again, to exhume disorder and unrest. He was a fanatic in your ignoble cause. Enchanted by your unholy alliance, he would take no sage counsel against your perverse demands.

  May you be consumed, as a log within the blaze of a chimney. May you evaporate, as water in a trough. May you shrivel up, into dust, for me to trod underfoot.

  Oh, my brother, you have deserted my side and defected from my cause, but I would welcome you back, to solace you! My stomach aches and my breast tightens, as if I were some disappointed lover.
How shall I fight on, without you to safeguard my offensive? How shall I reign, without you to ornament my court?

  I shall inflict your memory upon the realm!

  †

  Here in Britain, my most talented commander sleeps in a cold crypt. Across the Channel, my beloved son abides without my supervision. Everywhere, I am alike apart from the one whom I both love and despise. Does it matter where I lodge my disappointment and my emptiness? The waterfowl begin their migration south, crying out some alarum. Perhaps I too shall be refreshed under a new sky, in Normandy.

  The Mirror of the Plantagenet

  Scroll Nineteen: 1148

  Unable to stand fast and dry against the tempest of her own conjuring, the malevolent princess returned across the water to her husband’s custody, where she found herself once more supplanted in his affection. Reflect: this was Matilda’s destiny, always to be second. Her son drew ever closer to his wide fortune, while she sinned in obscurity, upsetting common decency, caballing with a witch. She assumed that the Virgin would consent to restore her to shimmering integrity. But the Holy Mother could measure the meager glimmer of the empress’s faith, still pale beside heaven’s vivid light.

  †

  Winter

  Despite all of our efforts to prepare Devizes to resist an onslaught of violence, I spare it the ravages of a siege, gifting it away. The Church accedes immediately to all of the surrounding manors at Canning. At the palace itself, I retain the right to lodge the loyal garrison chosen and trained by Chester, but only until such time as Prince Henry shall have returned safely to England and been anointed. The pope will possess Devizes entire at the pleasure of King Henry II.

  I could no longer ignore the pontiff’s threats. For seven long, frigid evenings, I prayed and slept, prostrate, on the stone floor of my chapel. When each sorrowful night evaporated into an icy dawn, I arose, stiff and sore, teeth chattering, to the blessings of the morning. But, in the quiet, solitary dark, I hearkened to my heart, and seven times heard the clarion call: “Who are you to molest the house of the Lord?”