by Tracey Warr
My child is due and I am waiting here to gain one child to replace the four I am losing. The baby is late and I wander around Roccamolten, trying to hatch my egg, having flashes of early childhood memories here, running laughing through long grass higher than my head in sunshine with bees and insects humming around me.
After the birth of my new son I am maudlin.
‘Please, Almodis, speak to me!’ says my mother. ‘Nobody knows what to do with you.’
No, nobody knows. My own mother does not know for I am a stranger in the house of my family for a second time. They know nothing of me in truth. Only Raingarde is my real family. I have wept continuously for three days. I began when my mother placed my baby in my arms and I cannot stop. I am like a rusty spigot that has been turned on and cannot be turned off.
‘Now Almodis,’ says Dia, doing her best to cheer me up, ‘you’ll wash away that baby. He’ll have to learn to swim early!’
I laugh but also continue to cry. I have named him Hugh much to their consternation.
‘You know that you cannot name him Hugh, Almodis,’ says my brother. ‘He is your husband Pons’ son and Hugh is not a name in his family.’
I don’t respond and only continue to weep gently and play with my baby’s fingers.
‘Pons will take it as an affront, my dear sister,’ Audebert goes on, exasperated. ‘You know it!’ When his irritation has no effect they try other means.
‘You can’t call him Hugh, Mother,’ my eldest son tells me, touching his brother’s tiny foot, measuring its smallness with his man-boy hands. ‘We’ll have three Hughs in the family then: me, father, and my brother, all called Hugh. We’ll get confused won’t we, when you yell Hugh you rascal! Out of the door.’
I am laughing with him but I also continue to cry. I ignore their admonitions and in the night I have Dia fetch Father Jerome to give my son a benediction and name him Hugh.
‘Well,’ says Audebert, the next morning when he hears of it. ‘We will have to think of a nickname then.’
‘You could call him Hugh the Bishop,’ says Raymond, ‘since he is the third son,’ aiming to make it clear to me and his brother that he has no intention himself of going into the church.
I am losing my son, Hugh, and I lost his father, Hugh, I think in a burst of self-pity, so what does it matter if I name this baby Hugh.
‘What is a wife’s duty Mother?’ asks Lucia some days later when we are all seated in my mother’s chamber.
‘A wife’s duty is to run a household and get sons.’ My mother continues short-tempered.
‘How does a wife get sons?’ persists Lucia.
‘She lies on her back with her legs open,’ snaps my mother.
Lucia starts to cry and I look at my mother, shocked. Did she suffer as I do? I had never thought of this before since she and my father seemed happy. I soothe Lucia. ‘There now,’ I say, but I can’t lie to her and mitigate my mother’s harsh words. Instead, I say, ‘The scholar who divided humankind into three states: those who pray; those who fight; and those who work; he forgot the fourth state: those who breed.’ My mother nods at my words.
I have a letter from Jourdain at Lusignan Priory already. He writes that he has a great friend in one of the other boys and the masters are kind to them. His father is visiting him every Saturday to see how he does and he writes me the story of his week. His writing is full of blotches and strange spellings yet he tells me he intends to work in the scriptorium, drawing angels, flowers, and ugly demons (he adds with relish), around the letters of the manuscripts.
At noon today Geoffrey arrives, with ten of his men and is greeted warmly by Audebert and Ponce and by all of us. He has been engaged in a constant to and fro of war between Anjou, Normandy and the Capetian king for many years. He looks me over brazenly as usual, so that I am glad that I wore the finest dress and jewels that I could find. ‘Just birthed of a fifth son I hear, Lady Almodis,’ are the first words from his mouth. ‘You look very well Countess.’ He bows low to me.
Hugh, Guillaume and Raymond troop in, wearing their best clothes, to meet their new foster father. Faced with his forbidding presence, they lose a little of their bounce and mischief, yet I am confident that he will be hard but kind to them. I remember his childhood kindnesses to me. There is some heart underneath his armour I believe, I hope. I introduce them and he asks them about themselves: what training they have already had, what weapons they know how to handle. Raymond trots out a long list that surprises even me. He is really too young yet, at six, to go to train, but he is precocious and eager and it is best to keep them, all three together, in Geoffrey’s household, looking out for each other.
‘Well,’ says Geoffrey, when they have finished accounting for themselves, ‘it seems my army is much reinforced!’
He does not plan to stay for long but to take them tomorrow morning and I will depart then too, back to Toulouse. The thought of returning to Pons makes my heart sink, but I console myself with my new baby and the thought of Melisende and Bernadette.
It is very late. Dia and the children have been abed for a long time and the castle is still and silent. I am sitting up feeding my baby and am surprised to hear the door creak and see Geoffrey enter.
‘I want you to come away with me, Almodis,’ he says, without prelude.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. I want you to be my wife.’ I control my shaking and carefully lay my child back in his cradle so that I might stand and face Geoffrey. I pull my thin nightshift across my breast. He is the kind of man who takes what he wants if it is not freely given and we are alone.
‘I am wed. I am the faithful wife of the Count of Toulouse.’
‘The miserable wife, Almodis. I’ve met your ancient husband and I know you.’
‘You know nothing.’
‘Let me try another tack. I am in need of an heir and a wife. I have long desired you. You know it. I would give you everything you could wish for and free you from that tedious excuse of a man. He does not share your literary passions. I can do that. You rule and he drinks. I will appreciate and nurture your capabilities and I flatter myself that you would find me a more welcome sight in your bed. Much more welcome,’ he says, taking a step towards me.
My eyes linger on his mouth, his hand held out to me, the strength of the muscles in his neck.
‘It’s impossible,’ I say, rather weakly.
Sensing his advantage he closes for the kill, taking my arm and pulling me to him, kissing me hard, breathing my name. I stumble back from him. ‘I must think on it,’ I say holding him at bay with a gesture.
‘Yes do,’ he says warmly, believing that he has already tamed me.
I run from the room and gain the battlements. My daughter is in Toulouse. I have worked long and hard for the city and the county. If I abandon Pons as I would dearly wish to do he may disinherit my sons and take his nephew as his heir to spite me. And Geoffrey, what an uncertain man is he to take to my bed? He is addicted to battle. Agnes could not keep him with her, and what if I should not give him the heir he needs so badly? Is he infertile? I have managed Pons but I would never manage Geoffrey. He would seek to control me. I have seen how he is with his sisters. If they comply with his wishes, as Adele does, he is all goodness, but if they do not, as Hermengarde does not, he is punitive and harsh. Last year he accused Hermengarde of defiling herself with an illicit liaison and took her youngest son away from her to raise him in his own court. Could he be as cruel as his father?
As a woman who had abandoned her husband, I would be a scandal, excommunicated. We would struggle to have a marriage between us and any offspring recognised. Would my brother war with Geoffrey? Would Pons? No, nobody but the Duke of Normandy willingly wars with Geoffrey.
Though I have only distaste and contempt for my husband, I love my city and my county. My life is of the South – in the lands bounded by the Loire, the Garonne, the Pyrenees and the Rhone. I love the people and the poets of Occitania, the Corbi
ères hills, the monuments and memories of Romans and Visigoths, the visiting Barcelonese and Aragonese, the sun, the Genovese captains in the harbours. I love its deep valleys, its rivers winding round granite cliffs and castles, the cormorants on the river, the rolling gait of the broad, short peasants with their dark visages and hook noses. I do not wish to go to the North with its excessive pieties, its cold, its masculine military culture.
I run down to my chamber and shake Dia awake. ‘Pack up and bring the baby.’
She is sleepy and confused. ‘Now?’
‘Do it quietly and speak to no one but Piers.’
I write a note to Geoffrey. I cannot do as you ask my Lord though I am greatly honoured that you ask it. My conscience and my religion forbid such an action. I will love you always as my brother. I beg that you will love my sons as your own. My pen hovers. Would he be cruel to them in anger at me? I will tell Hugh to write to me immediately if Geoffrey is unkind and I will remove them to Audebert’s care if that should happen. I continue my letter: I beg you teach them the arts of war and of chivalry of which you are the greatest example in all Christendom.
Mayhap you will ask me again, I write suddenly at the end. What impelled me to do that? I open my mouth and things fall out of it. I must let this sentence stand or start the letter over again. Geoffrey is not a man to toy with. I think of his mouth on mine, of his thigh against mine, and leave it be.
The boys are sleeping soundly, their three blond heads showing above the fur covers. I kiss their soft cheeks, one, two, three, and hope they will not be too bewildered to find me gone in the morning without goodbyes.
‘Let’s go,’ I tell Dia.
Piers is waiting with the horses at the gate. Another departure with a newborn huddled in my cloak. As we clear the gate I look back to where my boys are sleeping and see that Geoffrey stands on the battlements watching me go. I throw back my hood so that the moonlight catches my hair and I raise my arm to him and he to me. I cannot see his face clearly, just the glint of his shoulder brooch and his sword.
26
Easter 1050
‘It would be good for the House of Toulouse, husband, if our standing in Rome with this new pope were stronger.’
‘Want to go gallivanting on a pilgrimage, eh, pretty?’
‘No, my Lord. I was thinking that you would be the one to carry out such a delicate diplomatic mission, to travel to the tomb of Saint James at Santiago de Compostela, forging alliances with abbots and bishops along the route, and ensuring that the pope is a friend to Toulouse. That is not a job for a woman. I need to look after babies.’
‘Hmm’, Pons says, looking up at the ceiling, imagining himself, no doubt, lolling in a carriage all the way with two half-naked prostitutes, and I see that I have won my way.
Pons went by boat up the Tarn last week to the Abbey of Saint Peter at Moissac to begin his pilgrimage. He knows the abbot there, Durand de Bredon, and will begin his devotions for his journey. I expect that he will spend most of that journey on horseback, but he wants me to believe that he will go barefoot as a walking pilgrim. So I calculated how long it would take him to walk from Moissac and back: four months, I’ve told him. So now he will have to take that long or be shamefaced. I have sent one of my men, Gregor, along to give me news of my Lord’s progress, so that I can be sure he does not return to take me unawares.
It is the first day of the Troubadour Court as I am calling this year’s Easter Assembly. Pons knew my plan but he thought that just a few bedraggled jongleurs would turn up ‘to take advantage of your hospitality and win your little prize’, but he is wrong. Here is a great throng of people in the bailey of the Chateau Narbonnais. Jongleurs, troubadours and trobairitz from all over Occitania, Italy, Catalonia, Andalucia and even a few from other Muslim kingdoms. Dia is making a list of all the entrants for the prize and she keeps rushing in to tell me excitedly that so and so is here from such and such and he is very famous or she is widely renowned or he is very handsome! My prize, my court, is a great success already. The nobility of Toulouse are here too, arriving in clumps with their servants and entourages, elbowing for precedence. Raingarde and her husband Pierre arrived last night, with my mother and sister Lucia who is growing fast, sixteen now. My mother is determined that Lucia will make a splendid marriage, and won’t listen to reason that the third daughter of a countess is not such a catch, though Lucia is handsome and intelligent so we will see what can be done for her. Raingarde brings with her the very sad news that Countess Elisabet of Barcelona – Ramon’s wife, has died in childbed in Barcelona, leaving him with just his eight-year-old son Pere.
I have invited Fides, Countess of Rouergue; Rangarda, Viscountess of Albi and Nîmes; Garsenda, Viscountess of Narbonne; and my sister to act as judges with me: a high court of women! Their husbands are all here with them and many others of the local nobility besides. I see Roger, Count of Foix and his brother Bernard, Count of Bigorre in the courtyard below and Richard, Viscount of Millau arrived last night too with the Bishop of Uzès. Almost everyone is here. Arnaud, Count of Comminges, sent me a charming letter in rhyming couplets, which he no doubt did not devise himself, sending apologies that he is laid up with gout and cannot attend. Everyone knows that he has a great distaste for poetry and music and prefers drinking songs but I have sent him an elegant reply, pretending that I know how distraught he is to miss the court.
And the town is here. I have made a great point of inviting the capitouls and the leading merchants, as well as Armand and Adémar, the viscounts of the city. At least they can all go home at night, because we are bursting at the seams. Gilbert, has everything running smoothly. He has proved to be an excellent and energetic young chamberlain. The servants have an air of team morale about them as if they are all rising to the challenge of this great event and wanting to show what they are capable of. In most households there would be moaning and complaining but my staff look as if they are enjoying themselves. Well, all except Bernadette, of course, who has gone into her most sincere and loudest level of whingeing.
‘But how am I to do that my Lady, at the same time as looking after three children?’ she keeps saying to me.
‘Just get on with it, Bernadette, like everybody else,’ I tell her. ‘Involve the children in the tasks. Use it as an opportunity to teach them something.’
‘What?’ she says and I turn from her exasperated, to look over Dia’s list of troubadours. I know that Bernadette will do the jobs I have given her and well, but she has to complain too. I watch with pleasure as my children troop out after her telling her which bits they can help with. Hugh the Bishop is three now. Melisende is ten, and holds hands with my new daughter, Adalmoda, who has just started to walk. Bernadette does not have the patience to go at a baby’s pace, but Melisende does. She helps Adalmoda balance her slow and precarious way. Melisende is a good girl and has some features of my former husband, her black eyes contrasting with her golden hair. I am reminded with sadness of him every time I look at her. I have no doubt that Bernadette will sit in a corner complaining with Adalmoda and Hugh the Bishop on her lap and Melisende will do all her work.
I sit with the other lady judges on the high table with the golden violet laid on a purple cushion in front of us. Amoravis has done an excellent job and it is a beautiful object. Fides has added 200 solidi to the prize making it even more desirable. Dia introduces the ‘proceedings’ telling us that there are thirty competitors and there will be three days of poetry and on the fourth day we will give our decision. Rangarda, Garsenda and my sister have also contributed money prizes so that we can award second, third and fourth prizes too and I have decided to give each entrant some small gift to take away. We will have to place a limit on the number of entrants next year or we will be sitting here from Easter to Lammas listening to poems. Gilbert told me that some of the merchants have been grumbling that if I am spending so many days with entertainers how will I do my duty in my husband’s absence and ensure the ‘serious’ business of the assembly
is conducted. I gathered the capitouls and merchants of the city together this morning before the poets began, and gave them a schedule of hearings for the disputes and other matters of justice that are coming before me.
At the end of the morning’s recitations, the final troubadour to come before us gives his name as Rodriguez of Girona. He has a thick black beard, a hooked nose and a dirty cowl covering his head, with a pilgrim’s broad-brimmed hat jammed on top of that. His belly is huge, perched above his legs, which seem to be the only shapely part of him. It is not a promising beginning and I hope that his contribution will be a couplet rather than an epic. He gives us a sonnet describing me as the Queen of Occitania. It is a short and surprisingly sweet poem for one so ugly, but not the best entry to be sure. It seems some flattery to name me but I feel a suspicion that he is laughing at me somehow.
‘Next,’ snaps Countess Fides, rapping her ring against her glass. She is unimpressed, or perhaps she is jealous that he has not called her Queen of Occitania.
‘Thank you Don Rodriguez, how beautiful,’ I say and he bows low and is replaced by the next competitor.
I weary of poetry. I did not think that I would ever say that! Yesterday’s batch was indifferent. Many poems but no great ones. Imitations and conventional compositions. I watch my falcon circle high in the early morning mist. The blue of the sky is working to force its way through but has not won its battle yet. The sun is bright but has no heat so early. The trees are beginning to bud and green. I have ridden a long way out, needing to escape from so many people, so many demands. My stomach rumbles and I head towards the lodge to break my fast. I am come alone and carry some bread and ale with me. I need solitude and so am perplexed to find the fat troubadour Rodriguez of Girona standing near the door of the lodge. Drat! He bows low flourishing his ridiculous pilgrim’s hat.