by Tracey Warr
When I arrived last night, the wooden wharf was lit by a hundred torches and lamps, revealing the pale stone of the high city walls in the near-distance, and close by, the massive shipyards where the war fleet was being variously built, repaired, docked, for the winter. Myriad merchant ships were rocking at anchor in the harbour, their riggings clanging and whizzing in the high night wind. Ramon stood on the wharf and handed me off the ship. He took me in a long embrace and then straightened out his arms to hold me back and look at me.
‘Thank God and his saints. Are you alright?’
‘It is your child, my Lord,’ I said, seeing him eyeing my stomach, and not bothering to give the evident answer to his question.
‘My child?’ he said, looking at me with wonder in his face, ‘and you did not write to tell me so?’
I made no reply. I was tired and inexplicably cross with him.
‘Well,’ he said eventually, necessitated by the awkward silence, ‘I am doubly delighted and amazed. Welcome to your new home, my Lady, my Countess?’ he said.
Is he laughing at me, I thought. I am bedraggled, filthy and fat. Stubbornly, I kept my silence. I am alone in a strange land, stripped of my household, made vulnerable by my pregnancy and my flight from convention. I hate the notion that I am dependent on him.
He handed me to a carriage that took us to the palace. We passed through the gate of the new walls and then, soon after, another gateway in the old Roman wall that rings the centre of the city. On the journey I had to break my silence: ‘Raingarde? Have you news?’
‘She is safe in Carcassonne. Her husband was at Moissac, waiting to rescue her from that stone cell. I understand that she gave the abbot a red-hot telling-off.’
I smiled at the thought of Raingarde, indignant with that long hound-faced Abbot.
‘Your children and women are safe too in Narbonne. They will come on to Barcelona as soon as the sailing season begins again.’
Inside the entrance to the palace, there was a small, brown-eyed girl curtseying to me. ‘This is your maid, Marta,’ he said. ‘She will take care of you until Bernadette arrives. It is late and perhaps you would wish to retire now, or,’ he hesitated, ‘would you grace me with a short visit later?’ he said hopefully.
‘I am very tired my Lord and need to bathe after my journey.’ I indicated my clothes which were the same maid’s clothes I had been wearing since I left Lagrasse. I had done what I could to keep them fresh but they were tattered and grimy nevertheless. Looking down at them, I felt humiliated. ‘I beg you, that we might speak tomorrow.’
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you will find everything you need in your chambers. I cannot tell you how glad I am that you are here and safe, Almodis.’
In my sunny window-seat I am lost in reverie, wondering at my cold behaviour to him last night, when he was so courteous to me, so that Marta’s appearance in the doorway makes me jump. ‘Count Ramon asks to visit you this morning my Lady, if he may?’
‘Please show him in.’ I feel more myself now and sit up straight in anticipation. He takes me by surprise, dispensing with small talk: ‘May I ask Lady Almodis why you didn’t write and tell me of the child? What would you have done? Passed the child off as Pons’?’
‘Perhaps,’ I say with irritation. ‘In truth, I hadn’t yet decided what I would do.’
He looks flabbergasted. ‘I don’t understand why you didn’t write and tell me!’
‘I assumed that you could not, would not, act. That you would have to marry Blanca.’
He looks distressed. ‘You assume too much.’ He rearranges his face into an expression of tenderness. ‘It is possible to be too independent you know, Almodis.’ He reaches out a hand to stroke my cheek with the back of one finger, and I feel a little softened at his touch.
‘Nobody looked after me from when I was five,’ I say. ‘I felt the loss of Raingarde like a wound when I was a child. I grew used to surviving without help, to nursing my own troubles.’
‘Well now you will have to grow used to a smothering love instead,’ he jokes.
I smile wanly. For some reason I cannot explain to myself I am holding out against him. We don’t really know each other. I have thrown myself into a strange place. I am a scandal and a repudiated wife. I am stripped of my possessions, my rights, my children. Ramon reassures me that he intends to negotiate all for me and everything will be well, but I cannot stop myself from thinking that perhaps he weds me only because he must, a shamed fugitive from my life because of one moment of weakness with him.
‘Will you meet my son?’ he asks.
I smile at that. ‘Yes of course, I would be delighted to meet him.’
He gestures to Marta who returns five minutes later with Pere, a tall, gangly, ten year old. He has black hair and brown eyes, perhaps like his mother. He looks around the room as if he is searching for something. He is quiet and when he does speak he is a little surly. ‘This is my mother’s room,’ he says to me, a hint of challenge in his voice. It will take time for him to get used to me, and he clearly resents that I am encroaching on his father’s attention. ‘Will you show me your horse and falcon?’ I ask him trying to win him around.
‘Tomorrow, perhaps,’ he says.
Ramon shrugs cheerfully. ‘He misses his mother.’
I would like to hold Pere, kiss his soft cheek, inhale his child-scent to remind me of my own absent children, but it is clear that he would not welcome any such attention from me.
‘I have arranged for us to wed at the monastery of Sant Cugat in two days time,’ Ramon says, ‘if it pleases you.’ He looks uncomfortable, uncertain.
‘Two days,’ I say, surprised.
‘Does it not please you?’ There is irritation in his voice now.
‘Such haste,’ I say after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Should we not rather delay it until next week so that we might invite your allies to attend?’
He looks at me with admiration. ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘We shall do just that.’
I ask Marta to bring us two goblets of Vin d’Orange and we toast our betrothal.
Pere sits silently in the window-seat that I have vacated, swinging his legs, staring at me.
I arrived with nothing and Ramon has given me a queen’s trousseau and along with it, a new horse, falcon, and groomsman, which makes me think bitterly of Piers’ betrayal. When Ramon and Pere have left me, Marta shows me a yellow wedding dress with very fine Spanish lace, and this reminds me of my lost husband, Hugh. Perhaps it is the pregnancy that is making me so emotional and yet so cold and lacklustre to Ramon. I am clearly puzzling him, and myself too. He has given me betrothal gifts that took my breath away with their beauty: a shoulder brooch made from gold, tiny pearls and emeralds; a gold and black enamel cross pendant; a ring set with a turquoise which Marta tells me protects against riding accidents, poison and drowning; a minature padlock of gold and white enamel engraved with the words: ‘of all my heart’.
In the days before my marriage I talk to Marta and sometimes to Ramon to find out as much as I can about my new home. I savour the distinctive smell of almonds as I enter the kitchen, on a tour of inspection of the palace. Everything is in good order and this is quite unlike my arrival in Toulouse. Barcelona has four gates, two of which belong to Ramon and two to the bishop. The market takes place next to one of Ramon’s gates and brings in a great deal of income. I put on plain clothes and a maid’s apron and accompany Marta there that I might see the place and listen to the Catalan, subtly different to my Occitan. I go arm in arm with her down narrow winding streets with houses rising up high on either side, colourful laundry strung above our heads, birds swaying in cages, children and grandmothers dressed in black, sitting on doorsteps. The market is bustling and we stroll past stalls with sacks of buckwheat and peas, jars of olive oil, baskets of garlic and cabbages, bags of prunes. One stall is hung with rabbit and squirrel furs and the pelts of cats, wolves and ermine. Everything is here, from small to large, from scissors and needles to mas
ts, oars and anchors.
Barcelona was a Muslim city before it was conquered by the Frankish king Charlemagne and there are signs of its mixed heritage everywhere around me. The city is surrounded by vineyards, and farmland where the harvest is just beginning. A water channel flows along the route of the old Roman aqueduct from the Besòs River. Commerce flourishes alongside the walls of the city and also in the new part known as the Born. Merchants, moneylenders, craftsmen, shopkeepers cram into these spaces selling and buying hides, iron, food, cloth, spices, silver, skins. Ramon tells me that there are near 4,000 people living here. Ramon’s vicar, who is called a vaguer here, collects his taxes and tributes for him, managing his mint, market, mills, ovens and water mills.
‘Our domain extends along the Llobrigat and Cardener Rivers, as far as the Montsec Mountains,’ Ramon tells me. ‘The main trade routes are the spice route and the route of the islands, from the Balearics, Sicily and Sardinia. Barcelonese merchants compete along these routes with the Genoese, Pisans and Toulousains. We hold an annual trade fair in July and have to build a special compound for all the visiting merchants,’ he says. ‘The city exports fustian and linen cloth, cereals, olive oil, wine, figs, leather, woollen cloth from Languedoc, naval supplies and weapons from Southern Spain and Italy. And,’ he says, ‘we import cumin, goat hides, fruit from Maghrib in North Africa and ginger, cinnamon, pepper, dyes and alum from the East. Our shipyards are famous, our wood apparently impervious to rot and insects.’
I laugh at his humorous, hyperbolic descriptions, amazing myself with the sound of my own laughter that it seems I have not heard in ages.
He explains that his military campaigns to the south have resulted in annual tribute being paid in gold by the Taifa lords from Lleida, Tortosa and Saragossa in exchange for peace and protection. The city’s advocates and judges use a book of Visigothic legislation handed down from the sixth century, the Liber Iudiciorum. The people take an afternoon siesta and live life at a slower pace caused by the heat of the sun and the brighter bluer light. One afternoon, Ramon came into my rooms at siesta time and Marta scuttled out. ‘Might I stay with you?’ he asked and, at my nod, climbed onto the bed, behind me. He put his arms around me and his body against mine and kissed the back of my neck lightly. I felt a shiver of pleasure but stubbornly did not turn to him.
‘Well, Marta, if I am to be a bride we must make some preparations.’
She bites her lip cheerfully, all smiles and anticipation. The night before my wedding I have her mix up the ingredients of Dia’s recipe for golden hair: boxwood, broom, crocus and egg yolk cooked in water. Marta anoints my hair with the froth that collects on the top of this concoction. She lays out the yellow wedding dress with silver lace around the edges and a silver ribbon tying it up at the front. It flares out under the breasts in full folds so that my pregnancy is concealed. Ramon has given me a pair of gold filigree basket earrings that I put on and Marta admires. My slippers are gold and silver, but I put them in my saddlebag for the ride to the monastery and pull on the old riding boots that I arrived in. Ramon is looking splendid in a dark red velvet tunic with a jewelled sword at his waist. His buttons are fine enamels and his cap is adorned with a peacock feather. People line our route to the monastery cheering and waving flowers and hats. We are a romantic couple: the dashing count and his stolen bride.
‘The counts of Barcelona are always married at Sant Cugat,’ he tells me.
I try to respond to his conversation but find myself struck mute. He must think that he is marrying the most miserable woman in the world. We are wed with a blessing from Abbot Guitard. Now I have given my assent and am no longer Countess of Toulouse, but Countess of Barcelona.
We return to the city for the wedding feast in the Great Hall of the palace attended by his allies, including William, Lord of Montpellier, who I made an ally when I was in Toulouse. He gives me a tactful version of how my departure from Occitania and Toulouse has been received by my old neighbours there. The halls at Chateau Narbonnais and at Saint Gilles were enormous spaces full of people and bustle, but this Barcelonese court is even bigger, perhaps three times bigger and jammed full with visitors. Everywhere I look I see gold and silver thread, glinting in bright candlelight, faces that I do not know looking at me with curiosity. This court is dripping with prosperity. Unlike Toulouse and Lusignan, there is no obvious task of reorganisation necessary for me here. The people’s warmth of feeling for their count is genuine. The great fire is tended by red-faced boys. Occasionally the log burns a brighter red and lets out a sudden bang and spark and the boys rush to ensure that the embers do not catch alight as they hit the sweet-smelling rushes.
I sit on the high table next to Ramon, wearing a gold crown on top of a thin green silk veil over my hair. My hands are covered with rings with green and red jewels. Ramon, too, wears a crown. He is clean-shaven and has a gold ring in one of his ears. I smile a very little because he is in fact a very handsome man.
Musicians play in the minstrel’s gallery, accompanying the singers, the jongleurs; and ioculators or jesters, cavort between the tables. The giant door of the hall groans again on its hinges and a single man, with an instrument, strides up the aisle. ‘Ah, the troubadour!’ says Ramon, taking my hand. ‘Music is essential to aid the digestion of food.’ I laugh at that and he laughs with me, looking relieved. The troubadour sings about Ramon and myself. ‘This is the lovers’ music,’ Ramon whispers to me. ‘The music of fin d’amour, fine love.’
‘I thought the convention was that the lover should love someone other than their marriage partner,’ I say.
‘We are the exception.’
‘Such a great love had the lord for his lady,’ sings the troubadour, ‘that nothing could stand in its way. The mountains, the rivers, the snow and the ice must part for the love of the lady.’
The stories and singing come to an end and everyone is yawning and stretching. People start to lay out their cloaks to sleep on the floor.
‘Shall we retire, my Countess,’ he asks me with great courtesy. I rise and keep the wobble from my smile, remembering two other nightmarish wedding nights, but why should I worry with this husband? In the bed-chamber he sends the wedding party away as soon as the priest has blessed us and the bed, and he locks the door. He holds me gently. ‘Perhaps you would wish to be left alone, since you are with child, darling?’ he says, clearly not wishing it himself.
‘No,’ I say, forcing myself to unbend. ‘I would not wish that.’
The light in his eyes at my response, is like a boy presented with his first puppy. Why is my mind so old and his so young? I run my hands over his blond head, tracing its beauty. Our loving in Narbonne had been done in the dark, in secret, but now we are man and wife and the candles are blazing, the room warm and scented with the perfume of so many roses. I place his fingers on the bow of silver thread at the top of my bodice.
33
Correspondence
Despite the kind companionship of my husband, I feel alone and exposed without my household – my women and my family who have always been around me. This is the first time I have been separated from Bernadette since I was ten years old. I remember when she arrived sullen and miserable from Paris. ‘Don’t you want to be here with me?’ I asked her, but she would not answer me, just hung her head with tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘Are you missing your mother and home,’ I tried in Langue d’Oil.
She nodded her head at that, looking at me in surprise that I could speak her tongue. I took her hand. ‘We shall be friends,’ I told her and she looked abashed and curtseyed. In truth, it was hard for me to like her in the beginning with her complaining and her ridiculous sayings. If she hadn’t done her work so well, I would have sent her back to her mother. She grew on me little by little and now I am bereft without her.
The ladies of the court keep me company but I miss the easy and intelligent company of Dia. Yet to be rid of Pons, I thank Saint Uncumber. Not to be walled up in the anchorite cell in Moissac, I than
k the Virgin. To have Ramon to husband … yes, I warm to him. I look to where he is standing in the passage talking to a huntsman. Ramon is flamboyant in a tunic of orange trimmed with black. I like him. It would be impossible not to like him.
Pere lingers close to his father’s elbow. He is always with him, like a faithful hound. He refuses all my invitations to come and speak with me, to play at tables or chess, to ride together. ‘Not now,’ he says, or just shakes his head. ‘Sorry,’ he says, but there is no remorse in his voice or his gaze.
‘Tell me something of the history of Barcelona my Lord, and of the Taifa lords,’ I say to Ramon.
‘My father sought peace with the Taifa lords but my grandmother wished to drive them from their lands in the name of God.’
‘And you?’
‘I must strengthen my comital control first, stabilise my relationships with my neighbours across Catalonia before I can consider the border with the south. The frontier lords, my neighbours, castellans, even some factions within the city have taken advantage of the years of minority rule, first by my father and then by me. Ermessende’s base is in Girona and she has been intent on holding her own rights and not especially on holding mine for me, and what she has held she will not give up. Tribute from the Taifa lords is greatly enriching my counting house. I see no need to war in the south at present. I am on very good terms with Tortosa and the ruler of Dénia. My grandfather gave too much to Ermessende. His testament left her lands and powers well beyond her dower, lands that in custom would have gone to my father. The little that was left over when he died was divided between me and my two brothers. My brother, Sancho, decided to enter the church a few years ago and gave over his rights in the Penedès to me.’