Canterbury Papers

by Judith Koll Healey

  I threw down the charcoal, washed myself in the water that had grown cool in the pitcher, and put on my night shift. Dousing the torches seemed a task for which I was well suited at that moment. Welcome, darkness.

  As I lowered my tired body onto the bed, I had a strange déjà vu. It had to do with feeling pinned at the door by William’s presence. I had been once, when young, in just such a position with Richard. My memory took me back to Eleanor’s court in Poitiers, when Richard and I were both young and ardent. The three sirventes he had written to me privately to announce his love had been snatched from his room impishly by his brother Geoffrey and read aloud to all Eleanor’s court that evening at dinner, much to the merriment of his sisters and brothers and my own sister, Marguerite.

  By this trick Richard’s love for me had been declared openly. It was almost a relief. We had only to wait until my sixteenth birthday for the nuptials, for us to fulfill that promise of love. There was no question of consummating our love before then. Our parents, rulers of France and England, would have been outraged if I had come with child before the wedding. And the chance for an illegitimate heir to complicate matters was a grave one.

  Nevertheless we lived, we breathed love, because we were at the courts of love. Marie of Champagne, Eleanor’s daughter by my father, was mistress of our revels of love. She decreed that we would hold court to ascertain the true meaning of love. Under her direction the monk Capellanus evolved a code of love to which—Marie said—we all must pledge ourselves. To abstain from lust, to refrain from physical love for the greater glory of poetic love, to create love in words—this was our highest ideal. We were equal to the challenge. Richard and I could wait for the nuptials.

  That night when Richard went with me to the door of my bedchamber, he leaned down to press his lips to mine for the first time. The palm of my good hand became moist as he grasped it, then encircled me with his arms, pinning me to him.

  If he had asked to enter my room at that moment, I could not have refused. I had no will left that did not race in the direction of coming closer to him.

  But it was he who pulled away and, as abruptly as William tonight, turned and left without a word.

  The moon shone through the openings in the wall. I watched the shadows of the trees outside play upon the ceiling for a long time. My own shadows were the decisions I needed to make about my future. This entire wild errand was over as far as I was concerned once I had heard what the Sarum letters contained. But in this process, and quite beside the point, something else had happened.

  Tonight it occurred to me that I need never go back to Paris. Why have a life at court at all? They were occupied with vanity and position, clothes and feasts. Prattle they had aplenty, but there was not one whole creative idea in all of the combined brains of the court of France.

  But if not back to Paris, where then? Charlotte’s invitation to come to Fontrevault still echoed, suspended somewhere in the air. I was close right now. Fontrevault was an afternoon’s ride from where I slept this very evening. I could ride to the abbey and take up quarters beside the aging Eleanor, assuming she ever came back from Spain alive. That arrangement would give us plenty of time to work out our secrets and misunderstandings!

  But still there seemed to be something else beckoning me. In truth, my heart was changing. My adventure tonight in the town of Chinon, where I was free as a common peasant, had been a delight. Why should I not go about as I pleased, without everyone’s knowing I was a princess?

  And then there was this matter of feeling, the fullness that sometimes came over me when I remembered past scenes. Was it not possible that feeling could apply to the present? Wasn’t my reaction to William tonight a response of feeling? Perhaps I wasn’t dead in my heart after all.

  But no, that was absurd. The idea was almost unseemly. Consider, Alaïs, your age, your lightening hair, your unlucky stars in love, your aching hip, for God’s sweet sake!

  I amused myself with my upraised arm, tracing the shadows waving on the ceiling in a mock sketching exercise, smiling all the while, and so missed the gentle opening of the door and the first sight of the candle.

  When I became aware of the flickering light and the large shadow beside it, they were near me. The man bearing the light lowered himself to sit on the edge of my bed. I raised myself on my elbow, catching with my good hand the purse with its sharp chisel, as if by habit.

  “You don’t need a weapon, Alaïs.” William’s voice cut through the darkness, with its edge of habitual irony. I pulled myself up to a sitting position against the pillows and waited, my heart sounding in the silence.

  When he finally spoke again, it was a prosaic request. “I would like to light the torches.” He was close to me, and for the first time since Canterbury, I was aware of his scent, a smell of strong soap and ginger and something male that was indefinable.

  “Yes, if you wish,” I replied, my body turning farther in the bed to face his shadowy form.

  He reached out a hand and stroked my cheek with the back of it, once up, then with his palm, once down. The dim candlelight fluttered between us. I kept myself still with an effort. Then he rose and lit the torches on the wall one by one. Light, of an uncertain stability but nevertheless light, flooded the room.

  He stood near the table, wearing a bloodred silk robe over his tunic and hose. I noticed it was tied with a fringed sash, Oriental style, which seemed frivolous and not in character for him. Then I had the odd thought: That robe was from the East. It was visible proof of his service as Templar.

  William was looking directly at me, in an unsettling way. Gone was the haughty, impatient demeanor he wore in public like a knight’s cloak. Gone was the authoritative visage of the prior, the stand-in for Hugh Walter, and gone the sociable face and political edge of Baron Roger’s dinner party. Now there was just a man, the intense eyes piercing mine from under those formidable eyebrows, the hawklike nose raised.

  “Come, please, and sit at the table.” It sounded more like a command than a request. If the circumstances had been less peculiar, I would have argued that I should be the one to issue orders in my own chamber. But curiosity and surprise compelled me to rise and wrap myself in the robe of simple unbleached muslin that had been provided for me.

  I went toward him, and we stood facing each other on either side of the table, our long sleeves dusting its edges. He placed his candle on it and lit three more, so that I could see quite well. Then he gestured, and we both sat on chairs on opposite sides of the table. It felt like the beginning of a tournament. For the first time, I noticed he was carrying a small pouch of worn leather, slung by a slim strap over his shoulder. He slipped it off and tossed it onto the table.

  “I wanted to wait until morning. I don’t want to do this in the middle of the night. But I can’t sleep. You may as well know now.”

  A cold wind blew across my heart. Until this moment it had not occurred to me that I might not want to know the contents of Eleanor’s letters. Finding them had buoyed me, a long reach into the past that might give me answers about my son. But now I saw the other side: The letters could contain information, news I would rather not know.

  “Wait.” I held his hand down with my own, as it moved to open the pouch. I wanted to delay the moment of knowing. I said the first thing that came into my mind: “You must tell me who you are.”

  He looked up, surprised. “You know me,” he said simply.

  “No.” I paused, looking him full in the face. “I knew you once. But that was long ago, and we were no more than children. I don’t know you now. For instance, what did you study when you were Becket’s clerk?” I could see, even with the dim light, his baffled expression.

  “The university course, the trivium and the quadrivium. Like all the other clerics. The Greeks, Socrates, Aristotle, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. Latin. Horace and Ovid. French. Scripture. Arabic numbers. Euclid. Celestial navigation. Much as you studied when you went with Eleanor to Poitiers. Wasn’t that your course of study
as you prepared to marry Richard? I heard that the school at the Poitiers court was exceptional, designed by Eleanor herself.”

  “Indeed, we studied most of those subjects, except for celestial navigation,”—I smiled at the thought—“for Poitiers, you may remember, was inland.” I paused. “And I can tell you, we did not study Holy Scripture in Eleanor’s court.”

  The deep vertical lines of his face relaxed in a smile. “No, remembering Eleanor, I can safely believe that. She loved not the church and its pronouncements. She always had a wicked wit about her on the subject of piety. And the church loved her no more than she loved it.”

  “When did we lose track of each other, you and I?” My question caught him off guard. He crossed one foot over his knee as he leaned back from the table and casually rested his forearm on the raised knee. I was aware of the length of his limbs and their elegance. His robe parted to reveal scarlet hose, and I saw the Armenian slippers trimmed in small jewels on his long foot.

  After a moment, during which he gazed at the beams over the room, he said, “I was with you when we were all in Normandy, when I was very young. Then Henry gave me to Becket. When the archbishop died, Henry sent for me again. He wanted me at his court, and I was delighted to go back. I remembered our lessons when I was young. I had enjoyed being with the royal children.”

  I could feel myself flush even in the dark. Was he baiting me? “Did you? My recollection is that we were not kind to you.”

  “You did the best you could,” he replied. “The young princes were beset with all the demons of childhood. They had difficult, demanding parents. And they envied me.”

  “Envied you?” I was astonished.

  “What came easily for me, they had to work for. And they were spoiled, so work was hard. But for me, an orphan, work was necessary. I had to survive.”

  I saw again the scene in the barn, with the handsome princes pushing the whey-faced orphan from one to the other, and I was ashamed.

  I noticed William tapping his long fingers on his knee. “But then Henry and Eleanor split apart. No sooner had I arrived at Chinon than all the children went with her to the south, you and your sister and Henry Court Mantel, Richard and Geoffrey and all the Plantagenet daughters. Even Louis sent his daughters born of Eleanor. Every royal child on this side of the Continent was there, excepting John. Henry kept his best-beloved son in England, away from Eleanor’s dicey influence.” He paused, then said, with an odd sort of whimsy, “Everyone was in Poitiers but John and myself. The two lost boys.”

  Into the pause this time, I could hear the call of crickets outside. Spring had come to northern France in the few days I had been in England.

  When William spoke again, it was in his former casual voice. “The removal of Eleanor’s court deprived me of most of my companions, and I was lonely. Soon after you all went to Poitiers, Henry took pity on me, and then it was that I was chosen to begin traveling with the king.”

  “Yes, I remember that.” Coming upon the king and the young clerk in the garden at Chinon one day when I was still a girl, I watched and listened to them converse for some time before they noticed me. I remembered their familiarity, the way the king placed his hand on the clerk’s shoulder, almost as if he were his own son. Then William made a pun in Latin, and Henry laughed so abruptly—that sudden, sporadic laugh of his—that the pitcher I carried slipped out of my hands and crashed to the ground. The king sprang back as if he were guilty of some misdeed, and I, cheeks red, apologized and curtsied to him.

  “Princesse,” William said now, breaking into my reverie, “what else do you want to ask? We cannot spend the night re-creating the past, pleasant though it is to do so.”

  “All right, only one more.” I wondered if I dared, then charged ahead. “Are you a monk of Canterbury, or are you a Templar?”

  “Who told you I was a Templar?” He stiffened, his hand flying to the pouch at his side.

  “William Marshal told me in Wiltshire. And I have every reason to believe him.”

  “How so?” He stood suddenly and began that edgy walking I had noticed earlier. “You know I’m a monk of Canterbury. You have seen me there.”

  “I saw you there. But I also saw you at Baron Roger’s, in knight’s dress, charming the crowd. You arranged for me to be rescued from King John’s little drama and to be brought here by those same knights. You have, I believe, arranged for the letters I found to be decoded. No mere monk of Canterbury commands such resources and travels about so freely, unless he be the abbot. And I know Hugh Walter is abbot.”

  William didn’t answer. Instead he continued his silent pacing, punching his fists together as if that would help him to think. After a time I wondered if he would answer at all. I waited.

  He was passing the chest against the wall for the second time when his eye was caught by the parchment I had filled with sketches not an hour earlier. The one large piece, with all his faces sketched from memory, lay upward. He picked it up and held it to the nearest wall torch. He seemed to regard it much longer than was necessary. I felt warmth rising to my cheeks and cursed my need to sketch every minor image that presented itself before my inner eye.

  Then he replaced the parchment gently on the chest and turned to me. “My story can wait. I came here tonight to give you the translation of Eleanor’s letters. I think we should look at them together. At some later time, perhaps I will tell you more of myself. But for now”—he walked back to the table and cast the leather pouch onto it—“let’s to the letters.”

  That closed off further conversation, but what was I to do? And anyway, why did I want to hear this impossible man’s story? He obviously liked women no better than he had as that stiff, arrogant child who pulled away from all who would draw him into games or tease him. I cared not, I told myself. I had only been delaying the moment when I would have to face the information in Eleanor’s letters by my questions. Still, I was aware of a gentle, falling cloud of disappointment within myself.

  William sat down, and pulled open the travel pouch, and pushed several sheets of paper toward me. I saw that the translations were made in Latin. Of course! They were made for William, who was, after all, an educated man. Latin would be his second language. Fortunately, I could read it as well.

  He folded his arms and tilted his chair back, silent, waiting for me.

  I picked up the papers and moved the candle closer to read them.

  .19.

  Letters, Lies, and Secrets

  There were four letters in all. I read them through carefully, lost in wonderment after the greeting of the first one.

  Date: 26 janvier, Year of Our Lord 1176

  To my beloved daughter Joanna, Queen of Sicily

  From your mother, Eleanor, by the Grace of God Queen of the English and Duchess of the Aquitaine:

  I bring you greetings.

  I hope this letter will find its way to you at some time, though I do not know when. We are watched here constantly. The king, your father, has placed his trusted servants here to watch me, and I do not know how I will be able to send this letter to you.

  I think often on our days at Poitiers. I hope you are happy in your new marriage. For myself, I believe that it was precipitate of your father to arrange it for you so suddenly. But then, perhaps, nothing he does is sudden. He only makes it seem that way. Your husband is a good man, I hear. I trust you will be happy.

  I have received no communication from Richard. If you have heard from him, find way to get me word. If you send a written letter, I will destroy it. If Henry finds me in communication with any of you, I will most certainly be punished. My separation from you all was a condition of his agreement to leave me alone here, in Old Sarum.

  I have everything I need, except for books and my children. I languish without intellectual conversation. At least I have some writing materials, smuggled in by my maid, Bess, as she is called.

  Please pray for me.

  Enclosed, if you get this letter, are herbes which you must take un
til you are delivered of your child. They will increase your strength afterward.

  1 novembre, Year of Our Lord 1178

  To Joanna, dearest daughter

  From your mother Eleanor, by the Wrath of God Queen of the English and Duchess of Aquitaine:

  I bring you greetings if you receive this message.

  It is weary here in this drafty castle. How I miss my own lands. The king, your father, has sent me many books, finally, for which I am grateful. But he still forbids me to write letters. He says my letters have always been a source of trouble for him! Foolish man. He is his own source of trouble. Always has been.

  I long for company. I think of you in the gentle south and hope that your life goes well. The birth of your child should by now have come to pass. I have not yet been able to send my last letter and may not send this for some time. Still, to write brings you closer to me. When I can, I will send herbes that will help you recover from childbirth. I will continue to try.

  I have a new maid, name of Kate. I think she is a spy. Bess was sent away because, I believe, your father received news that she was sympathetic to me. Indeed, I gave her the first letter I wrote you, and she tried to take it to a courier but was stopped and questioned so sharply by Gérard of Blois, whom your father has made jailer here, that she became frightened and returned the letter to me. Soon after she was sent away, and the new maid arrived.

  This new one has shifty eyes. These are the eyes that read letters intended for others. She may eventually read this. Anyway, I shall keep it hidden in my writing desk until a moment arrives that is propitious for sending it. And, of course, I write it in code. You will not find it difficult to have it translated. Any educated monk can decipher this code, as I once taught you. One cannot be too careful.

  I hope you enjoy motherhood. I always loved it greatly myself, when the children were young. It was only when you all grew older that I found myself lonely once again.