IT WAS NOT AS easy coming into Brabant as the Weeping Lady had suggested, but then it was not much harder either. And we did indeed have a hearty welcome from Dame Bertrande’s sister. When she heard who it was that was at the gate, she ran all the way out to the gatehouse herself, so that she might greet us and exclaim over us. After she had ordered our horses led away, she paused to survey us all, her hands raised in wonder and joy.
“Why! This magnificent knight is tiny baby Hugo, whom I’ve only seen once before! How grand you’ve grown! The very picture of a preux chevalier!” Hugo set his chin forward so he would look more rugged. “And this beautiful young man is your squire? Have a care, sirrah, I have many charming pucelles, and you are not to break their hearts!” Robert blushed becomingly. You couldn’t mistake her. She looked rather like her sister, only shorter and plumper. And, of course, much older, for Madame Belle-mère had died many years before. But when she got to Gregory, she burst into tears.
“Her nose! Yes! It is her nose. I never thought I’d see it again.” Gregory looked taken aback, and unconsciously put his hand over the offending feature. “To think, the son I’ve never seen, and there it is, her nose, to the life. My poor dear dead sister!” And taking up the tip of the long sleeve of her kirtle, she delicately dabbed at her eyes, sniffing, “You’ve got her hair too. It never would lie smooth. She hated it.” Gregory took his hand from his nose and put it on his wild curls, and, leaning over to me as she turned her gaze elsewhere, said in a puzzled fashion, his voice low, “I thought my hair was all right, Margaret.”
“It’s most becoming, Gregory. You wouldn’t be half as handsome with different hair,” I whispered back.
“And this is your wife, and your precious baby! You must all come at once to meet the Sieur Bernard de Martensburg, my husband.”
Leading the way into her hall, she cautioned us, “Now, don’t be offended if he does not get up to greet you, for his bones are twisted, and he is confined to a chair. But when you speak to him, you will find he is a man of great wit. Oh, yes. Very admirable. And for this I count myself fortunate in all ways.” And she swirled busily through her front door in the center of a swarm of pucelles, pages, guests, grooms, dogs, and a half-dozen grimy-faced, naked little peasant babies that she had somehow acquired in her trip across the inner bailey. That is how it always was with her, for she was the source of all good things, and whether you wanted thread, a muffin, an oxcart, a feast for five hundred, or a funeral with sixty hired mourners, it was always “see Madame.” Thus hopeful creatures of all sorts were perpetually crowded around her, and she was ever busy.
The hall was wide and fair, built of light-colored stone, with high, columned windows. At the table dormant, all covered with a fine, rich cloth, we were brought to meet the Lord of Martensburg, where he worked at papers laid unrolled and flattened at the corners by books. An astrolabe and other instruments lay to one side, and there were pens and a jar of ink nearby. At a word, one of the two grooms who were his constant companions would pick up or fetch whatever he wanted. His wizened body was seated in a great, cushioned chair, his withered legs hanging uselessly. His back was hunched and his chest caved in; his breath came in wheezes. By contrast to his shriveled frame, the head he raised from his work was massive, with a wide, high forehead and long jaw. The eyes with which he gazed at us were dark, and they were deep with an intelligence that was almost frightening.
“Most gracious lord and husband, these are my sister’s sons and their family that have come to us.” The swirl of activity paused for a moment and her garments came to rest, as it were, while she knelt briefly before him and then, rising, introduced us all. When the groom bearing the basket presented the baby for his inspection, he looked long into his sleeping face. Peregrine was making little eating motions with his mouth as he slept, snoring lustily.
“The child is straight?” he asked.
“Yes, my lord,” I answered.
“Then it is my blood,” he said, as if answering an unspoken question. Then I remembered something Madame Belle-mère had said: The children had bad bones. “You are curious?” He had addressed us all. “You have never seen this before? It is an affliction of God that grows worse over time. When I wed, my legs still carried me, and my good wife said a straight heart was more precious to her than a straight back.”
Then Malachi said something about his star charts to distract him from the unpleasant moment. It had to do with the sun entering the Virgin’s house, as I recall, though talk about stars is too complicated for me. Sieur Bernard brightened up considerably, and soon the two of them were looking at his calculations. Malachi knows a lot about stars: he needs it for his work in metals. As he once explained it, there are seven wandering stars, corresponding to the seven metals: Mercury for quicksilver, and Mars for iron, for example. All the rest are fixed stars and don’t go anywhere. Gregory looked, too, as he began to explain his charts, but hardly anyone knows more than Brother Malachi about stars, and this man could see it right away.
From what I heard, I could make out two big problems. The first was that he was engaged in calculating from the stars the exact time of the Second Coming. He would have had it done long ago, but for problems with the calendar caused by the poor quality of previous star charts. There were things wrong—the calculations of movements and the years were not right. His pages of Roman numerals were an attempt to right the mischief, but it was a vast undertaking.
“I’m afraid it is beyond my powers in this life,” he sighed. “But there must be a new calendar.” Brother Malachi and Gregory nodded. Hugo had assumed the faraway look that he assumes during sermons and discussions of the fluctuations in the price of salt herring during Lent. But even though I don’t understand stars, I wanted to know why.
“To put it simply, for a woman’s mind, the stars and the calendar are out of phase, and if it keeps on this way, we shall have summer in January and winter in July.”
“Oh!” I was alarmed. “How soon will that be?”
“Not for hundreds and hundreds of years.” He smiled wryly at my agitation.
“Well, then, why worry? That’s a long time—too long for me to think about,” I answered.
“I worry,” he responded, “because it confuses my calculation of the time of the Second Coming.” He turned his great head to Brother Malachi. “It will be a great effort: the greatest in Christendom, the new calendar. It can only be directed and ordered by the Pope himself. And as yet, these Avignon popes have not seen the need to turn from heresy hunting and palace building to the greatest problem in Christendom. Sometimes I despair: perhaps God has sown this confusion on earth because He does not wish us to know the day of the Second Coming.” Again, Brother Malachi and Gregory nodded gravely.
We stayed for some time. I couldn’t untwist the bones, but I did take away the pain and renew his breath, so that the Lord of Martensburg could be carried without agony up the long, twisting stairs of the tower to view his beloved stars once again. Many were the nights that we clambered up behind him, to the light of torches, to the platform he had caused to be built on the tower roof as his observatory. There, the torches were extinguished to give a clearer view of the stars in the dark arch of the sky. He and Malachi would talk about things I didn’t understand, such as how many heavenly spheres there are, and Malachi would produce dozens of arguments for eight, corresponding to the seven planets and the sphere of the fixed stars, but Sieur Bernard would produce a dozen more for a ninth, beyond the sphere of Saturn. And though they never resolved it, they seemed very content, the both of them, in their complex arguments. Then they would fall to making measurements with the astrolabe, and pointing, and discussing the movement of the celestial houses.
Gregory could not always follow, but I could see his quick mind absorbing as he took notes behind a hooded candle for the frail lord. I would help, leaning close to the tiny hidden light to sharpen the quills and blot the finished sheets, so that Gregory would not fall behind in his recordi
ng of his uncle’s observations. The baby, carried up by a footman, lay beside me in his basket, for it is never too soon for a child to see the stars.
But even the best of visits must come to an end. Sieur Bernard had been pleased to discover that Gregory had been commissioned to do a chronicle, and begged him to include his concerns about the calendar in it. “All that and more,” Gregory responded graciously. And we left with a letter to the celebrated Jehan le Bel, Canon of Liège, who is a great churchman and one of the most successful chroniclers of our age.
“Just so you have an idea of what glory may be attained in this worldly enterprise, unlike that of watching the stars,” said Gregory’s uncle with an ironic smile. And of course, Gregory’s aunt began to weep a full day in advance of our departure in anticipation of how sad she would be when we left.
“Oh my, oh my, it is almost like losing my dear sister all over again,” she sobbed as we sat spinning in her bower. Her youngest daughter, now thirteen and destined for the convent, sat beside us, frail and twisted, but with agile hands that embroidered an altar cloth in elegant, precise stitches. As I admired her work I thought I saw a smoky figure hovering over the embroidery frame, peering at the exquisite design.
“Oh! What’s that?” cried the mother as she crossed herself, and the girl glanced up to survey the forming face with interest.
“Tell her I’ll stay,” said Madame Belle-mère. “I’m not strong enough to cross the water again. Not, of course,” she added with hauteur, “that any other spirit has done it even once anyway. Tell her.”
“Madame, your sister is here with us in spirit,” I said.
“So I see. And she looks so fresh and young too.” Madame sighed. The ghost smiled with pleasure, and rearranged her veil so that the dark curls at her forehead would show to advantage.
“She says she’s going to stay. She doesn’t want to cross with us, and she’s missed you.”
“Oh, you can hear her? How I wish I could! Dear Bertrande, make a sign if you hear me.” The ghost raised a vaporous finger.
“Well, if I can speak and you can sign, something can be arranged. I have years’ worth of gossip to catch you up on. And you must tell me of yourself. Whatever happened to the little girl you told me of in the letter you had written to me? …”And so we left Madame in great contentment, for as she said, a whole ghost is quite as satisfactory as a nose anytime.
A STIFF BREEZE HAD filled the sail of the little merchant cog and set its pennants flying. It whipped Gregory’s cloak about him as he leaned over the rail, peering for the first sign of the familiar white cliffs. It made the penned horses in the hold raise their heads and whinny. Margaret wrapped her cloak tighter around herself and the baby where she stood, several safe feet behind Gregory. It was her theory that people who leaned over ship’s rails might tumble off at any time and that you can never be too careful. Only the imminent danger to her husband had brought her this many paces from the mast.
“I’m sure I see it, Margaret,” he cried. “And listen to the horses! Even they know we’re almost home.”
“For the good Lord Jesu’s sake, don’t lean so far,” she cried into the salty wind.
“Margaret? What’s happened to you? You’re as brave as a tiger on land.”
“The ocean is entirely different. It’s full of water,” she cried in reply. Gregory removed himself from the rail and returned to her side.
“All right, all right. Here I am, and I didn’t even fall off. People don’t, you know.” He put his arm around her and lifted the cloak so he could peek at the baby’s sleeping face. He still found it hard to believe that he actually had that commodity most desired by men, a son, and had to check often to make sure that the little creature was still exactly the same.
“They could, they could anytime.” Margaret’s voice was agitated. He could feel her shiver as she spoke. “And then it’s just ‘splash!’ and the fishes eat them. And what would I do then?”
“What about me? I’m the one that would be eaten by fishes.” He lifted a sardonic eyebrow.
“It would be your own fault,” she said firmly. “But it would be me who’d be left, and I would suffer more.”
“Then I’ll not be eaten by fishes; I would never wish you to suffer.” He looked out at the ocean, as if dreaming. “Speaking of fishes, what did you think of the one the Canon of Liège served at his banquet?”
“The huge gilded one with the eyes in? Ugh.”
“Biggest I ever saw. And the peacocks, and the swan. He certainly lives well.”
“I like your uncle’s house better.”
“He’s a cleric, but he dresses like a knight, and has a lady and two handsome grown sons for whom he will buy church benefices.”
“Your uncle’s house is visited by learned men. His dinner table is full of wise discussion.”
“So is the Canon’s. And art and music as well. There’s no reason a historian should live shabbily, is there? I mean, God’s not angry at the Canon for living a worldly life, is He?” Gregory drew his cloak around him as he looked up at the fast-flying clouds.
“He certainly doesn’t appear so, does He? Perhaps He favors historians, have you ever thought of that? Did you hear that the Canon always travels with forty armed retainers?” Margaret watched Gregory’s face carefully, and didn’t miss the look of speculation in his dark eyes.
“Now that’s an elegant retinue,” mused Gregory. “He goes wherever interests him, seeking out facts for his chronicle, and kings and princes welcome him and seek his counsel.” His whole face had relaxed as he thought about this, and the shadow of a smile crossed it.
“They shower him with gold and gifts for his writing,” Margaret added helpfully.
“It all goes to show you don’t have to join the Fishmonger’s Guild, like Sir Thomas, if you want to set a nice table in London.” He looked at her.
“You know,” she said, cocking her head on one side as if thinking, “once we’ve set the house to rights and settled our obligations to the neighbors, we should invite your friends to a dinner party. The scholars at the Boar’s Head, I mean. I like them. Only they have to promise not to throw the furniture when they’re drunk.”
“They don’t throw the furniture, Margaret. They’re civilized. They throw people. Father throws furniture.”
“Oh, my goodness. Your father. We’ll have to send him a message when we’ve landed. I wonder how many days of peace we’ll have before he figures out another way to interfere with our lives.”
WHEN WE LANDED AT last, Sir Hugo did not wait the night but set off immediately for his father’s house, bearing our news. He had heard at Dover that reinforcements would be soon leaving to join the troops of the Duke in Normandy, and he chafed to be back in action and as far from his wife as possible.
“I’ll look in on Father, get that woman with child, and then—it’s back to France and Fortune. Why leave all the luck to the Prince’s followers? They’re all coming back from Bordeaux richer than the Devil himself. Well, I say, next time it’ll be me!” And off they all went, in a clatter of hoofbeats.
We rode into London from the Southwark side. Even before we’d reached the bridge, people had stopped to gawk and point, for we made an odd sight. Since we had but three horses, Sim rode up behind Gregory, and as little fond as he was of urchins in general, he had become attached, in a sort of horrified and fascinated way, to this urchin in particular. It was hard to say what Gregory looked like, at this point, light-armed and travel stained, his beard untrimmed and his hood rolled around his head like a heathen’s turban. Most likely, a mercenary home from a bad campaign. But there was no mistaking Mother Hilde. With her wide straw hat, now quite battered, tied firmly over her veil and wimple, and her pilgrim badges sewn all over her dusty cape, she rode home in triumph behind Brother Malachi.
“Look, look! Pilgrims come from over the sea!” a girl cried, and Mother Hilde beamed.
“Bless us, good mother!” cried a woman in a patched gray surcoat
as she ran up to touch Mother Hilde’s cloak, as if the goodness of the holy places could be rubbed off it. When a little crowd gathered and followed her all the way past the stews to the bridge, she was transported with joy. I got my share, too, for I could hear people say, “Look! A baby born abroad! Look at the beautiful white horse! She must be a lady!”
There were no new heads on the bridge today, which I counted a mercy, for I wished to leave off seeing heads for a while. Just a single skull, picked dry by ravens and unclaimed by relatives, rattled on its spike in the breeze to greet us. Below, the bridge was aswarm with travelers, for it was a fine day. The shops were open, and tradespeople crying their wares. As we threaded our way past the crowds and laden mules by St. Thomas’s chapel, I heard a voice call, “Dame Margaret!” It was Philip, one of Master Kendall’s apprentices who had been given over, at his death, to Master Wengrave. He was taller, and his voice was cracking, but I still knew him. I hailed him and he pushed through the noisy crowd close enough to hear me as I leaned down from the saddle.
“Run to Master Wengrave’s house as fast as you can, good Philip, and tell him I’ve returned safe home, with my lord husband who was in France. And bid Mistress Wengrave to tell our steward to ready the house, for we will sleep there this very night.” And with a joyful whoop, the boy vanished into the throng.
But, of course, once said, the damage was done. The rumor began to rattle that I had abandoned my husband and married a Frenchman, and by the time we turned down Thames Street a woman cried from a window: “That’s him! That’s the Frenchman! Shame! Shame!”
“That’s London for you, Gregory. Everyone knows everything, and it’s wrong. London’s not so great as Paris, nor as grand as Rome, but it’s still best because it’s—”
“Please, God, you weren’t going to rhyme Rome with home, were you?” he interrupted me.
“Why, no, but I was going to say ‘home’—oh, my goodness—” and I put my hand up to my mouth. “No, I swear to you, Gregory, I haven’t contracted the rhyming disease. Well, anyway, not yet.”
In Pursuit of the Green Lion Page 45