The Iron Tempest

by Ron Miller

  The monastery of Vallambrosa was a sprawling collection of whitewashed buildings, surrounded by a low, meandering wall, in the midst of prosperous-looking vinyards and gardens. It lay just where the narrow valley broadened into the rolling plain, and the high, late summer sun flooded the open landscape with light and warmth. As she approached the abbey, she could not help but smile with approval, pleasure and relief at the sight of the busily-working monks, who for their part did not by even the most surreptitious glance acknowledge the presence of the stranger.

  As she approached she was surprised to see a large number of tidy-looking huts among which a dozen naked children were playing, who stopped their games to stare in open-mouthed awe at the gleaming stranger. Obviously the homes of serfs, though she couldn’t imagine what they’d be doing on Church land.

  As she dismounted before the heavy wooden gate, it swung open and a portly, bearded man appeared and approached her. He was at least a full foot shorter than she was, so that his height and diameter were virtually identical.

  “Welcome to the Abbey of Vallambrosa, Lady Bradamant,” he said, smiling.

  “You know my name?” she said, a little surprised—though not unpleased that for once her sex had not been mistaken.

  “Certainly, my lady!”

  She could only think of one reason for the abbot’s assurance. “Is Sir Rashid, the Saracen knight, here?” she asked anxiously, her heart leaping.

  “Sir Rashid?” the monk replied, puzzled. “I don’t know of a Sir Rashid, Saracen or otherwise.”

  “But, then, how did you know who I am?”

  “Oh! Your fame precedes you, my lady. We may be well out of the mainstream of mundane events here at Vallambrosa, but we are not ignorant, no we are not, especially when a great holy battle between Christian and pagan forces rages across Europe and Afric. And of those great defenders of the faith, of whom Karl is the greatest, the deeds and piety of your family are second to none—except for, as I say, Karl himself, of course. You and your brothers and cousins are quite well known here, I assure you.”

  “But has there been no other knight here? It would have been sometime in the last few days.”

  “No, my lady, I’m sorry; you’re the first in many weeks.”

  “He was to meet me here. He was going to be baptized in the faith.”

  “Then I’m even sorrier. Perhaps there’s only been a delay?”

  “Perhaps. I know that if he promised to come here, nothing would stop him.”

  “Then he will surely come. If he’s meant to be baptized into our faith, God will not fail to guide him. Would you care to come in? You’re just in time to join us for our noontime meal.”

  “Yes, thank you, I’d like that very much.”

  “Come then. Don’t worry about your animal, it’ll be well taken care of. You will, of course, be obliged to leave your weapons inside the gate.”

  “Of course.”

  Bradamant handed Rabican’s reins to a monk who had silently materialized behind her, deposited her sword and shield in a wooden hutch that hugged the inside wall (which the abbot securely locked, she was pleased to see), and followed the abbot through the gate. On the other side was a courtyard filled with masses of flowers and the sound of tinkling fountains and humming bees. She was led through a viney arcade into a large, sunny dining room, already half-filled with monks. There was a pleasant clatter of crockery and murmuring voices and the air was rich with the smell of honest food. Bradamant’s nostrils flared appreciatively, glad to rid themselves of the memory of the mawkish delicacies of the previous evening.

  “I apologize for the noise,” said the abbot. “Although our order has no vow of silence our members occasionally forget to show at least a little seemly moderation.”

  Bradamant was far from offended: the noise was cheery and honest and openhearted.

  She was offered an open space on a long, wooden bench and almost immediately trenchers of bread and cheese, slices of boiled ham, bowls of thick, steaming lentil soup, a pyramid of boiled eggs and an enormous pewter goblet of wine appeared. The abbot took a place alongside her, though he contented himself with only bread and wine.

  “So tell me, my lady,” he said, “what brings someone of your eminence to our humble retreat?”

  “The person of whom we spoke earlier, Father: Sir Rashid, the Saracen knight. I was to meet him here.”

  “Ah, yes. The Moor. I’d very much like to know what interest a good Christian girl like yourself might have in a Saracen knight.”

  “It’s a long story, Father.”

  “Do I appear to be in a hurry?”

  “Well, yes, you do, Father.”

  “You are right!” he laughed. “I apologize; you’re hungry and tired and it’s unfair of me to impose my curiosity upon you before you’ve even begun to eat and rest. You’re welcome to stay at Vallambrosa as long as you like. As soon as you feel up to it, come to see me and we’ll talk things over. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

  “Thank you, Father. You’re very kind.”

  “I’m supposed to be.”

  The abbot left Bradamant to her meal, to which she returned with single-minded devotion, devouring everything that was put before her. As she pushed away the last bowl, a novice approached and diffidently asked if she’d care to be shown to her, uh, er, chamber. Bradamant was charmed to see that the youngster was actually blushing.

  She was led to a low, distant wing of the abbey where she found a cell waiting for her. It was a single small room with whitewashed walls and a broad window, hardly large enough to contain a cot, a braided rug, a plain wooden chair and a small table. A rustic crucifix was the only decoration on the otherwise barren walls. This is more like it, Bradamant thought.

  “This’ll be fine,” she said to the boy, who stammered and scurried away.

  There was a bowl of water on the table with a neatly-folded towel. She removed her burnie and washed her face with the cold water. Then, wearing only her tunic, trousers and boots, she went in search of the abbot. She was eventually directed to his office, where she found him absorbed in a vast pile of parchment, scribbling furiously. Even though his visitor had been announced by the secretary, he looked up at her with blank unrecognition, his eyes still focused on his thoughts.

  “Ah!” he said, his face suddenly clearing. “My dear Lady Bradamant! Come in! Come in! Please, have a seat; may I get you anything? No? Do you find your accommodations satisfactory? We don’t have the opportunity to entertain gentlepeople terribly often and I’m afraid that our hospitality is a little rustic.”

  “No, Father, everything’s fine. Everyone’s been very kind. I certainly prefer the abbey to where I spent last night.”

  “Ah, yes, the king’s hunting lodge I understand. Terrible, terrible,” he mourned, shaking his heavy head. “A terrible thing for the king—or ‘emir’ as he now prefers to be called—to have turned his back on his faith and, compounding the sin, to have allied himself with the darkest forces of paganism. And look what the result’s been! You needn’t tell me about the decadent debauchery that goes on up there—I’m altogether too much aware of it as it is. And the child! That poor, innocent princess who may never have the chance to accept Jesus Christ as her personal lord and savior.”

  “Yes,” agreed Bradamant, “the poor princess.”

  “Well, then,” the abbot said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his broad stomach, “I must confess I’m anxious to hear your story! I’m sure it must be thrilling!”

  Bradamant did not know that she was equally anxious to tell it, nor was she certain how thrilling it was, and tried to decide exactly how much the abbot actually needed to know. There was much she would prefer he never knew—probably those very parts he would consider most “thrilling.” She had little experience at dissembling, especially to a priest, but neither did she feel at all comfortable baring the depth of her feelings about Rashid—and certainly not what had nearly come to pass at Atalante’
s château. She squirmed a little in her chair as she arranged her thoughts while the abbot looked on, smiling gently in unhelpful silence. In stumbling words, she told him her history, about her wounding for the sake of the unknown pagan knight, about losing and finding him again and the promised rendezvous at Vallambrosa. She told him of discovering Merlin’s subterranean palace and of the friend she had found in Melissa (he frowned at that and jotted a note, though Bradamant scarcely noticed this). She told him of Rashid’s promise to convert to Christianity for her sake. She did not tell the abbot about her dreams.

  “You’ve been having quite an adventure, haven’t you?” the abbot said when she had finished.

  “I suppose I have,” she replied.

  “I’m very impressed by your perseverance. But you’ve told me a few things I also find, well, quite disturbing.”

  “Disturbing, Father?”

  “Well, yes. All of these dealings with the sorcerer Merlin, for instance, and this sorceress, ah,” he glanced at his notes, “Melissa. These are unchristian things and therefore can come to little good, my dear.”

  “But Merlin and Melissa helped me find Rashid and in turn I’m bringing Rashid to the Church. That must be a worthy end to their help. Besides, their prophecies were that the descendants of Rashid and myself are to bring great credit to the Church and to Frankland and Italia.”

  “True, true . . . but at what cost? We don’t know that, do we?”

  “No, but—”

  “Satan sometimes enacts a grave toll for his gifts.”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “And the dereliction of your sworn duty: this is a serious matter, as well. Very serious. You put your own desires—carnal desires—ahead of your obligations. You forgot your allegiance to his most Christian majesty, the emperor Karl, in order to pursue this pagan knight—and you admit yourself that it was not part of your original goal to bring him to the Church. No, I suspect you truly want him for more, shall we say, um, personal reasons? That these more commendable motives are only later rationalizations?”

  “I—”

  “Well, never mind for the moment; this is really not the time nor place for this sort of discussion. I would suggest you think these matters over, however, and perhaps we can find an appropriate time and place for a talk?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Excellent! Well, then, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t remain here as long as you wish. If your Rashid is all you say he is, then he will eventually come. Until then, you are most welcome.”

  “Thank you, Father, you’re very kind.”

  “It’s nothing, my dear, absolutely nothing.”

  Days passed, then weeks, then a month, with neither word nor sign of Bradamant’s lover. Afraid of her proclivity for morbid brooding when alone or bored, she shunned her cell except to sleep and did her best to end every day exhausted. Begging a simple shift and headrail from one of the serf’s wives, she toiled alongside the other women, barefoot in the gardens, every day until her hair was bleached to the color of pine shavings and her face grew browner and leaner than ever. On days when it rained, or in the evenings, she helped cure leather or cut it into all sorts of useful objects, or she would pound sheepskin into parchment, of which the monks used prodigious amounts, or scrape palimpsests, or she would spin wool or flax, or make coarse cloth on the looms. She wasn’t very good at any of these things but she was willing to learn and was eventually able to do her jobs with an indefatigable workmanlike mechanicalness that she preferred, in any case, to genuine enthusiasm. While no one could honestly praise her work, neither could anyone honestly fault it. When she could persuade one of the monks into relinquishing his place to her, she would work acres of soil, helping the panting oxen drive a massive plow or harrow through the heavy clay. Later she would help sow the beans, peas, barley, wheat, oats and rye that served the monks for the greater part of their sustenance. There was little meat other than that provided by the few chickens, pigs and sheep until early winter when the oxen would be slaughtered. Then there was much work with butchering and preserving.

  But in spite of all this labor she still could not sleep. Every morning she lay awake, waiting for the first glimmerings of dawn. Then, at that first sign of day, she became no less anxious for nightfall. Her physical labor ought to have made the days and weeks evaporate like daydreams, but she was acutely aware of every passing moment. Her every heartbeat seemed to endure with the prolonged deliberation of a pendulum.

  Though the monastery’s order did not seem very strict, and the monks were cordial enough, even friendly, she did not encourage conversation and, eventually, they gave up the effort and she was left completely alone. She tried her best to avoid the abbot—who took every opportunity to insinuate doubts about Rashid into her mind—but with less success. She was no theologian and an even worse debater. While she felt she was a devout Christian, she was, like many, if not most, other equally devout Christians not particularly knowledgeable about her faith; if she thought much about it at all, her conclusion would have been that faith, by definition, was sufficient. The abbot’s logic and learning left her tongue-tied and confused; she did not like being unable to defend herself against the mistrust in herself and in Rashid that the abbot so skillfully created. And the longer it took for her to work out a counter-argument, the longer had the abbot’s doubts to work their subtle sabotage. And the more frustrated and tongue-tied she became, the angrier she got. There was not a soul in the world with whom she would have hesitated crossing swords—but in crossing words she was as helpless and defenseless as a child. Each night, in her prayers, she reaffirmed her faith in her lover and their love, trying to ignore the disloyalty, duplicity and heresy she was becoming increasingly convinced she was committing.

  The abbot, no doubt with the best intentions, grasped every opportunity to goad Bradamant into debate—something that she loathed, particularly when she felt as though she were being forced to defend her most private feelings, actions or motives. She was neither eloquent nor facile in her speech and since her thoughts were always deliberately and carefully considered, she was perpetually many steps behind the abbot’s quick, practiced mind. For his part, the abbot’s arguments tended toward forcing the girl to defend her love for the pagan Rashid, or to justify her predilection for such ostensibly masculine dress and activities as armor and making war, activities of which he obviously did not approve.

  “You must know, Lady Bradamant,” one debate began, “that the head of Christ is God and the head of every man is Christ, but the head of every woman is man.”

  “But Father, I’m capable of doing more than most men—why should I defer to someone who is less capable than I?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter of what you are or are not capable. If you wish to truly please God, you can’t do this by trying to become a man, or, worse yet, to become better than a man. That would in a very real sense be blasphemous. Corinthians tells us very unambiguously that a man ‘is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man’. To aspire to man-like things is to aspire to His image and glory—a certain blasphemy.”

  “But, Father,” she replied, feverishly flipping through the monk’s huge bible, “uh, doesn’t—ah—Corinthians also say that, yes, that neither the man nor the woman are complete without the other? That, uh, ‘as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.’ That certainly seems to imply an equality, so I would think.”

  “That’s true enough, Lady Bradamant, but that doesn’t permit one to become the other. Man and woman are separate and untransmutable. And doesn’t Timothy enjoin you,” he continued, adroitly changing the subject, “to adorn yourself in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety? Didn’t Paul adjure you not to wear that which pertaineth unto a man? Do you consider that the brilliant armor you wear, or the tunic and trousers you wear beneath—and which I myself have seen you immodestly wear by themselves with no other garment to concea
l them—, to be seemly dress for a Christian woman?”

  “It’s practical, Father; it’d be impossible to fight or ride a war horse in a dress! Besides, I am covered; no one can see anything they shouldn’t.”

  “There! Do you see? Your argument is circular! You are using one infelicity to justify a second in order to justify the first.”

  “Well, then, look here, Father. In One Timothy, chapter two, verse ten he says that a woman should clothe herself with good works! Isn’t that what I’ve been doing? What better work could there be than ridding Christian Europe of the heathen Moors?”

  “Keep reading, my lady. Doesn’t Timothy go on to say that you ought not to usurp authority over men? And doesn’t Corinthians also tell you that if you want to learn anything, that you should ask your husband?”

  “Why are you even discussing this with me?” she replied angrily, losing her temper and slamming closed the heavy cover of the book—and even angrier for having done that, “Doesn’t Corinthians also tell you that it’s a shame for a woman to speak in a church?”

  “Well, my dear, this isn’t a church . . .”

  Bradamant turned from the book stand and paced furiously, her hands clasped behind her back, her long strides measuring the length and breadth of the room like a pair of calipers. “If you believe these things, Father,” she said, stopping before his chair, “than you must also believe Tertullian and Paul! That it’s woman’s fault that Man fell, that we were the first to desert the divine law, that we, who are so flawed and weak, so easily destroyed that magnificent image of God that is Man! That on account of this desertion even the Son of God had to die! You credit us with all the power you deny us!” She leaned over the still-smiling cleric, her hands grasping the arms of his chair, her long nose descending toward his face like an executioner’s axe. “You dare look me in the eye and accuse me of being responsible for the crucifixion of Christ?”

  “Lady Bradamant! Please! There’s no reason to lose your temper!”

  “Pray that I don’t, Father!”