The Iron Tempest

by Ron Miller

  “This is true,” interjected the hermit. “I’ve been speaking to Sir Rashid about this very matter, which has the blessing of God Himself, I assure you.”

  “You know this for a fact, then, do you?”

  “Of course.”

  “But tell me, Renaud,” said Rashid, “what’ll Bradamant’s father think of this? He might have other ideas.”

  “Nonsense! The emperor himself’ll give the match his blessing! The whole of Frankland’ll applaud your union! It won’t matter much what the Duke thinks then.”

  “And Bradamant?”

  “My dear fellow! She pines for you daily!”

  They shook hands and embraced, feeling very much as if they were already brothers-in-law.

  The following morning saw the end of the knights’ sabbatical. The sailors, they knew, were growing restless and the captain had already sent more than one messenger urging that they take advantage of the favorable wind and weather. However reluctant they may once have been to leave the hermit’s company, now that the pact had been made between Renaud and Rashid the two men were anxious to journey to Marseilles, where the emperor was now holding court.

  The ancient hermit blessed them all as they fell to the oars of the longboat and pulled for the waiting ship. The captain was as delighted to see the knights as the old man was sorry to say goodbye, especially since the weather was so favorable that he did not expect to have to utter a single prayer for the whole passage to Marseilles, nor did he have to.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In which Bradamant’s hand is pledged in Marriage

  and the Emperor issues a Great Challenge

  “I’ve got wonderful news for you, Bradamant,” her father said. It surprised her that she did not doubt it. She had been home for nearly a month and Renaud had been proved more or less correct. Her body had quickly healed of the abuses she’d put it to and her soured spirits did feel renewed, though she remained quiet and brooding and lonely. Her mother and father had been glad to see her, though in a curiously distracted manner, their words of welcome and greeting uttered uncomfortably. This did not overly concern Bradamant, who understood the discomfiture her parents had always felt in the presence of great emotion and the difficulty they had in expressing it naturally, something that did not come to them easily. It was perhaps the only thing the duke truly feared. But Bradamant was intelligent and empathic enough to know the cost of those uneasy phrases and could look past the clumsy words and appreciate what they cost—rather like the ability to look beyond a tawdry gift to see the honest thought that engendered it.

  She was glad to see her old chambers again, though they seemed smaller and plainer than she remembered, naturally enough. They had been freshly cleaned and aired for her since news of her coming had preceded her by several days, and the bedding was new and soft and the linen crisp and sweet-smelling. Her mother had filled a fragrant cedar armoire with clothing—probably frugally gathered from friends and neighbors, but the dresses were agreeably plain and light. On a table nearby were combs, brushes, ointments, lotions and perfumes—the last three of which Bradamant disdained.

  It had been curiously pleasant at first to have a vacation from her armor, which she had not had off for more than a few hours at a time for years (discounting her sojourn at the abbey, where the coarse sackcloth she had worn had been a kind of armor in its own right), and to instead go about in a simple linen shift—even barefoot if she pleased, which she did whenever she could. But of late she had missed the weight, solidity and security of her brunia.

  Fortunately, there had been no one else at home save her father, her mother and the castle staff. She had been as pleased to see so many of the old faces still in the kitchen, gardens and smithy as she had been to see her parents. Not the least of these was old Baldrick the Armorer, now so elderly that he had been forced to delegate virtually all of his work—but not one whit of his authority—to younger and stronger hands. He was not at all willing to admit that they might also be more competent hands, and in that conceit he was perfectly correct. He had a thousand questions for the girl, about her battles and duels, about the weapons of her enemies and the remarkable steel of the Moors which he had been informed on the best authority was tempered by plunging the red-hot blade into the living body of a slave. He went over her armor scale by scale with skinny, palsied, arthritic fingers, scrutinized with rheumy, myopically squinting eyes, and had to be told the story of every dent and scratch, the reason for every missing piece—and was unstinting in his criticism. He set his shop to work the very day she returned to the restoration of her armor, sword and lance—and perhaps even improvement, for he was not so old as to be without ideas.

  Bradamant appreciated the fact that, after the first few days, she was left more or less to her own devices. It was late Spring and the countryside surrounding Montauban, always beautiful, was at its freshest and friendliest. Even the great château—built by her great-grandfather, Bevis of Hampton, for his son, Bernard, the first Duke of Clairmont—did not look as formidable as she remembered it. Covered with vines from foundation to parapets, its massive block resembled a mossy stump, or perhaps some wealthy romantic’s folly, more than it did a castle that had successfully withstood a dozen sieges.

  She indulged in long rambles, sometimes on horseback, when she would allow the animal to wander at its pleasure while she dreamed, half lying, half sitting on the animal’s broad back, but more often on foot than not and more often unshod than not. She discovered an entirely new and unsuspected pleasure in feeling wet morning grass beneath her feet, the prickle of dry afternoon grass, the icy water of the brooks, the abrasive surface of sun-warmed stones or the resilient velvet of moss-covered ones, of moss so thick it absorbed her feet to her ankles, the unbelievable sensuality of soft mud, the coarse bark of fallen trees that crumbled beneath her toes, the fragrant pricking of pine needles that lay in shaggy brown blankets or the heavy, cool yellow dust that paved the paths and trails. For the first time in her life she admitted the thousand ways Nature wished to caress and embrace her. For twenty years she had existed within Nature’s bosom like an encysted germ.

  There was a pool cupped in a grassy hollow, like a lens held in the palm of an enormous hand, where the languid sunlight seemed to gather along with the water. There Bradamant did what she had never before permitted—she abandoned herself to the titillative caress of the world she lived in: the enfolding warmth of the sunlight that gilded her elongated body in gleaming leaf, the breezes that flowed over her like sheets of silk, the water, still chilly in the early morning, that made her skin horripilate and her heart rattle like a war drum, that embraced her like amber, like molten glass, that penetrated and dissolved her as though she were nothing more substantial than a marzipan decoration. Where she had once been encysted, encapsulated, a microuniverse, a subset, she now embraced the elements, was absorbed into them, flowed into the world and mixed with it like a drop of oil in a pond; once aloof, distinct and apart, now emulsified and mixed with the water in a uniform homogeneity.

  “Yes, Father?” she replied.

  “I’ve just promised your hand in marriage to Prince Leon, the son of Emperor Constantine of Greece.”

  “What?”

  “Prince Leon, of Greece. What d’you think of that, eh?”

  “How could this Leon have any interest in me? We’ve never met, so far as I know.”

  “He hasn’t had to see you to have fallen in love with you. You’re a, ah, lovely girl, Bradamant, and your, um, beauty is as famous as your valor, even if you won’t admit it. Why, there’re noblemen and princes all over Europe who’d beg for your hand on the basis of your reputation alone. In fact, have been begging.”

  “And you told this stranger that he could have my hand?”

  “With one qualification—that I first wanted to discuss it with my eldest son. Only a formality, of course, but I respect Renaud too much to make this decision without him.”

  “What about me?”


  “Eh?”

  “Don’t I have anything to say about this?”

  “Why should you? Besides, I’d think you’d be delighted to make your family kin to such a magnificent line.”

  Bradamant only nodded dumbly, knowing that arguing with her father would gain her no more ground than the ten thousand who had tried to best him in battle and had lost. He was no less adamant in the defense of his opinions than he was of the ground he stood on. She did her best to mollify him noncommitally and fled to her chambers, where she threw herself onto her bed. By leaning on her elbows and propping her chin in her palms, she could look out the window at its footboard. The undulating countryside that surrounded Montauban looked like a seascape, frozen in time, the tidy houses and windmills like boats and ships atop the green crests and within the shadowy troughs of the ponderous swells. The line where the horizon and the sky met drew her into the misty distance like a cork into a whirlpool, with the cloudy recollection of Rashid’s face waiting to absorb her at the vortex. There was no sound but the grinding of Bradamant’s teeth.

  Duke Haemon decided the ideal place to announce his daughter’s betrothal would be Marseilles and the ideal moment a week hence when Astolph, Renaud, Roland and Oliver would be returning from the Afric shore, where they had been thought lost. Charlemagne, who was at the moment headquartered in that city, had planned a mammoth gala in honor of the heroic knights to which, of course, the Clairmont family had been invited, as had all the greater and lesser nobility of Frankland and beyond.

  * * * * *

  As soon as word had reached Charlemagne that the knights had set foot on Frankish soil, he sent a deputation of nobles that intercepted them at the Rhône. They were to escort the men to Marseilles, where the emperor had established his new headquarters. In the meantime, the city had been transformed, its war-weary citizens glad of such a festive diversion and the tawdry, battered city was festooned with garlands of flowers, flags and colored bunting, much in the same way that an aging woman might vainly try to hide the ravages of time and a hard life with paint, powder and veils.

  Bradamant took advantage of her family’s early arrival to wander the streets alone, admiring and bemused by its transformation—as though the city were daring her to guess who was beneath its mask. Everywhere there were games and actors, musicians and charlatans, magicians and beer-vendors, mimes and dancing bears, morality plays and pastry-sellers, jugglers and pickpockets, beggars and braggarts. Above her head, so many gold and scarlet pennants fluttered from the roof peaks, towers, turrets and chimneys that the city looked as though it were ablaze. Beneath them the narrow streets were spanned by floral arches bearing such salutary slogans as Hail the Saviors of Europe! or Hurrah for Roland, Renaud, Astolph and Oliver! or one startling and disturbing one that simply read God Blesse Ladie Braddimant! From them the breeze whirled a colorful snowstorm of petals. She elbowed her way through the crowds, chewing on a meat pie, enjoying the sounds, the smells, the press and jostle of the surging bodies, enjoying the anonymity of her costume, which was neither particularly rich nor noticably plain. What would the people around her think if they knew that the tall, lean young woman with the half-eaten meat pie and greasy face was their erstwhile protector?

  She had escaped the palace—where she and her family had been given apartments—to avoid the incessant and oppressive burden of being sociable—a talent she lacked to a remarkable degree—and the seemingly endless round of introductions to people she neither knew nor cared about, but who fawned and flattered until she felt ill. The constant stream of insincere, obsequious, unknowledgeable compliments about her career made those accomplishments seem cheap and mean. She had not endured the ugliness of war and death for the amusement of these simpering, empty-headed sycophants. Phidias, resurrected, would surely feel the same way were he to witness a peasant leering stupidly at the glorious nudity of one of his great sculptures. Her only pleasure had been the discovery that Marfisa was among the emperor’s guests and their reunion had been full of tears and joy.

  The Moor was not at all perturbed when Bradamant told about the fateful betrothal.

  “So?” she said. “You’re fated to marry Rashid and there’s nothing that’ll prevent that from happening. Allah has decreed it.”

  “Neither you nor Allah know my parents.”

  “What does that matter?”

  “I can’t openly defy them.”

  “You won’t have to. That’s what gods are for.”

  The entrance of the knights into the city was accomplished with all the ceremonial pomp of a Roman conqueror returning to his capital. The citizens paved the muddy streets ahead of the procession with their own clothing while beautiful maidens threw wreaths and baskets of flowers from windows and cheering children scampered carelessly between the legs of the horses. The people who jammed either side of the way called out “Roland!”, “Clairmont!” or “Mongrana!” (which was Oliver’s family name), until the combined roar began to shake tiles from the roofs and the heroes marched in a hail of terra cotta.

  As the knights approached the palace steps, the emperor himself emerged to greet them—an unprecedented honor. At his side was his third wife, Hildegarde, and the two children she had so far borne him, Carloman and Rotrude. There, too, was brave Mitaine, the young girl—scarcely twelve years old—whom Roland had taken as his squire; with a glad squeal she ran to the side of her knight. Bradamant smiled at the sight: Mitaine reminded her very much of herself at that age. The square that faced the palace was filled with cheering celebrants, but they parted before the knights like the bow wave of a great ship.

  On either side of Charlemagne were representatives of all the noble houses of his empire: dukes, kings, princes and paladins, noble ladies and beautiful maidens. Bradamant stood next to Marfisa and looked askance at her friend with a grimly jealous expression. The Saracen looked like an enameled caryatid in her resplendent, blood-red armor, while Bradamant had been forced by her parents to abandon any plan she might have entertained to wear her own. She felt silly and conspicuous and somehow fraudulent without it. The warrioress who had defeated entire armies had fallen before the wishes of her own mother and now stood, to all eyes but her own, resplendant in a gown of emerald brocades and silks, pearls and silver and gold thread—like an iron dagger in a jeweled sheath. She felt ridiculous, hurt and humiliated, while her armored comrades-in-arms, brothers and cousins stood next to their liege, shining like silver-plated falcons.

  The knights dismounted at the foot of the steps and Bradamant saw that there were four, five, six of them. She recognized Oliver, Renaud, Roland and Astolph. Who were the other two?

  “There’s Sobrino,” she heard Marfisa say. “A very great Moorish king and warrior. Evidently, judging by the cross painted over the crescent on his shield, he’s converted to your—our faith.”

  But it was the sixth knight who held Bradamant’s attention. There was something about the figure that sent a premonitory frisson down her spine, as though it were a supercharged lightning rod, quivering in anticipation of the bolt to come.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Marfisa. “You’re as pale as cheese.”

  “It’s Rashid,” Bradamant whispered.

  “Rashid? Really?”

  “Don’t be a fool,” she snapped. “Of course it’s him. D’you think I could be mistaken about that?”

  “Well, then,” the Moor replied, unfazed, “what’re we lingering here for? Let’s welcome him as a sister and a lover ought to!”

  “You know I can’t do that!” Bradamant said, horrified, involuntarily stepping back a pace.

  “Wait!” Marfisa cried, as though her companion were pressing forward instead of cringing behind her back. “Look what the Emperor’s doing!”

  Glancing past the dark woman’s broad shoulders, Bradamant saw something astonishing. The knights had fallen to their knees below their emperor, as was proper, but now Charlemagne had descended the steps and, taking Rashid by his arms, had raised the Moor to hi
s feet and was embracing him. A tremendous cheer rose from the crowd, a thundering roar that beat at the surrounding buildings like surf against a cliff. Thousands of pigeons, startled from their sleepy curiosity, filled the air with a whirring rush, swirling like a whirlwind. The sound and movement made Bradamant feel dizzy and disoriented. She wanted to flee and began to back away, melding into the mob behind her like a fawn blending into the confused light and shadow of the forest, like a startled fish seeking its darksome grotto. She didn’t dare allow Rashid to see her. If he blurted out his affection for her, if he announced before the emperor and his court the promises they had made to one another, this would be a catastrophe beyond all hope of repair.

  Once she found herself in the shadow of the great arched portal, she stole one, brief glance toward the knights before disappearing through the doorway. At that moment, Rashid looked up and away from the emperor and, she was certain, directly into her eyes. He was two hundred yards distant and yet his face seemed to fill her vision, as though he were standing not six inches away. She gasped as though his arms had suddenly embraced her, his rich scent filling her nostrils. With a whimpering cry of anger and frustration, she turned and flung herself into the dark, empty palace.

  * * * * *

  The celebrations went on for the remainder of the week, an endless procession of parties, banquets, concerts, bonfires, tournaments, masques, farces and dances, none of which had any interest for Bradamant. Her only desire was to remain as inconspicuous as possible until she could flee to Montauban with her parents. No, not her only desire—her true desire, what she truly wanted more than anything, of course, was to publicly declare her love for Rashid, to marry him, to consummate their bond—in whatever order these events presented themselves—that was what she wanted to do and which was, of course, exactly what she dared not do.