The Black Chalice

by Marie Jakober

  Gods, how you would have laughed! Yes, I say gods. I bowed my head to your holy water but I kept the gods of my people, too. You never knew that, either….

  The fire was failing. Wearily she went to the hearth, knelt, settled the coals, and piled on fresh wood. The heat burned against her face. She sat back on her heels, played one hand briefly over the old, unforgotten injuries. She had been pretty once, wonderfully pretty, the fairest girl in Kevra, they said; all the men wanted her. No one did now.

  Strange, she thought, that after so many worse things, it hurt so much to have lost her beauty. So much she could lift the poker from the fire, and consider walking over to Arnulf’s cot, and pressing the red hot iron into his face.

  It would almost be worth it, just to hear you scream. But I will wait. You whimpered a good bit today, for a man who once held a burning candle against his arm and counted to twenty, just to prove how well he could handle pain.

  How could I ever have cared for you, even a little? Even in madness? You gave me nothing. A few gifts, a bit of passion, and then you rode away to fight and whore wherever the wind took you. And brought home that plaster-faced wench with the breasts of a goddess and the brains of a flower. She didn’t last either, but I suppose she was a novelty after me. And when I screamed at you, you smashed my face. You beat me until I couldn’t stand, and then you used your feet. When I could work again, and say yes my lord and no my lord, like a proper servant, you sent me to the scrub-house, and thought that was the end of it.

  All these years you thought so, you thought it was all forgotten, it never even mattered. I had nothing left, no people, no pride, no decency, not even you, worthless though you were. I had only my pretty face, which might at least have won me a servant’s warm bed. And you took it away on purpose, for sheer cruelty, and imagined I forgot….

  “Sigune…?”

  She jumped with terror, bashing her ankle against the chair, whirling to see Adelaide standing in her nightdress, holding a candle.

  “How is my father?” the girl asked, softly but aloud.

  “He’s sleeping.”

  They walked to the count’s cot. Adelaide bent, laid her hand for a moment on his forehead, straightened his blankets, looked up once, very briefly, at the slave woman. It was a look Sigune knew very well.

  Like a rabbit in a snare, she thought, frightened and sharp-toothed, but neither old enough nor hard enough to deal with the hunters. Everywhere you turn you see only more danger. And I, whom you trust at least a little…. I am the most dangerous of all.

  She gave the count’s pillow a last, token pat, and they moved away from him towards the fire. The girl was shivering. Sigune did not think it was only from the chill.

  “Keep good watch then,” Adelaide said. “And do not sleep.”

  She did not wait for an answer. Sigune watched her flee from the hall, a ghost melting into the flicker of her own candle. When the last light was gone, the slave woman sat again, her arms folded over her belly, looking at the count.

  What a pity I can’t tell you all of it, my lord; you would have to give me credit. No lone warrior, scouting an enemy encampment, ever trod more secretly or more silently than I. No merchant, made wise by shipwreck, ever weighed his risks with better care. And if there is a man alive more patient in his vengeance than I have been, I would like to meet him, and drink him a toast.

  You care for very little in this world. Warfare and glory, your pride of strength and manhood, your good name. And your daughter. Why this one God knows, you never cared much for the others, or for their mothers. But Adelaide is precious to you.

  And precious to me, too, in my fashion. I will not sleep tonight, and I will keep good watch, as I have done so many times before.

  How old was she when young Rudolf started courting her— twelve maybe? Of course no one saw it as courtship; he was only a lad himself. It was only a game, only gallantry; he would pick her a flower on a hunt; she would give him a ribbon to wear on a raid. All of it very open, very playful, a promising young vassal being nice to his liege lord’s favorite child. And of course you took your power for granted— your power over Rudi, your power over her.

  It was I who dusted love powders into his clothing in the wash-house— you never thought about such things, did you, when you made me a scrub-woman? I suppose I used too much; he ended with a rash, and had to see the physician; but it will take more than a doctor to cure him of the itch he has now. And it was I who told her stories when the days were long and no one was there to comfort her. I chose the stories very carefully, always tales of forbidden love, and hidden messages, and secret hiding places. She was a bright little thing; she put to use everything I taught her, and rather quickly, I must say; no doubt she inherited your splendid appetites.

  She’s probably with him now— wouldn’t it tickle your proud lordship’s heart? In the room behind the barley stores which no one uses any more, in her little nightdress, with your most faithful vassal. The one who leapt to fulfill your every command, even the worst of them, imagining he would finally be rewarded. Poor Rudi.

  We are come all but full circle, lord Arnulf of Ravensbruck. You robbed me of everything I loved. You broke my honor, you broke my heart; you made me an animal, with nothing to live for but death. Now it is your turn… but I suppose, even to the very end, you will see everything in your dying except the truth.

  * * *

  Karelian of Lys and his company arrived a week later. By then the Iron Count — who indeed seemed to be made of something much harder and more indestructible than mere flesh — was able sit up in his chair, eat a full meal with plenty of beer, and give orders as usual. For the first time in months the great hall was actually swept clean, though of course it did not stay that way more than a day. There was a great flurry of hunting and butchering and baking, and piles of clothing dumped into the wash-house. It was a good thing, Sigune reflected, that people in Ravensbruck occasionally died or got married. It was the only time the countess might hope for something new to wear, or the servants for something extra to eat. However barbarous the count was in other ways, he had a well-developed sense of rank and honor. When highborn guests came to his fortress, they were treated like royalty.

  This guest actually was royalty, in Arnulf’s opinion. Karelian Brandeis was a kinsman of Duke Gottfried, and it was common knowledge in the Reinmark that Gottfried claimed ancestry back to the first Frankish kings. The very first, the Merovingians, who ruled before Charlemagne, and who were usurped by Charlemagne’s father. Unfortunately for Gottfried, there was nothing to support his claim but legend. Four hundred years had passed, after all; there wasn’t a royal house anywhere in Christendom which could trace its genealogy back so far, through so many wars and upheavals. Some people scoffed at the duke’s claim, but others merely added it to his already extraordinary prestige. Of course he has royal blood, they would say; look at his magnificent appearance; look at his courage, his prowess in war, his splendid leadership… such a man was surely born of kings!

  Sigune would not have cared in the least who Gottfried thought his ancestors were, if the same ancestry had not belonged to Karelian of Lys. But it was the reason Arnulf leapt at the offer of a marriage between Karelian and his daughter. There were other lords he might have chosen — among them young Rudolf of Selven — other lords equally endowed with property, and much more suitable in age for a girl of seventeen.

  But royal blood was royal blood. It did not matter how many hundred years the Merovingian kings were dead. It did not matter if three separate lines had since replaced them. It did not even matter that Gottfried’s claim might well be false. Karelian stood apart among Adelaide’s suitors for reason of his blood alone, and he was welcomed with endless feasting and drinking, and endless tales of war.

  Sigune had no place at the great feast tables, or anywhere near them. But now and then, amidst the scrubbing and the carrying, or when the count of Ravensbruck needed tending and the physician was elsewhere and the counte
ss was busy, she had her moments to study the count of Lys, and to plan her next move.

  She would get rid of this stallion Arnulf had chosen for Adelaide’s bed. She would get rid of him, royal blood and all, him and however many others Arnulf was able to entice, until there were none left. Perhaps this was how the stories began, all those marvellous stories about suitors who had to guess impossible riddles or have their heads taken off. There was never a riddle, Sigune thought. There was never a princess with so much power. For if a woman had the right to set such deadly challenges, surely she had the right to just say no. What there was instead of riddles, probably, was a witch in the corner whom no one even noticed.

  * * *

  It was late; the room stank of torch-smoke and sweat; half the men at Arnulf’s table were drunk. The count’s women had long ago retired, as they were expected to do. The real storytelling never started until they were gone. There were so many things women were not supposed to hear spoken of— an astonishing thing, Sigune thought, when women were so often the ones who endured them.

  She was quite far from the count’s table; his exchanges with Karelian were mostly lost in the general drunken babble. Except sometimes when he raised his voice to drive home a point: “Why are we sending armies to Palestine, that’s what I would like to know?”

  Or when he laughed, and roared out the triumphant end of a story, how he killed some Swede, or some Prussian, or some Reinmark rebel, man to man and blow by blow, until those listening could hear the clashing of their swords, and almost see the enemy’s severed head rolling across the feast table and tumbling onto the floor.

  Whatever the count of Lys said in reply to any of this, Sigune could not hear. She studied him patiently and with care, as a warrior might study an enemy before combat, noting everything without emotion and without self-deceit.

  He was a fine-looking man, for those to whom it mattered. His body was solid and powerful, so well-proportioned that he seemed neither tall nor heavy, though in fact he was both. He had a good nose and fine, high cheekbones. Rich hair fell curling to his shoulders, the color of a stag in August. There were no scars on his face. He was lucky in battle then, or very good. And although he looked his thirty-eight years, maturity gave him presence, and served to hone his natural gifts rather than diminish them. He smiled easily, a courteous smile which charmed men like a caress. But when once or twice she had been close enough to see his eyes, they were cool and watchful. Even now, sitting at Arnulf’s right hand in the midst of all the clamor and vainglory, he seemed faintly aloof, drinking a great deal and not saying very much.

  Arrogant as the devil, she thought. You think you’re too good for these wild border folk. Or maybe you’re just bored. You’ve heard it all, you’ve done it all, why don’t they just get on with the wedding and give you the bedchamber key….

  What shall I do to you, proud Karelian of Lys, supposedly heir of all those dead kings? Maybe you should drop your trenchers all over your lap? Or start to fart like an old gelding climbing up a long hill… but then, in Ravensbruck, would anybody notice?

  He was raising his cup to his mouth— one of Arnulf’s great silver steins, freshly brimming with beer. Well, why not? she thought, and tipped it.

  And watched, astonished and slowly tensing with fear, as he drank, and wiped the foam from his mouth, and went on listening to Arnulf’s tales with the same polite exhaustion as before.

  She withdrew deep into the shadows, made herself wait, breathe quietly, concentrate. A huge, mangy dog was lying against the wall. She pressed her thought against its leg— harder than she realized. It woke yelping, scrambled to its feet with a snarl, saw her, and slunk away.

  So. It’s not me, then. It’s him. He is a sorcerer, too….

  Days passed; she was afraid to try again; afraid he would notice even the smallest flicker of her power, the way magnets noticed iron, the way hawks noticed rabbits in the grass. But every day, sometime in the day, she would encounter Adelaide’s bleak, frightened eyes. She would see Arnulf of Ravensbruck mastering his pain as he mastered everything else in his path, growing strong again, ruling the world. Nothing had changed, really; she had plotted her vengeance all these years and nothing had changed.

  She tested Karelian of Lys again. And again. She worked the most powerful spells she knew, in the deepest dead of night, and nothing happened. He did not seem to be aware of her actions; he was simply out of their reach.

  Someone else was shielding him.

  EIGHT

  In the Women’s Quarters

  O see how narrow are our days,

  How full of fear our bed.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  * * *

  Blood welled into a great red drop on the ball of Adelaide’s thumb. It stung, but she hardly noticed; her fingers were cold, and the tiny wound was only one of many. She wiped it furtively on a handkerchief, but Helga noticed anyway.

  “You’ve pricked yourself again, have you?” Helga smiled. “You know, you’re really lucky you were born a girl, and only get to use needles. Think what would happen if they ever turned you loose with a sword.”

  The first thing I’d do is cut your nose off, and hang it on a string around your neck. Then you’d have something of your own to meddle with….

  Adelaide’s eyes burned from pitch smoke, from hours of trying and trying to see. The sewing lay forgotten on her lap, stiff and white, icy to the touch. There was no end to it. Pillow cloths. Table cloths. Shifts. Aprons. Shawls. Blankets. Quilts. Cloths to sit on and to sleep on, cloths for the chapel, cloths for the windows, cloths to blow your nose. The women of Ravensbruck had done nothing for months but sew, till the world had shrunk to a room, and the room to a chair and a needle. It was December; the windows were boarded shut against the winter. Their only light came from torches; their only warmth from an ill-burning hearth. Sometimes for hours she thought of nothing but running away. She would somehow run away, and become a bandit, or a veela’s familiar. They said the wood nymphs stole young girls away sometimes. They carried them off to the forest, to tend their long golden hair, and learn their wild veela ways. She would go willingly; they wouldn’t have to steal her. And one day she would come back, secret and powerful, and do something to Clara of Ravensbruck and her red mouthed brat. Something they would never, never forget.

  Rudi said it was no better to be a man. He said you were just sent hither and thither like a dog for his master’s bones, and died if you made a single mistake. But he was wrong; it had to be better than walls, better than days so endlessly alike she could not remember them, better than Clara hoping she would die. Rudi had a horse, and weapons, and the wind and the sun in his hair. And he had the possibility, the exquisite, unthinkable possibility of simply riding away, of saying, No more, I won’t endure it any more, and turning his horse to the dawn, and never looking back.

  “Really mother,” Helga said. “If Adelaide isn’t going to work on her own things, I don’t see why I should have to.”

  Adelaide picked up the sewing again, quickly, but not before the countess had risen to her feet. She was almost crippled with the sickness in her joints; she moved slowly, yet in every movement was a terrible ferocity, as though she could take her lost strength back from the world by force.

  They said she had been pretty in her girlhood, as Helga was now: full-bodied and vital, with a tempting, flesh-warm sweetness. Adelaide did not believe it. The woman’s face was carved of shale, tight and passionless. She never laughed. She detested almost everything that lived. She limped across the room, and Adelaide’s stomach knotted into a tiny ball of pain.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Clara demanded.

  “Nothing, my lady,” Adelaide said.

  Clara did not seem to notice the reply, or even to want a reply at all. She went on, harshly:

  “You don’t care about anything, do you? All your father’s concern for you, and all of mine, year after year, and what’s it worth to you? Nothing!” She wrenched the sewing out
of Adelaide’s hand. “Look at this! It’s all crooked! Can’t you even make a decent hem?”

  “Lady, the light is so bad today—”

  She should never have said it. She shouldn’t have said anything at all. Clara seized a handful of her hair and jerked it viciously, snapping her head back, forcing out a small yelp of pain.

  “So now even the light isn’t good enough for you! I suppose you think we should burn fifty marks’ worth of wood a day, and leave the windows wide open? Do you think Karelian of Lys will be able to afford that? Oh, he’ll rue the day he ever took you for a wife. You can’t even sew your wedding garments properly.

  “I swear I don’t understand your father. I served him faithfully all these years, and I gave him four good sons. But does he arrange a good marriage like this for my daughter? Oh, no, he arranges it for you, and like as not he’ll send poor Helga to some dirty border fortress to be married to a brute. And all you can do is idle away your time and pull a long face! Stupid, that’s what you are. Worthless and stupid!”

  Adelaide turned her face away from her step-mother’s wrath, and saw Helga busy herself with her sewing. On the younger girl’s face was a familiar look of satisfaction and dismay. She always made trouble. She always felt guilty afterwards for doing it. Or pretended to.

  Helga, she knew, would sell her soul to marry a man like Karelian of Lys. Her hard little eyes burned with longing when she saw the gifts he brought, when he talked about his lands and his splendid manor house. And he was a hero besides. He had been to Jerusalem and fought the infidels; he was descended from ancient kings.