“I’m fine, child,” Marie said. “Continue with your story,” she directed Robert.
“I think in helping women I will also help myself.”
Marie twisted the poker into the embers. “And how do I know you’re speaking the truth? You’re not the first man to enter this house with a handful of change and a mouth spouting empty promises.”
“My message comes from the Lord, Mother Marie. Our new home will be a slice of paradise in this dark world. We will build a great church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and next to it a convent for you and your girls, consecrated to Saint Mary Magdalene. And your every need will be met, by me and by brothers dedicated to serving you.”
Marie laughed raucously. “Men serving women? Are you mad? Have you lived so long as a priest that you do not see the world for what it is?” Turning suddenly serious, she pointed her finger at Robert. “Do not mock me, Master Robert,” she said in a commanding voice. “I am no fool!” A burst of blue and red flames curled against the logs. Marie leaned back into her chair and released a drawn out sigh.
“I am sincere in my proposal. I am offering you a safe haven.”
“Do you have a plan,” Marie demanded, “some practical way of realizing your dream? Did this beautiful woman from your vision also provide you with monies for this… place of light?”
“I have a good friend and mentor at the monastery of Vendôme. He will help us.”
Marie sighed, a deep and troubled sound. “I do not entirely trust you, Master Robert,” she said. “I hear a keen desire in your magnificent voice, but a desire for what? You say your desire is to help women, that in doing so you hope to redeem them and yourself as well. But that desire does not account for the pride I hear in your powerful voice. Why is it, Master Robert, that while you freely confess your lust for Parisian whores, you are hesitant to confess your arrogance?” She shook her head. “The whole of your intent is not clear to me. Perhaps it is not yet clear to you. What is certain is that you have charmed my girls and they are bent on following you.”
Marie placed her thumb and index fingers against her eyes and rubbed them with drowsy deliberation. “I am old and my lungs are full of phlegm.” Her words were barely audible above the rattle of the tabby’s purr and the pop of the fire. “Soon I won’t have the energy to run this place. Then what? The girls are young and inexperienced. Not a one, not even my Maddy, knows enough about the business to take over.” She chuckled. “You think me proud? You would be right. That’s how I can so easily recognize the sin in others!” She laughed again, a rueful sound that sputtered into a wheeze. Then, looking intently into Robert’s eyes she asked, “Will this place of light be warm? Will it have a well-stocked kitchen?” she asked, cupping her substantial belly in her hands.
“In my vision…”
Marie frowned and pursed her lips.
“Yes,” Robert said. “You will be comfortable and your stomachs will be full.”
“Hmmph,” she said. “Then I’ll go with you, but I go reluctantly.”
“The Lord shall bless you, Mother. I will not fail you,” Robert said.
“We shall see,” Marie said. “We shall see.”
In the hour before dawn, Marie commanded Madeleine to fetch a jar from under the floor where her bed had been. “Here,” said Marie, “take Bodkins. I will carry the money.”
“We will not want your coins. They are ill-gotten coins, the Devil’s ransom,” Robert said.
Marie reached for the jar. “We will need money to buy bread. I do not intend to starve.” She poured the tinkling coins into a cloth bag that she fastened to her girdle. A few short days later, Marie and her girls removed the last of the furnishings from the little house and prepared to follow Robert. Even the twins, when they heard that the others had all agreed to go, shrugged and packed their things.
Fourteen-year-old Philippa found the first leg of the journey, three days gliding the Garonne River on a covered boat, most agreeable. The sounds of swallow and cuckoo punctuated the expansive quiet. Trailing her fingers through the water, she combed the banks in search of roe deer and the occasional wild boar. But the latter part of the journey, the slow trek over land from Bordeaux to Poitiers where her wedding would take place, tried her patience. For three weeks Philippa and her aunts Sibyl and Sophie bumped along the slick winter roads in a heavy four-wheeled wagon. Hampered by puddles and quagmires, their party, escorted by her brother Raymond and a score of vassals, progressed at an alarmingly slow rate.
On the twenty-fourth consecutive day of travel, Philippa complained of boredom. Sophie instructed Chaplain Berenger to open a crate of books, a gift from Philippa’s indulgent father. After much deliberation, Philippa selected The Aeneid. Settling into a pile of fur-covered wraps stacked knee high in the wagon bed, she immersed herself in Virgil’s tale.
A slim-figured young woman with green, almond-shaped eyes, lush lips and a mass of springy gold curls, Philippa loved a good story. The heroic exploits of Aeneas kept her occupied until sun set. “It’s so cold,” she said. “And I’m tired of riding in a wagon!”
Aunt Sibyl, a large compassionate woman who had been married and widowed so long ago that it must have seemed like a dim dream, swiveled in her seat and smiled sweetly at Philippa. “Think of the wonderful life that awaits you!” she said. “Your Duke is tall and handsome and valiant. They say William fought in Spain and proved his mettle against the Moors,” Sibyl rambled breathlessly, her tongue whipping over her perpetually chapped lips while her thumbs brushed her fingertips in a mesmerizing dance of nerves. “Imagine being married to such a brave, noble man! Oh, I have heard such good things! Do you know he risked his life leading French troops in Cutanda?”
Talk of battles sparked Philippa’s interest. Scooting forward in the wagon bed, she clutched The Aeneid in one hand and, gripping the back of her aunts’ seat with the other, rose up on her knees. “How?” she asked, thrusting her head between Sibyl and Sophie. “How did William risk his life?” She recalled Virgil’s Greek soldiers concealed in the hollow belly of a wooden horse and held her breath in anticipation.
“Yes, sister, why don’t you tell Philippa more about her heroic knight?” said Sophie, a fleshy widow with flyaway hair knotted in a bun. A wispy gray strand of hair trailed her cheek.
“Even wounded William refused to go home, returning to the battle field and helping to retake the city,” Sibyl explained.
“But how did he retake the city? What exactly did he do?” Philippa turned from one aunt to the other, her tight curls bouncing against her flushed cheeks.
Sibyl frowned, wagging her head back and forth. “Oh Philippa, you do ask the strangest questions! I know nothing of battlefields,” she continued, “and there’s no reason you should either. Suffice to say, you are betrothed to an heroic man of courage and strength of character.” She patted Philippa’s hand and smiled.
Despite her aunt’s reassurance, Philippa remained anxious. How did one behave around an heroic husband? Or any husband for that matter! At twenty-three, William seemed decades older than Philippa, and her responsibilities as his wife vague and ill defined.
As if reading her mind, Sibyl abruptly shifted from battlefield to boudoir. “It is your duty as a wife to produce a male heir,” she said. Speaking in an emphatic voice, Sibyl’s words ticked with certainty. “Follow his lead and think of the children to follow,” she instructed, blushing a most interesting raspberry.
“Lead?” Philippa asked, picturing a rider tugging on his horse’s bridle.
Sibyl frowned and shook her head before launching into another story. “They say Duke William is a man of curiosity and inventiveness. Wishing to discover the best profession for a man, he disguised himself as various artisans and worked at their crafts. Imagine, first a tailor, then a cobbler….”
“And what did he discover?” Philippa asked.
“That a merchant’s l
ife is best, for on every market day, he feasts at the local tavern and enjoys the good life.”
“The good life?” Philippa asked, furrowing her brow.
“Good enough,” Sophie said. “Until he has to pay the bill!”
“But,” Philippa asked, “what’s the good life?”
“Go on, sister, answer the girl’s question. Tell her about the good life,” Sophie said.
Sibyl frowned. For a while at least, they rode in silence. Only later, when Philippa’s aunts assumed she had drifted off to sleep, did Sophie whisper her stories. “Fairy tales are no help.”
Philippa imagined Sibyl’s nervous fingers plucking at her bodice while Sophie rode stiffly with both her hands folded in her ample lap.
“The girl should at least be prepared for her wedding night,” Sophie said.
Philippa held her breath and listened carefully, for despite Sophie’s prickly, melancholic temperament, she was always sensible and decisive.
“Tell her how William once took up residence in a Niort whore house where he and his shameless companions christened the prostitutes with the names of holy women.”
“Blasphemous! Enough, I say!”
“Is it? I think the child deserves to know that there are two sides to every man”—lifting her voice in a painfully accurate imitation of Sibyl’s quivering falsetto, Sophie continued—“a bright side that shines with heroic virtue and,” here she lowered her voice and spoke in her usual ominous rasp, “a dark side that is danger to women. This fine duke, so noble in battle, treats his women as he treats his horses—he rides them till he tames them, then he sets them to pasture, seeking new mounts.”
“What is to be gained by such knowledge? Do you think our girl’s life will be easier for knowing these stories? Let us pray and hope for the best.”
A cold fear gripped Philippa as she sunk deeper into the wraps. Rather than dwell on the unknown, she thought of the long, lazy days before her betrothal. She forgot the tedious hours hemming napkins and arranging flowers, recalling instead the glory and warmth of sunlight streaming through stained glass windows in the Cathedral of St. Sernin, where less than a month ago, Sibyl and Sophie had escorted Philippa to mass.
Scores of clerics and nobles had attended Robert of Arbrissel’s sermon. Philippa sat in the front pew between her two aunts, a veil covering her blond hair. A white-robed choir entered the nave chanting a slow rhythmic alternation of an Easter psalm. The choir split before the altar and took seats on either side of the chancel. Pope Urban, wearing his great miter and a golden samite alb, carried a gem-studded Bible to the pulpit. Two altar boys, holding candles and waving censors, followed in his wake. After placing the holy book on the lectern, the Pope blessed the congregation and announced that the day’s sermon would focus on the Seven Deadly Sins. He nodded to the dark-haired, barefoot priest before taking his seat with the other prelates behind the altar.
Bracing his hands on either side of the lectern, Robert took a slow, measured breath and scanned the congregation. Perhaps Philippa only imagined that his glance lingered on her.
He spoke of the pride and anger of princes and prelates. He dwelt on the envy and avarice that led to the crime of simony, and blasted disobedient monks for their sloth and gluttony. And while the holy man’s words had little to do with Philippa, the sound of his voice prompted her to contemplate her own sins. She judged herself headstrong and disobedient. Although she suspected that her father, who allowed his only daughter to be educated alongside his son, took secret pleasure in her quick mind and independence, she knew her aunts judged the same qualities not proper in a lady. As she listened to Robert’s words, contrition swelled her throat. She wondered if her transgressions were evidence of a wicked nature.
Robert’s sermon reached its crescendo when he approached the last of the deadly sins—that of lust. “The reward of lust is a loss of will,” he said, “for when lust becomes custom, and custom necessity, we are trapped in a chain of desire that we cannot break.”
Philippa, who knew nothing of lust, focused on the passion resonating from his voice and bearing. He spoke persuasively and, she could not help thinking, from experience. “Lust is a vain self-seeking, a perverted will bent on its own gratification and shunning true love, which comes from God, which is God.”
Philippa leaned forward, her whole being tilting to meet his next words. His voice found a new cadence that echoed with divine conviction. “We choose whether our bodies will be vessels of lust or temples of God. We may wallow in filth and sacrifice our bodies to a prostitute, becoming one body with her, dying in spirit. Or we may keep our bodies pure, love them in God, and the Spirit of the Lord will glow within us.” The Cathedral fell silent. Sunlight funneled through a clerestory window and illuminated the lectern, caressing the intricate fluting and bouncing beams of gold against the great ribbed arches. The Pope rose and nodded to the church leaders and clerics in the pews before addressing Robert.
“Robert of Arbrissel,” he said, “you are a sower of God’s words. I grant you the authority to preach anytime anywhere in the western provinces.”
Without understanding why, Philippa felt relieved of some burden.
As she drifted off to sleep during the final night of the long journey to Poitiers, Philippa found herself hoping that her betrothed might move her as Robert had—by exciting her heart and amazing her mind.
Guiding an ass by a frayed rope, Robert led his pilgrims along the river Seine, keeping to the main roads, traveling from one town and village to another. On a damp winter afternoon, several months into their journey, the party paused for a brief rest outside of Paris. Two of his followers, a grey-haired widow and her grown daughter stood atop a rise of land thrusting up from the flooded meadow. What attracted Robert’s attention was not their muddy feet or slumped shoulders but the passionate sound of the widow’s voice.
“In converting prostitutes, the Master has performed a miracle!”
Robert’s face flushed with pleasure and shame. Wrapping the ass’s lead more firmly around his hand, he worried that pride, not piety, had occasioned his pilgrimage. Taking a deep breath, he judged himself a fool of little consequence. Yet even a fool had obligations, and as a man of the cloth, he felt compelled to speak the truth. Robert’s feet made sucking sounds as he guided the ass to the widow’s side. His bearing, if not his pace, projected urgency. “Believe me, I’m no saint. I’m only a man struggling to do God’s work.”
A light in the widow’s eyes guttered out, as though his words had extinguished a flame inside of her. She grabbed the sleeve of his robes and, lifting her wind-chapped face to his, she whispered, “But you are also humble, and you are patient and kind.”
Robert’s blunt words had frightened her, for if he were not a miracle worker, what manner of man had she been following? While he collected his thoughts, Robert gazed at the caravan of pilgrims that stretched out beyond his line of sight. Over that first long autumn and early winter the number of converts had swelled from thirteen whores and a tomcat to three oxen, one ass, a half dozen mongrel pups, and well over a hundred pilgrims. The sight of Marie’s cart at the end of the caravan settled him, even though he knew she would scoff at the widow’s words.
The ass twitched its long ears and tail-flicked the damp air. Robert wrapped the animal’s lead around a shrub and took the widow’s hands in his. “We must rid our hearts and minds of distractions and walk the course mapped out for us with our eyes on Jesus. Tomorrow we should reach Paris.” Though he had spoken the words to comfort the women, they soothed his frayed resolve as well.
The widow clasped her hands together. “Bless you, Master!” she said. “Oh, bless you!”
They spent a fortnight in Paris. Robert preached the Word in public squares and back street brothels before he and his pilgrims set out for the Loire River Valley. Among Robert’s growing number of followers were a handful of yo
ung men, and some half dozen holy men—two monks from Jumièges, two lay clerics from Saint Denis, Peter, a musician from Saint Benoît sur Loire, and Moriuht, a former Viking slave. Dissatisfied with a vocation that had become fat and lazy, these religious men joined Robert’s forces inspired by his promise of a truer spirituality.
The men accompanied scores of peasant women and prostitutes ranging in age from fourteen to fifty, some carrying babes or leading children by the hand. Everyone, except for the lame and the very small children, carried leather scrips slung over their shoulders. A few began the journey with precious yards of lace and silver teaspoons, but soon traded these finery with farm wives for more practical items—needles, thread, wooden bowls and medicinal herbs and spices. An Orléans seamstress contributed three bolts of pewter, gold and alabaster silk from which she fashioned cloth crosses that the young virgins sewed onto the pilgrim’s robes and hats.
At night Robert sometimes found the group lodging at farmhouses or local inns, but often the pilgrims simply wrapped themselves in blankets and bedded down in an open field. Mindful of propriety, Robert settled the men on one side of the road and the women on the other while he himself moved freely from group to group—promising new life, praying aloud to God and the Virgin.
Inclement weather was their biggest challenge. Rain fell for six weeks straight. Brown slush sucked at their feet. Spelt, barley and rye molded in water-soaked burlap sacks and whole baskets of chickpeas split and sprouted before they could be boiled. The pilgrims were forced to beg for alms and forage fields for scallion and watercress.
His faith wavering, Robert worried that his vision in the Forest of Craon had been the work of his imagination, a febrile manifestation of his own desire to implement God’s work and make amends for the life of sin he had lived in Paris. Plodding through dripping forests he strived to evoke the sacred power of that stormy day he had learned his destiny. But while he could recall with astonishing precision the figure and face of the beautiful woman, he could not always retrieve the passion she had awakened in him. Turning inward, he spoke less and less to those around him. On the worst days, he imagined the pilgrims all dead, victims of ravenous floods or pestilence. Robert’s followers misread his silence as evidence of divine direction, and the rumors of his sainthood continued.
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