“Why, William, why?” she repeated.
“You changed, Philippa,” he said in an oddly unfamiliar, almost diffident tone that startled her far more than his words. “You did.”
The accusation made her dizzy. She took a breath. She knew the effect of silence, for she had used it often to trip up bartering merchants or force consensus in a messy land dispute. Silent and composed, she studied the tapestry hanging on the wall above his head, focused her attention on the dark power of a rearing stallion. William had more to say, and her silence might coax it out of him. Her heart beat madly, for she knew that a single wrong move could change the course of her son’s life.
“Perhaps,” he said, “if you had loved me as much as you loved ruling my estate…”
All of the air seemed to leave the room. Philippa heard resentment in William’s voice, but also sorrow and disappointment.
She waited for anger to ignite some fiery defense inside of her, but it did not come. Instead, she shivered with cold. If William was right, if the joy she took in ruling his estate trumped the love she felt for him, then maybe he was justified in taking Dangerosa as his lover. But even as she considered this possibility, she wondered why she was forced to choose one role over another, why the same traits celebrated in men were judged appalling in women. She had ruled his estate with skill and authority, and he did not love her enough to get over it. Even as her mind churned with righteous anger, she heard her aunts’ admonishment as clearly as if they were speaking the words aloud—Hold your tongue, Philippa. Do not let your pride interfere with your judgment.
Perhaps she would have followed her aunts’ advice if only William had not chosen that moment to reach for a tourtelete. Something in the way his thumb dimpled the small pie reminded her of his hand claiming ownership of Dangerosa. He slipped the sweet between his lips, and a look of animal pleasure transformed his features. When he licked the flakes of honey-basted crust from his fingertips, Philippa heard the buzz of a thousand swarming bees inside her skull.
“Go to your mistress,” she said, rising from her chair. “I will take the children and go to Fontevrand.”
Standing, William seemed to take up all of the space in the room. “No son of mine is growing up in a nunnery coddled by widows and virgins!”
She knew she should apologize, but pride and anger overrode her better judgment. “Better widows and virgins,” she said, “than an adulterous father who shames his mother in public!”
William slapped her face with his open hand. More startled than hurt, Philippa gasped aloud and covered her stinging cheek with her palm. Snout stumbled to his feet. “What kind of man hits his wife!” Philippa said in a quivering, defiant voice that rose above Snout’s barking. For now that she had released her anger, she could not contain it.
William’s second blow was fisted and harder. Philippa reeled back, tripped on Snout’s water bowl and hit her head against the edge of the table, falling unconscious to the floor. She lay there, unattended, until Snout’s frantic barking woke her and she opened her eyes to the sight of desiccated clouds ghosting past the turret window.
Water from Snout’s overturned bowl soaked through her bodice and chilled her skin. William knelt and touched her cheek, a twinge of shame or regret momentarily softening his features.
Philippa jerked her head away from her husband’s touch just as Snout, nudged his muzzle against her arm. “It’s all right, boy,” she whispered, kissing his wrinkled forehead and rising unsteadily onto one elbow.
William’s face assumed the hardened look of a soldier. Rising, he looked down at his wife. “You will not talk to me in that manner. Ever! Do you hear me, woman?” he said in a voice clotted with rage.
Snout growled the fierce guttural warning of a much younger animal. Hackles raised and snarling, he grabbed the hem of William’s robe in his mouth and tugged weakly at the cloth. In a flash of annoyance and misdirected anger, William kicked Snout with the toe of his boot. The hound’s legs buckled. He slid across the marble on his side, hitting the wall with a yelp of pain.
Giseld entered Philippa’s chambers, saw Snout sliding the length of the room and ran into the hall screaming for Guiscard.
Too dizzy to stand, Philippa crawled to where old Snout lay. The animal’s eyes were vacant, but she could see the shallow rise and fall of his chest. “Please, William,” she begged, “don’t hurt him! He means only to protect me!”
“Leave the mutt where he lies,” he said. “He’s as thankless as his mistress. He attacks the hand that feeds him.”
Philippa rested a soothing hand on Snout’s haunch. The old hound stirred. “It’s all right, boy,” she said. Grabbing the side of the table, she pulled herself to her feet. William watched her struggle with a look of indifference.
“I want you packed by tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “You may take Anne, but Will stays with me.” His look struck terror in Philippa’s heart. Her fingers tingled and she feared that she would pass out.
“I beg you to forgive me! If Will cannot go with me, then let me stay. I will never question your authority again,” she said, placing her hand on his arm.
“No,” William said, and this time he was the one to pull away.
The room which moments earlier seemed ablaze with William’s anger grew chilly. Philippa shivered in her wet gown.
“You will go to your holy man, and you will go without our son.” William stared at Philippa with an odd detachment that frightened her more than his anger.
No longer able to stand on her own, she fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around Snout, whose tail thumped half-heartedly.
Giseld and Guiscard entered the room. “Oh, my Lady!” Giseld said, clutching the edge of her apron as she walked swiftly to her side. “Are you hurt?”
“I am fine,” Philippa said, fingering her jaw.
“Tomorrow you leave for Fontevraud,” William said.
Lord, she prayed, what have I done! Where has my boldness taken me?
After Marie died, Madeleine did not see color for two winters. A sodden grey stripped her life of beauty and meaning. And while she continued to work in the kitchen, salting cod, shelling peas, and peeling onions until her eyes teared, monotonous routine blanched her life of beauty. She worked because she was expected to and because her hands possessed a memory of their own, lifting cutlery, kneading dough, moving through the dreary days without any direction or encouragement.
Then one morning in early summer color surprised her in the root cellar. She was lifting a misplaced carrot from a bin of lentils, running her thumb against the ridged skin, when a vapor of orange climbed the vegetable and warmed her hand. Startled, she slipped the carrot into an apron pocket and returned to her cell in the convent where dust motes blinked copper in the open door and a hinged-legged spider spun silver gossamer in a twilit corner. When the ribbon in Little’s hair blushed red against her dark curls Madeleine understood that she had reentered the world of the living.
At Hersend’s urging, she returned to her studies with Brother Girard, who taught her to read step-by-step, first the alphabet, then pronunciation, and then grammar, the mortar that glued words into sentences.
Sometimes Brother Peter was also present in the newly completed scriptorium, an oak-paneled room with high windows letting in a diffuse light. Humming while he patiently illustrated manuscripts, Peter spent an hour drawing a scarlet snake peeking from behind the green shaft of a letter R. He labored days on a sequence of ornate squares framing robed aristocrats sitting on thrones. Fascinated with the process, Madeleine often lingered after the others had left, watching him use lead plummet to outline a design he would later paint.
Gradually Madeleine became part of the community. But it was color that made the days worth living and gave her the courage to befriend Philippa.
Moriuht’s blossoming hyacinths were nothing compared to the tumultu
ous hues that floated the curves of Philippa’s body. Madeleine studied the knotted strands and concluded that Philippa was both complicated and sad. Her hands, noticeably free of blisters and scars, revealed her position. Philippa was a lady.
A dozen aristocrats, widows and women fleeing bad marriages, entered the abbey that spring. Bertrad told Madeleine that a rift had developed between these wealthy novitiates, many of whom donated huge sums to the abbey, and the poor but committed congregants who had been with Robert from the beginning.
“We slept in open fields and lived on tubers and faith!” Bertrad said, a note of pride creeping into her voice. “And now these new-comers enter the order and occupy the best beds.”
When Robert began taking his meals with the reformed prostitutes and the other lay clergy, a chasm opened up between the aristocrats and the commoners.
But Madeleine was not thinking of politics the day she approached Philippa in the garden, but of friendship, a desire she saw reflected in the young novitiate’s nimbus.
Philippa, seated on a bench with her face lifted towards sunlight, turned to the sound of Madeleine’s sandals crunching against the pea gravel path separating a bed of herbs from a mound of flowers. “Why, you’re Madeleine, aren’t you? Sister Hersend has told me that you are the one responsible for all this beauty!” Philippa’s words seemed to acknowledge the glory of each flowering bush, herb and vegetable in the garden.
Madeleine felt an unfamiliar pleasure. Like a winter fire or the summer sun, Philippa’s words filled her with warmth. She surprised herself with a smile that felt as spontaneous and sincere as the ones she shared with Little.
“Please, have a seat,” the Lady said, patting a space beside her on the bench.
Despite Philippa’s ease, Madeleine felt a cool whisper of reservation. Philippa was an aristocrat, and even the invitation to sit carried an air of authority.
“You have a daughter, yes?” Philippa asked.
Because the repentant sinners, widows and married women lived apart from the nuns, it did not seem odd to Madeleine that Philippa knew so little of her life. For while the women of the Magdalene Convent enjoyed gossiping, Madeleine imagined that the holy women of the Grand Moutier felt no desire to engage in such frivolous activity.
“Yes. Little Marie is two.”
A few golden ringlets escaped Philippa’s veil, bouncing against her forehead as though they processed a vigor and independence at odds with the calm demeanor.
“My Anne is a few months older.” At the mention of her daughter’s name, Philippa’s halo glowed with such brightness that Madeleine could only study it at a slant. “I’ve another child,” Philippa said, hands clinched in her lap “a son who lives with his father.” Philippa’s color flickered and dimmed.
Madeleine thought of a day without Little and her belly heaved. She felt Philippa’s pain deeply. The realization startled and amazed her. “You must miss him.” Philippa nodded. She looked beyond the garden to something only she could see. At the toll of the church bell, she rose from the bench, nudging her curls under her head cloth. “I must leave you now,” she said, straightening her shoulders, “but perhaps we could meet again with our daughters?”
“Yes,” Madeleine said, and surprised herself by looking directly into Philippa’s gray eyes. “I would like that.”
“When Robert thinks no one is looking he stares at Madeleine,” Agnes said, her eyes moving up and down Girard’s withered arm. Arsen nodded in agreement, a wickedly seductive smile transforming her face. “The man has lust in his heart!” she said, gripping the handle of a knife pinning vellum to a block of wood.
The scriptorium smelled of bee’s wax and iron-gall. A gummy residue of paint splattered the stone floor and adhered to the calluses on Girard’s feet. He stepped away from the twins, embarrassed by the vulgar sucking sound of his sticky soles pulling free of the stone.
Slipping his withered arm into his cassock, Girard placed his left hand on the day’s lesson, an unadorned sheet of letters resting on a small table. He disliked teaching women, particularly comely ones who confused beauty with virtue and thought themselves good Christians despite their whorish ways. Daily contact with such women placed men in constant and, Girard could not help thinking, unnecessary temptation.
And yet Girard had been thrilled by Robert’s request that he help the women learn to read, for he took it as a sign that the master looked beyond his corpulence and deformity and saw the worthiness of his soul.
Agnes tugged at Girard’s sleeve. “If there’s anything we know it’s a man’s—”
“—lust.” Arsen laughed and cupped the knife’s pommel with her palm.
Since Marie’s death, the twins’ behavior had grown crass and inappropriate. Why should he believe two silly girls who could not be bothered to learn their letters? But even then his mind unwillingly retrieved a memory of Robert and Madeleine in the garden.
“They say that your holy master spends nights in Madeleine’s cell.” Releasing her grip on the knife, Arsen moved with the stealth of a barn cat, skulking between the half dozen small tables and benches. “Madeleine’s babe sleeps with Bertrad and her son while Madeleine waits for Robert’s knock!”
Girard cleared his throat in an attempt to disguise his alarm. “He does not touch her,” he said.
“Perhaps not in the beginning. But that was before Madeleine seduced him,” Agnes said.
He turned away, pretending to straighten a sheaf of vellum on his desk. He did not want to believe that Madeleine, who approached her studies with the focus and fervor of a man, was capable of such rank behavior.
“She’s strange,” Agnes said, palming her robe smooth against her hips.
“Sometimes we talk to her and she doesn’t hear our words. She looks around us not at us,” Arsen said, returning to where Agnes and Girard stood. “And once she did this.” Raising her hands, she traced the curve of her sister’s form. “Madeleine’s fingers never touched me, but the air between us ached.”
“And she talks to mayflies. I’ve seen her with my own eyes.”
“She’s odd,” Arsen said, batting her hand through a flicker of airborne dust, “and she isn’t even pretty.”
Agnes nodded. “She’s freckled and too skinny. We were always the first ones chosen at Marie’s.”
Arsen brought her mouth to Girard’s ear. He smelled the scorched sugary scent of her breath. “We have seen Robert enter Madeleine’s cell after Matins. He stays there ‘til Lauds,” she whispered.
Girard reassured himself that their ramblings were nothing more than jealous gossip. They missed the focused attention of lust. Churning up emotion in others satisfied their enormous vanity.
“Robert asked that I teach you to read,” he said. “I intend to do so.”
The twins giggled, an inexplicable jittery sound that deflated Girard. Perhaps He was a cripple, assigned to the scriptorium because he was incapable of performing more manly tasks. “Enough!” Girard said in a firm, assertive voice.
Arsen smiled and tilted her head flirtatiously. Girard noted how sunlight slanting through a cutout stroked her dark hair mahogany. In that moment of distraction his crippled arm slipped free of his robe and Arsen’s perfect fingers tickled his deformity. Girard pulled away, a grimace affixed to his face. The twins laughed a high jagged sound that mingled meanness with vanity.
“Stop your foolish talk and focus on your letters!” he said, bringing his good fist down hard on the table.
With sly glances and flickering smiles, the twins moved obediently to either side of Girard.
That night Girard hid, squeezing behind a stone sink in the unfinished lavatorium of the Magdalene Convent. He intended to put to rest the scandalous rumors regarding Robert and Madeleine, for he needed to believe that the master he served lived a life worthy of his admiration.
After the women had snuffed t
heir candles and retreated to their cells, he entered a dimly lit hall leading to the women’s dorter and crept into a recessed nook with an unobstructed view of Madeleine’s door. Then he waited.
In the first hour he attempted to occupy his mind by meditating on the seven spiritual works of mercy. But again and again he found himself distracted by the smell of tallow and the buttery scent of female flesh. He felt certain that Robert would not allow his mind to wander with such loathsome lack of self-control.
In the second hour he grew hungry and nibbled on a loaf of three-grain bread he had stolen from the kitchen and hidden in his robe. The dry bread tasted oddly acrid, but chewing provided a respite from boredom.
No longer hungry, Girard worried about the state of his soul, questioning his right to spy on the master’s interactions with congregants.
Just as he prepared to return to his cell, he heard the swish of bare feet on marble tile. Hidden by darkness and squatting on aching knees, Girard watched moonlight toss Robert’s cowled shadow against Madeleine’s door. The Master knocked once. His shadow assumed an animal tension.
“Robert,” Madeleine whispered, closing the door behind him.
Girard stepped from his hiding place into a pulse of energy that flowed from a gap beneath her door. Melon-scented and lemon-edged, it bristled a raspy-tongued pleasure that reminded him of the ecstatic look on Madeleine’s face the first time she saw a gilded manuscript. Girard suspected that whatever transpired behind the closed door was more personal than spiritual, but he could not bring himself to pass judgment on a holy man who had saved so many souls. He had all but justified Robert’s secretive behavior when he smelled the bittersweet tang of pomegranate seeds. In the time it took to swallow, he tasted a distillation of every dish he had ever known. The flavor of woodcock, pigeon, turtledove, venison, and pig left him hungry for more. In this ungodly state of gluttonous rapture, Girard closed his eyes and, just like that, he was transported back to the chestnut grove. Once again he watched transfixed as Evraud tore away Madeleine’s chemise to reveal her small breasts, the sparse, copper-colored hair of her triangle, and the delicious cleft of her sex. Beading, swirling, then pulling tight, the separate strands of Girard’s and Evraud’s lust blurred, braided and became one. Together they licked the wine-splashed hollow at Madeleine’s neck.
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