Conquest II

by Tracey Warr

  I first met Gerald as one of the attackers led by Arnulf de Montgommery, who had fired my father’s stronghold at Llansteffan. Gerald had escorted me, a captive, to Cardiff Castle and was kind to me in that terrible time. The curse I made against Bernard de Neufmarché, who murdered my father and older brothers, I had also placed upon the Montgommery men, one of whom I was certain must have been responsible for the awful death of my favourite brother, Goronwy, on the beach at Llansteffan. Gerald, kind Gerald, was the only Norman I had excepted from the curse.

  For years, I could not bring myself to go to Llansteffan, although my mother had left it to me as my own land to command. My curse succeeded in bringing down the Montgommery men who had stolen my father’s lands: Hugh, Earl of Shrewsbury, was killed by the Norsemen at Anglesey; Philip de Montgommery was imprisoned for treason and then died in the Holy Lands; Robert de Bellême had lost the earldom and been exiled; Roger de Montgommery was similarly disseised and exiled to France; and Arnulf de Montgommery, who had intended to marry me, was now a penniless lord in France. Yet, I was still not sure who, amongst Arnulf’s men, had killed Goronwy and stolen light forever from my life by that act.

  Amelina nagged me to recover from my aversion to Llansteffan. She told me it would heal my grief for Goronwy if I restored the broken castle. ‘Don’t you think so, my lord?’ she asked Gerald, seeking his support for her encouragements, but Gerald remained stiffly neutral, refusing to enter into the discussion, leaving the room whenever my conversation with Amelina approached Llansteffan. He was still conscious, I supposed, of the ground between us that could turn swiftly treacherous. There was his jealousy at my affair with the King, which he had himself connived at in his ambition. There was the potential for antagonism between us at the Welsh dispossessions and the Norman aggressions. There were gulfs in our relationship where neither of us could stray. It was like loving a rose, trying to reach to the delightful scent, trying to embrace around the piercing thorns.

  When I went down to break fast, Amelina was in the hall spooning medicine to a compliant giant of a soldier from the garrison as if he were my three year old. ‘What are you giving him, Amelina?’

  They both turned to me. The man’s face was drawn with lines of pain, but he tried to smile nevertheless.

  It’s poppy juice. For the toothache.’

  ‘From your wise woman?’

  ‘Yes. It takes away the worst of the pain, but he needs a tooth-drawer. This will only give temporary relief,’ she told him. He stood, towering above her, clasped her hand with heartfelt thanks, bowed respectfully to me and left us.

  ‘I’ve got water boiling to wash your hair after you’ve eaten,’ she said, pushing the stopper of her medicine bottle down with force.

  We returned together to my chamber and I closed my eyes, listening to the sound of Amelina pouring water from a jug into a basin. ‘It’s ready,’ she said. I stepped out of my overgown and moved in my white undershift to the table where Amelina stood with the basin of water. A pungent steam rose from it, scented with cinnamon and liquorice. ‘This will make that black hair of yours shimmer, I should think!’ she said.

  I stood close to the table, its hard edge against my rounding stomach and bent my neck, bringing my head with its heavy mass of hair as close to the surface of the water as I could. Amelina poured the warm water in rhythmical cascades over my head, pushing it down the length of my hair to the ends where they dangled in the basin. ‘Are you done?’ I asked, blinded by water, hair and steam. There was no reply. I fumbled for the drying cloth that I had seen on the table beside the bowl, but could not find it. I heard Amelina giggle. ‘Amelina!’ I said, irritated. ‘My shift is getting wet. Stop playing games.’

  ‘Such a crosspatch,’ came Gerald’s voice behind me. His arms slid around my waist and his body was close and warm against my back. ‘You can leave us, Amelina.’ I heard her giggle again and close the door behind her.

  ‘Gerald, I’m wet and blinded.’

  ‘Patience. I am not an expert at this maid’s work.’ He lifted the hank of my hair from the basin, wringing out the excess water, and wrapped the cloth around my head. ‘You smell delicious.’

  I raised my head with my eyes still closed. I had seen a girl with red-eye in the kitchen last week and I did not want to risk getting the spices in my eyes. Gerald turned me towards him and wiped my face with a soft cloth. ‘There,’ he said, delicately kissing one of my eyelids.

  I opened one eye and smiled at him. ‘Perhaps you would like to wash my clothes next, or sweep the hallway?’

  ‘That is not what I would like to do next,’ he said, touching the laces of my shift.

  Gerald had sent out scouts to try to discover who the men were who had attacked Haith and I on the road from Cardiff. He was convinced that Owain ap Cadwgan had been responsible. He increased the patrols but the Welsh rebels could simply melt into the trees, slip out with the tides, ride up into the mountains. They knew their land and Gerald could get no grasp on them. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Amelina and I listened to a travelling Welsh bard singing about the romantic Prince Owain of Powys and his brave quest to take the land back from the invaders.

  Amelina had been wrong about the child I carried that year. I birthed another boy and Gerald named him Maurice, another Norman name. On hot summer nights, as I fed my new son, little Henry and William would sit with Amelina in my chamber, begging her for stories. ‘Two little boys! Two little boys!’ cried William. This was Amelina’s story which always began, ‘Once upon a time there were two little boys …’ and then continued differently each time, as she would spin and weave the stories for them with her voice and hands and the theatre of her eyes and expressions. Tonight she began, ‘Once upon a time there were two little boys and they knew a maiden named Mererid who tended the well of the great kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod.’

  ‘The Drowned Court!’ pronounced Henry, with satisfaction. He was an avid veteran of this particular story. William bit his lip in anticipation and I smiled to Maurice who stared up into my eyes.

  ‘Mererid was in love with Seithininn who was responsible for closing the sluices of the city when it was threatened with flood waters.’

  ‘What’s sluices?’ asked William.

  ‘Kind of gates, to keep water out,’ Henry told him. ‘Stop interrupting.’

  Amelina compressed a smile. ‘Mererid and Seithininn loved one another so and one night they neglected their duties. Mererid took no notice of the water overflowing from the well and kissed and kissed her lover instead.’

  Henry mimicked Mererid’s kissing comically for us and William laughed loudly at Henry and at Amelina tickling him. ‘Sshh! The baby’s eyes are drooping,’ I told them.

  Amelina continued in a whisper. ‘Seithininn thrilled to Mererid’s embrace and turned his back on the incoming tide and the sluice gates that he should have minded. And the sea rolled in over the city, rushed down the streets, met the waters overflowing from the well.’

  Henry swooped around the room, waving his arms, wobbling his head, pretending to be caught up in flood waters. William copied him. ‘Did the two little boys save the city?’ William asked, breathless.

  ‘Alas, no. Nothing could save the doomed city and its drowned court. The waters grew higher and higher and the clothes and the tables and benches were washed out from the houses and tumbled in the waters in the streets, and the people fled to higher and higher ground and the water came on and on and did not retreat. The water washed over everything and everyone and drowned them all, though they held their heads above the water for as long as their strength held out. The king and all his court were drowned, and the lovers, Mererid and Seithininn, were drowned, and they all lie now beneath the waves of Carmarthen Bay.’

  ‘Cheerful!’ I remarked.

  ‘No sense in lying in a story that’s true,’ Amelina said, grinning mischievously at the boys. ‘But the two little boys swam away into another story. And now it is time for bed!’

  Amelina pr
evailed on me with her urgings regarding Llansteffan and I began its restoration. Between us, Gerald and I were keeping our mason very busy. The plans for Carew, Llansteffan and Cenarth Bychan castles were spread out on the hall table as the mason talked us through them. Work on Carew was near enough finished. Cenarth Bychan would be finished before the end of this year. Llansteffan would be a while longer.

  ‘They are all well fortified,’ Gerald said with satisfaction. ‘Owain won’t be making any assaults here.’

  ‘Owain is far away, busy with Powys and not at all interested in us,’ I laughed at him. ‘You worry too much about Owain.’

  Gerald shook his head. ‘He and his father are our greatest threats. With one face they treat with me and the other Norman lords as their allies and with another face they stoke Welsh rebellion.’

  He was right, of course, but my own position was ambivalent at best on that. ‘Despite the fortifications, these new castles will be comfortable, fit for habitation and not just for soldiers.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Yes, this is excellent,’ Gerald told the mason. ‘You can move your household to Carew now, Nest. It will be more comfortable for you and the children than remaining here at Pembroke.’

  My youngest son, Maurice, was nearly a year old and would soon join the conroi of small boys rushing around the castles, headed by little Henry. I nodded reluctantly at Gerald’s suggestion. Pembroke was a military garrison with few comforts, whereas Carew had been designed to be lived in. Henry, William and Maurice could play and learn there. Gerald was right, I should go to Carew, but I would miss the daily contact with him.

  ‘I will come to you all often, don’t worry!’ he laughed. ‘At least every week, as the duties here allow.’

  ‘Thrice a week,’ I bargained. Carew was a short ride from Pembroke.

  ‘Done,’ he said, moving towards me, and the mason coughed to remind us he was still there, rolling up his plans. Nevertheless, I pulled Gerald into an embrace, thinking how Carew would allow me more freedom to correspond with my Welsh contacts. Without the supervision of my husband, it would be easier to learn more about how the Welsh rebels fared in their contentions against the Normans, to find out if there was any news of my brother, Gruffudd ap Rhys, the rightful lord of this kingdom.

  5

  The Game of the Countess

  Benedicta’s journey from Almenêches to Chartres took her through the undulating hills of Normandy, past gnarly vineyards and blossoming white apple orchards, past shimmering pale green fields where young crops bent to the breeze. The servant from Almenêches left her at the gates of Chartres Palace with his good wishes. She watched his figure grow smaller and smaller on the road, her last connecting thread back to home. When she could no longer discern him, she turned to look with awe at the marvellous palace she had been summoned to.

  She gave her name and business to the porter, and eyed the heavily armed soldiers. The porter ordered her to wait in the guard house. It was a long wait and Benedicta was famished. Her wimple and veil were hot and itchy about her face and neck. She fidgeted with them, trying to let a little air into her overheated skin. At last, the porter returned and conveyed her to a side door where a clerk met her. He, in turn, led her along an immensely long passageway and told her to wait again on a bench outside a pair of enormous ornately carved doors. Others waited with her, crowding the benches so that Benedicta could only keep one buttock firmly on the edge of the hard wood. There was a squeak, a creak, and a slender man opened the vast doors a crack, looked around the waiting room, and beckoned to Benedicta. ‘Come, Sister.’

  She stood, swallowing nervously, and slid through the slight opening between the high doors, and into the vast space of a lavishly decorated hall where more people crowded, waiting for audience with the Countess. At the far end of the hall two soldiers guarded another huge door. Benedicta supposed it must be the portal to Adela’s inner chamber. The usher showed her to a bench near the guards. He bent to speak in a low voice, close to her ear, ‘Adela, Countess of Blois, Chartres and Meaux, will see you soon. Remember that the Countess is a king’s daughter, a king’s sister.’

  The ‘soon’ the man spoke of, turned out to be two hours more, giving Benedicta ample time to look at the decorations in the hall and the people milling around her. It also, unfortunately, gave time for her stomach to start rumbling audibly on its diet of nothing, and for her to grow more and more nervous, feeling a fraud sitting here. What could she possibly have to offer to so powerful a lady? Benedicta ardently wished that she was back at Almenêches, sitting comfortably with the cat purring and a glass of the abbey’s wine in her hand.

  She and Abbess Emma had been mildly scandalised by the erotic innuendo of a letter-poem Archbishop Baudri had written to Countess Adela. He asked her to give him a jewelled, fringed cope, saying that he was a naked poet without it. Benedicta had laughed at the image the poet conjured of himself composing in the nude. She had met Baudri once, in company with her friend Orderic, when she was staying at the monastery at Ouches. Although Baudri was aging, the features of his humorous, intelligent face retained the beauty of a young man. Benedicta had observed that this retention of youth in monks and nuns was quite a frequent occurrence, and no doubt the result of living a life of inaction, of uneventfulness. Baudri had written that Countess Adela was a queen to him, that he had seen her but been unable to look at her because her brilliance was like that of a goddess, and that his song would spread her fame from Cyprus to Thule, giving her life beyond the stars. Benedicta had been unable to suppress the desire that a man might write such words to her.

  She could not stop herself from repeatedly glancing at the great door and its burly guards. To quell her anxiety, she recounted Baudri’s letter-poem in her head. He had written that the walls of the Countess’s inner chamber were covered in marvellous tapestries that seemed alive, showing the Flood with fish on mountain tops and lions in the sea. Baudri wrote of the decorations of the Countess’s bed as if he had rolled in it himself. In Almenêches, Benedicta had longed to be in the marvellous palace of Chartres, but now that she was here she wished herself back in Almenêches.

  ‘Sister Benedicta d’Almenêches!’

  She looked up startled and saw the usher standing at the door, gesturing to her. The guards moved their spears. She stepped into the chamber and the doors clanged shut behind her. There was some distance to walk towards the noblewoman seated in state on a throne at the far end of the chamber. Benedicta took care not to trip on the muddied hem of her habit, marvelling at the floor mosaics that showed a map of the world with seas, rivers, mountains and myriad bizarre creatures. Reaching the edge of a long, polished table that was set before the Countess, Benedicta bowed her head.

  ‘Sister Benedicta from Almenêches?’ The voice was clear and rang in the chamber. A woman’s voice accustomed to command.

  Benedicta looked up at the red-haired woman. Countess Adela was in her early forties and had been seven years a widow. Her face was strong and comely. She had been married at seventeen to Count Etienne de Blois who had been twice her age, but she had, nevertheless, shared government with him from the beginning of their married life. She ruled for many years as regent for her young son, Thibaut, after her husband died in the Holy Lands. She dealt adroitly and firmly with the aggression of her Angevin and Capetian neighbours who had inevitably perceived a child heir as an opportunity, but one that she had not allowed.

  Baudri had described Adela as capable of bearing arms as bravely as her father, William the Conqueror, if custom had not inhibited that. The strength of this slight woman was not in her physique but in her mind. She was renowned for having created a literary court around her, hiring singers and poets to praise her, to vaunt her rule far and wide.

  ‘Yes, Countess. I am Benedicta.’ The woman’s black eyes were trained upon her and Benedicta hoped that the Countess could not see her muddy hem and shoes over the edge of the great oak table.

  ‘Thank you for making the j
ourney here. Bring food and wine,’ she told a servant.

  Benedicta was relieved at the last command, but then anxious that her table manners might not be adequate. Never mind, she was close to fainting with hunger. She hoped the servant would flit fast to the pantry and back. Benedicta sat on the stool indicated by the Countess.

  ‘I have enjoyed your reports from Almenêches. You have a lively style of writing, Sister.’

  ‘Thank you. I hope the paltry messages I have been able to send might be of some use.’

  ‘Indeed they have. All information is of use in some way or another, Sister. Remember, it is not only the specifics of plots against my brother, King Henry, that are of value to us. We are also interested in the hopes and desires, the everyday activities of those who are his enemies. Something seemingly small and insignificant may give my brother the edge that he needs to keep the duchy safe from war.’

  Benedicta glanced at the sumptuous bed beyond the Countess’s throne. Baudri had written that the bed boasted a tapestry showing the conquest of England by Adela’s father, Duke William; the comet predicting the conquest; the Norman fleet; the battle of Hastings; and the death of the English king, Harold. Benedicta did not see such a tapestry, but Adela’s chamber was still the most splendid place that she had ever set eyes upon.

  ‘You find me alone,’ Adela said. ‘When we dine in a few hours’ time, my family and many others will be about us, so we will take advantage of our privacy now.’ The servant placed two goblets of wine before them and a trencher with fresh bread and cheese. ‘Please,’ Adela gestured to the food. ‘I know you must need refreshment before the usual dining hour.’ She pushed an ornate silver handbasin across the table, and Benedicta dipped her fingers in the water, dried them on the linen, and ate as slowly and as quietly as she could manage. ‘You must be curious about why I have sent for you, Sister Benedicta. I have need of an intelligent person to perform a task for me. My brother, King Henry, assures me you have a wit as sharp as the crack of a whip.’