by Tracey Warr
In the hall, Amelina sat white-faced, holding the three boys to her and seated next to the nurse who was cradling Angharad. The baby was wailing inconsolably. Two men stood on either side of the pitiful group with swords drawn, and the boys were holding tight to Amelina’s hands and knees. When they saw me, William and Maurice began to whimper. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ I called to them softly, and as calmly as I could, I looked about me at the disarray in the hall. Tables and benches were overturned, serving maids were corralled by swordsmen in one corner. Two guards lay dead in the doorway and doubtless there were more dead soldiers outside. We had only a small garrison here. I counted fifteen men with Owain.
‘Bring the children! Let’s go!’ Owain shouted. He pulled me with him and I looked back to see the men wrestling the children from Amelina and the nurse.
‘No, no!’ Amelina was shouting.
A soldier raised his sword, intending to break her grip that way. ‘No!’ I screamed. ‘Amelina, let them go!’ She looked at me aghast but released them into the rough care of the swordsmen surrounding her.
‘No harm will come to them,’ Owain assured me, but I trusted not one word he spoke.
‘Henry, William, Maurice!’ I called their names to focus their terrified attention on me. My brave boys stared at me, their eyes huge. One of the soldiers deposited Angharad in my arms and she fell immediately silent, her dark blue eyes trained on my face. The silence after her incessant wailing was a relief. I fought to appear calm for my children’s sake.
Owain and his men hustled us out. I was lifted onto a horse that was snorting and pawing at the hard ground. The chill immediately pierced my cloak and thin nightgown. I looked to see what the children were wearing. ‘The boys will freeze to death,’ I shouted at Owain. They were each thrown up onto horses in front of three of Owain’s men and, hearing me, the men wrapped their cloaks around my sons. I held Angharad tightly as Owain settled behind me. The cold saddle froze my naked buttocks and thighs beneath my thin nightgown. The heat of Owain’s body warmed my back. I glimpsed a few men lying motionless in the gloom of the bailey. There was no sign of Gerald. A great hole gaped in the ground next to the gate. Some of the intruders had scaled the cliff from the river, whilst others had tunneled their way in. Owain gave a shouted command and we were suddenly out through the gate and riding hard. I closed my eyes and held onto my baby and the horse, trying not to think, to calm my mind for later.
Part Two
1110–1116
9
Discarded Women
Benedicta rose at daybreak with the bells tolling for the matins service. In the weak morning light she picked her way carefully amidst masons’ materials that lay everywhere. From outside its walls, Fontevraud Abbey had seemed a vast, established enclave but it was still very much a work in progress. All here were under the dominion of Prioress Petronilla, since the abbey founder, Robert d’Arbrissel, had ordered that women should rule in this place. Fontevraud was astutely situated at the intersection of the three dioceses of Poitiers, Angers and Tours. When the building work was finished it would be the largest nunnery in all France.
Inside the great church, the chevet with transepts and crossing was complete, and the great nave was part-built. The masons had carved intricate twines and twists of stony fruit, foliage and vines. Benedicta marvelled at the soaring stone forest of the pillars and buttresses and felt how, in this church, humanity might reach to touch the divine, might meld with the glorious cosmos. She settled to the familiar prayers and murmured responses, glad to feel herself again at one with the generations of Christians who had come before her, murmuring her prayers in synchronicity with believers all across Christendom. She must try to focus on her pilgrimage to salvation and pray for Haith’s, despite her earthly worries. Her concentration was disturbed by the sound of a suppressed male cough behind the grille. She looked up and fixed her gaze there. The territory of the church was carefully demarcated between the sexes and divided by a grille so that the sound of the soaring psalms penetrated, but not the eye (or aught else). The Countess’s fears for Benedicta’s chastity seemed quite misplaced.
Benedicta decided that she needed to make contact with Breri soon to make her report. Progress in her nefarious task for Countess Adela and King Henry had been accomplished swiftly. The Prioress had been delighted to draft Benedicta to her small coterie of educated nuns, to assist with the great business of constructing and running the abbey and its growing library. And it had been the Prioress who had suggested that Benedicta might also assist Bertrade de Montfort with her correspondence. As the nuns filed from the church, the sounds of the masons’ hammers started promptly at the end of the service.
There was a flock of repudiated or widowed noble wives at Fontevraud: Ermengarde d’Anjou, the old count’s sister, was Countess of Brittany but had left her husband and taken refuge at the abbey; Orengarde de Châtelaillon and Marie de Brienne, two more former wives of the old Angevin count were also here. How astute Robert d’Arbrissel must be to have put such emphasis on accepting repudiated wives and widows here, since they often came with substantial endowments to get them out of the way of fatigued husbands and daughters-in-law.
Many travellers had gathered at Fontevraud on their road to Angers. Amaury de Montfort, Bertrade’s brother, was at the abbey guesthouse in the company of Robert de Bellême, intending to convey his sister to the burial of the old count and the inauguration and marriage of her son, the new Count Fulk V d’Anjou.
‘Lady Bertrade,’ the Prioress had told Benedicta, ‘is in need of a draughtswoman to compose the set pieces in the formal parts of her letters, and she needs a reader of letters and instruments to assist her. I have heard from Sister Genevieve that you are wellread and can quote the Classical texts.’
‘You flatter me, Prioress,’ Benedicta said, ‘yet it is true that I do have some learning and could offer this service to the lady.’
‘I’m so sorry, Sister Benedicta, to take you away from your important work in the library,’ Petronilla said, her face and gestures expressive of her apology, ‘but I have no one else to spare. So few of us here are skilled in reading and writing, and those few are fully occupied with the management of the building work and the day-to-day business of the community. And also, to be frank between us, there are some who can read and write but who lack the necessary social skills to deal with such a great lady as Bertrade, but I see from your time spent with Countess Adela of Blois that you are accustomed to the company of nobles and can comport yourself with dignity.’
Benedicta’s work in the library gave her access to the writing implements she needed for her other ‘business’. Although Breri had enjoined her to trust her reports for the Countess only to ‘air’, to the breath of words that might blow away in the wind and be denied, Benedicta was a committed scribbler. She had to put down at least some of her observations in writing to aid her memory and help her organise her thoughts into succinct and pointful reports. Writing was like breathing to Benedicta.
The library had stacks of small black wax tablets sandwiched between wooden frames. Benedicta took two of these tablets back to her bare cell, which boasted only a bed, blanket, small table, stool and chamber pot. It barely kept her warm in the chill of the nights but it did give her a requisite privacy. She settled down to transcribe her thoughts in miniscule script, using a book cipher. The book she chose to base her cipher upon was Ovid’s Amores. She kept a copy in her cell, along with her Bible. She knew there was the risk of her cell being searched if she were ever suspected of spying, but she could eradicate the writing on the wax swiftly, with the blunt end of a stylus if necessary and certainly, she resolved, she would do so, after each delivery of information to Breri.
Building work at Fontevraud very ambitious, she noted down. But for now, most accommodation very rough. Sisters refer to Robert d’Arbrissel as ‘The Master’. Sing his praises day and night. He has been away travelling, preaching, for twelve years, so master only in name. Prioress Pet
ronilla actually in charge. The religious men wear long beards and labour outside. Do not enter sections of the church reserved for nuns, except priest who hears confessions. Novices have their mistress or an elderly lay sister to keep guard on them, day and night. No signs of lewdness or co-habitation as suggested by rumours.
Benedicta looked up and stared at the wattle of her hut. ‘We are ordered by our Master to speak kindly and not swear oaths,’ Prioress Petronilla had instructed her. ‘We refrain from babbling and walk with our neck bowed and our face down.’ The Prioress was a stately woman with a long face and sharp grey eyes. Petronilla was from the family of the lords of Craon and had been previously married to the lord of Chemillé.
Benedicta had become friendly with a young nun, Sister Genevieve, who said she had met The Master briefly, once, just before he left twelve years ago. ‘Standing beside him in prayer,’ Genevieve said, ‘I was on fire. It was only through hard prayer and God’s intercession, that I narrowly avoided the metamorphosis of my spiritual fire into carnal flames.’ She stared with an expression of salacious horror at Benedicta who frowned. The man was over sixty years of age so how did he inspire such feelings? Although the priests did claim that age was no barrier to lust. Is there something wrong with me, Benedicta asked herself, that I have never felt this fire?
It was clear from what The Master had made happen here that he had a special pastoral message for women. Fontevraud gave welcome to repudiated wives, prostitutes, lepers and adulterers. ‘His message is of especial power for those women who have done service in the unquiet of the marriage bed,’ Sister Genevieve whispered, jerking her head in the direction of Prioress Petronilla.
Fontevraud was truly an extraordinary place. These educated, discarded noblewomen had lost their places in society, their wealth, their work of politicking and running great households. The Master offered them a meeting of minds; the intellectual, emotional, spiritual nourishment they craved and perhaps never met with from their husbands. Saint Benedict’s admonition was to be stable, static, not wandering in the world, but she could not help but wonder at all that Robert d’Arbrissel might have seen and experienced on his journeys. She knew she should be content to contemplate the limited horizon of the small clearing in which she lived – either here or at Almenêches – with her eyes fixed on the distant horizons of the whole of Christendom, yet her eyes seemed to continually want to peer at what was over the next hill.
Benedicta had entered Bertrade’s quarters, burning with curiosity to meet the woman who had been repeatedly excommunicated as the King of France’s concubine, until the bishops had eventually relented and acknowledged the marriage, and thereby Bertrade’s claim to be queen. Benedicta saw little evidence that the lady was living the life of a religious recluse. Bertrade was dressed in a nun’s habit and wimple, but the cloth they were made from was the finest and they were tailored tightly to her figure, quite unlike the sack-like habit that Benedicta herself wore. The large cross resting on Bertrade’s shapely breast was splendidly jewelled and threaded on a heavy golden chain. She was around forty years of age, a few years older than Benedicta, but the small pale oval of her angelic face was unlined and becomingly framed by her wimple. She had large green eyes, a full-lipped small mouth, flawless skin, and wisps of yellow hair had carefully been made visible at her temples. Benedicta found herself entranced at the sight of this woman who had been reviled for years by so many churchmen across France. A fire leapt in the hearth, and two small dogs luxuriated on cushions in front of it. Books, musical instruments and trays of sweetmeats were scattered on small tables around the room.
After a brief glance at Benedicta when she entered, and a nod at the nun whispering in her ear, presumably conveying the information that Benedicta was here to take care of her correspondence, Bertrade did not deign to notice Benedicta’s presence. Instead, a servant made her welcome and set her to work at once at a small writing table near a draughty window, where she was instructed to prepare a number of letters for Bertrade’s signature. Benedicta set to work ruling out a sheet of parchment. She used a sharp stylus to make prickings in the far outer margins of the page and then incised a straight furrow from pricking to pricking to guide her writing. When she had finished, her dry-point ruling would not be visible to the reader, but it kept her writing straight as she peered closely at the page.
When the first letter was finished and had been handed to Bertrade for her approval and signature, Benedicta set about preparing the wax for the seal. Bertrade was evidently still engaged in the business of the region. Her correspondence directed patronage, gave advice to her sons. The fact that she was no longer queen, and that she had withdrawn to Fontevraud, had not left her powerless. Benedicta stole glances of admiration at Bertrade now and then, glances that grew from wonder at her beauty, which had always been renowned, to wonder at the shrewdness speaking in her letters, which Benedicta had not guessed at before. There had been rumours that Bertrade had brought about the assassination of Geoffrey d’Anjou to make way for her own son as heir to Anjou, and that she had attempted to poison Louis to enable her own son to ascend to the throne of France. An angel shot with iron then, thought Benedicta. A player behind a beguilingly pretty face. After two hours of working, Benedicta’s neck and wrist were stiff, and the ‘writing bump’ on her middle finger was sore. She set her quill down for a moment and leant back to roll her shoulders. The door opened behind her and she heard male voices.
She dared not turn around. She was certain one of those voices belonged to de Bellême. She hoped the crowd of nuns and servants in the room would offer her anonymity if she kept her face turned to her work. The men’s voices became muffled. She guessed their backs were now turned to her as they faced Bertrade and the fire. She allowed herself a quick glance. Yes. It was Bellême. She recognised his height, the set of him, his black hair shot with grey. The man standing next to him must be Lady Bertrade’s brother, Amaury de Montfort. He was a head taller than Bellême and evidently younger. His hair was a thick blond, cut short to his ears in the northern fashion. Benedicta noted that he was narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and powerful arms. In the whole build of his body, she assessed, he was neither too slender nor overweighted with flesh, but perfectly proportioned. The two men spoke with Bertrade of their journey to Angers for the ceremonies. ‘Be ready to leave after the prime service,’ Lady Bertrade’s brother told her. ‘It’s a short journey down the Loire to Angers.’ Benedicta heard the brotherly affection in his voice, as he regarded his sister, and felt the familiar pang of missing her own brother.
‘Your church here has lovely acoustics,’ Amaury remarked.
‘It does,’ his sister replied.
‘I thought I might die from ecstasy listening to the nuns sing evensong,’ Amaury said, and Benedicta flushed with pleasure, thinking that she, herself, had been one of those voices raised in song.
‘If you were ever going to die from ecstasy at the sound of women’s voices you would have done so long ago,’ Bertrade responded. ‘Have you learnt if William Clito is safe?’ Bertrade asked, her voice dropping close to a whisper.
Benedicta turned immediately to the desk and resumed her task. She held her breath in the silence that followed Bertrade’s question, and imagined Amaury looking around the room to see who listened to this conversation. She kept her head down, intent on her jotting, grateful for her usually despised headveil, that hung over the edges of her face. ‘We must be prepared to protect him from Henry de Normandy,’ Amaury eventually responded in a low voice.
‘It would help if we knew where the Count of Flanders stood.’ Benedicta recognised de Bellême’s voice. She did not dare to show any interest in the conversation and so had to imagine Amaury’s shrug. ‘Duke Henry means to win over Flanders with silver,’ de Bellême said.
‘Flanders may hold with us despite Henry’s pieces of silver,’ Amaury responded. ‘And we can persuade young Fulk, my nephew, to support us with raids on Normandy. We are in cont
act with William Clito’s guardian Helias de Saint-Saëns. King Louis has determined on an aggressive policy over Normandy. He is not satisfied with the situation, that Henry gives him no homage for Normandy as he should.’
Benedicta’s friend, Father Orderic, at the Abbey of Ouches, who was writing a history of the Normans, had once told her that unless curbed by the yoke of justice, Normans could be very unrestrained, and that another English historian, William of Malmesbury, wrote that without war the Normans hardly knew how to live. Did that explain why de Montfort and de Bellême felt compelled to contest King Henry’s rule in Normandy?
‘Henry has his bastard girls in legion, married off to our enemies,’ de Bellême said, his voice laced with hatred. ‘Even you, de Montfort. He thinks he has you in the palm of his hand, with this betrothal to de Meulan’s daughter, whilst he seeks to advance the unjust claims of his own son, William Adelin, in Normandy and to crush the hopes of the rightful heir, his nephew William Clito. The prestigious marriage of his daughter Maud to Henry Emperor of Germany puffs him up further. He is rumoured to have sold the girl for an enormous dowry of 10,000 marks. The English must have been taxed to the hilt to pay for it. Might William Clito give homage for Normandy to King Louis since Henry has not done so?’
There was no voiced response and Benedicta did not know if Amaury had shaken his head or nodded. ‘Temper your words, Robert,’ Amaury said.
‘It infuriates me that Henry holds Gisors against King Louis. I designed that castle! He has no right!’
‘Peace, Robert. You are upsetting my sister’s little dog with your passion.’ The tone of Amaury’s voice was deliberately urbane.
‘We are not without friends at Henry’s court or amongst those who have lands on both sides of the English sea. William Malet, William Baynard, Philip de Briouze, all stand with us,’ de Bellême said.