The Rebel Princess

by Judith Koll Healey

  I surmised this had been the lady Geralda’s chamber when her husband was alive. The bed resembled a large boat, and was so high there was a small ladder to assist in achieving the top. It looked amazingly soft, however, with goose-down feather beds layered one over the other. It would play good host to me and my longtime childhood friend, and I was grateful.

  I turned to Joanna and embraced her once again with all the strong feeling of our years of friendship.

  “Ma chérie,” I said from my heart. “It has been so many years. Let me look at you.” I held her at arm’s length and saw then something I had overlooked in our earlier encounter. Her face was lined with worry. As she doffed her veil and wimple, I saw her hair was marked with silver. Two gray wings flew up from her temples, and though the effect was one of striking beauty, I knew it signaled the loss of her youth.

  “You see me as I am, no longer young and no longer beautiful,” she said, as if she could read my mind. The bitter tinge in her voice saddened me and for a change I had no tart rejoinder. I felt only sympathy for her loss.

  “Joanna, what are you doing here with so many of the nobles’ wives?” I spoke after a moment’s pause, as I moved toward the bed and busied myself shaking out my belongings from my worn leather travel sac. I pretended a casual manner.

  “I arrived here only hours ahead of you today,” she answered. Then, as if she knew the deeper meaning of my question, she added: “Does it strike you as odd that so many of us should chance to be here together, all at the same time?” Joanna watched for my reaction even as she moved to take a robe from the large chest that stood against the far wall.

  “One might think it.” I nodded as I stepped out of my leather riding hose and stained doublet, and slipped a shift from my sac easily over my head. “So many noblewomen in such a small redoute. Strange indeed. But to find you here among them is even stranger.”

  She stopped fussing with her robe lacings and looked at me. “You have always had acute powers of observation, Alaïs. But tell me what you see that causes you to question us.”

  “Joanna,” I said, going to her and taking her hand. I drew her to the expanse of the bed, which was the only resting place in the room large enough for two. “Please sit with me a moment. I want to talk with you.” After the slightest hesitation she nodded, using the small ladder to climb up after me. We sat facing each other, legs folded under us, as we had when we were children playing guessing games with one another.

  “First, in truth, I know why the women are gathered here. From Lord William I learned that women are at the heart of this new religion. From Esclarmonde of Foix, who went to great lengths in front of the court to dissuade my brother from sending arms and men to the south, I learned of the connection among the noble houses in this area. So what could be less surprising than to find those related noblewomen gathered around someone like the venerable Lady Blanche of Laurac.”

  Joanna paused for moment before asking: “Do you think we are here to conspire against the church of Rome?” she asked suddenly, trepidation in her voice. “Do you mean to betray these good women?”

  “Oh, for the love of St. Winifred’s well,” I snapped, throwing up my hands. “To whom would I betray you? The king of France? He just wants the pope and all problems of religion to disappear. He’s not interested in prosecuting anyone on behalf of Rome, and certainly not a gaggle of women tucked away in some southern stronghold. Or the Abbot Amaury? I’ll wager his spies have already identified this area, if not this very domus, as sympathetic to the Cathars. To the Count of Toulouse? But he’s your husband, and if he doesn’t know what is going on under his nose, I have better tasks than to enlighten him.”

  “I’m sorry, Alaïs. I did not mean to provoke you,” Joanna said, turning her head away for a moment. I reached out to put my hand under her chin and turned her face toward me in time to see two large tears wander down her cheek.

  “Joanna, dear friend. I am the one to be sorry. Forgive my impatience.” I silently cursed my quick tongue. “I seldom consider the effects of my temper until it is too late. I would not for the world have made you cry.”

  Then a sudden thought struck me. “Dear heart, are you enceinte?” I had not seen any noticeable swelling, but it was true she was fuller in the face than I remembered, and she had loose gowns belted higher than was the fashion.

  “Oh, yes, a plague on all men!” And Joanna’s tears began in earnest at my question. “I hate it. I hate being pregnant. I feel so vulnerable and awkward…And to be caught like this when my hair is gray, when I should be enjoying my petit-fils. And…and it makes me so weepy.”

  I moved to sit next to her and pulled her head to my breast. As she began to sob, I rocked her, murmuring reassurances as if to a child. For several minutes she cried, and then her sobs gradually receded, as I knew they would. Joanna might be physically prone to weeping because of her condition, but the brave and impish friend of my childhood would soon reassert herself. Of that I was confident.

  And indeed, it was in no more than the spin of a child’s top that Joanna was snuffling, as if to finish the storm. She sat up and gave me a rueful look. Then a smile, somewhat uncertain, broke through the clouds.

  “There,” she said bravely, shaking her head, drying her face on the sleeve of her robe. “That felt quite refreshing.”

  “I take it you are not happy about your condition,” I said rather tentatively, risking another outburst.

  “Oh, Alaïs. If you only knew!” Joanna fell backward on the bed and threw her arms overhead, in a gesture of mad abandon. I waited, sitting patiently with folded legs. After a moment, she half sat up and propped herself on her elbows.

  “The count alternates between being a lecher and a saint. One moment he is chasing women, drinking too much wine, and playing at dice with his nobles, and the next he is biting his fingers over the worry that the pope will find some reason to ruin his land and persecute his nobles, and running to church to pray it will not be so.”

  “Well, Raymond always did lack gravitas,” I commented mildly. “I think Constance spoiled him when he was young.”

  “Constance!” Joanna, ordinarily so gentle, spat the name back at me. “Don’t mention that woman to me.”

  “Why so angry at the mention of Constance?” My back was growing tired, so I wriggled my body over the feather beds until my back rested against the wooden headboard. “You haven’t seen her for years. She’s been with us in Paris.” Until recently, I thought, but did not give voice to it.

  “Pas du tout,” Joanna stated. “I just left her in Toulouse. Constance arrived a week past, and has been strutting about the city ever since, as if she were the countess, not I.” Joanna flounced off the bed, and began to pour the water in the basin for washing. She splashed her face with vehemence, as if it were Constance she was dousing.

  “Constance in Toulouse?” I tried to hide my amusement. Troyes, indeed! “She left the Paris court suddenly just before I did, and she sent a note to the king saying that she was going to Troyes to be with our sister Marie.”

  “She did not go to Troyes, evidently,” Joanna responded pertly, toweling her face with verve, as if the very thought of her husband’s mother demanded action. “She came south to plague us.”

  “Well, she is the dowager countess,” I murmured. “Raymond is her son.”

  “Yes, but she has been absent for many years. Suddenly she appears, and demands Raymond reinstate her as dowager, with all of the benefits of that station. All must rise when she enters, she presides over dinner next to Raymond…”

  “But surely she has not displaced you as rightful countess?”

  “Not exactly, but she is an impossible woman, always thinking of herself. Very demanding. Anyone but Grendel’s mother would be overshadowed by her. And she bullies Raymond mercilessly.”

  I had to laugh at Joanna, recalling the long hours of learning in the English court when we were children. Joanna hated the Nordic sagas that the Anglo-Saxon races held dear, bu
t King Henry insisted we must learn the stories of the people we lived among, and none dared disagree. His queen, Joanna’s mother, Eleanor, turned up her nose at the patrimony of the English, but we children dutifully learned their myths.

  “Did it not impress Constance that you are to produce an heir from this marriage?” I knew from the last time we had met, some years earlier, that being childless had been difficult for Joanna. “Surely she must respect that accomplishment.”

  “I think she is jealous. Raymond was her only child. He was born just before she escaped back to her brother’s court in Paris.” Joanna had come back to the side of the bed and stood facing me, her lips pursed in thought. “And she keeps talking about some golden chalice, the one that was stolen from our cathedral.”

  “The St. John Cup,” I interjected sharply, suddenly attentive.

  “Yes. That’s the one. She said she saw it at the abbey of St. Denis, but before she could claim it, the thing was stolen.”

  And how would she know about the theft, I wondered, since it only happened the night before her departure? In a flash, the picture of Constance in the abbey church of St. Denis, staring at the raised chalice, came before me. So she had identified it as I suspected, the day we were at Mass.

  “Why would anyone steal it?” Joanna peered at me. “What do you know of this?”

  “The news of the theft, and the murder it prompted, was delivered to the king the same night. We were all at the feast after the tournament. Constance left mysteriously early the next morning. I thought perhaps she had managed to get a hold of the chalice.” I forbore to mention Philippe’s role in keeping the chalice safe, nor the possibly duplicitous role of Raymond, who might know even now the whereabouts of the chalice. One could believe anything about Raymond!

  “How odd. Constance arrived in Toulouse with great fanfare announcing that she knew where the chalice was, that she could have it returned to our cathedral for a ransom. The news of the chalice was her excuse for reappearing after all these years.” Then, as if the thought had finally presented itself through the web of self-concern that was always Joanna’s way, she suddenly moved closer to the bed, lifting a candle flickering on the bedtable to examine my face.

  “Alaïs, what is the real reason you are here in the south? What is it that brings you to this small castle, to the Toulouse area? You are not seeking the chalice, are you?”

  I paused a moment while I conducted an inner debate on whether I should tell her of my son. Much as I loved my childhood friend, how did I know I could trust her? In her current state of irritability, could she keep my confidence? What would happen to my news when she returned to Toulouse? But I felt such a strong need to tell someone about Francis. I had kept my fears to myself for too long. Except for the interview with my brother, and the cursory information I had given to my knights, I had told no one of my quest. It was especially painful to recall my parting argument with William, as he would be the one I would ordinarily seek out when troubled.

  “Come sit beside me, here.” I patted the bed. Joanna replaced the candle in its holder and climbed up once again to sit beside me. When she was settled, I said quietly: “Joanna, I have a son. One born many years ago.”

  She started to speak, but I held up my hand. “No, I do not want questions about him, or his parentage. Only know that I lost him as a babe, but in recent years we have been reunited. I had hoped that he might come to live with me at Ponthieu, where William and I will make our home when his service to the pope is completed.” I felt a pang of remorse as I uttered this statement, recalling our final argument and William’s anger. Our happy life together at Ponthieu seemed so far away. It may have been only a fantasy, another dream ruined because of my impatience and bad temper. I sighed.

  “I would be so happy for you if that should come to pass,” Joanna said, with heartfelt emotion, not noticing my sadness. “But you said ‘hoped,’ as if it were unlikely now. What has come to interfere with this plan?”

  “Just before I left Paris, my son was abducted in the middle of the night, taken from his chambers.” There, now I had told another person besides Philippe that Francis was my son.

  Joanna’s hand flew to her throat. “Such things can happen in the palace of the king of France?”

  “Indeed. Many strange events occurred in the few days before I left, including the murder of a king’s man outside Paris. A conspiracy in which Constance was implicated.”

  “Constance! Murder! Oh, really, Alaïs, that is too much. Even for Constance.”

  “I was charged by my brother to find the truth of the matter, but the disappearance of my son put all else out of my mind. This is my entire life, now.”

  “And you think your son was taken here, to the langue d’oc region?” Joanna propped her head on her fist, her elbow resting on pillows. I could see she was beginning to drift toward sleep, despite her interest in all of the surprises she had been subjected to in my report. She, too, had traveled far that day.

  “William showed me a drawing that was dropped in young Francis’s chambers. A map, showing the Toulousain. Several surrounding towns were circled. At first I did not think that it was a valid clue. But with my urge to find my son, and with no other information to go on, I have come to this area.”

  Joanna came more awake. “Which towns were circled?”

  “Lavaur, Foix, and Laurac,” I responded quickly. “I wanted to see if there was some information, some thread here that might lead to my son.” As I spoke these words, I thought of the note I had been given at my brother’s audience: “Follow the golden thread to the South.” Francis had not yet disappeared when that note was delivered. Yet it had stayed in my mind. Did the note refer to the missing golden chalice? Or to something more valuable, more golden, the life of my son!

  “I believe I have an idea that may help you,” Joanna said quietly.

  “And I believe I know what it is,” I echoed, with the beginning of a smile. “The women gathered here are those who preside over the ruling houses in those villages. This is a mighty coincidence.”

  “And you have already figured out what they are doing here?”

  “Joanna, it would take an unobservant, nay, simpleminded, person not to conclude that the two men who stumbled into our gathering tonight were Cathar preachers. They were alarmed to see me and happy to depart with Geralda’s servant. On another evening, they would have been welcomed into the circle of women. Your friends are known to honor the new Cathar religion, and it is obvious you came together to hear your shepherds.”

  The countess let out a long sigh. “These three castles are the stronghold of hospitality for the Cathar preachers. There are not many believers in the towns, but the number is growing. And the women here are committed to give the opportunity to any who want to hear, so they offer the preachers, the perfecti, food and board, and safety. These men travel constantly over our southern land. They may have heard news of your son in those journeys.”

  “As I thought,” I murmured. “But Joanna, turnabout is fair. Let me ask you again: What are you doing here, with these women?”

  “Fleeing from my husband, at the moment,” Joanna said, tossing her hair free of the braids that she had unwound. “You said Constance spoiled him as a youth. Spoiled does not begin to describe the count. I curse the day my brother King Richard married me to this incompetent fool.”

  “Joanna!” I was astonished at her careless talk.

  But she only shook out her long, full mane of hair and continued in the same tone. “Oh, mine was to be a marriage of convenience, Richard said. He thought he could consolidate the southern end of his kingdom, putting Raymond and the Toulousain solidly in his camp by putting me solidly in Raymond’s bed. What even Richard failed to see was Raymond’s utter confusion, his inability to hold the center of his county.” Joanna was rendered momentarily speechless as she pulled her robe over her head and tossed it off the bed. “His inability to even find the center of his county,” she added, as she quickly cra
wled under the furs in her shift.

  “God and the Virgin know I have tried to help. I have counseled my spouse, I even sat with his advisers and offered my opinions as to what they can do to protect their people from dangerous interference, from Rome or from France.” She cast a quick look my way. “Sorry, but it’s true. Still, these men heed me not.” She was sitting up and so pulled a silk shawl around her shoulders to protect her from the rub of the rough furs. “They believe women are to be decorative and provide beauty for the court setting. And that is supposed to be the end of our aspirations.”

  “So, you are retreating into the Cathar mysteries out of pique with Raymond and his court?” I gently teased as I began to unbraid my own hair.

  Joanna looked startled for a moment, then burst into a peal of laughter. “Cathar! Moi? Don’t be amusing, Alaïs. I cannot abide religion in any form. I was in the Holy Land with Richard and his troops, for sweet Saint Mary’s sake. I saw ancient churches and mosques burn. I saw the bones of the Christian empire builders bleached upon the Saracens’ sand. I even…”—she tilted her head in my direction knowingly and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper—“saw a piece of the one, true cross itself.”

  “Careful, Joanna,” I said, made uneasy by her tone of ridicule. “You know not who listens at doors. It is best not to make fun, whether a believer or not. One must put caution first when one is among strangers.”

  “Be of good heart, my dear friend. This house is safe. No one here will report us to that wolf, Bishop Foulques. Even the servants here are of the new religion.” She shook her head. “But can you imagine? Beseeching Saladin for a piece of the true cross? As if a piece of wood could have survived for twelve hundred years and still be identifiable.” She laughed, a high trill that belied any true amusement. “The Saracens must have thought us all fools. But they gave us what we wanted.”