The Girl Who Tempted Fortune

by Jane Ann McLachlan

  The nurse nodded.

  “Have I tied him tightly enough to his swaddling board?” I asked when I had changed and swaddled Charles again. “I have much to learn from you.”

  She was flattered as I intended, but I was also sincere. My knowledge of herb lore surely could not rival the healing power of the court physics. If I wanted to stay at the castle after Charles was weaned, I had to become a proper nurse, and that meant learning the French way of raising a royal child.

  “Put him in his cradle. He must learn to nap when his brother does.”

  Louis was already in his little cot, complaining in lisping French between wide yawns.

  I smiled over his head at the nurse. “It is good the baby is here with you. I could not train him in a noisy soldier’s camp. And with his mother’s tent beside us...”

  “It makes for a badly-trained child when the mother interferes.”

  I nodded solemnly. Perhaps in this world I had entered, she was right. Perhaps the parents of little princes, themselves spoiled by luxury and servants, indulged their children too much. I could not agree that a mother’s presence harmed a child, not while I missed my Antonio so desperately. But I had found a common ground with this woman, and was not about to lose it.

  “Matriona.”

  I looked up from placing Charles in his cradle, and realized she had told me her name.

  In the next few weeks I was more homesick than I could ever have imagined. I rarely saw a friendly face. Most were suspicious or, at best, uninterested. I was “the Sicilian”, a representative of the kingdom that should have submitted to their King Charles but had not, that had beaten their crown prince and chased him out. My smiles and pleasantries earned me no friends, and even when men looked after me they did not stop to speak. I might make them laugh, might make them desire me in my bright yellow Neapolitan gown, but I was still “the Sicilian”. I served their royals but I was not a loyal subject like them; I was only a traitor to the foreign king who was their enemy.

  I seldom left the nursery. When the children were awake I was kept busy, but while they napped I sat alone, indulging myself in self-pity. I had tempted Fortune and Fortune had ceased to smile on me, just as our village saying warned.

  But I was here and there was no going back; I had no choice but to make the best of it. Nor would I have gone back if that were possible. In Sicily I had belonged among my villagers, where I was poor and beaten. If I never belonged among the Neapolitans, at least I would do what I could to make sure I was never again poor or beaten. I recalled my great-grandmother’s words: She will rise high above her station. I straightened my back and raised my chin. Wheels do not turn of themselves.

  My greatest obstacle was my appalling ignorance, which I became more deeply aware of each day. Try as I might to speak Italian as it was spoken here, some small mispronunciation, a difference in emphasis or rhythm, always gave me away. And I soon realized it would not be enough to speak Italian well; the Neapolitan court spoke French. I set myself to learn French as quickly as possible, but there was no one to teach me and I was embarrassed to practice in front of anyone. Almost as bad, I was illiterate. It had never occurred to me that everyone at court would be able to read and write; at least, the important people, those who mattered. I hid my illiteracy as painstakingly as I hid my ignorance of Latin and French. Hidden in the nursery most of the time, I was seldom in a position to demonstrate my lack of knowledge, but I was determined to climb above the nursery.

  As I learned her ways Matriona trusted me more and more with the care of the boys. I was not only breastfeeding Charles, but playing with both of them and putting them to bed. Unaware of my background and my ignorance, they accepted me happily as their playmate. They gave me the uncomplicated affection of children and accepted mine in return. I was comfortable with them. Too comfortable. One evening I was singing Charles and Louis to sleep, a little song my mother had sung to me, when the nursery door opened and the guard announced Prince Robert and Princess Violante. I stopped singing as soon as I saw them and slipped into a hasty curtsey with Charles still in my arms.

  “No, please continue,” the prince said, smiling.

  I flushed, the words to the song forgotten. Nor could I have sung them if I had remembered. I knew I had a pretty voice, I had been told so often back at home, but Violante’s face clearly told me her husband’s compliments should be reserved for her.

  “It is nothing, Your Majesty,” I stammered, having learned enough French by now to understand his request. “Just a petit chanson I learned back—” I broke off, but it was too late.

  “You are teaching them a Sicilian song?” Violante cried. “Are you mocking us?”

  I stared at her, still bent in my curtsey, my mouth gaping open. Matriona, horrified at my error of judgment, and hers in not preventing it, snatched Charles from me. He began to wail. Louis, disturbed by the commotion, started crying also in his little cot.

  “It appears they like Sicilian songs,” Prince Robert said, looking at me coolly. He bent down to Louis and asked whether he wanted to hear a French song. Louis, pleased by his father’s attention, announced that he already knew a good song. He began lustily singing the song I had just sung, complete with its rough peasant vernacular.

  “How dare you teach my son to speak like a Sicilian peasant!” Violante glared at me. Louis clapped his hands and repeated “Sicy’an peasant!”

  “I... I did not mean...”

  “What did you mean?” Prince Robert asked.

  Nothing. It is just a song to lull them to sleep. I bent my head and held my tongue, thinking fast. The obvious answer, the true answer, would show me a fool, a thoughtless young girl not equipped for the responsibility of raising royal children. I remembered the “prophecy” I had made on the ship: that Charles would be King of Sicily one day. Had Prince Robert believed me? I dared not test it too far. If he had not, he would not want a charlatan caring for his sons. Nor could I deny what I had said, and prove myself false when I said it. Something in between...

  I raised my head and looked straight at the prince. “Do not despise Sicily, Your Highness. You are its rightful prince.”

  There is a certain type of smile that only reaches the mouth; another that lights both the eyes and the mouth; and last is the smile that gleams in the eyes while the mouth remains firm. That was the look Robert gave me. I could almost hear him thinking, an interesting girl. I looked back at him gravely.

  Princess Violante frowned. Her mouth opened, then closed, clearly wanting to criticize but unable to find fault with what I had said. “I do not like the song,” she said at last. Prince Robert laughed softly.

  “I will not sing it again, Your Majesty,” I promised.

  When they had left and the boys had been calmed again to sleep, Matriona turned to me. “Go downstairs to the kitchen and fetch us some dinner,” she commanded. “And take your time about it. I need to sit awhile in peace without your clever tongue wagging.”

  I had never been to the kitchen. Matriona must have known I would not know the way, but I left without objection. Aware that the kitchen would be on the ground floor I took the servant’s stairs, and when I got close enough my nose guided me.

  The kitchen was huge, with four separate fires all burning at once. The vapors from them made me sweat as soon as I stepped inside the room. An entire pig was being roasted on a spit over one fireplace, and a great pot of fish boiled above another. The smells of warm bread and mulled wine, sausage and several kinds of cheese all assailed my nose at once, making my mouth water. On a huge table were platters of grapes and pomegranates and tortes topped with marzipan, ready to be carried up to the dining room after the meat courses. Cooks and sauciers stood around each fireplace, pastry cooks pounded and chopped at long tables, molding their pastry creations around sweetmeats and nuts and fruits. Servers rushed about filling platters with food to take upstairs and porters ran back and forth from the fireplaces carrying wood and pails of water. Everywhere there was
movement and people shouting instructions or calling for something at once, before their dish was ruined! I was pushed inside from where I had stopped in the doorway by a server carrying an empty platter. He quickly filled it with the next course and hurried out past me again.

  Supervising everything was a tall man who looked like no human being I had ever seen. He was dressed in the clothes of a chef with the insignia of the Angevins on his tunic. By the way the others listened to him it was clear he was in charge, but I could hardly credit that he was the head of the kitchen. For out of the bottom of his white sleeves and the top of his white collar his hands and head were black, as black as charred meat. The whites of his eyes flashed in the blackness of his face and when he opened his mouth wide the rows of his teeth shone like two half-moons in the night sky, with his pink tongue between them. Was he covered in soot from the fires? But then, why were his cuffs and collar so clean? I stood and stared, wondering what kind of creature I was looking at, until I remembered hearing there were men in a distant country, Ethiopia, who were black-skinned. I had not believed it at the time, thinking they meant the deepest sun-browned shade of a few of the more weathered fishermen I knew. They meant black I realized now as I stared stupidly at this strange black man who towered above the others as though they were only half-grown. He ordered them about the kitchen in a mixture of French and Italian so strongly accented I could barely understand him. And they rushed to do his bidding!

  “What are you doing here, girl?”

  A stern voice startled me out of my stunned fascination. “I... I have been sent to fetch dinner for us in the nursery,” I stammered, shaken out of any attempt to maintain my dignity.

  The assistant cook chuckled. “A queer sight, is it not?” He shook his head. “But he can cook, mind you; his pastry melts on your tongue and his puddings are as light and creamy as the thick white clouds in a summer sky.” He shook his head again. “I’ll fix you a platter to carry upstairs.”

  As he went to do so the black man looked across the room and saw me. We stared at each other a moment, then his eyes roved up and down my person like a hungry wolf considering its next meal. I stepped back before I could stop myself. His wide mouth split into a grin that showed his gleaming white teeth. I blushed furiously, which made him laugh aloud before he turned away to check the pot over one of the fireplaces.

  I fled upstairs with a well-laden platter and blurted out, as soon as I got inside the nursery, “There is a man as tall as a giant and as black as the night downstairs in the kitchen!”

  “Ahh,” Matriona said. “You have met Raymond of Campagno.” She took the platter from me and placed it on the table.

  “Campagno?” I set the jug of ale beside it, trying to subdue the tremble in my arms. There were giants like this as near as Campagno?

  Matriona laughed. “He is not from Campagno himself. He was captured by pirates as a boy in Africa and sold for a slave. The prefect of cooks for King Charles, at the time one Raymond of Campagno, purchased him from them and gave the boy his name, since his Ethiopian chatter was completely unintelligible.” She speared a slice of cheese from the platter and chewed it appreciatively.

  “He is a kitchen slave, then.” I felt a great relief though I could not say why.

  “Not at all!” Matriona laughed again. “He learned the skills of cookery so well that soon he was managing all the royal banquets, and doing an excellent job of it. In that way he caught King Charles’ notice. The king had him freed and baptized—by then he spoke French and Italian both—and when his first master went away to war, this “Black Raymond” as he was then called to distinguish the two, was chosen to take his namesake’s place as master of the king’s royal kitchen.”

  “Master,” I repeated faintly. He had the look of a master. I shivered.

  “He is fortunate to have landed in Naples. King Charles values natural ability and rewards it, regardless of a man’s appearance. Not many are so open-minded.” She looked at me pointedly. “As for bloodline, he claims he was a prince in his village in Ethiopia, before the pirates took him.”

  A prince? I shook my head, feeling dizzy. My great-grandmother’s prophecy came back to me. “Never!” I whispered in horror.

  “Well, since he has been freed one would think he would return to Africa if he is indeed a prince, but so he claims.” She took a deep gulp of the ale. “Sit down, Philippa, or Charles will wake for his feeding before you have eaten.”

  I sank into a chair and selected an olive from the tray. Its bitter taste filled my mouth. From now on I would call a kitchen servant to fetch our meals, no matter if Matriona complained about the delay.

  That night I dreamed of black men creeping through the castle with only the whites of their eyes visible. I woke up in a terror and stared wildly about the room, wondering how I would even see one if he were standing at my bedside. My heart pounded so hard I thought I would faint. But as my eyes adjusted to the moonlight through the window, the darkness became mere shadows. The room was empty except for Matriona snoring under her blanket, and the two little princes, and me sitting up in my bed too frightened over a dream to sleep.

  I woke again to Matriona shaking me. Charles was already awake, wailing for his morning feeding. I rose blearily and put him to my breast.

  “Is something ailing you?” Matriona asked, looking me over warily.

  “How long have I been in this room?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “All night, I trust.”

  “I need some air! I need to walk outside!” In Sicily I used to run to the woods or sit beside the river whenever I was disturbed. I would watch the clouds sail overhead and listen to the wind singing among the leaves until whatever bothered me was soothed. How long ago and far away that felt. I ached with homesickness and turned my face aside, blinking rapidly.

  “Do you need to buy something at the market?”

  I hesitated. I had walked through the city twice, gawking like the village girl I was at all the shops and merchants selling everything imaginable, and many things that were not, from food and spices and herbs to precious jewels and soaps and silks and linens and all manner of amusements. But it was not the glamour and noise and teeming streets of Naples that I wanted today.

  “I could take Louis into the palace gardens to play while Charles naps,” I offered. I looked at Matriona hopefully. Except for the gardeners, servants were not allowed in the palace gardens, but perhaps if I had little Prince Louis with me?

  Matriona frowned, beginning to shake her head.

  “Louis, would you like to play in the garden?” I asked.

  “Louis play!” he cried, jumping up from his stacking blocks.

  “In the garden?” I prompted.

  “Jardin, jardin!”

  “I do not think—”

  “Jardin!” Louis yelled over Matriona’s objections.

  “After you eat your mid-day meal we will go,” I promised him.

  “If you are reprimanded again—” Matriona began.

  “—I will say it was all my idea. That you find me headstrong and foolish and disobedient and can do nothing to change me!” I finished her sentence for her. I laughed happily at the thought of walking among trees and flowers and hearing birdsong for a little while instead of voices speaking a language I barely understood.

  The nursery guard accompanied us down to the garden. Louis crowed with delight when he saw it and squirmed to be set down. I held him a moment, staring around in delight at the profusion of colors and scents: sunlight on rosemary bushes and neat plots of fragrant herbs intermingled with lilies, roses, and gourdon flowers, all carefully tended and blooming abundantly. A stone pathway, accented by a wall of shrubbery on either side, wound through the garden, widening in areas where stone or wooden benches invited visitors to rest amid the beauty. The fat, smooth trunks of palmetto trees bordered these interludes, their wide leaves overhead offering a cooling shade to those who sat there.

  Louis wriggled more insistently. I set him on his
feet and took his hand. He pulled me down the path, eager to see everything, stopping to examine a brilliant flower or charging after a butterfly until it rose beyond his reach. I laughed, enjoying his delight, and finally released him with a strict warning to stay on the path and not run too far ahead. A few steps behind me the guard cleared his throat but I ignored him. Children needed some freedom to explore, even precious royal princes.

  The day was hot and bright. When we reached the first shaded bench I sat down and called Louis to me, lifting him up to sit beside me. I felt his cheeks and forehead: warm and slightly moist but not over-heated.

  “We must sit in the shade every so often,” I told him. His little lips protruded in a pout as he looked back at the stone path that wound its way into the garden so invitingly. Remembering how I had loved to watch the clouds I pointed them out to him, drawing pictures from their lazy shapes. I had not felt such peace since the day my mother called to me from the river shore.

  Louis slid down from the bench and ran behind it crying, “Find Louis!”

  This was a game we often played in the nursery. “Where is Prince Louis?” I called, standing up and walking to a bed of roses. “He is not here in the roses.”

  “Here he is!” Louis cried from behind the bench.

  I walked to the nearest palmetto and looked behind the wide trunk. “He is not behind the tree.”

  “Here he is! Here he is!” A burst of chuckles shook the foliage behind the bench.

  I smiled at the guard waiting by the path. He rolled his eyes, looking bored. I preferred the younger guard who had a sense of humor, even though he eyed my breasts longer than I cared for. I looked down the pathway. “He is not on the path through the garden. Where can Prince Louis be?”

  “Here he is!” Louis shrieked. “Behind bench!”

  Holding back my laughter I rustled the bushes beside the path. “He is not hiding in the bushes. Perhaps he is behind the bench?”