Almodis (27 page)

‘I have a surprise for you.’

‘A surprise?’

Ramon takes my hand and I follow him out of the hall and into the wing of the palace where I knew he had some building work in hand. We reach a door, a high arched double door made from shining wood, faced with intricate silver metalwork in the shape of flowers with a gem at the heart of each.

‘Oh, this is beautiful, Ramon,’ I say, running my fingers along the maze of metal and jewelled blooms.

He laughs. ‘That’s just the door!’ He hands me a large key,
kissing
me on the lips. ‘This is my morning gift to you Almodis.’

‘You already gave me a morning gift,’ I say, bemused. ‘And this one is rather late!’ I fit the key to the lock which turns smoothly, push open the heavy door and step in with Ramon behind me.

‘A library!’ I look around me dazed, delighted. Winter sunlight floods the centre of the room from arched windows opposite, that reach from ceiling to floor. A long table of fine wood stretches the length of the room. Ten men could lie end to end on it I guess, marvelling. Exquisite lamps of green glass are placed at regular intervals in the centre of the table. Around the walls, the shelves are set back, protected from the sun, but I see glinting there their promises of worlds I can enter, ideas I can argue with. On the table is a complex golden contraption, driven by water wheels, a clock of some kind with the metal figure of a small man in Arab dress holding a pointer to show the time.

‘It’s a water clock,’ Ramon tells me. ‘In Greece they call it a water thief. It is a wedding gift to you from the ruler of Dénia. He writes that it has been designed by the engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi. In the ancient world they were used to time the
pleadings
of lawyers in the courts, a sick patient’s pulse, or a client’s allotted time in a brothel!’

I look at Ramon, shaking my head. I am speechless.

‘There’s a ladder,’ Ramon says, pointing it out, ‘to reach the highest shelves.’ Some of the shelves hold books and scrolls and others are empty. Four caskets stand alongside the empty shelves. I pick up one of the books nearest to me and look at its gorgeous cover, its title page. There are books here I have longed for, heard about.

‘This is William’s copy of Dhuoda’s Manual,’ Ramon says, handing a small book to me.

‘Her son’s?’ I say astonished.

‘Yes, he died here in Barcelona.’

I open it and wonder at what I am holding. ‘This is perhaps her handwriting,’ I say.

‘Very likely.’

I replace it carefully. ‘Oh Ramon, I am overwhelmed. Thank you.’

‘This is your library,’ he says. ‘All yours,’ and he is beaming at me. ‘No one else will set foot here without your invitation. Not even me.’

I step close to him and hold him by his upper arms, looking into his eyes. ‘Thank you.’ I kiss his mouth for a long time, but when he begins to respond, I pull away playfully, biting my lip.

‘Look in the caskets,’ he says. He is like a boy on his birthday, gleeful at my pleasure.

I open the lid of one casket and see familiar books there. ‘My collection from Toulouse! How?’

‘I sent Berenger to negotiate it with Pons,’ he says. ‘Of course he was reluctant. He told him at first that he had burnt them.’

I heave a groan.

‘But Berenger had a letter that my lawyers drafted asserting your rights to your property and threatening legal suit. Berenger persuaded him it was for the best. The couriers brought them
over the mountains through the winter weather. I couldn’t be sure if they would arrive in time for Christmas, but they have.’

I wander away from him picking up old friends, exclaiming at new ones.

‘I will leave you to your unpacking and send Marta to help you.’

It’s late March 1053 when we reach Barcelona. The ground is tipping up and down, up and down, as I try to regain my land legs. Through waves of nausea, I realise it is my dear Lady that I see coming to me, her arms wide to greet me. I thrust the baby at Melisende and run helter-skelter to her, bending this way and that, sure I shall fall at any moment, for I’ve been on the rolling ship so long I don’t know what is earth or sky anymore. ‘Oh, after the rain, nice weather,’ I cry out, reaching to hug her but then noticing how vast is her belly. ‘Already?’ I say muffled against her shoulder, puzzled.

The rest of the party arrives and she is exclaiming over them all with more hugs and kisses: ‘Lucia! Melisende! Hughie! Dear Dia! Hello Rostagnus, I am so glad you are here!’ And then in a quieter voice, ‘Hello my little Adalmoda, and, oh, who is this?’ she is
saying
, gesturing at the baby in Melisende’s arms.

Oh Lord, I’ve forgotten all about that. My face is red and hot and I can’t seem to speak. I stare at my boots all white-spattered with salty sea spray. There is a moment of silence.

‘The baby is Bernadette’s,’ Dia says quietly. ‘He is named Charles.’

‘Bernadette’s?’

I glance up at her and straight back down at my boots, seeing her perplexity. ‘Happened last summer,’ I mumble, but I can’t go on.

‘The father is …’ Dia begins in a quiet, measured voice again.

‘Piers,’ pipes up Hughie.

Another silence. Eventually I look up fearfully, for I must to make sure she isn’t dashing my boy’s brains against a rock or aught else, but I’m surprised to see instead that she has taken hold of Charles and is staring into his eyes, all smiles.

‘Hello Charles, hello Charles,’ she coos to him. ‘I am your Lady Almodis. Oh Bernadette, you fool,’ she turns to me, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Why didn’t you?’ I respond, as the penny finally drops that she must have been pregnant before she left Toulouse and Pons wasn’t the father. She smiles briefly at that too.

‘I’m so glad to see you all.’ She hands Charles back to me.

Count Ramon has been standing back, waiting for her to finish her exclamations and steps forward now with a tall boy, older than Hughie. What a handsome man the count is. ‘With a change in age, comes a change in fortune, my Lady,’ I say to her with relish.

Count Ramon and Dia are greeting each other warmly and Almodis introduces him to her sister and her children, and then to Rostagnus and me. ‘And this is Bernadette’s son, Charles,’ she says, as if she’s known about it all along.

‘You are come in the nick of time, Bernadette,’ the count says to me.

‘A stitch in time saves nine,’ I respond, ‘and I can see that.’ I am eyeing her great stomach. ‘You should be in bed right now,’ I tell her.

She laughs. ‘The same Bernadette.’

The same lady more like, I think, ignoring good advice. The count looks a little concerned at this exchange.

‘You think she should be abed, Bernadette?’ he asks me, but then quickly drops the subject when she gives him her basilisk stare that says don’t anyone even think of telling me what to do.

He introduces his son, Pere, to us. Melisende and Lucia are at once fussing over him but he draws back, staying close to his father and saying as little as possible. He does not smile. I’ll have my work cut out with him sure enough. Another household swarming with children to wear me out then. I tot it up on my
finger
joints. Six when the new baby comes, but at least Melisende is of an age to help me and I’ve got an assistant named Marta.

Three days later and my mistress is brought to bed and I have to increase my additions to seven. She is delivered of twin sons who have been named Ramon Berenger and Berenger Ramon. Too many same names I say, and tell her I will call them Towhead and Beren to make my life easier. She laughs at me. They look just like their father and she would have had a very hard time passing them off as Pons’ children. They are not identical, as she and Raingarde are, but similar instead, like Hugh and Jourdain. Ramon Towhead has her green eyes and Beren has his father’s blue ones.

The count is beside himself with joy at the birth of two sons and with relief too that my Lady is well, though she is tired for longer than usual after this birth. It gets harder the older you get, I told her, which she wasn’t best pleased about. For the first time she asks me to find two wet-nurses for the twins, rather than nurse them herself. My heart swells with love for the count seeing how he dotes on her. It’s high time she had some good loving. Oh Lord when I think of her flying out of that window, carrying these two babies in her womb, when I think of that knave Piers putting the hoods over our faces and intending to send her into that stone cell. ‘I haven’t slept properly at night the whole time we’ve been apart,’ I tell her, ‘worrying about you.’

We relive together the drama of her escape and Raingarde’s bravery. I tell her how Raingarde feigned sleep at Lagrasse and they came and trussed her up and carried her out to the boat and didn’t let Carlotta and her big knife go with her after all, but that soon the Count of Carcassonne’s soldiers came to release us and gave that nun and the prioress a clear idea of what the count thought of this treachery, and he took away loads of rights he’d given them. ‘Oh but we were so afraid for Raingarde and what was happening to her on the ship with Piers and if he would notice it weren’t you,’ I say.

‘Did he notice?’

‘Yes. He saw her hand had no scars as they were nearing the pier where the Count of Carcassonne was waiting to rescue her and he realised in a trice that he’d been outwitted and he jumped overboard and swam for it rather than be taken.’

‘Did he drown?’

‘No. She saw him stagger out on the bank and we heard since that he’s back with Pons but stripped of his honours as vicar.’

My Lady is sitting in her white nightgown with a pale green silk dressing gown on top of that, so I think she’s warm enough and doesn’t need my scolding for a change. She is talking and laughing with Dia, and they look up to greet the count and Pere who have come to visit the new babies. Ramon lifts them from their cradle one at a time, talking softly to them, kissing their sweet-smelling heads. ‘Would you like to hold your new brother, Ramon?’ he asks Pere, and I notice my Lady swivel in her seat with a look of concern on her face.

‘No,’ says Pere, shortly, ‘I wouldn’t.’ He sits down heavily on the stool beside the cradle. ‘Why’s he called Ramon?’ he demands. ‘He shouldn’t be called that.’

A still silence descends on the room that had been so cheerful before. ‘That’s his name,’ says the count. ‘They are all names in the family of Barcelona: Pere, Ramon, Berenger.’

‘He’s not first,’ says Pere.

‘No,’ Ramon glances uneasily at Almodis. ‘No, of course not. You are first.’

‘No, I’m not the first either,’ the boy says angrily, rising to his feet. ‘I already had two brothers that died.’ He walks quickly from the room, shaking off the hand that his father reaches out towards him.

We exchange worried looks.

‘What shall I do with him?’ Ramon says to Almodis. ‘I don’t understand why he feels so threatened.’

‘He’s had you all to himself for eight years,’ she says, ‘and now suddenly he must share you with a new wife and five other
children
. And he sees that he was the sole heir and now he has two brothers. He will adjust in time,’ she reassures Ramon.

This Barcelona city is foreign but I suppose I will get used to it eventually. Other times, other customs. Another foreign tongue but not too different from Occitan that took me so long to learn. At least they can understand me in the market, though they laugh at me or ask me curiously where I am from. Dia is glad to be back
in Barcelona and has gone to remake her old acquaintances and find herself lodgings.

The palace and my Lady’s chambers are wondrous
excellent
but I’ve got the rough end of the deal as usual. Lucia and Melisende are sharing a room, whilst I sleep in the nursery with Adalmoda, Charles and the new twins. I don’t get a wink of sleep of course between all them. Hugh the Bishop has been sent to share Pere’s room but complains of it often. ‘Can’t I sleep with you, Bernadette?’ he says plaintively. ‘Pere pinches me and tells me ghost stories to frighten me.’ Sometimes I let the poor boy climb in with his cold toes and his wet nose from crying.
Sometimes
he climbs in with his mother and Count Ramon and they don’t seem to mind it.

Already Toulouse seems like a distant memory. We are all so immersed in our business here. News comes from Raingarde that their mother Amelie has died and I comfort Lucia. My mistress does not shed any tears over it. I think of my own mother far away in Paris. How she’d laugh to know all the adventures I’ve been through and where I am now.

At the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the feast of Saint Martin begins, with
bonfires
and children carrying lanterns in the streets. We celebrate the new wine and the bounty of the earth. Bernadette swears by the old belief that if you stand at the back of the church and look at the congregation you will see an aura of light around the heads of those who will not be among the living next Martinmas. ‘That’s good,’ she pronounces, after her pagan survey, ‘none of you are for the chop.’

Our third son, Arnau, was born two months ago. My eighth son and my tenth child. Eight pregnancies are enough now I hope. Pere has gone from being sole male heir to a potential
division
between four male heirs and he makes it quite plain what he thinks about all these alien children in his palace.

‘Why is your son still here, Ramon?’ I ask, ‘He should have gone to another household for training long ago.’

‘I would not send him to my grandmother,’ he says, ‘to have her use him against me and I could not bear to part with him before when he was seven. I had lost two sons and a wife. He lost his mother and I could not let him go.’

‘Perhaps he should go now? Perhaps to Berenger in
Narbonne
?’

‘No he would take it too hard now. He would see it as a
punishment
and he is being well trained here after all.’

‘He is unkind to Adalmoda and Hughie.’

‘I will speak to him,’ Ramon promises, but I doubt this will make any difference. The boy is becoming a problem that I must find a solution to but for now I am distracted by the arrival at court of Guillem, Count of Besalú, who comes to give homage to Ramon and to me. Now that Ramon has forced his surrender, the insurrection that Ermessende has incited against us is quelled. Other lords are here to witness the new accord between Ramon and Besalú, including Berenger and Garsenda’s son, Raymond of Narbonne, who has recently been betrothed to Raingarde’s eldest daughter. Besalú approaches us: he is dark haired and short but his main feature, of course, is his nose. Or lack of it. Where his nose should be he wears a silver replacement, with curving nostrils etched into the sides, held in place with a thin black strip of leather that is tied at the back of his head. It is very hard not to stare but I do my best to hold his gaze and not to gawk at the nose. I imagine the exposed bone and gristle underneath.

‘I am your solid man, Count Ramon,’ he says, giving my
husband
his hands in oath. ‘I seal this agreement with my
foi
, my faith.’

Ramon tells me that Besalú is a violent and volatile man and has killed his brother and two of his counsellors in violent rages, but today he is all smiles and graciousness. He was stunned by your beauty, Ramon tells me later. ‘Your Radiance’ he calls me.

‘How did he come to lose his nose?’ I ask. ‘Disease?’

‘No. In battle.’

‘I was well used to battle scars with my own father. Have you seen him without his fake nose?’

‘Urrgh!’ says Ramon. ‘You are too curious by far, darling.’ And then, ‘It won’t last.’

I raise my eyebrows. ‘He seems sincere in his homage and the county likes me now.’

‘Oh yes, they do like you indeed but this is the third time that Besalú has given me homage and it didn’t stick for long the other times. He’s left us two hostages as pledge of his allegiance: Adémar the castellan of Finestres and Bernat the castellan of La Guardia. Ademar has had a document drawn up saying that if Besalú violates his oath, then Finestres will not be forfeit. What does that tell you? Even his hostages expect him to be treacherous.
If there is peace, then he feels compelled to pick an argument and when he rises then other lords do the same and the whole tedious round begins again.’

‘Then you must bind him to you closer,’ I say. Lucia walks into the room with Melisende who is carefully carrying a jug of wine for us.

‘Oh no,’ says Ramon, following the direction of my gaze. ‘Don’t think it.’

‘I am thinking of Lucia.’

She hears her name and looks up smiling at us. How could I even think it? To wed my gentle little sister to such a horror.

‘No, no,’ Ramon is frowning at me. ‘You would inflict on Lucia what you have suffered yourself?’

Besalú stays with us a week and we see no sign of his temper. The idea of betrothing Lucia to Besalú grows in my head and will not go away. I want to solve this problem for Ramon. ‘A peaceweaver, like me,’ I tell Ramon. ‘How can we go forward if we must deal with the same problems over and over again?’

‘It won’t be enough for his pride. The third daughter of the Count of La Marche.’

‘You think he is inundated with marriage offers? She is pretty and young.’

‘Your sister deserves better,’ says Ramon, looking at me askance. ‘You know that.’ I know what he means and turn away angry that he should mention my marriage to Pons to me.

‘My gracious Countess Almodis,’ Besalú says this morning,
bending
over my hand awkwardly to avoid dislodging his nose.

‘I heard that was not your description of me last month, sir.’ I heard that he had called me ‘an unbridled whore’.

He looks up and drops my hand, taken aback at my directness, but then he recovers and smiles unctuously. ‘I did not know you then, my dear lady. Forgive my gross errors of the past. I am prostrate before you.’

‘You are not wed my Lord?’

‘Alas, no. Who would have me?’ he throws his arms out comically.

‘My sister Lucia, perhaps,’ I say without thinking. Ramon has
not sanctioned this. He will be furious with me. And Lucia … Besalú is studying me.

‘A beautiful young lady,’ he says.

I keep my lips firmly clamped together, trying not to worsen my actions any further. Bernadette would have said: You should turn your tongue seven times in your mouth before you speak. Perhaps it will all blow over. Perhaps he will not take me
seriously
.

‘Almodis!’ Ramon comes in abruptly and I drop my book in my lap, seeing his face and knowing what it is. ‘Besalú has asked me for Lucia in marriage.’ He is very angry. ‘You planted this idea with him. He suggests it as part of our peace settlement! I
seriously
doubt the wisdom of it for your sister and have no confidence that it will seal peace between us, but now I must agree. If I refuse it is another cause for him to break with me.’

I know that I am in the wrong but there is no way back and I cannot bring myself to admit that I am wrong.

‘You will have to tell her,’ Ramon says, when I say nothing, and strides out again, as abruptly as he came.

Not surprisingly Lucia is appalled when I tell her and cries and screams at me.

‘Lucia,’ I soothe her. ‘You will be a peaceweaver like me. This marriage will be the glue to bring peace to the whole region. It is a grand marriage since he is rich with vast lands and you will be Countess of Besalú. I will teach you how to manage him.’ I ache at that idea. I know that I should retract her from this.

‘I want none of your teachings,’ Lucia shouts at me. ‘I have seen where that has got you. Trussed up in a cart with a hood over your face! Excommunicated!’

However, in November the Synod of Barcelona, attended by all the bishops, meets to ratify the Peace and Truce of God. Their presence here at our court is a tacit acknowledgement of the legitimacy of my marriage to Ramon.

Arrangements for Besalú and Lucia’s betrothal roll inexorably on. Rostagnus helps me to draw up charters detailing the dowry. I watch him as he carefully adds my seal to the documents. My bronze seal is double-sided, finely engraved on one side with an
image of me on my horse carrying a lily in one hand and a falcon in the other, and on the other side it has an image of Barcelona, the city and the sea. Rostagnus softens the red wax, sandwiches it between the two parts of the seal die, which are slotted together with pegs, and squeezes the wax into the engraved surfaces with a seal-roller. He attaches this wax seal to red silk laces that are threaded through slits at the end of the document. The betrothal feast is held and the wedding date is set for 18 November but has to be delayed to December because of the time it takes to draw the documents up correctly. I write to Audebert and to Raingarde to tell them of the marriage and later I show Lucia their letters of delight that she will marry such a great lord, but she turns her face from me and has not spoken willingly to me since I first broached it with her. The palace seems a chilly place. Ramon is not pleased with me. Yet Besalú’s allegiance and his marrying into our family stills the last of the rebellion against Ramon, and Ermessende is left without allies so that surely she must come now to give her fealty. But she does not.

‘Lady!’ Bernadette bursts in screeching.

‘What is …’

‘Fire. Fire in the library!’

I run as fast as I can, my head empty, pursued by Dia and Bernadette, shouting for help as I go. As I approach the door, maids are screaming in the passageway. The fire is small and the male servants are beating at it with tapestries that they have ripped from the wall. Ramon is in the thick of it, passing buckets of slopping water, and soon the flames are damped down. The servants troop out looking dejected, some muttering to me, ‘So sorry my Lady’. They know how much time I spend in here, how treasured are my books.

‘Not too bad,’ says Ramon trying to cheer me up.

I am looking in horror at the damage.

‘Bernadette, Rostagnus, help your Lady sort what is damaged and what can be saved, please,’ he says. ‘Not so much is gone, Almodis. We can replace some things.’

‘Not everything.’ I feel cold with grief as I see the burnt remains of some of my grandmother Adalmode’s books, some of the 
treasures Ramon has brought for me reduced to ash and sodden illegible pages. I pick up Dhuoda’s Manual, the actual one she wrote in her own hand for her son William. It has been doused with water and as I pick it up the ink swims and the words fall from the page. ‘Oh, no, no,’ I am sobbing now.

Ramon hugs me and tries to cheer me. ‘It could have been so much worse.’

I pull myself together and step out of his embrace. ‘Ramon, there is malice here and we cannot ignore it. I fear,’ I say
hesitantly
, ‘it may have been Pere’s doing.’

‘That’s ridiculous, Almodis!’ he says angrily. ‘I know you are upset but how can you make such a wild accusation? Pere would not do such a thing and you offend me greatly to suggest it.’ He looks at me with disgust, looks around at the devastation, throws his arms up and walks out. I exchange looks with Bernadette and Dia. Silently they agree with me.

Later Ramon summons me to the hall and I think that our
argument
concerning Pere will continue but instead he is sitting there with a letter in his hand and Lucia is standing before him. ‘I have received a letter from Count Besalú,’ Ramon tells us. ‘He writes to break his betrothal to Lady Lucia.’

‘Oh thank you Jesu!’ Lucia says.

I reach for her hand but she pulls it away from me.

‘Well, good,’ says Ramon and stares at me.

‘It is not good, to be thus jilted,’ I say.

Later we talk together without her present. ‘Lucia’s position is very awkward now. Who would have her, in these circumstances?’

Ramon says nothing.

‘Alright!’ I say, cracking under the unremitting pressure of his disapproval. ‘I was wrong and it is all my fault!’

‘And?’ he says.

‘And I shall write to the pope and ask for an annulment for her, and I shall find her a better marriage.’

‘You write to the pope, yes, but I will find her a better marriage.’

I am chagrined. ‘That is my job.’

‘Well then I have a suggestion for you to consider, Your
Radiance
,’ he says, taking my hand, so that I must smile at last with him. ‘The Count of Pallars Sobirà.’

‘Artaldo? He is already wed and is aged!’

‘He is a mere fifty and a pleasant man. His wife has borne him no heirs and is past raising his desire. He will put her aside for Lucia. It would cement my alliance with him. How are things looking in your poor library, my love?’

Our daughter Inés has been born and Ramon has lavished me with gifts including Girona, a share in the annual Taifa tribute, and many of his castellans have sworn fealty to me.

‘Isn’t Girona part of Ermessende’s domain?’ I ask him.

‘I’ve sent her charters withdrawing her rights in the city. She shows us no favour and so she shall have none of ours. She still has Vic and can retreat there and continue her plots against me, her own flesh and blood.’ He is angry because the Council of Bishops in Toulouse has reconfirmed our excommunication. It is time that I did something about Ermessende.

We hear that Count Guillem of Besalú has married Etiennette of Provence. I try not to think of how it would have been for Lucia if the marriage had gone forward and how it must be for Etiennette. It seems that God has been kind to me in my errors.