Almodis (10 page)

I grow to love my Lady. She is a very fine chatelaine. She has the castle running smoothly and brooks no interference from her mother-in-law which is some accomplishment. That is a
harridan
and a half. But my heart really swelled with love for Almodis when she took care of me over Piers. She found me sobbing and insisted on knowing what was the matter. I told her how I’d seen him tupping the kitchen maid in the stable and how I’d given my virginity to him and thought he might marry me.

‘Bernadette. You are well out of it,’ she declared, striving to make me laugh. ‘That is a man who very rarely has his hose
anywhere
but round his ankles.’

She made him come and kneel to her, with Dia and I as
witnesses
, whilst she gave him a good telling off about his behaviour. ‘It has come to my attention, Piers,’ she said in her best haughty manner, ‘that you have been engaging in no end of illicit carnal activities with the maid servants. It is ungodly and it is disturbing the peace of the household. You will keep your cock to
yourself
and kept safe for your future wife from now on,’ she said to him.

Well he was red in the face and so angry, I could see, but what could he say? He had to apologise to her and agree that he would mend his ways.

‘There now, Bernadette,’ she said when he’d gone, ‘didn’t it make you feel a whole lot better seeing him shame-faced?’

Now here she is birthing and so brave and I am exhausted.
We have bathed her often and kept her warm and anointed her abdomen with oil of violets. The chamber smells sweet with a fumigation of musk, amber and aloe. The Spanish woman is strumming gently on her instrument. Almodis refused to have Audearde in the bedchamber. It makes me laugh to see that old hag find much, much more than her match in my pretty young Lady. As the midwife instructed, Almodis is wearing a necklace of coral and holding a magnet in her right hand, although she scoffed at this, and said it was just superstition.

‘Are you afraid, Lady?’

‘No,’ she huffs and puffs between the pains with sweat
soaking
her golden curls into draggles clinging to her pink face. ‘This is just one of the things we do, Bernadette. I will do it well. I will be glad to have this burden shifted, my child in my arms and my body back again that I might return to riding and hunting.’

I’ll give her that. She shows no fear. When she screamed and I asked in terror, ‘Oh how is it my dear Lady?’ she just said: ‘It is good Bernadette. He’s coming.’ She was sure all along that it was a boy. Her pains began at midnight and it has been very fast. The dawn is just beginning to lighten the sky in the window and the baby slides out from her and lets out a great wail, but it isn’t over. The pains are continuing and then we know that my Lady is
bearing
twins. Two fine boys she has birthed! We are all weeping with joy as she holds them both in her arms and looks at us exhausted and happy. Dia goes to tell Lord Hugh and bring him to see his heirs. I set about tidying the chamber and removing the evidence of her labour. The midwife has bathed the blood and stuff from the babies and wrapped them.

Lord Hugh comes in to look at his sons but recoils at the sight of the twins.

‘My Lord,’ Almodis says with the patience of a saint, I must say, ‘I have birthed twins because I am a twin. There is no evil here. See they are both healthy and well formed. This is Hugh, your heir, and this is his brother, Jourdain.’ He doesn’t take them in his arms, says only, ‘I am glad to see you well madame and to see my heirs.’ Then he goes out again just like that.

My Lady is crying. ‘It’s just the exhaustion,’ she says. I wipe her face for she doesn’t have a free hand. We both know it’s not the
exhaustion and I wish I could give that lord a dressing down for her as she did for me with Piers.

Then we all hear the most ear-splitting caterwauling. ‘Do you think that careless kitchen maid has caught her hand in the fire?’ I say.

‘It sounds like a cat in pain,’ says Almodis doubtfully.

‘It is Melusine,’ says Dia, ashen in the face, but though she and I rush to the window we don’t see anything in the moat.

‘Nonsense,’ says Almodis and turns back to her twin boys.

And I thought I would be bored in Lusignan! Geoffrey and Agnes are only just gone and now we have another to do. I’ve been watching Piers eyeing up Nadine for a few weeks. She’s only fourteen and the daughter of the steward. I don’t know what I was thinking but I decided to follow them when I saw them
disappearing
into the chapel. They couldn’t be up to no good in a chapel. I could warn Nadine about him. Shout at him? Piers likes his risks. I saw that he was fondling Nadine’s breast and buttocks right there, lying in the pews, in front of the statue of the Virgin. The poor girl was whimpering that it was sacrilege and they’d go to hell and then I heard the register of her whimpering shift and I knew what that meant. What should I do? Run and tell Rorgon? But then I heard the heavy door behind me and there
was
Rorgon, and Lord Hugh with him, striding up the aisle. If Piers looked this way he would see me. I ducked down behind the confessional box and heard a whisper and scurry as Piers and Nadine crawled out and made their escape. I peered round to see if I might follow but drew back quickly as I saw Lord Hugh’s legs. They were going into the confessional and I was trapped. I hardly dared breathe. If they caught me I’d be whipped for sure.

‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’

I was appalled to find that I could hear Hugh. Rorgon’s
murmur
was much less distinct. If I moved at all they would know I was there.

‘I dreamt of her again,’ he said. What could I do? I had no choice but to listen.

Rorgon must have told Hugh to tell him about his dream as he continued: ‘In my dream I am lying naked in bed and a great
serpent is laying next to me. Its body is thick and it has two curling tails. Above the waist it has the naked breasts and arms of a woman. I caress its horrid green scales. I place my mouth on its breast in a loathsome kiss! And it writhes and writhes, slimy, against me. I taste the tang of old, foul water on my lips. Its voice is sibilant like a snake and it slithers on the bedcovers. Ten
grotesque
children are standing against the wall of our bedchamber watching us on the bed. I raise my head to look in the face of the fearsome serpent and I see that it has the smiling features and the great green eyes of my wife. In her mouth are sharp and tiny pearly teeth. I feel blood in my own mouth where she has kissed me. Seaweed is tangled in her blonde hair and red leeches cling to her shoulders. Her skin is cold and wet and deathly pale. I fear that my wife is Melusine, the harbinger of my death, that she is Eve, the tempter and death of my soul. She is an identical twin, the Devil’s seed. My seed mixed with hers will make children as grotesque and cursed as Melusine’s!’

I could hear Hugh sobbing as well he might. I wanted to sob myself with terror at his vision. If I dreamt so I would never shut my eyes at night but keep my candles burning down to their wicks. Oh please let them finish and go away, I prayed. I can’t bear anymore of this.

Rorgon must have given Hugh a fasting penance because I heard Lord Hugh said: ‘But what good will that do? Fasting only seems to make my visions more lurid.’

I could just make out Rorgon’s reply as he raised his voice: ‘Isidore of Seville tells us that fasting is the doorway to the
kingdom
.’ I heard them both stand and move down the aisle and out of the church. The heavy door banged shut behind them and I collapsed into a heap of stressed limbs and mind. But I pulled myself together quickly and rushed to get out of the clammy cold church as fast as I could. What should I do with this awful knowledge? I can’t tell my Lady direct. Dia will know what to do.

I sit down to write to my brother:

I hesitate with my stylus hovering above the parchment. I have to remind myself how hurt I am by Hugh’s behaviour to me, and to think on the conversation I had last night with Dia about the possibility of repudiation and a second marriage. I continue:

I sign my name, read the letter through, roll it up and seal it quickly before I can change my mind. Anything must be better than to live like this. I cannot live in the
mariage blanc
that Hugh seems to want, and Lusignan offers me little exercise for my wits.

I leave the rolled up letter sitting on my desk and turn to pull on my riding boots. Piers is marshalling the horses and hounds
in the courtyard and I can hear hooves on the cobbles, the dogs’ impatient yips, men shouting to each other. I stand and look down from the window. It is a beautiful May morning and today we will hunt the hart. My husband strides up to Piers, with his brother, Renaud, close behind him. They are ready to ride and waiting for me. Hugh looks up, sees me and raises his hand. I raise mine but the smile that begins to bloom in my eyes and on my mouth is halted, bereft, as he turns back to Piers, then squats to stroke his favourite hound. He flees from me who lately did me seek. Why must I keep hoping that he will return my affection? It is clear by now that he will not. I take a deep breath and smile at the decorated green hunting cap sitting on my desk, next to my letter to Audebert. Bernadette has painstakingly sewn a crown of fresh leaves all around the cap. I wind my yellow plaits round my head, pin them in place, and then pin the cap to them. I pick up my green gloves. I am wearing all green today, in honour of May. I look down at my gown: its neck, cuffs and hem are edged with gold lace and I will arrange its voluminous emerald folds
gracefully
across my horse’s flanks, but for who? Who will care what I look like? I was so confident in Roccamolten that Hugh wanted me but I was so wrong. I hear the one long blast on Piers’ horn that means the last remnants of the hunt must assemble now or be left behind. I’m ready and the morning is waiting. I turn from the window and skip down the steps.

Renaud greets me as I emerge into the sunshine: ‘Queen of the May!’ he exclaims and hands me to my horse.

Piers’ blue eyes rove over me with admiration too. He has been surly since I told him off for his wenching, for Bernadette’s sake, but when I see how finely he has caparisoned my horse, I laugh delighted, so that he must smile with pleasure at my praise.
Tramper
is a roan and my best courser. I run my hand over the rich, deep red-brown of his shoulder in greeting, and he shakes his head up and down at me. Piers has plaited and twisted the red hair of Tramper’s tail and mane with green and gold ribbons. His bridle, girth and reins are made from thick bright green leather, strung with yellow tassels and tiny gold bells. I step into the
stirrup
and arrange my dress around me. I disdain to ride side-saddle as many ladies do. Bernadette has tied a wine skin and a cloth
with cold mutton and pigeon pie to the pommel of my saddle. I survey the mustering of the hunt. The hounds are leashed in pairs, panting and straining to be off, and each huntsmen holds four in hand. I can feel Tramper shifting beneath me, keen to be out of the courtyard, galloping and leaping in the glimpse of fields beyond the gateway. Hugh is mounted on his strong white mare, Cassie, and Renaud’s mount is a black horse with a white star on her forehead. Along with Piers, we are the only riders. Lusignan is such a small household, compared to the hordes of minor nobles and followers I was used to at the hunts of the Aquitaine court and at my father’s stronghold. The rest of this hunt is on foot: the dog-handlers, the huntsmen, and the beaters with their long rods. Everyone is wearing green and they all have leaves edging their caps. We look like a courtyard full of salad I think, and smile to myself.

‘The white Baux hounds are best for hunting the hart,’ Piers is telling Hugh, and nodding to the four he is holding in front of him.

‘The white? Not the black Saint Humbert’s hounds?’ says Hugh, indicating his own favourites.

‘No, no, my Lord. See, the black hounds have mighty bodies but their legs are short so they are not swift enough for the hart. They are good for the slower, smellier quarry such as foxes and boars. When the Trojans escaped from Troy and taught the art of hunting with dogs to the Romans, it was the white hounds they employed. The Baux are not keen on cold water, I’ll give you that. That is their failing, but they make up for it with their valour. And look at them. They have all the marks of the best hounds for hunting: long-snout, big ears and nostrils, massive thighs, straight backs, dry feet and hard bellies. They are most easily trained not to chase sheep and rabbits and not to attack the other domestic animals.’

‘Well, what about the dun hounds?’ says Hugh.

‘Yes, they are fair, not afraid of the water, but they are not so good with the noise and throng of the hunt.’

Piers’ expertise on everything to do with horses, hounds and hawks is famed from here to the coast and other marshals and huntsmen come to consult with him for his knowledge. He keeps
the dogs in luxury in the kennels. They have a fire to warm them in their raised hut and fresh straw every day, plenty of room to exercise, a stone water trough and a quaint arrangement of pipes and channels to bring in fresh water and take out the excrement and dirty water when the kennel lads scour their home. Those dogs live better than the lads themselves. Piers combs their coats and paws gently after each hunt, looking for thorns and blisters. He gives them a weekly herb bath to rid them of lice, fleas and other vermin so they are the most perfumed dogs you could
imagine
, smelling sweetly of vervain and marjoram. He gets into the river himself with the pups to teach them to swim, and he trains the young hounds with the aid of the old hounds. The cook
complains
to me that she is tripping over barrels in her kitchen that Piers has set near the fire, full of newborn pups, and given her orders to feed them on her best broth. ‘It’s not like you can even pet the pups,’ she says to me, ‘because their dams wander in and out of my kitchen to suckle them and they are frightening fierce and like to bite my cooking hand off if I go near their offspring.’ Now Piers coats the palm of his hand with vinegar and holds it out to each of the hounds that will scent the hart. They sniff and snort. This clears their noses to help them find the trail.

An old man holds up a battered flute to show me. ‘That great hart that we will find today, my Lady, he loves the music of the flute, he does, and our cries of Ware! Ware!’

I nod kindly to him. ‘Let’s go!’ I shout to Piers and he gives two blows on his horn: the signal for us to set out for the fields. We emerge from the arched gateway into full sunshine and the dew is heavy in the grass. The sun is climbing in the sky and promising a sparkling day. We head towards the largest stretch of forest to the right of the castle, at a trot, with the dogs and those on foot running besides us. As we approach the forest’s broad margin, I see row on row of pale tree trunks disappearing into darkness. Only two or three rows in, the gloom is impenetrable beneath the thick canopy of leaves.

As we pass under the roof of the forest, the sounds of our moving are suddenly hushed by the thick vegetation and debris of the forest floor and it takes a moment for our eyes to adjust from bright sunlight to the forest’s permanent night. The hounds are
quiet after the panting and yipping of their run here and no one speaks. Our harnesses jingle softly. Twigs crack here and there. We rein and let the men with the hounds move ahead of us to find the scent, fanning out, creeping quietly. I hear the trill of a stream to my right and Tramper steps over a fallen bough and skirts a small pond. There is no birdsong. They have heard us coming and, deep in the gloomy thicket, so has the hart. I imagine him lifting his great antlered head from the stream, sniffing the air, but we have been careful to enter where we will be downwind and no warning will be carried from our scent. The dogs are snuffling the ground, walking their handlers in circles and meanders, seeking a scent that they will surely find in a few minutes. The ground is thick with springy, green moss. The green of our clothes blends in with the leaves around us so that we appear like the carvings of green men in the church, come to life, creeping through the trees and bushes. A flash of bouncing deer passes across the path ahead of me, three or four so fast that I cannot be sure if I really saw them or if their fleeting was of my imagining.

Hugh is riding just ahead of me. In the heat of the ride he has stripped his tunic down to bunch up at his waist and is riding in a thin white undershirt, cut away close at the armpits so that the black hair under his arms can be glimpsed now and then as he moves with his horse. The skirt of his short tunic rides up high on his brown thighs. I admire the breadth of his shoulders, the muscles of his back visible under the thin shirt, the exposed
muscles
of his arms and legs. I watch his buttocks rise up and down in the saddle. I pull my attention away from the gorgeous form of my husband, as the dogs begin to babble and a group of young hinds and harts scatter before us, but the huntsmen hold back. These harts have their first velveteen antlers and are not what we are seeking.

‘It’s a pleasure to behold those harts when they go to rut and make their vault in the autumn,’ the old man with the flute calls up to me. ‘For when they smell the hind, they raise their noses up into the air and look aloft, at that she smell, as though they give thanks to nature which gives them such great delight.’ His grin is lascivious and gap-toothed and his face is grimed with green smears and sweat. I look away, and see that Hugh is looking over
his shoulder at us and has heard the old man’s words. His face shows a disgust that seems to implicate me, though the words were not mine.

‘Those harts will be hiding themselves in the thickets about now,’ the old man continues unbidden by anybody, ‘avoiding the torment of the horseflies, still growing their new antlers to their full hardness, fearing that they are without their weapons and for shame at the temporary loss of their beauty. In August, though, they’ll begin to wax hot for the hinds and they’ll rub the last of the velvet from their horns and fight each other and
bellow
. In November they crop flowers to restore and recomfort their members, overwearied with all that rutting, Lady! They don’t need to drink from the stream at this time of year, for the moisture of the dew gives them sufficient for their thirst so they can stay hidden.’

I spur my horse forward to ride alongside Hugh, to get away from the old man. The lead huntsmen with the scent hounds have found hart droppings and footprints.

Piers goes forward to inspect the finds and rides back to tell us, ‘It’s a grand one from its hoof prints! I put my hand in the slot, its track, and it was four fingers wide.’ He tips the droppings, the fewmets, from his horn, to show us. ‘See, they are long and round, knotty and great. Good venison to be had there.’

‘Take some wine,’ I say, leaning over and handing my skin to him. We are on the track and looking now to flush our quarry from his lair.

‘I’ve seen many a young hunter mistake the tracks of a hind with calf for those of a stag,’ the persistent flutist tells me, spitting on the ground, ‘for she’s like to open her legs wide like a male, with the weightiness of her body, but that man of yours knows his business I see.’

‘Yes,’ I say shortly, trying again to escape his conversation. Usually, I would find him amusing, but I do not like this coupling of me with the lewd old man that my Lord seems to have decided upon.

Piers is following the path of the hart, visible from his tracks and droppings but also from where the branches and boughs are bowed and broken down by his passing and feeding. ‘He has a
long step and will stand up well before the hounds, Lady
Almodis
,’ he tells me. Then, ‘The fraying post!’ he calls back and I ride up to see the tree he is indicating, where the stag has rubbed off shreds of velvet from his new antlers. ‘See how high it is,’ Piers says. ‘This is a very good, tall, hart.’ Piers has already been out the previous days, scouting, climbing trees, watching covertly for the hart’s feeding and watering habits and the routes he takes in and out of the thicket.

Another cry goes up: ‘Here!’ I ride to the source of the call and see that Piers has found the hart’s hiding place. The shape of its body is evident in the press of the leaves and soil and Piers lays the back of his hand to the indentation to feel what warmth remains. ‘Five minutes, no more!’ he says, knowing all the secrets and precepts of venery.

I catch a glimpse of the hart standing at gaze on a rise above us. He has a fine head of red antlers, well furnished and beamed. I hastily count fourteen tines which makes him at least six years old and perhaps one that has outrun the huntsmen before. Both antler branches end with a circle of four small croches, looking like two small crowns that he bears high above his head. He has a long brown body and looks to have very good breath for the chase. The hunted hart trusts to nothing but his heels and never stands until his wind is spent so the hounds need to be
encouraged
with shouts and bugles. The forest rings with the sound of our horns and hollers. ‘Hi Talbot! Hi Beaumont!’ the
huntsmen
call to the dogs. We trust to the older hounds, and not the younger. The older dogs know their work best and will not be fooled by the subtleties of the hart’s stratagems, trying to throw us off by crossing its own path and doubling back on itself.