Rashi's Daughters, Book II: Miriam (51 page)

“
Non
, Mama is staying home to care for my girls. She’s also watching little Shemiah so Eliezer and Rachel can come.”

“Please let me go with everyone, Mama,” Yom Tov said. “It’s Sukkot, when we’re commanded to be happy.”

Miriam found it difficult to resist her sons’ pleas until she remembered the sad fate of Emeline’s brother. “You think watching knights fight each other, injure each other, maybe even kill each other, would make you happy?”

“Nobody’s going to be killed . . . or at least hardly anyone.” Joheved sounded like she was talking to children, which for the most part, she was. “The point of a tournament is to capture the opposing side’s knights and hold them for ransom, which a dead man obviously can’t pay.”

Miriam forced herself to think logically and not keep her son home just because she was annoyed with Joheved. “I suppose Yom Tov may go if Judah agrees. But Shimson is too young.”

Since Papa was going, Judah had no objections. That was all he’d said; not one question. Judah always became more serious and taciturn as Yom Kippur approached, but this year he was more gloomy than ever. After the Hot Fair closed, he’d spent every waking hour either at prayer or working on Papa’s
kuntres
. Even the festival of Sukkot hadn’t lifted his spirits.

A day with cheerful company tempted Miriam. And if her sister could attend this tournament while seven months pregnant, so could she. Didn’t she owe Alain a debt of gratitude? Never mind that his service had only given Benjamin a few more months of life.

W
hen the next day dawned as sunny and brisk as only an autumn day can be, Miriam decided that Yom Tov was right. It was Sukkot, the season of happiness. How often did she spend a day at leisure with her father and both her sisters? But she couldn’t help swallowing anxiously when Thibault’s men-at-arms barred the city gates behind them.

“He’ll open them at sunset, when the tournament’s over,” Meir explained. “Combatants are supposed to stay on the tournament field, but if any defeated knights try to escape, the victors will pursue them, as in a real war.”

“It’s just as well that our vineyard is on the far side of Troyes,” Salomon added.

“If all the knights are from Champagne, how does anyone know who his opponents are?” Isaac asked.

“Thibault has them divided by geography,” Meir said. “One side from castles north of Troyes, like Ramerupt, Vitry, and Meaux, and the other from the south, like Ervy and Bar-sur-Aube. Each side wears its own colors.”

They could hear the tournament’s hubbub long before they reached an opening in the forest that provided a view of the cleared fields below. Trees fringed one long side of the arena, and at each end a raised platform stood shaded by canopies. There were two fenced-off holding areas, which Miriam assumed were the
lices
, on each side of the arena.

The perimeter was surrounded by men. There were the participants of course, knights on horseback, squires, men-at-arms on foot, but many were spectators, peasant and town dweller alike. Miriam identified a few women, most of whom were selling ale or foodstuffs.

Yom Tov was jumping up and down to see better. “Look at all the men, Mama. Have you ever seen so many in one place?”

“This is considered a small tournament, only thirty or forty knights on each side, nearly all from Champagne,” said a familiar voice. “I’ve heard that grand tournaments can involve hundreds of knights, some from as far away as Provence and Angleterre.”

“Moses haCohen.” Meir embraced the doctor. “I hoped we’d find you here.”

Moses smiled when he saw Miriam. “I am pleased to see you looking so well. Are you following the diet I prescribed?”

“My nausea is nearly gone, so I only drink one cup of ginger tisane in the morning,” she said. “But I can’t resist apples from our tree.”

Moses wagged his finger at her. “You shouldn’t eat raw fruit; it’s too cold and moist, especially for a woman. Promise me you’ll only eat baked apples until the baby comes. We don’t want your child to be born with too much phlegm.”

Miriam wanted to ask the doctor about Judah’s melancholy, but Joheved called out, “Miriam, look who’s here.”

Standing next to Joheved was a tall blond woman, her mouth in a thin smile. Her pale blue, close-set eyes peered anxiously at Miriam, who recognized her at once.

“Emeline. It’s good to see you again. How are you?” Emeline had aged well. Though she’d put on weight, her hair hadn’t darkened, and she held herself with authority, not timidity.

“
Merci
, I am very well. And yourself?”

“I have seldom felt better.” Miriam was thankful that her appearance no longer reflected her previous indisposition.

“I rarely come along when Hugh competes in tournaments,” Emeline said with a grimace. “But Joheved wrote that she hoped to attend.” She smiled broadly. “I didn’t expect to find both of you here.”

“Is Gila with you?” Miriam asked, although Emeline’s happiness seemed proof that her mother-in-law was still in Plancy.

Emeline laughed out loud at this. “Oh
non
. These days her back bothers so much that she seldom leaves her bed.”

Joheved gave her a hug at this news. “So you are the baroness of Plancy at last.”

“
Oui
. With time as my ally, her defeat was inevitable.”

The noise from the crowd increased, and Rachel waved at them. “Come quickly, it’s starting.”

The knights lined up at opposite ends of the recently harvested wheat field, their horses munching on the stubble. His face hidden beneath a pointed helmet, each knight held a lance in one arm and a shield in the other. Miriam barely had time to ask Joheved which one was Alain, when the heralds sounded their trumpets, and the two bands of horsemen charged at each other.

It was mayhem. Men yelling, horses neighing, metal clanging against metal, the crowd cheering. Miriam tried to follow Alain, but the swirling dust made it difficult to tell one knight from another. The primary tactic was obviously to knock an opponent off his horse, seize the animal, and gallop off to the
lices
, where the prize was handed to the waiting squires. If the unhorsed opponent was dazed or injured, the knight attempted to deliver him to the
lices
as well, by enlisting the help of his comrades on the ground with swords or clubs. But the opponent had men-at-arms too, and the resulting hand-to-hand combat continued until he was either rescued or captured.

Yom Tov was better at following Alain’s exploits than Miriam. Again and again he pointed out the young knight, whose strategy was to cut an opponent’s stirrups and then secure the horse once the rider fell off. He elicited screams of glee from Yom Tov whenever he was successful.

There were other maneuvers that drew loud cheers from the crowd. Emeline pointed out an enterprising fellow whose tactic was to ride as fast as he could into the fray and grab the reins of an opponent’s horse. Then he would race on, holding the reins just out of reach of the man’s sword, thus capturing both horse and rider. One time, however, he rode too close to the forest’s edge, and his captive, to the crowd’s delight, reached up, grasped a low-hanging branch, and swung himself out of the saddle.

But these exciting events were rare, and by midday Miriam had seen enough. She had little sympathy for the injured knights. Most were landless younger sons eager to risk life and limb to win booty, although those who possessed prowess and luck might win the hand of an heiress as well.

It distressed her to watch the young squires face danger on the battlefield, protected only by heavy leather instead of the chain mail that knights wore from head to knee. A knight was relatively safe on his mount, and if he were unhorsed, his armor would shield him until he got back on again. Should he be captured, he spent the rest of the day lounging in the
lices
, drinking ale and gambling with his comrades. The squires, however, stayed on the field continuously, and each time they defended a fallen knight or attacked a downed opponent, they were in peril of being stabbed or clubbed themselves.

Miriam couldn’t help but cringe as she watched the smallest squires scurry between rampaging horses to recover the riderless mounts, at the same time looking to retrieve fallen weapons. Some of them were no older than her nephew Isaac.

Her escape came when Yom Tov announced, “I’m tired of all this fighting, Mama. When can we go home?”

She hadn’t a chance to tell him it was dangerous to leave before the tournament ended, when Salomon motioned for them to join him.

“Tell me, Yom Tov,” Salomon said. “What happens to Moses in the Torah portion we’ll be reading on Simchat Torah?”

“Moses dies, Grandpapa.”

“And what happens to the Israelites after that?”

Yom Tov answered without hesitation. “They cross the Jordan into Canaan, to settle the land the Holy One promised them.”

Clearly he was proud of his knowledge, and Miriam felt herself filling with pride as well. She had been the one to teach him Torah.

“But do the Canaanites allow them to do this?” Salomon asked next.

“
Non
, Grandpapa. The Israelites have to fight them.”

“Aha.” Salomon raised his eyebrows and nodded at his grandsons, for by this time, Shmuel had come to see what the discussion was about. “Didn’t you wonder why I decided to attend this tournament instead of working on my
kuntres
?”

The boys looked at him blankly, but Miriam smiled and said, “I certainly did.”

“I have lived a peaceful life, never once seeing a battle—thank Heaven.” Salomon stroked his beard and sighed. “But the Israelites were not so lucky. They fought many wars, against the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Philistines, and others, as your mother has so capably taught you. So when Meir told me about this tournament, I realized that I would see real fighting, to have an idea of what the Israelites went through.”

“Oh.” Yom Tov looked up at his grandfather with awe. “So when you watch the knights, which side do you see as Israel?”

“Neither. I watch the men on the ground; the Israelites didn’t have horses. I think that for the men on the field, battles today aren’t that different from those in Moses’s time.”

“Except that the Israelites and their enemies fought to the death,” Miriam whispered to her father after the boys turned their attention back to the field.

“As men do today, if this weren’t a mock battle,” he replied. “One good thing about this pope, his Truce of God seems to be working. Who would think that he could make the knights limit their warfare to three days a week?”

When Salomon went back to the platform’s edge, where his grandsons were standing, Miriam decided to join Joheved and Emeline. The two women’s features were surprisingly similar. Joheved’s hair was brunette, while Emeline’s was blond, but both were tall and full-figured, with blue eyes and small mouths.

As Miriam drew closer, she was struck with the realization that their true similarity was in their bearing. These were women of the nobility, unintimidated by the presence of so many lords and knights, who in the midst of discussing the challenges of estate management, would tell one of André’s servants to bring her more smoked fish, cheese, or bread with the assurance that her request would be immediately obeyed.

Joheved and Emeline were discussing some cases that had come to their manor courts.

“I don’t understand it,” Emeline said. “At least half my alewives pay the fines rather than wait for the official ale tasting.”

Joheved shrugged her shoulders. “If she knows she’s going to be fined anyway for selling weak ale, she may as well get fined for selling before it’s been tasted.”

“You’re probably right. But why do so many villeins default on the demesne plow work when they know they’ll be fined? It’s not that they’re lazy; they labor hard enough on their own land.”

“It’s the same with us,” Joheved said. “Industrious villeins can earn more money from their own crops than what it costs them in fines. But our steward says their fines more than cover our costs to hire day laborers.”

“It’s easy for you to hire day laborers,” Emeline said. “Half the men in Troyes are runaway villeins needing work.”

Joheved nodded. “I suppose that’s why we never have trouble hiring workers, even at the height of the summer harvest.”

“I expect your steward doesn’t have any trouble collecting
merchet
,
leirwite
,
tallage
, or
heriot
fees either,” Emeline said.

Miriam had no idea what these were, and as much as she didn’t want to expose her ignorance, this time there was no child to ask for her. So far she’d been listening quietly, amazed at how Joheved seemed to have become a completely new person. At home, studying Talmud or helping with the vintage, Joheved might try to boss her younger sisters around, but mostly they were equals. Here, in the presence of Emeline, she wasn’t merely another woman, she was Lady Joheved of Ramerupt-sur-Aube.

Before Miriam could ask, Joheved began explaining the mysterious terms. “Those are words you won’t find in the Talmud.
Tallage
is the annual rent a villein pays for his land,
merchet
is the fee he pays when his daughter gets married,
leirwite
is the amount she pays if she gets caught lying with a man before she’s married, and
heriot
is what his family pays when he dies. Because our estate is so small, only one village, it’s impossible to hide these from our steward and reeve.”

The poor villeins, Miriam thought. Paying rent was one thing, but Meir’s villagers also had to pay him when they married or died.

“With all the villages we have, and all the incompetent people Gila had running them, I doubt these fees were collected or turned over to us.” Emeline shook her head with disgust.

Then her expression softened. “I rarely have to check on things in Méry-sur-Seine anymore, not since your Pierre has taken over as steward there. I’ve heard that all the stewards you train are as capable, which brings me to a favor I want to ask you.”