The Lute Player (22 page)

Settling into our apartments which Richard had arranged for us in Brindisi and preparing to stay there, as we then thought, for a week or two, the easy camaraderie of the journey had to be abandoned and the matter of precedence considered. Berengaria was blissfully vague about such things, so the task fell to me; and in my allocation of sleeping apartments and places at table I cunningly endeavoured to keep a distance between the duchess and myself. I had done this to my own satisfaction when Berengaria took notice for just long enough to say, ‘Madam, Anna must come before Carmelita; she ranks next to Joanna, does she not?’

‘Carmelita is Duchess of Avosola;’ I defended myself, conscious of guilt in the matter.

‘But Anna is my sister. What I mean, madam, is that she is my father’s daughter. Did you really not know? At home I suppose it was so much taken for granted—but at home Anna always ranked immediately after me and Blanche.’

‘Naturally,’ I said. I was stiff with anger. I should have been told. It was all very well for the Navarrese to take the situation so much for granted that it was no longer even a subject for gossip but how could a stranger guess? Though perhaps I should have done or, if not guessed, suspected something had I not been so disappointed at finding my respectable house-building duchess a misformed chit, had I not been so much absorbed in my own feelings towards her. It was certainly unusual for a young girl to be a duchess in her own right and Sancho had said that he was very fond of Anna and had mentioned his daughters’ wilfulness. Blanche, I am sure, had never needed a stick in all her life.

I had certainly been very unobservant and perhaps a little deluded by Sancho’s reputed devotion to his crazy wife and by the wonderful memorial he had reared to her in the cathedral at Pamplona. Of what sly misdoing, I wondered savagely, was that crooked little woman a memorial?

There was nothing for it, of course, but to move my eyesore a place nearer to me by bed and board. And presently she seemed to guess that she was obnoxious to me and ceased to press her society on me. Presently, too, I had other things to worry me.

The weeks sped by and there was no summons from Richard. I had sent him a message acquainting him with our safe arrival and telling him about Berengaria in such terms as would, I thought, make him anxious to see her. Richard ignored that letter, though I knew it had reached him. Towards the end of November I began to feel impatient and though I hid my own impatience I could see its counterpart breaking out here and there amongst the members of Berengaria’s suite. Berengaria seemed contented enough, rapt in her dream, emerging now and then to make some shrewdly sweet remark, breaking into animation whenever Richard’s name was mentioned and spending most of her time in fashioning him a jewelled belt as a present when they finally met. And Young Sancho, who had some of his sister’s placidity, was contented, too, taking much exercise in neighbouring tilting yards and organising boar hunts in the forests behind the town. But the ladies and gentlemen who had ridden out of Navarre to see their princess married and who had counted on a short absence, and that filled with enjoyable activity, were naturally irked to find themselves stranded in Brindisi and no limit fixed for their exile. Complaints and questions increased from day to day. Finally, when the change of month from November to December had quickened everyone’s sense of the passing of time, Young Sancho himself came to me and pressed the general question while ostensibly pleading the cause of one young noble, Garcia, who wanted to return home because he himself was due to be married during Christmas week.

‘I gave him leave to go, madam, but the others are fretting. Often in January it snows and then the road is closed, sometimes for three weeks together.’ What he left unsaid I understood and answered.

‘Richard has given no sign,’ I said. ‘He was anxious to bring his quarrel with the King of Sicily to an end before we went. And perhaps the rogue put up more opposition than he expected. But I have heard nothing.’ I looked at the handsome young man and remembered that he was Richard’s friend. It was he in the first place who had brought the pair together; the idea of using him occurred to me.

‘If I were younger and more apt for travel,’ I said, ‘I would go to Sicily and remind my son of his unmartial obligations. For the truth is when Richard has a war, however petty, on his hands, he thinks of nothing else until his opponent sues for mercy.’

‘I know,’ Sancho said, laughing. ‘I know my Richard—the best fighter since Charlemagne!’ He grew serious again. ‘How would it be, madam, if
I
went to Sicily? I have never seen the island, though I have heard my father talk of it. And it is a long time since I saw Richard. I might see some fighting and they’—he indicated with a wave of his hand the discontented courtiers whose mouthpiece he undoubtedly was—‘would be more content if they thought that some action was being taken.’

(The old woman will never move! Prod her, Sancho, or we shall be here next year at this time. Remember what happened to Alys of France! And what is all this talk about Tancred’s pretty niece? I knew very well what was being said!)

‘Go with my blessing,’ I said. ‘The sooner they are married and Berengaria with child, the better shall I be pleased.’ I wanted to let him know that my impatience had more vital roots than my personal boredom. ‘But be tactful. Richard has in the past been so bullied about and ridden by chancellors and cardinals and their ilk that at the slightest hint of coercion his bile rises.’

‘I know my Richard,’ he said again.

Maybe he did, maybe not. The sure thing is that he did not know himself. I saw him leave with the unexpressed determination to tell Richard that though he was King of England he couldn’t keep the princess and half the court of Navarre hanging about as a housewife keeps a pedlar waiting at the back door. And I saw him return, his errand forgotten and nothing in his mind save the urge to take the Cross and join Richard’s crusade at the first possible moment. For Richard had greeted him with affection, put his arm across his shoulders, led him about through camps of men and pickets of horses, showed him his muster of stores and ships and talked to him until the boy was bemused and bewitched. He came back to Brindisi to tell Berengaria that Richard was busy, that Richard was wonderful and that he was going back to Navarre to seek their father’s consent and support because he meant to go on crusade himself.

Berengaria listened to every word he said about Richard but she was not interested in his own plans. It was left to me to draw him aside, and confront him with the question:

‘And what of your errand?’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I could see that Richard had too much in hand and in mind. I forebore to bother him. Madam, if you could see what he does in the course of a day! He will throw off his doublet and work with his men; I even saw him dressing sores on pack mules! He says he will attend to the wedding when he has time and that, I judge, will not be before spring.’ He began to talk of his own plans. I interrupted him.

‘Your going home will worsen the situation, Sancho. They will all want to go with you. They’ll believe that the betrothal has gone awry; whatever you may say, they’ll prefer to believe that you are going home because you have discovered Richard is philandering with Tancred’s niece!’

‘I assure you, there is no truth in that rumour. The man is too busy. If you could see him as I have seen him, you would believe.’

‘I can believe without seeing. I know Richard. I believe that he is busy and that he will marry Berengaria in the spring. But the others… No, Sancho! They were all very restive when Garcia went; when you go they will go with you. And your sister will go to her wedding worse attended than any merchant’s daughter.’

‘If she went barefoot in her shift she’d be a damned lucky woman and so I shall tell her.’ He laughed. ‘Berengaria knows that. As for the others, I shall explain.’

But he hadn’t the personality to give his explanations any force and the thing turned out as I expected. It was as it says in the Bible, “They began with one consent to make excuses.” This one remembered a daughter due to be brought to bed, this one a son who was to be married, another an old father about to die, another an old mother left in charge of estate; two or three ladies discovered that they were suffering from ailments only Navarrese physicians could deal with; several young gallants recalled the charms of ladies left in Navarre. And who could blame them? They had come out to attend a wedding; the date was still unfixed, the bridegroom was too busy even to discuss it and the prince was going home. To be sure, he had a high-sounding excuse—but everyone knew better. And they all wanted to go home.

So far as I was concerned they could all have gone and jumped into the sea; I didn’t care a groat whether they went to Navarre or to hell but I did fear for the effect of the general exodus on Berengaria who had behaved up to that moment so impeccably.

However, I had misjudged her. ‘Let them go,’ she said when at last the matter came under open discussion. ‘Without them, when Richard does send for us, we shall travel more quickly.’ And on the day of leave-taking there was no shadow, not even of homesickness, over her mood. When the bowing and kissing of hands was done she embraced Sancho and sent her love to her father and sent him a message that he was to let Young Sancho join Richard as soon as possible. Her last words to her brother were:

‘I will see you in Acre.’ Then she turned back and was soon at work on the baldric. I was filled with admiration and affection for her and thought, for the hundredth time, that Richard was uncommonly fortunate. I also thought that he had but to see her to love her.

Winter closed in upon our narrowed company. We were comfortably housed and well fed and, although there were the inevitable little squabbles which must arise in any company kept in close quarters for protracted lengths of time, we were, on the whole, happier than we were before Sancho and the discontented contingent had left. The members of our company now, with a few exceptions, were going on crusade together and were bound by an unspoken unity of purpose. The little duchess and I avoided one another by common consent. Blondel, of whom I had taken a more tolerant, if mystified, view since my talk with Sancho, I might have come to like had it not been that Berengaria and Anna and Pila and Joanna all vied with one another to spoil him.

So Candlemas passed and winter began to wane. I began to feel impatient again and the feeling grew until the pleasant, aimless days following one another seemed as long and tedious as the days of my imprisonment at Winchester.

VI

Everything comes to an end and one bright mild morning when spring seemed near at hand a small ship put into port and presently a little scrubbed page, wearing Richard’s livery, was brought into my presence and delivered into my hands the letter for which I had so long waited. I broke the seal eagerly and looked at the page which was written in a good clerkly hand, not Richard’s hasty scrawl. The phrases, too, were pompous and polished, though the directions were Richard’s entirely, very abrupt and very clear. The small ship,
St. James of Padua
, would wait and carry us back to Sicily where we were to board a more seaworthy vessel,
Mary the Virgin
, and proceed to Cyprus. I was to tell Joanna that Tancred had capitulated and that her dowry was safe. The consumable goods Richard had commandeered and would pay for at current prices; the golden table and cups had been sent back to England and deposited in various religious establishments where they would be safe. So far, so good, a very cheerful letter. For me the sting lay in its tail.

‘I have arranged with Isaac of Cyprus to receive you and to aid you in preparing for the wedding which will take place as soon as I join you there. Since your stay in Sicily will be brief and I am much occupied, I trust that the princess will excuse me from waiting upon her. Philip of France is with me now and for reasons which you will understand it is advisable for me to concentrate upon the business of the crusade…’

I understood that well enough. Philip was still sore and in a touchy mood; the less said about or seen of the new bride, the better. Richard at his foxiest! But it wasn’t Richard who had to tell Berengaria that we were off to Sicily or saw her hands fly to her breast or heard her voice, for once expressive and ecstatic, say, ‘I shall see him at last!’ And it wasn’t Richard who had to say, ‘My dear, I am afraid not. Not until we reach Cyprus.’

I thought it inconsiderate, if not positively unkind, of Richard to have arranged for us to go to Sicily at all. Why not, I wondered, let us ship for Cyprus at once in the small ship? But before we reached Messina I changed my opinion;
St. James of Padua
was an unhandy vessel and rolled like a drunken tinker even on the calmest day; and her master, apologising for our discomfort, promised us many things of
Mary the Virgin
, a fine new ship, he said.

It was a pity that she could not have been sent to Brindisi to carry us direct to Cyprus but it seemed that she was at the moment bringing a contingent of French soldiers from Marseilles and would land them, reload with stores and be ready to sail as soon as we reached Messina. It was, in fact, a reasonable, sensible and time-saving arrangement if one could ignore the feelings of the girl who had set out from Navarre, waited long in Italy and was now to go to Sicily and leave without so much as a glimpse of the man she loved.

Berengaria earned my astonished admiration anew on that voyage. She never questioned the arrangement; even in the throes of seasickness she uttered no complaint. And I believe that if
Mary the Virgin
had been ready to sail as soon as we arrived, we should all have gone on to Cyprus together in good heart and everything would have been entirely different. But the ship was not ready.

It is grievous to a thinking person to reflect how many troublesome things arise from the best intentions.

At that moment, when all Christian Europe was afire with ardour to recapture the holy places, a markedly communal spirit was abroad and gifts from groups, orders, communities and guilds, all of them most well intentioned and almost all bound to be the subject of fierce dissension, came pouring in. For a short time the Cross on a man’s shoulder set him apart, a dedicated man. The Pope, with tears running down his face, had blessed the leaders and they had all sworn to hold faith as brothers; old feuds, differences of rank and language were momentarily forgotten in a great spiritual afflatus which, because it took no count of realities or of the experience of centuries, held within it the seeds of disaster and disillusion.