Almodis (11 page)

Around noon we reach the edge of this stand of forest and the hart has made a break, running into open countryside. We pursue his tracks for a while but out in the open the sun is punishing for the dogs and horses. When we reach a village, Piers tells us to rest in the shade and we will pick up the trail again mid-afternoon. The dogs pant, lapping water and feeding on gobbets of bread. I sit under a shady tree ringed with blue and pink flowers and look under my lashes at Hugh napping beside me, roaming my eyes over the thick black of his hair, the moist red of his mouth,
his black eyelashes against the brown of his cheek, the eloquent curves of his ear and neck. How strange that I am not able to touch or even openly look at my own husband for fear that I would unnerve him. I am relieved when Piers assembles us again and tells us he has picked up the hart’s tracks. We ride on into another forest with a broad river running through it.

Now we have been giving hard chase for two hours since our break at noon, and the hart’s strength is beginning to sink. Four long blows on the horn indicates that the hart has broken cover again. ‘His head’s down,’ calls the man who has sighted him. The huntsmen leash the young hounds again for they do not have the wisdom to know that a hart at bay is likely to turn and kill them, and there would be an end of all Piers’ care of them.

‘He’s in the river,’ Piers calls out, following the tracks on the ground. After riding for five minutes along the banks we sight the hart swimming in the deep middle of the waters. A fit hart can swim for thirty miles and they sometimes swim out to sea, but this one has been hard chased all day and has no strength left. It seems that he intends to stay and take his stand in the water so Piers begin to strip off his clothes to swim out for the kill with his dagger, but then suddenly the hart swims to the bank near to us and staggers out of the river, water pouring from its coat, its eyes roving nervously. Hugh dashes forward with his sword drawn. The hart falls to his knees at a blow from Hugh, but my husband stumbles and I see with horror that his belt is caught in the
thrashing
antlers as the hart tosses its head in its last agonies. I step forward, avoiding the antlers and hooves, slicing upwards with a rapid stroke through Hugh’s belt and he falls back, sprawled on the ground, gasping, ‘Thank you, Almodis’.

‘You are welcome, my love,’ I say to him smiling. ‘If a hunter is injured by a boar he will be healed, but if he is hurt by a hart he will be brought to his bier, so they say.’ I offer him my hand to pull him up, but he declines it and looks away from me, his face reddening as he lifts himself to his feet, dusting off his clothes.

Piers allows the dogs to close in for the kill, snarling and
snapping
, biting and tearing at the hart’s neck and then they are hauled off again, their snouts red, and tied to trees at a distance and
separately
to stop them fighting each other in their blood lust. The
kicking hart is finally still and the huntsmen all sound one long blow on their horns to mark his passing.

Piers steps up to flay the carcass. First he cuts off the right foot and gives it to me, his mistress, though by rights he should credit Hugh as leader of the hunt. I take it embarrassed and avoid Hugh’s eyes. Piers plants a long forked branch in the ground to hang the dainties on. A bed of green leaves is made up and the hart is laid there. Piers slices off the testicles, the doulcettes, and hangs them on the forked branch. He makes a long incision down the belly, from the neck to the genitals and then he makes incisions in the skin of each leg. When the skin is removed, Piers pauses for a long draught of wine. We talk about which hound has performed the best today. After a while, Piers gets back to his business, his hands bloody past his wrists as he skilfully breaks up the venison. The hart’s liquid black eyes remind me of Hugh’s. Their soft beauty has congealed now to gum, their life gone out.

The old man with the flute steps forward to sing us
The Song of the Hart.
His voice is cracked and quavery, but his words are beautiful.

We ride back slowly with the venison packed and slung across the mules. Our horses and dogs are exhausted and when we enter the courtyard I know that Piers and his assistants still have
several
hours work to take care of them. As I walk back into my bedchamber, a beam of moonlight picks out the rolled letter to Audebert on my desk. Bernadette has been slumbering in a chair by the fire and struggles to rise to greet me, groggy. ‘Send a
messenger
in the morning,’ I say as she starts to untie the front of my gown, ‘to take that letter to Roccamolten.’ I hear a sound behind me and Bernadette’s mouth drops open in a round O. I glance to the door and see Hugh standing there, uncertain. With a smooth movement I turn, closing up Bernadette’s gaping mouth with one finger under her chin as I go. The front of my dress swings loose and the edges of my breasts and part of my belly are exposed. ‘Welcome, my Lord,’ I say softly, extending one hand towards him, and pushing Bernadette towards the door discreetly with the other. He steps across the threshold and I see that his cheeks are flushed with wine and his expression full of chagrin. Perhaps he has been goaded here to my chamber by the
subtle
taunts of the celebrating hunting party downstairs. He does not disdain my out-held hand this time, taking it, and stepping towards me.

The castle has fallen into a peaceful rhythm after the departure of Geoffrey and Agnes and the birth of my sons. I am tired feeding my twins (I refused Audearde’s attempt to make me put them to a wet-nurse) and now I am growing another child in my belly, but I am contented. I begin to wish back my letter to Audebert.
Relations
between Hugh and myself are friendly. I could have a worse marriage with a man who beats me or keeps concubines.

This child I carry now was conceived with Hugh in an awkward drunken state again, but it is done. I am resolved that after this
birth I will speak with him directly about our physical relationship to see if it might be mended. If not, then I will agree with him that now we have heirs it can be a marriage of friendship only. That would be better than this awful grappling in the dark and knowing that my husband enters my body in horror and disgust. Yet how will I bear it? I am only nineteen, condemned to live like a nun, desiring my husband and not being desired in return. I try not to think of Geoffrey’s hands on me. I think instead of the consolations I have: my children will be a comfort; Dia is an excellent companion and friend; and despite her moaning, I grow fond of funny, podgy Bernadette.

I hear the clatter of horses in the courtyard: six horsemen, and eventually I make out the arms of La Marche. Audebert! I fly down the stairs to greet him and send Bernadette running for Hugh.

‘Let us walk sister,’ says Audebert, after dinner with the
household
in the hall.

I glance at him and see he has more news. Will it concern my marriage? I lead him to the fruit garden where the fountain plays and conceals the sound of conversation. ‘Speak low. My mother and brother-in-law are hungry to know my business.’

‘I have had an offer for you,’ Audebert says coming directly to the point, ‘and I am minded to accept it. It would greatly enhance your position sister and my alliances. A count offers for you.’

Ramon! It must be Ramon. ‘I almost regret my letter to you now,’ I say. ‘As you see all goes well. Hugh and I are blessed with healthy twin sons and another child due in two months.’

‘Lusignan gave his fealty easily to Agnes and Anjou and will continue to do so, even if they give their fealty in turn to the Capets and the northerners,’ Audebert says.

‘Yes. This is true.’

‘An alliance in the South would do more good for our family, sister.’

‘Perhaps.’ Was ‘the South’ Ramon? What other count in the South would offer for me?

‘Who offers for me Audebert?’

‘Pons of Toulouse.’

My heart plummets to my shoes. No. No I will not accept him. No.

‘His wife Majora has not borne him an heir in eighteen years of marriage. He sees that you are of fertile womb and would put her aside and marry you.’

My skin is crawling at the thought of that Count of Toulouse touching me. I must refuse but I cannot find words. What gross error has my letter to Audebert betrayed me into!

‘You will be Countess of Toulouse, Almodis,’ Audebert says. ‘The most powerful queen in the South. Toulouse is rich with sixty castles to this one. Toulouse is the heart of the South, the centre of Occitania. Pons does not lead as he could but you would change that. I know you could. And you would be very close to Raingarde.’

‘Pons is a great deal older than me.’ At last I begin to muster my arguments.

‘This is nothing.’

‘I had thought that the Count of Barcelona might be a better match,’ I venture.

‘The boy Ramon? No he is just wed to Elisabet of Albi, a few months ago.’

I sit in silence with that for some time, the realisation seeping through me of how much I had been hoping that Ramon would be the one to take me out of the misery of my marriage to Hugh.

‘Elisabet of Albi?’

‘Yes it is an obscure marriage for a Count of Barcelona. No doubt Ermessende has engineered it to keep her control. His wife does not bring him any powerful allies to help him throw off the yoke of his grandmother. So what do you say to Pons?’

‘There is no just cause for my separation from Hugh,’ I begin, but Audebert interrupts, pulling a rolled parchment from his tunic.

‘Look. I have had a consanguinity chart fabricated. It will
convince
Lusignan.’

Yes, I think, my heart sinking further, it certainly will. Hugh lives in abject fear of sin. A consanguinity claim would allow him to explain to himself his inexplicable repugnance for me. Despite its disadvantages, might marriage to Pons be an improvement
on my current situation? There is Raingarde, only two days ride away.

‘If I am repudiated for consanguinity, my son will be
disinherited
.’

‘No,’ Audebert tells me. ‘You conceived him in innocence. We will ensure that Hugh confirms your children as his heirs. It will be a written agreement. This marriage to Toulouse will be greatly to your advantage and to mine. Pons offers you large tracts of fertile land in the Tarn Valley and all its castles as your marriage portion and I will add my own gifts to you. You could found an Occitanian dynasty, Almodis, to rival Agnes’ illegitimate Aquitaine line and the Capetians in the North who are merely barons really! You could preserve Occitania. You will be a wise and effective ruler.’

I think with sadness of Ramon’s words to me long ago of
needing
an effective woman as his countess.

‘You will be sung about in the
chansons
of the troubadours, chronicled by writers like Adhémar, the episodes of your life depicted on enamelled caskets!’ Audebert finishes smiling broadly.

I could oppose my brother but my misery with Hugh makes me uncertain. ‘I will take my children with me? That will be part of the written agreement?’ I say doubtfully.

‘Of course. They are babies and must stay with you until they are seven and then you can send Hugh and Jourdain to me for training.’

Yes they would receive a better military training with my brother than with Hugh and they would learn allegiance to the southern culture. I am carrying a new child in my belly. Mine and Hugh’s child and I am plotting to marry another man. Pons is not an appealing prospect. Old, ugly, but he appeared dignified at his coronation. I imagine myself as Countess of Toulouse. Yes I could revive Toulouse as the greatest power in the South, as it once was. I could visit Raingarde almost every day. I close my eyes and recall Hugh on our wedding night, naked and beautiful, the candlelight glinting on his black hair. But his beautiful hands have never touched me with love. I know that the Hugh I want is a chimera of my own mind. A few tears squeeze beneath the
lashes of my tightly shut eyes. When I open my eyes Audebert is watching me, patient for my considered answer.

‘Yes, then,’ I tell him, ‘with those two conditions regarding my children, and the surety of the return of my dower lands in
Limoges
and La Marche, I will consent to this.’

I look around me at the orchard, at the cherry tree and the plum tree, at the small pears turning ripe on the branch and the apples fallen to the ground, rotting brown, burrowed through by wasps and worms. I notice that the pale bark of the walnut tree is deeply etched with grooves and whorls, seeming to mimic the appearance of its own nuts. ‘Yes, alright,’ I say. ‘I will.’

Audebert grins. ‘Where there is one flesh and one blood, one feeling will follow. Shall we play chess sister?’

I smile feebly and take his hand as he leads me back into the hall to the red and white chessboard set on the table in front of the fire but I cannot enter into his good humour.

Audearde had wanted this repudiation ceremony to take place in the Abbey of Saint Martial, as our marriage had, in the full glare of the public gaze, but Hugh has prevailed and the ceremony is small and private in the chapel of Lusignan Castle. I stand
shivering
with my thin shift tight across my enormous belly. The child is due any day. The stones of the chapel are freezing on my bare feet. Hugh is also barefoot, in his shift. We approach the bishop and swear the oath not to have relations with each other. As the ceremony dissolving our marriage comes to its close, I feel the powerful pains begin in my womb. I drop to my knees and grip the edge of the altar platform. The bishop looks appalled. ‘Get her out of here quickly,’ he gestures to Hugh and
Audebert
. ‘She must not birth this child of incest here on consecrated ground.’

I feel arms around me, lifting me as the second wave of a
contraction
grips me. I bite my lip and taste blood, desperate not to cry out here in the church in front of everybody. Hugh has picked me up and carries me down the aisle and out into the bailey. With the child full-grown in my belly I am no light-weight and he
staggers
and has to put me down in the yard. I drop to all fours to manage the agony of another contraction. My brother takes one arm and Hugh takes the other and between them they support me up the stairs to my chamber. Hugh lifts me at the threshold and lays me gently on the bed. I grasp his hand and look in his face. What is he thinking as he loses his wife and I birth his child
at the same moment? He turns my hand over and kisses me long there, then walks out of the room. At last, with just Dia and
Bernadette
as my witnesses, I can let out my suppressed screams and begin the business of birthing the child in earnest.

‘The midwife is running here, Lady. She will be here very soon,’ cries Bernadette.

‘Nevertheless,’ I say, gasping for breath between contractions, ‘she will be too late’. I clench my teeth as the next pain begins to rise up and feel my throat already sore at my screaming.

The child came fast and furious and the birthing was over in a few hours. I am looking down into the face of my daughter. ‘My poor, poor child, born at the hour that your father repudiates your mother.’ I wipe my own tears from my baby’s face.

‘My Lady!’ Bernadette says, turning from the window with her face aghast.

‘What is it?’

‘I saw the thrash of a great tail in the moat!’

Dia rushes to the window but shakes her head. ‘I can’t see it.’

‘Oh Bernadette,’ I say, my laughter drying up my tears.

‘But I really saw it Lady,’ Bernadette says earnestly.

I laugh and then I say, ‘Well then, Melusine and I will be this child’s parents. I will name her Melisende’. Bernadette crosses herself in horror.

‘Your Lord will not like that,’ Dia says.

‘He is not my Lord any longer,’ I reply, gently placing the tip of my finger into my daughter’s waving fist and smiling into her dark eyes.

I hold my tiny daughter against my body, wrapped up warmly and snug inside my travelling cloak. I cannot look back for a last sight of Hugh and Lusignan. The twins are travelling in the wagon with Bernadette and will keep her well occupied. Melisende was born on the first day of February and now a mere two weeks later we are travelling to Toulouse. Hugh had shown only horror at the sight of his baby daughter, conceived as he believed in incest, although I am fairly certain that in truth we share no relatives. Yet Hugh wept when I closed the lid on my travelling casket and turned to bid him farewell. I wept too, touching his face,
overwhelmed
with an affectionate intimacy that had never come
during
our two years of marriage.

‘I am so sorry for this,’ he said.

‘I also my husband, my love,’ I said, finding the temerity now at the moment of separation to tell him what I had felt for him.

‘You have been a good wife to me and I have not repaid you in kind. If you have need of my service in the future, Lady, it is yours.’ He paused to show the serious intent of his words. ‘I wish you well.’ He kissed my forehead.

There was so much more I wanted to say but I knew that it was useless. I turned and left.