Almodis (5 page)

‘No, Raingarde.’ I am imperious suddenly. ‘And you will
promise
me not to speak of it to anyone. And you, Bernadette.’ (I do
not bother to include Carlotta who can hardly string two words together anyway.) ‘I do not wish to embarrass Ramon. He is sweet and rash and he means nothing by it. He is just a child.’

‘I can’t see how your extra four years puts you in a position to patronise the Count of Barcelona so,’ says Raingarde. ‘He may be only thirteen now but he is going to be a very rich young man in a few years time. What answer would you give him if he does propose? You must tell father at once! He must deal with it.’

‘No need,’ I say. ‘I will thank him very graciously of course for the great honour he does me but assure him I cannot receive his proposals as I am solemnly contracted to Hugh, Lord of
Lusignan
, and will be married next month. I know that in betrothing me to Hugh, who is noble but yet not on a level with our own family, Aquitaine are seeking to control us, to keep La Marche from growing too proud and powerful. I know that. Look at you. You are marrying a count but I am merely marrying the Sire of Lugisnan and I am the heiress to Limoges, to our
grandmother’s
rights and fortune! I know that an alliance with Barcelona could be a great opportunity for me and for La Marche.’ I pause thoughtfully again and they all wait in suspense on my decision. ‘Yet I could never break my solemn vow to Lusignan.
Ermessende
holds the reins of Barcelona and Ramon will have a battle on his hands, like his father before him, to wrest that control from her. He may not succeed. I will have to tell him that I regard my oath of betrothal to Hugh of Lusignan as seriously as would any man swearing homage to his lord. That will convince him to desist,’ I finish with satisfaction.

‘But Almodis, father may wish to consider this proposal don’t you think? Barcelona is a great deal more powerful and rich than Lusignan and …’

‘I had no idea you were so mercenary, Raingarde,’ I interrupt. ‘We won’t speak of this anymore. Father would never
countenance
me breaking my troth and his oath. Next month I will be of age. I need a man, not a boy, for husband,’ I say, remembering the muscles of Hugh’s arms when he picked me up in Montreuil-Bonnin, his beautiful black hair and eyes, the red fullness of his mouth. To underline my statement, I sweep out of the room,
feeling
queenly, with my skirts swirling after me, wondering whether
Raingarde will tell our father or whether she will keep faith with me, her twin.

The next day I feel foolish when we hear that Ramon and his grandmother left Toulouse at daybreak. No proposal came and I am a little disappointed to find myself wrong in my expectations, even though I had resolved to say no.

He has arrived, my husband-to-be, Hugh, travelling up the steep, icy road to Roccamolten, but Raingarde would not let me stay outside to see him come.

‘It’s freezing out here. You will see him soon enough.’

‘He’s really beautiful, Raingarde,’ I tell her enthusiastically. ‘Imagine when someone you love holds you; it must be like
riding
fast in a cold wind: you feel you
are
.’

Now he walks up the aisle in the Great Hall towards us, the La Marches, sitting on the platform, and I am pleased again at his powerful build and his well-shaped face. My father invites him to take a seat and a servant places a bowl for him to wash his hands, and puts wine and bread on the table. My view of the Lord of Lusignan is partially blocked by my brother, mother and father seated between us.

‘My son, Audebert, will accompany Almodis to Limoges for the marriage,’ father is telling Hugh. ‘I must accompany her sister, Raingarde, to Carcassonne. It is all change now, in our family and I am sore at heart to lose my daughters.’ Mother pats Father’s hand.

‘It will be my part to take good care of your daughter now, sire.’ The interesting sound of Hugh’s voice distracts me from my sadness at parting again from my family. I lean forward to catch another glimpse of him and he is looking back at me, with a cup half-way to his mouth. He smiles at me, but then he frowns as his eyes stray past me to Raingarde. ‘I understand that she can read and write?’ Hugh says to my father.

And what can you do, my lord, scuff a cross with your foot in the dirt? I am cross that he speaks of me as if I am not sitting there, an intelligent being, not an inanimate piece of furniture.

‘Yes she reads and writes Latin, Langue d’Oc and Langue d’Oil,’ father responds proudly. Leaning slightly forward, I watch Hugh frown again at that information. I study his anxious features. He has two nicknames: Hugh the Fair and Hugh the Pious.

‘What say you, Count,’ he asks, ‘of these claims that twins are the seed of two men, of adultery, or that they are the offspring of the Devil’.

I feel my mother shift on the bench, and I squeeze my
sister’s
hand under the trestle, struggling to stay silent with my eyes downcast as I know my mother would wish.

‘Don’t be foolish, man,’ father responds. ‘Do they look like the seed of two men to you?’ He pauses and glances at us for
dramatic
effect. ‘What you are looking at
here
,’ his arm sweeps across in front of me and Raingarde, ‘are two fine
heir
breeding girls.’

I drop my head to conceal my amusement and hear a faint snicker escape from my sister. Beneath the trestle our joined hands clench and jiggle up and down on our knees, like laughter. My thigh is pressed tightly up against Raingarde’s. I have to work hard to compress the glee on my lips into a demure shape before raising my head to see how Lusignan is taking my father’s crude description of us. I wish then that I hadn’t looked up because the sight of his face, dark pink with embarrassment, threatens my barely controlled humour. He wants me. The recognition is
sudden
and pleasing. I feel the heat of my own face. But my father is going about this discussion in all the wrong way. I will have to help. ‘My Lord Hugh.’

My father, brother and Lusignan all turn towards me in
surprise
and Raingarde clutches my hand in warning. The ‘
heir-breeder
’ will speak.

‘I have debated this question of the godliness or no of twins myself with our chaplain,’ I say, fast and certain, before anyone can find the wit to stop me. My mother has placed a hand against her mouth as if to say ‘Be silent!’ I can feel Raingarde willing me to shut up, but Hugh is looking at me with interest.

‘Indeed? And what does your chaplain say of it?’

‘He has told me of twins in the bible who were blessed and of twins who have held holy office or been of noble birth and repute,’ I say, making it all up on the spot, my eyes wide with innocent earnestness. It is what he wants to hear, what he wants to see.

‘Indeed,’ Hugh says again.

I let go of Raingarde’s hand which has been tightly clutched inside my own, and shift my position so that our knees are no longer touching.

‘We have a shrine to Our Lady in the walled garden that I would show you.’ I point towards the door and allow a smile to bloom slowly on my mouth. ‘We could speak there of Father Jerome’s advice regarding twins.’

Hugh lurches abruptly to his feet, his eyes on my mouth. ‘Yes, let us speak of this further, my Lady.’

I exchange the slightest glance of understanding with my father who is looking surprised but impressed with my initiative. I rise serenely, nearly matching my suitor in height. I place my white hand, with its long shapely fingers and its near-invisible knuckle scars, on the blue linen of his sleeve and steer him towards the garden.

I’m so relieved to be staring at the curling parchment that my Lady Almodis is pinning down on cook’s floury table and reading out to me and Raingarde and all the assembled kitchen servants.

‘In the year 1037 Anno Domini, Hugh V of Lusignan,
contracts
to marry Almodis of La Marche, daughter of Bernard I of La Marche and Amelie of Montignac. For that I, Hugh,
respecting
the authority of the Scriptures, guided by the counsel and exhortation of my friends and aided by heavenly piety, defer to the general custom concerning marital association,’ she pauses to gulp in a breath and we are all laughing excitedly, and then she rushes on, ‘out of love, and according to ancient usage, I give you, my gentle and most gracious sponsa,’ she breathes again, and points a finger at herself nodding theatrically to us, ‘by the authority of this sponsalicium, by way of dowry the
third
of my estates.’ She draws that out emphatically, beams at us and then finishes in a great rush, ‘This is given with the agreement of my mother and brothers and given to you for your lifetime. After death these properties shall come back to the children who shall be born of us!’

I push cook’s hip out of the way so’s I can get a better look at Lord Hugh’s signature on the bottom of the document and Count Bernard’s, along with their coats of arms. The Lusignan badge is boring: just a shield shape with silver and blue stripes, but the House of La Marche has a regal-looking badge with three
lions prancing along a red stripe with a blue background and golden fleur de lys.

The relief is obvious on Raingarde’s face, after the worry Almodis put us through at the Toulouse Easter Assembly over that Count of Barcelona. Well she is rich indeed now. A third of all of Lusignan, an eighth of Limoges inherited from her grandmother, and the gift of estates from her father too for her marriage. And it can’t be all bad for me, either, with such a wealthy mistress!

When I first arrived in La Marche, I couldn’t get over having to look at those two faces, Almodis and Raingarde, exactly the same and never knowing which was which. Now I’m used to it. More than that, now I can tell them apart by a difference in the aura that comes into the room with each of them. She, Almodis, my mistress, is all confidence. Swagger even. More like a lord than a lady. Raingarde, her sister, she’s much more timid and demure, like a lady should be. Piers says that Raingarde was sequestered properly with her mother and the women since she was twelve like a girl should be, but nobody at the Court of Aquitaine put a halter on Almodis when she was that age. She grew up with the freedoms and education of a young prince, Piers says, and it shows. When I first got here, I used to have to wait for one of them to do or say something before I could tell which was which. Sooner or later, she will say or do something that Raingarde just never would say or do. But now I can tell it from the different things they do to the air around them. I’m usually right.

Amelie, their mother, comes into the kitchen announced by the chinking of the keys and needles on the short chains of her chatelaine belt. She is followed by the nursemaid with my Lady’s two little sisters in hand, Lucia who is three and Agnes who is two. ‘There you both are! What are you doing with that marriage contract rolling around in grease and gravy Almodis? Roll it up at once and make sure you put it back in your father’s chest where it belongs. Now I need you all to help me with the preparations for tonight’s wedding feast. Bernadette, go and lay fresh rushes in the hall and clean covers on the trestles, and then come back here and I will show you which of the glass beakers to lay out on the high table.’

I gulp at that and look up at those beakers ranged on a high
shelf. I’m not relishing the idea of being responsible for carrying those fragile beauties. There’s a bright blue glass drinking horn there in the middle of the shelf and on either side of it are pale green claw beakers. I’ve got a vision running through my head of them smashed in smithereens at my feet.

‘Come on, then, Bernadette! There’s lots to do,’ Almodis tells me. She picks up the rolled marriage contract and tugs me out of the kitchen with her, like I’m her pony.

I told him I’d meet him at the old ruin but now that I am here and he hasn’t arrived I wish I hadn’t come. The evening is drawing in. The cold is penetrating my thin cloak. It is the twilight hour –
entre chien et loup
– between dog and wolf. The black rooks are
circling
in the pale sky. From this side of the hill I have a clear view across to the castle perched on the mountain top like an eagle’s nest and the village clustered around it. The lower part of the village is shrouded in the rising evening mist. The buildings with their red roofs circle haphazardly around Roccamolten. In the far distance I can see more black mountains set against the darkening sky. How many mountains between me and Paris, my old home? I am just about making up my mind to leave when he arrives.

‘Bernadette,’ he calls to me softly picking his way carefully around the fallen stones in the long grass. ‘But you are freezing, darling,’ he says taking off his cloak and wrapping it around me. His mouth is on mine before I’ve had time to say a word. I open my mouth to his tongue. I am no longer cold in his arms. ‘I have a present for you,’ Piers says, his hand stroking my face and hair. From inside his tunic, he produces a tin bracelet with a
decoration
of blue glass and slips it onto my wrist. I turn my arm around and around, pretending to admire it, but I am disappointed. Only tin. It will tarnish and leave green marks on my white skin. I will never wear it after today.

‘It’s so strange here,’ I say to Piers as he traces the contours of my face and neck with his finger. ‘I can’t understand what anyone is saying. I don’t understand the speech of Raingarde, Audebert and Count Bernard.’

Piers’ finger has strayed down to trace the outline of my breast
through the thick layers of my clothes and now it reaches my nipple. I slap away his hand. ‘Are you listening or just groping?’

‘Oh definitely listening, sweet Bernadette. Are we so different from you northerners then?’

‘As different as ducks from chickens!’

His smiling lips are wide and wet against the silky brown of his beard and I long to kiss them; but my mother gave me a very long lecture on men before I left home. Looking into Piers’ face I know that I am looking at the trap she described. ‘They love you. They leave you with child. You lose your place. You and the child starve to death,’ she’d told me over and over again, until it was like a nursery rhyme in my head. Piers has a long, large face framed by floppy brown hair. His eyebrows are thick and black above pale blue eyes. The blue is relegated to the edges now as his pupils are huge with desire for me.

Piers is the only real friend I have here. He and Almodis are the only people who can speak my northern French – Langue d’Oil – as well as their native Langue d’Oc. The Aquitaine Court was bilingual, facing in both directions, north and south. But here in the La Marche household, everyone speaks only Langue d’Oc, the language of the South. Piers told me that Occitan requires the mouth to be in a different shape to northern speech. I spent days listening to and imitating the sounds of the other servants
shouting
and singing: ‘burb b burb b burb b,’ I sang to myself with my mouth in what I imagined to be an Occitan shape as I wandered around the castle, doing my work. I will have to master it
eventually
but for now every conversation in this alien tongue feels like a catechism to me and I am tired out trying to understand it. These conversations with Piers in my own language are my only chance to relax.

‘You will grow to love the South,’ he says. ‘The mountains are beautiful. As beautiful as you. And you will get used to the Occitan eventually, the accent
chantant
.’

I screw up my nose. Who cares about beautiful mountains? They are cold and rainy. There are no markets and few people to talk with. The conversation of rural folk is hardly to my liking after what I was used to in my mother’s tavern in Paris. I couldn’t care less about pigs and weather and crops.

Piers’ rude finger wobbles my protruding bottom lip. ‘You are pouting, Bernadette brown eyes,’ he teases me.

‘Well what is so exciting about some cold mountain?’

‘Roccamolten Castle is not on just some cold mountain!’ he laughs. ‘La Marche is the frontier country. The count holds the frontier of Occitania against you northern French as his father and grandfather did before him. We are a proud race of warriors.’

He kisses me again and starts to undo the clasp of one of my shoulder-brooches that fasten my gown.

‘You rush me, Piers,’ I say, pushing away his hands.

‘
You
rush me, Bernadette,’ he says laughing. ‘So let’s find
somewhere
warmer and talk.’ He pulls me into a part of the ruin that is more intact, where there is some protection from the cold wind, but the ground we sit on is cold and hard even with his cloak spread beneath us.

‘How goes it with your mistress?’ he asks, continuing his work on my brooch. One side of my gown falls down and I am
embarrassed
to see my breast emerge with its red nipple erect in the cold air. His hand closes over my breast and warms me. I know I should stop this now. I try vainly to recall my mother’s advice but the feelings coursing through my body as his mouth covers my nipple are overwhelming. With an effort I push him away and hold my gown up against me.

‘Piers stop that. My mistress talks to me harshly and expects me to turn her out like a queen when she behaves like a stable boy,’ I say, hoping to distract him with what I know is his
favourite
conversation.

‘Aye, she ignores and is rude to me too, little Bernadette.’

‘And most ladies don’t go gallivanting in their best gowns in the mud at all hours. I’m sure Raingarde doesn’t,’ I say.

‘Aye, they two are different alright. Like as can be to look at, except for Almodis’ scars, but different as can be in temper.’

‘What scars?’ I ask. I’ve bathed my Lady often enough in her padded tub and I’ve seen no scars on that perfect body. Piers reddens and I wonder if he has been peeking somewhere he shouldn’t.

‘On her left hand,’ he says. ‘Three small scars between her knuckles.’

I’ve never noticed them myself and wonder why he has.

‘All that time she spent as a hostage at the Aquitaine Court has gone right to her head and she thinks she is the very Queen of the Franks, the very Queen of Charlemagne himself. I never saw such self-assurance in a young woman in my life,’ I say to him, but as I say it, I realise that I’m starting to feel just a bit impressed with her. The count has still made no move to acknowledge Piers as his bastard and he projects his bitterness at this onto my
mistress
. ‘She is more like a man than a woman with all her reading, hunting, talking politics and striding around in boots with her brothers.’

‘Aye,’ says Piers, his hand now roaming on my knee and
pushing
up my skirts. ‘She is that. Mannish.’

The sensation of his hand on the soft inside of my bare thigh, above my hose, is glorious. I try to squeeze my legs together and squash his hand away but that only seems to increase the
pleasure
for both of us. Instead of removing his hand I am wriggling against it and feeling hot waves of desire. I pull myself away from his hand, sitting up against a sharp rock behind us. I should leave now.

‘She will have to mend her ways when she is a wife,’ I say, a little breathlessly. ‘She will have to be obedient and submissive, then.’

‘Yes, but I doubt that Hugh is the man to tame Almodis and put her right,’ says Piers, his mouth on my neck and ear and his hand undoing my other shoulder brooch. My gown slides down exposing both my breasts to the cold night air.

‘You think him weak?’ I gasp in a last vain attempt to distract him and stem the desire coursing through me, but he does not answer and I can say no more as he pulls me down on the ground, pulls up my skirts and mounts me and I am moaning now in pleasure.

It is full dark when I walk home. He has waited behind for a while so that we should not be seen returning together. I feel the dampness and soreness from him between my legs. I worry that I might be with child, but then Piers will marry me and I will have myself a fine husband with noble blood. I look doubtfully at the cheap tin bangle on my arm. I take it off and put it in my pocket.