The Book of Love (11 page)

Theseus became the greatest of heroes, establishing democracy and justice in Athens, where he is still recognized as the wise and compassionate founder of that city, which gave learning to the world. It is without doubt that his deep understanding of the nature of love and loss was the element that made him a great leader.

For those with ears to hear, let them hear it.

T
HE LEGEND OF
A
RIADNE, THE
L
ADY OF THE
L
ABYRINTH,
AS PRESERVED IN THE
L
IBRO
R
OSSO

Isobel recounted the legend of the labyrinth as she had many times before, telling it as it had been preserved in their most sacred writings, as a cornerstone of the Libro Rosso, the Red Book. She tailored the story to the child’s age, eliminating the overt sexual references and certainly halting before Matilda’s professed “bad part” where everything goes awry for the young lovers and Ariadne is abandoned to Dionysus. For the child Matilda, the legend of the labyrinth ended happily ever after, with Theseus slaying the beast, saving the children of Athens, and carrying off his beautiful princess into the sunset.

There would be time enough for her to learn that most love stories were far from simplistic and did not end so neatly. Indeed, it was one of the great lessons of the labyrinth legend that the needs of women and
the power of love were often not heeded in matters of human history. Ariadne’s desire was never a factor in the argument between Theseus and Dionysus, although both men professed love for her and wanted to claim her. She was given no choice in her own destiny, a fate which had been sealed earlier by her father when he sold his own child to earn the goodwill and alliance of Dionysus. And this foreshadowed the time when humans truly fell historically—when women became pawns in the affairs of men, with no right to choose in their own future. They became property, game pieces on a political chessboard for the use of their male relatives: devalued and diminished, even dehumanized. As marriages became arranged political affairs where women were traded like cattle by their families and had no rights, what had once been the most sacred center of union became a place where rape was made legal by the state. The Fall of Man was complete.

Isobel knew that Matilda would eventually need to master all the complex lessons of love and power within Ariadne’s story. But she would also have to teach Matilda that the union between a man and a woman was meant to be more than what it had become: a dehumanizing and often brutal transaction.

Isobel’s duties as Matilda’s nurse encompassed the child’s spiritual and intellectual welfare, as well as her physical protection. Matilda was an exceptional child by birth, and her guardian had been selected most specifically. Isobel’s task was to raise the girl within the highly secretive and protected traditions that had been in practice in Lucca since the first century. While Bonifacio was too preoccupied with conquest and territory expansion to bother himself with religion or spirituality, he held it in reverence as a tribute to his great-grandfather, the legendary Tuscan leader Siegfried of Lucca. It was appropriate that his daughter become educated and indoctrinated into those sacred traditions. Thus it was that Bonifacio and Beatrice had chosen the lovely Isobel from one of the grand houses in Tuscany. Indeed, Isobel was a cousin and a noblewoman, related to Bonifacio through the line of Siegfried himself.

While Matilda’s mother, the lady Beatrice, was also descended from
the exalted bloodline family of Lorraine, their spiritual traditions were centuries more remote and did not thrive immediately under the surface as they had in the wilds of Tuscany. Beatrice was well aware of her heretical heritage, yet she maintained traditional Catholic practices in her own household. This was necessary as she was a member of the German royal family who owed allegiance to the Catholic Church and the related, complicated political structure that determined power in Europe. Beatrice was pious and obedient, a graceful and strong woman in her own way, but happily subservient to her legendary husband. Beatrice had, in fact, been unusually fortunate for a woman in her time in that she found real love and contentment in her arranged marriage. That Beatrice was a renowned beauty with raven hair and slanting dark eyes was the delicious gravy on Bonifacio’s full plate.

Matilda was not the first of their children. Sadly, they had lost the eldest two who preceded her to the influenza that swept through Europe earlier in the same year. One was Bonifacio’s son and heir, who died in his teens, leaving a great wound in his father’s heart. The second was another daughter lost in early childhood. The tragedy of losing two of her children so quickly had taken its toll on Beatrice, who was often weak and ill with the sadness and had little energy left for her surviving daughter. So while Beatrice was Matilda’s mother by birth and lineage, Isobel was the only real maternal force that she knew.

“When you are older, child, I shall tell you a different story of the labyrinth,” Isobel said. “One that involves wise King Solomon and the very exotic and glorious Queen of Sheba.”

“Tell me now!”

“No, I cannot. You are not yet of an age to understand all that this story entails. I shall tell you following your sixteenth birthday, as appropriate.”

Matilda’s tone turned conspiratorial as she whispered, “Is it in…the Libro Rosso?” There was awe in her voice when she spoke of the magical red book.

Isobel winked at her, nodding. “It is indeed. And there is much in that book which you will have to grow into. Now, to bed. Here, let me
braid your hair.” With graceful fingers, Isobel began the nightly process of taming Matilda’s copper-gold hair, which fell in heavy waves to the middle of her back.

A sleepy Matilda gave in to the idea of bed, rubbing her aquamarine eyes and yawning with the ferocity of a lion cub. “Will you sing me the song, please?” she pleaded. “The one from your mother’s country?”

The Lady Isobel tucked the woolen coverlet under the child’s chin and perched on the side of her bed. Her sweet, clear voice sang softly in French:

Matilda, who spoke her native Tuscan and her mother’s German fluently, had only just begun to study French. When she repeated the verse in an answering melody, it was in her own native tongue.

And then Isobel finished with the ancient poem that was sacred in the La Beauce region of France, whence her mother had come before marrying into the sanctified lineage of Lucca. It came from a piece of poetry written a millennium before by a very great man about his love for a blessed woman and her children.

She kissed Matilda on her forehead, as the child reached over to the small altar table at the side of her bed. A little statue of Saint Modesta,
carved meticulously from wood, graced the altar. It was a gift from the French side of Isobel’s family, given in celebration of the little countess’s blessed birth six years ago. In this depiction, the saint held one hand up in benediction, while the other clutched a book, colored in red with gilded accents. Matilda loved the statue, painted as it was to depict Modesta’s hair in the same extraordinary color as her own.

Matilda ran her hand over the statue of Modesta, before whispering back the translation, which was part of her nightly ritual and a cornerstone of their tradition:

“Indeed it does.” Isobel sighed as she gazed down upon this brilliant and complicated little being whom she loved as her own child. It appeared that God had chosen not to give Isobel children from her own womb. Certainly, with her sworn commitment to Matilda, she would never have the time or opportunity to marry and have children of her own despite the fact that she was only in her twenties. So be it. She understood that it was her destiny to raise this one above all others, and it was at times a daunting task that would require her sole focus.

Thy will be done.
Isobel repeated it many times in her daily devotions from the Book of Love. It was the second of the six sacred teachings of the Pater Noster, the Lord’s Prayer, which was the foundation of their practice. Obedience to God. Surrender to his will. And it was without doubt his will that Isobel devote her life to the raising of this child.

Matilda would one day prove that “the time returns” just as the greatest prophetess of their line, the blessed Sarah-Tamar, had decreed so long ago. It was her destiny. She would leave her mark on history, this child. But not tonight.

“Good night,
ma petite
. May your dreams be sweet.”

“Good night, my Issy,” she whispered sleepily, nestling into her coverlet, with a final yawn. “Love you.”

Matilda was manic, running through the castle and shrieking with excitement, unbound hair flying behind her in an unruly red-gold curtain.

“Luuuuuucca! Luuuucca! Are we really going to Lucca tomorrow, Isobel? Really? With Papa?”

“Yes, little one. We are finally going to Lucca.”

Matilda repeated the name of her birthplace once more, this time stopping to whisper it in dreamy imitation of Isobel, who sighed often for her homeland and spoke of it in hushed tones, as if it were the dwelling place of all angels on earth. The child became suddenly, deeply serious as she turned her full attention to her nurse.

“I don’t remember anything about how Lucca looks, Issy.”

“I shouldn’t think so, Tilda. You were an infant when we came here to Mantua. And yet the first breath in your body came from the sacred air of that place, and it will bring its special blessing to you as long as you live.”

“Is it really so beautiful? And full of saints and angels?”

“Lucca is magnificent in a way that is special above all other places on God’s earth. Come, I will tell you a new story tonight, one that is a part of our special heritage, and…” Isobel did not complete the sentence. Matilda, for all her precocious brilliance, was still far too young to understand everything that the complex legacy of their people entailed. Best to teach her in the tried-and-true way of storytelling until she was older.

“Now, I want you to go all the way back to the stories I have told you about our Lord,” Isobel began in the more formal tone that indicated a lesson as well as a story was to come.

Matilda nodded solemnly, tucking her legs underneath her and settling in anticipation of the tale.

“Our Lord had a wonderful friend who was called Nicodemus. Nico-de-mus. Can you say his name for me?”

The child repeated the name obediently to praise from her nurse.

“Nicodemus was one of only two men who were with him when he died. Do you remember who else was with him?”

Matilda was an apt pupil with extraordinary talent for perfect recollection. She loved the story of the Passion and committed every telling of it to memory. She never shied away from the more graphic depictions of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as taught by her mother’s confessor, a dour cleric from Lorraine called Fra Gilbert. Fra Gilbert seemed to glory in the violent details of Christ’s final hours on earth and recounted them in particularly graphic description when he was trying to make a point about penance, which was often. This approach horrified Isobel, who revered her Lord for his words and his work rather than for the means of his death. This philosophy was in keeping with the Way of Love as practiced by her people for a thousand years. Isobel discreetly disappeared when Fra Gilbert was present. But Matilda was enraptured by all versions of the greatest story ever told, even the most horrific. In that regard, she had proven to be Bonifacio’s child from a very early stage—fearless and unflinching in the face of the harsher versions of reality.

But it was Isobel’s version that truly captivated Matilda. For while the child felt deep devotion to her Lord and was moved by the telling of his sacrifice, it was another aspect of this history that kept her spellbound in the telling: the legend of the women in Jesus’ life, and one woman in particular.

Matilda sat up respectfully and gave her answer. “The other man was Joseph of Ara…”

“Arimathea,” Isobel helped her, and Matilda continued enthusiastically.

“His mother was with him, the Great Maria, and his most beloved, Maria Magdalena. And all the other Marias who followed him as disciples and taught his words and work forevermore.” She lowered her voice to the childlike version of her conspiratorial whisper. “But we are
not allowed to call Maria Magdalena his ‘most beloved’ in front of Fra Gilbert, right?”

“No, we most assuredly are not.”

“But why, Issy? If Jesus loved her, why can we not speak of it and love her as he did? Why must we have so many secrets?”

Isobel sighed as she stroked one hand over Matilda’s unruly hair, whose coppery color was but one sign that this petite countess was born of the most immaculate bloodlines in Europe, born of
her
bloodlines. It was said that Maria Magdalena had hair of this same color, even when she died as an old woman. Both of Matilda’s parents were descended from the union between Jesus and his beloved Maria—her mother through the lineage of Charlemagne, her father through the secret Italian sects that had taken root in Tuscany during Rome’s persecutions of the earliest Christians.

Matilda’s question was difficult for the most learned adult to answer; she was not ready to understand. Isobel moved away from the question with the skill of a master storyteller.

“This friend of Jesus, Nicodemus, was a very special man with a great talent that is important to us today. Would you like to know what that was? He was an artist. A sculptor. He could take the visions given to him by God and create them by carving wood.”