Enchantress Mine (14 page)

Mairin’s eyes widened with delight. “Ohh, mother! It is beautiful!” She flung her arms about Eada. “Thank you! Thank you!” She preened before the mirror. “I look older, don’t I, mother? I mean I don’t look like a
child,
do I?”

“You look every inch the young lady you are, my daughter,” said Eada.

The young girl looked away from her own mirror image to gaze at that of her mother. Then she said feelingly, “You are so beautiful in your Byzantine garments, mother. Forgive me for I have been so concerned with myself I did not stop to look at you.”

Her gaze swept admiringly over the beautiful grass green silk dress embroidered with gold threads, pearls, darker green peridots, and golden beryls worn over a silvery-green undertunic. Eada’s dark red hair had been fashioned into an architecture of ornate braids brought up over the outside of her gold wire cauls, and fastened with a jeweled band about her forehead.

Eada smiled at her daughter with newly found confidence. “Yes,” she said with great understatement, “I am pleased with how the women aided me in my dressing. Nara is learning a great deal from them. When we return to England I intend to give her to you as your serving woman, but we chatter too much, child! Your father and his delegation await us. They will no doubt have grown impatient by now. We must hurry!”

King Edward’s trade delegation was to be received in the Great Hall of the Imperial Palace. To the surprise of the Anglo-Saxons the emperor had sent them each a beautiful silk robe of deep blue and yellow silk that they were instructed to wear. The entire group was escorted across the palace grounds by royal eunuchs who explained that the women would wait at the back of the audience chamber until called upon. The emperor was most anxious, confided the head eunuch to Eada, to see the child with the hair of fire. Here the eunuch reached out almost shyly to quickly touch a lock of Mairin’s lovely hair. Eada hid another smile.

Not having been repulsed, the eunuch now chatted with the foreign woman. “The emperor will be seated upon the Throne of Solomon today, and never, my lady, have you seen such an object. Do not be afraid of anything that happens for you will be quite safe,” he finished mysteriously. Eada and Mairin both wondered what he could possibly mean.

The Great Hall of the Imperial Palace was the most magnificent place any of them had ever seen. The walls of the room were pure white marble. Each section of marble was separated from floor to ceiling by a wide band of pure gold. The pillars in the hall were dark red marble broken by undulating ripples of golden color and the vast space was lit by a huge gold candelabrum which hung from great copper chains that had been silvered. The marble floors of the room had been strewn with fragrant roses, pungent laurel and ivy, sweet rosemary, and other herbs. As the delegation walked forward trampling the greenery beneath their feet, the perfume from the crushed essences swirled into the air filling the room with its exotic bouquet.

At the eunuch’s signal Eada and Mairin had stopped. From their vantage point they had an excellent view of everything. Before them at the end of the hall they could see the Emperor Constantine X already seated upon his throne. He wore a long, tight-sleeved tunic of white silk over which was a royal purple silk cape opening on the right side. It was decorated with embroidered squares of golden cloth both front and back. Heavily jeweled scarlet satin shoes were upon his feet. The imperial crown he wore was a hemispherical and close-fitting cap bejeweled with precious gems and large pearls, some of which hung down in the back to the nape of his neck.

About him stood the Imperial Guards, most of whom were from the noble families of Byzantium. The rest were sons of the wealthy who were considered loyal. Around the hall were posted the Varangian Guards.

To her delight Mairin saw that Eric Longsword was near enough that she might attract his attention with her beautiful clothing, and then snub him as he stood dumbfounded with admiration. But Eric Longsword refused to take his blue eyes from some spot directly ahead of him, much to Mairin’s annoyance. She turned her gaze back to the delegation, and was amazed to see that the carved and jeweled golden lions that made up the armrests of the emperor’s throne were moving!

“Mother!”
she whispered, and clutched at Eada.

To the eunuch’s delight both women were now wide-eyed. The lions on the emperor’s throne were not only moving, they were opening their mouths and roaring most realistically! Atop the throne were birds made of silver and colorful enamels with bejeweled eyes. They, too, were a part of the throne’s decoration. As the birds began to flutter their wings, to trill and to sing, the emperor and his throne began to rise upward until they hovered close to the decorated ceiling. From some hidden place within the room a choir began to sing extolling the many virtues of God’s chosen empire of Byzantium.

The eunuch was almost beside himself with glee at the look upon their faces. “It is not wonderful?” he chortled to them. “Is not Byzantium the most wonderful place upon God’s earth?”

Stunned, they watched as the emperor and his throne now descended to the floor again. The delegation was led forward by the band of eunuchs, and the Anglo-Saxons made the prescribed bow of three prostrations to the Emperor Constantine X. They could not hear what was said from their place in the rear of the hall, but King Edward’s trade delegation was obviously well received. Then suddenly their eunuch escort received some unseen signal, and Eada and Mairin were led forward.

Constantine X found himself as surprised as his guests usually were, for the reputation that had preceded the English child had not exaggerated her beauty even the tiniest bit. If anything she was lovelier. He could not remember ever having seen such purity of features in any person. His gaze flicked swiftly from the child’s father to her mother. They were handsome people, but it astounded him that they had created the exquisite creature that now stood before him.

Leaning back he murmured to his cousin, “Well, Basil, what think you? She is more than your equal though I would not have believed it possible.”

“Nor would I,” came back the soft reply. “She is pure perfection, Constans.”

“Sire,” said the eunuch in charge of their presentation, “may I present to you the lady Eada of Aelfleah and her daughter, the lady Mairin.”

Mother and daughter bowed thrice to Byzantium’s ruler, who said, “We welcome you to Constantinople, my lady. Your beautiful child’s reputation is, to our amazement, truth.”

“True beauty, sire, does not show. It is goodness of heart and true Christian charity,” replied Eada quietly. “I would wish that for my daughter, and I hope she will be remembered, if she is remembered at all, for those qualities rather than the beauty of her face.”

Aldwine was surprised by the length of his wife’s speech, but pleased by the wisdom she spoke.

The priests standing below the throne nodded their heads and murmured their assent at Eada’s words. The church was an enormous power in Byzantium. Their goodwill was paramount to the success of the English negotiations. Eada’s speech had pleased them, and they would now look with favor upon the diplomatic efforts for new trade between the two countries.

“Come to me, my child,” the emperor commanded Mairin, “I admit to being as curious as any of my subjects with regard to your incredible hair.” He smiled encouragingly at her, and offered her his hand.

Shyly Mairin moved up the steps to the emperor’s throne. Although his attire and his surroundings were incredibly magnificent, Constantine himself was a friendly-looking man of medium height with tired blue eyes. He was not an unattractive man, but neither did he have any distinguishing features save a too-long and somewhat narrow nose that almost ended in a point. His hair was bobbed, and he had bangs across his forehead. Its color, like his neatly trimmed beard, was a graying brown.

Constantine smiled again as he cupped Mairin’s face in his hand and looked into her purple eyes. With his other hand he removed her circlet with its veil, handing them to a servant. Then he caressed her beautiful red-gold hair, and capturing a lock between his thumb and first two fingers he gauged its texture. “It is as soft as thistle-down. If my daughters had had your beauty, and this hair,” he acknowledged, “I could have ruled the entire world, my child.”

Mairin blushed at so unexpected, and extravagant, a compliment. The emperor chuckled and released his hold upon her. “I think you must be magic, my child. Certainly such loveliness is an enchantment of sorts.” He drew a ring from his finger. It was a large diamond that blazed an orange-gold fire deep within the stone. “Take this in remembrance of me, my child,” he told her. “It is said to be a perfect stone. If that indeed be the truth, then it belongs with a perfect beauty. When you are an old woman you may show this jewel to your grandchildren. Tell them that once in your youth you captured the heart of the greatest ruler in all Christendom, and it was he who gave you this token to remember him by.”

Overwhelmed, Mairin stammered her gratitude, backing nervously down the steps to where her mother awaited her. She was trembling, and to her surprise she thought she might cry. She didn’t remember leaving the emperor’s audience chamber, becoming only fully aware once they were back out in the gardens. The diamond ring was clutched tightly in her hand.

“You are a very fortunate girl,” Eada told her. “You should feel honored to have gained the emperor’s attention.”

“Perhaps now you will understand,” said Aldwine to his wife, “why I have not yet made a match for Mairin. I know that all these years you have believed it mere paternal pride upon my part, but it was not. Mairin is special. Her beauty makes her so. It is true we have raised her as our own, but her lineage is far nobler than ours. Her birth mother was royal. I will have a fine husband for her if we are clever, and patient, and willing to bide our time.”

“A Norman husband, you mean,” said Eada quietly.

“Aye! A Norman, and why not? With William our next king, the Normans will be favored. It will not hurt our daughter to be the wife of a powerful and wealthy Norman lord. Her beauty will help us to secure a great name. It cannot hurt our son either. Perhaps we will find him a Norman wife. Brand has but one great love, Aelfleah. A Norman wife with a fat dowry may help him to add to our lands one day. Somewhere there is a rich man with a beloved bastard daughter he wants respectably wed. We have a good name and much land. I shall see both our children well settled.”

“I never realized before how ambitious you are, my lord,” said Eada with faint disapproval in her voice.

“The times are changing, my wife. England will never again be as it was. Those who do not see that are doomed to extinction. I do not want to see my line end; my lands lost to strangers who will not love and care for our people as we do. If we are to survive, Eada, we must change with the times.”

“I will not let you give Mairin to anyone who will make her unhappy, my lord.”

“I think, lady, that you know me better than that,” he chided her.

Eada sighed so deeply that a shudder ran through her frame. “I am no longer certain of anything,” she said. “We are so far from England. I miss Brand. I miss Aelfleah.” Then catching hold of herself she looked up at him smiling wryly. “I do not think this traveling agrees with me, my lord. I was happier with myself when I was naught but the wife of a simple Mercian thegn.”

He put a protective arm about her. “Perhaps you would have been happier had I left you at home, Eada, but it will be at least two years before we can return to England. I could not have borne being apart from you for so long a time. I know it was selfish of me.”

“It is the city that frets me,” she said. “It is so big and crowded! So noisy and dirty! What will I do while you and the others negotiate your treaties? I am not comfortable to sit idly.”

Mairin, recovered and listening to this exchange between her parents, spoke up. “We will explore the city, mother. There is so much to see and do here! We shall not be bored for a minute, I promise you!”

“How can we move about the city when the very sight of your hair draws crowds?” replied Eada irritably.

“I shall braid my hair up, and hide it beneath a coif, mother.”

Eada smiled, and gave her daughter a hug. “You know,” she said, “I believe you are right. I should have seen it myself. You are growing up, Mairin.”

Her cheerful words belied the ache in her heart, and Aldwine knew it. Perhaps he had been thoughtless in taking her from her safe and familiar world. He let his eyes roam over the imperial gardens and across the Bosporus to the green hills beyond. It might be possible to rent a villa away from the city, away from the palace, somewhere where Eada would feel more comfortable.

Aldwine looked to his daughter. Tomorrow was October 31st, Samhein, Mairin’s birthday. He wondered where his daughter would light her fire, for Mairin still observed the four high holy days of the old Celtic religion. It was a part of her past that she refused to relinquish although she had become an Anglo-Saxon maiden in every other way. Neither Aldwine nor Eada had felt that they had the right to interfere, but here in Constantinople the thegn of Aelfleah wondered how his daughter would accomplish what she considered her duty to the old ways. Amid all the excitement of the trip he wondered if she even remembered.

Mairin did indeed remember. Though she had been raised a Christian she respected the ancient religion of her people. The feast of Samhein marked the end of the Druidic calendar, and it was considered the most powerful spiritual night of the year. It was believed that on Samhein night the gates between the human world and the spirit world were wide open, and either might visit the other. The Christians called it All Hallows’ Eve. At the very moment that the sun dipped below the earth’s horizon the Samhein fires leapt skyward, symbolizing that light of the human spirit which never dies. It was considered a time for thanksgiving.