The Lute Player (60 page)

Yes, I thought, that was Berengaria! What she had believed to be an unearthly vision had taken her by surprise, had shaken her by a sudden assault; but in a moment her brave blood had been roused and she had cried, ‘Come back… If you understood you would forgive me!’ If St. Petronella of Talmont had remained embodied for just another moment, Berengaria of Navarre would have been prepared to answer her attack.

‘The curses,’ Berengaria said, ‘were quite horrible!’

‘Dear Berengaria,’ I ventured again, ‘take no heed. I still think you were dreaming. Think—all these things were in your mind and in your thoughts when you knelt down to pray. Saints in genuine visions—I’ve read of hundreds—always tell the human beings who see them something new, something revealing, something they couldn’t have got out of their own minds, asleep or awake. Do you see what I mean? There is nothing here that you didn’t know or couldn’t have thought of yourself—even the curses. You probably did feel a little guilty about asking for a baby when you only wanted it as a means to an end. You fell asleep for a moment as you prayed and had one of those short vivid dreams that often come when one sleeps in unlikely places—and your own little guilty feeling suggested the curses.’

‘I wish I could believe that,’ she said slowly, slackening her step. ‘But, Anna, it isn’t quite true. You see, she did say something which I swear I should never have thought of in a hundred years. In the middle of her tirade she broke off and laughed, such a coarse, nasty laugh, Anna—I’ll warrant that when she was alive plain Petronella of Talmont, she was a fishwife! She said, “No woman ever knelt there,” and she pointed to her tomb, “and asked for a baby in vain. I’m proud of my power and my reputation and for my own sake, not for yours—you who, having deceived the world, thought to deceive heaven, too, and get your own way willy-nilly—I’ll give you a piece of advice. You’ll never get a baby out of Richard, but if you could contrive to deceive him too… You’ve got a pretty face and there are many tall knights around you, are there not?” Anna, quite apart from the thought, which you know couldn’t have come out of my mind, those words convinced me that she was real. She was very plain and when she said that about the pretty face her voice was the voice of a jealous woman. And “many tall knights around you”—she said that as though she were the one who sat out at the revels and watched somebody prettier surrounded. Oh dear, perhaps I shouldn’t have said that; she may he listening and angrier than ever.’

‘Rubbish,’ I said. Then I gave my mind to the problem whether this might genuinely rank as a revelation. I had said that St. Petronella had said nothing which could not have been in Berengaria’s mind. She had countered that statement. But could it still be true? For there are things that we think, things we admit to our minds, and there are other things unadmitted which burrow about in our minds and stay hidden even from ourselves. Was this suggestion actually St. Petronella’s or something which Berengaria, set to deceive the world, had once thought of? A vague idea which had crawled in and burrowed and then, in favourable circumstances, crept up to the surface as earthworms creep up after a warm rain?

‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘did you ever read anything about St. Petronella?’

‘Anna, you know I never read! All I knew was that she had a reputation for making babies. I didn’t even know that until Blanche told me.’

When I found an opportunity to read a life of St. Petronella I learned that she had spent her youth in Talmont gutting herring and salting them and packing them in barrels. I also learned that one day a woman who worked alongside her, exasperated during an altercation, had attacked her with a knife. Only the direct intervention of God, so the book said, had saved the saint from losing an eye; as it was, she carried the scar to her grave. The account of her virtues—which were many—mentioned “an honest bluntness of speech,” a “distaste for deceit in any form.”

With that I was driven to wonder. Also, thinking it over, all in all I found that I had a good deal of fellow feeling with the woman who had set about St. Petronella with the gutting knife!

So far as anyone could see that was a very merry Christmas. Berengaria’s new ladies were a gay, lively crowd and the nobles and knights matched them. Even Richard threw himself into the revels with good heart. He had changed very little, despite the years, despite his cruel disappointment over Jerusalem, despite his long imprisonment. He was still incomparably the handsomest man in Christendom, still capable, at the age of forty, of developing the boisterous high spirit of a boy. Or he could be subtly witty, bluntly outspoken, immensely considerate, inexcusably rude, in turn.

Under the topsy-turvy custom of the Twelve Day revels, Eddi, the castle jester, was appointed Lord of Misrule and his word was law. (The custom had, I believe, in years gone by led to confusion, chaos and even bloodshed; but nowadays the Lords of Misrule knew to a nicety how far they were supposed to go, and unpleasant incidents were very rare.) Richard was appointed Court Minstrel and when he took lute in hand and played and sang—sometimes sweet tuneful romantic songs, sometimes impromptu witty variations—I think every woman in the hall fell in love with him. Except me and even I found myself thinking how attractive he was and what a pity—and so on.

By this time the rumours about him had spread far and wide; one or two bishops had felt it their duty to speak to him bluntly about his behaviour and bishops inspired by a sense of duty are seldom very discreet. Hugh of Lincoln had once accosted him at Mass, caught him by the sleeve and delivered a straight-forward lecture on his various sins which was heard by everyone present in the church. Admittedly Hugh had a quarrel with Richard concerning a fur cloak but the lecture was not about the sin of covetousness.

However, there was always something about Richard Plantagenet, especially when he was present in the flesh, which seemed to give the lie to the rumour. Since Raife of Clermont had died long ago in Acre nobody had actually been named as his successor in Richard’s affection. And he now lived with the Queen, didn’t he? Childless—yes, but then that was usually the woman’s fault and some women were childless. The rumours were eagerly spread, seized on, believed; and then—like an appetising but indigestible dish—they tended to be vomited up. Men found it difficult to attribute such a vice to a man who was so brave, so virile, so noisy, so capable, so altogether what a man should be. And every woman, every single woman who ever came within range of him, felt that if she had been Berengaria she would have found it very easy to make him an ardent lover, a glad father of great boys with red-gold hair and prominent blue eyes.

I know this was so, for I spent all that Christmas listening to women talk, often openly, often in a language they thought I did not understand. They all admitted that Berengaria was beautiful but… The
buts
varied and, if viewed with sufficient detachment, could on occasion provoke a sour amusement. But she was cold, hard, stupid; she hadn’t wanted to marry him; no, in sooth, somebody’s aunt’s brother-in-law had been in Italy long ago while Berengaria of Navarre had been staying with her aunt Lucia; there had been a young noble—of course an impossible match—Sancho had been furious and arranged the marriage with Richard straightaway. Ah, but wasn’t the real truth that Berengaria herself was queer? Joanna Plantagenet. That was why he, in a fury, had taken up with some man in Palestine, just his fun, his witty way of showing Berengaria how
she
was making a fool of herself; and you will note that it wasn’t until Joanna had been married off again to Count Egidio that Richard had taken Berengaria back. Really, how strange, two women—two men… But what? How? Why? On and on it went, tireless, pointless as our busy look, see, listen, roundabout at L’Espan.

And I would think: God’s eyes! If only you knew, you gibbering, gabbling blind fools! And then again I would think: What a joke it would be, how it would fool you and serve you all right if—But there I was bound to stop short because my sense of humour wasn’t quite as keen or disinterested as that of St. Petronella.

Towards Berengaria Richard behaved impeccably now that he was on holiday and forced into her company. Courteous, attentive, kind. But there was no ease between them. Not even the flat, dull acceptance of one another that binds so many married couples. To my watchful eye they always seemed like a bride and groom perhaps long betrothed, perhaps willing to make themselves agreeable to each another—but just newly thrust together, wary, distrustful, uncertain. When he joked with her at table she invariably looked anxious—now, now this is a jest, do I understand it? Ah, yes, thank God—funny, yes, I see! And her laughter was always late. When he was attentive and kind there was a look in her eyes which said, Ah, if only this were real! She could pretend to the world; and to me she could make great angry speeches about false necklaces and pride and keeping up appearances—but it was plain to me now that I saw them together that she was really head over ears in love with him still and that her love constituted an almost fatal handicap.

However, on the whole, the holiday season was pleasant and ordinary until we came to Twelfth-night and were rioting our way through an uproarious game of forfeits. The whole point of this game is that the Lord of Misrule—who will tomorrow be reduced to his proper station in life—can be as tyrannical as he pleases and can dictate to everyone, choosing the forfeit which the victim must pay with a special eye to the company’s amusement. A shy young squire, for example, will be sent to kiss the haughtiest lady, the stoutest or the most pompous man set to going round the floor of the hall on his hands and knees and so on. It is very simple. I never take part in the game because my participation embarrasses everybody, so on this evening I sat, as I had on many another Twelfth-night, on a stool just behind the temporary throne from which the Lord of Misrule issued his orders. Now and again, as I had done many times before, I would suggest some particularly apt and amusing forfeit that occurred to me.

The fun was at its height; everybody was full of good meat and strong wine, bent on ending the festivities in proper style. Eddi, the jester, had proved himself an admirable Lord of Misrule, always amusing, always just tactful enough. One of the ladies whom I had overheard boasting in English had been sent to kiss the King just to see whether the touch of her lips held the magic that she imputed to it. And he had bussed her heartily and set her on his knee amidst great laughter.

Presently it was his own turn and he presented himself in good humble fashion and said the words, ‘My Lord of Misrule, what is it you will that I should do?’ And Eddi, who may have been drunk or may have been bribed or simply daring beyond belief, said in a low voice, ‘Get an heir for England.’

I was the only one apart from Richard who could hear the words; not that there was anything strange in that, for the hall was full of din and sometimes the sentences in this game were whispered, especially if they partly concerned another person, so that one might be taken by surprise. And only I, seated just behind Eddi’s throne, could see Richard’s face. It went quite black with rage. He lifted his hands, took Eddi by the throat and began to shake him as a terrier shakes a rat. The merry, tipsy company, who had not heard Eddi’s words or seen Richard’s face, took this as part of the game and renewed their laughter. I got up from my seat and ran forward and took Richard’s arm in as hard a grip as I could force my hands to and said, ‘My lord, desist! You’ll kill him. The words were only said in jest.’ But he was past hearing. And my full weight on his arm could only weaken his grip, it could not break it. Without thinking, acting instinctively as an animal, I stretched my neck and set my teeth into the fleshy part of his hand and bit into it with all my might. With a muttered curse Richard moved his hand to shake me off as though I were a ferret and Eddi who, though he was thin and gangling, was too tough a fellow to be strangled by one of Richard Plantagenet’s hands, shook himself free.

By this time the company was beginning to crowd down to our end of the hall to see what was to do. There was half a minute when the whole thing hung in the balance. Then Eddi, recovering the quick wit which had brought him from herding sheep to entertaining kings, called out:

‘My good people, that was a wasted jest and the best of the game. “Get the Duchess of Apieta to bite you,” I said to this fellow. And most cunningly he did!’

‘How could I know that?’ I cried loudly in mock dismay. ‘I thought I was saving your life, my Lord of Misrule.’

Richard, recovering his sanity, countered with, ‘How else could I have provoked her—when she wasn’t even in the game? My Lord of Misrule, I claim privilege. This little she-cat sat apart, avoiding the penalties but, as you see, sharing the fun. Set her forfeit that she bind up the wound she has inflicted.’

‘That is but just,’ said Eddi, resuming his seat and the dictatorial pose. ‘You, woman, go with this fellow and bandage his hand with a piece of your best shift!’

Though slightly on the bawdy side, such an order was completely in tune with the spirit of the game. Richard and I left the hall together amidst a gale of laughter with Eddi’s voice bellowing through it, ‘Good people, who is next? Don’t think to escape my orders. Who is next?’ The game went on.

‘I should have killed him but for you.’

‘I could see that. Otherwise I should have remembered my manners—and the fact that I prefer my meat thoroughly cooked.’

‘You showed great presence of mind. I always said you had the sharpest wit of any woman I ever encountered.’

‘And the sharpest teeth? Truly, Richard, I am sorry,’ I said, surverying the two half circles of holes my teeth had made on his hand.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘It was the surprise and the suddenness of the nip. You heard what he said to me, I suppose.’

‘Good advice is so often odious.’ I drew in my breath, took hold of my courage and added, ‘It was good advice, you know.’

He looked at me without speaking for a moment and then said briskly, ‘Come along and tie up my hand.’

When I had done so he set his other hand under my chin, tilting my face; then, suddenly, stooping from his great height, he kissed me, not in the hearty smacking fashion of the revels but softly, slowly, almost like a lover.