The Rebel Princess (22 page)

“Lavaur, Foix, and Laurac,” I responded quickly. “I wanted to see if there was some information, some thread here that might lead to my son.” As I spoke these words, I thought of the note I had been given at my brother’s audience:
“Follow the golden thread to the South
.” Francis had not yet disappeared when that note was delivered. Yet it had stayed in my mind. Did the note refer to the missing golden chalice? Or to something more valuable, more golden, the life of my son!

“I believe I have an idea that may help you,” Joanna said quietly.

“And I believe I know what it is,” I echoed, with the beginning of a smile. “The women gathered here are those who preside over the ruling houses in those villages. This is a mighty coincidence.”

“And you have already figured out what they are doing here?”

“Joanna, it would take an unobservant, nay, simpleminded, person
not
to conclude that the two men who stumbled into our gathering tonight were Cathar preachers. They were alarmed to see me and happy to depart with Geralda’s servant. On another evening, they would have been welcomed into the circle of women. Your friends are known to honor the new Cathar religion, and it is obvious you came together to hear your shepherds.”

The countess let out a long sigh. “These three castles are the stronghold of hospitality for the Cathar preachers. There are not many believers in the towns, but the number is growing. And the women here are committed to give the opportunity to any who want to hear, so they offer the preachers, the
perfecti,
food and board, and safety. These men travel constantly over our southern land. They may have heard news of your son in those journeys.”

“As I thought,” I murmured. “But Joanna, turnabout is fair. Let me ask you again: What are you doing here, with these women?”

“Fleeing from my husband, at the moment,” Joanna said, tossing her hair free of the braids that she had unwound. “You said Constance spoiled him as a youth. Spoiled does not begin to describe the count. I curse the day my brother King Richard married me to this incom
petent fool.”

“Joanna!” I was astonished at her careless talk.

But she only shook out her long, full mane of hair and continued in the same tone. “Oh, mine was to be a marriage of convenience, Richard said. He thought he could consolidate the southern end of his kingdom, putting Raymond and the Toulousain solidly in his camp by putting me solidly in Raymond’s bed. What even Richard failed to see was Raymond’s utter confusion, his inability to hold the center of his county.” Joanna was rendered momentarily speechless as she pulled her robe over her head and tossed it off the bed. “His inability to even
find
the center of his county,” she added, as she quickly crawled under the furs in her shift.

“God and the Virgin know I have tried to help. I have counseled my spouse, I even sat with his advisers and offered my opinions as to what they can do to protect their people from dangerous interference, from Rome or from France.” She cast a quick look my way. “Sorry, but it’s true. Still, these men heed me not.” She was sitting up and so pulled a silk shawl around her shoulders to protect her from the rub of the rough furs. “They believe women are to be decorative and provide beauty for the court setting. And that is supposed to be the end of our aspirations.”

“So, you are retreating into the Cathar mysteries out of pique with Raymond and his court?” I gently teased as I began to unbraid my own hair.

Joanna looked startled for a moment, then burst into a peal of laughter. “Cathar!
Moi?
Don’t be amusing, Alaïs. I cannot abide religion in any form. I was in the Holy Land with Richard and his troops, for sweet Saint Mary’s sake. I saw ancient churches and mosques burn. I saw the bones of the Christian empire builders bleached upon the Saracens’ sand. I even…”—she tilted her head in my direction knowingly and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper—“saw a piece of the one, true cross itself.”

“Careful, Joanna,” I said, made uneasy by her tone of ridicule. “You
know not who listens at doors. It is best not to make fun, whether a believer or not. One must put caution first when one is among strangers.”

“Be of good heart, my dear friend. This house is safe. No one here will report us to that wolf, Bishop Foulques. Even the servants here are of the new religion.” She shook her head. “But can you imagine? Beseeching Saladin for a piece of the true cross? As if a piece of wood could have survived for twelve hundred years and still be identifiable.” She laughed, a high trill that belied any true amusement. “The Saracens must have thought us all fools. But they gave us what we wanted.”

Then Joanna suddenly turned serious. She looked down at her clasped hands for a long moment. “Truly, we are fools, Alaïs. I saw so many men die in the Holy Land that I wanted to die myself. To this day, I cannot drive the noise of the battles from my mind some nights. I hear the shouts and screams of the men when I sleep at night, and feel myself drowning in their blood. I awake drenched, but it is always my own sweat only, as if I had been the one fighting. And all over religion. God save us all as we fight and kill in his name.”

I could think of no reply. Instead, I moved to the edge of the high bed and carefully lowered myself to the floor, making my way to the small table that held the washing basin. I splashed my face in the water, now cooled considerably by the autumn breezes coming in through the wall openings. I was further prevented from responding for a moment as I dried my face and hands. As I climbed back up to take the place next to my dear friend, I saw her face crumpled with sadness. I reached out with my arm, and drew her head to my shoulder. She folded into my embrace, like a weary traveler sinks into the bed when he finally attains it.

After some silence, I spoke again, and briskly.

“Still, one may believe what one likes, but one should be discreet.” I felt as preachy as Abbé Suger, our father’s adviser from St. Denis, but better safe than dead. “You are much too careless, Joanna, you know
you always were. I hope you are more restrained with your words in Toulouse. Foulques may be a wolf, but he is still bishop. We know not where all this rattling of religious sabers will end.”

Joanna had placed a small silver plate on the bed, and we shared the bit of bread that had been left to us, brushing the crumbs to the floor as we finished. I determined to turn her thoughts from the bloody wars she had recollected moments earlier, and so I said, “Tell me more about this new religion.”

My friend, who had always shown amazing resilience, came alive again. She so obviously cherished her friendships with the women I had met that very evening.

“What Foulques does not understand is how the Cathar faith is growing in the countryside, among the peasants. He thinks if he can stamp it out in Toulouse, or in the houses of the minor nobles, that it will go away. But he doesn’t take in what appeals to the people about this way of practicing faith.”

“And what is that?” I asked.

“We are tired of the complexities of Rome, of indulgences and priests who lord it over us. The religion of the
bons chrétiens
is a way of returning to the early Christian purity and simplicity. Most of us just want peace. And now it appears that peace will be denied us.”

“So what do you intend to do?” I saw that I had forgotten the candles, so I slipped off the bed and began snuffing them out one by one. Then I climbed back up to her side and we both wriggled down under the covers and clasped each other for warmth, just as we had when we were girls at the court of Henry and Eleanor in drafty old England.

“I am leaving the south. I can no longer be a wife to Raymond, and I fear greatly the war that is to come, a war that is the result of his own folly.”

“You are leaving him for good?” This bit of news caused me to sit up in the dark.

“Please get back under the furs, Alaïs. You are creating a draft,”
Joanna said sensibly. She slid farther down and pulled the coverlets to her chin. “Yes, I am even now on my way north to join Queen Eleanor at Fontevraud.”

“But your mother is so aged. I heard she was near death.” I closed my eyes and the picture of Eleanor, bent and palsied as I had last seen her, came before my eyes.

“She knows I am in great danger, and she fears for my unborn child. This poor little child, the unexpected fruit of a night in which Raymond, having drunk too much wine, came to my apartment and scattered my serving women with his shouting and belligerence,” she said bitterly. “I fought him. I had not lain with him for two years, because of his drinking and womanizing. But he had his way, and this is the result.”

“And what does the count think of the coming child?” I could not forbear asking. “Will he not be furious that you have left?”

“When he thinks of it at all,” she said slowly, “he is quite pleased that he could beget a legitimate heir when we are as old as we are. But I have been Queen of Sicily, survived prison locked up by my husband’s nephew, that dreadful Tancred, and marched with my brother Richard on the plains of Acre, and I tell you, as I told Raymond, I am no man’s breeding cow.” She paused, her voice echoing around us.

“Joanna!” I turned to her in the dark. I could see the outline of her face turned upward to the ceiling by the light of the stars and moon that crept through the narrow windows.

“Well, it’s true, my friend.” Her tone was almost petulant. “And further, I am most fearful of this gathering storm here. I will not subject a child of mine to the machinations of Bishop Foulques, who stalks suspected heretics and goads his sheep into violence, all in the name of God. I will not birth my child here. I tell you, it is no longer safe in the south.”

“I suspected that,” I said. “And you have problems you don’t yet know about. The monk you warned me about, the famous abbot of
Cîteaux, Arnaud Amaury, is a dangerous and evil man. The ‘sword of God’ they will call him someday, no doubt. He’ll make Bishop Foulques look like a rabbit.”

“Alaïs, do you still have visions of the future?” Joanna turned suddenly on her side and put her hand on my cheek. “Can you foresee what will happen to me?”

Most of the time, when someone asks me to see for them, my heart hardens. I do not use my gift in this way, as if I were a merchant of goods for sale. But this was my childhood friend, and we were alone in the dusk of candlelight. If I could help her, mayhap I should. I forced myself to concentrate on Joanna’s face in my mind, looking for patterns of images that might arise to speak to me.

As I lay, I saw an image of Joanna,
débraillée
and in childbed, tossing and shrieking, noises that grew into faint moans. Then her form disappeared, and there was only the empty bed before my mind’s eye. The covers were now settled, as if no one at all had lain there. The picture faded. A shudder went through me.

“No, dear friend. I believe I have lost that gift with age. I rarely see now, and when I do, it is by happenstance,” I lied. I could not relate my unhappy vision to her.

“Ah, well. It was worth the asking.” And I smiled even in my distress, for Joanna was always as easily turned from her purpose as she was quick to engage in it. Her voice was fading with sleep, and I felt her body start to turn away from me, then stop.

“But dear Alaïs.” I sensed her form turn toward me again, and felt her breath now on my cheek. “I have been chattering so about myself. I nearly forgot what I was telling you when we were interrupted by the
perfecti
earlier this evening. The Lord William is even now in Toulouse. Do you not wish to join him? He may have news for you about your son.”

William, now so near again. What would be his reaction if I appeared in Toulouse? Would he create another dramatic scene? Or worse,
make the bitterness of our parting in Paris final? Or send me back to Paris under guard of his men?

“I am not certain what to do next,” I said. “Perhaps I will ask your preachers if they saw anything unusual in their travels.”

“Oh, yes, do,” Joanna murmured, already drifting into sleep. “They can be trusted, I swear to you.”

“I will ask about the Lord William first,” I said, the plan forming as I spoke. “That will allay suspicion. It may be that they can then be drawn into giving me news that relates to Francis.”

“But you already know…”

“That William is in Toulouse,” I finished for her. “Of course I do. You just told me. But such a query will provide a cover for my true purpose.”

“Oh,” Joanna said. “I see.”

“After I talk with them, I will decide my course of action.” I made every attempt to sound assured. “So for now, since we can plan no more, let us sleep.”

And then Joanna, creature of impulse that she was, leaned over and kissed my cheek, before turning to her side to sleep, as she always had done as a child, facing the wall.

T
he next morning the women were already gathered when Joanna and I arrived at the castle’s Great Hall, where a crackling fire burned against the early morning chill. Stone fortresses never really warmed inside, even when the sun shone. And it was, after all, early November.

“Good morrow, Princesse. And to you, Countess.” The Lady Geralda bowed to each of us as we entered. “I trust you slept soundly?”

“Indeed, my thanks for your good warm furs and the feather beds that served us so well,” I said, responding for both of us. “I don’t intend to impose on your hospitality too long, Lady Geralda. I will tarry only another day so that my knights may rest.”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you wish, my lady,” Geralda said graciously, although I thought I detected a faint note of relief in her voice.

The women stood in a circle around the fire, in front of the same chairs they had occupied the evening before, with Blanche in their midst. They made their courtesies and then, at my gesture, resumed their seats. Each picked up her spinning and needlework and a scattered conversation began. A small boy of eight or nine summers came into the room and sat on the floor next to the Lady Philippa of Foix. He was dressed in a warm wool doublet with a short cape, and his cheeks were red from the cool air outside.

Blanche saw my eyes go toward the boy. “Princesse Alaïs, this is Roger-Bernard, Countess Philippa’s youngest son.” The boy stood and made a deep bow when presented. He had been taught well.

“Lady Blanche, let me speak plainly.” I had remained standing, the more to give authority to my remarks. I now addressed them to the Lady Blanche, as she was so clearly the leader of this group.

“You have two travelers in your house who arrived last even. I would speak to them. I seek to ask them if they have come across my Lord William of Caen, who is on a diplomatic mission for the holy father and my brother, the king of France. As I told you last night, I have a message from the king to deliver to Lord William.”

The Lady of Laurac paled at my words.

“Don’t worry, Blanche, Alaïs has already guessed they are Cathar preachers,” Joanna said casually as she swept to the oak table and picked up a sweetmeat from the platter. “She said she would have to be simpleminded not to have known them for what they were when they appeared last evening.” She was licking the sugar from her fingers in between her words.

“I see,” the Lady Blanche said slowly. “Need I plead that you keep our secret here, Princesse?”

“I would not think of breaching your daughter’s hospitality, Lady Blanche. But tell me, surely it has not yet become a crime to receive Cathar
bons hommes
into your homes and castles? There is no law against the new beliefs. The church itself is sponsoring debates all
over the south to discuss openly the differences these people have with the church of Rome.”

“Your Grace, it is no crime yet. But we are watched. The very stones have ears. We do not know who our friends are. And we fear bloodshed as tempers are becoming increasingly volatile.” She smiled faintly. “We hear of an abbot from Fontfroide, one Arnaud Amaury, who has a hatred in his heart for anyone who does not believe exactly as he does. He is said to be preaching war against us. Almost, one imagines, even to think differently is a crime. But I shall send for the Good-Men. I believe they would be glad of a chance to talk openly with you.”

Surprisingly, the door opened while she was yet speaking, and the young heir of Foix, who had slipped from the room unnoticed, led the two strangers into the room. They had taken advantage of the night to rest and clean themselves, and they had obviously taken nourishment. They did not look like fugitives, nor did they appear guilty of any secret. No doubt the furtiveness of their movements the previous night was due to their surprise at my presence.

“Princesse, this is Guillabert of Castres and Benedict of Thermes. They are our honored guests. Messires, this is Princesse Alaïs of France. She is a friend to us, and will keep our confidence.” The Lady Blanche rose with her customary purpose and elegance and extended her hand to the men as she spoke. The men bowed to me, then waited.

“Good sirs. I seek news of Lord William of Caen. He left Paris for the south some weeks past. Did you perchance encounter news of him in your travels?”

“Indeed, we have not, Your Grace,” the man called Guillabert said. He stood at a sort of tilt, putting more weight on one foot, as if one leg were longer than the other and he must compensate. I had noticed earlier that he walked with a slight limp. Perhaps from his months and years of walking the mountain slopes, like the shepherd he imagined himself to be, he had shortened one leg. “We have just
come from Narbonne, where the religious debates took place. We have not been near Toulouse. We would not go that far, as it is not safe for us in the city.”

“Narbonne! You must have walked day and night to come here from Narbonne in seven days!” I thought momentarily how much time we had lost in Poitiers because of my illness. It had cost us dear.

“Oh, no, Princesse. Do not be concerned for us. We fell in early with a caravan of merchants bringing spices and cloth to Toulouse overland. And they were happy to allow us to ride part of the way in their carts. For a small consideration, of course,” he said, an elfin smile coming to his lips.

“The merchant who owns the carts believes as we do, in the purified religion.” The man called Benedict took up the story here, as if they had the habit of speaking in tandem, so long had they traveled together. “So we made an agreement that if Benedict and I would preach around the night campfires, the merchant would allow us to ride with his group. We stayed together almost until Foix. But then he deemed it not safe in this country to show his sympathies. We are still too close to the troublesome Bishop Foulques of Toulouse, may he soon find his proper reward.”

“At the religious debates, did you hear any news of the Paris court? Of the theft of a chalice that once belonged to the Cathars from the abbey of St. Denis?”

“No, my lady.” Of the two men, Benedict seemed the more inclined to talk. “We heard no gossip from the north. Everyone was focused on the points made about religion by those who came to Narbonne.”

“Forgive me.” I hesitated, unsure how to address these two men. “I have kept you standing. You must sit with us.” And I took the carved chair at the center of the semicircle before the hearth that had been given me the previous evening. “I have one more query of you.”

They seemed grateful to take two chairs hastily set before my own.
I was uncertain how to ask the question uppermost in my mind, but they waited patiently for me, expectant looks upon their sun-brushed faces.

“I am also searching for a young man, one…”—how could I phrase this without giving too much away?—“one who was of the Lord William’s household in Paris. He disappeared some weeks ago, and it was thought he may have come south.”

“You want to know if we have seen him?” Guillabert’s tone was grave.

I nodded and opened my hands, which had been clasped on my lap. “Seen any sign of a young, northern knight. You would know him by his tongue, for he speaks only the langue d’oïl.” I smiled. “Or was there anything you saw that might have been unusual in your passage here?”

The preacher looked at me steadily and I observed his face fully for the first time in the burst of sunlight streaming into the room. His visage was lined with the marks of outdoor weathering, but his eyes were an amazing black color, and his gaze bored into me, as if he knew secrets I had told no one.

“Something unusual has happened, has it not?” he asked, almost as if he knew my thoughts exactly.

“Yes,” was all I said. He thought for a long moment.

“When we passed the abbey of Fontfroide, outside of Narbonne, there was excitement. A large retinue was pulling its carts into the abbey road, and it was clear there were many knights. We heard northern accents. He might have been among those in that party. There appeared to be more than a hundred knights, and much baggage.”

My heart skipped over, then settled. “Whose pennants flew from the train?”

“The papal flags, and those of Cîteaux Abbey.” He spoke these words without expression.

“Amaury!” I exclaimed, rapidly assessing this information. “He
must have left Paris within days of my departure.” I uttered this last more to myself than those about me.

“Yes, the Abbot Amaury.” Guillabert repeated the name softly. “He who would take us to war over our beliefs.”

Suddenly I was drawn out of my own cares and thought of the dangers visited upon the men before me. “I hope he did not see you! Your lives would not be safe if he did!”

Benedict and Guillabert both smiled, albeit grimly. Benedict spoke first: “Princesse, we know who means us harm. Once we identified the flags of Cîteaux, we stayed within the wagons and instructed the merchant to keep out of the way of these knights. We carried books, you see. Books that would not please the venerable Abbot Amaury.” And he waved his right hand, which held the worn leather volume I had noticed the night before. “We feared if he recognized us as preachers of the new faith, he would not let us pass unharmed.”

“I believe you were wise,” I said, my respect for these two growing. These were not country roughs, playing at preaching for gullible women. They seemed calm, sensible, and articulate. I wished I could tarry long enough to know them better.

I rose from my chair and walked to the opening in the wall, needing some air. Leaning out over the wall, I felt as though I were tottering on a precipice. The drop from this room, at the back of the Lavaur château, was direct. The outside wall merged into the steep hill, which fell away in a jumble of brush and dirt. It was a great distance down to the road below.

I tried to summon a picture of the Abbot Amaury, to discern where he might be, or in what state, but I could not reach him. When it came, the vision was not of Amaury, it was an image of my son. I saw a figure alone, standing halfway up a hill. Behind him, in a valley, stood a great church, a bell tower, and a set of other stone buildings. Francis seemed uncertain which way to turn, looking down, and then up. Suddenly two slavering mastiffs entered the picture, galloping up
the hill toward him. Abruptly, the image disappeared from my sight, as if a curtain had been dropped. I sighed.

“Joanna, I have made my decision.” I turned to my friend, who had been silent, and who now watched me with apprehension. “I am going to Fontfroide Abbey.”

If I had said I was going to Jerusalem Joanna could not have looked more surprised.

“Alaïs, you cannot go to Fontfroide. It is four more days of traveling and you and your knights have scarce rested!” she exclaimed.

“True, but I will go. There is a reason Amaury left Paris. I cannot help but think it is tied to Francis’s disappearance, and the only way I can discover the connection is to go to Fontfroide and confront Amaury.”

“Princesse?” The Lady Blanche was looking at me, her expression a mélange of curiosity and concern. “I thought you said you had a message for Lord William. What, in truth, has drawn you to the south?”

“My search for this young knight, Francis,” I said simply. “I fear for his safety. That concern is more important than finding the Lord William, at least for the present.”

“This young man. He is very special to you, is he not?” Blanche looked at me keenly.

“More than I can say,” I replied softly. “And more than that I cannot say.”

There was a pause, for the space of a heartbeat. Then Blanche spoke again.

“But to go to Fontfroide, with only four knights, if the abbot means you or this young knight harm…” Blanche had risen to emphasize her words. “This action would put you in danger and do nothing to help the young knight.”

“I am not afraid,” I retorted. “Please ring for someone to alert my men.”

“Your courage is not in question, madame,” Blanche said quietly.
I turned to look at her, rather astonished that she would speak so to a
princesse
of France. “Perhaps there is another way.”

Instead of reprimanding her, which had been my first impulse, I waited to see what else she would say. For I knew she spoke the truth.

“Why not go in disguise?” Geralda spoke over her shoulder, as she pushed the embers on the hearth into new life. “That way, you can discover what you need to know without putting your own life in danger.”

“Yes, what a good idea.” Philippa clapped her hands. “We could go as pilgrims, perhaps as women from a religious house. They would have to take us in. We could say we were on our way to Santiago de Compostela.”

“That is quite the other direction from here.” The practical Geralda stood up, brushing her hands together to rid them of the soot from the fire iron.

“But the abbey monks won’t know from whence we came,” the woman who had been introduced to me the previous night as Grazide of Montauban murmured without looking up from her needlework. I turned to look at her, a pale-faced retiring young woman who sat on the edge of the circle. Those were the first words she had spoken since I had arrived. “That’s the point of a disguise. You can be anyone.”

I was thunderstruck. What a wonderful idea. I would never have thought of it. I made a silent pledge to myself to rein in my impatience in the future, and search instead for the most creative plan.

“Hold a moment,” said the ever-thoughtful Blanche. “Philippa, you cannot go. The Count of Foix would have my head if I allowed that. You know this is not a journey for those of us with graying hair.”

Philippa frowned, but I could see common sense overcoming her original enthusiasm.

“But I could go. I have no husband, nor children,” Grazide said.

“And I too,” Fabrisse of Saissac said. “My father need never know. He thinks I am staying here at Lavaur until he comes to fetch me at
Christmastide.”

“And I could go as well,” Gaillarde echoed.

“Wait.” Geralda held up her hands. “We must think this through. Gaillarde, your father has entrusted you to me until the spring, when he returns from his own pilgrimage. I cannot allow you to go on this journey. You are too young by far.”