Almodis (31 page)
Authors: Tracey Warr
‘What does it matter? When I have a son he will inherit Toulouse.’
‘And if you don’t have a son, but have a daughter, the blasted Aquitainians will inherit Toulouse you idiot!’
‘Enough.’ I say. ‘Guillaume, you will make Raymond your heir until you have a son.’ I am as determined as Raymond that no grandchild of Agnes of Mâcon is going to lay claim to my family’s patrimony through this ruse. I counsel Guillaume to give Raymond power for his capabilities, for if he does not, I see that his brother will take it forcibly. They agree that Raymond will be invested Count of Saint Gilles. It is a good plan if they can stay allies rather than enemies.
My twins, Ramon Towhead and Beren, are already at home
here and enjoying their new duties as pages. They are impressed with Guillaume and Raymond and ape their every move,
attempting
to be precocious warrior men.
I ask Rostagnus if he wishes to return to his abbey in Toulouse but he answers, ‘I beg that you will allow me to stay with you, Na. I would not leave you for any reason, after everything we have been through together!’ He, Dia and I spend one night with Raingarde in Carcassonne, regaling her with our stories; and another night with Berenger and Garsenda in Narbonne, before we take ship to Barcelona. I had sent a letter to Ramon from Cluny with news of events and now I begin to feel anxious at how he will receive me.
We’ve heard that they’ve disembarked and are on their way here. Count Ramon is pacing up and down at the far end of the hall with a furious energy. When my Lady, Rostagnus and Dia enter the hall, I see at once that she is exhausted and dusty from the journey. At sight of her the count’s face shows a rapid procession of pleasure, relief, anger. The anger wins out. ‘You have
endangered
yourself and my name, Almodis!’
She meets his anger with her own. ‘I had to do it. For my sons.’
‘You lied to me!’ he says incredulous, for she did do so in her letters, concealing the fact that her lengthy absence was
occasioned
by her decision to join the battle at Lusignan. I realise that this is the first time in eight years that he has shouted at her.
‘Whatever led you to believe, Count Ramon,’ she says injecting as much sarcasm as she can muster into her tone, ‘that
I
would obey
you
.’ She turns her back on him preparing to leave. He grasps her arm and turns her around forcibly, places his two hands on her buttocks and pulls that part of her body to that part of his, so that I have to drop my eyes to the polished floor.
‘Yes,’ I can hear the smile in his voice now, ‘whatever could have led me to have such a ridiculous notion. Don’t I know you well enough? Don’t I know that you are an unstoppable force of nature? And after all, the journey cannot be untravelled. I’ve been so afraid for you,’ he whispers into her dirty hair, ‘but here you are. Thank God, here you are.’
I look up to see that she is leaning away from him, as far as his arms will let her, but then she smiles slowly and moves back into his embrace, kissing him, so I have to lower my eyes again. The hall, it seems, has been transformed into a bedchamber.
‘Are your sons safe?’
‘Yes. Guillaume rules Toulouse and Raymond most of the rest of the county. They are very capable, although the assault on Aquitaine was foolish and has come to nothing.’
‘So all is well,’ he says.
‘And Hugh rules Lusignan.’
He looks puzzled.
‘My son, Hugh. My … Hugh, his father, was killed in the siege.’ She extracts herself from his embrace, but he pulls her back in and kisses the top of her head, holding her against his chest.
‘I’m sorry, Almodis. I know that you cared deeply for him.’ He looks at her. ‘I am sorry.’
‘I must change now, and at dinner I shall regale you with such tales of escapes in wells and the like.’
‘I will look forward to that. I am beyond pleased to have you home, darling.’
She nods mutely, holding onto her emotions, and beckons for me to follow her.
I take the children to church with Rostagnus, and it’s like
herding
geese, with this gaggle of small children before me: Charles, Arnau, Inés and Sancha: our second young family now that our first are all grown up and new lords and ladies over the Pyrenees in Occitania. We hear often from them all. My Lady reads out their letters.
To Almodis, Countess of Barcelona from Hugh of Toulouse, monk at Cluny:
Chère Maman, never fear, I am happy here in Cluny. I found all manner of novices hoping to be worthy of entry as monks: boys who have been here as oblates since they were six, and others just arrived like me, but also men who weary of secular life. Last year Guy Count of Mâcon entered Cluny as a novice with thirty of his knights and their wives all took the veil at Marcigny. We have been given instruction and no
euphemisms about how hard is the life and how strict the rule. We were taught when to allow our hands out of the sleeves of our habit and when they must be covered, how to dress and undress, the sign language that is used to maintain silence, and that we will likely only ever leave the cloister to go in processions on feast days. After my silks and soft marten furs the woollen robes I wear now chafed at first, but I’m growing used to them. I study grammar, music and dialectics. You would love to roam in the library, although the monks of course would not be best pleased to see you there. On the second day that I was here, after Mass, I gave my consent to becoming a monk and my tonsure was cut. I wrote my act of profession, my Benedictine vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and the virtues of simplicity and cheerfulness. I processed to the altar and prostrated myself three times and Abbot Hugh blessed my cowl and put it on me. The abbot is a great man, a great statesman, and gentle and patient with us all. When we cross paths with him we must bow down low and kiss his hands.
I had to maintain three days of dead silence and then I entered the daily life of the community. At first I was followed around by another monk, a custos, who checked that my conduct was everything it should be. I had some trouble with being silent and was chastised more than once by the provost for muttering to myself or trying to talk to one of my fellows, but I am becoming proficient with the signs now and I sign even to myself. We are allowed half an hour of speech each day after Chapter. Some of the signs would amuse you – ruffling your hair means pancakes, pressing your hands together means cheese! We eat no meat, as you know, but there is plenty of fish.
On Saturdays we are shaved and have our linen washed. Our names are marked in our clothes with thread by the tailor. I have been tasked to work on a grange for the summer so I am out in the open and enjoying the physical labour. It is my job to take care of the fishpond too. When winter comes, Abbot Hugh says that he will make me assistant to the cellarer. I will get a new habit and cowl each Christmas. They tell me that on Maundy Thursday new shoes are set on four long poles in the chapter house and we have to rifle through them looking for ones that will fit us. I enjoy the daily round: nine services when the bells ring us to the church: Matins at dawn, Prime one hour later, Tierce two hours after that, Sext three hours after that, Nones another three hours after, Vespers at sunset, Compline at nightfall, Nocturnus and Vigils in the
night. It took me a while to adjust and I had to be woken up often by the circatores. Do write mother and tell me if yours, Rostagnus’ and Dia’s journey home was as eventful as the rest of our trip! And how are Bernadette, Adalmoda, Arnau, Inés and Sancha? Your son, with great affection, Hugh of Toulouse.
We hear news from Lusignan, too, from Jourdain and Melisende who make us laugh with tales of the exploits of their brother, Lord Hugh. Jourdain writes to tell his mother that he places fresh flowers on his father’s grave every week on her behalf:
snowdrops
, forget-me-nots, May blossom, roses, he tells her, as the seasons come and go.
From Raingarde, Countess of Carcassonne to Almodis Countess of Barcelona:
The painful news from here, sister, is that my daughter Garsendis has sickened and died. She would have been wed this Easter to Raymond of Narbonne. It happened so quickly, without warning, that I wake and think for a moment, that she is still here.
My daughter Ermengard is wed to the Viscount of Albi and Nîmes and this seems a happy match. There is news that Agnes of Mâcon’s daughter, the Empress of Germany, who has usurped her own son’s power (just like her mother) has been deposed by her bishops. You will no doubt hear this news soon enough from your sons, but the heiress, Bertha of Rouergue, Hugh and Fides’ daughter, has died and your sons are claiming all her lands and rights in Narbonne, Agde, Béziers, Uzès and Rouergue. This is a great expansion for them. Bertha’s husband, Robert of Auvergne contests their claim but he is no match for such fierce men trained in the anvil of Anjou.
Your two Barcelona boys come on apace and I am especially fond of Ramon Towhead who comes visiting often with Count Guillaume. They are great friends with my daughter, Adelais, and I am glad to see them all laughing and conversing. It lightens my heart after the loss of my eldest daughter.
‘My poor sister,’ exclaims my Lady, over this letter. ‘So hard: to lose a child. I have been lucky. I know that Ramon is scarred by the early loss of his two infant sons, but how much worse to see
a child grow to womanhood, to be close to marriage and then to lose her.’
There’s been a to-do in the mews this morning when my Lady discovered her falcon dead, lying on its back at the foot of its perch. The mews man was bewildered. ‘Were fine yesterday,’ he says.
‘Please bury her. Perhaps she was older than we thought,’ Lady Almodis says frowning. ‘Although she wasn’t long trained, a young bird when Ramon gave her to me.’
Perhaps my Lady, very, very slowly is falling in love. ‘We can’t push her to it, Dia, she’d only resist,’ I say, when she’s gone out riding. ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. We must let her fall with her own gravity and grace, in her own time.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, Bernadette,’ says Dia.
‘Will you not marry, yourself?’ I ask her.
‘No, marriage is not the life for me.’
I sometimes wonder if Count Ramon himself is the man she sings of so often in her
planhs
of unrequited love, but if he is she keeps it deep.
The seasons come and go in the great round of life, blown round and round by the fat cheeks of the four winds riding on their
windbags
. All the men and women and children of the earth, all the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea and rivers, the creatures
roaming
the forests and grasslands, see the days go round from light to dark and angels watch over us. Every year in January we are
feasting
and giving gifts, chopping wood and collecting faggots for the fires. After Epiphany, there’s Plow Monday with a race at sunrise, oxen pulling the plows and making the land fertile for seed. We trim the vines, and the rains and the sun make the wheat grow, and the lambs run in the fields with their mothers: white lambs and black lambs. At the Easter Assemblies come betrothals, the start of journeys and pilgrimages, and the fruit trees blossom. In May, flowers everywhere fill the eye with colour, and the villagers beat the bounds. We wear gay green dresses and garlands of leaves for
May Day and then come weddings. Fishermen line the riverbanks with their rods and baskets and the sun in his chariot reaches his longest day. We cut and gather the hay and time slows down for the long, long, golden days of summer when red poppies wave in the wheat. We shear the sheep and reap the crops and cool down in the stream. Falcons fly and lords and ladies ride to hunt. We harvest the year’s goods and store up our surpluses for the icy times ahead. The purple grapes are gathered in the vineyards. The sun hides more and more before his shortest day and All Hallows Eve when we remember the dead lest they rise up and walk the earth and scare us out of our wits. We harrow and sow for the early spring crops and chase away the birds. The trees and earth turn every shade of red and orange and the leaves fall and the hogs gorge themselves on acorns. Then comes the blood month when we slaughter the animals that we cannot feed through the winter, and salt the meat and taste the new wines. When the north winds of winter blow, Saint Martin comes riding on his white horse and with him comes snow. We put on all our clothes and stop up the draughts with tapestries and warm our toes at the fire. Then we make ready for the great feast of Christmas and the birth of Our Lord and then we’re ready to start all over again at Plow Monday. My son Charles grows apace with the round of each year, as do my Lady’s children, and she and I grow older.
My Lady is good friends with Lady Mathilde, Pere’s wife, but
relations
are still icy with him. Pere and Mathilde have been
married
for five years and no sign of children. She is in my Lady’s chamber today, talking in a low voice with Dia, seeking advice to help her conceive. She is a pretty, slender woman with fine brown hair and great brown eyes like a doe. Pere strides into the room without announcement or invitation, shouting, ‘Is my wife here?’ We all look up at him. He is wearing hunting clothes. ‘I thought you were hunting with me today?’ he says to Mathilde. ‘We’re all waiting for you.’
‘Oh, forgive me, my Lord,’ she says, ‘I forgot my engagement and I have a headache and am not minded to hunt today.’
‘Hmmph,’ he says, looking around the chamber and at us women with an expression of dissatisfaction on his face.
Almodis rises. ‘I could ride with you, Lord Pere,’ she says. ‘I could be ready in five minutes and help officiate at your luncheon in the bower.’
‘No thank you,’ he says rudely.
Lady Almodis sits back down again and turns her face away, struggling to control her expression. I look crossly at him and would like to box his ears.
‘Well,’ he says to Mathilde, ‘I’ll leave you to your women’s lore then.’
When he has left, Almodis rises abruptly and strides about the room but has to contain her anger in front of his wife.
‘I’m sorry, Countess,’ Mathilde offers her timidly.
‘Oh never mind it, Mathilde,’ she says, but the atmosphere in the room is awkward and Mathilde makes her exit soon afterwards.
‘It’s fixed now, Almodis,’ Dia says. ‘It won’t mend or get any better now that he is a man.’
‘Well,’ Almodis says, contemplating the toe of her boot and then looking up, ‘I think it would mend a little if Ramon would agree to give Pere certain reassurances of his inheritance, but he is reluctant to do so. He says he’s barely grown up himself yet!’ Her expression suggests that she is both exasperated and charmed with her husband’s position.
At Easter this year, we hear from Hughie, who in just a few years, has risen all the way to be the abbot’s deputy:
To Almodis Countess of Barcelona from Hugh of Toulouse, Grand Prior of Cluny:
On Good Friday we went to Prime all with bare feet and, believe me Mother, some of those monks have very, very dirty feet. We bathe only twice a year, before the feasts of Easter and Christmas. Yes I can imagine you pinching your nose at that. Still we can wash plenty and in truth I get in the river fairly often if no one is looking.
Last week I was sent to the nunnery of Marcigny to hear confessions. There are ninety-nine nuns there so it was a long visit. In their dining hall they keep a seat and set a place at dinner for the Virgin. The abbot has decided to send me to the Abbey of Saint Gilles. He tells me they are in need of new leadership and I should go and make myself useful. I
thought I would be anxious and sad to leave Cluny that I have grown so used to, but in truth I am excited at a new prospect and to be in my own lands, close to Guillaume, Raymond and Adalmoda, now that she will be coming here to wed. Your loving son, Hugh.