Shield of Three Lions (21 page)

When we finally left Paris in June, my pulsing liver almost exploded in a burst of joy and dread. The joy was easy to fathom, the dread more complex. Naturally I feared that Northumberland and Roncechaux had already succeeded in annexing my estate. If the whole country of Scotland could be bought, why not Wanthwaite? Well, I would soon find out. Then the thorny question rose: Could I persuade King Richard to reverse such a decision? I would have to try. A more murky dread lived like a snake hidden in the depths of my vital spirits:
I was afraid to become Alix again.
’Twas passing strange, I knew, and I couldn’t understand it but there it was. I couldn’t go back to the girl I’d been because I hadn’t her circumstances, and to be a girl in my present condition was fraught with dangers, both known and unknown, for I would now be a woman. And I thought of my mother and Maisry.

Yet the dice had been thrown at my birth and there was naught I could do.

BRISE-TÊTE TUGGED MY LEG AND pointed to his shoulder, then shaded his eyes and turned his head from one side to the other as if scanning the horizon.

“He wants to show me something,” I interpreted. “He wants me to get on his shoulders.”

Enoch looked at Zizka’s dumb mime with disbelief. “Is he woodly? Yer hurdies be not exactly feathers. And even Twixt is melting in the sun.”

’Twas true. This central valley of France was a bowl of hot broth, resisting our forward movement, immersing us in our own drench. Furthermore we were presently atop a grotesque escarpment
which grew in this flat bowl like a wart. Nonetheless, I slipped off Twixt onto Brise-Tête’s muscular shoulders and he immediately trotted up a steep cliff on our left.

“Heigh, fool, where gang ye? Bring the boy back!”

“Fool, bring the boy back!” the dark-skinned performer Dangereuse echoed, for she was so enamored of Enoch that she repeated his words like a litany.

There was nothing wrong with Brise-Têtes hearing but he paid no heed to the cries for he was a headstrong fool. Leaning into the sharp angle, he climbed straight upward as I clung to his head. When he lifted me down I saw that we were on a narrow ledge overlooking the next steamy valley. He pointed eagerly, then turned an anxious face to watch my reaction.

“Be it Chinon?” I asked.

He nodded proudly.

On the far side of a hazy shallow kettle perched a long horizontal series of towers and rocky outcroppings, a jagged vision softened by its reversed reflection in the Vienne River below.

“Alex, air ye all right?” The Scot was streaming with sweat and had turned a dangerous red color.

“Look.”

By this time Dangereuse and the singer, Berthe, had also crowded beside us.

“Is King Richard there yet?” I asked Berthe, for she is our authority on royal banners in this part of the world. I’d learned that her father Papiol was jongleur to the infamous Bertrand de Born, the troubadour who’d incited King Richard to rebel against his own father.

She squinted. “Champagne, and someone from the French court—the Princess Alais would be my guess. We may sing at a royal wedding if King Richard decides to consummate the affair at last.”

“And the king?” I insisted.

“No, not yet.”

Several of my organs went back to their proper places in relief I’d become so nervous about the outcome of my interview that I almost wished I’d not come. A week from now I might be the most
miserable creature alive, the assigned wife of some gross, brutal Norman knight, and I would look back on this free life with the jongleurs as a period of pure joy. If I’d had more talent, or if it hadn’t been for my poor parents, I don’t know if I would have pursued my goal further. But there it was: I had no choice.

A long twilight had given way to black velvet before we began our final climb to the castle gate of Chinon. Large twinkling stars seemed brightest close to the horizon as if Heaven had dropped her ripe fruit: campfires, Enoch explained, of new Crusaders awaiting King Richard. Sure enough, as our awkward two-wheeled long carts rumbled over cobbled paths, peasants and archers clustered about us to see if we were from the king. On we went, across the lowered bridge, past the guards at the gate, through torchlit courts stacked high with armor, around vassals rolled in blankets at our feet. Finally we reached the kitchen court where we swiftly created our own little fortress against the wilderness.

Only this was no wilderness: this was the castle of Chinon at last. The end of my journey, more than a year in the making but done at last. I lay with hot eyes gazing into the familiar mystery above and rehearsed in my head just what I would say and how I would phrase it.
Laudatur Maria
the king would prove kind! He
had
to be, must have sympathy for my youth and wretched state. Somewhere in the distance outside the wall men sang “The Crusader’s Hymn”; inside other male voices rumbled pleasantly; from another direction the
Te Deum
in female voices.

All awaiting King Richard.

THE NEXT MORNING WE LEARNED that he would arrive this very day, albeit too late for us to perform for him. That would take place on the morrow. Nevertheless we rehearsed like demons, doing our best and worst together from our extreme excitement. Zizka was impossible to please: he acted as if he’d been given a group of imbeciles to whip into shape under threat of death. After a wearisome exasperating siege, I slipped away by myself to try to recover my equilibrium for the greater trial ahead, my interview with the king.
castle. Finally I stood in a maze of stone paths amidst greenery, surrounded by invisible laughter like birdsongs. Women! Ducking behind a clipped hedge, I looked through the leaves curiously but saw no one. Nevertheless I pushed on farther to find solitude, beyond a high wall of gaudy blossoms, down a slippery bank. At last it was quiet. I found a moss-covered rock and sat basking in the dancing pattern of sun and shade, then plucked on my strings and practiced softly the song Zizka had criticized most:

As my voice trailed off I watched the closed green canopy expectantly, knowing my music must evoke enchantment on such a day. And soothly a delicate white hand stole forth and moved a branch, then another, then a face appeared and a body, and I gazed delighted upon the most beautiful young lady in all Christendom. She stood with light brown hair curling around her petal face, wide eyes the same color as her hair, pink lips parted in wonder, her exposed throat heaving, her tiny waist enclosed in a green satin gown.

I was afraid to speak for fear she was an airy nothing from my own head for she seemed my female self as I might be, or Maisry come back in new guise but with the same merry eyes. Therefore was I relieved when she sat next to me and spoke first.

“Hallo, you’re a very pretty boy. Where did you come from?”

“Zizka,” I answered, fearful that she’d despise my lowly station. “Have you heard of him? He’s very famous.”

“Zizka? Of course I know him. My mistress, the Countess
Marie, has brought every great artist in Europe to our court in Champagne. She sponsored Chrétien de Troyes. Have you heard of him?”

Because of Zizka, I was happy to say I had.

“What’s your name?”

“Alexander of Wanthwaite.”

“I’m Lady Isabelle of Troyes. Well, you sing very sweetly, Alexander, though your voice still be soprano. I’m sure King Richard will be entranced. May I?” She reached for my lute.

“Please take it.”

She plucked aimlessly for a few chords, humming to get the key she wanted, then slowly picked out a song with many false starts and stops:

She handed back my lute. “Well?”

“’Twas wondrously well wrought. Did you compose it just now?”

“Aye, but it could use polish. The last line doesn’t scan, though I’m getting better under Marie’s tutelage. However, I meant the sentiment. Did you like it?”

“Oh, yes, yes I did,” I said fervently.

“Then we’ll be friends.” She thrust her head forward, her eyes closed. “Sealed with a kiss.”

Lightly I brushed her warm dry lips with mine.

Instantly she leaped to her feet. “Good, now let me help you, for
friends must be ever alert for each others interests. Come on, there’s someone you must meet.”

I took her hand and stumbled after her up the small bank, through the oleander and into the patterned garden again. We walked openly among languorous ladies taking the air, their bare tresses shining down their backs, their long trains hissing silkily across the gravel, through a clipped gateway into a tiny enclosed square where sat a lady alone, her brown hair topped by a narrow gold and diamond crown.

“Your Highness.” Isabelle dropped to her knees and I did likewise. “I’d like to present my good friend Alexander who sings with Zizka. Alexander, Princess Alais Capet of France, sister to King Philip.”

“’Tis a great honor, Your Highness,” I said, taking her hand.

This was King Richard’s betrothed? A drab dun-colored dame well past her prime with sagging skin, lined eyes, even a touch of gray in her dull locks, and the expression of a cowed child. I looked into hazel eyes which accepted the world without wonder, curiosity or resistance.

“Please take your ease,” the princess said tonelessly

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Alexander could sing at your wedding festivities?” cried Isabelle. “His voice is surpassing sweet.”

Princess Alais livened a little. “Indeed, I would like that. When think you that the wedding will take place, Lady Isabelle?”

I could hardly countenance her humility, that a princess would consult a lesser lady on such a great matter.

“Oh, I’m sure ’twill be soon, even here at Chinon. Countess Marie says King Richard will never leave on Crusade without trying to have issue before. ’Tis essential for the kingdom, is’t not?”

Princess Alais nodded and repeated. “I hope ’twill be soon for both of us, Isabelle.”

“No! No!” My friend shook her head angrily, then sang out: “You marry a god/I marry a clod! Really, Alex, ’tis true. I’m betrothed to a cull from the German royal tree: his breath smells of dead rats, his feet of old cheese, and his parts of what you’d expect. Furthermore he’s a tyrant.”

The princess smiled vacuously at this choleric outburst, though I thought I caught a shadow in her eyes at the words “a god.”

“With your permission, I must take my leave,” I said, nervous that Enoch would come crashing upon us and ruin my new friendship.

“I’ll walk with you.” Isabelle took my arm and we bade farewell to the numb princess.

“There,” said my new friend when we were out of earshot, “I’ve given you entrée into the English court for when you grow to be troubadour. Alais is loyal for all she’s a lifeless old bat. Didn’t you find her a pathetic creature? I daresay Richard will have his share of Rosamunds tucked away, for he’s said to be as lusty as he is brave.”

“Are all princesses so passive?”

Isabelle shouted with merry laughter.
“Benedicite
, no! Wait till you meet my Countess Marie, also a princess of France. She has her mother Eleanor’s head, some say her balls as well. She and the queen wrote a book called
Tractus de Amore et de Amoris Remedia
which came near to making that old fool Pope Clement excommunicate them, and he would have too, except they were clever enough to have it penned by a cleric called Andreas Capellanus so that it seemed religious.”

“What sort of a book? Poetry?” For I was thinking of Isabelle’s learning the art from Marie.

“Not a bit. ’Tis more a legal tract on the rules of love. There are thirty-one articles in which women teach men how to behave through love.”

I stopped short and looked at her with new interest.

“What mean you by
love
, Lady Isabelle? And how may a
woman teach
a
man?”

“Ah, you see?” She waggled her finger archly. “No woman would ask that question. We are endowed with a superior nature and know from our birth about love, while all that you men ken is lust. Therefore do you fight and pillage, rape when you list.”

I felt I was on the edge of a cataclysmic discovery and stuttered in my urgency. “No, w-wait, don’t walk on, I must know.”

“Of course you must,” she agreed, “if you’re ever to make your lover happy, or become a
galiol.”

“Aye, please instruct me so that when I marry …”

She brushed me aside with an impatient hand. “Who speaks of marriage? Marriages have naught to do with love. Love is based on the hearts choice and therefore must be adulterous.”

I was shocked speechless. The only adulterer I’d known was the unfortunate Maud whose midwife had given me my caul, and she didn’t seem an ideal lover. Of course I’d seen her under trying circumstances.

“Men naturally feel lust, as you may already know”—her eyes slid toward me—“but lust alone is abominable, a sin against nature. That’s why the Church prohibits lust in marriage and passes laws against pleasure, such as the
chemise cajoule
, a nightshirt with a padded hole placed so that it stops joy in the act. We women on the other hand feel that simple lust should be transformed to transcendent love, an ecstasy beyond belief, for ’tis worship plus passion, soothly a religion of love.”