XVI

The death had happened a few days back, in England. Matilda’s real name was Edith but the Normans couldn’t pronounce it so she was called Queen Matilda. Being descended from the old English kings, Edith Matilda was the sister of the King of Scotland as well, and an altogether important person.

Eustace, who happened to be plotting nearby, returned to Breteuil on hearing the news. There was immediately some question as to whether Eustace and Juliana were expected to go over to London for the funeral. The Queen certainly deserved due honour. She had done her duty by providing Henry with a son as well as a daughter, and he had trusted her enough to make her Regent in England when he was away in Normandy. He might even have loved her. But the news we received in Breteuil – news from my father in Mortagne, swiftly confirmed by the landlord of The Bear in town – was that the Duke preferred not to go back to England: the situation in Normandy was grave enough for his continued presence to be necessary.

The morning after his return to Breteuil, the Comte was making a hearty breakfast of capon’s leg, bread and ale, even though he had been carried out insensible the night before. He cursed the Queen roundly for being a nuisance and interfering with his political alliances and declared that he, at any rate, was not going to England, a miserable country at the best of times.

‘That will hardly upset her since she did not know you,’ said Juliana. ‘Nor will it upset the Duke since he is not going either. As for myself, much though it dismays me to agree with you, I feel it is an English affair, and I must be a Norman now.’

‘She was a good lady and endowed monasteries, I understand,’ said the Chaplain, always looking round corners and nicknamed (I discovered from my neighbour at table) Snooping Jesus. Luckily, it was said, he had very large feet so you could see the feet coming before the rest of him appeared.

‘I shall pray for her,’ said Juliana.

‘Oh no, Comtesse. We must have a Mass. It would be an insult not to. Imagine what would happen if word reached the Duke that we had insulted his dead wife by not having a Mass. Brickbats would fly, Comtesse. I personally know the Archbishop of Rouen.’

‘Very well, Father Crispin. If you insist. A Mass it shall be.’

‘I do not insist, Comtesse. The Queen’s bones cry out for it.’

They get these orotund phrases from the Apocrypha.

The Comte himself, though never at his best at breakfast, saw the Queen’s death as an excuse for making trouble for the Duke once again. His next step, he decided – after sending a rambling letter of condolence to the Duke – was to arrange a series of consultations with his dubious friends, most of them disaffected enemies of the Duke, chief of whom was of course Amaury de Montfort, with whom he could plot further mischief.

We had the Mass in the château’s chapel, a cold thin place with a high ceiling and hard seats. The boys from the town sang as best they could, but their best was not good enough. In fact, one of them was so bad that I saw him coming out of the Chaplain’s room later quite red in the face.

Several days later, we saw the Comte clatter off with the knights of his bodyguard, this time in the direction of Évreux where de Montfort had various interests.