XXII

There was to be no respite for Duke Henry for whom – though I had not yet met him – I felt increasing sympathy (to be the father of Juliana he must have done something right).

July and August brought him more trouble while we at Breteuil picked strawberries and cherries and saw the harvest come in. Eustace and his merry men, some of whom were not so merry at being separated from their homes and loving families, were kept on the qui vive while he cantered around drumming up support for faction and strife, and offering his services to those too cynical to refuse. Juliana kept herself in touch with the news of her father’s troubles, and I am convinced sent him details of her husband’s activities and his foolish dealings with dangerous men.

Next came news that Gilbert de l’Aigle – head of a great family with estates in southern Normandy and England, and a faithful servant of Henry’s who had fought for him at Tinchebrai – had died suddenly. His son Richer looked to succeed to his father’s estates in England. The Duke, however, reckoned that Richer’s brothers Geoffrey and Engenulf de l’Aigle had a superior claim since they had served the Duke as soldiers of his household. This infuriated Richer who sought the help of the French king, Louis, who was ever eager to press a little thorn into Henry’s flesh. Soon Amaury de Montfort was offering soldiers and support, and along came all the rest of the plotters and malcontents.

The Duke decided to accede to Richer de l’Aigle’s requests on the advice of none other than my father of Perche, but it was too late to stop the French king and his mischievous intervention. Louis – tall, pear-shaped – won the surrender of the Château of l’Aigle with a sudden pounce in spite of his corpulence.

We heard all about it not long after the events unfolded, as the grapes ripened on our vines, and the nodding wheat yielded to the scythe as it had always done, disturbing the dormice and unleashing the conies. The upheaval furnished Eustace with yet more material for his travels, especially as Amaury de Montfort was a key player in all the plotting and machination, but it all still seemed far away to me; someone else’s business. Until, all at once, there it was knocking on my door.

Juliana was a favourite daughter of the Duke. Perhaps he was missing the reassuring company of his wife, perhaps he was feeling his age, but whatever the reason, it was all getting too much for him and he asked – requested, commanded – Juliana to make the journey to Rouen and stay with him in his castle. He could no longer trust his own circle, he told her. He was beginning to fear for his life, and he was usually a sanguine man. She had to go.

I said goodbye to her sorrowfully. It was late August, that wobbly time when you can feel summer coming to an end, and winter blowing its little distant horn. There is dampness in the air. Vapours cling to the grass, mists shroud the trees. Bread grows mouldy, and swine, if they have any sense (which they do), start to feel apprehensive about Michaelmas when good pigs turn into ham.

‘It is the end of something good,’ I told her.

‘Rubbish,’ she said. ‘I will be back. Winter’s a good time. Fires and hot ale and spiced wine, dancing and music, caroles and Christmas …’

‘There’ll never be another summer like this one.’

She went the next day, and of course everything else started to go downhill. The little girls were sad and missed their mother. We talked about her every day and tried to imagine what she was doing far away in Rouen. I am afraid I was an inadequate substitute, but they clung to me. Their father, when he was there, simply frightened them. The running of the castle began to slide. The moat grew weed. The rushes grew foul and the steward cheated on the meat. The trenchers were served up with mould on them, the wine was like mule piss, the small ale sour, and the servants surly.

September came with a fine early harvest of apples and pears, and cider-making began. I received a short, hurried, secret note from Juliana telling me that her father feared for his life – there were indeed suggestions of a plot to kill him – and that she must stay at least until the beginning of October.

Michaelmas arrived and the pigs’ worst fears were realised. Pork, left over from the salting, appeared in hall rather too often and indifferently presented by a listless cook. The steward had salted away the best cuts to be sold by himself, elsewhere.

The little girls were beginning to decline irregular verbs, and starting on the easiest bits of Ovid. I wrote them a series of stories in Latin featuring the exploits of two young witches called Case and Tense. It was pretty good rubbish, but they seemed to like it.

I had some conversations with the lovely, dark-eyed Alice in Juliana’s absence. She told me a little of her past as daughter of a country knight and tenant of the Comte de Carentan, brought up in a remote manor house near Barfleur. She had led a life of excruciating boredom, tempered by reading, which her mother (who was related to the Carentans and had married beneath her) had insisted she was taught to do, and was relieved when her mother found her a position at the neighbouring Château de Bayeux. There she attracted the notice of the Duke – who sent her as companion to his daughter at Breteuil. That was how things happened in Normandy.

Alice was devoted to Juliana, hated Eustace, and had a mighty wish in due course to see more of the world. We spoke a great deal of Juliana, and any feelings I might have had for Alice (I could not help recalling the dream I had had on my first night in the château) were tempered by the respect we both had for the Comtesse. I did not ask Alice if she had any intimation of being part of my dream, or of me being part of hers. It would have been disloyal to Juliana to start such a hare, but I could not help feeling that there was more than connection between us.

Soon it was time to pick the grapes and make the thin liquid that sufficed for wine, served to the rank and file in hall, on which the steward made a profit. The left-over sourish grapes also added a quality of freshness to the drab diet that was our daily portion. The steward could not think what else to do with them. They were fit for us or the pigs, and the pigs had been slaughtered. Even the pages and messengers were starting to complain about the food. God knows what the scullions were saying.

I received a second, longer letter by secret devise from Juliana, which I can give you verbatim since I still have it with me.

Dearest leman mine,

I hope you are as well as I am, and thinking of me just as much as I think of you. There is much afoot here, most of it bad. There has been a conspiracy among some of the very closest of my father’s companions, even those who sometimes eat with him, to remove him in favour of his nephew Stephen. We do not think Stephen knew of this, though it is possible. How they proposed to remove him, I cannot say, but it is more than possible it involves murder.

My father moves around, changes his room, his bed, increases the number of his guard, even sleeps with a shield and sword in his grasp. Who was behind the conspiracy we could not at first discover but finally it emerged. The culprit was none other than one of his trusted treasurers, a secret malcontent called Herbert, so smooth and affable on the surface you would not believe.

When my father found out, a dreadful punishment was inflicted on the man – he was blinded and then castrated like a dog. I heard the screams as I stood on the topmost tower to get away. It took place, as is customary, in the marketplace for the people to see. My father is not a bloodthirsty man but certain rituals have to be performed in Normandy, he says; justice must be seen to be done. Otherwise he will be considered no better than his brother Robert who could not or would not keep order, and whom he himself deposed on the urging of the Church.

Now for the good news. My father feels much safer now that the plot is uncovered and the chief architect put out of action. He says I can return to Breteuil after the first week of October when he has called a great council meeting at Rouen. Aren’t you happy to hear that, little Latin leman? Only a few days to go! Give a close fart to my husband, not that you would do anything so unmannerly. Keep yourself clean of limb, pure of mind, and constant of heart, and forget about the first two so long as you cleave to the third.

All the love that a letter can contain before it runs over and spoils the ink.

Your true

J

So! She was coming back and I could live truly again instead of shadow-playing.

Before she returned, however, the castle was busy with the drolleries and shudders of All Hallows Eve when the spooks rise from their graves and haunt the living – very much in the guise of Bertold the Bastard who, wrapped in a sheet, made the little girls shriek with fearful giggles and shiver in their beds so that old Catrine, their nurse, became quite incandescent with reproach. I had to repeat the performance for Alice and the ladies. Alice had managed to obtain some of the better wine, kept for the Comtesse, and we all had much laughter playing games of forfeit including Kiss the Spook. I became aware that I was half in love with Alice, but there was no question either of my mentioning it or of my love for Juliana being in any way diminished.

Can one be in love with two women? That unreliable guide Catullus says that it is more than possible.

Next day, the Chaplain with the roving eye officiated at a Mass for All Saints, and I prayed to God for direction without any great sense that I would receive it, or that I even deserved his help.