Chapter Twenty-nine

 

 

Wine

 

 

The Danes were quite partial to spirits, and upon descending into the wine cellar quickly began attacking the small kegs Abbot LeTour had set out for them, ignoring at first the trestle-table he had also prepared for them that was covered with boar’s head, smoked fish, cheese, and cutlets. Guillaume usually drank sparingly and Tristan rarely ever consumed alcohol at all except as the blood of Christ during mass, but so delighted at being together again, the two brothers broke with habit. And as the wine flowed, so flowed conversation and frivolity. Guillaume and the Danes gave detailed accounts of the war in Tuscany, and Tristan recounted Desiderius’ debacle in Rome concerning the Papacy.

“I don’t understand why he would walk away from the papal throne at a time such as this,” complained Guillaume. “We need a Pope desperately.”

“It is a question of his health,” Tristan explained. “Desiderius has a fragility about him.”

“Physically you mean? I know he’s old, but then so was Pope Gregory.”

“No, not just physically, but his mind also.”

“His mind? Do you mean he’s mad?”

“No,” Tristan laughed, beginning to feel the titillation of the wine. “Nothing at all like that, but he possesses a nervousness of sorts. Ha, nothing you or the Danes would understand!”

“I’ve been nervous before,” interjected Orla.

“Ja, me too,” said Crowbones. Then, laughing, he pointed his stub to his crotch. “Like when my root refuses to get stiff!”

“J-ja, I get nervous, t-too at t-times,” added Guthroth, not wishing to be left out of the conversation.

“Ja, every time you talk!” brayed Orla, rearing his head back, guffawing at his barb.

This brought laughter to all except Guthroth, who shook his head with embarrassment. Then, when the laughter subsided, Tristan’s expression changed and he looked at Orla. “Lord Ox, I want you to know that I pray often for your son, Knud. Receiving that sad news, Cardinals Odo and Desiderius offered up a special mass for him at Monte Cassino.”

Of the three Danes, only Guthroth had ever consented to being baptized. Nevertheless, Odo nodded with appre-ciation. “Though I’m not Christian nor was Knud, please thank them for me.” Then he pawed at his beard a moment and added, “I should have tended to him more… he was such a good lad.”

“Ja,” said Crowbones, “a fine, fine lad. We miss him.”

“Ja!” cried Hroc who was listening from across the room. “And my big brother, Knud, died a hero. He saved our father’s life!”

Tristan looked at young Hroc, swollen with pride, and nodded. “Indeed, a true hero,” he said.

“Mind your business over there, Hroc, or I’ll send you to bed,” said Orla. “It’s not your place to interrupt man-talk.”

“Yes, Father,” replied Hroc, fearful of being separated from the men.

“And how goes Cardinal Odo?” asked Guillaume.

“Very well,” said Tristan. “And was within a whisker of being selected Pope in Rome last month. Had it not been for Duke Borsa and a handful of Cardinals, he would be wearing the Pope’s tiara this very moment.”

“Too bad, that,” Guillaume said. “I’ve always thought he would be an excellent Pope. You too, eh?”

“Indeed. He is both strong and wise… and more intelligent than all the clerics of Europe combined.”

As Tristan said this, a slight slur infected his speech, which caused Orla to chortle. “Beware the wine, Boy, it’ll sneak up on you!”

“Ha, I hope it does!” Tristan laughed, reaching for his goblet. Tilting it on end, he sucked at its contents with deep gulps.

“Whoa, Boy,” snickered Crowbones, “this Benedictine wine is stout and it’ll put you down like a lame mule if you keep that up!”

Tristan exhaled heavily, burped, and slammed the empty goblet down onto the table, nearly knocking it over. “Lord Ox,” he said, changing direction, “would you by chance happen to remember a woman by the name of Duxia de Falaise?”

The mention of this name brought silence to the room as the three Danes exchanged a look, as if someone had summoned a ghost into the cellar from the distant past. “Ja…” Orla finally said. “A Finnish woman who was brought into the clan by your grandfather, Guntar the Mace. She raised your mother, you know, and took care of you boys until…” Here he broke off, as if afraid of committing a blunder, and stared into his goblet.

“Until she tried to drown me as a child?” Tristan said, completing Orla’s thought.

“You know about that?” said Crowbones.

Tristan pointed to Guthroth, who had moved his stool closer at the sound of the woman’s name, and said, “Yes, and that Guthroth here saved my life.”

“Ja,” said Orla, “he would have killed the foul bitch with his bare hands had not your mother arrived and stopped him. A strange case, that woman. We never knew what to make of her, but she held great sway over Guntar for some reason, then later over your mother. What has unearthed all this, Boy?”

“I met her a while back outside Dijon, quite by coincidence,” Tristan said, the haze of wine dragging her face to mind.

“How did you know about her trying to drown you?” asked Crowbones. “All within the clan were instructed by your mother to never speak of it again.”

“Duxia told me.”

Guillaume, who had been listening intently, had no idea who this woman was, nor understood anything the others were talking about. “Duxia de who?” he asked.

“Duxia de Falaise,” replied Crowbones. “That wasn’t her real name. The real Duxia de Falaise was a member of William the Bastard’s family in the Norman court. This woman we speak of liked the sound of the name and took it for her own, dropping her Finnish name which was Mielikki.”

“Ja, Mielikki,” said Orla. “She was named after a Finnish goddess of the woodlands. We suspected all along that she was a sorceress since her family lived deep in the back forests. They talked to trees and animals and such, and summoned the clouds.”

“Clouds?” said Tristan, taking another deep gulp of wine.

“Ay, she and her people watched their formation in the sky. Whenever the clouds began to swirl and darken on the approach of bad weather, they would break out into a strange tongue that even the other Finns did not comprehend, and commune with the clouds in loud voices and with wild motions as though casting spells upon the earth.”

Tristan reflected on Orla’s words a moment. “How did such a strange woman come to be a part of my grandfather’s household. Did he not abhor sorcery?”

“No. You must remember that your grandfather, Guntar, and his entire branch of the family refused to abandon the old traditions as did all the other Danes of Normandy who turned to the French ways, therefore they refused Christianity though William the Bastard pressed them constantly to be baptized… which is why we of the Danish Guard under your grandfather stood out so sorely amongst the Normans. They mocked us, even.”

“Ha,” laughed Crowbones, “except when the war horns were blasted! When it came time for the axes to be sharpened, then they wanted us right next to them. Ja, of all the Danes, only your mother was baptized back then.”

Tristan sat there a moment taking in all that he had just heard. Then, his tongue thick with drink, asked, “This Mielikki, or Duxia, or whatever her name is, can she see the future?”

“What?” said Guillaume, becoming convinced that Tristan was talking nonsense through the wine.

“Certain Finnish women,” interjected Crowbones, “are born with the gift of prophecy… like Orla’s and my grand-mother who taught me to read bird bones as a boy.”

“But Duxia,” insisted Tristan, his alcohol consumption by now beginning to cause his upper torso to loll slightly to one side, “what about her? Could she predict the future?”

“At times she did, Boy,” nodded Orla. “And it was almost frightening.”

“And curses,” Tristan muttered, the wine now turning everything before him into a fog. “Did she ever l-lay curses up-on our family?”

“Only once that I recall,” said Crowbones, “when she was forced out of your mother’s household in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.”

Tristan weighed this for a moment, trying to keep his head clear though it seemed the room was starting to move about. Staring ahead, he blinked slowly, like a frog blinks, then swallowed hard to suppress the sickening queeze of retching working its way up his throat. “O-h-h,” he groaned.

“What, Tristan?” said Guillaume, perceiving that the subject of this woman had set his brother on edge.

“Damn,” Tristan repeated, dropping his head into his palm. “Do you not see what has happened? She placed a curse upon our household, and shortly afterwards Father was executed for treason, Mother sent Guillaume and me away to Cluny and herself descended into a hellish marriage with Desmond DuLac. Then, too, all of you were nearly killed trying to escape England, and now I am in this… mess.”

“Mess?” said Guillaume.

“Yes, my life is unraveling one fiber at a time. She told me I am a curse on the world and on humanity.” Then his eyes rolled about in his sockets as the swirling in his head caused him to flop drunkenly forward onto the table and pass out.

Guillaume and the Danes stared at him then, as did Hroc who had been listening to every word spoken about the sorceress from across the room, his eyes wide with wonder. “Is Uncle Tristan drunk?” he blurted out. “Has the witch put a spell on him?”

“Hush, Hroc,” said Orla. “He’s just had a bit too much to drink, that’s all. Now go to bed, lad.”

When the boy had left the room, Crowbones looked at Guthroth and Orla and shook his head. “Duxia de Falaise. I’ll be damned. I thought surely the old bitch would be dead by now, eh?”

“Ja, me too,” agreed Orla. Then he looked at Guthroth. “Too damn bad Asta didn’t let you finish the old bitch off when you caught her trying to drown Boy.”