Bitter Greens

by Kate Forsyth

  I lay still, feeling an inexplicable shiver pass over my skin, raising the hair on my arms and on the nape of my neck. The bees glowed like jewels, amber banded with jet, wings flashing with diamond fire. Their eyes were huge and dark and shiny. For a moment longer, they hung above my head, humming with life, then one by one they rose and flew away through the window.

  To the garden, I thought. Without a second’s thought, I swung my feet to the floor, caught up my heavy cloak and my sabots and went quietly, barefoot, down the narrow hallway between the canvas curtains. I could hear soft snoring and the rustle of straw as someone rolled over. The stone was so cold underfoot it felt like I was walking on knives.

  Through the sleeping convent I crept and found the door into the garden. I paused for a moment, afraid it might be locked, but lifted the latch. It swung open under my touch. I stepped through into the dim hush of dawn. Above the dark walls, the sky was luminous, the palest of blues. The mullioned windows of the dormitory wing glinted with sunshine, and the air smelt delicately of apple blossom and early violets. I breathed deeply, thinking of my mother. You have honey on your tongue …

  My pulse quickened. I was aware of a deep thrumming in my blood, a subtle trembling in my body from the soles of my feet to the tips of my hair, as if a giant was drumming deep underground. I was both afraid and exalted. Something was happening – I didn’t understand what. The thrumming deepened. Then I saw it, a strange dark cloud, like a storm of blossoms, at the far end of the garden. Bees, hundreds and thousands of them, reeled drunkenly through the air.

  I felt at that moment both acutely alive and acutely vulnerable. The bare skin of my arms and face prickled with apprehension; my stomach lurched; my heart sang. For a moment, I hesitated, gazing at that small living whirlwind, then I turned and ran back into the convent. I knew where Sœur Seraphina’s cell was; I had seen her go in after vespers. I scratched at the door with my smallest fingernail, then, remembering I was not at court, knocked a rapid staccato with my knuckles. It felt oddly liberating. I knocked again.

  The door opened and Sœur Seraphina looked out. She was dressed only in her chemise, her cloak wrapped hastily over the top. Her short hair straggled about her face, a pale reddish-blonde colour. She looked at me questioningly.

  ‘The bees are swarming,’ I whispered.

  Her face changed at once. She opened wide her door, stepping back to bend and search for her shoes under her cot. I caught a quick glimpse of her room. A warm rug woven in jewel-like colours lay on the floor, and a thick eiderdown of yellow silk was flung back on the bed. Hanging on the wall was the most extraordinary drawing of a penitent St Mary Magdalene, tear-filled eyes turned to heaven, ripples of thick lustrous hair falling down about her, barely hiding the full ripeness of a bare breast. On the other wall hung a simple wooden cross made of two thorny branches tied together with a tarnished silver ribbon.

  Sœur Seraphina caught up her shoes, and then we hurried down the corridor to the garden. ‘I hope I am not too late,’ she whispered as she opened the garden door.

  The sky was brighter now, and sunlight gilded the top of the church spire and outlined the brazen buds of the pomegranate tree. The humming was louder; it sounded like a watchman’s rattle, warning of danger.

  Sœur Seraphina sprang forward, heading straight towards the dark whirl of bees. I ran after her, feeling again that prickle of apprehension. I’d been stung by a bee as a child, and I well remembered the pain. Sœur Seraphina did not seek to grapple with the swarm, though, but went to the hut and got out some thick gloves, a veiled hat, a long-handled pan with a lid, a tinderbox and a set of small bellows, passing them out to me one by one. I put the hat on hastily, drawing down the veil, and shoved my chilled hands into the gloves. Swiftly, Sœur Seraphina filled the pan with dried tansy flowers, like fragrant brown buttons, and then used the crumpled brown leaves as tinder, striking a spark from her flint with her steel. Soon, the tansy was alight, and thick grey smoke billowed up from the pan.

  ‘Put the pan on the wall over there,’ Sœur Seraphina instructed. ‘We must try and stop the bees from crossing it. They do not like the smoke. If they come close to you, use the bellows to puff smoke at them.’

  As I obeyed, she hacked at a wormwood shrub with her gardening knife and tore away a long branch, rubbing her hands up and down the stem, bruising the silvery leaves. ‘Bees do not like the smell of wormwood,’ she explained, and rubbed her hands over her bare face and neck. Holding the long wormwood branch in one hand, she then went and found an empty straw skep. Holding the bellows tightly, coughing a little as the fragrant smoke drifted across me, I watched the swarm of bees in utter fascination. They flickered and swirled like a school of glinting minnows, gauzy wings whirring, their mesmerising hum resonating inside my head.

  Sœur Seraphina smiled encouragingly at me and gathered up a handful of earth, throwing it under her right foot, chanting:

  I’ve got it, I’ve found it:

  Earth masters all creatures,

  it masters evil, it masters deceit,

  it masters humanity’s greedy tongue.

  She then scraped up the earth again and flung it over the swarm of bees, saying in a gentle sing-song:

  Sit, wise women, settle on earth:

  never in fear fly to the woods.

  Please be mindful of my welfare

  as all men are of food and land.

  I stared in wonder and a kind of fear, thinking, Who is this nun? What heathen magic is this? Her hair caught the sun, glowing like the embers of a fire within ash. Her eyes glowed as golden as the bees’ striped bodies. She had flung off the heavy dark cloak, and so was dressed all in white like some ancient pagan goddess, her arms and feet bare.

  Carefully, she raised her wormwood branch and gently stroked the edges of the swarm. The bees recoiled from the branch. She swooped the branch back and forth through the air, like a conductor directing a Te Deum. The cloud of bees responded like music. Slowly, she directed them down into the straw skep; they obeyed her every gesture and soon were contained within the beehive, all but a few that buzzed about at the entrance, checking all was well before shooting away to begin the job of gathering nectar once more.

  ‘I am amazed,’ I said and meant it.

  She smiled and cast away her wormwood stick. ‘I am glad you woke me. I might have lost them otherwise. How did you know?’

  ‘I could not sleep,’ I said. ‘Three bees came through my window, buzzing about above me. I thought I’d come out to the garden …’ My voice trailed away. I could not explain the impulse that had led me to follow the bees.

  She nodded as if it all made sense. ‘Homer says that the sun-god Apollo was first given the gift of prophecy by three bee-maidens.’

  ‘How do you know all these things? You don’t talk like a nun at all.’

  She smiled faintly. ‘I have lived a very long time, and most of it was not as a nun.’

  ‘But where did you live? How do you know so many strange and wonderful things?’

  She regarded me thoughtfully for a long moment, with eyes as intent and golden as those of a lioness. ‘Have you not yet guessed?’ she asked in her soft foreign accent. ‘I am Selena Leonelli. I was a courtesan in Venice for many, many years. I was muse to the painter Tiziano – he painted that canvas of me that hangs upon my wall – and I was the sorceress who owned the secret walled garden in Venice and grew the bitter green herbs that Margherita’s father stole. It was I who found the tower in the forest, I who bathed in the blood of virgins, I who worked magic by the power of the full moon so that I would keep my beauty forever.’

  ‘But … but that’s impossible,’ I stammered.

  ‘Is it? Two hundred odd years I’ve lived, by my reckoning, and slowly, slowly, the spells I wrought are fading away. My hair is grey now, my skin is sagging, my back is bowing under the weight of all those years. And all this time, I have tried to make reparation for the evil I did.’

  I could only stare at her. ‘
That painting … in your cell … that is you? I mean, you were the model?’

  She nodded. ‘Tiziano painted me many, many times.’

  ‘You were very beautiful.’

  ‘I was. It’s a long time ago now, so long ago it feels like a dream or a story someone else told me.’

  ‘How is it that you are permitted to keep the painting? And those other things of yours, the rug and the eiderdown and those fine candlesticks?’

  Sœur Seraphina gave that faint enigmatic smile of hers. ‘I was once a very wealthy woman. When I sold all I owned in Venice, I had a trust fund set up that pays me an income each quarter. I pay that to the convent. It is almost the only income they have now. Mère Notre allows me a few indulgences in thanks, though none that can be seen by the other nuns. The painting is one of them. It is all I have left of my own life, and it reminds me of why I am here.’

  Bells began to ring out. Sœur Seraphina smiled. ‘Come, my dear. It’s time for matins. There’s plenty of time for me to tell you my story. I’ll tell you while we work in the garden.’

  I nodded and felt a sudden sunburst of joy at the idea.

  All through the long morning service, I thought and wondered and made plans. ‘By good grace or ill grace,’ Sœur Seraphina had said to me, but I had struggled against my fate, choosing ill grace at every step. I remembered now a favourite saying of Athénaïs’s. ‘We must play with the cards God has dealt us,’ she used to say. Her cards had been beauty and wit and breeding; all I had were words.

  At chapter, I begged permission from Mère Notre to speak. Looking surprised, she granted it to me.

  ‘I am ready now to take my vows,’ I said. ‘As a gesture of my good faith, I beg you to take the golden gown and sell it, using the funds to mend the church roof.’

  Small cries of pleasure and astonishment rang out. The bursar, Sœur Theresa, clasped her hands together and raised her eyes to heaven.

  ‘I have jewels that may be sold too. I have no need of them any more. And soon I will be receiving my pension from the King. I would like to turn it over to your hands, Mère Notre, to do as you see fit.’

  ‘Thank you, ma fille,’ she answered rather breathlessly.

  ‘In return, I’d like to request one or two small things for myself. I would like a cell of my own, if you permit, Mère Notre,’ I went on, hands folded demurely. ‘With my little writing desk in it, and some quills and an inkpot. I have learnt so much working with Sœur Seraphina these past few days, I wish to make a record of it so the knowledge may be passed down to future generations.’

  ‘A worthy ambition,’ Mère Notre answered. ‘We have cells to spare, now that our number has dwindled so much. I see no reason why you should not have one if you wish.’

  I thanked her and made arrangements to meet with Sœur Theresa and go through my chest. All this time, Sœur Seraphina sat quietly, the corners of her mouth compressed with amusement.

  In a few days, it was done. My court clothes and jewels were all packed up and sold to the ecstatic daughters of the local nobility, raising more than enough money to fix the church roof. I kept only one small bee brooch from my favourite dress, which I set on my writing desk next to my inkpot and my jar of quills.

  My cell was bare and austere, but it had its own window, which looked onto the garden, and I convinced Mère Notre to spend most of my first pension from the King on sheep fleeces for all the nuns, to spread on the cold damp stone floors, and on thick eiderdowns for our beds. ‘I’m sure God does not want us all to die from pneumonia,’ I’d said. My eiderdown was not rose-pink silk, as I secretly desired, but it was at least soft and deliciously warm.

  I sat at my desk, sweet-scented air from the garden wafting across my face, and carefully chose a quill and sharpened it. I drew a piece of my best smooth white paper towards me and wrote across the top, with a most beautiful flourish:

  Persinette

  Once there were two young lovers who at last managed to overcome all difficulties to be married. Nothing could equal their ardour, and all they longed for now was a child of their own. Soon they discovered their wish was to be fulfilled …

  Each word was shaped with certainty, and I felt, more strongly than ever before in my life, that I had at last found my true path. I knew the story would change as I told it. No one can tell a story without transforming it in some way; it is part of the magic of storytelling. Like the troubadours of the past, who hid their message in poems and songs and fairy tales, I too would hide my true purpose: to beg pardon from the King and persuade him, as subtly as I knew how, to release me from my imprisonment.

  It was by telling stories that I would save myself.

  AFTERWORD

  Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force wrote the fairy tale ‘Persinette’ while banished from court to the Abbey of Gercy-en-Brie. It was published in her collection of fairy tales, Les Contes des Contes, in 1698, under the pseudonym Mademoiselle X. It was one of the first collections of French literary fairy tales.

  While imprisoned in the convent, Mademoiselle de la Force also wrote several more historical novels and her memoirs. With the money earned from her writing, she was permitted to move to a wealthier convent in Paris in 1703 and, a few years later, allowed to live in retirement at the Château de la Force.

  In 1713, she was at last granted her full freedom. She moved to Paris, where she became a celebrated member of the salons and was named a member of the Accademico dé Ricrovati di Padova. She also joined a secret society set up by the Duchesse de Maine, wife of one of Athénaïs’s royal bastards. Called La Mouche à Miel, or the Order of the Honey Bee, the thirty-nine members all wore a dark-red satin dress embroidered with silver bees and a wig shaped like a beehive.

  The Abbot Lambert wrote of her, ‘We admire the purity and the elegance of her style, her imagination is vivacious and brilliant, she is a genius, a flame, an elevation, a force.’

  Charlotte-Rose died in 1724, at the age of seventy-four.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Bitter Greens is, of course, a work of imagination. As Charlotte-Rose de la Force herself wrote, ‘Bien souvent les plaisirs de l’imagination, valent mieux que les plaisirs réels’, which translates as ‘Often the pleasures of the imagination are better than real pleasures’.

  Help in writing Bitter Greens came from many quarters. I first read about Charlotte-Rose de la Force in an essay by the writer and editor Terri Windling called ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair’, published in the Endicott Studio’s Spring 2006 Journal of Mythic Arts, in the early stages of my research for Bitter Greens. I was immediately smitten with Charlotte-Rose’s character. Someone who disguised herself as a dancing bear to free her lover was exactly my kind of woman! I wanted to know more about her and so began my long journey to discover the life of this virtually unknown writer.

  After long months of detective work, I found a biography of her life, Mademoiselle de la Force: Un Auteur Mèconnu du XVII Siècle, by the French academic Michel Souloumiac. However, it was only published in French. So I enlisted the help of a translator, Sylvie Poupard-Gould, who not only translated Michel Souloumiac’s work but also translated an autobiographical sketch by Charlotte-Rose and a number of her fairy tales. Since the first was written in dense academic terminology and the second in Old French, complete with the letter ‘f’ looking like the letter ‘s’, this was no easy task, and I am incredibly grateful to Sylvie for all her hard work and the strain upon her back and eyesight.

  I read many other books in the making of this novel, far too many to list here, though you can find them on my website. A few helped me so much, however, that I’d like to mention them here. Martin Calder’s memoir, A Summer in Gascony, helped me enormously in understanding the Gascon personality and allowed me to first hear Charlotte-Rose’s voice. Love and Louis XIV by Antonia Fraser and Athénaïs: The Real Queen of France by Lisa Hilton illuminated the Sun King and his mistresses. The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV by W. H. Lewis brought the wo
rld of the French court to life, while I cannot recommend The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV by Anne Somerset enough for anyone interested in discovering more about this extraordinary chapter in French history. A Social History of the Cloisters by Elizabeth Rapley helped me to recreate the daily life of cloistered nuns in the seventeenth century, plus I’d like to thank Robert Nash, secretary of the Huguenot Society of Australia, for helping me to understand the beliefs and practices of seventeenth-century French Protestants.

  Thank you also to Gabrielle Doucinet and Catlin Jeangrand from the Agence de Guides-Interprètes in Pau for all their help in setting up my research trip to Gascony; to Dr Jean-Pierre Constant for all his help in illuminating the literary world of seventeenth-century Paris; and to the Comte de Sabran-Pontevès for showing me around the Château de Cazeneuve, where Charlotte-Rose was born and lived till she was sixteen.

  I am also greatly indebted to my wonderful guides in Venice: Dottore Alvise Zanchi, who took me on a tour and answered endless questions about life in Renaissance Venice; Loredano Giaomini, who showed me through the many hidden gardens that once belonged to convents and palaces and perhaps even witches; and Cristina Pigozzo, who led me and my children through the spooky alleyways of Venice at night and told us riveting ghost stories, some of which worked their way into this book.

  Thanks also to my doctoral advisors at the University of Technology, Debra Adelaide and Sarah Gibson, to my lovely agents – Tara Wynne at Curtis Brown Australia, and Robert Kirby at United Agents in the UK – and a very big, heartfelt thank you to my wonderful publisher Susie Dunlop at Allison & Busby, who has shown such faith in my novel and has worked so hard to bring it to a whole new audience. Thank you to Christina Griffiths, for designing the gorgeous cover, and also my heartfelt gratitude to Lesley Crooks, Sara Magness, Chiara Priorelli and Sophie Robinson at Allison & Busby – I’m very proud to be published by you!