The Forsaken Monarch

by Amy Mantravadi

  “You really want to know the answer?”

  He nodded firmly. “I do.”

  I could see there was nothing for it. I summoned every ounce of boldness I possessed, looked him in the eye and said, “I love you, Brian. That is the answer to the riddle. Now let me go.”

  “What?” he asked, looking as if he’d been stunned.

  “I said, let me go!”

  He did as I asked, stepping out of the way. I turned to leave as fast as possible, for I could no longer remain calm. The boldness I had felt for a moment in time had disappeared, and the fear was again exposed. I walked swiftly toward the infirmary garden, lifting my skirt slightly so I could move faster.

  Oh, good God! What have I done?! Why did I have to say that?! I thought. I’ve striven not to say anything for so long, and now I cannot take it back. What will he think? What will my father think if he finds out?!

  I could hear Brian calling out my name behind me, begging me to stop, but I continued walking. There was nothing more to be gained from conversation. I had made it back to the herbs when he caught me from behind.

  “Maud, there is nothing to be afraid of,” he said, his hands moving to hold my face. “Breathe. Please breathe.”

  As I looked into his eyes, it was as if the scales began to drop from my own and I was seeing the truth for the first time, or rather I allowed myself to trust it for the first time. I did as he said, breathing deeply, and continued gazing at him in wonder. I had tried so hard not to look at that face, even though all I wanted was to stare at it. Every inch of it seemed perfect to me, and what was truly amazing—his smile told me that he just might feel the same way about mine. I could hardly believe it, and yet there it was in front of me.

  “Come here,” he said, and pulled me close, until my face was resting against his chest.

  For a moment, he simply held me in his arms as I closed my eyes and savored his embrace. I could feel his heart beating strongly, and it seemed entirely possible that it was doing so for me. I dearly hoped this meant he felt as I did, but some small part of me still held back, waiting for the words.

  “I am sorry I ran away,” I said softly. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, but I was afraid of what you would say. I suppose I was overcome.”

  He pulled back slightly so that he could see my face again.

  “That’s the strange thing, you see,” he said, his hand tracing the outline of my chin. “I’ve been afraid as well.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Afraid of losing something I never had. That is, of never having something I don’t deserve.” He let out a sigh and shook his head. “Do you really love me, Maud? Truly? Because I love you more than anything on this earth. I feel drawn to you like a gull to the sea, and yet I thought I was alone.”

  And there they were: the words I had so longed to hear, the truth I had wanted to believe. “I love you more than anything on this earth.” At last, I could believe it fully and completely, and it brought me such joy—such incredible, immense joy.

  “I thought I was alone!” I said, smiling.

  “God must love me if you do,” he replied, pulling me closer until our faces touched.

  There are many other things I probably should have said in that moment, but as we rubbed noses and I felt the warmth of his breath upon my face, I was so overcome—so wholly and perfectly content—that everything else faded away.

  When we kissed, it was such blessed relief! I finally knew what it was to love a man passionately and be adored by him in return. What was more, he did not smell foul like most men: trust me, that is of great value. I do not know how long we might have stayed there, but we heard the gardener’s voice just beyond the hedge and were forced to break off our tryst. As I smiled and waved farewell, I was pleased to see that he was as happy as ever I knew him.

  When I entered the tower again, I happened across one of the king’s stewards, who asked quite innocently, “How are you this afternoon, madam?”

  “Fantastic!” I cried, giving a rather more ardent reply than he must have foreseen.

  Poor Ovid! I had left him in the garden.

  Brian’s declaration that he loved me seemed to produce an instant change in how I viewed myself. To confess your love for someone is, in a way, to bind yourself to them in spirit. Yes, there are many forms of love: love between a mother and her child, love between friends, love between brothers, and highest of all, the love of God. But the love of a man and woman for one another, not merely as friends, but as objects of desire, provides its own form of definition. Brian belonged to me, not because I was his master, but because I was the object of his love. Even so, I belonged to him, and what a blessing that was! It was enough for that one moment in my life to simply treasure that love.

  However, the elation I felt upon that most blessed revelation of his affection quickly abated, for I saw that I had merely been transferred from the fire into the flame. Brian fitz Count was to be married to another Mathilda, the lady of Wallingford, thereby obtaining his fortune. The king intended him for that high honor; I suspected it was to be carried out as soon as we all returned to England. Some might even have said that he was bound to her by law, though such bonds could be broken easily enough by those with means. Yet there was no denying that this was a difficulty that might never be overcome.

  Then there was the far greater matter of my own future. The king would never countenance a union between the bastard son of a duke and his own daughter. I had sense enough to see that. Thus, my joy quickly gave way to despair, and I knew what I must do, though I hated it with the utmost hatred. I had but one small comfort: that Brian surely knew as well as myself the impossibility of such a union, and thus he was not seeking his own advancement.

  A few hours after our meeting in the garden, when the sun had only just set, I made my way down from the private chambers to the great hall, where I intended to inform him that we could not be bound together in any formal sense of that word, even if our hearts were bound. What a loathsome charge to be given! I prayed the Lord would give me strength.

  Once I arrived, I was briefly distracted by the spectacle before me. The hall was arranged as usual, with the high table on the eastern side of the room and a longer one on the opposite side for the rest of the court. There was no proper hearth, but only a pit in the middle of the room. Two of the king’s men were wrestling with all the others gathered around and cheering. Their bodies twisted and turned, coming dangerously close to the fire.

  “What madness is this?” I asked no one in particular, still standing in the door way.

  I then recognized that, given the intense distraction in the room, I might be able to steal away with Brian, if only I could find him in the crowd. My eyes began to examine each face without any luck until I saw him standing to my right near the barrels of wine, beckoning for me to come over.

  Be strong, Maud, I told myself again, and walked in his direction, unseen by the raging mass.

  Brian held out a glass of wine, and I took it gladly, for I needed something to calm myself. Without saying a word, he led me behind a large tapestry and opened a side portal, which we then entered. I had never walked through this door before and had no idea what it contained. As it turned out, it was the space just below the great stair that traveled up the tower. The room was used for storing things, with only a small window to the outside for light. As it was evening, I could see all this only faintly, even as I could barely see Brian closing the door and turning to face me.

  “Brian,” I said, hoping to seize the conversation before he had a chance, “I am glad to have the chance to speak with you, for—”

  “You’re extraordinary, do you know that?”

  “Thank you, but—”

  “Everything about you. Your beauty, your cleverness, your grace—everything,” he said, kissing me again and again.

  “Take care you do not lie,” I commanded, pulling my face back. “Everyone knows I am no great beauty and I talk far too much for my own g
ood or anyone else’s.”

  “Everyone is wrong then.”

  “Brian …”

  He was making it rather impossible for me to speak, what with the number of kisses he was planting on my mouth, and the sad thing was that I had no desire for him to stop, so I gave way. Then I hit something behind me and there was a sound of metal striking the floor. A surge of fear ran through me and both of us fell silent, so that the only sound was the cheering in the hall. After enough time had passed to convince me that no one had heard the noise and would be opening the door, I spoke again.

  “Brian, what do they keep in here?”

  “All the serving implements.”

  “Ah, so that is what I felt poking me in the back!”

  “It is hard to see in here, but I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “What if they need something and come to fetch it?”

  “Then I hope you will vouch for me at the inquisition.”

  I could barely make out his face, but I sensed that he must be smiling.

  “I do not find that comical,” I said, hitting him on the arm hard enough to make my point, but not hard enough to cause pain.

  “No one is coming!” he assured me. “They have all they need for tonight.”

  Brian moved his face closer to mine again until I could at least smell him, even if I could hardly see him. He did smell quite nice.

  “I see you are playing the part of the devil now,” I whispered.

  He laughed and attempted to kiss me again, but I held him in place.

  “Stop, I really must tell you something.”

  “Let me guess: your father will never approve, so we should stop this right now. And perhaps you are also going to mention Lady Wallingford.”

  “You disagree with me?” I asked, uncertain how something that was causing me such great concern could be of little matter to him.

  “No, I too see the difficulty.”

  “Then you know that it doesn’t matter if I hold you in high esteem.”

  “‘High esteem’?” he said, pulling back. “It seems I have been relegated. Earlier today, you led me to believe that you felt something more than ‘esteem.’ Was that a lie?”

  I sighed. “No, it was God’s honest truth.”

  Here he moved to embrace me again, holding me tightly, even as I held him.

  “Maud, I never thought I would hear you say those words to me. Ever! Do you think I can simply forget them?”

  I moved my head back and reached up to touch his face, or at least the dark object I knew to be his face. “I think you should put that mind of yours to work and recognize that there is no future for us. We are like two travelers whose paths may cross for a moment, but who are headed for different destinations.”

  Even as I said this, I began moving my fingers through his hair, not so much because it added anything to the conversation, but because I had simply wanted to do so for months.

  “Do you like this?” I asked. It was a very silly thing to say, but I had never really touched a man’s hair before, and I had no idea how he would feel about it.

  “I think you are attempting to distract me,” he said.

  “Oh … Forgive me.”

  “No, by all means continue,” he replied, laughing. “I enjoyed it.”

  “But do you agree with me?” I asked, returning to the subject at hand. “Are we simply setting ourselves up to be crushed? We cannot continue like this for ever.”

  “But that is why we must embrace it! We may only have a few weeks, a few months, a few pleasant hours before the world calls us to part ways. If I didn’t at least try to make something of that time, I would regret it. Wouldn’t you? You have seen even more of this world than I have. It is cold and empty and heartless. How common do you think real love is? This may be the only chance we ever have. But my love does not respond—that is not like you.”

  Hearing him call me his love made my heart beat faster again, and not for the first time that day, I gave in to what I felt.

  “What can I say? Your study of the law has clearly improved your argumentation,” I told him. “Do you really love me, then?”

  “Yes, of course I do! That is why I made a fool of myself when you first came back to us.”

  “What? In Caen?”

  He wrapped his arms around me again. I felt so safe there, as if nothing in the world could hurt me.

  “I saw you come through the castle gate. You were a wonder to behold.”

  “But you only remembered me as a small girl.”

  “Before that moment, yes, but it all changed when I saw you as—”

  “Rich?”

  “No! You twist my meaning!” he objected, pulling back.

  “I do not think you could have loved me then.”

  “But I did! That is why I was always trying to get close to you—to speak with you.”

  “Because you thought you had a chance with me? What presumption!” Here I hit him again playfully so he would remember his place.

  “No, because I wanted to bask, as it were, in the glow of your light. I never dreamed you might return my affection until today.”

  “You know what I think?” I asked, kissing him on one cheek and then moving to kiss the other.

  “What?”

  I whispered, “I think you’re full of …”

  Before I could finish, he kissed my mouth again, and after that point neither of us had much interest in talking until we finally decided that any further absence from supper would be deemed suspicious.

  I was first to leave the room and peek out from behind the tapestry. Instead of wrestling, some of the men were now sparring with their fists, so I was once again able to move around without being seen. All the men and some of the women were gathered in a circle around the combatants, while the rest paid me no attention. I made my way up to the high table and took a place beside the queen.

  “Men are such brutes, aren’t they? See how they carry on!” I said to her.

  She made no reply, and I looked over to see the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

  “Oh dear! What is the matter?” I asked.

  Once again, she said nothing, but stared forward into the fire that burned in the middle of the hall, biting her lip in what seemed to be an effort not to weep openly. In the light of those flames, I caught a glimpse of something on the side of her face. Her veil almost covered it, but there was a shadow of some kind.

  “Forgive me, my queen, but it looks like you have some dirt on your face. Here, you can use my kerchief,” I said, retrieving the square of silk fabric from my pocket.

  “No, thank you,” she replied quietly.

  “But it might help—”

  “I said, no thank you! There is nothing that can help me. Now, stop being such a nuisance!” she said, her eyes cutting like daggers.

  Her harsh words took me completely by surprise, and I could not account for them at all. I had gone from one of the loveliest moments of my life to being scolded by the least likely person in the room. I sat there for a moment and said nothing, my mind hard at work. My eyes wandered over and rested on my father, who was staggering across the room and laughing fiercely, clearly drunk. Suddenly, I remembered something from my youth: a faint whisper that I had tried to forget. I was standing next to my mother while she was working a loom. Her sleeve fell back and I saw dark marks on her arm.

  “What are those, mother?”

  A shadow passed over her face, and she quickly moved her sleeve back in place.

  “Nothing, my child,” she said, stroking my chin with her other hand. “It’s nothing.”

  It was such a small thing that I had nearly forgotten it, but for the first time I understood what my mother had refused to tell me then, and I found myself nearly robbed of breath. A sudden dread of the possible fell over me. I knew I had to find out the truth, and that the woman beside me was unlikely to surrender it. Just when Queen Adeliza must have felt the storm had passed and I would trouble her with no more que
stions, I pulled back her veil and saw the large bruise just to the right of her eye.

  “How dare you?!” she cried. It was loud for her, but not loud enough to be heard over the noise of the crowd.

  “Who did this to you?” I demanded. “Was it the king?”

  “I have had about enough of your questions, empress. Good night!” she concluded. She rose at once from her seat and marched around the cheering crowd, eventually making her way out the door and back toward the private chambers.

  I continued sitting there alone and studied the figures lit by the fire. Brian had found his way back among the king’s lads. We would not be discovered this night. To the left and right, men were pulling money out of their pockets and placing bets on the next fight. Then I saw my father, ale in hand. Was that the hand that had struck the queen, and for what? No wonder the woman lived in terror of us all!

  I had long heard stories of the king’s cruelty to his enemies, though I seldom witnessed it. Now, I had the evidence of his wrath laid out before me, and what was even worse, I was courting that wrath with my behavior. Would he end up wounding me as he had my mother and the new queen?

  Perhaps I mistook the parable of Icarus, I thought. Maybe the father wished him to burn.

  IX

  Many years ago, my brother Robert gifted me a copy of the Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth, one of the many scholars in Oxford who has since passed from this life. Earl Robert served as patron to many such works of history, but this was easily one of the best. It is now read in every school and treated as gospel by our friend, Robert du Monte, whom I hope to see again soon.

  There is a tale in this book of the ancient King Leir, after whom the city of Leicester was named. The Lord did not see fit to grant him any sons, but only three daughters. Thus, the old king chose to divide his inheritance among them according to who loved him best. Now, the first two daughters were flatterers and swore they loved him more than all others—even more than life itself. But the third was honest above all else, and she bid him, “Look how much you have, so much is your value, and so much do I love you.” The king was furious and gave her no portion with the other two. It was only later that he saw that only this daughter truly loved him.