-/
"Baruch ata adonai elohainu melech ha-olam horai pri ha-adamah," Gianni Rieti recites and translates as he dips the karpas, a sprig of parsley, into a bowl of salt water: "Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the universe who creates the fruit of the earth."
The visiting knights and their families gawk in astonishment at each other, but the baroness, Clare, Gerald, and their children, all sitting in the front pews, receive the parsley with open countenances and nibble it calmly.
David, sitting behind a curtain in the apse, from where he can view the congregation without being seen, smiles. This is not the spring season of Pesach; however, the Mass of the gentiles is a reenactment of Jesus' Last Supper, a Passover celebration. So, he figured, why not do it properly?
Gianni has learned the ritual well. Arranged on the altar are a boiled egg, a traditional symbol of mourning, and a roasted shankbone, to recall the destruction of the Temple and Israel's redemption with "an outstretched arm."
Besides the karpas, the parsley that stands for ever-renewed hope in the future dipped in the tears of the people, there is as well a bowl of grated horseradish root, symbol of the bitter herb, and haroset, a thick mixture of ground apples and walnuts with wine, spiced with cinnamon, representing the mortar used by the Israelites to build Pharaoh’s cities.
Seeing this congregation of gentiles worshiping God much as his own people do, David feels quite exhilarated. The lassitude that has possessed him since he was fevered seems to lift briefly in his joy at seeing the one God honored.
Gianni lifts the large disk of unleavened bread David has prepared at the ovens, and consecrates it as the Body of Christ. The worshipers cross themselves and kneel. While the altar boy fills the wine cups, Gianni briefly recounts the story of the Passover, and the visitors share more puzzled expressions.
Questioning murmurs gradually mount to whispers of alarm and outrage. A few exit the chapel scowling and shaking their heads. Most indulge the baroness, believing that the miracle that restored her youth inspired these strange customs. They bow their heads when the Eucharist is raised high again and the priest intones: "Baruch ata adonai elohainu melech ha-olam hamotzi lehem min ha-aretz. Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, who brings forth bread from the earth."
After the Mass, Thomas Chalandon approaches the altar and finds Gianni Rieti in the apse removing his vestments. "I had heard rumors that my grandmother wanted to include Hebrew in the Mass," he says gravely, "but I did not think this would be a Jewish ceremony. You place your soul in danger, Father."
"The soul is in danger as soon as it comes into this world, young fellow." Gianni kisses the embroidered cross on the bands of his scarf and lays it neatly in the chest with the other canonical garments. "Some wine?" He gestures to a full chalice.
Thomas looks appalled. "That is sanctified wine."
"Yes, an extra cup of it—the Cup of Elijah. I will share it with you."
Thomas peers at the handsomely chiseled face of the knight-priest as if it were a hot ingot of furnaced steel. "Need I tell you, further, these are not the teachings of the Church?"
"But they are the teachings of God," Gianni replies, drinking more than half the chalices contents. "Ga-alti," he salutes. "'I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.' The Torah. Exodus, chapter six."
"That is the God of the Jews."
"Hm, yes." Gianni finishes the wine and dabs his sharply clipped mustache with an altar napkin. "The God whom Jesus worshiped and died for."
Thomas sits on a cushioned stool and stares at the narrow sword hanging at the priest's side. "You fought for the Sepulcher?"
"I guarded it. I was there the night your grandmother was transfigured."
"You saw the Grail?"
"And the tongues of fire as well. They burned in a celestial cloud charged with the unearthly voices of angels. Yes—I saw and heard it all." Gianni sits on the edge of the chest, his features refulgent as a sunrise with wine and revelation. "I had just recited the prayer of extreme unction over her, had daubed her with the oil and given her viaticum. She was right there, under my hands, shriveled and spent. A dead lizard, really. Then, a glory brighter than the desert sun shoved me back and raised her up." Gianni shakes his head. "No words can touch the magnificence of what transpired. To this day, I'm not sure if it was a blessing or a punishment to be there. After a miracle, there is true conflict. Heaven is all at once more real. And then it is far more difficult to stand the earth."
-/
At the gate to the inner ward, Clare and Gerald greet the dignitaries who arrive the morning after Saint Eustace's Day. Six earls appear—first the marcher barons of Builth Wells, Y Pigwyn, Carreg Cennin, and Carmarthen, and then the English lords of Glastonbury and Hereford, all with their squires and families, to be lodged as coevals of the baroness in the palais.
Rachel is not required to attend to them, her absence simply explained as a determination to stand aside from her station until her knights have won their assise de bataille. She has made it known that, if they should fail, she will readily relinquish her chair of state to her son Guy and return forthwith to her holy devotions in Jerusalem.
This challenge piques the inspiration of the many troubadours who have accompanied their earls and knights, and soon the castle and the outer encampment begin to flourish with songs about the baroness of the Grail and the miracle of her restored youth.
The gossips of palais, bailey, and village fuel the romances with suspicions of deceit and pacts with the Devil. And glimpses of the baroness in her window inspire intriguing speculations about her relations with the blue-eyed Muslim knight always at her door and the sickly, woeful Jew with whom she and her knights pray and study every day.
When the marquess of Talgarth unexpectedly rides up to the castle with his elaborate retinue of armorers, haberdashers, goliards, and black-armored knights, he has already heard too many alluring tales of the mysterious Ailena Valaise to accept even the possibility of not being attended by her. A herald announces his arrival with the demand that the baroness greet him.
Unable to refuse a noble of higher rank, Rachel dons her finest robes and her gold chaplet. Sweat dampens her with fear that she will not remember the many fine points of protocol the baroness has taught her.
At the door to the palais, the four earls who are her guests have gathered to get their first glimpse of her. She greets each warmly, realizing that they are the witnesses of her fate. If God chooses to defeat her knights, she will never see them again. For now, though, they are her peers, and, summoning her most commodious presence, she lavishes each with a sisterly embrace.
Astride the white palfrey, she canters across the inner ward, accompanied by Falan, Denis, and Gianni. In the bailey, the crowds press close, her sergeants unable to manage the burgeoning throng of awed strangers eager to touch her hem. The marquess' black-armored knights have crossed lances at the front gate to keep the rabble at bay. Rachel dismounts and walks across the drawbridge, her head demurely bowed.
The marquess awaits her, sitting imperiously atop his black stallion. Tall and imposing, he wears full ebony armor with a red plumed headpiece, short battle ax, longsword, and a triangular shield emblazoned with a knotted viper. His steed sports a sable foot-cloth embroidered with crimson serpent coils and on its face a crimson chamfron, a plaited headpiece with a short spike projecting from the front. Two squires help him dismount—to all outward appearances a dashing figure, but when his visor snaps back, Rachel restrains her surprise to meet a toothless old man with a splotchy beard and large, doughy ears.
"I came as soon as I heard you had risked your chair of state," he announces in a thin, piping voice. "That always guarantees a good fight. And how I love a good fight! Let's get on with it then, shall we?"
-/
Clare and Gerald obligingly surrender their bedchamber to the marquess and have their various chests of belongings carried to a smaller cubicle, where they will sleep on a hay-stuffed pall
et. Much of the day is spent accommodating the marquess' large retinue, finding rooms in the palais for the knights of noble rank and in the donjon for the others.
Hellene and Leora are beside themselves with delight at being able at last to introduce their children to the families of the marquess and the earls, compare lineages, and plot marriages. The palais bustles like a marketplace, and the servants and cooks, trying to please so many nobles under one roof, exhaust themselves with unprecedented efforts.
Oddly, the presence of a superior ranking seigneur, the marquess, calms Rachel, and she dotes on him with unyielding generosity and gracious formality. His presence has lifted, temporarily, the caul of leadership from her shoulders and enhanced the fateful complaisance of her life.
Without even so much as a breath of perturbation, she acquiesces to his every whim. During meals it is her duty to serve him, and afterward to attend to his amusement. She introduces him to her family, including her son Guy who, eager not to alienate this powerful ally of the king, occasionally affords a smile in the presence of the Pretender.
And when the marquess, showing his gums in a mischievous leer, inquires of him: "Are the rumors true that you believe this lovely child is not your mother?" Guy replies with as much civility as he can muster, "This woman is far too gracious to be the mother I remember—and indeed too gracious to rule this wild frontier."
The marquess nods with understanding and slaps Guy's back. "Subversion is good. It keeps power pure. You're absolutely right to challenge her. I wish you luck. But, young fellow"—the sunken-cheeked nobleman narrows his gaze enigmatically—"you're quite wrong about your mother. When one meets grace where it does not belong, how can one doubt that miracles have taken place?"
-/
By light of numerous candles hung in the pear trees and the rose arbors, Rachel tells her amazing story yet again, this time to the marquess and his retinue. The knights and squires listen with ferocious attentiveness. Midway through the tale, in the midst of the wonders of Prester John's desert kingdom, the marquess begins to snore.
Later, after she has helped the old knight’s servitors to put him to sleep, she politely refuses all entreaties to continue her story and instead turns the disappointed gathering out into the bailey to learn the rest—and more—from the troubadours.
"Stories are meant to put us to sleep," she says soothingly to her vexed listeners. "In Jerusalem, I once met a monk from India whose master, a mendicant called the Awakened One, claims that the noblest truth, the one truth that wakes us up, is suffering. Think on that as you enlighten each other tomorrow."
-/
Sleep abandons Rachel. She sits by her window all night listening to the festivities in the bailey, on the meadow, and in the village beyond. Tomorrow I will find out who I am—whom I've become—a baroness or something else. A crazy woman no one will marry? My grandfather's nurse on a hazardous journey? A lonely spinster in the Promised Land and these days in the castle memories as precious as jewels?
She thinks of her grandfather, who she knows is praying for her defeat, afraid that he has lost her to the gentiles and willing to risk his life on another pilgrimage to get her away from here. If she is defeated tomorrow, she promises herself she will not lament. Let the barbarous task of rule pass from me with the comforts and the dangers, she resolves.
But if her knights are victorious, if she prevails in convincing everyone that she is indeed the baroness, she will have won the time to strengthen David with rest. By the spring, if no more illnesses overtake him, he may be strong enough to survive the journey. Then, he will have the satisfaction of dying in the land of their ancestors.
That thought perturbs her with dark memories of her family, of whom he is the last. She must do better by this man who dug graves that she might live. If she perseveres tomorrow, she determines that she will make this domain carry as much promise for him as the Holy Land.
-/
David sits by his window, too weak to stand, his gaze lifted above the noisy festivities to the caste marks of the season, the emerald stars of the summer constellations. His prayer is a deeply silent one, for he dares not impugn the wisdom of the Creator. Let what will be be—and be best for my Rachel.
-/
At the first smudges of dawn, half-dressed squires run to and fro. Horses neigh and stamp, girdled and saddled by grooms who lead them to the meadow. There, the special lists stand ready. Two pairs of strong wooden palisades mark the perimeter of a long field: the outer line of planks shoulder high, the inner one lower, with many openings for steeds and warriors to pass through.
Between the two lines is the space for spare horses, squires, attendants, and heralds as well as privileged spectators who will not mind the frenetic activities of the knights and their helpers. Humbler onlookers stand peering over the outer palisade.
To the side, along the length of the meadow, rise the series of lodges, shaded with tentlike canopies, floored with carpets and bright with pennons. In them are stationed the ladies, the nobles' children, and the older, less martial knights.
After a hasty Mass by Gianni Rieti, the knights and ladies hurry to their places. The ladies, riding their white mules, outdo each other with displays of marten, ermine and vair, sendal and samite, gold thread, silk, and pearls.
The villagers and the villeins from neighboring towns and castles crowd against the fence-posts at the far end of the field, gawking and pointing, and applaud loudly when a handsomely clad dame sweeps by. Jongleurs, acrobats, and mimes abound, and the deafening music of drums and pipes stirs the raucous throng and excites the horses.
The camp marshals, the marquess, and the earls, who will judge the contests, advance on foot: Each wears brilliant bliauts and helmets crested with the outlandish figures of hawkheads, asps, basilisks, and dragons. Gerald Chalandon, the senior non-combatant knight of the hosting castle, leads them ceremoniously to their places in the stilt-raised lodges overlooking the center of the field between the lists.
Behind the marshals march the lavishly accoutered heralds and pursuivants, who will assist by encouraging the combatants with whistles and jeers. They are followed by the varlets and sergeants assigned to police the crowd as well as to bring new lances, clear away broken weapons, and rescue fallen knights.
The marshals survey the tilt yard from their high vantage and, after they have decreed that everything is ready, Gerald raises a white baton. With a great blare of trumpets, the baroness of the Grail, perched atop a camel, and her family, riding richly caparisoned mounts, enter the field.
The crowd surges to the tops of the fenceposts, some toppling over, to view the young baroness. "Valaise! Valaise!" Many of the sergeants turn about to gawk at the living miracle and in the process are nearly trampled underfoot.
Falan guides his camel between the baroness and the stream of people running across the tilt yard. His curved saber flashes in the rising sun, and once out of striking distance, the villeins gape in awe.
Rachel feels feverish, her stomach knotted with repressed anxiety. Looking about for Guy or any of the contending knights, she observes only the melee on the field. Ignoring the shouting mob, ignoring the bilious fear their contorted faces stir in her, she dismounts mechanically and climbs the stairs. Her dread swells with each step. As she takes her place in the central lodge beside the marquess, the aged knight stands with the other marshals, steps forward and bows deeply.
With evident relish, the marquess openly admires Rachel's appearance, her hair twined with gold thread and worn long over her breasts. The saffron-tinted chemise and ermine-trimmed pelisson are his gifts, and he smiles to see how well they complement the elegant bliaut of violet silk that floats thinly above them in many folds and long sleeves.
He links her little finger with his, as is the custom of the age, and they sit down together. "If you are destined to exile in the Holy Land," he says ingratiatingly, with toothless sibilance, "I will go with you—and perhaps we will find the Grail again ... together."
>
Rachel smiles wanly.
Then, the marquess nods to Gerald, who raises his white baton and commands, "Bring in the knights!"
Sergeants on horseback clear the field, and, with a loud crash of music and blast of trumpets, the combatants' procession begins. Four scarlet-garbed heralds lead the parade on foot. Then follows a jongleur on horseback twirling a sword, tossing it high in the air and catching it as it falls back. Next come the contestants, forty knights riding two by two. They parade down the lodge-side of the lists and back past the screaming crowd.
Guy Lanfranc and Roger Billancourt lead them, their faces hard and stern, intent on the grim business of retrieving their domain. Behind them ride William Morcar and his son Thierry. This is Thierry's first contest as a knight, and he stares about proudly, ogling the ladies in the lodges.
Young and old, the females lean forward and wave in reply, hanging upon the knights’ lances, colorful streamers, sleeves, and stockings. They toss gages of love—gloves, sashes, and long bright ribbons attached to locks of braided hair—to some of the youngest, most handsome and virile knights, but Thierry is not so honored.
Gianni Rieti rides without so much as glancing up into the lodges, though gages pelt him. Only as he passes before the central lodge and an elf lock of beribboned blond hair falls in his lap does he gaze up.
Madelon waves at him. He turns away immediately, finds the baroness nearby and salutes her. Ummu, riding a donkey beside him, blows a kiss to Rachel and winks, while Ta-Toh flies up the banner-draped lodge and presents the baroness with a tuft of monkey fur that Ummu has bound with a daisy. She pats the monkey to the cheers of the crowd, and he scampers back to his master.
Servant of Birds Page 27
