by Mary Gentle
Herm, across a channel of sea, is the island of Jethou. Jethou is perhaps a
third of a mile long; a little less across. It has grass, a few trees. It’s no more than a rock. But on Jethou – there is a convent-house. It is a silent
order.’
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I couldn’t have interpreted the look in Videric’s eyes to save my own life,
never mind Rosamunda’s.
He said, ‘In all honesty, I think Carthage will assume you’re dead long
before they think to send agents to a sea-swept and forgotten nunnery on
the island of Jethou.’
You’ll give out publicly that’s she dead, I understood.
Rosamunda’s blank expression told me she hadn’t thought that far.
But it would be an obvious next step.
I could paint her at work in the meagre fields, picking stones out of
furrows with her bare hands; her nails broken, her skin cracked. Can
paint the bare, plain building that will be the nunnery. A master’s brush
could paint well enough to make you smell sour vegetables and sour
bodies; rancid feelings not able to break out in gossip. Silence, isolation,
labour. If Videric does ride out to Jethou in five years’ time, they will have pushed her well across the line from beauty to middle age.
If Videric’s lucky, he’ll find he was in love with a clear complexion and
lustrous black hair.
And if Rosamunda’s lucky, she’ll find that, too; and he can declare her
dead and marry again, while she returns to the material world under a
different name, at least free of the nunnery.
I tried very hard not to enjoy the thought of her future: to hope that
Videric does continue to love her, and so she’ll stay there for as many
years as it’s possible to see ahead. Part of me still scrabbled frantically for
some way to save her.
‘I don’t know how long it will last.’ Videric’s voice was a whisper. ‘I
think, for as long as Carthage is under King-Caliph Ammianus’s rule—’
Rosamunda shouted, ‘No!’
‘Or until their conflicts with the Turks break into open war; that could
be as soon as five years from now—’
For the first time, I saw them look at each other. Stare, as if each could
read secrets in the other’s so-familiar face.
A little desperately, Videric protested, ‘I’ll try to visit. To see you,
when it’s safe. When I can be sure I won’t be followed—’
‘ No! ’ It was no more than a wheeze of breath.
Videric shrugged hopelessly. ‘Five years from now is not so long. But
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even then, your face can’t be seen at court again, it would be too
dangerous—’
Rosamunda’s body shook; I held her up.
Videric took a step forward, eyes all but glowing with his intensity.
‘—but you’ll be safe. Who’d look for the Queen of the Court of Ladies
among poor sisters digging their own turnips, and milking goats? Who
could recognise you in homespun black, when every other woman is in
the same robes? You won’t look the same – you’ll have a different name –
if no one from this court contacts you, Carthage will never stumble
across you; you’re too far out of the way—’
She stood – and fell forward off the fountain’s marble rim, out of my
support, her tied ankles tripping her. Her bound hands reached out,
seizing Videric’s robes.
The striped linen’s stitching broke under her weight, and he caught
her by the wrists, dragging her upright. She leaned her body against his
from belly to chest and brought her mouth up for a kiss.
I saw it as clearly as if I had it at my brush’s end: Videric looking into
her face.
And if he could have seen anything in her kiss but desperation, neither King nor Carthage could make him send her away.
He didn’t slump, but he withdrew into himself, his hand gently easing
her cheek away from contact with his chest. He seated her implacably
back on the fountain’s marble surround.
She glared and twisted around, facing me.
‘You bitch, you monster, you – eunuch! This is all your fault!’
I didn’t know I would do it until it was done. My hand cracked across
her face and my palm was stinging.
She lurched back where she sat, Videric catching her elbow. I forget
that I hit so much harder than most women; almost as hard as the man
I’m dressed as.
The mark was carmine on her cheek, turning the blue of sloe-berries
already, over the bone.
I noticed coldly that I was shaking, as if I stood out in a damp winter
gale.
‘Tell me again you should have suffocated me at birth!’
‘I should have! I tried!’
She flung out the last words like a child throwing any lie out, in the
hopes that it will hurt.
‘ You’re the child!’ The irony would have made me laugh, under other
circumstances.
I see it a lot in the Court of Ladies – women never allowed to deal with
money, or property, or the decisions of who they’ll marry and be with
child by. Without experience, and with only rivalries, friendships,
cliques, and lovers to occupy themselves, it’s no wonder many of them
are still twelve years old at the age of forty-five.
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And if I were a man, I wouldn’t know what goes on in the Ladies’
Court, and if I were a woman, I wouldn’t have any different experiences
to make the comparisons.
This is what I knew, when I carried Onorata and it tried to make me
something I’m not – that I may not be a man, but I have no idea how to
be a woman.
She lifted her hands and Videric casually took hold of her bound wrist.
It was evident she couldn’t free herself, from the silk ropes or her
husband.
‘You were my punishment, Ilario.’ The last word was a painful grunt.
She momentarily caught her bottom lip between her teeth. ‘I’ve suffered
enough, haven’t I? You can’t take any more away from me!’
Paint would put two catch-lights in her eye, at the edge of the pupil
and in the body of the white, to show how lustrous and large her eyes are.
Paint could make every fold of her silk dress into rich soft fabric, so fine a
rough edge of skin could snag it . . .
And if I painted, I thought, I could paint her life on Jethou, too. No
longer Queen of the Court of Ladies. Men say all faces look alike in a
Bride’s wimple and hood. And even though that’s not true – Rosamunda
will always have the stunning bones that support her flesh and delicate
skin – working outdoors on an island, summer and winter, will bring
freckles, broken capillaries, the dryness and paper skin that comes with
cold.
Rosamunda stared at me as if she had no consciousness that twelve
months ago she tried to stab me in the stomach. Which is a slow and
painful death, but she knew too little to know that. She struck at the body
because, like most not trained as knights, she couldn’t bear to strike at the face.
I saw recognition in her, as if the thought passed from my mind
directly to hers.
‘I couldn’t do it,’ she said, all the attention of those dark eyes fixed o
n
me. ‘You know that. I told you to run. Ilario . . . Videric’s not your
father; don’t side with him. I’m your mother.’
Turning away, I scooped up a double handful of cool water and
doused my face. The dazzles left my vision.
‘How will you leave Gades?’
I had a sudden absurd vision of Aldra Videric sneaking out through
the kitchen in his finest gown, and every servant staring at him.
‘As we came.’ Videric’s eyes looked weary. ‘This is a seaport, Ilario, as
you told me. My wife will go aboard a ship for Jethou this evening. And
tomorrow, I and my men, and one of the waiting-women in Rosamun-
da’s clothing, will ride out of Gades on the Via Augusta for Taraco. As
far as any man here is concerned, Aldro Rosamunda visited Gades and
returned with me.’
Who would I tell, to prevent this?
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Do I desire to prevent this?
Before I could say anything, I heard raised voices outside; Videric
stepped to the archway – and stepped back again, as Rekhmire’ strode
through.
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Rekhmire’, striding in, took it all in an instant; I could see him do it. Lord
Videric, armed men, the Lady Rosamunda with her wrists and ankles
tied. And I, who was not apparently restrained in any way,
nor had any weapons pointed at me.
A sweep of his glance at Videric and I saw he had it. Carthage. Other
enemies of the kingdom. And the danger that Rosamunda will be. He
looked as if he wanted to smack himself in the forehead.
‘Tell me,’ I said steadily. ‘I will have missed something. Videric will
have fooled me somehow, or told me half-truths that don’t look like lies.
Tell me this doesn’t have to happen this way.’
Strain carved lines from Rekhmire’’s nose to the corners of his mouth.
With his bald head illuminated by the sun from the lattice roof, he looked
even more like one of the statues shining in the Alexandrine palaces at
Constantinople, for all he had a linen gown swathing him to the ankles to
keep off what he referred to as ‘this northern cold’.
‘I should have seen this!’ he murmured, looking from me to Videric.
He stood a head taller than my stepfather, was broader across the
chest, and it wasn’t until I saw them standing together that I realised
Videric was bordering on late middle age.
But he was a decade older than Rosamunda when he married her for her dowry and for love . . .
‘I didn’t imagine you would involve Ilario in this.’ Rekhmire’ sounded
almost uninterested, his expression bland. ‘Is this wise?’
For a moment even I thought, He knew this was going to happen! And then read him well enough to see how he picked up cues from the people
present, and how we were placed.
Videric wiped his hand over his forehead, taking away the beads of
sweat that glistened in the sun. ‘I didn’t “involve” Ilario. Ilario, as you probably know very well by now, has a gift for finding out where he
shouldn’t be – and then she goes there!’
The last thing I wanted was a sympathetic look between these two
men, even if it had been in Rekhmire’’s mind to do it.
‘He’s – exiling her,’ I cut in, choosing the best word I could find in that
instant.
Rekhmire’ looked down at Rosamunda, and gave her a polite nod.
She appeared to have no ability to conceal her emotion in the slightest.
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She scowled, recovered the poise that the Queen of the Court of Ladies
should have, and looked at him with slit-eyed hatred. ‘I should have had
my husband’s men see to you in Carthage.’
I interrupted. ‘Did Ramaz’s arm heal up?’
Videric’s twisted smile was as much an appreciation of that, in his own
way, as the straight look of dislike that Rosamunda gave me. Videric
waved a hand at the captain of his men-at-arms.
‘Well enough,’ the captain said grudgingly. He retained a strong
western accent; it confirmed my thought that Videric hadn’t brought the
man to court before now. These will be all recently promoted men, still
with everything to show about their devotion to their liege-lord.
I wasn’t surprised, therefore, when the commander did no more than
answer Videric’s implied question; although the man looked at me with a
wary respect, combined with that fear of the unnatural, that I tend to get
in skirts when men learn I’ve done man’s work. And an Alexandrine
tunic is close enough to a women’s robe – as Rekhmire’ had been kindly
informed by the fisher-children running about in the lower town . . .
‘This is no business of Alexandria’s,’ Videric said. His glance made
insinuations between Rekhmire’ and myself. ‘Nor any business of yours,
Master Rekhmire’. I shall have to ask you to leave, now.’
A clatter of footsteps sounded outside the stone archways; I glimpsed
mail and the flash of light from sword-pommels, and Videric’s men-at-
arms stepped back inside the hall, looking to their captain.
Perhaps twenty other men in mail and breastplates crowded in after
them. I recognised Orazi first – Rekhmire’ signalled an acknowledgement
to him – and then another man pushed his way through.
Honorius.
Like his men, he didn’t have his sword drawn. The fountain-jets
reflected in the mirror of his breastplate. Nothing marked him out from
his men, off-duty as they were, bar the lion’s head badge on his left
sleeve. He scratched slowly through his cropped salt-and-pepper hair.
‘You’re her husband,’ he said, voice harsh in the echoing hall.
Videric’s soldiers were red-faced at being so outnumbered and so
easily, but I saw one elbow the other, and I guessed the story of their lord
and their lord’s wife had gone the rounds after last year in Carthage.
Although in what detail, and how accurately, I couldn’t guess.
You couldn’t tell from Orazi’s face, or the others, that anything out of
the ordinary was taking place. I thought, They all know. But they won’t embarrass the Lion of Castile.
Rekhmire’ stood as impassive as any carved sandstone, and I thought
him thinking furiously.
The lean, soldierly man my father squinted at Rosamunda as if he
squinted into a desert wind, abrasive with particles of sand. She didn’t
take her eyes off him.
I recognised the split-second hesitation, and that look Honorius wore.
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This is something I would have two or three times a week, when I was
Rodrigo Sanguerra’s Freak. The look that at first goes straight through
you, not recognising you at all. And a moment later seems to ask, Why
does that person seem to know me? , and No, surely, it can’t be; before they greet me with a rush of relief at the recognition – ‘ Ilario! I didn’t know you, dressed as a—’ man or woman, whichever the case might be.
Honorius’s hesitation lasted barely longer than it took to draw breath.
With a rush of relief, he exclaimed, ‘Rosamunda!’
She went as red as if she’d been slapped.
Queen of the Court of Ladies, yes. Beautiful, poised, glorious: yes.
But forty-five isn’t twenty.
Is so different from twenty, it seems, that an old lover might not recognise that Rosamunda in this woman standing before him.
And two of us knew her well enough to know it had cut her like knives.
Slowly, Honorius said, ‘I wouldn’t have known you.’
Rosamunda made a little noise, and attempted to hide her bound
hands in the silk folds of her skirt. Her fingers were shaking.
‘I’m no different,’ she whispered.
Honorius made a face, half-smile and half-grimace. ‘That might be
true.’
She turned her head and looked at Videric.
Not as a wife looks at the husband she’s wronged; not as a
sophisticated woman of the court looks at her husband in the socially
embarrassing presence of an ex-lover. But plainly and simply for
reassurance.
Videric stepped up to her and put his hand on her shoulder. Too
quietly to be heard but by her and me, he said, ‘You look the same as the
day you turned twenty. Don’t expect anything but malice from this
man.’
She half-turned her head, in a gesture that was triply graceful because
unstudied, and rested her forehead against the lower part of Videric’s
chest.
He looked down at her in the same way that a man looks at a wild
animal that, for whatever reason, and for however long, trusts him far
enough to touch her.
‘I ought to horsewhip you,’ Honorius ignored my stepfather and
growled, taking a step forward. His only attention was for Rosamunda.
‘You tried to kill that baby—’
I stepped forward, interposing myself between them, just as Rosa-
munda cried out in outrage behind me:
‘ You left me with the child!’
‘I would have taken you. I would have taken Ilario.’ His pain was
bewildering to him, you could see it. After so long, he didn’t expect to hurt like this.
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And if this wasn’t the first time in twenty-five years, perhaps he
wouldn’t.
Honorius shook his head. ‘I remember your eyes as brown. They’re
. . . not.’
‘It doesn’t matter how many brown-eyed wenches you tumbled,’ she
snapped. ‘ You’d never be the one with a big belly!’
My father looked frankly bewildered, and a little cross. ‘Women have
