The Night's Dark Shade

by Elena Maria Vidal

  Chapter 3: Mirambel

  Raphaëlle awoke to find herself in a dim chamber, illumined only by a roaring fire. She was swallowing hot broth, which someone was ladling into her mouth. She tried to speak but could only sleep. When her eyes opened upon the world once more, it was bright morning. Raphaëlle thought at first that she was home at the Château de Miramande since she was lying in what had formerly been her parents’ bed. The red damask canopy and curtains, the posts and headboard of oak, carved with mermaids, lilies, leaves and stars, composed a familiar shelter. The bed linens were drenched in lavender. As she realized where she was her heart sank for a moment, only to exult as the thought of Sir Martin came rushing into her consciousness. It had all been real, meeting Sir Martin, that is. The bed had been sent ahead of her as part of her dowry. The chamber was narrow but adequate with vaulted ceilings, a rush-strewn stone floor, and red and gold wall hangings from home. The furniture was likewise hers and consisted of a trunk, two chests, a bench, two chairs draped with furs, a writing table, and several small stools. Through an arched doorway lay a partial view of an adjoining parlor, containing a table and benches, with whitewashed walls, painted with flowers.

  She sleepily recalled how she had come to be there…. Men-at-arms and torch-bearing servants had surrounded Raphaëlle and Martin as the hooves of the warhorse echoed in the courtyard. A stocky man with a wide, clean-shaven face framed by luxuriant brown hair strode forward. His coloring and bearing made him a masculine version of her mother.

  “You are my uncle!” she exclaimed. How she wished her mother were with her. He nodded, raising his sturdy arms to help her dismount.

  “I am Pierre du Tourmalet.” He kissed her hand. He wore a crimson mantle, fastened by a gold and sapphire clasp.

  “My lord, I have come,” she faintly announced. Raphaëlle’s legs wobbled and her eyes filled with tears as she realized she could no longer stand on her own. Indeed, every nerve in her body had become unstrung. She struggled for possession, dreading to display weakness before the throng of strangers. The torches bedazzled her vision, causing the colors and shadows around her to melt into a frightening blur. A dog was barking amid the shouting, snorting and mumbling folk of the castle. Sir Martin, in the meantime, was giving an account of the skirmish with the brigands of Cambasque. He had dismounted, and was standing behind her. How tall he was! Her head barely reached his shoulder. The last thing she remembered was sinking against him, as his arms went around her and her mind plunged into a pool of forgetfulness….

  "I pray you, take some more, my lady," a familiar voice said. Raphaëlle obediently opened her mouth for the spoon of hot broth, and then recognized who had spoken.

  "Margot! You are alive!" she exclaimed, pushing herself up and spilling the broth as she hurried to embrace her elderly maidservant. Jehanette, who sat beside the bed mending Raphaëlle’s mantle, laughed.

  She threw her arms around Margot, whom she had last seen prone upon the ground. “Now then be still, my dear child,” clucked the nurse, kissing her on both cheeks. “You must rest a bit longer.”

  "But how did you come to be here?” asked Raphaëlle

  "It is indeed a tale!" Jehanette launched into her account of what had happened after Raphaëlle had ridden off with Sir Martin. “Those robbers ran off with their leader, who was wounded,” she breathlessly explained. “Then Sir Alain and Sir Gérard gathered up the injured of our party. We hurried to the castle. Sir Alain made me stay at his side, but all Sir Gérard did was grumble that none of this would have happened if you had listened to him.” So Sir Martin had been right about the brigands taking flight.

  “How is it, Margot, that you are uninjured?” asked Raphaëlle. “I saw you fall from your horse as if struck by an arrow.”

  “It was my patron saint!" exclaimed Margot. "An arrow came right at me, I heard the whiz and twang of it, but before it struck me, I felt a hand push me to the ground! It is a blessed good thing that I always wear my relic. Saint Marguerite always watches out for me!” She reached into the front of her grey wool tunic and drew forth a cord with a small, bronze disc attached to it, containing a splinter of a bone of the virgin-martyr Margaret of Antioch, and kissed it. Raphaëlle groaned, burying her head in her hands, as the memory of her undignified arrival came back to her. “Alas, I am disgraced! I fainted! I fainted in the presence of Sir Martin and… and before my uncle and all of his vassals! What a sorry beginning I have made!”

  “Oh, no, Mademoiselle,” clucked Margot. “Not at all. Sir Martin was telling everyone how brave you had been.” “He was indeed,” agreed Jehanette. “I heard him speaking of it in the hall by the fire pit. He said that you were a lady of high courage, and it was his great honor to have rescued you.” In the twelve hours or so since her arrival at the château, the maid had gleaned a great deal of information about Sir Martin de Revel-Saissac from the servants of the household, in spite of differences in dialect. Jehanette began a monologue about the Knight Hospitaller as she carefully unpacked books from Raphaëlle’s trunk. “Sir Martin is the oldest son of the two great families of Revel and Saissac. Of the Comte de Revel’s many children, he was the heir, and had been destined to inherit a large portion of his patrimony.” Raphaëlle sat motionless, leaning slightly forward to catch every word, while Margot mended. “As a youth he had married the beautiful and virtuous Dona Elena de Rosas from Catalonia, but she had died bringing forth a stillborn child. Brokenhearted, Sir Martin renounced his inheritance and joined the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John.” Jehanette paused to pick up a copy of Virgil’s Aeneid that she had dropped. Raphaëlle wondered what Sir Martin’s wife had looked like. Jehanette continued. “He soon proved himself to be a courageous warrior, undefeated in combat; a friend of the sick, the weak, and the poor. He was a loyal ally and a protector of all women, be they of high or low estate, Christian, Jew, Moor, or Cathar.”

  “Ah,” agreed Margot. “He is certainly a courageous and noble knight, as anyone can see. Only God knows where we would all be now if he and Sir Gaston had not come along.”

  “Many ladies of the castle are smitten with him,” said Jehanette. “He is a troubadour, and has written some songs in honor of some of them here!” Her voice fell to a whisper. “It is not known for certain whether he has dallied with anyone, but there are rumors.” Margot had begun to supervise the drawing of a bath. After having a shoe-shaped tub rolled in by some varlets, she poured into it kettles of hot water, laced with essence of orange blossoms. “Enough of this chatter,” she said severely to Jehanette. “My lady, your bath.”

  As Raphaëlle soaked, the nurse washed her hair with a tincture of chamomile, calendula and sunflower oils, and then combed it with an ivory comb that had once belonged to the girl’s mother. As Jehanette ceased to chatter, Margot sighed.

  “Well,” she declared. “But it is all just as I suspected.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Raphaëlle.

  “Oh, Mademoiselle, but this is a strange place,” responded the nurse. “So many odd-looking characters skulking about. And not a crucifix or a holy picture in sight. I asked the cook when they have Mass in the morning, and he laughed at me. Something is not right here. Which reminds me….” She drew from inside her petticoat a tiny clay bottle of holy water and proceeded to sprinkle the chamber, while chanting under her breath a prayer of exorcism. “Margot!” exclaimed Raphaëlle, drying herself off with a linen towel, as Jehanette found her a fresh under tunic. “We have only just arrived! Surely, you have not seen the entire castle yet. Do not be so hasty in your judgments!” She could not help wondering about Margot’s words, however. She had learned long ago that the old woman was usually correct in her observations. “But come, let us say our morning prayers together.” They knelt down and Raphaëlle, clothed in her shift, led the psalms of Prime, which she knew by heart. “Respice in servos tuos…” “Look upon thy servants and upon their works…” Margot and Jehanette silently told their paternoster beads as Raphaëlle recited the psalms al
oud in Latin. “Dirigere et sanctificare.…” “Direct and sanctify….”

  As they concluded, from the courtyard below came the shouts of men, the barking of hounds and the neighing of horses. Jehanette scurried to the narrow window, opening the shutter. “It is a hunting party! They are returning with much game! I see a stag and … there is Monsieur le Baron … and oh! There is Sir Martin!”

  Raphaëlle restrained herself from joining the maidservant at the window. “Close the window, Jehanette. It is cold,” was her only response. She shivered, and began to walk about the chamber as if she were occupied with a duty.

  Someone knocked at the door. Jehanette opened it at Raphaëlle’s bidding. In sauntered a woman of about thirty with the golden eyes of a cat. Her tunic was brown, but of the finest wool. Around her neck on a gold chain was a ruby the size of a robin’s egg; gilded bracelets adorned her wrists. Her kirtle was embroidered in scarlet and beneath a snowy linen wimple hung thick, honey-blonde braids. Raphaëlle thought that perhaps she was the lady of the castle, but the illusion was shattered within seconds, for the woman carried a trencher with bread, cheese and hot, spiced wine. Nevertheless, Raphaëlle swooped into a curtsy.

  “Oh, no, Mademoiselle,” chuckled the woman. “I am not Madame la Baronne. I am but a servant here. My mother is the village wine-seller. I am called Simonette.” Simonette curtsied deeply, trencher and all. “A feast is being prepared, but the men have only lately returned with a stag, so here is something with which to break your fast. Madame la Baronne has instructed me to wait upon you, if I may.” Her voice was earthy and good-natured, with a lilt as indolent as her walk.

  “Thank you, Simonette,” said Raphaëlle. “Where is the baroness?”

  “Madame la Baronne rarely leaves the north tower.” Simonette handed the trencher to Margot as she spoke, who in turn placed it on the table for Raphaëlle.

  Raphaëlle sat down to eat. “I have never heard of a lady of a manor spending all of her time in a tower. How can she run the estate? What does Madame do in the tower? Is she ill?”

  “Oh, no, indeed not. Madame la Baronne occupies herself with reading, praying, and meditating, I daresay. She will soon descend in order to escort you to the feast.”

  Raphaëlle shrugged, chewing her bread and cheese. What odd behavior for a woman who was not a nun or an anchorite! And if Simonette was merely a servant, then why did she wear such a fabulous ruby, as well as gold and fine linen? Margot had spoken the truth; the Château de Mirambel was peculiar.

  “When do they have Mass here?” she asked, as she sipped the wine. Simonette’s cheeks reddened; her eyes fell to the floor with an air of great confusion.

  “There is Mass at the parish church in the village,” she replied. “But not in the castle. Not ever.”

  “Is there not a chapel here at the château?” Raphaëlle asked, trying to conceal her astonishment.

  “Yes, Mademoiselle. But it is only for the use of Madame la Baronne and her friends. Otherwise, it is kept locked.”

  Raphaëlle nearly choked on her bread. She and the servants exchanged looks: the same thought had occurred to them both. “Is–” Raphaëlle began hesitantly. “Is the castle under interdict?" She had heard of the Pope or a bishop ordering a suspension of Mass and the sacraments in certain dire situations, but she had never been in a place where an interdict was in force.

  “Oh no,” Simonette said hastily. “It's simply that the Baroness has her own uses for the chapel.”

  The faces of Margot and Jehanette registered amazement and dismay; they had never heard of a chapel being used for anything but the ceremonies of the Church. She decided not to press the point, fearing to increase the distress of her servants, resolving to make further inquiries in private.

  “My lady, see here what I have for you!” Jehanette called. To Raphaëlle’s joy, they unwrapped an ancient crucifix, an icon of the Virgin and another of Saint Raphael the Archangel. She carefully arranged the devotional objects over the fireplace, whispering a prayer for guidance. Her soul was comforted by the sight of the sacred objects.

  Delicious aromas wafted up from the kitchens. “I must make ready,” announced Raphaëlle. Jehanette was in the process of shaking out a gown of saffron silk; with Simonette’s assistance, it was slipped over Raphaëlle’s head. The neckline was of an oblong cut; the sleeves were snugly laced. The stockings matched, as did her pointed yellow slippers. Around her hips was knotted a kirtle of purple samite. Next came a surcoat of fine plum wool, embroidered along the trailing hem and around the wide armholes in an intricate pattern in gold thread. The armholes were open almost to the knees, making the surcoat more of an apron than a gown. Margot clucked over the saffron dress in disapproval.

  “In my young days, nice young ladies did not wear yellow – only hussies.”

  Raphaëlle ignored her, as Jehanette braided her thick chestnut hair into two rectangular coils over the ears, with the rest of it bound into a gold net, resting against the back of her neck. A white silk barbette was wrapped under her chin, fastened by a band of gold filigree around her forehead. Raphaëlle studied herself in the polished copper hand mirror. The dark brows in the low forehead contrasted with the conventional ideal of beauty; she hoped that her betrothed would find her to be attractive. She was relieved that her aquiline nose and creamy skin were considered handsome. Her mother had always insisted that while Raphaëlle was not a great beauty, her deep set green eyes and abundant chestnut hair made a striking combination. Finally, from a chest of jewels Raphaëlle drew her mother’s pearl necklace with an amethyst cross. As they completed her toilette, her mouth began to water from the fragrance of roasting meats. The sun had mounted to the heights of the sky.

  There was another knock upon the door. Simonette opened it, and in swept the indubitable Baroness. Raphaëlle could not afterwards recollect what startled her more, the unnatural luminosity of the penetrating but opaque grey eyes, the snowy pallor of the translucent skin, or the skeletal thinness of a woman of about thirty, whose chiseled bone structure had destined her for beauty. The bizarre physique was heightened by the unnerving blackness of nun-like wimple and robes, the sole decoration being the emblem of a silver dove on a cord around her neck. Attached to a cincture at the waist was a small pouch, which from the shape of it seemed to contain a scroll. Dark eyebrows, as well as a hint of sooty hair at the temples beneath the snug toque, betrayed the châtelaine’s relative youth, but her pale mouth was stern and on her uncompromising forehead shimmered an aura of maturity.

  “I am Esclarmonde,” announced the lady, in cold but compelling tones. “I give thanks to the Good God for your safe arrival. I trust you have been made comfortable?”

  Yes, Madame la Baronne,” replied Raphaëlle, and she embraced her aunt, whose cheeks were dry as parchment. The eyes of the Baroness fell upon Virgil’s Aeneid which Jehanette had not yet put away upon the shelf. She picked it up and gently perused the pages. “I see you are an admirer of the great Magus Virgil. This is a magnificent copy. You brought this from your home?”

  “Yes, Madame. My father taught me to read from that volume.” “He was a learned man,” she commented. “And he taught you well, no doubt. I understand that you showed great concern for the poor travelers on the road.”

  “Thank you, Madame. It was merely my duty as a Christian,” replied Raphaëlle, relieved to find the Baroness to be warmhearted in spite of her severe appearance.

  “You look older than I thought you would be. My son is fifteen.”

  “I am seventeen, Madame,” answered Raphaëlle.

  “Seventeen?!” Suspicion flickered across the Baroness’ face.

  “My late fiancé was a year younger than I. We were waiting for him to come of age.” Raphaëlle stared unwaveringly at the woman, who suddenly seemed to be trying to find some flaw in her. “We had been raised together with the assumption that I would someday be his wife.”

  “Child, do you always wear such bright colors?” asked the Baroness with a sn
iff.

  “Madame,” replied Raphaëlle, flushing slightly. “My trousseau was planned with great care by my mother before she died. She wanted me to bring honor to my husband. This is my festive gown.”

  The baroness’ forehead creased in displeasure. “Such bright colors are not suitable for our life here, I am afraid. I must find you more modest garb, becoming to a Christian household.”

  Raphaëlle did not know what to say. She began to feel guilty over her clothes. And even more guilty recalling her imaginings of Sir Martin’s reaction when he saw her in all her fine array.

  “Do not worry yourself, my child. You will learn our ways in time,” said Esclarmonde, smiling unexpectedly. “I hope that you will come to be born into the light.” She spoke with an almost imperceptible shudder for at that moment her agate eyes fell upon Raphaëlle’s amethyst cross.

  “Madame, I do not know what is meant by being ‘born into the light,’” said Raphaëlle. Further displeasure creased the alabaster brow as Lady Esclarmonde perceived the crucifix on the wall. She closed her eyes as if to compose herself. Then she put her arm around Raphaëlle. “My dear child, we live in a world of ignorance and superstition. It is ignorance that keeps humanity from achieving greatness and superstition that keeps us from going directly to God. We must divest ourselves of all material things in order to be perfected.”

  Raphaëlle recalled her aunt the Mother Abbess saying similar words, although the context was somewhat different. Lady Esclarmonde must be a very holy woman. “Oh, Madame, I am greatly attached to my possessions. I confess to you that I love my clothes and my jewelry. I fear that I have a long way to go in the spiritual life and much to learn. But please, tell me, why is there not Mass at the château?”