The Girl Empress (The Chronicle of Maud Book 1)

by Amy Mantravadi

  “Thank you, my lord,” he replied, hastily departing.

  “Do not worry, my daughter,” the king said after the door was closed. “He is a far more effective soldier than he is a speaker.”

  In the few days since their arrival back at court, I desired to once again enjoy the company of the king’s lads. However, it was not to be, for with each new day came the news that the king was once again taking Prince William out to continue his training, and it was only natural that the young men should come along. Meanwhile I learned about the proper method for couching, in addition to my daily lessons in Latin, which were administered by Lady Beatrice. The two soon became combined, as a stern “Fac! Fac!” met any pause when I ought to have been stitching.

  Then, one day, the Lord smiled upon me. The clouds were rent asunder and water poured forth in unnatural abundance. The roads were impassable, and the weather was simply not fit for a prince of the realm, let alone a king, to be out of doors. I was informed that the king’s lads were spending the afternoon in the old study chamber, attempting to best one another at checks. Sensing my chance, I inquired of my mother if I might go visit my older brother. After some persuasion she permitted me to leave the day’s lessons for the space of one half hour.

  Excitedly I made my way to the study chamber, where I found Robert and Brian bent forward over the small table sitting between them, their eyes fixed upon the game board. I had no knowledge of checks, being yet a young girl who did not possess the patience necessary for mastering it. Nevertheless, I was determined to make an attempt.

  “Brother Robert!” I called out to him.

  He looked up from his pondering with a slight frown on his face, apparently displeased with the interruption. However, when he saw me his features softened.

  “Hello, Maud. Have you come to join the game?”

  I felt slightly embarrassed. “I have no experience with it.”

  “Then we must teach you!” he replied, beckoning for me to come and stand by his side, which I did with all haste.

  Unlike his friend’s, Brian’s eyes had remained on the board the entire time, and he now reached out to move one of the pieces. I marveled at the carving of each of the ivory figures, some made to look like members of the clergy, others like knights mounted on horses, and still others having the fierce look of warriors set for battle.

  “What do all of them do?” I asked Robert.

  “This one is the king. It is the key,” he told me. “As in life, if this piece is lost, the kingdom will fall and all will be lost.”

  “So this is like a real war?” I asked.

  “Yes and no. There are rules that govern each of the different types of pieces. The ones with bishops’ miters can move either this way . . . or . . . that way. These can only move forward and not back. Oh, you will like this one: it is the queen, the only lady on the board.”

  As he said these words, he picked up the piece, which indeed had the look of a queen seated on a throne, her veil held in place by a crown. The expression on her face was that of the Stoics.

  “I do not think she looks very happy,” I said as he set the queen back in her place.

  “That is because I am about to take her out of play,” Brian responded, reaching with both his hands to make the exchange for one of his own red pieces.

  Robert was none too pleased, letting out a cry of, “Oh damn!” and following it with, “How did I miss that?”

  “You were not thinking of the game,” said his adversary. “Like so many who have come before, you allowed your mind to wander when encountering a female.” He winked in my direction as he said this.

  Robert refused to accept this explanation, and he spent the next few moments attempting to review each move, determined to discover the exact point at which he had misstepped. Finally he smiled and declared that he should not have moved his queen so far forward three moves earlier.

  “You may delight yourself with whatever explanations you like,” Brian countered, “but the fact remains that you are still down in the game. You have but one knight still in play, while I have both a bishop and a rook, as well as that pawn.”

  “This is not the end. Do not underestimate my knack for escape.”

  “How are you going to do that if you have so few pieces?” I asked him.

  “In moving to take my queen, my foe has been drawn into a position he is not able to retain. He has left his rook by itself, while my pieces, few as they are, remain placed in support of one another.”

  “Yes, we all stand in awe of your words, but we will let Princess Maud be the judge of your design,” Brian replied.

  “Did William tell you that Uncle David gave me a bestiarum?” I asked Brian.

  “I’m afraid not. He mostly discussed how wonderful his new dog is.”

  “Colin? I don’t care for him. Whenever we are in the same room, he leaps on me and then licks me with his terrible tongue. I do not think I shall ever love dogs as William does.”

  “Ha, check!” Robert shouted, placing his knight in position to strike.

  “One step ahead of you,” Brian countered, moving his bishop to neutralize the threat.

  “I thought it was I who was always one step ahead, at least when it comes to stalking.”

  “No one denies that you are physically skilled, but you must also occupy your mind with the task at hand,” Brian replied, his eyes still searching the board. There was silence for about a minute until he finally let out a cry of, “Checkmate!”

  Having examined the board one last time, Robert determined that he was indeed pinned down.

  “I admit it: you have bested me this time. Even so, Lady Fortune shall not look on you so favorably next time, I’ll be bound.”

  “Can I play now?” I asked the two of them.

  “It is really more of a man’s game,” Robert began, but his vanquisher cut him off.

  “As the reigning champion, I would consider it my honor to teach you a bit of the game.”

  He spent the rest of that time demonstrating to me the possible moves and which ones could be most beneficial. It was too much information to take in during one sitting, but I felt that with practice I could master the game.

  “When you are older, this should become simpler for you,” Brian told me. “For now, you can continue to practice with us whenever we are playing.”

  “I hope this rain is going to stop soon. I have a fierce desire to get back on a horse,” Robert added.

  Even so, the heavens continued to pour forth, and I was back in the study chamber the following three days for more brief lessons. I could not understand why my mother had never thought this a necessary skill for me to learn. It seemed to involve the very kind of thinking that would aid me in the future. More than anything, I enjoyed spending time with the king’s lads and wished that the emperor’s ambassadors would stay far away from England, at least for a little while longer.

  VI

  The arrival of summer was not so cheerful as it ought to have been, for while the world seemed alive with joyous possibility, the changing of the seasons was for me a harbinger of doom. The thought that I should very soon be taken away from the ones I loved was almost more than I could bear. Even so, I was the daughter of King Henry of England, and bear it I must.

  The abbot of Westminster, Giles Crispin, used to say that the will of God could be interpreted from the acts of nature, and that in every storm cloud the hand of the Almighty could be seen. Thus I received small comfort from the news that a strange illness had struck the city of London that they named “the holy fire.” It was so called because the victim would first display a high fever that would force him to bed, along with the most profuse sweating. After his lying a few days in this manner, the afflicted’s limbs became discolored, in time turning black as soot. Few were known to have survived this scourge.

  The queen determined that the court must be moved to Windsor, although the palace remained under construction and was not as lavishly decorated, nor half as
large, as the one in Westminster. The king planned to rebuild the castle entirely in stone, but many of the outer buildings were still made of wood and straw. Whenever it rained, the blacksmiths struggled to keep their fires lit. Even the animals seemed bitter at the less-than-perfect conditions. It was therefore a happy day when word reached us that the disease had abated and it was safe to return to our home downriver. It seemed that the Lord had decided to postpone the end of days, though for me it was still a kind of apocalypse, with word now reaching us that the emperor’s ambassadors had traveled as far as Bruges and would soon be in sight of the white cliffs.

  Although my experience of the outside world was poor, I had perhaps more knowledge of foreigners than the average Englishman on account of the many visitors the queen had received over the years. She was such a great patron of music and dance that she always welcomed the most gifted performers to her court at Westminster. She was particularly fond of the French minstrels, whose songs were filled with such words of love as would melt any woman’s heart. Some complained that she was too free with her charity and should pursue a course of greater austerity, but to what more worthy cause would such men have deemed those monies fit to be sent? Better to lend one’s gold to those things that build rather than those that destroy.

  We received performers from the empire on more than one occasion, whether from Lorraine, Bavaria, Saxony, or even far-off Lombardy. They told great tales of snow-covered mountains rising to touch the sun, forests so dense that they were black as night, and the River Rhine flowing through the vineyard lands, its length dotted with marvelous cities that boasted some of the finest cathedrals in Christendom. They understood but little of our speech. Even so, we were able to converse in broken bits of Latin. Had I not feared the fate by which I was bound, I think that I would have loved to visit the land of which these men spoke.

  The imperial legates landed safely in Dover and proceeded north. King Henry intended to resolve the matter at his Whitsun court, and they evidently did not wish to keep him waiting, for a full day before they were to arrive, their banners were sighted on the southern bank of the river. Some of the flags had the crest of the imperial house, while others portrayed a great black eagle on a field of gold. Ambassadors they may have been, but they seemed to me an invading army.

  The party made across the bridge into London town and then rounded the bend toward Westminster. Among those who received them were the king himself; the lord chancellor, the bishop of Salisbury; the Earl of Warwick; the constable Edmund fitz Hugh; and William D’Aubigny, who had lately been made chief butler in the king’s household. The leader of these visitors was Adalbert von Saarbrücken, chancellor to Emperor Henry V. It was said that Adalbert had brokered an agreement with the pope in regard to the great controversy—that was, whether the emperor had the right to install bishops according to his choosing. Also in the party was the duke of Swabia, Frederick II, one of the most powerful German lords and a nephew to Henry V, his mother being the emperor’s sister. He was still a young man at this time, but the emperor trusted him to represent the interests of the ruling family.

  The remainder of the party included Adalbert’s younger brother, the Count of Saarbrücken, and several clerks of the imperial court, the chief such man being named Burchard. Ministeriales they called them: masters of the law who carried out the business of the empire, enriching both their lord and themselves in the process. Not a few men of less-than-noble birth rose high indeed through such works, which became more essential by the year.

  I was due to be presented to the ambassadors at the feast that night. Never before had I made such an appearance, and I was so eager to please that I gained a new respect for the promptings of Lady Beatrice. Long months of preparation had led up to this moment, and I was determined to make the best possible impression on our foreign visitors.

  Ah, to be so young again! To possess that mixture of hope and fear that must accompany such an occasion! Across the span of my life, I would be involved in many such occasions, but none would ever be to me as that first moment when I heard my name called out: “Her Royal Highness the Princess Mathilda!”

  The doors to the great hall were opened before me, and I saw England’s nobility in all its glory. Rather, I would have seen it, had my view not been substantially blocked by the new veil and fillet that both the queen and Lady Beatrice had commanded I wear for the occasion. While my vision was clear enough straight before me, I could make out nothing to the right, to the left, or above without moving my head. I can only imagine what the ladies and gentlemen must have thought upon viewing such a girl, scarcely the height of a man’s waist, her head adorned with such ornaments as befitted a woman twice as large.

  I took one final breath from the air outside the hall. Then, with the determination of Caesar, I crossed the threshold and strode toward the dais. Members of the crowd were straining to get a glimpse of me, for they had as little experience with me as I had with them. I could barely see the king and queen standing up above the heads of the crowd. Privately I hoped that my determined pace would give off a sense of confidence that I did not truly possess.

  Eleanor, my mother’s chief attendant, was there to help me up the stairs to the dais. Ever since that sad incident the preceding year, Lady Beatrice had not trusted me to perform any great feat of movement in such attire without falling to the ground. The officials seated at the high table bowed as I walked past. Finally I reached the assigned point next to the king, at which a wood block had been placed, and, taking his hand, I stepped on top of it.

  I could now see the full extent of the hall more clearly and became keenly aware of the hundreds of eyes fastened on me. Still holding my right hand, my father stepped back to display me to the imperial ambassadors seated farther down the table.

  “Hier ist meine Tochter!” he proclaimed, using a line that I am certain he had practiced earlier in the day in order to impress the Germans.

  I assumed from the looks of recognition on the visitors’ faces that he must have been making some comment about my arrival. The king turned and motioned for all to be seated so that the feast might commence. A chair was now provided so I could sit between my mother and father. As we waited for the food to arrive, each of the ambassadors rose from his position and made his way over to examine the new arrival.

  The first man was the tallest, and he was dressed in dark robes, which to my seven-year-old mind gave him a somewhat sinister appearance.

  “Lady Mathilda! Schön sie kennenzulernen!” the man said.

  Seeing the look of confusion on my face, he made an attempt in my own language.

  “Lady Mathilda, I am pleased to meet you. Your appearance is most magnificent on this night! I am called Adalbert, chancellor to Kaiser Heinrich . . . Emperor Henry.”

  I nodded to show my understanding. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Your Excellency.”

  “Was hat sie gesagt?” the younger man standing behind Adalbert said. I assumed from his manner of dress that he must be Frederick, the Duke of Swabia.

  “Sie sagt, sie ist glücklich, uns kennenzulernen,” the chancellor replied while looking right at me. I assumed that the comment was meant for his companion, as my ignorance of German was already quite plain.

  The duke edged closer and examined me as one might eye an oddly shaped carrot at the local market.

  “Sie ist sehr jung, denke ich. Nur ein kleines Mädchen!”

  The queen had left the table for some reason and the king was caught up in another discussion, so I was left feeling rather helpless, unable to understand the strange words spoken by these two men. My only comfort was that the younger one did not seem to understand me either.

  “You must forgive the duke,” Adalbert explained, taking the empty chair to my left as his partner departed. “He has no experience with the English speech.”

  “I would like to know what he was saying about me just now,” I told him. “I am afraid he does not like me very much.”

 
“No, my lady, he simply told me what an excellent . . . consort you will make for his uncle, the emperor.”

  This was some relief, though I sensed that the chancellor had not revealed all to me.

  “You know the emperor well, sir?”

  “Ja, very well.”

  “What is he like? I have heard few reports from anyone who has been in his presence.”

  “He is just what you would hope, my lady. He is a great German prince like his Vater, the late emperor. He has . . . how do you say this? He has a good seat upon a horse, and he is an excellent commander.”

  “Yes, but what is his character?”

  “Persönlichkeit?” He paused for a moment to consider his answer. “This is difficult to say in your speech. The emperor is a true Christian, and he is most serious about learning.”

  “So he is a lover of books?”

  “No, not so much as this. He likes to ride or to joust. He must move or he grows weary.”

  “I see.” The emperor sounded very much like the type of ruler my brother William hoped to become.

  “Ah, do not worry! My master has many books in his library!” the chancellor responded, seemingly afraid that this was the origin of my concern. “When you come to live in the Reich, you will find that we have many things, good things. You will want nothing.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I found it unlikely that I would want for nothing, but I held my tongue.

  “If you wish to speak with my fellows, they all know Latin,” Adalbert offered.

  He could scarcely have designed a better way to shame me if he had tried. I was forced to reply, “I am sorry, Excellency, but I have not yet mastered the Latin tongue.”

  “No matter. Bruno will take care of this.”

  I was about to inquire about this Bruno when the queen returned and was eager to recover her seat. Providing apologies in three different languages, Adalbert moved to take his place at the other end of the table, even as the servants began placing the supper in front of us.