The Girl Empress (The Chronicle of Maud Book 1)

by Amy Mantravadi

  To the most glorious Empress Mathilda, queen of the Romans, Roger of Salisbury imparts the following message.

  It is with great torment of spirit that I must inform you of the passing of our most beloved Queen Mathilda, mother to Your Highness and to all her subjects, who departed this world upon the first of May. The people mourn her as one of their own, for here was a great lady and one who shall be continually remembered. I am aware that this news must be most unwelcome to you, my lady: you who were always in her thoughts and prayers. I have no words to pass on by way of comfort except those set down by one Henry of Huntingdon in the household of the bishop of Lincoln, who is now at court and in the king’s favor.

  “Successes did not make her happy, nor did troubles make her sad: troubles brought a smile to her, successes fear. Beauty did not produce weakness in her, nor power pride: she alone was both powerful and humble, both beautiful and chaste. The first day of May, at nighttime as we reckon it on earth, took her away, to enter into endless day.”

  Virgil himself could not have writ a more seemly epitaph. I pray you now, seek out some boon of comfort within the land in which you now reside. Rest assured, for the monks of Saint Albans shall say a thousand Masses for her soul, though some may doubt she needs them. Eternity is sweet for those who fear the Lord.

  These words were all I was to receive in regard to my mother. I had for a short time hoped that she might have left me one final note, whether or not it was of any significance. Alas, it was not to be.

  A strange feeling came over me in the days and weeks that followed. Here was my life made hollow and cold, but all around me continued as it always had. Every hour I passed a hundred faces, each of them indifferent to my grief. And why should they not have been? Who was Mathilda of Scotland to them? An eminent person, surely, but she was not their sovereign. They knew little of her and cared even less. It was as if they lived in a different world from me—one not visited by tragedy—and the sorrow I felt every hour forbade me to enter that sphere of hope. Even so, there were three persons who sought to share in my grief. The first, it can hardly surprise you to hear, was Drogo. The second was Archbishop Bruno, who wrote from Trier to profess his anguish upon hearing the news, for he was not ignorant of the depths of affection between me and those I had left behind.

  Last was my own husband, the emperor, who sought to put me at ease in any way possible. He gave orders to the ladies to grant me both privacy and consolation as the situation required. He commanded those in the kitchen to produce an array of food and drink in the hope that something might tempt me. He sent his musicians to play for me, his scribes to read to me, and his chaplain, Hartmann, to pray with me. While most of these attempts failed to grant me any lasting relief, I was nevertheless glad to see how he provided for me.

  Sadly, matters in Germany had taken an ill turn. Henry’s nephew, the Duke of Swabia, wrote that the rebels were gaining ground as the absence of their rightful lord grew overlong. The duke had been appointed along with the count palatine to maintain order, but he now feared that he would not be able to do so much longer. The rebels of Saxony were on the attack once again, and the emperor had no choice but to return to the North with as many men as he could afford to bring.

  While the lands of the late contessa had been pacified for the time being, unrest seemed to fill the very air, and the enmity of Pope Gelasius was beyond doubt. Therefore it was decided that I, the empress, must remain in the South according to the emperor’s pleasure, the visible symbol of imperial authority. Though I was honored by the faith he placed in me, I could not help but be afeard at the prospect of such a task.

  I remember well the morning he set out. There was a mist about the plain that morning, and the dew still clung to each blade of grass. The hem of my gown grew wet as I walked across the field to bid him farewell. It is strange that I should remember such a small thing, and yet I cannot relate on what I supped three days past, is it not? Yet that is the way of things.

  The emperor’s groom was making ready his horse, fixing the saddle upon its broad back and feeding the animal a few last morsels before its long journey was to begin. Through the mist I could just see the emperor pacing toward us, slipping his fingers into his riding gloves, and muttering something to no one in particular.

  “God save the emperor!” I called out to him, and this caught his attention.

  “My lady! I did not see you. You should still be in bed.”

  “You are to ride now?”

  “Yes, we must, and without delay. Frederick says the rebels are likely to march on the Rhineland, and while I have great faith in his abilities, I fear that our foes may find more allies than we should wish there. Perhaps I have stayed away too long. The people grow restless without their king, you see. They start to forget to whom their fealty is owed. All too easily, any man who seizes the opportunity might take them in. But we must not let that happen.”

  “Of course. I understand. Yet I am sorry to see you go.”

  With a wave of his hand, the emperor dismissed his groom, taking the reins and leading the horse toward the rest of the assembly. I followed beside him, and for the moment he did not send me away, but we simply walked in silence.

  “My lord,” I finally said, “I am worried about your health. Now that you are leaving, there will be none with you except the physician who know of your malady.”

  “My ‘malady,’ as you call it, is no cause for concern,” he interrupted, his voice taking on a much different tone. Having foreseen this response, I continued as before.

  “You are in pain; I see it daily. Though you have gone to great lengths to conceal it, and I have never spoken a word to a living soul, I fear that without the proper care your condition may worsen. If you would but—”

  “Stop this!” he commanded. “It is true, I have trusted you with a great deal. I leave you here as my regent. I have granted you all the honors that are your due. Indeed, I have made allowances for you on several occasions when others might have objected, but here I must draw the line! Lest you forget, you are a woman, and it is not fit for you to speak of such things. Now, if I tell you there is no cause for concern, then that is God’s truth, or do you doubt your emperor?”

  For a moment I made no reply, for what was there to say? If I said I doubted him, I would surely merit an even harsher rebuke. If I sought merely to still his anger, I would deny the truth.

  “My lord,” I finally said, “may I speak plainly?”

  He gave out a forced laugh that seemed to mock rather than encourage. “Since when have you ever sought permission before speaking plainly? I have never known you to do anything else.”

  “A serious fault, I am sure. Please, stop a moment if you will.”

  Begrudgingly, he halted his progress and turned to face me. His eyes seemed to cast censure on my words before they had been spoken.

  “It is true, sir, I am a woman; that I have always been, and I always shall be. But I am also your wife, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. To what end did we join hands before God? Am I to share your bed and not your confidence?”

  I was becoming quite upset, yet he allowed me to continue.

  “It has been several years now, and still I am not with child. It is a wonder that there has not been more gossip at court. I know what they say of me: ‘That pitiful Mathilda! She cannot get the emperor a son. She has all the fertility of a gaunt old maid.’ You see, it is not you alone that this question touches. Tell me, will we ever be able to have children, or do I hope in vain? That night when I ran to fetch the physician, I saw something in your eyes I had never seen there before, even when you faced down the full force of your adversaries: I saw fear. So as much as you might seek to deny it, tell me what is the matter! I am your wife!”

  For a moment my breath continued to labor, so frantic had my speech been. I struggled to brace myself for the answer that was bound to come. My husband paused for a moment, casting his eyes down toward the ground while evidently deciding ho
w to respond. Then came his reply, which was rather different than I had imagined.

  “The truth is, I don’t know,” he said softly. “I cannot tell you, because I do not know. It is possible that the disease will go away, and just as possible that it will continue. There has been no change of late. The truth is, I fear . . . I fear . . .” His voice seemed to trail off into the distance along with his gaze.

  “What do you fear?”

  He met my eyes again. “I fear that I might have . . . No, I cannot say, but I have heard that such things are often the judgment of God, and there are some that would say I am owed only wrath.”

  “And do you set store by such comments?”

  “No! That is to say, I am not certain. The will of God is a curious thing. Who am I to question his judgments? Yet, I truly believe . . . I must believe that he has placed me here for a purpose. Mathilda, you do not understand, because you are not of our race, but Germania! The idea of it, the promise of it—I see now that God has appointed my rule for this hour, to build up this kingdom to stand on its own, free from meddling foreigners. You will always have this in England, I think, for the sea grants you its protection. But for me to do that, here and now, for my own people—what greater legacy could I leave not only to our children, but to all the children who are yet to be?”

  I sensed that we had long since passed the original subject of conversation, but I was not perturbed. Rather I stood in awe at the words I was hearing. I felt that for once I had been permitted to enter a world that was once closed to me, and to know my husband for who he truly was.

  “I have not heard you speak in that way before,” I responded. “So if you say that God has appointed you, then why should you fear his curse?”

  He let out a sigh and admitted, “Because after all, I am still a man. I saw what became of my father. He wrestled with God and man, and the cost proved too high.”

  Around us the men were making their final preparations for departure. I sensed that the time for discussion was at an end.

  “I shall pray for you, Husband, both day and night, that the Lord will grant you victory against the rebels.”

  “And I shall pray that he grants you peace,” he concluded. He then mounted his horse with an ease I could hardly have matched and said, “Farewell, Lady Mathilda! May we meet again in a happier hour!”

  “Wait!” I called out. I reached under my cloak for the purse attached to my girdle. Within its folds, my fingers retrieved that most prized of all my possessions: the amber stone.

  “Here,” I said to him. “Carry this with you. It will bring you good fortune.”

  “What is it?” he asked, turning it over in his hand and examining it. “Is that a dead fly?”

  “A moth; a very special kind of moth that a friend gave me long ago. I wish for you to keep it until we meet again. It might grant me some solace.”

  “Well, as you wish then,” he said, placing the curious object within his own pocket. “To the North!”

  His horse galloped eagerly into the distance, its form soon veiled by the last of the morning mist.

  “Until we meet again,” I whispered.

  Alas, poor Gelasius! Truly, I pitied him, though he was my husband’s deadliest enemy. For no sooner had Gelasius ascended the throne of Saint Peter than he suffered one calamity after another. Few indeed are the bishops of Rome who have been vexed with such an ill-favored tenure.

  I have told how Gelasius fled from Rome almost as soon as the staff was placed in his hand. In July of that year, the pope succeeded in entering the city once again under the protection of his Norman allies, but he failed to contain the Frangipane menace. When he was at last bold enough to enter their territory and celebrate the Lord’s Mass at the Church of Saint Praxedes, he was rewarded with an armed uprising. Forced once again into exile, Gelasius elected this time to go north rather than south. With the help of the friendly bishops of Lombardy and Savoy, he was able to escape first to Marseille and then on to Avignon, greeted all the while by throngs of people delighted to welcome him. Most eager of all was the archbishop of Vienne, Guy of Burgundy. He was chief among the sons of Gregory, and through his influence the natural animosity of the French and Burgundians toward the empire was given new life. It was this same Guy who had first announced the order of excommunication against the emperor.

  There in Vienne, Pope Gelasius made ready for a general council that would attempt to settle the controversy over investiture once and for all. He made for Cluny in the depths of winter, there to garner support for his cause, knowing full well that he would find an immense supply of friends. It was to be his last journey. On the fourth before the kalends of February, in the year of our Lord 1119, Gelasius breathed his last, having been pope for just over a year.

  If anyone in the emperor’s camp took comfort from this news, it was not to last. Only nine cardinals were in Cluny at the time of the pope’s demise, yet they determined that it was best to move forward with the selection of a successor without their brothers in Rome, a choice that was bound to cause some vexation. There could have been no more favorable set of circumstances for the archbishop of Vienne, who was elected within the week and rechristened Pope Calixtus II. It was a strange choice of name, for after all, did not Hippolytus refer to the first pope of that title as “a man crafty in evil, and versatile in deceit, aspiring to the episcopal throne”? An obscure quote, to be sure, but one that an army of imperial clerks was more than able to uncover. Such pearls we must treasure, but I doubt Calixtus II would have been amused by the comparison.

  By the following summer, I was back in the emperor’s company, my Italian adventure having come to an end. Leaving Tuscany and Lombardy behind us, we took the Great Saint Bernard Pass through the mountains and arrived near that most familiar of sites: the River Rhine. My husband remained in those days within that region which had granted him the strongest support and contained many of the hereditary lands of his family. He could not venture up into Saxony without being attacked, and even in the South he was locked in a battle of wills with the archbishop of Mainz, Adalbert. Yes, the very same Adalbert who had been restored to the imperial bosom before our departure for Italy had now returned to his old ways, crafting infinite designs to enrich himself and the rest of the House of Saarbrücken by seizing imperial territories under some pretense of legality.

  Of late Adalbert had allied himself with one Kuno, cardinal bishop of Praeneste and papal legate. They had convened a synod in Fritzlar the summer before, in which they proclaimed the emperor’s excommunication—that which was announced by Pope Gelasius—within the Kingdom of Germany. Whatever love might have remained between the emperor and his former chancellor before this incident was now a thing of the past.

  Despite this, not all the news was bad. Bruno of Trier had reclaimed his place as the emperor’s chief counselor and came to visit us often. If poor health prevented this, he would send some message by the hand of his servant, Herman. When the emperor was forced to attend the Reichstag at Tibur, there to answer the charges of the German nobles, it was Bruno’s counsel that allowed him to walk away strengthened.

  Ever since Emperor Henry’s return from the South, the archbishop of Trier had slowly endeavored to turn the royal mind toward peace. Both sides agreed that the conflicts—both between emperor and pope and between emperor and nobles—had gone on far too long. The lords in particular yearned for an end to bloodshed and a more stable future. Having failed to achieve a resolution on his own terms, Henry V now sensed that he would need to make peace with Pope Calixtus in order to bring his own vassals under control.

  This would not be easy, for Calixtus had stood in firm opposition to the emperor even before he ascended the throne of Saint Peter, and it was clear that he did not intend to yield in regard to investiture. Nevertheless, the emperor had little choice; he had seen how the papal anathema had destroyed his father. Therefore, he sent word to the papal party that he would receive such persons as His Holiness wished to send to the
town of Straßburg, there to settle an accord.

  Straßburg sits upon an isle near the Rhine, in the region between the Alps, the Vogesen hills, and that land which the Germans call Schwarzwald, the “black forest.” On account of its position, that city saw many a traveler come and go: ships carried wares up or down the river, while merchants’ carts moved east and west in search of buyers. Bruno had lectured me about such places, which were often the subject of dispute between lords and kingdoms.

  There we made our home for several days while awaiting the arrival of the pope’s ambassadors. The summer had drawn to a close, and the storks had long since abandoned their high perches to make their winter travels. Where they flew, no man could say, but they always returned with the break of spring. With the birds no longer among us, a different kind of visitor, whose fidelity was far more in doubt, made its entrance through the city gates and arrived at our abode about midday.

  His Holiness saw fit to send but two men: our old familiar Abbot Pontius of Cluny, and the bishop of Châlons, William of Champeaux. The bishop was a renowned scholar of both logic and rhetoric. He had made his reputation in the realm of theology and founded Saint Victor’s Abbey before being called to the office of bishop. Having established their legacies with the Church, both men sought now to do it an even greater service by performing a miracle of arbitration that would free Christendom from the dispute over investiture and lay the foundation for a more peaceful era.

  Thus I found myself sitting at the feast with the emperor on one side and the pope’s ambassadors on the other. As always, the emperor’s nephews enjoyed their prime position next to him, and with a hundred other magnates seeking their place at the high table, I was nowhere near the person with whom I most wished to speak: Bruno of Trier. Almost an hour passed before I was finally able to excuse myself and move in his direction. I found him already in conversation with a man whom I did not recognize, so I assumed he was one of the papal party. When the archbishop was finally made aware of my presence, he and his companion both stood and made their addresses.