The Miracle Thief

by Iris Anthony

  My father’s eyes followed me as the horse passed by, and I knew he would speak to me later of my whereabouts.

  A shout went up from the gate, and soon the sparkling tip of the archbishop’s jeweled miter came into view, followed by his sweat-stained brow, drooping jowls, and then his crimson-draped shoulders.

  Andulf gripped my hand as I slid from the back of the horse.

  My father did not even wait for the archbishop to approach. He left the villa’s colonnaded porch and strode into the courtyard. “Have they agreed?”

  I stepped up onto the porch the others had abandoned and leaned against one of the columns.

  The archbishop paused, panting, as he grasped his crozier between both hands and clung to it as if he feared to let go. His nephew, a canon, carried the cleric’s parchments. They were followed by a fair-haired monk with strangely pale eyes. “They request a three-month truce, Sire.”

  “A truce?”

  My father’s counselors gasped, and I right along with them. How bold the Danes were to request anything from my father at all! It was their army that had been defeated at Chartres, not my father’s.

  The Count of Paris scowled. “All the better to rebuild their armies and repair their weapons.”

  The archbishop was already shaking his head. “They wish to be allowed to return to their families and take in what remains of the harvest before winter.”

  My father turned toward the count, the jewels of his crown glittering. “You say you cannot fight them, Robert?”

  “I cannot.” The count said it with such a firm set to his jaw I rather thought he wanted to say, “I will not.” But it was my father who was king, not he. And not his brother, Odo. Not any longer. The crown of the Franks had finally come back to where it belonged.

  My father replied to the count’s obstinate words the way he always did: with a firm and even tone. “Then if we want a treaty, we must believe they speak the truth.”

  The archbishop stepped nearer. “I think they will agree to a treaty, Sire.”

  “They will take the lands I offered?”

  My father had offered them lands? As if they were the victors? I did not understand what was happening. Beside me, I heard a tut-tut. Turning, I saw Andulf. He was watching the proceedings, just the same as I. But I could not care what he thought, for the archbishop was already speaking again. And by the looks of his smile, he was saying something my father would not wish to hear.

  “…did what I could, but they insisted they do not want Flanders. They thought it too marshy for their purposes.”

  I hid my smile in my sleeve before I could laugh outright. Everyone thought Flanders too marshy, the Count of Paris among them. It served no purpose to anyone.

  Little Ermentrude toddled out onto the porch, and I sprang forward, looping a finger around the collar of her tunic before she could tumble from it. Her mother, the queen, must not be far. Though constantly breeding, still she was loathe to let my father stray from her side. I pulled the little girl toward me and caught her up around the middle, swinging her to my hip.

  She grabbed at the gold tips of my plaits and gave them a tug.

  “Not those, little sprite. You will make me immodest.”

  The count was speaking now. “They should be pleased with your benevolence. After all, it was myself and the other counts who won at Chartres, not them. If anyone should be taking lands for their troubles, ’tis me. Sire.”

  “But it is not me who pleads for peace, Robert. ’Tis you. I find myself negotiating on your behalf, not my own.”

  “Then tell them if they do not take Flanders, they will take nothing.”

  I held my breath. It was not the count’s place to tell my father what to do.

  “It will not be difficult to get him to agree to a truce.” The archbishop spoke the words with a smile, but this time it was a smile of triumph.

  My father sent him a sharp glance. “You know this already? How?”

  “In exchange for better lands, he will agree to recognize you as his lord, submit himself to God, forsake his pagan ways, and be baptized.”

  “All of this? But I have offered him nothing yet to which he has agreed.”

  I tickled Ermentrude’s cheek with my fingers. She squealed in delight, and I followed with a nuzzle from my nose. Was that a smear of honey on her cheek?

  “I also promised him the hand of the princess, Gisele, in marriage.”

  Andulf stiffened as I pulled my nose from the child’s sweetly scented skin. What had he said? Had the archbishop spoken of me?

  My father was calling him names that would have made even the devils in hell blush to hear. “I want to treat with him, not breed with him!”

  The child was tugging at my plait anew, but I could not bring myself to care. What exactly was it the archbishop had said? I hadn’t heard him clearly.

  “What in the name of God’s great throne possessed you to offer up such a prize to that—that—that pagan butcher?”

  “He agreed to be baptized, Sire. He and all his men. All of the Danes.”

  “You promised him my own daughter?”

  My father’s counselors had wisely stepped away from him. All of them but the count. He had taken up a position beside the archbishop. They stood together, facing the king, as one man.

  The archbishop’s smile had not yet faltered. “He said, ‘Yes.’”

  “He said what?”

  “He said, ‘Yes,’ Sire. He agreed. The terms have all been written.” He gestured to the canon, who handed him a scroll of parchment. “He agreed to a treaty, so long as different land than Flanders is given him. And he agreed to the marriage.”

  Why was it that I could not seem to gain my breath? And how was it that it had become so deathly cold?

  Andulf glanced over at me and then took the child from my arms.

  My father stepped toward the archbishop. “I have not agreed to the marriage!”

  The count stood between them and placed a hand on my father’s chest.

  My father knocked it away. “You forget yourself!”

  The count withdrew his hand as he inclined his head. “May I remind you, Sire, that I cannot fight them and—”

  “If you will not fight them, and if, because of it, I am not to be allowed to keep my own daughter, then you must forfeit something in return.” My father, seemingly done with the count, took a step toward the archbishop.

  That unfortunate man stumbled back, away from him.

  Now my teeth were clattering together. I could not seem to stop them.

  Andulf set the child down and pushed her back toward the door of the villa. “My lady?”

  My father was still shouting. “You tell that Dane he will find his new lands here, in Neustria.”

  The count’s face went dark as his hand dropped to his knife. “But these are my lands, Sire!”

  “He can have all the lands from this river to the Seine and out to the sea. I trust those will be more to his liking.” He turned his wrath on the archbishop. “If those are sufficient, then he shall meet me in Rouen three months hence, when you will indeed baptize him and save his piteous, black soul.”

  The archbishop bowed. “For the glory of God.”

  My father stared at him for one long moment. “For your glory, Franco. I suspect this has been for your glory all along.”

  CHAPTER 7

  I do not know how I made it back inside the villa; my knees were shaking like leaves, and I could not have had my wits about me. Once inside, once I had gained the sanctuary of the royal bedchamber, I waited for my father while my belly twisted with fear. Had I once thought my life sad and sorry? Had I despaired of being forgotten and neglected? How I wished it were now so!

  As my father entered the room, I threw myself before him. “Please, Sire. I beg of you, on the grave of your mother,
the rightful queen, do not give me to the pagan.”

  His own queen looked on from her silk-cushioned retreat in the corner of the room.

  He sat in his armed chair. When I reached for his slippered foot, he shifted, removing it from my grasp. “What else can I do? I cannot defend my own kingdom, and I cannot control my own vassals. And now I cannot even save my own daughter.”

  “But the pagan already has sons. He already has a wife! So what would that make me?”

  He did not need to answer. We both already knew. It would make me my mother. His face went dark, and I knew I had overspoken. I rose to my knees as I beseeched him. “And—and I was not told. I was not even asked—”

  “Nor was I.”

  “The archbishop cannot expect that—”

  “He does.”

  “But you cannot just—”

  “What else am I to do?” He passed a hand over his face with a weary sigh. “If I will not agree, they will keep on fighting. Robert may have more men than I do, but in this, he is right. The Danes will keep on attacking. Perhaps not this spring, but surely the next. And maybe the one after that. How many times will Chartres be burned before there is nothing left there to destroy?”

  “But it is the count who won the battle. At Chartres he was the victor, not they.”

  “A truer word was never spoken. He won. And now he will never let me forget it. So now he has what he wants, he has a treaty, although I’ve wrested his best lands from him in forfeit. Lands that ought to have been my own.”

  My father thought the count’s lands and titles ought to be his, just as the count thought my father’s crown ought to have been his own. There was no end to the enmity between them. “And what of me?”

  He turned a sorrow-filled gaze on me. “You heard the archbishop. He made an agreement.”

  “Then unmake it, I pray you!”

  “And go back on my word? The Danes would mock me. And so would all of my vassals. What man would pledge himself to one who will not keep his own word?”

  “But it was not your word. It’s was the archbishop’s—”

  “Whom I appointed to speak for me.”

  “But, wasn’t I to marry Rudolph of Burgundy? Or the Count of Vermandois? Is that not what you’ve always said?”

  In her corner, the queen stirred.

  “It’s what I had always hoped. An alliance with the Burgundians would have been wise. And very profitable.”

  Would have been? Had he already given me up? A desperate panic took wing in my stomach. “I would rather—I would rather…”

  His gaze sharpened as if he were curious to hear what I would say.

  “I would rather marry Robert’s son Hugh than—”

  “Do not say it! Do not even think for one moment I would consent to unite that despicable family with my own. At least the pagan is honorable.”

  “But, they’re—they’re Danes! They’re murderous monsters who do nothing but pillage and plunder. You have not consigned me to some ignominious marriage. You have consigned me to death!”

  ***

  I had entreated my father to be kind to me. I had appealed to his sense of justice. I had invoked the grave of his mother, the old queen. It had availed me nothing. I was to be offered to the Danes as if it had been my father’s idea from the first. Would that I was marshy like Flanders. Then perhaps the chieftain would have no use for me.

  My father left me there, prostrate, my pleas resounding from the marble walls. He declared he must dine with his counselors. In truth, I knew he was trying to escape me. He hated me to be angry with him. I could not say I had not used it to my advantage once.

  Or twice, perhaps.

  I lay there for several minutes, trying to think of what I had forgotten to say, of some other thing I might have used to change his mind, but there was nothing. As I pushed to my feet, I heard something, saw some movement in the corner. Whirling, I expected to see my stepmother lounging there, gloating. But it was not her. It was Andulf sitting upon her cushions, peeling an apple with his knife.

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Here?” His gaze lifted for a moment from the apple and then went right back to it. “On the cushions? Not long.”

  I could not decide if I ought to be offended. But how could I fault him for performing the task that had been set before him? Still, shame crept up to warm the tips of my ears, and I wished there were some other society I might seek to join. But there was none.

  “They are not married, my lady.”

  I was too spent to pretend I did not know to whom he referred.

  He took a bite of the apple, and then spoke as he was chewing. “Poppa is just a concubine.”

  Just a concubine. “And you think that makes me feel better? That it should abolish all of my complaints?”

  “I did not think—”

  “No. You did not. And now you’ve done nothing but make it all worse. Be gone!”

  “You cannot—”

  “Go!”

  “I can’t.” He had not even unfolded those long legs of his to try.

  A sorry use I was of royalty. Even my own knight would not obey me. “If you do not go now, then you will be full sorry that you stayed.” I would be sorry he stayed. I would be mortified should he see me give vent to my anger through raging tears and heaving sobs.

  “Your father said I was to escort you to dinner when you wished to come.”

  “I do not wish to dine tonight.” I did not want to smile at the Count of Paris and receive the archbishop’s blessing as if they had not just sold me for the bounty of a thousand convert souls. I did not want to feel the eyes of all of the nobles upon me or watch the looks they passed me as they wondered what kind of man the Dane was and how ill he might use me.

  The knight shrugged as he took another bite.

  “Must you eat that here?”

  “What else am I to eat? Just because you do not want anything does not mean that I do not.”

  At such an imminently reasonable complaint, the dam that held back my tears broke, and they overflowed my eyes with the force of fury and desperate fear. “And just because the archbishop promised me to some pagan does not make it right. And just because my father cannot bear to break a promise someone else made on his behalf should not mean I have no opinion about it!” And just because the marriage was part of a treaty did not mean I would become like Poppa…did it? Could it? If she were a concubine, then I would be the Dane’s lawful wife, would I not? But as I turned that thought over, I found all I had been clinging to was a flimsy bit of straw. My worst fear was going to come to pass. It did not matter if Poppa was just a concubine. She was with the chieftain just the same. And though he had abducted her, she had stayed with him and borne him sons. She might as well be his rightful wife. And that would make me, in all the ways that mattered, his concubine.

  The knight could not say I had not warned him. When I could not staunch the flow of those pitiful tears, he finally picked himself up and left.

  ***

  My sleep that night was short. My dreams haunted by that nameless, faceless woman of my childhood and her dire warnings of the Danes. By the time morning dawned and the sun sifted in through the gaps in the shutters, I was famished. Rising before the others, I went out and begged some bread and pickled fish from the kitchen. I ate near the door, out of the way of the servants’ preparations, where I could still benefit from the warmth of the fires. I was not the only one about at such an early hour. As I was finishing, I heard the shuffle of footsteps across the courtyard.

  They drew near and then stopped just short of me.

  It was my father. I could tell by the scents of the lavender that was used to freshen his tunics and the cloves he liked to chew. “I wish you would not weary yourself over the Dane.”

  It was as close to an apology as I
was likely to receive. If I hoped to gain anything, any promise from him, then this was the time to try. I turned and took his hand in mine. “I do not doubt this was the archbishop’s idea, and I know it was done without your consent, but I fear for my life. Please. Do not let me become a Saint Lucy or Saint Agnes. Please do not send me away.”

  We parted, dropping hands, to allow a water carrier to pass.

  When he spoke again, his eyes were soft with compassion. “Surely God will defend you.”

  “He did not defend them.”

  His face creased with a frown. “There is nothing left for me to do and God could not disagree with this treaty. Why would He not honor a desire to convert the pagans? And in that case, why would He not protect you?” His eyes searched mine for…understanding? Forgiveness? “How could this be wrong?”

  The archbishop had brought God into these negotiations, and now my father was doing the same. But I did not want to be used by Providence. “What if it does mean certain sacrifice for me? Could we not ask for some sign from God?” For something, anything, that would keep me from the Dane.

  “A sign?”

  “I do not want to act in disobedience, to do something contrary to God’s will.” I feared that possibility even more than I feared wedding the Dane. To do so would bring swift and certain punishment. “I simply wish to know it is the right thing to do.” The archbishop had placed the future of Christendom upon my shoulders, and it seemed too weighty a burden to bear. But if this destiny was indeed the design of Providence, then what else could I do but make my peace with it?

  “But…how could it not be God’s will? Think of it, Gisele. The conversion of an entire people!”

  “Would you give me leave to inquire of Saint Catherine? At the abbey in Rochemont?”

  His frown deepened.

  “Just to ease my mind, so I may be certain?” God himself might not deign to reveal His will to me, but Saint Catherine might. “What harm could there be in my going?”