Watermark

by Vanitha Sankaran

  Next to her, an older lady, Esclarmonde, huffed. “Honest with what? Does your husband speak to you like this? If this man was even her husband. Frippery meant for song and dance.”

  “It should be like this,” a middle-aged woman dressed in a russet gown replied, “simple and heartfelt. I tell you, my own husband had a tongue of honey before we married—”

  “And you had a fine body before four children,” Esclarmonde interrupted in a wry tone.

  Appreciative laughter sounded around the room.

  “More likely he sends her a signal of where to meet,” Esclarmonde continued. “Play the song again, boy.” She waved at the minstrel.

  As the song resumed, the ladies paid rapt attention. Esclarmonde interrupted midverse.

  “Yes, that’s it. He wants succor and comfort, wants her to send for him. It’s a missive for a tryst.” She smiled in triumph.

  “Or a declaration of love from afar,” another woman said. “Simple and sweet without deeper intent.”

  “Can’t it be both?” the vicomtesse weighed in. She templed her fingers and nodded at the minstrel. “Listen to another song by the same man.”

  The minstrel took up his fiddle again. This time, however, he plucked only a single succession of notes that he repeated for each line of the verse. It was a melancholy series, sharp and bleak.

  With the tears I weep from my eyes

  I make ink to write a hundred letters

  And send them to the most beautiful love of mine,

  The courtliest, oh, my Midons.

  And afterwards, many a time

  I was reminded of her act when we parted.

  She covered her face in a sweet veil

  So not to say yes or no to my hail.

  The minstrel repeated the last line thrice before he finished, each time in a quieter voice. Auda blinked away a tear as the sad notes faded in the air.

  “Ah, this is clear,” the Lady Esclarmonde said right away. “He speaks of her act, and his hail—need I say more?”

  The ladies tittered.

  “No, domna,” young Clarys protested again. “She may be an innocent, even a nun, hiding behind her veil.”

  A few voices rose in protest, and the talk between the ladies took a lively turn. Each woman spoke of her husband, trying to convince the others that she had ended with the worst catch, a man who’d gone from lofty words to lusty grabs and little else.

  What was the point of such discussion? Auda wondered. Did the vicomtesse want to engage in a game of words? Or did she want to change things? Perhaps she had looked at her own marriage and seen a lack she wanted to right.

  Auda pondered the troubadour verse as she slipped out of the back of the solar to the adjoining chamber leading to the hallway. Courtly love, at least honest love, seemed more like what Jaime offered when he kissed her, or smiled at her. Had Poncia felt the same way about Jehan? Maybe Jaime hid some agenda too.

  The Church said the role of the woman was that of wife and mother. One of the verses in the lady’s collection had even confirmed it. She’d found no author’s name on the simple words, but they’d stayed with her all the same.

  True virgin, like Maria

  True life and true faith

  My friend becomes lover

  Lover becomes wife

  Gives birth, passions sate.

  My domna, my mercy, my fate.

  All women began as virgins, to be wooed for a time, only for the purpose of bearing sons to start the cycle again. Her sister would say so, but surely courtly love offered more?

  As she rounded the corner, Auda heard a pair of voices, one low, the other melodic. She stopped, seeing a man and a woman grappling with each other against the wall. The vicomte!

  Rooted to her spot, Auda cast about for an escape. She couldn’t be found here—not by this man doing this thing!

  The lady laughed in a rich, throaty tone. Auda recognized her burnished copper hair from the larger group of women. The girl was young; her mother had escorted her to the palace and was still in the solar right next door. Yet now the girl leaned back and offered the vicomte her creamy white shoulders and her small, firm cleavage. Auda swallowed, shamefully curious. She squinted to see better. She’d never seen the act of sex before, only heard about it in jest and song. Was this what everyone clamored over?

  The vicomte nuzzled his face against the girl’s breasts, grasping at the two mounds through her silken dress. His fingers clawed against her skin as he clasped her close about her shoulders.

  The girl whimpered, pushing his hands lower.

  From somewhere within his cloak, he drew out his fat member, and curled the girl’s fingers around it. Guiding her to her knees and keeping his hand on the crown of her head, he directed her toward his veined cock. She sank upon him, and took him in with her cheeks. He wobbled as her lips flapped against him, again and again. Finally he moved, a quick shudder before he collapsed against the wall. His seed spurted out in globs, spilling over her lips.

  “Oh yes, God, I almost see Him.” The vicomte’s voice sounded wondering.

  Auda sucked in her breath, horrified and fascinated at once. She was not naïve enough to think the vicomte stayed true to his wife, but what of this girl, whose mother was in the next room? Did she think to win some favors, coins to pay the family debts, or to hook a wealthy man?

  And what had the vicomte meant with his cryptic laudation?

  The girl, adjusting her dress, didn’t notice Auda, but the Vicomte did. His eyes tracked her in the shadows and his lips curved down.

  “Ah, little bird,” the vicomte said in a sad tone. He shifted to cover himself. “I suppose you were meant for finer things. But I’ll wager you see.”

  The girl before him murmured a thank you, but Auda knew the words were meant for her.

  Horrified, she dashed out of the room and ran down the hallway. She’d been wrong about the progression of women from virgins to lovers to mothers, so very wrong. There were many other choices—some of them entirely terrifying.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The following week, Auda made a startling discovery: verses written by women. She’d found them sewn together in a folio and stored in a roll, by far the most preserved manuscripts she’d seen. Most were anonymous, yet a few bore authorship, among them Marie de France, Beatriz de Romans, and a slew of single names: Iselda, Alais, Carenza.

  Unsure at first of what the verses were, Auda read through each one. Unlike the other poems, which held women in some mystical light as the gateway to happiness, these verses seemed more commonplace, lacking the romance of the male poets.

  Good Friend, I want to know

  The truth of the love between us two

  So strong once, so tell me please

  Why you’ve given it away a-free?

  Another one read:

  I have a friend of great repute

  Stands high over all men

  His heart to me is, unlike yours, so true

  With him I know where I stand.

  Not quite the vulgar verse that simple jongleurs sang, but more direct and interested in the practicality of love than the troubadours’ breezy lyrics of enduring devotion and endearment. Here, the tributes to a beautiful midons whose mere existence made a man cry were replaced by the simple heartfelt sadness of not being loved enough.

  Auda sought the vicomtesse in her solar. The lady sat at her writing desk, poring over a parchment roll bearing columns of numbers. She lifted a finger as Auda entered, but didn’t look up. Auda waited.

  The solar looked different now than it had during the audience with the ladies. It seemed darker, richer. A red velvet cloth had been laid over the table, its deep hue a perfect complement to the floral wall tapestries, and fewer candles cast their light across the room. Was it the lens of expectation that made this room seem so grand?

  At last the lady put aside her scrolls and looked over her thin spectacles at Auda.

  “Have you brought the next set of verses?” />
  Auda nodded, handing her the folio. The lady handled the collection with care, paging through each verse, reading some aloud.

  “A magnificent find,” she remarked when she was done. “Someone’s preserved these with great care. Perhaps our own Lady Ermengarde. I’d heard of the lady troubadours before—trobairitz, they are called.”

  Auda looked at her in surprise.

  “Yes.” The lady nodded. “There were women poets, yet only in our Occitania and not in many years. I heard a song once in my travels to Italy that was said to be written by one of the trobairitz.” Her voice wavered for a moment. “A sad tune, about a girl whose lover seemed aloof to her. She wondered what calamity distracted his mind that he could not gaze at her in love anymore.”

  The vicomtesse cleared her throat and straightened her back.

  “Foolish notion, to wait for a man who will never love her. The girl would do better to be more practical.”

  Auda nodded, wondering if this was why the vicomte took other lovers, and if there was a reason the lady pushed him away.

  Later that night, Auda copied out each of the trobairitz verses for herself in her room. The male troubadours all said that love was a spiritual quest, in which two lovers who may not even have had the occasion to touch found themselves bound together. It could culminate in a whisper, a caress or a kiss, a thing of beauty, and it was very fragile.

  Thinking of her artist, Auda understood.

  Yet the trobairitz had a different view.

  My friend, I’ve been in a great sadness

  Over a knight I once called mine.

  And I want the world to know for all time

  How much I loved the man who was mine.

  Now I see I’ve been betrayed by him, my friend.

  Because I would not sleep naked with him.

  In bed and at day, when I’m dressed.

  Over my mistake, I’ll never rest.

  Auda scowled. The more she’d read the verses of the trobairitz, the less she liked them. So unlike the troubadour verse, this song seemed flippant, the musings of a jilted girl saddened by the loss of her lover. Coarse sentiments, fit for no better than a drunk jongleur.

  She read through a second verse, then a third. These were simply poor testaments to a love unrequited instead of a love fought for. Why could the women not sing lofty tunes like the men, pressing their suit with the passion they no doubt felt? The men used spiritual love to obtain the physical; the women used the physical to bemoan the loss of the spiritual. Surely there could be someone who appreciated both?

  “True love cannot exist between a husband and wife,” the vicomtesse had opined at the end of her last court. “For love there has to be competition, and jealousy, and such things have no place in a marriage.” She tilted her head. “At least that’s what earlier courts have concluded. We shall see.”

  Auda put away the verse and thought instead of what love she herself would want. An image of Jaime came to mind, the brightness in his eyes when he’d kissed her, when she kissed back. Her lips curved in a soft smile. If ever there were a sensitive soul, it had to be him.

  What did he see when he looked at her? she wondered, not for the first time. She’d always been afraid to ask. She was no beauty, yet the way he kissed her, she thought that she might be the only girl in his world.

  She fanned herself, suddenly hot under the summer heat. Her room had no window, no draft. Swinging her feet to the ground, she willed the coolness of the earth to rise into her limbs, but it was no use. The chill stopped at her ankles, leaving the rest of her feverish and edgy.

  She closed her eyes and ran her hands over her damp face, skipping from her temples to her cheeks and along the sides of her neck. Stiff fingers pressed into the swollen knots of tension at her shoulders and continued downward. Her touch roved over her body, massaged the firmness of her breasts, the bulge of her hips, and finally the wetness between her legs. In her mind, Jaime smiled.

  But in the next moment, the vicomte’s haunting memory washed over her. Visions of his searching call assaulted her. What was he looking for that seemed just out of his reach? She screwed her eyes shut. Still the images came at her, not of the vicomte this time, but of Jehan, raising his voice and his hand against her sister. The betrayal of love.

  Auda let herself give in to her sobs. Competition didn’t fuel love; maybe jealousy didn’t either.

  Maybe it was simply that some people weren’t destined to love at all.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  That Friday, the lady allowed Auda to leave early to attend her sister’s supper.

  Martin met Auda at the palace and escorted her to Poncia’s house, grumbling the entire way. “I still don’t know why you’ve insisted I had to come along for this foolishness.”

  Auda tried to repeat her explanation with patient gestures. She didn’t want to tell her father about Poncia’s bruise. The evening was just a prayer for the family, she mimed instead. And since the archbishop had asked for him personally, they had no choice but to attend.

  Martin glared at her but said nothing more.

  They arrived early. Poncia was still readying the hearth room, and the floorboards above them creaked under the heavy movements of the cook and her servants. As they entered, Poncia started talking to them without preamble. “Do you think the room will stink of tallow if I don’t open the window?” She rummaged through the basket of dried herbs on the step below the hearth. “It may be best if I burn something sweet over it.”

  Martin accepted a mug of ale from the maid and rolled up the sleeves of his brown wool tunic. “Now that we’re all here, perhaps you can tell us why you’ve brought the Church into our lives,” he said. “And the archbishop, no less!”

  Poncia avoided his glare. Smoothing her gray cap, she straightened the unlit candles that stood in the center of the table.

  “Please, Papa,” she said at last. “The archbishop has been ministering to me. I wanted to do something for the family, to help us all through these difficult times.”

  Martin laughed out loud. “Difficult times? What difficult times? Your sister works in the employ of the vicomtesse herself, and I have more orders than I can keep up with. This is the life we’ve always been waiting for!”

  Poncia ran a hand over her tired eyes. “Yes, the life we have been waiting for. Please, Papa, I only want to feel closer to God.”

  Auda felt sad as she looked at her sister. What else had passed with Jehan? She knew she wouldn’t get a chance to talk to Poncia alone this evening.

  Martin waved Poncia’s plea away. “God’s will is done best when good men conduct their daily work, lead their good lives,” he said, emptying his mug. “Too much prayer leads a man to be idle.”

  Poncia swiveled on her heel, her hands clenching a sheaf of dried lavender. “Better to pray than to spend a life selling your Moorish-born paper to the weak-minded and the Jews!”

  Auda sucked in her breath. Martin turned red from his cheeks to his ears.

  “You think it’s well that someone wishes to make a coin off your paper,” Poncia continued, her voice quiet but strong. “But tell me, do you tell your customers the danger you put them in? Do you tell them the Church has disallowed paper for any document of worth?”

  “It was fine enough to feed and clothe you all these years,” her father said, acid in his tone.

  “Don’t you see?” Poncia’s voice turned pleading. “Maybe this is why God turns away from us, this impiety he sees.”

  Enough. Auda rapped her hand on the table.

  “The Italians and the Spaniards have sold their broadsheets for years,” her father said, glancing at Auda. “The Church has done nothing—”

  “Because Her eyes are fixed on France.”

  “Oc, because France houses her pope, not because of any heresy!” His voice rose. “Even if paper brought cause for concern, that doesn’t put me in the same barrel as witches and heretics.”

  Poncia rose to face him. “And if I say
the heretics use paper for their words?”

  Auda sucked in her breath. How could Poncia know this? Auda hadn’t told her of the heretic paper their uncle had brought. She was sure their father hadn’t either.

  Martin stopped midstride and glared at his daughter. He exhaled explosively and sat, still watching her as a maidservant entered and laid five newly polished tin plates out on the table.

  “I don’t sell to heretics,” he said after the girl left.

  “But you sell to the Jews,” Poncia replied. “It may be legal but will that save you against the immoral? Will that save any of us? God sees everything.”

  Auda shook her head, trying to understand this change in her sister. Poncia was trying to please God in exchange for His favor—like the girl with the vicomte. It worked on mortal men. Would it work on God?

  Just then, the front door opened with the murmur of male voices. Poncia jumped up, surveying the room a final time.

  “Throw the lavender on the fire,” she said to Auda. “Papa, can you douse those?” She nodded at the torches nearest to the flames.

  Martin grumbled, but turned to labor over the wall sconces. Soon footsteps approached the hall, and Jehan led a large man through the doorway. Dressed in a simple brown robe with a matching cap over his round head, the archbishop radiated comfort and satisfaction in the rosy health of his cheeks. He glided across the room with practiced grace and raised his hand in a benediction.

  The three knelt, Martin fidgeting between his daughters, and the archbishop stooped to kiss each of their hands. The maids streamed out of the room, their heads bowed.

  “My children, you do me too much honor,” the archbishop began, his voice soft and velvety. “There is no need for this.”

  “Your Excellency,” Poncia said, rising.

  Jehan pulled out a chair by the hearth and the archbishop lowered himself into the cushioned seat, plaiting his jeweled hands on the table. The scent of frankincense hung to his skin like a perfume. Though his eyes had gone blue and watery with age, a sharpness gleamed behind his wrinkled face.