Watermark (15 page)

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.

Another one read:

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.

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.

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.

“Please, please, it was you who opened your house to me,” the old priest said. “Truly I am fortunate to warm my creaking bones by your hearth. Come, sit.”

Poncia blushed. “It’s only a simple meal I’ve had prepared, fish, bread, and wine.”

“A meal fit for the Lord,” the archbishop said. “Though a bit of that wine would not be amiss now.”

“I’ll see to it,” Jehan said with a bow.

“And I’ll check on the meal,” Poncia added, following her husband.

As they left, the archbishop looked at Martin, seated across from him at the table. Trying to keep her face in the shadows, Auda stared at the two men in profile. Even dressed as a
simple priest, the archbishop wore his piety like a rich mantle. Martin bowed his head, as though he were, in fact, some sort of penitent.

“You would be Poncia’s father then,” the archbishop said in an amiable tone. “She has spoken much of you.”

“I’d not thought that an archbishop would have time to minister at the houses of his flock,” Martin said. He met the archbishop’s soft blue eyes for a moment, then added, “Your Excellency.”

“It’s true,” the archbishop said, “normally the schedule of my office duties and prayers would not leave me time for this. But I have known Poncia since she was a child.” His voice warmed. “I was her confessor once, at Maguelone.”

“You were at Maguelone?” Martin repeated, his voice choked. Maguelone, Auda recognized, had been Elena’s favored retreat. Poncia talked about it often.

The archbishop templed his fingers. “Before my time at Rouen. Yet even after they gave me the Holy See, I visited the place. It’s truly a garden of God’s own making.” He nodded at Martin. “Poncia bears her mother’s look about her, as if God Himself created her as her mother’s own twin.”

Martin only swallowed.

The archbishop turned to Auda. “And I knew your mother when she was pregnant with you.”

Auda looked up into the archbishop’s wrinkled face. This man was a stranger to her, yet he knew her mother—not just the young wife, but the mother she’d been to Poncia. And to her. What little things did he remember about her, things that were too painful for her father and sister to share? The thought tugged at her.

“She tended the gardens then, a simple life under God’s peace. I always expected her to bring you back for a blessing, and was saddened when she did not. I am heartened to see her
babe survived.” His eyes flitted to the soft cap that covered her hair, then to her pale eyes.

Despite herself, Auda tilted her face toward the lilting of his voice. He spoke with a certain familiarity, his melodious words soothing the fear in her chest. Perhaps Poncia had been wise to trust this man. Anyone their mother had trusted could not be bad.

Her sister arrived at the doorway, carrying a candle with one hand and a large jug with the other. Approaching the table, she poured red wine into each of the wooden cups.

The archbishop nodded at her. “We were just speaking of the luck I have in being able to tend to good Christians as if I were but a parish priest.” He laughed.

Poncia smiled and sat next to the archbishop, across from her sister. “The luck is ours. Had you not noticed me attending your sermon and remembered my face as Maman’s…” She turned a soft smile upon their father. “I wanted to wait for an opportune moment to share such a fine discovery.” Reaching for his hand, she squeezed his fingers, and Auda bit back a pang of jealousy at the memory they shared of Elena.

“It is God’s grace I see in this,” the archbishop said, watching Auda. “Who can help but be humbled before His magnificence?”

Bending her head, Auda braced for some words of sarcasm from her father. But none came, and when she glanced at him in her periphery, he seemed struck silent, gazing at Poncia.

The biting words, in fact, came from Jehan. “It is hard to master humility when the whole of town is burdened with taxes for new fortifications, new shops, even a new church.”

“Jehan!” Poncia shook her head. “Your Excellency, I must apologize—”

“No, no,” the archbishop said, holding up a hand.

“It’s no church but a cathedral,” Poncia said to her husband. “And the taxes are our duty.”

“Say that to those dying of starvation even as Narbonne grows in prosperity,” Jehan said, leaning both elbows on the table. “Ten more crushed last week under the crowds seeking alms at the gates of Fontfroide.”

Poncia’s eyes went wide. Auda turned a curious gaze on her brother-in-law.

“The bread for the poor has increased in number,” the archbishop said, still smiling, “and though the cathedral was started under my predecessor’s rule, still I say it is a shining star for Narbonne. Consider, if in the world of men, only the simpleminded take notice of half measures and lowly efforts, then how much grander it has to be to catch the gaze of the Lord?”

“A house such as has never been seen, where all the children of God can raise their voices in prayer.” Martin’s words were soft.

Poncia swiveled at the sound of her father’s voice, tears suddenly gathering in her eyes to match his. “Mother used to say that about Maguelone. I remember.”

Auda only stared at her father and sister, trying to push back another surge of jealousy. Why had they never talked about all of this, told her stories about her mother? The subject had always been discouraged at home, yet here they were, admitting a stranger into their quiet grief.

The archbishop sipped his wine. “Tell me, have you heard the story of the pelican’s sacrifice?”

At Auda’s sharp look, the archbishop turned his gaze on her.

“Her large beak, you see, is suited for gathering fish. In times of plentitude, her young feed well off fish collected fresh
from the sea. But in times of leanness, the pelican pierces her own chest to feed her blood to her younglings. Even though it kills her, the pelican is happy to do this, just as our Lord Christ is happy to nourish us when none else can or will. So much like your own mother’s sacrifice.”

She swallowed against the lump in her throat. What did he mean, her mother’s sacrifice?

Martin had always said her mother favored the pelican. Had she heard its story from this very man? What was her sacrifice?

“Jehan coughed. “It will take more than faith to fill starving bellies. This is where the heretics find their power. What sacrifice does the Church make, they ask, to nurture the souls of Her children?”

Auda widened her eyes, just as Poncia narrowed hers upon her husband. How did Jehan know all this? And to say it aloud so brazenly!

The archbishop fixed a stern stare upon Jehan. “I know of what they say.”

“Everyone knows,” Poncia agreed. “Their insidious words penetrate the market.”

The archbishop spoke in a milder tone. “Yes, there are a few who labor to bring ruin to all. But we shall find them, and those who would support them. We will care for their souls. After all, by persuasion, not by violence, is faith to be won.” The archbishop sipped from his cup slowly. “Be on guard against them. Even the ones who’ve repented and wear a cross to warn off all others may yet try to seduce you with their lies.”

Auda blinked, drawing together disjointed fragments of her memory. Those men she’d seen speaking with Jehan in his house some time ago—they’d not been priests at all, but heretics! The cross the shorter one wore on his cloak was not
a symbol of piety, it was the heretic’s cross, a reminder to all that the man who wore it had strayed from God once, and could do so again. Auda closed her eyes. How could she not have realized?

The archbishop focused on Martin. “You are a bookmaker, no?”

“I make paper.”

“For people to write upon.”

Martin nodded under the old man’s emotionless stare. “That is what it’s for.”

“But what they write—” Poncia said, stopping as Auda shot her a glare. Behind her, Jehan shifted. Auda willed her father to answer with care.

“Can be for good or evil, as the writer intends,” Martin said without looking at her.

“Yes, that is so,” the archbishop said, folding his hands on the table. “Even more reason why we must be on guard against false prophets, men who claim to know the word of God, to have read the word of God. If a man hears an evil idea, unless his mind is bent toward evil, he will not dwell on it, will forget it before long. But if that same idea is written, he will be drawn back to it, again and again. Evil has a temptation and man is bent toward it. It is born in him with his soul, writhes in ugliness against the light of God’s word. In any case, I have heard there are heretics who look for cheap means of spreading their word, that they look for men to make them paper.”