Chapter Two- The Reception of Guests
"So why are you here, Audemande of…Vinceaux?" Count Raymond's clerk asked, clearly trying to weed out those unworthy of his lord's precious time.
"I was sent by Lord Hugh of Lusignan to serve the lady wife of his Uncle, Lord Guy. I was told when I arrived in Jerusalem I should seek out the Count of Tripoli and Lord of Tiberias, Raymond, and present myself to him." Audemande said straightforwardly.
"Where are your escorts, your knights attending? Surely Lord Hugh would not be so stupid as to send a young lady alone across the entire world unaccompanied?"
Audemande looked at the clerk with a clear and strong glance, as if challenging him to contradict her story. "I left with three knights, sir, and my father's man at arms who is making pilgrimage. One I lost of fever in Narbonne, one on the sea-passage to Messina, and one deserted us in that city, presumably because he also died, or did not wish to continue. There is just my father's man left, sir. We traveled with the pilgrim groups to stay in safety; I have no clothes but for the ones I am wearing, and only a fraction of the dowry that was promised me for coming here; the rest lies on the bottom of Mediterranean."
"And why should I let Lord Tiberias waste his time with you?" the clerk droned, bored.
"Because, you ill-mannered mongrel, my father's fathers fought with Charlemange and became knights, and because I have a letter from the Lord Hugh himself attesting to my purpose here!" Audemande burst out, staring down the mild-faced clerk, who didn't seem to believe that a seventeen year old girl had just verbally run him through. Audemande pulled out the oilskinned packet from the bottom of her traveling pouch and shoved the seal under his nose. "There are my papers, from Lord Hugh to Lord Tiberias, or whoever will see to my lodging, and I will not open them for some clerk who doesn't know his betters!"
The clerk nodded quickly and went into the next room. There was a dry, barking laugh through the slightly open door, and the clerk scurried back. "He'll see you now," He said, opening the door. Audemande curtseyed and walked inside, Hugo following behind her.
"Was that tongue of yours the reason they sent you away to the end of the earth here in Jerusalem?" Count Raymond of Tripoli, Prince of Galilee and Tiberias and former regent to the throne of Jerusalem, asked sharply, his scarred face twisted into something of a wry smile. "I'm sure there's some in Egypt who didn't hear you."
"No, my lord, my tongue had nothing to do with it," Audemande said evenly, her voice low now, as she had remembered a lady's ought to be. Tiberias chuckled and held out a gloved hand, taking the oilskin packet and breaking the seal to take out the letter inside.
"At least yours may be a truthtelling tongue, Audemande of Vinceaux," Tiberias said, scanning the letter. "If, of course, that is your real name. There are many tongues in this city which lie profusely. Lord Hugh has included questions here to verify that you did not steal this packet from the real Audemande. Your father's name and rank?"
"Sir Armand of Vinceaux, knight of Lord Hugh of Lusignan in the province of Poitou," Audemande said, looking at the letter rather than look at Lord Tiberias' eyes, which were so dark and full of secrets she was afraid he might convince her to say anything.
"And your siblings?"
"I have an older brother Reginald, an older brother Gregory, and a younger brother Anselm."
Tiberias laughed. "You forget your sister, then?"
Audemande swallowed and continued to stare at the letter. "I have no sister, sir, only brothers. My mother is Dame Agatha of Tyrault in the province of Gascony. I was born in the year 1166. My favorite color is blue, and my favorite place to hide from my nursemaids was in the chapel under the statue of the virgin Mary. My eldest brother is a knight, my elder brother a monk, and my youngest--"
"That's enough of proofs," Tiberias said. "You'd spill out your lifeblood in front of me if it were to prove you were yourself. Lord Hugh says that you are unmarried, and that he is sending you with three knights and a dowry of fifty gold bezants, which, I note, are both not here."
Audemande sighed and glanced down at the floor before turning back to Tiberias, who had put the letter down. "As I told your clerk, sir, my dowry was washed overboard on the way from Narbonne to Corsica, and the three knights were evidently not as stout as Lord Hugh promised my father they were, as all three either perished or deserted me. I am come to Jerusalem alone save for my man at arms, and have nothing to offer the Lady Sybilla except my service, for which I am profoundly sorry."
"The dowry wasn't for us taking you, girl, it was for your marriage, should you find a match, which is not hard in this city," Tiberias explained. "And I'm sure she'll take your service when she hears my report of you. The Lady Sybilla is like to you in temper, and will like to have another woman about who takes no gall from lesser men than she. Your mother, I assume, tutored you in all those womanly frills they are content to teach you these days?" He asked unconcernedly.
"My mother did not have much time for my education while she was caring for my brother Anselm, but I am sufficient in many suitable occupations for a woman of my standing."
"Suitable occupations," Tiberias said to himself. "How diplomatic of you." He looked back up at Audemande and set the letter aside. "I'm sure she'll find a good enough use for you, in time. The steward will take you to the lady's chamber," He said, and the man came over and bowed to her.
"And my man-at-arms?" Audemande asked, glancing at Hugo in the next room.
"We'll find a place for him, or payment so he can be on his way, if that is what he desires," Tiberias said. Audemande nodded and followed the steward, pausing in the hall to clasp Hugo's hand.
"I do not know that I have thanked you, Hugo, for your service to me. You have been a great friend and a better companion than anyone else I could have chosen. The rest of our traveling money is yours to keep," she added with a whisper.
"It's too much," Hugo said, handing her back the purse; she'd sewn their deniers into the hems of their pilgrim cloaks and then taken them out again when they reached the Abbey at Jaffa; no longer needing the cloak for protection, Audemande was still wearing hers out of habit. "I'll winter here, with you, and go home in the spring when the passages are better. Bring home any letters you might have for Gregory," he added, nodding. "Now go on, young mistress, doesn't do to have royals waiting on you," he urged, sending her off down the hall after the steward.
Never in all her days, not even in Poitiers or Narbonne, had Audemande seen such a large house. She had thought Lord Hugh's house was impressive, but this was a palace, with corridor upon corridor, and stairs to upper floors, and courtyards filled with fountains and flowers. The floors were tiled in the Saracen style, and the walls were hung with bright cloth and drapery.
Audemande surmised that the lady Sybilla, in her status as the King's sister, had a suite of rooms all to herself; a solar, for receiving and entertaining, a room of her own, and another, aside of that, for her ladies. "Surely I am not to meet the great lady like this?" Audemande asked, looking at her travelstained clothes and pilgrim's cloak, which was nearly moving under its own speed with the fleas in it.
Her guide said nothing and merely opened the door. Whatever assumptions Audemande had had about Jerusalem fluttered to the floor as her mouth fell open a little. Here was a room full of gold and red light, and a half a dozen women lounging on cushions, laughing. Audemande had expected rather severe looking women (in her imagination they had been nuns) and all of them at prayer. It reminded her of Eleanor's Court of Love, which her mother had told her of once. "Full of laughter and color, Aude, and much joy," she had said. This was certainly the place.
And in the midst of these ladies was a woman whose own light shown a little brighter than the rest; her kohl-lined eyes challenged the visitor majestically, and Audemande knew that this had to be Sybilla. It was hard to believe that this woman was only a few years older than her, and already a princess. "Well, what little bird has become trapped in here today?" she asked. "Are you lost, little one?"
"Lord Tiberias has sent me here," Audemande said, swallowing and trying to find her voice; she'd lost it somewhere in the awe of it all. "I am come from your husband's people in Poitou to be your lady-in-waiting."
"My husband's people," Sybilla repeated warily, rising from her chair. "Yes, I hear the Poitevin in your voice. Surely they did not catch you and cage you first?"
"I …chose to come, my lady," Audemande said quietly, gazing at Sybilla's hands, which were covered in a pattern of brown ink and very, ladylike indeed. Her own hands, she knew, had dirt under the fingernails and a few blisters from clinging to a pilgrim's staff.
"Lying suits many tongues, my girl, but not yours. It seems to me it was your only choice to take the road to Jerusalem. Why are you here?"
Audemande looked at the floor, ashamed of why she was here, and then told the Princess. "I did not have much chance to be married at home, and Lord Hugh offered a dowry and an escort to any unmarried woman brave enough to take it and go to the Holy Land. My father offered me; his estate is small and I have three brothers."
Sybilla looked at her other ladies and laughed, but it was not derisive, merely…amused. "And do you have a name, little Poitevin bird?"
"Audemande, my lady. Audemande of Vinceaux." What little courage she'd had with the clerk had left her now; all these great men and women, and only little her, in her pilgrim garb. The brown cloak was making her feel a lot more humble than she meant to.
"Audemande! My word, what a ponderous name! Is there something else you are called?" Sybilla asked with a smile.
Audemande looked at her hem again and thought. "My mother called me Aude, sometimes."
Sybilla nodded. "Aude of Vinceaux. Much easier to say. I've heard my husband speak of it, this Vinceaux. A small town, a little ways from the coast?"
"Not a little ways, my lady, unless you are on a horse. When we went to the seashore, we walked," Audemande explained. Sybilla laughed and looked at her, a strange smile on her face.
"I have not walked anywhere since I returned from my aunt's convent in Bethany, and I doubt that my husband has walked anywhere he could not ride. Princesses and Queens do not walk. I see that you'll be good for me in that way, reminding me to be humble. Well, Aude, my little windblown bird, come and sit here, next to me, and tell me something of yourself."
"Please, my lady, I am not…" Audemande didn't really want to say it, but the room was too pretty for her at the moment. "I have been traveling for five months, my lady, and I have not bathed since I left Vinceaux. In that time I've slept in dirt, straw, and hostels across southern France, Corsica, Sicily, and Palestine." Her voice was getting louder and more commanding. Aude took a breath and went on, moderating herself. "What I mean to say, Lady Sybilla, is that I am not fit for polite company, and should probably bathe before I attend you. There are the fleas," she added. Several of the ladies made faces, but Sybilla nodded, smiling wryly.
"A very honest tongue, I see. You are lucky you are in Jerusalem, then. This is a desert land, and we do not bathe here as often as I would perhaps like to. But Jerusalem has plenty of wells, and it has been a
good year for water. Jariya will take you. Petronilla, find a clean dress for the girl and go with them- I do not want her getting lost on her way back." Sybilla ordered around her ladies with a careless grace, with a voice well used to being the one giving the commands.
One of the ladies rose from her cushion and collected herself, following Audemande and the servant Jariya far into the palace to where the palace bath was kept.
"The Romans built parts of this palace," Petronilla was saying as they went down into the darker, deeper part of the castle. "They loved to bathe. If you were in Kerak, or Ramaleh, where water is scarce, you would bathe in a bucket."
"I'll be certain to remember that, and take this opportunity to bathe well, then," Aude said with a scarce smile.
"The water will be cold, mistress," the servant Jariya said quietly, pulling back the gauzy curtain that surrounded the pool and lighting the oil lamps at the water's edge.
"Warm or cold, a bath's a bath," Aude said, quickly stripping off the pilgrim cloak and casting it aside. Beneath it, her dress, which had started its journey gray, was beginning to absorb some of the brown dye from the cloak, and was acquiring a strange rusty color. Aude turned around to see the Lady Petronilla discreetly facing the wall so that she could strip off her dress, stockings and shoes and get into the water.
Aude drew her breath in sharply as her head submerged into the cool water, coming up with chattering teeth. She took a deep breath and went back under again, scrubbing at her hair and watching some of the dirt float away. When she came up again, Jariya handed her a piece of cloth, which she scrubbed her arms and torso vigorously with, so glad to have five months of dirt, sweat, and dust off her skin and hair.
"So you are from Lord Guy's country, in France," Petronilla said by way of starting a conversation, still looking at the wall. "Is it pretty there?"
"I loved it there," Aude said between chatters, laying aside the rag and scraping at the back of her head with clawed fingers, trying to dislodge at least some of the lice.
"They say it's much different from Jerusalem, with grasses everywhere, and trees that go bald when the weather turns cold," the lady continued. "Is that so?"
"Yes, it's different," Aude managed. "But it's pretty here, too."
Petronilla scoffed. "Out in the desert it's pretty, but the city is no place for beauty, unless it's the beauty of men." She held up the dress on her arm, inspecting it. "It's blue – I hope you don't mind."
"My favorite color is blue," Aude said, taking the towel from Jariya and climbing out of the bath to dry herself. After getting into the dress, which was a little long and would need some taking in, Aude looked at her stockings and sighed; there were great holes in the bottom that no amount of darning would bring back to life.
The servant Jariya took her old clothes without so much as a blinked eye, but Aude could see that Petronilla sniffed at the smell of the unwashed wool and turned up her nose at the provincial cut of her dress, which was very plain. If only she'd seen some of the dresses in her dowry trunk! The Poitevins were known for their love of color – had not Eleanor, who was from the south herself, loved to wear orange when she was Queen of France? Aude knew that she would like being in Jerusalem, if Sybilla's quarters and her own clothes were anything to judge by. She could wear what colors she liked here.
But there was still that troubling question of money; there weren't nearly enough silver deniers in the little pouch of Hugo's for a new wardrobe. She'd be lucky if she could buy a new veil with this, judging by the prices some of the merchants had been asking in the market she'd passed through on her way to the palace. Can you see the Princess going out into the market to do her shopping? A voice inside her head chided. Sybilla probably has a merchant come directly to the palace for her to peruse dress wares.
Clean and hopefully free of fleas, for right now, at least, Aude shivered as Petronilla produced a rosewood comb and began picking the knots out of her long, wet hair. Audemande had demanded that her mother cut it before she left Vinceaux (it had been down past her backside and in no way good for traveling) but it was still long; five months on the road had let it grow another handspan, at least.
"Your hair is very pretty," Petronilla said, gently pulling the comb through to finish it out and then pulling the hair into two halves to braid it.
"It's lightened since I left France," Aude said. "It used to be a little darker."
"The color suits you. Some ladies here henna their hair, to make it redder. It looks very…foreign on some of them," she added carefully. Aude winced as the older lady began braiding her hair, but the result, once the ends had been bound up, was better than anything she'd been able to do herself on the road. Petronilla fixed a veil on, pushing a thin band onto Aude's forehead to keep the veil in place, and handed the younger girl a small hand-mirror of polished brass. The effect was a welcome sight to Aude, who hadn't seen herself in five months except in very still washbowls. Washed and properly dressed, she picked up her bag and followed Petronilla back to Sybilla's rooms on the far side of the palace.
Setting the bag on the floor beside her, Aude rearranged her skirts, sitting down on one of the pillows, farthest from Sybilla. The other ladies were working on embroideries and looked as though they did not want to be disturbed, but Sybilla had in her hands a small book, though it did not look to be a devotional or prayer book as some women read. So the Lady Sybilla is a woman of learning, Aude thought to herself. Gregory will be glad.
"What is that on the floor?" one of the ladies said, glancing at Aude, who didn't quite know what to do with herself.
"God's thumbs, my bag!" Audemande said quickly, retrieving the leather satchel and quickly withdrawing the important things from it; her Rule of Benedict, her brush, and finally her inkstone, which must have gotten wet while they were in the bath. It was leaking a trail of runny black ink all over the floor now, and Aude looked around for a rag to mop it up with. A servant approached, silently
cleaning up, evading Aude's gaze. There are so many servants here, Aude thought to herself. At home I would have cleaned it up myself.
"Can you read?" Sybilla asked with great interest, looking at the slim little volume Aude had drawn from her bag in her haste to retrieve the wet inkstone.
"My brother was teaching me Latin," Aude said, setting the inkstone on the floor and thankfully taking the napkin the servant offered her to clean her hands.
"So you can read!" Sybilla said happily. "Oh, that is good news indeed, for I love to hear stories, and none of the other women in this room," she confided with a loud whisper, leaning in with a smiling and pointing to the other ladies, "can understand a word when it is written. Here, you shall read to us! Are you familiar with Ovid?"
Aude shook her head. "The monastery library only had theological texts, and some histories," she said. "I do not recognize the name."
"He was a great Roman poet, and the author of the Metamorphoses, " Sybilla said, going over to a chest and opening it, pulling out a beige-colored book, made of good quality parchment, not like the crumbling tomes they had in the monastic library; this book had lived in the desert, away from rot. "Now sit here, where I can hear you, and read to us." She handed Aude the book.
Aude sat down near the great lady and gingerly opened the book, mindful of the ink that had just been on her fingers, feeling the paper between her fingers as she flipped the pages, thick and reassuring, like a shield. But the first page of the latin was beyond her, verbs and words she didn't know and had no hope of guessing.
Bauchis and Philemon, thought Aude to herself, reading the title. That's not too hard.
"Bauchis and Philemon," she read aloud. Now for the next line.
Obstipuēre omnēs nec tālia dicta probārunt, "All of the…judging people…did not…approve of…what was…dictated."
ante omnesque Lelex animo maturus et aevo " before in front of all Lelex, a…life mature and….aged..."
sic ait: "inmensa est finemque potentia caeli "said…to them. "Immense is the… limited? Limitless! Immense is the limitless power of the sky, and…"
The giggles coming from the other ladies were getting too loud for Audemande, who guiltily shut the book and handed it back to Sybilla, who was frowning.
"Well, you are only a student of the tongue. Still, you have a nice voice. Keep the Ovid, and learn from it. What book have you there?" she pointed to the Rule of Benedict, which looked even more travelsore next to the Metamorphoses volume with its white cover and straight edged pages.
"Nothing my Lady would enjoy listening to," Aude said. "It is the Rule of Benedict, the monastic code my brother follows. I bought it in Narbonne."
"Yes, I think a monastic code is a little tame, for now," Sybilla judged. "Very well."
"I do know stories, my lady! Chansons from the Lady Eleanor's court," Aude said, trying to redeem herself in the lady's eyes. Sybilla turned to look at her with those daring eyes of hers again.
"Yes?"
Aude tried to remember some of them. She'd told them over and over on the pilgrim road, tales of Roland and Charlemange and his knights. Now if she could only remember them all. "I know the tale of Tristian and Yseult," she said. "It was very popular in Poitiers with the lady Eleanor, and well known."
"One of the new Arthur stories, no doubt," one of the ladies said. Aude nodded, and Sybilla looked intrigued.
"Very well- tell us this Tristian and Yseult. Is it a romance?" she asked, making a study of Aude.
"Yes, my lady." Aude said with a nod, sitting up and composing herself. Sybilla gave a little wave, and Aude began, tuning her tongue to the poet's stylized repetitions.
"Here is the isle of Britain- see how cold and cloudy she sits
Amidst the waving sea! This is a sad and gloomy island,
Except at Camelard, where Arthur reigns as king.
Goodly Arthur, the son of Uther Pendragon,
His castle at Camelard is like a jewel in the mud of England.
His knights are valiant fellows, brave and strong;
No one bests them in joust or at the tourney.
But still there is a gloom in Arthur's hall;
someone is not rejoicing with the rest.
From the south country has come King Mark, Arthur's sword brother;
His brow is heavy with his care and woe.
"Oh, you may feast and laugh,"
He tells great Arthur's knights,
"But my heart cannot be happy here.
My good knight Tristian, the best of all my warriors,
is now in Ireland, that little rocky island,
Winning a bride for me. Her name is Yseult,
and she is a princess compared to none,
not even Arthur's queen, in beauty…"
It was time for the evening meal when Sybilla bade her stop, just at the point where Mark was about to find out the treachery of his best friend and greatest knight. The ladies, even those who had sniggered at her poor rendition of Ovid, were spellbound, and had to be shaken from their reverie by a sharp clap of Sybilla's hands.
"Aude, you will sit nearest me for dinner. I am sure Lord Guy would be anxious for news from his home," Sybilla said, taking her newest lady's hand and leading her out to the open courtyard where servants were laying out the dinner at the King's Table. Tiberias was there, along with the Lord Patriarch of Jerusalem in his white robes, and a tall, dour looking middle aged man whom Sybilla, leaving Aude's side, greeted with a kiss. This must have been Lord Guy, and truly, he did resemble his nephew a little, but his face was cold and full of malice. Sybilla whispered to him, and Guy smiled, as if putting up with the whim of a small child. She turned towards Aude and beckoned her forward. Aude went forward and curtseyed, very low.
"My lord husband, this is Audemande of Vinceaux. She was sent at the behest of your nephew, Hugh, to be my attendant." Audemande and glanced at Lord Guy from downcast eyes, thinking it would perhaps be better not to offend this man.
"Of Vinceaux…Sir Armand's daughter," Guy said leisurely, studying her. "How is your lady mother?"
"Well, my lord."
"And your brothers? There were two, I believe."
"A third there is now, Anselm. Reginald is a knight in your nephew's service, and Gregory is serving the Benedictines at the Abbey in Vinceaux. I visited him every week when I was home," Aude said.
"A man of god…" Guy let out a short sneering laugh and then, glancing at his wife, put on a conciliatory look and said, in a completely unsincere manner, "You must forgive me for forgetting these things, Dame Audemande, but it has been many years since I was home. Things change so much over time."
"I understand, my lord," Aude said, curtseying again and letting him move on to the other men assembled at the table. It seemed to be primarily men, anyway; one or two wives and then all of Sybilla's ladies, spaced evenly along the table, dispersed among the councilors and lords. Such a man's world, Audemande thought to herself.
She felt like a visitor at this table, sitting in a place that was not worn down to her liking, with no one to converse with; Tiberias on her right talked with Guy across from her, and Sybilla, next to her at the head of the table, listened intently. The other ladies were too far away to engage, and besides, what had she to talk about with them? Aude instead occupied herself with studying the people at the table. There was the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the man who had said grace (in a very preoccupied manner; he was now conversing with the woman at his side whom he seemed very friendly with) and several men who looked like merchants or traders. More than a few knights, probably newly arrived to Jerusalem to serve the King, and a few men who looked as though they called this table home quite often; a grizzled old man who wore the Jerusalem cross, and a knight of the Hospitaliers, wearing his black robe with its distinct white cross.
These two men kept their own company, and when the conversation between Tiberias and Guy turned to other matters, Sybilla followed her gaze down the table. "That is the Lord Godfrey, of Ibelin. He was once of France, like yourself, though from the North. A solitary man, but a good friend of my brother. With him is Brother John, of the Knights of the Hospital." she added. Audemande nodded. She'd been on the pilgrim road long enough to know the different orders – The Temple, the Hospital, the Saint Lazarus Order. Guy, she noticed, wore no order's badge, not even the robe of Jerusalem which Tiberias wore, the sky blue with the five crosses embroidered in gold.
After dinner was finished and hands had been washed in the rose-scented water of one of the fountains, Sybilla reconvened her little court, ready to finish the story of Tristan and his ill-fated lady love.
"Loud is the wailing of King Mark in his high castle;
His friend is dead and his wife beside him,
No longer does Yseult the beautiful draw breath!
No more will bold Tristian walk a battlefield.
All you who are in love, take care to chose your lover wisely.
A bad choice will make for a bitter end to both of you," Audemande said with a cautionary air, as she had seen the jongeleur do it in Poitiers. Several of the ladies were wiping tears from their eyes, but Sybilla's face was still remarkably calm.
"You will be our reader from now on, Aude. The day after tomorrow you will have to remember another story to entertain us with. Perhaps you can even make one of your own up," she suggested, rising from her cushions. The oil lamps were beginning to sputter, and even they could not pierce the darkness of night enough to see by.
"Petronilla, Aude will share a bed with you. Tomorrow we'll see about some clothes for our lost little bird. One cannot stay in the court of Jerusalem with only one dress," Sybilla said, smiling to Aude. "Will you like that?" she asked.
"If it is my lady's wish, it is my pleasure," Aude said, curtseying low.
"Ah, if I had a dozen like you, Aude," Sybilla said, stroking her chin and smiling. "Good night, my ladies," she proclaimed, taking one of the oil lamps to her own room to prepare for bed.
Now, I've done a little research, and during the late 1100s it wasn't that uncommon to find female poets, especially since Eleanor of Aquitaine was putting forth the medieival version of female empowerment (courtly love) during this period. Although the female literacy rate in Jerusalem may just be an exaggeration.
If you don't like poetry, I'd put this story aside, because I love it. There will be lots more interludes like the one in this chapter.