Daughters of Babylon (33 page)

Then, in the kind of silence that falls upon a crowd but rarely and never without significance, Count Humbert asked King Henry what lands young John would bring to the marriage of his daughter, and Henry, flushed with wine and power, announced, to the full hearing of everyone: “My son shall add Chinon, Loudon, and Mirebeau to your illustrious holdings, dear Count.”

There was a collective gasp, a sucking in of air that seemed to visibly reduce the flames in the fireplace and candles in the chandeliers. Chinon, Loudon, and Mirebeau were castles of great strategic importance, located in the duchy of Anjou, young Henri’s land. And his father had just given them away.

Eleanor was seated near his younger brothers and too far away to respond physically. Not that she could have stopped Henri from sweeping food and dishes off the table, leaping to his feet, and demanding his father at swordpoint to retract his words. Young Henri’s wife, Margaret, daughter of King Louis from his second marriage, had no success in preventing it. King Henry watched his son’s reaction and laughed, as if humiliation were the evening’s entertainment, and ordered the prince to sheath his weapon or leave the hall.

Which only fueled young Henri all the more. He overturned tables and grabbed at the collars of guests; he shouted to his brothers, even to newly affianced, six-year-old John, sitting on cushions so he could reach his soup, to stand with him against their father the King, purveyor of lies and treachery.

Eleanor acted on impulse. She strode through the mayhem to where John was seated near his future in-laws, lifted him off the chair, and held him, propped against her hip, while ordering Richard and Geoffrey to leave the Great Hall with her at once—for their safety, she believed, as swords were zinging from scabbards all over the room. The teenaged boys possessed land and titles and bore ornamental arms for the occasion, but they were still boys, and in their state of shock, they obeyed.

Looking back, Eleanor acknowledged it was entirely possible she’d decided in that moment to conspire against her husband, whose years of perfidy, of endless battle and the mustering of armies, of dangling power before his sons, then yanking it away for the pleasure of seeing their disappointment, showed no signs of abating. Unfortunately, it had not yet become a conscious decision, and two people to whom she would never have revealed such an intention were the first to see it in her eyes: Count Ramón of Toulouse and her husband, King Henry.

“The storm is moving in,” Arturo said.

“I know,” said Eleanor.

“No, I mean that.” He pulled her to her feet and pointed at the blackening sky. Fat drops of rain were splatting on the packed earth of the courtyard. Still holding her hand, he led her toward a wrought iron gate at the end of the wall.

“We can’t get into the castle this way,” she said, turning toward the door behind them.

“We’re not going to the castle.”

“Where, then? We’ll be drenched.”

“We’re going to the one place that your grandfather made sure would not be visible from the road, the battlements, or cove.” Arturo opened the gate and stepped through it.

“The
chatillionte
? It’ll be a sty. No one’s been there for years.” Despite her anxiety, she laughed. “No one’s been there, probably, since you eavesdropped on Jocie, Marie-Thèrese, and me. How old were you then? Seven?”

“Eleven, going on twelve, and I must differ with you. The
chatillionte
has been well tended. A fire burns, dinner awaits, and there is a warm place,” he said, turning to look at her, “to lay your head if Milady desires.”

A rush of excitement filled her. “But when did you—”

“It’s why I seemed a bit late. I’d sent word ahead, but I needed to check for myself that all was in order.”

She passed through the gate and gazed at the path, grown in but still visible, that led to the trysting place. That her cheeks felt flushed and her breathing shallow astonished her. “I’m not the young woman I used to be.”

“Nor I the young man, but I’ve learned a thing or two since then, and so have you. I’ve had the pleasure of watching yours happen.”

Was this love, she asked herself, or the delusions of an exhausted woman? She didn’t know. These past months of pretending to continue to be the loyal wife and consort of Henry, of arranging secret meetings with outraged counts and despairing commoners, of traveling from Poitou to Gascogny, the borders of Castile to Aragón, with itineraries layered in subterfuge, had sapped her.

In the morning, she and Arturo would be setting out for Paris, to the court of Louis, king of France, her former husband, now father-in-law to her oldest son and protector of all four boys against their power-bloated father. Oh, she entertained no illusions regarding Louis’s motives. Now in his third marriage, he had finally attained the male heirs he craved, and to his credit, had seen their own two daughters, Marie and Alix, marry into titles, if not happiness. But as a monarch with eyes toward rule ever more absolute, he had no greater rival than Henry II of England. In times like these, the enemy of one’s enemy was the only option.

Meanwhile, she and her dear Galician, loyal to the core, had three hundred miles to travel across battle-ravaged lands, studded with brigands and mercenaries operating in concert, watching for a renegade queen with a price on her head.

For now, they had tonight.

They had each other.

Silvina emerged from the poplar forest with Pyrenean deer flies like instruments of small torture buzzing around her head. She swatted at the air and followed the scent of frying bacon and French toast into the main tent.

Live in the Momentum!
Welcome to
the Navarrosa Weekend of Poetry!
read the banners in elegant black script, strung above the long buffet table. The flies came in with her. Somewhere, she’d read that agitation attracts biting insects. That she wasn’t completely swarmed in a cloud of insectoid menace, was a miracle. There were maybe fifty, sixty people queued up for breakfast or eating at round, linen-covered tables. She couldn’t spot a tall, lean man with a dark ponytail among them. She approached a pleasant-looking woman in a “Poetry is for Airheads” T-shirt who was setting up a book-selling table.

“Excuse me, have you seen Gavriel?”

“You just missed him, dear. He’s taken some people on a walking tour.” The woman frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, um…yes, I’m…thanks.” She dashed out of the tent—

—and found him near the ruins of an old hive-shaped bread oven with a dozen men and women, mostly women, slightly bedazzled, with digital cameras and notebooks. Gavriel was hunkered beside a long, loaf-shaped rock that stood on a flat rock, balanced on a single point. “It is never the action, but the intent beneath the action,” he was saying, “and with poetry, emotion and image must also balance…” He paused, seeing Silvie. “…one another. Excuse me a moment.”

He rose and came toward her. “Has something happened? You look awful.”

“I know. I also know you’re busy, but would you have a few minutes…sometime, like now?”

He checked his watch. “Sure. Did you want to come to my caravan?” He gestured toward a cluster of wooden trailers with charming decks and awnings, painted multicolours of aqua, lime, and gardenia pink.

“No, thanks. Could we just walk?”

Gavriel nodded and turned toward the people at the bread oven. “I’ll see you back at the tent at ten. Feel free to wander the grounds on your own. Notice everything.” He took Silvina’s elbow and steered her deeper into Queen of Heaven.

They followed the same route, more or less, as the day they’d met, across intricate looping pathways, past traces in stone of a once thriving priory. And as they walked, Silvie told him about Tariq Shirazi, the man who’d called and informed her of Vivian Lansdowne’s death. She told Gavriel of how much Viv adored the archeologist, how they’d known each other since the Daughters of Babylon years, then met again late in life and fell in love. How they were planning to travel to Tel-Hemat together, spend their golden years digging for the legendary Tower of Babel. And finally, she spoke of what she’d learned that morning.

“He’s been dead six years, was locked in an Iraqi prison for years before that. But I met him. He’s the man who let me in to Viv’s house, he showed me around, told me about his Persian lineage. We ate pistachios and drank mint tea.” Silvina sank onto a large gray stone, as if something had kicked the back of her knees.

“This is a good place,” he said.

There were other rocks suitable for sitting, but Gavriel sat on the ground, crosslegged, and, leaning forward, smoothed out the clover and short grasses in front of him as if he were unrolling a map. While he pondered whatever he was pondering, explanations marched in thundering goosestep through Silvie’s head.
You are a goose! This Tariq Shirazi you met was obviously an imposter, con man, bunco, sharpie, after Viv’s money—after your money! You should have gone to the cops. What’s this, running to a poet? He gonna write you up a pretty little sonnet, hex the bad man away? You don’t know Gavriel Navarro from Adam, and while he may be cute, he was rumbling around in your attic while you were out, without permission. Have you forgotten that? You got no sense of self-preservation, girl!

Eventually, the barrage of ridicule passed. It had to. Silvie had no retorts, no protestations, no explanation for why she had driven at greater than optimal speeds in her yellow sports car on mountain switchbacks from St. Jacques to Viv’s house through flocks of brown, black, and white sheep that mercifully parted, and run through woods in search of a man she knew even less than the apparently dead, but real to her, Dr. Shirazi. Except for one chance remark by Glorianne, president of Gavriel Navarro’s Worldwide Fan Club.

“I have a question,” he said, finally breaking his silence.

“Ask away.”

“You said he let you into the house the first day you arrived.”

“That’s right.”

“Did he actually let you in? By that I mean, did he open the door and say hello? Did he step out into the yard and help you with your bags?”

Silvina thought back to the day, only a few weeks ago, when Jean-Luc left her by the door, while arguing with his wife on a cell phone—how did he have reception?—and she knocked and waited. She went around the house, thought she heard a click, went back and tried the door. It was unlocked.

“He did none of those things,” she said. “The house felt empty when I entered.”

“And did he hand you the keys? Like this.” Gavriel extended his arm toward her, as if holding something.

“No. He told me where they were.” She waited while he stared at the ground some more. “Have you come across this kind of thing…in South America?”

“Similar, not quite like yours. But the head shaman of the Coblán, the Indians I lived with, used to talk about such things. They were apparently quite common long ago when boundaries were thinner.”

“What boundaries, what things?” Silvie felt icy cold. She also felt enormously, overwhelmingly tired.

“Inorganic beings, allies, elementals, djinns…the boundaries of time-space. There are many words to describe the beings; every culture has its stories, like Aladdin’s cave in
One Thousand and One Nights
. Not everyone believes in djinns, of course.”

“I don’t believe in them, but that didn’t prevent whatever this was from happening. So what is the relevance of keys and doors?”

“If he’s a djinn or something like it, then he can’t pass through thresholds such as doors or cave entrances. He can lure you in, or keep you out. But these energy forms cannot follow you across boundaries. It’s Law.”

Silvie feared she was going to be sick. She hadn’t eaten anything and had only drunk coffee at Moulin l’Internet.

“Put your head between your knees,” Gavriel said. “You’ll feel better.”

She did as he suggested; it helped a little. “What if a person is already inside? I mean, you talk about boundaries, and Dr. Shir—”

“Don’t mention his name.”

“Okay. So, this guy…thing, he can obviously move around inside Viv’s house. He showed me all the rooms, except for the attic. I can’t very well live up there.”