Night Blooming (21 page)

“I apologize, Optime,” said Rakoczy, reverencing the King and remaining standing in a show of respect “One of the fighting men I have provisioned on your behalf had a serious chink in his sword. I have repaired it and now he is fully armed again.” He had actually replaced the damaged blade with one of his own making, but kept that to himself.

“Work for a slave to do,” Karl-lo-Magne said, determined to insult his guest.

“Not if I am certain my work will provide the soldier with a stronger weapon than your smiths can,” Rakoczy rejoined, knowing that concession now would be an invitation to trouble. “You charged me with furnishing the armed men I sponsor with the finest weapons I can. I was fulfilling my obligation to do so.” He reverenced Karl-lo-Magne again. “Besides, Optime, since I dine in private, as you are aware, what does it matter if I miss half the meal? There is no occasion that demands my attendance.” He gestured to indicate the women at the lower table. “You have enjoyed the full attention of these gracious ladies and I will not starve simply because I didn’t arrive as the first dish was brought out. If this were a formal banquet, then I would be lax indeed, but for such an occasion as you have here? You have new bread trenchers out before you, but nothing is in them yet, so I must assume your meal is not a hasty one, and you haven’t passed beyond the pickled eggs yet.” It was a calculated risk, talking to the King in this way, but Rakoczy hoped to deflect the worst of the King’s displeasure by pointing out his own oddity.

Karl-lo-Magne gave a sour grin. “All right, Magnatus. I cannot dispute that. Have a seat with the ladies. They will make a place for you on the bench.” It was a subtle punishment, and both men knew it.

Rakoczy reverenced Karl-lo-Magne and took a seat between Odile and Ermentrude, straddling the bench gracefully before swinging both legs under the table. He showed no sign of distress at this slight, and instead of sulking as many another might, he took advantage of his situation, directing his attention to Odile, asking how she was enjoying her stay in Paderborn. To encourage her, he said, “I have not been here in some time, and I see the city is much changed. The King is making it a finer town than it was of old.”

Odile smiled slightly and reached for her cup of beer. “I have only been here this once, and we don’t go about the city, for it is still deemed unsafe for women to walk abroad alone, and there are no soldiers to spare as escorts. I can speak only of this castle and its immediate neighbors.” She glanced at him speculatively, her expression a combination of seductiveness and caution.

“Perhaps, then, Optime might allow me to escort you about the markets when it suits him,” Rakoczy suggested. “It would be my pleasure to revisit this place with the benefit of new eyes.”

“Perhaps,” said Odile, with a quick glance in Karl-lo-Magne’s direction. “If it suits the King.”

“Of course,” Rakoczy said at once. “You and I attend on him at his pleasure, and it would be the height of ingratitude to do anything against his Will.”

Ermentrude laughed a little. “This is a most soft-tongued fellow,” she said to Odile, looking past Rakoczy as if he could not understand her.

Odile shook her head. “A flattering word isn’t enough to entice me any longer; I heard too many of them from my husband, when he cajoled me or returned from whoring.” She looked directly at Rakoczy, a challenge in her pale-blue eyes. “You have a bearing about you, a presence, Magnatus, and that is more to my liking than compliments and persiflage.”

“Then I shall seek to address you in a more dignified manner,” said Rakoczy, and went on with only a trace of a smile in the back of his dark eyes. “I am told you read. What are your preferences?”

Somewhat startled by the question, Odile had another mouthful of beer. “I … I do not know that I have any preferences. To read is a blessing in itself, that I am obliged to anyone for allowing me to peruse something I have not seen before, whatever it may be.”

From his place at the High Table, Karl-lo-Magne laughed. “Listen to her. Who is bantering now, Odile?”

Color mounted in her cheeks and she coughed. “I did not mean anything—” She gestured with her cup to finish her remark. After swallowing, she said to Rakoczy in an undervoice, “I understand why you are here, Magnatus, and why you are talking to me.”

“How do you mean?” Rakoczy asked quietly.

“The King has told you to choose one among us. We all understand that.” She could not quite look at him, so instead stared at the space over his right shoulder.

“Oh,” said Rakoczy, troubled that she had been ordered to make herself available.

“I am willing to do as the King wishes, if you should choose me. You wouldn’t have to force me,” she assured him with a slight smile.

“I would not want to force you, in any way. If you are willing, I will not ask you to say so now, unless it pleases you to do so. I will not demand an answer before you are ready to give it,” said Rakoczy, wanting to spare her embarrassment. He gave her a long moment to respond, and when she remained silent, he went on. “Idle conversation is not to your taste. Very well, I shall not foist too much upon you: let me, instead, supply you with a list of books I have with me, and you shall choose which you would like to read.” That would spare her the potential embarrassment of the
Metamorphoses.
He reached out for the pitcher and poured more beer into her cup, and then into the cups of the other widows.

“He’s dainty as a Roman,” said Ermentrude, not quite approving. “Have you been there, Magnatus?” She asked this graciously, but with the air of one who expects a denial.

“Not recently,” said Rakoczy, recalling his villa on the north-east side of the old walls; it had been built during Claudius’ reign and although in disrepair, was currently being managed by Atta Olivia Clemens, an arrangement that gave him a sense of continuity he did not often experience over the centuries.

“But you have been there,” said Ermentrude with a sigh. She drank more beer. “I know I will never see it, but I long to go there.”

“It is not so fine as it once was,” warned Rakoczy, recalling the magnificence of the city when the Caesars ruled there.

“Roma is a splendid place!” Karl-lo-Magne boomed. “The Pope maintains his Court there, and we of the West still honor it as the center of the world, no matter what the Emperor Constantininus VI and his mother Irene in Constantinople may say. It is only their envy that makes them slight Roma.” He looked around at his daughters and smiled as they seconded his utterance. “One day, Roma will be the Empire it was before, only vaster and more rich, and more highly esteemed than ever before. Roma will reclaim her place in the world, and Byzantium will bow to her again, as she did at the beginning.”

“Is that what you intend, Optime?” Rakoczy asked in a respectful tone, all the while aware of what an impossible task Karl-lo-Magne had set himself.

“It is, although my good advisor Alcuin is against such ambitions, telling me I am tempting God to bring me down for pride. But it isn’t pride that drives me, it is yearning for the might that the West once had, and I am determined we will have restored to us. When we can drive the Moors out of Hispania, and then push back the Wends and the Moravians as we have the Avars, then we might bring the proud Byzantines to submission, as they ought to—” He stopped as the Paderborn senescalus came to the entrance to the small dining hall and reverenced him. “What is it?”

“There is a messenger from Roma. He has arrived but a moment ago, seeking audience with you. He says it is of crucial importance.” The senescalus stood very straight, anticipating a reprimand for interrupting so private a comestus.

Karl-lo-Magne looked about as if he expected to be overheard, and kept his tone low. “What is his purpose?”

“He didn’t tell me, Optime,” said the senescalus. “I cannot force him to reveal anything to me. He says it is for your ears alone.”

Sighing, Karl-lo-Magne shoved himself out of his chair. “I think I should probably speak to him, then, although it is insolent of him to present himself in this manner. It offends me to be summoned like a servant. Still, it may be that he is ordered by His Holiness to demand an immediate audience, and to refuse it would traduce the honor of the Pope.…” He picked up his knife and tucked it back in his belt. “You need not wait for me if the food is getting cold. Otherwise, assume I will be with you in a short while.” With an abrupt movement he swung around to leave the room.

“Cherished father,” said Gisela, “we will wait for you before we continue to eat.” She slipped out of her chair and knelt while Karl-lo-Magne strode to the door. “Bring more beer,” she ordered as soon as her father was gone. “If we cannot eat, at least we can drink.”

There was an awkward silence among the women and Rakoczy as all tried to fill the moment without slighting the King. Finally Rotruda nudged her half-sister and clapped her hands. “Where is the beer?” she demanded, and leaned forward, her arms on the table-plank.

One of the scullions almost dropped his end of the spit he was carrying with another scullion. He ducked his head, confusion making him clumsy, and looked about for some means to support the spit while he hurried to carry out the King’s daughters’ orders. His distress made the women laugh, and one of them pointed to the unfortunate scullion and made a scandalous suggestion about the state of his femoralia and his buttocks; the youngster turned scarlet and fled.

“He’d better bring the beer,” said Rotruda, scowling at the scullion as he bolted from the room, leaving his fellow to struggle with the hot, laden spit. “I have a great thirst upon me. Hurry! If you do not, I’ll have you beaten!”

“Father does not like drunkenness,” said Gisela with a sigh. “He doesn’t like to fuddle his wits. He doesn’t mind if the rest of us drink, thank all the Saints.”

“Well, I do like drinking,” said Rotruda, petulantly. “I am ready to fetch our beer myself if someone doesn’t bring it, and quickly.”

“Someone will,” said Bertrada, named for her grandmother and inclined to take on grand airs because of it. “Else they’ll be whipped.”

“They may be whipped anyway,” said Gisela. “The buttocks on that scullion almost demand whipping.”

Rotruda laughed, her good-will restored. “Optime does not want us neglected. You must see that.” She giggled and looked down at the four widows and Rakoczy. “We know his favor will never falter. You cannot be so certain.”

Ermentrude sniffed. “At least we have been allowed to marry.”

The three women at the High Table exchanged looks. “Our father does not want to part with us. He doesn’t forbid us to have our pleasures. He only forbids us husbands.”

“It isn’t the same thing,” said Ermentrude smugly, and drank the last of her beer, “having lovers. We have the protection of our husbands’ family.”

“And we the protection of our father,” said Rotruda smugly.

Three scullions—none of them the chagrined lad who had scurried from the room—came from the kitchen, each with a pitcher of new wheaten beer in his hands. They bustled about the tables, taking care not to brush their greasy camisae against the gonellae of the women. In a short time they had refilled all the cups and left the pitchers on the table for further servings. Immediately Bertrada reached for the pitcher nearest her and claimed it for her own use.

“We will want more, by and by,” she warned the scullions.

The scullions exchanged uneasy glances, and one of them, staring down at his feet, dared to say, “We are told to keep the rest for the banquet tonight.”

Bertrada glowered at him. “Set aside three more pitchers for our use or it will be the worse for you.”

“There is wine, Illustra. Let us bring you wine.” The desperation in his voice intrigued Gisela, who leaned forward.

“I didn’t think we had much wine,” she said with exaggerated sweetness. “I was under the impression that all we could drink is beer.”

“There is enough wine to meet your needs,” said the scullion, increasingly anxious under this continuing scrutiny of the King’s daughters. “There isn’t enough to serve all the guests at a banquet.”

Bertrada decided for them all. “Wine will do. See you bring it at once. Bottles for each of us. That means seven of them, since the foreigner doesn’t drink.” She looked directly at Rakoczy. “Or eat, at least not in company, after the custom of his people, strange though it is.”

Taking advantage of this shift in attention, the scullion bustled off toward the kitchen.

“Beer first, then wine,” said Gisela, nudging Rotruda with her elbow.

“It is acceptable,” said Rotruda, drinking down her beer and holding out her cup for more. “We’ll be drunk as Bishops.”

All the women laughed and tossed off the contents of their cups; Rakoczy noticed that Odile was less eager than the rest to become intoxicated, which intrigued him. He studied her profile and noticed she was aware of his interest, for she smoothed back a wayward tendril from her face and smiled uncertainly.

“What are you thinking, Magnatus?” she asked in an attempt at boldness.

“I was thinking that you are an interesting woman, Good Widow,” he replied, determined to end any awkwardness between them. “And I am trying to decide which of my books you might find most engaging to read.”

Her smile became more genuine. “Optime told me you have books with you. How fortunate for you, that you can keep books. I have two of my own, and would have more, but I cannot read Greek; I learned Latin when I was with the nuns of Santa Burgundofara.”

“You were taught there?” Rakoczy asked, encouraging her to talk.

“I was a novice for three years, when I was younger.” She glanced at him, then went on. “I was a third daughter and my father gave me to the Church. But then my oldest sister died in childbirth and my other sister took a fever and became an invalid.” She reached out for her cup of beer and drank. “So I was recalled from the nunnery and married.”

Rakoczy heard this out with a mixture of sympathy and resignation. “Your father required it of you?”

“All my family,” she answered. “With my only living sister unable to marry, it was left to me to make sure our House was not extinguished, although our name may be lost.”