So Speaks the Heart

Brigitte de Louroux sighed, keeping her blue eyes on the fat goose lying on the work table before her. Frowning with concentration, she plucked the feathers as she had been recently taught. It was a new chore to the seventeen-year-old girl, but only one of many that she was slowly getting accustomed to. She wearily wiped a tendril of flaxen hair away from her face.

Blood from the slaughtered goose was splattered on her apron and also on the hem of her brown woolen tunic beneath. Brigitte's wardrobe of fine gowns was nearly all ruined from the filthy chores that were now forced on her. This drudgery was her own choice though, she reminded herself, her own stubborn choice.

Across the table stood Eudora, whose task Brigitte was doing. Eudora's brown eyes were sympathetic until Brigitte looked up and smiled almost apologetically.

“It's not right!” Eudora hissed, her eyes suddenly round with anger. “I, who have served in your father's house all my life, and happy for it, must stand idle while you work.”

Brigitte lowered her gaze, her blue eyes misting. “Better this than my giving in to Druoda's plans for me,” she murmured.

“That lady is cruel.”

“I am inclined to agree,” Brigitte said softly. “I fear my brother's aunt does not like me.”

“She is a bitch!” Eudora replied heatedly.

Eudora's mother, Althea, crossed the kitchen waving a large spoon. “You are too kind, Eudora. Druoda forces us to call her lady, but she is a slothful cow. She gets fatter and fatter while I have lost weight since she came here. She has said she will cut off my fingers if I taste while I cook, but what cook can cook without tasting, I ask you? I must taste what I am cooking, yet she says I must not. What can I do?”

Eudora grinned. “You can add chicken droppings to her food and hope she doesn't find out, that's what you can do.”

Brigitte laughed. “You would not dare, Althea. She would beat you, or even banish you. She might even kill you.”

“Ah, no doubt you are right, milady.” Althea chuckled, her large body jiggling. “But it was nice to think about it, to savor as I would a sweet cake.”

Eudora quickly grew serious again. “It has been terrible for us since Druoda began to rule here. She is a cruel mistress and that cowardly husband of hers does nothing to stop her. Lady Brigitte does not deserve to be treated like the lowest serf on the manor.” Eudora became even angrier. “She is the daughter of the house, and her half brother should have made provisions for her after their father died. Now that heâ”

Eudora stopped and lowered her head in shame,
but Brigitte smiled. “It's all right, Eudora. Quintin is dead, and I realize that.”

“I only meant to say that he should have made arrangements with his liege lord. It's cruel that you should fall under the will of a woman like Druoda. She and her husband came here to beg the mercy of Lord Quintin as soon as the Baron died. He should have turned them away then. Now it's too late. They seem to think this fief is theirs instead of yours. Your stepbrother was a great man, but in this caseâ”

Brigitte silenced her with a sharp look, her bright blue eyes fierce.

“You do Quintin wrong, Eudora. My half brother could not know that Druoda would keep me from Count Arnulf. But the Count is our liege and my rightful guardian now, no matter what Druoda says, and he will settle my estate. I have only to reach him.”

“And how will you reach him when Druoda will not let you leave the manor?” Eudora asked heatedly.

“I will find a way.” Brigitte's voice lacked conviction.

“If only you had family somewhere.” Althea shook her head, sighing.

“There is no one. You should know, Althea, for you were here when my father became lord of Louroux. His family were few, and the last perished in the King's campaign to regain Lotharingia. And on my mother's side there was no one, for she was ward to Count Arnulf when she married the Baron.”

“Milady, Druoda already makes you toil as if you were a mere serf. Soon she will beat you as one, too,” Eudora said gravely. “If you know a way to reach
Count Arnulf, then you must do it quickly. Could you send a messenger?”

Brigitte sighed. “Who, Eudora? The serfs would gladly do as I ask, but they need permission to leave the manor.”

“Leandor would help you. Or one of the vassals,” Eudora persisted.

“Druoda keeps Leandor tied to the manor as well,” Brigitte said. “She will not even let him go to the Abbey of Bourges to buy wine. And she has convinced my brother's vassals that her husband, Walafrid, will be seneschal here once she marries me off, and that she will find a husband for me who will not dispose of them, so they will not disobey her for my sake.

“Count Arnuff of Berry is more than a day's ride from here. How can I get to him?”

“Butâ”

“Be quiet, Eudora!” Althea snapped with a warning look to her daughter. “You are upsetting our lady. Would you have her travel the country
alone?
Be prey to thieves and criminals?”

Brigitte shivered despite the heat of the cooking fires and the sweat beading her brow. She stared dismally at the half-plucked goose, thinking that her prospects for the future could not be worse.

Eudora gazed compassionately at the Baron's daughter. “Why not go out and feed Wolff, milady? I will finish the goose for you.”

“No. If Hildegard came in and saw that I was not working, she would run to Druoda. When Mavis protested my doing this work she was beaten and banished. And I could do nothing to help my old friend. The soldiers are following Druoda's orders, not mine.
And then to hear that Mavis had died on the road, killed by thieves! Losing Mavis was like losing my mother again.” Brigitte's composure was rapidly crumbling.

She quickly wiped at her tears. Mavis had been her maid from the day she was born. The old Celtic woman had been a second mother, and had been a comfort and help to her young charge ever since her mother died.

“Go, milady.” Althea gently pushed Brigitte away from the table. “Feed your dog. He always cheers you.”

“Aye, go, lady.” Eudora came around the table to take Brigitte's place. “I will finish the goose. And if Hildegard comes in here, she will get her ears boxed.”

Brigitte smiled at a picture of Druoda's fat servant spy getting her ears boxed. She picked up a tray of scraps for Wolff. She let Althea fasten her own woolen mantle over her shoulders, and then left the cooking room carefully, checking first to see that the great hall was empty. Fortunately only two servants were there, scattering new rushes on the floor, and they did not look up.

She knew all of the house serfs by name, for they were like family; all except Hildegard, who had come with Druoda and Walafrid. It had been a happy household before Quintin's unexpected death and his aunt's unwelcome change from guest to mistress.

Outside the air was brisk, and the smells of the animal pens to the west drifted on the wind. Brigitte headed that way, passing the horse and goat stables and the sleeping quarters of the house servants across from the stables. Beside the stables was the cow barn, with the sheepfold beyond and the pigsty behind it.
Wolff was locked with the other hunting dogs in a large pen on the side of the barn. Druoda had ordered that. Wolff, Brigitte's pet dog, who had never known anything but freedom, was now as much a prisoner as Brigitte was.

Her father had found Wolff seven years before in the forest that covered most of the land between Louroux and the Loire River. Brigitte had only reached her tenth year when the Baron brought the puppy home. It was obvious how huge the animal would become, and he had certainly not been intended as a pet for Brigitte. But she had fallen in love with Wolff at first sight, and, though she was forbidden to go near the dog, could not keep away. It was soon discovered that Wolff was equally devoted to Brigitte, and that there was no cause for worry. Now that Brigitte was all of five feet two inches tall, her chin did not come far above Wolff's huge white head. And when he stood on his hind legs, he towered a foot above her.

Wolff had known she was coming and sat waiting impatiently by the gate of his pen. It was uncanny, but Wolff always seemed to know whatever Brigitte was doing. Often in the past he had known when she left the manor, and, if tied, he had broken loose and joined her on the road. It had always been impossible for Brigitte to go anywhere without Wolff. But she didn't go anywhere anymore, and neither did he.

Brigitte smiled at him as she opened the gate, let him out, and then closed it. “Feel like a king, do you, not having to wait with your friends there for the marshal to feed you?” She bent to hug him, her long flaxen braids falling over his large head. Though most women in Berry clung to the long linen mantle,
Brigitte had always disliked mantles. Her braids were not immodest, she had decided, and she liked the freedom of not having her head draped all the time, though she always wore a white linen mantle to church.

Her undergowns were usually brown spun wool or, in warm weather, a light cotton wool dyed blue or yellow. Her overtunic was usually blue, a light linen blue in summer and a darker wool blue in winter.

“You can thank Althea for pushing me out of the house, or I would not be here to see you now.”

Wolff barked once in the direction of the house before he attacked his food. Brigitte laughed and sat down beside him, leaning back against the dog pen. She stared over the high wall surrounding the manor.

It was hard to see over the wall unless she looked straight up at the treetops. The entire manor, stables, servants' huts, and gardens were walled in by two-foot-thick stone walls, long ago blackened by age and scarred by warfare. In Brigitte's lifetime there had been no siege against her home, but her grandfather had fought several battles to keep his fief, and in his youth her father had seen many assaults on his inheritance. The past twenty years had seen so many battles with the Saracens that almost nobody in France had the men to mount attacks on his neighbors. Brigitte could just barely make out the top of the orchard to the south: The last time the fruit trees had blossomed, her life was entirely different. A year ago she had still had Quintin and Mavis. The fief that she had lived on all her life had gone to Quintin, but she had had her marriage portion. Now it was all hers, but she could not rule it. She must have a
husband, or ownership of the fief would revert to Count Arnulf.

Brigitte considered her inheritance. It was a wealthy demesne, acres of fertile land in central France, game abounding in the forests, a well-kept village. And for twenty-seven years it had belonged to Thomas de Louroux, her father.

The manor house was a fine one. Lord Thomas had built it himself, on the same site as the old manor, the old house having burned down in a raid by a recalcitrant vassal of Count Arnulf. Half the village next to the manor had also burned, and many serfs had died. The wattle and daub huts of the village were easy to replace, but not the serfs. Over the years, however, the village had grown, and now there were many serfs bound to the land and Louroux. A keep had been built for the protection of all, spread on a bare hill a half mile to the north.

Brigitte looked that way now and saw the tall tower lit by the afternoon sun. Quintin had been born there. An unlikely place for a birthing, but Thomas de Louroux's first wife had been inspecting the stores there when her pains had come upon her.

Lord Thomas had married Leonie of Gascony soon after he became vassal to Count Arnulf. Lady Leonie was the daughter of a landless knight, but her poverty had not deterred a man in love. She gave him much happiness and a fine son soon after their marriage. But their happiness did not last. When Quintin was four years old, his mother traveled to Gascony for the marriage of her only sister, Druoda, to a clerk, Walafrid of Gascony. She and her whole entourage had been massacred by Magyar raiders as they trav
eled through Aquitaine on the journey back to Louroux.

Thomas was beside himself with grief, and Count Arnulf, distressed to see his favored vassal so morose, pressed him to marry his beautiful ward, Rosamond of Berry. After a proper mourning period, Thomas did so, and the lovely Rosamond won his heart. Her generous dowry also blessed Louroux. Was any other man so lucky as to love two women and find happiness with each?

After a few years Rosamond gave birth to a daughter, whom she and Thomas named Brigitte, and indeed her august beauty was apparent even when Brigitte was only a baby. Quintin was eight then and already page to Count Arnulf and learning his warrior skills at the Count's castle. Brigitte was a happy child, loved by her parents and adored by her half brother, Quintin. Though she saw him only on his visits home, she could not have loved him more if he had been her true brother and had been there always.

Life was wonderful until Brigitte's mother died when Brigitte was twelve. In the same year she was further devastated when Quintin, knighted two years before, left with Count Arnulf on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Her father consoled her as best he could, though his own grief was tremendous. He spoiled her terribly during those next few years. Brigitte became haughty and quick-tempered, but for her pride she was punished when her father died three years later.

Fortunately Quintin returned home in 970, shortly after the Baron died, and took over the lordship of Louroux. A few months later Druoda and her hus
band arrived, beseeching Quintin to take them in. He did not refuse his aunt and her husband. Druoda was meek and unassuming. In fact, Brigitte hardly noticed her presence in the house except at meals. Her brother was home to stay, and that was all Brigitte cared about. They consoled each other over the death of their father.

Then, several months earlier, the Abbot of the Burgundian monastery of Cluny was kidnapped by Saracen pirates as he crossed the Alps on the Great St. Bernard pass. The Count of Burgundy was enraged and asked his neighbors for help in ridding the country of Saracen robber bands, who had terrorized all the western passes of the Alps and southern France for more than a century. Count Arnulf had never been harassed by the Saracens, but he needed Burgundy as an ally, so he sent many of his vassals and their knights to do battle with the Saracens. Quintin had gone, too.

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