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  “Men have fun putting their babies in,” Sophie said, pointing to Philippa’s expanding middle, “but few want anything to do with getting them out.” A wisp of flyaway hair eclipsed Sophie’s right eye.

  Sibyl shook her head and pursed her lips. “If men grow timid when their wives’ time arrives,” she said, “it’s because they are frightened by the pain of labor and helpless in the face of it.”

  “William has fought great battles. He is not likely to cower at the birth of a babe,” Philippa said.

  Sibyl rocked slightly in her chair. “Phillipa, sweetheart, William is, indeed, a brave man. But childbirth is beyond his experience. Because men are accustomed to being in control, they fear loss of power.” Her fingers plucked at her smock and she smiled a small conciliatory smile.

  “You are wrong,” Philippa said. “My husband fears nothing and no one.”

  “I know little of men’s private fears,” Sophie scoffed, “only what I have witnessed. Most husbands spend their wives’ labors in drunken, premature celebrations. And afterwards,” she paused, “they are often jealous of their offspring. Bah,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal, “most men are vain and self centered, and even the best are obsessed with leaving an heir. Do not expect much from your William and you will not be disappointed.”

  On a balmy spring afternoon, the mild backache that had plagued Philippa most of her pregnancy began to throb. The child was not due for another month, so she did not suppose her discomfort to be the onset of labor. Rather, she assumed her morning walk had tightened her muscles and produced spasms. Over the proceeding weeks, she had grown awkward in her gait, the smallest gesture an onerous task. Reaching for a dropped napkin had become an agony. Philippa told no one about her aching back, but her aunts must have guessed her discomfort, for they insisted that the three of them suspend chores and squander the remainder of the day sharing fables and fairy tales. One of the maids laid a fire and the women formed a crescent of chairs. Sibyl and Philippa sat in rockers. Sophie settled into her favorite ladder-back, crossing her hands over her girdle, a broad band of silk that looped once around her waist, crisscrossed behind her back and knotted in front.

  For two months Philippa had worn nothing but loose chemises and linen gowns. That morning, she had added a fur-trimmed, richly embroidered pelisse, well open in the front and reaching to her knees. Playing the fingers of her right hand the length of one silky bell sleeve, she imagined herself with a waist small enough to girdle. A scullery maid served mugs of hot cider. The scent of clove and cinnamon soothed Philippa’s backache as surely as the warmth of the fire and the distraction of story telling. One tale in particular riveted her attention—the tale of Mélusine, cursed to assume, on every Saturday, the body of a fish from the waist down.

  “The fish tail was not unbeautiful,” Sibyl explained, her tongue sliding over chapped lips. That morning she had wound a dark wimple about her head, and only a few curls showed at her forehead. “The scales shimmered turquoise. The fin, a pearly translucent fan, sparked silver in sunlight and moon glow.” She smiled at her niece’s obvious delight.

  “One day by the Fountain of Fays in the forest of Combiers in Poitou,” she continued, “Mélusine came upon Count Raymond who, struck by her enormous beauty, fell instantly in love with her. They sat by the fountain and talked all night. Raymond was charmed by her tenderness and wit. Before dawn, he asked for her hand in marriage.

  “Mélusine, no less enchanted than he, accepted immediately, but only if he first agreed to build her a castle where she might keep her secret hidden. ‘You must never intrude on my private Saturdays,’ she explained, ‘for if you do, we will be forever separated.’

  “Count Raymond agreed. He built Mélusine a great castle at Lusignan on the very spot where they had met.”

  “And were they happy?” Philippa asked, holding out her mug for the scullery maid to refill.

  “For a while they were very happy,” Sibyl said. An owl screeched in the distance. The fire popped and the logs sputtered sap.

  “Until,” Sophie interrupted with her raspy whisper, “Raymond was prodded by malicious gossip to discover how his wife spent her days apart from him. Some said that every Saturday she visited with a coven of witches. Others hinted at a mysterious lover.”

  A log split in half and thumped against the grate, tossing live embers onto the hearth. Waving aside the maid, Sibyl grabbed the poker and jabbed the two pieces between the andirons. Philippa’s rocker creaked and groaned.

  “Finally,” Sibyl said, setting aside the poker, “Raymond could not stand it any longer. He had to know Mélusine’s secret or he could not survive another day. On a Saturday morning, he slipped into the castle. After searching for his wife in the bedroom chambers and the spinning room, he approached her dressing chamber. Discovering the door locked, he peered through the keyhole. Mélusine laid sprawled in the tub, head thrown back in abandon. Her long hair, flaming red against the copper tub, curled in the damp air. Raymond felt shamed at having violated his wife’s trust and was about to leave when some strange compulsion bid him take another look. One quick glance, he told himself, and then he would go and no one would ever know of his indiscretion. Raymond held his breath, tilted his head and adjusted his eye.” Sibyl leaned forward in her rocker, tilted her head and squinted through an imaginary keyhole. “Anticipating the slender length of Mélusine’s legs,” she whispered, “Raymond was shocked to see a blue-scaled tail splashing the water.”

  “And?” Philippa said leaning forward in her rocker, having all but forgotten her back pain.

  “At first Count Raymond said nothing to his wife or anyone else. But he could not forget what he had seen. He thought he knew her fully, completely, that together they made one whole. And now he wondered what other secrets she had withheld, and he began to question the integrity of their life together. Several weeks later, in the midst of a fearsome argument, he lashed out at her in anger. ‘Get away from me you loathsome mermaid.’ he bellowed.”

  “But why?” Philippa gasped. “Aunt Sibyl said Mélusine’s tail was not unbeautiful. Why did the Count call her loathsome?”

  “Women best keep their private business to themselves,” Sophie spat. “Men claim they want to know the truth, but they are deluded. Men prefer to remain behind a veil of ignorance and are too often made queasy by the secrets of a woman’s body.”

  Philippa’s considered her blue-veined breasts and bulging belly. Was it possible that William found her loathsome?

  Sibyl frowned at her sister’s words and rushed to conclude the tale. “Once Mélusine understood that her privacy had been violated, that her deepest secret had been stolen, she had no choice but to leave her young count.”

  “Did Mélusine ever return?” Philippa asked. Her back throbbed. She shifted uncomfortably in her rocker. Her pelisse gaped open, revealing the knobbed thrust of her navel pressing against her gown. “Was their love ever as it had been?” she asked.

  Sibyl reached out to pat Philippa’s leg. “It’s nothing but a fairy tale, my little one,” she said in a soothing voice, “a story to amuse.”

  Ignoring her sister’s words, Sophie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and leaned forward. “Never,” she whispered ominously. “She never ever returned. The castle of Lusignan has stood empty thereafter, haunted by the ghost of the vanished countess mermaid.”

  That night Philippa dreamed of a roiling sea. A scaly creature wrapped its tentacles around her middle and squeezed as she struggled to break free of its oily embrace. Around midnight, her water broke and she called out in fear. Sophie appeared at Philippa’s side in seconds, her hair a tangle of gray in the moonlight.

  “What is it little one?” she whispered. “Is it time?”

  Sibyl woke Wallada who entered the chamber humming a melodious tune that reminded Philippa of the sound of rain splashing a pond.

  Sophie sat stiffly comp
osed by the door. No one mentioned William.

  As labor progressed, Wallada massaged Philippa’s opening with olive oil and the bedroom took on the pleasing scent of the kitchen. At dawn, the baby’s head crowned and then, inexplicably, the birth stalled. Philippa bore down with all her strength, but the child would not budge. Between contractions Wallada slipped a hand inside Philippa. “So, that’s what’s holding things up,” Wallada mumbled, withdrawing her hand. She rolled her shoulders and wiped her brow with her forearm before repositioning her hands. Palm facing palm, she straightened her fingers as though she were preparing to receive a skein of yarn. Taking a deep breath, Wallada slid all ten fingers inside Philippa. “There!” she whispered. And then, with one seamless gesture she slipped the cord that looped the baby’s neck over his head. “Alright, my lady! Help me get this little one born!” Pain gripped Philippa’s back and spread to her belly. Rising up on her elbows, she bore down. And when the babe burst from her into the midwife’s competent waiting hands, the relief was numbing.

  “It’s a boy, my lady,” Wallada said, lifting the howling babe into the air.

  “Will,” Philippa said. “After his father.”

  If only William had waited until the babe had been swaddled and Philippa sponged with lavender water their lives might have taken a different turn. But Wallada had only just delivered the afterbirth when William stumbled into Philippa’s chambers, disheveled, unshaven, and reeking of mead. “Your lady did a fine job, my lord,” Wallada said, nodding to the corner table where Sophie and Sibyl watched a maid bind the babe’s navel with a band of linen. “God has granted you a healthy child.” She dropped the afterbirth into a copper bowl and carried it from the room, but the metallic scent of blood lingered.

  William blanched and cleared his throat. “Do I have an heir? Is the child a son?” he demanded, his voice too loud for the tiny chambers.

  Sorrow replaced Philippa’s great joy. Had he no words of love for her? Then Sibyl placed Will in Philippa’s arms and she forgot all about her husband. Sunlight flamed her child’s hair a rosy auburn that reminded her of Toulose. She placed her lips against the soft spot on her child’s crown and found the pulse of her own desire—to love completely, possessively, and without reservation.

  “William,” she said, “here is your son.”

  Baby Will puckered his face and whimpered. Philippa’s breasts tingled. Sibyl placed one pinkie into Will’s curling fingers. “He is strong, your son,” she said to William. “Look here.” She touched Will’s tiny dimpled chin. “Here is your cleft. And his eyes are the same blue that greet you in the looking glass.”

  Wallada returned to Philippa’s bedside with a mug of boiled water and honey. “Drink this, my lady,” she said. “After you’ve finished, it’s time to put the babe to breast. The child is fit but early. It is best that he be suckled by his own mother.” She spoke to Philippa, but all present knew her words were meant for William. He would not happily accept Wallada’s recommendation, but for now he remained silent, momentarily distracted by the sight of his son.

  “He’s smaller than I thought he would be,” William said. The look on his face was not one of wonder but one of evaluation.

  “He is not so very small,” Philippa said, and for the first time in their married life she contradicted her husband in the presence of others. “And soon he will grow as tall as his father. Or perhaps,” she added, “the child will grow even taller.”

  Aunt Sibyl made a breathy, hissing sound and shook her head. William stiffened, his lips tightened and his eyes marbled over.

  Distracted by her son’s reedy howl, she did not apologize. Already the rhythm of their lives together, a deep intimacy that blurred the boundaries between where she left off and the child began, had started.

  Girard felt reborn when Abbot Geoffrey asked him to accompany Robert to Poitiers as a representative of Trinity. Placing the missive he had penned to Duchess Philippa into Girard’s hand, the abbot added, “The woman Madeleine and Brothers Peter and Moriuht will undertake the journey as well.”

  Clenching his jaw, Girard struggled to replace his disappointment with obedience.

  The candles on the desk cast a ruddy glow onto the Abbot’s tonsured skull and elongated his purple nose. “Robert is stubborn,” he said, examining his fingernails. “He would prefer to travel alone, but his poor health simply will not permit it.”

  “And the other pilgrims?” Girard asked.

  “They’ll remain at Vendôme until your party returns,” the Abbot said, dismissing Girard without another word.

  The first night they camped along the side of the path in a clearing of chamomile and, Girard discovered as soon as he lowered himself to the ground, a scatter of sharp pebbles.

  “We must eat sparingly on our journey in order to conserve our supplies,” Robert explained, offering each pilgrim a few dry tubers for dinner. Madeleine, Peter and Moriuht seemed satisfied, or at least resigned to their bitter fare. Girard, however, winced at the tiny white bulbs in his hand.

  “Brother Girard,” Robert said in a soft voice only Girard could hear, “every man carries a cross. Believe me, if you have faith that God will deliver you, you will be able to master your appetite and find glory in your affliction.”

  Girard placed one of the tubers in his mouth. Chewing slowly, he concentrated on how the bitter pulp yielded a sharp peppery pleasure.

  “You see?” Robert said. “The Lord helps those who turn to him.”

  But he had not seen, not at all. That night, hungry and cold, Girard lay awake wrapped in a rough wool blanket that tickled his shoulders and did little to cushion the jab of pebbles. Even after falling into a restless slumber, he dreamed of sweetened pears larded with cinnamon and cloves. The dream titillated his palate, waking him hours before anyone else. Readjusting his body, he occupied his mind by constructing an astonishing and fanciful banquet—tables laden with roasted pheasants, mutton, and venison tenderized in delicate wine sauces flavored with garlic and saffron pepper. Food fantasies pushed aside prayer and left him light-headed and vaguely nauseous.

  The other pilgrims woke before dawn and sipped water from a shared pig bladder. No one mentioned food. After two arduous days of walking bramble-choked paths, they arrived at Blois and took shelter in a small inn. Praise the Lord! Girard thought. At last they would eat a real meal and be spared the misery of sleeping in dirt. The pudgy Blois innkeeper announced the menu before the five pilgrims were even through the door. “We offer onion soup and capons,” he said in a loud, exuberant voice. Around his neck hung a whittled cross fastened together with strands of scarlet thread. “Or, if you prefer, we have this hour finished roasting a suckling pig.”

  Girard fantasized biting into pork shank, the warm fat trickling down his chin.

  The innkeeper drummed thick fingers against a belly girdled snug by a grease-splattered apron. “What will it be, my good people?”

  “Plain broth and bread,” Peter said. “And perhaps,” he added, glancing at Robert, “a bit of red wine.” Peter, a tall thin man with a blond thatch ringing his tonsured crown, had been a musician at Sully-sur-Loire where he recorded liturgical chants and hymns on parchment. Though a man of few words, he often hummed sad, lugubrious melodies.

  How can he settle for plain broth and bread! Girard thought, when there’s onion soup, capons and, my God suckling pig! That Peter eats nothing but notes!

  Girard glanced at Madeleine who appeared absorbed by a vase of gold snapdragons languishing on a deal table. He entertained a fantasy of Madeleine’s fingers brushing his withered arm and felt an unsettling surge of pleasure and shame. But even lecherous daydreams did not disturb him as much as the thought of eating plain broth and bread for dinner.

  Moriuht, a sinewy compact man who wore nothing but animal hide against his bare skin, claimed a stool near the fireplace, seemingly oblivious to the repellent sight he offered Gi
rard each time he opened his legs. Filthy and unkempt, the man reeked of sweat as pungent as a field of wild onions. Even the clove oil Moriuht used to treat his diseased gums did not mask his powerful stench. During the journey, he exhibited the energy of a half dozen men. Instead of walking he bounced. Sidestepping nettle and foxtail he disappeared into thickets, sometimes reappearing with a smile, holding a robin’s nest or a tangle of translucent snakeskin. “Master Robert,” Moriuht said, scratching his back with such sensual abandon that Girard flushed in embarrassment, “we’ll not be eating tubers tonight!”

  Robert smiled, his fondness for Moriuht apparent in the softening of his features.

  Moriuht scratched his jaw and muttered, “Blasted chiggers and lice!” Girard wished that, in addition to Moriuht’s beard, vermin might inhabit the wiry snarls of his nether regions. But even as Girard framed the thought, he felt remorse.

  “Yes, my friend,” Robert said, “Tonight we dine on broth and bread.”

  But Robert remained in his room long after the group assembled for supper in the common room.

  The innkeeper served the thin broth in simple bread trenchers. “The bread is made from a recent harvest of rye,” he assured them. “Of excellent quality and taste. Can’t be too careful these days. A fortnight past Vital from Bourges served bread made from grain milled the previous spring, and his guests fell grievously ill.”

  “Ill?” Peter asked, his brow furrowing.

  “With fevers and powerful visions,” the innkeeper said. “A doctor was called who claimed the sickness was most likely caused by the old flour used in preparing the bread. But the stable boy and scullery maid felt certain the afflicted were victims of the devil, for why else would their visions be so violent and obscene?” The innkeeper pursed his lips and frowned.

  Girard wanted more details concerning the specific nature of the “obscene” visions, but kept his silence.