The Forsaken Monarch Page 27

  The king had advanced very close to my person, hands clenched behind his back. I could mark the signs of strain in his features. He was gritting his teeth. I had pushed him to the point of frustration.

  “You speak as one with knowledge, but I have far more,” he said to me, his tone the same as one might take with a young and very disobedient child. “Allow me to inform you, daughter, about the one you claim to adore. He was wed two days hence to Mathilda D’Oyly near the lady’s home, with her family present. With this marriage, he has attained the Honor of Wallingford. Now what say you to that, you who know so much? Everything here has taken place according to my will. So what have you to say?”

  I was utterly stung by these words: so much so that I could barely process them. Brian was married?! He was married without telling me?! I was about to despair when I recognized that my father might have conjured a ruse merely for effect.

  “I say that you hope to play me for a fool, and through these lies to compel my submission—nay, my humiliation! As I live, I will not suffer it!” I cried.

  “Foolish girl! Do you take me for a common jester?” he asked, his face red with anger. “I assure you, they are joined even now in the bonds of matrimony! I have my witnesses to prove it. The papers are signed—the deed is done. They are joined before God. Did you really think that a man of noble standing would defy his king in this manner? I spoke with your beloved Brian, and he declared that while he had no wish to deny you the respect you are due by rank, he had grown weary of these attentions and believed that such behavior was not merited. He loves you but as a brother and repented of anything he might have said that led you to believe otherwise. This, my daughter, is the end of the matter, and you must accept it.”

  “Accept it?! I can scarce believe it! When did he speak with you?” I cried, clinging to the hope that it was a lie.

  “The day before he left, when you and the ladies were detained. He informed me of his concerns, and I bid him wed his betrothed forthwith. This he did without delay, and now you have the proof of it.”

  With the addition of so much detail, I began to suspect that he was telling the truth, and it grieved me deeply. Indeed, I felt as if a knife had been plunged into my frame. I had foreseen that he might refuse, but I had never foreseen this. In that moment, I felt anger such as I had never felt before in my life. Something fierce was rising up inside of me, and it aimed to counter each of his verbal blows with one of my own.

  “If what you say is true—though I struggle to accept it, so loathsome is this news to my ears—then I must conclude that you have used me quite ill, for I suspect you knew of my regard for him, and fearing that your own designs would come to ruin, you purchased his submission with villainous threats!” I said, almost spitting out the words.

  “I have used you ill?!” He stopped to laugh: a savage sound that made me cringe. “No, look you to your beloved, for it is he who used you ill! It would seem he has all the constancy of a cat in heat! And who could blame him? Did you really think he would sacrifice his fortune on your behalf? Your face is barely pleasant enough to tempt a toad! Your value to men is in your dowry: nothing more. Without that, no man would pursue you.”

  The news that I had lost Brian was terrible, and the announcement that the king would marry me to the Angevine imp equally terrible, but these words cut to the core of my being and confirmed the deepest fears I had always held about myself: that I was loathsome and unworthy of love. I truly believe that if I had been pierced with a knife, it would have hurt less, but having lost both the man I loved and the love of my father, I was determined to fight for the one thing I had left: my future marriage.

  “No, I cannot accept it!” I cried.

  “Oh, but you must, dear daughter,” he answered, his seemingly kind words belied by the evil glint in his eyes. “Dearest, dearest Maud. You are to be wed into Anjou, and there will be no debate on this point, for I declare there is not a royal woman from the queen of Sheba down to the present day who would stand where you are now and hurl such abuse at her king. As God is my witness, you shall learn obedience!”

  “If obedience means joining myself to someone so inferior in every way, then the Lord condemn me if I should obey!”

  I had hardly spoken these words, when he grabbed on to my garment and pulled me so close that I could feel his breath upon my face. There was a fury in his eyes, and though I was determined to endure it, he was unwilling to allow me the luxury of rebellion.

  “You do not struggle against me, but against the Lord Almighty. How dare you speak to me in such a manner! What has possessed you?” He let up his grip and turned to walk back to his throne. “You will marry him, I say!” he yelled.

  Without stopping to think, I moved as if by instinct to my knees and raised my hands into the air. I was pleading to both my earthly father and my father in heaven.

  “No, no, no! I will not marry the boy count! That is my word, and I shall not be moved.”

  He turned again to face me. For a second, I felt as if my very life was perched upon the brink, ready to fall one way or the other: freedom or enslavement, heaven or hell, England or Anjou. Then came the judgment.

  “If you will not move,” he said, “then I will move you.”

  He came toward me at once, raised me up with his strong arms, and struck me so hard across the face that I fell to the ground, my weight crashing into the wood boards. There was a taste of blood in my mouth and all about me seemed to spin, but I was determined to return to my feet. No sooner had I risen, than he struck me again in the same manner. I caught myself this time with my hands and looked back up at the figure who seemed now a beast rather than a man.

  “Get up!” he bellowed, spit flying from his mouth. “I command you: get up!”

  I rose slowly this time, using one arm to guard my face. I started to say something, but before the words left my mouth, he struck me thrice and pushed me over. I was unable to catch myself, and my whole body met the floor again. My mouth was by this point filled with blood, and I could not see for all the tears.

  Then something possessed me. In my head, all I could hear were the words of Drogo: “Left, left, right! Left, left, right!” The pain in my heart and my body was so great that it had nearly overwhelmed my anger. Even so, I stood one final time. I hardly knew what I was doing. I was acting on instinct.

  The next thing I knew was that my fist had struck my father’s chest. There was such a look of surprise in his eyes! I had not hurt him in the slightest, but nevertheless, we had both seen what happened. With a fury I had never known before, and which I dearly hope never to witness again, he grabbed me around the neck, choking me. He then moved one hand down and grabbed me between my thighs.

  “I own you!” he yelled at me, his spit flying on to my face.

  He then thrust me to the ground and kicked me again and again. I had no more strength to fight back. I was simply waiting to die … but I did not die, as much as I might have wished to do so.

  After waiting to ensure that I would not challenge him further, the king finally said, “Let that be a lesson to you! You will be wed to Count Geoffrey if I have to latch that tongue to a horse’s arse and drag you bleeding all the way there! Would that God had denied you the power of speech, such trouble has it brought me. Your mother would be filled with shame to see you now.”

  As he departed, I was just able to raise my head and utter one last reply. “Do not suppose that I will ever forgive you.”

  He did not stop to listen to the words, but left me there upon the floor.

  XI

  “How did this happen?” Grimbald asked me.

  Yes, that was the proper question for the hour. How did I allow myself to be so blind? How were my affections able to rule me? How could I have believed those empty promises, I who had ever trusted in the practical?

  But that is not what Grimbald meant: he simply wished to know how I came by the scrapes on my hands, the bruises on my arms, and the red marks on my face. He wan
ted to know why I was too sore to leave my bed. It was not necessary for him to hear the details of what had taken place a few hours earlier. He was a physician, after all, not a confessor.

  “I tripped on the stairs, just out there,” I lied. “I fell headlong.”

  “Was no one with you?” he asked. “I thought you did not walk alone.”

  “I was in haste. I admit it was foolish,” I replied softly.

  Grimbald seemed to accept this explanation and continued with his work. I was sitting on the edge of my bed in my private chamber, and he knelt before me on the ground, a bowl of water and some cloths sitting on the floor beside him, along with a leather pouch containing tools of his trade, a flask of wine, and a small wood chest filled with herbs, bottles of this and that, and a few other objects I could not see. He poured some wine over each of the cuts, the sting of which might have made a bee envious. Once he was satisfied that he had caused a sufficient amount of pain, he dabbed at the wounds with a cloth and then pulled back to survey his work.

  “You should not need stitching,” he said.

  There, at least, was a small blessing, for the few stitched wounds I had ever seen looked truly monstrous. He cleansed each spot again with water, then wrapped the worst one. Next, he opened the lower drawer of the chest and pulled out another object.

  “Here is a pultes you can hold against the bruises. It may help,” he added, with less certainty than one might prefer from a physician.

  I simply nodded, and he began wrapping it to my arm. As he did so, my eyes wandered without aim across the stone walls of the room until they came to one of the two windows. The sun was sinking low in the sky, and the auburn rays were drifting through the panes of glass, creating a pattern on the wood floor. It seemed that the sun was giving up on the day even as I was giving up on everything. The pain in my heart was so great and my despair so extreme that I had utterly lost my sense of purpose. I had no idea what I would live for or why I was living, beyond serving as a pawn in my father’s game. Oh, my father! Merely thinking of him filled me with terror, and I had no wish to call him father.

  There was a knock at the door on the far side of the room, and Grimbald spun around. “Who goes there?” he called out.

  The door opened, and I was rather stunned to see Queen Adeliza standing there with a most serious look on her face. The physician stood and bowed. I was about to stand as well, but she requested, “Please, stay where you are. What is this, Grimbald?”

  “I am just tending to Empress Mathilda’s wounds,” he replied. “She fell down the stairs."

  She raised her brows. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, and she has some rather nasty bruises.”

  I could sense that the queen did not accept the story she had been given, but she did not intend to reveal this to Grimbald.

  “Good doctor, pray, let me speak with your patient,” she requested with a nod toward myself.

  “Of course, if she wishes it.”

  He looked at me, and I nodded my head in affirmation.

  “Very well. I shall depart,” he said, moving to collect all his things. When he had gathered everything but the flask, he held it out to me. “I will leave this wine with you. Pour some on that cut once per hour and have one of your ladies change the binding. It will prevent infection.”

  “Thank you, Grimbald,” I said, and just like that, he was gone.

  Queen Adeliza stood in front of the closed door, simply staring at me. I did not move from my place, but simply returned her gaze. She seemed to make a study of me with her eyes as I rubbed my left shoulder, attempting to ease the pain.

  “May I sit beside you, empress?” the queen finally asked.

  Once again, I simply nodded, and she took her seat beside me, just to my left. There was another moment of silence. She placed her right hand on my knee and patted it gently.

  “I think you and I both know that you did not fall down the stairs,” she began.

  “You're one to talk!” I replied. “Hiding away from us all day and night.”

  “So the king has made liars of us both then,” she stated.

  I looked down at my lap, uncertain of what to say.

  “Tell me, why did he strike you?” she asked quietly.

  “Queen Adeliza, perhaps you mistake my manner,” I told her, looking her in the eye once again. “I have no wish to discuss this further.”

  “Then you give him what he wants! Do you not see that? He depends upon our silence!”

  I admit that in my state of despair, I took offense at this. She seemed to accuse me of being complicit in my father’s actions, but if that was true—which I would not own—then she was even more complicit, having remained silent for God only knew how long. Her words angered me, but my spirit did not have the strength to truly push back against them.

  “What goes on between you and the king is your own affair,” I said. “As for me, it hardly matters what I say: there is nothing that can be done.”

  “So this is about Sir Brian then?”

  “The king told you?” I asked, truly surprised.

  “There was no need for him to tell me. News of the marriage is spread throughout the court.”

  I turned my face in the opposite direction so as not to reveal how much this distressed me. Queen Adeliza was not my enemy, but I had so little trust in humanity at that moment that I did not want to let anyone see how deeply I was hurting.

  “I see,” I replied. “Well, now my folly is made clear to me. Why does everyone else see what I cannot?”

  “Why? Did you speak to the king about him?”

  “Yes, because that is the kind of fool I am! I went right in there, said my peace, and I have been harshly punished for my candor. Did you know he wants me to marry the boy from Anjou?” I asked, turning my face back toward her.

  “That would be Count Fulk’s son?”

  “The very one.”

  She pulled back her head slightly and had a look of judgment upon her face. “Isn’t he barely of age?”

  “Yes.”

  “And very far beneath you …”

  “Yes! What is more, the lords of England will hate him. It will cast doubt on the succession.”

  She nodded in agreement. “So you refused to consider him?”

  “Yes, though I think now I may as well submit my neck to the yoke.”

  “You must do nothing of the sort!” she said with some real passion. She placed her hand firmly on my shoulder. “Trust me, for I have also borne your father’s wrath. He must not win! Fight him, Mathilda! Fight to the death!”

  “That is exactly the kind of thinking that bought me this black eye.”

  My breath was coming in harsh bursts. I could feel the tears forming again in my eyes.

  “I thought he was going to kill me,” I whispered more than said. “I knew he never loved me as he did William, but such hate was in his eyes. With every blow he struck, I felt my will for life ebbing away. I felt everything just gone.”

  Another moment of silence passed in which my tears grew heavy and fell. I thought the queen might reach out to comfort me, but to my surprise, she did not. Indeed, she almost seemed to berate me.

  “So that is all, then?” she asked. “You are giving up?”

  I laughed. “There is no giving up about it. There is no choice of any kind on my part. I have been beaten in more ways than one, and I think I may be seeing reason for the first time in months.”

  Now she did grab my arm, causing me no little pain as I had a large bruise there. With a shake of her head, she beseeched me.

  “Please, Empress Mathilda! I told you, I know people, and this spirit of defeat is not like you. You may be deeply hurt by what has taken place, and you are longing to give in, but you must not! You owe it to your descendants.”

  My descendants who did not even exist were the least of my worries at that particular moment. How did she know I would have any, and why did she think their lives could be any better than mine?

&n
bsp; “Perhaps what I owe them is a world at peace, which might be achieved by marrying with Anjou,” I concluded.

  “But you just said that the lords of England will not accept him as your husband.”

  “Maybe—maybe not. Only time will tell. Honestly, if I cannot marry the person I desire, then it hardly matters whom the king chooses. They may all be equally bad, so there’s nothing for it. If I reject this Geoffrey, then tomorrow it will be another, and all the while I stir up the king’s wrath against me.”

  “No!” she said firmly, the creases in her brow increasing along with her determination. “Anything is better than Anjou!”

  “He could send me off to the Rus—the ends of the earth. That would be worse.”

  “You may have a point there,” she admitted.

  We sat in silence for a moment, and by the sound of her breathing, I gathered that Adeliza was growing calmer. My head still throbbed with the pain. I reached up and held it, but this did little to help.

  “Queen Adeliza,” I said, “it occurs to me that virtually every misery in this world is brought about by men. I wonder if we should just remove them from the face of the earth?”

  “That would be the ending of humanity.”

  “Yes, but imagine what content we women would experience during those final years before we turned things over to the beasts!”

  “Hmm, that is probably true.” Her tone now grew merry and her eyes sparkled. “So how shall we go about our work then? Dagger, bow, or cannon?”

  I considered for a moment. “Dagger. I want to see them bleed and hear them squeal.”

  “Oh, but we cannot!” she objected. “For then we would have no bishops or knights…or lawyers!”