Chapter Six
Joanna was awake before sunrise. She stretched out an arm and was surprised again by the empty space next to her. Since Eleanor’s betrothal to the King of Castile, she had been promoted to a chamber of her own. Joanna had a moment’s sadness when she remembered this, but it was still two months before Eleanor would leave, and two months were as long as two years to Joanna. Besides, it was at last the great day of the tournament and she could not be sad today.
It was still dark, but she could make out the darker mass of the chest against the wall and the bed where Nurse lay humped under the covers, her breath whistling through her nose. By the door, two maids slept on pallets. As Joanna strained her eyes, one of the maids stirred and turned, sighed deeply, and was silent again.
Outside a rooster crowed, then another, farther off. Joanna crept from her bed and went to the window. She peered through the crack of the heavy shutters. It was lighter outside, but she could not tell if it were daylight yet or not. The air coming round the edges of the shutters was cool and she shivered. She went back to the bed and felt in the dark for her chemise and wriggled into it. She used the chamber pot in the corner of the room, afraid to face the long dark corridor to the garderobe set into an angle of the palace walls. Even in daylight she was terrified of perching on that hole set above the long drop to the moat. Still no one stirred. Then her ears caught the sound of a chain rattling. She moved swiftly to the window again and listened. A creaking sound and a slight rattle. Someone was drawing water from the well. A clank as a bucket was set down on the stone rim of the well, then a rattling as another bucket was lowered. It was morning at last. Now she could smell smoke, too. The servants were up and lighting the kitchen fires.
“Nounou, Nounou, wake up!” she caroled. “It’s daytime, it’s the day of the tournament!”
Nurse snorted and groaned. “It’s nighttime, you silly child. See how dark it is? Go back to sleep!” She turned over with her back to Joanna, yawned deeply, and grunted again.
Joanna sat on her bed, arms wrapped around her knees, in an agony of anticipation. She stared fiercely at the window willing the sun to rise and the day to begin. Slowly, the sounds intensified. She heard the stamping of mailed feet as the night watch on the walls and towers was relieved. She heard the lowing of the cows and knew the herdsmen were going in to milk them. From the meadows came the sound of hammering where some final preparations of stands and booths were set in hand. The dawn chorus of birds swelled, dogs barked, and horses neighed. There was a burst of talk and laughter as a group of men crossed the bailey and then their voices faded into the distance. The smiths and armorers were already at work. She could hear them banging and hammering at horseshoes and nails, lance heads and swords for the big day.
At last the bells rang, a little one first from a monastery way down by the river, then the sound was taken up by other churches across the town, the bells of St. Hilaire and St. Porchaire and the cathedral of St. Pierre and, finally, from the palace chapel itself.
Joanna stood unusually still while her maids dressed her. She had a new bliaut that she was to wear for the occasion. It was deep blue with silver embroidery round the hem and neckline and sleeves, and what made her even more sure she would look like Marie in it was that it had a train. Not, to be sure, a long train such as Marie and Mother and the other ladies wore, but undeniably a train. The wardrobe mistress had demurred and Nurse had been adamant.
“A train on a little girl’s gown? Certainly not! You’d be sure to trip over it or tear it and what a waste of cloth. Why, the price of cloth has doubled these last years. When I was your age, even bishops and viscounts went about in sheepskins, but nowadays it’s all precious stuffs and snipping it here and slashing it there to show the lining, and the young men with their long hair and pointed toes—it’s all vanity, vanity.” She mumbled something under her breath about “monkeys dragging their tails behind them.”
However, Queen Eleanor, when appealed to, had decided in favor of a train, much to Joanna’s joy. “By all means let it have a train, but only a small one. Joanna will be sitting with us in the royal stand and she must be dressed according to her rank.”
So now she fingered the smooth silk, smiling to herself, as her maids brushed her hair. She would have liked her hair waved like Marie’s, but knew better than to engage in an argument she would not win. However, Nurse allowed them to braid one central tress and weave blue ribbons and gold fillets through it.
The chapel was crowded for early Mass. Afterward, Joanna filed out with Eleanor, behind the Queen and Marie and their ladies. In the Great Hall the girls breakfasted at the children’s table, near the buttery door, on slices of bread and cups of fresh milk, still warm and frothy. Released from the silence of the chapel, they chattered eagerly.
“It’s going to be a beautiful day for it.”
“Do you think Richard is nervous?”
“Of course not. He’s longing for it. When does Poitou fight?”
“I think it’s to be the last mêlée. The grand finale.”
“What if he and Henry meet?”
“They won’t. It’s been carefully arranged. Anjou is to fight the North and Poitou the South.”
“Then Richard won’t meet William Marshal either,” Joanna said in relief. “He’ll be leading the Angevins, I suppose, with Henry.”
“Shall I tell you a secret?” Alice asked with a sly smile.
“Tell me, too,” Scholastique cried. She was wearing a purple gown that Joanna had decided did not suit her at all.
“No, you’re just a baby.”
“I’m the same age as Joanna,” Scholastique said indignantly, “and I won’t tell, cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Well, all right,” Alice leaned across the table. “Marguerite is in love with William Marshal.” She giggled.
“I don’t think that’s an interesting secret,” Scholastique said.
“That’s because you’re a baby. What do you say, Joanna?”
“Does he love her?”
“She thinks he does.” Alice giggled again. “He pays her compliments all the time and she doesn’t see it’s just because she’s Henry’s wife. Anyway, she’s got it set in her head that if he asks her for a favor to wear at the tournament, it will prove he loves her.”
“But that’s nonsense,” Joanna objected.
“Of course it is,” Alice said. “In fact, I think he’s almost bound to ask her, but you can’t reason with Marguerite.” She sighed dramatically and added, “That’s the way love is. Madness.”
“Richard will wear your colors, I suppose,” Joanna said.
“Richard? Oh, I doubt it.” Alice put on a piteous face. She was very good at it. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes looked big and tearful. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“I’m sure he does, really,” Eleanor said, leaning forward. She always hated to see anyone unhappy.
“He probably wouldn’t like you if he could see you now,” Joanna said cheerfully. “He likes people with spirit. Come on, let’s go. I’m ready.”
But Nurse was not to be hurried. Joanna sank back onto the bench, her fists clenched between her knees, trying to contain her impatience.
“I don’t really like the mêlées,” Eleanor confided. She pulled the soft center out of her bread and nibbled it. “I hate to see people get hurt. I like the acrobats and the storytellers.”
Alice leaned forward. “Did you ever see anyone get killed in a tournament?” she asked.
“No, never. Did you?”
“No. But I’d like to.” She licked milk from her upper lip.
“Like to?” Eleanor crossed herself. “Alice, that’s terrible.”
“It’s not that I want anyone to die, but it would be so exciting. Don’t you love it when all those men on horseback crash into each other in the middle of the field,” she smacked her hands together and her eyes glittered, “and then all that heaving and struggling and shouting and the splintered lances and hacked shields? I love it.”
Joanna saw Nurse lift her head and look at Alice disapprovingly. Alice was not her charge so she went back to dipping her bread in her milk, country style, and sucking the milk noisily through it.
“I don’t hold with these tournaments,” Nurse said. “I think the Pope should ban them. There’s Lady Alice saying she hopes to see some poor fellow killed and the men are even worse, dash into the fray with never a thought for their wives and children or their parents’ grief.”
“But Nounou, you don’t understand, to a knight honor is more important than life. Roland says so, you know, in the Song of Roland. Mieux vaut mort que déshonneur. ‘Better death than dishonor.’”
“I understand enough to know that honor won’t support his widow and orphans. But I suppose he didn’t have any.”
“He had a fiancée, beautiful Aude, who was waiting for him back in Aix.”
“And she was overjoyed to hear of his honorable death, I suppose?” Nurse asked sarcastically.
“She died of grief. Oh Nounou, it’s so beautiful. She kept her oath to Roland just as he kept his to his lord. Charlemagne had six countesses stand round her bier to honor her.”
“Hm. Well, she was as big a fool as he was. Thought you were so impatient to get out there?”
“Oh yes! Come on, Nounou! Do I look all right?”
“Pretty as a picture, my lamb, though I don’t want to encourage your vanity. Come on, then.”
A wave of noise hit them as they left the palace. Around the edges of the flat meadow, stalls were set up and the hawkers were all crying their wares, haberdashers, saddlers, glovers, pastry cooks. The ale booths were doing a busy trade and the clang of hammer on anvil rang out from the armorers’ forges. Jugglers and musicians strolled through the crowds and here and there groups of people had gathered to watch a mime perform or listen to a necromancer. In ringed-off areas at the field’s edge, the common people were already cheering on their own champions in wrestling and dart shooting and stone throwing. The Jews hovered a little apart from the crowds in twos and threes, nervously fingering the heavy money pouches on their belts. They were there to lend money to defeated knights who could not afford to ransom themselves. Joanna stared, fascinated, at their dark beards and pointed yellow hats.
Joanna clung to Nurse’s hand. Around them, her ladies trod delicately, lifting their long skirts to keep them from horse droppings, fruit rinds, and spilled ale. She tried hard to see everything at once, the banners unfurled to the slight breeze, the colorful tents where the knights were already arming, the stands and galleries raised above the lists and filling with chattering fluttering ladies, the heralds strutting importantly up and down within the lists. Constantly she was distracted by some new claim on her attention, a swarthy horse dealer from Lombardy or Spain bawling in heavily accented French the merits of his stallions, a trumpet fanfare which she thought announced the start but was only a young trumpeter practicing or just carried away by enthusiasm, a stall with a heaped pyramid of cold, spit-roasted songbirds and quails and pigeons.
Once in the stand, with an uninterrupted view over the wide flat green meadow and the knights’ tents and the crowds all round, she could not bear to sit but remained standing, craning to see. The knights were gathering now, the young ones self-consciously nonchalant, the older ones sitting on benches and drinking the Gascony claret that their squires brought them. The chief herald eyed the ladies’ stands, looked back toward the palace, then resumed his strutting. Impatience mounted. There was a flourish of drums and the sound of horses neighing. The smaller stalls were closing now and their owners pushing forward to get a view. Joanna scrutinized the arms on the knights’ surcoats, the boars and hawks and dragons and eagles, but she could not see the golden lions of Anjou. Squires hovered nearby, holding shields blazoned with their masters’ arms. Here and there, free lances mingled with the other knights, younger sons without land, whose shields carried no arms. They would fight in any mêlée and hope to win a large ransom.
There was a sudden stir in the crowd and Joanna spun around, almost losing her balance. The chief herald raised his trumpet to his lips and the others followed suit. There was a tremendous fanfare. The crowd fell silent and the echoes of the trumpets seemed to fly up into the sky. Queen Eleanor and Countess Marie came up into the stands, followed by their ladies. They stood for a moment, looking around them, then settled down. Over their heads, the pavilion flapped in a sudden breeze. With a rustle, the ladies sat. The drums rolled, the heralds lined up. Beyond the lists, grooms brought up horses and the squires helped their masters into the saddle and handed up their shields. A buzz of talk broke out among the crowd as last-minute wagers were exchanged.
There was a flourish from the herald. He stepped forward and stood below the royal pavilion. “My lady Queen,” he bellowed, “my lords and ladies.” His voice fell at the end of each phrase as though it were complete.
“The noble knights of Brittany.” Ragged cheers greeted this. “Challenge the valiant knights of Gascony and Guienne.” Prolonged cheers and applause. “To enter the lists here today. And meet them in combat. To prove their much-vaunted valor.” More cheers and raucous laughter. “Or to concede victory to the Bretons.”
“Never!” someone shouted. “A Gascon never yields!”
“He only strategically withdraws!” answered a knight sarcastically, from the stands opposite.
“Better than prematurely withdrawing, like a Breton!” shouted a third voice.
The crowd roared its approval of this exchange. Insults and cries of “Brittany!” “Gascony!” rose above the neighing and the drums.
The herald sounded his trumpet again. “My lady. I present to you: The knights of Brittany.”
The lists at the far end of the meadow were opened and the standard bearers moved forward, followed by the buglers, then the knights. Their squires walked alongside. As they passed, the herald cried each man’s name and honors. Joanna caught some of them, Rennes and Penthièvre, Dinan and Porhoêt. Before the Queen, they bowed their heads, helmets under their arms. The horses’ caparisons shook and glittered. The leading knight stopped below Constance.
“My lady Countess,” he called and Constance rose in her place, blushing. Joanna could see she was clutching something in her hand. “I dedicate our victory to you! I crave the honor of a token to carry into battle and pledge …”
Before he finished speaking, Constance flung the sleeve she held bunched in her hand to him. The throw was short and it fell on the ladies below Constance who passed it forward and over the lists to the squire. The knight leaned down from his saddle and his squire knotted the sleeve around his right arm. He raised it in a salute to Constance and all the Bretons cheered.
Constance sat down abruptly, flushed. Joanna thought, If I were her, I could have done better than that. She should have said something to cheer him on. Nine is not grown up, but she is their Countess. Joanna fingered the handkerchief in her sleeve. No one would ask her for a favor but if they did, she thought she could do better than Constance.
Now Constance’s Breton ladies were leaning over the lists as the knights rode forward and offering one a scarf and one a handkerchief, some freely thrown, others coyly granted. There were cheers, some catcalls, and a few bawdy comments from the knights who had gathered in the men’s stands opposite. Tucking the tokens into their helmets or tying them on their arms, the Bretons trotted to the far end of the meadow, on Joanna’s right, and lined up.
Then it was the turn of the knights of Gascony and Guienne. The crowd roared itself hoarse. Gascony and Guienne were part of Queen Eleanor’s great fief that ran from Tours to the Pyrénées, and had not the Queen herself been born in Gascony? Besides, the Gascons were favorites with the tournament crowds; showy, brave to the point of rashness, always good for a spectacular mêlée. They came in jauntily enough, flashing the colors of Agen and Auch, Bergerac and Dax, and the Queen’s own birthplace of Belin. Reacting to the crowd’s approval, they capered and wheeled and approached the ladies with poems and snatches of songs.
“We can’t hear you!” shouted someone in the crowd.
Obligingly, one of the Gascon knights trotted over to the crowd and sang for them. Joanna clapped delightedly.
“Oh I hope they win!” she cried and saw Constance shoot her an angry look.
The Gascons cantered off to the left, accompanied by the yells and whistles of the crowd, and formed their line. There was a sudden silence. People edged forward tensely now the preliminaries were over. Far apart, at opposite ends of the long meadow, the two lines waited. The herald was fussily ordering people to clear the areas at the ends and get back behind the lists. The drums rolled and the trumpets blared. In the distance, the Breton herald stood out in front of his line and issued a formal challenge. His Gascon counterpart accepted it and added an insult which brought a roar, immediately silenced. Now the chief herald ordered squires and heralds out of the lists.
The moment lengthened. The knights pulled their helmets down and lowered their lances into position. The sun flashed on mailed sleeves and burnished shields. A fly buzzed around Joanna’s face but she could not bear to move. All eyes were fixed on the herald, waiting for the signal. A horse snorted and shook his head up. Just as the suspense was becoming unbearable, the herald raised his trumpet and the fanfare sounded.
A gasp went up from the crowd and the two lines of horsemen charged. The Gascons shouted as they came, the Bretons looked dour and grim. The horses’ hoofs drummed on the turf, the sound growing into thunder as they reached a gallop and drew closer. Joanna held her breath. Then with a tremendous crash, the lines met. A shield went spinning far up into the air and fell back. Horses reared and neighed and someone began to scream, a shrill high scream that went on and on.
For a while, Joanna could not see what was happening. She stood up, trying to see over the heads in front of her, trying to see the source of the screaming. There was a tight mass of men and horses and shields swirling in the center of the field. Then the line broke into knots and couples. A horse galloped off, riderless, another lay kicking on the field. She saw some men down, one rolling onto his knees, another lying still. Those who were still mounted were separating into couples fighting sword to sword. The field was littered with splintered lances.
The squires climbed under the lists, circled warily, then dashed forward to pull an unconscious man to safety. They rolled him onto his shield and carried him from the field. The fight rolled back and forth. A couple with locked shields tried to extricate themselves. A knight who had lost his sword tried to defend himself with the stub of his lance and was driven steadily back.
Through the noise of the crowd and the horses, Joanna could still hear the screaming. She watched as squires found the man now and carried him off, doubled up and writhing. The skirt of his surcoat was sodden and red, and blood spilled down his legs, darkening his leather gambesons. She saw that Constance had her face averted and her hands over her ears. Alice was sitting on the edge of her seat, staring avidly.
It was a relief for Joanna to laugh with the rest of the crowd as one knight hopped frantically after his horse, one foot in the stirrups, trying to remount. Some were down now, held at sword’s point by their opponents and forced to yield. Sullenly, they mumbled their acceptance of the ransoms imposed, were released, and slouched from the field.
A Gascon burst from the mêlée, his left hand over his eye, blood running between his fingers. The crowd shouted its sympathy.
“I have another eye left,” he shouted back, “and a one-eyed Gascon is better than a two-eyed Breton any day.”
He wheeled his horse and, roaring like a bull, charged back into the fray. Joanna watched him, admiring his courage. His red and black blazon was easy to see. He rammed into a Breton with such momentum that the man was unhorsed and fell heavily on his sword arm. The Gascon leapt from the saddle and stood over the man before he could rise. He lifted his sword two-handed. Blood spattered from his gouged eye and dripped on the Breton. Slowly, the Gascon knelt. Joanna thought it was to hear the other’s surrender more clearly. Then she realized he was not kneeling but falling, toppling slowly like a felled tree, first to his knees then forward to lie full length on the Breton. Squires skipped around them, uncertain. The Breton rolled the other from him and rose to his feet, looked for his horse, and made to mount it. At a signal from the herald, the squires stepped forward. He argued with them. Joanna could not hear them but understood that the herald had ruled him defeated. As he left the field, he shook his fist at the herald and she saw Constance’s sleeve flutter on his arm. The one-eyed Gascon was carried off on his shield and the crowd cheered him mightily, although he could not hear it.
The fight was breaking up. The Bretons were being driven back into a rout. The Gascons, eager to capture prisoners for ransom, chased the Bretons from the field. In the stand opposite, a young knight yelled “Stand and fight! Stand and fight!” Joanna looked across and recognized Richard’s rufous mane. She waved but he did not notice.
In the distance, the Gascons pursued the Bretons with yells. The crowd was left looking at an empty field strewn with broken lances and hacked shields. Grooms were tending the fallen horses and squires were picking up the shields. As Joanna watched, a wounded horse was dispatched with a sword slash across the throat. An army of servants began to move across the field, clearing it of debris for the next mêlée.
Vendors were already crying out from their stalls, offering eel pasties and claret, spice cakes and salted pork tongues, and for those who could afford no better, bread and ale. Joanna was suddenly enormously hungry. Long trestle tables had been laid for the nobles in a field nearby. The sun was hot now and the ladies fanned themselves as they settled on the benches. Wasps buzzed eagerly over the food and the palace dogs had found their way there, following the scent of roast meat. The knights who had not fought that morning were eating hungrily.
The children seized what they could and sank onto the grass to eat. Joanna sat cross-legged, munching a flan filled with soft cheese and eggs. Crumbs dropped on her new silk bliaut but she paid no attention, intent on hearing all the gossip she could.
Constance had gone back to the palace in tears and would not eat. The one-eyed Gascon was not dead; he was unconscious but was expected to recover. Only one serious injury so far: a man caught by a lance thrust in the groin. He had received extreme unction. The leading Breton knight had ridden for home swearing he would not pay the ransom, though it was only his horse. The Gascons were holding five of his men as hostages. The conversation swelled around her and suddenly there was a cheer as the Gascons began to arrive. One was limping and another had splints on his arm, but all were smiling and flushed. The ladies offered to share their cups of wine and some of the bolder ones reclaimed their tokens in exchange for a kiss.
Alice sank onto the grass next to Joanna and Scholastique. She rested her elbows on her knees and chewed at a roast skylark, her little fingers daintily raised.
“Wasn’t it marvellous?” she asked, through a mouthful of meat. “Poor Constance, she was as red as a coxcomb! Didn’t you love the brave one-eyed Gascon?” Her hair swung forward and she tossed her head back.
“Where’s Eleanor? Have you seen her?”
“I don’t know. I think she felt sick. Didn’t like all the blood.” Alice ripped a strip of meat from the lark’s wing and her tongue curled neatly round it and flicked it into her mouth. She leaned toward Joanna. “Look at Marguerite!”
Joanna looked up. Marguerite was staring at William Marshal who was walking beside the tables, serenading the ladies. He had tucked a flower behind his ear and was strumming a lute.
Can par la flor justal vert fuelh
E vai lo terns clar e sere.
Marguerite’s mouth hung slightly open as she watched him. He had stopped and put a foot up on the bench now. Joanna knew the song well and sang it under her breath with him.
Dei ben chantar, car tug li met journal
Son joi e chan que no pens de ren als.
“I must sing, as all my days, Are full of joy and song and I can think of nothing else.”
Alice giggled. “I don’t think she’d notice if a wasp flew into her mouth.”
“Does William fight today?” Joanna asked.
“No. It’s Poitou after dinner, challenging the Southerners.”
“Poitou! Why then, Richard will be fighting.” She sat bolt upright, dropping the crust of her flan into her lap, and looked for him.
He was in the midst of a group of young men, laughing and talking noisily. She strained to hear. He was speaking langue d’oc, as usual, and telling an anecdote. There was a burst of laughter from the group around him. Now the boy next to him was speaking, a dark haired slender youth of Richard’s height.
“Now there’s a handsome one,” Alice said. “Do you know who he is?”
Joanna shook her head.
“Well, he’s only a boy. He looks about the same age as Richard.”
“Richard’s not a boy. He’s thirteen.”
“I call that a boy. Perhaps it’s just because we’re French, but Marguerite and I prefer men.”
Joanna ignored this, to her, meaningless statement. The trumpets were sounding for the knights to arm.
“Whoever he is, he’s fighting today. Look, he’s going with Richard. Richard!” Joanna shouted, jumping to her feet.
He turned, his eyes scanning the throng until he saw her. Then he raised a hand and grinned.
“Good luck!” she called.
“I’m always lucky,” he shouted back.
“He always swaggers,” Alice said critically.
Joanna watched them go. They were talking about something, then they both turned and looked, whether at her or Alice she could not tell.
When they returned to the stands, William Marshal was in evidence again, rallying the heralds and singing topical songs. He had acquired a slapstick from a jester and was capering drolly before the stands.
“I would juggle for you, too,” he called, “but I have no balls.”
“More balls than the lot of them,” someone shouted at once.
“I thank you, sir, whoever you are,” William acknowledged.
The bench felt hot to Joanna through her thin skirts. She felt sorry for the knights who must be sweating in their quilted leather breeches and heavy ring-mail hauberks.
The crowd was singing too.
In the public house to die
Is my resolution;
Let wine to my lips be nigh
At life’s dissolution;
With a sudden surge, everyone shouted the refrain:
Grant this toper, God on high,
Grace and absolution.
In the pause that followed, Joanna heard the bells ring. It must be Sexte, the sixth hour of day. Strange to think the monks were praying as always while everyone else was having a holiday.
The knights had assembled but it was too far for Joanna to recognize individuals now they were armed. The trumpets blared again. This time the crowd, relaxed and mellowed, was slow to quiet. At last the herald announced that the knights of Poitou … but here he was interrupted by such a loud and prolonged cheer that he had to give up and wait.
“Poitou! Poitou!” they shouted, banging their ale mugs together. “Poitou! Poitou!”
The drums rolled and the heralds called for silence. He began again. The knights of Poitou challenged the knights of the South, of Auvergne and Toulouse, of Narbonne and Périgord.
The Poitevins came trotting out. At their head rode Richard, his lance upright in his right hand. His left hand in its heavy bridle gauntlet gripped the reins. He wore a sleeveless scarlet surcoat over his hauberk, emblazoned in gold with the leopards of Poitou. His eyes were narrowed in the bright sunlight and he looked eager and excited. Beside him walked his squire, carrying his helmet topped with the gold circlet of the Counts of Poitou.
Joanna jumped to her feet, clapping and shouting. She shot a glance at Alice who was sitting forward on the edge of her seat. Richard looked neither to left nor right. He came forward steadily and stopped in front of the royal pavilion. There was a hush as everyone craned to see whose colors he would carry into his first tournament.
“My lady Countess of Champagne,” he called.
“Marie!” Joanna breathed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alice sink back into her seat, plucking at a fold in her skirt and looking unconcerned.
“Since you came here, you have been an inspiration to all of us, in song and poetry, in manners and courtesy. There is no one whose image could better inspire me to valor today. Let me wear your favor and I promise you a victory worthy of you.”
Marie rose, smiling, and moved to the front of the stand.
“My lord, I think you are in no need of favors to inspire you. We all know how high your heart is. But by all means, take this as a token of my support and affection.”
She pulled from the bosom of her gown a gauzy veil of pink and gold. Richard lowered his lance and she laid the veil on it. The crowd stamped and cheered. His squire tucked the veil into his helmet beside the sprig of broom, the planta genista, that he wore there. Marie stood for a moment longer, her head gracefully inclined, one hand holding up her long silk train.
Joanna stared at her, entranced. “Isn’t she beautiful? ‘An inspiration to all of us,’ Richard said. What’s an inspiration, Nounou?”
“‘Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain,’” Nurse said dourly, “‘but a woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised.’ And I’m thinking it’s not to fear of the Lord that the Lady Marie is inspiring all those foolish young men.”
“I don’t know about that, but she’s everything I want to be when I grow up.”
“Don’t say so!” Nurse said fiercely. Joanna was surprised into looking away from Marie, at Nurse. “Has nothing I’ve ever said to you sunk in at all? And here you are admiring someone who …” Nurse started to mumble, but Joanna caught the words “every mortal sin.”
Joanna squirmed uncomfortably on the hard bench and looked back at Marie, who had sat down again and was carefully arranging her train. If Marie were really as wicked as Nurse seemed to think she was, why did everyone admire her so?
Joanna turned her attention back to the field. The Poitevins, preceded by their standard-bearers and buglers, were wheeling off now. There was no doubt whose side the crowd here in Poitiers was on, but the Southerners made a brave display and the crowd cheered them anyway. Joanna clapped with all the rest. She paid no especial attention to the knight who had stopped before them. He was helmeted already and the nasal partly hid his face but there was something vaguely familiar about the blue eyes and the dimpled chin.
“My lady princess,” he called.
Joanna hesitated. He seemed to be looking straight at her but she knew she must be mistaken. She looked at Alice beside her but Alice was looking at her.
“My lady Joanna,” he called again.
Suddenly Joanna’s heart began to pound. The blood drummed in her ears and she gripped the edge of the bench. She felt that all eyes were on her. Nearby, one of the ladies tittered.
“A child! What nonsense!”
“Not so foolish. The daughter of a king, after all. What a match it would be for him, if that’s what he has in mind.”
Their voices came to her as if from a great distance and the noises of the crowd ebbed and swelled like waves on the shore.
“I know that your heart is with the Poitevins, but I make bold to ask your magnanimity for this one knight who rides against them and would be greatly honored by a sign from you.”
The voices behind her began again.
“He’s wasting his time. That’s one match the King would never allow.”
“Good looking boy, though, isn’t he?”
She swallowed to moisten her dry throat. Constance was not here to see her but she would not disgrace herself. She stood stiffly and looked down at him, praying that her voice would not squeak.
“Sir Knight,” she said and was encouraged to hear how level her voice sounded though her heart was beating so hard it shook her whole frame, ‘kings’ daughters do not give their favors to nameless knights. Declare yourself.”
He raised a hand to his helmet and pulled it off. She saw the dark hair and the straight nose and recognized him.
“Raymond de Saint-Gilles, at your service, my lady.”
He was Richard’s friend so it must be all right. She pulled the handkerchief from her sleeve.
“Then, Sir Raymond, wear this and I will pray for your victory.” She threw the handkerchief and his squire caught it. “Unless you come up against my brother Richard,” she added candidly.
He smiled then. “I will contrive not to, my lady.”
The Southerners trotted off to the far left. Joanna sat down again, her eyes following the blue and white of Saint-Gilles.
“Well!” Alice exclaimed, seizing her arm. “You are a sly one. A suitor and you never said a word.”
“He isn’t a suitor and I’ve never seen him before today, and you’re pinching my arm.”
“Of course he’s a suitor. Saint-Gilles. He’s the Count of Toulouse’s heir.” Alice had a fund of information on all the noble families of France. “He’s my cousin. His mother is my father King Louis’ sister, you know. Oh perfect, Joanna.” She clapped her hands. “It would end the feud between your family and Toulouse. Your mother is still claiming Toulouse as her inheritance, you know, which is nonsense because it’s belonged to the Saint-Gilles family for years and years but this way her descendants would have it. You and Raymond!”
“Oh Alice!” Joanna protested. “Anyway, I’m going to marry a King, not a Count. Ssh! They’re beginning the charge.”
The two lines came pounding down the field, each knight fixing his gaze on a target shield in the opposing line. Joanna looked for the blue and white of Saint-Gilles and saw it near the end of the line, across the field from her. The lines met, crashed, broke. Horsemen galloped through, reined, and turned to fight. She could not see either Raymond or Richard. Then a group drew back and she saw the blue and white surcoat. Raymond was down. A Poitevin knight sat his horse above him and held his lance to his throat. Joanna clutched Alice’s arm.
“Look! He’s down.”
“I know. I saw it happen. Knocked clean out of his saddle by the impact. But look there, Joanna.”
Joanna looked where Alice was pointing. An unhorsed man was caught by his foot in the stirrup and his horse had bolted. It galloped across the field dragging the man behind it and then, shying away from the crowds, made for the open end of the meadow. The battle swirled before them. Raymond had disappeared but Richard was still mounted. Joanna saw his red and gold in the thickest part of the fray, saw him parry a blow with the shield on his left arm, saw his sword arm swing up. She cheered him on, thumping her fists on her knees.
The sun was at its zenith now. Over their heads, the awning hung motionless in the hot still air. Joanna’s face felt hot and damp as she brushed her hair away from it and the silk bliaut stuck to her back like a wet rag. She felt tired and her head ached from all the shouting but for Richard’s sake, she kept watching and cheering.
It was a long mêlée. Nones had rung out before the victorious Poitevins circled the field, waving to the cheering crowd. Joanna made no protest as Nurse led her off. Richard was surrounded by admirers, so she knew she could not congratulate him.
They trailed up across the meadows toward the palace. In the streets below, men were setting candles in the pear trees. The common people would feast at tables in the street that night while the nobles gathered for a banquet in the palace. There would be dancing on the greensward, with heralds and knights clapping the measure and calling the changes. She knew already it would be hard to sleep with the music and the forges ringing all night to repair the knights’ gear and the brawls as bets were disputed.
Suddenly she found herself face to face with Raymond de Saint-Gilles. He stared at her bitterly and would have gone by without speaking.
“I am sorry, sir, that my token did not bring you better luck. Did you lose much?” she said.
“Enough. Here, take back your handkerchief. Much good it did me. It was a stupid idea from the start and none of mine.”
“Then why …?” Joanna stammered, startled by his anger.
“Ask your precious brother,” he snarled and pushed back into the throng.
“Does he blame me for his defeat?” Joanna asked, bewildered.
“Men will blame anything but themselves,” Nurse said. “Don’t fret about it, dearie. He’s just angry because he lost.”
“Besides,” said Alice, picking her way beside them, “he’s only the son of a Count and don’t forget you want a King.” She looked thoughtful for a moment and added, “Richard’s only a Count, too. I would have preferred a King.”