tell them apart by a difference in the aura that comes into the room with each of them. She, Almodis, my mistress, is all confidence. Swagger even. More like a lord than a lady. Raingarde, her sister, she’s much more timid and demure, like a lady should be. Piers says that Raingarde was sequestered properly with her mother and the women since she was twelve like a girl should be, but nobody at the Court of Aquitaine put a halter on Almodis when she was that age. She grew up with the freedoms and education of a young prince, Piers says, and it shows. When I first got here, I used to have to wait for one of them to do or say something before I could tell which was which. Sooner or later, she will say or do something that Raingarde just never would say or do. But now I can tell it from the different things they do to the air around them. I’m usually right.
Amelie, their mother, comes into the kitchen announced by the chinking of the keys and needles on the short chains of her chatelaine belt. She is followed by the nursemaid with my Lady’s two little sisters in hand, Lucia who is three and Agnes who is two. ‘There you both are! What are you doing with that marriage contract rolling around in grease and gravy Almodis? Roll it up at once and make sure you put it back in your father’s chest where it belongs. Now I need you all to help me with the preparations for tonight’s wedding feast. Bernadette, go and lay fresh rushes in the hall and clean covers on the trestles, and then come back here and I will show you which of the glass beakers to lay out on the high table.’
I gulp at that and look up at those beakers ranged on a highshelf. I’m not relishing the idea of being responsible for carrying those fragile beauties. There’s a bright blue glass drinking horn there in the middle of the shelf and on either side of it are pale green claw beakers. I’ve got a vision running through my head of them smashed in smithereens at my feet.
‘Come on, then, Bernadette! There’s lots to do,’ Almodis tells me. She picks up the rolled marriage contract and tugs me out of the kitchen with her, like I’m her pony.
I told him I’d meet him at the old ruin but now that I am here and he hasn’t arrived I wish I hadn’t come. The evening is drawing in. The cold is penetrating my thin cloak. It is the twilight hour – entre chien et loup – between dog and wolf. The black rooks are circling in the pale sky. From this side of the hill I have a clear view across to the castle perched on the mountain top like an eagle’s nest and the village clustered around it. The lower part of the village is shrouded in the rising evening mist. The buildings with their red roofs circle haphazardly around Roccamolten. In the far distance I can see more black mountains set against the darkening sky. How many mountains between me and Paris, my old home? I am just about making up my mind to leave when he arrives.
‘Bernadette,’ he calls to me softly picking his way carefully around the fallen stones in the long grass. ‘But you are freezing, darling,’ he says taking off his cloak and wrapping it around me. His mouth is on mine before I’ve had time to say a word. I open my mouth to his tongue. I am no longer cold in his arms. ‘I have a present for you,’ Piers says, his hand stroking my face and hair. From inside his tunic, he produces a tin bracelet with a decoration of blue glass and slips it onto my wrist. I turn my arm around and around, pretending to admire it, but I am disappointed. Only tin. It will tarnish and leave green marks on my white skin. I will never wear it after today.
‘It’s so strange here,’ I say to Piers as he traces the contours of my face and neck with his finger. ‘I can’t understand what anyone is saying. I don’t understand the speech of Raingarde, Audebert and Count Bernard.’
Piers’ finger has strayed down to trace the outline of my breastthrough the thick layers of my clothes and now
Amelie, their mother, comes into the kitchen announced by the chinking of the keys and needles on the short chains of her chatelaine belt. She is followed by the nursemaid with my Lady’s two little sisters in hand, Lucia who is three and Agnes who is two. ‘There you both are! What are you doing with that marriage contract rolling around in grease and gravy Almodis? Roll it up at once and make sure you put it back in your father’s chest where it belongs. Now I need you all to help me with the preparations for tonight’s wedding feast. Bernadette, go and lay fresh rushes in the hall and clean covers on the trestles, and then come back here and I will show you which of the glass beakers to lay out on the high table.’
I gulp at that and look up at those beakers ranged on a highshelf. I’m not relishing the idea of being responsible for carrying those fragile beauties. There’s a bright blue glass drinking horn there in the middle of the shelf and on either side of it are pale green claw beakers. I’ve got a vision running through my head of them smashed in smithereens at my feet.
‘Come on, then, Bernadette! There’s lots to do,’ Almodis tells me. She picks up the rolled marriage contract and tugs me out of the kitchen with her, like I’m her pony.
I told him I’d meet him at the old ruin but now that I am here and he hasn’t arrived I wish I hadn’t come. The evening is drawing in. The cold is penetrating my thin cloak. It is the twilight hour – entre chien et loup – between dog and wolf. The black rooks are circling in the pale sky. From this side of the hill I have a clear view across to the castle perched on the mountain top like an eagle’s nest and the village clustered around it. The lower part of the village is shrouded in the rising evening mist. The buildings with their red roofs circle haphazardly around Roccamolten. In the far distance I can see more black mountains set against the darkening sky. How many mountains between me and Paris, my old home? I am just about making up my mind to leave when he arrives.
‘Bernadette,’ he calls to me softly picking his way carefully around the fallen stones in the long grass. ‘But you are freezing, darling,’ he says taking off his cloak and wrapping it around me. His mouth is on mine before I’ve had time to say a word. I open my mouth to his tongue. I am no longer cold in his arms. ‘I have a present for you,’ Piers says, his hand stroking my face and hair. From inside his tunic, he produces a tin bracelet with a decoration of blue glass and slips it onto my wrist. I turn my arm around and around, pretending to admire it, but I am disappointed. Only tin. It will tarnish and leave green marks on my white skin. I will never wear it after today.
‘It’s so strange here,’ I say to Piers as he traces the contours of my face and neck with his finger. ‘I can’t understand what anyone is saying. I don’t understand the speech of Raingarde, Audebert and Count Bernard.’
Piers’ finger has strayed down to trace the outline of my breastthrough the thick layers of my clothes and now
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