Judith Tarr - Queen of Swords

They had made an ordered place, here on the wild woods edge: green fields and vineyards, village and farmstead, and over them the grey bulk of the castle. Its towers looked to all the world about; and all the world, it seemed, was forest. Except where the river ran, a strong slow flood running from dark into dark, wood into wood; but here it glinted in sunlight.

Old Lord Walerans vineyards terraced the slopes on the far side, the north side, looking to the gentle south. Walerans folly, to clear the wood across the river from the safety of his castle and plant vines that must be tended all the year through, and guarded as closely as his daughters. But God and His Mother protected them, and St. Bacchus who cherished the vine and its fruit; and the wine, Walerans Blood as it was called, was a sweet and heady vintage, rich in its rarity.

On a fair day in early spring when the vines had barely begun to bud, the Lady Richildis oversaw the broaching of a cask. The wine flowed as always, like dark blood; as always, the steward offered her the first cupful. As always she declined. He grinned and shook his head and drank deep.

Our wine has never traveled well, Lady Agnes observed. Neither voice nor face betrayed any expression in particular. Still Richildis fancied that she heard a hint of sharpness, saw the suggestion of a frown on the wide smooth brow. And that was only as far as Poitiers.

Father took a jar to Paris once, Richildis reminded her, and it arrived in reasonable condition. Or so he said.

Your father, said the Lady Agnes with some asperity, could down a jar of vinegar and reckon it excellent. Whatever the number of his virtues, a palate for wine was never one of them.

Richildis shrugged. Still: I mean to try. Ill pray to St. Bacchus, and invoke old Waleran. Hed have approved, I think, if he had known where the fruit of his vines would go.

You always were headstrong, said Lady Agnes. She sighed, but she did not press further.

Richildis was rather surprised. Lady Agnes was never one to spare the force of a rebuke. But Lord Rogiers death had quenched her. She was the wife of his old age, no tender maid herself when she married him but a widow of lands and standing, well prepared to take in hand his scapegrace sons and his hoyden of a daughter. Everyone had expected her to outlive him. But not so soon. Not so swiftly.

Richildis throat was tight. She had not expected it, either. There had been no warning, no omen, no clap of thunder or croaking of ravens. He had ridden out of a morning, gone to see to this or that about his lands, and simply not come back. One of the men-at-arms had found him near the forests edge, lying where he had fallen, and his old destrier with the reins on its neck, cropping winterworn grass. The horse had not thrown him, that anyone could see. He had fallen, that was all, as if the hand of God had struck him.

The hand of God, or his own grief. The elder of his sons had died in the fading of the year, dead of a fever that struck hard and swift and left but ashes in its wake. There had been no grace in Girauts death, and no honor. Nothing but needless misery.

Richildis stiffened her back. She had sworn on the day her father died: whatever grief beset her, she would not give way to it. Rogier had, and had died of a broken heart, as near as made no matter. Those who were left, his daughter and his wife, had no choice but to endure.

While Richildis saw the wine decanted into jars that would, she hoped, survive the journey she was contemplating, Lady Agnes departed in silence.

Richildis found her where she most often was, these days: in the dim and stone-cold chapel. It was never a place that Richildis would have chosen, nor Agnes either while Rogier was still alive. But the chill of the old stones, that never completely left them even in the summers heat, seemed matched to the chill in Agnes heart.

Richildis knelt beside her on the hard cold floor, crossed herself and murmured a prayer to the Lady whose image stood beside the altar. Quickly then, before she could think better of it, she said, Come with me. Pack your belongings and go. Well both make the pilgrimage. Well find my brother and bring him home again.

Agnes signed herself with the cross, slowly, as if she had not heard; but Richildis knew that she had. After a stretching while she said, You know I cant do that.

Why not? Richildis demanded of her. Thierrys a good enough seneschal. Hell hold the demesne till we come back.

Surely, said Agnes with a hint of her old spirit, and rob us blind while he does it. Or sell La Fort to the highest bidder, and look all innocence when we come back, because of course he never imagined that we would mind.

Then find another seneschal, Richildis said, and let him take it all in hand. Father Maury, perhaps, or

No, Agnes said. I dont want to go on pilgrimage, not even to Jerusalem. I was never born here, but here I belong. Here I intend to stay.

And when I find Bertrand, Richildis said with deliberate cruelty, and bring him back, if he should displace us both with a wife and heirs what then, my lady? What will you do?

Then, said Agnes, grimly composed, I shall go where God and Our Lady lead me. Until then Ill stay here. Ive no mind or heart to chase the wide world round, looking for a fool of a boy who cannot possibly be aware that hes the Lord of La Fort.

Not a boy, Richildis said, but softly, almost to herself. Not any longer. Hell have grown. He might even be

Do not you think it, Agnes said, so fiercely that Richildis started. Rogier and Giraut are dead, but Bertrand is alive. Never for a moment doubt that. You may go to find him, since you trust messengers no more than I trust our worthy seneschal. I shall stay here and make certain that when he comes he has a demesne to be lord of.

Richildis knelt mute, staring at her. And truly, what was there to say? People had called Richildis mad and worse, for insisting that she and no other go all the way to Outremer, to the kingdom beyond the sea, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, to fetch her brother home. But never Agnes. Agnes was as mad as she, perhaps, as persistent in her refusal to go as Richildis in her refusal to stay.

They both grieved, and both alike, although the choices that they made had been so different. Richildis could not have borne to stay, not with father and brother dead and Bertrand gone so long, doing as so many younger sons had done since Jerusalem was won from the infidel, defending the Holy Sepulcher. Richildis had raged at him when he left, hated him for going away, for abandoning her.

Now she was abandoning Agnes, leaving her all alone, and La Fort in her hands, with no one else to share the burden.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Agnes spoke ahead of her. No, you may not stay. You insisted on this venture; you will complete it. Your pride will allow no less.

I am stronger than my pride, Richildis said stiffly.

Agnes raised her fine dark brows. Are you indeed? Then let it rule you. Ill not have you growling and glooming about, begrudging every moment thats not spent in Outremer hunting down your brother.

Since that was eminently true, Richildis did not dispute it. But she said, Youll be alone.

I have been alone, said Agnes, since they brought my dear lord home and laid him at my feet. She rose, graceful as she always was, and smoothed her skirts. Her face was as calm as her voice, as if the words did not matter; and in that was all the sorrow in the world. You will go, daughter of my husband. I will stay. That is as God wills it.