Canterbury Papers by Judith Koll Healey Page B

across from me. Impossible to read her expression. “Correct me if this is not true. But it is the story my father told my brother not long before he died.”
    â€œGo on,” said Charlotte, now shaking with silent laughter.
    â€œThe marriage turned out to be an unfortunate affair. The count was given to drinking Armagnac spirits for weeks at a time, shut up in a tower with his favored mistress. He would emerge from the tower periodically to harry and beat his royal wife, then retire again to his favorite pastimes. Not surprisingly, they had no children—or at least none that survived.” I glanced again at my aunt. Perhaps I was too cavalier with these painful events. But she seemed unruffled.
    She even took up the story. “Eventually the dreadful man died. The count’s son from a previous marriage took over his father’s château and, it was said, the mistress and tower as well. I was sent back to Paris posthaste and with little ceremony, like a rejected package.”
    â€œCharlotte returned to Paris a stronger woman than she had left,” I stated. “She announced to her father that if his plans for her included another marriage, she wanted none of it. When he tried to arrange other marriage contracts for her and brought forth suitors, she produced prodigious tantrums, screamed and tore her hair, and so frightened the nobles, old and young, that they all fled. After a time the word in France and Normandy, and as far down as Gascony, was to avoid overtures from King Louis about marriage with his daughter—at all costs.”
    â€œOh, no, surely not as far as Gascony,” she murmured, easing her plate away from her.
    â€œFinally, in desperation,” I continued, “my grandfather endowed the abbey at Fontrevault with enough money to buy the seat of the abbess. He told Charlotte to go there and run it, and not to come to court again unless he summoned her.”
    At that the abbess laughed out loud, a hearty sound for such a refined woman.
    â€œIs this true?” The prior raised his fork in question to our companion.
    â€œClose enough,” she admitted. “I would have embroidered the story somewhat. It sounds dull in the telling.”
    â€œI am astonished,” William said, looking not at all astonished. “It was clearly the Paris court’s loss, Abbess,” he said, signaling for the servants. “I will show proper respect from this point. Such a forceful will should inspire only awe.”
    â€œSpeaking of forceful wills,” I interjected, “I understand there is trouble here in England with King John’s use of coercion against the abbeys.”
    A swift look passed between my companions. It was William who answered. “What sort of trouble?”
    â€œI’m not sure. I simply heard rumors that John is pressing the abbeys for silver and that there is resentment building here on the island and in Rome with his current policies.”
    â€œWe hear the same rumors, although Canterbury has been spared his importuning,” William said, leaning back in his chair. His long body seemed restless after sitting for a period of time. “That must be another benefit of having the martyr’s tomb here. Even King John does not want to disturb the ghost of the archbishop and raise the specter of another fight between church and state, one that might well lead to another episcopal murder.” He turned toward the abbess. “But others, especially the Benedictine abbeys in the north, have been pressed. And they are not happy.”
    I wondered if the proposed convocation of the heads of the large monasteries across the north country had anything to do with John’s campaign.
    â€œAnd, of course, John could always turn in this direction.” He spoke as if to himself.
    Suddenly I recalled my thought to find an Islamic scholar at this abbey, who could tell me more about Ibn al-Faridh.
    â€œPrior William, I have