The Serpent’s Tale

“I do, sweet lady.” This was the abbot again. “So I do. Lightly broiled with parsley, I find them right toothsome.”

Adelia pressed on. “Also, I must assist my master, Dr. Mansur here, when he is called to the infirmary at night as he so often is. I keep his potions.”

“A synonym for stinks and rattling pots,” the abbot said.

Montignard was clasping his hands beseechingly. “Lady, you’ll not have a wink of rest. If that bell tolling the hours and the sisters singing them were not enough, we’ll have the screech of babies and Lord knows what devilry…you’ll be exhausted.”

Bless him, Adelia thought.

Eleanor smiled. “Such a hedonist you are, my swain.” She reflected, “I do need my sleep, yet I am reluctant not to reward the girl.”

“Oh, let her come and go,” Eynsham said wearily, “though not in them clothes.”

“Of course, of course. We shall dress her.”

It was a new thing, it would pass the time.

It was also Adelia’s passport-though she had to pay for it. She was carried through to the women’s room, its door not quite closed, so that male heads poking round it added a chorus of comment to the humiliation of being stripped to her chemise while swathes of material were held against her skin and capless head to be pronounced too this, too that, not mauve, my dear, not with that complexion- so corpselike. Where had she found such fine white linen for her chemise? Was she Saxon that she was so fair? No, no, Saxons had blue eyes, probably a Wend.

She wasn’t even asked whether she wanted a new gown. She didn’t; she dressed to disappear. Adelia was an observer. The only impact she ever wished to make was on her patients, and then not as a woman. Well…she’d wished to make an impact on Rowley, but she’d done that without any clothes on at all…

The poor seamstresses among the queen’s ladies weren’t consulted, either, though the necessary needlework to transform whatever material was decided on into a bliaut for her-very tight at the top, very full in the skirt, sleeves narrow to the elbow, then widening almost to the ground-would be onerous, especially as Eleanor was demanding that it should have filigree embroidery at the neck and armholes, and be finished for the Christmas feast.

Adelia wondered at seamstresses being taken to war and at anyone who required a military transport to contain presses full of dazzlingly colored brocades, silks, linens, and samite.

In the end, Eleanor decided on velvet of a dark, dark blue that had, as she said, “the bloom of the Aquitanian grape.”

When the queen did something, she did it wholeheartedly: a flimsy veil-she herself demonstrated how it should be attached to the barbette-a thin, gold circlet, a tapestried belt, embroidered slippers, a cope and hood of wool fine enough to draw through a ring, all these things were Adelia’s.

“Only your due, my dear,” Eleanor said, patting her head. “It was a very nasty demon.” She turned to Eynsham. “We’re safe from it now, aren’t we, Abbot? You said you’d disposed of it, did you not?”

Dakers. What had they done to Dakers?

“Couldn’t have it wandering around loose to attack my heart’s lady again, could I?” The abbot was jovial. “I found un hiding among the convent books and, doubting it could read, would have hanged it there and then. But there was an outcry from the good sisters so, pendent opera interrupta, I had it put in the convent lockup instead. We’ll take it with us when we go and hang it then”-he winked-“if it ain’t frozen to death in the meantime.”

There was appreciative laughter in which Eleanor joined, though she protested, “No, no, my lord, the female is possessed, we cannot execute the insane.”

“Possessed by the evil of her mistress. Better dead, lady, better dead. Like Rosamund.”

It was a long night. Nobody could retire until the queen gave her permission, and Eleanor was inexhaustible. There were games, board games, fox and geese, Alquerque, dice. Everybody was required to sing, even Adelia, who had no voice to speak of and was laughed at for it.

When it was Mansur’s turn, Eleanor was enraptured and curious. “Beautiful, beautiful. Is that not a castrato?”

Adelia, sitting on a stool at the queen’s feet, admitted it was.

“How interesting. I have heard them in Outremer but never in England. They can pleasure a woman, I believe, but must remain childless, is that true?”

“I don’t know, lady.” It was, but Adelia wasn’t prepared to discuss it in this company.

The room became hot. More games, more singing.

Adelia began to nod, jerked awake each time by a draft from the door as people came and went.

Jacques was gone-no, there he was, bringing more food from the kitchen. Montignard was gone, and Mansur, no, they had come back from wherever they’d been. The abbot was gone, reappearing with string to satisfy Eleanor’s sudden desire to play cat’s cradle. There he was again, this time with Mansur, a table between them, their heads bent over a chessboard. A courtier entered, clutching snow to cool the wine…another young man, the one who’d thrown snowballs at the nuns, was singing to a lute…

Adelia forced herself to her feet. Crossing to the chess table, she surveyed the board. “You’re losing,” she said in Arabic.

Mansur didn’t look up. “He is the better player, Allah curse him.”

“Say something more.”

He grunted. “What do you want me to say? I am tired of these people. When do we go?”

Adelia addressed Eynsham. “My lord Mansur instructs me to ask you, my lord, what you can tell him about the death of the woman, Rosamund Clifford.”

The abbot raised his head to look at her and, again, there was that piercing connection. “Does he? Does he indeed? And why should my lord Mansur want to inquire of it?”

“He is a doctor; he has an interest in poison.”

Eleanor had heard Rosamund’s name. She called across the room. “What is that? What are you saying?”

Immediately, the abbot was another man, bucolic, convivial. “The good doctor do want to know about bitch Rosamund’s death. Wasn’t I with you when we heard of it, my sweeting? Didn’t they tell us as we was landing, having crossed from Normandy? Didn’t I fall to my knees and give thanks to the Great Revenger of all sin?”

Eleanor held out her hands to him. “You did, Abbot, you did.”

“But you knew Rosamund before that,” Adelia said. “You said so when we were at Wormhold.”

“Did I know Rosamund? Oh, I knew her. Could I allow vileness unchecked in my own county? My old daddy would have been ashamed. How many days did I spend in that Jezebel’s lair, a Daniel exhorting her to fornicate no more?” He was playing to the queen, but his eyes never left Adelia’s.

More songs, more games, until even Eleanor was tired. “To bed, good people. Go to bed.”

As he escorted Adelia home, Mansur was broody, chafed by his defeat at chess, of which he was himself a skilled exponent. “He is a fine player, that priest. I do not like him.”

“He had a hand in Rosamund’s death,” Adelia said, “I know it; he was taunting me with it.”

“He was not there.”

True, Eynsham had been across the Channel when Rosamund died. But there was something.…

“Who was the fat one with the pox?” Mansur asked. “He took me outside to show me. He wants a salve.”

“Montignard? Montignard has the pox? Serve him right.” Adelia was irritable with fatigue. It was nearly dawn. A Matins antiphon from the direction of the chapel accompanied them as they trudged.

Mansur raised the lantern to light her up the guesthouse steps. “Has the woman left the door unbarred for you?”

“I expect so.”

“She should not. It is not safe.”

“Then I’ll have to wake her, won’t I?” Adelia said, going up. “And her name’s Gyltha. Why don’t you ever say it?” Damn it, she thought, they’re as good as married.

She stumbled over something large that rested on the top step, nearly sending it over the edge and down to the alley. “Oh, dear God. Mansur. Mansur.”