Mantua
1052
“IT WAS no accident, Isobel. I am ashamed to say that I am related to that wicked wretch who wears the crown of Germany.” Beatrice raged as she paced her chambers in agitation.
Bonifacio’s suspicious death on May 6, 1052, caused grave consternation in Tuscany. Many whispered that the German emperor, Henry III, was behind it. The “hunting accident” was looking more like an assassination by a greedy monarch who had been eaten alive with envy of the great Bonifacio for many years. And yet while the obstacle of Bonifacio had been removed, Henry, who was Beatrice’s cousin, had perhaps not considered his plan quite as carefully as he should have.
“But I have my satisfaction. The pope is also my kinsman and he has taken action to protect Matilda and me. Henry will not dare to confiscate Bonifacio’s wealth now, as the risks of repercussions are too great. The Tuscan vassals will rise up against him. And”—Beatrice lowered her voice to ensure that no one but Isobel would hear her—“we have devised a plan that cannot fail.”
“I pray it is so, my lady.” Isobel was secretly terrified for Matilda and had to trust that Beatrice would do the right thing to protect her.
Beatrice continued, a smile of satisfaction curling her lips as she explained her strategy. “Pope Leo has arranged for me to become immediately engaged to Godfrey of Lorraine.”
Isobel gasped. She had not expected this. The idea was controversial for many reasons, not the least of which was Godfrey’s open hatred of the emperor. He had been publicly rebellious to the corrupt monarch, so it was deeply insulting to Henry for the pope to bestow Bonifacio’s property on Godfrey of Lorraine in the guise of protecting Beatrice and her child. But there was a thornier issue to be addressed.
“But my lady, Godfrey of Lorraine is your first cousin. This is a violation of Church law.”
Beatrice had already thought this through. She was proving to be far shrewder than Isobel had ever believed. “We have agreed to take vows of celibacy before consecrating the marriage in any Church. That is fine with me, as no man will ever touch me again now that my Bonifacio is gone.” She softened for a moment, looking like a sincerely grieving widow. “You of all people must understand that, Isobel.”
Isobel did understand. For while Beatrice didn’t practice the sacred laws of hieros-gamos as they did in the Order, she was well aware of them. Bonifacio had been her beloved in the most sanctified sense, and she would mourn him for the rest of her life.
“This is strictly an issue of convenience.” The noble mask of strength had returned. “Matilda needs a powerful defender to protect her territories. As a woman, she cannot inherit on her own. But I have called you in here to tell you one more thing, Isobel.”
Isobel and Beatrice had never had a close relationship. Indeed, Matilda’s mother was deeply jealous of her daughter’s greater affections for her nurse. So while Isobel suspected that Beatrice held some motive for informing her of her plan, she had certainly not expected what came next.
“To ensure the protection of my daughter, the pope has determined that Matilda should be engaged to Godfrey’s son, the future duke of Lorraine, to which I have agreed.”
Isobel knew that she was powerless to affect this decision, but it made her heart sink deeply and she was forced to stifle the tears. To surrender a female child to an arranged marriage was blasphemous within the teachings of the Order, for whom the power of true love was the highest sacrament. Didn’t Beatrice realize that she had just delivered a life sentence of misery on her special, magical little girl?
But by the time Beatrice broke the news to Isobel, it had all been irrevocably arranged. The exquisite little child-countess of Canossa was betrothed to the young man who was already known by the unfortunate nickname of Godfrey the Hunchback.
When Beatrice’s cousin, Pope Leo IX, died unexpectedly in the spring of 1054, the fortunes of Matilda and her mother shifted once again, this time with severe repercussions. Henry III stepped in immediately like the vulture that he was to lay claim to “his” massive feudal estates in Italy. Beatrice’s new husband, Duke Godfrey, abandoned her to protect his own holdings in Lorraine, which were threatened simultaneously in a clever piece of strategy implemented by Henry. With absolutely no means of protection, Beatrice and her daughter were taken into custody by the German king, who had crowned himself the Holy Roman Emperor.
Henry III transported Beatrice and Matilda in heavy custody; Matilda was no longer an heiress. In one imperial declaration, she had lost everything her father’s family had built over four generations. The emperor announced that Beatrice and Matilda would live by his charity and command at the German court of Bodsfeld unless or until he decreed otherwise. They were prisoners, abducted by a greedy and narcissistic monarch who held all the advantages.
Although she was still a little girl, the injustice of such oppressive tyranny would not be lost on the nine-year-old Matilda.
It was all too much. Matilda had not only lost her beloved father, her inheritance, and her home, but she was now exiled from the most consistent parental love she had ever known. Isobel, who was not allowed any access to her young charge once she had been abducted, returned to Lucca to pray for the safe deliverance of her beloved child.
Bodsfeld, Germany
1054
MATILDA AWOKE with a start. She blinked at the first signs of gray morning light that were filtering in through the windows. Germany was cold and dark in late October. There was no golden sunshine, no Tuscan warmth to relieve any of the pain of loss that she had suffered in her year and a half of captivity thus far. She hated Germany, and she hated the man who brought her here, hated that he had killed her father and stolen her inheritance, hated that he had humiliated her mother and reduced her to the status of a beggar. Most of all, she hated his child, the evil little troll who was her six-year-old cousin and the eventual heir to the throne of Germany. That one little boy could inflict such terror and misery was almost beyond understanding, but this in-fans terribilis, also called Henry, was capable of anything and got away with everything. His otherwise stern and self-righteous French mother doted upon him with an obsession that bordered on idiocy.
As Matilda raised her head, she was reminded of just how wicked her younger cousin could be. She felt the stickiness first on the back of her neck. Not again. Raising her hands to her hair, she felt with a sickening thud of her heart that her once-beautiful copper curls were matted down with a thick, gummy substance. She brought her fingers to her face to smell the offending goo that had been poured into her hair. Honey. Mixed with something else, something black and oily that would no doubt harden and destroy her curls.
“Mama!”
The only positive thing that had come from Matilda’s captivity was her enforced closeness with her mother, Beatrice. Each was all the other now had. Matilda had come to learn that her mother was far stronger and more educated than she had ever suspected, and she realized that Beatrice’s subservience to her father had been an issue of respect and choice, rather than weakness. Throughout their captivity, Beatrice shared possible political options with her daughter, advising her that they still had allies throughout Europe. Despite Godfrey of Lorraine’s apparent abandonment of them, he was a strong and clever man, and he knew if Beatrice and Matilda were free, he would be restored to his own holdings in northern Italy. Indeed, he had spies from Lorraine in the castle and had smuggled notes of encouragement to Beatrice. He was working to create a strategy for their release. It was slow, but it was under way; they were down, but they were not defeated.
In turn, Beatrice came to realize just how gifted and strong her single surviving child was, which gave her even greater hope for the future. Matilda was every bit the worthy heir of Bonifacio’s territories. Perhaps the time in captivity had even been good for her, hardening her into more of a warrior for justice and giving her a harsh but necessary education in politics.
Upon hearing her daughter cry out, Beatrice came quickly from the adjoi
ning room where she had been immersed in her embroidery. They were imprisoned, but they were captive in a palace where they were not treated poorly. Matilda’s mother found refuge in working with her hands here, as the task helped to quiet her mind and allowed her to think. She had attempted to school Matilda in the finer points of needlework, but her daughter had no interest in women’s domestic craft. It felt like surrender to her, and she was not ever going to surrender, not in this place. Ever.
“That horrid Henry has poured honey in my hair again!”
Matilda didn’t cry. She wouldn’t give her cousin the satisfaction of seeing her weep as a result of his cruel pranks. Besides, he had done this before. This time she was more concerned. The last time, the honey had washed out and her glorious hair had remained intact and unharmed. This time Henry had mixed the honey with some other substance to make the concoction more destructive, something she could not identify. But it felt like it was beginning to harden in her hair, and she was panicked.
“Hurry, Mother. We have to try to wash it out before it hardens more. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of making me cut my hair.”
Beatrice was still very capable of garnering compliance from servants, even in captivity. She called for a tub of warmed water and some of the heavy soap made from the roots of plants that were cut in the Ardennes forest by the locals. This soap was the detergent used to clean clothing, but it would be necessary to try something of this strength if she was going to save her daughter’s legendary hair.
“I have never done anything to him.” Matilda seethed. “Why does he hate me so?”
“Because he is jealous of you, and because he is the wicked spawn of an evil father and a dullard mother,” Beatrice responded acidly. “God help Germany when and if he ever becomes king. He isn’t even clever enough to lead the pigs to trough, much less govern Europe. And if he is this malevolent at six, the good Lord alone can imagine what he will be like when he is old enough to fully abuse his power and appreciate bribery. Or worse.”
Since the day of their arrival in Germany, the heir to the throne, the imperious young Henry, had been terrorizing Matilda with relentless fervor. He spent the days concocting ways to make her miserable, and he spent the nights putting those plots into action. Many of his activities involved damaging her hair, which he had a particular obsession with. Sometimes he would follow her around and taunt her with a toy bow and arrow, screaming, “Look, I’m Bonifacio, the dead duke of Tuscany.” Then he would pretend to be shot in the throat and fall to the ground in dramatic, twitching death throes.
Matilda, who had been raised to believe in the power of love, prayed every night in despair: Dear God, please forgive me for how much I despise him. I know you tell me to love my enemies, but this is too much. She tried to work through her anger within the Pater Noster each night before going to sleep, as she had been taught by the Master. The lesson of the fifth petal, forgive us for our errors and debts as we forgive all others, was always going to be her toughest. Henry the Terrible gave her plenty of opportunity to work through that lesson.
His verbal abuse was nonstop and consisted of phrases that were usually variations of “Father says you are half barbarian and don’t deserve to be kept in such luxury, but he doesn’t dare throw you out into the street because you will attempt to rally your pagan hordes against his holy imperial person.”
Henry also said horrible things about Beatrice, things that he could not possibly understand at the age of six, about her unnatural and twisted marriage to her first cousin, Godfrey of Lorraine, and how that made her monstrous in the sight of God. Matilda had been locked up in a room by herself for over a week after she subsequently punched Henry in the face, doing serious damage to his delicate nose. It was the only thing on his vile, chinless, pudgy body that was delicate, and Matilda had made the mistake of saying exactly this to the queen when she came to her precious boy’s rescue. Agnes of Aquitaine nearly fainted from Matilda’s audacity and demanded the barbarian child with the unsightly flame-colored hair be locked out of her sight until further notice. Surely hair that color was unnatural, as was everything about this wicked, wild creature who tormented her precious lamb.
Beatrice washed the stickiness out of Matilda’s hair carefully, working through the strands with the heavy detergent from the soap. She breathed a quick sigh of relief: the honey was coming out and would not harden into a substance that would have to be cut. There was some discoloration from whatever mixture Henry had devised, but time would restore the glorious red-gold color soon enough.
Once the hair debacle was resolved, Beatrice called for some reading material to be brought to them, along with her confessor, Fra Gilbert, who had been allowed to accompany them into exile as he was seen to be a loyal German subject. She requested the writings of Saint Augustine be brought in and presented to Matilda to read. If nothing else, she would see to it that her daughter’s education continued. She wanted her to have every possible advantage in politics when this particular nightmare ended, which Beatrice was certain would happen eventually.
Matilda sat down to study before her little statue of Saint Modesta, the one given by Isobel’s family to celebrate Matilda’s birth. Modesta was recognized as a saint within the Order and by the people of La Beauce in France, because she dedicated her life fearlessly to the teachings of the Book of Love. The statue was the only possession Matilda had been allowed to bring with her from Tuscany, and most of the time it was her only comfort.
That evening, Matilda and Beatrice were left to dine alone in a small, bare antechamber of the palace that was particularly chilly. Something was wrong, but they were not yet certain what it was. The family had not been seen all day, and Henry had not come by to gloat about his stealth mission to destroy Matilda’s hair. This was highly unusual, for the little wretch desired nothing more than attention for his misdeeds.
The following morning, news came that caused Matilda to know happiness for the first time in eighteen months. The German emperor and murdering thief, Henry III, had died very unexpectedly of a fever in the night. The fortunes of his family were highly uncertain, as Germany and the surrounding territories were instantly in chaos. Queen Agnes was given no time to mourn her husband, as immediate action was necessary. She was declared regent and sole guardian to her son, who would henceforth be known as Henry IV.
Matilda and Beatrice were in limbo for several days, with no news being brought to them and no sign of Agnes or her child. On the fourth day, Godfrey of Lorraine, who had been plotting for just such an opportunity during the long captivity of Beatrice and Matilda, announced himself at the gates of Bodsfeld and presented an opportunity to the queen regent. He agreed that he would swear an oath of loyalty to her and to her son, as would the wealthiest vassals in Lorraine, thus unifying that region and creating some stability in their otherwise shaky kingdom. In return, Agnes would recognize Godfrey’s marriage to Beatrice as legitimate and restore Bonifacio’s property to them.
Trapped and confused, Queen Agnes agreed to do this. She was well over her head in terms of political strategy and had little time to seek advice in the rapidly escalating crisis of her son’s future. She was desperate to at least attempt to secure Lorraine and Saxony for her child in the chaos that would surely follow the death of her husband, an unpopular and unjust monarch who had ruled by fear. Her first priority had to be the protection of Germany and the immediate territories. Italy was the least of her worries at this stage, and Godfrey was savvy enough to seize upon that opportunity. In the mercurial world of European politics, timing was everything.
Matilda and Beatrice departed Germany for Florence in 1057 to begin their lives as the family of Duke Godfrey of Lorraine. Matilda refused to look back as she left Germany behind her, determined never to set foot in that godforsaken frozen land again, unless it proved absolutely necessary to the will of her Lord.
Tuscany was in tatters.
What four generations of Matilda’s family had worked to build—
a land of prosperity where the people thrived and the natural resources were harvested with utmost care—had been completely undone by the German king in less than two years. Henry had raped this land and stripped it of its wealth, leaving these proud people to live as little more than beggars. Piracy, with all the murder and thievery that went with it, had returned to the waterways, but this time it was sanctioned by an emperor’s crown.
As they made their way across Tuscany, the young Matilda was both sickened and terrified by what she witnessed. Gone were the vibrant, thriving towns and villages of her earlier childhood, places she had toured with her father, who had been hailed as a prince. In their stead were dingy structures where the inhabitants hovered nervously in the shadows, fearing the sound of hoofbeats on the roads. Horses brought conquerors and thieves, from which there was no protection, or mercy.
It was in one of these villages on the outskirts of her family stronghold of Canossa that the family stopped one evening for food and shelter. Matilda was exhausted physically by the journey across the Alps, but far more by the emotional toll of what she had been confronted with along the way. She did not, at first, understand what was happening as they entered the village. As one who had known captivity and abuse, she initially feared that the assembled crowd was a danger to her. But as their cortege drew nearer, she was able to make out the chanting of the villagers.
“Ma-til-da. Ma-til-da!”
A group of children carrying flowers ran to her and laid them at her feet. Their parents followed, hailing the return of their beloved countess. That evening, in the faded warmth of what had once been the grand banquet hall of a local lord, Matilda met with the inhabitants of the village. Many came to tell their shocking stories of loss and tragedy at the hands of a ruthless and greedy foreign monarch. At eleven years old, Matilda listened to each and every tale while sitting beside her mother and stepfather. The accounts of injustice against these beautiful people, her people, struck in the deepest places of her heart and spirit. She missed nothing and stored everything. She vowed silently that when they were settled into their new life, she would find a way to compensate each of these people for their loss.