Conn was careful to keep Matilda out of the thick of the fighting, but at the end of the day he had to admit that she had fought with both valor and wisdom. The unfortunate result for the Tuscan forces, however, was a bloody battle with heavy losses on both sides and no one able to claim victory. Brando Pierleoni escorted his new pope, Alexander II, back to the safety of Lucca, under the protection of the Tuscan guard. Matilda rode ahead with Conn to report back to Florence, but not before Brando had himself caught a glimpse of the extraordinary young woman who was already becoming the stuff of legend. His last view of her was from behind, a vision of copper light, reflecting the sun off the Tiber. Then suddenly, a ray of sun struck the river in such a way as to send a beam of light across his vision, blinding him momentarily with its white-hot intensity.
In a momentary flash of prescience, Brando knew that their paths would cross again.
Henry IV was also present in Rome when Matilda rode into the city in her spectacle of glory. It was a sight that burned his eyes and added to his simmering psychosis. Now his bitch of a cousin was causing trouble for him with her open rebellion, flaunting her wealth and her unseemly heretical ways. The people of Tuscany would pay for supporting something as wicked as a female warlord—he would see to that without a doubt. And he would deal with her eventually, and deal with her most personally. Henry still dreamed about her at night, dreamed of how it felt to have his hands in her unholy red hair all those years ago. He still had a lock of it that he had cut from her head when she was sleeping. The day would come when he would rule her, and he had no shortage of delicate torments that he would subject her to when the time came. Her captivity at Bodsfeld would look very different the next time around. Hadn’t he lain awake at night for years imagining such things in elaborate, graphic detail? It was one of the most deeply held obsessions in a twisted mind full of unhealthy fixations.
The Germans were ultimately forced, by Tuscan might and cunning, to relinquish the papacy to the reformer from Lucca, who was officially and without contest invested as Pope Alexander II. Henry blamed Matilda for her part in his great failure. His hatred of her was now at full boil.
For the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, the positioning of a Lucchesi pope was the realization of a dream. It was perhaps the first time that a heretic from an ancient bloodline family was pope, but it would most assuredly not be the last.
The news of Alexander’s confirmation gave Matilda cause for great celebration. Now, with the help of Pope Alexander and his nephew Anselmo, who would eventually become the new bishop of Lucca in his place, Matilda could finally keep her childhood promise. She would see to it that a worthy shrine was constructed as a home for the Volto Santo. The ancient and crumbling church of San Martino became a proper cathedral, rebuilt from the ancient foundations under her enthusiastic sponsorship. Matilda, as the countess of Canossa, attended the dedication ceremony along with the Lucca faction, at the side of their blessed Holy Father, Pope Alexander II.
The Holy Face now rested in a grand church, one worthy of Nicodemus and his masterpiece. Matilda had finally done something which she believed was deserving of her Lord’s being well pleased with her.
It was only the beginning.
Florence
1069
“SIT DOWN, MATILDA.”
Beatrice groaned in exasperation. She felt as if she had spent half her life uttering that phrase to a restless daughter who rarely stopped moving. That daughter, now twenty-three years old, shockingly beautiful, and intensely confident, was a powerful political force to be dealt with in Tuscany and beyond. Governing her with any kind of maternal authority was becoming an increasingly difficult prospect for the matriarchal Beatrice.
With Conn at her side, Matilda had led armies from the Apennines to the Alps to protect her beloved Pope Alexander from the schismatic forces who had been bribed to support Henry’s antipope. In 1066, she rode at the right arm of her stepfather in the final battle that decimated the remaining supporters of the antipope, and when it was over, she was hailed as the victor, surrounded by men who shouted the battle cry that would follow her throughout her military career: “For Matilda and Saint Peter!”
By all accounts, Matilda fought with the same ferocity and valor as her male compatriots. Further, the men adored her and followed her without question or complaint. Conn had observed with no small degree of initial astonishment that their adulation was not in spite of the fact that she was a woman, but because she was a woman. He was to credit for this, in part, as he openly admired her and praised her worthiness as a military leader. The Celtic giant, who understood the power of myth and propaganda, added fuel to the men’s sentiments by comparing Matilda often to the legendary women of history. The soldiers listened intently as Conn wove his magical tales around the campfire, stories of the Amazon Queen Penthiselea, who cut off one of her own breasts because it interfered with her accuracy in holding a bow as she fought against the Greeks in defense of Troy; the Egyptian Cleopatra, who defied the might of Rome; the Assyrian Zenobia, who ruled the largest kingdom of the ancient world, all the while drawing comparisons to their Matilda and emphasizing her superiority. He whispered to them of the prophecy of The Expected One when Matilda was not in earshot, explaining that she had been chosen by God to lead them. The soldiers saw themselves as part of a new mythology, as the men who would form a great warrior band around a woman who would be remembered in perpetuity for fulfilling her extraordinary destiny. They would all become the stuff of legend. And to be remembered by history, Conn reminded them, was a special type of immortality.
But the men were not merely blind followers of this canny strategy. The troops recognized and followed greatness, and they saw it in both the strength and strategy of Conn and the spirit of Matilda. They also followed nobility, which was as natural a trait of their petite warrior countess as was her legendary hair. Her very nature inspired them to feats of great bravery.
And it was through this combination of courage and valor, heart and spirit and powerful mythology, that Matilda of Canossa had become a legend of nearly epic proportions in Italy by the time she was twenty-three. She was called “Matilda the Maid” by the people who came out of the villages to watch her ride past in her copper mail and to take up the cheer for her:
“For Matilda and Saint Peter!”
At the moment, the legend incarnate was pacing her mother’s interior chamber in obvious agitation.
She snapped back at Beatrice, “I do not wish to sit, Mother.”
“As you will. You may take this news standing or sitting, it is all the same to me. But you will take it, Matilda. You have successfully managed to escape the terms of your betrothal for seven years. Godfrey has allowed this avoidance and so have I, for different reasons. Godfrey, to his credit, does not feel that you will find much to love in his son and he would shield you from this fate if he could.”
Godfrey’s only son from his first marriage was heir to the fortunes of Lorraine, and Matilda had been betrothed to him since the death of her father made such a legal bonding necessary. That the younger duke was known as “Godfrey the Hunchback” did not make him the most desirable husband for a sensual young woman who had been raised with an exalted view of love. A man more famous for his physical deformity than any other trait was hardly appealing to a woman who had studied the sanctity of the bridal chamber and dreamed about the sacred union of beloveds in its most romantic form. She fantasized about finding the exalted passion of Solomon and Sheba and Veronica and Praetorus as she had learned about it in the Order. This fulfillment did not seem likely under the circumstances that fate was attempting to enforce upon her in the currently intractable guise of her mother. Besides, her stepfather did not speak of his son often, which was further indication that he must be an unsavory character.
“I am never going back to Germany, and you of all people should understand that. You cannot ask me to leave Tuscany. It is part of my soul. My blood runs through this place and I will die if you force me from it. My father
would never have done such a thing to me.”
Beatrice sighed, shifting in her seat. She had expected this, and dreaded it. “It is Lorraine that you will go to, and Lorraine is part of your heritage. It is my heritage, Matilda, and as it is the legacy of no less than Charlemagne, it is good enough even for you. It is time that you claimed that part of yourself and found the honor in it. And incidentally the palace at Verdun is very grand and elegant. Most people would think they were in heaven to live in such a place.”
“Then it will be a grand and elegant prison, but a prison I will not see. Because I will not go there, and I will not marry the hunchback.”
“Matilda, there is something you do not know.”
“Nothing you tell me will change my mind.”
“Your stepfather is dying.”
Matilda stopped pacing. She turned slowly to look at her mother, who clearly knew that her verbal arrow had struck its mark. Matilda loved Godfrey. He had been so kind to them and made them into a real family over the nearly fifteen years of their lives together. He had been a true father to her, and more. The duke had been a wise and patient mentor, teaching her how to administer and defend the Tuscan properties. She owed him so much. Now she was suddenly at risk of losing him, of suffering the nearly incalculable loss of another father.
“How do you know?” Matilda swallowed hard. In her heart, she knew that Godfrey had been deteriorating. In the two to three years following the schismatic wars, she had watched as his vitality had diminished. He no longer could sit a horse and he was forced to take to his room for long periods of rest. In the last years, she had been the one to hear the local councils, riding out to Mantua and Canossa to meet with their vassals and mediate in civic disputes. Matilda had been so enthralled with this assumption of power that she had not allowed herself to contemplate the reasons behind it. She tried to rationalize that Godfrey was merely allowing her to step into her inheritance, rather than accept that he was no longer physically capable of running Tuscany himself.
“You have been away much of this last year and have not watched him as I have. The gout has overcome him. He knows it, I know it. Travel across the Alps will be difficult, indeed the strain of it may bring death to him sooner, but he wishes to die at home in Lorraine. Further, he wishes to see you safely married to his son before he does leave us. It is necessary, Matilda. It will secure your inheritance with the power of Lorraine as well as through legal means that must be accepted by everyone. Do you not know that your wicked cousin will jump at the chance to steal your property on the day that Godfrey dies if you do not secure your titles through marriage?”
Matilda tossed her head with disdain at the mention of Henry IV. In her mind, he was still the creature who tormented her as a child, not worthy to be thought of as a king.
“He will never steal anything from me again. I will lead armies against him myself. Let him try to take what is rightfully ours.”
“No, Matilda. I will not let him try to take what is rightfully ours, not as long as there is breath in my body. Further, it is your stepfather’s dying wish to see you married. We leave for Verdun immediately, as Godfrey must cross the Alps before the winter, and we would see you wed by Christmas. I’m sorry, Matilda. If there was another way, I would support it. But there is not.”
Matilda felt the strength begin to drain from her heart and her will. She finally allowed herself to sit down in one of the hand-carved chairs painted with the red and white fleur-de-lis shield of Lorraine. It seemed a symbolic gesture of surrender.
“I must go and notify Isobel so that she can prepare.”
Now it was Beatrice’s turn to stand. She knew that what would come next would be poorly received by her emotional and headstrong daughter. What was to come was perhaps even more dire for her than the previous decree that they were leaving for Lorraine to arrange her wedding.
“Isobel cannot accompany you to Verdun, my daughter. You are now a woman grown, going to a noble husband and with no further need of a nurse. It would not be seemly.”
There, it was done. Both Beatrice and Godfrey knew that as long as the Lucca faction remained attached to Matilda, she would never concede to her fate as the duchess of Lorraine and the wife of Godfrey the Hunchback. They had to forcibly separate her from their influence. And while Beatrice was loath to admit her jealousy of Isobel’s unwavering attachment to Matilda, it was a very real factor in her determination.
Beatrice could not look at her daughter. It had taken a heavy toll on her maternal soul to hurt her child in this manner, the child she had grown to love more than anything on God’s earth, and yet it was for her own good. Matilda had lived in a strange fantasy world of believing she could command her own destiny for a little too long. It was time for her to face the reality that women did not control their fates in this world, even a woman who had already become something of a legend in her own time and place. It was a harsh lesson that Beatrice wished she did not have to deliver, but it was a necessary one.
She went to the window to look out at the fading Tuscan summer sunlight, waiting in the heavy silence that followed. The explosion that Beatrice expected did not come. Finally, Matilda said softly behind her, “I will go with you to Verdun, if only to give Godfrey some peace at the end of his life. I love him, I owe him, and I will give him that. Our Lord said to honor my father and mother, and I will do so.”
She rose suddenly and strode toward the door, anxious to be out of this room and into what was left of the fading Florentine sun, a sun she would be forced to leave behind all too soon. She delivered her final words to her mother over her shoulder.
“For now, you win. But I promise you…only for now.”
Matilda waited until she was in the safety of Isobel’s presence in Santa Trinità to allow herself to show the extremity of her despair.
“How will I bear it, Issy? How will I let such a horrible man touch me? And how will I live without you, and the Master and Conn…and Tuscany?”
Isobel held Matilda and stroked her hair, allowing her to cry for a while before speaking in the strong yet gentle manner that had always calmed her charge.
“There are things in life that must be borne, Matilda. And when they occur, we must surrender to them as God’s will. Our prayer says ‘thy will be done’ and not ‘my will be done’ for a reason. What have I taught you about such things?”
Matilda wiped her hands over her face. She would be deeply challenged in her spirituality now to find the sense in this current situation. “That the day will come when I will see the wisdom in God’s plan, even though I cannot dream of seeing it today.”
Isobel nodded. “Correct. For when you accept that you are here for the express purpose of carrying out God’s plan, you will never know a day of pain. Surrender to it, Matilda. He is the great architect. We are merely the builders who carry out his plans, and we must do it by laying one stone at a time, just as he directs us. When we do this, we ultimately see that we are building something beautiful and enduring, just as the master architect in Lucca did while reconstructing San Martino. Clearly, God wants you to go to Lorraine as part of your destiny. Who knows what it is that you will find there?”
“It will not be the sacred union of the beloveds with a hunchback, I can tell you that.”
“I know, Tilda. And I’m so sorry that your first experience with a man will not be one of true love. But I promise you that one day you will find that kind of love and it will be all that you have dreamed of and worthy of any wait.”
“How do you know that, Issy? What hope is there, when at twenty-three I shall be married to a hunchback? I will be an old woman by the time that I am rid of him. If I am ever rid of him. May God forgive me.”
“I can promise you this because the prophecy says it specifically.” Isobel grew stern with her. “You either believe in the prophecies or you do not. But you cannot have it both ways, Matilda. You either are The Expected One, or you are not. And if you are, then you will fulfill your destiny accor
ding to the words of our prophetess: you will build important shrines for the Way to preserve our legacy, and you will know a very great love. Take comfort in that and find your faith, child. It will save you, when the times are bleakest.
“But for now, you must accept this trial, just as our Lord accepted his own trials. Surely, in comparison, being asked to wed a duke and live in luxury cannot be so bad.”
When put in that context, it was hard to despair of one’s fate and not feel terribly selfish. The Master was fond of asking Matilda, when she was feeling sorry for herself for one reason or another, “Is anyone approaching you or your loved ones with a large cross and iron nails? Because if that is not the case, you have little enough to complain about.”
The Master had lectured her often on the sacrifices not only of the Lord but also of his mother and his wife, who had to endure the pain of witnessing his final ordeal. They had debated well into the night, more than once, just which of those fates was more noble—the lot of the sacrificial lamb, or those who were left behind to carry the memory of his ordeal into the future. It was a question that had no answer but that never failed to inspire worthy discussion among people of spirit.
Isobel had an idea. “Come tomorrow morning, just after sunrise, to the Oltrarno. I will see to it that the Master is there, and we will work through this.”
On the other side of the river, called the Oltrarno, the Order possessed property in a more secluded area that was blissfully not under the immediate scrutiny of all eyes in Florence. Someone as recognizable and popular as Matilda could not simply walk unnoticed through a city such as this. When they were within the walls of the property at Santa Trinitá, they had privacy. But for other things, they had to get out of the city.
So it was for her that the Order built a labyrinth out of stone and brick across the river, which the Master had used for Matilda’s education over the years. It had become her greatest refuge.