Joanna wondered, How much time? She knew what her mother would say: as much time as he needed. But how could she explain that to Berengaria? How could she expect her sister-in-law to understand when she did not understand herself?
She offered to brush her mother’s hair and, after removing Eleanor’s veil and wimple, she admired its color; once a rich, dark brown, it was now as silvered as summer moonlight and she hoped that her own hair would become this spectacular shade, too, when she aged. “Where will you go after Lisieux, Maman? We cannot accompany Richard on campaign, so I thought I’d return to Poitiers. Will you come back with me?”
“No, I intend to stay at Fontevrault Abbey.”
The brush paused in midstroke. “You do not mean to take holy vows, do you?”
Eleanor laughed softly. “No, child, I am not intending to become a nun. But I find myself yearning for the quiet of the cloister after all the turmoil of these past years. I think it time to reassure the Almighty that I am not as worldly and jaded as my enemies allege. Then, too, Fontevrault is ideally located, close to both Poitou and Normandy.”
Joanna was amused by the mixed motives of piety and practicality. She was also relieved that her mother was not going to reject the secular world for the spiritual one; she was not willing to lose Eleanor even to God. She continued to brush out Eleanor’s hair as they chatted about less risky topics than Richard’s raw nerves. She was caught off balance, though, when her mother suddenly said, “I have never met Raimond de St Gilles. What did you think of him?”
Joanna was glad Eleanor could not see her face, for she could feel herself flushing. How long was the mere mention of that wretched man going to make her react as if she were a novice nun? “Well,” she said, “I’d say he is the sort of man mothers warn their daughters about.”
Eleanor laughed again. “Yes, I’d heard he is not like his snake of a father. Raimond is said to lust after women, not power.”
“He told me it baffles him that his enemies are so sure he is a Cathar,” Joanna confided, “since that would mean he’d have to forswear all pleasures of the flesh.” An idea came to her then and she marveled that she’d not thought of it before. She wanted to know if Raimond had wed again, although she could not justify that curiosity even to herself, and she realized now that her mother was likely to know that. Eleanor’s interest in Toulouse was a very proprietary one, which meant she made certain that she was kept well informed about the county and its people. “I suppose you heard that Raimond put aside his wife last year?” she ventured.
“Of course. I was surprised he’d hung on to that marriage as long as he did.”
Joanna discovered that she was as interested in learning about Raimond’s former wife as she was in finding out if he had taken a new one. “Was their marriage as unhappy as that?”
“Well, how many men would be happy to have a wife who shunned his bed?” Eleanor winced, for Joanna had inadvertently banged the brush against her temple. “You did not know that Beatrice Trencavel is a Cathar?”
Joanna shook her head, so shocked it took her a moment to recover. “Was she always one?”
Eleanor shrugged. “The Trencavels have long been known to be very sympathetic to the Cathars. My guess is that Beatrice was a Believer when she wed Raimond and she grew more devout as the years passed. I assume you know that their priests see carnal intercourse as the greatest of all sins because it leads to procreation. They are practical enough to realize that they cannot expect their Believers to be celibate, but once Beatrice needed to live a more holy life, she would be loath to pay the marital debt, convinced she’d be imperiling her chances of salvation.”
Fortunately for Joanna, Dame Amaria entered the chamber then, followed soon afterward by Dame Beatrix and Mariam, and the conversation flowed into other channels. But once Joanna was in bed beside her mother, she could not sleep, assailed by mortifying memories that burned hot color into her cheeks. She could hear her own angry words echoing in her ears, scorning Raimond for putting aside an unwanted wife, attacking him when he’d hesitated before saying Beatrice had entered a convent. No wonder he’d hesitated. He would not want to admit that it was a Cathar convent. How gleefully his enemies would have used that against him. And that night in a Bordeaux garden, she’d been his enemy, too, blaming him for the failure of his marriage, even accusing him of being a bad father to his daughter. Now the voice she was hearing was Raimond’s. Are you always so quick to pass judgment? She had not even bothered to deny it then. She would gladly have denied it tonight. It was too late, of course. Nigh on a year too late.