“No, that one’s taken,” he said with a grin, and she pretended to be disapproving, but could not carry it off.
“I shall miss Luc,” she murmured, for they’d have to abstain for the next forty days until she could be churched.
Raimond could understand why a woman ought to forgo carnal intercourse for a time after childbirth, given how demanding and dangerous it could be to the female body. He’d been told by a former light-o’-love that one of every five women died in childbed, and while he did not know if that was actually true, the figure was so chilling that he’d never forgotten it. But he found the custom of churching itself to be both idiotic and offensive. According to priests, a new mother could not enter a church until she’d first undergone a rite of purification lest she desecrate its sacred space with the pollution of her female blood. When he’d questioned it, it had been explained to him that women were in a state of sin because of the blood they’d shed in giving birth, because of the male semen that had taken root in their wombs, and because of the carnal pleasure that they’d experienced during conception.
Raimond had seen a number of fallacies in that logic. The Church taught that the Lord Christ’s blood led to salvation. So why, then, was women’s blood seen as polluting? And if a woman was polluted by a man’s seed, why not require her to submit to the ritual of churching every time she shared her husband’s bed? Why punish her for bringing another Christian soul into the world? And why did male semen not pollute the man, only the woman who received it? His attempts to debate these questions had done nothing to endear him to the local bishops, who’d accused him of mocking God and had been outraged when he’d injudiciously pointed out that they sounded rather like the Cathars, who saw all sexual intercourse as sinful. He’d also enraged his father, who thought he ought to keep such unorthodox views to himself. But he’d had to do that too often in his youth. Once he reached manhood, he’d gloried in the freedom to speak his mind, and if it vexed the pompous and the petty, so much the better.
His objection to the churching ritual now was personal, as it would mean that Joanna would be denied the privilege of attending their son’s christening, for babies were baptized as soon as possible to make sure their little souls would be saved if they suddenly sickened and died. “I was thinking,” he said, “that if we held Raimondet’s christening in the castle chapel, you could be present, too.”
Joanna was caught by surprise. By now she knew that her new husband thrived on such provocations, and there were times when she admitted to herself that his reckless, rakish charm was part of his appeal. But she’d also decided that it would be her role to protect him from his own rash impulses, and so she said composedly, “That is very sweet of you, Raimond, but I’d then have to fast on bread and water as penance for entering a House of God ere I was purified. Whilst I do want to lose the weight I put on during my pregnancy, that is not a diet I’d enjoy, so I’ll rely upon you to give me a detailed account of the ceremony.”
He showed that he understood her fully as well as she understood him then, by saying wryly, “If you mean to keep me off that too-tempting road to Hell, love, it is likely to be a full-time occupation.”
Joanna merely laughed, never doubting that she could do it. For on this July morning, the first day of her son’s life, she was serenely sure that nothing was impossible, that their future would be as blessed as their present.
AS USUAL, Berengaria got little advance notice of her husband’s plans, a brief message that he was on his way back to Rouen from a campaign in Berry, suggesting she meet him at Le Mans. It was a fifty-mile, two-day journey from Beaufort-en-Vallée, and Berengaria reached that lovely riverside city a week after the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She discovered she need not have hurried so, for Richard was not yet there. Three more days passed before the sudden, loud cheering in the town’s streets told her that he had finally arrived. She had no time to change into a fancier gown, to spare more than a hasty moment’s glance into her mirror, determined that when he and his men rode into the palace precincts, she’d be waiting in the courtyard to bid him a proper welcome.