JOANNA’S WOMEN HAD RETREATED in haste as soon as she’d drawn her last breath, for none of them could bear to watch as the midwife cut Joanna’s baby from her womb. Eleanor had drained the last of her reserves, too. Upon returning to her own chamber, she dismissed her attendants. Her eyes were dry, for she did not think she had any tears left. She could not mourn, nor could she pray. Sitting on the bed, she could only stare blindly into space, too emotionally exhausted to feel anything yet, as if she were lost in Limbo like those legions of unbaptized babies.
The knock on the door came as a surprise even though she’d been expecting it. Getting wearily to her feet, she crossed the chamber to admit Dame Berthe.
“It was a son, my lady. I baptized him Richard as the countess wished.”
The eyes of the two women caught and held. And then Eleanor thanked the midwife, telling her to return on the morrow. Once she was alone again, Eleanor crossed to a window-seat and opened the shutters. Joanna’s last day seemed more like high summer than early September, the sun burning away clouds in a sky so blue it could have come from a potter’s wheel. She gazed up at that blazing sphere of white heat until the bright, dazzling light began to hurt her eyes. She’d always hoped to have a grandson named Richard, a worthy namesake of the man who would be five months dead in just two days’ time. Because he was so premature, she very much doubted that Joanna’s son had drawn that one crucial, life-affirming breath. But she did not care that the midwife had lied. And she did not think that God would care, either.
AT FIRST READING, Joanna’s letter had seemed to offer good news, for she assured Raimond that her nausea had finally abated. She told him then, though, that he should delay his visit, for she’d decided to join her mother at Rouen. He’d have preferred that she’d stayed at Fontevrault, for he’d need an additional week of travel to reach Rouen. But he understood her desire to be with Eleanor as her time drew nigh. His indomitable motherin-law put him in mind of those ancient Greek legends of a warrior race of women called Amazons. And Dame Esquiva agreed with him that Joanna must indeed be on the mend if she felt well enough to make that long journey. So he took solace in that and made arrangements to leave for Rouen before Michaelmas, intending to stay with Joanna until the birth of their child.
Yet he was not easy about this ill-starred pregnancy, which had done such damage to his wife’s health and kept them apart for so long. Again and again, he’d cursed himself for allowing her to make that stubborn pilgrimage to seek aid from Richard. If only he’d forbidden it, she’d be awaiting her confinement here in Toulouse, under the care of Dame Esquiva, a midwife she knew and trusted. He smiled ruefully then, for trying to turn Joanna into a docile, submissive wife would be like hitching a purebred mare to a plough. Whilst it might be possible, what man in his right senses would want to do it?
A PALL HUNG OVER the count’s castle at Toulouse. People spoke in hushed whispers, their gazes drawn toward the stairwell that led to the count’s bedchamber. He’d been up there for hours, ever since he’d gotten the English queen’s letter. He’d gone ashen at the sight of Eleanor’s seal, broken it with shaking fingers, and then turned away without saying a word. It was left to the queen’s messenger to tell them that the Lady Joanna was dead and, with her, the count’s infant son.
RAIMOND DID NOT KNOW what time it was, not sure if hours or days had passed. He’d refused food, all feeble attempts at comfort, his chaplain’s offer of prayers, but he’d finally admitted a servant with wine. Empty flagons lay scattered about in the floor rushes. Like discarded gravestones, he thought hazily. He was not truly drunk, though; God had denied him that mercy. Moving aimlessly to the window, he pulled the shutters back, gazing out at a night of heartbreaking beauty; the moon was in its last quarter, a silvered crescent floating in an infinite ebony sea. During those summer months without Joanna, he’d liked to remind himself that they were gazing up each night at the same starlit sky. It was a poetic way of keeping her closer to him. Now all he could think was that she’d never look upon the sky again.