Almodis Read Online Free PDF

will take care of my horses and falcon. He disappears into the melée of people, moving in the direction of the stables with the reins of the horses in one hand and my treasured peregrine falcon balanced on his other gloved fist. I turn to Guillaume and Eustachie, trying to control the emotion tightening my throat. My eyes are welling with tears as I embrace them. Since I was five my grandfather, and then they, have been as parents to me. I cannot remember what my own mother and father look like.
    ‘There, child. Wipe your face,’ Eustachie tells me. ‘Don’t spoil those fine eyes. Your father will be looking on you soon enough. Go settle into your lodging with Bernadette, and we will speak with you later in the company of your father.’
    I follow a servant into the hall, along narrow passageways and up winding stone staircases. This castle is like a maze. I cannot find my way back. I can only go forwards now.
     
    I stand with Bernadette in the doorway to a small dormitory room on the upper floor. There is no one there, but clothes and travelling chests are dispersed around the room. Three curtained beds are crowded close together and there are straw pallets on the floor for the servants. I step into the room looking for signs of my sister.
    An ivory tric-trac set, on top of a large chest of dark embossed wood, looks likely to belong to my father or brother. On the far side of the room, on the bed closest to the wall, I see a small gold casket. This must be Raingarde’s. I move over to it and run my fingertips across the gorgeous blue enamelled carvings . It is similar to my own casket, both of them made in the famous workshops of Limoges. The images on my sister’s casket tell the story of our great-aunt Emma who was kidnapped by Viking raiders but returned safely after three years when a ransom was paid. I smile at the carving on the lid showing Emma stepping from the Viking long boat to her husband, waiting on the shore. Two servants arrive in the doorway with my travelling chest and I direct them to place it next to my sister’s. Seeing the two similar caskets side by side fills me with inarticulate emotion.
    Sunlight stripes into the empty room through the meurtrières , the narrow slits high up in the wall. Although they are not present, I can almost see the ghosts of my family, recently in this room, laying out the possessions they have brought with them from the eagles-nest castle of Roccamolten. I imagine them debating over who will take which bed. The one my sister has chosen, which I will share, is close to a window slit giving a narrow view of the green countryside beyond. I am tempted to open Raingarde’s casket and look for clues about the twelve lost years of our lives apart.
    I sink suddenly onto the bed in despair. I don’t know these people: my father, Bernard, Count of La Marche; my brother Audebert, who is twenty now; my twin, Raingarde. What will they think of me? Will they be disappointed? Under my fingers I feel the thick brown fur of the bedcover. I know these furs come from Roccamolten. It is one of the few things I can remember: snuggling up with Raingarde on a freezing night, giggling as our frigid toes touch together and our warm breath caresses each other’s cold cheeks. My mother, Amelie, has not come to this assembly and is at home in La Marche. I strain with my eyes closed trying to remember her. The vague, pale face with yellow hair that swims into my mind is probably an image from a painting or a tapestry and not my mother’s face at all.
    ‘Why these tears, my Lady,’ asks Bernadette, ‘on this happy day when you will greet your father again after such a while?’ She dabs at my face delicately with a handkerchief.
    I open my eyes and smile feebly at her. I take the handkerchief and blow my nose loudly. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ I spring up from the bed and wipe the last of my tears away. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find them while you unpack.’
    At the doorway I hesitate.