Beowulf is Back
Chapter 3
In which, after managing to both arrive at their meeting, Marshall Gney and Cardinal Mascarpone fail to get on in a manner becoming of such Grandees. They are unable to agree on any point apart from a shared contempt for the Ambassador of the Britons; this enables them, for a short time to set aside their differences and unite in a righteous contempt for all the swamp dwelling heathen who reside upon that barren isle. The rather pompous and stuffy tone of these dignitaries is lightened by the appearance of the Duke’s niece, who is clearly not at all happy with their plans; or with the way these plans are conveyed to her.
Norbert, the senior clerk to Cardinal Mascarpone, was loath to disturb his master in the morning. Truthfully, he was loath to disturb his master in the afternoon, evening or night; but morning was the worst time of all. If the Cardinal had been drinking his hangovers varied from active expressions of nausea (which Norbert was then expected to clear up) to angry, head pounding rages (which would be vented on Norbert.) If the Cardinal had not been drinking, then he would certainly be with women, unless he had started drinking. Norbert was unsure which of these he preferred least or dreaded most. If the Cardinal was still drinking, then anything was possible. Once he had told Norbert that he loved him and that this love must be requited there and then. Another time he had set fire to the library. In the first instance Norbert had run and hidden in the storehouse where he had spent a long and dark night of the soul wondering if he should abandon holy orders and become a goat farmer like his father. His profound dislike of goats, farms and other men had finally won him back to the light but not before he had grimly contemplated a foul smelling, uncomfortable and goat-filled future. His store of bitterness and fear had grown that night. In the event of the fire, he had summoned the monks who had managed to control the blaze, but not before there had been a considerable loss of scripture. The monastery of Monte San Carlos was now short an Apocrypha. Norbert regularly felt that it might be better if it were short a Cardinal
On balance, Norbert concluded that the Cardinal’s women were probably the worst. He had no knowledge of women, nor had he the desire to gain such. He fell short of condemning them as ‘Satan’s Snares’ as Brother Bunion liked to describe them, however he became so embarrassed in their presence that he would shake like a leaf and on certain shameful occasions, particularly when they were in states of undress, he had, to his intense mortification, fainted. The joy and happiness this loss of control caused the Cardinal; and his pleasure in reminiscing about it whenever a third party was present was another cross that poor Norbert had to bear. Norbert had become a priest in order to hide from the world and each day he was horrified to find that it had followed him into the cloister.
This morning he offered a hopeful prayer for a cheerful pile of vomit to remove. At least when sick, the Cardinal was unable to shout and rant at the volumes he managed at other times. Norbert knew that shouting was going to be on the order of service for the day, as the reason that he had to wake the Cardinal (if he could be mercifully sleeping and not carousing in a blissful drunken melee, with or without females of dubious respectability) was that the Grand Marshall Gney was expected to visit, to arrange matters for the Royal wedding..
The Cardinal hated the Marshall with a vitriol he usually reserved for sobriety, abstinence and attending Mass. The mere mention of his name would cause the Cardinal to shout and curse. The thought of his presence caused him to smash smaller household items and to look for the means of damaging or destroying larger ones. To be present at one of their meetings was, in Norbert’s humble opinion, to be situated, like Herculaneum, on the slopes of a boiling Vesuvius. Somehow, so far, Norbert had survived the reign of fiery death, but it seemed plain to him, that it was only a matter of time.
He knocked, timorously, on his master’s door. From within he heard a low groaning, which he interpreted to be a good sign and permission to enter. Despite his considerable years of training and experience, his unwilling eyes were, at first, unable to process the carnage that awaited him beyond the Cardinal’s door.
The Cardinal’s bed chamber, in what could loosely be described as ‘normal times’ was a large, square, stone room, dominated by a huge crimson-curtained, gold painted, four poster bed. On the walls hung opulent tapestries, depicting biblical scenes and portraits of religious pageantry. On the floors were thick, expensive, frequently cleaned rugs from the East. Two south facing, curtained windows allowed (when the Cardinal permitted) the bright light of the Mediterranean sun to light and warm the room. When the curtains were closed, the room was lit from the silver, gem inlaid candlesticks that sat on the Cardinal’s work desk. Nothing of that stately, priestly palace now remained intact.
That the bed had collapsed, could have been the first thing to attract Norbert’s appalled gaze; the posts lay splintered on the floor with the curtains draped around what was the left of the body of the bed. It could have been the state of the floor; the rugs were shredded, mangled and defiled and if Norbert had been given the leisure to observe he would have seen that they had also been chewed; as if by a large beast. The tapestries had been ripped from the wall and they lay tattered and confused with what was left of the rugs, the bed curtains and the inevitable wine skins. The room smelt hideously of a mixture of old incense, alcohol and what seemed to Norbert to be some kind of animal smell; but all this he was unable to fully accept. The central thing that drew his eye, to the exclusion of all else, was what remained of the bed.
The carcass of the bed sat unevenly on the despoiled floor and the Cardinal’s groaning head could be seen at one end, emerging from his scarlet sheets; but, Norbert wondered, what had become of his body? Concealed by the covers, below the Cardinal’s darkly bearded chin was a colossal, lumpy, improbable body. It seemed three times the size of a normal man. Norbert noticed with growing horror that it seemed to move irregularly. It was as if the Cardinal had grown huge, uncontrolled limbs that thrashed haphazardly beneath the sheets. These movements seemed not to be directed by the Cardinal, whose groaning became more intense with each random and frightening movement.
‘Help me!’ croaked the Cardinal, as Norbert watched a wave of bloated movement flow across the sheets. Norbert took a step back. It seemed to him that the Devil had finally caught up with Cardinal Mascarpone and was transforming him into some kind of bestial fiend. This impression intensified as Norbert began to apprehend the terrible stench that now emanated from the centre of the room.
‘Help me!’ the Cardinal moaned again as another of his apparently massive limbs shook the sheets. It was then that Norbert heard the grunting. The Cardinal’s body was making strange grunting noises and it seemed that it was somehow tearing itself apart. Norbert prepared to flee the site of demonic possession, but before he could run, he felt his mouth fall open ready to scream and at this moment he heard a voice.
‘Eet ees onlee thee peegs!’ said the voice, laconically.
Norbert looked into the corner of the room where he noticed a small, bearded, weather-beaten man wearing a white shirt and one of the Cardinal’s best hats, casually sitting cross legged on the floor. The stranger was almost fully concealed by a large wineskin from which he was drinking. Norbert had just begun to take in the strange man when he was disturbed by an increase in grunting from the bed. The covers were now thrashing, like a stormy sea and the Cardinal’s groaning rose in pitch and volume.
‘Help me!’ he shrieked. At that moment it seemed, to Norbert, that the bed exploded and the Cardinal’s monstrous limbs turned out to be three huge pigs, one of which was wearing the Cardinal’s stole. The pigs burst from the covers and ran, snorting happily, past Norbert, out of the door and into the cloister. This left the Cardinal lying, curled up and snivelling on the bed. He was wearing a much dishevelled nightdress. Before Norbert could approach the Cardinal the small man jumped to his feet and began to follow the pigs.
‘Eet ees like I am saying,’ he whispered conspiratorially, ‘eet ees thee peegs.’
/> Seeing that Norbert seemed to require some explanation of this, the man smiled.
‘I am Pedro. I am a farmer. Thee Cardinal ‘ee say to me that ‘ee wants to be thee beeg, bad wolf!’
He passed Norbert and started down the hallway. Then he paused.
‘Well, we all ‘ave to make thee leeveeng,’ he said, and Norbert realised that there would be quite a lot of clearing up to do today.
‘Tardiness is sign of an undisciplined mind,’ lectured Grand Marshall Gney. His gnarled features were twisted into an expression that he imagined conveyed virtuous concern mixed with the desire to instruct.
The dark haired, brown-eyed young woman who was the subject of this observation grinned and replied,
‘Dogma is a sure sign of a frightened mind, Uncle. Occasionally allowances for variance must be made in order to maintain a powerful and flexible response to challenges.’
Marshall Gney was reputed to be ‘A Holy Terror’ on the battlefield, but he was rarely a match for his combative niece. They were walking together along the path to the Monastery of Monte San Carlos; he strode, tall and grey, with his long grey hair flowing out from under his General’s hat onto the shoulders of his grey uniform cloak. She bounced along beside him, skipping her steps to keep pace with his longer stride. She was wearing a blue and white patterned dress along with a mischievous smile. Her long, dark and controversially hatless, hair rippled in the gentle wind and prompted the Marshall to reengage.
‘You should wear a hat, for decency’s sake!’
Amarilla, for that was her name, took a few steps along the winding path that led along the cliffs to the monastery while she pretended to consider the General’s suggestion.
‘Who is this ‘Decency?’’ she inquired, ‘Do we know her? She sounds like a terrible bore.’
The Marshall sighed. Girls! What was to be done with them? He had stormed battlements, faced cavalry charges and fought his way across half of Europe and in all that time he had never felt out of his depth. He enjoyed the manly camaraderie of battle and the dull, tedious marching in between. He felt at home with the ponderous ribaldry of his troops. He enjoyed their predictable complaints, their feeble and humdrum excuses. He understood their infrequent bravery and far more frequent cowardice. He had never married. He was, he reflected, ‘a man’s man.’ Men, he understood; girls, on the other hand…were a different species altogether.
‘Soon she will be married,’ he thought; and although there was some comfort in the thought that he could then sensibly get on with his life, he acknowledged that there was also a flicker of disappointment that soon he would no longer be able to war with his feisty niece on the battlefields of convention. There was, however, the problem of the bridegroom.
Amarilla was supposedly engaged to Louis, the recently crowned King of France; a fine male military paragon who had, at least in part, been raised by the Marshall himself. The Marshall was, in a dry way, fond of him, as he very much reminded him of himself at a younger age (dull, arrogant and vain). What Amarilla thought of him, he did not know. He had not enquired. In point of fact, he had kept the engagement a secret from her. This was based on the fine principle that important things could be distressing to women and it was therefore kinder, and simpler, to make the arrangements with other men and inform the girl at the relevant time.
This caused him to pause, uncomfortably. The relevant time had already passed. The wedding was due to occur in five days time. On that very day, there would be the critical meeting of Parliament regarding the Holy Gambling monies. The Marshall had planned to tell her about the wedding earlier, although each time he tried, he found a reason to delay. There had been no real reason, at first, not to tell her, and the Marshall had been puzzled by his own uncharacteristic procrastination. He had firmly decided to tell her on the evening of the day of the Military Exercise. But on that day everything had changed. After that day, there was a real reason to delay.
On that brilliant summer morning three weeks ago, all had appeared to be exactly as Heaven, and the Marshall, would have wished it. The Sun shone brightly, the birds sang encouragingly, the white bricks of the Chateau had glistened appreciatively and Louis had gone out to command the troops, as was usual. He was riding his favourite horse, a fine white stallion, called Frances the First; and he was accompanied by Nestor, his groom and a lieutenant of the cavalry, called Eugene D’Orbergene. They were protected by an escort of four guards. The Marshall had saluted them as they rode out to the Petit Bois Fichou. They had returned his regal greeting cheerfully before disappearing onto the forest path from which they did not return at the scheduled hour.
The Marshall, as a military man, was not overly worried by the dalliance of young men, out on manoeuvres on a fine sunny day; far from any enemy, safe within the borders of France. He had chuckled to himself and recalled the many fine days when he had been abroad with his fellows, riding around the countryside, enjoying the heat and terrorising the local peasantry. He had some dinner and decided to wait. He was not much more alarmed when D’Orbergene had returned, an hour or two later, saying that the party had been delayed as Nestor had suffered a riding accident and King Louis was seeing him to safety. In retrospect he should have noticed that D’Orbergene had seemed more ill at ease than a nobleman bringing news of the injury to a servant should have been. He should also have considered that Nestor was the least likely of men to have a riding accident; and that King Louis was by far the least likely man of all to tend to his stricken servant in this improbable eventuality; but this he had failed to do.
When the King returned he had announced that Nestor was dead. His fall had been fatal. It also appeared that the King had dispensed with his escort. More worrying to Marshall Gney was the feeling that the King was…well…not quite who he had been when he had left the Chateau in the morning. He had the same short build, monotonous voice and dark curly hair, but although he had greeted the old Marshall cordially enough, he had seemed too cheerful and he had eaten too little at dinner and not drunk quite enough port. He looked like the King, sounded like the King; he even acted somewhat like the King; but the Marshall had begun to suspect that whatever he looked and sounded like, the King was not the King. He was an imposter! The Marshall also knew that if he was an imposter there was only one person that he could possibly be and this was his hateful twin, the toady of the church and protégé of Cardinal Mascarpone: Louie-Louie!
The Marshall had immediately commissioned his spies to investigate. They had been able to find no trace of the escort that had set out with the King, and no place where Nestor had met with his unlikely accident. He had tried to find Louie-Louie on the basis that if Louie-Louie could be found, then the man who appeared to be Louis must, by virtue of not being Louie-Louie, be who he appeared to be; Louis himself.
The Marshall was to be disappointed. Sadly, Louie-Louie could not be found. The scheming Cardinal reported that he had gone to a remote retreat, for spiritual reasons, from which he could not be disturbed. It was then that the Marshall knew for sure that he was in a bind. He could not declare against the false King, as even he could not be entirely sure that this false Louis was a fake, so similar were the twins in appearance and speech. Even if he were sure, it would be a task to convince the Parliament of this substitution and even if he were able to prove that Louie-Louie was not Louis himself beyond all possible doubt; Louie-Louie would still have a claim on the French Throne unless the Marshall could produce the true Monarch alive and well. His one stroke of luck was that a member of the sinister group known as ‘the Templars of the Cursed Rock’ had been caught trying to leave France shortly afterwards. While he had not admitted much, under the hideous and gruesome tortures the Marshall’s men had used; he had given enough of a hint that the Marshall suspected that the King might be alive and held hostage somewhere. Unfortunately, at that point the reckless brigand had clumsily expired and they had not gained any more information.
The Marshall was faced with a great task: the wrong Kin
g must not remain on the throne, the money from Holy Gambling must go to the Army and his niece must not marry the wrong brother. The Marshall did not know if he could achieve this, but he knew who he would like to be on his side. He had sent a number of messengers to summon the cunning and resourceful Beowulf. He hoped that some had survived and found their man.
In the meantime he and Amarilla had to meet the ridiculous Cardinal and discuss the wedding that he knew he should have mentioned some time ago.
Norbert had made some progress in readying his unsteady cleric for the important meeting. He had somehow managed to clean up and re-dress the protesting (and somewhat smelly) Cardinal, and he had dragged him as far as the Chapter House where he had, with considerable grunting and grappling, managed to wedge him crookedly onto a throne. He had then turned his attention to wrestling the Cardinal’s wild and unkempt mane into some modicum of ecclesiastical order. This he had more or less achieved by pulling it hard and stuffing it beneath Mascarpone’s oversize hat. Throughout this process the Cardinal moaned inarticulately and Norbert feared that the meeting would have to be delayed.
When he expressed this fear, the Cardinal surprisingly, began to pull himself together and Norbert was impressed by his master’s ability to grasp political reality despite his post alcoholic confusion. He was less impressed (but not entirely surprised) when the Cardinal struck him with a forcible thump to the side of the head, while he shouted expletives at the Chapter House roof. These were clearly directed at the Marshall and so Norbert did not take them personally, although he was now careful to stay at arm’s length.
‘Quite right your Spiritual Holiness,’ he intoned in the ‘special’ voice he used when he tried to calm then Cardinal. It did not calm the Cardinal. Mascarpone hated the ‘special’ voice.
‘I hate him!’ he bellowed and in a surge of energy he shook his fist at the doorway, before sliding back onto the throne.
‘Of course, of course,’ agreed Norbert, wondering if he should help seat the Cardinal more securely. The Cardinal stared at Norbert. He made a concerted effort to concentrate and hissed,
‘I mean it. I really hate him! I wish that he would die!’
Norbert had no strategy for this and so ventured,
‘Shall I see if he is without, my Lord?’
‘Without what?’ continued the Cardinal whose venomous mental powers appeared to be returning, ‘Without honour? Without scruple? Without religion? WITHOUT DECENCY?’
His last bellow shook the Chapter House and Norbert feared that he might have a seizure.
‘I meant outside,’ he explained, simply.
‘I KNOW YOU MEANT OUTSIDE,’ the Cardinal roared, ‘NOW GO OUTSIDE AND BRING THE VILE LOUSE IN!’
It was at this unfortunate moment that the Cardinal’s Herald delivered the Marshall and Amarilla into the Chapter House.
‘Grand Marshall Gney, of the Glorious French Army, venerated leader of the Royal Guard and Mademoiselle De Cassiones,’ he proclaimed sonorously, with a sweeping flourish, ‘here to visit His Most Exalted Eminence, the revered and reverend Cardinal Mascarpone.’
There was a long uncomfortable pause, while the Cardinal endeavoured to pretend that he had not just shouted the very words that he had just shouted; and the others laboured to pretend that they had not heard exactly what it was that he had bellowed, while being awkwardly aware that they had heard every word. Surprisingly, considering his condition, the Cardinal was the quickest to recover.
‘Greetings to you, my dear Marshall, and to you, Mademoiselle De Cassiones. Welcome. May the Lord bless you and keep you.’
He tried to rise in greeting, but found his legs unwilling. He decided that he would be safer seated. This left the Marshall and Amarilla in a sort of no-mans land. They had moved forward to receive the Cardinal’s greeting and now had to shuffle backwards as the Cardinal remained seated. Norbert looked anxiously on. The Herald hovered nervously.
‘Your Eminence,’ the Marshall greeted Mascarpone with the minimum courtesy he could possibly bring to greeting a General of the church. Amarilla curtseyed, rather prettily and much to the surprise of the Marshall, remained silent. She smiled at Mascarpone, while wondering why her Uncle had brought her to meet such a dissolute looking old cleric. It was suspicious. She knew that the Marshall did not like the Cardinal. She hoped that he was not planning to send her to a nunnery. She often feared this; particularly when she had made him angry (a habit that she intermittently tried to shelve; but one that, apparently, she could not break); however she had determined that if this ever happened she would run away. She really hoped that was not what this meeting was about.
Both men eyed each other cagily; Mascarpone was worried that Gney might have grounds to challenge the fake King, and Gney was horribly aware that the wedding plans were about to be revealed and he had no idea how Amarilla would react. There was an interminably long silence while both waited for the other to speak first. Norbert feared that the Cardinal had forgotten the precise purpose of the meeting and was thinking about how he could prompt his master without appearing disrespectful. The tension grew. The Herald shuffled his feet anxiously and looked back to the doorway.
‘I think the British Ambassador is without,’ he sighed, with palpable relief.
‘Without what?’ snarled Mascarpone.
‘Without charm, breeding or manners,’ Gney said, concurring with the Cardinal’s animosity.
‘What does he want?’ hissed the Cardinal.
‘I don’t know, your eminence,’ replied the Herald, ‘shall I find out?’
‘No!’ concurred the military and spiritual leaders of France.
‘Make him come back another time.’
The Herald left to see off the unwelcome Emissary.
‘Disgusting nation!’ said the Marshall.
‘They paint themselves blue and drink fermented barley,’ agreed the Cardinal, ‘and I believe they still practice human sacrifice and demon worship.’
‘Their language is inferior and inelegant.’
‘And their food, if it can be so called, is barley edible. More suitable for animals than men,’ concluded the Marshall. Both men now felt much better. They almost smiled at one another. Sadly this happy moment was brief.
‘Are they not ruled by a Queen?’ politely enquired Amarilla. Norbert spluttered and shuddered, the Marshall turned red and the Cardinal, although looking stricken, somehow found the strength to rise.
‘I am afraid, child, that they are. It is a terrible error, an unfortunate blasphemy, a sad mockery of the natural order. That is why the nation is so regrettably cursed.’
‘But,’ continued Amarilla, deliberately avoiding the gaze of the Marshall, who was doing his best to silence her with what was known as his ‘basilisk’ stare, ‘has not the country prospered under the Queen to such an extent that, despite the obvious prejudices of the French Nobility, the Britons have gained sufficient status that their Queen has had to be invited, by those very same bigots who despise her, to some major event that is shortly to occur in France?’
She smiled, innocently and the Marshall groaned inwardly. The Cardinal leaned back and sat heavily on his chair.
‘And it is that event that we are here to discuss,’ intoned Mascarpone. He was in no condition for a political debate; especially with this vixen of the Marshall’s. It was unthinkable that a person of the female persuasion should contradict a Man of God. He felt momentarily sorry for poor Louis Deux who would have to marry (and presumably tame and house train) Amarilla; but there was no point pitying Kings, he reflected, every man must do his duty. His duty was to arrange the wedding.
‘Yes,’ the Cardinal continued, ‘the unspeakable and unfortunately gendered ruler of Britain is here, along with many much more refined, interesting civilised and masculine rulers to attend the marriage of the King of France, here at the Monastery of Monte San Carlos at the end of this very week.’
‘How exciting!’ replied Amarilla, ‘Louis- I mean his Majesty
- is getting married? To whom?’
A blush spread across Marshall Gney’s craggy countenance and he found himself staring at the floor. His discomfort caused Mascarpone to burst into a peal of delighted laughter.
‘Has the Marshall not told you?’ he enquired in a mocking tone, ‘has the ‘Hero of France’ not plucked up the courage to tell a simple girl of his intentions? Oh, this is blissful!’
Amarilla turned to look at her uncle, while the Cardinal almost danced from his throne.
‘Well, I must be the one to break the great news,’ he continued, ‘The intended Bride of Louis the King of France is you, Mademoiselle de Cassiones, it is you! That is why we are here. To ensure we all know our parts in the ceremony. I would have thought the Marshall, your Uncle, would have managed to apprise you of this most salient fact!’
From the Marshall’s demeanour, Amarilla knew that Mascarpone was telling the truth. She looked hard at the old man. She liked him, or rather, she had liked him, but now she could hardly bear to look at him. She felt empty inside. She wanted to speak or scream or object, but for once, she found no air in her lungs.
‘My parents?’ she managed to ask, almost in a whisper.
‘Would like you to be Queen,’ Gney replied, ‘it is a great honour.’
He still could not look up and meet her eyes. She breathed in and suddenly the vacuum of hurt and loss filled up. She was full of rage,
‘And you agreed to this? You arranged this. You did this without asking, or even telling me. You know what I think about things like this, and yet you still went ahead and made arrangements with this man.’
She glared at the Cardinal, who, as much as he was enjoying the scene, hoped that Amarilla would not turn her wrath on him. She did not. Her anger and contempt were reserved for her uncle.
‘You consented to this. You agreed on my behalf! You had no right to do this!’
‘It is legal,’ Norbert unwisely interjected, ‘he is your legal guardian.’
‘Then he should guard me, and defend my rights rather than try and marry me off to one of the most boring men who ever lived.’
She turned to the Marshall.
‘I won’t marry him, even though he is the King of France. I won’t marry him because firstly; I don’t love him, secondly; I don’t choose to, and thirdly because he isn’t even who he says he is. I don’t think he is the real Louis at all!’
Having spat out this rather dark and delicate state secret, Amarilla turned and stormed from the Chapter House, leaving the awkward Grandees momentarily paralysed in the face of a fact, which both of them knew, but neither could afford to acknowledge.
The Marshall stared into space and Mascarpone felt the strong return of his hangover. At length the Cardinal spoke, rather more kindly than was normal for him,
‘I think, I mean I hope,’ he mumbled, ‘she will come round to your way of thinking.’
As the Marshall turned to go, he added,
‘Before the wedding, would be best.’