A BavAARian Tale of Two Rivers - An Oberbayern AAR, 1066

[Revan86]

A BavAARian Tale of Two Rivers
An Oberbayern AAR
Revan86

One. Concerning the rule of Mathias von Rhein Graf zu Oberbaiern

Somewhere in Ingolstadt, tucked away in the cosy, narrow, ancient streets running down to the Danube River, one can find a small Catholic church with a modest stone addendum on the side which looks as though it has seen nearly a thousand years – and you would be right to think so. This building, I learned upon entering and inquiring of the church staff, was constructed in the Year of Our Lord 1074 by the Graf Mathias von Rhein. There are several buildings far older than that library in Upper Bavaria, but the name of Mathias von Rhein is attached to this one in particular. The church staff, incredibly helpful and friendly to me in my amateurish research, offered to find for me some of the electronic copies of the mediaeval manuscripts relating to the library’s founder.

As I pored over the documents in the library, a clearer image of the man formed in my mind. The oldest document was a baptismal register in the Rhineland – it surprised me that even that was still extant, but it would not have been so had the Graf not been born in a small kirk outside Koblenz, whose city records have all been meticulously kept. Yes, he was born on the feast day of Saint Matthew in the Year of Our Lord 1050 – at least according to the record; which would have meant that by the time he had founded this library, he would have been a year younger than this graduate student researching him. But why had he come this far, having been born to parents whose nobility, while sure, was certainly not noteworthy? And how did it come to pass that he had been made a Graf in these lands? I pored over further papers: a mention of him as a witness to the charter of a minor city elsewhere in his liege’s lands – the name escapes me now; a reference to his wife, an older woman by the name of Johanna (or Jana) die Polin, whose ethnicity some authorities had as Polish and others as Czech – who was apparently also his right hand in negotiations. Certainly there was not enough for me to build a complete picture of the man, but I found I was imagining him very vividly. I must have been thinking about this imagined Graf as I nodded off among the old books…

The old mare clopped down the dirt road that led to the old house on the edge of the ice-encased Danube as Thias gave a whiff of the air from underneath his cloak. For the second time in a space of months, he was moving. The Saxon Otto von Northeim had arranged the entire affair – in need of greater prestige in the coming months as Emperor Heinrich’s reign was weakening, he had summoned the Frankish Rhinelander Mathias to face him. The old tribal rivalries between the Franks and the Saxons did not matter to Otto, as long as Mathias was of good noble blood and willing to support him against the Emperor. Otto liked Mathias for his openhandedness – he was not a Frank for nothing! – and his intellect, and would gladly have kept him at his own court at Cambodunum if not for the pressing political matters at hand, and the confrontation that would surely arise. And so Thias had come here, a newminted Graf and a new groom to the bridal party that would be awaiting him – this also, Otto had arranged. Just such a gesture of goodwill to the court of the Přemyslovci would have been enough to keep them sweet – or at least keep them out of the way until this affair could be done. And Vratislav Hertug had been all willing to oblige.

He had seen Johanna die Polin – Jana Pololanika in her native Slavonic tongue – only once before. A pudgy, pampered court lady with hungry green eyes and a sly curve of the lip which made him feel like a tempting morsel of meat – though for all that, her face was regular enough, if round, and her wavy, long dishwater-blonde tresses were pleasing enough to look at. He had heard that she was quite the accomplished court lady, and a good match for his own talents on the field of policy; if so, she certainly wouldn’t be a boring conversationalist.

The thought gave him a warm spark of encouragement, which he tendered against the bitter mountain wind. The fields were blanketed in white powder, and even in the dying daylight as it set behind the Alps the light seared his eyes, which he covered in the comforting, warm shadows of his mantle. His nose was running and his feet were numb long since. It would be good just to get inside… he had never gotten used to this new place; far more greatly did he prefer the low plains along the Rhine, the fields and the vineyards. It was so much more domestic, so much more peaceful. This – this was foreign. The forests were wild, the Boarisch dialect was opaque to him, the wind was biting and bitter and untamed, and the mountains rose intimidatingly into the heavens and seemed perfectly placed to block his path between Cambodunum and this ‘Ingold’s Stead’ – a village practically in the middle of the wilderness.

The fire was lit, he could tell already – the bridal party had already arrived. He approached the manor, a small, dark and bleak-looking house, and a thickset, black-avised groom took his mare from him as he went up to the house and set foot inside. Once there, he shook the cold off him as a dog would shake off wet. He made his way toward where the fire was already stoked to a roar, and basked in the welcome warmth. Sitting just aside him, looking him over, was Johanna die Polin herself – curled up in her chair like a contented cat. At her side were standing two Bohemian maids. She gave them a few words each, and then they courtesied and left the room.

‘Welcome, young Mathias,’ she spoke. ‘Though as I am, to tell truth, your guest in this house still, it should be you who is welcoming me!’

‘As I do, milady,’ Mathias spoke dutifully. ‘I am somewhat new here myself, though. You are well? Have you travelled far today? Is all in order?’

‘So formal!’ Jana clucked in amusement. ‘Mathias, we are to be husband and wife soon – you may call me Johanna or Jana, whichever pleases you best, but no more “milady”. I may be seven years your elder, but it is I who will obey you, and I want us to be familiar with each other.’

‘Do you indeed?’ Mathias could not once again help feeling as though he were a mouse to her cat. ‘Nothing of this seems “familiar”. I have never travelled so far from home as I have today, to live together forever with a woman I hardly know, and to be lord and master to a backward mountain march whose people will forever see me – and you! – as foreign. I beg your pardon, milady—Jana, sorry—but you will have to give me time.’

Jana’s wispy, dark-blonde brows arched, and her mouth spread into a smile – a genuine one. It appeared he had impressed her slightly. ‘Be at peace, Mathias. You and I will have plenty of time. But I see that Otto Herzog was right about you – I also appreciate that you are honest with me.’

Mathias appraised her again – when she wasn’t eyeing him, but was talking with him openly like this, he couldn’t help but feel she was rather pretty. Perhaps being wed to her would not be the chore he had imagined it to be. As the two of them settled in, they fell to a spirited discussion of Ingold’s Stead’s stewardship, of politics and the state of the Reich, of the request from Rome for them to install a vagrant clergyman of repute (Viktor von Altenburg) as the bishop of Oberbaiern, of what to do about a certain set of disputes amongst the local nobles. The daughters of two prominent families had been feuding over the eligible young men who had come to Otto’s court – Walpurga d’Avesnes and Wulfhilde von Oberbaiern – and had had a very public falling-out. Jana supplied to Mathias (and he readily agreed) that he might want to take it up with their fathers to have one or both of them married off as soon as might be. Already there was a very promising offer to the von Oberbaierns from a comely young French nobleman, Comte Étienne-Henri de Blois, for their daughter’s hand – this was apparently what sparked Walpurga’s violent jealous outburst.

‘If you could help them to seal the agreement, your standing in Baiern would be greatly improved… Ah,’ Jana sighed. ‘At least I needn’t worry any longer about catching some handsome young thing for a swain.’

Mathias couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but laughed anyway. As a helpmeet, Johanna die Polin was proving invaluable to him already. The winter did no longer seem as cold from in here.

 

[Revan86]

This will be my second CK AAR - still don't have CKII yet, but I may end up switching over soon. Still plan to carry this one through - unfortunately, I lost my St Gallen AAR, but I restarted with Bavaria here. So far, so good - chose a good courtier to be ruler, married another good one (a little long in the tooth, but even one good heir is worth it...), and it's always fun starting from the county level and seeing where these things go...

 

[Saithis]

Hmmm, you've intrigued me. I think I'll follow this. I wonder how far Mathias and his children can go - Bavaria, Germany, or The World™?

 

[Revan86]

@ Saithis: Glad to have you reading! Yes... I shall have all Christendom wearing lederhosen and dirndl soon enough...

Author's note: My profoundest apologies for turning things sappy so soon and potentially scaring people away; this was not what I was expecting so early in the game. But them's the random number generators for you. Particularly when the happy couple in question share both a personality and an educational trait.

Two. Lent 1067.

Mathias found that he was adapting far more readily than he thought he would to his new demesne; the local families had welcomed him very readily – they found his bluntness and abhorrence of deceit a refreshing change from Otto’s scheming, apparently. Yuletide passed, the Lenten fast began, and Eastertide drew ever closer; the snows melted away and green began to reappear in the banks of the Danube and along the mountainside, the promise of new life. The manor at Ingold’s Stead was, in spring, quite a charming place. Mathias delighted in smelling the cool breezes that blew down from the Alps, carrying delicate scents nowhere to be found in the Rhine valley. The days were lengthening, and it was like the Graf’s world was waking up from a long, tormented slumber – suddenly the burdens of politics and of lordship seemed like joys in the Graf’s young heart, and he took breath and time to look around.

He went out for rides frequently, through the village of Ingold’s Stead up the mountainside or along the Danube. Sometimes he went hunting using one the new recurve variants the local woodsmen had gifted him with. These wanderings allowed him space to pause and reflect. The bad blood between Herzog Otto and Kaiser Heinrich was deepening as the Kaiser determined to clench his fist ever tighter over his Saxon holdings… but that was all so far away, and caused Mathias no worries. If ever his own person and company were called to take up arms, he was already determined to fight for Otto – he had sworn an oath and he would keep it. What gave him need for reflection lay much closer to home.

Wulfhilde had been married off in France, and Walpurga in Luxembourg; those two were no longer a trouble to him or to their families. But that was all thanks to Jana’s guidance, to her help and tact.

Jana…

He looked at the band on his own finger in consternation. What was it he had said? ‘To be true to her, to love her, and to honour her’. In sickness and in health, in good times and bad. When he had said it, he had said it in rote, but he found himself returning to it time and again. Jana had been patient with him. She had taught him how to deal with all sorts of everyday problems in dealing with the Bavarians and with their neighbours. She had supported him faithfully. She had taken to her wifely duties with relish and to her wifely privileges even more so. She had taken great delight in taking him to her bed and teaching him how to make love to her (and subsequently savored the act perhaps a bit more than was expected of a proper Gräfin). Mathias looked back on it all and felt a warm surge of gratitude and more than just a slight twinge of guilt. He had promised her his devotion and affection, yet she had delivered at every turn where he merely went through the motions.

Though he was a Frankish man of the Lower Lorraine and she a Slavic woman of the Bohemian heartland, speaking different tongues and practicing different customs, they had made a connexion, and they had built a life together. And now Mathias was feeling ashamed that he had withheld himself from that – he who prided himself on his honesty had failed to be honest with himself. By this point in his reflections, he had passed along the bank of the Danube again and was returning to his Ingold’s Stead manor. He dismounted and handed the reins to the groom. He looked up, and there Jana was, awaiting him.

‘Rather pretty’, he had thought her. What a swine he had been to have such a pearl thrown to him and to have considered her only ‘rather pretty’! Was he now to consider the wavy blonde tresses which she now had tied up into a bun (which, refusing to be so contained, cascaded outward into something resembling a mighty waterfall) only ‘rather’ magnificent? Was he to think the real smile with which she had favoured him over the past two months only ‘rather’ radiant and amiable? Her mature, graceful, knowing presence and wise counsel had been a blessing he had never given himself a chance to appreciate rightly – but no longer. How he wished now he could take his marriage vows over again, this time to say them with what he felt now, rather than in the obviously blind, deaf and dumb state he had been in then!

He ran up to the doorway and threw his arms about his wife, kissing lips that had touched him and talked with him hundreds of times before with a passion that was completely new. He held her for a long time which still felt to him like it was over too soon.

Jana took a stunned breath, flushing with understandable bemusement and with obvious pleasure. ‘Mathias… that was… senza! Why…?’

Mathias laughed. ‘Something I should have done long ago, Jana.’

Jana chuckled, before kissing him back with a passion she couldn’t restrain, passing over his teeth, nipping his lower lip. ‘Anything else you should have done?’ she asked.

‘Remind me,’ he whispered.

Jana gave another of her radiant grins as she led him inside the house.

Yuletide had past, Eastertide was nearing: a time for new life to begin.

 

[Revan86]

Three. The marshal arrives.

The political difficulties in the Heiliges Römisches Reich continued to mount as Kaiser Heinrich found himself faced with rebellion on every side. The latest outrage occurred when the Herzog of Toscana struck out on his own and declared practically all of his territory south of the Alps to be independent of the Reich. The response of Kaiser Heinrich was swift and fierce; all over the Reich his troops were being mobilised to crush the Tuscan treason.

Treason was something Baldwin hated, but it was something he could understand. He had seen men turn their coats before, and knew all too well the risks they ran, what they endured. All his life he had been a proud Saxon – the conquest of his people by the Frankish king Karl was still a blot on his family history burning for vengeance. His ancestor had been among the Stellinga rebels and had met with Lothair of Lotharingia to negotiate the truce, before Ludwig had marched against them in force and put him to death. The grandson of Baldwin’s ancestor who lived to see the Liudolfings take the German crown rejoiced in the Saxons’ memory. Now, Baldwin was seeing on the horizon yet another uprising – as an old soldier, though he would fight to the last man in a straight-up fight, he knew all the same when it was time to pack up and leave.

He had already known where he would go. Rumour had it that Otto von Northeim was organising in case Kaiser Heinrich lost even greater control of his realm – yet Otto had a scheming streak about him that he couldn’t quite trust. On the other hand, he was no man’s fool. He would keep about him noble attendants and vassals whom he could trust, and who were well worthy of service. In his askings at taverns around his native Goslar (where Kaiser Heinrich himself was spending an inordinate amount of time, to the great consternation of his kinsmen and of his countrymen in the fields), he had heard of a Frankish youth whom Otto had recently elevated to vassalhood. Though of obscure family, apparently he had, during his education and during his brief time at court, gained a reputation for keen insight and outspoken brashness that put off many. But it intrigued him. The Franks were long the enemies of the Saxons; a rare one indeed would willingly seek service with a Saxon Herzog. This Mathias von Rhein und zu Oberbaiern was probably a man worth knowing. Thus, the clean-shaven, middle-aged Saxon Baldwin of Bocksberg near Goslar found himself facing a very different scene, to the same impressions which had so intimidated the Graf himself just over a year before.

When Baldwin of Bocksberg arrived at Ingold’s Stead, he was greeted by a fresh-faced young man – little more than a boy still! – who had a few years yet before hitting twenty, and standing behind him a solidly-built young matron who had already left twenty behind her, holding in her arms her (and his) infant child. She was singing to it softly, a Bohemian lullaby. Baldwin had sent word ahead; the youngster who greeted him knew exactly who he was.

‘God greet you,’ Mathias grasped the elder man’s arm. ‘I am Mathias Graf zu Oberbaiern. This is my wife, Jana – and our daughter Zofie.’

Baldwin exchanged the pleasantries they were due, but was eager to see the fortifications. Mathias went riding with him out to the fort, down the Danube and over a couple of trails that led into the mountains before returning to inspect the company. Baldwin could tell that Mathias had trained himself in the arts of combat, and that he was no mean leader – but he was still very inexperienced, and could use a firmer and more experienced hand with these men. By the end of the day, Baldwin had them doing several more advanced drills and was beginning to oversee a few minor improvements to the fortifications and to the watch.

‘Mein Graf,’ Baldwin said, ‘I feel you should be aware of my history. My ancestors have been pagans, long since the slaughter at Verden; we have risen up against Frankish tyranny at every conceivable opportunity. I am proud of my ancestors for having taken the stand that they did – but I want you to understand that with the very fervor with which they defended their homeland, so I intend to serve you. I care not that you are Frank and that I am Saxon, but if you would prefer not to have me and to send me on my way, I will certainly understand.’

Mathias laughed. ‘I believe you have already taken my measure, Herr Bocksberg. You know this much of me already, so you must know that I prize men who are so forthcoming. Allow me to be equally so – I know why you came here. You know that I myself have no trouble serving a Saxon lord. You also have your own doubts about whether your own people will be treated fairly by the Kaiser. If I had not thought your motives honourable, mein Herr, I would have sent you on the road back to where you came from. But from what I can tell you would be a credit to any lord whom you chose to grace with your service, and truth be told we could use you here. No, Herr Bocksberg, I prefer you to stay.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘Then stay I shall, milord. But I should prefer to remain here at the fort – these green youngsters still have much to learn about the ways of soldiering, and I intend to have them passable by the end of the month.’

‘I’ll have that as a promise, Baldwin,’ Mathias nodded as he mounted and rode back to Ingold’s Stead.

 

[Revan86]

Four. The lordling’s splendour.

I finally found what I had been searching for amongst all my piles of copies and transcripts – the charter for the Imperial Court of Assize in Oberbayern, dated March the second, 1071. A lucky find indeed, and one which bore the seals of both Henry the Fat and Mathias of Rhein. Certainly my committee chair would be pleased with this finding and anything which could be gleaned from it – though there were no legal proceedings, even the charter would be interesting enough from a legal standpoint. Of course, that building is no longer standing – though it was built somewhere close by Rosenheim, or Pons Aeni in the Latin of the document.

The small library off the side of the Church of Sankt Ludwig was indeed a wealth of information; I was able to retrieve a number of primary documents, however partial. Apparently, this Graf von Rhein und zu Oberbaiern was literate, though a rather poor poet… I managed to find a couple of poems addressed to ‘mîne liebe Jana’ which, scholarly though they were and by no means lacking in passion or feeling, still seemed a bit forced and a bit lacking in imagination. Certainly my impressions of the Graf had not been too far astray. Jana’s name appeared numerous times in those early documents; she was apparently his greatest support during a time when he would otherwise have been out of his depth. At the time, it was no rarity for a knight or a young nobleman to marry an older woman (particularly if she was wealthy or powerful), but very rare indeed for such a marriage to have been a love-match.

There was one citation of a ‘Baldewin’ amongst the retinue of Otto von Northeim, but none to his stature, his origin or his relation to the Graf zu Oberbaiern. There were also references to ‘dese suabische Angelegenheit’ which had apparently given Otto pause in his revolt.

It is interesting that, reading between the lines of these documents, Henry got on so well with Mathias even though Mathias grated on the local Bavarian lords and with the rest of Henry’s vassals. Even in the fragmented records I have, I have discovered numerous property disputes between Mathias and his immediate neighbours, as well as a few lines of correspondence between Mathias and Henry himself, with Henry chiding Mathias for being a ‘streitsüchtiger nachbaur’.

But then, these… dreams I have been having of late, vivid as they are, must only be the products of a mind deprived of sleep and of proper nutrition – but most of my fellow grad students are not having these dreams either with regards to their own subject matter. Still, the atmosphere of Sankt Ludwig’s, pregnant with ancient secrets and stories never rightly told, seems to be very conducive to the imagination. Perhaps these dreams are best ignored, and my studies should continue based solely on facts.

Upper Bavaria in the Year of Our Lord 1073 was prospering as it never had previously under the reign of Mathias von Rhein. The fields were blossoming with the promise of ever-greater yields under the new systems of crop rotation which had been introduced after last year’s harvest. The family of the young Graf was growing as well – Zofie, at five years of age, had been joined by three brothers: Sighard, Dietrich and Hermann. The privileges of being the eldest son had Sighard growing already into a spoiled young brat – any toys he asked for, his mother and father would get for him. But Zofie was the apple of her mother’s eye – already she could converse quite freely in both German and Slavonic, and already understood the power of her bilingual upbringing by exploiting and poking fun of the fact that her father’s Slavonic was much slower and much cruder than her mother’s.

Johanna die Polin had already garnered for herself a formidable reputation amongst her peers. As well as being a devoted wife to her smitten husband, bearing him three sons (with another possibly on the way) and putting up with his effusions of doggerel, she had been able to advance his standing in a great many material ways. Mathias was feared by the local Herrn and clever enough to run circles around many of them in property disputes before the brand-new Imperial Court of Assize, but Jana’s silver tongue was able to win over their wives in the aftermath at very little expense to Mathias’ coffers. Very quickly Mathias was earning the respect of his peers and the local nobility, and his honour in their eyes was already quite high.

Once again, the Holy Father had requested Mathias’ patronage of a wandering cleric – this time, another Mathias, one von Ortenburg. Mathias had discussed theology with him several times and had found himself quite outclassed each time, but there was a perverse glint in his eye which gave the Graf a few misgivings. Mathias appointed him bishop and gave him the post at the kirk at Pons Aeni, which kept him close enough to keep the Holy Father happy, but far enough afield to put his own mind at ease.

The old Herzog of Baiern had passed away some time ago, and had been succeeded by his son, Heinrich ‘der Fette’ von Northeim – an open young child, younger even than Mathias himself had been when he had been appointed Graf. Though his lord he was, Mathias found himself taking a strong liking this young Herzog who looked up to him almost like a brother, and frequent were his trips to Cambodunum to visit and give his rede to his young master.

The local architects were dreaming ever-bigger and ever-grander dreams in the wake of their success in erecting the Court of Assize. Already Mathias had been presented with plans he would likely never be able to afford – a massive stone fortress which would replace the earthen and wooden ramparts to which he had rather grown accustomed, which to hear the masons talk of it would look as though the New City of Jerusalem itself had descended from Heaven as prophesied in the Revelation of St Johannes. The idea did sound tempting to the young Graf, but he knew he would never come up with the funds unless St Johannes himself descended from Heaven to give them to him. On the other hand, a more reasonable project was proposed for Ingold’s Stead itself – a repository for scholarly works Latin, Greek and vernacular, the likes of which had not yet been seen outside the great cities of England and France, or the Saracen world. Mathias’ patronage had made it such that the state of learning in Upper Bavaria had few matches in Christendom; the seven liberal arts were now taught in the village kirks. Thus it came to pass that at Ingold’s Stead, beside the Church of Saint Ludwig, a library was planned. It would still take a great deal of time to construct, but once it was done it would reflect great glory upon Bavaria and upon her Graf.

As the time went by, however, he noted that Binhilde von Frontenhausen, a local baron’s daughter with a knack for managing funds whom he had hired as his treasurer, grew to disapprove of his projects. More – and more hurtfully to Mathias! – she had (or so Jana had informed him) been complaining about him to Duke Otto these past few months over the library. It would be several months, however, before she had the effrontery to confront him to his face, which she did when he attended young Heinrich’s court in Cambodunum. Even then, it wasn’t much of a confrontation.

‘Milord, I am sure this library will be a very grand venture indeed – it is all proceeding according to pace, and it looks as though your collections will be exquisite. I recently requisitioned a few more Latin texts via the Carinthian march and Venice, but I may require a few extra marks for their purchase.’

‘How much will you need?’ asked her Graf.

‘Oh, about forty in gold. All in advance – these purchases are not cheap, you realise.’

Mathias knew Binhilde well enough to know she was not above lying to get her own way. And in charge of his treasury or not, he knew enough of his own finances to know that such an expenditure would bleed him dry, and more likely than not go straight into her own pockets rather than into any worthwhile purchases for his collection of tomes, whether from Carinthia or Venice or Byzantium itself. Thus, fixing her with a heartily disapproving stare, he answered her: ‘And not worth it.’

‘That… is a shame, milord,’ Binhilde gave a pout. ‘These items are quite rare, and are not likely to be available much longer. You wouldn’t want, say, the Bishop of Mainz to acquire them for his own library – I hear he is putting together a very enviable collection.’

‘Do not take me for a fool,’ Mathias growled in menace. ‘Bishop Siegfrid has more interest in combat than in learning; he is planning no library. If you cannot be straightforward with me about wanting more pay for yourself, you have no business asking me in the first place. Do I make myself quite plain?’

Binhilde bristled, but answered evenly, ‘Quite plain, milord.’

---

During that same spring, the rains had fallen quite hard and hail had even appeared, and the grain crop was somewhat damaged. This was seen as an evil omen by many of Mathias’ Bavarian tenants, who began wearing amulets to ward off the devil which had sent this minor disaster. But it was not until that summer that the curse began to manifest in its most dire form – Jana herself took ill with St Anthony’s fire. Her normally lively green eyes took on a haunted, reddened look as she began suffering from delusions and convulsion, and was confined to her bed, the children forbidden from entering her room. Her hair, normally a magnificent and lustrous blonde mane, now lay limp about a drawn face which looked far older than it was. The leeches said that the fire would cause her to suffer from an excess of yellow bile, and that she should be kept on a strict regimen of bloodletting and a careful diet. It pained Mathias to his core to see his wife reduced to the pitiable state of a madwoman by this plague, and he spent an entire week by her bedside doing nothing but holding her feverish, reddening hand, and praying over and over again for her recovery. His heart was gripped with dread when he thought that she might leave him.

The head leech, however, knew of an old hermit living in the Mangfallgebirge who had once treated a village which had been plagued by St Anthony’s fire one year, and managed to save most of his patients. However, he was rarely seen – the leech thought it might take as much as fifteen marks of silver to get the villagers to seek him out.

‘Do it,’ Mathias told him. ‘Take what you need. Anything to save her life!’

It was nearly another whole week before the head leech returned with the hermit, a great wild-looking man with a long, black beard and fiery eyes. He looked over Mathias with a harrumph and then looked to the woman lying on the bed – who in health would have been plump but was now wasted quite thin, sleeping fitfully. The hermit clawed up one of her hands and placed his long, grubby fingers on her wrist, mumbling to himself.

‘St Anthony’s fire is a blood disease, not a disease of the bile,’ the hermit said. ‘Her veins are constricted. She must eat a diet that restores her blood: nuts, fruit, chicken, liver of beef if you have it – but only if it is well-cooked! She’s far along as it is, though. I could concoct a cure, but I am afraid that the ingredients will be very difficult to find – it would cost your Lordship a great deal.’

At that point, Jana awoke, shaking her head feebly. ‘No… mein lieber Graf… I am in God’s hands now…’

Tears, unbidden, came to Mathias’ eyes. ‘Jana! Jana, no! We can make you well, my dearest Jana, we can—don’t talk like that!’

Jana smiled faintly and placed her hand on Mathias’ face. Her eyes were not delirious, but rather calm and almost at peace. ‘Mein Graf… you have grand designs for the future – don’t let yourself put me ahead of the needs of your people here. God will deliver me from this plague, don’t doubt it…’

Jana refused to take the medicine even at her husband’s insistence, causing her young husband the Graf to grow ever more despondent as suddenly there came a calamity upon his life which he could not help, and did not dare to face. What would he do without her? But, miraculously, the fever and the visions subsided, a normal colour returned to her eyes and to her skin, and she began sitting up. As the hermit suggested, she began taking a diet with nuts and berries and (though it made her sick to eat it every time) liver, and her recovery sped – very quickly she was able to resume her duties. The bishop proclaimed it a miracle and praised the Gräfin’s strong faith, and Johanna die Polin had, perhaps for the first time in her life, found respect and favour with the rood. Mathias himself was grateful beyond measure – and found himself praying, day in and day out, the prayer of Job:

‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.’

 

[Beelz]

Excellent stuff.

 

[Revan86]

@ Beelz: Many thanks! Hope you continue to enjoy it!

Regarding the following events, they really did all occur within a few days of each other. So, here goes...

Six. A quarrelsome neighbour.

Mathias von Rhein was having a bad day.

He was not one to rant and rave needlessly at those who could not aid him in his troubles – that would help no man. But he growled and glowered at all who crossed his path that day, both on the road back from Cambodunum and once he had arrived in Ingold’s Stead. The summer sun stood strong above the mountains, searing the eyes and the skin, mocking him; no such fair weather in these sylvan hillsides could improve his mood, not after the way he had been so abused at the court of his young lord in Allgäu. Heinrich der Fette’s infant vassal, Gebhart der Jüngere von Babenberg, had given grave offence indeed. It had all started when the plans for his library had been called into question by Heinrich, and he had given a roused defence, for to him Henry’s opinion mattered more than anyone else’s in the room. It had been, after all, his father who had given him his post.

‘Think of the learning which we could accumulate, here, in Baiern!’ Mathias had pleaded. ‘We need not send our younger sons to study in Venice or in France, but we would have the works of the great masters of wisdom and science, right here – Saint Alkuin, the Englishman. Johannes Eriugena, the Scot—’

‘Along with the soul-corrupting heathen, Plato and Aristotle,’ Gebhart von Helffenstein, Bishop of Salzburg, mulishly interrupted.

‘Aye, along with them,’ Mathias blazed. ‘For were not the great Plotinus and the Blessed Dionysius Areopagita—’

‘Rubbish,’ the sixteen-year-old Gebhart der Jüngere, Graf von had sneered to the Herzog, emboldened by the Bishop’s opposition to Mathias’ library. ‘What self-respecting gentleman bothers with this unmanly art, fit for monks and clarks, hiding in skirts in their studies, learning God knows what perversions? Surely no man worth his noble honour!’

‘And what would you know of honour?’ Mathias roared. ‘A mere slip of a boy – a mewling coward and a fool! Test my steel, if you dare!’

There was real fear behind Gebhart von Babenberg’s eyes, before they narrowed to slits. ‘I would not dirty my blade with your low-born blood in a duel, you petty thief! I’d as soon see you hanged. You, who crawled your way into Otto’s court on the borrowed honour of the Konradiner…’

Mathias let out a bark-like laugh, showing a wolfish grin. ‘Ah, that old rivalry! Well, come then – my fathers, loyal men of Franken all, would have no aversion to my pruning another sickly little Babenberg canker from this tree.’

In the end, tempers had run so high that Heinrich himself was forced to intervene. But Mathias was still red-faced with rage, even now he had returned home. But still more was waiting for him. He went from his manor at Ingold’s Stead to the garrison, and back around to the treasury, as was his habitual routine. But when he got to the treasury, and lifted the lid of the coffers, everything was missing. As empty as a poor parish priest’s almsbox. Not a single silver pfennig remained – but the equivalent of sixty marks of gold had been there when he had left from Ingold’s Stead to defend his library. He stood back, exhaling sharply through his nose and running a hand through his short, sandy crop of hair. No questions needed to be asked; no, he knew very well what had happened – but he would never be able to prove it in the Imperial Court in his district. It was that von Frontenhausen girl, Binhilde, who had mismanaged it all in his absence, and almost certainly either out of greed or out of spite toward him, having spurned her demands for a ‘gift’ at just this same time in August of the past year. Naturally, with no funds left, he had nothing to offer some blackguard who could arrange a convenient ‘accident’ to rid him of her in a more permanent fashion, even if he were so inclined – and he could not simply turn her out of her home for no reason without upsetting the rest of his carefully-cultivated relations with the other local lords, who still viewed him (Frank as he was) as an outsider.

He flexed his rage-taut fingers once. Twice. Backed out of the treasury, tamping down the rage that threatened to consume him. There was only one place left to go – back to his chancellor. To his best friend, lover, wife. To his beloved Johanna.

And go to her he did.

Four months now since she had given birth to their sixth child, a girl – Hildegard. But still, kissing her and laying together with her was the surest, the best possible release. As she lay back, gasping her satisfaction, his fingers caressed the gentle upturned curve of her lips, finding her smile lines and tracing them to her chin, then the small beginnings of her second. Breathtaking – having forgotten all about Gebhart and Binhilde, he could simply concentrate on the much more pleasant task of appreciating her. Still, even here in their privacy, responsibility would not wait.

‘Thias, dearest,’ Johanna prompted him, ‘something must be done for little Zofie, and for Sighart. They are ready to begin their studies – the nurse tells me Zofie devours whatever she can understand, and what she cannot she will tackle until she can. And Sighart is becoming more and more active by the day! Should we not put them under the tutelage of myself and the other courtiers?’

Mathias nodded. His wife looked at him expectantly, but found he had already drooped off to sleep, utterly spent. She smiled – from what he’d told her (and what he hadn’t told her, but she knew anyway), they had both needed this diversion. The cool breeze of a summer evening wafted over the sill as she leaned over and blew out the candle at their bedside.