When warriors rode into the gate the next afternoon, the tenants ran to see, then fell to their knees as oxen appeared, drawing the wagon which carried the Queen. She was seated towards the rear, on a bench with a low back. Two mounted warriors followed behind her. The tenants gaped at her shining purple wrap and long blue robe.

Hrotgund, watching the group climb the hill towards the villa’s enclosure, was struck at first by the Queen’s shimmering clothes, the sun glinting off her earrings, pendants and fibulae, then, as she came closer, by the older woman’s fine-boned face and kindly eyes. To Hrotgund, she was old – past forty – yet had a sweet, serene face that her new charge found lovely. She did not wear the head scarf of a married woman, but a round dark blue cap. Her blonde hair, already streaked with gray, was not put up, but hung down, as befit a queen. The thin rings of her earrings held tiny eagles’ heads; an inlaid fibula, almost like a cross, but in the barbarian style, held her wrap closed.

The way the sun played on her dress and wrap fascinated Hrotgund; the fabric looked weightless and caught the light in ever shifting ways. As Frotlindis helped the queen down, Hrotgund began to kneel like those around her, but felt a soft touch on her cheek. “You are a princess, my child; you need only incline your head.” And so Hrotgund rose to her feet and bent her head slightly, again staring at that marvelous cloth.

“Is that linen?”

“Why no, child. It is silk.”

“What kind of plant is it from? Or animal?”

Ingund studied her own sleeve. “I… I believe it comes from a caterpillar.” Hrotgund’s eyes widened. Such ethereal, otherworldly cloth… from a caterpillar?

“So I am told at least.” Ingund went on. “It comes to us from the East. Touch it, if you like.”

Shyly, Hrotgund stretched out her hand, afraid she might damage something so exquisitely fine. It felt almost alive to her touch. Then she remembered herself, and again stood straight.

“Welcome to Athies, Your Piety.”

Ingund stroked Hrotgund’s face, already filled with poise and awareness, if still that of a child. “It is I that should welcome you. Athies belongs to the King, who is my husband.” Flushing, Hrotgund began to respond, but Ingund stopped her. “That is why I am here, to teach you such things. Father Elias will have taught you the ways of the Lord, and it is right that you have begun with those. But now I must teach you the ways of Court.”

Soon Hrotgund’s days were spent between two teachers – Father Elias in the morning and Ingund in the afternoon. Berthefred had already taught her how to address a Christian monarch: “Your Piety”. But there was so much more, she learned, to being a well-born lady at a Frankish court. The estate had workshops – gymnacea – where women wove simple cloth, but the peasant wives did not have the skill to embroider or make finer cloth. And so it was the women of rank who did the finest needlework, who wove the finest cloth. Though Hrotgund would not make her own butter and beer, Ingund saw that she learned these things as ones a woman should know. They went to the kitchen together – Ingund wearing linen for such mundane tasks, not the precious silk – and the Queen showed Hrotgund the proper way to instruct the cook. She even showed her how to boil beans and grill meat, though others would do these things for her as well. She would soon be a woman after all, and should be as ready as the most humble peasant to act as one.

She only realized now how much she missed a mother’s touch. She quickly became attached to Ingund, as the Queen to her, and they would chat as they sat at the yarn stretched between two pieces of wood and wove new strands into those stretched before them.

Hrotgund was surprised, as they worked together, to learn that Ingund was her cousin. “My father was Berthaire.” Berthaire, who had helped kill Hrotgund’s father; Berthaire, who had been betrayed in his turn by her other uncle. Hrotgund’s eyes widened. “But Chlothar…” She dared not go on.

“Helped murder my father?” Ingund’s fingers kept moving as she looked far off. “As my father did yours?” She turned her face to the child beside her. “That is the world we live in. We must look beyond such things. And besides, my sister and I left Thuringia long ago.”

“You have a sister, Your Piety?”

“Yes. Aregund. She is much younger, and very pretty. Still, she is old enough to be married and yet unwed. I fear she may find herself forced to marry some unworthy man. And so I have asked Chlothar to find her a suitable husband, lest she make a union that shames us.”

Hrotgund pondered the idea of this fierce man she had last seen before the bodies of her slaughtered people seeking out a husband for a maiden. She could not conceive of such a thing. But if Ingund, so sweet and gentle, put her trust in him, perhaps he had it in him to be kind.

“And you, Your Piety, were you the King’s first wife?’

“No, child. But I have given him six children, more than any other.” She smiled proudly. “So I believe he holds me in special esteem.”

Life at Athies was more ordered now. Along with his new clerks, Father Elias chose promising boys from among the tenants’ children to train for the Church. The psalms sung by his clerks summoned those nearby to prayer, the sounds of their feet alerting others, early in the morning, before the long labors of the day. Returning in the evening, the Christians on the estate knew now to go to the chapel for evening Mass. Hrotgund looked hungrily at the Sacrament when it was offered, but, still unbaptized, could only watch.

Supper too became more formal. In the evening, servants would set up the trestles and the boards, laying a cloth across them, and Ingund and Hrotgund would sit together on a bench by the wall, flanked by Father Elias and his clerks, and the villa’s new contingent of warriors. Food was now served on silver and gold, servants held torches, flowers were hung about the room. Musicians from the estate played flutes and drums; sometimes the clerks sang litanies in sweet voices.

Hrotgund tried to enjoy this new pomp, but could not stop thinking of Berthefred, who had returned to Soissons. She tried not to miss him, knowing that he was living his destiny as a warrior. But she yearned for the moment she would see him again.

She became so used to the Queen’s company that she was shocked one evening when Ingund told her, “Tomorrow I must return to the palace. I have a wedding to attend.”

“That is wonderful!” Though she had already decided she herself would never marry, Hrotgund had seen enough weddings among the tenants to know it meant joy, an occasion for dancing, singing and cheer.

But Ingund’s face showed no joy.

“Who is getting married?”

“My sister,” said Ingund softly. “To the King.” She trembled as she said it. “He has found her, as I asked, a husband of high rank: himself.”

Hrotgund understood little of this, only what she saw on Ingund’s face. “And Your Piety is not happy for this wedding?” Fighting back tears, Ingund said, “Whatever is my lord’s pleasure is also mine, so long as I find grace in his eyes.”

The next morning, Hrotgund embraced the Queen, then watched her ride off in her ox-drawn cart, flanked by warriors on horseback. She went in to her lesson with Father Elias, but found him pensive. At last, he spoke. “You are learning lessons, I fear, which are not those of the Church.”

He stopped. She waited until he was ready to speak again.

“Those here in Gaul live under several laws. We, the Romans of Gaul, we still follow the laws of Rome. The Franks have their own, which Clovis had written down.” He stopped. Clearly, he was weighing his words. “Those are the laws of Man. But the Church too has its laws. Not only those written in the Bible, but those decided at councils, where bishops come together and decide how Christians must live. Clovis himself held the first of these in Gaul. There have been many since.”

Hrotgund listened with interest. But why tell her this now?

“For a long time, the Church has banned bigamy.”

“What is that, Father?”

“When a man takes two wives.”

“But Chlothar...”

He held up his hand. “Yes. But wait. A long time ago, and more than once since, the Church has said no man may marry his wife’s sister.”

And now she understood: Chlothar had done both of these things. “But why do you want me to know this, Father?”

“Because, my child, you will see kings, Christian kings, do many things the Church forbids. You must understand that this is because they are kings, not because these things are right.”

Two weeks later, Ingund returned. “I am not needed in Soissons. Even my children are in the care of nurses and tutors.” Her sons, she explained, were training to be warriors, her daughter to be some sovereign’s queen. “In whatever alliance,” said Ingund, “that will best serve her father.”

“Will she not choose her own husband?”

“Why no, child, no more than you will.”

“Oh, I will have no husband. I will give myself only to God.”

Ingund studied Hrotgund’s face, so frank and so sure, and ever less that of a child. “You will do your duty, whatever that may prove to be. We are women. We do what men command.”

A flush of revolt coursed through Hrotgund’s small body. And yet, could she say differently? Her father, her uncle, Theuderic and Chlothar had each decided her fate in turn. And had her mother lived? Would she even have had her say?

But then she thought of Hermenfred’s wife, urging him to oppose his brother, ruling over the man who had ruled a kingdom. Clearly women could find ways to exercise power. And she thought of her aunt’s words: “The Goth bitch!”

Perhaps to be a bitch was not so awful after all.

The New Year -->