Ariana Franklin - Grave Goods aka Relics of the Dead

Walking behind, Adelia attempted to follow the circumlocution that Emma had used to pose her question. What was it her poor friend wanted from her? No marriage, never marriage. No children, never more children. A life without physical love, yet a heart, such a sad heart, longing for the tenderness of a man… an unsuitable man…

Then understanding came. Adelia castigated herself. What a fool I am. Of course. I should have known. That’s it.

She quickened her pace, caught Emma by the arm, and led her to a seat in an alcove of roses, made her sit down, and sat down herself.

“Did I ever tell you my theory on how it is possible to avoid conception?” she asked, as if she was raising a different subject.

“No,” Emma said, as if she, too, found the matter a new one. “No, I don’t believe you did.”

“It’s my foster parents’ theory, in fact,” Adelia said. “They are an extraordinary couple, I think I’ve told you. They refuse to be bound by their differing religions-he’s a Jew, she’s a Christian, but their minds are free, so free, of laws, prejudices, superstition, imprisoned thinking…” She paused, overwhelmed by longing to see them again and by gratitude for the upbringing they had given her.

“Really?” Emma said politely.

“Yes. And they traveled, you see. To gain medical knowledge. They asked questions of different races, tribes, other histories, customs, and my foster mother, bless her, went to the women, especially the women.”

“Yes?” Emma said, and again it seemed of little interest to her.

“Yes. And by the time she returned to Salerno, she had gathered, first, that women through the ages have tried to have control over their own bodies-and the methods they’ve used.”

“Goodness gracious,” Emma said lightly.

“Yes,” Adelia said. And because she was Adelia, to whom the dissemination of knowledge was essential and must be as fascinating to the listener as it was to her, she went into detailed account of the different ways, in different ages, in which men and women had attempted to achieve the dignity of choosing for themselves how many children they could cope with. First she spoke of “receptacles,” sheaths for the penis that various peoples made from sheepskin, or snakeskin, sometimes soaked in vinegar or lemon juice. “Effective, my mother said, but many men do not like to wear them.”

Then came the subject of coitus interruptus, the biblical sin of Onan, who, forced by Jewish law to marry his brother’s wife, had “spilled his seed upon the ground” rather than let it impregnate her. “But again, most men do not wish to do that.”

The nightingale continued its ethereal song while Adelia labored on through earthy, human truths. “There are plant remedies, of course, pennyroyal, asafetida, et cetera,” she said, “but Mother was wary of those; so many are poisonous and in any case do not work.”

She paused for a moment, hoping for a response. There was none. Whether Emma, sitting so silently, was listening to her or to the blasted nightingale it was difficult to know.

“And then there are the pessaries,” Adelia said. She enlarged on their history, speaking of Outremer women who placed sponges soaked in crocodile dung and lemon juice in the vulva, of an Arab tribe that used the same method, this time favoring a mixture of honey and camel droppings beaten into a paste with wine vinegar. She spoke of similar advice found in ancient writings, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Greek and Latin…

Emma shifted, and Adelia realized she was losing her audience. She took in a breath. “What Mother found was that among all these recipes, when they worked, was what she called ‘acidus,’ a constant theme of the sour-lemon juice, vinegar. She was sure that it was that which killed sperm.”

At the word “killed,” Emma stiffened. “And what has God had to say of these ways to murder?”

“Not murder,” Adelia said. “Prevention. According to the priests, God condemns them, but priests are men who overlook the death of too many women through the imposition of too much childbearing.” Adelia thought of the murdered baby and its grave in the fens. “Or families struggling in poverty because they have too many mouths to feed.”

Emma stood up. “Well, I think it is disgusting. Worse, it’s vulgar.” She walked away.

“And in the case of pessaries,” Adelia shouted after her, “Mother recommends the attachment of a silk thread so they can be pulled down afterward.”

She heard the inn door slam closed and sighed. “Well, you did ask,” she said. “At least, I think you did.”

She sat on for a while, listening to the nightingale.

“You been a time,” Gyltha said when Adelia returned to their and Allie’s bedroom.

“I was talking to Emma. Gyltha, I think, I think, she’s in love with Master Roetger but doesn’t feel she can marry him.”

“Could’ve told you that,” Gyltha said. “Too high and mighty to look after him herself but jealous as a cat of them as do.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s it. Poor girl, poor girl.”

“And she thinks as how you fancy him yourself.”

“Oh, Gyltha, she can’t.” To Adelia, the German was a patient. She saw him only as a broken arm, a ruptured Achilles heel, and a long-suffering nature.

“Maybe she can’t, but she do.”

The next morning, Emma tongue-lashed her people-the grooms for being tardy in saddling up, the nurse for dressing Pippy in the wrong clothes, even Father Septimus for an overlong grace at breakfast. Adelia and Master Roetger were ignored as if they did not exist.

“An oh-be-joyful journey this is going to be,” Gyltha muttered as they set out.

Adelia agreed with her. If the situation continued all the way to Wells, it would be intolerable.

As it turned out, Adelia, Gyltha, Allie, and Mansur did not have to endure it long. The company had been on the road only an hour when the sound of galloping hooves alerted it to riders coming up fast from the rear.

Master Roetger felt for the sword that he kept always by his side, though what, pinioned as he was, he could have done with it was uncertain.

There were three of them, all with the Plantagenet blazon on their tunics, each one leading a remount. Like their horses, they were lathered with sweat from hard traveling. Their officer addressed Emma. “Are you Mistress Adelia, lady?”

Adelia said, “I am.”

“An’ is he the lord Mansur?”

“He is.”

The officer said, “We’ve been chasing you all the way from Cambridge, mistress. You’re to come along of us.”

“Where? What for?”

“To Wales, mistress. By order of Henry the King.”

LOOK,” ALLIE SAID, pointing upward as they approached the castle. “Poppies. Lots of poppies. Big ones.”

Against the setting sun, the severed heads decorating Caerleon’s crenellations bore a resemblance to wildly petaled flowers.

“That damned savage,” Adelia said under her breath, and urged her horse forward up the incline so that they would reach the barbican more quickly and her daughter could be sheltered by its walls from the knowledge of what the “poppies” on the battlements were. “Barbarian. Pig. Just wait til I see the brute.”

She was so tired that anger with Henry Plantagenet was the only thing keeping her in the saddle. All of them except Allie, who could sleep in the pannier attached to a horse, were exhausted-and by a journey Adelia had been loath to make.

She’d refused to accompany the soldiers at first. “I am not going.” Twice now she had served the Plantagenet in her capacity of investigator into unexplained deaths, and each time had nearly lost her own life doing it.

Emma, bless her, their contretemps forgotten, had joined the protest.