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| Doña Lambra wonders why I cut her intro chapter. |
It's been a month of additional words (I'm doing NaNoWriMo on another project) and subtracting of words. Below, an excerpt from
Seven Noble Knights which is truly an excerpt in the sense of "taken out of." I've been looking critically at the beginning of the novel (again!) and decided I needed to pick up the pace to match the breakneck speed of the rest of the book. The entirety of the chapter I first wrote is now gone and pasted below for your reading pleasure.
I always called it Chapter II because I knew the first chapter had to be much more exciting. Because it's the first piece of historical fiction I ever wrote, it has a hesitancy about it. You can almost feel me reaching out my senses and trying to describe what I thought it was like to live in Northern Spain in the year 974. It contains a lot of context and sympathizes deeply with Doña Lambra, which caused problems in my critique group later when her true nature was revealed. When I finished the first draft of the novel, I excised the first half, with the silk vendor, and eventually the second half became attached to the latest version of Chapter I. Now, the battle in the first chapter cuts directly to the wedding preparations in the former Chapter III.
Anyway, I've done my duty and killed my darling and now I lay its body out for you to view. RIP, Chapter II. (To cheer yourself up, you can watch
the trailer!)
Chapter II
…una duenna de muy grand guisa, et era natural de
Burueva, et prima cormana del conde Garçi Fernández, et dizienle donna Llambla. (I put an excerpt from the Estoria de Espanna, thirteenth-century text at the head of each chapter in the first draft. This introduces Lambra, just like the chapter does in more detail.)
The sun began to relent from
its long day’s punishment of the estate of Busto de Bureba. The fish in the
river sought out the barely forming shadows cast by stones and branches. Inside
a stone house, under a thatched roof, twenty maidservants and their lady
cleaned up the dinner table, planned a cool evening meal, brought in the
washing, and put away the day’s sewing without bumping into each other.
Doña Lambra looked out the open door
when she heard a tinkling of bells on the road.
“Good evening, my lady!” cried the
peddler, halting his donkey in the middle of the road directly in front of her
house.
“What are you selling there?” Doña
Lambra wiped her brow, lifted her apron, and headed toward the packs on the
donkey’s back.
“I’m not really selling anything yet.
I’m on my way to France, where I can get the best price for these Moorish silks
and finery. But I might bring myself to part with something for the sake of one
so obviously noble.”
Lambra stood a little straighter and
felt the heavy wool dress scratch her shoulders through the wicked moisture.
She tossed her head and her flaxen braids leapt up before they reached her
waist again. “Well, I won’t buy anything before I see it.”
“Of course not, lady.”
He reached high and opened the nearest
bag’s latch. The lid popped open with the force of the tightly packed fabrics
inside. “This one on top is probably the best I have.” He pulled on a corner of
the silk and Lambra quickly appraised its luster and smoothness.
“Green?” she said.
“Don’t turn up your nose at it, my
lady. It’s the most popular color in the very caliph’s harem in Córdoba. It’s
sure to become the highest fashion, especially if other ladies see you wearing
it.”
“Sell it to the French ladies. I’ll
have no pagan colors.”
The peddler tugged at a corner of the
bolt underneath the green and a mass of azure slid into view with a swooshing
sound. He came rather closer than Lambra would have liked and held it under her
chin. “Just as I thought! A perfect match for your eyes! Or even the
Mediterranean Sea.”
“My eyes aren’t blue,” she said,
backing away.
“They certainly are! I must have a
looking glass in here somewhere.” He rummaged through three different packs.
The donkey flicked his tail and made the bells jingle. Doña Lambra tried to
imagine the peddler all alone leading his donkey, loaded high with goods, through
the rocky terrain toward France.
“Are you going through the Roncesvalles
Pass unaccompanied and with bells?”
“Just my donkey and me,” he replied.
“And the bells.”
“You should really pack the bells away
before you get into the Basque country. You have no reason to announce your
presence among those savages.”
He held a piece of polished metal
between his thumb and forefinger up to Lambra’s eyes for her to see. “I’ve
traveled through the Pyrenees many times. Don’t you think that blue silk favors
you?”
“Now, how could I possibly tell whether
the fabric favors me in such a tiny glass?” she said, taking the glass from
him. “I can’t see myself and the silk at the same time!”
He considered the fabric, eyed the pack
it had come from, and in a great sweeping motion, pulled his dinner knife from
his belt and slashed off a square of the silk. He handed it to Lambra and
folded the rest of the bolt away, saying, “You see? A perfect match. You could
embroider that swatch with your golden hairs and no one would know it wasn’t
straight from a treasure chest.”
She held the fabric under her eye and
glimpsed two blue shapes in the glass. Maybe it was just the sky. She looked
up, and the peddler had already fastened all the packs. “A gift from one so
humble to one so haughty,” he said.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, handing back
the looking glass.
He stuffed it into a pocket and tugged
at the donkey’s bridle.
Doña Lambra turned back toward the
door, where she noticed five faces of her maids disperse like a puff of smoke.
She sat on the stone bench under the eaves of her house and watched the peddler
jingle his slow way toward the mountains. She was glad he hadn’t pressured her
to buy, because she had nothing to give in trade for silks. She had
administered all her own land since her father had passed away five years
earlier, so she knew that maintaining so much land and so many people often
meant sacrifice and frugality before fashion. She picked up the end of her
braid and set it against the fabric. Yes, her hair almost could pass for gold
thread. Maybe she could have one of the girls embroider stars and moons on the
fabric and set it into a bodice. Everyone at mass would think she was wearing
the latest plunder from Andalusia, perhaps a gift from another admiring knight.
Her maids’ voices floated out the
doorway on some farmer’s melody. Always gossiping, joking, and laughing when
they thought she couldn’t hear. Well, she’d make them work hard enough
tomorrow.
An eagle shrieked across the sky in
search of prey. Lambra looked down the road to the west. What could that be?
This road was becoming a regular thoroughfare. Two knights in chainmail headed
up a twenty-man retinue, all on horseback. As they neared the house, one of the
two front men lifted up the standard, a castle on a white field.
Doña Lambra tucked the blue square into
her neckline, gathered up her skirts, and ran through her front door shouting.
“My cousin’s here! He’s got twenty knights with him! What were we having for
supper? How much wine is there?”
All the ladies dropped what they were
doing and scurried to their preassigned tasks for just such an occasion:
cutting more old bread for plates, clearing out the sides of the hall for
sleeping space. Only Justa, who had been born into the household at nearly the
same time as doña Lambra, followed alongside her lady as she charged through
the great room to the kitchen at the far end.
“You told us to just make a salad:
cucumbers, radishes, garlic, some nuts, maybe some quince jelly.”
“No garlic!” Lambra didn’t acknowledge
Justa, whose words were merely an embodiment of her own thoughts. “No garlic!”
She seized the cloves from the table where the cook was about to chop them and
threw them on the floor, where a couple of puppies began to roll them around
the packed earth and straw. “No garlic for the Count of Castile! Isn’t there
any pepper left at all? Why didn’t he send ahead so we could get some quail or
slaughter some hens? Justa! Send the boys for rabbits!” Justa ducked out the
side door. “What about the pepper?”
The cook replied, “There’s about a
spoonful left, my lady.”
“Stew the rabbits in the vinegar and
put the pepper on at the last minute so it’s still fresh and pungent at the
table. I’ll trust you to find some cheese to go with the quince, and for the
love of God, make more salad!”
The cook tried not to sweat into the
stew pot where she set some water to boil and chopped cucumbers as fast as she
could. Lambra strode back across the house and paused just inside the front
door to inhale and exhale deeply. She smoothed the hair at her temples and
stepped outside.
The retinue was already arriving at the
house. Lambra saw the Count of Castile in the center, also dressed in mail. His
undoubtedly hot and blinding helmet was secured to the back of his horse’s
saddle. Resting his hand gently on it, he dismounted in one easy motion. Lambra
started toward him, exclaiming, “Cousin García! What fortunate wind brings you
here?”
“Now, now, cousin,” he replied, taking
her into an embrace, “you know better than to address me like that. It’s been
four years now.”
“I’m sorry, your grace, most high and
noble Count, leader of all Castile!” She comically bowed from the waist to
restore some fragment of their playful childhood.
“You’re forgiven, my shrewd cousin!” He
chuckled and laid his hand on the top of her head as if in blessing.
She stood and looped her arm through
his to seal the intimacy. The other knights had dismounted, so she said, “Let
us lead your noble retinue to the stables to care for their fine steeds.” She
deliberately bypassed the door and in hopes that the extra time would allow her
maidens to make the hall look as if it were always sparkling clean and ready
for important visitors. Maybe by the time they went inside, the boys would have
brought and cleaned the rabbits and the male laborers would have arrived to
welcome the masculine retinue more appropriately than her maids could.
The Count unsaddled, brushed, and fed
his own horse. Lambra couldn’t help but wait for him outside by the river in
the cooling breezes. She let the reeds brush against her hands while she
inhaled the wet river fragrance mixed with summer blossoms. The eagle cruised
across the darkening sky toward its nest.
Her cousin came out to meet her by
himself. “I’ve sent the men inside. I have to tell you why I’m here, Lambra,
and this might be the best place for it.”
She took his outstretched hand and
noticed the way he avoided her gaze. “What can it be?”
“Lambra, you’re such a beautiful woman,
and so rich in lands, I can’t think of any man who truly deserves you!”
She squeezed his slippery hand.
“Cousin, has something happened to your wife?” Did he want to marry doña
Lambra?
He smiled and looked at her. “She’s
very well. She’s in Burgos, expecting our second child.”
“That’s wonderful. Praise be to God!”
García looked away again and stared
into the sun as it eased below the mountains. “You may have heard about the
happy conclusion of the siege of Zamora.”
“Oh, yes! We were all so glad to hear
that that beautiful city remains within Castile.”
“Well, Zamora is more of a border
outpost than Burgos, or even Bustos de Bureba, but I suppose it has its charms.
A good river, and it’s strategic for keeping the Kingdom of León in check… But
did the news come with the reason for the end of that interminable siege?”
“There was a name, someone I’d never
heard of, from far away.”
“Ruy Blásquez. Ruy Blásquez saved the
city of Zamora. I would still be there today if he hadn’t come to my rescue.”
Doña Lambra thought the Earth shifted
beneath her as she realized what was really happening. She was being given
away. Married off, passed from hand to hand as if she had nothing better to do,
as if Bureba could get by without her.
Doña Lambra had not expected to be
given in marriage. With both of her parents already passed into the next world,
she had been raised principally by dueñas and other servants who could
wield no real authority over her. Now well into puberty, she had been taking
inventory of all the surrounding noblemen, deciding which lands she might like
to administer, so as to arrange her own nuptials. It even occurred to her that
she needn't marry at all, but simply govern her own holdings until such time as
her Father in Heaven saw fit to pass them on to his Holy Church.
But she was nothing if not shrewd, and
if she had considered it, she would have realized that as the cousin of García
Fernández, the Count of Castile, she would likely end up as a reward to one of
his loyal warriors.
“Some vassal rescued you? I should
think he was merely doing his duty.”
“Oh, Lambra, you can have no idea how
far above the call of duty he went. He brought one thousand knights and united
them all under Castile’s standard. And now we can fly that flag over Zamora! I
know you don’t know any other way for things to be, but it was only my father
Fernán González – less than a generation ago! – who declared Castilian
independence from León and it’s far from a consolidated reality. By bringing so
many to rally for our country, Ruy Blásquez has made himself my most valuable
vassal. And so, when he asked me to find him a wife, naturally I thought of
you, the richest and most noble of all my relatives.”
Doña Lambra let the orange and gold
rays spewing from behind the mountain burn her eyes. “But who is this Ruy
Blásquez? How old is he?”
“He’s well established.” The Count
walked around and tried to face his cousin, but she turned away from him every
time. “He’s completed his thirty-fifth year.”
She couldn’t help but wring her hands
at the thought of a grey beard and rotting teeth. Well, but maybe he wouldn’t
live that long, then she would administer all the territory they had between
them.
“Is he landed?”
“He has a few parcels in the region of Lara, called
Vilviestre.”
“A few parcels? I am the lady,
practically the countess, of all of Bureba! Thousands of landholders owe their
fealty to me and no one else!”
“Thousands? Hundreds, perhaps.”
“Thousands!”
“Lady, you forget yourself. We may be
cousins, but I am the Count here. All of ‘your’ vassals ultimately work for
me.”
Her eyes found his, but he had to look
away. She bowed her head and whispered, “Lara’s so far. I never imagined going
so far.”
He caught her as she collapsed,
sobbing.
García entered the house first. As
Lambra’s eyes adjusted to the firelight, she saw all of her people seated on one
side of the great table, knives out, bread trenchers in front of them, with the
Count’s men seated on the other side. They had wisely left the head of the
table unoccupied for the Count and the lady of the house. She wiped her eyes
one last time. “Pour the wine!” she said a little too loudly. “We have much to
celebrate! I’m to be wed this year!”
