Haggard Gentle

By Nancy Henshaw

Clementia, Countess of Catanzaro. Beautiful, haughty, and dangerous enough that she must be brought to heel by the King of Sicily and his scheming Chancellor.

The man for the task is the warrior Matteo Bonnello. In this charming, audacious adventurer Clementia may have met her match, but Matteo has ambitions of his own. She discovers a man who may be enemy, captor, ally and lover all at once.

In a royal court swamped by plots and power plays, an assassin's dagger lurks behind every column. To seize a future together, Matteo and Clementia must defy history itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9780244055448

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Haggard Gentle

Haggard Gentle

Nancy Henshaw

Copyright © 2017 by Nancy Henshaw

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

Chapter 1 - June 1160

The Archbishop's courier disembarked at Reggio on the Italian mainland and rode hard for Catanzaro. No man could have made better speed. Any man might have expected a welcome, a bench, a long drink and meat-filled pastries.

He toppled exhausted from the saddle. Unluckily, at the same moment the Countess arrived in the courtyard. She came towards him, displaying lightly leashed energy and stripping the glove from her right hand as if she might strike him across the face.

By then she had started speaking in an extremely clear voice. 'The King's dead and civil war's broken out. No?'  She stopped beside the horse he had done his best to ride into the ground and gave its drooping neck a hard caress from her bare hand before nodding to the groom to lead the beast away. 'Then your news had better justify half-killing that mare.'

The messenger silently handed her a sealed packet. She broke the seal, loosing off questions while she read, dismissing him at last to the kitchens.

The great hall seethed with half a dozen hungry, thirsting barons, waiting for food and clamouring for drink. Their impertinent and boisterous squires and pages occupied themselves by getting in the way of her own well trained servants. 

The visitors were all here at her invitation but that didn't improve her temper. Ignoring them she trod swiftly up the stairs, one long twisting stone flight, then another short and straight, and into the room beyond where she found her two closest advisers.

'So the High Chancellor of Sicily is sending us an uninvited guest from Palermo,' she concluded. 'Cousin, what do you know about him? Not Chancellor Maio. We all know his reputation, the bloody tyrant; this other man: Matteo Bonnello.'    

Gilbert Litigari was always ready with helpful information. 'Young, brave, wealthy, handsome.' He reeled off these pleasing attributes as if they were contemptible. 'His popularity amongst the ordinary citizens is unrivalled. You might almost say he enchants them.'

Countess Clementia was not impressed. She had done her share of enchanting, ever since the days when she rode beside her father through Calabria's townships and rugged countryside, her childish face lit up by smiles. The twenty-year-old Countess said, 'What about the Norman lords of Sicily. How do they rate him?'

'Natural leader, an enterprising if occasionally reckless commander in battle; in aristocratic society he has only one rival and that's the King's half-brother, Simon.'

Clementia's wide smile came and went with disconcerting suddenness. 'High circles,' she remarked. 'Yet this Bonnello is not strictly of the Norman nobility?'

Gilbert frowned in mock reproof. 'To a Bonnello members of the Sicilian nobility are parvenus and mainlanders scarcely human. He's been one of the most popular figures at King William's court, on and off, ever since about 1150; keeps out of politics. The King seems to favour him simply because he enjoys his company.'

'He sounds harmless.' Clementia turned an enquiring eye on the third person in the room.  'Madam, I'm waiting for your advice.'

Her cousin Gilbert was a landless man living on Catanzaro's generosity and always keen to render service to its Countess. But when it came to decisions she paid heed to nobody but her mother.

Joanna, propped up on pillows, had been perusing the Archbishop’s message. 'We couldn't prevent Matteo Bonnello from arriving here, even if we wanted to.' She and her daughter exchanged identical dark but mischievous looks. 'You don't want to prevent him, do you?'

'Dear madam, of course not! Enticingly brief silk tunics, legs to sigh and swoon for - how could I not want to meet Matteo Bonnello?'  

Gilbert pulled a second mock-serious face and told Joanna, 'Your daughter ought to concentrate on the young man's feelings, not her own unholy imaginings. By sending him on this mission, Maio, the High Chancellor of Sicily is allowing Bonnello the chance of meeting the richest heiress in southern Italy and its most desirable marriage prize.'

Clementia's mood changed. She stared gloomily at the wall hangings where a procession of wolves, deer, leopards and apes were going about their innocent or predatory business. She couldn't hear the words 'desirable marriage prize' without wanting to brain the speaker with a distaff.

She said strongly, 'As one of Bonnello's inhuman mainlanders my fealty is due to the Sicilian crown and that means King William de Hauteville; not his wife nor her lover.'

The Queen's lover; the clever, the cultured, the bloodstained High Chancellor Maio.

There was a silence that Joanna was content to let ride and Gilbert was too discreet to break.

Then Clementia spun round to face them. 'I reckon Bonnello is just what we need; an exaggerated sense of his own importance and probably foolhardy with it. The Archbishop says this young man will be arriving here as Maio’s informer. Well, Chancellor, for once you’ve taken a false political step and may find yourself neck deep in molten lava.'

It was Joanna with her invalid's privilege who gave Gilbert his dismissal.

'Send in her ladyship's women on your way out, Cousin,' said Clementia. 'And there's something you can do to please both me and Maio's highborn spy.'

She tolerated Gilbert for his sharpness and almost at once he began smiling. 'You'd like Bonnello's ride from the coast to be suitably enlivened?'

'Don't tell me what you mean to do,' said the Countess. 'I'd rather not know.' Alone with her mother, she sat on a stool beside the bed, her dark eyes wicked with humour.  'Well, madam, what is it you're longing to say?'

Joanna said thoughtfully, 'You allow Litigari too much licence to follow his own inclinations.'

Clementia kissed her mother’s hand and cheek. 'Gilbert’s loyal enough because he knows where his best interest lies.'

Four women filed in, relaxing as Clementia left them alone with their sick mistress.   Things were liable to spill and break in the uncompromising presence of the Countess.

She would dine in her well-used green wool gown; The men below in the hall didn't rate any greater courtesy and would be smelling stronger than she did. Time enough for lavender and rosemary scented baths and her crimson velvet when Matteo Bonnello arrived in all his Palermitan dignity and sophistication to present his respects to the lady of Catanzaro. Who was longing to know why Archbishop Hugh of Palermo thought she needed advance warning of the golden lad's arrival.

Chapter 2.

In the middle of June the Strait of Messina was merely playful. The ship bounced and bumped her way landwards exhibiting the same cheerful persistence as her master.  

He had edged his craft with its distinguished passenger past the oil-smooth spiralling of a whirlpool.

'You're fortunate, sir,' he said, as Matteo Bonnello peered into the sinister depths. 'You can make this crossing a score of times and never see it at all.'

Matteo had crossed the Strait often enough but always as a part of a military expedition.  This time, with only Bergild for company, the feeling of freedom was exhilarating.

'Those fishing boats are flirting with danger,' he remarked. The fishermen were circling the whirlpool with what looked like a reckless disregard for safety. 'You say the men have harvested a good crop of swordfish. Why don't they make straight for the harbour?'

'And why are you bound for the mainland when you could be enjoying a luxurious life in the capital?' The master spoke frankly. Command of his vessel made him any man's equal.

'So it's a matter of honour, celebrating the catch by risking livelihood and life.'

The competent Bergild had a hand to each of the horses as they swayed and shifted their weight, even though there were three horses and he only had two hands.  

Matteo swung round to face the swiftly approaching town, turning his back on a horizon that bordered a full sea of dark amethyst. He stood still in the hot afternoon, calling back to the master, 'Is this for my benefit too?'

It was a sight to reduce a fractious child to silent wonder.

The Fata Morgana; facing Matteo the commonplace buildings of everyday Reggio were mirrored in an illusion that stretched upwards, towering into the lavender blue sky. Like the rainbow, inexplicable but not witchcraft; for Matteo's Arab tutor it would have called for a natural explanation. Like the whirlpool which was a matter of powerful currents, not the work of that mythical Calabrian witch, Morgan le Fay.

The master was laughing as they approached the quay. 'If the spirits of the air wanted to create themselves a city would they model it on Reggio? But if it's a matter of concern to you, sir, I've never known bad luck follow when they show off their talents as master builders.'

'They might decide to make you regret being so sure.' Matteo went to take Torson's reins from Bergild. 'I thought you sailors were superstitious.'  

He didn't waste his or the master's time in elaborate farewells, thanked him for naming the best of the brothels, politely promising to remember them for another time.

He wasn't going to ride full tilt like a fugitive through rough and hostile territory. He had Torson and the other horses to think of. Neither was he going to meander.

Bergild, riding knee to knee with Matteo, wasn't worried. Any casual ruffians who attacked two well armed and superbly mounted men would have to be not merely desperate but suicidal. All the same, this wasn't one of Sicily's well kept and peaceful roads, and masterless men were notoriously stupid. No movement in the shadows, untoward sound or scent was going to escape Matteo or Bergild, his comrade in many a tight corner; nor the horses, two of them trained to the limit of equine intelligence.

They were making their way east, the sun behind them and the sea visible on their right hand side. Simultaneously they wheeled the horses left, an instinctive response. The cliffs rose, steep but not sheer, making an easy path for the boulder that trundled from its cover of stunted oaks, gathering speed and ending its journey in front of them across the track.

Matteo sent Torson plunging up the hill. Bergild thundered after, both men drawing their swords as they rode.

There were four of them and Matteo was the object. Three were crowding him, his sword whining as it spun in a wide circle from the hilt's crux before a snarling gap-toothed face. Riding reinless he severed the man's dagger hand, following with a slash across leggings of rough sacking, bringing him to his knees. High pitched screams began cutting through the men's effortful grunts and the horses' snorts of excitement. Bergild who had already disposed of his own attacker, drove his dagger with dainty precision into the back of an exposed neck. As he yanked out the weapon he caught a cracking blow across his forearm: the only man still on his feet, wielding a cudgel. Eyes under shaggy brows sneered satisfaction, then registered an instant of stupefaction: Matteo sliced through his neck, jumped to the ground and pressed the point of his sword lightly into the throat of the one man still alive. 'Who sent you?'  

The answer came with weak, boastful defiance: 'The lady,' and Matteo drove his sword home, severing the windpipe to let this human rubbish drown in his own blood.

Bergild had also dismounted. He picked up a billet of wood and gave it to Matteo. 'Sorry, sir, my arm's broken.'

'God, you’re getting careless.' The lady: no doubt who that was; the scoundrel had been crowing with conceit. But why should the Countess order an attack with failure written all over it - a little band of worthless wretches and their inadequate weapons? 

'Do you want me to bury the bodies, sir?'

Matteo, shaping the piece of wood, looked up into his long and deceptively melancholy face. 'With one hand? Is that a joke or should I offer to scratch up the earth with my sword?  Useless turd - get something to strap this splint with. And those rogues can be useful for the first and last time by feeding scavengers.'

Matteo, neither rough nor tender, felt for and bound the fracture; Bergild looked at him, affection tinged with malice. Surely he wasn't put out because they would be presenting themselves at Catanzaro like escapees from a tavern brawl? Matteo at least was unscathed.

'We'll camp overnight, be there late morning.' Matteo was frowning as he spoke more to himself than to Bergild. 'Give myself plenty of time to decide.'  His face cleared, 'Does she think I won't teach her not to tangle with the man who has been warned not to marry her?'

While Bergild, not a stupid man, was unravelling these negatives, the master gave the man an impatient lift into the saddle and they made their way downhill to join the packhorse which was placidly pulling grass from the roadside.

Matteo was still complaining. 'What I'd most like to do at this moment is strip and stand over the bloodthirsty Countess watching her scrub the bloodstains from my shirt.'

Chapter 3.

Matteo rode under the gate of Catanzaro, took in its defences and weaknesses with one encompassing eye-sweep and relinquished Bergild to the guard commander's rough civility. Then he sent a courteous request to the Countess, begging her to receive him.

Instead he found himself confronted by Gilbert Litigari.

Who might he be? In the spruce austerity of a first floor room Matteo accepted a cup of good wine, and the apologies of the lizard-like Gilbert.

'Her ladyship dearly loves to make a sensational entrance.' The man's smile invited Matteo to share in his understanding of female vanity. 'And a distinguished visitor from the Palermitan court - she's all eagerness to meet you, sir.'

Not so eager that the young brachet didn’t mind keeping him waiting.

Gilbert was saying, 'It's my good fortune to be able to claim cousinship with the Countess.'

So that was it; one of those poverty-stricken kinsmen who could sometimes prove useful but more often tiresome and intrusive. This smooth so-called cousin needn't think he was going to place himself like some bloody Greek interpreter between Matteo and the rebel Countess, the lovely - Holy Michael defend him...

She swept into the room with the determined grace of a swallow in flight, dark eyes dominating the oval of an unfashionably dark face. Between a narrow imperious nose and a rounded resolute chin, full but finely cut lips, soft as sun-warmed rose, were smiling a welcome.

He bent his head, kissing a hand, smooth but far from soft.

'Forgive me, I've been remiss,' she said with the gentle submission of womanhood. 'Has my cousin been entertaining you?'

Whoever had charge of the Countess's education had eliminated any rough edge from her Calabrian accent.

'Madam, I've been made most welcome at Catanzaro,' said Matteo, his enthusiasm as false as her humility. 'And one day I hope it'll be my turn to welcome you to Palermo.'

'While High Chancellor Maio lives I cannot take that risk.’ Her eyes met his, rounded in alarm. 'My spies tell me he would enjoy having me paraded through the streets in chains.'

Dissembling minx.

'Your spies, whoever they may be, had better think again. Maio will never harm you while I live.' Matteo, with an ardent look for the Countess, clapped his hand on the hilt of his superb Moroccan dagger. 'A man who abuses his power over women deserves death.'

There was a disturbing gleam between her long and bountiful eyelashes. 'The Chancellor's unlikely to receive such deserts from you, his obedient servant.'

Gilbert made a slight protesting movement as Matteo said quietly, 'My oath's sworn to King William and I am no other man's servant.'

Clementia said with airy carelessness, 'Why are you here, if not at Maio's bidding?'

'Whether or no, lady,' He wasn't going to gratify this audacious nymph by losing his temper. 'A woman may always command me in any way in keeping with my honour. Countess have you any commands for me?'

'No, sir.'  She flashed a look like a well-aimed bowshot across the space between them.   'Since I was twelve years old, men have been entreating me to command them. I prefer to give the command without waiting for the entreaty.'

'Then that's what I'll be waiting for,' said Matteo, lavishing admiration that won him a smile like an unfurling rosebud. 'Since this informal visit is for pleasure only.'

'That sounds unlikely.' She gave him a calm assessment from uncovered head to dusty boots. 'I think you're on an errand of charity bringing glamour to the benighted mainlanders.   Let's hope that a little of it may rub off.'

Gilbert intruded with laughing familiarity. 'Clementia, you're teasing this honoured visitor shamefully and neglecting our other guests.'

She glanced at her cousin, her lovely face registering faint displeasure. ‘So let him be escorted to his quarters. Sir, you are doubtless longing refresh yourself. A change of clothes wouldn’t come amiss. Allow me and my other guests a glimpse of Palermitan fashion.’

She preceded the two men from the room and ran downstairs to the great hall.

Nobody had offered him a bath. Nevertheless, when he entered the hall Matteo Bonnello was a striking figure in calf length saffron velvet and short burnished boots. He was also a highly suspect and unwanted outsider fresh from the labyrinthine Palermitan court.

Surrounded by hostility, he breathed in danger and began to enjoy himself. These violent, uncouth men, led by the gross Bohemond of Manopello, were like wild boar to be baited and if they and their unalluring wives had put on their finest clothes to honour the lady of Catanzaro, Matteo could have told them the styles were ten years out of date besides being powerfully fusty.

Instead he complained at repetitive length about the roughness of the sea crossing and the discomfort of the journey. 'And then, my lords,' he concluded plaintively, 'I was set on by a band of menacing ruffians. Only the quick thinking of my trusty old comrade saved my life. Alas, the good fellow suffered an injury in the process. I do hope he is being taken care of.'

They must have been prepared to detest him; now they could despise him. He’d be lucky not to find himself expendable unless the Countess took him under her personal protection. If she did it wouldn't be out of the kindness of her heart.

'Bergild is being taken care of as tenderly as you would have been,' said Clementia when Matteo took his place beside her at the high table, 'if you had decided to fling yourself into the fight as bravely as he did.'

Beautiful face,  shapely body and quick wits; the only one who hadn't been deceived by his performance as a reluctant and possibly craven emissary from the royal court at Palermo, apart from the ubiquitous Gilbert who had eeled his way to her left hand side.

The hall was crowded, the food properly cooked, well carved and presented. Matteo had an impression of wealth and good organisation underpinning Catanzaro's rough provincialism.  The servants were quick, unobtrusive and a good deal better behaved than the Countess's guests.

She had chosen to surround herself with a group of men who were probably not even literate and looked on the common civilities of life as decadence, but there was no doubt who ruled at Catanzaro: a woman with the certainties of youth, and of experience.  

She said bluntly. 'I don’t believe you’re the sort of fool who judges a man by birth alone, so what do you think of Chancellor Maio? He must have outstanding abilities to bring about his rapid, unhindered rise to power. He is a man of learning?' She turned towards Matteo, frowning. 'I've asked for your opinion.'

'He reads books,' said Matteo. 'You know, Countess, actually reads them for pleasure.'

'And you do not?' She trimmed the meat from the bone with her knife and steady fingers, shaking her head when he would have done it for her. 'Is the royal library closed to a man of your lineage who is also one of King William's intimates?'

'Of course I can read and write,' said Matteo huffily. 'That doesn't mean I spend my days poring over manuscripts.'

She must have a lovely long neck under that bundle of head veil. Velvet with a nice sheen lay snugly over the pleasing contours of her shoulder and breast.

He began like a man offering a really outsize compliment. 'You've heard of the Tiraz, the place of the royal concubines? I think if you ever found yourself there amongst King William's chosen women no one but the Countess of Catanzaro would take pride of place.'

This appalling insult to the proud young noblewoman didn't affect her wits. With a tang in her clear, attractive voice like hot, spiced honey she came straight back at him. 'Are you familiar with the victims of that degenerate weakling's depraved lusts? In what capacity, I wonder.'

'Not as chief eunuch, anyway,' said Matteo, cheerfully outrageous. She was being rather hard on William. 'But the King's Grace made me free of his women on one memorable occasion. Would you like to hear about it?'

'No sir, I would not.' Clementia wrapped herself in an icy composure that would have impressed any man not intimately acquainted with Queen Margaret.

Islanded in frosty disapproval he stared the length of the hall through an atmosphere thick with overheated merriment. The mainlanders had forgotten his existence. For the moment.

The Countess’s body heat fed from the substantial warmth of the man beside her. Small wonder that the more menial of her servants copulated like dogs from the touching, pushing and mauling in crowded kitchens and work rooms, even if they honestly meant to be chaste.

His Sicilian French had a pleasant fluency, probably learned while persuading spoilt Palermitan noblewomen into bedchambers and out of their clothes, but when he started to speak her own thoughts and his matter-of-fact voice made her miss his first few words.

'- gave me instructions.  I am to bring you to Palermo by any means I need to employ.'

'With the help of one wounded man-at-arms?' For an instant, startled, Matteo saw her smooth girl's face shrivel in an extraordinary leap forward into old age and it seemed important to give her advice she certainly wouldn't thank him for.

'Forget these so-called noblemen and their dreary conspiracies.’ Matteo helped himself to a fresh-looking orange, squeezed, and satisfied began peeling it with his small dagger. ‘Stirring up trouble here simply encourages the German and Byzantine emperors and the Pope, to lick their chops at the prospect of picking off the Calabrian towns and opening up the way to the treasure house that's Sicily.’ Clementia snapped her fingers and a page presented Matteo with a clean cloth. The orange fell into ripe segments on the outspread linen as he said, ‘I humbly apologise for mentioning the Tiraz. But believe this, you could out-rival all the ladies who grace King William's Court and that, Countess, is where you ought to be.'

The golden fruit lay between them. Her look invited him to place a segment between her  parted lips. He obligingly did so, letting her opened mouth softly close on the fruit’s sweet juices.

He began speaking at random. ‘My island home is beautiful. Excellent climate too.'

'Excellent climate!’ This time she raised her glass and drank in mock salutation. ‘I’ll need greater enticements to bring me within reach of Maio and his lover, that most royal lady, Queen Margaret.’ She began talking busily. 'For you, sir, I suggest a course of training under one of the gallant troubadours.' A neat, ambiguous reference to the troubadours' well known lack of morals. 'Yes, they have been known to fetch up in Catanzaro. Today, though, you'll have to be content with old fashioned entertainment.'

Matteo hadn't the slightest wish to try and out drink the Italian barons. He let his cup be filled for the last time and watched the jugglers, the acrobats, and supple girl-children who put him in mind of one of the King’s women, the agile Phoebe, as they dived through flaming hoops. All the while he was conscious that a good many nuns might be less abstemious than his exceptionally well-mannered hostess.

In the midst of all this activity, every man and woman in the hall suddenly stood up in a flurry of ungraceful and noisy haste. Matteo followed at his leisure.

The Countess was on her feet saying incisively, 'Gilbert, I’ll speak to our honoured guest in private. Attend to the others.'

'Every great household should have its Gilbert,' observed Matteo. 'One who has taken so many orders from women as well as men that he can't tell t'other from which.'  

With a snap of her fingers she summoned a youth and two girls from the lower benches to her side. She didn’t wait for Matteo to offer the courteous support of his arm so he sauntered out of the hall, enjoying the sight of the lady’s back view.

Her walk was light footed and free, displaying the full curves of feminine maturity. The Countess would look good on horseback he decided as the recklessness of his boyhood stirred.

At the foot of a twisted stairway the young people drew back, allowing the knight and the lady to precede them.

The walls and heavy door shut out any sound from below where the drinking was likely to go on until the men at least were all stupefied. These were her private apartments but she and Matteo were not to be alone.

'Sir, may I make my ladies known to you: Berthe and Melicente. And this young man is Alfred. He's English and has only recently joined my household.'

The two pretty girls curtsied, Melicente blushing brightly, eyes downcast. Berthe on the other hand, eyed him slyly. Tall, tow haired Alfred had all the eagerness of a half-trained colt and a tendency to fall over his own feet.

The candlelight lit up the sort of austerity blended with comfort that Matteo lived with in his fortress at Mistretta. At Caccamo the surroundings were a lot more comfortable. The Countess did have books; well, a book. A tapestry, blue, gold and red, was spread along one white wall above a couch covered in wolf skin.

'Will your cousin join us later?' Having met the rest of Clementia's boorish fellow conspirators, he supposed she must find greasy Gilbert tolerable.