They are all filled with zeal, their hearts beating; it’s good, after the hunt, to hear a woman talking determinedly about God. The consecrated candles are fetched and arranged around the dolmen or, rather, the altar, and on the altar itself. Huge fires are lit. The boar has been dragged a little farther off, a stick placed in its open jaws according to custom. Its head and feet are cut off. It is speared from one end through to the other so that the bristles can be singed above the fire, the hide scraped. The blue hounds sit with their tongues hanging out, and wait. Meanwhile, Guillaume kneels before the altar in his wolfskins and prays, Gaucelin kneeling in Emma’s ermine prays, and Emma prays, standing behind them without her fur-lined cloak; she isn’t cold, she’s burning. This nuptial island between two rivers, the bed of her pleasure, will no longer just be this hullabaloo where ninety-four men halloo and blow horns, it will be the chanting of eighty black monks held in the palm of a hand that belongs to a tiny, dark-haired woman. She will rule over the island like Guillaume over Poitiers. Blessèd be this boar. It’s the curée now; the boar is disemboweled, the paunch and the guts are thrown on a bed of embers, pink bubbles burst in the black blood, the swollen blue entrails scream like water in fire: for in those days it was believed that the flesh of the boar should be cooked even for the hounds. They whine quietly, and finally they are thrown the smoking innards on the tips of pikes; they pounce on the food. The carcass has been skinned; the hide is hanging on a branch in the frost close to the moon; the choicest pieces are being roasted for the men. The sergeants and the squires have been sent away — only the flower of chivalry has been kept to enjoy the flesh that has been touched by Providence, fewer than twenty mouths — and Gaucelin, who has joined them. Wine has been brought up. They eat like wolves, and between two wolf mouthfuls Gaucelin looks at Emma. She asks that with Gaucelin’s consent, since it’s his by capture, the boar’s hide be reserved for her. Gaucelin joyfully consents.
In the lay chapter of Saint-Hilaire and in the chapter at Ligugé owned by the black monks, Emma’s request is considered. It has on it the seal and the coat of arms of the House of Poitou. The scribes are consulted: Yes, Saint Pient did go into the wilderness, the oldest chronicle in Ligugé certainly mentions his dilapidated hermitage, but it is on the reverse side of a leafy initial; the copper oxide in the green has eaten away both the initial and what was behind it so that you can’t read clearly whether it was at Maillé, Maillezais, or Chaillé. It is to be Maillezais. Theodelin, a monk at Ligugé and a very young one, comments that a boar does not constitute proof and that Martin of Braga said as much: “Many demons preside over the forest.” They scoff at his timidity and point out to him that the House of Poitiers controls Aquitaine and half of Anjou, and that it was the countess of Poitiers in person who saw the hand of God on the boar. The abbot takes Theodelin in his arms and draws him to one side: he tells him that the order needs another foothold in the bay and the marshlands, the first foothold having been established at the far end by Èble of Saint-Michel, many years before. Theodelin is the son of converted Jews, and he takes the point. The black monks inform the mother house, Cluny; the request is accepted, then ratified by the chapter and the bishop of Poitiers.
In the spring Cluny sends the abbot, Gaubert, and the rest are levied from Ligugé and Marmoutier: a contingent of thirty young and hardy monks, including Theodelin. The horsemen vacated the site in March for war, against Brittany or Anjou, or perhaps both — they haven’t yet decided. Only Emma, who saw Providence, and Gaucelin, the arm of Providence, have stayed behind to guard the altar, along with Emma’s women and a few of Gaucelin’s companions to guard the two of them, to plunge hawks’ talons into the backs of hares, and to banquet. They are all at the harbor to welcome the monks. Gaubert is lordly, suave, and inflexible; he steps down from the boat like a pope, presents lavish compliments to the House of Poitiers, and sees only the House of Poitiers in the tiny woman but not the joyousness or the fire. Theodelin, the small swarthy monk, can see them. He sees the tall bright squire who is the same age as him, and beneath this brightness the fire. They walk up the hill — the path is now as broad as an avenue — beneath the oaks which are greening up. Instead of fur-lined cloaks, there are velvets and woolen cloth, crimsons and azures, pearl grays, all dancing against the fantastical Benedictine black. Up at the top they sing. The monastery, says Gaubert, will be dedicated to Saint Peter, the patron saint of Cluny. Saint Peter — Pierre — will rule over Emma’s nuptial bed.
Cluny is powerfuclass="underline" the architects and the stonemasons, the image makers, are hard at work within a week. The yokels drawn from round about are clearing the land; the barges with their blocks of white stone each as tall as a man — one block per barge — pitch and sometimes capsize; they never stop, two hundred blocks of stone per day. On one occasion a boat turns turtle before Emma’s eyes: there’s a great splash of water, then endless stinking bubbles, the entrails of the earth, as two tons of white stone drop right down to the bottom of the mud with the passion of falling things. No matter. Emma sees the raising of the nuptial bed, its whiteness, its strength, all of it arranged around the black altar, the old wallow, which has simply been faced with stone and whited. The image makers have carved two large overlapping birds on the capitals that look as though they are pecking at two smaller birds beneath them. Gaubert hunts with hawks; he shows that Cluny, the salt of the earth, already has a foothold up in heaven, and is busy with birds; he has delegated to Theodelin the illusory power of raising buildings here below. Theodelin dreamily listens to the wind in the oaks; he thinks about the demons who preside in the forests, and that God is being installed in their place. He wonders whether his brand-new power comes from the demons or from the cunning of Cluny, which can transform demons into white stone or sonorous coin. He gets along well with the tiny woman who loves power; he accepts her advice. The architects say whether a thing is possible or not, create it or not. If it turns out as she wanted, a capital or a door, she discovers and savors the meaning of the words power, hope.
Gaucelin has other hopes. He recalls the moment when after the terror, after the thick breath and the enormous tusks a hair’s breadth away from his belly, he caressed the life being restored to him as it bent down under the blade of the moon. The Chronicle, as we know, says that his body is sturdy and bright. The arm of Providence brushes Emma’s arm, the tall bright young man seeks her hand, grasps her by the waist in dark recesses and tries to embrace her; he follows Emma and Theodelin as they walk together round the building site, and, amid the white stone that is being raised, he sees only the crimson skirts, the bare arms. She firmly eludes him. She loves Gaucelin too; he was her Providence, but Providence is not made of flesh. Emma does not want to mix one thing with another: she is for Guillaume, who is making war and for whom she is waiting. She is not irritated by Gaucelin’s desire, or if she is, it’s with a certain delight, and sometimes she’s on the point of yielding. She doesn’t yield. She has the boar’s hide tanned: it’s been hemmed and chamoized, but it remains rough. She wears it belted beneath her gown against her skin, as if, in his absence, to feel the rough hand of Guillaume upon her. Guillaume has taken Angoulême. He’ll be coming with his wolfskins. The summer is over. He’s here.