flamenca's bath

adapted from the medieval Provencal

Everyone in Provence said it. "Sir Archambaut is the most jealous husband in the south, in all of France, in the whole world."

It was true. His lovely young wife, Flamenca, was never more than two feet away from the creaky old knights and ancient clerics employed by Archambaut to protect his household from the imagined invasions of youthful lust.

Sometimes, when men were certain they were not within the hearing of Archambaut's minions, they whispered of how Flamenca originally had been enamored of the young and gusty Guillaume de Nevers. "Indeed," said an apple vendor one market-day morning, "I heard them once, by night and alone, whispering through the grating of her window."

"Fool," replied a miller with commendable restraint. "That was months ago, perhaps before she was observed by Sir Archambaut and quickly wedded to him by her father."

At this point Guillaume himself strode past; yet he was not asked to join in their talk. For Guillaume de Nevers was tall and strong, with blacksmith's hands and a sword perhaps too swift for one to chance encounter.

But Guillaume's thoughts were far from the jocosities of the market place that day. They were instead of soft hair flung over white shoulders, of deep, dark eyes, of the ripe lips of Flamenca as they had tasted to him that night through the grating. Would he ever taste them again--or even see her, indeed, except from afar, as she walked on the arm of her husband on her way to the baths?

Ah, the baths! If only she bathed in the third chamber instead of the fourth one. As a boy exploring the cellars of the old town, he had come upon a hidden tunnel leading directly to the third chamber of the bath. But how could he tell Flamenca of this?

The answer was supplied quite by accident the following day, when Father Ambrosius asked Guillaume to serve as acolyte during the days of Holy Advent. "I have not forgotten your strong wrists, my son. As a lad, no one could hold up the missal as long as you."

Guillaume accepted this duty without hesitation. Flamenca, he knew, would come every day to Advent vespers and, despite Sir Archambaut, perhaps a look, even a word, might pass between them.

And so it came to pass that on the first day of Advent, Guillaume paced carefully among the kneeling worshipers, carrying the book. As Flamenca leaned to kiss it, he bent low and softly breathed one word: "Flamenca!"

Her lips answered soundlessly: "Guillaume!"

On the following afternoon he tried again with the second word--just one, no more. The word was "I . . ."

And, on the third day, "Love . . ."

At the end of 13 days he had told her: "I love you. Change to room three to bathe. A passage leads there." A nod from Flamenca told him his message had penetrated.

The nubile young spouse of Sir Archambaut never missed her bath. It was her sanctuary, her one place of asylum from the eyes of her keepers, and from the eyes of her husband himself. Thus it followed that on the next day she came as usual, on Sir Archambaut's arm, but stopped this time by the third bathing chamber, with the innocent explanation that she had been feeling an uncomfortable draft in her usual room.

"The lady may have room three," said the keeper of the baths to Sir Archambaut. "It is not quite so large as the other, but she will surely feel no draft there."

Close inspection revealed to the ever-suspicious Archambaut the usual four walls of stone, the customary sunken tub, the prescribed couch and cushions, the towels and glazed water jars. "It will do," he pronounced at length. "Fetch the lady's unguents and oils. I shall wait as usual at the bench at the end of the hall."

After the servants had filled the bath with steaming water, Flamenca closed the door and dropped a heavy bar in place to secure it. Meanwhile, Guillaume had entered the cellars, located the passage he had known as a child, slipped through it skillfully and, when he came upon a familiar loose stone at its end, tapped upon this gently. At once came an answering tap from above. Flamenca was waiting.

He placed his shoulder against the stone and pushed upward. There was a grating sound, then a crack of light, and he was suddenly surrounded by the heady aromas of ointments and perfumes. He tilted the stone into the room and immediately observed his beloved, deep in the bath, and not three feet away. With a bound he was beside her, and soon the scented waters churned gaily with their frolics.

It seemed to them to have been but a moment, but it was truly more than an hour later before they were aware of Sir Archambaut pounding on the barred door and bellowing, "Flamenca! Wife! Hast fallen asleep?"

Sliding reluctantly from her visitor's grasp, Flamenca replied to her husband: "I must have dozed, my lord. I shall be dressed in a moment."

"Thou hast dozed, indeed, my lady," came the old man's anxious voice through the stone. "Didst have a nightmare? At one time I could swear I heard a cry as of anguish."

"Nay," replied his wife as she stepped into her tunic, "I dreamed that a young angel brought me a prolonged message of love. And my cry was of joy--not of anguish."

" 'Tis well to dream of angels, wife," said Archambaut with a sigh of relief. "But come now, we must hasten to vespers."