If you do, you might want to warn her that when people do a Google image search for "reptile with a woman's face for a head", this is what they get. I am not saying this woman is a lizard; just that if it was me, I think I'd want to know. And I'd be having words with Google.
Second thing second, I forgot my usual disclaimer at the start of the last installment. I am seriously worried about messing up some poor unsuspecting student's one and only chance for academic glory, so I will say again: if you are studying the Canterbury Tales, don't read this, read the book instead.
That being said, here's the next one:
The Man of Law's Tale: The Sultan of Syria gets wind that Constance, the Roman Emperor's daughter, is quite a catch. Even though he hasn't met her, he decides he wants to marry her because, well, sometimes you just know these things are going to work out, don't you. The only hitch is that she's a Christian and he's not, but that's hardly a problem because if there's anything which history has proven to us time and time again, it's that differences in religious beliefs hardly ever cause any trouble for anyone. Even so, the lovestruck sultan decides to convert to Christianity and insists that everyone around him does the same. Just in case.
Meanwhile the Sultan's mother isn't too happy with the Sultan's plan to give up his religion. (What is it with mothers and their sons?) It's worth knowing, at this point, that the Sultan's mum is also pretty evil. In fact she is not just evil, she is (wait for it) a REPTILE WITH A WOMAN’S FACE which makes her sound well evil, in my book. She pretends to agree to go through with the baptism ceremony (oh, the old pretend to convert to another religion but don't actually go through with it trick. That old chestnut!) and pretends to be nice to her daughter-in-law to be and they all have a great feast to celebrate and every one is as jolly as can be. I am sure we have been to weddings exactly like this.
BUT, and I can't put possibly make this any simpler than Peter Ackroyd does, so I will quote him directly:
while they were at this feast all the guests, Syrian and Christian, were stabbed or cut to pieces.
All of them!!! Even the Sultan. By his own mum and her henchmen. (Do all Mums have henchmen? I don't think mine does, but maybe I just haven't met them.)
Weirdly, though, Constance is spared. When I say spared, what I mean is she is dragged down to the nearest port by one of the henchmen, who clearly has a sense of humour because he puts her in boat without a rudder or sail, says "better learn to sail, love!" and points her towards Italy. Sounds just like one of those challenges they do on Top Gear.
Constance's boat eventually runs aground right outside a castle on the coast of Northumberland. Several years have passed, and she really ought to have died by now, through drowning, or from starvation, or by being eaten by North Sea shark, but we learn that she survived Because Of God. (This part of the story always makes me think of the days of the week underpants in When Harry Met Sally.)*
The governor of the castle and his wife Hermengyld are Pagans, but after they meet Constance, they are so taken by her that they decide to convert to Christianity. She's just that kind of girl. Everyone loves and adores Constance and everything is rosy, until a nasty knight tries to woo her, and when she's not interested he kills Hermengyld and frames Constance for the murder. Clearly, this is a guy who doesn't handle rejection well.
The nasty knight swears he saw Constance doing the killing, but no one can believe it because they all love and adore her so much, and finally the King comes to investigate. He soon comes to love and adore Constance too, and can't believe she is guilty. But the nasty knight still insists he saw her do it, and is prepared to swear this on a holy book. Bad nasty knight.
When he tries, though, a giant hand comes out of the sky and knocks him down and then a giant voice tells him off. Everyone, including the King, is so impressed by this that they all become Christians too. The nasty Knight is put to death, and the King marries Constance. The only person who doesn't like this is Donegild, the King's Daily Mail reading mother, who doesn't think her son should be marrying a foreigner. Poor old Constance doesn't have much luck with mothers-in-law.
(I had forgotten how long this story is. We are only about half way through, and I think it might be time for another picture. I still can't find one of a reptile with a woman's face, but I have found the opposite:
)Back to Constance. She becomes pregnant on her wedding night because (and I love this next line) even the holiest virgin must do her duty in the darkness. Before the baby is born the King has to go off to battle, so he's not around to meet his son Maurice. Or, we can assume, object to that ridiculous choice of name.
When Maurice is born, the governor writes to the King with the good news. Or at least, he tries to. Before the messenger can deliver the letter, Donegild sneakily replaces it with one telling the King that the baby is a demon which no one can stand, and now they all think Constance is a witch. Bad Donegild.
The King is heartbroken by this letter, but now he's a good forgiving Christian he writes one back saying that if this is the way things are meant to be, it's the way they're meant to be and asking the governor to take care of Constance and the baby until he gets back. But Donegild intercepts this letter too. In the new (fake) version the King isn't quite so good and forgiving, and orders Constance and the baby to be banished. Not just banished, but put back in the same boat Constance arrives in, which is missing a rudder and sail, remember and pushed out to sea.
So, much to everyone's dismay that's exactly what happens. No one is happy about it, least of all the King, who comes back to find Constance and Maurice have gone. He and the governor have words, and they soon work out what's gone on with the fake letters, and somehow, we don't quite know how, the king discovers it's all his mum's fault. So he kills her.
Constance and Maurice spend five long years bobbing around at sea, once again managing to avoid drowning and starvation and sharks, which I think by now we can safely assume is Because Of God, and then they wash up on a beach, right underneath, wouldn't you know it, another Pagan castle. The people here aren't quite so welcoming though; one of them tries to rape Constance while she is still in the boat, but before he can have his wicked way with her, he falls overboard and drowns, Because Of God. Constance sails on.
While all this had been going on, Constance's father (the Roman emperor, remember him?) had hardly been twiddling his thumbs. News had reached him about the bloodbath at Constance's first wedding in Syria, and how the Sultan's reptile-with-a-woman's-face-for-a-head of a mother had dishonoured Constance and left her to perish in a terrible sounding boat. No one treated his little girl like that and got away with it, so he sent his top Senator and a bunch of other heavies to Syria to burn and pillage whatever they could find there. They were on their way back to Rome at about the same time Constance and Maurice were bobbing around on the water, and wouldn't you know it, the two boats bumped into each other. Of all the massive great oceans in all the world....
The Senator didn't know who Constance was, and she wouldn't tell him, but he took her back to Rome for his wife to look after. (I can just imagine how that conversation went. "Honey, I'm home! And look what I've got.....") The senator's wife, incidentally, was Constance's aunt, but even she didn't recognise Constance. That's what happens when you spend five years stranded out at sea on a boat, I guess.
Meanwhile, the King, who I'm starting to wish I had told you a lot earlier was called Aella, because it's getting quite tiresome referring to him as The King, was feeling a tad guilty about knocking off his mum. So he headed for Rome to go and do penance. (He's a good Christian now, remember. It's what they did.)
King Aella's visit to Rome is quite a big deal. A team of senators is sent out to greet him, and there are parties and feasts and all sorts of other A-list events. The King himself lays on a big banquet and invites the senator, who takes Maurice with him. There's a suggestion, but only the merest hint of a suggestion, that this was Constance's idea. We will never know. What we do know, The titular Man of Laws tells us (it's his tale, remember?) is that Constance tells her son to make sure the King sees him. Stare him right in the eyes if you have to, she tells him, but make sure he notices you. Which makes her sound a lot more like a pushy stage mum than I think she is meant to.
Anyway, they go off to the banquet, and Aella does see Maurice, who is the spitting image of his mum. (Constance, I mean, not the King's Daily-Mail-reading-letter-swapping-thankfully-now-dead mum). King Aella is struck with wonder, and asks the senator who this boy is. As he hears more from the senator about the boy and his mother, the penny, or technically, the florin, begins to drop. Could this woman be his beloved Constance? The same beloved Constance who he had just been assuming was lying at the bottom of the ocean somewhere all this time? If this was an episode of Eastenders, this is where the doof-doof moment would be.
He goes around to the senator's house the next day to find out. Now, don't forget that Constance knew nothing about the letter swapping shenanigans and this stage, so she still thinks it was her husband, not her mother in law, who gave the instructions for her to be banished. When she saw Aella she swooned twice. Next came lots of crying on both sides, then finally, after Aella had convinced Constance that it hadn't been his fault at all, the tears turned to smiles and they had a loving reunion. Heartwarming stuff.
Constance and her father also reunite, all is forgiven, and we learn that young Maurice will eventually succeed his grandfather to become the next Emperor of Rome. I'd like to say that's where the story ends, but it's not quite; Aella and Constance return to England, where Aella promptly dies. Sad, after everything they'd been through, but these things happen sometimes. Constance returns to Rome and lives out the rest of her days surrounded by family and friends, and gets her happy ending, almost, after all. I think she earned it, don't you?
*You know about these, right? Sally is telling Harry the story of why she broke up with her ex-boyfriend Sheldon. She had a set of days of the week underpants, but Sunday was missing and Sheldon became obsessed with this and wanted to know: what happened to Sunday? Where had she left Sunday? He refuses to believe her when she tells him there is no Sunday, because they don't make Sunday. Because Of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment