Princess of the Black Death | ✔️

Chapter XI

Autumn 1338, Heidelberg Castle, Heidelberg, Holy Roman Empire

The travel to the castle was bleak, as hard as it was to travel from England but no excitement to reach the destination. Joan could barely bring herself to do more than look at her hands during the carriage ride. Spending so much time with her father had brought light into her life and suddenly everything felt very grey.

She had no one to confide in. No shoulder to cry on. Above all else, even at her age she knew how much appearances mattered and how she had to bury her feelings deep within herself until they died away. She did not complain to her aunt and uncle nor any servant. At best, she could confide first in a diary then in carefully-worded letters back home.

Joan rode the long travel in the carriage with the Empress. Louis rode on horseback out in front of the carriage with his guards, and she saw him very little in their journey through the German lands.

The paths they rode down were often narrow and bumpy. The ensuing rocking made her feel ill. She looked out the window. The forests were thick with trees, mostly spruce, and very few open fields. The  carriage let in little light due to the dense canopy. The carriage felt small and growing smaller like it was closing in around them. 

Empress Margaret spoke often to fill the silence. She explained to her that the Holy Roman Empire didn't have a capital the Emperor ruled from, but that he travelled across the entire empire in order to rule it, moving himself and often this family every few weeks or months to get each region's insights. The empire was large, the largest in all of Europe, and the emperor needed to meet different region leaders to keep everyone informed and under his allegiance. 

She said that a Kaiserpfalz was any royal palace and that the royal family owned many. Kaiser + Pfalz meant royal and palace, and Joan remembered that Kaiser meant King from the card game she had learned. She had set her mind to learning the German language as she had been instructed. In the meanwhile, she conversed in Latin or French. Margaret did not speak English. No one she met along the way did.

The emperor and empress interacted with each other very little on the journey, Joan observed. She saw no affectionate gestures, no embraces between them. Margaret spent most of the journey talking to Joan about her children, and Louis didn't talk to her at all.

Once they arrived at Heidelberg Castle several days after the Imperial Diet ended, Joan sighed. Truly it was a beautiful red stone structure, towering over everything else in the landscape. The city was among mountains and dense green forests. Joan couldn't enjoy it because it wasn't her family castle. It was beautiful but empty for her, and she did not desire to live there even temporarily.

Once they made their way inside, Empress Margaret introduced all of her children: Margaret, aged 13; Anna, aged 12; Louis, aged 10; Elisabeth, aged 9; William, aged 8; Agnes, aged 3; and Albert, aged 2. It was so much information to take in at once to remember all of their names. Joan learned that the Empress was Louis's second wife, but his children from his first wife were married or at their own residences. All of his sons would be designated as Dukes of Bavaria upon Louis's passing, as that was an inheritable title. The role of Emperor could go to any number of candidates when the time came.

Joan felt confused by how things worked in the HRE. She had only learned from her experience that the eldest son gets the titles and land, but things were different there, and it wasn't the only difference that Joan struggled to grasp.

At supper on the first night, the family conversed quickly to each other in German, to which Joan couldn't fully understand. She knew they were catching up on family matters and asked Joan very little about herself so all she could do was watch them talk. It was a long meal to which she felt like she was eating alone.

At night, Joan shared a room with the princesses Anna and Elisabeth. The eldest Margaret was granted her own room. The girls were a bit older than her, and Agnes was a bit too young for her company and was still in the royal nursery with Albert.

They giggled among themselves as they got ready for bed, but Joan couldn't understand what they said. Joan asked them what they were talking about, and they giggled again before blowing out the candles and said not a word to her in a common language.

It was a dark, lonely night. It felt like the night would never end, with a young girl all alone with her thoughts. Joan had always treated her English cousin as a sister. She wondered if Cousin Joanna ever felt left out because she was not a royal princess, and she hoped not. She had never felt so alone as being left out by her German cousins as she was that moonless night.