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1055 A.D. Beatrice, widowed countess of Tuscany, is brought to Germany as a prisoner of her cousin, Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich III. Her crime? Marrying a traitor: Godfrey, duke of Lower Lorraine. With her is her young daughter by her first husband, the gallant and extravagant Bonifacio of Tuscany, by name Matilda.

At court, Matilda meets the emperor's son, Heinrich. Even at six years of age, Young Heinrich is an imperious, spoiled, half-wild boy, dedicating himself to teasing Matilda and making her life miserable 1. Her gilded life in her father's palace in Mantua must've seemed as remote as a dream.

The emperor had been in the middle of arranging a betrothal for his son and heir into the house of Savoy, to secure a passage through the Alps not controlled by the Canossans. Perhaps he could break Matilda's betrothal, marry her to his own son, and secure Tuscany for the empire. Far better than seeing her married to her stepbrother, another Godfrey, this one hunchbacked, and the son of a traitor. The children are too young to be properly wed, of course; but Matilda should remain at court, as a sort of hostage for her mother and stepfather's good behavior, and to be brought up to be empress.

1. Matilda of Tuscany did complain in her Vita of Heinrich's antics in their childhood.
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