Bladesong

by Jean Gill

  Maybe this journey will give you thinking time. I mean no more than that you’ll use your head when you see Lord Dragonetz again, before rushing into something just because there used to be something there to rush into. I’m only thinking about what’s best for you.’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ she told him, still cold. ‘The subject is closed. And if you can’t behave appropriately then I shall turn you off!’ They both knew she wouldn’t dismiss to impoverished death a man who’d given one hand to protect her and would give the other if need be, but it was a measure of her anger that she said it all and Gilles merely bowed his head in acceptance.

  Chat around the campfire made no mention of Dragonetz, nor disgraced lords, nor queens, but that didn’t mean they were absent from people’s thoughts. And no, Estela agreed silently with Gilles, I don’t think de Rançon is a liar. I wish he were.

  Chapter 14

  The end of the Via Agrippa caught them by surprise, so accustomed had they become to that inexorable trek south. The suddenness of it, seeing the road stretching in two opposite directions, threw Estela off-balance. She realised that she had a choice and, unconsciously stroking the pathfinder clipped to her riding gown, she ignored the rest of the party turning left and kicked her horse into turning right instead. Musca was so close.

  All she had to do was ride for a day and she could watch his milky smile, smell his yeasty baby skin, hold him in her arms, where he should be. He would gurgle while she dug her fingers into handfuls of warm white fur and sat her baby on Nici’s back, playing ponies. If she could have just one day with her son and her dog, free from doubts and decisions. It would be easy enough to go to Marselha two days later. All she had to do was ride.

  ‘ Roxie!’ called Gilles, spotting her break away, and looping a cumbersome turn to chase after her. She rode faster. De Rançon was faster still, wheeling expertly and galloping westwards after the fugitive. He wasted no time calling after her, but spurred his great destrier alongside her, dust clouds enveloping both riders as he reached for her reins and gently slowed both horses.

  ‘Easy, there, easy.’ Estela didn’t know whether he was speaking to the horse or to her and she didn’t care. She felt the salt of tears running into her mouth and she didn’t care. The choice was gone. She couldn’t tell de Rançon where she wanted to go and why. She couldn’t give up on Dragonetz, who was waiting for her.

  ‘Something spooked him?’ de Rançon asked gently, still holding her reins as he walked the horses round, to take a gentle pace eastwards again.

  White, tear-streaked, defeated, Estela merely nodded and swallowed the insult to her horsemanship, reclaiming the reins, concentrating on the big roan and his anxiety. They caught up with the rest of the party, returned to the rhythm of the road, heading away, always away.

  ‘Think instead about what you’re going to,’ Gilles’ quiet words cut into the miserable pounding of hooves in Estela’s head.

  ‘Only a day away!’ The words bled from her.

  ‘More like four days, assuming you survived the road on your own. If we’d taken the detour as a party, that would be the best part of a fortnight late at Marselha and we’re already into the chance of autumn storms and poor sailing. And for what? To rip open wounds that haven’t healed? Seeing him for a day would only make it worse to leave again.’

  ‘I know. It was just too strong for me.’

  ‘I’ve told you before how much like your mother you are. Just keep steady. She’d be very proud of you. Two days and you’ll be on that ship, heading towards Dragonetz and then there will be nothing to fight any more.’

  ‘To be so close!’ In saying the words, Estela was letting go, knowing the moment had gone, knowing her son might as well be an ocean away already. As long as he was safe, what did it matter?

  ‘Are you all right now?’ De Rançon’s voice made Estela jump. She’d not been aware of him riding alongside, so deft was his manoeuvring of the destrier. She wondered how much he’d heard but he gave no sign of finding her words strange so she answered on the level of the question asked.

  ‘I don’t know what came over him,’ she replied, ‘but I should have handled him better. I’m fine now, just a bit shaken.’

  ‘The smallest thing’ll spook a horse. Could’ve been a snake underfoot, wind waving a rag in a bush, who knows. If you need a break to recover, just say the word.’

  ‘No!’ Estela spoke more sharply than she’d intended. ‘I’m fine. I just want to get to Marselha and get on that ship.’ De Rançon gave a brief nod and galloped off to exchange words with his men at the front. The pace picked up again and the world was once more two hours’ riding, pause, water, two hours’ riding, pause, water, food.

  The long downhill ride into Marselha at sunset, giving a panoramic view of blue sea, olive trees and twisted pines, gave Estela time to recover her sense of adventure. Nothing could have prepared her for the crowds and bustle of the busy port. After nights camping in woods, and days on horseback, so many people walking purposefully through so many steep streets made Estela think of an anthill, strange creatures rushing on pre-ordained paths, criss-crossing without contact. If someone had blocked a street with an upturned cart, would the flow of creatures have continued unabated, creating an alternative route by sheer weight of numbers?

  Muscles hardened by days in the saddle, Estela no longer felt as if she’d survived a penance when the sun dipped for night, but she did suddenly feel unbelievably filthy. She balked at the idea of going on board ship for weeks of further makeshift toilet when all around her was evidence of civilisation.

  A quick word with de Rançon and Gilles gave her the go-ahead and within an hour of settling matters, Estela was testing the heat of her bathwater in a clean, comfortable inn, her sweat-stained riding-gown and woollen hose abandoned in a heap. Appalled at the risk to health of bathing so late in the day, a servant nevertheless scurried to fetch yet one more bucket of steaming water, to top up my lady’s bath.

  Never had Estela so much appreciated southern sophistication, the drops of rose-water and the soft olive oil soap, produced in Marselha itself, with which she scrubbed and scrubbed her skin pink. Should she die the next day, at least she would have known this bath! Towelled dry, glowing with the scented oil she’d rubbed on after the bath, she fell asleep in a bed of roses, too exhausted to worry about past or future choices.

  Waking at dawn was habitual for Estela and she was in her travelling gown and ready before Gilles knocked at her door. If she needed something suitable for a long ride again, she would buy clothes in Acre, as no form of torture could force her back into the blackened dress and hose which she’d peeled off the night before. Definitely for burning! She left them for the servants to dispose of and followed Gilles, her saddle bag over his shoulder giving him a strange double-headed silhouette as they walked down to the docks. The salt-sea-smell of fresh fish hung on the air and already the fishermen were setting out what they’d netted the previous night, for the early market. Not even in Narbonne had Estela seen such variety, and those fish already dead were still bright-eyed and silvery-scaled, glittering in the first rays of sunshine.

  The sunshine also caught the ships on the far side of the harbour, glinting on the masts, pennants and crow’s nests of the merchant roundships, which formed the majority of the large ships docked. Estela was expecting one of these to be their destination but Gilles stopped at a galley, the banks of resting oars bobbing on the tide like idling feet. They both knew that the lighter galley, the most usual warship, was more vulnerable itself to attack but faster and easier to manoeuvre, without the dependence on wind and tide that limited the roundships, those bulky floating fortresses. A galley was also far more expensive than a merchantman. The flotilla of small boats around the galley, unloading supplies, looked like courtiers buzzing round their queen.

  ‘Venetian.’ Gilles was like a small boy sailing his first wooden stick down the river, glowing with excitement. In that one word was implied ‘the king of ships cr
afted by master shipmakers’. Estela had lived in Narbonne long enough to absorb some knowledge about ships, on which all trade depended, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to suffer too much detail of undecked hulls, freeboard height or keel lengths. Gilles’ awed repetition of ‘Venetian, made in the Arsenale itself,’ suggested her hope was doomed. She stopped to take a look around the docks, a last look at her homeland before stepping onto the ship that would carry her away from everything she’d ever known.

  The harbour was so full, it was a miracle that each ship held its mooring and that each zig-zagging small boat, whether incoming fishing vessel or outgoing pilot boat, avoided capsize. The city curved around the hillside, above the rocky shore of its ancient harbour. To the east was the oldest part, the white of Roman columns standing out on the hillside, but the ancient gods had ceded to Saint Vincenç of Marselha, whose abbey seemed to have borrowed its stark lines from its classical ancestors. Further round to the west were the new merchants’ houses, a hotch-potch of structures and streets, with the largest and most fashionable highest up the hillside. Estela imagined herself living in a grand villa at the top of the hill, with a view across the bay. On a clear day she could probably see Antioch! Resolutely, she turned and stepped onto the boards, ignoring the dip and sway as she marched aboard the galley, crossing the gap at the board’s end without mishap, reassured by a judicious helping hand from de Rançon.

  As it turned out, neither Gilles nor anyone else bored Estela with facts about shipbuilding because from the moment the ship left the harbour, ‘dip and sway’ became ‘heave’. As the ship heaved, so did Estela. Allocated a cabin somewhere in the bowels of the ship, she stayed in hiding there and refused to come out. She became unpleasantly intimate with the bucket provided for her. She left her bed only to totter between bunk and bucket, pleading with the lord of the universe to end her life, now, quickly. No answer came from the wainscot round the cabin walls, nor from the crew members who rushed in and out to change buckets. The silent deckhands also left food and water, which only evoked more groans from the miserable depths of the bunk.

  Gilles ventured into Estela’s hell-hole to tell her it was just like riding a horse; once she was into the rhythm of the long ship, she’d ride with it, instead of against it, like she was doing. Groans were the only reponse. After what could have been years of this mole-like existence, a knock on Estela’s door was followed by de Rançon’s entrance.

  ‘Just want to be alone,’ Estela moaned weakly, looking at him through half-closed eyes.

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ he told her, with a marked lack of sympathy that snapped her eyes open in an angry glare. De Rançon ignored buckets and stench, showing a complete insensitivity to her condition. That in itself should have warned her. ‘It’s time to get up now, Estela.’

  ‘Noooooooo,’ she groaned, shutting her eyes again, only to find her arm gripped firmly and raised so that she had no option but to rise into sitting, then standing position. A vague instinct to reach for the knife always in her undershift barely broke through the waves of nausea from changing position. She vomited over de Rançon’s boots but he didn’t even look down, never mind release the vice-like grip.

  ‘I can’t go out like this,’ she protested, indicating her crumpled clothing.

  ‘You can.’ De Rançon pulled a light mantle from its hook and swept it round Estela’s shoulders, covering all underneath. She registered the fact that someone had ranged her belongings while she lay at death’s door, and there seemed to be new items there too. A green gown and matching ribbons drew her attention. If she survived, maybe she could try them on... The grip marched her out of the cabin door, supporting her but with no tenderness.

  She’d given up on groans and merely concentrated on getting up the wooden steps and onto the deck, where she would at least be able to vomit into the sea rather than disgrace herself again. The salt breeze smacked into her face as she surfaced from below decks, making her gasp. And then she gasped again, this time at the sight of the open sea ahead.

  This was her first sea voyage, her first sight of the wide blue ‘mar’ in so many songs. She was on her way Oltra mar on a Venetian ship. The ship’s pennant streamed in the breeze, depicting the lion of St Mark. It lifted one proud paw in gold on a red background, announcing the boat’s provenance to other seafarers. Estela could just make out the intricate carving of the prow and recalled Gilles’ excitement at being on a Venetian ship. For the first time since stepping onto the boat, a feeling other than bile rose inside her. ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘The Santo Spirito.’ De Rançon let go of her, casting her adrift. She felt the swell of the sea, was aware of the furrow breaking against the keel, as she looked always towards the horizon, the edge of the world. The wind must be with them as the broad bottom of the great triangular sail swelled and filled, adding to the rowers’ momentum.

  ‘What will happen when we reach it?’ she asked. ‘Will we fall off?’

  ‘We won’t reach it. The horizon is further away than you think and our charts show us where the land is that we need for our stops.’

  Now that Estela looked more carefully, there were blobs in the misty distance. ‘Land?’ she asked.

  De Rançon laughed. ‘I think you were too occupied to notice but we stopped at Messina to restock and now we should have enough to reach Antioch, if the weather is with us. If not, Sicily and Cyprus are options. We have a good pilot and he has good charts - the rest is down to wind and weather.’

  Estela gulped in the freshness, her face stinging pleasantly, as if gently scrubbed clean. She felt the rise and fall of the ship and realised, astonished, that Gilles was right. ‘It is like riding a horse!’

  ‘Then you’ll forgive my rude method for bringing you up here, my Lady?’

  She looked steadily into his eyes. Never would she be prepared for their strangeness, shimmering now with sea and waves, reflected clouds, an ocean demanding her attention. She could never be prepared but she could at least hide her reaction. ‘Forgiveness must be earned, Monseigneur de Rançon,’ she told him in her haughtiest tone.

  ‘Then perhaps you would join me with the Captain at table this evening and I will set to work.’

  Table. Food. Estela was suddenly ravenous, her empty stomach gurgling a protest.’ I think that will be possible,’ she said graciously. She would wear the green gown and ribbons. And she would eat a lot. And she didn’t want to die any more.

  Having found her sea-legs, Estela also found enjoyment in being the only woman aboard ship. The discipline established by De Rançon, and by the Captain, ensured that she was shown nothing but respect by the busy, silent crew, and Gilles was never far from her side. Nevertheless, she was aware of flattering glances and the quality of silence lightened where she walked. She remembered a story in which an enchanted princess left trails of rose petals in her wake wherever she walked. It felt like that, as if Estela were surrounded by invisible petals, a feminine aura that sweetened the atmosphere.

  She was well aware that her reputation would not be the more respectable for this journey but as a troubadour she cared little for conventional reputation, and as a wife she was protected from all but her husband’s disapproval. Estela’s patrons had chosen her husband carefully, and made the conditions clear. She knew that Johans de Villeneuve was content with the privileges heaped on him by his liege Ermengarda and would never seek to claim a husband’s rights or show a husband’s anger at the actions of a wife who was known only by her professional name of Estela de Matin. No, there would be no recriminations from her husband, however she behaved, so Estela’s only constraints were self-imposed, however much Gilles might offer his views.

  Dining with the Captain was a daily pleasure, offering seafaring stories with varying degrees of credibility, full of ice-rocks and metamorphosed fish-women. De Rançon contributed racy anecdotes of life Oltra mar but also showed an unexpected interest in seamanship, raising debates about the link between tides and the moon or the possibili
ty that different stars could be seen from different seas. In hesitant Latin, Estela scrambled to contribute, from what she could recall of her own classical education and her conversations with Dragonetz and al-Hisba.

  Sometimes her comments were well-received; sometimes not. She offended the Captain deeply with her casual implication that the oarsmen were slaves and criminals. On the contrary, he told her, such practice was illegal in the Serenissima and Venetian families vied to contribute rowers to man their famous ships. The fame of the ships depended not just on the building skills of the Arsenale but also on the strength of Venetian rowing, which was developed through contests in the laguna that all Venice would gather to watch. Slaves indeed!

  Estela also offended the pilot, with her eager request to look at his charts. Every male eye round the table fixed her in horror, as if she’d asked him to drop his hose, rather than let her see a map. The pilot was too overcome to speak, and it was de Rançon who explained that a pilot’s charts were his most precious and personal possession, his trade secrets. Which is why their pilot was so valued, because he knew of currents and rocks, streams and doldrums, charted only by him. Such knowledge was not to be shared with anyone but the Captain of any particular voyage, and only such knowledge as was relevant. The Captain looked uncomfortable at the idea of what he didn’t know, and Estela hid her disappointment with an attempt to regain the approval she’d lost.

  This time, she fared better, amazing not only the Venetians with her praise for their trades other than ships, their alum industry and bookbinding in particular. It soon became obvious that Estela’s technical knowledge on these subjects outstripped the men’s, although she carefully held back when she realised this and emphasised her admiration for the Serenissima. The Venetians were almost purring as she ladled on the cream and another glass or two - or three - of wine, restored good humour to the table. They’d have all known a lot more about alum and book-binding if they’d spent as much time as she had at Dragonetz’ paper mill, thought Estela. She determined to use this voyage to learn just as much about ships, charts and stars, and to turn her Latin into Italian as fluent as de Rançon’s.