Plaint for Provence

by Jean Gill

  The Trotula, On the Condition of Women

  After her lover left, early in the morning as usual, Estela went back to sleep. She was so heavy-headed she barely stirred as Prima took the children and their boxes, hushed them through the door. Nici had already been secured in a stable, ready for the journey.

  Hooves thundered, pounding babies to dust, and the elfin woman laughed, tinkling, evil. Her ringed fingers glittered as she pulled on long silk scarves, floating, attached to the limbs of a shadowy hulk.

  Jerking into movement as the woman pulled her scarves, the man came after Estela. She ran and ran but he was always in front of her. She turned and he was behind her.

  She turned again, felt a touch on her neck, cold as death. She would not look… but she had to face him, had to. The touch squeezed round her neck, another scarf, blood red but she turned anyway and as her life ebbed she saw the man’s face, flames licking up blackened skin, a hole for a mouth, a hole through which his tongue forked at her.

  ‘Sister,’ he hissed. ‘Knowing you gets people killed. Whore.’

  And Estela started awake, sweating. She began to shake. Her teeth chattered and the chill spread through her bones, making her back and neck ache. She felt nauseous and her head span as she tried to self-diagnose. She couldn’t even think of the right word. ‘Balance… cold…’ she murmured, ‘but no fever.’ Surely there was a remedy among Nicholaus’ compounds but first she would have to decide what she was treating. ‘Poison?’ Waves of shivering racked her body. If poison she didn’t have to think to know who was to blame. ‘Vergichtiget,’ she suddenly remembered von Bingen’s term for someone in whom the humors had become unbalanced, someone who was falling apart mentally and physically, someone who needed help.

  Teeth chattering, she wrapped the bedcover round her and staggered to the door. She must have looked a madwoman, barefoot on the flags, peering into the darkness, but she didn’t care. She spotted a page at the end of the corridor and stuttered, ‘Boy, I need a message taken.’ Well-trained, the lad came to her and followed orders.

  Within minutes that seemed like hours, Malik was at her bedside with his precious box of herbs. He pulled her winter rabbit-skin cloak out of the trunk and added it to the coverlet, wrapping her in warmth.

  ‘Poison,’ she said, in between waves of shivering, ‘need to know what… can’t help otherwise.’

  Malik felt her forehead, looked at her eyes, asked her as one healer to another, ‘How long since your last menses?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she stammered. ‘Not so long as to think I’m with child but probably a long month.’

  He nodded. ‘Too long for the extra strain you’re under. You need to be purged. This is not physical poison but imbalance.’

  His eyes were full of pity and his physician’s voice was soothing as he told her, ‘You have used up all your heat to be strong in mind and your body cannot fuel this mental battle any longer. You need to stay in bed. You need sleep. You need to bleed the excess cold away. If your menses do not come soon, naturally, then we should draw blood.’

  ‘Nature will bleed me, I know she will. I can feel the churning inside that I always get beforehand. I’ll take a draught, sleep but please, Malik, not the poppy.’ Estela struggled to say why not but she didn’t have to. Malik had been with her when Dragonetz had been at his lowest from addiction.

  ‘Valerian,’ Malik reassured her, ‘and herbs for heat.’

  She was too cold and tired to even ask him which herbs but still she struggled against this confinement. ‘I’m not afraid of her! I’m not Roxie any more!’

  ‘You have proved that, Estela, in front of a hallfull of witnesses. You sang in front of her and she couldn’t bear your success. You don’t have to keep proving yourself. Your body says ‘enough’ and you must obey.’

  ‘She’ll think I’m afraid.’ Estela could feel the tears about to come and she knew it wasn’t about what Costansa would think. She was afraid. She had failed. She would always be little Roxie.

  ‘She will think you have an ague because that is what we will tell her.’ Estela squeezed her eyes shut but she felt the trickle running down her cheek to dampen her pillow. ‘Fear,’ said Malik softly, ‘can save a man’s life in battle. As your general in this battlefield, I order you to rest.’

  Whether it was the valerian or her own weakness, Estela gave in. The bed was downy soft; the smell of warm furs made her feel as if she was wrapped up in Nici’s protection. No need to be brave any more. Just lie here and cry when she felt like it, let her nose and eyes turn ugly red. No more pretending. The chamber echoed with the absence of baby-snuffles and dog-snores.

  ‘I will send a friend to sit with you.’

  ‘No!’ Estela struggled through the fog, trying to raise up on her arms. Nobody could see her like this. Nobody.

  ‘Sancha,’ said Malik.

  Yes, Sancha. No need to pretend with Sancha. ‘Yes,’ she murmured aloud, sinking back down onto the pillow. ‘Not Dragonetz. Tell Dragonetz… ague, too dangerous for him to be ill, Les Baux needs him, stay away till I’m better.’ Then Estela abandoned self-control completely and sank into dreamless oblivion.

  Drifting in and out of consciousness, Estela was aware of a hand smoothing her forehead, re-arranging her coverlet to keep her warm and placing water within reach. The rustle of silks and tenderness awoke old memories. ‘Mare,’ she murmured but even as she said the word she knew the scent of over-sweet violets could not be her mother.

  ‘Sancha,’ the gravelly voice replied. ‘I’m here. Ask me for anything.’ And the rustling silks arranged themselves gracefully on a stool by Estela’s bedside, a large hand extended to squeeze Estela’s briefly, then tuck it carefully under the rabbit furs.

  Large it might be but that same hand was more dextrous with crewel and wool than Estela’s would ever be. Through half-closed eyes, Estela could see the flash and dive of the needle as Sancha’s neat stitches worked a flower, a purple iris, the kind that grew wild in Provence. There was a song in that too, Estela mused, every bit as important as knights and battles; the rhythmic glint and stab, artisan beauty that calloused the hand and offered wayside flowers to the heart… lilies of the field… why did the banner of France use lilies? Not royal, lilies… and her eyes closed again.

  ‘How is she?’ whispered a much loved voice from the doorway.

  ‘She sleeps,’ Sancha whispered back.

  ‘She’s much better, thank you!’ Estela informed them. ‘But don’t come nearer! I don’t want you catching it!’

  Across the distance between bed and door, she could feel his relief. ‘Petronilla has gone. There were no problems.’

  ‘I gave her a list, herbs for her women to give, things she should do. There will be healers when she gets home.’ Estela let go of her responsibility for her patient. Others closer to her heart were more at risk.

  Astute as always, Sancha asked, ‘Do you want a private word?’ Their political disagreements hung in the air.

  ‘No,’ said Estela, and the air cleared. Three old friends, who had been through hard times together, shared some more.

  ‘He blew a bubble for me and cooed like a pigeon,’ Dragonetz informed them.

  Estela smiled weakly. ‘Yes, he would.’

  ‘Nici was in a furry sulk and Gilles had much the same expression, for the same reason. They’ll be fine.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Gilles promised he’d send word when he’s home.’

  ‘Pigeon.’ It was a statement.

  ‘Told you those birds would be worth it.’

  She didn’t have to open her eyes to see the mischief in his grin. ‘Nothing would make up for the smell of bird droppings all winter!’

  ‘Get better.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Go and do things with men and swords.’

  ‘Horses and hawks,’ he corrected.

  ‘It’s tomorrow?’

  ‘The day after. The day the hearing should have been.’

  ‘Wh
en will she be told the hearing is cancelled, that they’ve gone?’

  ‘The morning of the hunt. Give her no time to think about it or look for you. Etiennette doesn’t want that sort of trouble stirred up in her court by guests. There’s enough for her to deal with.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I brought this mess and you’re the one dealing with it. You and Etiennette. Thank you.’ Estela was too weary to say more.

  Dragonetz just shook his head, blew her a kiss, repeated, ‘Get better,’ and left them.

  The next time she awoke, Estela felt hungry and once she’d started on the goat cheese, her appetite returned. If the goat girl only knew, she could add it to the praise sung by her father in the fields. Wayside flowers, cheese and goat girls. Would they exist at all without the protection of men and swords? Avoiding that line of thought, Estela looked at the woman nursing her, tried to remember her first impressions of Sancha but they were lost beneath the inside view of friendship.

  When Estela looked at her friend, she saw a mother’s tenderness, a friend’s loyalty and a feminine sensibility that she herself lacked. How long had it been since she’d known a woman’s touch, other than that of a maid? Not since her mother died, she admitted. A decade then. She struggled to talk like women do.

  ‘You don’t mind about Gilles?’

  Sancha looked up from her embroidery, her overplucked brows already arched in permanent surprise that could not be heightened. ‘Gilles? Leaving, you mean? To protect him I suppose. Why would I mind?’

  ‘I thought, maybe, you… and he…’

  ‘I think Gilles has given his heart elsewhere.’ Sancha laughed. ‘And there is compensation in his journey, I take it.’

  ‘Everybody seems to have noticed but me,’ grumbled Estela. ‘I thought you were behaving... as if some-one were making love to you.’ Skittish, idiotically distracted, not interested any more in Dragonetz, was what she didn’t say. ‘Looks like I’m wrong again.’

  Was Sancha really blushing and hanging her head, being - there was only one word for it - sheepish? ‘You are not wrong.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Estela sat bolt upright, dropping crumbs all over the coverlet. ‘You have a lover! And you love him!’

  ‘Is that so hard to believe?’ Sancha asked, coy, frowning at her crewel work.

  Estela feared for the flower. She hesitated. ‘I know you were married. I know you are warm, and talented and so much more ladylike than I am but not - as other women - in body.’

  The rest came out in a rush. ‘I don’t know how a man would react to knowing you, fully. Whether it would be a shock.’ It was her turn to blush and Sancha’s to hesitate, while the needle regained its sureness and rhythm. Estela blamed her medication. Had she really just asked Sancha to explain the mechanics of her carnal relations?

  ‘I was born into the wrong body,’ Sancha stated simply. ‘Once I accepted that, I put it right, on the outside. Became a story that my family told, of a brother dead in the Holy Land and his sister who came back alive. If any remembered that there had never been a sister, nobody was fool enough to say so. They never knew the man I married Oltra mar.’

  ‘Dragonetz told me,’ Estela said softly. The last thing she wanted was to make her friend relive the manner of her widowhood.

  Sancha nodded. ‘He makes me feel like a girl again.’

  ‘He?’ Estela prompted gently.

  ‘Lord Vinse.’ Sancha flushed beetroot as she pronounced the name.

  Estela frowned. ‘I don’t want you to be hurt. Is he married? If he is, you shouldn’t dally with him. If he isn’t, he’ll want a good alliance - I suppose you offer that, with your lands in Provence - and he’ll want heirs. You can’t marry him without letting him know… Sancha, you just can’t! Imagine your wedding night!’

  Her friend guffawed in a most unladylike manner. ‘Now who sounds like whose mother! You sing of it all the time but it has never crossed your mind that a man and a woman might enjoy courtship and courtesy, favours and kisses, knowing that it can never be anything more?’

  Estela considered the matter briefly. ‘No,’ she decided. ‘One or the other will always want more. Usually both.’

  Sancha laughed again. ‘Then we must prove you wrong, my troubadour sans romance. I am very very happy with my knight’s attentions and if he enjoys languishing as much as he says, then we are well-matched and may last longer as a couple than many who sate their lust.’

  ‘We shall see.’ Estela could feel her mouth pursing and knew she sounded more like a granddam than a mother but she couldn’t help it. Romance indeed. There had obviously been another sleeping draught in her water because a wave of weariness took away any impulse to argue further.

  ‘Sleep,’ suggested Sancha, taking away the plate and cup, arranging the coverlets, returning to her embroidery with a little smile that owed nothing to her care for Estela.

  Black enfolded her, the next time Estela woke, and she panicked at the shadows until her eyes adjusted and the husky voice soothed her, ‘It’s all right. I’m here. I can light a candle if you wish?’

  ‘No need. It would be a waste. But you must sleep too.’ Estela felt the panic rising at the thought of Sancha leaving the room, leaving her alone with burnt men in shadows. She could not bear the thought of being left alone, nor of a servant, some stranger witnessing her weakness. Least of all did she want Dragonetz distracted by worries over her, not after all she’d said to persuade him to let her stay.

  ‘Share my bed,’ she said. ‘Stay with me and sleep. There is room for both of us.’ There was also room for love that was not romance nor desire but the simple comfort of friendship. Estela woke a few times in the night, with that same moment’s anxiety, but her friend’s breathing, regular as a needle through linen, kept the fears at bay.

  One time when she woke, she sensed Sancha was awake too. The night favoured the sharing of truths that the day preferred to stay hidden. ‘It doesn’t go away, does it,’ Estela whispered. ‘You think you’ve grown out of it, that you’ve become strong but there’s always part of you that’s a scared little girl, when you see the person who did it.’

  ‘No, it never goes away.’ The disembodied voice in the dark was heavy with its own memories. ‘Do you know how pearls are made?’

  ‘Pearls? No.’

  ‘Dirt gets into a shell and alchemy turns it to a thing of precious beauty. The dirt changes.’

  ‘Will it take long for the magic to happen?’

  ‘No, child. Anyone who sees you knows the magic has happened. You just don’t know it yet.’

  Then they slept side by side, comfortable and warm, while, alone and awake in his chamber, Dragonetz fretted over the weight and hunger of a hundred birds of prey.

  Chapter 18

  The hawk (habich)… knows other birds and understands their nature. Following what it knows about them, it traps and seizes them... The feathers of the hawk are not good for beds or cushions. If anyone were to lie on them, he would sleep deeply only with difficulty.

  Physica, Birds

  The switch from bright sunlight to dim mews was made even more disconcerting by the shuffling of a thousand feathers, the click of talons on wooden perches, the stink of carrion and of regurgitated pellets dropped on sand. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Dragonetz could see the ranks of hunting birds, organised in some combination of size and good neighbourliness that was no doubt carefully monitored by the man who came in behind him.

  A harrier was on his shoulder, presumably still in training, for his eyes were sealed. The falconer loosened the thread as he moved the hawk from his human perch to the wooden one and deftly fastened leash through the jess rings. The harrier peeked through half-closed eyes and then relaxed in near-darkness amid the shifting chirrups of familiar voices.

  ‘She’ll be a good ’un,’ was Moisset’s verdict. ‘Took her through the streets all morning and she only bated twice. Once was some fat wife with lungs like a bugle. Second time was at the church bells. She’ll be uns
titched within a week if I get another two days walking her in crowds.’

  ‘How is she on horseback? Did she bate at first?’ Dragonetz knew exactly how a man’s shoulder would ache after a bird that size panicked and tried to fly, ripping and tearing its perch-turned-prison, even with padded leather between flesh and talon. He might have been tempted by the harrier had the bird been further on in training but he already had his mind set on a different hawk.

  ‘First time, yes. First time with dogs too. Depends on her handler now. Any bird will bate at something new but if’n she’s well-trained and fed right, once that bird is tied to you, she should accept ’most anything if her perch is there and food comes after she works.’

  Fed right was the crux of the matter. Moisset had not been happy with two days’ notice of a large hunting-party, including Les Baux’s finest lords and guests. His pride at stake, he’d explained at length to Dragonetz how he couldn’t suddenly starve his birds but they’d be lost for good unless they went out hungry. Not to mention the fact that the birds were only just past the moulting season, when everyone knew it was rash to fly them.

  Knowing when a bird was in yarak, the right weight and condition to fly, was a fine judgement that came from years of experience. After enough compliments to smooth his ruffled feathers, Moisset had promised fifty birds - but which they’d be, he’d need time to judge and to discuss with the falconer. Moisset himself was an austringer, specialising in the hawks of the fist rather than the hawks of the tower.

  ‘I might put this one to the crane.’ Moisset nodded at the harrier. ‘We’ve broke the legs of one ready for training up new birds. Might be a bit soon but you can’t always get the heron or crane to practise on. And if they don’t build up confidence with one that’s weakened and bloodied with liver to stir up their spirits, they’ll never go for one in the wild.’

  ‘I’ve heard no man is your equal in the training.’

  ‘I know a trick or two. Too many austringers forget the dogs. If you don’t train hound and hawk together, work with the Master of Hounds, you’ve but half a beast. As long as they’re steady below hawks, horses are just mounts in our work, not like in hunting deer or boar.’ Moisset cricked his neck back and forth to ease his shoulder after its weight-bearing exercise. ‘Where did you hear that? About our mews being a fine example?’ he asked, preening.