by Jean Gill
‘Because I demand it as your liege.’
‘He demands, does he? Nobody told him that truth must be paid for in good coin or what he gets will be fair payment, base for base. But he knows now, doesn’t he… so what will you pay for my story, Lord Hugues?’
‘Barcelone gold morabitani,’ whispered Hugues, ‘and the story be true and good.’ He opened his purse and put a golden coin in the clawed hand. The dame put it to her mouth, bit it and said, ‘True coin but not enough for what I can give you, my Lord.’
His hand hovered, tempted, by his sword hilt but, instead, ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘A promise,’ she said opening her eyes, fixing him in her stare, unblinking. ‘My people are waiting on your lands that fight the sea, where the dunes meet the saltwater pools, where the Maries and black Sarah will make their sacred landing. This will be a meeting-place for my people, wherever they should roam in this world of Goys and I want safe passage from Les Baux from this day forth, through all time, or may your house die barren and forgotten!’
Still whispering, Hugues said, ‘Along the salt-marshes by the coast? Permission to camp and safe passage through our lands? Nobody shall have the right to turn them away?’
‘For this shall be their rightful meeting-place each year, forever. Swear it!’ The clawed hands gripped Hugues’, squeezing the coin against them.
‘I swear.’ Hugues spoke the oath as one brought up by Etiennette. ‘I swear that safe passage shall be given to the Gyptian peoples and the right to meet by the salt-marshes from this day on, by Les Baux now, and of every generation, or may our house fail. May God be my witness!’
Dame Fairnette relaxed her grip and hid the coin in a fold of her multi-coloured layers while Hugues rubbed his right hand. The imprint from the coin of what could only be Barcelone’s image showed red on the back of his hand, so tightly had the dame ground it into Hugues’ flesh. A strange bargain. Estela prayed no harm would come of it.
The fortune-teller shut her eyes again and hummed, then started her story. ‘I will tell this only once so listen well or lose your way.’ Hugues no longer fidgeted and Estela was a pillar of stone, not wanting any noise or movement to interrupt the strange sing-song recital.
‘All men know of the three magi who brought gifts to the Christ-child but my people lived in their countries, can tell of their sons and their sons’ sons who were blessed for all generations. It came to pass in the time of the Roman Emperor Theodosius that the ruling Bautasar left his land of Ethiop.
He took his wife, his children and his treasure in the service of Theodosius, and travelled over land and sea until he reached the city of Lion. Yearning for a place to call his own, Bautasar heard tell that in all the Province there was nowhere fairer than an eagle’s perch among the white rocks, a day’s ride north of Marselha.
He came to the rocky heights and had a vision of a citadel there, raised to the glory of God. And so it came to pass that Bautasar of blessed line gave his name to the citadel he had built…’
‘Les Baux!’ breathed Hugues.
‘Les Baux,’ confirmed Dame Fairnette, ‘where the rocks stood guard against all the evil without and where the sons and grandsons of Bautasar continued to receive God’s blessing, from one generation to the next.’
In the awed silence that followed, Estela thought of Etiennette’s father being murdered, of young Barcelone’s bloodright and wondered what the definition of ‘blessed’ might be. There was no doubt, however, that Hugues was caught up in the story, his story, with a saint for an ancestor. Another scientific observation struck Estela: belief comes readily when we are told what we want to hear. Medical study was indeed a way of thinking, not just of healing, and part of her remained detached, watching, analysing, no longer scared.
‘Chance,’ murmured Hugues, ‘by hazard, the divine Bautasar founded my line and my citadel… By hazard his ancestor, my ancestor saw the star that led him to his destiny, to sanctity…’
‘What a man calls hazard, God calls His plan,’ prompted Dame Fairnette.
‘Au hasard, Bautasar!’ Hugues cried out. Then again, quietly, liking the sound of it. ‘Au hasard, Bautasar.’ Into hazard, Bautasar! As if thinking aloud, he continued, ‘For a blazon, what should I have to honour Bautasar. Gifts. He brought a gift for the Christ-child? Myrrh, that was it.’
Myrrh, thought Estela. Precious ointment, treatment with aloes against worms, or for a cold stomach if mixed with olive bark and pine resin. A good blazon for a healer. But Les Baux were not healers and Hugues asked Dame Fairnette, ‘Show me! You know what must be!’
Her answer was to reach for his hand once more. She shut her eyes and on the back she traced the four compass points in a cross. Then Estela found it hard to follow the pattern but it made her think of more compass points, as she’d seen in the navigation of ships. Then Dame Fairenette paused, as if the final pattern was clear in her mind and in fluid movements she traced lines and points, to end where she’d begun.
‘The star! It will be like the sun with sixteen points, like the compass of our house, showing us the way forward. White light, blinding, on a blood red field.’ He clasped her hand tightly, rough in his exhileration. When he let go, her hand dropped like a dead chicken, its neck wrung, and the fortune-teller seemed to shrink. Another coughing fit started.
Hugues didn’t notice but stood up, eager to leave, talking half to Estela and half to himself. ‘We must to the armourer straight, to order shield and the tailor for a standard. I want them before the tourney.’
Hoarse but insistent, Dame Fairnette said, ‘Go and wait at the entrance. The girl must do the thing that she came for.’
Gathering his manners, Hugues looked to Estela, awaiting her decision. She nodded and he left, barely containing his impatience to let the world - and particularly the Porcelets - know of his glorious heritage. Alone with Dame Fairnette in the flickering candle-light, Estela suddenly felt the dampness chill her bones. Medicine and music escaped her as she remembered the words that haunted her in the middle of the night, when she couldn’t sleep. Oath-breaker, unfaithful…
She prepared to hear those words again but instead was told, ‘Not much time… go down the tunnel and take what is yours, but only what is yours. Payment is always taken…’
‘I don’t understand,’ Estela stammered.
Dame Fairnette cackled, coughed again and spat on the earthen floor. Estela could see the dark stain that confirmed her previous suspicions: blood.
‘I can get you a potion,’ she offered.
‘Too late for potions.’ More coughing and cackling. ‘As if the girl could give me anything better than I can prepare myself. No, no, no the girl can’t do what’s needed for me but I know those who can.’ More incoherent chuckling. ‘The tunnel. The girl should know what she came for. Even though she doesn’t know yet what she came for. Family.’ The cloudy eyes, pupils large, fixed Estela. The Gyptian was indeed taking potions already. ‘You should know where you’re from.’
Was there never armour strong enough to keep words out? Just when she’d accepted her disinheritance, she was being taunted with it. Estela gritted her teeth, picked up a candle in its holder and said coldly, ‘Very well. One more game and it’s over. I shan’t pay you as this is not of my choosing. This tunnel?’
‘Nevertheless, payment is always taken…’ repeated the Dame, nodding towards the black mouth at the back of her cave-dwelling.
Estela held out the candle in front of her and entered the darkness. She had to stoop to avoid hitting her head and, even so, she felt the sticky brush of insect threads, something crawling on her head. She shuddered, her skin crawling even where nothing touched it.
Silly goose, she told herself. This was just like the passages in Montbrun after her mother died, when the servants did as they pleased, which amounted to very little. At least her stepmother had ensured the castle was cleaned. Estela’s nerves steadied as she imagined the orders Costansa would give regarding the tunnel - brus
hing, strewing with herbs and a sconce midway with a pitch torch would arrange matters nicely. Having conducted a full tunnel-improvement plan, Estela felt a change in the air before she saw the cavern opening up ahead.
Only when she let it go, did she realise she’d been holding her breath. She took a few seconds to enjoy the extra space then she held the candle up to explore, section by section, clockwise. She hugged the wall to get her bearings as she couldn’t see the far walls of the cavern and was afraid she’d lose her way if there were further tunnels.
Rock wall met her hand and eye, yellowish-white in the candle-light, as she counted her paces in case she should need to retrace her steps. She thought she was probably walking round in a circle but she couldn’t be sure.
After fifty-eight paces, the shadows in the distance showed some kind of heap covering the dusty earth and a black tunnel-mouth interrupting Estela’s route along the cavern wall. Estela’s imagination sparkled with all the local legends about Moorish treasure and she quashed every possibility that, if the treasure was real, so was its guardian, the Devil Goat. ‘Touch only what is yours,’ the Gyptian had warned her.
‘Nothing here is mine!’ Saying the words aloud was supposed to make her feel bolder but, instead, the echoes of ‘mine, mine, mine!’ eroded her confidence with the deep voice of dark places. Why place such a hoard to block a tunnel? Unless something was in the tunnel…
The candle shook and wavered in the dank current of air from the tunnel. That would be just perfect, if the candle went out! Estela put it down, to one side, safe from the breeze but further than she’d have liked for visibility. She bent down over the heap of objects, confirming her first impression.
Metal, shiny cups, a buckle. She moved the topmost goods to look deeper in the pile. Pottery: plates and pitchers. A flute. She lingered over this. Was the instrument meant for her? She moved the cloth that was covering half of the flute and saw the cracked mouthpiece. As she looked more closely at the other objects, she realised that they too were broken and worthless. Someone’s inheritance, battered by time to a heap of rubbish. She laughed softly, trailing the fabric through her fingers, feeling its embroidered surface, expecting moth-holes and finding none. Perhaps she could use it for rags if it was good cloth. She gave it a strong tug and it didn’t come apart, so she tied it round her neck.
She shrugged. There was nothing here for her. She bent down to pick up the candle and her makeshift scarf dangled into the light, revealing a pattern that she knew by heart. Arabesques and interlaced points embroidered on silk brocade. Surely this was merely a similar design to that on her oud, similar to so many to be found Oltra mar. But no, this was the exact same design; three circles, each with its symmetrical patterns and in one corner an embroidered signature in Arabic.
A noise from the tunnel behind the heap startled her and when she looked into the black depths, she saw yellow eyes with square pupils, fixed on her from behind the heap of objects, getting closer. A stone slipped, shifting the pile in a clank of metal and the noise disturbed the black ceiling of the cavern into a flurry of mouse-faces and tiny wing-beats.
Bats! The rousing above her freed Estela’s feet and she didn’t count her steps as she ran back the way she’d come, protecting the guttering candle as best she could. Once in the low tunnel, she was forced to slow or fall, and as she sensed the return to roost of the bats behind her, Estela’s heartbeat settled to merely frantic.
The torchlight grew larger as she approached Dame Fairnette’s niche and Estela was relieved to find it empty. The Dame had no doubt gone to tend her bees. Yet another cryptic conversation was not what Estela most wanted and she would be very happy to get out of these caves, find Hugues and return to Les Baux. She was eager to compare the design on her oud with the fabric and consider in private what this might mean.
Gripping her skirt tightly, Estela blinked in the daylight outside the cave, blinded. The first thing she saw was that the horses were still tethered. Then she realised that Hugues was staring at her. She probably looked a fright after scrambling around the tunnels. She smoothed her hairnet to brush off any cobwebs.
At the same moment she realised what such a look from a man might mean, Hugues grabbed her wrist and pulled her after him off the path, between rocks and into some bushes. Not a day for chivalry then. If she screamed, her own reputation would be called into question. With her free hand - the right, Hazard be praised! - Estela found the slit in her riding-skirt and grasped what lay beneath it.
Heart pounding, her instincts screaming for blood, she tried to think of actions and consequences. After all, this was the Lord of Les Baux dragging her into the undergrowth. She would try talking first but then… and she didn’t dare leave it too late or she might not get a second chance.
Presumably satisfied that they were out of sight and earshot, Hugues stopped and pulled her to him, forcing wet lips on hers. She fought the urge to wipe her mouth and spit, struggled free enough to say, ‘My Lord! Stop! You are confused!’
His hand spanned her neck. A hunter’s hand, big enough to break a neck or strangle a silly goose. ‘Little tease. You knew what you wanted when you came out alone with me. The seed of Bautasar.’ His voice was thick, beyond reason, hands exploring everywhere but where the danger was.
She made one last attempt, using the one word that might bring him to his senses. ‘Your mother…’ she began but he cut her off, maddened further.
He held her face as in a vice, too close. Was this the look in a man’s eyes after battle? Hate and lust, a hardness that raped and killed? ‘My mother.’ Such bitterness. ‘We owe them this, your Lord Dragonetz and my mother. They can marry and swive but we will do this first and spite them both!’
Numb, with no time to think, Estela let his words pass into a pocket of her mind, closed it, left it for later. She felt the surge and heat of his body, recalled her anatomy books and considered what would hurt enough without maiming forever. He was the Lord of Les Baux after all.
As he reached to untie and drop his leggings, she pulled close to him as if amorous, close enough to feel his leap of response. She put one arm round behind him and stabbed him hard in his right buttock. The worst pain was always as the weapon was pulled out and she was quick. Gilles had taught her well. While Hugues yelped and lost concentration, she fled.
Stumbling back through the undergrowth, hoping the bloodletting would bring Hugues back to reason but not risking the consequences if it didn’t, she untied his mare, the faster of the two. Hands trembling, she mounted and kicked the horse to a pace that was dangerous on the stony path - but not as dangerous as being caught. All the way she imagined hooves behind her but she rode into the citadel alone.
At the stables, she made up some story of a girlish bet and Hugues’ indulgence, told them their Lord would soon arrive on her palfrey and they were to tell him she was tired after winning and thanked him for the outing. Not until she collapsed on her own bed, did she feel safe. As her breathing returned to normal, the sealed pocket in her mind spilled out all the day’s events and they rushed around her head like bees in smoke. Patterns; ancestors; Dragonetz marrying Etiennette; brocade; her mother; Hugues’ assault; her foolishness in going unaccompanied.
As she tried to order her thoughts, two things became clear to her. She could not tell Dragonetz about anything other than the legendary ancestor of Les Baux, or the balance of Provence would be threatened by her own stupidity. If he didn’t mention the marriage with Etiennette, then neither could she. ‘Au hasard, Bautasar!’ And if Estela were to have her own blazon, it would be a brown scorpion, for she seemed to be forever drawing poison.
Later, but not enough later for Estela’s taste, she was surprised by a messenger knocking at her door, the same boy who had not yet learned to breathe and recall a message. ‘The Lady Etiennette says will it please you to use your medical skills with her son who has taken a cut in training and might need some balm she would like your opinion of his wound and thanks you I will take y
ou to him now.’
One huge gulp of air followed, just the time for Estela to decide that she could not ignore the summons and must accept this fabrication. She collected her box of medicines, vowing that she would not be gentle if she was forced to place hands on Hugues. She had faced everything else that the last few weeks had thrown at her and she was not hiding from a man with a sore arse.
Chin up, Estela followed the page to the chamber in which lord Hugues was lying on one side, in his cot, ashen-faced. He did not meet her eyes but mumbled, ‘You may go,’ to the page.
‘I’d rather he stayed,’ Estela told him clearly. ‘It is more seemly that we have an observer. And I’m sure there will be nothing unsuitable for a boy to see.’
Hugues reddened but nodded.
‘Your Lady Mother told me you had received a wound in training. Where does it hurt?’ asked Estela, barely disguising her glee. Let people make what they would of a ‘training wound’ in such a place.
Hugues rolled onto his stomach, bared his behind as requested and Estela looked objectively at her handiwork. A neat thrust and withdrawal - not quite the one Hugues had hoped for. The blade had been sharp and clean, and the blood was already coagulating. ‘Perfect,’ she said aloud. Nobody asked her what she meant.
‘It will heal well,’ she pronounced, ‘but we don’t want it closing too quickly.’ Von Bingen warned against wormwood as too speedy in healing the exterior, leaving the interior to putrify. Estela reflected for a moment, then gave the prescription. ‘A potion of sanicle each day to heal inside and a soothing poultice twice daily. There is no need for me or another doctor. One of your attendants can prepare the drink and apply the salve.’
Hugues said nothing, which was probably safest.
‘Meanwhile, avoid putting pressure on the sore part. No riding and if you must sit, try placing a cushion underneath.’ Her healing habits got the better of her urge to make him suffer. ‘If you have a hole cut in a cushion to make a ring, you will find that more comfortable.’