Song at Dawn: 1150 in Provence (The Troubadours Quartet)

by Jean Gill

  ‘Obviously you don’t actually have anything to unpack,’ Guillelma clucked, taking her arm and guiding her through the bustle of goods marching in all directions in front of invisible bodies. ‘But I will send everything you need to your room and you must behave like a lady because that’s what the Duchesse wants.’ Estela noted that for Guillelma, Aliénor was always the Duchesse d’Aquitaine before being Queen of France. ‘If my Lady wants you to shine in front of Narbonne, then shine you will!’ Doubt entered her voice. ‘You do know how to behave like a lady?’

  ‘Yes,’ but that didn’t mean she would always do so, Estela promised herself. ‘A room to myself?’ she queried.

  ‘I know. Double-checked it myself when they told me, but it’s right. Orders from my Lady were that you be treated like you’re Dragonetz’ jongleur, because that’s what you’re going to be.’

  Estela stifled the quick resentment at this dictation of her life and reminded herself that three days earlier it would have been her dream to play the role of jongleur to one of the finest troubadours in the country. Not all song-writers could perform well and the best troubadours were often accompanied by the best singers, jongleurs who did not compose themselves but interpreted the other’s work. And here she was, being taken seriously as a singer, provided with clothes, food and lodging by a royal patron, about to work with the troubadour she had most admired long before she met him. Why then was she disappointed?

  Stone steps twisted and turned, ducked under low lintels and climbed again, until eventually they reached what Estela was told was her chamber. A good size, swept clean and strewn with - she sniffed - lavender, pennyroyal and rosemary, she guessed, good against fleas, moths and diseases. She sat on the fur bed-cover and felt the luxurious movement of feathers inside the mattress. An empty chest was open, ready for her garments, two stools stood against the wall and a window-seat offered another option.

  Estela checked out the view through the narrow window, shivering pleasantly as the breeze tickled her skin. She was above the entrance to the Palace and she could see people scurrying below like worker-ants with a haul of dropped crumbs, taking their cargo to the nest. Among them was Guillelma, who seemed to be involved in some dispute by the stores wagon, where barrels and bread rations were being taken out of the wagon by one party, then put back into it by another group. It seemed likely that it would be some time before Estela could unpack, as ordered, and she needed to relieve herself.

  There was no reason to abuse the chamber-pot under her bed and she traced her way back along the corridor to a right turn, into the garderobe situated in the thick of the wall. She made use of the hole overhanging the river, then was about to return to her room when she decided that a little exploration would be more interesting. Turning right instead of left, and keeping careful track of the turns in the narrow stone corridors, she noted the wash-basin and water on her level, and then she continued.

  Steps down to a door on her left suggested that there was a public passage there rather than a private room, so she creaked open the heavy oak door and went into the gloom of a dark, narrow passage, more like a cave than a corridor. She continued, hoping that the passage would connect to a wider way but if anything, it grew darker as it bent round away from the door. Suspecting that it would lead nowhere, she was about to turn around when she heard voices, distant, echoing voices but voices all the same, so she continued. The passage carried on and on but as long as she could hear the voices growing louder, Estela forgot about turning back. She would find a way out by the voices.

  When she could hear every word spoken by two female voices, that she had no problem identifying, she finally turned a corner, expecting to see the women in front of her. Instead, her only reward was a small prick of light through the wall on her right. She put her eye to it and realised that she had found a squint, one of the peep-holes favoured by suspicious lords.

  There had been a squint at home, hidden behind a tapestry on the wall of the upstairs chamber her father had built so he and his new wife could move out of the Great Hall. He didn’t want anything happening in the Great Hall that he didn’t know about so the squint had been part of the design. Estela’s mouth twisted at the thought of all that her father had not wanted to know about, and at the memory of being shown that other squint.

  In the chamber below her, where she glimpsed rich brocades and solid oak benches, two women were seated on stools, clearly alone together to judge by their open-ness.

  ‘Dragonetz says there was an attempt on his life, by crossbow, meant to implicate me as murderess.’ There was no mistaking Aliénor’s tones.

  Ermengarda was just as direct, wasting no words on womanish sympathy. ‘Who?’

  ‘The list is long,’ a shoulder-shrug, ‘and you know it as well as I do.’ An expressive hand waved in the air as the other tallied off the suspects. ‘Toulouse,’ she began, ‘who sits on what should be my estate, and who would sit more comfortably if the gall under his saddle were removed. ‘

  ‘And do you gall him so much? What is he like, our new Comte? I heard you called on him, on your journey.’

  ‘Fifteen.’ Aliénor dismissed the Comte de Toulouse with another airy wave. ‘His voice barely broken and compensating for that with a penchant for persecution. He has some grudge against the Cathars and is already stirring up those who prefer their religion sanctioned by Rome.’

  ‘I am not so much older,’ came the quiet reminder.

  ‘You were born to Narbonne. He just clutches like a greedy child what his father stole from my grandmother.’

  ‘And you would like it back. Which makes you a threat.’ A pause while Ermengarda thought it through and the silence told as much of the relationship between the two women as their free speech. Engrossed in her eavesdropping, a tiny scuffle behind Estela alerted her too late to avoid the strong hand clamped round her mouth and an arm imprisoned her.

  ‘Be still,’ she was told as she struggled, but she had twisted round enough to recognize Dragonetz and she calmed. Or rather she seemed to calm until she felt his right arm investigating her skirts and further. Then she took advantage of his distraction to bite into his left hand, which dropped from her mouth as she drove her elbow back as hard into his guts as she could manage, trying for a side-step to turn and follow up with a knee or foot. He was too quick for her and even with one arm, his body-check held her helpless. ‘Little bitch,’ he muttered and when she saw what was in his other hand, she realized she had mistaken his intentions.

  ‘I should kill you,’ he said, holding her own dagger close to her throat, ‘before this finds itself in my Lady’s back!’

  Being crushed against his body hampered the effect but she managed a muffled, ‘Go on then, if you’re that stupid. Don’t you think I’d have used it by now if I was going to!’

  He released her so quickly she fell back against the wall. ‘Should have killed you first time I saw you,’ he murmured, then, inexplicably, ‘too late now.’ In the dim light she saw his finger go to his lips and, over her heart thumping, she heard Aliénor. ‘And if someone knows I carry the heir to the throne? How many more does that add to the list?’

  Estela felt the hilt of her dagger pressed into her hand. ‘You’ve just been given a keener weapon,’ breathed Dragonetz. ‘Either I kill you or I trust you.’ Estela said nothing but returned her dagger to its sheath in her under-shift, all ears for the conversation below.

  The news was too important for congratulations. ‘How long to go?’ asked Ermengarda.

  ‘In October, the King can announce to his people that his duty is done.’

  ‘Is it so bad between you?’

  ‘You know that we asked our dear Pope for a divorce in the autumn?’

  ‘And instead, he calmed Louis’ fears that he had angered God by knowledge of his cousin, then Innocent blessed your marriage and blessed the bed he showed you to. Yes, word reached me.’

  ‘If only Louis did know me! Or was less a Saint and more a man! He looks at me wit
h big eyes and is afraid to touch me without permission from a bevy of Bishops. It’s like being married to a puppy! It took me months to convince him that our marriage was against God, the only way I can see to get out of it! And now the Pope himself has condemned me for a life-time!’

  ‘But this -’ Estela imagined the glance at Aliénor’s secret belly, rounding underneath her voluminous skirts, ‘- this changes everything.’

  ‘Yes, I shall be mother to the King of France! Then we shall see!’

  ‘So you think someone might know and have tried to kill Dragonetz? To get to you? There is no sense to this - why not kill you?’

  ‘And if that is to be next? Easier with Dragonetz out the way.’

  ‘What does he think?’

  ‘He thinks some plot was hatched at Douzens, involving someone in our company, but he’s not sure who’s behind it. In fact,’ she hesitated, but continued, ‘in fact, he has told me to consider that it might be your doing, as you knew all the details of the journey and Narbonne’s power over even the Templar purse-strings could squeeze tight enough to hire such a man.’

  Dragonetz snorted a laugh beside Estela, ‘By the Christ, she’s good! She’s even made me believe I suggested such an idiocy. There’s a nice wedge to drive between me and Ermengarda - and she wanted me to know it!’

  ‘I have as little reason to account for my actions as I have to wish you dead.’ Ermengarda’s tones were measured but had dropped from cool to sea-freezing. ‘I admit I feel temporarily motivated to have a cross-bow aimed at Dragonetz but no doubt the urge will pass. For curiosity’s sake, why exactly am I supposed to have engineered an assassination attempt on the chief protector of my friend and ally?’

  ‘Forget it,’ Aliénor waved the silly idea out of the room. ‘I told Dragonetz how foolish a thought it was. He thinks of nothing but trade routes and inventions these days.’

  ‘Bravo,’ admired Dragonetz, sotto voce, so close behind Estela that she could feel his breath, ‘two birds with one stone. Discredit me and remind Ermengarda that her trade routes are shaky after the Crusades.’

  ‘It is always possible that the shot was meant for Dragonetz himself, some private quarrel.’ Ermengarda steered the conversation back to safer waters.

  ‘Indeed. He is a troublesome man,’ Aliénor agreed.

  ‘No saint, and not one to wait the approval of a bevy of Bishops should he want something - or someone.’

  ‘So I have heard.’ Aliénor was unperturbed.

  ‘And speaking of Bishops, top of my list if there is an attempt against you, my dear friend, would be the clerics. The Pope might have blessed your marriage but there will be much disappointment at your happy news, well hidden of course. There’s Clairvaux, which puts all the white friars into the picture - and you stayed last night with them. And Archbishop Suger would be free to advise Louis to a more suitable queen if you were removed. As we said at the start, the list is long and I shall double the guard around you. If I receive any pertinent information, I shall let you know at once.’

  ‘If you tell Dragonetz, then you’ve told me.’

  ‘Indeed,’ was the ironic mutter beside Estela.

  Aliénor reached out to take Ermengarda’s hand. ‘Now, let us talk of trade. Did you get the goods I had shipped to you from Oltra mar?’

  ‘The sacks of sugar? Yes, and I think you’re right. It stores better than honey and is an excellent sweetener. Our merchants are already trying to organize future purchases.’

  ’I knew you’d like it! The moment I tasted it, I thought how useful it would be here and that you must have trade options on it as soon as possible. They use it all the time Oltra mar. Now tell me, what news from Tortosa?’

  ‘Trade needs trust,’ Ermengarda sighed. ‘And the world is in turmoil. Even al-Andalus is full of unrest. Before, our merchants were safe there whatever their faith. Now it is difficult for Christians and even for Jews. Rabbi Abraham ben Isaac has told me that the Jewish Quarter is overflowing with Spanish Jews, no longer left in peace by the Muslim Moors in al-Andalus and seeking a new life here. We are still counting the cost of the last Crusade.’

  ‘And shall do until we regain Edessa and all of Antioch!’

  ‘I’d be happy to regain cotton and carpets! But tell me, were you really bare-breasted and leading a horde of Amazons against the city of Edessa?’

  Aliénor’s laugh was full of mischief. ‘We didn’t even fight against Edessa.’ Her tone became bitter. 'Louis thought Damascus was more important.'

  Estela’s wrist was pulled so that she had no option but to follow Dragonetz back along the passageway, until the voices sank to an echo in the walls and then disappeared, and the two of them emerged from the doorway into the still-bright daylight of the stairwell.

  ‘You heard nothing.’ Dragonetz’ eyes burned into hers. ‘You weren’t there. We’ll start lessons tomorrow. I’ll send a man to fetch you to me. Bring your mandora.’ And then he was gone, just when Estela had thought of something to say. Was it always going to be like this?

  Lost in thought, she traced the way back to her own bedchamber, where Guillelma was waiting for her, red-faced and irritated. It would take some hours of sorting through chemises and veils, gowns and boots, and discussing the relative sparkle of citrines against topazes before Estela had smoothed the ruffled feathers.

  Chapter 5.

  Abraham ben Isaac, also known as Raavad II, a short form of his rabbinical title, was also considering the implications of recent developments. He had just closed a meeting of the nine members of the rabbinical board and he could not remember such arguments in all the time that he had lived in Narbonne. It was true that the influx of Sephardic Jews from al-Andalus had upset the balance of the community. The newcomers had different ways of worship and, more disconcerting still, their own interpretation of how to put this into daily practice.

  All those years the nine had discussed the Halakha, the Jewish way, and, with Raavad’s guidance, led the community into a way of life in which families and fortunes had flourished, and now it was back to rifts and rivalry. Worse still, tensions within the city between Christians and Jews, Christians and Muslims, even Jews and Muslims, were exploding into isolated incidents.

  Oy vey, the young! Raavad raised his arms to heaven and shared his frustration with his God; the young, Yahweh bless them all, were saying that it was unfair that the laws of Narbonne discriminated against them. No matter how often the Elders asked, ‘Do you love your family? Do you prosper? Do you walk the streets without being kicked or spat on?’ the young always wanted more. Fairness! It had been a long time since Raavad had such illusions. They had no idea how lucky they were that that they lived under Ermengarda de Narbonne and not Raymond de Toulouse, who was already making life unpleasant for the Jewish community, and there were rumours of worse to come.

  However, there were limits on how far Ermengarda would go to preserve his people and their rights within Narbonne. She had made it clear that if the current troubles continued, someone would have to pay, in bloody and public manner, and it would not be Christians dancing by the neck after some Old Testament justice. Out of respect for him personally, Ermengarda had offered him the great favour of nominating, now, the Jews who would be found guilty and made a public example should there be one more complaint of sabotage or fire-lighting. Raavad and Ermengarda had shared a smile over some of the sabotage; mice loosed in the cellar where a particularly unpleasant merchant had fruit stored; ‘accidental’ holes in barrels of wine; moths hatching and holing in carpets from which all the dried lavender had disappeared. Such incidents were soon smoothed over with compensation but the atmosphere of distrust was escalating and no trust meant no trade. Ermengarda was very clear on what ‘no trade’ would mean for Narbonne and for all its citizens and travellers, Christians, Moors and Jews alike.

  As for fire-lighting; there had been no smiles exchanged over a torch being thrown into a shop doorway. No trade would slowly throttle Narbonne over months, perhaps
years; fire would burn her alive in an hour, along with most of her citizens. ‘I do not have a hundred years to rebuild Narbonne!’ Ermengarda had told him. ‘And believe me, I do not care who lights the next torch, or what the intended victim has done, it will be shouted from the walls that the criminal is a Jew and he will pay for it! Do you understand!’ And her eyes had blazed with all the fire of the imagined roof-tops of Narbonne showering sparks and ashes on her screaming citizens.

  Should he have told her this was not fair? Should he have asked why it should be a Jew that paid? He did not need to. He understood the role of scapegoat very well. He also understood what it meant for Ermengarda to keep the balance that allowed a minority people to live in peace in Narbonne. No, in times like these, it was never the majority who paid, not if a ruler wanted peace. The only choice when it came to it was between wholesale massacre, as apparently Raymond had in mind, and public examples as proposed by Ermengarda. No, that was him being unfair. Ermengarda had actually made a third choice. She had offered them both the possibility of prevention and this is how he had presented matters to the nine, underplaying the alternative. They did not need to be told how serious it was.

  Curse the Crusade, curse the stirring up of hatred and curse these new words coming into everyday relations. Only yesterday, he had heard a new troubadour song in the streets, a rousing Crusade lyric about ‘lavage’, washing the world clean. The shock as he realized that he and his fellow Jews were among the dirt that was to be washed away in this cleansing, made him spit the foul taste out of his mouth, just to remember it. Where would it all end?

  He knew perfectly well that the taste was all the more foul because he was just like the rest of them. He would draw up the list of twenty names that Ermengarda wanted, every man on it guilty and condemned should the need arise - Ermengarda’s need. She had pre-empted his first thought by telling him that his own name would not be acceptable. Apart from the fact that he was too valuable to waste, no-one would believe that he was a criminal and she didn’t want martyrs. His second thought too, was crushed when Ermengarda told him that there would be no buying of pardons, no escape from Ad Fiurcas, where the public gibbets marked the way to the leper-house. Raavad had bowed acquiescence and it was the speed with which the names were in his head that shamed him most. Of course he must choose trouble-makers, and of course they must be recent immigrants, from among the Sephardic Jews from al-Andalus.