by Jean Gill
Peire the Stable. Of course. She smiled graciously at him, quite the lady. ‘Well, Peire de Quadra I shall remember that name. You have done a good job and I will ask for you by name next time.’
His face lit up. ‘Thank you, my Lady.’ It was like giving a bone to Nici. She had no time to consider why this was a worrying thought as the sound of his voice told her that Dragonetz had come. Her giddy mood lifted even further. Perhaps it was only spring and the freedom of the stables that lifted her spirits so but she suspected that the disease was catching. She had never seen Dragonetz like this, boyish and wild, lit with mischief, his lop-sided grin tilting her world.
‘People will talk,’ he told her, crouching and cupping his hands.
‘People always talk,’ she replied. It felt the most natural thing in the world to mount from his hands, as if they had performed the little ritual a hundred times instead of three? Four? Only once she was on Tou’s back did she register the disappointment in Peire’s eyes. It was his job to help her mount, not for a Lord to bring himself down to the level of a working boy. Next time, she promised Peire with her eyes and a smile, next time, and his expression lifted again, smoothed by a compliment from Dragonetz who took his own mount, jumped into the saddle and called to her ‘Come on then!’ She didn’t have to be asked twice.
Chapter 7.
Estela followed Dragonetz out of the city gate but instead of crossing the river to re-trace the route by which they had entered Narbonne, Dragonetz turned right, following the course of the river along a well-used path beside the Aude and the walls. Once they reached the guards’ tower that marked the boundary of the Cité, the path widened enough to ride side by side, still heading north along the river bank. Yet another sunny, spring day made Tou almost skittish but following Dragonetz’ mare at a steady pace calmed her quickly and Estela could now let her attention wander.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘What a dangerous childhood you must have had,’ he teased. ‘Do you always follow strange men into the unknown?’
‘If I judge it to be safe,’ she replied coolly. ‘Are you reliable?’
‘As a blacksmith’s hammer, as a washerwoman’s hands, as a cooking pot...’
‘As a rabbit’s tail,’ she supplied drily. ‘And where are we going?’
‘To Matepezouls.’
‘Of course,’ she said, none the wiser. ‘Because?’
‘Because it is a beautiful day, because you need to get out, because I need to get out and because Lady Sancha’s jealousy is dangerous.’
‘But she has shown little interest in my singing and playing. And even when Bèatriz sings, Lady Sancha has no more concentration than the others. She’s good you know, Bèatriz. She would be better than I am if she had someone like you to teach her.’ She faltered.
‘Someone like me,’ he mocked. ‘Did you have someone in mind? And it isn’t your music that Sancha’s jealous of.’
‘I can look after myself. I always have.’ She was starting to get irritated at being treated like a child and it must have shown because he switched to the one, forbidden topic that would revive the feeling of parity between them.
‘Do the Ladies know of Aliénor’s pregnancy?’ No title in front of the Queen’s name, just a bald assumption that he and she could openly share their views on a topic that many would call it treason to discuss.
‘No, I don’t think so. And she hides it well, none of those little give-away gestures, you know, the way they fold their hands across their belly and smile, long before their gowns grow more voluminous.’
Dragonetz laughed easily. ‘No, I don’t know, but I bow to your obvious experience. ‘I’m hoping that you can keep an eye on things, let me know if there’s strange talk or behaviour around her.’
‘You’re thinking of the crossbow attempt? Any idea as to who was behind it?’
‘Some creature of Raymond’s is my guess. Toulouse has a long grudge against Aliénor and killing me to frighten her is the way he would think. From all I hear, he is not such a boy as Aliénor hopes him to be. But someone knew my password and used Aliénor’s seal so that means someone close to her, and sharp.’
‘She’s hardly with us so there’s not much I can do. I can’t say I blame her either!’
‘Bored, are you?’
She could hear the laughter in his voice. ‘It’s not funny. You have no idea how tedious it is!’
‘But I do. That’s why I am offering you a diversion. Welcome to my little world. This is Matepezouls.’
A bend in the river opened up a view of unexpected industry around a working watermill. As they drew nearer, Estela could make out a dozen men in a work chain unloading goods, adjusting machinery and supervising. She recognized the robes and headgear of al-Hisba, striding from one area to another, apparently giving orders. Raoulf was there too, his muscles bulging as he lowered a huge metal hammer into a big vat, which seemed to be full of white material. Helping him was Arnaut, stripped to the waist and taking the weight of the hammer as it was lowered into the vat, still attached by a leather thong to a spar. The sun gilded Arnaut’s back, bronzed and smooth, seeming slight and boyish beside his father’s massive bulk but showing no strain as he completed the movement, straightened and turned. Catching Estela’s eye, he grinned and wiped his hands on his britches, then came over to join her and Dragonetz, who were still mounted. When Arnaut offered her his arms to help her dismount, she accepted yet another spark to her spring fires and let him clasp her waist as, just for three seconds, she felt his sure hands burning through her embroidered belt and she slipped, drawing a sharp breath against his bare chest before he respectfully took a step back.
Dragonetz glanced at Estela, his mouth twisting in amusement as if her thoughts were written on her pink cheeks. First Peire, now this! Did she only have to smile and the world was full of beautiful young men? Ah, terrible fate. She smiled at Dragonetz, smiled at Arnaut, and smiled at Raoulf, who also came to join them. She smiled at al-Hisba, who was the only one not to smile back.
‘We have come to annoy you,’ Dragonetz told his men. Apparently unaware of his half-dressed state, Arnaut smiled again, with another glance at Estela, who was only too aware of this, to the very hair on his chest in a curly golden v. ‘My Lady is here to learn about the mill,’ Dragonetz continued smoothly, ‘and I want an update. Al-Hisba?’
The Moor bowed. ‘Two full loads of rags have been processed, my Lord. The rags in the vat are under the hammers and we are trying different hammers to reduce the rags more effectively to pulp and fibre.’
‘I thought you said it worked like this in al-Andalus?’ Dragonetz was sharp.
‘Even in al-Andalus these are new techniques and I think we can improve on them.’
‘Show me.’ Beside the vat, al-Hisba pointed out the way the hammers smashed into the vat as their thongs were raised and dropped. Estela traced the route of the thongs to the spar, and the spar to a turning shaft. At that point, leaf-shaped irregularities arranged in pairs round the shaft, bumped the spar and caused the hammer movement. Three pairs of bumps, three hammers, rising and falling at different intervals. Estela shut her eyes and heard the music of the vat, the creak of the turning shaft, the squish and smash of the hammers on the rags and water mix in the vat. When she opened her eyes, she caught Dragonetz looking at her intensely, as when he tried to find and correct her breathing or her fingers on the frets. She tried her magic smile to see if it was still working and earned a tilt of his mouth and a wink.
‘It sticks a bit,’ Arnaut was saying. ‘And we don’t know what to season the wood with to make it stick less.’
‘Or rub on it,’ Dragonetz suggested.
‘Goose fat,’ Estela declared and faced four stares. ‘Well, in the kitchen,’ she faltered, ‘they rub goose fat on the iron pans to season them and after that they don’t stick so I just thought,’ she petered out.
There was a silence, broken by al-Hisba. ‘It might work,’ he said. ‘And I have
n’t heard a better idea.’
‘Or metal instead of wood. What about iron?’
‘Maybe,’ al-Hisba responded cautiously to Dragonetz’ suggestion.
‘We’d need to talk to the blacksmith about which metal.’
Pretty and serviceable, Estela thought automatically, then realised that ‘pretty’ probably wasn’t important in this instance. She had the sense to keep her thoughts to herself as the talk went way beyond her capacity to follow. She continued watching the moving rags, back through hammers, bumps, shaft, along the shaft to the hub of the mill wheel, turning and churning, powered by the Aude itself, or rather a culvert of the Aude, siphoned off and rejoining the river lower down. The river itself was protected from the mill-race and the wheel was protected from variations in the river’s flow.
When there was a gap in the men’s debate, Estela ventured the question that had been on her mind from the beginning. ‘It’s not a woollen mill. What are you making here?’
The others looked at Dragonetz. ‘The future,’ he told her. ‘One day, everyone will read and everyone will write. Because of this man and his people,’ he gestured at al-Hisba, ‘because they have given us paper. We are making paper and it will get cheaper and cheaper to make it until one day even the poor will wipe their hands on it and throw it away!’
‘You’re a dreamer,’ Raoulf shook his head and even Arnaut looked sceptical while Estela, none the wiser, asked, ‘What is paper?’
‘Alchemy!’ was Dragonetz’ unhelpful response and it was al-Hisba who explained, ‘The rags get turned to pulp by the hammers, then dried and pressed very thin. The thin sheets get cut into squares and you have writing material, like parchment.’
‘But at one hundredth of the cost! And in quantity!’
Estela was shocked. ‘But if this is true -’
‘And it is,’ both al-Hisba and Dragonetz assured her, one calm and self-assured, the other barely containing his excitement.
‘ - then it should be the Church producing this... paper, shouldn’t it, so that the scribes can use it.’
‘That, my sweet Estela, is the beauty of it! I shall sell paper to the Church for enormous profit and I shall be fantastically rich! As shall my workers.’
Estela chewed the side of a finger, a bad habit she had kept from childhood. ‘The Church won’t like it,’ she stated.
‘No, they won’t.’
‘That makes a dangerous enemy.’ Estela stated the fact.
‘We’ve told him,’ Raoulf was gloomy. ‘But you can see what he’s like. The future pff!’ and he spat, coarsely. ‘The future will be my Lord’s body with a bolt through it!’
‘Ever the optimist!’ Dragonetz clapped Raoulf on the back. ‘That’s what you’re here for, you and your men, to watch my mill and watch my back. Speaking of which, this should make things even.’ With which enigmatic statement, he tore off his doublet and underthings so that he too was bare to the waist, then he grabbed Arnaut’s hand and dragged his unwilling man into a run. Shouting, ‘I said I owed him a ducking,’ Dragonetz ran the two of them straight off the edge of the bank into the river.
‘You mad whore-son,’ burst from Raoulf as he rushed after them to the bank, anxiously scanning the murky water for signs of life. Estela counted to thirty before two heads burst up above the surface, gasping, spouting and followed by thrashing arms. Arnaut twisted underwater, avoiding Dragonetz’ attempt to duck him again and came up at a safe distance, both men treading water and spluttering. ‘Come and join us, Estela,’ Dragonetz called to her.
‘Can’t swim,’ she yelled back.
‘What are you thinking of, bringing a Lady here!’ Raoulf shouted, purple with annoyance.
‘A Lady! I’d forgotten!’
‘Oh my God, no,’ groaned Raoulf.
‘Estela, my sweet, Arnaut wants to do combat and regain his pride - throw us a token.’
Without thinking, Estela pulled the bangle off her arm and threw it in a high arc to land equidistant from the two men. Neither wasted words but dived underneath, rippling the surface as they carved the water underneath. Another count, thirty, forty, Estela thought that Raoulf would explode, holding his own breath to see how long it was possible, then Arnaut broke surface, gasping, followed quickly by a triumphant Dragonetz whooping and waving the bangle in the air.
‘She’s not an ordinary Lady,’ he yelled, ‘she’s a Troubairitz! Ask her!’ And then he struck out for the bank, Arnaut following at a safe distance and after some horseplay with Dragonetz trying to prevent Arnaut getting out of the water, both men stood dripping and laughing, pushing each other. Dragonetz waved the bangle, taunting and Arnaut stood, bent double, getting the words out with difficulty. ‘You always have to win, don’t you, even when you don’t want the prize!’
Dragonetz’ eyes glittered. ‘Always, Arnaut, always,’ and then he knelt in front of Estela, offering her the bangle back. She looked down on the black curly hair, bent in mock homage, the broad wet shoulders, the long tapered fingers reaching out to her, returning her token. She felt Arnaut’s stillness, the sunshine, the moment to which this day had been leading all along. She thought of Peire, his disappointment over something so small, so easily given, so wrongly with-held. It was her moment and she could do anything she liked with it. She shut her eyes and felt for the lyric. If this were a song, how would it go? And then she knew what to do.
She laid a hand on his head, felt the hair wet and cold, saw the goose- pimples forming on his arms and she spoke for everyone to hear. ‘My Lord Dragonetz, I thank you for your skill in returning me this token. I will never forget it. You do great honour to the name of your lady, the Duchesse Aliénor. Please rise.’ She did not wait for Dragonetz to stand nor look at him before she turned to Arnaut. ‘This favour is mine to bestow where I will. If your spirit is free, would you wear this for me, in token of your loyal service, be willing to protect me should there be need, whether my name or my body, and,’ she paused and looked him straight in the eyes, ‘and expect nothing in return, nothing whatsoever.’
There was not one second’s hesitation as Arnaut sank to his knees and Estela saw the golden head where earlier had been black curls. She saw him swallow hard as he said, ‘My Lady, always.’ She put her hand on his head, a benediction this time with no regret, gave him the bangle and raised him to his feet.
‘Well, that was fun, wasn’t it.’ Dragonetz bent his head and shook the mop of wet hair. ‘Shall we shake off the wet like the dogs we are, Arnaut?’ He imitated the drying technique of a large dog.
Arnaut laughed. ‘I know why dogs don’t wear shoes,’ he admitted holding a dripping boot in the air.
‘Well either we must remove all our clothes for drying or some kind person must find us some dry ones,’ Dragonetz informed the world, starting to remove his hose and smiling at Estela.
‘Enough, you puppies!’ Raoulf growled. ‘God’s death! I’ll fetch you some clothes before you shame me any further!’
The warning shout ‘Dragonetz!’ which made him whirl round, came simultaneously with an unsheathed knife, swinging from one hand to another, mere yards from Dragonetz’ naked chest, too close to him for Raoulf or any of the other armed guards to interfere. Just behind Dragonetz, Estela and Arnaut stood, motionless. Nothing moved but the knife glinting in the sunshine, closest to Dragonetz.
‘So you’d have had me in the back,’ Dragonetz spat.
‘How doesn’t matter,’ was the response between gritted teeth and the man took a cautious pace forwards. ‘And you’re still unarmed.’ Anonymous in his working clothes, the assailant could have been any one of the men who had been unloading and carrying goods. Estela looked for something remarkable in this face, something evil in this, the man who would murder Dragonetz in cold blood. And she saw nothing, nothing at all, which chilled her more than any sign of hatred. Lack of feeling made for an effective killer. The man took another pace forward and Estela felt Arnaut stir beside her, gathering himself. Dragonetz must have felt it too,
for he grabbed Estela and pulled her in front of him, too quickly for the knife to reach him first. Estela felt Arnaut move, and stop dead at Dragonetz’ bizarre murmur of ‘Feet out of stirrups!’
The man bared his teeth in no smile, ‘You think I would hesitate to kill the woman, then you, my Lord? What a fool,’ and Estela shut her eyes, with no thought for the music of the moment, feeling rather than seeing the knife stop in one hand and arc towards her at the same time as the hand rifling her under-shift found what it sought and an elbow pushed her roughly to the ground, following through to lodge Estela’s dagger into the surprised attacker. Dragonetz disarmed him with the other hand, booted him to the ground and leaned over him, so close that only Estela and Arnaut could hear the question ‘Who paid you?’ and the answer, gasped so low Estela wondered whether she had heard right. But there was no mistaking the plea for mercy that followed, ‘Don’t kill me,’ she heard as her dagger hovered above the man’s throat.
Al-Hisba’s voice floated cooly across the scene, naming the man on the ground. ‘Isaac ha-Levi.’
Estela saw her dagger raised slightly and screamed, ‘No!’ but there was no hesitation as Dragonetz plunged the weapon into the man’s neck. Estela saw the spurt of blood and rolled on her side to vomit. Arnaut helped her get up and held her arm until she shook him off. ‘Why?’ she accused Dragonetz. ‘You didn’t have to kill him!’
‘Oh, but I did. He was Jewish,’ was the short reply. Without looking her way, Dragonetz took her dagger to where the water flowed back from the mill-race to the river and he washed it clean, then wiped it on the jerkin he had discarded on the grass before jumping in the river, a life-time ago. He gave it back to her, set-faced. ‘This is becoming a habit,’ he tried but she took the dagger in silence, a man’s needless death between them. Although that’s what she carried a dagger for, wasn’t it? She sheathed it back in its hiding-place. ‘Arnaut,’ he ordered, ‘Accompany Lady Estela back to Narbonne and see her safely to her chamber, preferably with a woman to tend to her while she recovers. Al-Hisba, I want you to take a message to Abraham ben Isaac. Raoulf, move this body to the wagon shed. It can stay there till his people come for him.’ He surveyed the gathering. ‘There will be no talk of this incident. There was no attempt on my life. A man was attacked by thieves on his way to his work here, we found the body and brought it here, in common humanity. Is that clear? Al-Hisba?’ He took the Moor to one side and gave him further instructions then al-Hisba mounted and rode off towards Narbonne, vanishing quickly out of sight in front of the slower pace of Estela and Arnaut.