by Jean Gill
‘Pax in nomine Domini.
Fes Marcabrús los mos e'l so;
Auiatz que di:
Cum nos a fait per sa dousor
Lo Seignorius celestiaus
Probet de nos un LAVADOR,
C' anc for outramar non fon taus,
Endelai envés Josaphat,
E d'aquest de sal nos conort.
Lavar de ser e de maití
Nos deuríam segon razó’
‘Peace in the Name of the Lord
to the tune called by Marcabru
In shock and in awe
Hear of his mercy too
Who gives us the Way to Cleanse
A Way first found Oltra mar
From the Valley of Josaphat
A Way to Cleanse here
As we should, to be good
Morning and evening
I tell you this clear
When he rises, each hale man
Should go to the Lustrum
Elixir of Life
Preventer of Death.’
In complex, clever rhymes and soul-wrenching drops in his melodies, Marcabru reminded everyone in the audience of his Christian duty, moving easily from what they should do to what ‘others’ did, in vicious accusation. More than one shifted guiltily as Marcabru sang of
‘The lecherous wine-slurpers
Dinner-gobblers, fire-stokers, hearth-hoggers
Who stay behind and shame us’
‘E ill luxoriús corna-vi
Coita-diznar, buffa-tizó
Crup en cami’
Remanran e feran pudor
Qu'en sai cum es
Antiocha pres e valor
Sai plora Guian’ e Peytaus
Diau Séigner, al tieu LAVADOR.
L' arma del comte met' en paus
E sal gart Peitieus e Niort
Lo Séigner qui resors del vas.’
‘For I know well the score
Of one's valour In Antioch,
His soul now far from men
Mourned by Poitou and Guyenne
In your heavenly Lustrum. Then
I pray, my sweet risen Lord
Guard always Poitou and Niord.’
Estela felt the swell of the music and the rising baritone calling her to arms, firing her with the desire to do God’s work and reclaim the Holy Land, kill the enemy, cleanse herself of impure thoughts and cleanse God’s own country of the Infidel Moor. She would not be one of those lashed by Marcabru for being too cowardly - she would go to war against these foreign dogs! And the climax in praise of Raymond of Antioch’s brother in arms, Baldwin, was a deft touch, uniting the themes of purification with the Crusade and of course pleasing Aliénor without touching too closely on her beloved uncle.
‘He’s good, isn’t he,’ a voice whispered beside her and she flushed as red as if, once more, al-Hisba had read her thoughts.
‘In his way,’ she responded cautiously, too conscious of the lyrics. ‘He asks a lot of his audience, and it’s all very clever. The rhymes are perhaps too clever for taking it in at one hearing. Of course it is a couple of years old so some will have heard it before. But the Master’s performance...‘ She shook her head, having no words for the level of artistry she had witnessed. ‘Are you going to sing?’ she asked him.
‘I think I will keep my Oltra mar face in the shadows. I think the welcome here is only for red-headed Vikings.’
She could think of nothing to reply that wouldn’t make things worse. At that moment Arnaut joined them. ‘He’s good isn’t he.’ Estela and al-Hisba exchanged glances and Arnaut continued blithely, ‘and Aliénor will enjoy all the Crusading vigour but I can tell you now that Dragonetz hates it. Not that he’s adjudicating so I don’t suppose it matters what he thinks.’’
‘Why?’ demanded Estela. ‘I thought he gained his title ‘los Pros’ in the Crusades.
‘Hush,’ rebuked their neighbours, as Marcabru once more strummed an opening note.
‘Cowards’ as a term of abuse faded to a pleasantry against the insults to which Marcabru treated his audience in his next song. This time he launched into a blistering satire against idiot lovers who put sensual pleasures above the love of God, all delivered in that deep voice of his, which made you believe in retribution and hell-fire.
Estela shivered as the final notes tolled but part of her still analysed how the feeling was created. ‘A servantes,’ she commented to al-Hisba, ‘even though he calls it a vers, he’s using all the tricks of the trade. My, but he’s vicious. And they love it.’ She looked around at the faces shining with fan-worship. ‘The nastier he is, the more they like it. He’s sure to win.’ She had a sudden desire to swim upstream. ‘Al-Hisba, will you play tambour for me when I sing?’ She imagined the Moor taking the floor at her side, the reaction of the audience.
‘No,’ he stated baldly and he looked at her as if she were in their music lesson again and he were testing her, to see if she understood, to find out what she had learned and how far she had yet to go. She was disappointed at not being able to make her public gesture of friendship for the Moor but there was no time for debate.
‘I will,’ jumped in Arnaut enthusiastically and she smiled at him. Of course he would.
Then the maestro started his final song, a personal embroidery on the themes of his second.
Marcabru fills Na Bruna
fo engenratz en tal luna
qu’el sap d’Amor cum degruna
escutatz
quez anc non amet neguna
ni d’autra non fo amatz
Marcabru, son of Marcabruna
Was born under such a moon ‘a
Knows
of love its rotten heart
So never will become a part
Of being loved nor loving show.
‘Well, you can’t say he doesn’t know his own talent!’ Estela muttered to her companions as the applause echoes round the Hall. ‘But there’s no doubt about the talent.’
‘Cheerful soul,’ was Arnaut’s verdict. ‘Bet he’s fun in the bedchamber.’
Estela laughed, which was exactly what she needed to calm her nerves as Dragonetz and Aliénor stood and looked in her direction. A page walked in front of the High Table and announced, ‘Aliénor, Duchesse d’Aquitaine and Toulouse,’ Never miss an opportunity, thought Estela, ‘and the Queen of France, presents Estela de Matin.’
Another tummy flip but Estela picked up her mandora and stood. She had forgotten about her feet and had to force herself to walk to the stool where Marcabru had been sitting. Arnaut followed just behind her, stopped and collected a tambour from the group of Palace musicians who were ready to accompany a troubadour on request. Estela sank gratefully onto the stool, told Arnaut her programme and tuned her mandora, controlling her nerves.
She shut her eyes, shut out the Great Hall, the lords and Ladies, became the little girl who had sung for her parents and then for their assemblies, seen the pride in her mother’s eyes, tuned in to the mood of the audience. She could do this.
Eyes wide open, she started the love songs she had chosen, now an ironic counterpoint to Marcabru’s vitriol. She couldn’t compete with him, nor was she trying to, but she knew that she could use the contrast to advantage. She must be sweeter than honey, a nightingale after a bear, her black hair silk rippling over her shoulder as she strummed the chords and plucked a plaintive melody. With Arnaut at her side, his perfect profile, his blonde hair, his lithe rhythm as he held high the tambour and beat the stresses for her, she knew they looked to be all that she sung of, all that Marcabru had mocked, a young couple passionately in love. She played to that too, exchanging long looks with Arnaut, who warmed quickly to the game and dropped to his knees to rattle his tambour wistfully at her feet.
She strummed one last sad chord and ended, drooping with suitable melancholy as the song finished. She had sensed the mood of the audience changing as she sang, from the belligerence aroused by Marcabru to gentler emotions. More than one couple were exchanging glan
ces full of promise. If life was short then there was one sure way of making it enjoyable. Estela noted one lady wiping her eyes.
‘Wonderful.’ Arnaut bowed to the audience and gestured to her as she curtsied and took the applause. ‘You were wonderful.’ As he bowed, she glimpsed her token dangling on a chain beneath his tunic.
‘It was an acceptable first performance,’ she judged, trying not to be smug. She would have liked a more impartial verdict but she had not dared look at Dragonetz during her performance and she felt too vulnerable for criticism, however constructive, Now was not the time to seek him out, even with her eyes, for she would know his thoughts straight away from his expression. He would be preparing mentally for his own songs. How was he going to compete with the virtuoso performance by Marcabru, master of lyrics, musical composition and a voice to chill a graveyard, deep and true and haunting? Good as Dragonetz was, how could he make a bigger impact? Surely he would be on next? The butterflies had flown her stomach as magically as they arrived there and instead a flutter of compliments alighted as she made her way back to her seat, bringing a flush to her cheeks.
‘Mmm,’ said al-Hisba, with a nod that she took to be approval. ‘Not bad but still a bit thin.’ She remembered Dragonetz’ comment when he first
heard her sing. ‘Lacks experience,’ and the criticism stung. Still a girl.
Once more there was a fanfare and a page announced, ‘Jarl Rognvandr Koli Kolsson, Prince of Orkney.’ General amazement quickly hushed to anticipation as the Jarl lumbered to his place, throwing the stool out of his way, one of his men behind him, one to the side.
The latter addressed the Hall. ‘Jarl Rognanvandr wishes to honour Lady Ermengarda with a skald, a poem in the style of my people, Our Prince is renowned for his verse and tonight he draws inspiration from my Lady, his host and from the songs of love that he has heard so sweetly sung.’ The Norseman had bowed towards Ermengarda and towards Estela, who rose to accept the compliment, curtseying. So not everyone had been over-awed by Marcabru.
And then the Prince of Orkney claimed all eyes. He recited on his feet, letting the music of his language roll slowly over his audience, not caring that they didn’t understand a word. Instead he paced back and forth, used his hands and his voice to throw emotions to the gods and catch them again. Estela could feel the alliteration and the rhyming, could sense a technical cleverness to match Marcabru and his presence was like a stormcloud, threatening and blasting them with words. A strange sort of love poem. And strange to have only the music of the words. Although the other Vikings were holding strange instruments, they moved not a muscle while their Lord declaimed.
When the poem ended, the Viking who had introduced his lord returned to the front. ‘My prince has asked me to explain some of his skald in your language. It is our way to make pictures with kennings so that ‘skorò haukvallar’, the pillar of the hawk-plain, means ‘sleeve’. We paint pictures and make names with sounds so that listening to our poetry is part of making the meaning. My Prince would like you to know that the ‘Ern’ in the poem is an eagle and ‘ogeroa’ means ‘lets down her hair’ so you should hear these two words together as we would do.’ He bowed towards ‘ERMenGARda’ and made his meaning clear. ‘And when my Prince uses the word ‘ogeroa’ we hear also geroa and geroi, the last meaning the ships propped up round the shore, perhaps propped up by this same name we hear in the music of the line.’ This time it was the Prince himself who bowed to Ermengarda and she acknowledged his poetic tribute and practical hope with a serene smile and nod.
It was not clear whether the Norseman intended to continue educating the Narbonnais or not because at this point, Arnaut started clapping with mad enthusiasm, joined quickly by someone at the High table - Dragonetz, of course, Estela noted - and then, as is the way, the whole audience had joined in, spurred on to more clapping by Arnaut and Dragonetz every time there looked to be a lull. Only when the two Norsemen bowed their thanks did Arnaut mutter, ‘Thank God for that,’ and let his hands drop.
‘A man can die of boredom,’ Arnaut explained to Estela, and he waved cheerful thanks to Dragonetz, who bowed, the movement imperceptible to anyone not watching closely. ‘Sometimes you clap because they have finished, thank God, and sometimes, you clap to make them.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Estela said ironically.
‘You were different, everyone clapped you because they loved you.’ Arnaut’s lack of guile was impossible to resent. He made Estela smile and it was her turn to feel like an old cynic.
Luckily for Arnaut’s health, the Vikings had finished their declamation and the Norseman who had been in the background gave a rousing tune on a sort of guimbarde, although Estela had never before seen one with a bamboo frame, nor heard a man get the sound of a horse’s hooves from twanging the metal tongue, clacking with his teeth. This time Arnaut’s applause was genuine and the Vikings left the floor to the stamping, banging and shouting of their fellows left at table.
‘Dragonetz los Pros’ announced the page and Estela’s stomach dipped stupidly. She watched Dragonetz say something in Ermengarda’s ear and then he was walking round the table, not to the place where the stool was once more waiting a troubadour, but over towards her. At the same time, Ermengarda rose and spoke. ‘My Lord Dragonetz apologises but, owing to a minor injury to his hand, he cannot play for you tonight, so will instead sing with the accompaniment of his student.’
‘My Lady Estela?’ Dragonetz held out his hand and she once again picked up her mandora and allowed herself to be led, slowly, with all eyes following them, back to the floor. Her sore feet reminded her exactly how Dragonetz had hurt his hand and she flushed, switching her thoughts to the question of what on earth he was going to sing. She reviewed all his songs in her mind, confident that she knew them all but when she sat on the second stool that had quickly been drawn up, and he whispered his choice to her, she looked at him wide-eyed and said, ‘You can’t!’
‘Watch me,’ he grinned and so she tuned up, and in front of Marcabru, three rulers and a Hallful of the Great and - God forgive her - the Good - she accompanied Dragonetz in three of the crudest, most lascivious songs ever composed. She had known that the key to winning would be contrast, she told herself as his beautiful rich voice - another baritone, incapable of Marcabru’s thunder but with a range of feeling that Marcabru would not have wanted to convey, given the likely cost to his immortal soul. Dragonetz took his audience under the bushes looking for the prettiest ‘hares’ a girl might show and when he sang of ‘country matters’ no-one doubted the pleasures on offer.
Then his lusty male voice reprimanded a friend for being unwilling to satisfy a Lady in the manner she liked best, all described in physical detail as he declared himself more than willing to do what his friend would not. Estela glanced around the Hall, measuring the levels of sophistication, the evident enjoyment at the High Table - apart from a scowling Marcabru of course - the downcast eyes of some of the Ladies, feigning pudeur, the smiles and laughter that lit up faces red in the torch-light.
Estela could sense the rush of energy in Dragonetz, a different kind of virtuoso performance to Marcabru’s certainly! But inimitable and at the top of his form. Her fingers played to his jokes, pointed out the puns, danced with and around his voice.
After two such songs, surely he would switch genre? The audience shuffled in anticipation and Estela smiled to herself, knowing what was coming, hoping he could carry it off. There was a little breath of disappointment as he started a third song, unknown to most in the Hall, but clearly in the same vein, where he declared himself ready for fun, with ‘ab mazer viet de nuill aize en despan’, his donkey-size dick, but then, just as the audience felt out of laughter, Dragonetz switched into a perfect falsetto and gave the woman’s reply. Estela had to fight to control her own giggles and she could see tears streaming down people’s faces as Dragonetz acted the woman. When he threatened the crude lover with a good kick up the backside, his voice trilled with feminine rage.
‘Q’eu vos farai lanzar par le culada
Tals peitz que son de corn vos semblaran
Et ab tal son fairetz aital balada !’
‘So then you will blow your own trumpet yet more,
Take a trip on your hot air to render it pure!’
He ended triumphantly, shaking his fist towards the imagined villain, who happened to be in exactly the same direction as Marcabru. Everyone was standing, holding hands high, clapping, shouting, the Vikings louder than ever and it was beginning to turn into a potential threat to Arnaut’s health when Dragonetz himself bowed yet again and called for quiet.
‘I’ve asked Lady Estela de Matin to close our entertainment,’ he told the assembly.
Estela had been warned of this when Dragonetz told her his programme and she had racked her brains for a way to avoid following his performance. She stood up and projected her voice, as she had been trained.
‘My Lord is kind to his student and I would like to take the chance to introduce mine.’
‘You continue to surprise me,’ Dragonetz murmured, as Estela invited Bèatriz to the floor, where Dragonetz ceded his place and the girl sang a simple, well-known melody to Estela’ s accompaniment.
‘I will never forget your kindness,’ the young heiress of Dia told Estela, eyes shining as she accepted her own share of appreciation.
No-one objected to Dragonetz being declared the winner and accepting two prizes from Ermengarda and compliments from Aliénor, who oozed smug satisfaction, but the evening still held one surprise. Ermengarda turned to the Prince of Orkney, who held up the prize he had offered at the start but not given to Dragonetz.
‘I laud the winner,’ he declared, ‘but I have asked him if I may give this in his honour to his student, for the pleasure she has given us.’
Estela stumbled her way to the High Table, half-hearing comments as she went past, ‘Sweet voice’ (but thin, Estela added in her own mind), ‘Pity she walks like a duck’. Afterwards, Estela would wonder which of Aliénor’s Ladies had made the remark, and why she should scent musk strong and repellant, but at the time she was too busy concentrating on reaching the Jarl without falling over.