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

by Jean Gill

  Estela’s sense of foreboding was back with a vengeance. She hoped she had given nothing away that could be used against Dragonetz and she searched the water anxiously, stupidly hoping to pick out two heads amongst the bobbing boats and spume. It could only have been twenty minutes that the men were away and they were both strong swimmers, so there could be hours to wait. They’d have swum beyond the harbour to the open sea and she broke out into a cold sweat at just the thought of the monsters lurking in the depths, serpents and krakens, sharks and leviathans.

  Her knotted stomach insisted that something had gone wrong and when she heard the shouting coming from the small boats and rippling up through the crowd at the quay, she knew it was not a homecoming triumph. Gathering her skirts, she punched, kicked and fought her way to the front of the crowd that was quickly forming round a small group of men. In the centre was the Prince of Orkney, on his knees, head hanging forward, his huge body heaving with the effort of each breath. Beside him lay the inert body of Dragonetz los Pros.

  Pushing through to get to the two men, Estela saw that Dragonetz was breathing, however raggedly, and his eyes were open. It was his body that had given the impression that he was lifeless, lying limp and somehow smaller than it should be. She crouched beside him, startled by the fact that his body convulsed, then stilled. She tried to remember everything her mother had taught her, keeping her emotions to one side as she observed the feverish hue, the dilated pupils, the sweat pouring in rivulets over his neck and chest and the wild irregular thumpings of his heart underneath her hand.

  ‘Get al-Hisba, find him wherever he is and tell him to bring his medicines,’ she threw out, hoping that someone was capable of action. ‘Can anyone tell me what happened?’

  Between gasps, the Jarl answered, ‘He was ahead of me, swimming like Loki in salmon form and then - we hadn’t been swimming long - he slowed. I nearly caught up and he started thrashing the water, shouting as if some monster was fighting him. I thought he was fooling around but then as I reached him, he went under. I grabbed for him but he started lunging at me, screaming nonsense about darkness and enemies, so,’ the Viking shrugged, ‘I knocked him out and brought him back to shore, where he came round but is like you see him. There is some magic at work here, something evil.’ He spat on the quayside and made some sign.

  Against magic, she had no remedy. As Estela studied Dragonetz’ face again for clues, his eyes stopped roving some imaginary landscape and focused on her. She saw the recognition kick in, despite the wild dilation, and he clutched her hand, still resting on his chest, transmitting the pounding wrongness in his body. He had trouble speaking, as if his mouth were dry instead of sea-wet but one corner made a feeble attempt at the smile she knew so well. ‘B’ooful,’ he announced, patting her hand. ‘Going to be married. ’Gratulations.’

  ‘Estela?’ queried al-Hisba’s voice at the same time as Arnaut said, ‘What in Christ’s name have they done to him!’

  ‘Fish,’ was Dragonetz’ helpful contribution and Estela could see by his unfocused eyes that he had left them again. Dilated pupils, she told herself and suddenly she knew. If someone took the drops internally, or was given them, instead of merely enhanced shiny eyes and dilated pupils, the latter would occur alongside fever, hallucinations, dry mouth, racing heart and death. ‘Sweetheart,’ her mother had told her, ‘I know it’s fashionable and it looks nice, but I don’t think you should put something in your eyes that is so toxic inside the body. Please don’t.’ And she hadn’t. But most of the Ladies at court did.

  ‘Al-Hisba,’ she turned urgently to the grave Arab. ‘I think he’s had belladonna poisoning. If I’m right, I don’t know what we can do! Make him sick? Will that do it?’

  Al-Hisba took her place beside the shaking body, opened Dragonetz’ eyes wide with his hands and looked at them, felt the heartbeat, nodded at her, was already searching in his pouch, pulling out a powder. ‘Arnaut, can you get some water? It is from Esere beans, the ‘ordeal beans’ of the Kanem people in Africa,’ he told Estela. ‘It is a poison but if we are right, it will work as an antidote.’

  Arnaut handed a flask to al-Hisba and someone shouted, ‘The Moor is poisoning him!’

  Estela stood up and while al-Hisba administered the drug, she and Arnaut faced the men pressing tighter round them. ‘You idiots, he’s saving his life,’ she shouted but the sheer panic might have spread further had not the Jarl heaved to his feet and swayed beside them, calling something in his strange tongue. In seconds, the other Norsemen were through the crowd and formed a guard around Dragonetz, soon joined by his own men-at-arms, who forced the mob back. Estela turned her attention back to the patient. He was still flushed and feverish but then, she chided herself, it would take time for any medication to work. She was sure it was belladonna and she trusted al-Hisba’s lore. The wandering eyes found her face and focused again. Dragonetz reached out and touched her hair with his hand, noticing what Arnaut had not. ‘B’ooful,’ he said, ‘blue ribbon in her hair. ’S my ribbon.’ And then his eyes closed.

  ‘He’ll sleep,’ al-Hisba reassured her. ‘Nature’s way.’

  The crowd was already dispersing as word went round that the game of Knattleikr would start in the arena as soon as the two teams were assembled. That cleared the remaining spectators in seconds. A litter was organised to take Dragonetz and al-Hisba back to the Palace and Estela allowed herself to be caught up in the buzz of speculation amongst Ermengarda’s Ladies but her thoughts were elsewhere. She responded briefly to Aliénor’s keen questions and noted the exchange that followed between the Queen and Ermengarda but it was as if her own head was befogged with belladonna and what she saw around her had no substance.

  In a trance, she saw Raoulf and Arnaut attend to the pressing matter of handing out curved sticks to nine chosen men, including themselves, who rewarded the crowd for their patience with a display of the most brutal lack of ball control ever seen in Occitania. Dragonetz’ men had no need of another team to injure themselves, thwacking sticks against each other’s shins with pleasing regularity, blissfully unaware of any rules apart from the aim of getting the ball between the posts of the opposition goal.

  Bemused by the ineptitude of their opponents, the Vikings lost all their own capacity to pass and shoot but were not to be outdone on thwacking shins or aiming the ball at undefended human parts rather than at the goal. The Jarl was not playing, in deference to Dragonetz’ forced absence, but he hurled what were presumably instructions from a position that was sufficiently in the way to allow him to smack a fist into a passing player from time to time. A hot dispute over an own goal led to one-on-one fisticuffs that lit the match across both teams. Spectators took the chance to stream onto the field and take part themselves in the great sporting occasion. The Jarl took a break to bow to Ermengarda and, barely audible above the row, to formally declare the games over and honours even. Then he returned to the fray. At this stage, the Ladies left, Estela among them, desperate to return to the Palace for news.

  Chapter 11.

  ‘Did I win?’ Dragonetz asked Estela and she knew he was himself again, however white and drawn, as he lay in bed, attempting a crooked smile for her.

  She had pulled a stool over to sit near enough the bed that she could observe his physical state, surreptitiously. Arnaut was standing, shifting about restlessly, still grumbling that it wasn’t seemly for her to be here at all and that no, no-one else would consider him perfect as a chaperone.

  ‘The Jarl declared one broken leg, two broken wrists, multiple sprains and bruises, enough bloodletting to purify an entire city and an overall draw,’ Estela told him. ‘And that’s really not the most important thing!’

  ‘Civilised man, the Jarl,’ Dragonetz reflected. ‘So tell me who slipped me poison.’

  Arnaut stopped his pacing. ‘You can talk about that when you’re feeling better! And Estela shouldn’t be here at all. It doesn’t look good.’

  Dragonetz waved a weak hand, dismissing any idea that th
ey should leave him to rest. ‘Brain’s working fine, just the body needs a bit more time. Aliénor and Ermengarda will sort out Estela’s reputation.’

  Estela bit back her reaction to his airy assumptions, reminded herself that he was still ill and told him about the conversation with the Archbishop.

  ‘Could he have meant me to drown?’ wondered Dragonetz. ‘Not very good for his immortal soul.’

  ‘That’s two attempts on your life now,’ Estela pointed out.

  ‘Was it an attempt on my life? Or a threat? Both times? And the attack against you in the bath chamber? Connected or not? Do you have enemies of your own, Estela?’

  She ignored his last question. ‘Belladonna is extremely poisonous if taken internally, would show its effects in about a quarter of an hour, depending on the dose. I don’t need to tell you what the symptoms are!’ He winced and screwed up his face. ‘So my guess would be that the belladonna was in the water you drank after the wrestling and intended to impact while you were swimming. If the Jarl had been ahead of you instead of behind, you’d have drowned fighting imaginary sea-monsters. And if al-Hisba hadn’t used his talents, you’d have died from the poison itself.’

  ‘So you think the dose was meant to kill?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Maybe,’ al-Hisba contradicted, as he came into the bedchamber. ‘Estela is right that belladonna can kill but in careful doses it is used as a sleeping potion - ’

  ‘If he’d fallen asleep in mid-ocean that would have killed him too!’ Estela interrupted.

  ‘ - and again, in a careful dose it can boost energy. You were winning until you started hallucinating so it is possible that someone was trying to make sure you won and thought the drug was easier to control than is the case.’

  ‘Had a bet on you myself,’ Arnaut commented, ‘but if I was trying to pep you up, I would never have thought of belladonna!’

  ‘No,’ agreed Estela, ‘I think it’s more likely that it was used as a poison - a lethal poison.’

  ‘You are probably right but you should know the other possibilities. If I know them, so do others.’

  ‘What about access to belladonna?’ asked Dragonetz. ‘Anyone could have put it in my water flask but who could have got it in the first place?’

  ‘Any lady who makes big eyes at you,’ Estela told him, then explained. ‘Ladies put drops in their eyes to make them shine. You can tell because as well as being shiny, the pupils are bigger than normal.’ He stared intently at her. ‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘Someone told me it might not be safe.’

  ‘So, any lady could get belladonna drops.’

  ‘And any servant could get them from any apothecary on behalf of any lady and anyone could take the drops from any lady. The stuff is everywhere - it’s impossible to track it down!’ Estela chewed the edge of her fingers.

  ‘That’s a terrible habit, you know,’ Dragonetz told her.

  ‘I know, my - someone used to tell me all the time.’ She ignored Dragonetz’ raised eyebrow over her stumble. ‘What if -’ she started, ‘no, it’s too fanciful.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘What if it is a Lady. That doesn’t mean it’s not Toulouse or the Archbishop or both behind the scenes but it could be one of the Ladies who put the drops in the water. Could it have been a Lady involved in the cross-bow attempt?’

  Arnaut and Dragonetz exchanged looks. ‘It’s possible that one of the Ladies stole Aliénor’s seal, overheard our password and used it.’

  ‘Not one of Ermengarda’s Ladies then but one of Aliénor’s, who travelled with us.’ Estela nodded at the confirmation of her suspicions.

  ‘You have someone in mind.’

  Estela hesitated. ‘Lady Sancha,’ she said. ‘She’s clever enough, she’s always snooping and,’ she murmured quietly, ‘she doesn’t like me so it might have been her with the broken glass.’ If only she had identified the voice in the Great Hall, the one commenting on how badly she was walking, the voice

  that knew why and took pleasure in it. Then she could be sure.

  ‘No,’ Dragonetz surprised her with his certainty. ‘It isn’t Lady Sancha. She wouldn’t have visited the communal bath-chamber even with her clothes on. You’ll have to look elsewhere.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I am. And that doesn’t concern you.’ Estela felt like he’d slammed a door in her face. She rose to leave.

  ‘Arnaut’s right. You need rest now.’

  ‘Thank you for coming.’ His eyes were trying to reach her but she couldn’t respond. She couldn’t ask him the question burning in her own mind, what he’d meant in his delirium with his talk of marriage and congratulations. Was he getting married? Did he want congratulations? Somehow she’d pictured a beautiful high-born wife looking after the babies back in Aquitaine while her adventurous husband was on his travels. Perhaps it was a remnant of the Dragonetz that had formed in her head when she first heard his lyrics sung by her father’s troubadour.

  She’d imagined a middle-aged man, carefully crafting his past experiences into poetry that churned the heart. She hadn’t imagined this wildfire companion, whose abilities to churn the heart weren’t limited to his poetry. She wasn’t sure whether she was more disturbed at the thought that he wasn’t married or at the thought that he was about to be. And she didn’t want to think about why she was disturbed at all.

  A formal interview three hours later, with Ermengarda and Aliénor, clarified for Estela exactly who was getting married.

  ‘My Lady Aliénor, my Lady Ermengarda, you do me too much honour.’ Estela hid her confusion in a curtsey. ‘I am overwhelmed.’ She spoke nothing but the truth. Weeks ago she had faced destitution in a ditch and now she was being offered financial security for life along with a place among the troubadours at Ermengarda’s court. Everything she’d ever dreamed of. She had always expected to marry one day and from the sound of him, this respectable burgher would be everything her mother would have wanted for her. There could be no question as to her response and she did not disappoint the two rulers in her gratitude. Both of them glowed with the self-satisfaction usual after an act of great charity.

  Taking Estela’s arm as she rose from her curtsey, Ermengarda gave her a warm smile. ‘We can discuss the details another time. You will soon realize the freedom that marriage gives you.’

  Looking at the dazzling confidence of the ruler of Narbonne, Estela could believe it but the older woman’s face darkened and Aliénor’s softly spoken ‘Not always,’ was the last thing Estela heard as she made her escape.

  She headed straight for the stables, the instinct to get away from the Palace taking over her feet, leading her blindly through hallways and courtyards. A familiar white form bounded up to her as she rushed along, butting her thigh with his great head. Without thinking, she clicked her fingers for him to follow her, a habit she had grown into in the evenings since the broken glass. She felt safer with the massive dog blocking the way into her bedchamber and he seemed happy enough to accompany her when she called him or pad off with the pack when there was nothing on offer from Estela. ‘Come, Nici,’ she murmured and carried on towards the stables.

  The musty smell of straw, sweat and dung acted on her like a somniferous herb and she was relieved to see the broad back and chopped hair of Peire, bending over a pitchfork as he mucked out. She was not in the mood for long explanations or social niceties. Peire would not ask her difficult questions or express views on Ladies riding out alone. ‘Peire,’ she called. His face opened to hers, guileless as a daisy in sunshine. ‘I need you to saddle up for me. If Tou’s not ready, I’ll take another.’

  ‘My Lady, I can get Tou ready but I need a little time. Do you want to come back?’ He flicked a flustered lock of hair away from his eyes, reminding Estela strongly of a restive colt irritated by flies. Even his hair looked more like a docked horse-tail than any human style.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ she said. ‘It does me good to be here. Take your time.’ She remembered to
smile, that a Lady’s smile was currency for a poor stable-hand, but she was grateful that he nodded, and responded to her mood with action and silence. The blue eyes were more shrewd than she had given him credit for. Peire came and went with tack, then with Tou, murmured to the mare as he deftly tightened girth and adjusted bit. His hand spanned Tou’s neck in a flat caress and Estela shivered. She stopped fondling Nici’s ear and the dog complained in his throat and butted her, to no avail.

  ‘My Lady.’ Peire offered her his hands and she mounted, crushing a totally unsuitable gown against the horn of the saddle. What did it matter - soon, she would have as many gowns as she wanted. She gave curt thanks and kicked Tou into action. Nici loped alongside, in the easy pace of his enemy the wolf, and Estela ignored the stares of Narbonnais as she walked Tou out beyond the city walls, out beyond the people. As soon as she was in open space, she kicked Tou to the fastest pace she could manage but it was like the motion of a fat kitchen-maid running to catch the baker before he closed shop. Tired of the rolling gait, Estela brought Tou back to a walk and let her thoughts drift to the amazing interview with the two rulers.

  Estela reviewed the facts of her future, as they had been presented to her. She would be married to Johans de Villeneuve, a land-owner and widower with four grown children, a man comfortably off and about to become more so after generous recognition by Ermengarda of his services as an adviser and negotiator. Some of this generosity would be Estela’s dowry, her private fortune at her own disposal, giving her independence for life. She would remain living at the Palace as one of Ermengarda’s entertainers, among her Ladies but with the extra privileges and freedom required to develop her talent. She would continue teaching Bèatriz and would herself benefit from the mentoring of Marcabru. Why did the idea of learning from Marcabru fill her with disappointment?