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

by Jean Gill

  ‘Yes, one has a life to get on with, and we are not horses and mules,’ she murmured, gazing demurely at the floor to hide the blaze of anger in her eyes. What a fool she had been! But at least she could hide the fact that she hadn’t known. She drew her shaking hands back up into her dangling trumpet sleeves, clenching them into unseen fists, aware how much she had come to rely on the unspoken alliance with Sancha, now that the latter was absent.

  There was no-one to rescue her from her own bitter understanding. Tobias Nights had not been customary at Montbrun but she knew that there were many whose Christianity followed stricter rules and that Ermengarda’s choice of wedding date had carefully avoided giving offence to the Church. Or so Estela had thought. Perhaps the date was so carefully chosen to avoid giving offence to the devout Johans de Villeneuve, who was now patiently waiting for the fourth night to take his Virgin in the Peace of the Lord. Without mentioning the fact to the aforementioned, extremely angry Virgin.

  For in the words of the Archangel Raphael to Tobias, ‘The devil wields power over the couple that ignores God and surrenders to lust like horses and mules. Abstain thou therefore from touching her for three days while you pray together with her. When the third night has passed, then take the Virgin unto thee in the Peace of the Lord, more out of a desire for children than out of lust.’ And so had Tobias survived his marriage as eighth husband to the lethal widow Sarah, whose previous seven spouses had not survived the devil that appeared in her on their wedding night. At least Tobias had the decency to spend some time with Sarah, even if it was in prayer! Estela’s own particular demons were showing every sign of an ascendancy that was likely to increase over the next two days rather than alchemise into the Peace of the Lord. If he’d just wanted to appease an over-zealous churchman, Johans could have paid the necessary dues in place of his Tobais nights but no! Not only was she married to a stranger, Estela was married to a pious stranger.

  ‘It must be difficult being a man,’ she told Aimée, sweeter than lavender honey, and ladling it on thickly. ‘Always business to attend to and trying to keep track of who’s conquered where in case your Lord calls you to follow him somewhere outlandish and northern.’ As Aimée de Rouen turned a deeper shade of pink than her carefully applied rouge had intended, Estela hastily tinkled. ‘I don’t mean Rouen of course, I was thinking of true barbarian north, England for instance. Is your husband called to duty again? He must be sorry that Guillaume ever conquered that land of mud and crawling beasts. I heard they don’t even speak French, let alone Occitan or Latin!’ Having delivered at least four insults that she knew of, in one sweet speech, Estela felt that honour was restored and her own colour returning to normal as she inclined her head graciously to receive the next blow. It was more rewarding than expected. Aimée couldn’t resist trying to score points with information that would show Estela clearly which of them moved in high circles.

  ‘Bertrand is in England with Henri d'Anjou but,’ she confided, ‘he has sent word to me that he will be home soon.’ Which meant that the latest attempt on England by Henri had failed and the armies were returning to his native Normandy. Son of the Empress Matilda, once Queen of the English, Henri had taken on the mission left him by his mother. While the ex-Empress Matilda mouldered in a Normandy convent, and, according to unkind gossip, her husband Geoffrey Duke of Normandy ensured that apples grew and cows were milked, their son waved his fire brand towards the country his mother still called hers. Estela had passed her time with Sancha very constructively and intended to use her methods to effect. Estela herself could now even adopt the ways of the boudoir in Feminine Camouflage, if necessary. It had just become necessary.

  ‘They say he’s some man,’ she oozed insinuation at Aimée, ’this Henri.’

  The other woman’s eyes lit up. ‘He gives that impression but actually he’s not tall - not short either - but he’s built like a wrestler, and you should see his thigh muscles. It’s clear he’s gripped a horse or two in his time.’ Estela gave the expected knowing look. ‘Never sits still, always on the move. A red head with a temper to match. They say that once he dreamed himself into such a state that his man rescued him from the floor, fists cramming his sheets into his mouth and legs drumming fit to burst through the floorboards. When he came to himself, he said someone in his dream had vexed him.’ In the pause, Estela thought of another red-head with a temper to match. Now that would be a marriage made in hell, she mused, as Aimée continued. ‘But they also say that’s not the only passion he brings to the bedchamber. Not the sort to wait Tobias nights, or so I’ve heard, More likely to change beds several times in a night and always to a warm one.’

  ‘It will be so reassuring for you to have Bertrand back on his estate for a few years,’ Estela fished carefully and was rewarded.

  Aimée’s delicate face crinkled. ‘I’ll be lucky if it’s one year,’ she said. ‘And the next push will do it, according to Bertrand, so who knows what he’ll do then.’ Henri d'Anjou, future King of the English, mused Estela, while soothing, ‘Surely you’ll be allowed leave to spend some time in Normandy with Bertrand, perhaps when my Lady returns to Paris.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Aimée’s face brightened. ‘She can’t leave it much

  longer before going back.’ So, Estela registered without changing her solicitous expression, the royal baby was out of the bag and the Ladies might as well start embroidering a layette now. So much the worse for Aliénor’s safety - and freedom.

  ‘I’m sure no-one will expect you to actually live among barbarians,’ she comforted Aimée, giving her hand a little squeeze as she added, ‘although of course you might find it easier to get used to than we southerners would.’

  ‘Get used to the English?’ Aimée’s raised eyebrows and tone conveyed her awareness of both the depravity of that unfortunate race and also the depth of the implied slur on her northern heritage.

  Estela laughed lightly and gracefully. ‘Impossible,’ she smiled agreement. ‘No, no, I was but referring to the inclement climate. One would need cloaks weathered like boots to withstand the rain.’ Now that, she thought, was fun. To find out, to fence, to score and withdraw without the opposition being sure that the hit had happened. As expected, Aimée seized on the topic of travelling clothes with a detailed enthusiasm that enabled Estela to drift in and out of her own thoughts, and pass another weary virginal hour. And then several more.

  Chapter 15.

  The seven men who kept their early morning appointment and entered the bedchamber of Raymond V, Comte de Toulouse, were hardened and worldly enough to look only at their liege lord, without one glance at the naked woman chained to the stone wall. Raimon Trencavel, newly ruler of Carcassonne, feared he had particular reason not to notice the high firm breasts with bite marks just starting to blue the skin, the slim arms starting to shake from sustaining the constraints of such a position, the trickles of blood from thin whip marks across belly and thighs. No-one needed to avoid meeting the woman’s eyes as her head was entirely hidden by sacking, tied loosely round her neck, in the manner of a rustic execution. Combine a monk’s attitude to carnal pleasure with a fifteen-year-old’s restless penis, and sex with blood and sackcloth was what you would expect. To make political capital out of it as well was the extra gift that was entirely unique to Raymond.

  His face smooth and pink as scalded pigskin, his close-set eyes narrowed along his aristocratic nose, Toulouse welcomed his eight neighbour lords, whom he had summoned for discussion of ‘the new situation’. Raimon noted that apart from Sicard de Lautrec, long-time ally of Toulouse, there were six of his own fiefs represented, all of them equally loyal to him and his own liege Raymond, that is to say as loyal as they were made to be, a wolf-pack. Simo de Couysan, Savaric de Montréal, Crespi de Palaja, Tibau de Montbrun and Dorde de Rennes engaged briefly in gruff nods to acknowledge each other before all eyes found and stayed with one figure. The fifteen-year-old to whom they owed loyalty took the high seat, with the leather backing and gestured th
em to take the stools that would give Raimon, for one, a day of cramps from folding his long legs into some semblance of formality that didn’t actually break both legs. He had underestimated Raymond. Or overestimated, depending on whether you considered a limitless capacity for torture in the name of God to be a virtue or a vice. Whichever the case, it was unquestionably a show of unexpected strength that bode ill for a ruler walking the knife edge between his new liege of Barcelone and this, his old ally. Raimon suspected that he himself was ‘the new situation’, following his brother Roger’s death. He shifted his legs sideways to ease them as Raymond thanked them for coming at such short notice and hoped that they didn’t mind the informality of their reception. No-one twitched a muscle, no-one heard the choked sob behind sackcloth.

  ‘We commiserate with Trencavel on his loss, and we know he is fresh from mourning his brother, but as men of action we welcome his assumption of Carcassonne, Albi and Razès, to which we can now offer our wholehearted protection.’ Raimon inclined his head in graceful acknowledgement of the honour, sharing only with the mute floor his understanding that, under his leadership, Carcassonne was expected to throw off its alliance with Narbonne and loyalty to Barcelone for the dubious rewards of Toulouse men-at-arms in case of need. There would of course be such a need from the moment the Comte de Barcelone heard that his vassal Trencavel had given Carcassonne to Toulouse. Raimon would need to dance lightly and quickly on his knife-edge just to get home alive, never mind to avoid falling onto the rocks of Barcelone or into the whirlpool of Toulouse.

  ‘My Lord is gracious,’ murmured Raimon, steeling his heart against the twitch of recognition that he did not feel, must not feel, towards the increasingly limp body suspended against the wall. Six voices expressed their sympathies along with their pleasure at adding Carcassonne as an ally, at extending east towards Narbonne and Provence. Talk naturally led to the latest news of Provence, the increasing spats between les Baux and Barcelone and Raimon breathed more easily as the flow of attention moved on.

  ‘Let Barcelone and les Baux wear each other out,’ was Raymond’s view. ‘Then, when the time is ripe, I will claim Provence.’

  The cool voice of Sicard cut in. ‘And Toulouse itself? What if the bitch queen goads France into another attempt on the city?’ No-one referred to Louis of France as ‘the monk’ when speaking to Raymond, whose ‘informal’ attire was a long white linen tunic, white hose and plain brown leather slippers. Only the sword belt and lack of tonsure marked the difference between him and King Louis’ nickname. And, of course, the body on the wall, additionally striped now by morning rays braving the thick stone through the eyelet window.

  Raymond’s face weaselled thinner, his lips two scissor blades shearing the words he aimed at the gathered men. ‘I am dealing with France. We will not see the whore of Aquitaine outside my walls again. Or even on my wall.’ His gaze moved deliberately, unequivocally, to the figure on the wall, demanding in all politeness that seven pairs of eyes followed his. Raimon clasped his big hands on his lap, refused to see a trickle of urine down between two sweetly formed legs.

  There was a shift in the atmosphere as Raymond’s attention moved on once more, but this time it was not a further region of Occitania that aroused his appetite. His voice thickened. ‘As you see, gentlemen, I have unfinished business, so we must leave it there.’ Raymond walked towards the girl’s body, close enough to prod her with the haft of his dagger. ‘Say Good-day to the gentlemen.’ Even now, he didn’t speak her name but his eyes found Raimon’s, who prayed to every God that might ever have existed that the girl would not hold back any longer because he was there, risking ever worse from the sick imagination behind a dagger that turned to prod again, this time making its point with a bead of blood. Raimon knew better than to show anything, his hands behind his back, shredded by his own nails.

  He held the Comte’s stare as a broken voice came muffled through the sackcloth, ‘Good day, gentlemen.’ It changed nothing that Raimon had not known from the moment he walked in and had willed his heart to stone. Disappointment flickered in the Comte’s lizard eyes but he made the best of it. ‘I think we understand each other.’ His stare fixed Raimon a further count of ten, then glanced lightly at his other lords.

  ‘We understand each other,’ Raimon managed and kept enough control to leave not first, but third, from that chamber of horrors, passing a few words with his peers, while no-one referred to a young, beautiful body abused on a wall by their liege. Finally, mercifully alone, Raimon de Béziers, Carcassonne, Albi and Razès took an axe to a chicken coop, leaving a confused bailiff to investigate later that day as to what sort of fox not only left dismembered chickens strewn where they landed but also reduced their shed to matchsticks, apparently using a hand tool.

  By then, Raimon and his entourage were on their way back to Carcassonne. The apprehension of the journey to Toulouse had vanished. The soldiers congratulated each other on Raimon’s acumen to have bearded the devil in his lair and come to no harm. The worst that seemed to have happened was that Trencavel’s daughter was off colour and required the palanquin for the journey. Her father had spoken to her briefly and then left her in peace while he himself rode deep in thought, not to be disturbed, as was natural for one with his responsibilities.

  ‘Do whatever he told you to, Alis,’ Raimon advised his daughter, installed in the litter. ‘Then it will be over. Leave straight away, make any excuse but come back to Carcassonne as soon as you can. Then,’ he hesitated, ‘I’ll arrange a place for you with the Carmelites.’ Her golden hair spread on the cushion, her delicate oval of a face, the slim figure tucked under a counterpane, all was as it always had been. Except that she kept her eyes shut, her face buried in darkness and he could not bring himself to touch her.

  Daddy’s little angel. Thanks to Roger, the walls of Carcassonne were the thickest and most impregnable in Christendom and Raimon would think twice before leaving them again, even if both his twin Lords of Toulouse and Barcelone summoned him with the horns of hell. The nuns and their God would take care of his daughter. He could do nothing. Though he could not bear to look at her, he knew that he would see nothing else, not just for the ride between Toulouse and Carcassonne but for the rest of his life.

  Estela turned over once more in her irritating bed, reckoning that she was two hours into the fourth night since her wedding. She might as well have taken the valerian tisane again tonight to help her sleep as it was obvious to her that Johans de Villeneuve was not coming, not now, not ever. And neither was sleep. Burning with the injustice of it, Estela lay in yet another position glaring open-eyed at the shadows on the black ceiling. She had done as bidden and what difference had it made? Neither one thing nor the other! Was this Ermengarda’s precious gift to her?

  The more she contemplated the bountiful smiles of Aliénor and Ermengarda explaining their plans for her, controlling her life, the more her stomach knotted with the need to act. Other women might accept being kept in the dark but she was Estela de Matin, she was going to be a troubairitz, she had earned the rune-jewel of a Norse Prince, the fealty of a true knight and the praise of the best troubadour in Occitania. Her thoughts shied away from too deep an analysis of her relationships with Arnaut or Dragonetz and rested firmly on the notion that she was owed an explanation. She wanted to know where she stood in this strange marriage and only one person could tell her. Now!

  A cloak wrapped around her white nightwear, whose lace was less than fresh, Estela donned her leather indoor slippers and trod the silent corridors to Ermengarda’s rooms. Torches flared and shadows made hunchbacks and giants whose arms stretched long and wavering to grasp at the girlish form that flickered along the walls, always out of reach, but Estela was in no mood to weave fancies around tricks of the dark. Gritting her teeth, she rehearsed her demands in her head as she marched, noiseless in the smooth leather, so lost in her thoughts that she almost missed the flash of coloured movement that indicated someone else moving about the Palace this night.
Estela stopped abruptly and drew back into the shadows and registered that the tall figure was knocking softly on the very door she was herself heading towards. She didn’t need the torchlight to fall on the face she knew so well, deep hollows and black eyes glittering as he kept his assignation. The door opened enough for him to enter and he disappeared from view.

  Estela returned to her own chamber on leaden slippers, climbed once more into her solitary bed and faced the dark. Neither one thing nor the other, when everyone else in the world lay with whoever they chose. Beautiful wives had lovers. Even ugly women, even old women had lovers but she, Estela, was sixteen and doomed. No man would put up with this state of affairs so why should she? A man would choose his partner, woo her, win her and move on. Why shouldn’t she do the same? Wiping her nose dry, Estela tried to think like a man. A suitable partner. Arnaut was the obvious choice, already promised to obey her lightest wish. She shut her eyes and conjured up his fine profile, his fair skin weathered in the sun, his build light but honed, eyes moody as sea and full of his feelings for her. She imagined putting her cold proposal to the man to whom she had promised friendship and nothing more. She saw those grey eyes chill at the insult, reflect her own fall from stars to gutter, knew she couldn’t do it.

  Or at least she couldn’t do it to a man who was in love with her. Love called to love, was the stuff of romance and tragedy but there were other songs to be sung, where animal called to animal. Wasn’t that also what men did? Wasn’t that what servants were for? When Estela finally slept, she dreamed she was bound in rope and someone was cramming bitter aloes into her mouth. Whichever way she jerked her head, the merciless process continued. She couldn’t beg for mercy because her mouth was full and she couldn’t see who was doing this to her, who could hate her so much, but even through her fear she was determined that she would escape.