by Jean Gill
Ermengarda said, ‘Your man may take his place among the serving men in the Lower Hall. The Guards will see to him.’
‘My Lady.’ Estela recognised the tone and said no more. ‘Gilles,’ she instructed, ‘I am glad you are here. I need a man and we will talk tomorrow.’
‘What use is a manservant with no right hand,’ someone sneered.
Gilles stood up, broad and patient. ‘Just as well he’s left-handed, that useless manservant,’ he told the air. ‘My Lady,’ he bowed to all present and limped off between the Guards. Was it pity in Ermengarda’s eyes as Estela too made her farewells and left? Someone will not survive the knowing of you. A message she had already received and not understood. But now she knew.
Chapter 20.
Estela opened the cloth, pulled out a loaf and two small rounds of goat cheese. She drew her dagger, sliced the loaf in two and passed a speared hunk to Gilles, then put a cheese on a broad leaf beside him. He sat with his back against the wind-sculpted oak that offered them shade and munched into the fare offered. Estela spread her fine skirts heedlessly on the parched ground and followed suit. ‘No!’ she told the great white dog questing titbits. Nici had latched onto Gilles with frenzied recognition, and been allowed to come with them out of the city, into the peace of the fields. The only sound was cicadas tuning up. Azure skies burned bright through the sheltering branches. Still chewing, she mumbled, ‘How long since we did this?’
Gilles ruminated. ‘Probably your father’s wedding day.’
A hollow behind a wall. The prospect of best clothes and best manners, brushed hair and bruised heart. The woman who was to be her new mother. And Gilles, always there for her to run to, until even he was banned from the cage her life became. ‘You are too old for that. A woman must... patati patata.’ ‘What if we’d killed her then and there?’
‘Costansa?’ Gilles considered it. ‘She was a pretty thing.’ Estela grimaced. ‘For all we knew she could have been the best thing to come into your life since your mother died. Tibau needed someone.’ Tibau, her father. A shaggy black bear, whose rare hugs crushed all breath from his little blackbird. Whose hands were hard as bed-boards. Who saw no-one but Costansa from that day on. ‘Your father chose the wrong knife, Roxie.’
‘The one that glitters but is ill-forged,’ Estela acknowledged. She watched him put his crust down so he could pick up the flask with his one arm and drink, deeply. He had to put the flask down again to wipe his mouth, this man who had taught her brother all he knew of stringing a bow, of sword thrust and tilting, of how a knight should conduct himself. And not just her brother. Thanks to Gilles, she not only had a dagger but she could use it. As could he. A whir as he pulled out his own weapon and stabbed it into the tree trunk.
‘Hung for a murderer instead of this?’ Gilles raised his blunted arm. ‘No. But she’ll shatter one day and I don’t mind helping it happen.’ He retrieved his knife and stuck it viciously back, lower down. ‘The further away from her you are, the better.’
‘How’s Miquel?’ Estela reached for the flask and took a draught of the watered wine herself.
‘You know your brother.’ Gilles’ deeply wrinkled face was grim. ‘He never could choose a knife. He thought if a pretty one smashed, he just chose the next prettiest and so on till he found one that didn’t break. Which of course he did. So he never worked out that you could test the pretty one and prevent mistakes.’
‘You didn’t tell him?’ A challenge rang in her tone.
‘Not about knives, nor about Costansa. He wouldn’t have believed it and if he’d come to resent me, the one thing I was good for was finished.’
‘I was going to ask why you didn’t leave. After I did.’
‘As a runaway bondsman? That’s no life. And yes, I thought I could protect Miquel but Costansa has drawn him too close.’
‘Close enough for it to be my father who needs the protection?’ Sing for me, little blackbird. Her mother smiling encouragement. In better times, in times that were dead.
‘Maybe.’ They took turns with the flask. ‘He serves his turn in your father’s bed. Forgive my coarseness.’
‘Between us, there can be no coarseness. Only honesty. What happened, Gilles, after I left?’
‘It went as we planned. After Mada told me she’d heard the mistress paying someone for your accident to-be, and I told you, and we did the swop. I took some of that lavender water you used, spilt it on your clothes that you’d given me and rubbed them on the ground every now and then, left a trail for the dogs. Dragged a shoe along at first for good measure then walked heavy footed, like I was some skulking bastard who’d got your body over his shoulder.’ She reached out a hand and caressed the silken ear of the dog lolling beside her.
‘I buried the clothes then, with some butcher’s left-overs in them,’ Estela winced. ‘And made enough scraping and fresh-turned earth to suggest a dozen boar or something worse, to anyone looking for a buried body. Then I stomped away from the scene a bit, took my boots off, walked a bit barefoot and ran home. Your father couldn’t track Toulouse’s army, never mind find a slip of a girl. Next morning, as we expected there was a hullabaloo and I ran round with everyone else, only it was easier for me to act like I was worried about you because I was. Costansa’s face was a picture between worrying that something had gone wrong and she’d be scuppered for planning to kill you, and hoping that her man had gone ahead and done it. She’d told him she didn’t want details so she could be more convincing when it happened. She even came with us, tracking with the dogs and of course, I took a little time but with some help from the dogs I found just the route poor little Roxie must have gone.’
‘The first part of it, I did go!’
‘That was one of the danger spots - making sure the hounds took the wrong trail with me but some dried pork scraps and a lot of enthusiasm and it was surprising how definite the dogs were about which was the right trail. So I gave out the story as I studied the tracks and we went along till we found the pile of dirt. The dogs started scrabbling and I left it to others to yell, ‘There’s something there’ and all the obvious. I felt a bit bad for your father then, wondered what he felt when he thought his baby was about to be uncovered dead.’ He shook his head.
‘You don’t have to tell me.’ Estela’s voice betrayed her. ‘When he took his belt to me, he ended feeling. He sees some Roxie figment of his wife’s imagination and I see nothing. Costansa’s puppet.’
‘So Costansa did some wailing and screaming and nearly fainted at the sight of bloody remains but I think she was disappointed there wasn’t more there, so she still had this little doubt. Your father and Miguel were fully occupied dealing with Costansa and everything muddled its way back to the general agreement that you were dead, the body dug up and destroyed by wild animals, and we wouldn’t find more evidence than that. People hardly noticed that Miguel kept saying that his dagger had been stolen but when they did, the view was that it must have been the criminal who’d taken Roxie. So far, so good. And according to Mada, Costansa had some kind of hold over the murderer so the payment would be her leaving him alone, and she didn’t want to see him again afterwards. So that was fine. She assumed he’d kept his word and he was hardly going to come round shouting that it hadn’t been him who’d killed you, now was he!
All was carrying on with only the usual ordinary nastiness when things changed, about three weeks ago. Your father grew grimmer again and I’d catch Costansa looking at me all the time, as if she’d figured something out. As if they’d had word you were alive.’
Guilt washed through her again as if she hadn’t already known it was her fault. ‘I know what happened. I had to give my real name to get married. Word must have got back.’ And after they’d heard, Costansa had sent someone to Narbonne, someone who’d talked to a young man in a tavern, plied him with drink, found out the name of the girl who’d given him such a jewel. Someone who’d thought she truly cared about the youth and so they’d sent her a message. A mutilat
ed corpse with his jewels in his dead hands. Someone who’d take instructions from Costansa but was capable of taking that sort of initiative. Her stomach lurched as she realised, from all Gilles had told her, who was the most likely person.
‘Married,’ Gilles stated, flatly, as if her being married was as ordinary as having fish on Fridays. In fact, it probably was.
‘I’ll tell you later. You first.’
‘You’ve heard the rest. Costansa’s usual trick - hide something, accusation of theft, this from your father.’ Gilles gestured once more with his right arm and Estela instinctively felt for the scar on her shoulder. Branded as thieves, both of them, by the same injustice. ‘And I was let go, with the message for you.’
‘They hoped you’d frighten me, that I’d run away and that you’d die in a ditch.’ As she might have done herself, as one-handed as Gilles, if she hadn’t sung a song at dawn for Dragonetz. ‘But I am not the Roxie of Costansa’s imagination.’
‘You’re your mother’s daughter,’ Gilles told her, bringing a lump to her throat. ‘So, your turn now. How did my little tomboy turn into a Great Lady and an Artist, who’s allowed to go traipsing about the countryside with ne’er-do-wells just because she fancies it. Married.’ He shook his head in amazement this time. ‘And what, in the name of God, is this dog doing here?!’
And so she told him everything. Or almost. As the Court of Love decreed, ‘No-one should be privy to the object of someone’s love without a very urgent reason.’
Sancha was waiting for her at the Palace and the moment Estela confirmed that Gilles could be trusted, she shared her discovery with both of them. Estela had almost forgotten about the vitriolic petition at the Court of Love until Sancha announced, with deep satisfaction. ‘I tracked her down to one of those backstreet shops in the leather quarter. Husband’s a shoemaker and wife a seamstress, open to diversifying her trade, I gather, including little missions between knights and Ladies. She’s a good enough seamstress to act the honest woman and her job gives her access to all levels. She responded very positively to the suggestion that her trade would benefit from confiding in me the details of her latest commission.’
‘Benefit as in continue at all,’ Estela had taken Sancha’s measure by now.
‘Indeed,’ the older woman acknowledged. ‘A purse and a threat and the woman’s bought and sold to the latest-come. She neither knows nor cares anything about the messages she carries but we have come to a very good understanding. We have a meeting tomorrow afternoon at our friend the seamstress’ house, where we can enquire directly of her patron in person, the reason she tried to hurt you. I suspect we will find the same person was behind the broken glass too. Who knows? Maybe we’ve found our spy too, the informer behind the assassination attempts,’
‘Do you have a name?’ Estela held her breath.
‘Oh, yes.’ Sancha was grim. ‘I have a name.’
Dragonetz knelt alone in the chapel, head resting on his hands, seeking guidance from the figure at the altar. He had wasted four precious days on eating, drinking and discussing Templar politics, none of which furthered his search. Peter Radels had once more tried to recruit him and the two commanders had tried to draw him on the subject of the next Crusade but there had been no evasions on their part, no signs of guilty consciences. It had been obvious that the leaders avoided any reference to Dragonetz’ mill, suggesting that they knew that it was a paper mill, disapproved, and were too polite to say so. Hardly the behaviour of men involved in a conspiracy to kill him! They were far more concerned with the Pope’s precarious situation, his relationship with Clairvaux and how this would affect the stability of their banking arrangements. Interesting as this was, it didn’t help Dragonetz at all.
He was painfully conscious that he was leaving Aliénor and Estela exposed to the very murderer whose tracks he was hoping to spot, although he couldn’t for the life of him understand why Estela should have been targeted. He, himself, and Aliénor had any number of political enemies but the smashed glass in the bathroom didn’t fit. It was vicious without being an attempt at murder. Over and over, he organized the facts, going back to the first attempt on his life. A message to Arnaut with his Commander’s password, instructing him to ignore the arbalestier on the road between Douzens and the Abbey at Fontfroid. The solitary assassin with crossbow attempting to kill Dragonetz himself, presumably, or just possibly Estela, or, even less likely, al-Hisba, and carrying safe pass from Aliénor. Someone in their entourage who could have overheard his password and gained a safe pass from Aliénor. Someone innocuous. Someone so much taken for granted he - or she - was invisible. It kept coming back to one of the Ladies but so far Sancha and Estela had found nothing. Whoever it was could only be a puppet and the most likely Puppet-master was Toulouse so where was the connection between a Lady and Toulouse? Dragonetz was a short ride from Carcassonne, in lands owing fealty to Toulouse. Perhaps a visit to Raimon in the walled city itself would open up new information. He felt he was close to something if only he could find the right questions,
‘Can I help you, my son?’ A brother with hair as white as his robes interrupted him gently.
Dragonetz smiled ruefully, raising to his feet. ‘I fear no-one can.’
An earnest furrow crumpled the shiny round face as the priest sat on the hard bench and motioned Dragonetz to join him. ‘In myself I am nothing but sometimes I am the vessel for something bigger. It hurts nothing to try.’
‘It is more mortal help that I need,’ Dragonetz told him gently. There was something in the other man’s calm, in the set of his clasped hands, the open-ness of his expression that forbade mockery. This might be simplicity but it was no simpleton.
‘Of course. Brother Hugues,’ the man introduced himself. ‘And you have no need of introduction. The whole Commanderie has been stirring with hopes that you will take the cloth and join the order, preparing for the next Crusade. You are the legendary Dragonetz los Pros.’
‘I believe the song has grown somewhat in the singing,’ Dragonetz laughed. ‘And no, I am not here to become a Templar.’
‘But you do have dreams?’
‘Yes, I have dreams.’
Hugues hesitated, his gaze fixed on Christ crucified rather than on the man beside him. He was even older than Dragonetz had first thought, the newly-washed shine of the face misleading by a decade or more. The folds round eyes and mouth told a different story. ‘I was a Crusader. This might
shock you but I would be in no hurry to fight in the Holy Land again.’
Startled, Dragonetz looked at the serene profile. He didn’t have to ask why. Anyone who had been on the Second Crusade had a thousand blood-red reasons to hold back from another such. ‘But that’s heresy,’ he observed.
‘Perhaps.’ The tone remained calm. ‘And perhaps today’s heresy will be tomorrow’s reason. It has been known. You see, my Lord Dragonetz,’ he turned his mild unblinking gaze full on the visitor, ‘I too have a dream. I have seen Jerusalem, I was there when we reclaimed it, and I could not find the Holy Place I sought. I fought the Muslim dogs and the Jewish dogs and it seemed to me that we were all fighting over the same bone. Worse, because more fragile than a bone, so we were destroying what we fought over, not reclaiming and cleansing it. Perhaps we will win next time, perhaps not, but I would like us to build our Jerusalem here, a land fit for Our Saviour, a heaven in the here and now. If Our Lord can be here with us, so can the Holy Land.’
‘There will be another Crusade.’ Dragonetz stated the inevitable.
‘Yes. But, God willing, I will be too old to kill.’ The ambiguity hung in the air. ‘I have told you my dream, my Lord Dragonetz. What is yours?’
‘Paper,’ was the short, honest answer.
As if continuing a full exchange, Hugues commented, ‘There are songs come from Cymru, the Welsh lands. Have you heard them?’
‘Bleris,’ Dragonetz nodded in recognition. ‘I heard him at Poitiers. A strange accent but a true, sweet voice and his stories twist
in the gut. Aliénor approved of him, sent token with him on his travels back north and to his own country. Tales of a King sit better in the west and north.’
‘Arthur,’ nodded Hugues. ‘and his Queen and his knight Lancelot, a knight who dreamed.’ Dragonetz said nothing. ‘A knight who dreamed of finding the Holy Grail but for all his searching, saw no more than a vision.
Because in his heart, instead of the love of God, was the love of a woman.’
‘My Quest is more earthly, Brother Hugues.’ Dragonetz was still gentle, even as he resisted the one-sided conversation.
‘So you said. But there are only two certainties in this world and we are alone for both of them but for our Faith. The time between birth and death is all about the Quest, whether we acknowledge this or not.’ Dragonetz remained silent. ‘The Moor used to talk of these things with me when he came to tend and collect herbs for his medicines.’ It took Dragonetz a heartbeat to realise who the priest meant. ‘I suppose he’s back in al-Andalus now?’
Confused, Dragonetz replied, ‘How could he go back? He is my bondsman. The commander signed him to me.’
As gentle and implacable as Dragonetz had been, Hugues contradicted him. ‘No, my Son. The Commander might have signed him to you, in good faith, but that was because the Moor himself allowed it. He was the third Moor to bring us his skills as part of the agreement for relinquishing the Afonso inheritance but I came to understand that he was no bondsman. He chose to place himself here and he served us well but he was always a Free Man and respected among his own people, whether those here knew it or not.’