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

by Jean Gill

  ‘It would have been easier if you had allowed our problem to disappear.’

  Al-Hisba nodded his understanding. ‘I am a physician. It is not permitted to me to kill nor to let someone die.’ The Archbishop winced at this crude expression of his meaning. He did not want a theological debate on the Ten Commandments at this juncture.

  ‘Quite so. But you accept the necessity to solve our problem another way.’

  Al-Hisba folded his arms, hiding his hands up his sleeves for all the world as if he would produce a dozen knives and juggle with them. ‘If there is no other way.’

  ‘There is no other way.’ Silence built layers of mistrust between them. The Archbishop skated across it. ‘It must be now. Today. Directly. We have waited long enough.’

  ‘So be it. I go directly from you to set fire to Lord Dragonetz’ paper mill and burn it to the ground, ensuring that nothing remains of his venture. Then you inform the Brothers Templar that I have carried out a mission of great importance for the Church and you have personally granted my freedom, to return to al-Andalus, safely far from Narbonne.’ The Archbishop flushed crimson. The man was a savage! How dare he speak to him, the Archbishop, in such a fashion! Some matters were better left unsaid as any civilised man would know. He controlled himself, remembering why it was important that al-Hisba carried out his orders straight away, remembering the orders given to his mercenaries two days earlier.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  The man didn’t know when to leave well enough alone. ‘And the men who work there? And Lord Dragonetz himself should he be there?’

  The Archbishop waved a fat, be-ringed hand. ‘I am sure you will devise something that allows you to do only what is permitted.’ He indulged in a sarcastic edge but there was no reaction. The Moor put his hands together and bowed his head in the slavish manner of his kind, and left, barely allowing the Archbishop time to summons an acolyte to escort the man out.

  D’Anduze felt much better after he had sent two message-boys; one to the mercenary leader and one to my Lord Dragonetz los Pros. He twisted his large signet ring, musing on how much Raymond de Toulouse owed him and how pleasurable it would be to collect his dues.

  The late afternoon sun glinted on Estela’s Pathfinder brooch and she turned to avoid the glare, gazing absent-mindedly across the Palace Courtyard. Dragonetz was due back and her heart hung on every movement at the gate. She had tried passing the time more constructively but she lacked patience with Bèatriz and had excused herself before she drove the girl to tears. It was especially unfair as the young heiress of Dia had fast become Estela’s equal and her lyrics, like their composer, had lost their girlish awkwardness, pricking Estela to envy. She knew she could find the songs within herself but so far what had she done? Only the songs of others. When things were settled, the songs would come, she promised herself. When Dragonetz was back to stay. She gave up all pretence of activity and waited, watching.

  Her eyes registered the anomaly before her brain as she watched a robed, turbaned figure riding out the gates. Al-Hisba had said he would be at the paper mill and had certainly been absent from the farewell ceremony. What was he doing in Narbonne? Was something wrong at the paper mill? Had he been looking for Dragonetz? The Pathfinder rune glinted again, pointing her wayward imagination to action. Better to find out what the problem was, and perhaps help solve it, than agonise here for every minute waiting. For all she knew, Dragonetz had accompanied the party further and was spending a night with his father, knowing she’d understand. In the time it took to change to riding boots and send for Gilles, Estela was heading to the stables, too pent up to feel the usual lurch associated with the place.

  That’s when she had a second jolt. Grim and busy, Arnaut was giving orders to a handful of Dragonetz’ men, looking more set-faced if anything when he saw Estela.

  ‘My Lady,’ he said curtly.

  ‘I thought you were gone with Aliénor’s company,’ she blurted out, too surprised to be tactful.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you but my Lord Dragon detailed a group to remain with my Lord Dragonetz los Pros. Unfortunately I am one of them, along with my father.’

  Rue, thought Estela, and a posy of pansies, but she could not find words to work the healing needed. ‘And Dragonetz in this?’

  ‘Had no say in the matter.’

  She hesitated but she had to try. ‘I am sure he would have only your best interests at heart.’

  ‘As always. If you’ll excuse me, my Lady, there is work to do re-organising our accommodation when we have settled horse and pack. I take it you’re riding?’

  She searched his face for the times they’d ridden side by side but his eyes refused to meet hers. She was going to tell him about al-Hisba but she suddenly felt foolish in her fears. ‘I’m going to show Gilles the paper mill.’

  ‘I’m glad you have a suitable companion.’ Arnaut left her. Gilles had already found two mounts from among those still saddled and offered a hand to Estela, who put Arnaut from her mind and vaulted into the saddle. The inexplicable urge to hurry overtook her and as soon as they were out of Narbonne, she kicked her mare into a passable canter, accompanied always by Gilles, whose one-handed horsemanship was more than her match.

  In the Palace courtyard, a grubby urchin caught his breath beside a man removing his helmet. ‘Please Sire, can you tell me where to find Lord Dragonetz los Pros? I have a message for him.’

  ‘Take it to him,’ pointed the knight. As Dragonetz was not back from the road that they should have been on themselves, Arnaut could deal with whatever it was. An assignation no doubt, knowing their liege lord.

  Arnaut had seen to the horses and was about to take his foul mood into the Palace when the boy ran up to him. ‘Sire, sire, I have a message for Lord Dragonetz los Pros. Are you he?’

  ‘Yes,’ snapped Arnaut.

  The boy shut his eyes and screwed up his face, the better to repeat word for word what he had rehearsed. ‘The Infidel is going to set fire to the Paper mill.’ Ducking expertly to avoid the mailed arm snaking out to catch him, the boy hared off into the warren of streets, well used to the rewards of his chosen profession.

  ‘The bastard!’ It wasn’t the boy Arnaut meant as he smote the stable wall. And Estela was heading towards the mill with a one-armed man as her only protection. He swore again, sent curt messages after the men he’d just dismissed to take their ease, including his own father with whom he was barely speaking. Like Estela, he found a mount ready saddled, tore its reins from a protesting burgher and pounded the path along the river.

  Also known as al-Hisba, Malik-al-Judhami of the ancient line of the Banu Hud, disinherited Emir to the Taifa of Zaragoza did not hurry as he poured oil onto the wood of mill-house, mill-race, shafts, presses. He had dismissed all the men so that the mill was peopled only with ghosts but even they could shake his detachment, perhaps shake even the resolve itself. Like any surgery, this must be performed with precision, and this time he was not detached enough. On this stone, he had broken bread with Dragonetz and solved problems of lubrication and rotation, mathematics and mechanics. They had talked of harmonies and export duties, absolute truths and cartwheels.

  The mill was a monument to an alliance between two opposed cultures and two men who were friends. Would Dragonetz ever forgive him? Would a man believe that his physician friend had amputated and cauterised a limb that was doomed anyway? Malik struck sparks from the tinderbox and lit the fire. He ripped off wooden struts and used the brands to torch the furthest corners. Sweat streaked runnels down his soot-grimed face as he worked to destroy the domain where he had been the king he could never be in Zaragoza, not while Aragon and the Christians claimed his country as theirs.

  Malik had tested the wind before starting the great blaze, relying on the water channels and the river to keep the fires contained, and he had not erred in his calculations. All the paper made in their mill - their mill - had been carted and shipped the week before, their receipts carefully lodged with Raavad bu
t of course Dragonetz could not know this, not until after he had been saved from himself. In the springtime, when the payments came in, he would be a rich man.

  Meanwhile, some token sheets burned to cinders, fizzling into the vats that blackened and spluttered themselves. He had held out as long as possible, driving production as hard and as efficiently as he knew how, but he had felt the end coming, heard the impatience in the Archbishop’s voice in their rendez-vous. He had prepared Raavad. All was in order. Whether Dragonetz understood or not, his remarkable and much-loved friend would be alive, to follow his destiny.

  And he, Malik, was free to return to his people in al-Andalus, with all that he had learned, and all the secret alliances he had forged in Occitania. He was free to return to his wife and five children, having done his duty. If Dragonetz had been other than he was, Malik would have slipped away as planned, forgotten by the Templars after they sold him, forgotten by his new ‘owner’ after disappearing.

  A quiet ship from Narbonne to Barcelone and then home, to continue working for his people, squeezed between the Christians and the Almohads, with their fundamental intolerance. But Dragonetz had not bought him, had offered him choice, had shared his dreams and in return he, Malik-al-Judhami, had bought him a summer and taught him and his young protegée all he could. Insha’Allah. As God wills.

  And then Malik was given a brutal reminder that Allah’s ways take no account of a man’s planning, however meticulous. Riding towards him were Estela and her henchman. She threw herself off her horse, ran at him, a dagger in one hand. Had she chosen to throw it rather than stab him with it, she would have caught him but he had enough warning to twist the attacking wrist so the blow was harmless. As he restrained her wrists, she kicked and bit, using anything but ladylike language and he was hard-pressed to hang onto her while keeping an eye on the man approaching. Malik had little choice but to hold Estela in front of him as a shield, earning another mouthful of abuse while she kicked and screamed.

  To his horror, another rider came into view, dust spraying round his hooves. This one was in armour. Dragonetz? No, on first impression maybe, but a friend recognized the difference, a shade less in height, a nuance in carriage. Malik hardly had time to recognize Arnaut before he saw the trap sprung round him - five men who must have been lying in the undergrowth, biding their time.

  ‘No!’ hurled Malik at the treacherous skies. He pushed Estela at her man, who stumbled, caught off balance, giving the Moor time to pass them and pick up his scimitar from its resting place. He had not thought to use it this day but he would not stand and watch, especially as he could hazard a guess at whose doing this misbegotten ambush was. With the ancient war-cry of his people he charged at Arnaut, who was already fighting for his life, grounded by men who’d hacked his horse to its knees. His eyes widened as Malik came towards him wielding the great curved blade but then he understood and turned his back on him as he had a thousand times with Dragonetz, only then it had been scimitars they fought against.

  Malik was seconds away from changing the odds to two against five, soon to be three against five, now that Estela’s man had read the situation, but a second was all it took. One of the five blades slipped between coif and hauberk at the neck join, bubbling blood after it as the assailant jerked it back and Arnaut dropped to his knees, then to the ground. Satisfied that their work was done, the ragged band ran off.

  Malik pulled the coif off Arnaut’s head and moved the mail of the hauberk to one side. He put pressure on the wound to stem the flow of blood, but could not stop it completely. Estela threw herself down beside him. ‘Is your medicine box on your horse? Can I get it?’ He just shook his head at her, the verdict absolute.

  Arnaut opened his eyes, a spasm of pain chasing across the otherwise clear gaze, no trace now of bitterness. ‘It’s all right Estela,’ he slurred and she had to bend to catch his words. They all felt the thunder of approaching hooves. ‘Go, al-Hisba,’ Arnaut told him. ‘Dragonetz will kill you.’ Malik hesitated but Estela repeated, ‘Go,’ and moved Arnaut’s head onto her own lap, moving the Moor’s hand aside and pressing her own fingers against the wound to buy a few more minutes. ‘I am Malik-al-Judhami of the Banu Hud,’ he told them, bowing in respect to Arnaut. ‘Peace be with you, brother in spirit. May we meet again in Paradise.’

  ‘Go,’ Estela told him flatly, and the Moor took to his horse, racing past the newcomers with a nod to their leader. It was indeed Dragonetz, with Raoulf and others of his men.

  ‘My Lord,‘ Arnaut greeted him. ‘This was meant for you.’ He made a faint effort to raise his arm to the wound in his neck. ‘Five armed men, the leader red-haired and pock-faced, and all of them without honour.’

  ‘I know them,’ Dragonetz told him. ‘They will pay.’ He took Arnaut’s hands in his own. ‘I wish it had been me!’ Then he moved aside for the man whose son this was, who couldn’t speak but rubbed the cold hands over and over, trying to create this precious life a second time. Raoulf pulled at the mail hauberk. ‘Too tight,’ he said stupid with grief. ‘It’s too tight.’ And he caught accidentally at the chain under the hauberk, revealing Estela’s token, still worn next to Arnaut’s skin.

  As if reminded of something, Arnaut spoke again. ‘Estela?’

  ‘I’m here,’ she told him, stroking the bloodless forehead where blonde hairs escaped from the iron hooding his head. ‘I’m always here.’

  ‘What sort of song would I be?’

  ‘The best kind,’ she told him. ‘A song of love and courage and friendship.’

  ‘Of honour,’ Dragonetz added, ‘and skill in battle and fighting back to back.’

  ‘You were wrong,’ Arnaut breathed, eyes dimly on his father.

  ‘I was wrong,’ Raoulf agreed brokenly, crushing his hands tighter. It was as if Estela’s ribcage was crushed by those desperate hands, the waste of it all choking her, until suddenly she flooded with the Song of Arnaut, words glittering and honed to a fine blade, the rich, bloody poetry of one man’s life and death singing itself to her open heart. This will be my first song, she promised her friend, silently, You will never be forgotten. Where troubadours sing, across time and space, they will remember Arnaut, who gave his life for his friend.

  ‘Feet out of stirrups,’ Dragonetz told his friend, leaning over to close the sightless eyes. He gently untangled Estela from Arnaut, forcing her to let go, raising her to her feet. She couldn’t take in that it was over. ‘Leave them,’ he said to her, supporting her arm. Incapable of moving by her own volition, Estela allowed herself to be led away from the tableau of father and son. Still holding her, Dragonetz gave orders to his men, told them he needed to return to Narbonne as soon as possible to ensure the murderers were caught. The fires were already running out of fuel, dying safely to ashes around the razed mill-works and Dragonetz barely glanced at what remained of his dream as he hoisted Estela up in front of him. Gilles kept them company during a sombre return to the city, in which much was said about a man they had not known, whom they had called al-Hisba.

  Chapter 23.

  Ermengarda listened, sharp-faced and still, astute as ever in her questions when Dragonetz completed his accusation. ‘The same five as tried to start civil war in the city and to kill you in the Jewish Quarter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you suspect someone who would benefit from ill-will towards the Jews in my City, and from preventing the invention of paper taking over Church functions and Church money?’

  ‘Yes. I believe he was also behind the attempt to kill me at the Viking Games. Employing the Lady Alis and perhaps in league with Toulouse.’

  ‘But there is no proof against the Archbishop?’

  ‘Nothing that wouldn’t disappear with bribed witnesses.’

  ‘Your man al-Hisba’s role in this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Dragonetz. ‘Estela and presumably Arnaut saw him set fire to the mill but Estela and Gilles swear he didn’t expect the assassins and would have given his life for Arnaut�
��s. It makes no sense to me. All I know is that he was never my man. Who he is, I have yet to learn. All I have is a name but that is more than we knew before.’

  There was a reflective silence and Dragonetz knew better than to break it. ‘You will need to speak with Raavad,’ commented Ermengarda at length. ‘You cannot but renege on your contract as you have no mill and no merchandise, so he must call in his dues.’

  Dragonetz flushed. ‘I have some payments owing from shipments already at sea but the uncertainties of weather and travel means I have no sureties. I can only hope that Raavad is willing to wait and that I come across a miraculous well of good fortune.’ This time the silence was heavier. Dragonetz was asking whether Ermengarda would offer him a loan - or more. He knew the answer. What the woman might have given, the Viscomtesse of Narbonne dare not. She had made that clear when they had first made their private pact.

  She held his gaze, steady, without apology. ‘I too hope that Raavad will be generous to a debtor.’ Dragonetz nodded. It was no. Ermengarda had realised how far the Church would go to prevent paper changing the world and her priority was her city and its existing trade, not some possible future goods dependent on the vision of a madman. ‘I believe that the Commander of my Guard can find your mercenaries, given your description.’ Dragonetz gave cautious assent, waiting.

  ‘They will have to be questioned,’ continued Ermengarda. Meaning tortured and mutilated. Dragonetz still waited. ‘They will certainly hurl all kinds of false accusations against a respected prelate, a citizen of Narbonne, which we will report to him, along with our amazement that criminals should think us so stupid as to suspect him of conspiracy and murder.’ So d’Anduze would know that Ermengarda was well aware of what he’d done and that she would hold it over him for the future. He would owe her a favour for not making his life unpleasant. She could certainly have done that much even if she could never have proved his complicity.