The Song of the Nightingale

by Alys Clare

  Roger dug his elbow into Ninian’s ribs, and the spell was broken. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I went to de Montfort’s winter camp, pretending to be newly arrived from the north and eager to join the crusade. He is planning to attack Lavaur, and he is expecting the imminent arrival of a very large column of German knights to support the siege.’

  The small black eyes seemed to bore into him. ‘Lavaur,’ the count mused. He glanced at the bearded giant, then at Roger, beckoning both men closer. There was a muttered conversation, and the bearded man crouched down – Ninian could almost hear him creak – and drew a diagram in the dust. The count nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘an ambush there—’ he pointed at a spot on the diagram with the toe of his boot – ‘at Montgey, where we could utilize the contours of the land to conceal us.’ He turned to the giant, his face twisted with cruel lust. ‘A bloodbath, yes?’

  The giant grinned, revealing huge teeth full of gaps. ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  ‘The German column will be bleeding into the dust before the besiegers at Lavaur even know they’re coming,’ the count said with relish. ‘By the time they come to help, nobody will be left alive.’ Spinning round as fast as a striking snake, he fixed his eyes on Ninian again. ‘So, what do you want?’ he demanded.

  ‘What do I—?’

  ‘He’s asking what you expect to be paid for this information,’ Roger hissed.

  ‘What do I say?’ Ninian hissed back.

  Roger grinned. ‘I’d advise against excessive greed, but, other than that, it’s up to you.’

  Ninian thought swiftly. There was nothing he could think of for himself, but what about his village friends? Some of the young men he had been training were lacking swords; this might be the perfect opportunity to put that right.

  He said, ‘In the village where I’ve been living we are short of weapons. If you could spare any swords, or even knives, that would help them greatly.’

  The count laughed, a sound like metal scraping on stone. ‘Weapons we have,’ he replied. ‘Take what you can carry.’

  Then, without even a wave of his hand in dismissal, the count turned his back and, bending close to the giant, a fist punching the air for emphasis, began to issue an intent and inaudible stream of orders. Roger jerked his head towards the steps, and they backed unobtrusively away.

  Roger offered to ride with Ninian as he set off for Utta’s village; in the euphoria of meeting the Count of Foix, and glowing with the success of his mission, Ninian had almost forgotten that he had offered to seek her out and suggest she remove herself to the relative safety of the village high in the mountains. Roger was carrying his share of the count’s reward; the sound of clanking metal accompanied them as they rode along.

  For some time it was the only sound, other than the soft thud of the horses’ hooves on the turf. Roger, it seemed, had something on his mind. Ninian waited, and presently it emerged.

  ‘You have proved a good friend to the bonshommes,’ he observed. ‘You train their young men in the art of fighting, and now you have provided very valuable information that will help their cause.’

  Ninian, taken aback, agreed. ‘They, also, have been good friends to me,’ he replied, ‘and have housed and fed me ever since my arrival.’

  ‘Bearing a treasure they have been longing for, if I hear right,’ Roger murmured.

  Ninian was not sure whether or not to confirm it; was the presence of the precious manuscript meant to be a secret? ‘I had need of a place to hide,’ he said instead, ‘and I—’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware of your story,’ Roger said calmly. He turned to look at Ninian, studying him intently. ‘I think, my young friend, you must ask yourself if, having given so freely of yourself to these people whose battle is not yours, you intend to stay with them for ever.’

  ‘I can’t go home!’ Ninian protested. ‘I’m wanted for murder!’

  ‘Do you not have loyal family and friends who will have fought to clear your name?’ Roger demanded.

  Ninian thought piercingly of Josse, and his heart gave a painful lurch.

  ‘Yes, I thought so,’ Roger went on softly. ‘Will they not now be desperate to hear news of you, praying that you might be preparing to return?’

  ‘I’m not sure I dare take the risk,’ Ninian admitted. ‘If I am still wanted, my chances of escaping with my life will be slim.’

  ‘Are they any better if you stay here?’ Roger countered. ‘You heard the count back there.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the castle, far behind them now. ‘You are in the middle of a war here, my friend, and both sides will fight to the death. The Cathars—’ and, amid everything else, Ninian was surprised to hear him use that term – ‘will lose.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘It isn’t your fight, Ninian,’ Roger said. He sighed. ‘I’m not sure it’s mine, either.’

  ‘I thought you were on their side!’ Ninian protested.

  Roger looked at him. ‘Putting aside ancillary issues such as the pope’s resentment over an upstart faith that threatens his precious Church’s dominance, and the king of France’s hunger for territory in the south, what we have here is basically a difference of opinion over the nature of a supreme being. In which,’ he added with a smile, ‘I do not believe.’

  Ninian felt as stunned as if Roger had hit him. He’d heard it whispered – very quietly – that there were such people who denied the existence of God, but he had never before encountered one. And then, penetrating through the shock, he heard again what Roger had just said about his friends.

  Roger’s was not the first voice that had uttered those defeatist, depressing sentiments. Now, with an impact as forceful as a fist in the face, Ninian recalled that strange episode in the little chapel where he had stood before the Black Madonna. He heard again those words: this battle will not be won. Church and king together can draw on endless resources and are ultimately invincible. And, regarding his friends in the village, that chilling condemnation: they made use of you.

  Now memory was returning fast, words and images flooding his mind with such force that he put up a defending hand to his head, as if to beat them away. But the gesture was useless; he sat on Garnet’s back and endured as again he saw the familiar sights and the beloved faces that culminated in the one single word: home. Even as he felt the tears of homesickness and longing form in his eyes, the final image was forming, and he saw once more the towering edifice reaching up as if to scrape the heavens, the cone of brilliant, dazzling light surrounding it, spinning round like a huge vortex of power.

  If the message urging him to leave the south was so forceful, perhaps he ought to start listening to it . . .

  Utta was delighted to see him and, inviting him and Roger inside her tiny house, instantly began to bustle about preparing food and drink for them. She talked so quickly, and her accent was so thick, that Ninian caught about one word in four, hardly enough to make adequate sense of her outpourings. As she went about her work, she frequently paused to stare at him, sometimes taking his face between her hands and twice kissing him with great affection.

  Roger, watching, sent Ninian an amused glance. ‘She appears to be quite fond of you,’ he remarked.

  Ninian, embarrassed, muttered, ‘She once came to England, and she met my mother.’

  Utta picked up the word mother, which engendered further demonstrations of emotion. ‘Mother saved my life,’ she said to Roger. ‘Mother risk herself, her baby, to keep Utta safe from man who would kill her.’ She nodded emphatically, as if to underline her words.

  ‘Her baby?’ Roger asked. ‘Was that you?’

  ‘My sister,’ he said shortly. ‘My half-sister, in fact. Same mother, different fathers.’ Again, he thought of Josse, in truth the only father he had ever known. His true father had been a far more elevated yet vastly inferior man, whose identity he certainly wasn’t about to reveal to Roger.

  Utta, still chattering, seemed to be asking about Joanna. ‘My mother is dead, Utta,’ Ninian said gently. ‘I told y
ou when you came to see me up in the village, didn’t I?’

  Utta stared at him, her blue eyes intent. Then her round face broke into a smile. ‘Dead?’ she echoed. Then, shaking her head, ‘No, oh, no. She is here—’ she clasped both hands over the clean white apron that covered her full chest – ‘and here.’ Now one hand was in the air over her head, waving in a slow circle. ‘Not dead,’ she repeated insistently, ‘for I hear her voice, I see her lovely smile in her face that is now lined, and I see her hair, still beautiful even though now it is streaked with grey.’

  Stunned, Ninian tried to rationalize the extraordinary remark. Utta must have an active imagination, he told himself. She remembered his mother – of course she did – and her mind had added the details of the lined face and greying hair because she guessed that was how it would be if Joanna were still alive.

  That had to be the explanation; it was, after all, the only one.

  It was strange, then, that the image of Joanna that Utta had just described exactly matched Ninian’s vision of her in the tiny chapel where Roger had found him . . .

  Utta leaned closer to him, one hand clutching his arm. ‘You have seen her too?’ she whispered.

  Slowly, he nodded. ‘It’s – she’s just a vision,’ he said, his voice breaking on the words.

  Utta smiled, a very sweet expression. ‘She watches over those she loves,’ she said. Then, her voice barely audible, she added something else. Ninian thought it was: go and find her.

  But I can’t, because she’s dead, he wanted to protest. Yet he found he could not say it.

  As he and Roger left Utta’s little town and headed up into the mountains, such was Ninian’s state of mind that he found himself wondering if the visit to see Utta had been manufactured by some sort of power from beyond the earth purely so that he could hear her speak those words about Joanna. Because it had otherwise proved pretty pointless, since Utta would not even consider leaving her cosy little house for the sanctuary of the village in the mountains. ‘Here I am happy, have many friends, have good, plain work to keep hands busy, I have my life,’ she had said. As if she had heard Ninian’s unspoken protest – that, when de Montfort’s army came crashing through the narrow streets, she would lose all those things, including her life – she had given him her sweet smile and said, ‘I am old woman now. Have had good life, am ready for death when it chooses to take me, for then will come paradise.’

  It had been useless to try to shake her serene certainty.

  Now, plodding along behind Roger, Ninian wondered if he should have done more, or whether it was Utta’s destiny to quit her earthly existence in that friendly, cheerful little house. He could have—

  ‘This is where we go our separate ways.’ Roger’s voice had broken into his thoughts and, looking up, he saw that they had stopped at the foot of the narrow and barely discernible track that led up to the village. ‘My road leads on down there,’ Roger went on, pointing ahead, ‘and I don’t want to tire my horse by making him go all the way up to the village.’

  They both dismounted. Roger untied the bundles of weapons he had been carrying and handed them to Ninian, who added them to the load already on Garnet’s back. The path was steep; he realized his horse would have enough to bear without carrying his weight too, and decided to walk up.

  He and Roger stood facing each other. ‘Thank you for all you’ve done for me,’ Ninian said.

  Roger waved a hand. ‘I’ve done nothing,’ he replied. Then, giving Ninian a suddenly astute look, he added, ‘Unless, that is, I’ve succeeded in putting some doubt in your mind.’

  Not waiting to explain, he mounted his horse, put heels to its sides and rode away.

  Of the men who had ridden out on the mission, Ninian was the last to return. His friends greeted him with relief and, when he admitted his failure to persuade Utta to come, said that many of the others had experienced similar disappointment. The weapons were greeted with delight and many questions concerning their provenance, which Ninian politely declined to answer; his account, he felt, should be given first to the village elders.

  He stashed the bundles under his bed and was just trying to smarten himself up in preparation for seeking out Alazaïs, when a young woman came to summon him to her presence. Word of the weapons must have spread already, he thought as he hurried across the tiny square to her house.

  When he was ushered inside, he found her sitting alone, in exactly the same pose as when he had first met her nearly half a year ago. ‘Sit down, Ninian,’ she said. He sank on to a wooden stool. She sat in silence, regarding him.

  ‘I couldn’t persuade Utta to come to the village,’ he said, as the silence became awkward. ‘She—’

  ‘It is not important,’ Alazaïs said dismissively.

  ‘I’ve brought swords and knives,’ Ninian hurried on, ‘which I was given by—’

  Once more she interrupted. ‘When you did not return with the others,’ she said, ‘I hoped it meant that you had decided to go home.’

  He was angry that she would think that. ‘I would not go without telling you,’ he said stiffly. Straightening his shoulders, he added, ‘I was brought up not to desert my friends.’

  ‘You came here for two reasons,’ she intoned. ‘One, because you were running from a false accusation of murder, and two, because my son told you there was a refuge here where nobody would find you. In addition, he made sure that you brought to us our treasured manuscript, although you did it unknowingly. Neither action provides any reason for you to take on the mantle of our friend, Ninian.’

  He could not understand why she was being so harsh. ‘But – I’ve lived here with you all, and I’ve been useful, training the young men. Haven’t I?’ He was distressed to hear the note of pleading in his voice.

  She was watching him dispassionately. ‘The result will be the same,’ she said softly.

  He wondered if she was being deliberately cruel to drive him away. ‘You don’t need to—’ he began.

  ‘Ninian, there is something I would ask of you,’ she said. She smiled thinly. ‘You may think, with justification, that I have a fine cheek, to ask a favour of you when I have just implied that you are an outsider and not welcome here. However, let me explain.’ She was quiet for some moments, apparently thinking. Then: ‘While you were away, we had some visitors.’ She mentioned several names, all of which Ninian recognized and some of which were those of the most important leaders of the bonshommes. She must have seen his expression, for she said, ‘Esclarmonde of Foix and I are old friends, and we took the consolamentum together. Peter Roger of Cabaret I have known for years.’

  She was of the St Gilles family, Ninian recalled. It was one of the leading clans of the region, and it was probably no surprise that such revered elders had made the arduous journey up to the village to visit her.

  ‘They had only one reason for coming here,’ she murmured, ‘and it concerns you, and the favour I would ask of you. That we would ask,’ she corrected herself, ‘for, in truth, it concerns us all.’ She paused, studying him intently out of narrowed green eyes. They were, Ninian thought absently, very like her son’s.

  ‘You came here bearing a treasure you did not know you carried,’ she said, her voice now powerful, as if, having decided on how to phrase her request, her strength and determination had flooded back. ‘Would you, Ninian de Courtenay, be prepared to return to the north, leaving behind this tortured land, and take something equally precious to safety?’

  His mind filled with questions and objections. Ignoring them, he took a deep breath and said, ‘You’d better tell me what this something is.’

  She gave a faint smile. Reaching inside a fold of her robe that lay over her heart, she drew out a small rectangular object, wrapped in black silk. Unfolding the silk, she put on the little table in front of her a set of the images that he’d noticed the bonshommes carried, and which they used to help others understand the complexities of their faith. Most sets were simple, crudely drawn on thin paper. The ones t
hat Alazaïs now spread out before him were painted on to heavy card and were stunningly beautiful.

  ‘Behold,’ she said, ‘the secret heart of our faith. Encoded in these twenty-one images, Ninian, hidden in symbols that no outsider could penetrate, is the journey of the soul as it passes its years down here in its earthly existence.’ He was staring down at the images, his eyes dazzled by the glorious colours and the high degree of the artistry. He was also experiencing the disconcerting illusion that cool fingers were walking their way down his spine: the images seemed to generate a strong, mysterious power. ‘Would you like to take the journey with me?’

  He found his voice. ‘Yes.’

  She had laid the images out in a particular sequence – three rows of seven – and now she straightened the edges so that they were perfectly in line. Pointing to the card on the left of the top row, she said, ‘Here we begin, for this is the Lost Soul; the angelic spirit trapped in an earthly body and torn out of its true home in the spirit realm. Here—’ she went on to the second image – ‘is the Free Spirit, and a door opens just a crack to admit a tiny light, representing the faint hope that the Lost Soul may find his way home again if he can overcome all the challenges and dangers that await on the journey. Here—’ she indicated a strange, robed figure which, although clearly an authority figure, was female – ‘we have the female face of religion, or perhaps you would say Mother Church, and she is our enemy; after her comes her male counterpart, the human head of that church.’ She paused, and he thought he detected a tremor in her hand.

  She went on, pointing to the next two images and identifying them as the Queen and the King, representing temporal power on earth, and the one that came next, symbolizing the temptations of the carnal – love and procreation – both of which tried to pull the Lost Soul from his true path. ‘Finally in the first row comes the Wagon,’ Alazaïs said, ‘and here, see, is the picture of a rich man’s worldly goods loaded high on a runaway wagon that is out of control and about to crash, to the ruin of everything on it. This is the temptation of materialism, and the image illustrates its ultimate futility.’