by Mary Hoffman
‘That can have nothing to do with me,’ said Iseut firmly, unaware that the ‘gang of ruffians’ was under her roof. ‘I deplore the taking of a life, whoever did it.’
‘Indeed, of course,’ said Taddeo. ‘And I’m sure you would not shelter heretics either. But if you do ever need a safe place further away from the Rhône, remember that troubadours are well received in Piedmont, particularly at the court of Monferrato.’
Even trobairitz? thought Iseut but she merely thanked him and wished the pilgrims well on their way back home.
It was perhaps as well that Elinor did not hear this conversation, though by now Perrin had told her that their way lay east towards Monferrato, where the Marchese was sympathetic to the Believers.
But when the snows came and she had bled for the second time, she received a message to go and see the Lady in private. Lucatz was put out when she told him; for Elinor had soon learned that nothing must be done without his knowledge and approval, since the night of Bertran’s rescue.
‘I expect she wants me to learn a new poem, sire,’ said Elinor. It had happened before.
‘Yes, but she has not asked to see you without me before,’ said Lucatz.
‘Cannot you come with me?’ asked Elinor, who did not at all want to have a private audience with the Lady.
Lucatz shook his head. ‘No, not if I am not asked for. That would not be cortesia.’
But he was pleased that the boy had asked. It showed the right spirit.
‘I will tell you what she said,’ promised Elinor, little knowing how hard that would be.
When she got to Lady Iseut’s private room, where she kept accounts and record, Elinor was surprised to find Azalais there with her. The lady of Tarascon was first to speak.
‘Esteve,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘A good name for a boy. It is a shame that your sweet voice will soon crack. How old are you?’
‘Nearly fourteen, lady,’ said Elinor. She could feel the throb of her own blood in her neck.
‘Then it will not be long.’
There was a charged silence in the room. Elinor noticed that Iseut was as pale as she feared herself flushed.
‘At least, not if Esteve were really a boy.’
It had been said now. The thing that Elinor had feared. Her secret was out. She saw little point in denying it. She had taken off her cap when she entered the room and now ran her fingers through her shaggy hair, which Huguet had kept trimmed for her every few weeks. But she remained silent; there was nothing to say.
‘Why did you deceive me?’ asked Iseut.
‘Oh not you, my lady,’ she found her voice at last. ‘I mean not just you. It was everyone. I had to leave my bastide and it was the safest way for me to travel.’
‘Does Lucatz know?’ asked Iseut.
‘No. Only the other joglars and the joglaresas.’
‘I find it hard to believe that a young woman of quality – for you are of noble birth, aren’t you? – would leave her home and roam the country dressed as a boy in a company of travelling musicians,’ said Azalais. But even as she said it, she had a wistful look, as if she wouldn’t have minded doing such a thing herself.
‘It was my only choice,’ said Elinor. ‘My father wanted me to marry an old man and I couldn’t bear it.’
Now both ladies were looking more sympathetic.
‘Who are you really?’ asked Iseut.
‘Elinor of Sévignan. I am daughter of Lord Lanval and Lady Clara.’
‘And they do not know where you are?’ asked Iseut. ‘They must be mad with worry in these dangerous times.’
Elinor bowed her head; it was true, but she hadn’t understood that when she left. The resentment had gradually faded on her journey. It was as the Lady’s poem said: bitter things could be made sweet by love. Her parents had loved her and everything they had tried to do was to protect her. Where they had gone wrong was in not explaining it her.
‘You must have known you could not get away with it for ever,’ said Azalais. ‘You are already bursting out of your disguise.’
Elinor’s cheeks burned. ‘I, I did not think further ahead than escaping from my father’s choice of a husband for me,’ she said.
‘And now?’ asked Iseut. ‘Azalais is right. I do not think your disguise will help you for much longer. Can you still be Esteve the joglar when Lucatz moves on in a few months’ time?’
Elinor hung her head miserably; she knew they were both right. It had kept her awake for many a night.
‘I shall go back to Tarascon in the spring,’ said Azalais. ‘You may come with me if you wish. You could be transformed back into a young woman by the time we reached there. I could say you were another trobairitz I had met in the mountains.’
‘Or you could stay here with me as my companion when Azalais leaves,’ said Iseut. ‘I am sure that with a dress and a coif no one would recognise you as the boy joglar once your troupe had gone.’
Elinor felt the tension in the air and realised that the two women had discussed these options before she had been sent for. Again she was being asked to choose and she knew that this time it was about more than where she lived. She had to choose her words carefully. Two pairs of eyes, one dark, one grey, were watching her closely.
‘I had a . . . friend,’ she said at last, ‘who advised me to travel east. I don’t know how far he meant. But I do know that he thought there was danger in my old home. He would not recommend retracing my journey even as far west as Tarascon.’
Azalais relaxed a fraction. ‘So you will stay here,’ she said flatly. ‘I thought that would be your choice. Even before I knew you had a “friend”. So it was only the age of your suitor that troubled you. You are not against marriage in general?’
‘No, not in general,’ said Elinor. ‘But you misunderstand me. It was not that sort of friend.’ Her face belied her words.
‘Your reasons are your own,’ said Iseut. ‘I am glad you want to stay at Saint-Jacques.
Elinor realised that she did want to stay up here in the mountains, where the air was clear and sharp and where murder and revenge were just words. Even though she would miss her friends in the troupe more than she dared to think about now. She admired the Lady, who was such a good ‘Senhor’. Iseut reminded Elinor of Maria of Montpellier. Another woman ruling her own lands and vassals, who did not need a man to advise or protect her. Perhaps Elinor could be like her one day?
‘But what shall I tell Lucatz?’ was all she said.
Bertran de Miramont had waited at Toulouse for Raimon’s return. He was unrecognisable now either as a Cistercian monk or a troubadour. He had grown a dark beard and moustache and there was no trace of his former tonsure. His little stock of money had dwindled, even though he had lived as frugally as a monk since the rescue at Saint-Gilles. But he was loath to sell the horse he had bought then; it was his last connection with the joglars and joglaresas who had rescued him – not to mention with Elinor. And it was his passport to a quick getaway if he was traced to the ‘rose city.’
So he had posed as a scholar called Jules, fallen on hard times, and taken on work as a scribe and clerk. It was enough to pay for his board and lodgings and his religion made him an abstemious man. The only item of value he possessed he had given to Elinor.
Elinor. As his situation seemed more and more desperate, Bertran thought more often of the donzela he thought he had left for ever in Sévignan. He knew she was in love with him, or that at least that she believed herself so. That was why he had left her the token and with it a small hope; it was all that people had in such critical times.
Besides, as he grew closer to death, Bertran was trying to divest himself of possessions. He would die a true Perfect, and he must prepare for that. So what of love? He could perhaps have put Elinor out of his mind if he had not seen her again so unexpectedly in Sa
int-Gilles and been told that the escape plan was her doing.
But why had she been dressed as a boy – a joglar? He regretted now that he had not spared the time to hear her story, but it seemed that she had left her family with the help of Perrin and Huguet. In a way, as long as they continued east, it was safer for her than staying at Sévignan. Her father was a well-known Believer and Bertran was sure Lanval would feel the wrath of the crusade that would soon muster in the north.
But what would happen to Elinor in future? She couldn’t maintain her disguise as a boy for ever and he couldn’t imagine what she would do next, even if the troupe did reach Italy. But he did find himself imagining all sorts of things. He tried to stop himself; this was not the right way for a Believer to be thinking.
For all that he had sung and written of love, Bertran did not have love affairs. He kept women at a distance, even though many had tried to win the heart of the troubadour. But Elinor had somehow crept behind his defences. She was so young, so determined and so idealistic. Seeing her at Saint-Gilles in her disguise had made him realise that. Whatever had made her leave her home, she had risked a great deal; rescuing him was all of a piece with that.
Bertran, living in disguise himself in Toulouse, without friends to talk to, felt Elinor’s position even more strongly. And he had little to take his mind off it till the Count returned.
Raimon of Toulouse came back into the city as unpredictable and sore as a wounded lion. Philippe-Auguste had turned him down and so had Otto. He had even been to see the Abbot of Cîteaux, who was the Pope’s Legate, and begged forgiveness for his sins. The Abbot had also refused him. Then in a last-ditch attempt to forestall the Pope’s rage, he had gone, cap in hand, to his nephew and vassal Viscount Trencavel at Carcassonne.
Young Trencavel had been polite; he was the model of cortesia at all times. But he did not feel he always had to follow the same line as his ambitious and hot-tempered uncle. He declined the alliance. The Count had left Carcassonne thwarted for the fourth time and this last refusal had hurt more than the other three. It had been his last chance to form an alliance and make a concerted defence against the Pope’s war. Now he had no choice but to submit to whatever penance Innocent demanded of him. And it would not be long in coming.
‘She wants you to stay here?’ said Lucatz, stupefied. ‘Whatever for?’
‘The Lady wants me to stay at Saint-Jacques until I can rejoin my old troubadour,’ said Elinor. She felt very uncomfortable about lying, but hadn’t she lied to Lucatz from the beginning?
‘And that is what you want?’ said the troubadour. He was clearly hurt.
‘I think it would be best,’ mumbled Elinor.
‘Then there is no more to be said. I must find myself another joglar with an unbroken voice,’ said Lucatz.
‘I shall still be your joglar till you move on in the spring,’ said Elinor.
‘Hmm? Oh, yes, yes,’ said Lucatz vaguely. Elinor realised he was already mentally recasting the troupe’s repertoire without her. Until he did find a new joglar, they would not be able to perform the songs she had made so much her own.
She was glad of the sanctuary that Lady Iseut had offered her but she couldn’t help feeling a pang at the thought of the troupe moving on without her. Huguet and Perrin would go back to their original bond of two and the joglaresas would go on gossiping, joking and one day teasing a new boy. If she could have stayed as Esteve, she would not have left the troupe; she would have been content to be a joglar for ever. But nature had forced this solution on her.
And she would be forgotten. She wondered if even her family still thought about her. She dared not hope that Bertran did. But then a small, fluttering optimism hinted that her new life might have its adventures too. Iseut was going to teach her to be a trobairitz. She would have something else that she could do. And having sung both Iseut’s and Azalais’ songs, she had a shrewd idea that she could work out how to write them.
Telling the joglars and joglaresas was hard, harder than the interview she had first had with Lucatz. But they were all understanding.
‘It is for the best,’ said Pelegrina. ‘You couldn’t hide your womanhood for ever.’
‘And it’s not right for a lady like you to travel the roads,’ said Maria. ‘It’s all right for us; we’re used to it.’
‘I was getting used to it too,’ said Elinor, trying not to cry.
‘We will miss you,’ said Bernardina simply.
‘Will you be all right?’ asked Perrin. He was anxious; he felt responsible for the donzela.
‘I think it is the best solution,’ said Elinor. ‘If the ladies here have discovered my secret, then so would others.’
‘We’ll come back and see you,’ promised Huguet.
‘If we can,’ added Perrin.
‘Where do you think you will go?’ asked Elinor.
‘I don’t know if Lucatz will agree to go all the way across the border into Piedmont,’ said Perrin. ‘But we won’t return west while the land is so troubled. We’ll await word from Bertran. I’m sure he will get a message to us somehow.’
‘Would you like us to tell him where you are, lady?’ asked Huguet in a low voice.
Elinor could only nod.
The remaining cold weeks flew past. Lady Iseut gave some grand banquets and invited some of the nobles who the joglaresas said had been her suitors. The troupe sang, danced and played for them and Esteve gave some of his best performances.
Lord Berenger was often there at Saint-Jacques. Elinor was sure that he still wanted to live by the Lady’s side. And she was equally sure that Azalais didn’t like or approve of this. The lady of Tarascon had become much sharper in her manner ever since the day of Elinor’s interview and she was now inclined to be critical of the young joglar’s performance.
Then Elinor overheard a conversation at the nobles’ table about Azalais’ return to her home on the Rhône.
‘I might not stay there long,’ said Azalais. ‘I’m thinking of going into Piedmont myself. I have been there before and there are many trobairitz there.’
Lady Iseut looked at her with troubled grey eyes. ‘If that is what you want,’ she said. ‘I hope you will be happy wherever you go. And that we may still correspond?’
‘Of course,’ said Azalais. And the conversation moved on.
When the arrangements were made for Elinor’s transformation, it was Lady Iseut who told her what to do; her friend took no more interest once Elinor had chosen to stay at Saint-Jacques.
The troupe moved on in early April, as they had done the year before; but what a different parting this one was! This time Elinor set off with them, as Esteve, riding on Mackerel, turning back in her saddle to wave at the townspeople who had turned out to see them off. It would not be long before more entertainers came to Saint-Jacques; the Lady’s reputation ensured that. But a bastide always felt a little sad when their wintering troupe left in spring.
Iseut’s senescal, Nicolas, had been taken into their confidence. He was waiting beyond the first stand of trees, with a pony and cart. The troupe drew to a halt. Lucatz had been surprised that the young joglar had ridden out with them but he expected him to turn and ride back to the town. Elinor had already said her farewells to Perrin and the others and her heart was heavy as they exchanged one last embrace.
Then the troupe set off down the mountain towards the next valley and the road east. It took them some time to pass out of sight, since they had to travel at the pace of the slowest walker. But eventually they were hidden by an outcrop of rock and Nicolas took out a bundle from the trunk on the cart and gave it to Elinor. She changed quickly behind a bush, even though the senescal was looking studiously away.
The dress was of yellow silk and the coif to cover her hair was red and beautifully embroidered. Iseut had forgotten nothing: stockings, yellow slippers with red embroi
dery, a purse to hang at her girdle and a cross to put round her neck. Elinor could not bring herself to put it on. Instead she pinned Bertran’s red brooch on to the front of her dress.
When she was completely changed, she called out to Nicolas and gave him the bundle. Next Mackerel had to be disguised. His mane and tail were plaited with red and yellow ribbons. It didn’t make any difference to his distinctive dappled patterns, but no one would be expecting the joglar’s pony to return to the bastide, tied behind Nicolas’ cart.
Then came the hardest part: The senescal had to drive Elinor into the bastide in the cart. When people asked who the young lady was, they were to be told that this was one Elinor, a talented young trobairitz who had come to study with the Lady. The deception was made easier by both Iseut and Azalais greeting her warmly as soon as she arrived. They had already told the servants that such a visitor was expected.
So when Elinor entered Saint-Jacques for the second time, it was as a beautiful dark poet, clothed in red and yellow, the colours of her native country, come to make the bastide her home. That night Iseut ordered the drawbridge raised for the first time since the troupe arrived in the autumn. Elinor heard the chains clanking and wondered if she was a guest or a prisoner.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dolor
Now Elinor’s new life began. She had her own name back and with it her gender and her social status. Trobairitz, like the troubadours, came from noble families. They did not travel from court to court like their male counterparts but were in correspondence with other poets, male and female, in both the south and the north.
Azalais did not stay long after Elinor’s ‘arrival’, just long enough not to arouse suspicion. And Elinor soon slipped into her place as Iseut’s friend and confidante. At dinner she sat beside the Lady at the nobles’ table and if any entertainer came to the great hall, she sat and listened to them as she had once been listened to.
Her life as a wandering musician was over and she was sometimes sad, especially when a young joglar came to Saint-Jacques and sang one of the songs she had made her own. But now she felt the pleasures of composition and they were quite different from those of performance.
