by Mary Hoffman
Then he pulled his cloak tight about him and went up to the battlements. The walls were still intact, because of Lord Lanval’s actions. Perhaps this castle would one day again be home to a member of the family? He longed for the war to be over and to bring Elinor here to her inheritance and restore her mother and sister to her. Perhaps even one day there might be a marriage for the donzela, maybe even to young le Viguier, and a good life rebuilt here, where the troubadour had spent so many happy hours before the war.
He shook himself; these were idle dreams. And it went against his religion to regret the loss of earthly possessions. It was all just matter. Even Big Hugo and Lord Trencavel had been made of the same gross stuff as himself and death had released their spirits from the dull heavy envelopes of their bodies. He should rejoice really, but Bertran was a man and a poet even though he was a Believer, and he could not bring himself to feel joy instead of sorrow as he stood in the cold empty castle of Sévignan.
As winter passed, Iseut and Elinor grew used to life in the Marchese’s court. It was much bigger and grander than the homes they had been used to. It teemed with servants carrying logs to keep fires roaring in all the rooms and hanks of wool to stuff into any crack that might let the wind find its way through the thick stone walls. It was as warm as a mild spring day, as long as they stayed indoors.
And the more that life was confined to the castle, the more feasts and entertainments were put on to amuse the court. Food was plentiful if less varied than in summer and the women of Saint-Jacques began to recover some of the fullness of figure they had lost in their long flight to Monferrato. Without the possibility of walking or riding in the countryside they grew sleek and glossy as kitchen cats and fell into a kind of torpor.
Iseut had been right about suitors. Even in the cold months a stream of young and not so young Italian nobles visited Guglielmo, though Elinor couldn’t tell if they had been summoned or if it was just the Marchese’s custom to entertain widely in the winter.
She noticed one knight in particular, who seemed to be constantly, as if by accident, put in the way of Lady Iseut. He was called Alessandro da Selva, and was a vassal of the Marchese from one of the towns in the south-west of the Monferrato region. Alessandro was the older son of the Lord of Selva and would one day inherit a very substantial castle and fertile lands, the Marchesa told Iseut.
‘Don’t they make a handsome couple?’ she said to Elinor one day when Iseut and Ser Alessandro had their heads bowed over a game of chess.
It was true: they looked very similar. The knight was about the same age and had the same fair hair and grey eyes as the Lady, though this made them look more like close brother and sister than a pair of courting lovers in Elinor’s eyes. And she couldn’t help noticing that Alessandro did not behave like a lover.
He had many conversations with Iseut, it was true. He was a cultured man, interested as much in poetry and music as in the knightly skills of hunting, jousting and warfare. But he didn’t sigh or roll his eyes, never pressed his hand to his heart or recited poetry to Iseut. And Elinor couldn’t help noticing that he often cast a look in her own direction.
Often when she thought she could watch his behaviour towards Iseut unobserved, Alessandro would look up, as if he felt her gaze on him and then she had to look away swiftly. It would not have been at all seemly for the young knight to think that she had any interest in him for herself.
It made Elinor smile. I am turning into the kind of young woman my mother wanted me to be, she thought, if I can use words like ‘seemly’ even in my own head!
And so the cold months wore on in Italy, in feasting and courtesy and warmth and with no fear of invasion or siege.
But in Montpellier, King Pedro had refused to accept Simon de Montfort’s homage as his vassal.
‘He may call himself Viscount of wherever he likes,’ said Pedro. ‘But Trencavel was my vassal and he was foully done to death. I won’t be suzerain to that murderous French upstart.’
The Count of Toulouse, on the other hand, seemed prepared to do anything to win favour with the Pope and with the leader of the northern forces.
But a week or so later the bodies of two monks were found on the road outside Carcassonne. They were Cistercians, servants of Milo, the Papal Legate, and there were thirty-six stab wounds in their bodies. The fight back against the north had begun in earnest.
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Wearing the Green
The Abbot of Cîteaux was a disgruntled man. He had lost the leadership of the army and lost face in front of his men. True there was currently not much of an army to lead, but the Abbot felt about de Montfort as a man feels who has nurtured a wolf cub with scraps from his own table, only to be turned on and bitten in the leg.
Ever since Simon de Montfort had taken over Viscount Trencavel’s titles, he seemed to have taken over as leader of the crusade and the Abbot had soon begun to regret elevating him to such a high position. In order to assert his own authority, the Abbot had declared many citizens of Toulouse to be heretics and demanded they and their property should be handed over to him personally.
But the Consuls of Toulouse resisted him. These men were not heretics, they claimed, and they wrote to the Pope, going over his Legate’s head, asking him to intervene. And Innocent would not let his Legates enter Toulouse without a strong reason. It made the Abbot gnash his teeth with frustration. Toulouse was the prize he had kept his eye on all along and it seemed to be slipping out of his grasp.
And the wretched Count was the slipperiest of all his opponents, for all he was supposed to be on the French side now. The Pope was too trusting and the Abbot had written to him saying, ‘If the Count of Toulouse, that enemy of peace and justice, should come before your Holiness, take care not to be deceived by his lying tongue.’
Three important towns – Avignon, Nîmes and Saint-Gilles – were ready to renounce their allegiance to the Count. But Raimon of Toulouse was wily as a fox and had destroyed some of his own frontier castles, just to keep a swathe of neutral territory between his lands and those of de Montfort, making sure that hostilities didn’t break out between his followers and the French. He had gone back to King Philippe-Auguste himself and sent representatives to Rome. He was determined to beat the French at their own game.
Well, we shall see, thought the Abbot. He had heard it said in the south that ‘A reconciled enemy never makes a good friend.’ Between de Montfort and the Count of Toulouse, he felt thoroughly oppressed but he was not beaten yet. If the Count did not keep all the promises he had made during his humiliation at Saint-Gilles, he would have him hounded out of all his territories. And once Toulouse was his, the Abbot wouldn’t care about de Montfort. Let him posture in his castle at Carcassonne; that was nothing but a child’s toy fort compared with the rose-pink city of Toulouse.
Elinor and Iseut passed their first Christmas out of their own country keeping vigil on Christmas Eve with all the court in the cathedral of Chivasso and celebrating Mass at dawn. Gifts were given and received, Iseut insisting on using some of their supply of money to make handsome presents to the Marchese and his wife, though the jewels and lengths of velvet and satin they got in return far surpassed what they could afford to give.
In January came the news that the Count of Toulouse’s latest excommunication had been lifted.
‘So there should be peace in the Midi,’ said the Marchese. ‘If the Pope has forgiven the Count of Toulouse then the very cause of the crusade has been removed.’
The two women began to dream that they might go back in the summer.
‘But to what?’ asked Iseut. ‘My castle lies in ruins, my lands burned or pillaged. I would have no more there than here.’
‘Perhaps Sévignan still stands?’ said Elinor. ‘You could come and live with me. That would be fair exchange for the months I spent at your court.’
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br /> But Elinor was doubtful of her own welcome, since she had run away. She did not know that she was now the Senhor.
‘There will be time to decide,’ said Iseut. ‘Besides, the Count of Toulouse has been excommunicated and restored to favour many times before. There is no guarantee this will be the last. We should do nothing hastily.’
Elinor agreed but she wondered if something more was preventing Iseut from planning to leave. The young Lord of Selva had spent all of the winter at Monferrato and he did seem to be Guglielmo’s preferred candidate even if not Iseut’s.
The leader of the resistance was Peire-Roger, Lord of Cabaret. He was no longer young and it made him reckless. He had the strongest castle in the region, three fortresses in one on a rocky ridge, surrounded on three sides by sheer cliffs. Simon de Montfort had tried to take it in the autumn and had to retire defeated.
Peire-Roger, who had fought bravely in the suburbs at Carcassonne before escaping with his knights, had spent the cold months launching raids on the French. By the spring the northerners had lost forty castles to the raiders, as well as the ones left empty by the nobles who had returned to their harvests in France. And Simon de Montfort had no more than five hundred men left to defend his eight remaining strongholds.
It really did seem as if the south was winning back much of what it had lost the summer before. The Lord of Termes and his raiding parties had played their part in taking back bastides, Sévignan included, though they had not needed to fight for that one. They had lost few men and were in constant contact with the garrison at Cabaret.
The men at Cabaret and Termes had the advantage of knowing the terrain, while the remaining French were defending unknown territory and were easily ambushed when they ventured away from the castles, even when the raiding party was outnumbered. And word had spread that the Abbot of Cîteaux and Simon de Montfort were no longer on good terms. ‘It is a bad season when wolves eat each other,’ said the people of the south.
Then in March everything changed again. And it was a woman who changed it.
Alice de Montfort brought reinforcements south to her husband, meeting him at Pézenas with a huge army. And more crusaders followed throughout the spring. After a hard winter, which had caused the rivers to overflow and made movement difficult, it had turned very warm and more and more northern knights came south to fight for their forty days and get what they could in return.
Simon’s cruelty was given a huge boost by having so many new recruits; now he could take vengeance for the French losses of the winter. He put down rebellions brutally, hanging and burning with great zeal. But it was his actions at the fortified town of Bram that brought real fear into the rebel garrisons.
Bertran was with the Lord of Termes and Gui le Viguier when the news came. The messenger from Cabaret could hardly tell them what he had seen without retching; they had to feed him sips of spiced wine and let him speak at his own pace.
‘We were at dinner with Lord Peire-Roger,’ he said, ‘when they came. A sentry had spotted them coming through the valley.’
‘Who?’ asked the Lord of Termes gently, because the man was shaking so much.
‘About a hundred of them,’ he said. ‘From Bram. They came slowly, so slowly. It wasn’t natural. We went up to the battlements to watch them approach. There was one man in the lead and they were all roped together. As they got nearer we saw that their faces were just masks of blood . . .’
He couldn’t go on for several minutes.
‘What had the bastards done?’ demanded Gui, clenching his fists.
‘Blinded them,’ said the messenger. ‘All save the leader, who had been left one eye to guide them to what the French call ‘the rebels’. And, and, they’d all had their lips and noses cut off too.’
‘Sweet Jesu!’ said Lord Raimon, while the other two put their hands to their mouths as they felt their gorges rise.
‘Who did this foul thing?’ asked Bertran.
‘De Montfort,’ said the messenger bitterly. ‘The worst of them all. He is so powerful with his new forces that he sees himself as a giant hammer and all the Midi his anvil.’
‘And the poor wretches from Bram?’ asked Raimon.
‘Dying like flies,’ said the messenger. ‘Their wounds had festered and they can’t take proper nourishment. The healers at Cabaret do what they can for them but I doubt any of them will survive into summer.’
‘What kind of life would it be for them if they did?’ said Gui. He had a young man’s horror of disability, far greater than his fear of death. Even his own crooked arm was a badge of shame to him, though he had gained it valiantly.
Bertran was distracted. Now that French reinforcements had come he could not imagine that the garrisons in Termes and Minerve could hold out for long – perhaps even Cabaret would fall if there were big enough siege engines to hurl stones at it. He could not face the thought of Huguet and Peire being subjected to the cruelties of the wolf de Montfort, not after losing Perrin at Béziers.
‘My lord,’ he said, ‘could you spare me a small guard to take Huguet and the boy into safety? I’d like to see them as far east as possible. If they could get to Saint-Jacques, the ladies there would look after them.’
The Lord of Termes looked doubtful. ‘They would be in danger from the French all along the way.’
‘They are in danger if they stay here,’ said Bertran. ‘Would you have happen to them what happened to the men of Bram?’
The Lord winced. He had grown fond of the boy and the child.
‘Let me go,’ said Gui. ‘I’ll take them and come back. Bertran is a good man but he is a poet not a knight. I can see them safe to Saint-Jacques and come back before summer.’
And see Elinor, thought Bertran. An old pain invaded his mind, to be quickly suppressed.
The Lord was debating whether it was better to lose Bertran, his wise counsellor, or Gui one of his best knights. But he saw how desperate the situation was.
‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘Take four men, le Viguier, and turn back as soon as you have got them somewhere safe, Saint-Jacques or wherever. Rest one night only and return. Perhaps you will still find us alive if God wills it.’
If God is here, thought Bertran. He buried his disappointment about not seeing Elinor because he knew Gui would be the better guard for the two boys. Now all he had to do was to persuade them to go.
Alessandro da Selva was in a quandary. He had been invited to the castle of Monferrato specifically to court Lady Iseut of Saint-Jacques. And he did like her; she was like a sister or a kind woman friend to him. But it was her dark-eyed friend who really attracted him. And he dared not show her any attention lest he offend both Iseut and his liege lord.
In the end, he went to lay his problem before the Marchese.
Guglielmo was vastly amused.
‘She has no dowry, you know,’ he said. ‘Only the dresses she stands up in and those were given to her by her friend or my wife.’
‘But that is not Elinor’s fault,’ said Alessandro. ‘Did she not have to leave her home to escape the army?’
Neither woman had told the Marchese about Elinor’s time as a joglar or the real reason she had left her home. They had talked about the persecution of the French, and Iseut’s own escape had been so dramatic that it had been easy to gloss over the original reason for Elinor’s being at Saint-Jacques.
‘What about Iseut?’ asked Guglielmo. ‘Will she be disappointed if you seem to have transferred your affections?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Alessandro. ‘I think she feels about me much as I do about her. We are friends and no more.’
‘Would you like my wife to find out?’ asked the Marchese.
Alessandro was happy to leave such a delicate task to a woman. And so it was Berta who came to Iseut for a private audience and it was quickly establ
ished that the one lady was indifferent and the other likely not to be averse to Alessandro’s suit.
When Elinor heard about this conversation, she blushed to the roots of her hair.
‘But I shall never be able to speak to him again!’ she exclaimed. ‘He really said that to the Marchese?’
‘I don’t think you have ever spoken more than two words to him or he to you,’ said Iseut, smiling. ‘And I think it’s time you did. How else are you to know if you really like him?’
‘And you really don’t mind? You don’t want to marry him a bit?’
‘I really don’t mind and I don’t want to marry him even slightly,’ said Iseut. ‘If you want to encourage Alessandro, you have my blessing. And the Marchese’s, according to the Marchesa.’
Elinor’s mind was in a whirl. How could that heart which had for so long carried the image of Bertran the troubadour make room for a new love? She felt disloyal and wretched. But then in a moment she was excited at the prospect of seeing Alessandro again, looking into his grey eyes knowing that he had told the Marchese that he wanted to court her.
And if he did, would she accept him? What other future could there be? She had known for a long time that Bertran would never marry her or anyone else. If she did not accept someone, she was likely to spend the rest of her life at the court of Monferrato, dwindling into a dependent spinster – someone to teach the children and sit at the bottom of the table. And if she were to marry – well, Alessandro was certainly an intriguing proposition.
The Bishop of Toulouse was Simon de Montfort’s ally. And, what was more surprising, he had once been a troubadour. But, nearly fifteen years ago, Folquet had abandoned his wife and children and taken holy orders. When the Legates forced out the Bishop they considered to be too friendly to Count Raimon, Folquet, now a fanatical churchman, had been an obvious choice.
Being sympathetic to de Montfort’s ambitions to take the city, he organised the good churchmen – by which he meant those who thought as he did – into a society called the White Brotherhood. They dressed up in white robes with crosses on the front and held meetings and processions to make themselves feel important.
