Troubadour

by Isolde Martyn

  ‘Leave Sir Henri out of this,’ growled Richart. ‘It was my business.’

  With seeming sadness, Seguinus shook his head in condemnation. ‘Too much has been your business, nephew. Messieurs, our city-state has thrived on being open with one another. For many years, we have been an example of order and stability to the rest of Christendom, but now … Good friends, my nephew needs some weeks of rest. Unless any of you have an excellent argument against this, you may leave it in the hands of Sir Jaufré and myself to see he is cared for.’ He rose. ‘That is all for this morning, masters.’

  All?

  Richart strained against the cords binding him. ‘Are you all sheep to listen to this wolf?’ he exclaimed, shouting above the scrape of benches and the uneasy talk. ‘Is seeing tolerance destroyed and worthy men killed more important than justice or lawful right, friends? Because that’s what will happen if you do as this bishop wants. Mirascon will be divided by the sword.’

  The exchange of glances between the nearest consuls seemed hopeful, but he was wrong. They had another issue on their mind and it was his brother they were pursuing.

  ‘There is a further matter, my lord Jaufré.’

  Lord Jaufré, was he now?

  The flash of smiling teeth. ‘Oh, how may I help?’

  ‘We wish Lord Richart’s dwarf to leave the city.’

  ‘Yes, my lord, we are not comfortable with him in our midst.’

  Even Henri and his household officers were in accord with them now. ‘They say dwarves are familiars of the Devil,’ muttered Henri.

  Richart rolled his eyes heavenwards. He wanted to snarl, Why don’t you search the castle for elves and goblins as well? Oh, I forgot to add that King Eric of Sweden sent me a troll at Yuletide.

  Arms folded, Jaufré frowned and appeared to consider his answer. Only Richart snared the little coy glance at Seguinus before his brother replied, ‘But, sirs, do we call blindness or deafness the work of the Devil or an unfortunate affliction from the womb? Surely the poor little man deserves our pity.’

  ‘But this dwarf was from England,’ the old consul argued, lumbering into the group around Jaufré. ‘Have you considered, Bishop,’ he asked, turning to include Seguinus, ‘that this deformed creature may be the one who is exerting an evil influence on our noble lord’s mind?’

  ‘Have I considered that?’ Seguinus smiled at Richart as Jaufré beckoned the guards to remove him from his chair. ‘Oh, indeed, I have.’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  My wandering heart still eternally seeks you, and is filled with anguish at having lost you, in spite of all the powers of my reason.

  Peter Abelard to Héloïse

  Mirascon

  Like bleached bones, the bars of the cage glimmered in the light of the waxing moon. It was the third night of being incarcerated like some wild beast. For two days Richart had been as ravenous as any pard. His choice. He had been fearful of eating lest they were still trying to poison him. Tonight, however, he felt better. This morning’s upstairs guard had reassuringly swapped dinner platters and the ale had tasted reasonable. Unable to be certain of its innocence, he continued to drink sparingly through the day, sufficient to keep himself alive.

  He watched the dark shape of his guard pass the window light and once more heard the piss spatter into the corner pail. This soldier did it frequently, either from boredom or because he had drunk a skinful before coming on watch. Richart swore and turned away. Was this what he was reduced to, counting how many times his guard pissed?

  Prickled by his stupid lack of foresight, he hit the bars in fury; he should have banished Jaufré.

  ‘Where shall I bestow you for tonight, my dear, insane brother,’ Jaufré had whispered after the grumbling councillors had left. ‘Ah, yes, of course, the lunatic’s cage in the tower! We shall have to truss you like a capon, mayhap drug you, to get you up all those stairs, but then your soldiers will do anything for money, you know that. And we shall appoint a new castellan within the hour.’

  The new man, either out of omission or mercy, had not chained him to the floor so Richart was able to stride back and forth, back and forth, trying to keep his fitness. It was not enough. His muscles were screaming for real exercise and his mind for distraction.

  He hit the bars again. ‘What o’clock is it?’

  ‘Dunno, my lord,’ the soldier answered with a yawn. ‘Ain’t it abaht time you settled down then we can both get some sleep.’

  No, he had slept little since they had locked him in; his self-fury had been relentless. He had respect for L’Aiguille that she had kept her mind during her imprisonment, but he had given her books. Would they give him books or leave him with regret and anger to constantly berate him?

  Oh, God, he wasn’t mad but he soon could be.

  Adela, he whispered in his mind. It all seemed a poet’s tale now, that week of courtship, that growing love. Well, after they had murdered him, his soul would seek out hers, hold her hand in purgatory, dance with her across the clouds or the fiery floors of Hell.

  He paced to and fro, to and fro, then flung himself on the meagre palliasse.

  Earlier than yesternight, the soldier’s snores began to punctuate the tedium and then, unbelievably, the staircase door edged open. Murderers with a cushion to suffocate him so that there would be no ribbon of blood across his throat? He sprang up, grabbed the stool and tensed.

  The boot of a half-shadow investigated the guard’s slumped body and Richart heard a familiar chuckle. ‘I see you are rearranging the furniture, my lord.’

  ‘Helps pass the time.’

  Unbelievably, Derwent was unlocking the cage, and it seemed too easy—a trap, smacking of Seguinus’s cunning, but if this was his only chance of escape …

  ‘Feeling too attached to leave?’

  ‘No, thank Heaven.’ He shook himself to action, helped drag the guard’s body into the cage.

  ‘Gift for you!’ Derwent unslung a scabbard from his back. ‘A close shave trying to remove it before your brother moved into your chamber.’

  Richart laughed, taking heart at the beloved feel of his sword within his hand once more. Derwent locked the cage behind them. ‘After you, my lord! I’ve bribed the guards below but, like women, they may have changed their minds.’

  He held the blade ready as he led the way down the winding stairs. If need be, he must kill his way out.

  Dice had been always forbidden under his command; tonight the two soldiers at the foot of the stairs were happily hunched over their game. They did not turn their heads. ‘Did you hear anything just then?’ asked one.

  ‘Not a thing, but I do have an irrepressible urge to be bound up and gagged. Ropes are over there, my lord.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Ah, money was such an opener of locks and appeaser of men’s consciences.

  ‘Maybe a quick punch on the jaw, too, my lord, for appearances.’

  ‘Compliant flies make for easy binding.’ Derwent chuckled. He collected a mysterious bundle from the shadows beneath the steps, cast a final glance over the bruises and bindings, then he nodded to Richart and mouthed, ‘Chapel’ behind his hand.

  Uncertainty froze Richart once more. If Derwent had discovered the secret of the chapel, could he have helped L’Aiguille escape that way?

  ‘My lord! Come on!’

  Well, he followed. Since he was now Fortune’s beggar, what choice was there?

  At least Heaven had turned tolerant, blessing them with a Saracen woman’s veil across the half-moon, a heart-in-mouth chance to dart between the shadows skirting the keep and hasten across to the chapel. Fortunately, no priest kept vigil. Only an eternity oil lamp flickered from a crossbeam and a low-burned candle danced its flame as they entered.

  Richart crossed his brow with holy water, then hastening behind the altar, he plunged his fingers into the eyes of the ancient flagstone carving and dragged the slab aside. He would have grabbed the stub from the altar, but Derwent delayed his arm.

  ‘Best not,
someone will notice. Here!’ The small man lit a slender taper from his pouch before he climbed down the ladder into the passageway.

  Without a full man’s help, the dwarf could not have managed. It took Richart’s strength to slide the stone back into place, his altitude to grab a torch from its bracket and pass it down to be lit. ‘Is your help stemming from goodness of soul, Derwent,’ he gasped as he shifted the ladder from below the stone, ‘or is this merely a mutual arrangement?’

  ‘Yes and no. You will receive a list of expenses. Or your friend Miró Barthé will subtract it from the coffer you left with him.’ He laughed as Richart swore. ‘Mea culpa, my lord. Of course, I followed you all the way the night you found me outside the chapel. Took some strategy not to get earthed in, though. See, I wanted to know a way to escape the castle if need be, because that which men fear, they seek to destroy, and people always fear me. So, voilà, mutual arrangement! If you had not given me your protection, you would still be in the cage.’

  ‘And the key to the cage?’

  ‘I pressed a copy from yours a while back. Just a safeguard in case I ended up in the tower.’

  ‘Merde!’ muttered Richart. The key had never left his person. ‘How in Hell did you manage that?’

  ‘Don’t bath with your keys, do you?’

  ‘But they were always to hand.’

  ‘Ah, but remember the pigeon that flew in? I seem to recall everyone was mighty distracted catching the blessed thing.’ A gleeful smirk. ‘I like your merchant friend Miró, by the way. Visited his shop a few times until your brother sent out a proclamation for my arrest. Had the whole city looking for me under their beds and in their rafters.’

  ‘And where were you? Under my uncle’s?’

  Derwent chuckled. ‘Nothing that foolhardy. I hid under Adela’s in the daytime. Had to use your servant Gaspard to go into the city and acquire the bribe money off Master Miró.’

  It would have sounded ungrateful to mutter that he hoped neither his servant nor friend would suffer for helping Derwent. Instead Richart said, ‘Hmm, if we had more time, I would kneel to your ingenuity, Derwent. Any other plans that include me, may I ask?’

  ‘Of course, my most noble lord. Miró, bless his boots, has arranged a boat at the river and there’ll be an ambler waiting for us on the other side.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Well, I can’t reach the stirrups on my own.’

  So the dwarf was coming with him. Richart fell silent and increased his pace. He’d reserve judgement. They needed to be across the river before the change of guard.

  As he helped Derwent out of the passageway, he had no more time to wonder who had aided L’Aiguille’s escape nor flagellate himself for the errors he had made. His castle walls soared formidably above the scrubby slope, and crouching behind the clumps of grass, he stared up at the ramparts and the watchtowers with new perspective; a mouse beneath an eagle’s gaze might have felt safer. Then from across the river, he heard the shake of a horse’s bridle, and below the ridges he glimpsed the outline of a prow.

  ‘The clouds favour us once more, Derwent,’ he whispered. ‘To the boat, now!’

  Before first light, he drew rein at the crossroads where he had fought with Jaufré.

  ‘Where, my lord?’ whispered Derwent at his back. ‘Foix? Toulouse?’

  ‘No, Montpellier!’ He felt the judder of surprise in the hands holding on his belt.

  ‘But that’s north!’ squeaked Derwent, letting go. ‘Into the jaws of the crusade? Then you are mad!’

  ‘Two reasons, Derwent. Firstly, I need to see for myself how large this unholy army is and secondly, my treacherous kinsmen won’t expect me to go that way. Cheer up, we’ll make good speed once we reach the Via Domitia. Better than heading for Foix.’

  ‘That’s three reasons, then,’ grumbled the dwarf. ‘Make it four since I cannot abide holy uncles. I think St Luke should invent a plague tailored just for them—pus-oozing buboes followed by a fatal visitation from on high. Seguinus would like me skewered on a spit roast. Perhaps you would, too. Montpellier! Lordy, I should have left you in the cage!’

  ‘Derwent, I have trusted you this night and owe you my freedom. Perhaps you could trust my judgement in this.’ He dared not add: even though I have made a rat’s nest of matters this last week.

  The dwarf sighed. ‘North-west into the teeth of bigots. And may the saints have mercy on our souls.’

  Mayhap the Devil was preoccupied observing the crusader army and God was being kind. Certainly, no pack of human hounds from Mirascon salivated at Richart’s heels, but his senses continued on full alarum. Riding without the horns and banners of authority warning lesser men to stand aside and pull their forelocks made him feel like a hapless turtle without its shell. His only possessions now were a razor-tongued dwarf, a sword, a dun ambler named Pilgrim, spare horseshoes, a bag of oats and a bundle of clothes, which he discovered as they made camp for the night, were the stale, grubby garments he had worn at the Court of Love.

  ‘Well, thank you, Gaspard,’ he muttered and flung the tunic from him in disgust.

  ‘Tsk, tsk.’ Derwent retrieved it from the bushes. ‘Be fair, my lord, no doubt your devoted servant was thinking how you might escape unobserved. If I had known you wanted the azure silk with the matching breechclout. Ow!’ The dwarf made pretence of staggering at the friendly buffet. ‘You need brawny Maud.’

  ‘Who in Hell is “Brawny Maud”?’

  ‘Adela’s companion, remember? Alys’s washerwoman.’

  ‘Ah, the other English.’ Richart stood considering. ‘I had forgotten her.’

  ‘That’s what she intended. And she spoke Norman French, too,’ smirked Derwent, ‘though not one of you lords fathomed her.’

  Richart drew breath to curse, but the memory of Adela was sufficient to drown him in silent grief. For a moment, his mind was far away, his inner magistrate berating him for behaving so coldly to her at the cathedral.

  ‘My lord, anyone at home up there?’ Derwent stood dangling the offending tunic. ‘I said I suggest you dunk this in that brook.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Well, with your looks, the Queen of Elfland might scrub it for you, but I wouldn’t like to raise your hopes. Wash it in yonder brook, rub the sullied bits and then dry it on a branch.’

  Richart sniffed, muttered, and went to investigate the laundering possibilities. ‘It’s changing the colour of the water,’ he complained after a few moments of sloshing.

  ‘Cheap dye. No, don’t wring it!’ Derwent rescued the dripping tunic and carried it across to festoon a hawthorn bush. He held out the rest of the bundle. ‘You might as well do the lot. It’s a warm night.’

  Richart swore at him, but a few heartbeats later, standing barelegged in the stream, he began to feel almost mellow. ‘Strange thing, Derwent,’ he observed, swirling the garments in the flow, ‘this is almost enjoyable. Mind, I would not want to do this for my livelihood. And you know what? This is the first time in my life I feel actually free of responsibility, beholden to no one. I could almost leave Mirascon to my uncle and Jaufré.’

  ‘But you won’t.’

  ‘God willing, no. Can I wring these?’ He held up some soggy leggings.

  ‘By all means.’ Derwent smiled indulgently. ‘Such domesticity, my lord! Ah, but the polish wears off the leather, I can tell you. When you can’t find a clear water to assuage your thirst and no housewife will give you a crust of bread, you’ll sell your soul for a morsel and a kind word.’

  Via Domitia

  It had taken two days to reach the coastal heat-baked plains and join the Via Domitia, an ancient route, which had linked Spain with the valley of the Rhone and the Mediterranean since the world was young. From a military captain’s view, the road had invisible pennons of ‘welcome south’ fluttering all over it, for it was utterly Roman: mostly straight, devoid of hills and its stony surface meant that a heavily laden army could trundle along without losing its breath.

  Dust,
flies, the dried-up rivulets, the relentless heat of the July sun and the hordes of grumbling travellers were now the challenges. Pilgrims travelling to Rome and Compostela were in haste to stay ahead of any warfare, whereas hedge-whores, cutpurses, chapmen, lorimers, smiths, tinkers, chirurgeons and potion-peddlars—any smooth-tongued jack who could think of a way to service an army—were trudging north. By noon, many of the poorer travellers were nursing their blistered feet in any shade they could find, while those with wheels or mounts pressed on. Of greatest concern to Richart were the packs of armed southerners journeying to join the crusade, ruffians most of them, but there were wealthier knights, too, who should have known better. Greed and grudges against their neighbours had brought these human insects out of their crevices. Simple—accuse your neighbour of heresy and seize his land. How could I have thought of uniting the men of Languedoc? Richart asked himself sadly. The blustering wretches could not see beyond the tips of their noses.

  The plentiful traffic of pack animals and people meant that Richart and Derwent could journey unremarked. To be certain of that, the dwarf kept his hood up so that he looked like a lumpish boy riding behind his father rather than a creature to be spat upon or stoned. It was also his creed to avoid inns or alehouses. It was Richart who had to find them food.

  When they reached the vineyards around the walled village of Poussan, half a day’s ride from Montpellier, Richart led Pilgrim to water, then he pulled the troubadour tunic over his shirt, left the little man and the horse in the shade of a hedge and went into the village. It was past five bells and after suppertime so the less desperate travellers had already halted for the day. The several inns, brothels and brew houses were bursting with thirsty customers and the chance of any unsold pies was about as likely as a donkey flying to the moon, but tapster maids usually found Richart something if he smiled at them. He was good at that and he needed to refill the leather ale flasks that Miró had provided and sieve the rumours for gems of news. The welcome sight of Lisette’s cart drawn up in a laneway near The Pilgrim Inn in the Place du Marché decided him to try there first, but he checked that there were plenty of ways to leave the hostelry in case there was trouble.