Bladesong

by Jean Gill

  Bertran’s face screwed up in thought. ‘I’d stand a good way back when I said the news and I’d say it fast-like, then maybe run?’

  A flicker of amusement shimmered across Simon’s face and he sat straighter, apparently distracted from the weight he carried. Geral sighed and shook his head. ‘Think, man, what impression that would leave on some poor, bereaved human. No, no, no, you must carry the death in your person as if it’s your own dog that died, like this.’ And he schooled his features into his special face for ‘I am the bearer of sad, sad news.’

  Bertran clapped his hands with admiration. ‘I must do this. Is it so?’ and his own baby-faced smoothness contorted into a gargoyle around his twinkling blue eyes.

  ‘Almost,’ lied Geral. ‘’Tis practice you need.’ He felt another lift of spirits in the man opposite him, a barely concealed twitch of the mouth, and he emptied the pitcher of wine, calling for another. Tickling a fish was ever slow business to start with and a quick catch at the right time. Timing was everything.

  ‘And when you tell of a death, then judge the telling of it to suit the hearer. If the dead one was loved, then the death was heroic and painless - make it so. If the dead one was hated, the last moments were all cowardice and pain. And if the death was not personal but a public change...’ No, there was definitely no reaction from Simon. So, the red queen was not dead. What mission was the man on that brought him so far south? ‘Then you must tell it for the advantage of the hearer. Find the good in it for his status. Find a future invitation to greatness from the man who has replaced the dead one.’

  ‘But that would mean telling a lie.’ The boy’s eyes were saucers.

  ‘No indeed.’ A lie is the least of what you will do as messenger, Geral thought, if you want to stay among the living. ‘No indeed, for the future is unknown and it might well be that the new power will bring good to your hearer. You must just imagine it to be so, when you give the message, whatever that message may be. And remember that when one flower fades, another takes its place.’ Aha! That found an echo in Simon’s thoughts. The fish shimmered silver below Geral’s hand and he grabbed it.

  ‘I hear there has been such a replacement in Aquitaine,’ he hazarded aloud.

  ‘You know then.’ Simon’s face and tone were exactly right for proclaiming a loved one’s death.

  ‘Not the detail.’ Geral reeled him in smoothly and kicked Bertran once more under the table, just to make sure.

  ‘It all happened so quickly.’ Once he’d opened up, Simon spouted like a gutter in a storm. ‘First the annulment, and then as if that wasn’t enough in itself to put Aquitaine at risk from Louis... I mean, we didn’t want a King in Paris over us, and I’d give my life for our Duchesse without a question, but it was more difficult for everyone when she was on her own. Shows what an idiot the King is, to let the richest heiress in Christendom ride away from him, leaving him with two girl-children and nothing else but his own freedom to make the same mistake again.’

  Geral untangled the news. The King and Queen of France divorced. Not unexpected but now a fact. Aquitaine at risk from King Louis’ spite now that he was no longer its overlord. Shocked by the implications of this news from France, he glanced at his fellow-drinkers. The men around the messengers hadn’t even paused in their drinking for this talk of kings and annulments. France was too far from Provence to matter. Geral shivered. The fiery Aliénor once more alone and sovereign power in her Aquitaine. Then he took in what Simon was saying.

  ‘And now she’s not, the risk is a certainty.’

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘Alone.’

  Probably more round-eyed than Bertran, Geral couldn’t help it. ‘Not alone,’ he repeated stupidly. ‘She’s with...’

  Now he was fishing desperately, way out of his depth, but luckily Simon filled in the gap. ‘Yes, Henri damn-his-pretty-face Courtmantel, Duc d’Anjou. But two months since the marriage to Louis was dissolved, just time for her to undo every change to the law Louis ever made in Aquitaine, then she was a bride again on Whit Sunday. And there will be a war when Louis finds out.’ Lapsing into gloomy silence, Simon took a long draught from his goblet.

  ‘Don’t mistake me,’ he continued. ‘My Lady has good reason to marry sooner rather than later, with every ambitious lord hanging his hopes on her hand.’ Good reason that included bedding a man ten years younger than her, fitted well with what Geral knew of the ex-Queen of France. His thoughts raced over what he knew of Henri Courtmantel, nicknamed for his shortcoat. Self-styled heir to the throne of England, and welcome to it.

  ‘I just wish she’d chosen one of our good Aquitaine lords. There’s no lack of choice and Louis would have turned a blind eye to that but as it is...’

  ‘War, you say?’

  ‘Sure to be. My Lady might be floating around the countryside on a wedding progress but she sent me here, didn’t she, knowing full well what was coming. She’s telling the nuns at Fontrevault about her marriage and her plans for the Abbey but at the same time she’s checking that Poitiers and Ruffec are provisioned and fortified.’

  Geral could see the hook in the fish’s mouth. So close. He nodded sagely. ‘Aye, she’s been to war before, has the Queen ... sorry, Duchesse. Knows the men she needs to have about her to hold steady against Louis, if - when - he attacks, as he must.’

  ‘This marriage has combined Aquitaine with Normandy and Anjou, and a claim to England,’ nodded Simon.

  ‘And she needs her best men.’ The words were out his mouth before he realised what they meant. Suddenly, Geral knew where this conversation was heading and why Simon was on an errand in Provence, from Aliénor, ex-Queen of France and Duchesse d’Aquitaine. They were both seeking the same man.

  ‘Dragonetz los Pros,’ stated Simon, as if confirming Geral’s guess. Bertran’s mouth was open like the fish of Geral’s imagining, about to spoil everything, when half a pitcher of wine landed in the youngster’s lap.

  ‘Beg your pardon, boy. I must’ve drunk a bit more than I thought. Go see the landlord and beg a change of clothes and tell him we need a room tonight. I’ll settle all before we retire. He knows me well enough. Quickly! You’ll give the place a bad name dripping red everywhere. Looks like a man was stabbed and died under the table! And fetch more wine!’

  Ignoring the boy’s aggrieved look, Geral gave every sign of having been struck by an amazing idea. ‘I don’t know whether you need a room but if you do, why not join us this night?’ An enthusiastic assent rewarded him and Geral continued blithely, ‘So, this Dragonetz is the man the Duchesse wants. You know where to find him I take it?’

  Geral’s last hope vanished as Simon replied, ‘Aye. The Lord is holed up in a villa near here in the hills. I’ll head up there tomorrow to tell him my Lady wants him, and his father the Commander of the Guard wants him, then we’ll be on the road back as quick as turn-around.’ Not if I can help it, Geral thought. ‘We should be home in time for war with Louis and if we survive that, what with Dragonetz on our side too, then the best I can look forward to is England.’ The cloud settled over his features again and he took refuge in another swig of wine. ‘And yourself, Geral? You’re from here? Not working?’

  ‘From nearby,’ Geral evaded. ‘My Liege is a nobody, not like yours.’ He gave an envious look at Simon and prayed that his words would never reach his Lady’s ears. Then he set about misdirecting Simon with tidbits of gossip about the Bishop’s salt-mines and the Comte de Marselha’s amours. Geral even mentioned the forthcoming visit of the Comte de Barcelone, overlord of Provence, to his most unfaithful vassal in the fortress of Les Baux, but not once did the messenger give away his own mission.

  Wearing peasant hessian, Bertran thumped sullen onto the bench, grunted that the landlord would indeed await Geral’s pleasure at the close of the evening, and had kept a room for the three of them with clean, straw paillasses to lie on. The boy’s morose humour changed to a look of admiration as he listened silently to Geral doing a verbal dance around local politic
s without ever mentioning their relationship to the Lady of Les Baux, or why the two of them were in Marselha.

  Later that night, late enough to stagger a little but not so late as to court the headache less experienced drinkers would have had, the three of them took a companionable piss together in the back courtyard, then sought the landlord. ‘I’ll settle this.’ Geral brushed aside Simon’s offer to pay his share, accepting the thanks showered on him with a magnanimous ‘We’d have had to pay for the room anyway so I don’t see why you should have to pay.’

  ‘I don’t either,’ muttered the landlord, shrewder, as his torch-boy led Simon off to the room while Geral stayed to pay his dues. ‘Bertran can light me up the stairs,’ he said and grabbed the boy’s arm to keep him from following Simon.

  ‘You untrustworthy sewer-rat,’ the landlord addressed Geral and shook his head admiringly.

  Geral removed his feathered cap and sketched a mock bow to both the landlord and the boy.

  ‘I don’t know how you keeps your face so straight-like. I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Practice, Bertran, practice.’ He looked at the boy’s earnest face, smooth and shiny with sweat in the torchlight. ‘But you made a good start tonight. Make no mistake; this was an important stroke of luck, us meeting Aliénor’s man this night. Another inn and we’d be empty-handed tomorrow. As it is...’ Dropping the pretence of being tipsy, Geral gave precise instructions to the Innkeeper who was first reluctant, then convinced that it was his duty, aided by the purse on offer. If Bertran had been impressed before, he showed hero-worship in his eyes now.

  ‘And what must I do?’ he asked, his voice cracking.

  ‘Why, be nice to our friend, if he’s awake. And let him sleep well if he’s asleep. Tomorrow morning early, you shall be up and out, on the road to Lord Dragonetz with the message we were given.’

  ‘I thought you were going to Lord Dragonetz?’

  ‘I changed my mind.’ The exact moment when Geral changed his mind coincided with Simon describing the Lord’s fighting ability and Geral realised his capacity to carve chunks out of the messenger if he didn’t like the message. Much safer this way for a man who wanted to spend his last years sitting by the fire. However, what he said to Bertran was, ‘The Lord is sure to say yes to the invitation whereas the Lady could be trickier.’ Geral checked that the boy had memorised the message correctly and that he knew which road to take and how to recognise the villa. Bertran took a torch from the bracket, casting flickering shadows up the rickety steps. Then the two of them followed the landlord’s directions to their room, where Simon was already snorting like a glutted boar, in a drunken sleep.

  Geral lay awake for some time, sorting the information of the day into vital, useful and forgettable. In the first category was the direction to the bath-house at Ais en Provence, where he would find a certain Estela de Matin, a notable troubairitz, who had sung in Jerusalem for its Queen. Geral’s Lady wanted to add Estela to the gems decorating her court. Geral’s Lady had been crystal clear that Estela had to be shown the respect merited by her talent and to be given the invitation when she was alone, not when she was in her dwelling, a villa not far from Marselha, owned by a certain Lord Dragonetz, himself no mean troubadour. It was essential courtesy to pretend that no-one knew Estela and Dragonetz to be lovers.

  To further complicate Geral’s life, he, or rather Bertran, carried another invitation, for this same Lord Dragonetz and it was not his singing that was desperately sought. It was those same skills that made him invaluable to the Duchesse d’Aquitaine which had attracted the attention of Geral’s Lady. The forthcoming visit of the Comte de Barcelone was likely to explode the fragile truce between the overlord of Provence and the rebel lords of Les Baux, and this Dragonetz could decide the outcome. Or so thought Geral’s Lady, whose proper title was Lady Stéphania des Baux, ruler of the rocky stronghold since her husband had died in Barcelone two years ago, in dubious circumstances. More commonly known in her homeland as Etiennette, she was heir to Provence in the eyes of all those who had already fought for her against Barcelone and who would do so again if she asked it of them. Lady Etiennette wanted Dragonetz in Les Baux before Barcelone appeared as her ‘guest’ and she wanted Estela there for entertainment. It did not do to disappoint the Lady Etiennette. Geral thought of the high dungeons, over the sheer cliffs, and he shivered. Aliénor could rot in hell - or England. They weren’t in Provence and he was.

  When Simon woke the next day, a little heavy-headed, he was not too surprised to find his companions gone. What did surprise him, then rendered him furious at his own gullibility, was finding that the door was bolted on the outside. No amount of kicking would budge it. Assessing the room rather differently from the night before, Simon’s spirits sank further. The door was solid and the window tiny. He yelled at the closed door, adding some kicks for good measure, merely to vent his frustration, but the sound of the landlord’s voice was an unexpected reward.

  Simon’s hopes were raised for the seconds it took the landlord to explain how well he was being paid to keep Simon confined and that no, the offer wasn’t negotiable. A deal was a deal. However, anything Simon would like brought to the room was possible, at an appropriate price. Simon noted sourly that his purse was untouched, so whatever the game, it was not about robbery. And he was unharmed. What a fool he’d been.

  However, the more he thought about it, the more he realised how lucky he was, if the worst of it was that he couldn’t deliver a message he hadn’t wanted to take in the first place. He would have to face Aliénor’s wrath and defeat by King Louis’ forces as a consequence but only if the landlord released him before the coming battle. He brightened considerably at the thought and ordered bread, honeyed water and a girl. It was early in the morning for satisfying all his appetites but he had time on his hands, so why not.

  By the time Simon was tucking into his casse-croute, Bertran had reached a certain villa on the outskirts of Marselha, and Geral had a watchful eye on the new establishment for taking thermal waters, in Ais en Provence.

  Historical Characters appearing in the series so far:-

  Aaron ben Asher - Jewish sage, who annotated the sacred Torah known as the Keter Aram Sola/ the Aleppo Codex

  Aliénor of Aquitaine/ Eleanor of Aquitaine, Duchess of Aquitaine and Queen of France

  Abraham ben Isaac/ Raavad II - Jewish leader in Narbonne

  Alphonse, nicknamed ‘Jourdain’/ ‘Jordan’, Comte de Toulouse, father of Raymond, killed by poison in Caesarea in 1148

  Alphonso, King of Castile, Emperor of Spain - died in 1144 leaving his estate to the Templars

  Amaury - younger son of Mélisende

  Archbishop of Narbonne, Pierre d’Anduze - brother of Ermengarda’s husband

  Archbishop Suger - royal prelate in Paris, adviser to King Louis

  Baudouin, King of Jerusalem - Mélisende’s son

  Bèatriz - the future Comtesssa de Dia/Comtesse de Die and famous troubairitz

  Bernard de Clairvaux - advisor to Louis, abbot leading and reforming the Cistercian order

  Bernard d’Anduze - Ermengarda’s titular husband, brother of the Archbishop of Narbonne

  Bernard de Tremelay, Templar Grand Master 1151

  Chirkhouh - Nur ad-Din’s general, killed Prince Raymond of Antioch

  Constance - widow of the Prince of Antioch, Mélisende’s niece

  Conrad - Holy Roman Emperor, ruler of the Germanic peoples

  Ermengarde/Ermengarda - Viscomtesse of Narbonne

  Everard des Barres, Grand Master of the Templars during the Second Crusade

  Foulques, King of Jerusalem by marriage to Mélisende - died 1146

  Geoffroi de Rançon (the father), Commander of Aliénor’s Guard 1148

  Geoffroi de Rançon (the son)

  Guilhelm de Poitiers - married Bèatriz

  Hodierne, Comtesse de Tripoli - sister of Mélisende, Queen of Jerusalem,

  Isoard, Comte de Die/Dia - Bèatriz’ father (very little known
about Bèatriz)

  Ismat ad-Dhin - Nur ad-Din’s wife, Unur’s daughter

  Joscelyn, Comte d’Edessa - deserted and lost the city to Muslim forces, starting the Second Crusade

  Jarl Rognvaldr Kali Kolsson - Prince of Orkney

  Louis VII - King of France, married to Aliénor

  de Maurienne, Comte - uncle and adviser to Louis VII

  Maimonides - Jewish philosopher

  Manuel Komnenos/Comnenus - Emperor of Byzantium

  Manassés - Constable of Jerusalem

  Mélisende - Queen of Jerusalem

  Mujir ad-Din - ruler of Damascus, 1151

  Nur ad-Din - Muslim Atabeg (ruler and general), uncle of Saladin

  Pope Eugene III

  Raimon Trencavel, brother to Roger and Comte de Carcassonne on his brother’s death in 1150

  Ramon Berenguer, Comte de Barcelona, Prince of Aragan and Overlord of Provence

  Raymond V, Comte de Toulouse

  Raymond Comte de Tripoli, Hodierne’s husband and relation of Toulouse, killed by Assassins in 1152

  Raymon/Raimon/Raymond, Prince of Antioch - Aliénor’s uncle and rumoured lover, killed by Saracen troops in 1148

  Raymond and Stephanie of les Baux - rulers in Provence

  Raymond de Puy - Hospitalers’ Grand Master 1151

  Roger Trencavel, Comte de Carcassonne - died in 1150

  Saint Paul/ Saul of Tarsus - famously converted on the road to Damascus

  Salah ad-Din/Saladin - Muslim leader during the Third Crusade

  Sicard de Llautrec - ally of Toulouse

  Unur - Muslim general, defended Damascus in the Second Crusade

  Zengi/Imad ad-Din Zengi - father of Nur ad-Din, murdered in 1146