Plaint for Provence

by Jean Gill

  ‘Your men do you proud. This is as fine an expedition as I have ever seen’ Ramon pulled his little al-Andalus mare up beside them. ‘Where did you find your falconer?’

  The compliment was irresistible and Dragonetz left the pair to discuss the staffing and provision required for top quality mews and kennels, where the debate could be more equal than over horses and stables; in equine matters Ramon had little to learn.

  The beaters and dog-boys were spreading out under the capable direction of the Master of Hounds. Dragonetz recognised another familiar face and sighed. Another boy who wanted to be part of the day’s excitement.

  ‘Bran!’ Dragonetz summoned the boy, who started his excuses in mid-trot.

  ‘… you might need me for Vertat.’ He lowered his voice. ‘… and you need have no worries. I left a boy in charge of the pigeon-loft, a good boy. He knows what to do if one of yours comes home.’

  A message. Dragonetz’ heart thumped. Yes, he was expecting a message. And then he need have no worries. ‘Be off,’ he told the lad, ‘and if I need you, I’ll call.’ He smiled at the thought and at the exuberance of the small figure running back to his work.

  As the small groups re-formed, Dragonetz was joined by Barcelone’s lieutenant.

  ‘How is she?’ Dragonetz asked Malik.

  ‘She will be well. The sooner these Montbruns leave the court, the better,’ was the verdict.

  ‘It’s over now,’ said Dragonetz. He was wrong.

  Chapter 19

  The sparrowhawk (sperwere) is hot, and happy, and quick in flight… A man or woman who burns with lust should take a sparrow hawk and, when it is dead, remove the feathers and throw away the head and viscera… The man should anoint his privy member and loins with (the unguent created) for five days. In a month the ardour of his lust will cease, with no danger to his body. The woman should anoint herself around the umbilicus, and in the opening of the belly button. Her ardor will cease within a month.

  Physica, Birds

  The young heir to Provence was a cipher to Dragonetz, silent and observant beside his uncle, the Regent and Protector. At fourteen, Berenguer the younger carried the weight of a province that was unsure whether it wanted him. For all Ramon’s care, the youth must miss his father. He might as well be motherless too, as the widowed Béatrice had abandoned her son to his estate and taken her dowry of Montgeuil to a second marriage and a new life. No wonder that Petronilla had shown her affection for him, given all they had in common, including Ramon as a father figure.

  It was also easy to understand why the boy’s default expression was solemn, cold and reserved. It was therefore with some surprise that Dragonetz caught an expression of pure glee on the youngster’s face as he pulled his horse up beside Malik and murmured to his sparrowhawk in southern dialect. He sat his horse as could be expected of one trained in Barcelone, controlling his lively mare as if by instinct. Malik’s deeply lined features softened as the boy spoke to him.

  ‘Is it far to the stand, Malik?’

  ‘I don’t think so. My friend, Lord Dragonetz, knows the terrain.’

  A flicker of uncertainty dimmed the enthusiasm for a second but didn’t prevent young Berenguer addressing Dragonetz directly, stammering a little and flushing. ‘My Lord, I’ve seen you training the men and I wish I had your skills!’

  His voice cracked into a squeak as he spoke and Dragonetz understood the real motives for the boy’s silences, wondered once more what had happened to Muganni, the boy with an angel’s voice. Maybe he too had reached the change. Better that than pay for that voice with his manhood, in the Arab way. At least Dragonetz had spared him that. And given him the diamond that ought to make the boy’s future secure. The instinct to cross himself shook Dragonetz back to the present and this other boy, with a quite different future.

  ‘We are nearly there,’ he confirmed. ‘We’ve left the four other parties behind so they won’t set off our game, and our dog-boys and beaters will stand behind that copse.’

  ‘Of course we have spaniels and greyhounds,’ young Berenguer observed. ‘But I’ve not seen hounds like those blues.’

  ‘Terriers of local breeding,’ Dragonetz told him. ‘Sturdy running dogs though not as fast as the greyhounds; obedient and with the courage to aid the hawks at a hard kill. That blue-black coat is water-proof, makes them tough.’

  ‘My uncle says all-black dogs are bad,’ squeaked the boy. ‘For dogs are warm and dry and in black dogs their colour is burned to naught, allowing of only cold and moisture, in which lie cowardice and evil.’

  Surprised by the maturity of thought, Dragonetz reassessed the ruler-to-be. How easy it was to be misled by the surface, glittering like the marsh waters or dull as the dried reeds, when so much was going on below. ‘Malik can better debate such matters than I.’

  ‘As can the Lady Estela de Matin,’ Malik reminded his friend.

  Dragonetz felt a flash of irritation, as if he was being criticised for not giving sufficient credit to his lover’s studies. Because of course he had not. Then he let his surroundings wash away such trivia.

  The brackish water glinted among the reeds as the horses picked their way through shallow marais. The spaniels were leashed more tightly and their handlers tried to control the yapping exuberance but had more success with the braces of greyhounds. Making the most of what cover the wind-stunted trees offered, Hugues drew their party to a stand and they spread out enough to fly their hawks without tangling jesses. In the quiet of anticipation, the horses’ snorts and the jingling of the hawks’ bells mingled with the babble and squawk of birdlife. Not till the predatory silhouettes filled the skies would the alert be sounded across trees and water and by then it would be too late.

  The riders eased past the copse where the fewterer signed instructions to dog-boys and beaters. The strange tripartite beasts formed of horse, human and hawk could advance further into the shallows, without causing alarm.

  The hunters could even exchange words, laugh, without being perceived as human. Maybe they no longer were so, but rather part of the natural world, their animal selves to the fore. The more he listened, the more Dragonetz heard. Burbling of frogs in summer second mating frenzy; territorial squawk of a duck; soft splashes of vole or even otter; occasional bubble and rise of fish; a skylark rising.

  He breathed evenly, channeling his thoughts along every ripple and splash, noting the song of the marshes, as yet only melody. The words would come later, when he was alone. Not alone, Vertat reminded him, shifting feet, heart pounding beneath speckled white feathers. What did she hear?

  The moment before the hunt hung on the air. Even Costansa and the spaniels were quiet. Time stopped. It was like the moment in battle when you took responsibility for bringing death, the moment of Truth, each man accepting his part in the greater workings of destiny. It was that place in each man beyond thought, a communion with bird and beast.

  Von Bingen’s words fitted themselves to the song of the marshes

  The will rises from here

  gives flavour to the soul

  and kindles the senses.

  Dragonetz heard the long-legged splash and stab of heron or crane as it speared fish; the huge beat of swan wings dropping to a clumsy landing. He opened his eyes and caught the splashing rise of a cormorant. It gulped down a slithering eel, into a throat that snaked double with its prey, lost the tail, then swallowed the whole. Dragonetz removed Vertat’s hood.

  Hugues signed to Dens and the spaniels rushed the covert, yapping and squabbling. They flushed a flurry of songbirds to the air, three partridges toddling and bouncing along the ground, some bobtails of rabbits scattering to holes and one hare. The disturbance carried a warning to the water, where the smaller birds, shelduck and water rails scudded to a rising flight. The hunters unloosed the lords of the air.

  The falcons sped high and fast, beyond sight, diving like stones to take lark and thrush, ducks and all that flew in their path. The hawks took the ground prey, dispatching conf
used partridge with ease and chasing rabbits. Dragonetz walked Sadeek further into the water. He whispered words of blessing on the goshawk, his sword of air, then he flung Vertat out above the rippling water to do death’s work.

  The greyhounds were unbraced to help the birds at the kill, especially with the bigger prey, while the spaniels reverted to chasing each other round the scrubby bushes.

  Concentrating on Vertat, who had perched as high as she could on a drowned tree, surveying her options, Dragonetz had little time to spare for observing others. He did however note that Hugues’ saker had its claws in a crane and was bringing the huge bird into submission with help from a marbled blue setter. The young Comte de Provence was red-faced and bright-eyed, swinging the lure to recall his merlin, which carried a small brown bird, perhaps a lark, between its claws. There would be pies a-plenty at Les Baux the next day.

  With a triumphant ‘ark’ Vertat claimed all Dragonetz’ attention and his heart stopped, realising the goshawk’s target. A lone swan swam kingly, ignoring the melée all around, far enough away to discount the threat as irrelevant. Like a quarrel from a crossbow, Vertat hit before the swan even realised the danger. As the hawk screamed and sank its talons into the swan’s back, Dragonetz called ‘Dens!’ and the fewterer sent a speckled black terrier and a greyhound splashing to the bird’s aid.

  The greyhound reached the struggle first, snapped and ducked under the vicious beak while Vertat kept her perilous perch and prevented flight. Then the marbled terrier arrived, as furious and determined as the hawk.

  Had Dragonetz trusted too much too quickly? He walked Sadeek closer to the flapping swan, saw it pecked to madness in the goshawk’s implacable grip: walked closer to the blood-crazed hounds, which dodged two beaks while launching their own attack with teeth and claws. There was a real danger that the dogs would kill both hawk and swan - or die in trying. Dragonetz focused all his will on the goshawk, calling with his mind; with words, in a voice she had known for only one day; and with the outstretched gauntlet offering the only reward Vertat wanted: blood and bone. Marrow of crane and strips of chicken.

  And she came. As suddenly as she’d struck, Vertat dropped the swan and came to her master’s glove in a majestic swoop that did not go unnoticed.

  ‘Bravo, Dragonetz!’ cried the Comte de Provence, his little merlin back on one shoulder, hooded and leashed.

  Hugues and Ramon, equally satisfied with their own hawks’ performances, added shouts of congratulation, as Dens sent another hound to finish the swan and help retrieve the prey. Hunters were recalling their birds and praising others’, satiated and yet also disappointed that the chase was over.

  Dog-boys were retrieving dogs and game, bagging fur separately from feathers, tying the sacks to poles, ready for bearing back to Les Baux. Hugues blew the formal notes of hunt’s end to let the other parties know they should wind up too. Dens gave the hounds their share of the catch, the curée, which the ladies watched, torn between horror and fascination. Dragonetz saw only the latter in Costansa’s parted lips and gleaming eyes as she watched the dogs tear into the bloody innards.

  Moisset and Bran were organising the pairs of beaters, carrying poles, and the dog-boys with their leashed hounds, when Bran suddenly looked skywards and yelled, ‘Hood all hawks. Keep them tied and tight!’

  Hugues reinforced the shout with the horn notes for ‘Call in hounds and hawks’, two short notes, three long, and then three longer. Those with horns repeated the message and those without shouted it along the group from one person to the next.

  ‘Pigeon,’ Bran shouted the one word of explanation and it too was passed on, as the hunters followed the falconer’s gaze. Sure enough, a lone pigeon was winging a weary route overhead, easy target for any of the hunting birds, even those who’d worked hardest.

  Dragonetz was the first to understand, then Hugues. They didn’t need to see the tiny cylinder attached to its leg to realise what Bran, the pigeon-keeper had spotted. It was one of their pigeons returning to the castle coop, and, whatever the message, it was definitely both precious and private.

  Batting tired wings, the carrier pigeon made its heavy way over the marsh, watched by all below. Most of the watchers must have wondered why anyone was interested in a pigeon, given the size of bags from the afternoon’s sport.

  White-faced, Hugues made an attempt to sound nonchalant. ‘We use them for messages.’

  Ramon was no sluggard. His tone had lost all the lightness of sport. ‘From Trinquetaille perhaps.’ He might as well have said Full of treason and plotting against your Liege Lord.

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Hugues, unable to do otherwise. So much for their secret line of communication.

  ‘Oh dear, I am sorry.’ A woman’s voice dripped honey at the same time as a bolt dropped from the sky on the pigeon. Dragonetz didn’t need to look at Costansa to know her shoulder was empty, her falcon loosed. If, as he suspected, the message was from Gilles, Costansa would have all the evidence she needed to pursue her lawsuit again.

  Estela would face charges herself, as well as lose Nici and Gilles, and their fate didn’t bear thinking about. Vertat was unhooded and flung to the attack quicker than thought. The peregrine had already gripped its prey, savaging the pigeon with its curved beak, when the heavier hawk slammed into the falcon, making it drop the wounded bird to the ground. The peregrine spiralled to gain height and attack the goshawk with its characteristic high-speed dive but the larger bird countered in clumsy swoops that disrupted the elegant arc.

  ‘I wager ten denarii on the falcon,’ cried out the Comte de Provence, radiant with excitement, unaware of the tensions around him.

  ‘You’d lose.’ Malik’s deep tones supported his friend, understood more than a battle between birds.

  ‘In the air, maybe,’ contributed another lord, intrigued. ‘The gentle falcon has the advantage of speed and impetus. But on the ground, I don’t know. Goshawks lack nobility but their brute strength in cover might win the day.’

  ‘Surely,’ continued the Comte, in his untrustworthy squeak-and-bass of a voice, ‘nobility will always win over commonality.’

  Not this time, prayed Dragonetz, whose personal experience suggested that tactics were more useful than nobility in any battle. He wished it were only his money riding on the outcome here.

  ‘Bet on the pigeon,’ was Ramon’s harsh advice to his nephew. ‘He’s going to die. No!’ he ordered Bran, who was all set to wade out with a dog to retrieve the fallen pigeon. ‘My nephew wishes to see how this ends.’ Nobody moved. All eyes were on the battle in the skies. The peregrine caught a current and sped upwards but the same capricious breeze took her close enough to be clipped by one of Vertat’s wings. With a massive effort the goshawk gained the upper position, dropping all her weight on the smaller bird. Down they fell, the goshawk covering the peregrine, pinning it until they hit the ground. Though cushioned by the falcon, the goshawk was dazed and lay still for long enough that Dragonetz thought her dead, then she hopped groggily towards the pigeon and claimed her trophy with a scree of triumph.

  An equally shrill, ‘No!’ escaped Costansa as Vertat gathered strength and flew, the pigeon firmly in her claws.

  Steady orange eyes found the voice and outstretched glove that meant ready food and she flew, true as her name, onto Dragonetz’ gauntlet, trading the pigeon for a strip of liver, swearing in irritation as she settled onto his shoulder. He hooded her, the easier to attend to the pigeon. Though mauled, the messenger was still alive, would probably pull through with Bran’s care thought Dragonetz as he removed the capsule.

  ‘My Lord Dragonetz seems over-concerned with the contents of the message,’ Costansa observed. ‘Maybe he doesn’t want it made public.’ Hugues’ gesture of irritation warned her that she could alienate her own young prey if she wasn’t careful and she adjusted her line of pursuit.

  ‘I know! Why don’t I read the message aloud, so you may all be reassured there is no treason in it.’ Her smile at Dragonetz promised
that she would find harm for him in the contents, whatever the message actually said. Hugues was infatuated enough to have relaxed at the proposal, probably assuming that, as Montbrun was his mother’s ally, any message from Trinquetaille would be suitably translated for Barcelone’s ears.

  Costansa was drawing up beside Sadeek, one hand stretched out to claim her prize when someone else beat her to it.

  ‘My Lord.’ It was not a question and Ramon’s outstretched hand demanded the tiny scrap of parchment that Dragonetz had extricated but not unrolled.

  Conscious of Hugues’ white face, and his own suspicions as to the contents, Dragonetz hesitated, then he let fate decide and passed the message to the Comte de Barcelone, Regent of Provence, Liege Lord to Les Baux.

  Ramon studied the note for an eternity, his face giving nothing away. Finally, he said, ‘It is good news. It is indeed from Trinquetaille.’ His steady gaze at Hugues made it clear that there were to be no more secret pigeons between the two fortresses of Les Baux. ‘Let me read it to you. All arrived safely.’ Then Ramon smiled. ‘My wife,’ he clarified, ‘and all her party, have arrived safely in Arle. Thanks be to God.’

  ‘Allah be praised,’ echoed Malik, with a sideways glance at Dragonetz.

  Ramon’s expression hardened again and he looked down at the bird which had battled wind and predator to reach its mate, and now lay still but breathing, nestling in his soldier’s hands. He wrung its neck and dropped it on the ground. ‘I don’t gamble,’ he stated, passing the message to Dragonetz. Then he rode off without a backward glance.

  Dragonetz re-read the message, every word as Ramon had relayed them. Except for one. The message was signed Gilles. Enough to tell Ramon that the pigeon had not come from Trinquetaille but from Dragonetz’ villa and that those safe were a man, a dog and a baby. Enough to condemn Estela for theft and collusion if Costansa had got her hands on the message or if Ramon had read out the name.