Plaint for Provence

by Jean Gill

  ‘My Lady, maybe such a one as you could behave so but not an ordinary girl like me. I worked hard to become a servant in the castle, I was hoping to be a lady’s maid one day, maybe even marry and have children. To be chosen by a knight like my Lord, you couldn’t know what a chance this is for me. He says he’ll give me a ring,’ she declared with pride. ‘Every girl is after him but he’s chosen me. And I love him. I will do anything to make him happy. And he has told me how. One night and he will be mine. But I have to be a virgin!’

  There was silence as Estela considered how to phrase her refusal. ‘I can pay you well,’ Maria offered. ‘My Lord has been generous.’

  Payment in advance, was Estela’s cynical response to my Lord’s generosity. Then a thought struck her. Could he have recovered enough to be back to his old ways already? Ignoring her threat? By God, if he was, she’d tell Dragonetz everything and Provence could go to hell!

  ‘Is it Lord Hugues?’ she asked. ‘This fancy lord of yours. You can tell me. A physician is like a priest and shares nothing with others. And I would do nothing to hurt you. I swore an oath that I would do no harm.’ Except to that rutting lordling, who needed more blood let than she’d thought!

  Maria’s startled expression showed the words had hit home. ‘How did you know?’ Estela nodded grimly. ‘It was my Lord Hugues who took my virginity.’ The girl’s eyes filled. ‘I told him no but that just encouraged him and you know we have no choice when the Lord decides. We’re his vassals. But I might as well have said yes to the carpenter’s boy when he asked and I wanted to, if I was only going to part with my treasure anyway!’

  Damn Hugues! thought Estela. But at least he had not broken his word to her, as far as she knew. And he was hardly the first young lord to make free with the serving maids. Like it or not, that was how things were.

  ‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘But only once. I will not be party to continuing trickery with different men.’

  ‘I promise, my Lady. This will be my real, only, first time with a man.’ Her eyes gleamed at the prospect and Estela almost envied her. The first time, with a man you loved. What a sweet combination of desire and duty. Or an illusion.

  The Trotula offered many ways of restoring virginity. Estela mentally reviewed the ingredients to hand and chose ground holme oak for constriction. She measured a suitable amount of the powder from one of her jars into an empty one, added some rainwater and stirred till the ground bark dissolved.‘Dunk a clean cotton cloth in this and put it in your vagina.’ She could see the girl had no idea what the medical term meant. What on earth did such girls call their private parts? She tried, ‘Inside your tunnel of Venus. To make it tighter.’

  ‘Oh,’ the girl nodded understanding.

  ‘Keep it there until one hour before intercourse.’ The word was obviously new to Maria but the meaning was clear enough to work out. ‘Make sure all is removed before you lie with your lord,’ Estela warned.

  Maria took the jar but her face fell. ‘But he won’t believe it unless there’s blood.’

  Now comes the hard part thought Estela as she went to a stone ledge and took the leather cover off the bucket. ‘They like to be cool and they can stretch out so thin, you’d be surprised what holes they can get out of and into,’ she remarked conversationally as she scooped a couple of leeches out of the bucket and popped them and their water into one of her jars, ‘so keep the cover on when you’re not using them and make sure the holes stay tiny, needle-pricks, like they are now.’ She tied string round the jar and handed it to the ashen-faced girl, who held it like it was plague-ridden, rather than health-giving.

  ‘You’re sure you want to seem a virgin?’

  Maria nodded, gulping, unable to speak.

  ‘Then you need to insert the leeches into your vagina - your tunnel of Venus - tonight. Not too far, mind you.’ Maria nodded, her eyes never leaving the jar in her hands.

  ‘That should make enough blood for a clot that will break up nicely tomorrow night. Take them out first thing in the morning and use the holme oak the rest of the day.’ Estela reviewed her instructions. Trota hadn’t suggested using the two methods together but there were no contra-indications and The Trotula was particularly insistent on the efficacy of leeches.

  Oh, yes - there was one more thing. ‘I want my leeches back, mind. There are other patients need them, for serious health reasons.’

  Maria seemed eager to leave, one jar in the pouch she’d brought, the other clutched firmly and held as far in front of her as she could.

  ‘She must really love him,’ Estela muttered to herself as she closed the door. Then she dismissed the matter and concentrated on her latest syrup. If only sugar were cheaper, this soothing potion, made from a thyme tisane, would benefit so many people. Her great hope was that the syrups would keep long enough to use them in the winter from herbs picked in their summer season. Now that would be amazing progress.

  After hours of boiling, measuring, noting and labelling, Estela decided she’d had enough. She put everything back in its place, removed her sackcloth and wiped her face as best she could, using her reflection in a copper pan. She smoothed her hair and reached for her blue scarf, which she’d removed to keep it clean. It wasn’t on the books, where she thought she’d left it and she couldn’t see it on any of the shelves, stocked with neat ranks of jars and boxes.

  Maybe she was confused and it was the day before that she’d worn that scarf. She frowned. She had other blue ones but that was Dragonetz’ favourite and she’d planned to wear it to the tourney. Perhaps she’d treat herself to a new one at market the next morning. She locked the iron-bound oak door and took the key personally to Malik, just to make sure there was no subversion of messengers possible, no way Dragonetz could ever have access to the poppy, if he weakened. She’d even labelled it ‘devil’s rosemary’, so nobody but she and Malik could find it on the shelf.

  Sweating and sleepless, Dragonetz lay in bed, fighting his demons. He wanted to spare Estela this weakness that came over him, especially in the middle of the night, from just the thought that the poppy was within reach. Sweet, trusting Estela, who really thought she’d hidden the poppy where he could not get it. No doubt she’d put it on a high shelf in the dispensary where she worked her magic. She’d probably labelled it ‘Not the poppy’ or some such thing, in Latin or Arabic, to throw him off the scent. He smiled.

  The problem, my dear Estela, is that de Rançon only gave you a small portion of his stock in the first place. We both know, he and I, that I only have to send a messenger to him, any time of day or night, and I can get relief from this craving, sleep, heal… and awake worse than ever. Knowing it is one thing, dealing with it is another. The poppy, within reach.

  Nights were the worst so Dragonetz had done his best to put the poppy out of reach. The hawk’s perch barred the door. To leave the chamber and send a message, he would have to brave an unhooded Vertat in her foulest of moods. He had been keeping her lean, hungry, ready to attack. Her hood was tied to the perch, within her reach, and each morning, he had to be quick enough to grab the hood without the hawk reaching him.

  At night, such acrobatics were difficult enough to stop the thought in its tracks. To put the poppy out of reach. To help him say no to the messenger who knocked on his door, saying, ‘My Lord de Rançon wondered if you needed anything?’

  ‘No,’ he shouted. ‘Go away and don’t come back!’ making up in communication for what he lacked in grace. The sound of the page-boy running away echoed along the corridor.

  Vertat stood watch between Dragonetz and all comers, keeping his nights safe, if sleepless. He stayed sane in his accustomed manner, through music and poetry. He reached for the memory of voices that mingled in unearthly harmonies, the music that had come to him across the water, in his poppy dreams. He’d vowed that he would transcribe it one day and he felt closer to that goal, memorising the sections that felt right and re-working others.

  Verses by Ibn Zaydūn soothed his cravings,
setting his days in the context of a purpose bigger than he could imagine, beyond his control. Poetry sang in his head and let him sleep.

  Elsewhere in Les Baux, another man lay awake but his cravings had no connection with the poppy. Geoffroi de Rançon was alone in bed but did not expect to remain so for long. To calm his anticipation, he reviewed his successes to date and felt he deserved congratulations. Tormenting Dragonetz could not have been more nicely judged: having the desired effect while keeping Estela’s trust - he must not pursue that line of thought or anticipation would not be calmed.

  He forced his distracted mind back to his projects. By recounting the news from the north and entertaining his noble audiences, he had also managed to gain status in this court that see-sawed between Les Baux and Barcelone. He wasn’t yet sure how to make the most of the resulting position on Dragonetz’ team but it had potential.

  Why then, having achieved more than he’d hoped, did he not feel happy? He imagined Dragonetz lying alone - now that thought did give him some satisfaction - fighting the poppy addiction. De Rançon had frequented some of the more unsavoury quarters in Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem, and had seen the consequences of the poppy. When he’d known Dragonetz was doomed to such a fate, he’d found out what he could. Nothing had prepared him for the sharp-eyed Commander he’d met again in the Great Hall of Les Baux. There was no trace of the wild-eyed lunatic from Jersusalem days.

  But no mortal could ever be that indifferent to the poppy, once dosed as Dragonetz had been. Especially when kicked in the gut by a double blow from home. An unfair blow, the kind that left slow poison, making a man wonder, ‘How could she believe such a thing of me.’ A wound that must fester, even if the future exonerated Dragonetz - as of course it should. De Rançon had no doubt of the knight’s honesty and loyalty. Irony indeed. Dragonetz’ father and liege readily believed him too proud or too headstrong to obey the order to go north and yet de Rançon had never once thought Dragonetz disloyal. He knew his enemy. However, he was more than happy to accept fate’s contribution to his plans for Dragonetz.

  So, the question remained. Why did he feel no satisfaction? He pictured Dragonetz, ill and sweating, wanting the poppy - or giving in and slumping into drugged sleep, the road to oblivion. He replayed the disbelief, the hurt on the other man’s face when the messages from Aliénor, from Lord Dragon, were announced to the whole court of Les Baux. De Rançon imagined the blade being twisted in the wound as Dragonetz read those letters of contempt. The humiliation that his mother loved him ‘despite’ all he’d done.

  Yes, Geoffroi had been thorough in completing the task he’d set himself years back, when Dragonetz had broken de Rançon Senior and made the family name a byword for disgrace. Death was too good for such a man and Geoffroi had repaid his father’s debt in kind, destroying Dragonetz in body, mind and reputation. And yet he was still standing, offering the challenge to fight to the death ‘with honour’. How could a man who’d been a crusader still hold such a notion? Geoffroi himself had seen ‘honour’ diminish daily in his father’s shame and rages, self-pity and whoring; in the moment Geoffroi’s mother gave up and left them. And yet, he felt no satisfaction at the damage he’d caused Dragonetz. Not even at the prospect of killing him.

  His unruly spirits only rose at the thought of the tourney, of the pleasure in fighting with and against such opponents, of doing what he did best - behaving as a knight. In battle, even mock-battle, he could forget the letter from his own father. How well he understood all that Dragonetz was suffering! An unfair blow, he thought, the kind that leaves slow poison, making a man wonder, ‘How could he believe such a thing of me.’ The kind that left a man wondering what to do with his life.

  A soft knock at the door interrupted his bleak thoughts and his heart thumped like a boy’s. Naked, his welcome evident, he opened the door and let the woman slip into the chamber and into his arms, willing.

  ‘Estela.’ He buried his face in her hair, breathed in her scent, musk and oriental spice, a unique blend that she’d worn since their trip together to the Holy Land. ‘You won’t need this,’ he murmured, loosening the scarf around her shoulders, kissing the golden skin revealed.

  ‘Geoffroi,’ she whispered, ‘I have waited such a long time, for you, only for you.’

  This too he shared with Dragonetz: Estela.

  Chapter 27

  Diamond is of such great hardness that no other hardness is able to overcome it. It scratches and bores through iron. Neither iron nor steel is able to cut into its hardness. It is so strong that it neither gives way nor breaks before cutting into steel. Because this stone withstands his power, the devil is hostile to diamond, and so, at night as well as during the day, the devil disdains it.

  Physica, Stones

  Estela wiped a strand of sweaty hair back from her eyes as she opened the door to her dispensary. Good. The girl had remembered to return the leeches, although she still held them as far from her body as possible. Strange prurience given the work the little creatures had done. Maria sighed with relief when Estela took the pot, lifted a corner of the leather cover and slipped her healing aids into the container with their fellows.

  Maria perched on a stool, glowing with secrets.

  ‘You followed instructions and have no ill effects?’ enquired Estela with delicacy, in a doomed effort to avoid too much romantic detail.

  Unfortunately Maria’s aims in conversation seemed to be the reverse of Estela’s. She glossed over the treatments and dwelled on her prospects. ‘I won’t need those things again.’ The shudder was genuine as she glanced toward the leech container and back, as was the pride with which she announced. ‘An’ I had been a maiden, I’d not be walking today, so keen was my Lord on his pleasures. Three times inside and once without. I pretended I was too sore, the better to show my skills.’

  Estela winced and wondered whether Malik would be treated to such a consultation. She remained standing, hoping the girl would take a hint. ‘I’m glad all went well and that you have no further need of my skills.’

  ‘I just want to thank you. He loves me and he said so. And I have never been happier in my life. All those bad things, before - there must have been a reason for them. God’s given me a chance for a new life as a lady.’ The pretty face lifted to Estela’s was without guile. ‘He says he’ll marry me.’

  Estela opened her mouth to say something cautionary. ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. Perhaps Maria would become a wife and a lady. Estela was both, and neither, depending which way she held her own situation up to the light. Was she actually envious of the girl?

  ‘He says he shall make me a diamond ring and till then I shouldn’t show it to anyone, for fear of robbers. But I shall burst if I don’t show somebody and you can be trusted with anything because you’re a doctor.’ A sudden shyness. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? You don’t tell?’

  ‘That’s right. But you don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to. If it’s not medical, you can always confess to a priest if you need to unburden yourself.’ Over something like feigning virginity, say, for instance. Estela chided herself for such vinegary thoughts. She knew full well the impossible situation Maria had been in and if anybody was culpable in the eyes of the Almighty, it was she, the professional who’d enabled such deceit. Yet she did not feel guilty and had no intention of confessing to some priest her actions with any patient. She had learned in Narbonne to mistrust the representatives of the Church.

  ‘Oh no, it’s nothing like that, although if I need your help to bear children, I will come back. It’s too soon to say yet.’ Maria was prattling away. ‘It’s just that my Lord wants me to keep this secret for my own safety, until I am his lady in the eyes of God and the world, protected by his men. Look.’ She pulled a gold chain up from her bodice to show a locket suspended. ‘Open it,’ she commanded.

  Curious, Estela prised the clasp open and gasped as light rainbowed from a gemstone, a diamond. ‘That is indeed
a jewel fit for a princess,’ she said, snapping the locket shut quickly. Your Lord was right to tell you to keep such a gem quiet!’

  ‘I know.’ A cat with cream, bee in clover, pig in a wallow: all smug contentment. ‘He is going to have it made into a ring, when we go back to his homeland.’

  ‘I have only ever seen such diamonds once,’ said Estela. A dozen of them remained in a velvet pouch that Dragonetz kept hidden, but she had no intention of saying so. ‘In the Holy Land.’

  ‘Yes, that’s where my Lord came by this one, in the Holy Land. He told me so. And he had it polished to be a gift for his lady one day.’ She beamed as her new status surprised her again. ‘For me. I am his Lady. And it was the blood that made the difference.’

  ‘The blood?’ prompted Estela.

  ‘From losing my maidenhead. When he saw the proof on the sheet, he went all strange and said he would make everything right. So I knew he meant marriage. And he searched through his things. I didn’t know what he was doing and worried about some perversion - you hear such things, don’t you? But he was sweet as could be and brought the diamond to me. Said something about my blood cleaning it, making it sparkle again. He talks so fine, like poetry. Stands to reason he didn’t come by a diamond like that without blood on his hands, is my guess, and now he feels better, that it’s a love-gift.’

  It did stand to reason that diamonds from the Holy Land had blood on them. Estela shivered.

  Maria remembered the ostensible reason for her visit. ‘And I want to reward you, from my own purse. Not with the diamond.’ She laughed. ‘But my Lord has been generous and I can show you my appreciation.’ She slipped the purse-string off her wrist and drew it open.

  Estela stopped her. ‘I will not take your money. You can’t tell your Lord that you paid the doctor for leeches and potions or he will want to know why. But you can make me a gift, as one lady to another.’