The Fire and the Light

by Glen Craney

  Folques came bounding up before the King with the same slashing swagger of his troubadour days. Dispensing with the usual diplomatic preambles, he unrolled a parchment and read aloud:

  To the Defender of the Faith in Spain, the King of Aragon, from his Holiness Innocent III: My prelates have reported that you harbor within your court persons suspected of sympathy with the Occitan heresy. You are ordered to restrict your attention to the reconquest of God’s land in Hispania and give no hearing to those who seek to seduce you into the holy war being waged in the Languedoc. Such is the command that your Serene Highness is invited to obey, in every last detail. Failing which, we should be obliged to threaten you with Divine Wrath, and to take steps against you such as would result in your suffering grave and irreparable harm.

  The King was lifted from his chair by the affront. “The Holy Father threatens me? The Church’s champion who drove the infidel from Las Navas?”

  Miraval circled Folques and pinched the rich ermine purfling of his almice. “Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son. The vow of poverty has not diminished your exquisite taste in garb. What happened to you? You were once one of us.”

  Folques brushed off Miraval’s pawing hand. “Our Lord saved me from the seductions of frivolous verse. Besides, I bested all of you. There was nothing left for me to accomplish.”

  “As I remember,” said Miraval, “there was one you did not best.”

  Folques shot a narrow-eyed glance at Guilhelm in a warning that they would both be served by not revealing their first encounter in Foix. “The lady held a preference that day. I was denied a fair hearing.”

  “Indeed, I cannot fathom why the maiden would not have preferred you,” said Peter dryly. “Considering the effervescent company you offer.”

  The hall rumbled with laughter, pricking Folques’s bilious swell of hauteur. He spun to ferret out the source of the whispered jests.

  The King retreated to his chair and mulled the delicious possibilities presented by this rare confluence of characters. “When an accusation of foul play is filed in my court, I must see to it that reparations are administered. I am inclined, Bishop, to grant you a chance to redeem yourself.”

  “I fail to take your Excellency’s meaning,” said Folques in puzzlement.

  “Tomorrow eve,” said the King, “I intend to sponsor the greatest contest of verse ever held in Aragon.”

  Folques retreated a step, having ciphered the monarch’s intent. “My vows do not permit participation in such base games.”

  “Your vows may bend when you hear the stakes,” said the King. “The victor shall be granted a valuable benefice. Should you prevail, you may advise His Holiness that I will wash my hands of the Languedoc. That would carry you a step up the Vatican staircase, no?”

  Folques surveyed the chamber. Most of the bards in attendance were long past their prime in the art of the chanson. After the Cistercian banishment of the love courts in Occitania, these former stalwarts of the profession had become soft and untested in the heat of competition. True, he himself had not attempted a performed verse in fifteen years, but he had kept his voice tuned with the daily chanting. Notwithstanding the monastic discipline, he had never forgotten the secular songs. He bowed with calculated humility to accept the invitation. “For the greater glory of God.”

  The King watched with gleeful anticipation as the most emboldened of the troubadours threw their signets into an esquire’s hat to indicate their entry into the contest. He stood to announce the roll. “We shall reconvene—”

  “I would offer another competitor,” interjected Esclarmonde. “That is, if it is not too late.”

  “By all means, my lady,” said the King. “Who among these crafty veterans of the song would you have perform in your honor?”

  Esclarmonde kept her eyes trained ahead lest she lose resolve. “My escort.”

  Guilhelm spun on her with a glare of disbelief. He had no choice but to accept, for to lodge a public objection would prove too dangerous.

  Peter examined him more closely. “Your name again, sir?”

  Guilhelm bit his lower lip in anger. “Montanhagol.”

  Intrigued, the troubadours converged around Guilhelm to assay his features. In a burst of discovery, Miraval announced, “It is the Templar of Foix!”

  The Calatravans tightened their circle around Guilhelm in provocative threat. The King held his knights at bay, perplexed why the intruder did not wear the mantle of the order. “Is this true? A Knight of the Temple slinks into my chambers in deceptive garb?”

  “I have served the Cross,” said Guilhelm, barely containing his pique at Esclarmonde for the inconceivable indiscretion. “As have your worthy knights.”

  Miraval shook Guilhelm’s hand in admiration. “And yet, your Excellency, this warrior’s greatest victory came in an epic battle of song. I was present that day in Foix. His was the voice that sent the Devil’s bishop to the cloister.” Miraval pivoted to aim a finger at Folques. “Admit it, Cistercian!”

  Folques stood stone-faced, refusing to acknowledge the claim.

  Savoring this tantalizing agon, the King ordered up a draught of wine and made a toast, “I pray you are up to the task, Templar. I’d rather fall defenseless against the Moors than walk unarmed into a skirmish of song with these blue jays. A body on the battlefield can be buried. A bloodied reputation cannot.” He quirked a smirk at Folques. “You could attest to that, eh, Bishop?”

  Incensed by the laughter at his expense, Folques whipped his flowing sleeves to his elbows and marched from the chamber, cuffing Guilhelm’s shoulder as he passed.

  The evening tapers cast dancing shadows across the checkered inlays of Alcaniz’s great hall. Of the thirty troubadours in attendance, only five had been confident enough to enter the fray. On the dais, Peter held court over an elite audience comprised of his knights, the Cistercian monks, and dozens of aspiring singers who had rushed here from afar to witness this rare display of poesy. No woman had ever seen the sun set within the monastery, but the King had decided to allow Esclarmonde to attend over the protest of the Calatravan commander, who deemed abhorrent any act that smacked of the Moorish belief that women were the equal of men in intelligence.

  Monkish stares of disapproval singed Esclarmonde as she took a seat in the front row next to Guilhelm. She had tried in vain to convince him that she had not schemed his participation in advance. When Peter made the offer of the Languedoc to Folques, she could not stand by and allow her homeland to be so cavalierly bartered. She had rehearsed Guilhelm on all she could remember about the peculiar strategies and mannerisms of his competitors. Still peeved, he had refused to share with her the verses that he had chosen to sing.

  One by one, the competitors walked down the aisle and drew the lots that would indicate their order of performance. Their careers, for some even their lives, depended on this night. Esclarmonde’s heart went out to all of them. They had lost patrons in the Languedoc war and had been forced to retreat to Aragon, too proud to beg in the streets. Peter could not lodge them indefinitely, particularly with Rome growing suspicious of their affliction with the Occitan heresy. The victor would win both immortality and the protection of the last champion of song; the losers would be turned out into the crumbling world to fend for themselves.

  The King commanded silence. “Who has drawn the first slot?”

  Miraval arose and came before the monarch. “My lord, I have the first. But I beg to defer to the Adam who gave birth to our profession.”

  His fellow troubadours nodded with approval and turned in reverence toward Vidal, ancient of the ancients, the feisty but beloved Druid who had wandered the earth from Palestine to Ireland. He was shrunken by age and bent from the many disappointments of life, but his watery eyes—one blue and one hazel—still dazzled. He had been present at the dawn of Chivalry and was rumored to have learned the secrets of Merlin, a legend that had grown from his promise that words commissioned from his mouth always came true.

 
Two knights leveraged the tottering Vidal to his feet. He waved off their assistance and gazed sadly across the assembly, clairvoyantly aware that this would be his last performance. When a viol player strummed a melancholic chord, Vidal sang in a husky but powerful contratenor voice:

  Sir, had I a goodly steed,

  Soon would my enemies for mercy plead;

  For even when they hear of men my name,

  They fear me more than quail doth fear hawk’s greed;

  Nor prize their life a doit, so fierce of deed,

  So stern they know me, and so great my fame.

  When donned my glitt’ring, steel-lined coat of mail,

  And girt my sword, his gift that cannot fail,

  Whither I go, the earth doth shake with fear;

  No foes I meet that do not fore me pale,

  And yield me place; nought doth their pride avail,

  So great their terror when my step they hear.

  Esclarmonde marveled at how, within a few blinks, the dotaged gentleman had transformed his ravaged body into an instrument of divine resonance. Some believed that the bards of Eire had taught him the secret of shortening his throat cords and embouchuring his lips, allowing air to flow in such a way that he could move up and down the register of notes without breaking his voice:

  Great joy have I to greet the season bright,

  And joy to greet the blessed summer days,

  And joy when birds do carol songs of praise,

  And joy to mark the woods with flowerets delight,

  And joy at all whereat to joy were meet,

  And joy unending at the pleasance sweet

  That yonder in my joy I think so gay,

  There where in joy my soul and sense remain.

  Tis Love that keeps me in such dear delight,

  Tis Love’s clear fire that keeps my breast ablaze,

  Tis Love that can my sinking courage raise,

  Even for Love am I in grievous plight;

  With tender thoughts Love makes my heart to beat,

  And o’er my every wish has rule complete—

  Virtue I cherish since began his reign

  And to do deeds of Love am ever fain.

  Even the hardened Calatravans fought back coughs of emotion. Exhausted, Vidal managed a half-bow and shuffled back to his seat. Too moved for words, Esclarmonde captured his frail hand to express her admiration. An old ache stirred in her heart; the verses had reminded her how much she treasured these Occitan songs that were now threatened with extinction.

  Pierre Cardenal, the youngest of the contestants, was next to perform. Raffishly splashed in frayed silks of red and green, he stood quickly and stroked his beard to its point, as if by swirl of motion he could break Vidal’s spell. Esclarmonde feared this singer’s performance less than the others. He had always played the court jester, mocking and needling his opponents to throw them off their tilt, often resorting to motley attire and buffooneries such as acrobatics and coaxing his horse to beat a tambour with its hind legs. His ribald voice, while florid, was less formidable, requiring him to rely upon tricks such as warbling inflections and gaudy falsetto riffs through the octaves.

  Cardenal took an exaggerated stance as if bracing for a stiff wind. He whirled toward Folques with a glare of accusation:

  Vultures fierce and kites, I ween,

  Scent not rotting flesh so well

  As the priests and friars keen

  Scent the rich where’er they dwell;

  Soon the rich man’s love they gain,

  Then if sickness, grief, or pain

  Fall on him, great gifts they win,

  Robbing thus his kith and kin.

  Esclarmonde was swept by rush of panic. Cardenal had dispensed with his usual frolicking virelays and rondelets, choosing instead a stinging sirviente to indict the most notorious traitor of his profession. She had underestimated him; the mark of a great troubadour was the ability to improvise on his feet. He was hurling bon mots like Cumaean curses, thrusting his eyes into their sockets to mimic the trances of Folques’s notorious confederate, Dominic Guzman.

  Priests and Frenchmen ever seek

  All ill to praise for love of gold;

  By usurers and traitors eke

  Is this world of ours controlled;

  Lies and fraud to men they’ve taught,

  And confusion ’mongst them brought;

  Order none can be discerned

  That this lesson has not learned.

  Know ye what on them will fall,

  Unto whom great good belong?

  One will spoil them of their all,

  Death, a robber fierce and strong,

  Fells them, strips them, thrusts them down,

  In four poor ells of linen brown,

  To a dwelling dark and low,

  Where great misery they’ll know.

  Man, great folly thou dost do,

  God’s commandment why transgress?

  Well played, Esclarmonde conceded. She fixed an uneasy eye on the King and saw that he had been thrust into a deep melancholy. Cardenal milked his pose for effect; then, with a sudden break of his held stance reminiscent of an unfrozen mime, he bowed and marched back to his seat.

  She was afforded no time to estimate his ranking, for the elegant Miraval, the most renowned bard in Toulousia, had taken the singing position. He was cherished by none other than the Count of Toulouse, who referred to him in public as “Audiart,” the pet name for a beloved friend. Miraval possessed an aura of dignity that seemed misplaced in one of such common birth. He was equally adept at the panegyric, the leer, the braggadocio, and the taunt; a savant of the measured metre, he could conjure dozens of rhyming patterns and marry them with an arsenal of syllabic lengths, assonances, and alliterations.

  Miraval stood in contemplation, tortured by a private dilemma. Finally, he said, “My lord, I am unworthy to follow such luminaries. The great Vidal has sung of battles past. The brilliant Cardenal of clerics evil. I can offer only a modest dessert to their sumptuous courses. Good liege, your generosity has long sustained me. You must forgive an old singer for storing in his quiver no stinging words against infidels or indulgences. My wars have been fought on the ramparts of love.” Cueing the musicians, he looked up to the statue of the Virgin Mary that stood on a pedestal, and sang in bewitching largo:

  Lady, if Mercy help me not, I ween

  That I to be thy slave am all too mean,

  For thy great worth small hope to me has given

  Aught to accomplish meet for dame so rare;

  Yet this I would, and nowise will despair;

  For I have heard, the brave, when backward driven,

  Strive ever till the conquering blow they deal,

  So strive I for they love by service leal.

  Though to such excellence I come not near,

  Nor eke of one so noble am the peer,

  I sing my best, bear meekly Love’s hard burden,

  Serve thee and love thee more than all beside,

  Shun ill, seek after good whate’er betide;

  Wherefore, methinks, fair dame should liefer guerdon

  With her dear self a valiant knight and true,

  Than the first lord that haughtily may woo.

  The master was on his game. He still possessed his signature mannerism of tapping his chest with his right index finger. When Esclarmonde had seen him perform in her youth, she had thought he was keeping time with the hand tic. But the Marquessa had confided Miraval’s close-held secret: He plumbed his sternum to locate the faint buzzing sensation that gave his voice its peculiarly soulful aspect. This drone in his cavity was not unlike the vibration of a bagpipe; it made his breath feel as if it brushed against the rib cage, elongating the lungs before building pressure against the lips and escaping like a dove from a cage. To summon the desired effect of pouring spiritual fire on the listener, he had to moan, not sing, from the depths of his being. With each succeeding stanza, his voice rose an octave, and he thumped his chest
with more force:

  Against cruel Love I ever fight amain,

  As wars a vassal ’gainst his suzerain,

  That him with scanty justice would disinherit;

  Such vassal, seeing warlike enterprise

  Avails him not, perforce for mercy cries,

  So I, the better Love’s sweet joys to merit,

  Seek pardon for what faults in him I find,

  And pray his pride may turn to pity kind.

  Her eyes so lovely yet so full of guile,

  At that which makes me weep and sigh do smile,

  That graceful form, that frank and noble bearing,

  Slay me with longing, yet the dear delight

  Of calling mine that lady fair and bright

  I ne’er may know, nathless as her true knight

  E’en unto life’s last hour my faith I plight.

  Miraval finished with an unexpected staccato for dramatic effect.

  A transfixed silence hung over the awed assembly. Recovering, the King loosed a heavy sigh and daubed his eyes. “Who dares follow such lightning bolts into the heavens?”

  Folques nervously fingered the ivory chip that held his draw. He arose slowly, his baleful eyes bathed in the same intensity they had held on that fateful day long ago in Foix. He walked down the aisle and leaned to Esclarmonde’s ear for a whisper. “How long I have dreamt of this chance for redemption.” Receiving only a flicker of her lashes in reaction, he curled a wicked smile and pointed to the other troubadours in accusation, then sang:

  The dogs across the peaks now cower,

  And howl upon the moon;

  Lamenting long the Oc whore’s dower,

  That once did pay their swoon.

  From Mother Church their backs they turn,

  Her bed is much too hard;

  Yet Heaven’s gate soon shall they learn,

  Doth not admit the bard.

  Good Peter, wielder of the mighty rod

  That did the Muslim bruise,

  Betray not the Church of God,

  Whose cause they pray you lose.

  If Rome be such the Devil’s den,