The Song of the Troubadour

by Stephanie Cook

  “Constance,” Guillaume said. He smiled, but then looked concerned. “What are you doing here? Why aren't you at the house of good women?”

  “I have left,” she said. “I could no longer stay there. It is not what I believe is right.”

  Guillaume started to smile again.

  “I want to help defend the city,” she said. “I want to fight those evil Crusaders. I am tired of letting them kill us while we do nothing. Take me with you to your mason. I am strong girl, I can help. Only, please help me. Don't let anyone know who I really am. They will not understand and will send me back to the house of good women. No one in the Castellar knows me. I'll be safe.”

  The smile disappeared from Guillaume's lips, but one began to form on mine. This is exactly what we needed to protect us. Already, Guillaume's youthfulness acted as a decoy. While I alone would have run a good chance of being taken for a spy, I doubted very much that any sergeants or night watchmen would suspect the three of us.

  “Of course, Constance,” I said. “We are proud of your desire to help us and understand your concerns. Your secret is safe with us, is it not Guillaume?”

  Guillaume turned to me and began to speak, but thought better of it. Instead he turned to Constance.

  “Truly, it gives me great joy to see you gone from that house,” Guillaume said.

  Constance smiled at both of us. Oh, she was a wicked Jezebel. And it pained me to have to be so close to her foul female form, but surely it was a sign that she was sent to us, just when we needed a shield.

  “We need to find a corner to rest,” I said. “We will take turns sleeping so that none of us need worry that our clothes will be ripped off our backs as we sleep.”

  Constance babbled to Guillaume of her day, her search for us, and her foolish whims. Guillaume listened attentively, and I saw that I would, again, have to watch the boy. Clearly, he was an innocent lamb to her lion. Finally, the girl began to yawn and soon she fell deeply asleep. It was the middle watch of the night and even the guards had dozed to sleep in the corners of the square. We could hear an occasional stone missile slam into the city walls or crash into a roof, rousing the sleepers, but the machines were not in position to reach the central marketplace.

  “I know I can save her, Bernard,” said Guillaume. He spoke softly. “She has been led astray by this city of heretics, but she has a good heart. But, why did you support her in her deception. Has she left her life of heresy only to become a liar?”

  “Guillaume, would you desire that she know the truth about you now?”

  Guillaume face flushed.

  “You both have your stories to tell and your reasons for doing so. Do not start down that path. It is too dangerous for all of us. For you know, Guillaume,” I said. “It is more than likely she will save us. A fair bargain - we save her soul and she saves our skins.”

  DAY 6 OF THE SIEGE OF CARCASSONNE

  Thursday, August 6, 1209

  Trencavel

  Thursday, August 6, 1209, morning

  Trencavel watched the Crusaders. Men were hammering newly-fallen and hewn tree trunks into a structure that looked much like the covered wooden galleries atop the walls of the city where he now stood with Cabaret. The structure seemed as if it would be large enough to hold maybe twenty men. Nearby, wainwrights were creating huge wheels. The noise of hammers and swearing filled the air. Apparently, the monks were taking a day off from their chanting.

  “It's a cat,” said Cabaret.

  “I know,” said Trencavel.

  Trencavel had seen cats used before, quite effectively. The Crusaders would use the cat to get close to the walls of the Castellar. Under its protection, the sappers would dig out the walls, replacing them with a wooden structure and straw. When they were done, they would light the straw and burn the structure. The wall would usually fall down in that spot or would be so weakened that it could be easily breached.

  “They won't be ready until tomorrow, at the earliest,” said Trencavel. “There is still time to do something.”

  “And end up like your guardian?” asked Cabaret.

  Trencavel said nothing. Bertrand de Saissac's raid last night had not been successful. They had managed to destroy one catapult, but the heavier siege engines were well-guarded. Bertrand had been badly injured and was lucky to have been dragged back to the city by two of his men. Bertrand's bravery made his men loyal followers. They knew he would rescue them, even if he had to risk his life to do so, and they returned the sentiment. But, Trencavel was starting to wonder if Cabaret were right. Maybe Bertrand's military style was becoming obsolete. Maybe it always had been. For wars were won and lost during sieges, and while a spectacular sortie could temporarily give the defenders the upper hand, the siege was usually won by the side with the most resources or the most luck.

  Trencavel barely remembered his father. A busy Viscount had little enough time for a small boy and Trencavel spent most of his time playing with the other boys about the castle - weaving about the courtyard on stilts in the late summer evenings and playing checkers in front of the fire on cold winter nights. His father's castle was in a wealthy cultured city. Troubadours came from far and wide to perform at the Viscount's banquets. The Viscount fostered intellectuals, rescuing the father of Abraham ben Isaac from prison and installing the scholar at his court. When his father died, Trencavel was only nine and he was sent to live in the mountains with his guardian, Bertrand de Saissac. His whole life changed.

  Bertrand de Saissac did not hold with boys being pampered by their mothers and believed that too much learning was not good for a fighting man. His stronghold in the Black Mountains was almost monastic in its severity. Half the town were good men and women, pacifist and abstemious. The other half were fighting men, training in Spartan conditions, though not averse to the pleasures of life and plunder after a victorious battle.

  When Trencavel arrived there was only one other boy as small as he, Pierre Bermond. In the beginning, they cried quietly at night, missing their mothers, but afraid lest the older boys hear their whimpering and beat them up. But, little by little, things got better. Trencavel and Pierre began to love their life in the mountains. They learned to swim in the cold mountain streams and climbed trees to pelt apples at the older boys. They jousted and wrestled until they grew big and strong.

  And, always, every night, the fighting boys and men would sit in front of the fire and listen to troubadours sing of chivalry. It wasn't all honor and sacrifice. No one laughed harder than Bertrand when a jogleresa pretended to play the shy, young shepherdess who jealously guarded her virginity from the knight, who sang of his torture as he was kept from her charms. Bertrand often took the jogleresa to bed, loudly exclaiming that he would show this shepherdess a thing or two.

  A rock missile hit the city walls and shook the gallery, waking Trencavel from his memories.

  “I have no intention of ending up injured and out of this fight,” said Trencavel.

  “Well, what are your plans then?” asked Cabaret.

  “I have not yet decided,” said Trencavel, which was not entirely true. But Trencavel had no intention of telling Cabaret his plans. Probably it was just good defensive maneuvers on the part of the Crusaders that led to the failure of Bertrand's sortie, but Trencavel could not be sure. Cabaret believed they did not stand a good chance to defeat the Crusaders. Maybe he planned to hasten the fall of the city and profit from a quick shift of allegiance? Cabaret was not known for sticking with the losing side in any war. He was shrewd, that was sure. But was he a betrayer?

  Trencavel felt very alone. He was stuck with two advisors in the biggest battle of his life. One he trusted implicitly, but Trencavel was beginning to think that Bertrand's style of fighting was most successful when recounted in song long after the battle. The other advisor was shrewd, but would his cleverness help Trencavel or only himself?

  Constance

  Thursday, August 6, 1209, morning

  Constance followed Bernard and Guillaume
as they left the crowded market place and headed to the Castellar where they were helping to fix the wall. She felt tired. And relieved that she had found Guillaume, more relieved than she wanted to admit.

  Constance had been used to a life of enclosure in the house of good women. Certainly they went into the streets near the house, to the market place, and to visit the sick, but always in groups. In her neighborhood, everyone knew each other and all accorded some respect to the good women, even the Catholics and those who believed only in their dice or drink.

  But now Constance knew no one. The city was crowded with refugees. Men leered at her in the street as she walked past, her head modestly lowered. She had dreaded the coming of the night, as she walked through the streets yesterday. By the time she had run into Guillaume and his brother, she had been almost crying and ready to return to Azalais and beg for her forgiveness, this time for real. But now that she was with Guillaume and Bernard she felt safe. She hurried to move closer to their backs as they walked through the crowds. She did not want to lose them again.

  The day was already extremely hot, though the sun was not yet high. There was no wind and the city smelled of unwashed misery. There were so many people packed into the streets and no water to wash with. Even Bernard and Guillaume, who Constance noticed had been very clean young men, were filthy, their clothes stained and smelling as if they had wallowed in the gutters.

  As they left the city and entered the Castellar, Constance became overwhelmed by an odor so foul it made the boys seem as if they had been bathing in rose water. Bernard and Guillaume stopped abruptly, coughing and raising their hands to their faces.

  “What is that stench?” said Constance. She raised her tunic to cover her mouth and nose.

  “A dead cow, festering in the sun,” said Bernard. “Why don't these people move it?”

  “Inhaling rotten odors causes premature death,” said Constance. “No one will dare risk getting too close.”

  Constance tried not to stare at the cow as they walked quickly past. Its stomach had burst and maggots crawled over its flesh. Unfortunately, there was no wind to dispel the foul humors. Of more concern were the stones that flew overhead, crashing into rooftops and cracking against the Castellar walls. Constance tried to stay close to the edges of the street, but even that would not help her if a stone flew too close.

  Bernard and Guillaume followed the streets as if they knew them well and Constance struggled to keep up. Finally, they reached the southwest corner of the wall. A group of men worked by the wall, trying to repair the damage sustained by thrown rocks. Their leader, a strong, squat man, stopped when he saw Bernard and Guillaume approaching. This man must be the mason, Constance thought.

  “Do you like the gift the Crusaders sent us?” he asked when Bernard, Guillaume, and Constance got close.

  “What do you mean?” asked Bernard.

  “You didn't smell it?” asked the mason.

  “It was sent by the Crusaders?” asked Guillaume. “But how?”

  The man pointed up at the sky. As they watched, another stone flew over the walls and landed in the street near the dead cow, dirt flying in the air. The first days of the siege had been quiet compared to this. The soldiers had fought, but the Crusaders had not yet begun to bombard the city. Now their siege engines were in place. The whole city was under bombardment, but the worst of the attack centered on the Castellar. The Crusaders unleashed their anger at their bitter defeat on the defenders of the suburb. Staying carefully out of range of the archers, the siege engineers launched huge stones from their trebuchets. Fortunately, their aim was shaky, but the large missiles occasionally found their way to the walls of the suburb or crashed through the roof of some poor unfortunate's house.

  “They mean to kill us, one way or another,” the mason said.

  He stopped and looked at Constance.

  “Whom have you brought to help us?” the mason asked.

  “A refugee girl that we found,” said Bernard. “She has lost the rest of her family and has no one to protect her. She wants to help defend the city.”

  “Good, she can help my wife bring water from the spring into the Castellar,” said the mason. “You go, too, Guillaume. They need your strength more there than I do here. Bernard, get to work mixing the mortar.”

  Guillaume and Constance went in the direction of the Castellar gate that led to the Fontegrade spring. They reached the gate and stepped just outside the city walls. It felt so strange to be on this side of the wall, after the last few days enclosed in the city. Constance felt vulnerable and very small, even though she knew that the archers overhead on the Castellar walls and the natural curve of the land on the path to the spring protected them from a direct attack from the Crusaders. Constance and Guillaume watched as a steady line of women and men moved quickly across the short distance to the spring. The men, from the water carriers’ guild, carried their shoulder yokes with buckets hanging from each side. With their practiced steps, they moved quickly, but did not lose any water. They were the initiated and looked down haughtily at the rag-tag bunch of men and women who carried water in any bag or bucket they could find, little wavelets slopping over the edges, wasting precious water every time a foot slipped or the terrain changed unexpectedly.

  A short, stout woman with a pretty face, now red with exertion, came up to them.

  “You're one of the boys working with my husband,” she said. “He said he would try to spare some strong arms to help us. I'm Beatritz.”

  “It is pleasure to meet you, honored wife of the mason,” said Guillaume. “I am Guillaume, brother of Bernard. And this is Constance, a fellow refugee.”

  Beatritz smiled at Guillaume and then turned to Constance.

  “You look familiar,” she said. “Have I seen you before?”

  “No, I am sure you must not have, madam,” said Constance. She quickly looked down at the ground. Constance thought she recognized the mason's wife, too.

  “Very well. You look very like a girl in this town, maybe she's a cousin?” said Beatritz. “Anyway, you two better get to work. We don't know how much longer we have to stock up before the next assault.”

  She handed them each wine skins, one for Constance and two for Guillaume.

  “Stay low and close to the side of the hill. Don't dawdle. If you hear the guard's trumpet, turn and run for the gate. We will leave it open as long as we can, but if you do not make it back in time, we will have to shut you out. We don't want to let them in, like they did at Béziers,” Beatritz said, then glancing quickly at Guillaume, added “God rest their souls.”

  Constance followed Guillaume out of the gate. She had to hurry to keep up with his long strides, but she did not want to fall behind. She could not see over the hillock, but she knew that the Crusader army waited on the other side. They were far down the hill, encamped by the banks of the River Aude. Constance knew they were not in battle formation and that all worked on the siege engines or continued to bombard the city with stone missiles. Knights would normally not attack until all was ready, but she kept thinking of Béziers. There it was not the knights who attacked the city on the first day of the siege, but the camp followers, the wretched dregs of their society, harlots, mountebanks, water sellers, and even poor washerwomen. They swarmed through the city, a dirty, desperate mass that stole everything it could and burned what it could not steal.

  Constance wanted to ask Guillaume about Béziers, to ask how he had managed to escape from the inferno, but she did not. She did not want to make him think of everything he had lost. She too had lost her family, even though she had run away from them. She had cried herself to sleep every night at first, quietly, quietly, so that Azalais and the other good women would not hear. Sometimes Constance thought of her brothers and sisters. She wondered what had become of them. Had her father forced one of her younger sisters to marry the miller in her stead? Were her parents even alive? Did her brother still care for the flocks of sheep up in the mountains? Guillaume looked so sad
and confused, so preoccupied, and Constance wished only that she could help him.

  They made it to the spring and waited nervously while a water carrier filled their skins. Constance felt stifling hot in her two layers of clothes. Sweat poured down her shoulders and back. She could not stand it anymore - she stopped a moment and drank greedily from the fountain. She handed Guillaume the small bucket sitting by the side of the fountain and he, too, poured the cool liquid down his throat with abandon. Constance grabbed the bucket again and poured water over her face and hands, soothing the back of her neck with the coolness. She then filled the bucket up again and threw it at Guillaume. He looked at her, water dripping off his hair and face, and Constance was afraid he was angry, but then he laughed, the first time she had ever heard that sound and Constance only knew that she wanted to hear it again. His face broke into the most beautiful smile, with a deep dimple on one side that made her want to laugh with him. Guillaume picked up the bucket and threw the rest of the water in it at Constance. She shrieked and then laughed harder than she had ever remembered.

  “There's a war going on, in case you had not noticed,” barked the water carrier. “Your sacks are full, get moving, and stop wasting the water. You won't find your behavior so funny in a week or two.”

  Constance and Guillaume quickly picked up their sacks and moved along the path with their eyes down, but as soon as they got away from the water carrier, they both started laughing again. Constance looked up and smiled at Guillaume, who looked down at her with a kind smile.

  Suddenly, they saw a stone missile approaching through the air. Guillaume grabbed Constance and threw her against the hillside. The stone landed with a heavy thud just behind them. Constance raised her head as she heard an awful shrieking. The stone had landed on the leg of one of the water carriers, trapping him under its weight. The man lay prostrate on the ground, grabbing at his exposed thigh, as the water from his buckets slopped out into the ground. Guillaume quickly jumped up and tried to move the boulder. The man shrieked even louder. Several others came from the line and finally freed the man. Constance went to him. His leg was crushed, broken into innumerable bits that no surgeon could ever piece together again. He was bleeding heavily from where the bone had bitten through the skin. Constance ripped off her head covering and quickly tied it tightly at the man's thigh. He screamed, but the bleeding seemed to ease up. Three water carriers gently picked him up and carried him towards the gate, his screams echoing over the valley.