by Jean Gill
Within sight of the company but well out of earshot, Dragonetz cantered up to Arnaut and his men, meeting them before they joined the road. For Arnaut’s ears only, he muttered ‘Feet out of stirrups,’ then, for the second time that morning, Dragonetz knocked someone out of the saddle. This time it was a mailed fist to the stomach and Arnaut landed cleanly on his back, sprawled on the bare ground among tussocks of grass. His men hung back, keeping a healthy distance between themselves and the mailed fist. ‘Now, tell me why you ignored a crossbow in the woods and don’t waste my time pretending you didn’t see it.’
Arnaut sat up, doubled over. ‘You mad bastard,’ he gasped. ‘You could have broken my legs.’
‘Only if you disobeyed orders.’
Arnaut raised clear grey eyes to his. ‘That’s your answer.’
‘You were obeying orders.’ It made no sense. Dragonetz could only think of one person whose orders would matter to Arnaut. His men were hand-picked. Which meant. ‘From me,’ he stated bleakly.
‘Yes. Last night at dinner. A message from you by a servant. Your password and your instructions to ride on. ‘Arbalestier friendly,’ were the words, ‘say nothing.’
‘And this servant is no doubt long gone from Douzens. And I expect you’re also going to explain why the friendly arbalestier, who could answer some rather important questions, is a mashed corpse putting an unnecessary strain on Martis’ horse.’
‘He did answer the questions. So I had to kill him.’ This time Arnaut couldn’t meet Dragonetz in the eyes.
It made no sense. Orders he hadn’t given, answers that couldn’t be spoken to him in person. ‘Out with it,’ Dragonetz told him.
‘Aliénor.’ The name was spoken so low that Dragonetz thought he’d misheard but the second time there was no mistake. ‘Aliénor ordered you killed. We dashed into the woods when we saw the bolts fly, heard you shout and what we found was the crossbow abandoned and the flattened grass where he sat to shoot. He made little effort to run, he was so sure we’d let him go. This man,’ he jerked his head towards the body, ‘gave us her token for safe passage.’
‘And the token was good.’ Dragonetz already knew the answer.
‘Unmistakeable. Her seal. The man believed absolutely that he was following my Lady’s orders and his last expression was disbelief when I killed him. Dying eyes don’t lie.’
Dragonetz only hesitated a second. ‘So he believed it. Just as you believed in my orders. False, both, or stolen.’
‘It seems so.’
‘But the attempt is from inside.’
‘That’s why I had to kill him. Whatever happened, the tracks are back in Douzens and he knew no more than he told me. Further talk would only weaken the company and that one would not have kept quiet!’ He spat.
‘Yes. Your men?’
‘Will hold their tongues and accept what I tell them.’
‘And you?’
‘Will hold my tongue and accept what you tell me. As long as you don’t hit me again.’
‘Would you rather I let your father punish your incompetence?’
Arnaut winced. ‘Christ, I’d rather you hit me again.’
Dragonetz motioned the other five men to join them. ‘Unhitch that carrion-fodder, for God’s sake!’ he told Martis. ‘By rights you should be in his place, you useless bunch of witless, eyeless sots. You’re lucky it’s only a horse that’s dead. This could have been my Lady Aliénor.’
‘Sire, you think this was an attempt on my Lady?’ asked one of the men.
‘You’ve already heard it was an attempt on me and why am I so valuable? Use what little brains your mongrel parents gave you!’
‘You are my Lady’s Commander, so killing you is a threat to her and her stay in Narbonne?’
Dragonetz rolled his eyes. ‘The Lord be praised! It would also be very inconvenient to me if such an attempt succeeded so I’ll have the stones off the next one of you cretins who fouls up. Is that clear?’ He made a last mental inventory of the human remains dumped where the rope had been cut and said, ‘Leave it there. It’s off the road. Now get to your place before a hundred English archers appear in the woods ahead!’ All but Arnaut galloped off to overtake the procession and regain their position up front.
‘Do you trust the Moor?’ he asked.
‘No.’ Impatient at stating the obvious, Dragonetz fidgeted with the reins.
‘There is no easy way of asking this,’ Arnaut began, ‘but I need to know. Do you trust Lady Aliénor?’
‘You don’t need to know.’ Dragonetz was curt as he wheeled round to rejoin the company. ‘But I trust no-one, including you. Now get to your position - and tell Raoulf only that you killed the man in youthful enthusiasm.’
Arnaut grimaced and galloped off. Dragonetz could see him reining in beside Raoulf. When the father’s mailed fist punched his son, hard, in the arm, Dragonetz hid a smile that quickly faded. There were too many who cared too much about him and each other, hostages to Dame Fortune. Did he trust Aliénor? As much as he trusted himself, he thought bitterly, as much as he trusted himself.
Every bump of the road told Estela that her aches and bruising would be worse the next day. If only she had her collection of salves. A compress of comfrey and some arnica salve would make a big difference.
‘I have some thyme oil among my belongings, my Lady. That will give some relief.’ This time, Estela saw nothing magical in the way the Moor had apparently read her thoughts. Her discomfort must be obvious enough.
‘Yes, that would work. Thank you.’
‘We will be stopping soon for lunch.’
Thank God! Estela gritted her teeth and drew on all her reserves to keep going. Her restless mind offered little help, picturing again and again what she hadn’t seen, along with what she had; Dragonetz flinging himself and her off their horses, the black stallion rearing, the lethal bolt, Seda’s eyes misting like mirrors. She spoke as much to still her own thoughts as to gain a response. ‘Animals have no souls.’
‘So your Church teaches.’ Al-Hisba apparently agreed.
‘But not yours.’
‘No. For me, all living things contain Allah.’
‘Every living thing dies. That crossbow - it should have been my Lord Dragonetz.’ And it could have been me...
‘Perhaps. And perhaps it was not meant for my Lord Dragonetz. Perhaps for once a Christian was obeying his own Church Law. Perhaps he wasn’t using a crossbow against another Christian.’
She considered the implications. ‘Is there someone who wants to kill you?’
‘Are there flowers in springtime?’ She had to be content with this enigmatic response but the question resonated. She asked the same question of herself. Is there someone who wants to kill you? Oh, yes. They wouldn’t care about church edicts, that was certain. And it didn’t take as many as flowers in springtime to succeed. Surely they hadn’t caught up with her already?
When they stopped for lunch, Estela allowed herself to be fussed over by Guillelma, who made use of al-Hisba’s thyme oil, rubbing it none-too gently into Estela’s knees and arms. It stung where it touched grazed skin.
‘The fall hurt less than the treatment!’ she complained.
Guillelma ignored her. ‘Look at that gown - ruined! Slashes might be in fashion but not ragged and muddy. It’s all well and good finding clothes for you but twice a day and throwing them away when you’ve worn them will make somebody poor before the week is out and it won’t be me!’ She grumbled on, a soothing background that allowed Estela to drift away from the day’s events and just follow orders to move a leg, an arm, to lie down ‘just for ten minutes’. The cart was rolling again when Estela awoke. It seemed to be her lot to slump in a wagon during the day, she thought ruefully, but the rest and treatment had given her enough relief that she could jump down from the wagon, untether Tou and complete the march on horse-back, with the Moor as silent company. One last climb, up a wooded hillside, and the Abbey of Fontfroide came into view.
This time, Estela, Guillelma and many of the women shared a dormitory inside the Abbey, which was bigger and better equipped for guests than the Commanderie at Douzens, and with a separate building specially for that purpose. The graceful proportion of the cloisters and soaring arches made little impression on Estela, too tired and sore to wonder whether architecture had a soul, a question that the Abbé would have eagerly debated had he, too, not been otherwise engaged.
While some of Aliénor’s company were allocated rooms inside, and those less privileged set up camp outside the Abbey, the white friar inspected a promissory note for a very large sum of money. He then debated the precise terms of a contract to purchase land and river rights, came to an agreement and instructed his scribe to draw up the terms. He took the proffered right hand in his own and shook on the agreement, but the modern chivalric gesture of good faith was backed up as soon as possible by the gesture preferred by the monastic orders - two signatures on two identical pieces of parchment, properly witnessed.
There were no witnesses later that night, when a man went alone to the Chapel, a parchment still tucked inside his jerkin. He made a reverence, then knelt before the altar, which was decked in Lenten purple. Hour after hour, the knight kept silent vigil, his head bowed. He only spoke one word, ‘Seda.’ If he thought about religious doctrine, the question for Dragonetz was not whether horses had souls, but whether men did.
Chapter 4.
No degree of bruising would have prevented Estela being on horse-back for her first sight of Narbonne but she could hardly take up the privileged position at the front that she had occupied the day before. Instead, she was trying to keep on the outside of the press of soldiers, women and servants, some on horse, some on foot, that brought up the rear. The mood had changed completely from the journey’s mixture of tense surveillance for the men-at-arms, and relaxation for the rest, to relaxation for the men-at-arms and the pomp of procession for the rest.
Estela felt the collective gasp reach her before she caught a glimpse through the crowd of the great Perpignan Gate ahead and felt her own breath catch. It was so wide that six men-at-arms were vanishing side by side through the archway, three times the height of the mounted soldiers, and above that was a tower, set in the fortified wall. Aliénor was mounted near the front, a respectful space surrounding her and her chosen women, and Estela could hear the cheering as the Queen entered the gate and vanished into the darkness.
Men and wagons jostled into place as they approached the city wall, where some of the City knights kept the Toll Guard company and paid respects to the visitors. A straggle of shopkeepers and ragamuffin children had come out to see the show and gave a half-hearted cheer as the last of the company reached the Gate. Estela craned her neck upwards to see the stonework, strange foreign evocations of bull-heads and chariots, crescent moons and scrolls on niches, then she too was eaten up by the dark narrows of the city streets, following blindly past tall houses that leaned towards each other.
After endless small streets, Estela was confused to see the city wall again and the procession apparently going out of Narbonne. She blinked in the brightness outside, dazzled further by reflections from the river that was the next obstacle. Like a trick of the light, another identical city wall, with a plainer gate, faced them across another bridge. Bemused, Estela was swept along with the others, past yet more cheering tradesmen and workers sneaking time to see the spectacle. Into the dark again but this time the turn to the right opened up a view of no ordinary building. Ermengarda’s Palace was magnificent beyond anything Estela had ever seen and on the steps were gathered a hundred or more Narbonnais as welcome party. There had been plenty of time from their entry through the South Gate to get word to the Palace and there was no doubt that they were expected.
At the head of her people was a golden figure, radiating light as if she were giving out the sunbeams rather than catching them in her headwear and her attire. Estela suddenly realized how ordinary her evening gown for Douzens had been. Its tawny yellow would have faded like a dead dandelion beside this cloth of gold, embroidery glittering like the real gold in the circlet retaining her veil. Estela suspected that the white fur edging was ermine, chosen for softness and to set off the flushed tease of the skin revealed. Even from a distance, Estela could guess at the delicate rose and gold beauty of the Viscomtesse of Narbonne and she suddenly felt coarse and brown, in a way she hadn’t beside Aliénor’s red-headed fairness of skin. There was no chance that Ermengarda’s creamy skin sported the sun freckles that marred Aliénor’s wrists after days on the road. No doubt some serious application of lemon paste would be part of the royal sojourn at Narbonne. Estela sighed, knowing that she could scrape her skin to the bone and it would remain the same smooth olive she was born with.
A sign from Ermengarda’s right-hand man and then the drums rolled and trumpets sounded while it was Aliénor’s turn to capture all eyes. To her left, the scarlet St-Denis Oriflamme pennant with its flame edges flickering in the breeze and to her right, the lion passant regardant of Aquitaine on his gules background, observing the crowd with disdain as he too shimmered with each movement. Poised at the foot of the steps, her Ladies and knights around her, Aliénor let the soaring notes announce her. The conventional rise of the fanfare dipped into a well-known phrase, an allusion to a troubadour melody, one composed by Dragonetz for Aliénor, and the Queen acknowledged the tribute with a nod to the crowd and a graceful wave of her hand towards her knight, at her side. Then the trumpets merged again to build up to the last crescendo, one note ensemble. While this echoed against the stone, Aliénor glided upwards as if airborne, towards Ermengarda, her standard- bearers in step.
The ensuing silence marked the moment even more than the fanfare and Estela felt a lump in her throat at being there as witness. In years to come, the children peeking through the legs of their grown-ups, and pushing to get a better view from the front, would tell their children of the ceremony, of the time Ermengarda of Narbonne welcomed the Queen of France and her retinue. Marvellous as they found Aliénor, trailing legends of the Crusades and of northern politics, these same children would leave no hearer in doubt that their Lady Ermengarda was her match, just as Narbonne was a match for the Kingdom of France and that to be Narbonnais was to live in the centre of the civilised universe. Estela almost cheered with the mob, suspecting that her eyes shone just like those around her, as strangers smiled at each other, muttering every word they knew for ‘wonderful’.
And so France came to Narbonne. The steps gave her the advantage but Ermengarda did Aliénor the courtesy of walking down to greet her so that the two rulers met half-way, their long trains covering several steps, guarding the inner circle formed as the women embraced, once ceremoniously, and again with what seemed to be genuine affection. Now that Aliénor was on the same level, her superior height showed, but Ermengarda’s regal stillness drew the eye as much as Aliénor’s quicksilver movements. The latter’s emerald gown rivaled Ermengarda’s in gold embroidery, with lace flounces where the other wore fur. Her coronet was not short of either gold or jewels, emeralds to match her gown, emeralds in rings and bracelets that flashed as Aliénor’s expressive arms conjured up a sunny journey that had passed without mishap but with stories to tell.
Estela shook the dazzle from her head. Honours even, one-apiece, she judged, as the tally boys would have reckoned in an equal joust. Once, when she was a little girl, she had been given a lesson in glamour by Gilles. He had let her come with him to the smithy and, while his horse was being shod, he had told her about the weapons that were there for making and for mending. He lingered over one weapon in particular, then he whispered in the blacksmith’s ear, got a grunt in reply and picked up two knives. One glittered with stones around its hilt and had a fancy knot design. The other was plain and the edge had a notch in it, interrupting the run of the blade. Easy choice! Estela was young and chose the pretty one, which of course bent when, as instructed, she tried to cut bread with it. She watched as the bla
cksmith whetted the blade of the plain knife back to a perfect edge and she ate the little end of bread that she sliced as if it were air.
A few weeks later, she was ready for the revision and when Gilles gave her the choice of another bejeweled knife and a plain rough one, she chose the plain without hesitation. He laughed and once more Estela tested the knives, this time throwing each in an arc to land point-first at a wooden door-frame, a bull’s eye game Estela had been playing from the age of five. The fancy knife was stuck so deep in the wood that Estela had to twist it out but even so, the blade was true - unlike the plain knife, so old and brittle it snapped.
‘So?’ Gilles had asked her.
‘So, you can’t tell,’ she had sulked.
‘But you have found out the difference each time,’ said Gilles. ‘Think about it.’
She was still thinking about it, hard, eight years later. Her fortunes had joined Aliénor’s. Was the glitter gold or dross? The lion of Aquitaine rippled again in a gust of wind, its upraised paw changing from dog-like offering to a raking death-blow as the claws sliced downwards. Perhaps tawny could be more than dead dandelions after all.
Estela was tired of everyone rushing round. The Palace was ten times, a hundred times the size of the fortress she grew up in, and its outbuildings formed all of the Cité that she had seen so far. She joined in, carrying boxes and goods out of the wagons into the great kitchens or the ante-rooms where yet more servants sorted and carried. Unlike the others, she had no idea what she was supposed to be doing and it was almost a relief when Guillelma, now wearing a respectable if dowdy dun gown and wimple, tutted and told her that she should be in her own room, unpacking.
