by Jean Gill
‘Get a life of my own, you mean?’ Guillelma took the thread in her teeth and snapped it, with the ease of habit. She laughed. ‘You’re still the diplomat then.’
Damn it, when would she spare her own blushes! ‘I meant, more...’ Estela tailed off. Guillelma had her to rights and they both knew it.
‘Ah, child,’ Guillelma shook her head. ‘I have a fine job for the Queen and I can dress up as fancy as I like, mix with high and low, and no-one think the worse of me because no-one expects anything of me. And I’ll tell you a little secret,’ large brown eyes met curious gold, ‘when I’m not working, there’s a fine soldier travels the same road as I do and we find a meet-up where the warmth of a man’s arms is not unknown to me.’
Laundry and lovers, Estela recalled, observing Guillelma’s coarse body with interest. How could a man want a woman as old as that, as dried-out, as wobbly?
Guillelma smiled at her again. ‘Twenty years we’ve been together when we can be and you’d swear it was yesterday he brought me a hare for the pot and a kiss for the price. You’ll understand, one day.’
‘Will I?’ Estela felt the tears pricking, her mother’s absence a sudden bolt in her chest more painful than any arbalestier’s.
‘So let’s get on with it. You shall have a little finery for your wedding day and we will drink and dance you into your new life.’
‘You and your soldier?’
‘For the drinking maybe but he treads a measure with the grace of an ague-ridden pig, so I’ll keep my options open on the dancing. This one,’ she held up a robe, ‘this one, or this one?’
‘Not the blue!’ Estela was sharper than she’d meant to be, remembering a man’s eyes, dilated with poison, noting her ribbons. ‘Red,’ she said more calmly. She had hardly seen Dragonetz since his recovery and only in public. Lessons had finished and there was a tacit understanding that she was busy with her wedding plans and he with... with being Dragonetz, whatever that involved.
‘And I need a mask for this evening,’ she said.
‘Do you, now.’ Guillelma refrained from asking why and Estela didn’t tell her that she was being taken to have her fortune read, accompanied by a Queen and a Viscomtesse in disguise.
‘It is the proper thing to do, before a wedding, a treat for you,’ Aliénor had declared, but her eyes gave away whose fortune she really wanted to hear. ‘Even Ermengarda thinks we should consult this Gyptian.’
‘I would like to see her,’ Ermengarda agreed gravely.
The pitch sputtered from the torch Dragonetz carried and he held it a little further away until it steadied into a trustworthy light. Hooded and caped, he and Arnaut might have been a picture of night criminals but there was no help for it. They could hardly tread the cobbles of Narbonne openly in full armour without attracting attention, not only to themselves. Aliénor would be the death of him, one way or another! As likely in the streets of a civilised city, for the sake of a girlish prank, as on a blood-sodden battlefield Oltra mar.
‘I feel like a creeping friar,’ complained Arnaut, muffled in his hood.
‘You could have oiled your armour better,’ was Dragonetz’ response. ‘Friars don’t usually clank!’
‘If someone’s close enough to hear my steel, then they’re likely to feel it too!’
The postern gate was already opened and out slipped four more shadowy figures, cloaked, hooded and bubbling with excitement.
‘My Ladies!’ cautioned Dragonetz. ‘This affair is mad enough without you crying your identity along the streets off Narbonne. The invisible servant creaked the gate to behind them, carefully leaving it unlocked for their return.
‘We will be good,’ came the low voice of Ermengarda but even she showed the night’s work tingling in her veins. Unmistakeable, imperial tones reminded Dragonetz of the address they sought. At least it was still the Palace-side of the river, only a few streets away, but even so this was madness. Dragonetz leading, Arnaut at the rear, the little procession followed the route Dragonetz had previously taken to borrow money, but this time they passed by Raavad’s house, continuing further down the street, a left, a right and then a low wooden door indistinguishable from those beside it.
‘Let me!’ Dragonetz stood to one side with the torch while the Queen of France performed a coded rat-a-tat rat-a-tat knock on the door, which opened a suspicious crack and then enough to swallow them all in the gloomy interior of a low-ceilinged, hallway. They were ushered into a room that still smelled of winter’s smoke and was almost filled by a large table and twelve plain stools.
The two men wasted no time in putting their hoods down, freeing their vision and scanning the room but the four they accompanied stayed silent and covered. Although the room was plainly furnished, the walls were decorated with what Dragonetz recognized as mystic symbols. The only way in was the door through which they had just come. If it was a question of dispatching incomers one at a time, so be it, Dragonetz told himself, his sword drawn and across the entrance. He took up a blocking stance, Arnaut behind him. When they heard a whirring and turned, there was a table between the two men and the moving panel, allowing two figures to step into the room beside the four hooded visitors.
Dragonetz swore but the two newcomers merely took seats at the table. One wore the beard and sidelocks unusual in local Jews but that Dragonetz had seen on his travels. The other was a woman unlike anyone Dragonetz had ever seen. She was dressed as if one of Guillelma’s clothing chests had been upended over her, landing in knots and swathes of random textures and patterns, floral green over blue fustian, red diamonds kerchief-edged over yellow lawn.
The riot of colour started at the top in a turbaned swirl and finished at her feet, calloused and dusty in leather strapping. Her face, although swarthy as that of the man beside her, was wider featured, flatter than his racial type. Weathered and wrinkled, her face gave no hint as to whether she was forty or eighty - she could have been either or anywhere in between. The shake in her hands as she placed a walking stick carefully beside her at the table hinted at the upper end of the range. In any case, hardly a threat. Dragonetz lowered his sword at the same moment as the Jew spoke.
‘You grace us with your presence.’ The slight accent reminded them that Occitan was not his first language but he spoke it fluently. ‘The Lady shall be known to you as Dame Fairnette Babtista, which is her name among the Gadze, that is, non Romani like us, and she has accepted your request that she read for you, without being told your names, although she has given you hers.’ If there was a rebuke in these words, it glanced lightly off the impatience shimmering in the atmosphere round the four hooded figures.
Dame Fairnette Babtista inclined her head in queenly fashion and waved her hand to indicate the seat beside her and with the other gestured that all but the supplicant should distance themselves. A slight figure, not the tallest, Dragonetz noted, was pushed forward by the others and, giggling, took her place around the corner from the Dame. The Romani took a pack of cards out of the man’s almonier, made of tapestry, that she wore somewhere around what might have been her waist, and spread them on the table. From his position by the door, half an ear always on the passageway that gave access to the room, Dragonetz could see the painted characters on the cards. He had seen others similar Oltra mar, even learned to game with them, and he knew that should a thief break into their little rendez-vous he would be better advised to steal the cards than all of the Ladies’ jewels. Would there really come a day, thanks to paper mills, when every man could have a pack of cards? He must ask al-Hisba how to produce thick paper.
Dame Fairnette muttered to herself in some strange language, a disconcerting string of throaty sounds that interfered with his concentration until Dragonetz jerked into the realisation that she was now speaking Occitan and he had completely missed the switch. The low voice wheezed, ‘Dark handsome man in your future, my pretty, troubles to do with water.’ He hadn’t missed much, he thought, as the patter ended in similar vein.
But th
e hooded figure stayed seated. ‘Surely you can say a little more to the Queen of France,’ a haughty voice declared from within the hood. So that was their little game, Dragonetz realised, not recognising which Lady spoke but knowing full well that Aliénor was the tallest in that room, sitting in the background, fidgeting with suppressed laughter and excitement.
Without missing a beat, the Dame said, ‘Perhaps I can but she must sit before me in her own person then, and ask. You gave counterfeit and received in the same coin, although your proper fate is as unremarkable as your bearing.’
The hood was thrown back then and the face of Marie de Poitiers showed two bright spots of anger in the flickering torchlight. Before she could hurl what were clearly going to be insults back at the Dame, the imperial voice of her mistress was raised. Aliénor was already dropping her own hood as she spoke. ‘If there is offence then I have caused it and the lady acted on my orders, Dame Fairnette. I ask forgiveness for a foolishness.’
‘And you offer me true coin, Lady Aliénor.’ The tone was a wheedling whine now and the shaking hand was open upon the table, waiting for the silver that was duly passed over it and back, three times before it disappeared into the almonier.
Once more the cards were laid in a pattern of three rows. Once more the muttering song commented incomprehensibly on the cards - or the weather, thought Dragonetz, but he watched and listened anyway.
You shall not bear one king, my Lady,’ were the words that shocked the room and Aliénor’s stillness said more than her earlier jitters. The voice continued after its dramatic pause, ‘You shall bear many kings.’ The relief was palpable and Marie even broke into spontaneous clapping, which quickly petered out.
‘You see this card?’ The Romani picked up one from the table and showed it to Aliénor, who merely nodded. ‘Mark it well for this is your doom and destiny, the Tower.’
Another pause then Aliénor laughed lightly. ‘Then it looks like I shall be stuck in Paris but as I shall have my King-son that doesn’t worry me, one bit.’
‘So, so, my Lady,’ Dame Fairnette muttered, but whether in agreement or contradiction wasn’t clear.
Next was Ermengarda, all pretence at disguise abandoned and even she could not school her face completely against the tension in her jawbone, the tightening of her hands in her lap.
‘Trade, prosperity, victory in battle.’ Just an upmarket version of the first sitting!
‘Will there be children?’ asked Ermengarda in a voice so quiet that Dragonetz could hear himself swallow, reminded that for at least two women in this room a baby meant more than a lapful of wriggles.
The reply was slow, lingering over the choice of each word. ‘There will be a child related to you that comes into your life for good and for ill.’
‘For whose good?’ pressed Ermengarda. ‘And for whose ill?’
‘For good and for ill,’ was the unmoving reply. ’The cards have spoken. But be happy in this, you shall know love, with one who sings and plays for you, my Lady Tort-n’avetz, My Lady ‘You-are-wrong’,
Despite Ermengarda’s light-hearted response, ‘Something to look forward to, then,’ her instinctive half-glance in his direction gave her away. Dragonetz felt the sudden need to face the source of any likely threat and turned away from the table scenario to the passageway, that suddenly seemed the easier of the dangers that faced him. He heard Ermengarda leave the table - thank God - and a rustle of gowns as someone else took her place. He didn’t have to look to know who the fourth woman was. Even when speaking, there was a lilt to her voice, a melody all her own.
‘I’m no-one,’ Estela told the Romani, ‘you don’t need to worry about me.’ The other three women were already whispering to each other, having lost interest.
Dame Fairnette began her chant and the room was quiet again. ‘It makes no sense!’ For the first time, she sounded frustrated. ‘Everything and its opposite... song and audience in great halls... but it doesn’t happen and you are alone on a great journey... or it does happen and no journey.’ Dragonetz glanced back over his shoulder at Estela, her back metal-straight, the long black hair falling below the stool. The Dame was the one who was agitated. She wrapped her arms round her gown of bright patches and rocked slightly, grimacing. ‘Pain, so much pain in the past... easy to see what has been before... but the future. Why can’t I see? Something is blocking, something - ‘ suddenly she stretched out a bony hand and ripped Estela’s clasp from the front of her cloak and held it out of reach, high above her head like a tribute to the gods.
‘It was a present. Could I have it back please?’ Estela’s voice was calm enough but Dragonetz could see her right hand reaching through her cloak and, he imagined, through her under-shift to the steel beneath, just in case.
‘Pathfinder,’ intoned Dame Fairnette. ‘Now I can see! The whole world lies before you, not one path but a dozen at this crossroads. Know you are at the biggest crossroads of your life, know this and choose with care! Not one choice but many, many roads and all dangerous. You cannot run fast enough or far enough. You drag other people in your wake, the highborn and the lowborn, and someone will not survive the knowing of you.’
‘That’s enough!’ said Estela, reaching for her clasp, but the Romani managed to keep it just out of her reach. Dragonetz had not moved but he could feel Arnaut shifting beside him, ready to put an end to Estela’s discomfort. Dragonetz laid a light hand on the other’s arm, warning him to stay put. Crazy it might be but there was no danger here to call for armed intervention.
‘Be glad,’ the tones cackled with mockery, ‘for you too shall know love, with someone who sings and plays for you.’ She cackled even louder, then suddenly collapsed onto her seat and gave the brooch back to Estela.
‘No doubt the same troubadour who sings of love to my Lady Ermengarda.’ Aliénor threw her barbs lightly and accurately into the silence. ‘Somewhat free with their love, troubadours, don’t you find, Ermengarda?’ Dragonetz studied the door, carefully, as wooden himself, but he was so used to training Estela's every breath, that he could hear the catch that suggested the edge of tears, even though she said nothing.
It was Ermengarda who responded, rallying. ‘Indeed. I think we have troubled Dame Fairnette enough and her invention begins to fail and tend to repetition.’ The Romani said nothing, hunching into a wizened old woman once more, no trace of the passion that had flowed through her while she held the Rune. The Jew had said nothing but watched passively throughout and it was to him that Ermengarda spoke next. ‘We thank you for your hospitality, Makhir ben Habibi, and would know more of your work.’ Dragonetz’ mouth curved lightly. He should have known that the Lady of Narbonne would always have a hidden agenda for joining in a playful whim of Aliénor’s. Every religion had its magical margins and to hold the threads of this city meant testing the powers and the politics of all its factions.
‘You are gracious, my Lady, We progress, we progress.’
‘You are modest. I understand from Raavad that your work on the Kabbalah is renowned throughout Provence and further, and that you receive visitors regularly.’
However innocuous the words seemed, Dragonetz noted the sudden tension in the Jew, who nodded his head repeatedly, like a thrush after a worm, as he replied. ‘We philosophise my Lady, and the power in the Torah is a meet subject for debate, as I am sure Raavad has told you.’
‘Raavad has told me many things,’ was the cool reply. ‘Including the fact that Dame Fairnette honours you with her company to find out for herself more regarding your studies.’
The head gave more quick nods and glanced at his companion, who still sat, deflated like a flattened wineskin. ‘The Romani have some knowledge and we thought to share,’ he agreed.
Once more the grating voice was heard. ‘Goy are not permitted to share.’
‘Goy?’ queried Ermengarda.
Makhir frowned. ‘It is a word we use for non-Jews. Dame Fairnette is disappointed that I cannot allow her to discuss the Kabbalah with the inner
circle.’
‘Cannot?’ the old woman challenged ‘Will not!’
Makhir spread his hands wide in the ancient gesture of helpless apology. ‘What can I do?’ he pleaded for understanding.
‘Is that true?’ demanded Ermengarda. ‘Do you hold back your learning from Goys?’ Her lips curled round the word and Dragonetz had a sudden picture of a tinder box held to the wooden door of this anonymous house in the Jewish quarter, neighbour to every other Jewish house, all dry wood for a bonfire.
‘No,’ Makhir was clear and met Ermengarda’s eyes firmly. His arms went out in the apology gesture again. ‘But what can I do? The Tradition does not permit women to be party to our mysteries.’ There was a gasp from Aliénor and Dragonetz closed his eyes, the conflagration real in his head.
Instead, the ruler of Narbonne, golden and indisputably female, accepted the insult and moulded it into a nugget of power. ‘Much like the Christians then,’ she observed mildly, ‘and I shall bear that in mind in future.’ Everyone in that room knew a threat when he heard one, including the hapless Jew, caught between tenet and termagants. ‘Dame Fairnette came alone?’ asked Ermengarda, politely.
‘My people like not walls nor the people who believe they own them.’ The old woman answered for herself. ‘We camp down-river.’
‘These are dangerous times and I would not have Narbonne troubled by Gorz against Gyptians, Goys against Jews, or whatever other names we call those we do not wish to share with.’ Makhir winced. ‘Your people are not staying long?’ The command could not have been clearer.
‘We go on tomorrow.’
‘Good. East?’ inquired Ermengarda.
‘East,’ confirmed Dame Fairnette and the thought of a Romani camp disturbing the settlements of Provence brought a malicious smile to Ermengarda’s lips. ‘East,’ repeated the old woman, ‘to the great wash of the salty sea. I want to die in the holy place, where my people will come every year in their thousands, not in my life-time, but in the next or the one after that and every year after, years in their thousands, in the name of black Sarah and the Maries of the Sea. It shall be so!’ Then once more she crumpled back into her seat.
