Troubadour (13 page)

‘And that is what you want?’ said the troubadour. He was clearly hurt.

‘I think it would be best,’ mumbled Elinor.

‘Then there is no more to be said. I must find myself another
joglar
with an unbroken voice,’ said Lucatz.

‘I shall still be your
joglar
till you move on in the spring,’ said Elinor.

‘Hmm? Oh, yes, yes,’ said Lucatz vaguely. Elinor realised he was already mentally recasting the troupe’s repertoire without her. Until he did find a new
joglar
, they would not be able to perform the songs she had made so much her own.

She was glad of the sanctuary that Lady Iseut had offered her but she couldn’t help feeling a pang at the thought of the troupe moving on without her. Huguet and Perrin would go back to their original bond of two and the
joglaresa
s would go on gossiping, joking and one day teasing a new boy. If she could have stayed as Esteve, she would not have left the troupe; she would have been content to be a
joglar
for ever. But nature had forced this solution on her.

And she would be forgotten. She wondered if even her family still thought about her. She dared not hope that Bertran did. But then a small, fluttering optimism hinted that her new life might have its adventures too. Iseut was going to teach her to be a
trobairitz
. She would have something else that she could do. And having sung both Iseut’s and Azalais’ songs, she had a shrewd idea that she could work out how to write them.

Telling the
joglar
s and
joglaresa
s was hard, harder than the interview she had first had with Lucatz. But they were all understanding.

‘It is for the best,’ said Pelegrina. ‘You couldn’t hide your womanhood for ever.’

‘And it’s not right for a lady like you to travel the roads,’ said Maria. ‘It’s all right for us; we’re used to it.’

‘I was getting used to it too,’ said Elinor, trying not to cry.

‘We will miss you,’ said Bernardina simply.

‘Will you be all right?’ asked Perrin. He was anxious; he felt responsible for the
donzela
.

‘I think it is the best solution,’ said Elinor. ‘If the ladies here have discovered my secret, then so would others.’

‘We’ll come back and see you,’ promised Huguet.

‘If we can,’ added Perrin.

‘Where do you think you will go?’ asked Elinor.

‘I don’t know if Lucatz will agree to go all the way across the border into Piedmont,’ said Perrin. ‘But we won’t return west while the land is so troubled. We’ll await word from Bertran. I’m sure he will get a message to us somehow.’

‘Would you like us to tell him where you are, lady?’ asked Huguet in a low voice.

Elinor could only nod.

The remaining cold weeks flew past. Lady Iseut gave some grand banquets and invited some of the nobles who the
joglaresa
s said had been her suitors. The troupe sang, danced and played for them and Esteve gave some of his best performances.

Lord Berenger was often there at Saint-Jacques. Elinor was sure that he still wanted to live by the Lady’s side. And she was equally sure that Azalais didn’t like or approve of this. The lady of Tarascon had become much sharper in her manner ever since the day of Elinor’s interview and she was now inclined to be critical of the young
joglar
’s performance.

Then Elinor overheard a conversation at the nobles’ table about Azalais’ return to her home on the Rhône.

‘I might not stay there long,’ said Azalais. ‘I’m thinking of going into Piedmont myself. I have been there before and there are many
trobairitz
there.’

Lady Iseut looked at her with troubled grey eyes. ‘If that is what you want,’ she said. ‘I hope you will be happy wherever you go. And that we may still correspond?’

‘Of course,’ said Azalais. And the conversation moved on.

When the arrangements were made for Elinor’s transformation, it was Lady Iseut who told her what to do; her friend took no more interest once Elinor had chosen to stay at Saint-Jacques.

The troupe moved on in early April, as they had done the year before; but what a different parting this one was! This time Elinor set off with them, as Esteve, riding on Mackerel, turning back in her saddle to wave at the townspeople who had turned out to see them off. It would not be long before more entertainers came to Saint-Jacques; the Lady’s reputation ensured that. But a bastide always felt a little sad when their wintering troupe left in spring.

Iseut’s
senescal
, Nicolas, had been taken into their confidence. He was waiting beyond the first stand of trees, with a pony and cart. The troupe drew to a halt. Lucatz had been surprised that the young
joglar
had ridden out with them but he expected him to turn and ride back to the town. Elinor had already said her farewells to Perrin and the others and her heart was heavy as they exchanged one last embrace.

Then the troupe set off down the mountain towards the next valley and the road east. It took them some time to pass out of sight, since they had to travel at the pace of the slowest walker. But eventually they were hidden by an outcrop of rock and Nicolas took out a bundle from the trunk on the cart and gave it to Elinor. She changed quickly behind a bush, even though the
senescal
was looking studiously away.

The dress was of yellow silk and the coif to cover her hair was red and beautifully embroidered. Iseut had forgotten nothing: stockings, yellow slippers with red embroidery, a purse to hang at her girdle and a cross to put round her neck. Elinor could not bring herself to put it on. Instead she pinned Bertran’s red brooch on to the front of her dress.

When she was completely changed, she called out to Nicolas and gave him the bundle. Next Mackerel had to be disguised. His mane and tail were plaited with red and yellow ribbons. It didn’t make any difference to his distinctive dappled patterns, but no one would be expecting the
joglar
’s pony to return to the bastide, tied behind Nicolas’ cart.

Then came the hardest part: The
senescal
had to drive Elinor into the bastide in the cart. When people asked who the young lady was, they were to be told that this was one Elinor, a talented young
trobairitz
who had come to study with the Lady. The deception was made easier by both Iseut and Azalais greeting her warmly as soon as she arrived. They had already told the servants that such a visitor was expected.

So when Elinor entered Saint-Jacques for the second time, it was as a beautiful dark poet, clothed in red and yellow, the colours of her native country, come to make the bastide her home. That night Iseut ordered the drawbridge raised for the first time since the troupe arrived in the autumn. Elinor heard the chains clanking and wondered if she was a guest or a prisoner.

.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dolor

Now Elinor’s new life began. She had her own name back and with it her gender and her social status. Trobairitz, like the troubadours, came from noble families. They did not travel from court to court like their male counterparts but were in correspondence with other poets, male and female, in both the south and the north.

Azalais did not stay long after Elinor’s ‘arrival’, just long enough not to arouse suspicion. And Elinor soon slipped into her place as Iseut’s friend and confidante. At dinner she sat beside the Lady at the nobles’ table and if any entertainer came to the great hall, she sat and listened to them as she had once been listened to.

Her life as a wandering musician was over and she was sometimes sad, especially when a young
joglar
came to Saint-Jacques and sang one of the songs she had made her own. But now she felt the pleasures of composition and they were quite different from those of performance.

Elinor was so glad that she had been taught to read and write; not all her contemporaries had been. For younger sons, in particular, these were considered unnecessary skills, unless they were destined for the church. But Lanval and Clara had insisted on all three of their children being civilised, as they saw it, through such arts.

Bertran had once told her that he was a younger son, but his parents had been as enlightened as Elinor’s; they believed that everyone who could learn should be literate and had brought up three sons and four daughters in those beliefs.

At Saint-Jacques Elinor’s education added the skill of composing verse. They began by Iseut showing her the first poem she had written. It was a ‘
planh’
or lament for her husband and Elinor felt honoured to read it.

It was very different from anything in the repertoire of Lucatz and his troupe. When the
joglar
s sang of ‘
dolor
’ they meant the sorrow of unrequited love, which the beloved could turn to ‘
joi
’ in a moment by a kind look or word. It was nothing like the raw pain of a young widow lamenting that she would never see her true love again.

‘To what melody should it be sung?’ Elinor asked Iseut. ‘I should like to learn it.’

‘It has never been sung,’ said the Lady. ‘It is too personal for public performance. But the tune of any
planh
would serve. It is the words that matter after all.’

Elinor resolved that she would find the perfect sad melody to fit the lament and would one day sing it to her patron in thanks for her trust in showing it to her.

Iseut gave herself a little shake and moved on to explain other verse forms to her willing pupil.

‘Here is a debate poem I wrote with Azalais,’ she said.

Elinor did not like this one quite so much. The two women had argued back and forth about who could be trusted better, men or women, and it seemed a little dry. But she liked the other
tenso
Iseut showed her better. It had been written in alternating verses between a woman, Maria de Ventadorn, and a troubadour called Gui D’Uissel.

Maria was married to the Viscount of Ventadorn but it was clear from her poem that she had a deep attraction to Gui.

‘Were they lovers?’ asked Elinor, feeling bold even to use the word.

Iseut looked shocked. ‘Only in their poetry,’ she said. ‘There are many ways in which women and men can express love for each other. It does not always have to be in the flesh.’

‘Have you written any poems with a man?’ asked Elinor.

‘No,’ said Iseut. ‘I am still very inexperienced as a poet, even though I am daring to set myself up as your teacher. And I do not . . . have a special friend in that way.’

She looked so embarrassed that Elinor tried to change the subject. She picked up another poem from the manuscripts on the Lady’s table.

‘Tell me about this poet,’ she said.

‘Ah, that is the Countess of Dia,’ said Iseut. ‘She was married to the Count of Valentinois, but he has been dead these twenty years. She is an old lady now, but in her youth she wrote a
tenso
with the famous troubadour Raimbaut of Orange.’

‘And what is this one?’

‘It is a love poem,’ said Iseut. ‘Listen: “
I’m very happy, for the man I love is so fine. May God with joy richly repay the man who helped us meet.”
She sounds happy, doesn’t she?’

‘Look at this verse,’ said Elinor, poring over the parchment and reading the elaborate black writing with some difficulty. ‘She says, “
The lady who knows about valour should place her affection in a courteous and worthy knight . . . and she should dare to love him face to face.
” It sounds as if she thinks we should all have lovers, even if we have husbands.’

‘Lovers on parchment only, as I said before.’

‘Will you never take another husband, my lady?’ asked Elinor softly.

‘I can’t be sure,’ said Iseut. ‘I was not like these other poets. I had no need for any other love besides my husband’s. We were married such a short time before he left. Perhaps by now I would have tired of him and wanted to write of love to another man – but I don’t think so.’

Who knew what would have happened if Jaufre had come back from the crusade? Iseut’s eyes were very bright. Whatever Elinor read in these poems seemed to lead back to the same dangerous territory.

‘Lord Berenger seems very fond of you,’ she ventured.

Lady Iseut shook aside her melancholy and laughed.

‘Yes, and I am very fond of my little dog, Minou. But I shan’t marry him.’

‘Minou or Lord Berenger?’ Elinor dared to ask and now both women laughed.

While Elinor learned how to be a
trobairitz
, the world outside the safety of the bastide at Saint-Jacques was moving ever closer to war. The Pope was no less bent on teaching the Count of Toulouse a lesson but he listened to Raimon when he asked if a less unbending legate than the Abbot of Cîteaux could be appointed to deal with him. If he was going to have to surrender, he didn’t want the Abbot dictating the terms.

Innocent heard his embassy and appointed two new Legates just to accept Raimon’s surrender. But it didn’t mean he had given up his idea of a war against the south. If the Count came over to the Pope’s side, Innocent would just have to find another opponent.

The Abbot went to Paris with one of the new Legates, Milo, on 1st May, while all the south and north were bathed in sunshine, to ask Philippe-Auguste to let his son, Louis, lead the crusade. The King refused but promised a large contingent of knights.

And the muster of the army was fixed at last: for June 24th at Lyon.

‘Who will lead the crusade, if not Louis?’ asked Milo, on their way back to Rome.

The Abbot was inscrutable. ‘I’m sure we shall find someone,’ he said. ‘Since our cause is so unassailably just.’

‘He will lead it himself,’ said the Count when rumours reached Toulouse of the King’s decision.

‘Who?’ asked Bertran.

‘The Abbot,’ said Raimon. ‘He wants this even more than the Pope does.’

‘But why?’ asked Bertran. ‘Why does he hate the south so much? It’s not just because he considers the Believers to be heretics, I think.’

‘Let me tell you something about the Pope’s precious Legate, the Abbot of Cîteaux,’ said the Count venomously. ‘He’s a distant kinsman of mine.’

Bertran was astonished.

‘He is descended from the Dukes of Narbonne – oh, only a minor branch, of course. But he means to get the Duchy for himself – you wait and see. The Abbot will lead the crusade – he has always meant to. He will do anything to win the south for the northerners. And then, if he succeeds in stripping me of all my titles, just by chance there will be a candidate on hand for one of them – the Duke of Narbonne!’

Bertran was shocked. ‘You mean he would launch an entire crusade against the Believers just for his own personal gain?’

‘The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see his arse,’ said Raimon, ‘as peasants say in the Midi.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Bertran.

‘Perhaps not a monkey. The man is a wolf,’ said Raimon. ‘He would do anything.’

Iseut had a maid called Garsenda who was not deceived by Elinor. She was a sharp-eyed, sharp-featured girl from Arles who soon spread her gossip among the other servants of the castle.

‘There was no talk of another poet-lady coming till the Lady knew the
joglar
s were going, was there? And then, by coincidence, as soon as they were out of the grounds, the Lady Elinor turns up.’

The other servants acknowledged that was true.

‘And why did the Lady Azalais depart as soon as “Elinor” arrived? Her nose was put out of joint, wasn’t it?’

But Garsenda, although she thought she had unearthed a great secret, had got the wrong end of the stick. She had seen Elinor without her coif and recognised her as Esteve the
joglar
. But since she had always believed completely in the boy
joglar
, she now thought that Lady Iseut was harbouring a young lover disguised as a woman.

And she decided to tell her suspicions to Lord Berenger the next time he visited the court. Garsenda thought the information worth money but the Lord just laughed. Then he looked thoughtful and frowned, but he dismissed her without pressing any coins in her hand and the maid was disgruntled.

Iseut and Elinor were quite unaware of the gossip about them that was spreading throughout the bastide. But they heard other news, from the southwest.

‘Raimon of Toulouse is going to submit to the Pope,’ Iseut told Elinor one day after Berenger had been to see her.

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ asked Elinor. ‘If he submits, then the Pope will not go ahead with the army and the war.’

‘Berenger doesn’t trust him,’ said Iseut. ‘The Count gave himself up to the Pope’s two new Legates in Valence. He said he was willing to take the Cross himself.’

‘Against the south?’ asked Elinor.

‘Exactly,’ said Iseut. ‘Can you trust a man who would take the Cross against his own people? He might have made things up with the Pope but they’ll find someone else to wage war against.’

‘It won’t come to that, surely?’ said Elinor. ‘Does Berenger think we are in danger here?’