Troubadour (10 page)

‘Now,’ said Pelegrina. ‘This is the difficult bit. When the jailer comes to let us out, you must bow your head and weep into this kerchief. That way he won’t look carefully at your face. Try to slouch a bit, to conceal your height.’

Maria and Pelegrina were stuffing their petticoats under the blanket on Bertran’s straw pallet, to look like the figure of a man. It was dark and the flickering light from the jailer’s torch, together with his drink-fuddled brain, was what they were trusting to.

‘Ready?’ asked Bernardina.

Then Maria called out for the jailer.

By the time he came, his feet wavering down the stone steps, the powder they had put in one of the flagons of wine was taking its effect. He let the four
joglaresa
s out of the cell, just as he had thought he let four in to visit the prisoner. And one of them was making such a lamentation he could scarcely think straight.

‘She’s upset,’ said Pelegrina. ‘He’s her sweetheart.’

That was right, thought the jailer, one of them had carried the troubadour’s love token. Pretty thing it was. Where had he put it? Blowed if he was going to let old Victor have it for his harridan of a wife. The prisoner was quiet enough; maybe he was weeping too, on his pallet, for his
joglaresa
. Well, they were all good-looking women, even if he couldn’t at the moment tell one from another.

The troupe burst out of the prison, singing raucously, as if they had all had a bit too much to drink. Huguet joined them and they weaved their way across the castle yard, arms linked.

And no one who had seen them go in an hour before had any notion that there was now an extra member in their midst.

.

.

Part Two

Trobairitz

Kill them all; God will know his own.

.

Attributed to the Abbot of Cîteaux at the siege of Béziers and still quoted as fact throughout the Languedoc.

.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Flight

Lucatz was woken from a deep sleep by Perrin, shaking him and whispering urgently, ‘We must leave – now!’

The troubadour started to protest but one look at the joglar’s face told him that this was serious. Muttering and grumbling, he bundled together his instruments and song sheets while Perrin roused the rest of the troupe.

The urgency in the
joglar
’s voice and the near panic of the
joglaresa
s infected the whole group and they were soon on their way, silently leading the packhorses out of the city gate. It was eerie travelling by night; they headed north, not south towards the ferry point on the river to Arles, since there would be no boats in the hours of darkness. Instead they went in the direction of Beaucaire, aiming for beyond it to the only bridge across the Rhône, at Avignon.

There was no sound but the clinking of the horses’ harness and their shod hooves on the rough road. The troupe travelled all night and arrived in Beaucaire at daylight, tired and, for the most part, completely at a loss as to why they had left Saint-Gilles without even having performed there.

Lucatz bought breakfast for everyone at a tavern and the troupe then rested in a meadow to the north of the city.

‘All right,’ said the troubadour. ‘Now tell me what’s going on. What was that all about? We lost the chance of good money in Saint-Gilles.’

‘We would have lost more than that if we’d stayed,’ said Perrin.

‘By now the city guards will be looking for us,’ said Huguet. ‘At least, they will be looking for a troupe like ours. They knew no names.’

Lucatz sighed. Some
joglar
s could be troublesome, he knew, getting involved in fights, love triangles, theft even. But he’d never had any bother with Perrin and Huguet, and Esteve was too new and too young to cause problems – or so he thought.

‘What did you do?’ he asked. ‘Or is it better if I don’t know? I see no bruises so I assume you weren’t brawling at least.’

‘We neither received nor caused injuries,’ said Perrin. ‘But we did break someone out of prison.’

‘And we had to give him all our money to buy a new horse,’ said Huguet wistfully.

Lucatz looked exasperated.

‘I’m not going to ask any more about it,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling there is something going on here that it is better for me to know nothing about. But tell me why we are on the way to Avignon instead of Arles?’

‘I’m afraid the prisoner was being detained on the Pope’s orders,’ said Perrin. ‘And the further away from Saint-Gilles we can be the better. They will expect us to have taken the ferry or perhaps to have headed back west. But it will be safest if we can carry on travelling east and Avignon is a big town. There will be lots of people there.’

‘And what has happened to this prisoner?’ asked Lucatz. ‘Or is that something else it is better for me not to know?’

‘He is no longer with us,’ said Perrin. ‘And yes, it is better that you know no more than that.’

Lucatz looked at his
joglar
s for a long time. They had never asked anything of him before and he was aware of their connection with the Believers. In the end, he decided to let it go.

‘Was Esteve involved too?’ was all he asked.

The
joglar
s nodded. ‘He and all the
joglaresa
s,’ said Perrin. ‘No one else.’

‘Just the six of you then,’ said Lucatz sarcastically. ‘Ah well, I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies.’

Elinor lay wide awake while all around her the troupe caught up on their lost night of sleep. She didn’t think she would ever forget the rescue of Bertran – or what had happened afterwards.

They had been confident that the jailers wouldn’t discover Bertran’s escape till morning but that left them with only the hours of darkness to get clear of Saint-Gilles. Bertran had stripped off his woman’s disguise, wiping his lips clear of make-up with the bright scarf. Bernardina solemnly handed him back his hat and there was Bertran the troubadour again, as handsome as ever, and free.

‘Thank you all,’ he said softly. ‘I owe you more than I can ever repay. But someone mentioned the Lady Elinor – where is she?’

Elinor had stepped forward so that the light from the cresset by the castle gate shone on her face. Bertran gave a sharp intake of breath.

‘Is it you, lady? I should not have known you.’

‘That was the idea,’ said Perrin. ‘The
donzela
travels with us as the
joglar
Esteve.’

‘There is no time to hear that story,’ said Bertran. ‘We must separate without delay. Every minute I spend in your company brings you danger.’

‘Won’t you come with us?’ asked Elinor, heartbroken at the thought of Bertran’s being taken from her so soon when she had only just found him again.

The troubadour shook his head. ‘No. I am an outlaw now. I shall change my clothes, grow a beard and assume a new name. No longer shall I be a poet, able to gain entrance to any court. From now on, I shall be Jules, no more than a spy.’

Then he had remembered his horse. They all decided it would be too dangerous to try to spring the steed out of the castle stable as well as his master from its prison. That was when they had all turned out their pockets. Elinor had gladly given all the money she had earned in Montpellier.

‘Where can you buy a horse at this time of night?’ she asked quietly.

‘I shall take the road to Nîmes,’ he said, ‘and buy a horse in the first village I come to. Some new clothes too.’

For the first hour or so of the night, Bertran’s road was going to be the same as the troupe’s but he had a start on them and they had not overtaken him. Elinor had ridden wearily, feeling as low as she had before leaving Sévignan.

She had found Bertran again only to lose him and now she was tired, fearful and penniless. Her journey east felt pointless; where was she travelling to? Up till now she had been buoyed up by the thought of what she was fleeing from, together with a vague hope of meeting her troubadour.

Then she remembered that she didn’t even have his token any more. A tear trickled down her cheek and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. She felt a pat on her knee. It was Huguet. He was holding out his hand to her, cupping something that winked and glittered in the moonlight: Bertran’s brooch!

‘How . . . ?’ she began to ask but Huguet put his fingers to his lips.

‘Pelegrina,’ he whispered. ‘She picked the young jailer’s pocket before we left.’

Elinor would never have believed that the Catalan would have done something so thoughtful – and now she couldn’t even pay her for it. And all the
joglaresa
s were as penniless as Elinor; they too had contributed all they had to Bertran’s needs.

But it had lightened her heart to have the brooch with the red stone back. Now she lay twisting it in her fingers and thinking of the days when Bertran was no more than a handsome poet and she the simple
donzela
of the castle, until she too fell asleep.

In Sévignan they had not forgotten the older daughter of the castle. When Lord Lanval had realised she was really gone and apparently by her own will, he set his face into grim acceptance. He knew that he and Elinor’s mother had driven her away by their insistence on a marriage she was opposed to.

Thibaut le Viguier had left the bastide in a bad mood; he had abandoned his own castle for too long and with no reward but the information that he should go home and prepare for war. Blandina was equally disgruntled. She had lost the chance to push Elinor around in her own castle and, by what she had seen at Sévignan, it would have been good sport.

As soon as they were gone, Elinor’s brother Aimeric had volunteered to lead the search for his sister.

‘Don’t worry, Father,’ he said. ‘I’ll be discreet.’

‘Begin with the sister houses,’ said Lanval. ‘Both the Perfects and the Church’s own convents. She might have taken refuge in one of them.’

‘And if I find her?’

Lanval hesitated. His instincts told him to say ‘Then bring her home, of course!’ But perhaps she would be safer in a religious house?

‘If you find her in a Church convent, leave her there,’ he said reluctantly. ‘But she might not be safe with the Perfects. See if you can persuade her into a convent recognised by the Pope or, failing that, bring her home.’

Aimeric had been gone two months and there had been no word from him. The castellan and his wife had only one child left within their walls.

They hadn’t asked Alys what she knew about Elinor’s disappearance. She was grateful that she didn’t have to tell any lies but secretly hurt that it hadn’t occurred to her parents that she and Elinor might have been close enough for confidences between them.

As the days lengthened and spring turned into summer, Alys felt desperately lonely. She had no one to talk to and no one to ask for news of her sister. And then, months after Lucatz and his troupe had left the castle, some more
joglar
s arrived from the east.

Eagerly, Alys volunteered to serve them refreshments. And it was not long before her questions about a troupe led by a tall, thin troubadour with three
joglar
s and three
joglaresa
s bore fruit.

‘
Oc
, we saw them,’ said one of the
joglar
s to the others. ‘You remember, in Montpellier? That light-voiced boy who got so much silver from the lady? He sang after our Enric.’

‘Oh,’ said another. ‘The boy who sang the lay of Tristan and Iseut? We weren’t best pleased when they turned up.’

‘Did you hear his name?’ asked Alys. ‘The boy who sang the lay?’

‘Ah, is it your sweetheart then?’ teased one of the
joglaresa
s. ‘He looked too young to have a lady love.’

‘Why, the
donzela
is not more than a child herself,’ said the first
joglar
. ‘I think the lad was called Esteve.’

Alys’s heart jumped. It really had been her sister; the plan had worked!

‘Did you hear where they were going next?’ she asked.

‘On to Saint-Gilles, I think,’ said the
joglar
. ‘East, anyway. That’s one of the reasons we came west. They were a bit too good and we didn’t want the competition.’

She couldn’t tell her parents but Alys hugged the information to herself. Elinor was safe and she was moving away from danger.