Troubadour (4 page)

As soon as he reached the cathedral, Bertran branched off towards the Jewish quarter, where he had a good contact. Nahum was a trader in spices, one of a large number of his people living in the city. The Jews sympathised with Bertran and those of his faith, because they were no more popular with the Church than were the heretics. Nahum would know what sort of man the new Bishop was.

Nahum’s house was a warm and welcoming place and Bertran felt himself relax for the first time since he had left Sévignan. He sat in front of the fire with a cup of hot spiced wine in his hand and told the trader his news.

‘This will go ill for the Believers,’ said Nahum gravely.

‘Yes,’ said Bertran. ‘The Pope is sure to blame Raimon of Toulouse since he parted on such bad terms with the Legate.’

‘Would he accuse him of murder?’

‘Oh, not the actual act,’ said Bertran wearily. ‘I saw the murderer myself, remember, and he was no nobleman. But he could have been acting on orders from Toulouse. More likely though, he just hoped to rise in the Count’s favour by ridding him of an enemy.’

‘What do you think the Pope will do?’ asked Nahum, refilling the troubadour’s cup.

‘Well, he’s bound to renew the Count’s excommunication. But Toulouse will be lucky to get away with just that. I’m sure he’ll try to placate the authorities in some way – perhaps he’ll even hand the murderer over. Who knows? But a storm is on the way that can’t be averted by anything the Count can do.’

Nahum shook his head. ‘Then that assassin – whoever he was – did you no favours at all.’

‘No, he’s just made everything harder for the Believers,’ said Bertran. ‘But tell me about the Bishop. Is he likely to be as sympathetic to us as the Count and Viscount Trencavel are?’

Nahum looked serious. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘From what I’ve heard of him, he’s as fanatically against your religion as Pope Innocent himself is. And I can tell you that he doesn’t like my people either.’

‘What does the Viscount think?’ asked Bertran.

‘Oh, he follows the courtesies,’ said Nahum. ‘But he is worried. I have heard that he was very upset by the death of Bishop Guilhem. It was a sign that Rome would come down hard on the heretics. And the young Viscount has always been a good friend to my people. He made my cousin Samuel his bailiff.’

Bertran stretched his long legs towards the fire and sighed.

‘Well, I must seek out the leaders of our religion here and warn them what is likely to come. I think I should visit the Bishop too.’

‘Be careful,’ said Nahum.

‘I am always careful,’ said the troubadour.

Relations between Elinor and her mother were still strained. Elinor stomped round the castle in a foul mood, refusing to attend dance lessons or to do tapestry. Her only relief from gloomy ideas about the future was the time she spent with the
joglar
s and musicians. Huguet was teaching her to play the flute and to her surprise she was rather good at it.

‘You have a natural gift,’ said Huguet. ‘A good ear and a good sense of rhythm.’

Elinor was astonished; that was not something the dancing master had ever discovered about her. She thought perhaps her ease with the instrument might be because no one looked at a musician; they were all but invisible. They sat in corners of great halls, obscure in the flickering torchlight, and provided the background to other people as they danced or sang or ate or flirted.

She was beginning to think that, if she had been a boy, it might have been more fun to be a
joglar
than a knight. But it was no good; she wasn’t a boy and she would have to marry soon and then the music would stop. With these thoughts the gloom would descend again.

Lady Clara became more and more remote from her daughter’s ill humour. She ignored her. All Elinor’s frowns and glares and sullen remarks bounced off her elegant composure like rain off armour. And this just made Elinor crosser and more depressed. She now knew just how little power and influence the
donzela
of a castle wielded.

The winter days stretched drearily in front of her with not even the prospect of seeing Bertran in the spring to look forward to. She felt like an animal in hibernation – a toad maybe, crouched in a hole, in a state of suspended animation, just waiting for something to warm her into life.

But when that something came it wasn’t pleasant at all. Anything less like a ray of sunshine than Thibaut le Viguier would have been hard to imagine. He was a thin, grey man well into his forties, a widower with three daughters. And he had sons too: Gui, who had so humiliated Elinor in the
saltarello
, was one of them.

She wondered if she had summoned Thibaut into her mother’s mind by her comparison of Gui to Bertran. For now Thibaut was at the castle, seemingly to visit his sons but actually, Elinor was sure, to be offered to her as a possible husband. And he had brought his daughters with him.

As soon as the daughters realised what was in the wind, they made themselves as unpleasant to Elinor as possible. They were all older than her, though the youngest was only a few months so. The oldest was married and the middle one was betrothed, so only Blandina would still be living in her father’s bastide by the time Thibaut brought his new bride home.

But Elinor realised that she could not bear that situation even for a few months. Thibaut himself did not seem a bad man, though he was more like a grandfather than a husband, but Blandina was a sharp-tongued and vicious girl who was instantly Elinor’s enemy.

‘Our late mother’ was all Blandina’s theme. That lady had been a paragon of all the virtues, according to her daughter. A scholar, musician, needlewoman, she had also been an exemplary wife and household manager.

‘And to see her dance,’ said Blandina pointedly, ‘you would think an angel had alighted on the earth, so graceful were her movements.’

Elinor was sure that Blandina had been talking to Gui and that they had been laughing at her together.

‘Then she will feel all the more at home in heaven among all the other angels,’ Elinor said tartly.

This provoked a fit of weeping in Blandina, who ran to her father to say that Elinor had been cruel to her and irreverent towards her mother’s memory. If Thibaut minded this, he gave no sign. He was always courteous and friendly to Elinor but she simply couldn’t imagine being his wife and sharing his bed. Then, sometimes, she could and the thought put her off even more.

The next time Blandina tried to provoke her, Elinor said as calmly as she could manage, ‘I have no more desire to marry your father than you have to endure me as your stepmother.’

But that made the girl indignant on her father’s behalf.

‘I suppose you think yourself too good for a Viguier?’ she fumed. ‘Just because your father owns more land.’

‘Not at all,’ said Elinor. ‘I should merely like to marry someone closer to me in age. Or perhaps not marry at all.’

And Blandina had gone this time not to her father but to Elinor’s.

Lanval sent for her the same afternoon. He looked unusually stern.

‘I gather you understand why Thibaut le Viguier has come here?’ he said, going straight to the heart of the matter.

‘I believe so, Paire,’ she said.

‘And it does not please you?’

Elinor did not answer but shook her head dumbly.

‘Well, it pleases me,’ said Lanval. ‘I want to see you married as soon as possible and Thibaut has a well-fortified and provisioned bastide. You will be as safe there as here, perhaps safer.’

‘This sounds more like war than a marriage proposal,’ said Elinor, remembering Bertran’s new poem.

Lanval looked up at her sharply. ‘You may be right,’ he said. ‘There are difficult times coming and I want to see you established.’

‘But must it be with old Thibaut, Paire?’ Elinor pleaded. She knew she was her father’s favourite and she had never been made to do anything she didn’t like by him before.

But it was no good. On this, the most important event in her life so far, he was obdurate.

‘This is not a time for girlish frets and fancies,’ he said. ‘Thibaut will make a respectable offer, giving a good bride price.’

Elinor couldn’t help herself. ‘So I am to be sold to him, like a pig in the market?’

‘You are to be given to him as his legal wife, to become the
domna
of your own castle,’ said her father. ‘And you should consider what
you
bring to the marriage that he should be so desirous to marry you. At the moment I think you are getting the better side of the bargain.’

Every word from the father who had never spoken so severely to her before was like a lash from a hunting whip. She bowed her head as if in submission and bit her lip so as not to let him see her real thoughts.

In that moment Elinor decided that she would rather do anything than marry Thibaut le Viguier – anything at all.

.

CHAPTER THREE

Choices

Pope Innocent, wearing a violet cope, entered his chapel accompanied by the Abbot of Cîteaux. Twelve cardinals bearing lighted tapers surrounded Innocent as he intoned the solemn words of excommunication:

‘Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Pierre, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us in binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive Raimon, Sixth Count of Toulouse, himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors, of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematised and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and all his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgement.’

He slammed shut the fat black Bible in his hand. One of the Cardinals rang a bell – a mournful tolling for the Count of Toulouse’s lost soul – and then the Pope led all twelve in turning their tapers upside down and dashing them out on the ground. The snuffing out of the light left the chapel in temporary darkness until a priest opened the door and the solemn procession filed out again.

It was not the first time that the Count had been cut off from the sacraments of the Church. It had happened first twelve years ago when he had crossed the old Pope Celestine III. That had been over land disputes and he had been absolved two years later.

But, as Innocent disrobed, he was remembering the more recent occasion, less than a year ago. The Abbot was remembering it too. One of the Count’s crimes then had been appointing Jews to high office in his city.

‘Our brother Pierre – may God rest his soul,’ said the Abbot, ‘had not lifted the Count’s last excommunication before he was so vilely murdered, had he?’

‘No,’ the Pope shook his head. ‘But it will do no harm to renew it. I want to send a strong message to the Count that he must hand over the murderer and fulfil his promises to root the heretics out of his lands before he enjoys the comforts and favours of the Church again.’

The Abbot had reached Rome only days after the first messenger and told the Pope what little he had been able to find out about Pierre’s death. The Abbot was a Legate too, and now that his senior partner was dead, it would fall to him to lead the persecution of the Perfects, as the leaders of the heretics of the south were known.

His eyes gleamed at the thought. The heretics needed uprooting just as surely as the Saracens did – more, really, because they shared the same land as the French. The Fourth Crusade against the Saracens had been disastrous. But here was a crusade that could be waged and won much nearer home. They wouldn’t call it a ‘crusade’; instead they would talk of ‘the business of faith and peace’. All the Abbot needed was an army and the Pope would get it for him. He and the Pope were of one mind in this.

‘I have tried writing to the French King,’ continued Innocent. ‘Three years ago. And nothing happened. This time I will write directly to the barons of the north, offering a full indulgence if they join us in our campaign.’

Neither man mentioned the even greater incentive to war – that the northern barons would be able to take the rich lands of any heretic nobleman they displaced – though they both knew this would be the best recruiting sergeant they could find.

Once Elinor had decided that she would definitely not marry old le Viguier, no matter what her parents said, she became much calmer. At the same time, she completely lost her appetite, which was noticed by no one but Hugo, who missed her visits to the kitchen. The less she ate, the more clear-headed Elinor became. Although she spoke to no one of her dilemma, she was in no doubt about what her alternatives might be.

They narrowed down to two choices: enter a religious house or kill herself.

Elinor had never thought of becoming a nun; she was far too strong-willed and restless of spirit. But now she had to ask herself whether it would be preferable to spend a lifetime of prayer and deprivation in the company of other women, rather than bringing that lifetime to an end while she was still a girl.

And there was something else which made this option more attractive. Elinor knew, though she couldn’t say how, that her father was of a different religion from her mother. It was a secret and somehow dangerous faith and she knew that many people in the castle shared it. Aimeric, her brother, for example, and some of the knights and
joglar
s, but not Lady Clara. So the daughters of the family had been brought up in ignorance of what it meant.

But Elinor knew that there was a house of sisters nearby who were always referred to as Perfects and that was not just because they were devout Christians. She had heard the word applied to them and it sounded so peaceful and welcoming. As yet, Elinor had no idea what you had to do to become a Perfect but if it was something her father would approve of then it might soften the blow when she refused old le Viguier.

It was at dusk that she thought about the other way out. How on earth could she, a healthy young girl, bring about her own death, even if that was what she chose to do?

I could starve myself
, she thought, looking down at her gown, which had become quite loose on her of recent days. But there was a difference between losing one’s appetite and letting oneself waste away till the last breath left the body. Surely that would be a horrible way to die? But what was a good way?

Elinor thought about death by drowning, burning, poison or a sharp dagger to the throat or wrists. She didn’t have a dagger and she doubted that the pin on Bertran’s brooch would be a sharp enough or deadly enough weapon. To cast herself in the well would pollute the whole castle’s water supply and she shuddered at the thought of the dark stone walls enclosing her while her head sank under the surface.

She could escape the castle and walk down to the River Orb and jump in; she couldn’t swim. But would it be deep enough and fast enough to take her away from the bank and whirl her to certain death? And what about being bruised and battered by the rocks?

As for poison, Elinor had no idea how to get hold of any. And burning? The only fires in the castle were in the kitchen and the great hall, but pitch-covered torches were lit regularly at those flames. She could steal one and set light to her loose gown. But the very thought made her want to jump in the well after all.

To burn, to feel flames licking at your flesh as they did the poor animals turning on the spit! And those creatures were dead and felt nothing. Elinor could imagine all too vividly the smell of her skin beginning to crackle, her flesh spitting and hissing with melting fat. Her hair would be aflame in seconds – a torturing, blazing crown around her head. Could she bear it? Would she pass out quickly and not suffer too much torment? She dared not hope so.

And so another sleepless night would pass and she would rise with the day and think that it would be better to become a Perfect sister after all.

Bertran did not linger in Béziers. His meeting with the Bishop had been strained on both sides. The troubadour was careful not to reveal that he had witnessed the Legate’s murder, portraying himself as a messenger only, reluctantly bringing news.

Bishop Ermengaud had crossed himself and prayed and Bertran had joined him. But he noticed that the old man had a fanatical glitter in his eyes when he rose from his knees.

‘We shall hear soon from Rome, I think,’ he said. ‘The Pope will not let the Count of Toulouse get away with this crime. He has gone too far this time. This means the end for the heretics.’

Bertran had been glad to leave without having to express an opinion. He had gone straight to the leader of the Believers in the city. The one thing that he had in common with the Bishop was that they both knew the murder marked a change in the persecution of the heretics.

It was vital to spread the word among their other communities in the south. Bertran had some hard riding ahead of him. Puisseguier, Saint Pons, Narbonne, Minerve – all the towns on the way to Carcassonne would have to be visited. And with every day that passed there could be orders from Rome against the Believers, rushing north and west and overtaking him.

But Bertran was welcome at every court. His life as a troubadour was not a disguise but his real profession and even though it was unusual to get a visit from a lone troubadour in winter without a train of
joglar
s and
joglaresa
s attending him, the many lords and castellans of the Midi would be sure to open their doors to him.

He might have private audiences with a few nobles, like Lanval de Sévignan, who were known to be Believers, but even more people would hear the message through his new song that spoke of war when it appeared to be about love. The heretics of the south were well attuned to every nuance that carried a threat to their religion and their lives.

But there were two problems, only one of which Bertran was aware of. The Believers were peace-loving and would not willingly take up arms to fight for their rights and their homes and families. The troubadour respected that; he was of the same persuasion himself. But he must encourage them at least to hide a portion of their wealth and goods in far off places so that if they had to flee they would not wander penniless in the world. And also to build up their defences. The hill towns and cities of the south were all fortified with strong walls and, if only the inhabitants had enough warning, could store defences and water enough to withstand a long siege.

The second problem was that, as Bertran rode towards Puisseguier, messengers from the Pope were on their way to Saint-Gilles charged with finding out the name of the unknown witness to Pierre of Castelnau’s murder.

‘No, really? Is that what it’s like?’

Elinor was talking to Miqela, an old serving-woman in the castle. She had been wet-nurse to all the children but now helped with sewing and other light duties. She had a sister who was a Perfect in a sister house nearby and Elinor had come to ask what the life there was like.

‘
Oc
,’ said Miqela. ‘I wouldn’t lie to you, my dove. It is a hard life for a young woman to bear. But like many of us,’ she lowered her voice, ‘I hope to come to it at the end.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Elinor.

They were sitting in the solar, Miqela benefiting from the light while she hemmed a sheet with Elinor threading her needles for her and snipping ends with her little scissors to save her old nurse’s eyes.