Plaint for Provence

  From the Winner of the Global Ebooks Award for Best Historical Fiction

  ‘Believable, page-turning and memorable.’ Lela Michael, S.P.Review

  ‘Historical Fiction at its best. Rich in historical detail, this novel brings alive all aspects of medieval life from the political undertones of the high-born pursuits of hunting and jousting tournaments, to the simpler occupations of the peasants, like bee-keeping… A superb ending.’ Karen Charlton, the Detective Lavender Mysteries

  ‘Exquisitely written historical fiction’ Elizabeth Horton-Newton, View from the Sixth Floor

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  ‘A stunning masterpiece of tangled alliances, conflicting loyalties and tested love.’ Kristin Gleeson, the Celtic Knot Series

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  Other books by Jean Gill

  Plaint for Provence

  Jean Gill

  © Jean Gill 2015

  The 13th Sign

  Ebook edition

  This book is available in print at most online retailers.

  First published in 2015

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  Cover design by Jessica Bell.

  Cover images © Jean Gill, Fernando Cortes, LadyMary

  Historical Note

  For Claire of Colonzelle

  Chapter 1

  If someone drinks a great quantity of wine in order to quench his thirst, he induces senseless behavior (as happened with Lot). Thus it is more healthful and sane for a thirsty person to drink water, rather than wine, to quench his thirst.

  Physica, Plants

  ‘Him.’ The boy’s head swivelled towards the drinkers at the far table.

  ‘Dolt!’ Geral hissed. ‘What have I told you? God’s body! Don’t look at him. Make it natural. Just follow me - and follow my lead. Best you say as little as possible.’ He sighed again, stuck with the youngster as his partner, all limbs and credulity but tall enough to breathe down the back of Geral’s neck as they threaded a route across the crowded inn to squeeze a place beside their target on his bench.

  Their task was made easier by the fact that the man in the corner was not only alone; he reeked of misery and isolation so that all those nearest had instinctively turned their backs on him and shifted to make space. The man also stood out because he was in uniform, a red tabard, grubby from travel but nevertheless a slap in the face for the ordinary working men around him. If he’d had the presence to carry the rank his tabard declared, or bought a flagon for the table, he might have found himself singing ‘Marie’s a-courting’ in good company. Instead, he was nursing a mug, a pitcher and a black look.

  ‘Dolt,’ muttered Geral, not about the boy this time. Briefly, he wondered if the man was indeed some Lord’s Fool, indulging in some off-duty misery, but if so, he would have either been out of livery or wearing the other signs of his trade. No, this was a messenger, like himself, but naïve or vain enough to adopt the new trend of wearing uniform, advertising his provenance and mission to anyone who cared to look. And it was Geral’s job to look, to ensure his own message reached the right ears, unhampered by others. He knew that livery from somewhere, somewhen, and his little finger told him it meant trouble. The little finger he’d broken, when he was six and fell from the apple tree, was never wrong.

  ‘Greetings, master,’ he interrupted misery incarnate. ‘Bertran here,’ he waved his tankard vaguely towards the boy looming awkwardly beside him, ‘was much taken with your costume and wondered how a man of your standing came to be in our drinking haunt. It being my task to educate the boy, and to take every chance of letting him hear from his betters, why, I thought we could benefit from an exchange of news while you are here and, it seems, lacking company.’ Geral gave his most winning smile, a little dented by the lack of teeth on one side but usually a successful accompaniment to flattery and the messenger’s magic word, ‘news’.

  The man straightened a little and contemplated his fellow-drinkers with bleary eyes. As he sat up, the silk of his tabard rippled a golden lion into view, its tongue and claws tipped blue against the red background.

  ‘Aquitaine!’ exclaimed Geral. ‘God’s bones but you’re a long way from home, man. On the Queen’s business, I should think, and a weary one to judge from your face.’

  The other man’s face set into even deeper lines, grime etching the hollows of his cheeks. ‘Sit,’ he gestured.

  Geral introduced himself as he obeyed and clambered opposite the other man onto the bench, spreading enough to make another place. ‘And the boy’s Bertran. We’re in the same business, you and me.’

  ‘You wear no colours.’

  ‘My Liege is local, not worthy of your attention.’ Geral shrugged, grateful that his minor Liege wasn’t there to hear him and consign him to the highest dungeon in Provence, where men learned quickly that ‘deepest’ wasn’t always the most terrifying where dungeons were concerned. ‘But I know Marselha and can perhaps save you time and trouble in your errand. All in good time, all in good time. I’ve a thirst on me would drain the harbour. You!’ He grabbed a server, commandeered a pitcher of wine and two goblets, pouring a small amount for Bertran, and a generous amount for himself and the man from Aquitaine.

  ‘Simon.’ The man offered his name like a miser giving alms but it was a start.

  ‘I’ve seen a few tough assignments in my time,’ Geral confided, ‘and here I am to tell the tale.’ He checked that Bertran was giving proper attention and was reassured by the round-eyed curiosity. ‘If this lad pins his ears back and learns what I teach him, he can take my place and welcome, when it’s my turn to sit by the fire.’ He spoke to Bertran with a glance now and then at Simon, to include him as a fellow-expert.

  ‘You start by carrying the women’s messages; fetch the midwife, fetch the priest, tell a man there’s a boy born…’

  ‘Aye,’ nodded Bertran, interrupting enthusiastically. ‘One time I took a hunting dog as a present from our Lady, a long way down the coast. Rex his name was, black tip to his tail.’ He finally noticed Geral’s glare and blushed his way into silence. Thank God the boy was more interested in giving the dog’s name than his Lady’s. Giving that information away was not part of Geral’s plan, not until he knew whether it would be to his advantage or not. He suspected not.

  He continued, warming to his theme, and having kicked Bertran hard under the table. ‘Bad news is what gets you killed. If you’re not crafty. Suppose you bring message of a death?’ He watched Simon out of the corner of his eye but there was no reaction. So it wasn’t a death that was worrying the messenger from Aquitaine. ‘How do you break the news without a bit of your body being broken in return?’ he paused, a good teacher.

  Bertran’s face screwed up in thought. ‘I’d stand a good way back when I said the news and I’d say it fas
t-like, then maybe run?’

  A flicker of amusement shimmered across Simon’s face and he sat straighter, apparently distracted from the weight he carried. Geral sighed and shook his head. ‘Think, man, what impression that would leave on some poor, bereaved human. No, no, no, you must carry the death in your person as if it’s your own dog that died, like this.’ And he schooled his features into his special face for ‘I am the bearer of sad, sad news.’

  Bertran clapped his hands with admiration. ‘I must do this. Is it so?’ and his own baby-faced smoothness contorted into a gargoyle around his twinkling blue eyes.

  ‘Almost,’ lied Geral. ‘’Tis practice you need.’ He felt another lift of spirits in the man opposite him, a barely concealed twitch of the mouth, and he emptied the pitcher of wine, calling for another. Tickling a fish was ever slow business to start with and a quick catch at the right time. Timing was everything.

  ‘And when you tell of a death, then judge the telling of it to suit the hearer. If the dead one was loved, then the death was heroic and painless - make it so. If the dead one was hated, the last moments were all cowardice and pain. And if the death was not personal but a public change…’ No, there was definitely no reaction from Simon. So, the red queen was not dead. What mission was the man on that brought him so far south? ‘Then you must tell it for the advantage of the hearer. Find the good in it for his status. Find a future invitation to greatness from the man who has replaced the dead one.’

  ‘But that would mean telling a lie.’ The boy’s eyes were saucers.

  ‘No indeed.’ A lie is the least of what you will do as messenger, Geral thought, if you want to stay among the living. ‘No indeed, for the future is unknown and it might well be that the new power will bring good to your hearer. You must just imagine it to be so, when you give the message, whatever that message may be. And remember that when one flower fades, another takes its place.’ Aha! That found an echo in Simon’s thoughts. The fish shimmered silver below Geral’s hand and he grabbed it.

  ‘I hear there has been such a replacement in Aquitaine,’ he hazarded aloud.

  ‘You know then.’ Simon’s face and tone were exactly right for proclaiming a loved one’s death.

  ‘Not the detail.’ Geral reeled him in smoothly and kicked Bertran once more under the table, just to make sure.

  ‘It all happened so quickly.’ Once he’d opened up, Simon spouted like a gutter in a storm. ‘First the annulment, and then as if that wasn’t enough in itself to put Aquitaine at risk from Louis… I mean, we didn’t want a King in Paris over us, and I’d give my life for our Duchesse without a question, but it was more difficult for everyone when she was on her own. Shows what an idiot the King is, to let the richest heiress in Christendom ride away from him, leaving him with two girl-children and nothing else but his own freedom to make the same mistake again.’

  Geral untangled the news. The King and Queen of France divorced. Not unexpected but now a fact. Aquitaine at risk from King Louis’ spite now that he was no longer its overlord. Shocked by the implications of this news from France, he glanced at his fellow-drinkers. The men around the messengers hadn’t even paused in their drinking for this talk of kings and annulments. France was too far from Provence to matter. Geral shivered. The fiery Aliénor once more alone and sovereign power in her Aquitaine. Then he took in what Simon was saying.

  ‘And now she’s not, the risk is a certainty.’

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘Alone.’

  Probably more round-eyed than Bertran, Geral couldn’t help it. ‘Not alone,’ he repeated stupidly. ‘She’s with…’

  Now he was fishing desperately, way out of his depth, but luckily Simon filled in the gap. ‘Yes, Henri damn-his-pretty-face Courtmantel, Duc d’Anjou. But two months since the marriage to Louis was dissolved, just time for her to undo every change to the law Louis ever made in Aquitaine, then she was a bride again on Whit Sunday. And there will be a war when Louis finds out.’ Lapsing into gloomy silence, Simon took a long draught from his goblet.

  ‘Don’t mistake me,’ he continued. ‘My Lady has good reason to marry sooner rather than later, with every ambitious lord hanging his hopes on her hand.’ Good reason that included bedding a man ten years younger than her, fitted well with what Geral knew of the ex-Queen of France. His thoughts raced over what he knew of Henri Courtmantel, nicknamed for his shortcoat. Self-styled heir to the throne of England, and welcome to it.

  ‘I just wish she’d chosen one of our good Aquitaine lords. There’s no lack of choice and Louis would have turned a blind eye to that but as it is…’

  ‘War, you say?’

  ‘Sure to be. My Lady might be floating around the countryside on a wedding progress but she sent me here, didn’t she, knowing full well what was coming. She’s telling the nuns at Fontrevault about her marriage and her plans for the Abbey but at the same time she’s checking that Poitiers and Ruffec are provisioned and fortified.’

  Geral could see the hook in the fish’s mouth. So close. He nodded sagely. ‘Aye, she’s been to war before, has the Queen ... sorry, Duchesse. Knows the men she needs to have about her to hold steady against Louis, if - when - he attacks, as he must.’

  ‘This marriage has combined Aquitaine with Normandy and Anjou, and a claim to England,’ nodded Simon.

  ‘And she needs her best men.’ The words were out his mouth before he realised what they meant. Suddenly, Geral knew where this conversation was heading and why Simon was on an errand in Provence, from Aliénor, ex-Queen of France and Duchesse d’Aquitaine. They were both seeking the same man.

  ‘Dragonetz los Pros,’ stated Simon, as if confirming Geral’s guess. Bertran’s mouth was open like the fish of Geral’s imagining, about to spoil everything, when half a pitcher of wine landed in the youngster’s lap.

  ‘Beg your pardon, boy. I must’ve drunk a bit more than I thought. Go see the landlord and beg a change of clothes and tell him we need a room tonight. I’ll settle all before we retire. He knows me well enough. Quickly! You’ll give the place a bad name dripping red everywhere. Looks like a man was stabbed and died under the table! And fetch more wine!’

  Ignoring the boy’s aggrieved look, Geral gave every sign of having been struck by an amazing idea. ‘I don’t know whether you need a room but if you do, why not join us this night?’ An enthusiastic assent rewarded him and Geral continued blithely, ‘So, this Dragonetz is the man the Duchesse wants. You know where to find him I take it?’

  Geral’s last hope vanished as Simon replied, ‘Aye. The Lord is holed up in a villa near here in the hills. I’ll head up there tomorrow to tell him my Lady wants him, and his father the Commander of the Guard wants him, then we’ll be on the road back as quick as turn-around.’ Not if I can help it, Geral thought. ‘We should be home in time for war with Louis and if we survive that, what with Dragonetz on our side too, then the best I can look forward to is England.’ The cloud settled over his features again and he took refuge in another swig of wine. ‘And yourself, Geral? You’re from here? Not working?’

  ‘From nearby,’ Geral evaded. ‘My Liege is a nobody, not like yours.’ He gave an envious look at Simon and prayed that his words would never reach his Lady’s ears. Then he set about misdirecting Simon with tidbits of gossip about the Bishop’s salt-mines and the Comte de Marselha’s amours. Geral even mentioned the forthcoming visit of the Comte de Barcelone, overlord of Provence, to his most unfaithful vassal in the fortress of Les Baux, but not once did the messenger give away his own mission.

  Wearing peasant hessian, Bertran thumped sullen onto the bench, grunted that the landlord would indeed await Geral’s pleasure at the close of the evening, and had kept a room for the three of them with clean, straw paillasses to lie on. The boy’s morose humour changed to a look of admiration as he listened silently to Geral doing a verbal dance around local politics without ever mentioning their relationship to the Lady of Les Baux, or why the two of them were in Marselha.

  La
ter that night, late enough to stagger a little but not so late as to court the headache less experienced drinkers would have had, the three of them took a companionable piss together in the back courtyard, then sought the landlord. ‘I’ll settle this.’ Geral brushed aside Simon’s offer to pay his share, accepting the thanks showered on him with a magnanimous ‘We’d have had to pay for the room anyway so I don’t see why you should have to pay.’

  ‘I don’t either,’ muttered the landlord, shrewder, as his torch-boy led Simon off to the room while Geral stayed to pay his dues. ‘Bertran can light me up the stairs,’ he said and grabbed the boy’s arm to keep him from following Simon.

  ‘You untrustworthy sewer-rat,’ the landlord addressed Geral and shook his head admiringly.

  Geral removed his feathered cap and sketched a mock bow to both the landlord and the boy.

  ‘I don’t know how you keeps your face so straight-like. I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Practice, Bertran, practice.’ He looked at the boy’s earnest face, smooth and shiny with sweat in the torchlight. ‘But you made a good start tonight. Make no mistake; this was an important stroke of luck, us meeting Aliénor’s man this night. Another inn and we’d be empty-handed tomorrow. As it is…’ Dropping the pretence of being tipsy, Geral gave precise instructions to the Innkeeper who was first reluctant, then convinced that it was his duty, aided by the purse on offer. If Bertran had been impressed before, he showed hero-worship in his eyes now.

  ‘And what must I do?’ he asked, his voice cracking.