Bladesong Read online

  Two hours’ riding, then a break, water and onwards. Another two hours, break and bread, water and onwards. At this stage in early autumn the river had recovered from summer drought but still gentle enough to access from the stony shoals lining its banks. Another month and full spate would make travellers’ lives more difficult. Two hours’ ride, water and onwards, the rhythm of heart and hooves pounding. So the day cantered its long stride to dusk and the looming square keep of Crest, dominating the valley from a distance.

  De Rançon led the band off the road to a clearing and signaled the men to halt. They dismounted; tied horses to trees, removed bridles and saddles, then started the business of setting up camp, with practised ease. Three men took the horses loosely by the reins, to take them down to water. Estela knew enough about horses to know they’d need grooming and night blankets to prevent any harm from chilling sweat. Lucky horses. The woollen hose had protected her legs, the circular skirt had sat comfortably around her as she rode, but her garments had absorbed a day’s worth of sweat - horse and human combined. By the end of a week’s travel in this manner, she’d have sweat-striped skirts and it was better not to think about her hose. She’d just have to slip out of them each evening and let them dry before starting another day’s lather. All that was unimportant compared with her means of travel, the horse.

  Gilles had already dismounted, was using his stump of an arm to hold his own horse and was reaching out to help Estela down, clearly intending to take her horse too and tend to both. She flushed with both shame and pride, because he was worth ten two-handed men, and because he thought that she would let him do her work in looking after her own horse.

  ‘No indeed!’ she told him. ‘I shall do the work needed.’

  Gilles regarded her steadily, holding her as she slipped off the high saddle, holding her as she carried on slipping, her legs giving way completely and dropping her in a confused pile on the ground.

  ‘Bound to happen, when you’re out of practice,’ he told her brutally, removing saddle-bags and combining the two sets of horse reins. He clicked encouraging noises to the horses as he led them delicately round the crumpled girl. ‘Get up slowly,’ he instructed over his shoulder. ‘Your legs will shake for a bit, your thighs and calves will feel mangle-wrung but you’ll live to ride again tomorrow.’ Estela groaned at the thought, more than at her aching legs. Arnica and lavender oil, she thought. What she needed was a clump of trees and half an hour’s privacy to rub an embrocation into her legs. Then she needed to be carried around on a litter by six strong men.

  As if summoned, de Rançon was beside her, holding out a hand to help her stand. He refrained from asking how she was, for which kindness she would be eternally grateful. Standing, but wobbly, she told him succinctly what she needed from her saddle-bags and watched while he found her healing box. She hobbled on his arm to a carefully chosen thicket and, with de Rançon keeping watch, his back firmly turned, Estela first relieved herself - no mean task with her leg muscles screaming - then peeled off the hose and rubbed life back into her legs, along with her precious ointment. She should be careful not to use too much on the first day, she thought, as she rubbed in some more. On the other hand, if she didn’t save her legs today, there wouldn’t be a second day. She rubbed one more fingertip’s worth of lavender and arnica into her thighs then dropped the long skirts over her naked legs and put the boots on her bare feet.

  De Rançon was still as a statue waiting for her to emerge, jumping when she tapped his shoulder. She gave him her best smile and she meant it. Sometimes, practicality was worth more than a fine singing voice and a handsome face, and de Rançon had been perfect. He bowed apologies at leaving her and went to arrange fire, food and night watch, while Estela allowed herself to merely sit against a tree-trunk, her legs stretched full out, convinced that she would never move again.

  Travel has its own natural laws, breaking taboos and habits, making friends of strangers. Chaperoned only by a one-handed man, in the company of unknown soldiers, Estela felt safer than she had since the moment her brother appeared in her doorway. The pain in her legs, which she’d been sure was life-threatening, had dulled to an ache, and the smell of meat turning on a campfire suddenly made her stomach declare itself void and desperate for exactly the food available. Gnawing on a bone in the light of the fire (near which her hose were discreetly drying on an impromptu rack of sticks), a cup of wine warming her insides, Estela could suddenly understand what Dragonetz had meant when he said he felt ‘unknotted’ from camping with his men.

  Everything was simple. Horses tended, basic human needs satisfied, nothing else had to be done. There were no politics, no palace intrigues, no delicate conversations required. Travelling changed time. The future was the next day’s ride and beyond that was irrelevant. The past was a story for telling round a campfire. Men were munching and slurping, flames crackling and the stars above offered all the entertainment required. Was Dragonetz looking at the same stars? Wondering about his place in the universe?

  Estela lay back and watched as the sky blackened and increasing numbers of diamonds pierced the velvet. She didn’t know the names of the constellations so she made them up, drawing imaginary lines to make pictures of a sword, a horse, her mother. She could read her own story in the stars if she kept looking. Pleasantly weary from the exercise and the wine, her hunger fully satisfied, Estela lost count of the stars and the men’s voices became a brook babbling in the distance. She fell asleep where she lay, with her head pillowed on a saddle-bag.

  ‘Estela,’ a voice prompted her, followed by a gentle nudge. The horizon was already pinking up and as Estela stirred for the new day, she realised she’d been covered with a blanket and the campfire had died down long since. She shivered a little in the autumn chill of the Diois region, a breath of mountain always in the night air. That would change as the party crossed the invisible line south of Lion, near Valença, where the evening breeze would ruffle her hair with a lover’s warmth, even in October.

  Gilles stood guard over her privacy as she slipped down to the river for a quick sluice and donned her woollen hose once more. The roan was already saddled by the time she returned to camp and there would be two hours’ riding before they broke fast with a hunk of bread, somewhere near, or even on, the great Roman road south. Four days travel on the Via Agrippa should get them to Arle, if all went to plan, and then another two days to the port of Marselha in the Golf dau Leon, where a boat awaited them. Estela’s heart sank at the thought of another six days’ hard riding but already she was finding the rhythm of her great horse and sparing them both the awkward jolting of the previous day.

  The weather was kind to them so it was only sweat that drenched Estela’s skirt and hose, not the rains that could easily have slowed their journey. The last time Estela had taken these roads, it had been in the sedate company of Bèatriz’ entourage, returning to Dia from Narbonne, where Bèatriz had been under Ermengarda’s guardianship. They had taken a month then to do much the same journey that Estela was now expected to do in a week. And she would, too, she told herself as she eked out lavender and arnica embrocation onto her aching legs each evening.

  The road south followed another river, the Ròse much larger and more difficult of access than the Droma, so the men filled their waterskins whenever they could, to provide for the stretches where the banks were too steep. On the third evening they camped near the town of Monteleimar and Estela had enough energy left to chat to de Rançon. He had been attentive but formal on the journey so far, alert for any possibility of danger in the strangers they passed or overtook, in the choice of campsite. One eye was always on his men and on the condition of their horses, and he gave the impression that if he thought of Estela at all it was as a kind of saddle-bag, a little cumbersome and to be got from Dia to Marselha without damage. He seemed open enough to Estela’s questions though, when she plucked up courage to pose them.

  ‘Are there wolves?’ she asked him, watching the fire die into embers
now it had fulfilled its cooking function. The southern nights needed no more than a blanket to keep them warm at night.

  De Rançon chewed absently on a twig, lying relaxed. Estela thought that chainmail and leather jerkin suited him better than the flamboyant outfits in which he’d graced Bèatriz’ court. He looked leaner, more masculine, his unruly brown curls loosed from the coif he wore while riding. Although he continued looking into the fire, the corners of his mouth twitched in amusement.

  ‘You’re afraid we’ll get torn to pieces when the fire goes out? No, the wolves are in the mountains either side of the valley but they have full bellies at this time of year and won’t come so close to men’s gatherings until the famines of deep winter force them. Men are more dangerous to other men than are wolves, my Lady.’ His eyes caught a red flicker as the fire crackled into last life, painting shadows along his fine-boned face. A man-wolf. Estela had heard of such things but didn’t believe in them. Night in a forest was not the best time to discuss such matters however and she changed the subject.

  ‘You and Dragonetz must have grown up near each other. Were you friends then? And you were on crusade together. What was it like? How did you end up at the Court of Jerusalem serving Mélisende? What is she like?’ Once the questions started, they poured out from her unstoppered mouth.

  ‘Halt!’ protested de Rançon. ‘Yes, Lord Dragon - the father of your Dragonetz - has an estate neighbouring ours at Rançon so our paths naturally crossed at tournays. We were both squires, learning our duties, but Dragonetz is two years older than I, and you know what boys are like at that age.’ His voice was dry, uncritical. ‘Older boys pick on younger boys. No, we weren’t friends.’

  ‘But you’re friends now,’ Estela hurried him on to a more enjoyable part of the story. ‘So was it during the crusade that you grew to know each other?’

  De Rançon was slow to respond, choosing words carefully, as if each one had to be weighed for truth, giving her no more and no less than she asked. ‘Being two years younger still mattered, even during the crusade, and I was the Commander’s son, an unpleasant combination for an ambitious young knight to stomach, in so far as he was aware of me at all. I think his attention was all for his liege, Aliénor.’

  There was a careful lack of inflexion in his voice, a lack of innuendo, but Estela needed none to guess at the past relationship between the young knight and the beautiful queen. She knew every one of Dragonetz’ songs, had known them long before she met him, and she knew perfectly well he’d written many of them for Aliénor. She also knew that any passion between them had long ago changed into something else, loyalty and memories, nothing of which she need be jealous. She was more troubled by the implication that Dragonetz had been a bully, spiteful and petty. It didn’t fit the man she knew. Or thought she knew.

  ‘My father was an exceptional leader.’ Estela noted the past tense. ‘He trained Dragonetz, led him and all of us young knights in sorties in Aquitaine, on Aliénor’s business with would-be rebels. While she was in court at Paris, there were always those in Aquitaine who thought themselves strong enough to take her duchy. My father proved them wrong, again and again. When the call came to take the cross, my father was at Aliénor’s side, willing to lead for her, and to die for her, willing for his son - me - to do likewise.’

  ‘Men do feel like that about the Queen,’ murmured Estela.

  ‘Then you understand how it was for Dragonetz,’ said de Rançon, as if apologising for what might be unwelcome revelations. ‘He was moonstruck and wanted more than just being her troubadour. And as well as his personal hopes, he wanted to be her Commander.’ He hesitated a long moment, again weighing his words, and in that same flat tone, he said, ‘His scouts reported to him that there were Seljuq warriors in wait near Mount Cadmus and he saw his opportunity. He said nothing of these troops to his Commander, my father, but let him fall into the trap of obedience to the Queen, who wanted to continue marching and make camp further on. A good decision - if you didn’t know of the Seljuq troops! Dragonetz used all his skills in acting to plead with the Queen not to march on, defying her and his Commander - a noble gesture of self-sacrifice if he hadn’t been sure of profiting later. Of course, my father chastised him for disobedience, thereby sealing his own fate.

  Dragonetz galloped back in secret to the pass, timing it late enough to act the hero with King Louis in full battle, rather than early enough to save the lives that were lost that day. And my father was dismissed in shame for his ‘error’, replaced by Dragonetz. I was dismissed with him and we rode back together to Rançon, leaving the Crusaders to do their miserable best.’ He shrugged. Estela was shocked into silence, part of her wanting to say it couldn’t be true, part of her recognising that it could be. Dragonetz was indeed ambitious, and he had become Aliénor’s Commander, very young, by what means she knew not, but she knew him capable of clever politics. Her stomach lurched. This was not the Dragonetz she knew!

  ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this,’ the voice continued, lighter. ‘Campfire talk! As you say, Dragonetz and I are friends now and the past matters not one jot. He has changed. He did a fine job as Commander and I respect him for that.’

  Estela couldn’t help asking, ‘Don’t you resent him, for what happened to your father?’ And for boyhood slights, she thought, remembering her brother’s grievances, carried for years like treasures and rotting his mind with slow-drip poison.

  The reply was immediate. ‘I am bigger than that,’ he said simply. ‘A man cannot let every act of politics and intrigue eat away at him or he ends up with less honour than the target of his vengeance.’

  ‘That is the truth!’ declared Estela, full of admiration, as her inmost thoughts were spoken by the man beside her. ‘Dragonetz is lucky to have you!’

  For the first time there was a trace of bitterness in de Rançon’s tone. ‘I wish he thought so,’ he said, then lightened again. ‘But perhaps I’m the lucky one.’ He turned his full smile on her but she couldn’t read his eyes in the shadows. ‘I am the one travelling with you.’

  Smoothly, expecting no response and keeping the tone light, he continued, ‘As for my service to the Queen of Jerusalem, now here is a story you’ll enjoy.’ Skating lightly over the fact that, thanks to Dragonetz, his family name was out of favour in his native country, he explained how he’d been drawn to return to the Holy Land and welcomed at court. He then indulged Estela with some gossip about Mélisende that left her round-eyed and laughing with disbelief, until the natural moment came to bid goodnight and seek what privacy for sleep was afforded in a camp. Estela lay awake long into the night and she wasn’t thinking of the alleged peccadillos of the Queen of Jerusalem.

  As for de Rançon, an onlooker would have guessed by the angelic smile on his sleeping lips that he was every bit the perfect knight Estela thought him to be.

  Getting up in the morning was already an established routine and the party was soon on the road again, aiming for somewhere near Avinhon. The day after that should take them to the end of the Via Agrippa at Arle, where it was crossed by the east-west Via Domitia. Westwards, the road would take them to Narbonne. The backroads from Narbonne went to the estate of Johans de Villeneuve, where Txamusca was tugging thoughtfully on the ear of a large white dog, but Estela would be going east, not west.

  ‘ Roxie, Estela,’ Gilles interrupted her wayward thoughts. He often used both names, having never got used to her troubadour name but trying his best to show respect. He reined in, matching her horse’s pace so he could ride beside her. As usual, respect didn’t exclude giving his opinions bluntly. ‘How well do you know Lord Dragonetz? I don’t like what we heard of him last night!’

  Nor I thought Estela, instinctively seeking the comfort of the ring he had left her but it was no longer round her neck. Of course, it was with Musca. Without showing a trace of her own doubts, she answered staunchly, ‘I’ve known him through more trials than some couples meet in a lifetime and his honour is without question!’
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  Gilles picked up on ‘is’. ‘Maybe. But it seems to me like it was under question, perhaps long before you knew him, but I don’t like what that says about him. I don’t think de Rançon’s a liar.’

  ‘And I don’t think it’s your place to speak ill of the father of my child, when he’s too far away to speak for himself!’

  Gilles had braved her temper often enough to ignore the threatened storm. ‘All I’m saying, Roxie, is what I always say. A sword can be pretty enough and break. Test the weapon well before you rely on it. I don’t want us riding to Jerusalem for some bootlicker who sings well. You can do better than that.’

  ‘Go back to Dia then! I’m not nine years old!’ Estela dug her boots viciously into her mount’s side to put distance between herself and her irritating man. She was careful to keep near enough to the soldiers for the rest of the day’s journey but Gilles caught her alone once they’d set up camp and the stubborn set of her face didn’t stop him speaking.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘They were harsh words. And I came late to Narbonne so all I saw of Lord Dragonetz was his heels disappearing abroad after his mill burnt to ashes and his friend was killed. That, and leaving you carrying a child, don’t notch points in his favour with me.’

  He held up a hand to stop her angry response. ‘I know, I know. He didn’t know you were carrying and he couldn’t help the other business. I know you have feelings for him. It’s only natural. But things change, and de Rançon is a good sort. He tries to hide them but he has feelings for you, deeper than the silly compliments you all play as games.