Plaint for Provence Read online

  It had been a good morning’s work and Estela was humming as she tripped along the flags between Petronilla’s ante-chamber and the window bay where she’d arranged to meet Malik and Dragonetz to practise some new material for evening entertainment. She felt creative again, had an idea for a lyric and wanted help with the melody. She’d wanted to include some of von Bingen’s work in the repertoire, if the two men were willing to sing plainsong with her. They blended well, Dragonetz’ bass and Malik’s lighter tone, and all three knew each other so well that they could feel the pauses for breath without any signs.

  To Estela’s chagrin both men had vetoed von Bingen’s work as inappropriate for entertainment. Sacred music could only be sung in church. Estela’s frustration was no less because she knew they were right. ‘But I can’t perform in church because I’m a woman! Not unless I join a convent! Perhaps I should go to Alsace and sing with von Bingen herself. She has more freedom than I do.’

  ‘I can’t sing her work in public either,’ Malik reminded her quietly. As a Muslim he couldn’t - or wouldn’t - enter a church (Estela wasn’t sure which). But sing it in private, they could and did, the words carrying them to that other world they shared, where God and Allah were but two faces of some eternal truth.

  O ignee spiritus laus tibi sit

  qui in timpanis et citharis operaris

  Praise be to thee O spirit of flame

  who speaks through lyre and tambour…

  When the music stopped, Estela could feel the tension, the choosing of opposite sides that lay between the three of them, but in singing there was only the old harmony. They all needed that respite. And this morning she felt optimistic about finding that same harmony in the greater world. Provence was beautiful in the slanting summer sun, hazy blue through the arrow slits.

  Peasants would be harvesting spelt and the first of this year’s honey had already reached table. It was still early enough in the day for the dairy farmers to sell their fresh cheese at the castle gate. Soon they would have to pack up and ride home, hoping to peddle their wares after hours to buyers willing to risk cheese rancid from heat if they could save some coin or bartering power.

  Longer-lasting products such as grain or flour could be sold on to the regrators, middle-men who would store goods as long as they could afford and sell when the price was highest, winter or famine. Estela had grown up a castellan’s daughter and was accustomed to the way the hinterland contributed to the community within the walls.

  Perhaps she would saddle up and explore the valley after practising her music. What was it Bernard of Clairvaux had said? ‘Stone and trees will teach you a lesson you never heard from the masters in school.’ Stone and trees had always taught Estela more than masters; being a girl, she had taken schooling where she could, from her healer mother and from shadowing her brother.

  Most of all, she’d been taught by Gilles, who taught her how to choose and use a dagger, how to ride and care for a horse, and how to read stone and trees so she could always find her way home. He’d saved her life and paid with his right hand. He was all the protection she needed to ride out with her, to escape the walls for an afternoon. Nici could run alongside. Dragonetz would no doubt be busy with Hugues’ guard, with sword drill and tilting but she would have all the protection she’d ever needed. All was as it should be.

  Perhaps not quite all, she amended. There were always minor domestic concerns. Estela had caught the wet-nurse rubbing red eyes with her wimple when she’d thought herself unobserved. Prima’s care of the two toddlers, her own and Musca, was faultless.

  They thrived and slept well, despite the love games of Musca’s parents on the other side of the chamber’s damask curtain, and the whimpering dog dreams of Nici, guarding the threshold. With a guilty pang, Estela had wondered whether Prima slept less well beside the babies and behind that same curtain but when she asked Prima what was troubling her, noisy bed-neighbours weren’t mentioned.

  With some reluctance, Prima confessed. It was no secret that Dragonetz’ gruff man-at-arms Raoulf had enjoyed the nurse’s favours. Indeed, the two of them had lived like a family, protecting Musca in a hideaway while his parents were in the Holy Land. They had even looked after Nici, although the dog would probably give a different version of events, if he could speak.

  It seemed that the change in domestic arrangements had made Prima less available and the ever-fickle Raoulf had happily found his pleasures elsewhere. Not that Prima had expected fidelity from a married man above her station but she hadn’t realized how lightly he took her until she saw how lightly he left her. She had even hoped that she might bear him a child and keep his affections where others had failed.

  All Estela could offer were sympathy and security. And privately she thanked the fates that Prima was not pregnant. Raoulf’s bastards were numerous, his generosity to them impeccable - unlike his begetting of them - but Musca needed his nurse’s full attention. Prima was young and would get over it and Estela saw no other clouds on her horizons. The day was too fair to worry over her wet-nurse’s amours.

  The door to the Solar was ajar as Estela passed and although the voices inside were low, she was so attuned to one of them that the words reached her clearly and stopped her in her tracks.

  ‘My Lady, you do me great honour.’ Dragonetz, saying no. But what was he saying no to? She knew he was speaking to their hostess even before she heard the other voice. She also knew that it was despicable to listen like this, that Dragonetz would tell her the whole conversation later in the day. She remained rooted to the spot.

  ‘I am not asking for an answer now, Dragonetz, just asking you to consider my proposal. Since my Lord was murdered, I have taken his place as best I can but I know my weaknesses. I am but a woman and, as you have shown me, my sons are not yet the men they need to be against such as Barcelone.

  You are young in years but old in experience. You are a man. A man with rare talents. A man who has already been more of a father to my son in a month than he has ever known! I offer you Les Baux. Marry me and be Lord of Les Baux. Chase Barcelone from your land and keep its people safe.’

  Estela waited for Dragonetz to say it was impossible, that he loved and was loved in return, that he had a child, a family. She had to remember to breathe.

  ‘Hugues would not accept me as Lord of Les Baux.’ Twin points of anger reddened Estela’s cheeks and it took all her self-control not to march into the chamber and slap ‘her’ knight.

  ‘You would win him round. And I do not ask that you love me or renounce… other commitments. I could perhaps surprise you…’ the tones furred and Estela envisaged grey hair being loosed, the robe unlaced seductively, ageing fingers stroking Dragonetz’ jaw and neck. She felt sick. ‘We might find solace in each other and I am not too old to bear another heir, another boy. Just think on it, Dragonetz.’

  ‘My Lady, I did not expect…’ Neither did I! thought Estela. ‘I think you underestimate your own strength, without any man’s help.’

  ‘But I want a man.’ Lady Etiennette could sound every bit as petulant as her son. ‘And you are my first choice!’ Good Lord! thought Estela. She has a list!

  ‘Then I must indeed consider the matter seriously.’ There was no mistaking Dragonetz’ meaning - he was taking leave. Estela picked up her skirts and scuttled out of sight before she could be caught eavesdropping. She too needed to consider matters very seriously. Suddenly, the day clouded over.

  Chapter 8

  Primrose (hymelsloszel) is hot. All its vital energy is from the sharpness of the sun… whence it checks melancholy. When melancholy rises in a person, it makes him sad and agitated in his moods. It makes him pour forth words against God. Airy spirits notice this, and rush to him, and by their persuasion turn him toward insanity. This person should place primrose on his flesh, near his heart, until it warms him up. The airy spirits dread the primrose’s sun-given power and will cease their torment.

  Physica, Plants

  Had she not overheard
the conversation, Estela would not have noticed that Dragonetz was a little abstracted in their practice, a little too easy to convince of changes to phrasing or tempo. He hid it well but his thoughts were elsewhere and it didn’t take a genius to guess where. She too fumbled a line, missed a note, was less than her best, while she wondered, ‘Is he thinking about it? Lord of Les Baux? Is that why he’s backing Hugues and his mother? Provence and legitimate heirs? And who would blame him! What do I offer instead, that won’t turn to dust?’

  ‘Will you sing with me in the Great Hall one evening?’ she asked. ‘Lady Etiennette would like that, I’m sure.’ She kept all inflection out of her voice and watched anxiously for his reaction. Maybe there was a slight tightening of the jaw. Maybe.

  ‘I’m sorry, my Lady. It might be misinterpreted.’ His gaze was steady, telling her to trust him, but the ink-black of his eyes was fathomless. Misinterpreted as open support for Les Baux? Wasn’t he already showing that? Or misinterpreted as showing his love for Estela and rejecting Etiennette’s proposal? ‘We’ll talk later.’ She flushed at the tone, the one he used with his men.

  And they didn’t. In the days and nights that followed, they made love and they sang together, and they spoke of Musca and Prima but they didn’t talk. The closest Dragonetz came to opening his mind was to repeat, ‘There is justice in both claims to Provence but one must cede. I will do what must be done to make a lasting peace.’ Even marry Etiennette? Of which nothing was said, by either of them.

  Estela threw herself into composition, knowing full well that entertainment must perform the same balancing act as all else in this fortress. She’d been invited by Etiennette to entertain the widow’s guests, so her audience would take for granted her sympathies to Les Baux. In which case, she would please everyone with some reference to history further south, to the lands of Barcelone, Aragon and Zaragoza.

  Playing the gracious hostess would win hearts and remind all of Les Baux’s nobility and largesse. In sheer courtesy, Barcelone had already been forced to thank the son; now he would be forced to thank the mother. At the same time, perhaps he could be moved by the words of the song, by love of a land, to understand Les Baux.

  Perhaps Estela could play her own part in Dragonetz’ private war; the balance that kept peace. It would take a very careful lyric though, something from the past that spoke to the present day, that woke every man’s love of his terroir and that crossed barriers in friendship. There was only one way of finding such a lyric: she would have to compose it herself. And only one person could tell her all she needed to know.

  Every time Dragonetz excused himself from their musical interludes, Estela interrogated Malik on his past and on his homeland. Her Arabic was not as fluent as Dragonetz’, nor anywhere near as good as Malik’s Occitan, but she wanted to improve and it seemed fitting to hear Malik’s stories in his own tongue. All of them used Latin with ease, as was civilized.

  ‘Why do you wish to dwell on the past, my Lady?’

  ‘I want to understand,’ she told him.

  Once he started talking, Estela was lost in a world of dry mountains and magical gardens, scimitars and poetry.

  ‘My grandfather, Abd-al-Malik, the last Huddid King of Zaragoza, fought alongside Aliénor’s grandfather at the Battle of Cutanda. You’ve heard tell of it?’

  Estela shook her head.

  ‘So fierce it was that there is a saying in my country ‘Peyor est quam illa de Cotanda’; ‘This is even worse than Cutanda.’ They won a hard victory and sang together in celebration, each of them a noted troubadour in his own language. As a token of brotherhood, the King gave Aquitaine a rock crystal bottle, multi-faceted like their alliance but holding the most precious substance of all - water, the life-giver.

  As you know from your reading, crystal is made from air touching cold water when it coagulates into a solid, as if it were the heart of water. It has many healing powers. Perhaps William of Aquitaine thought of this and wished to balance too much heat in Aliénor’s nature when he presented it to King Louis of France, for their wedding gift. But it was not enough.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Estela, thinking that it would take more than a crystal bottle to dampen Aliénor’s combination of ardour and ambition. Medicine could only work so much change on a person’s given nature.

  ‘When we were in Narbonne, I made inquiry. In one of his many acts to gain forgiveness from the church, Louis gave the bottle to Archbishop Suger and it now resides, cold and useless, in Saint-Denis Abbey.’

  Hearing the song of the crystal bottle, Estela murmured, ‘Where once there was love, an empty place. Old alliances and pledges replaced with … with what?’ She pictured the bottle on a shelf in the abbey reliquary, dust dimming the sparkling treasure that had crowned a friendship, sealed a marriage. She had never even seen a crystal bottle but if she were ever given something so beautiful, so rare, no-one would take it from her. And if it commemorated her marriage to Dragonetz, she would set Nici to guard it! If only...

  ‘And, though my grandfather lost our kingdom, he became Imad ad-Dawla, the pillar of the state, to Alfonso the Battler, and there is no shame on his name or on the Banu Hud for serving our land as well as we can.’ As I do. Estela heard the words as if they’d been said aloud and thought of her knight, his love for Provence and the way such warriors could fight harder for peace than some men did to grab lands and riches.

  ‘But if you want a story, my Lady, you should hear of the Christian El Cid of Castile. Falsely accused and banished from his homeland, El Cid was alone and rejected everywhere he sought shelter. Men were too frightened of reprisals from Castile to welcome even such a proven warrior.

  Until he was found, ragged and dying of thirst, by the knights of al-Andalus who served King Yusuf ibn-Ahmad al-Mu’taman, my great-great grandfather. Zaragoza and its king welcomed the outcast and, in return, El Sidi, as we call him, served my homeland as a loyal general for many years.

  When El Cid needed protection for his daughters against the treachery of his enemies, he turned to his loyal Muslim servant, Avengalvon, who took in the girls and guarded them as his own for the love he bore El Campeador, the Warrior.’

  ‘Which are you, Malik? Are you El Campeador or the Pillar of the state?’

  ‘A man can be both, my Lady, a master and a servant. But I do not seek to acquire lands that are not mine, nor even win back a crown that my grandfather ceded; not when the ruler is just.’

  Ramon the Saint. Estela sighed.

  ‘Castile could not let El Cid and his army continue to grow more powerful so Alfonso offered to reinstate the hero, with Valencia as his reward if he could take it, and so Zaragoza lost its famous general.’

  Estela listened spellbound to the many legends of El Cid, noting what might fit her purpose in composing a lay and what might engage her audience for its own sake. She knew the part that would catch Dragonetz by the heartstrings.

  ‘When he came of age, Rodrigo, the young Sidi, was taken by his godfather, the monk Pedro, to the place on the mountain where a herd of Andalusian horses were grazing and he was told to choose a foal to be his warhorse,’ Malik had told her. ‘Rodrigo made his choice, a white foal and earned a cuff and a curse from his godfather, who called Rodrigo ‘Babieca’, ‘Stupid.’ Estela could feel the story finding its right threads, the parallel of her own story with Nici, the dog who’d also been named ‘Stupid’ in the language of his region.

  ‘And Babieca - for so Rodrigo named his horse - grew up to be the white stallion, El Cid’s warhorse, the most feared horse in any battle, with legends of his own. He carried his master’s dead body into battle, strapped onto him, and they defended Valencia together one last time.

  The besiegers were so terror-struck they fled and so Babieca won the day, just by his presence. He lived to see his fortieth summer’s grazing and in the two years after El Cid’s death, no man rode him. No man could take El Cid’s place.

  When his spirit left this world, he was buried by his master’s request
, beside El Cid, at the monastery of San Pedro de Cardana. There, they were later joined by Rodrigo’s courageous lady wife Ximena.’

  If only… a family burial: Dragonetz, Estela, Sadeek and Nici, at the end of a song worth singing. A foolish thought. Estela swallowed. Thought instead about Malik’s ancestors, kings, philosophers and - so Dragonetz had told her - renowned mathematicians.

  When the three of them were together, the two men would sometimes lose Estela with their discussion of mathematics. She could understand most of what applied to music but knew nothing of the pure Arab disciplines. Dragonetz would tease his friend, suggesting that he should continue with his ancestor al Mu’tamen’s geometry proof, compete with his ancestor for pride of place in Maimonides’ update of the ‘kitab al-Istikmal’, ‘the Comprehensive Treatise in Mathematics’. Malik would respond in kind, saying that he fully intended to do so in the time left from serving his Prince and mentoring ill-disciplined Christian musicians.

  Listening to their banter, Estela realized how far their friendship had come, that Malik could appreciate such humour at all, never mind respond. He had always been self-contained, reserved, mistaken for mute on many occasions. To let his guard down in such a way was a gift, a treasured moment for all three of them. Should we let our guard down as we do? Can anyone be trusted completely? Estela wondered, newly sensitive.