Troubadour (2 page)

‘So is he staying long? Has he forsaken the court in Arles?’

Huguet’s eyes turned vague, as if he were concentrating on a difficult key change. ‘I think not. He spoke of other courts he must visit.’

‘Must?’ asked Elinor sharply. ‘Is he so in love with the lady of every one that he must take his new song to them?’

Huguet cursed silently. He always forgot that, young as she was, Elinor was as sharp as a pin, particularly where Bertran de Miramont was concerned. He resolved to be more discreet in future.

He need not have worried. Elinor was entirely focused on the unfairness of being the daughter of the Lord, the
donzela
of the castle, who would never have a love song addressed to her. All the troubadours wrote songs of everlasting devotion to her mother, the
domna
of the castle; it simply wasn’t the custom to serenade young unmarried women.

Everyone knew that neither Bertran nor any other troubadour was really in love with Lady Clara. Why, she was an old woman – over thirty years of age! But they had to pretend that they were and Lord Lanval understood this and didn’t mind at all. He would have felt his hospitality insulted if a poet fed at his table had not sung the praises of his wife.

Bertran would not sing the song himself, of course; he was a nobleman in his own right, even if a poor one. It would be up to Perrin to sing it, accompanied by Huguet on the rebec. But Bertran would stand beside him, casting longing looks at Lady Clara and perhaps even sighing. And Elinor wanted him to sigh for her.

Bertran was over thirty too, but it was of no consequence in a man. He had no childbirths to slacken his figure or other womanly ailments to take the colour from his cheek or the vigour from his voice and sparkle from his eye. He was simply the handsomest man that Elinor had ever seen and she was so entranced by him that she wanted to
be
him almost as much as she wanted him to notice her and compose a poem to her beauty.

She smiled at the very thought and Huguet saw that the moment of danger had passed. The daughter of the castle was far too caught up in her own fancies to have noticed his slip about Bertran’s movements.

‘Out of the question,’ said Lady Clara, when Elinor asked if she might be excused the dancing and yield her place to Alys.

She looked at her older daughter hard and what she saw pleased her no more than usual. It was difficult for a once beautiful woman to feel that she must soon yield her place to her daughters. Clara often wondered if it would be easier if Elinor were like her in any way but it was her younger daughter, Alys, who favoured her. Alys was naturally demure and never forgot to cast down her eyes when a male courtier or a knight passed her in the castle. She was fair-haired and grey-eyed like her mother, while Elinor was a sort of nut brown all over – hair, eyes and skin. It was in vain that her mother exhorted her to keep out of the sun; Elinor was outdoors on the castle walls in all weathers. But the rays that darkened her skin did nothing to lighten her hair.

She should have been a boy, thought Lady Clara, like Aimeric, who shared his sister’s dark colouring. They were both like their father but it didn’t matter in a son. Clara was happy to see Aimeric’s complexion as a sign of manly hardiness. But girls should be fair and quiet and Elinor was not only dark but unruly and unladylike. If only she had been the younger daughter!

‘You must dance, Elinor,’ said her mother. ‘Why else does your father feed and clothe a dancing instructor? And tonight is your first opportunity to show how the
donzela
of the castle dances.’

‘But, Maire,’ said Elinor desperately, ‘I am so very bad at it!’

‘Then you must just practise until you are better,’ said Lady Clara. ‘Look – it’s not difficult.’

She started to hum a vigorous tune and slid her feet sideways, before giving a neat little hop and skip.

‘You see?’ she said. ‘Easy.’

‘For you, Maire,’ said Elinor, looking at her own feet. ‘But the music goes so fast!’

‘You must not look down, Elinor,’ said Lady Clara. ‘Just listen to the music, feel the beat of the tambour and let yourself be led. Close your eyes if it will help.’

It sounded pleasurable, even blissful, the way her mother described it, with her head thrown back and her eyes half-closed and her face all dreamy. But Elinor couldn’t imagine doing it.

Still, she could see she wasn’t going to get anywhere with her protests.

Lady Clara opened her eyes and looked into her daughter’s wayward expression. Her own face softened.

‘You have to try, Elinor,’ she said, more kindly than usual. ‘Dancing, singing, fine needlework, they all seem so hard to you, but what else can you do? You must have the accomplishments of a noblewoman if we are ever to find a husband for you. You will not get one on your looks alone.’

Elinor was glad of that ‘alone’.

‘I can read and write,’ she said. ‘And perhaps I do not have to marry?’ (
If
I
cannot
marry Bertran, the troubadour
, she added in her mind.)

‘Out of the question,’ said Lady Clara, her mood hardening again. ‘You must marry. You cannot turn your skills with parchment and quills into land and rents, can you? You will have a husband, willing to pay a good bride price, if it’s the last thing I do.’

Only you won’t be the one that has to do it
, thought Elinor bitterly.

The great hall was full of long wooden trestles and behind the one set at the head of the room green branches of fir, holly and hemlock hung from the beams. Perrin and Huguet and the other
joglar
s were already in place with their instruments, ready to play during dinner and for the dancing afterwards. They would not eat till all the guests had gone but there was already a flagon of wine at their feet, which would be refilled often during the evening.

Bertran would sit near the Lord’s table, among Lanval’s knights and foster-sons. They were beginning to drift into the great hall now. It wasn’t until the musicians played a little fanfare that everyone took their place and stood for the entrance of the Lord and his family.

Lord Lanval, Lady Clara and their son Aimeric walked into the hall like the landed nobles they were, accustomed to deference from all the rest of the ‘
familha
’ – the family – that made up the population of the castle. They were followed, for the first time at a saint’s day feast, by the
donzela
of the castle, looking unusually demure, because her eyes were cast down towards her feet, something she did not usually manage.

But Elinor was terrified of all the gazes directed at her. As the family arrived at their places, she risked a swift upwards glance and saw Bertran smiling back at her encouragingly. She remembered just in time not to grin back at him – which would have counted as unladylike – but inclined her head so slowly that it could have counted as gracefully.

Then Perrin broke into a lively
virelai
on his lute and the moment passed. All during the meal Elinor felt her eyes darting back to where Bertran sat but he hardly ever looked at her again. If she was very careful, she could just sneak a glance now and again without her mother’s notice. As well as the family there were some senior knights at their table, together with some lords and ladies from neighbouring towns, and a visitor Elinor had never seen before, who was engaged in courtly wordplay with her mother.

Elinor’s feast partner was Aimeric, so after a while she relaxed. It would have been too awful to share dishes with a stranger. But her brother was not too daunting, at least when he wasn’t teasing her.

‘You look nice tonight, sister,’ he said. ‘That dress suits you.’

She was relieved; she had feared the rose velvet would make her look like something Hugo had concocted from berries and cream. And Aimeric had understood that she couldn’t take any teasing tonight of all nights, on her first public appearance as
donzela
. But Elinor didn’t want him to see her watching the troubadour.

Bertran was a fastidious eater, taking food from the shared dishes with his knife or a spoon and not using his fingers. He didn’t wipe his hands on his bread trencher either, and when the savoury courses had been cleared away, he tore the gravy-smeared bread into small pieces for the dogs, like a true nobleman and didn’t wolf it down himself like a peasant.

All in all, the meal went better than Elinor had feared, though she was too nervous to do justice to Hugo’s capon pasties or his roast venison and frumenty. But when all the many dishes had been cleared away, she was able to nibble at some gingerbread and almonds. And she drank gratefully of the spiced wine, which her father always served at the end of a feast.

And then Lanval and Clara were getting up and servants were coming in to move the tables away. That meant the dancing was about to begin and Elinor hastily gulped the last of her wine, her panic returning.

Before the dreaded
estampida
, there were jugglers and acrobats and even someone with a monkey that danced on its hind legs. But the moment couldn’t be postponed for ever and at last Elinor heard the familiar rhythm being beaten out on the tambour. The
joglaresa
s – the female entertainers – were beginning to swish their skirts.

Noblemen and women assembled on what had been quickly transformed into a dance floor and Elinor soon found herself separated from Aimeric, who she had hoped would be her partner. Instead she was opposite Gui, one of her father’s foster-sons, a
noiretz
. He was a good dancer, Elinor knew from her spying in the alcove, but not someone she wanted to see her awkward steps.

But the wine seemed to have done something strange to her feet as Perrin began to sing the opening verse of ‘
Kalenda Maia
’ – the May Day song. It was not at all appropriate for the middle of winter but ever since Perrin had been taught it by an Italian troubadour it had been all the rage in Lanval’s court. It was a song written by a troubadour called Raimbaut to his lady love, Beatrice, the sister of his lord.

Everyone in the hall knew it and several joined in with the words.

‘
Ma bell’amia
,’ mouthed Gui. ‘My beautiful friend.’

Elinor blushed; he nearly put her off her steps. But she made it to the end of the last verse: ‘
Bastida, Finida, N’Engles, ai l’estampida!
’ which meant ‘Enough, I’ve finished my composition,
Senhor
Engles, my
estampida
.’

Elinor wondered about
Senhor
Engles; perhaps he was a noble in Italy, at Monferrato, where Raimbaut had composed his song. She caught her breath, glad not to have made a fool of herself with Gui.

But the rest of the dancers were still moving and Huguet had launched into a lively
saltarello
on his fiddle. Elinor was appalled even though she had learned that it could follow straight on from the
estampida
. Her feet faltered because the music was much faster now and Gui’s face was beginning to blur before her eyes in the spin and whirl of the dance. She was going to fall, on her first appearance as a grown-up woman in her father’s court. And the young knights and
noiretz
s would laugh at her behind their hands. She wanted to die.