The troubadour's song (25 page)

"Ah, how foolish of me. For a man without feminine company is not living."

He pulled her down on the knee he thrust outward from the end of the table, so that he could nuzzle her throat.

"What say you to some time together, eh?" Her Jbosom was temptingly close to his hand, but she gave him no chance to fondle her. She thrust his head away and jumped up to the floor again.

"Monsieur, have a care. I have business to attend to, and you are not my only customer."

Andre gave her a lewd grin. "Ah, but perhaps I could pay to become your only customer."

She hesitated, and he saw the greed flicker in her dark eyes. Then she gave a toss of the head. "What makes you think I am for sale?"

Andre gave a look of mock horror. "Mademoiselle, I did not say that you were. It is just that my desire for your company has overcome me, and I would hire a private hall for us to dine in and be left alone. A palace, if I could afford it." Then he sighed sadly. "But alas, I am a poor knight and I cannot afford such things, even for my lady."

She laughed then, completely won over by his charm. She bent to murmur in his ear, her hair tickling his face, the neckline of the smock that peeked over her gown sinking to offer a tempting view of flesh. "Perhaps if you order us supper this evening, I can find a room where we can enjoy it," she said. "Come back then."

Andre felt his loins tingle in anticipation. And he held her there for one kiss on her plump cheek. "How fortunate for me, mademoiselle." Then he slapped her rump. "Now, bring us wine. I must do something to liven up my friend's spirits."

Gaucelm had watched the seduction with minor amusement. He knew that if they asked, the girl could find a friend for him. Not that his body wouldn't find release in a woman's flesh. But there was still only one woman that he craved. And she was hopelessly far away. He knew he was a fool to save himself for her. For the only way he could hope to claim her again was to arrive at her castle at the head of an army.

The girl brought wine, and the two men drank deeply. Then Andre brought up the matter of negotiations between king and pope.

"If Louis is already in command of Poitou, perhaps the Languedoc will be more easily subdued this time. What do you say, my friend? You were there."

Gaucelm lifted the corner of his mouth in irony. "I agree that

Prince Louis is a good man in the field. Though I have never fought with him, I have heard of his exploits."

Andre nodded. "He is a good leader, from what I have seen. If anyone can subdue the South, he will be the one."

"Yes," replied Gaucelm, "if anyone can. But it will not happen soon. You heard the negotiations. You know how slowly these things move. The legate must travel to Rome, and then the pope will have to consider the king's requests. It is a very large undertaking."

Andre did not miss the discouragement in his friend's tone. "Gaucelm, my man, all this winter you have been melancholy. I understand your bitterness at having secured lands in Langue-doc, only to have the rebels rise up and snatch them from you. But if Louis mounts a new crusade, surely this will be your chance to reclaim them. Does this not give you hope?"

Gaucelm gave a grunt, but smiled wearily at his friend. "Indeed, it does. And you are right, the winter months hang heavy on my hands."

"You did the king's bidding along the new borders, did you not?"

"All well and good," answered Gaucelm, "but I did not find the borders to my liking. It had been a long while since I had to speak English to gain information for the king."

"Hmmm, but you do speak Provencal now ..." Andre raised sandy brows in speculation, with more meaning behind his words than he spelled out.

"Yes," said Gaucelm, lifting his wine cup. "I do speak Provencal. And many of the southern nobility have learned French if only to defend themselves from us."

"Yes," said Andre. "I take it you became acquainted with a few among this nobility."

Gaucelm swallowed his sip of wine and shifted his body to lean one elbow on the table and gaze at the fire. "A few."

Andre gave a long sigh. "Ah, as I have been suspecting, you have been mourning these last months because of a woman."

Gaucelm did not try to hide his response. He smiled ironically. "And what if I have?"

"Hmmm," said Andre with a sad shake of the head. "The worst type of malaise. I myself love women, as you know. But there has never been one who would make me forget all else. Tell me, is this woman that you pine for of a love so great?"

Gaucelm dropped his tone of irony and knit his brows seriously. "I promised her I would return to her."

He did not add that he had done thus before he learned of her treachery regarding Simon de Montfort.

"And so you will."

"Ha!" Gaucelm exclaimed. "With an army at my back, you mean."

Andre smiled and tossed back another swallow of wine. "I see your dilemma. Perhaps she fell in love with you, but she will not forgive you if you destroy all that is hers. Something like that, hmmm?"

"You have it, my friend." Then he shook his head and lowered his voice. "But worse, even if I am again in the South and we are victorious, I am afraid she will be persecuted for her beliefs."

"Ah, you mean she is a heretic. Did she admit as much?"

"No. These southerners are very secretive about such things. To all appearances she could be a good Catholic. But I think she may have sheltered heretics nonetheless. At least that is all I suspected at the time."

His troubled frown led Andre to delve deeper. "Since you have not seen her since you marched northward, what has made you doubt her further?"

"I stole something from her, took it to remember her by, something for my comfort."

"Oh?"

His look softened and he stared into his empty cup. "Her poetry." He glanced up at Andre." She is a patron of the troubadours. But more, she writes poetry herself."

"Yes? And what is it about this poetry? Love songs, battle songs, are they not?"

Gaucelm shrugged. "I thought so at first. But as I sit by my fire and reread them, I now see meanings I did not see before."

Andre gave a quick glance over his shoulder. "Then you must keep the poetry out of the hands of our bishops. Perhaps you would be better off to burn it."

Gaucelm nodded. "It would be safer so."

The two men drank silently, the noise around them filling the background with the sounds of levity. Gaucelm knew that negotiations for another crusade could take many months. He must find something else to do in that time or go mad.

Surely his friend was right. He should burn the book of Alle-sandra's poems, lest they be stolen or fall into the wrong hands.

Fifteen

King Philip Augustus was dying. Negotiations with the pope reached a standstill as France waited to see just how soon they would have a new king. In the meantime, the kingdoms so hard won in the Holy Lands needed protecting. And Jerusalem was still in Muslim hands. And so rather than remain in He de France with nothing to do, Gaucelm took himself off as part of a badly needed contingent of Christian forces.

They rendezvoused in Cyprus and spent the next months fighting small-scale operations against the Muslims. He was part of the great invasion of Egypt and helped to capture a defensive tower on the Nile. They dredged a canal, and in November, they took Damietta. But the Christians were paralyzed by a leadership argument.

When the Egyptians blocked the supply lines from Damietta and broke the dykes to flood the surrounding land, the crusaders were doomed. They left Egypt. Once more, Gaucelm sailed home to He de France for another winter.

When Louis VIII was finally crowned, he turned to his negotiations with the pope. And so it was that the trusted knights and barons of the royal counties were again summoned to council. Gaucelm and Andre rode into the He de la Cite on a fine spring day, with a clear, azure sky and the fragrance from the royal gardens assaulting their senses.

Andre had seen the changes in his friend. Gaucelm had toughened and hardened from fighting in the East. His eyes lacked luster, and what he felt, he kept to himself. Andre could see the impatience in his friend. As if he were waiting for something, dissatisfied, biding his time.

Now they were summoned to the palace once again. Perhaps what Gaucelm had awaited more than a year would happen.

"Surely we are not summoned to hear bad news," speculated Andre. "With the weather so fine, the king will want to expand his borders."

"Hmmm," said Gaucelm. "Let us hope so."

The knights joined others of their class in the great hall. An entourage of ecclesiastics hovered beside the dais. Then the doors opened, and the men parted for King Louis.

He was a muscular warrior with thick blond hair and beard and sharp, intelligent eyes like his father's. He wasted no time, but after greeting the assembly and the pope's emissaries, he addressed them all.

"My lords and holy fathers, I welcome you here to discuss the matter that my late father, the king, was engaged upon before he passed away. It has been my purpose to continue what my father began, and in these last months I have turned all my attention to securing the borders of Poitou."

He stepped down from the dais to walk among the men, looking each in the eye, giving them the reassuring feeling that he knew them. "As it turns out, the Mother Church also has business in the South. Many of you were here when this issue was discussed with my father."

Murmurs answered him. He took his time surveying all present as if getting a sense of agreement. Then he returned to the dais, but did not mount it. "His Holiness the Pope still desires our help in routing out heresy in the South. To this end taxes imposed on the clergy have been raised to pay for such a venture."

Now the room erupted in a greater murmur and Gaucelm exchanged glances with Andre. Louis raised a hand for silence.

"We have word from the bishops in Languedoc, who still do not trust the count of Toulouse or his rebel friends. Count Raymond VI is too ill to fight, but his son Raymond VII is devoted to his father's cause. He is their leader in the field now. We could not trust the father, and we will not trust the son. Our late general, Simon de Montfort, fought well for us and died for his trouble. We will mount an expedition to the South in May this year to right that situation."

The assembly knew that the king wasn't finished speaking so withheld their cheers, but excitement passed through the room and looks of speculation and interest were exchanged.

The king now accepted a rolled parchment handed to him by the tall, confident papal legate Frosbier. Gaucelm studied him and decided he had not changed in the year and more since he'd seen him. He looked quite pleased with himself, and if anything, more ambitious. The king untied the cords that bound the scroll and then unrolled it to read the terms from it, summarizing for the assembly before him.

"To finance this crusade, beginning in the spring of this year, the king receives a tenth of ecclesiastical revenues of the French clergy for five years."

Andre whispered in Gaucelm's ear, "A large sum, eh?"

Louis continued. "We have the right to quit the crusade whenever we choose. We acquire all lands we overrun. All who participate in the crusade receive indulgences for their sins to the full extreme."

Gaucelm's mind wandered as the king went over the finer details. They were going to ride south. Already his blood began

to move again in his veins. He could feel the fatigue of travel from the Holy Lands recede from his bones and the warm winds of the South call to him. For these many months he had tried to forget Allesandra. Her face had grown vague, only a shape that still glowed in his mind. But he remembered her body in every detail. And he still recited her poetry in his mind. In the hot, arid climate of the Nile, her poetry had kept him sane when he'd despaired of life. He could not even any longer dredge up the old resentment that she had killed Simon in battle.

He did not allow himself to think that if he rode south with a crusading army that Allesandra Valtin would hate him for coming as her enemy. He had no doubt of her loyalty to her southern friends. They were enemies still. But if he came so near, surely he would at least see her. What had the year wrought for her? Would she have changed? Perhaps she was beautiful no longer, burdened as she must be by running a castle.

But no, of course her purpose would have kept her beautiful and determined. But he knew she would see him. She would not refuse such a meeting. He dared not think he might hold her in his arms again. Too much time had passed for her to yield.

He turned his mind from personal thoughts as the knights and barons mingled and talked of war. Then he left the hall and retrieved his palfrey from the king's stables. He parted from Andre once they had crossed the stone bridge.

"So," said Andre, as his horse shook out its mane. "We ride south again in two weeks. For you, my friend, I am glad. I believe that since you set eyes on those lands, you have not been the same."

Gaucelm met his friend's look with one of acknowledgment. "Indeed, now we will do Louis justice and expand his claims. I will be ready."

"Hmmm," said Andre. He knew better than to mention a certain widow of Languedoc. Besides, it was best not to test fate. If God willed it, the lady would be in Gaucelm's arms again before the fighting season was over.

"Adieu, then, until we gather on the field to march, two weeks hence," said Andre.

Gaucelm lifted a hand in parting and then gave his palfrey his head to trot north and then west into the oak and beech forest and onto his family's lands. He passed through the gatehouse and into the courtyard and was calling out for his squire before he'd dismounted. When squire William hurried out of the stables, Gaucelm clapped him on the shoulder.

"We ride south in two weeks. All must be ready."

"Very well, my lord. We shall see that your weapons are sharpened until they may split a hair."

Gaucelm gave a laugh, something he had not done in quite some time. The fine weather and a march ahead fired his blood. He followed the grooms into the stables to examine the horses. He would personally make sure that his charger, his packhorses, and palfreys would be properly shod for travel.