The troubadour's song (28 page)

She could not help her response and glanced quickly at Raymond, who would surely notice. So she whispered her recognition to him.

"That is the knight who ruled my lands under Simon de Mont-fort," she hissed in his ear.

"Ahhhh," he mouthed, and then returned his attention to studying the forces Gaucelm led.

When Gaucelm turned to look over the crowd, she ducked behind the merchant again. How desperately she wanted to let him know she was here. And yet how equally desperately she feared to.

Now he dismounted, and she could not help a surge of joy and relief. He looked strong. He moved with confidence. He was well. And then her heart contracted and she took a small breath to steady herself. It was wrong for a widow of her position to react like a silly young girl. She was infected with the love that her brother troubadours wrote of. And it was truly a sickness. A sickness and a curse.

She turned to speak again to Raymond. "I will slip into the town and up to the walls to better see them as they cross."

He nodded. "I, too, need to better assess the size of this great army."

They moved across the stone bridge, now blockaded from the

king's army, and took the stairs to find a place among the crowd lining the wall walk. The mood was tense. These people were proud; they wished to avoid confrontation. And yet there was also that air of excitement that always accompanied the unusual. But she was less aware of any of that than of her own conflicting feelings.

Below was a man who had watched her be interrogated for heresy, and yet a man with whom she shared an intimate secret. Their love had been a long time ago, and it was hopeless to nurse a flame she had tried without success to extinguish. And yet here she was, as he marched his guard across a newly constructed bridge.

Then Gaucelm glanced up once and she froze. It seemed as if he looked right at her. But of course the distance was great, and unless he knew to look for her, he could not possibly see her clearly. But her heart stopped, and somehow the certainty came to her that what was between them still lived.

"Oh, dear God," she murmured, and then looked quickly at those to either side. But Raymond could assume she was exclaiming over the fearsome army.

"Their ploy has worked," commented Raymond, standing just behind her right shoulder. "If the king follows, then Avignon is safe. They will camp a mile from here. We must wait and see for ourselves the number of their forces. It is a very large army indeed."

She turned to see the determination on his face and touched his arm. She had been daydreaming when their very lives were in the balance.

"Do not lose hope, my lord," she said.

King Louis rode toward Avignon, a glare on his otherwise fair countenance. There was no doubt as to who was king, for he rode with an escort that carried his pennants on long lances. The king's guard was arrayed in fine colors with the fleur-de-lis on their

shields and on the horses' caparisons. He did not take kindly to the news that he was not to be allowed inside the bourgeois town.

"Who are these upstarts to tell the heir of Charlemagne where I may and may not go! If one town can bar its gates to us, then so can others. And if the army cannot enter the towns, then the whole expedition is useless."

"Your point is well taken, sire," said Andre, who had the unfortunate responsibility of relaying the news about the wooden bridge.

The papal legate Frosbier rode with the army to make sure ecclesiastical requirements were met in those places that submitted to the king. Nov/, at this mark of disrespect, he fueled Louis's stubbornness. "These Avignonese have not obeyed the pope in the past, Your Majesty. This bodes ill for our crusade. I advise you to assert your authority where it is already agreed that you shall pass freely."

"Indeed," barked the king in a louder voice. "Where are these burghers who will not admit the king?"

Andre stifled a weary sigh. These petty arguments were a waste of time to a man of adventure such as he. "They await you at the foot of the bridge, sire."

"The wooden bridge, you mean to say, not the stone bridge?"

"Yes, sire. At the wooden bridge."

King Louis rode forward, back straight, head erect. His glance stung all in his way. It could be said, Andre thought, that the air vibrated with his displeasure. Rather than await the results of the encounter, he rode forward again to find Gaucelm and tell him what was about to happen. The vanguard might cross the wooden bridge, but it would be a waste of time to proceed the agreed mile to pitch their camp. They might very well be pitching camp surrounding the walls of the town until they were let in.

As it turned out, the king ordered his tent erected at the place where the way across the stone bridge and into town was blocked. The Avignonese and the army alike watched as this was done and the king went within to await the arrival of the mayor and his council. When forced to seek audience with the king, Master

Wykes and his fellows lost whatever relief they had felt at the knight Gaucelm's taking the French vanguard across.

The burghers came. The king demanded. They negotiated. For the rest of that afternoon the matter was discussed. The burghers withdrew, discussed among themselves. The king listened to his advisors, which now included Gaucelm, who had returned to wait on the king.

"I do not want to fight at Avignon," said Louis. "But there is a principle involved." He repeated all his arguments. There seemed to be an impasse.

"The towns are where the resistance lies," Louis reasserted. "We must have a show of respect here or else all is lost."

At last it appeared that he had succeeded in persuading the burghers to admit him. Not the whole army, just his own royal party. But when they prepared to go forward at last to enter the town, the way was barred. Gaucelm and Andre rode back again with the news that the gates remained shut with no orders to open them.

By that time it was evening. Torches lit the scene. Louis ranted and paced in his tent. He clenched his fist and uttered his ultimatums to lieutenants and messengers awaiting his orders. In the corner stood the ever-present and influential Frosbier.

Finally, Louis walked to the stout table in the middle of his tent and brought his fist down on it. "I will not leave this camp until Avignon is taken. That is my final word."

"A siege, my lord?" said Gaucelm.

Louis leveled his blue eyes and looked straight into those of Gaucelm. "A siege."

A murmur passed through the tent, slowly, and then Louis issued orders, which were relayed by the lieutenants to the others. Gaucelm stifled a sigh and then went out with Andre to survey the scene. The army began the task of moving from where they had stopped to surround the strong walls.

Andre glanced at his friend with a shake of the head. "Direct assaults will be impossible. There is no weakness in those walls. The ground is hard; mining will be all that much more difficult."

"Indeed," commented Gaucelm. "So we wait. Our army is so strong they won't attempt sorties to run us off. We can patrol the Rhone as well as block land approaches, but I doubt we can cut them off from all supplies."

"True enough. And if they run short of supplies, so will we, with this many mouths to feed."

Gaucelm crossed his arms and stared at the flickering torches along the wall walk and lighting the towers, spaced at intervals. "This is indeed a curious way to begin such a crusade. Let us hope that something happens to change the situation."

Andre was more skeptical. "I cannot think of what that will be."

Into the night the army wagons rolled forward carrying lumber to construct siege towers. A few arrows were hurled at them when soldiers drew too near, but little damage was done. It was simply a matter of both sides settling down to outwait the other. Gaucelm was busy riding about the camp and issuing orders to the various corps. He heard the discontent spoken in low tones behind his back as he rode on.

But Louis followed in his wake, speaking to the men as he went, attempting to rally their pride and explain why they must subdue the stubborn bourgeoisie. It was a battle of wills all the way around.

Andre rode with Gaucelm, doing his duty, but gazing wistfully at the town. He was an urban man and always liked to sample the delights of new places. Bored with the camp followers, he sadly rued that they could not go inside and find a pleasant wine shop. When they rode back to their own tent, Andre said, "It is too bad that we cannot find our way in. Do you not think the king needs some spies? I've a keen desire to get in there, disguised as a bargeman. Do you not think we could better assess their strength and their stores if we made ourselves welcome in a tavern and found the company of some wenches who would talk?"

"You dream," was Gaucelm's reply. "You do not speak their language. They would spot you for what you are."

But Andre's imagination was on fire, as were his loins at the contemplation of some pretty, clean Avignonese women. While Gaucelm had been busy with negotiations, he had gazed into the crowd and had seen some pretty faces. Some had even returned his gaze openly. And he did not believe they would be so prejudiced that he was a Frenchman. These southern troubadours wasted time writing poetry about love to woo their women. Andre had always found women to be more responsive to direct means of expressing his feelings.

"Hmmm," he said, his mind already conjuring a plan. "I do not speak their language, it is true. But you do."

Seventeen

It took only a moment for Andre's proposal to take shape in Gaucelm's mind.

"I do not know that we would gain as much going as spies as if we went as envoys."

Andre stuck a length of reed into his mouth and chewed disconsolately on it. "The king is obstinate. You heard the negotiations. Neither he nor the burghers will give an inch."

"That is true. But perhaps that was because the confrontation was so public. Tempers were high. If both sides have a chance to think on this, they will see the unreasoning behind a lengthy siege. I have not given up hope that a compromise might be reached."

"What do you propose to do?"

Gaucelm glanced behind him at the king's tent, set far enough away so as to be in no danger from the missiles hurled from the city walls.

"Louis will not send us officially. I think, my friend, that we must do as you suggest and go unofficially."

Andre broke into a smile. "And once we are inside?"

"We will seek out the mayor, Master Wykes, and see if we can arrange a private talk with him."

"I like the idea, of course," said Andre. "But do you think it will really help?"

Gaucelm shrugged without enthusiasm. The lines in his face that he had worn since the beginning of this venture seemed permanently carved there.

"We must attempt to put sense into the king's head as well as into these Avignonese," he said. Then his mood lightened slightly as he glanced at Andre. "If it is adventure you want, it seems that the only way to have it will be to do as you suggest and enter the city disguised as bargemen bringing supplies to the beleaguered city."

Andre lifted curious brows. "Well, now, in that case, I believe I best set about finding us a barge and some clothes. Meet me at the western gate of our camp a quarter of a mile north of the bridge just after sundown."

Gaucelm clapped him on the shoulder. "I've no doubt of your resourcefulness. I will be there."

"There will have to be a distraction to get us past our own forces. Perhaps you can arrange a threat that will distract the men blockading the suburb that sprawls on the other side of the river. If we can get through, and get the attention of the citizens on the walls, they'll help us get in that way, for they'll need the supplies we will bring."

Gaucelm queried with arched brows, "And where will you get such supplies?"

"Leave that to me."

Gaucelm spent the next few hours seeing to the arrangements of the siege. But here and there when no one noticed, he strolled to the line of horses tied behind the baggage wagons at a position just where he and Andre would have to break through. He didn't think of it as sabotaging his own army; rather, he was taking matters into his own hands and intervening, because if he did

not, thousands would eventually sicken and starve and time would be wasted.

Sundown found him in his tent where he disrobed down to the short, loose linen breeches, and his padded gambeson, a tunic worn beneath the mail hauberk. He instructed William to see to the tears in his hauberk and to oil and soap his saddle while he went to bathe in the river.

As the camp settled in for the evening, and the women who followed the camp slipped about preparing food and other comforts for their men, Gaucelm left for his rendezvous at river's edge. Carrying towels and ajar of soap, he appeared to be going to bathe. If one wondered why he also carried short bow and a quiver of arrows, it might be supposed that he took weapons to protect himself from any possible ambush.

He passed through the western opening to the river between the earthworks the men had thrown up and continued upriver for a quarter of a mile. When he clambered down the bank and divested himself of the gambeson, he did indeed walk into the water.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a low-floating barge gliding in his direction. Its barrels were stacked high, and it wasn't until it glided up to where he stood that the cloaked bargeman could be seen pushing the barge along with his long pole. As soon as Andre revealed himself, Gaucelm grinned.

"I won't ask how you came by this vessel and its contents," he said. He tossed in his quiver and bow and then hoisted himself aboard. Andre nodded toward a bundle, which turned out to be tunic and cloak for disguise.

"It wasn't difficult to persuade the owner to hire me to take his goods inside when I said I had a way to get past the French lines."

Gaucelm gave a knowing chuckle as he donned the merchant's attire that would make them fit in inside the town. What they attempted was quite serious, and his own skills as informer and negotiator just might possibly help lift this siege before time and