If a person, man or woman, eats or drinks a love enchantment, then plantain juice, with or without water, should be given to him to drink. Later, he should take some strong drink, and he will be purged inside and be relieved.
At last, Estela had completed her duties and could seek out her old friend, to catch up on all the news he brought. She pricked a pattern of holes in a doomed piece of linen to look busy while she waited in a window-seat, her attention straying out of the window-slits. Below, the marketeers were packing up their goods into carts while donkeys waited patiently. So patiently in fact that they showed no interest in moving once the carts were laden. The routine curses and thwacking of sticks followed and then the train started off towards the gate, heading out of the town.
Estela imagined the farms and settlements in the countryside where the traders milked goats and cows, grew vines, kept sheep. What would happen to them all if Les Baux went to war against Barcelone once again? She knew from Sancha the damage caused before the truce, each side burning crops and killing livestock to stop the other profiting; peasants and tradesmen being taxed by both sides to pay for soldiers, armour and weapons. Bleeding the land. Not a healthy purge in her professional opinion but a cause of death if not stopped.
And yet, Sancha was willing to see such carnage again, for the sake of the Baux ‘right’ to Provence. Sancha, who fainted at the thought of blood, never mind the sight of it, wanted war. It made no sense. Was this the proper way for a lady to think? To cheer her knight on to war from the sidelines of a sewing-room like a spectator at a tourney?
She stabbed the linen again, noting that the pattern was like that on her oud and would be very pretty - if Sancha did the embroidery. But no lady could stay in the sewing-room if there really was war. Sancha must know that too. War for ladies meant taking on the management and defence of the stronghold if the lord was out in the field; making the most of the old men, women and children, who were the only people left to carry out that defense; bearing arms yourself if you could; and of course in defeat, everyone knew what would happen to a lady! Sancha most of all! No, it made no sense that anybody would want war.
‘My Lady? I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long - Barcelone detained me. It seems everybody wants my news.’ De Rançon bowed low, the double imprint of his lips warm on her hand. His rueful smile suited a face that was still boyish, northern in its regular features, framed by honey-brown curls. And those eyes. Rings of clear colour, no colour, changing colours; sparkling like a magical spell in a fairy-tale. Even when a girl had spent months with him as a travelling companion, had camped in a forest and shared secrets with him, those eyes still held a glamour. Especially when her lover’s best friend looked at her with such devotion. As was due to Dragonetz’ lady, of course.
Estela remembered that she was annoyed. She did not need to be polite or careful with somebody who’d witnessed her seasickness. ‘You shouldn’t have offered the poppy to Dragonetz! It’s hard enough for him to forego it without the temptation being put under his nose when he’s had such a blow! And couldn’t you have told him such news more privately?!’
The rueful expression deepened and the eyes dulled. ‘You know Aliénor. She charged me with the message, to be given in public - made me swear an oath. All I could think was that it would be better from me than from somebody else, who might twist the words. And then I would be here to help him, afterwards.’
Estela did indeed know Aliénor, guessed at what de Rançon was too proud to say, that he’d been threatened with disgrace himself if he disobeyed. She imagined Aliénor’s rage and de Rançon being the nearest target. Mollified, she contented herself with, ‘Yes, I know Aliénor, and I can understand that you were under orders.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean as to the poppy. It’s a medicine. I thought he might need a calming potion for sleep after such bad news.’
Estela sighed. She herself had been just as innocent in the past, before hearing from a young Arab boy what the results of regular use would be, before witnessing those effects in Dragonetz, before fighting for his life - against Dragonetz himself.
She gave de Rançon a summary of the poppy’s dangers and asked him to give her his supply, so she could lock it away with the other poisons. Of course, he agreed, clearly impressed by her status as physician. The matter concluded to her satisfaction, Estela interrogated him about the news from the north.
‘So Aliénor has married Henri of Anjou.’
‘The King of England,’ corrected de Rançon, twinkling.
‘Do you think he will be? What manner of man is he? How does he compare with her last king?’
‘You’re worse than Barcelone and Etiennette combined!’ laughed de Rançon, fending off the battery of questions. ‘Primo, yes, I think he might get his wish - and live to regret it. Henri is fiery, a fighter with his own men and now all of Aquitaine to back him. Stephen’s star is fading. He cannot fight off Henri forever and the claim is good; he’s Stephen’s nephew, the Empress Mathilde’s son and strong in his own territories. He owns more Frankish land than King Louis does! So yes, I think we shall see Henri King of England and Aliénor Queen.’
He raised a second finger. ‘Secundus. He is as red-headed as she and there are sparks. It is a good political marriage but not a cold one. Becoming king is an obsession. He needs Aquitaine but he’s happy to have Aliénor too.’
He ticked off the third answer. ‘Tertio. Aliénor has more satisfaction of her new husband than her old.’ He glanced at Estela, teasing again. ‘But I can’t give you more details.’ She flushed. That wasn’t what she’d meant. Was it? ‘Whether she births another girl or gives him the boys they need, we’ll see.’
Boys, thought Estela. Plural. A man needs boys. Her insides twisted into a knot. ‘Aliénor has always wanted to be mother to a king,’ she said, ‘to rule through her son.’ A memory stirred, back in Narbonne, the Gyptian studying Aliénor’s cards, prophesying kings, a tower… Well, if de Rançon was right, Aliénor already had her second king lined up! Aliénor, married to Anjou.
Another thought jumped into her mind. ‘England might be more comfortable than Anjou,’ she observed. ‘Is it true that Aliénor was once closer to Henri’s father than is seemly?’
‘Swived him you mean?’ Accompanied by a dazzling smile, that filled his eyes, De Rançon’s crudity was amusing but also disconcerting.
‘Do tell,’ prompted a familiar voice.
‘Dragonetz,’ Estela stammered. ‘I was asking for news of Aliénor.’
‘And getting an interesting response, my love.’ Her lover stood, something of the goshawk in his pose as he loomed over the couple perched on the window-seat.
‘So serious, Dragonetz, and quite right too! Finding us snug in our little corner, looking like a pair courting, anybody would think I’d been kissing your irresistible lady.’ The very words tinged Estela’s cheeks with a memory that flitted into view, slight as a butterfly but brushing against Dragonetz as it flew. As surely as if he’d spoken, Estela saw him make the connection and realise that she had kissed de Rançon. Once, she told him silently. And you were so far away, for so long
‘And did she?’ he asked, patiently, just the slight tightening of his jaw telling someone who knew him well how angry he was.
De Rançon pursed his lips in comic judgement. ‘Possibly,’ he concluded, ‘though I’d wager more on the uncle in Antioch as a certainty. You know Aliénor.’
Dragonetz just nodded. He reached for Estela’s hand, kissed it and asked, ‘My Lady? When you have finished your gossiping, perhaps you would care to ride with me?’
Estela just nodded, the trace of lips burning her treacherous hand. She didn’t take in one further word spoken by de Rançon before she excused herself and donned her riding skirt.
This time, the ride was silent and their love-making fierce. Estela met her lover’s urgency with her own fire but when she lay in his arms afterwards, what she felt was guilt. That was when he asked her the question that was not a question. ‘He kissed you.’
She confessed into the black hairs of his chest, ‘No. I kissed him. Once. On the voyage to the Holy Land. He behaved as your friend should, with courtesy, and escorted me back to my cabin - the only cabin on the ship.’
‘Once is too often.’ His arm remained around her, steadier than his voice.
She said, ‘And you?’ They both knew what he had done in the Holy Land.
‘That’s different.’
Is it? she thought. And would it be different to marry the Lady of Les Baux? How far would ‘difference’ take a man? She rolled out of his arms and straightened her clothes.
‘I will sleep in my chamber tonight, keep Vertat with me,’ he told her. ‘I need to think.’
Instantly, her thoughts flew to a locked cupboard. He read her face. ‘No,’ he told her gently, taking both her hands in his. She could feel the musician’s calluses on his long, tapering fingers, as surely he could on hers. Twin souls. He wiped the tear that escaped her control. ‘No, I will not seek the poppy.’
‘I made de Rançon give me his store and it is locked away where you cannot reach it without robbing Malik’s dead body for the key.’ There had been a time he would not have hesitated to do so.
He smoothed her hair back from her face, putting the strands back under her coif. Then he cupped her chin, tilting her face up so she must meet his eyes. ‘You did well. It is hard for me not to kill him, you know.’ He ran his fingers over her mouth then kissed her. She knew he didn’t mean Malik. She had been right to hide Hugues’ assault from her lover. If he reacted this way to a kiss, what would he do if he knew his host had behaved with such discourtesy? For a moment, Estela weighed the power she held over Les Baux and Provence. But she was no Helen of Troy.
‘It was my fault,’ she repeated. ‘He did nothing wrong.’
‘Let him keep it that way,’ Dragonetz said, with Damascan steel in his tone.
‘Then you’ll come to me tonight?’
‘No.’ Still gentle. Most dangerous when gentle. ‘I do need to think. It has been a difficult couple of days.’ His tone lightened and he squeezed her. The first sign of play. ‘And you are most distracting, my love. When a man needs to plan his tactics for a tourney, a goshawk is a better aid in focusing the mind.’
‘Should I be jealous, my Lord?’
‘Never,’ he told her. ‘But make sure that I am not.’
When Estela found a posy of bright flowers on her bed, she knew all was well between her and Dragonetz, even if he kept his nights to himself. Like the smiling faces of young maids-in-waiting, the multi-coloured pansies gave her their message.
‘Thoughts,’ she mused aloud. ‘Thinking of you, bright colours, happy thoughts, heartsease.’ The hours spent in ladies’ company had not been wasted and she could speak the language of flowers as well as she could identify their medicinal properties.
Von Bingen had no use for pansies but Estela’s mother had made tisanes of the wild tricolour flowers to soothe coughing. A good choice from Dragonetz, she decided, and the flowers did indeed ease her aching heart. She was surprised he hadn’t chosen blue flowers, his colour, but otherwise the gesture was perfect.
She pinned one pansy to her gown, to show appreciation, and pulled the petals off all the others to use medicinally. She tied them into a square of muslin and took them to her dispensary, where she boiled some water and added the muslin bag. She added some of her precious stock of sugar as sweetener.
Since Aliénor had brought sugar back from the Holy Land to Narbonne, Estela had taken to the white substance and often used it instead of honey. In fact, she liked sugar so much that she wondered whether it had qualities like the poppy and she was becoming an addict.
Her train of thought led her back to Dragonetz and his problems. Was he really as strong as he claimed? He’d survived all manner of horror in war and capture but his reputation had always been untarnished. Dragonetz ‘los Pros’, ‘the brave’. Did men now call him oath-breaker behind his back? Surely he must be wondering the same thing.
‘Mother Mary and all the saints!’ she swore as the pot frothed brown on the crucible. She grabbed a gauntlet stuffed with rags, that she kept for the purpose, and moved the pan onto the cold stone in the fireplace, where the mixture sizzled and spat.
Stirring with the wooden spoon and cursing her lack of attention, Estela watched the bubbles die back and the brew settle to a clear liquid. She lifted the spoon out of the goo and let the liquid drip back, drop by drop. Except it didn’t. They drops hung like tears, like dew, like pearls but they stuck to the spoon, dangling. All very interesting.
Estela put a spoonful onto a platter to let it cool quickly. Then she tasted it, briefly wondering what Dragonetz would say if she died during one of her chemical experiments.
‘It’s good! May I be turned into a scorpion for basil-sniffing if this isn’t the best tasting potion ever!’ Wondering how long the miracle would stay syrupy in consistency, and, if it did stay syrupy, how long such a product would keep, Estela started planning further experiments. She couldn’t wait to tell Malik.
This was a sign that she had made the right decision; she was meant to be an apothecary, maybe even an alchemist. The change of base metal to gold must be similar to what she had just seen; bubbles and magic.