If someone is regularly tormented by false dreams, he should have betony leaves with him when he goes to bed, and he will see and feel fewer false dreams.
Geoffroi had spent three years planning how to avenge his father and make Dragonetz pay. Three years wasted. Lives wasted. He’d relished the prospect of Dragonetz’ pain on learning what had happened to Muganni, and who was responsible. Now the moment had come, he tasted only ashes. He’d made the morrow’s duel inevitable but he no longer wanted it. He was sorry that Maria would not have her wedding but she was well provided for. Amid all that he was sorry for, Maria’s disappointment figured small.
His will had been made a year ago and lodged with a notary in Poitiers. He saw no reason to change his requirements. His request might seem strange but should pose no problems in these times when bodies were often prepared in the Eastern way, to travel long distances home, without putrefaction. The only part of his dead body that mattered would be taken where it truly belonged. If he no longer existed in his parents’ eyes, the manner of his leaving this world was of no concern to them. Or to the new little heir, the replacement Geoffroi de Rançon. Maybe this was how it was meant to be.
He took the copy of his will from its place alongside the letter from his father and sent it by messenger to a lawyer in Les Baux, along with coin to compensate for knocking him up at night to receive a scroll ‘in case of need’.
Perhaps he would win the duel. Neither he nor Dragonetz knew who was the better swordsman. The only time they’d fought in earnest, they’d been interrupted and Dragonetz hampered by the effects of the poppy. De Rançon thought he could win, knew he had different techniques and skills from his taller adversary. However, unlike that adversary, he knew his own biggest weakness, the one most like to kill him. He didn’t want to win.
He had stopped planning. He did not recognise the man he’d been since he joined his father in disgrace. He knew the man he’d been today, remembered him from the past and would never part from him again. Maybe instinct would take over in the duel and fight for him. Maybe not. He rolled a word around on his tongue and liked the sound of it. Inshallah.
‘Geoffroi? Did I do wrong? You told me not to show anybody but I thought it would be all right to show your friend, now we are to be married.’ Maria was already in his bed, anxious and pretty, like her in looks only. Yet Geoffroi had told the truth in that too. He had given her up. In the real world at least and a man’s bedchamber fantasies were his own business - and Maria’s. As she well understood.
‘You did nothing wrong, dear heart,’ he reassured her, removing his tunic.’ I am but roughly washed after combat,’ he warned. ‘The buckets had too many men wanting their use and not enough boys fetching them. Even the horse troughs were already taken. And Dragonetz is quite right - the lack of water is the castle’s weakness. It could never withstand a summer siege.’
If Maria had been an Estela, she would have noticed his naming of Dragonetz; like a man mentioning his mistress to his wife, an inflection of new love, of guilt, of betrayal. Instead, Maria licked the sweat from his arm. ‘Come to bed,’ she said, as the thunder rumbled. ‘You can wash clean in the rain afterwards, when the storm breaks.’
They were betrothed now and there could be nothing sinful in their union. Any child conceived this night would be blessed, Geoffroi was sure of it. He wanted to share his sense of peace, of rightness, of a new life, with this sweet girl who wanted only to please him.
He was especially tender with her, taking his time, giving her license to play, to invent. She was a fast learner and they were both lathered with sweat in the gathering pressure as he gave way to the storm. The pleasure-rush was more intense than any he’d known, driving him to scream, ‘Estela!’ before the second wave overtook him, pain crashing into his head without mercy, breaking him into a million pieces with no name, split open by lightning.
The storm
outside broke and
daggers of rain slanted through the window but the sudden cool
brought no relief to Geoffroi de Rançon. Maria began to
wail.
A boy’s sweet soprano opened the hymn and all hearts, his Latin accented with Arabic. Dragonetz knew he should work on this, correct his pupil but he found it endearing.
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…
A soul opened in joy, through song, the very essence of a hymn. A moment of bliss. Then the other voices took up the lyric, at war with each other, jarring - again! Dragonetz was hoarse from shouting instructions. Didn’t they feel the music?
The harmonies? How could they sing like frogs when the music they’d been given was heavenly! They should chime in with the boy’s sweetness, cherish it, move through the lyric from love to justice. This was the verse that should be strong, ominous, some minors. The verse when the boy’s voice should fade.
Quando autem malum ad te gladium suum educit
tu illud in cor illius refringis
sicut in primo perdito angelo fecisti
ubi turrim superbie illius
in infernum deiecisti.
When evil draws its sword on you,
you turn it back into its black heart
as you did to the fallen angel
in the beginning
hurling his tower of pride
down into hell.
The boy, lost, drowned out by those who were stronger. Angry tears streamed down Dragonetz’ cheeks, unchecked, pooling in streams at his feet as he conducted the invisible, inadequate choir. Water rose into a whirling tower, whipped his naked body. Hell’s thunder crashed into the lyrics, pounding, regular.
Dragonetz woke, sweating and confused, convinced the stones moved and the castle was tumbling. There was barely a second between a deafening roar from the skies and the lightning, forking the room vivid pink. Vertat bated in the wild light, then cowered on her perch, shivering and mewing. As his eyes recovered from the blinding flash, Dragonetz saw the door open a crack, then quickly close again at the hawk’s angry reaction. The regular pounding began again. Not thunder but somebody thumping on the door.
‘Dragonetz? For the love of Allah, move that bird and let me in.’
Malik. ‘I’m awake. Give me a moment.’ Dragonetz fumbled a candle alight, sheltered it from the storm gusts behind his clothes-coffer. He threw on the tunic discarded by the bed the night before and he weighed up the distance between his gloves, an outraged hawk and her hood.
‘When I yell ‘Now’ open the door a crack to distract her and I’ll hood the hawk,’ he called to his friend. Then he waited out another blast of thunder. There was no point trying to hood the hawk while she bated, especially given the exercise required to reach gloves and hood. He cursed his efficiency in making the manoeuvre so difficult.
‘Now!’ he called. The door opened, the hawk screeched at the intrusion. Dragonetz dived, briefly aware of the parts of his body exposed to claws and beak. Gloves; hood; covered; tied. Complaining more quietly, quickly reassured by the familiar darkness, Vertat clutched the perch as Dragonetz shifted the wooden stand enough to allow Malik into the chamber.
He must have taken in the arrangement; the hawk’s stand blocking the door but he made no comment. Unlike Dragonetz, he was fully dressed, in white robe and neatly wound turban, and carrying his box of medicines. He sat down on the bed. Dragonetz sat beside him and they waited out the next burst of thunder. There was a longer pause this time and less violence in the jagged spear of light.
‘Geoffroi de Rançon is dead,’ Malik said. ‘I was called as physician. I wanted to tell you myself. I am truly sorry that you have lost your friend.’ Another friend, he meant.
‘How?’ asked Dragonetz, his mind still reeling from song and storm. This time he wanted to know how, in detail. And then to understand why.
‘Maria was there. She is too shocked to make much sense but it seems he had some kind of seizure. He had been complaining that the storm was inside his head.’
Dragonetz had to ask. ‘Do you think he might have… by his own hand? Poison perhaps?’
Malik glanced at him, taken aback. ‘I have no reason to think so. Everybody knows how much honour he gained from today’s tourney and it’s obvious how much he cares for you, how good you are together on the field.’ He corrected himself. ‘Cared for you.’ He hesitated. They too were good together in the field. ‘Dragonetz, is there something else?’
The urge to speak, to share the terrible burden with a friend was stronger than poppy addiction but Dragonetz controlled this too. What was it Malik and Estela always told him, about the physician’s creed? First do no harm.
‘Estela,’ he said at last. ‘De Rançon and she were close. This will be hard for her. I don’t know whether it will come better from you or from me but she should be told by one of us before she hears passing gossip.’
Malik nodded. ‘You’re right. I will go to her now, and stay with her until you return. As his only friend in this court, somebody who knows his family, I think you should check his affairs, see if there’s anything personal that needs to be done, before the formalities begin. Talk to Maria.’
Not willing to explain why he was the wrong person, Dragonetz accepted the duty. As Commander of Aliénor’s guard, he had arranged a man’s effects often enough. One more letter to write, notifying family. One more tearful woman, to be given food and shelter. One more set of last wishes to make a man aware of how little we all are, how little we can truly call ours. A ring, a lock of hair, a wooden dog. By such stuff are memories kept alive.
Fully dressed in leggings, tunic and tabard, Dragonetz followed the page and flickering lantern to de Rançon’s chamber. Maria was not there, for which he was grateful. He would assure her welfare in the morning. He let the boy light and take a candle then dismissed him, closing the door on all but himself and a ghost. The lantern burned strong, throwing light on the meagre possessions of a travelling knight.
It didn’t take Dragonetz long to sort through the contents of the coffer and re-pack everything for Maria to keep or distribute. The signet ring, he would send to de Rançon’s parents, with a letter penned by Dragonetz and signed by Etiennette. It was unlikely that de Rançon Senior would take kindly to any missive from Dragonetz, let alone one informing him of his son’s death. The leather pouch, Dragonetz kept till last, hesitating as to whether he should read its contents or not.
Finally, only this one task remained and he sat, contemplating de Rançon’s private letters. It was unlikely that Maria could read so, even if the judgement of such a woman could be trusted, she could make no sensible decision about the letters. A man had the right to his last wishes and they might be expressed in one of these letters. Somebody should read them in private.
But this was his enemy’s lair. What if there were details here about Muganni’s murder? How could he read such things and bear to continue living? What if Estela saw them?
He could just burn them. Too bad if there were last wishes that went unread - Muganni’s last wishes had counted for naught. But de Rançon was Aliénor’s official messenger. What if there were orders or news here that might make a difference to Aliénor’s campaign? Dragonetz still felt the allegiance he no longer owed. He certainly wouldn’t risk any damage coming to Aliénor from these letters getting into the wrong hands.
Decision taken, he started reading. And continued. He read the letter from father to son twice, then put it in the fireplace, touched a candle to the lantern and set the paper alight. He watched the paper flare and turn to ashes, singing softly.
tu eam citius in igne
comburis cum volueris
your fire purges all ill
as is your will.
In the dark fireplace, Dragonetz saw two young knights eager to fight a holy war for their beloved Aliénor; saw fathers and sons; saw hate that festered and ate its own young like a pelican. He heard Geoffroi’s light baritone in duet with Estela and was no longer jealous listening; they were two people who had travelled far together, in friendship. Both had risked their lives to save his.
The fallen angel in his tower of pride: de Rançon or himself? Or all men, one way or another. He could not forgive but he could almost understand. Their paths had too much in common not to feel the pain of his comrade’s tortured choices. Dragonetz let all his ghosts sing to him in the darkened fireplace as he waited for his decision to come to him. Some accused him as he accused de Rançon; others offered him only love and these were the ones who hurt him most. But he listened anyway, until he was sure. The last words that rang in his mind, after all the others faded, were, ‘I’d have followed her to the ends of the earth.’
Dragonetz could find no will or last words, no further letters that would call de Rançon’s honour into question, though it sounded like his parents were like enough to do that without help. Or maybe the new Geoffroi de Rançon would grow straight and tall, without the crippling of spirit suffered by his brother. In the end, Dragonetz had not been called upon to judge. He would not do so in the absence of the accused. ‘What a waste,’ murmured Dragonetz as he left the room to go to Estela.
He found her red-eyed and white-faced but she made the effort to smile weakly at him. ‘That green tabard with yellow hose makes you look like an Italian herald,’ she told him, her eyes filling up once more. ‘I can’t speak of him.’ She buried her face in his shoulder and he hoped she took comfort in his arms.
‘Geoffroi would have hated my poor taste in clothes,’ he observed, seeking to lance the wound, and assuming that more crying was a desirable effect. He was dry-eyed, a gnarled black lump for a heart. He could feel the solid, poisonous weight of it. He looked over her head at Malik, who was still there, true to his word. ‘Maria had gone, no doubt to her family. I found no last words or will. I’ll make provision for Maria and send word to Geoffroi’s family tomorrow.’
Malik nodded. ‘I need to send for the laying-out boards and notify the sextant. The sooner a grave is dug the better. It’s too hot to wait.’
‘A day and a night, for those who wish to keep vigil?’
‘There is only you.’
‘Then don’t wait. I have made my peace this evening.’
‘Your peace?’ Estela picked up on the odd phrase, looking up at him, her golden eyes red-rimmed.
‘Peace with his death,’ he told her gently. ‘There was nothing anybody could do to save him. And today he shone bright. He will not be forgotten in Les Baux.’ Her sobs stopped any further investigation of his feelings but he knew that was temporary and he must prepare his words better.
Malik slipped out and Dragonetz took Estela to bed, found comfort in her warmth. The rain was now steady, clattering on the cobbles below and the wind had eased. Somewhere far away, the thunder still rumbled. ‘Are you awake?’ he whispered.
‘Yes.’
‘I have decided.’
‘About Provence?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because of the tourney?’
‘Partly.’ The tourney seemed a lifetime ago. ‘Mostly because of Geoffroi. Something he said helped me decide.’
‘Whatever you do, wherever you go, I will be there with you.’
A tremor, some tension in her voice told him she was afraid of what she might have to face, being there with him. Something from earlier in the day nagged at him, something that affected Estela but he couldn’t quite bring it to mind.
‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘I need you with me.’ And then he told her what he had decided. Her reaction was unexpected.
‘I thought you were going to marry Lady Etiennette.’ Her voice was barely audible.
Hugues. The accusation, the resentment. Of course, if Hugues had heard snippets of conversation then so had Estela.
‘Why didn’t you tell me she’d asked you?’ Estela asked.
‘Because it didn’t matter. It was just a complication not a possibility.’
‘You should share things with me.’
‘Yes, I should,’ he agreed, the black lump in his heart calcifying. He reconsidered her words. ‘You would stay at my side, even if I marry Etiennette.’
‘I would have,’ she emphasised, ‘but I’ve changed my mind. You missed your chance.’