Estela knew how much she’d changed and she felt ugly, as if she was a huge impostor, but the guests at table were looking at her as they always had, confident that their songster would complete a pleasant evening in the Great Hall of Dia. She gave an involuntary gasp, then hid it in an emotional rendering of the next verse. If her audience was surprised at the intensity of their troubadour’s feeling for a shy maiden being wooed and won, so much the better. After only six months entertaining the Diois lords at the court of Comte Isoard, surprise was already Estela’s hallmark.
As her voice soared for ‘No m platz plus’, she mentally admonished the source of the gasp, ‘Little trouble-maker!’ When the next fierce kick came inside her, followed by a punch and ripple as the baby changed position, she was ready for him - or her - and didn’t miss a note.
As she sang of Rudel’s ‘amor de lonh,’ his far-away love, she thought of her own and there were tears in her own eyes as well as her listeners’ as she finished the tale of doomed love. How wonderful that Rudel had managed to see the lady he’d dreamed of, for whom his song was written, even if it had been to die in her arms. How romantic.
The baby kicked her again, hard. If this was the result of being in a lover’s arms, she would never ever again let a man near her unless he was wearing full body armour. She would get herself a chastity belt and let the dog keep the key attached to a spiked collar.
She glanced at the huge white fur-mat half-lying under the trestle table where she’d recently finished eating. Nici’s eyes were shut in the comfortable dreams of a dog who’d scavenged his fill of under-table scraps and was now blissfully unaware that he’d cleared five people away from his end of the table, using a combination of ripe dog smells and sheer physical occupation of space. No-one ever liked to move Nici.
From the moment he’d run away from home and found Estela doing likewise, he’d assumed they were a good team and, somehow, she’d never convinced him otherwise. Nor was she going to convince him that he should be guarding sheep like a good patou, and wearing the spiked collar. A complete failure, he’d liked people too much to stay out in the fields. So the chastity belt plan was doomed too. And yet there was no shortage of wolves in the Vercors mountains, requiring both Nici and Estela to stay on guard.
Estela glanced round the hall as she curtseyed the end of her performance, accepting the tribute she had come to expect. Tonight she had sung others’ compositions, but as her confidence and reputation grew, she included her own work in her repertoire more often. She could rely on any of Dragonetz’ songs to warm up the audience - and usually the baby! - or to rescue a choice that fell flat. People wanted novelty yet responded to what was familiar so Estela had learned to include only one or two new songs, and repeat those in her regular programme a few times, before adding more.
After the first performance of her ‘Song of Arnaut and al-Hisba’, she had cried herself breathless in her room; her greatest work, her most personal work, received with disapproving mutters. And she had lain awake, remembering all Dragonetz taught her, all al-Hisba had taught her, remembering Arnaut’s love for his friend - and for her.
Then she’d sung it again, the token Arnaut had worn as her knight, a talisman around her neck. This time the murmur had a different note in it. Then, another night, she’d sung it again, and seen people mouthing the words with her, singing along. The evening someone called out, ‘Sing us the one about Arnaut and the Moor’, she knew she’d won, and not just for herself.
That evening, Estela had looked to where her men were sitting, her self-appointed guardians; Gilles, who’d saved her life and paid for it with his right hand, finding and following her with the same loyalty as Nici; and Raoulf, Arnaut’s father, his shaggy black head lowered to hide his face as Estela sang a song of love and courage, brotherhood across the divide of race and creed. It was Gilles who told her, ‘That was well done, Roxie,’ using the real name of her childhood that she’d abandoned for her troubadour persona. Raoulf couldn’t speak beyond a gruff grunt and nod, but that was more than enough.
If she never composed another song, this one had brought her all the reward she could ever want, easing her own heart in carrying the debt she could never repay. They were all changed, she, Gilles, Raoulf and Dragonetz - wherever he might be. Even al-Hisba, or Malik as she ought to call him now she knew his name, had tangled his life with theirs before he returned to some fabulous inheritance in al-Andalus - or wherever he might be now.
A summer in Narbonne had come and gone with the swallows, leaving Estela in the mountain fortress of Dia, troubadour to its young heiress, Bèatriz, alone but for her serving-men and a large white dog, and about to give birth to Dragonetz’ child. She’d followed his advice at their forced parting, attached herself to Bèatriz’ party and returned with them from Narbonne to Dia, in anticipation of Bèatriz’ marriage.
The serious fourteen-year-old whose musical talents Estela had encouraged, had grown into a young woman who spoke only of duty but still sang of love. She had been betrothed at seven, so was perfectly prepared for her highly suitable marriage to a local Comte, Guilhelm de Poitiers. She could explain at length to Estela the importance of joining her future lands to those of the Comte, which fell under the sovereignty of the Holy Roman Emperor, not of France like her own. But for all her political astuteness, Bèatriz was also a fifteen-year-old who’d tasted the sophistication of Narbonne.
She’d witnessed the court of Ermengarda, not just the intricacies of trade and alliances, but the quality of everyday life, and of the music there. The Court of Love. So they’d called it when they’d staged an elaborate entertainment, part-show and part-debate, dazzling with wit and beauty, attended by the young troubadours whose names were already passed from one stronghold to the next. Whose names had touched lightly on Bèatriz, herself a young troubadour to be reckoned with, apart from one. A spark between like minds, a flame catching between a girl’s serious brown eyes and a man’s, full of laughter. Raimon d’Aurenja. If Bèatriz spoke the name, it was quickly, before it could burn her. Estela had seen the looks, interpreted what wasn’t said, and understood all that went into her young mistress’ songs.
And here they both were in Dia, incarcerated in grey stone, ringed with snow-capped mountains. A city solid in ancient inland values, not dancing with the newest fashions that were rushed by the traders from port to palace, as in Narbonne. There had been thick snow for months in Dia and even though the bluebells could be seen round the woods, this far north was still cold, at a time when Narbonne would be shaking the lavender bags out of silk gowns. Here, the women were still wearing their furs, making it easy for Estela to conceal her growing belly under voluminous winter clothing, even as close to the birth as she was now. A month, she thought, if all went well. And then? As always, her mind hit a wall. Other than there being a baby, she could not imagine her life afterwards.
Some day in the future, she and Dragonetz would be together, arm-in-arm, while a small child played on the grass beside his proud parents, but how she would get from where she was today to this appealing scenario, she had no idea. As things stood, she was married to a vassal of Ermengarda’s, a man she’d seen once, on her wedding day, and who would be the nominal father of the baby she carried, despite never having touched her. Dragonetz had no idea she was pregnant.
When she’d first found out, she’d contemplated sending Gilles or Raoulf to find him, with the signet ring he’d given to her ‘for protection in need.’ He’d said, ‘Send it to me and I will come to you no matter where I am or what I do,’ and how she had longed to summon him. Then she had thought what it would mean for Dragonetz. His return Oltra mar, on some mission from the Jews, was his only chance of paying off the enormous sum he’d borrowed to build the paper mill. His absence from Narbonne was all that was keeping him safe from his enemies, Toulouse, the Archbishop, the Church itself, all conspirators in destroying his dream. Al-Hisba - Malik as she must think of him - had been right, and she would not be the one to drag her lover back from his quest for honour, into danger.
She fingered the chain round her neck, the one Arnaut had been wearing when he died. Once, it had carried the bangle she had given him as token. Now it held Dragonetz’ ring. Tokens and reminders, friendship and love.
‘My lady?’ Raoulf interrupted her endless mill-race of thoughts.
She managed a smile for him. She would always manage a smile for him. The scowl lines of his bear-like face softened and he spoke for her alone to hear, amidst the hubbub of the Great Hall. ‘Forgive me, my Lady, but I’ve taken the liberty of seeking a woman for you, a wet-nurse, and I’ve found someone I think you’ll like.’ Her smile wavered. Of course those closest to her knew her condition, and perhaps many not so close to her, but in common courtesy no-one drew attention to it. Feminine modesty alone demanded such respect, and her somewhat unusual situation merely added another level of discretion. But Raoulf and Gilles were all the family she had, and took the associated liberties. Of course Raoulf would know all the practicalities associated with childbirth, being many times a father himself.
The familiar ache at losing Arnaut changed to dawning awareness. She was about to become a mother. How would it feel? She met Raoulf’s eyes. How did it feel to have lost your child? How she wished her mother was here! However, her mother was not here and she had no option but to carry on without her, as she had since she was a little girl. Gratefully, she told him, ‘You are right and I need help with this. Perhaps you can tell me what else I need to do.’
Relieved at her reaction, he smiled back, and was about to launch into a detailed account of her practical requirements when she stopped him. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said firmly, as the Comtessa and Bèatriz approached with their entourage. Raoulf took the hint, bowed and left her.
‘The songbird of Dia excelled herself tonight,’ was the extravagant judgment of the Comte de Lans. One of the more colourful examples of Dia’s court, he bent over her hand, his mouth lingering in its imprint.
‘The blackbird sounds sweet when the skylark is silent,’ was Estela’s reply, as, with the ease of practice, she deflected the compliment towards Bèatriz, who had not sung that evening. No, Dia was not short of wolves, even when she was eight months pregnant. The baby kicked her again. Not long to go now, surely.
It took both Raoulf and Gilles to drag Nici away from Estela and lock him in another room so the midwife could get anywhere near her, and it was just as well they were wearing gauntlets, boots and leather jerkins. Estela could still hear Nici’s furious scratching at the door and outraged yelps at being shut away from his mistress when she clearly needed him.
She had known when she woke in a pool of liquid that it was time to send for the midwife and, after a scurry of servants, Bèatriz’ women had ushered her to a chamber well away from the daily bustle of castle life. The purpose of the room was clear enough. Apart from the blazing fire, which barely took the chill off the air, there was a bed, a birthing stool, chamber-pot, wash-stand and ewer.
In her own home, the mattress would have been stuffed with our lady’s bedstraw and the fire strewn with juniper branches but Estela didn’t know what herbs were used here, if any. The only light came from the fire and the pitch torches on the wall, as if the business of birthing should be in darkness, like the act that produced it.
Estela’s gloom deepened into panic as her body spasmed. She had a rough idea of what would happen, thanks to visits with her mother, a healer, and thanks to a Moorish physician, who’d held science above prudery and discussed medicine with her. If only her mother or Malik could have been with her now, instead of women whose names she could barely remember. She hadn’t felt so alone since she’d woken in a ditch after running away from home.
And then Nici appeared as if by magic, bounding to her side, anxious brown eyes and insistent tongue, her only friend now as then, licking the salt of her tears as she indulged in self-pity. In between the waves that racked her, Estela trailed her hands in the coarse white fur but when the midwife arrived, Nici made it clear that no-one was going to touch his mistress when she was so clearly vulnerable and incapable of making any decision. It was unquestionably his job to take charge.
Usually an easy-going lump of a dog, who was as happy milling around with any of the hunting packs as he was dozing hopefully under a trestle table at meal-time, Nici was unrecognizable. Hackles raised, eyes bright as pebbles in water, he fixed the midwife with an inimical glare.
The midwife made it equally clear that she was leaving unless someone removed the growling monster from the room. Helpless with contractions, Estela’s half-hearted attempts to reassure Nici seemed merely to convince him that she was not herself.
At which point, Raoulf and Gilles braved women’s territory and took matters into their own gauntlets, ignoring the scandalised squeaks of the attendant women as much as the furious complaints of the huge dog, whose muffled barking from his solitary confinement accompanied Estela’s involuntary shouts of pain.
‘Jasmine oil,’ she begged the midwife, whose face looked like a child’s dough sculpture, lumpy and white, with raisin eyes. Eyes that narrowed, weighing her up. In the birthing chamber, the only queen was the midwife, whatever the rank of the mother-to-be.
‘Jasmine oil,’ the midwife repeated flatly.
Estela couldn’t keep the desperation out of her voice as she felt the beginning of another wave. No longer a baby kicking; more like a herd of horses pounding her into the dust. ‘Inhaling oil of jasmine helps with the pain...’ she tailed off, biting her lip bloody and doubling over, half-falling onto the bed.
‘Well we don’t hold with such fancy things here and babies get born just the same. You’ll manage,’ stated the midwife, moving Estela to the birthing chair to see how wide open she’d become.
Estela felt the screams rising as if they belonged to someone else, except that Nici joined in, so they must be hers. She knew Raoulf and Gilles were just outside the door, hers in a way that none of these women were, and she was overwhelmed by longing to call them in, to grab onto a hand of each, to anchor her body in this world to the rock of their loyalty. To have them with her when she brought Dragonetz’ baby into the world.
She almost called them but enough thought remained to know she mustn’t. This dour woman was her baby’s herald, able to doom - or bless - him or her with a word. Let it be said that men had been at the birth and the baby would be cursed, hag-ridden, switched, any of a thousand insinuations that would make themselves into truth. Men would cross themselves and avoid touching such an ill-fated child, and if he sickened from so much as gum-fever, it would be the devil’s work and no-one would lift a hand to make him better.
Estela knew the way people’s minds worked. When visiting cottages with her mother, with salves and potions, she’d listened to the rhymes and prayers that her mother advocated applying with the medicaments, knowing that the patients’ minds played a part in the healing. So Estela gripped the chair arms instead of her friends’. She would bring this baby into the world, whatever it cost her.
Hours, days or years later, adrift and dazed in the distinction between more pain and less pain, exhausted beyond obeying the midwife’s impossible instructions, Estela nevertheless realised that the purse-mouthed enemy was about to stick some kind of irons into her most tender parts, irons more suited to turn a pig on a spit than a baby in its mother.
Bursting her lungs, Estela screamed and pushed one last time, Nici no longer barking but howling with her, a wolf-call of solidarity. The irons were dropped on the stone flags as the midwife caught the baby and, astonishingly, smiled up at Estela.
‘A fine boy, my Lady.’ Transformed from enemy to ally, the dumpy woman dug into her bag with her free hand, rubbed parchment across the baby’s head, folded it carefully and showed the parcel to Estela. ‘Born lucky, my Lady, with a helmet on his head for a warrior. The caul will dry in the parchment and do you keep it safe, for his luck is in it.’ She cooed to the baby and shook him, then, thin at first, but building in strength, the cry of a newborn announced the arrival of a human being in the world, as the midwife finished severing the baby from all that still connected him to his mother’s womb and swaddled him loosely.
‘Can I hold him?’ asked Estela, hesitant.
‘For a moment,’ assented the midwife, who was now an angel, the firelight a halo round the kindness of her expression. ‘Chew on this,’ she instructed, responding to the query in Estela’s eyes with, ‘Angelica root, to clear your body of what’s left.’
Relieved that some expertise had reached this far north, Estela obediently chewed, and held her son in the crook of her arm, marvelling at the pulse showing through the thin skin of his head, at the tiny hands, balling into fists and flailing against her. His eyes, screwed up against too much light too suddenly. His skin, traced with blue like the veined goblets brought to Narbonne from Oltra mar, Damascus or some such place. Perfection. Somewhere in the distance the midwife announced that all was well, that the nurse could be fetched. Estela just felt pleasantly warm and stupid, like a cow, she thought as she finished chewing.
‘Does he need to be baptised now, good wife?’ The grave tones of the priest jarred on the moment and both Estela and the midwife said, ‘No!’ sharply.
‘No,’ the midwife repeated, more smoothly, ‘I have the right to baptise the baby, as you know, good sire, and neither he nor his mother have need of your services this day.’
‘Praise be to God.’ The priest fingered his crucifix then left the chamber and death, ever present at a birthing, went with him.
‘You need rest, my Lady,’ the midwife told her kindly. ‘You have done as hard a day’s work as a body knows and you have done it well. My Lord will be proud of you when he knows. They tell me he is far away.’
‘Yes.’ Tears glittered but Estela would not let them fall, not today. ‘But I have family here. Raoulf! Gilles!’ she called and they were beside her in a second, their faces white and strained, as hers was not. She could feel the glow in her own, the warmth of bringing this precious morsel into the world. The midwife let her do as she willed and she let each man in turn hold the baby. Raoulf, many times a father, who could not but remember holding Arnaut once this way. Gilles, a better father to her than her own, but a stranger to babies, holding the infant as if he were a marchpane sculpture.
‘Let Nici in!’ Estela ordered and despite protesting, Raoulf opened the door barring the dog from his mistress. Three bounds and he was by the bed, sniffing warily at the new being in her arms. Estela stroked the dog’s head with one hand as she held the baby relaxed in her arm. ‘My darling,’ she murmured to him in Occitan, ‘this is our baby, to live and to die for.’ The dog nudged the infant with his nose, testing its response, smelling who it was, then, satisfied, he started a thorough cleaning of its ears and tail, which made Estela giggle and drew horrified gasps from the midwife. She moved to rescue the baby but Nici had not forgiven her and rumbled a low warning.
‘Enough, Nici,’ Estela told him and the dog sighed. His mistress was herself again. He could relax. He pottered off to a corner and slumped in a heap, as exhausted as the two men.
‘Now mistress, the baby must to the nurse and you to sleep. Don’t worry - he will be brought to you tomorrow again, and the day after that. Your boy is healthy and strong. Do you have a name for him?’
The room waited, cosy as a womb now, logs sparking and crackling in the stone fireplace. Light-headed with effort and blood loss, Estela watched the flames dance themselves into her lover, bright sword in hand as he leapt and parried, turning to smile the special lop-sided smile that was only for her. What should she call Dragonetz’ son? The flames conferred and whispered to her in little puffs of smoke. What else could Dragonetz’ son be called?
‘Txamusca,’ she murmured to the baby, then louder for everyone to hear. ‘Txamusca’, the Occitan word for ‘fire’. What else would his father produce but fire. The silence around her held disapproval.
‘It’s a very ... unusual name, my Lady,’ said the midwife, but now that the birth was over, she was returning to her rank. Anything that did not directly concern the child’s health, or the mother’s, was hardly her business.
Gilles had no such reticence. ‘Are you sure, Roxie? You want him to carry such a name?’ Raoulf put a warning hand on the other man’s arm before he finished ‘a name that shouts who fathered him, to anyone with half a brain?’ Secrets spoken in the birthing room found their way quickly to the banquet hall.
‘Yes.’ Estela’s chin jutted stubbornly, with just a hint of wobble, and the men exchanged glances, saying no more. The midwife held her arms out for the baby, and Estela reluctantly gave him up to the rite of baptism in the one situation where a woman had sacerdotal powers. Then, a new soul formally admitted to the world, Estela sank deeply and quickly asleep, even as the entourage tiptoed out of the chamber.
Six weeks later, Txamusca de Villeneuve was christened with due ceremony in church; the young heiress of Dia was his beaming highborn godmother; Raoulf and Gilles beaming even brighter as his lowborn godfathers. Neither the mother’s husband, the Lord Johans de Villeneuve, nor the baby’s father, were able to attend. As neither of them knew of the boy’s existence, this was hardly surprising.