The fate of the men of Bram, which had made him send Huguet and the boy away, had produced a terrible effect on the garrison at Cabaret and in other places; they no longer regarded the French as human like themselves. It could be felt even in the castle at Termes, where the men jeered at the soldiers beneath their walls and launched raiding parties to capture their banners. Bertran was sure that if any Frenchman were to be caught by the garrison, he would be tortured just as badly as the men of Bram.
And Bertran was worried about the Lord of Termes too. He seemed distracted, often forgetting what he was saying in the middle of a sentence. Several times he asked for Peire, forgetting that the boy was no longer at Termes.
The siege stretched out interminably through the summer and, at the very end of August, fresh troops came to join the Frenchmen. At last the trebuchets began to have an effect on the walls of the castle. But the defenders had some siege engines too and they knew what Simon de Montfort looked like.
Twice he was nearly killed: the first time a bolt from a ballista pierced the leader’s tent while Mass was being celebrated. The soldier standing behind de Montfort was killed. Then a boulder from a mangonel on the castle walls crushed one of the sappers as de Montfort was talking to him. He had even had his arm round the poor wretch’s shoulder before he was struck.
‘Third time lucky! Third time lucky!’ chanted the defenders and even the French saw these narrow escapes as a bad omen. De Montfort was so worried that he stopped eating.
But inside the castle at Termes morale was no higher. The water supply was running out. And his mercenaries were pressing the Lord to surrender; they knew they would receive no clemency from the French unless the castle was yielded up.
And in the end, by October, the lack of water was so acute that Raimon did suggest terms on which he would surrender. He would give up the castle for the winter but keep his lands and even take the castle back in the spring.
‘They’ll never agree to that,’ said Gui.
But de Montfort was so desperate that they did and a day was arranged to let the French enter the keep.
The night before, torrential rain began to fall and all the wells and cisterns inside Termes were filled back up to the brim. The defenders ran out in the rain laughing and letting the water trickle into their throats. When the French Marshal arrived, plodging through the mud, Raimon de Termes refused to hand the castle over.
‘Go back!’ de Montfort ordered the unfortunate soaking man. ‘Take any terms you can get, as long as I have this castle for the winter!’
Two of the senior defenders of Termes felt they shouldn’t renege on the terms that had been agreed, just because the rains had come; one of them was Bertran. The others refused and the siege went on.
‘You see?’ said the Lord of Termes. ‘God sent the rain – he is on our side.’
Bertran feared more and more for Raimon’s reason.
Large sections of de Montfort’s army had disappeared back north. But the blessed rain which had filled the castle tanks was to prove the defenders’ downfall. The cooks used it to make dough for bread but the rainwater had mingled with the stagnant mess left in the bottom of the tanks by the dry summer and was full of disease.
Soon dysentery was spreading through the castle and the rebels became desperate to leave. Banking on their superior knowledge of the area, they organised their secret departure from the castle and had nearly all escaped when a French guard raised the alarm.
Bertran was with Lord Raimon, doing his best to see him safe out of the castle and on the way to Cabaret. But Raimon was now delirious and insisted on going back into the castle for something.
‘What, my lord?’ asked Gui le Viguier, who was also part of the bodyguard. ‘We have no time to go back. We must escape.’
‘The boy, the boy,’ said Raimon. ‘I need his little sword.’
He pulled himself out of their grasp and ran back towards the keep. Immediately he was captured by the French.
‘Run!’ said Gui. ‘Save yourselves! There is nothing more we can do for Lord Raimon.’
When the Marchese of Monferrato came back from his wars, Alessandro was not with him. Elinor’s heart sank when she saw no sign of him among the returning knights.
But at supper that evening, the Marchesa reassured her. ‘Sandro is well,’ she said. ‘But his father has died and he had to go back to his castle – he is the Lord of Selva now.’
Guglielmo took a great liking to Lord Berenger and promptly gave him a castle he had taken from the rebels who had been beaten at Cuneo.
As the women settled in for their second winter under the protection of Monferrato, Elinor sensed a change in Iseut. She, Berenger and Peire seemed to have created a new family. Elinor asked her about it one day in November on a rare occasion when she found Iseut on her own.
‘I was homesick, Elinor,’ said Iseut. ‘And I didn’t know it. Berenger reminds me of Saint-Jacques. Even you had only a short history with me there but he knew me before I was married, knew my husband Jaufre, even came to my wedding. Ever since he came here, I feel in touch again with my past.’
‘It seems to me you are thinking of the future,’ said Elinor. She wanted so much to be happy for her friend but all she could feel was a terrible loneliness. Iseut would marry Berenger, she could see that, and would take Peire and go and live with him in his new Piedmontese castle, and Elinor would be alone at Chivasso.
Well, if it was to be, she would still have Huguet and their music.
‘It is true,’ said Iseut. ‘Berenger has asked again to marry me and I have said yes. But I also said I would not leave Monferrato without you and the young joglar.’
Elinor was speechless.
‘Come with us in the spring,’ said Iseut, taking her hands. ‘We can try to make a new home, combining all that we remember best of Saint-Jacques, Sévignan, Digne – yes and Monferrato too. It will be a castle filled with music and poetry and perhaps, one day, more children for Peire to play with.’
It was not long after this conversation that they heard of the fall of Termes and imprisonment of Lord Raimon. But there was still no news of Bertran or Gui le Viguier.
Instead news came that threw the Marchese into confusion.
‘The Pope has excommunicated Otto!’ exclaimed the Marchesa. ‘And now he supports Fredrik as German Emperor. Poor Guglielmo doesn’t know what to do. He is wondering whether to change sides himself.’
And in the midst of this upheaval, Lady Clara and Alys arrived at the court.
Elinor could not believe her eyes; she flung her arms round her sister and then abased herself at her mother’s feet.
‘I’m so sorry, Maire,’ she sobbed. ‘I should never have disobeyed you. And now Paire and Aimeric are both dead and we have all lost our home.’
‘But not because of you or anything you did,’ said Clara, lifting her daughter up and embracing her with more warmth than she ever had in the past. ‘Still, I am glad that you have heard that news already.’
‘And you all have a home with us as long as you need one,’ said the Marchesa warmly. ‘I told you Elinor, didn’t I? A daughter is a treasure to her mother and now yours has two.’
‘Two more for our new castle,’ whispered Iseut, before being introduced to the Lady of Sévignan.
‘The Lady of Sévignan is not me but my daughter,’ said Clara, holding tight to Elinor’s hand. ‘I should like to announce here before the court that my Lord Lanval made her his heir after our son Aimeric. And though her inheritance is now in the hands of the French, the bastide and lands of Sévignan belong by right to Elinor. I hope one day she may retrieve them.’
‘Until then, as my wife says,’ said the Marchese, ‘you are both welcome at my court, wherever I keep it, and in any of my castles.’
He looked round with satisfaction at his dependan
ts. ‘Everyone comes to Monferrato,’ he said.
‘Everyone comes to Monferrato,’ echoed Elinor. ‘It is true. First Iseut and I, then Huguet. Did you know Huguet the joglar was here, Maire? Then Lord Berenger. Even Gui has been here. It was he who told us what had happened at Sévignan. Monferrato is like a lodestone, drawing everyone to it.’
Everyone but Alessandro, she thought. Monferrato has released its hold on him.
.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lady of Selva
King Pedro of Aragon could not hold out any longer against accepting de Montfort’s homage. Not only was the Frenchman carrying the titles that had belonged to Viscount Trencavel, he was now the master of Minerve and Termes. During the long siege of Termes, where fortune had wavered from one side to the other so often, the eyes of the south had been on the fortress and its fate.
And then had come the sudden victory. The old Lord of Termes was now incarcerated in the dungeon at Carcassonne and his forces scattered. Only Cabaret remained of the three once impregnable rebel fortresses.
In late January, King Pedro was on his way to Montpellier, when he was waylaid at Narbonne by a serious deputation. The Count of Toulouse was there, along with the Abbot of Cîteaux and Simon de Montfort. The Abbot begged the King to accept de Montfort’s homage.
Pedro didn’t like it; it would mean he had accepted the French overrunning his territories in the south. But reluctantly he agreed and let de Montfort kneel to him. Then he decided to go even further than this and spurred to Montpellier and his wife in haste.
The Lady Maria was astonished by her senescal bursting in to tell her that her husband was in the bailey with a hundred knights. In moments he was in her room.
‘Madam,’ he said, bowing low.
But Maria was used to his grand courtesies.
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘My son,’ he said.
Maria felt winter enter her blood.
‘What for?’ she demanded, instinctively shielding little Jacques with her body. But the boy, who was not yet three years old, was fascinated by the big man in armour, with the gold circlet round his head. And now this grand figure was bending down and holding out his arms to him; he was irresistible.
‘Come here, Jaime,’ said his father, using the boy’s Spanish name. Maria watched like one drugged as her son willingly put himself in his father’s embrace. His chubby hands reached for the crown and Pedro, laughing, let him take it.
‘Do you suppose I mean him any harm?’ he asked, turning to Maria. ‘He is my son and heir. I merely want to give him, briefly, into the care of his future father-in-law, Simon de Montfort.’
This was not news to reassure a mother.
‘De Montfort?’ cried Maria. ‘The French wolf?’ She reached for the child but the King swung him up into his arms.
‘I am going to pledge him in marriage to de Montfort’s infant daughter,’ said Pedro. ‘I have accepted his homage and it will strengthen my alliance with France.’
‘And do you not care what happens to our child?’ asked Maria, now sobbing freely. She had seen in an instant there was nothing she could do against the King and a hundred knights.
She could grab the child and make Pedro tear him from her arms but that would only frighten Jacques and make him scream. She did not want that to be her last sight of him.
‘Nothing will happen to him,’ said Pedro. ‘De Montfort is a family man. His wife Alice is with him and they have a brood of children.’ He tickled Jacques under the chin. ‘How would you like to meet a nice little French girl to play with?’ he asked.
‘Play,’ said the boy, still fascinated by the gold crown in his hand.
‘You see,’ said Pedro. ‘He will be fine. Now, get your women to pack his clothes and toys and prepare your farewells. You will see him again soon. And Alice de Montfort will be like a mother to him.’
He could hardly have thought of a worse thing to say.
Spring came to Monferrato and when it did, Lady Iseut of Saint-Jacques married Lord Berenger of Digne in the great cathedral of Chivasso. The Marchese gave her away and Elinor, Alys, Clara and Berta were all her attendants. She was twenty-six, very old for a bride, but of course she had been married before.
As soon as the feasting was over, they moved to the castle given to Berenger by the Marchese. They renamed it Castelnuovo – the new castle – and with the money they had both managed to rescue from their own bastides, together with further handsome presents from Guglielmo, they were able to furnish it in style.
They took with them Elinor and Huguet, Clara and Alys. And of course, the child, Peire, who was now nearly eight. The Marchesa was devastated to see them go, especially Elinor, of whom she had become very fond.
‘You must come and see us often,’ said Iseut. ‘And bring baby Beatrix. I think that Castelnuovo will be a good place for children.’
Elinor was happy for the first time for many months. The war in the south seemed very far away, even though she knew there were battles and skirmishes right on their doorstep. That warfare was about feudal loyalties not about persecuting people who believed something different from the Pope in Rome. It didn’t make it less bloody but it seemed less personal to Elinor. And she had her mother and sister back; they were a family at Castelnuovo.
Berenger claimed to be no more than a farmer now, taking a minute interest in the lands that had come with the castle as part of Guglielmo’s gift. He and Iseut often talked of going back to the mountains in Occitania when the war was over but no one knew when that would be. The Lord and Lady’s two senescals had settled down to a good understanding and Nicolas had shared with François a plan that one day they would go back to the ruins of Saint-Jacques and dig up the plate and valuables buried there.
But for the time being, they were all content to live at Castelnuovo, and that contentment only increased when, in the summer, it was clear that Iseut was expecting a child.
By then the news had reached Piedmont that Pedro, the King of Aragon, had formed an alliance with Simon de Montfort.
‘That poor child!’ exclaimed Elinor, when she heard that the little boy had been handed over to Simon de Montfort by his father. ‘And his poor mother! He was all she had left.’
‘Well, and the Seigneury of Montpellier,’ said Berenger.
‘And I wonder how long she will have that,’ said Iseut.
The next piece of news was that the Count of Toulouse had fled from the council at Montpellier and been excommunicated again. Finally they heard that Cabaret had surrendered. The heart had gone out of the rebels after the French victory at Termes. The Lord of Cabaret did not want to spend his last years languishing in a dungeon like the Lord of Termes and had negotiated a deal with Simon de Montfort.
But in all this time there was no word of Bertran or of Gui le Viguier. Gradually, Elinor began to accept that she would never know what had happened to either of them.
Then one night a richly caparisoned horse rode into the bailey at Castelnuovo and Nicolas announced the Lord of Selva. Elinor had been playing the flute while Huguet sang and played the fiddle and Alys was teaching Peire to dance the estampida.
The boy was tripping over his feet and Elinor had to put down her instrument in order to laugh.
‘I know just how you feel, Peire,’ Elinor was saying. ‘I could never master the steps.’
And then she looked up and saw Nicolas and behind him, Alessandro.
He looked older and a little more careworn but the smile that lit his face was entirely for Elinor, even though he had first to pay his respects to the castle’s lord and lady.
At dinner, he was seated next to Elinor.
‘You are a difficult lady to find,’ he whispered, showing her that he still wore the green girdle under his jerkin.
‘Not by choice,’ said Elinor. ‘And I’m very glad you have found me.’
Bertran passed a miserable winter after the capture of Termes. He felt wretched that he hadn’t been able to save Lord Raimon but Gui had convinced him there was nothing they could have done. They went to Cabaret and spent the cold winter months there. Physically, they lived in reasonable comfort; Cabaret was a well-provisioned castle. But it was hard to believe that the French would ever leave the south now.
The pattern had been set of fresh recruits joining the army every spring from the north and there was no reason to believe that this wouldn’t carry on for years, until not just the heretics but all the landowners of the south had been dispossessed.
When Bertran heard that King Pedro had accepted de Montfort’s homage, he knew it was all over for the resistance. It was about then that he decided to go to Italy but it was many months before he set out. He slipped out of Cabaret just before the surrender of the city, bidding Gui farewell. The young knight was sorry to part with him.
‘What will you do?’ he asked.
‘Become a troubadour again,’ said Bertran. ‘In whatever castles and palaces still value poetry and music. And you?’
Le Viguier hesitated. ‘I’ve half a mind to come with you,’ he said. Then he grinned. ‘Only my voice would scare your patrons away! No, I’ll stay till Cabaret yields to the French, then go with Peire-Roger or with any faidit that needs a fighting arm. I’m a knight-mercenary now.’
‘Never that,’ said Bertran. ‘You wouldn’t join forces with de Montfort or the Bloody Abbot.’
Gui spat contemptuously. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you in Monferrato one day?’ he said. ‘You will go there, won’t you?’
‘One day,’ said Bertran. ‘I’d like to see Huguet once more.’