Countess Biatriz. “The Countess of Valentinois? She is a troubadour, too?”
“She calls herself a trobairitz, but yes. She is very gifted and I hope that we’ll hear some of her songs tonight. Raimbaut’s sister the Lady Tibors, is a trobairitz, too, I believe.”
Maud was fascinated, for it was very unusual in their world for women to compose poetry. The only female writer she knew was Henry’s half sister, the Abbess of Shaftsbury, who wrote skillful lais and fables under the name Marie de France. And here were two women poets as guests at Eleanor’s table. Why did women troubadours flourish here and not elsewhere?
A slender, dark-eyed woman followed the joglar, and Maud’s interest sharpened, for surely she must be going to perform one of the compositions of the Countess Biatriz. Much to her disappointment, the song was in the lengua romana, the language of the south. “Is she not going to sing in French?”
Eleanor shook her head. “I forgot that you do not know the lengua romana. In my grandfather’s youth, the dialect of Poitou was very similar to the lengua romana or lemozi, as they call it, but nowadays Poitevin is more like the French of the north. Most of those in my lands speak both tongues, and I made certain that Richard was tutored in the lengua romana. Slide your chair closer and I will translate for you.”
“I’ve lately been in great distress over a knight who once was mine,” she quoted. “She says she loved him to excess, but he betrayed her because she could not sleep with him. Night and day she suffers, lamenting her mistake.”
Maud’s eyes widened. “Is it common for women of the south to be so blunt-spoken?”
Eleanor grinned. “In one of the other verses of that song, she declares that she’d give almost anything to have her handsome knight in her husband’s place!”
Maud shook her head in bemusement. “Life is truly different in these southern regions, especially for women!”
“Women are more free to speak their minds,” Eleanor agreed. “And men even listen to us at times, for power is not solely a male preserve. Here we do not follow the practice of primogeniture. The eldest son does not inherit his father’s estate; it is divided up amongst all the sons. And often it is bequeathed to a daughter. Take the Countess of Mauguio over there. She inherited Mauguio upon her father’s death and held it in her own right through two marriages. Last year her son dared to call himself Count of Mauguio and began to intrigue with the House of Montpellier, long an adversary of her family. She was outraged by what she saw as his betrayal.”
“I do not blame her,” Maud exclaimed. “I have so often heard sad stories like this, women swept aside like so much chaff by male kin unwilling to wait for their inheritance.”
“Ah, but this is not France or England. The Countess of Mauguio struck back swiftly, disinheriting her impatient son in favor of her granddaughter.”
Maud was amazed. “She could do that?”
Eleanor’s eyes reflected the closest candle flame, taking on greenish glints in its flickering light. “This is not England or France,” she repeated proudly, and Maud could only nod, thinking, Indeed not!
Raimbaut d’Aurenga’s joglar had taken up a gittern again, making ready to sing another of his lord’s compositions. His earlier French rendition had been a courtesy for the Poitevin guests, but now he chose his own language, the lyrical lengua romana of the troubadour.
“Cars, douz e fenhz del bederesc
M’es sos bas chanz, per cui m’aerc;
C’ab joi s’espan viu e noire.”
Without Eleanor to translate for her, the words held no meaning for Maud. She discovered it was easy to be caught up in the flow of the language, though, for it held a melodic harmony that French or English lacked, putting her in mind of the softer sounds of Spanish or Italian. It was a beautiful tongue, this lengua romana, but an alien one. And as she listened, she fully comprehended for the first time that this was an alien world, too, Eleanor’s Aquitaine.
CHAPTER FOUR
November 1172
Gisors Castle, Norman Vexin
Marguerite wished that she did not feel so shy with this stranger who was her father. She did not doubt that the French king was a kindly man, a good man, quick to smile, slow to find fault. The vices of his youth-his temper, his stubbornness-had been mitigated by the passage of time and his piety was acclaimed by all. She knew he was in his fifty-third year, an age that seemed ancient to a girl not yet fifteen. His flaxen hair was sparse around his crown, like a monk’s tonsure, and his eyes were heavy-lidded, but still as brightly blue as a summer sky; she’d always been thankful that she’d inherited his fairness and not the unfashionable dark coloring of her dead mother, a Spanish princess she could not remember. She’d heard it said that he’d been comely in his youth, and she supposed it might well be true. But if she could visualize Louis in his prime, she could not see him wed to her husband’s mother. Each time she’d tried to envision Louis and Eleanor together, her imagination failed her.
It occurred to her that she could count on the fingers of one hand the times she’d been alone with Louis, for she’d been sent to King Henry’s court before she’d celebrated her first birthday. But she’d grown up knowing that she was the daughter of the King of France, knowing what a proud heritage that was, and never doubting that this father she’d so rarely seen had not forgotten her. Now, though, she was discovering that they had little to say to each other and when Louis suggested that they seek out her husband, she felt a surge of relief, for Hal was never at a loss for words.
A tiltyard had been set up in the northern end of the upper bailey, and the young King of England had drawn an admiring audience. A skilled rider, Hal had made several successful runs at the quintain, hitting the target dead- on each time, whereas his competitors were not so fortunate. As Louis and Marguerite approached, a knight struck the shield a glancing blow and was unhorsed when he was smacked by the sandbag attached to a wooden pivot. When it was Hal’s turn again, he drove his ten-foot lance into the shield with enough force to set the quintain post vibrating.
“Well done!” Louis called out, loudly enough for Hal to hear, and then, in a lower tone, to Marguerite, “The lad could not look more like a king with the blessed crown of Jerusalem upon his head.”
“I think so, too,” she agreed, so ardently that Louis smiled, pleased that she seemed to have found such happiness in her marriage. At that moment Marguerite happened to notice the boy watching from the sidelines, a pale, solemn child with an untidy shock of brown hair, her half brother, Philippe. So jubilant had Louis been upon Philippe’s birth on an August evening seven years ago that he became known as Philippe Dieu-Donne, the God- given. Louis had already sired four daughters, but Philippe was his heart’s joy, an only son born late in life to a man who’d long despaired of begetting a male heir. Never had Marguerite seen such a doting father and, as she glanced over at her little brother, she found herself thinking unkindly that no one would ever say of Philippe what Louis had just said of Hal.
Once Hal caught sight of them, he tossed his lance to a squire and swung from the saddle. He greeted Louis with a flourish, acknowledging their kinship both by marriage and vassalage, for he’d done homage to the French king for the duchy of Normandy. Slipping his hand into Marguerite’s, he entwined their fingers together, a silent but subtle declaration of unity that Louis noted approvingly. He was very pleased with this young son-in-law of his, for Hal was good-natured and gallant, but also malleable and overly eager to claim his kingship, chaffing at the bit like a finely bred stallion ready to run.
“Come, walk with me,” Louis said, shepherding them in the direction of the gardens, bare and fallow under a pallid November sun. Passing through the wicker gate, he seated himself upon a wooden bench, gesturing for them to join him. “Your invitation to meet me at Gisors gladdened my heart,” he murmured, “and was a most welcome surprise, for I’d heard that you planned to remain in England into the new year, holding your Christmas Court at Winchester.”
“That was our intent,” Hal admitted, hesitating before confirming what Louis already knew. “But my lord father summoned me to return to Normandy.” Adding, after another, longer pause, “And of course I obeyed.”
But not willingly, Louis thought, not willingly at all. “Marguerite told me that you came to Gisors straightaway
