Troubadour Read Free

were concentrating on a difficult key change. ‘I think not. He spoke of other courts he must visit.’
    ‘Must?’ asked Elinor sharply. ‘Is he so in love with the lady of every one that he must take his new song to them?’
    Huguet cursed silently. He always forgot that, young as she was, Elinor was as sharp as a pin, particularly where Bertran de Miramont was concerned. He resolved to be more discreet in future.
    He need not have worried. Elinor was entirely focused on the unfairness of being the daughter of the Lord, the donzela of the castle, who would never have a love song addressed to her. All the troubadours wrote songs of everlasting devotion to her mother, the domna of the castle; it simply wasn’t the custom to serenade young unmarried women.
    Everyone knew that neither Bertran nor any other troubadour was really in love with Lady Clara. Why, she was an old woman – over thirty years of age! But they had to pretend that they were and Lord Lanval understood this and didn’t mind at all. He would have felt his hospitality insulted if a poet fed at his table had not sung the praises of his wife.
    Bertran would not sing the song himself, of course; he was a nobleman in his own right, even if a poor one. It would be up to Perrin to sing it, accompanied by Huguet on the rebec. But Bertran would stand beside him, casting longing looks at Lady Clara and perhaps even sighing. And Elinor wanted him to sigh for her.
    Bertran was over thirty too, but it was of no consequence in a man. He had no childbirths to slacken his figure or other womanly ailments to take the colour from his cheek or the vigour from his voice and sparkle from his eye. He was simply the handsomest man that Elinor had ever seen and she was so entranced by him that she wanted to be him almost as much as she wanted him to notice her and compose a poem to her beauty.
    She smiled at the very thought and Huguet saw that the moment of danger had passed. The daughter of the castle was far too caught up in her own fancies to have noticed his slip about Bertran’s movements.

    ‘Out of the question,’ said Lady Clara, when Elinor asked if she might be excused the dancing and yield her place to Alys.
    She looked at her older daughter hard and what she saw pleased her no more than usual. It was difficult for a once beautiful woman to feel that she must soon yield her place to her daughters. Clara often wondered if it would be easier if Elinor were like her in any way but it was her younger daughter, Alys, who favoured her. Alys was naturally demure and never forgot to cast down her eyes when a male courtier or a knight passed her in the castle. She was fair-haired and grey-eyed like her mother, while Elinor was a sort of nut brown all over – hair, eyes and skin. It was in vain that her mother exhorted her to keep out of the sun; Elinor was outdoors on the castle walls in all weathers. But the rays that darkened her skin did nothing to lighten her hair.
    She should have been a boy, thought Lady Clara, like Aimeric, who shared his sister’s dark colouring. They were both like their father but it didn’t matter in a son. Clara was happy to see Aimeric’s complexion as a sign of manly hardiness. But girls should be fair and quiet and Elinor was not only dark but unruly and unladylike. If only she had been the younger daughter!
    ‘You must dance, Elinor,’ said her mother. ‘Why else does your father feed and clothe a dancing instructor? And tonight is your first opportunity to show how the donzela of the castle dances.’
    ‘But, Maire,’ said Elinor desperately, ‘I am so very bad at it!’
    ‘Then you must just practise until you are better,’ said Lady Clara. ‘Look – it’s not difficult.’
    She started to hum a vigorous tune and slid her feet sideways, before giving a neat little hop and skip.
    ‘You see?’ she said. ‘Easy.’
    ‘For you, Maire,’ said Elinor, looking at her own feet. ‘But the music goes so fast!’
    ‘You must