Troubadour Read Free Page A

not look down, Elinor,’ said Lady Clara. ‘Just listen to the music, feel the beat of the tambour and let yourself be led. Close your eyes if it will help.’
    It sounded pleasurable, even blissful, the way her mother described it, with her head thrown back and her eyes half-closed and her face all dreamy. But Elinor couldn’t imagine doing it.
    Still, she could see she wasn’t going to get anywhere with her protests.
    Lady Clara opened her eyes and looked into her daughter’s wayward expression. Her own face softened.
    ‘You have to try, Elinor,’ she said, more kindly than usual. ‘Dancing, singing, fine needlework, they all seem so hard to you, but what else can you do? You must have the accomplishments of a noblewoman if we are ever to find a husband for you. You will not get one on your looks alone.’
    Elinor was glad of that ‘alone’.
    ‘I can read and write,’ she said. ‘And perhaps I do not have to marry?’ ( If I cannot marry Bertran, the troubadour , she added in her mind.)
    ‘Out of the question,’ said Lady Clara, her mood hardening again. ‘You must marry. You cannot turn your skills with parchment and quills into land and rents, can you? You will have a husband, willing to pay a good bride price, if it’s the last thing I do.’
    Only you won’t be the one that has to do it , thought Elinor bitterly.

    The great hall was full of long wooden trestles and behind the one set at the head of the room green branches of fir, holly and hemlock hung from the beams. Perrin and Huguet and the other joglar s were already in place with their instruments, ready to play during dinner and for the dancing afterwards. They would not eat till all the guests had gone but there was already a flagon of wine at their feet, which would be refilled often during the evening.
    Bertran would sit near the Lord’s table, among Lanval’s knights and foster-sons. They were beginning to drift into the great hall now. It wasn’t until the musicians played a little fanfare that everyone took their place and stood for the entrance of the Lord and his family.
    Lord Lanval, Lady Clara and their son Aimeric walked into the hall like the landed nobles they were, accustomed to deference from all the rest of the ‘ familha ’ – the family – that made up the population of the castle. They were followed, for the first time at a saint’s day feast, by the donzela of the castle, looking unusually demure, because her eyes were cast down towards her feet, something she did not usually manage.
    But Elinor was terrified of all the gazes directed at her. As the family arrived at their places, she risked a swift upwards glance and saw Bertran smiling back at her encouragingly. She remembered just in time not to grin back at him – which would have counted as unladylike – but inclined her head so slowly that it could have counted as gracefully.
    Then Perrin broke into a lively virelai on his lute and the moment passed. All during the meal Elinor felt her eyes darting back to where Bertran sat but he hardly ever looked at her again. If she was very careful, she could just sneak a glance now and again without her mother’s notice. As well as the family there were some senior knights at their table, together with some lords and ladies from neighbouring towns, and a visitor Elinor had never seen before, who was engaged in courtly wordplay with her mother.
    Elinor’s feast partner was Aimeric, so after a while she relaxed. It would have been too awful to share dishes with a stranger. But her brother was not too daunting, at least when he wasn’t teasing her.
    ‘You look nice tonight, sister,’ he said. ‘That dress suits you.’
    She was relieved; she had feared the rose velvet would make her look like something Hugo had concocted from berries and cream. And Aimeric had understood that she couldn’t take any teasing tonight of all nights, on her first public appearance as donzela . But Elinor didn’t want him to see her