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A Song for Arbonne
Guy Gavriel Kay
Based on the troubadour culture that rose in Provence during the High Middle Ages, this panoramic, absorbing novel beautifully creates an alternate version of the medieval world.The matriarchal, cultured land of Arbonne is rent by a feud between its two most powerful dukes, the noble troubador Bertran de Talair and Urte de Miraval, over long-dead Aelis, lover of one, wife of the other and once heir to the country's throne.To the north lies militaristic Gorhaut, whose inhabitants worship the militant god Corannos and are ruled by corrupt, womanizing King Ademar. His chief advisor, the high priest of Corannos, is determined to irradicate the worship of a female deity, whose followers live to the south.Into this cauldron of brewing disaster comes the mysterious Gorhaut mercenary Blaise, who takes service with Bertran and averts an attempt on his life. The revelation of Blaise's lineage and a claim for sanctuary by his sister-in-law sets the stage for a brutal clash between the two cultures. Intertwined is the tale of a young woman troubadour whose role suggests the sweep of the drama to come.
Guy Gavriel Kay
A Song for Arbonne
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1992
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
A SONG FOR ARBONNE. Copyright © Guy Gavriel Kay 1992.
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Source ISBN: 9780007342051
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780007352029
Version 2014-12-18
This book is dedicated, with love,
to the memory of my father,
Dr. Samuel K. Kay,
whose skill and compassion as a surgeon were
enhanced all his life by a love for language and
literature—a love he conveyed to his sons, among
so many other gifts.
Contents
Cover Page (#u8686e86f-428a-51dc-bebe-6d54d436a51f)
Title Page (#u6ebf27c0-02ce-5178-b5d1-31f52c20b884)
Copyright
Dedication (#u38946c59-f7e5-5052-9758-72d48a808fc1)
A Note on Pronunciation
Map (#ulink_82a01577-03e5-5761-8435-4e3e01c7a27d)
Prologue (#ulink_ec79e375-00d4-5b02-b394-71684a3957f2)
On a morning in the springtime of the year, when…
Part One: Spring
Chapter I
There was very little wind, which was a blessing. Pale…
Chapter II
Some mornings, as today, she woke feeling amazingly young, happy…
Chapter III
Ademar, king of Gorhaut, slowly turns away from the diverting…
Part Two: Midsummer
Chapter IV
Walking briskly through the crowded streets, calling cheerful replies to…
Chapter V
It wasn’t, of course. It wasn’t the same man; the…
Chapter VI
Lisseut, if asked in the midst of that swirling, suddenly…
Chapter VII
Even when he saw the peacocks in the extravagantly lit…
Chapter VIII
The crimson-clad guard of Carenzu took Lisseut through the late…
Part Three: Autumn
Chapter IX
On the bright, mild morning in autumn when her life…
Chapter X
Roban, the chancellor of Arbonne, had had an intensely trying…
Chapter XI
‘A challenge!’ shouted the trovaritz from Aulensburg. The tavern was…
Chapter XII
‘I hope you realize I do not want her back,’…
Chapter XIII
Tournaments in Arbonne and duels performed in the presence of…
Chapter XIV
The blue moon is full tonight, Ranald realizes belatedly, lending…
Part Four: Winter
Chapter XV
On the night appointed there was fog at Garsenc Castle.…
Chapter XVI
Roche the priest was in disgrace on Rian’s Island in…
Chapter XVII
The identical message by a different messenger came to the…
Chapter XVIII
The battle that ended Gorhaut and Arbonne as the world…
Chapter XIX
Blaise was unaware for the first part of his ride…
Keep Reading (#u6e4083df-9b31-5e93-bfd9-7db24cc71db0)
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Guy Gavriel Kay
Credits
About the Publisher
A Note on Pronunciation
It will likely be evident to the reader that the French language has provided the basis for most of the proper names herein. There is one caveat to this. Historically, the language of what is now the south of France (Provence or Languedoc or Aquitaine), unlike modern French, normally involved the pronunciation of a final ‘s’. I have followed this, and, accordingly, names such as Aelis or Cauvas ought to have their final consonant sounded.
From the vidan of the troubadour, Anselme of Cauvas …
Anselme, who has ever been acknowledged as the first and perhaps the greatest of all the troubadours of Arbonne, was of modest birth, the youngest son of a clerk in the castle of a baron near Cauvas. He was of middling height, dark haired, with a quiet manner in speech that was nonetheless wondrously pleasing to all who heard him. While yet tender in years, he showed great skill and interest in music and was invited to join the celebrated choir of the Cauvas sanctuary of the god. It was not long, however, before he felt the beginnings of a desire to make music very different from that acceptable in the service of the god, or indeed of the goddess Rian in her temples. And so Anselme left the comforts of the chapel and choir to make his way alone among the villages and castles of Arbonne, offering his new songs shaped of tunes and words such as he had heard sung by the common folk in their own speech.
He was later brought into the household of Duke Raimbaut de Vaux and honoured there, and in time his prowess came to the attention of Count Folquet himself, and Anselme was invited to pass a winter in Barbentain. From that time was Anselme’s fortune assured, and the fate of the troubadours of Arbonne likewise made sure, for Anselme swiftly rose high in the friendship and trust of Count Folquet and in the esteem and very great affection of the noble Countess Dia. They honoured him for his music and his wit, and also for his discretion and cleverness, which led the count to employ him in many hazardous tasks of diplomacy beyond the borders of Arbonne.
In time, Count Folquet himself, under the tutelage of Anselme of Cauvas, began to make his own songs, and from that day it may be said that the art and reputation of the troubadours has never been diminished or endangered in Arbonne, and has indeed grown and flourished in all the known countries of the world …
Map
Prologue
On a morning in the springtime of the year, when the snows of the mountains were melting and the rivers swift in their running, Aelis de Miraval watched her husband ride out at dawn to hunt in the forest west of their castle, and shortly after that she took horse herself, travelling north and east along the shores of the lake towards the begetting of her son.
She did not ride alone or secretly; that would have been folly beyond words. Though she was young and had always been headstrong, Aelis had never been a fool and would not be one now, even in love.
She had her young cousin with her, and an escort of six armed corans, the trained and anointed warriors of the household, and she was riding by pre-arrangement—as she had told her husband several days before—to spend a day and a night with the duchess of Talair in her moated castle on the northern shore of Lake Dierne. All was in order, carefully so.
The fact that there were other people in Castle Talair besides the duchess and her ladies was an obvious truth, not worthy of comment or observation. A great many people made up the household of a powerful duke such as Bernart de Talair, and if one of them might be the younger son and a poet, what of that? Women in a castle, even here in Arbonne, were guarded like spices or gold, locked up at night against whomever might be wandering in the silence of the dark hours.
But night, and its wanderers, was a long way off. It was a beautiful morning through which they now rode, the first delicate note of the song that would be springtime in Arbonne. To their left, the terraced vineyards stretched into the distance of the Miraval lands, pale green now, but with the promise of the dark, ripe summer grapes to come. East of the curving path, the waters of Lake Dierne were a dazzle of blue in the light of the early sun. Aelis could see the isle clearly, and the smoke rising from the three sacred fires in Rian’s temple there. Despite her two years on the other, larger island of the goddess far to the south in the sea, Aelis had lived her life too near to the gather and play of earthly power to be truly devout, but that morning she offered an inward prayer to Rian, and then another—amused at herself—to Corannos, that the god of the Ancients, too, might look down with favour upon her from his throne behind the sun.
The air was so clear, swept by the freshness of the breeze, that she could already see Talair itself on the far shore of the lake. The castle ramparts rose up, formidable and stern, as befitted the home of a family so proud. She glanced back behind her then and saw, across the vineyards that lay between, the equally arrogant walls of Miraval, a little higher even, seat of a lineage as august as any in Arbonne. But when Aelis looked across the water to Talair she smiled, and when she looked back at the castle where she dwelled with her husband she could not suppress a shiver and a fleeting chill.
‘I thought you might be cold. I brought your cloak, Aelis. It is early yet in the day, and early in the year.’
Her cousin Ariane, Aelis thought, was far too quick and observant for a thirteen-year-old. It was almost time for her to wed. Let some other girl of their family discover the dubious joys of politically guided marriages, Aelis thought spitefully. But then she was quick to withdraw that wish: she would not have another lord such as Urté de Miraval visited upon any of her kin, least of all a child as glad-hearted as Ariane.
