Free Devil's Brood by Sharon Kay Penman

both of her husbands to assert her claim by force. Neither Louis nor Henry had succeeded in prying Toulouse from Count Raimon’s grip, but their failures had not discouraged Eleanor and she continued to consider Toulouse as rightfully part of her domains, part of Richard’s inheritance.
    The jugglers had completed their performance, and a troubadour had taken center stage. The audience quieted, and he began to sing a lover’s plaint, imploring his lady that she could make of him a begger or richer than any king, so great was her power over him.
    Maud joined the other guests in applauding enthusiastically. “That was wonderful,” she exclaimed. “Who is he?”
    “That is Levet, Raimbaut d’Aurenga’s joglar.” Seeing Maud’s blank look, Eleanor leaned over to explain further. “A joglar is similar to a jongleur, a court performer. Most troubadours do not sing their own compositions, not those of high birth like Raimbaut or Countess Biatriz.”
    Maud had glanced curiously toward Raimbaut d’Aurenga, regretting that she was no longer young, for this southern lord was as handsome as he was talented. But her head swiveled back toward Eleanor at the mention of 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