Free The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery by Alan Gordon Page B

course, you’re of the royal family of Aragon,” I said. “That explains it.”
    “Explains what, Fool?”
    “The source of your beauty. The women of Aragon are legendary for it.”
    Her mouth hung open for a second; then she quickly filled it with wine and swallowed.
    “Now, that was wonderful!” she exclaimed. “That is how a compliment should be paid. Just try and find some courtly behavior in this giant market that passes for a city. None! And along comes a fool, and he’s got more manners than anyone here.”
    I bowed.
    “Have you ever been to Aragon?” she asked, her eyes misting.
    “I’m afraid not, Domna,” I said. “The closest I have come was Barcelona. But had I known that you were in Aragon, I would have made the pilgrimage.”
    “There, you see? That’s how it’s done!” she said, almost crying. “You must give my husband lessons. Do you speak Catalan?”
    “I do, and I understand Aragonese. I know a few of your songs.”
    “Oh, would you sing one? I haven’t heard my tongue sung in ages.”
    I unslung my lute and sang an alba by Giraut de Bornelh. It was a favorite at the Guildhall, and when I was done, she sighed and dabbed at her eyes with her kerchief.
    “I cannot remember the last time I heard anyone sing in this house,” she said.
    “Your husband does not care for it?”
    “He cares for nothing but God,” she said.
    “A very pious man,” I said carefully.
    “What good is a pious man to his wife?” she said, holding her cup out.
    I refilled it, and some of it slopped over the lip onto a rosebush as she rushed it to her lips.
    “A libation,” she said. “Let its sacrifice be not in vain.”
    “To whom do you make sacrifice?”
    “To the old gods,” she said. “To anyone listening. Am I truly beautiful?”
    “The most beautiful flower in this garden,” I said.
    She glanced about uncertainly, and I hoped that there was something nearby in bloom to which she could compare herself. Fortunately, some faded pansies lingered in a corner, and she nodded, satisfied.
    “I was only beautiful enough to be bartered for this man,” she said. “He is the viscount of a great city, they told me. He’s been living in an abbey for years, they told me, and he’ll be on you like a thirsty man diving into a desert oasis. To seduce a monk, what could be simpler, I thought? But he prefers the desert, and I am the one left parched.”
    She was thirsty, I observed as she spilled the dregs of the pitcher into her cup.
    “What does he pray for?” I asked.
    “Release,” she said. “Release from care, release from responsibility, release from duty. Release from this house, and from me.”
    “He must be bitter indeed to wish to escape such a lovely warden.”
    “Bitter doesn’t begin to describe him,” she whispered. “He cries out for punishment and for vengeance. He lashes himself.”
    “My goodness!”
    “I have offered to help him with that part,” she said, giggling again. “For charity’s sake.”
    “You are indeed a virtuous lady, Domna,” I said. “You said that he prays for vengeance? Surely that is not a proper subject for prayer.”
    “But our God is a wrathful god,” she argued. “If He has wreaked His vengeance on so many people so many times, then that must be something we can pray for, don’t you think?”
    “I think that God’s vengeance is His alone,” I said. “But I am merely a fool. These philosophical debates I leave to great ones such as yourself. Do you know who your husband wishes God’s wrath to visit?”
    “Just about everyone here,” she said.
    “Have his prayers ever been answered?”
    “Oh, every now and then some merchant or nobleman dies, and Roncelin starts dancing with glee, claiming his plan is working. But it always seems to be a death from old age, or illness, things that happen in the natural course of events. And it’s never someone I’ve heard him single out. I shouldn’t be saying all of this, but I do so enjoy talking to