Chapter One

Idyll

[a poem or short prose in a bucolic setting]

16 June

Jouglet the minstrel and Lienor were flirting again as they waited for Willem on the steps in the small courtyard. Lienor's green linen tunic was laced tighter in the back than her mother would have liked, but Jouglet and Lienor each seemed quite pleased with the effect.

"I'm astonished Willem said yes to this," said Lienor, who was possibly the most beautiful woman in the county of Burgundy, and knew it, but was not much bothered by it. With a grateful smile, she added, "It's only for your sake, Jouglet. My brother never lets me do anything."

"He is concerned only for your safety, milady," the minstrel answered neutrally. "Think of all the scrawny itinerant musicians who would prick your honor, given the chance."

Lienor fidgeted with her wreath of rosebuds. "He's overcautious. I would have more freedom in the cellar of an abbey."

"Come now, milady," Jouglet cooed. "He is a man of great indulgence. I offer my own friendship with him as proof."

Lienor rolled her eyes and sighed dismissively. "It's different for you, you're a man." Her eyes ran over the lean young body and she added, giggling, "Well . . . very nearly."

Boyish Jouglet, although used to such jabs, looked affronted nonetheless. "What does milady mean, very nearly? Must I prove myself yet again? I beg the lady to assign me a task only a great hero could achieve, and I'll demonstrate that I am worthy of your feminine regard." But they smiled at each other; this was an old game between them.

"Very well, you lowly knight errant," Lienor recited, feigning disdain. She gestured grandly toward the manor gate. "Travel the earth for ten years and bring me back . . ." She glanced at her pale hands a moment. "Bring me back a magic ring that will make me queen of all I survey."

"Your happiness is my Holy Grail, milady," Jouglet announced, with an absurd level of gravity, and bowed deeply.

"Is it?" Lienor scolded. "I have been waiting three years already, you might at least have slain a dragon for me by now. But I am so gracious and undemanding, I shall be content with a magic ring."

"It is as good as done, milady. And when I return I hope I shall be granted the honor of resting upon your delicate pink bosom."

"My bosom is white," Lienor said, mock-petulant.

Jouglet grinned wickedly. "Not once I get through with it."

Lienor giggled; her mother, Maria, standing watchfully a few paces away, clicked her tongue disapprovingly but said nothing. Maria had come, over the course of three years of Jouglet's unannounced visits, to trust the fiddler with almost unimpeded access to the entire household; even if Jouglet could have claimed the brute masculine strengths that might endanger a young lady's purity—and Jouglet couldn't—Lienor would have been impervious.

Willem stepped out of the musty shade of the stable. He squinted in the bright light, a hooded falcon tethered on his wrist. Willem was a handsome man, his gentle demeanor belied by the crooked nose that was evidence of too many fights. He saw his sister and their guest at their usual banter and smiled despite himself. Their behavior was appalling, but he was too fond of each of them to chastise effectively. Although the musician made it this far west infrequently, there was no one outside his family to...