All Things Are Lights | Page 8

the table
toward Cardenal.
"Drink from this tonight and keep it with you always, Master Peire. A
poor thing, compared to your music. But a remembrance of one of the
most beautiful evenings of my life."
Cardenal bowed. "A handsome present, monseigneur."
What a power he has, Roland thought. He must have sung for hours,
and everybody wishes he would go on for the rest of the night. I could
never hold people spellbound like that. It is foolish of me to dabble in
music.
The diners stirred. Sire Etienne, Sire Arnaut, and Cardenal stood
talking at the table. Guacelm, the jongleur, joined them. And then
Roland saw that Guacelm was pointing down the table at him. The
terror came back, and he wanted to run out of the room.
Arnaut de Vency, his dark face creased in a smile, beckoned. Roland
sat paralyzed.
"Go, Roland," Diane whispered. "You must go."
Dragging his feet, he went to where the men stood. Peire Cardenal
fixed him with fierce eyes.
"I am told you are learning to sing and play, my lad. Are you any good
at it?"
"Indifferent, Monseigneur," said Roland in a small voice.

"Do not 'Monseigneur' me, boy," Cardenal growled. "I am a baker's son,
nothing more. What claim to respect I have is here and here." He
touched his hand to his forehead and his throat.
"To me, that means a good deal more than gentle birth," said Arnaut de
Vency. Embarrassed, Roland could not look at his father.
"Too many of our good troubadours spend their lives ? and lose their
lives - fighting the so-called crusaders who have invaded Languedoc,"
said Cardenal. "There are but two or three practicing the art now. We
need new blood. Let us hear what you can do, boy."
Roland's mother, Dame Adalys, joined the group. "Roland, sing a song
of your own - the one about the pines."
Roland thought he would rather face a host of Frankish crusaders with
drawn swords.
Sire Etienne called for silence, and everyone sat down to listen.
Guacelm thrust the lute and a plectrum into Roland's hands, and his
father gave him a gentle tug, starting him toward the center of the floor.
He had to walk around the table. He passed Diane.
She squeezed his arm and whispered, "You will be wonderful!"
In a semi-trance he walked out into the center of the room, the lute big
and heavy in his hands. With his head lifted as Cardenal had held
himself moments ago, he stood briefly silent as he strove to collect his
wits. He prayed he would remember all the words to his own song. He
had sung it, mostly without audience, many times, but still he felt
unsure. He let the melody begin rippling through his mind. Then,
holding the plectrum tight between thumb and forefinger, he picked out
the introductory notes.
He looked at Diane, her green eyes shining in the candlelight. He took a
deep breath and began to sing. His fingers moved on the lute of their
own accord. His soprano voice vibrated in his throat. He let his gaze
sweep the room, but he sang for Diane alone.

"The trees on the mountains in summer are green But are stripped of
their robes in the fall. When the snow shrouds the hills, Then the whole
world seems dead, But the pines remain green through it all."
It was a short song, only three verses, and even as he sang them he felt
he could hear with Cardenal's ears the echoes of other tunes, the trite
lyrics. But when he thought he could not go on, he looked at Diane and
felt better about his song.
The applause and cheers were louder and longer than he had expected.
They are kind to me because am Arnaut's son, he told himself. He
bowed deeply.
He left the lute and plectrum on the table. He was too embarrassed to
face even Guacelm. People were starting to talk to one another again.
Mercifully, his song was forgotten.
He hurried through a side door and up a spiral stair to a battlemented
lookout tower two stories above the main hall. There he went out and
breathed deeply of the cool air, scented of the sea whose shore was not
far from Chateau de Combret. He leaned against the hard edge of a
merlon.
The oak door creaked behind him. A broad figure appeared in the
starlight.
"Well, what the devil did you rush off like that for, boy? Think yourself
too good for us?"
Roland shrank inside. "I could never be as good as you, Master Peire. "
"To the devil with comparisons. I do not know how good I am, and
neither do you. The thing is to know yourself good enough to