Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief Read Online Free PDF

on the ear with such astonishment, no one could doubt it. There was no way of subduing that voice into anonymity among the balanced polyphony of a choir. Cadfael wondered if it might not be equally shortsighted to try and groom its owner into a conforming soul in a disciplined brotherhood.
    "Brother Denis's Provencal guest pricked up his ears," remarked Anselm, "when he heard the lad. Last night he asked Herluin to let the boy join him at practice in the hall. There they go now. I have his rebec in for restringing. I will say for him, he cares for his instruments."
    The trio crossing the cloister from the south door of the church was a cause of considerable curiosity and speculation among the novices. It was not often the convent housed a troubador from the south of France, obviously of some wealth and repute, for he travelled with two servants and lavish baggage. He and his entourage had been here three days, delayed in their journey north to Chester by a horse falling lame. R� of Pertuis was a man of fifty or so, of striking appearance, a gentleman who valued himself on his looks and presentation. Cadfael watched him cross towards the guesthall; he had not so far had occasion to pay him much attention, but if Anselm respected him and approved his musical conscience he might be worth studying. A fine, burnished head of russet hair and a clipped beard. Good carriage and a body very handsomely appointed, fur lining his cloak, gold at his belt. And two attendants following close behind him, a tall fellow somewhere in his mid-thirties, all muted brown from head to foot, his good but plain clothing placing him discreetly between squire and groom, and a woman, cloaked and hooded, but by her slender figure and light step young.
    "What's his need for the girl?" Cadfael wondered.
    "Ah, that he has explained to Brother Denis," said Anselm, and smiled. "Meticulously! Not his kin..."
    "I never thought it," said Cadfael.
    "But you may have thought, as I certainly did when first they rode in here, that he had a very particular use for her, as indeed he has, though not as I imagined it." Brother Anselm, for all he had come early to the cloister, had fathomed most of the byways that were current outside the walls, and had long ago ceased to be either surprised or shocked by them. "It's the girl who performs most of his songs. She has a lovely voice, and he values her for it, and highly, but for nothing else, so far as I can see. She's an important part of his stock in trade."
    "But what," wondered Cadfael, "is a minstrel from the heart of Provence doing here in the heart of England? And plainly no mere jongleur, but a genuine troubadour. He's wandered far from home, surely?"
    And yet, he thought, why not? The patrons on whom such artists depend are becoming now as much English as French, or Norman, or Breton, or Angevin. They have estates both here and oversea, as well seek them here as there. And the very nature of the troubadour, after all, is to wander and venture, as the Galician word trobar, from which they take their name, though it has come to signify to create poetry and music, literally means to find. Those who find, seek and find out the poetry and the music both, these are the troubadours. And if their art is universal, why should they not be found everywhere?
    "He's heading for Chester," said Anselm. "So his man says, B�zet, he's called. It may be he hopes to get a place in the earl's household. But he's in no haste, and plainly in no want of money. Three good riding horses and two servants in his following is pretty comfortable travelling."
    "Now I wonder," said Cadfael, musing darkly, "why he left his last service? Made himself too agreeable to his lord's lady, perhaps? Something serious, to make it necessary to cross the sea."
    "I am more interested," said Anselm, undisturbed by such a cynical view of troubadours in general, "in where he got the girl. For she is not French, not Breton, not from Provence. She speaks the