‘When I was a girl,’ said Auxille, going back to her sock, ‘my grandfather told me the stories of the shepherds.’
She told me stories all afternoon. Stories I’d never heard before, of princes, love-sick shepherds, saints with strange names, lost princesses and troubadours …
There was once a troubadour called Avelard and he was the finest minstrel in the region. Princes would pay a fortune to have him sing at their courts. But Avelard belonged to nobody. He came and went as he pleased.
There was a prince married to a beautiful princess and they lived in the grandest palace in the Maures. Now, this prince had the best of everything, the best food, the best wine, the best company at his tables, but he did not have Avelard. And this is what he wanted most of all. One day a thin-faced shabby man appeared at the palace gates and asked to sing at the prince’s tables. Grudgingly the guard let him in. After all, perhaps he could at least make the prince laugh. But there was something else about this man, his confidence, his sense of purpose, his piercing blue eyes, that also persuaded the guard.
That night at the banquet the man sat with the servants, ate the poorest food and said nothing. There were plenty of entertainments, musicians, clowns, jugglers, story-tellers. At the end of the feast the prince said, ‘Where is this man who has asked to sing for us?’ and without a word the man stood up, took up his mandolin and started to sing.
What silence fell over the banquet, for the man sang such sad songs, played such touching melodies that every person down to the meanest kitchen boy was moved.
The prince and the princess were enthralled. They urged the troubadour to sing on late into the night. Finally the prince said, ‘Please, please, tell me your name,’ and the man said, ‘I am Avelard.’
Wasn’t the prince overjoyed! He showered the man with gifts and money, but all the man wanted was food and a quiet room. His insistence on simplicity unnerved the prince because he realised he could not buy this person. As the months passed, the reputation of the prince’s court grew. The finest minds, the most learned people were to be seen there, and at each banquet Avelard sang to them.
Then one day the time came that the prince most dreaded. Avelard went to see him and said, ‘I have enjoyed your hospitality but now I must leave. I am a troubadour and I cannot stay in one place for long.’ The prince tried all he could: reason, offers of the most lavish gifts; but no, the man was insistent. He had to leave. This time it was the prince who was unnerved by Avelard’s steady gaze.
That night the prince couldn’t sleep. He knew if Avelard left, his court would deteriorate, and for his pride and vanity he couldn’t let this happen. He devised a plan to keep Avelard in his palace.
The next day, as Avelard tried to leave, the guard stopped him at the gates and said that the prince wanted to see him most urgently.
‘I can’t let you leave,’ said the prince, ‘until you have taught me all your songs.’ Now, the prince had his own army and the castle was a fortress on a hill. Avelard realised he was a prisoner.
‘I have no choice. I have to accept,’ he said.
Weeks passed and Avelard tried to teach the prince. The prince was an efficient musician but he had not the understanding or the skill to sing like a troubadour. It would take months, possibly years, to teach the prince all he knew.
Avelard became depressed. He kept to his room, sometimes for days at a time, looking out of the window at the wild, wooded landscape and the freedom that was denied him. It was the princess who realised his plight and came frequently to visit him.
‘My husband is a proud man,’ she said. ‘I know he will not let you go until he is satisfied,’ and there was something in her sad eyes that made Avelard realise she was right.
Then one day the princess came to him bright and excited. ‘I have an idea,’ she said, ‘why not teach me? I can sing, I am a fast learner. Teach me your songs then I will teach them to the prince. After all, I have the rest of my life to do that.’
That night the princess put this idea to the prince. At first he was adamant: no, Avelard must teach him; but gradually the princess put forward so many arguments in favour, she was so insistent, so charming, the prince agreed. After all, she was his most rare acquisition.
Over the next few months Avelard taught the princess and found to his astonishment she had the delicacy and intelligence to be one of the finest troubadours. Then the inevitable happened. They fell in love. The more the princess came to know Avelard, the more she despised her haughty, arrogant husband. The more Avelard came to know the princess, the more he realised how much he loved her. ‘Come away with me,’ he said, ‘let us live a life of freedom for ever.’
The time came when the princess had learned all Avelard’s songs and a great banquet was held in their honour. The prince sat at the head of the table puffed out with pride at his own cleverness. After all what could be more clever than having his beautiful wife sing to his guests. But after both Avelard and the princess had sung, and after the rapturous applause, the princess whispered in the prince’s ear that she felt unwell and needed to lie down. Unwell? The prince was delighted, perhaps this was the first sign of the son he had been longing for. Unperturbed, he continued with the banquet, getting more drunk with his self-importance.
In the midst of this merry-making nobody noticed two hooded figures slip across the courtyard, through a side door and into the dark woods that surrounded the palace. In the morning, when it became apparent what had happened, the prince was filled with fury at his wife’s betrayal and Avelard’s deception. He sent his army into the forest to find the runaway pair. No amount of public humiliation would be enough for them. But the army came back empty-handed. The princess and Avelard had disappeared into thin air.
The prince was stricken with remorse. He had to accept his own part in the events. He loved the princess but he could see his pride had driven her away. The wise and the learned stopped coming to his castle. It fell into disrepair, then disuse. Then it was practically no more than a ruin with the prince living like a hermit within its empty halls. As he had no heir, when he died his lands were divided and his once grand palace became no more than a heap of stones on the deserted hillside.
But what happened to the princess? Some say she and Avelard lived happily ever after, but some know better what is in the heart of a troubadour. One day, surely, the princess woke up in her makeshift bed under the stars and found that Avelard had gone, as she knew that one day he would. She was sad, because she loved him and she knew he loved her, but she also understood his need to be free. She could never go back to the stultifying life of the court. From that moment she became a troubadour in her own right. She too began the travelling life, singing in the great courts of Europe.
I love that story. I’ve told it to myself many times since Auxille first told it to me outside the café. I told it to Sanclair, sitting where I am now, in the doorway of the hut, as the light fades and darkness sweeps across the sky like an inky stain.
Monday. Afternoon
When the sun comes out it is quite warm. Over the last few days the wind has dropped. It rained several times, mostly in the night. There’s a feeling of stillness and moisture around here. I have decided to look for orchids. I drew a map, probably not accurate, of all the terraces, and yesterday and today went searching. On the top terrace near the woods were two patches of early pink. Behind the hut was something purplish, without chlorophyll, I’m not sure what it’s called, like a butterbur, and nearer to the gully was a bee orchid hiding in the grass. It does indeed look like a bee, and felt like one too, sort of furry. Some botanical paper this is going to be! Three species and none of them rare.
I have started to give the terraces names. There’s the top terrace, the hut terrace, the rock rose terrace, the bee orchid terrace, the fig tree terrace, the