Troubadour by Mary Hoffman Page A

take up arms against my uncle.’
    ‘I see,’ said Bertran. ‘What about King Philippe-Auguste?’
    ‘His Holiness has not written to him this time, they say. But I don’t imagine he will be happy if his barons take their soldiers and head south to please the Pope.’
    ‘What does your uncle say?’ asked Bertran.
    ‘I haven’t seen him. But he has brought this trouble on himself. He should never have promised the Legates that he would persecute the Believers. The Pope was bound to keep him to his word.’
    The two men were silent for a while, drinking their wine and each thinking his own thoughts.
    ‘You heard about the murder of the Legate?’ asked Bertran.
    The Viscount nodded. This was a delicate area. He could hardly tell the troubadour that his uncle had been responsible. But the fact was that Trencavel did not know the truth. He and his uncle, the Count of Toulouse, had not been on good terms for some time.
    ‘I was there,’ said Bertran. ‘I saw the murder and gave chase after the murderer. But I lost him.’
    ‘That is news indeed,’ said the Viscount. ‘I did not know you had been there.’
    ‘I am not proclaiming the fact,’ said Bertran. ‘It would have been all right if I had caught the villain but since he escaped me, there might be those, especially in Rome, who think I was in collusion with him.’
    ‘Surely not. You exaggerate the danger. Who would suspect you of such a heinous crime?’
    ‘That is not what matters anyway,’ said Bertran. ‘It is my belief that, if the Pope is successful in raising a northern army, it will not come only against Toulouse.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ asked the Viscount. ‘His argument is with my uncle, no one else.’
    ‘His argument is with the people he calls heretics,’ said Bertran. ‘And with any lord who supports them and is sympathetic to their cause.’
    ‘But that is more or less every lord in the Midi,’ objected the Viscount. ‘None of our cities and bastides could manage without the Believers – or the Jews come to that.’
    ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Bertran. ‘And why I have been singing of war and battles in every hill town between here and Saint-Gilles. I do believe that, using this murder as an excuse, the Pope will do everything he can to wage war against every court in the south. Anyway, once there is an army on the rampage, they will not be precise about who is a heretic and who is not.’
    They were both thinking about this when a servant knocked at the door and came and whispered something in the Viscount’s ear.
    ‘And now we have two more pieces of news,’ said Raimon-Roger, his face grave. ‘The Pope has excommunicated my uncle again.’
    ‘That is surely no surprise,’ said Bertran.
    ‘No, indeed, he must be getting used to it,’ said the Viscount.
    ‘If he were a heretic, to be banned from the Sacrament would not mean much to him,’ said Bertran cautiously.
    ‘Nor if he were just a not very devout man but a rebellious and ambitious spirit, as I know him to be,’ said the Viscount, evading the implied question.
    Bertran bowed. He was not going to find out, even from this intelligent man that he counted his friend, whether he or his uncle shared the troubadour’s religion.
    ‘But I said there was another piece of news,’ said the Viscount. ‘My servant tells me that there is a Pope’s man at the outer gate. He seeks one Bertran de Miramont. He thinks that the troubadour might be here and wishes – this is the precise phrase – to “interrogate him”. What shall I do, Bertran? It seems you might be right in one of your surmises at least. The Pope is looking for you.’

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    CHAPTER SEVEN
    Two Journeys
    The troupe stayed in Montpellier over a week. The Sunday after Easter was the feast day of a Saint Martin who had been a Pope hundreds of years before and Lucatz was insistent that they had to show themselves willing to celebrate the feast.
    ‘Pope Martin was a persecutor of heretics in his day,’