a space in the round of the year where all seemed in suspension, when anything might happen or be allowed. After nightfall, she thought, that would certainly be true in a variety of ways.
A masked figure clad in green and bright yellow sprang in front of her, arms outspread; in a mock growl that clashed with his birdlike costume he demanded an embrace as passersby laughed. Sidestepping neatly, Lisseut pirouetted out of his grasp. ‘Bad luck to kiss a singer before sundown!’ she called over her shoulder. She’d made that one up two years back; it seemed to work. And by sundown she was usually with friends and so shielded from anyone coming to assert a deferred claim.
Not that the claims would ever be a serious problem. Not here, and not for her—too many people knew who she was by now, and even among the wildest of the students, the joglars and troubadours had an exalted status in Tavernel, even more so during Carnival. It was a debauched season, but one with its hierarchies and rules nonetheless.
As she crossed Temple Square, where the silver domes of Rian’s principal shrine faced the square, golden towers of Corannos’s, the south breeze brought her an almost forgotten tang of salt from the port. Lisseut smiled, glad to be back by the sea after a long winter and spring touring inland and in the mountains. Reaching the far side of the square, she was suddenly overwhelmed by the smells of cooking food and remembered that she hadn’t eaten since midday on the road. Easy enough to forget to eat in haste to be in town, knowing how many friends she’d not seen for a year would be arriving that day and the next. But the smells reminded her that she was ravenous. She nipped into a cookshop and emerged a moment later chewing on a leg of fried chicken, careful to keep the dripping grease from staining her new tunic.
The tunic was a present to herself after a very successful spring in the eastern hills, her best tour yet by far. First at the goddess’s own temple for a fortnight, and then at lofty Ravenc Castle, where Gaufroy de Ravenc had been more than generous to her and to Alain of Rousset, the troubadour with whom she’d teamed up that season. She’d even had untroubled nights there in a room all to herself with a wonderfully soft bed, since En Gaufroy evidently preferred Alain’s charms to her own. Which was fine with Lisseut; Alain’s clever verses, her own singing and whatever took place in the lord’s chambers at night had led Gaufroy into a humour of exceptional largesse when it came time for the two of them to leave.
When she’d briefly parted with Alain at Rousset town a few days after—he was planning to spend some time with his family before coming down to Tavernel, and she was committed to a performance at Corannos’s shrine near Gavela—he was highly complimentary about her work and invited her to join him on the same circuit in a year’s time. He was an easy man to work for and Lisseut found his songs well-crafted if less than inspired; she had had no hesitation about agreeing. A few of the other troubadours might offer richer, more challenging material for a joglar—Jourdain, Aurelian, certainly Remy of Orreze—but there was much to be said for Alain’s relaxed congeniality, and something also to be said for the bonus his night-time skills offered with the priests and lords at certain temples and castles. Lisseut considered herself honoured to have been asked; it was her first repeat contract after three years on the roads, and the joglars of Arbonne fought and schemed for such offers from the better-known troubadours. She and Alain were to seal the agreement at the Guildhall before Carnival ended. A great many contracts would be negotiated and sealed this week; it was one of the reasons virtually all the musicians made a point of being there.
There were other reasons, of course; Carnival was sacred to Rian, as all Midsummer’s rites were, and the goddess was patroness and guardian of all music in Arbonne, and so of all the itinerant performers who crossed back and forth along the dusty roads singing songs and shaping them in the name of love. One came to Tavernel at Midsummer at least as much in homage to Rian as for anything else.
That said, it had to be conceded that Carnival was also the wildest, least inhibited, most enjoyable time of the year for anyone not in mourning, or incapacitated, or dead.
Lisseut finished her chicken leg, paused to wipe her hands with elaborate fastidiousness on the apron of a portly, grinning fruit seller, and bought an orange from him. She rubbed it quickly on his crotch for luck, drawing ribald laughter from the crowd and a groan of mock desire from the man. Laughing herself, feeling glad to be alive and young and a singer in Arbonne in summer-time, Lisseut continued down towards the harbour and then right at the first crossing lane and saw the familiar, much-loved sign of The Liensenne swinging above the street.
As always, it felt like coming home. Home was really Vezét, of course, on the coast further east with the famous olive groves climbing up behind it, but this, the original ‘Tavern in Tavernel’ for which Anselme of Cauvas had written his song years and years ago, was a kind of second home for all the musicians of Arbonne. Marotte, the proprietor, had served as a surrogate father and confidant for half the younger joglars and poets in his day, including Lisseut herself when she had first said goodbye to her parents and her home and followed her troubadour uncle onto the road, trusting in her voice and music to feed her and her mother-wits to keep her alive. Less than four years ago, that was. It seemed a much longer time. Grinning, she jauntily tipped her feathered hat to the lute-playing figure on the signboard—it was said to be a rendition of Folquet de Barbentain, the original troubadour-count himself—nodded back at a broad wink from one man amongst a crowd of half a dozen playing pitch-coin outside the door and stepped inside.
She knew her mistake the instant she did so.
Knew it even before Remy’s exultant, skirling howl of triumph assaulted her ears over the din, even before Aurelian, standing next to Remy, intoned ‘Nine!’ in a voice deep as doom, even before she saw the flushed hilarious crowd of musicians holding a dripping, moustachioed, furiously expostulating Arimondan upside-down over the accursed basin of water, preparing to dunk him again. Even before the covey of coin-pitchers outside pushed quickly in right behind her, cackling in glee.
She knew this tradition, in Rian’s holy name! What had she been thinking of? She’d even nodded like a fatuous bumpkin at the people gathered outside waiting for the ritual ninth to enter, thus making it safe for them to follow. Friendly, simple-minded Lisseut, nodding happily on her way to a ducking only the ignorant were supposed to receive.
And now Remy, looking quite unfairly magnificent, bright hair in ringlets on his forehead, damp with perspiration, blue eyes positively glittering with hilarity, was swiftly approaching, followed by Aurelian and Jourdain and Dumars and even—oh the perfidy of it all!—the laughing figure of Alain, her erstwhile partner, along with fully half a dozen others, including Elisse of Cauvas, who was enjoying this unexpected development quite as much as she might be expected to. Lisseut registered Elisse’s mocking smile and furiously cursed her own stupidity again. She looked around frantically for an ally, spotted Marotte behind the bar and pitched a plea for help at the top of her highly regarded voice.
Grinning from ear to ear, her surrogate father shook his head. No help there. Not at Midsummer in Tavernel. Quickly, Lisseut turned back to Remy, smiling in her most endearingly winsome fashion.
‘Hello, my dear,’ she began sweetly. ‘And how have you been this—’
She got no further than that. Moving as gracefully as ever, Remy of Orreze, her former lover—every woman’s former lover, someone had once said, though not bitterly—slipped neatly under her instinctive, warding gesture, put a shoulder to her midriff and had her hoisted in the air before Lisseut could even try to phrase some remotely plausible reason why she should be exonerated from the water-ducking. A dozen pairs of hands, both before and behind, hastened to assist him in bearing her aloft like some sacrifice of the Ancients towards the ducking basin by the bar.
Every year! Lisseut was thinking, grasped too tightly to even struggle. We do this every cursed year! Where was my brain just now?
In the chaos around her she noticed
