Episode Details

Emerging from the dark and foreboding forest, the jongleur made his way to a stunning glade adorned with a vibrant array of wild flowers. Over five hundred peasants had gathered around red flags with a palpable spirit of resistance. Those humble folks, known to the Parisians as Jacques Goodfellow, bore the weight of displacement caused by the harsh trials of war, plague, and famine. And their revolt was somewhat a consequence.

At twilight, beneath the ominous shadow of the storm-ravaged castle, a scene of macabre celebration unfurled. The Jacques with their spoils dripping with the scent of battle—weapons still gleaming, stolen finery draped over blood-stained garments—gathered around roaring bonfires with a frenzied fervor.

Amidst the flickering light, the jongleur Henri Guiot beheld a scene that teetered on the edge of the surreal—a defiant carnival in full swing. Each peasant was clad in elaborate, grotesque disguises, a chaotic blend of fabrics and forms. The atmosphere crackled with tension, yet the revelers abandoned themselves to wild celebration. Crimson cloaks billowed like victory banners, embroidered hose and plundered regal garments gleamed, all taken from the castle’s coffers. This chaotic array of costumes formed a vibrant, jarring tapestry of colors and textures, symbolizing their rebellious conquest.

That was a unique way of stripping away inhibitions, the jongleur noted, reminiscent of what he had witnessed in Paris. There, he was genuinely shocked by the scandalous orgiastic displays of the goliards with their bawdy drinking songs. Yet, he found the peasants’ simplicity to be almost magical, akin to an abracadabra-like charm.

The jongleur was welcomed like an entertainer as he advanced with the jingle of his colorful attire, children and women approached him to celebrate his arrival with cheers and the clamor reserved only for kings; the peasants considered him a distinguished guest and ensured he was fed and had something to drink.

Henri Guiot’s stomach was shrunken from the hunger he had endured in the forests, and he accepted only a sip from a jug, a slice of roast meat, always so moderate and respectful, returning the exaggerated bows of the peasants who badly imitated the courtiers of a castle and then touched his small bells with devotion, as if he were indeed a holy man.

A young woman offered him a gittern to play, something he did gladly after tuning the strings, starting with a festive melody. When he finished the piece, Henri wanted to return the stringed instrument, but the young woman insisted that he take it as a gift. She could not play the gittern but she could sing instead.

“Would you like to convene to rehearse an aubade song?”, she asked.

“Why not? But I guess you should tell me your name first, if you don’t mind.”

He made her blush for being interested in her name when anonymity was a customary precaution.

“My name is Azalaïs, like my grandma, a trobairitz from Porcairagues.”

She told him that her grandma’s songs were still sung during that time of revolts, even though those were old love songs, an unthinkable emotion in the middle of such cruelty. Her family had hurried from Occitania fleeing from the ravages of the bubonic plague, losing everything in the process, and getting stuck working the land in Compiègne for a feudal master until her parents and brothers were killed in a brutal English raid. Since then, like a bird in a storm, she wandered aimlessly until she joined the peasant's revolt, living day by day.

“And yes–Azalaïs said with raging pride looking him in the eye–I slit the throat of a rich old man for the first time in my life with a sharp big knife, like everybody else, when we stormed into the castle this early morning.”

But she tried not to dwell on that. She felt lucky to be alive because it could be otherwise if that castle had been protected by loyal knights. But it wasn’t. And all she want