A Song for Arbonne

by Guy Gavriel Kay

First published 1992

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4.3(16,858)

Blaise of Gorhaut leaves the harsh northern kingdom ruled by his father and takes service in Arbonne, a southern land of troubadours, courts of love and powerful noblewomen. He becomes entangled with the ruling countess and the divided houses beneath her authority, where an old tragedy involving the celebrated singer Aelis still shapes loyalties and succession. Arbonne’s cultivated ideals are neither simple nor innocent, but they offer Blaise a social order radically different from the one he rejected.

In Gorhaut, the militant priesthood of Corannos condemns Arbonne’s worship, music and female authority, giving King Ademar a religious justification for conquest. Personal feuds, disputed parentage and political calculation therefore become part of an approaching war. Inspired by medieval Provence, troubadour culture and the Albigensian Crusade, the novel examines courtly love as both art and power, and asks whether a culture built around song can defend itself against those determined to erase it.