From the vidan of the troubadour, Lisseut of Vezét…

Lisseut, who was one of the first and perhaps the greatest of the woman troubadours of Arbonne, was of reputable birth, the daughter of an olive merchant whose lands lay to the easy of the coastal town of Vezét. She was of middling height for a woman, with brown-coloured hair and pleasing features. Her disposition was said to have been forthright in youth, and this trait appears to have remained with her all her life. Her mother's brother was himself a joglar of some small repute, and it was he who first noticed in the young Lisseut a purity of voice that led him to take her under his tutelage and train her in the craft and art of the joglars. It was not long, however, before Lisseut had greatly outstripped her uncle in renown…

It was in the time after the Battle of Lake Dierne, when Arbonne was saved from the peril of invasion from the north, that Lisseut's prowess moved into the realm of the troubadours and the shaping of her own songs. Her 'Lament for sweet music gone, mourning two of her slain companions, was her first, and perhaps her most celebrated song. It became, in a short time, the anthem for all who had died in that war…

Lisseut was close in friendship all her days with the great King Blaise of Gorhaut, and also with both his first wife and his second, and many are of the view that her 'Elegy for the crown of all kings' written at the time of the death of King Blaise is her most accomplished and moving work… Lisseut of Vezét never married, though she had, as all know, one child, Aurelian, who will surely need no introduction for those reading or hearing these words. Many tales were spread during Lisseut's life and after her passage to Rian with respect to a person of the very highest renown who might have been he father of her son, but it is not our intent to repeat such idle speculations here, only those truths as may be ascertained with some certainty after all the years that have gone past since that time…

Guy Gavriel Kay is the author of the international bestseller Tigana and the acclaimed Fionavar Tapestry, comprising The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, and The Darkest Road. Translated into eight languages, the trilogy has won awards and accolades all over the world and was named by David Pringle in Modem Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels as one of the best fantasy sequences of all time. Previous to this, Kay was retained by the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien to work with Christopher Tolkien in the editorial construction of the posthumously published The Silmarillion.