When I first read the prompts given - the songs of troubadours - my mind was filled with images of people singing to stave off the anxiety of war for a while. That anxiety would not only be associated with the battlefield but would also keep reminding people of the homes that they had left behind.
Over the next few days I started thinking of the few crusaders who had nothing to lose, who had left no family behind and had nobody to mourn them if the crusades did kill them. Such people would be isolated from the majority of crusaders, if only on a mental level, but would have a clearer view of the new lands they were in - one unobscured by sentiment.
After this, everything fell into place. The narrator of my poem was talking to a lover, one they had met in a new land. They have differences in their view of religion, and each is exotic (and thus slightly alien) to the other. Nevertheless, the spirit of their relationship is something like 'Til death do us part' - with a certain kind of fatal conviction. What I see as the main premise of the poem is that in the midst of a crusade, you cannot have an ideal love - the despair around you leaks into your relationships as well. But flawed love is still love.