by Angus Donald
‘What happened to Trois Pouces?’ I asked.
‘He died, God rest him. I left Paris later that year to make a pilgrimage to Rome, and I heard that Pouces had succumbed to the smallpox — there was an outbreak in Paris after I left the city, thousands died, the bodies piled up in the streets, and a friend told me that Pouces had been called to God.’
‘And what became of the music-mad Bishop Heribert?’
‘Oh, he thrived. He did not hold his Pyrenean post for long, his family made arrangements for him to join the Holy Trinity Abbey in Vendome; and he is there to this day — he is now a cardinal, no less! And I hear that he is as enthusiastic about music as ever.’
‘So the last time you saw or heard from my father was twenty odd years ago, at your leave-taking on the Grand-Pont?’
‘Sadly, I never saw him again. I pray that we shall be reunited in Heaven.’
‘But what about his family: the seigneurs d’Alle? Surely Henry; could have gone to them?’
‘His father — your grandfather — was dead by then, and his elder brother Thibault had inherited the lands of Alle, and, well, I got the feeling that they were not as close as brothers should be. In fact, I asked Henri if he would go to Thibault for help and he told me that he would sooner starve in a ditch than be in the same house as him and his family. There was not much love lost between them, it seems. I believe the new seigneur was concerned about the consequences of the scandal and considered that Henri had disgraced the family name by his crimes. Henri was a proud man: he would never beg for succour from anyone.’
‘And so he went to England,’ I said, letting out a long breath. Strong emotions had been stirred by Father Jean’s tale — it occurred to me that I’d like to meet my uncle Thibault, the mean-spirited Seigneur d’Alle, and express my feelings about his abandonment of my father to him fully and frankly down the length of my sword blade.
I left Father Jean in the infirmary and completed a tour of inspection of the defences of the castle. When it was done, I took a long look out over the wall at the enemy camp; I could only detect a sense of peaceful indolence among the depleted enemy, and it was hard to believe that these were the same men who had assailed us so ferociously the day before. The camp had the air of a holy day — indeed, it was Whitsun Eve if I recall correctly — and I guessed that with the departure of the King a good deal of the besiegers’ determination had gone with him. I was almost certain that they did not intend to attack us that day, and ordered half the men to stand down and eat and rest.
I shared a loaf of bread and a lump of cheese with my squire Thomas, washed down with a jug of the local wine. Thomas had cleaned the blood and filth from my sword Fidelity, and was carefully sharpening it with a stone. It seemed the lad had recovered from his fit of remorse and I decided not to mention it in case it stirred up another bout of tears. Instead, I told him what Father Jean had said about my father. Thomas listened gravely and said: ‘I think we should pay a visit to Cardinal Heribert in Vendome. That is, assuming the King comes soon to relieve us and we survive this siege.’
My thoughts had been tending in another direction, towards Paris. I was wondering what the much-loved Bishop de Sully might have to say about the matter of my father’s departure some twenty years ago and whether he might be able to throw any light on the identity of this most powerful person, this ‘man you cannot refuse’, who, like a coward, had ordered my father’s death from the shadows. But I could not for the life of me see how in time of war I might safely get across fifty miles of territory infested with hundreds of enemy knights and into the French capital.
Thomas was right, I concluded. While Vendome, too, was presently in enemy hands, it had traditionally been one of Richard’s towns and its loyalty was like a leaf in the wind. If the Lionheart’s campaign went well, we were more than likely to re-take it. And even if it could not be re-captured, Vendome might be easier to enter than the seat of the King of France himself. If I survived this siege, I decided, then I would beg leave of Richard to go to Vendome and seek out the music-loving Cardinal.
I spent the rest of the day in relative peace. I further reduced the number of sentries and allowed more of the men to rest. I talked a little longer with Father Jean, but it was clear that he had told me everything he knew, and he had no idea who the man might be who had ordered my father’s death. At dusk, after watching the French make their preparations for the night, I felt confident enough to strip off my blood-crusted suit of mail and give it over to Thomas for cleaning.
That night, sitting in the ground floor of the tower, dressed only in linen braies, thin woollen hose and a rather grubby chemise that I had been wearing for a week by then, I composed a rude little satirical ditty, what the jongleurs call a fabliau, which I named ‘King Philip’s Folly’. It told of the haughty monarch’s attempt to take Verneuil, his great mace swinging between his legs as he assailed the gates, but how the valiant men of the castle cut the mace from his body and sent him packing with a sore and gaping wound.
It was greeted with much merriment and many a cheer when I sang it that night, accompanied only by my vielle, a cherished five-stringed instrument that I played with a horsehair bow, which I was very glad to see had survived among the baggage during the giddy charge into the castle. The men liked my fabliau, and indeed, we all seemed to sense that our hour of peril had passed. And so it had, for, after a good night’s sleep and a morning practising basic sword manoeuvres, cuts and blocks, in the castle courtyard with Thomas, Hanno came to me shortly after the noon meal, as I was taking stock of the castle’s few remaining provisions, and said flatly: ‘The French are going.’
Once on the battlements I saw that Hanno had spoken truly. The remainder of the enemy forces were packing up their encampment; tents, weapons, food, fodder, horses, siege engines — the lot. By mid-afternoon, the first of their units were disappearing down a track that ran parallel to the river and led through a wooded region to the east towards the French-held castle of Tillieres.
There was much rejoicing on our walls at this sight, and I allowed a small cask of wine to be broached and served out to the men. The reason for the Frenchmen’s departure soon became apparent, for by the time half the enemy forces had entered the wood and been lost from view, we saw the first outriders of King Richard’s huge army arriving on the ridge where Hanno and I had murdered the knights two days before. At first it was just a single horseman, silhouetted boldly, almost heroically, on the skyline, then the low ridge bloomed into a forest of flagstaffs and spears. The colours of a hundred bright standards caught the slanting golden light of the afternoon sun, and the ridge seemed to swell and darken with the moving bodies of thousands of men and horses.
Although they must have known of its imminent arrival, the swift appearance of Richard’s army sowed panic among the departing French troops. At the tail end of the enemy column was the slow lumbering siege train: three trebuchets, a mangonel and some smaller fry, all being pulled on their own wheeled bases or hauled laboriously on heavy carts by teams of lumbering oxen.
The siege train was protected by a meagre handful of mounted spearmen; and when a single conroi — a cavalry unit of perhaps a score of knights — from Richard’s army began to trot down the gentle slope towards the creeping siege train, the mounted guards did not wait to make a fight of it but spurred their horses’ flanks and galloped away and into the little wood to the east. The ox-drivers did not wait to be captured either: from my lookout on the roof of the castle’s crumbling tower, I could see the little figures of men, clutching long ox-goads, vaulting down from their positions behind the big beasts and running as fast as their legs would carry them into the safety of the trees. As the English conroi trotted up to it, the entire French siege train came to a complete stop, deserted both by guards and drivers, the oxen dropping their block-like heads and beginning to crop placidly at the grass between their feet.
King Richard had come to Verneuil in all his power and might. And King Philip had los
t his siege train.
Chapter Five
The King, delighted by our successful defence of Verneuil, was so overcome with happiness that he embraced Sir Aubrey and myself in turn, and kissed us both the minute he stepped off his horse in the centre of the battered castle courtyard. He promised a pouch of bright silver for each of the men-at-arms who had fought there so valiantly, and lands and honours for Sir Aubrey and myself.
‘I knew you would not fail me, Sir Alan,’ Richard said when he had embraced me, holding me by the elbows like an old friend. ‘You are clearly a man who can be trusted with a castle. Some of my counsellors suggested that you were too inexperienced a knight to hold this place against Philip’s might,’ he shot a stern glance at Mercadier, who looked levelly back at him, his dark, scarred face unreadable, his brown eyes devoid of any expression, ‘but I knew you had the right stuff in you for this task.’
I wallowed in King Richard’s praise; it seemed to warm the very corners of my soul, and somehow it made all the slaughter and suffering of the past few days seem worthwhile. But while I was happy to see my King again, and receive his gratitude, there were two other men in his company who doubled my joy at the royal arrival.
As the sun began to sink, we had lit the courtyard with many torches to welcome the King. And as Richard clapped me on the shoulder and strode away across the open space towards the small hall, shouting for his steward and ordering the servants to prepare a victory feast as swiftly as possible, in the flickering torchlight I gazed up at my lord, Robert, Earl of Locksley, as he looked down at me fondly from the back of a huge red bay horse. My friend, the erstwhile outlaw, the reluctant pilgrim, the man the common people still called Robin Hood, said: ‘Well, Alan, I see you’ve been bathing in glory once again.’
‘Just humbly doing my duty, sir,’ I said grinning up at him. My heart was full at the sight of him, though I noticed that he was paler and thinner than I recalled. Nevertheless, he was here in Verneuil in the flesh and I felt the weight of command, the warlord’s responsibility for the lives of his men, float from my young shoulders and pass to his infinitely broader ones. And for that, and for the sight of him alive and well, I gave thanks to God.
‘I’ve never much cared for humility,’ said my lord, with his familiar mocking smile. ‘And duty is merely the name we give to an unpleasant task that is unlikely to be rewarded. But I will say this: well done, Alan. You’ve done a man’s work here. And I am proud of you.’
I held his horse’s bridle while Robin swung down from the saddle; he was moving a little stiffly and he winced when his boots hit the beaten earth of the courtyard.
‘How is the leg?’ I asked. The wound he had taken at Nottingham was the second to that same limb in two years.
‘Almost mended. The muscles are still weak and I could have done with more rest; but the King summoned me and so I had to obey — obedience to one’s lord is one virtue that I do hold with.’ My own lord gave me a quick smile, to show that he was half-jesting, and his strange silver-grey eyes twinkled at me in the torchlight.
A massive blow, like a kick from an angry mule, exploded in the centre of my back, knocking me a pace forward. I turned fast, dropping the reins of Robin’s horse, my hand going to the hilt of my sword and half drawing the blade. A huge figure loomed over me, a human tower only half-visible in the leaping light of the pine torches. A thatch of blond hair crowned a vast lumpy red face that would have terrified an ogre — if it wasn’t for its broad, friendly and very familiar grin. It was my old friend John Nailor, known by all as Little John. I released the handle of my weapon, allowing the long blade to slide into its scabbard, and clasped the extended meaty hand that had slapped me so hard on the back.
‘God’s bulging ball-bag, young Alan, you are as jumpy as a lady rabbit in a fox lord’s bedchamber,’ said Little John, shaking his head in mock sorrow. ‘It must be a bad conscience. Feeling guilty about something, are you? Been indulging in one of your legendary bouts of onanism again, eh? Have you, lad? You can tell your old uncle John. Bit too much of the old hand-to-cock combat, eh? You’ve got to leave it alone sometimes, you know, Alan. You can’t go on threshing the barley stalk all day and night. It weakens your nerve, rots your brains, can make you go blind, too.’
‘You do talk some rare horseshit, John Nailor. My nerves are absolutely fine. Nothing wrong with them at all.’
I was blushing and I could see Robin trying hard not to laugh, covering his mouth with his hand and making as if to scratch his chin.
I summoned my wits: ‘I must say, John, it’s very good of you to finally turn up. We might have had a use for you a couple of days ago, before the battle — there was a good deal of heavy lifting to be done: boxes, bales, cauldrons of hot oil… Donkey work, of course, but it would have suited you perfectly. And I say “before the battle”; I doubt an idle fellow like you would have been much use during it.’
‘Aye, I can see you’ve had a bit of a scrap here,’ John said, looking around the battered castle, his eye fixing on the half-burnt front gate. ‘But I worry about you, Alan, I truly do. I’m not sure that you’ve got a firm grasp of proper tactics yet. It is generally not considered a sound idea to burn down your own defences. You know, I think it’s rather frowned upon by real soldiers. I can see I still have a lot to teach you.’ He shook his massive head sorrowfully, and made an infuriating tsk-tsk noise behind his big teeth.
I glared at John and opened my mouth to reply, but Robin interrupted our familiar bickering by handing me a heavy package, wrapped in sheepskin and tied with twine.
‘It’s a gift from Godifa,’ said Robin. ‘And it comes with all her love. Marie-Anne and Tuck send theirs, too.’
‘Is all well in Yorkshire?’ I asked my lord. He nodded. ‘Marie-Anne and Tuck have moved down to Westbury to be with Goody. And Marie-Anne is with child again.’ I looked at him and I could tell that he was much pleased by his wife’s condition.
‘I heartily congratulate you, my lord,’ I said formally, but with a happy smile.
‘Yes, it is good news,’ said Robin modestly. ‘I’ll tell you all the rest later. Are you not going to open your gift?’
‘I expect it’s a dozen pairs of fresh, clean braies,’ said John with an evil smirk. ‘She will know that, with all these nasty Frenchmen about, you’ll have been shitting yourself in fear like a stomach-sick goose…’
I weighed the package in my hands. Godifa, known as Goody, was my betrothed — a girl of startling beauty and immense courage, with an alarmingly violent temper, who had been raised by rough outlaws in Sherwood, and who was now attempting to learn to be a fine lady under the tutelage of Robin’s wife, Marie-Anne, Countess of Locksley.
I fumbled open the sheepskin and discovered inside a mace — a beautiful flanged mace: two-foot long with an iron-hard oak shaft and half a pound of wrought steel on the end. I had used one on the Great Pilgrimage, but lost it in battle in Cyprus. Goody knew that I prized it as a weapon, and that I missed the one I had lost. In the right hands, a mace was a fearsome killing tool. The head of the mace was covered with flat triangular pieces of steel welded in a circle around the head, the points facing outwards. It was brutally effective in battle, designed to smash bones and crush organs through a knight’s mail, but it was somehow an object of great beauty, too. I turned it over in my hands, thinking: How typical of Goody! How useful and how ungirlishly practical a gift this is. There was a scrap of parchment inside the package, and in a shaky, childish hand that I could barely make out in the gloom of the courtyard, these words were written in splotched Latin: God keep you safe, my love.
I felt a tremendous surge of emotion at those words; and I realized how much I was missing my beloved girl, my wonderful wife-to-be. I longed to be near her again, to kiss her perfect red lips, to stare into her lovely violet-blue eyes, to wrap her tightly in my arms…
‘You are probably puzzling over what it is,’ said John, crudely breaking in on my thoughts. ‘Let me enlighten you. It’s called a
mace,’ he spoke the last word deliberately, as if I was a simpleton — ‘it’s a big club for hitting Frenchmen. If you are a very good boy, Uncle John will show you how to use it one day-’
‘Be quiet now, John,’ Robin said with absolute authority. He could see that I was struggling to keep my composure under the storm of emotions that were besieging my heart.
‘Owain is dead,’ I said, my throat swollen and clogged.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Robin. ‘He was the best of men.’
‘I miss him already,’ I said.
‘It’s all right, lad. We all miss him,’ said Little John.
‘Shall we go into the hall?’ said Robin, after a moment’s silence, and all I could manage was a snuffling grunt by way of an affirmative.
I performed ‘King Philip’s Folly’ for the French monarch’s royal cousin Richard the Lionheart that evening. In the castle’s small and rather shabby hall, now made as regal as possible with golden firelight and many beeswax candles, our knightly company enlivened with good wine, good meat and good cheer, I mocked the French King and made my own sovereign laugh until he wept, his white teeth flashing in the candlelight, his red-gold hair seeming to dance and sparkle with his immoderate joy.