by Angus Donald
It was a painstaking process: the used parchment was clamped to a wooden board, where it would first be gently washed with fresh cows’ milk and then scrubbed with oat bran, which would remove most of the dried ink from its previous use. However, if the writer had pressed hard on the animal skin, some of the ink would be more deeply ingrained in the parchment and this could only be removed by scraping with a pumice stone, a grey crumbly rock that was so light it would float on water. This was a delicate task; the parchment was very thin and scraping too hard with the pumice could tear holes in the material. If you scraped the parchment too gently, of course, the resulting palimpsest would still be covered with the original writing.
‘You will be careful, my dear boy, won’t you?’ said a worried Fulcold as he assigned me a stack of parchments, some of which had already been partially cleaned.
I took special care with the parchments he gave me that day and the chamberlain was pleased with my work. Of course, I also read each document thoroughly before I cleaned it. I did so well that this became my regular employment in Fulcold’s establishment and I was pleased with myself: if I could not yet read the Queen’s outgoing correspondence, I could at least read what people were saying to her. Some letters were very intimate. Eleanor, it seemed, had an insatiable curiosity about a noblewoman named Alice, the daughter of the King of France, who it was rumoured had been King Henry’s mistress. She received several letters that I saw in the same small cramped hand describing, in extraordinary detail, the life of this unfortunate princess, who was now betrothed to Richard: what she ate, what she wore each day, even the number of times she visited the privy.
Mostly the letters contained dull fare, information that would not be of the slightest interest to Robin, I judged. For example, one letter revealed that the Count de Something had a young and beautiful daughter and the writer wondered whether Eleanor would help to arrange a suitable marriage. The Abbey of Quelquepart invited Eleanor to become a patron, their church needed a new roof and perhaps the Queen would like to contribute . . .
Then, at the beginning of July, I came across a letter that drove all this trivia from my mind. Irritatingly, it was a parchment that had already been partially cleaned but I could still make out some parts of the missive. It was a letter dated the eleventh day of February of this year, and it was from Sir Ralph Murdac.
He was coming to Winchester; in fact, he was the special guest for whom I would be performing the next day. My heart gave a jump but almost immediately I steadied myself. He could not possibly know me: we had met only once face to face, more than a year ago in Nottingham, when I was a bruised, snotty thief apprehended for stealing a pie. He may have seen me briefly again, or at least my back, when I was fleeing through the snow from his horsemen, but surely he would not remember me, surely he could not connect that ragamuffin, that peasant ‘filth’, with the polished trouvère playing (I dared to hope) exquisitely at a royal court. It was impossible, I concluded, and then I even began to relish the thought of performing before Murdac, inspired to greatness by my hatred for him.
But other parts of Murdac’s parchment were much more disturbing. After an illegible patch, the letter continued ‘ . . . it would be a most suitable match, I believe; the Countess of Locksley has much property but she needs a strong man to manage both her and her lands. I am that man and I mean to press my suit with her during my sojourn at the castle with the greatest vigour; who knows what magic a sweet word and a lavish gift may work on a young girl? I trust I may have your support in this venture, though I note that you mentioned in your last letter that she has formed some sort of attachment to Robert Odo of Edwinstowe. I must warn you, and I shall certainly inform the Countess, that this Robert Odo is a scoundrel, a scofflaw and that the moment the loyal forces of the King lay hands on him he will be hanged as a common felon. He has made a great nuisance of himself in Nottinghamshire, indeed all over the north of England, but his run of luck is nearly at an end. I know his every move before he makes it and I shall soon have him in my grasp and, I swear by Almighty God that I will punish him for his misdeeds to the full and fatal extent of the law.’
I read the letter through twice and then, thinking furiously, I washed it and began to scrub the parchment with pumice. That diminutive French popinjay, that lavender-scented swine, wanted to possess my beautiful Marie-Anne. The thought of his sweaty little paws on her body in the marriage bed, on her white neck, her breasts. Never. I’d see him dead first. I’d walk right up to the bastard at the feast and smash the vielle over his head. I’d plunge my poniard into his black heart. To Hell with the consequences. I was scrubbing so hard that I tore the parchment, and Fulcold came clucking over. Seeing the tear, he relieved me of my duties and sent me to lie down in my chamber and recover my temper.
I warned Marie-Anne that evening but, to my surprise, she seemed unconcerned. ‘There are many men who would marry me for my lands,’ she said. ‘Some would even try to force me to marry them. But I am safe here under the protection of the Queen. Don’t fret, Alan, I am safe while I am at Winchester.’ I was to remember her words well a few days later.
I spent most of the next day getting ready for my performance at the feast. I would be using Bernard’s vielle and I was worried that my technique was a little rusty, so Bernard helped me to prepare for the evening, running me through scales and suggesting small refinements to my bowing. I was to play four pieces only - unless my audience demanded more: firstly, a simple song that I had written in praise of the Queen’s beauty, comparing her to an eagle, as she had been in a famous prophecy, and admiring her haughty looks and towering personality. I was certain that it would go down well. Next, a canso about a young squire who is in love with a lady he has never even seen; he is in love with her reported beauty and the stories he has been told about her goodness. Then I would perform a sirvantes, a witty satirical ditty about corrupt churchmen and their dull-witted servants, which I had written while in Sherwood and which had them rolling on the floor when I performed it at Robin’s Caves. Then finally, Bernard and I would play a tenson, a two-part musical debate in which I would suggest with my verses that a man could love only one woman, while Bernard would argue, in each alternate verse, that it was possible for a man to love two women or even more if they were all of comparable beauty and virtue. At the end of the tenson, we would ask Queen Eleanor to judge which of us had proved our point more convincingly and which of us should be declared winner of the musical debate.
We practised for most of the morning, then I bathed, changed into my best clothes and we waited in an anteroom off the great hall where the guests were dining noisily. Bernard was sober and fidgety, he kept plucking at the ribbons entwined into his green silk tunic. I was nervous but I kept thinking of Sir Ralph Murdac and trying to use my hatred of him to banish my nerves. Then Fulcold was at my shoulder; it was time to go in.
We made our way into the great hall of Winchester Castle to a blast of trumpets. Bernard walked over to the wall at the side of the great hall - it was to be my performance, after all, he was only going to accompany me in the tenson. Then, with an unnaturally loud voice, completely different to his usual gentle tones, Fulcold announced: ‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen, for your pleasure, I give you the renowned and talented trouvère Alan Dale.’ I bowed low, lifted the vielle to my arm and ran my eyes over my audience.
The guests were seated at a long table in the shape of a T in the centre of the great hall of Winchester Castle. At the high table, the cross piece of the T, sat Queen Eleanor, splendid in a jewelled gown of gold cloth, Sir Ralph FitzStephen, stern in black, Marie-Anne, the bloody red ruby glinting at her neck and Sir Ralph Murdac: handsome, glossy but seated on a fat cushion to disguise his lack of height. All the courtiers sat on either side of the long table that formed the down stroke of the T. I stood at the far end of the low table, concentrating my gaze on the most important guests at the top table. I struck the first chord of the vielle and began to play. I sang the first verse and t
hen my voice began to tremble, for half way down the lower table, as I warbled on about the royal eagle and her joyous third nesting, was a grease-slicked face bulging with roast mutton that I’d hoped I would never see again. It was Guy. He looked almost as surprised as I was.
Somehow I managed to finish the song, though it can’t have been delivered with much finesse. There was a polite, muted scatter of applause and then, as in a dream where everything is moving with exaggerated slowness, Guy stood up, splendid in a clean surcoat of green and yellow, extended an accusing finger and shouted, as if from very far away: ‘That man is an impostor! Arrest him!’ Everything speeded up again and I heard him yelling, loudly now: ‘He is an outlaw, a thief, a henchman of Robin Hood.’ And just as Guy had done on that day when he had been accused of stealing the ruby, I panicked. I dropped the vielle and bow and rushed for the door.
Chapter Fifteen
Panic is a great enemy. As I discovered that day at Winchester. I have been told that the word comes from an ancient god of the Greeks called Pan, a terrifying flute-playing demon with the hind legs and horns of a goat, and the body of a naked man. But, to this day, whenever I ponder the unreasoning terror inspired by that long-dead Greek spirit, I cannot help but think of Robin, dressed as Cernunnos for that awful sacrifice, with his blood-daubed naked chest and antlers.
An all-encompassing, choking fear grew in my heart this spring, not quite a panic but very close to it, as the fever rose in young Alan, my grandson. He is the last of my line, the last of me in this world. As the days passed, he grew thinner, more like a skeleton, unable to keep down food or drink, silent and still, edging closer and closer to death. And I admit I was teetering on the lip of madness as I galloped through the woods on my mare, my old bones rattling, searching out a wooden cottage deep in Sherwood that I had not visited for almost half a century.
Brigid knew me immediately, despite the span of years, my time-worn face and ashen hair, and welcomed me, and asked to look at my right arm. But I thrust a live new-born lamb into her bosom and brushing aside the civilities, begged her on my knees to make a charm to help my boy. She placed a hand on my head, and immediately I felt calmer, soothed by her fingers running through my sparse locks. ‘Of course I will help you, Alan,’ she said. ‘And the Mother will not suffer your boy to die.’ She sounded so confident, so sure in her powers, that I felt a great weight fall from my shoulders. I let out a deep breath and my bunched muscles loosened a little as she busied herself at an old oak table, slitting the lamb’s throat and draining its blood into a bowl, grinding dried roots, mixing dusty powders and muttering charms to herself. I looked around the cottage. It had hardly changed in forty-odd years: the same bunches of dried herbs hung from the ceiling, the cobwebs in the dark corners were even thicker, even the skeleton was still hanging on the far wall. And yet, for all its witchery, the place felt homely. A place of goodness and healing. I began to relax as Brigid worked. The power of that ancient Greek demon began to wane.
At Winchester Castle, though, I was held firmly in the dizzying grip of that Greek deity. I dropped the vielle, something for which Bernard was very angry about long afterwards, and rushed for the door of the hall. I had not got five yards before half a dozen men-at-arms had grabbed me. Running was proof of my guilt in their eyes, you see. If I had held fast, said nothing and thought, I might have been able to talk my way out of it. But my instinct to run, ingrained after years of thievery in Nottingham, was too strong.
The men-at arms dragged me back to the spot where I had been playing, and despite my cries of innocence, appeals to the Queen and desperate struggles, they trussed me with a rope, and gagged me. The room had dissolved into uproar. The Queen was on her feet demanding loudly to know the name of the man who had interrupted her entertainment. Guy was shouting that he had known me at Thangbrand’s and that I had been one of the worst of that gang of cut-throats. The other guests were demanding to know who I was, who Guy was, and what the fuss was all about. Marie-Anne sat still, staring at me, the colour gone from her face, the ruby a bold red against her bloodless neck. It was Sir Ralph Murdac who restored order to the hall by shouting ‘Silence!’ again and again and again, until there was quiet.
‘Who are you, sir?’ said the Queen to Guy, her voice unnaturally loud in the sudden hush.
‘I am Guy of Gisborne, your highness, a humble soldier in the service of Sir Ralph Murdac.’
Oh yes, I thought, despite your proclaimed ‘humility’ you’ve picked up a territorial title in your travels, you turd. I’d heard of the manor of Gisborne, a moderately rich farm not far from Nottingham, whose lord had died a few years ago. Presumably Sir Ralph had given it to Guy for services rendered. What those might be, I could only guess, but I was sure it must be connected to giving up information about Robin.
‘You vouch for this man, then?’ said the Queen, turning to Sir Ralph. The little man smiled and ducked his black head. ‘He has been most useful to me,’ he said in his lisping voice. ‘And before he entered my service he was indeed a member of Robert Odo’s band of felons.’
‘Then continue,’ the Queen said to Guy, who, puffed with self-importance, then related to the assembly how he had grown up at his father’s farm in Sherwood, and how his father had been tricked into harbouring outlaws from Robin’s band. Alan Dale was one of them, he told the audience, a particularly vicious thief from Nottingham, much given to murder and blasphemy. ‘Bernard of Sezanne is also an outlaw,’ he continued, ‘and . . . and . . . the Countess of Locksley is affianced to Robin Hood.’
‘Impossible,’ interjected Sir Ralph Murdac coldly, frowning at Guy. ‘You are mistaken. The Lady Marie-Anne is a woman of the highest nobility, and a close personal friend of mine - she could not possibly consort with bandits. You are mistaken.’
‘And Bernard of Sezanne is a noble gentleman of Champagne,’ chimed in the Queen, ‘and he is my servant, my personal trouvère. You are clearly mistaken about him, too.’
‘But . . . but . . .’ stuttered Guy. He was interrupted by our host, Ralph FitzStephen. He had held his silence until this moment but now he wanted to stamp his authority on the extraordinary proceedings in his hall. ‘The accusations against the Countess of Locksley and . . . and Bernard of Sezanne are, of course, ridiculous and will be ignored. But the allegations against this Dale person are serious,’ he said, ‘and must be investigated. Take him down to the dungeon and hold him securely until the truth can be ascertained.’ And with that I was dragged from the room and marched through the castle, down, down to the lowest level where I was bundled through a cell door to sprawl on a pile of foul-smelling straw. The door closed behind me with a clang.
I lay in the blackness of that stinking cell, with its damp stone walls and ice-cold floor, and listened to the scurry of rats. My gag had come loose, thank God, but my arms were still tightly tied behind my back. And they were a cause of considerable discomfort in the following few hours. Although they were nothing compared with what came later. To take my mind off my bound wrists, I considered my situation: to the good, I had powerful friends in Winchester. Queen Eleanor had known about Marie-Anne’s visit to Robin, and presumably she had condoned it; and she also knew that we - Bernard and I - had been members of Robin’s band, and that had not troubled her when she accepted Bernard into her service. Marie-Anne, of course, was quite safe from the accusations of a jumped-up soldier and I knew she would try to come to my aid. To the bad, Eleanor was a prisoner herself, though a privileged one, and she might be powerless to help. Sir Ralph FitzStephen had authority over the castle and he would definitely not turn a blind eye to charges of outlaws running loose around his halls. But, worst of all, Murdac would no doubt want to put me to the test to get information about Robin. That meant pain, a great deal of pain.
To control my bounding fears, I played the scene in the great hall over and over in my mind: Guy’s spiteful face and out-thrust finger as he denounced me; Marie-Anne’s look of fear and shock; the Queen’s anger; Murdac’s os
tentatiously gallant protection of Marie-Anne; Guy’s confusion at his master’s rejection of his accusations.
We had all assumed at Robin’s Caves that it was Guy who had been responsible for leading Murdac’s men to Thangbrand’s; that Guy had been the traitor, who, it would seem, had been rewarded with the manor of Gisborne. But, as I lay there on the damp straw, in the permanent midnight of that cell, thinking about his treachery, and imagining the bloody vengeance I would take, I realised something was wrong. Something was burrowing at the back of my mind; something about the letter that Murdac had written to the Queen. I remembered it clearly: . . . his run of luck is nearly at an end. I know his every move before he makes it, and I shall soon have him in my grasp . . .
‘I know his every move before he makes it’; that implied that Murdac had someone in the camp who was a traitor, who was informing him of Robin’s plans. Had that been Guy? It would appear so. But why, what was Guy’s motive? Until I had spatchcocked him with the ruby, he was a fairly contented, if obnoxious, young man. And then, like the click of a latch opening a door, I knew Guy could not be the traitor. The letter was dated the eleventh of February, which was two months after Guy had left Thangbrand’s. And it followed that, if Guy was not the traitor in the camp, someone else was.
That thought gave me a chill of horror; somebody, one of my dear friends, was betraying our every move to Murdac. It could be anyone: Much, the miller’s son, Owain the Bowman, Will Scarlet, Hugh, Little John, even dear old Brother Tuck. Anyone.
