The King was as good as his word and several heavily laden chests were brought to Robin’s chamber the next day. It was Christmas morning and the bells of the Cathedral were ringing our across the whole of Messina, summoning us to Matins with their joyful peals. A small pouch of gold was also delivered to my cell by a servant, a nervous boy who was admitted by William too early, while Nur and I were still abed. The youth, who was much plagued by pimples, said in a high squeaky voice: ‘There is a message, sir, that comes from the King with this gift.’ I nodded and said nothing, waiting. The boy cleared his throat and gabbled: ‘To Blondel, who, I trust, will never lack either good manners or generous lords. God be with you this Christmas Day.’ And with that the boy spun on his heel and was gone.
I gladly risked damnation that Christmas morning, and a severe penance from Father Simon if he found out, by ignoring the summoning of the bells to Matins and remaining entwined with Nur in our snug bed. She was delighted that the King should so honour me with gold, and began talking excitedly about the fine clothes we could buy with the money — my Arabic had improved, and she was picking up some words of Norman French, and I could now understand about one word in three of her happy multilingual chatter. I was more than a little pleased with the King’s gift myself. Robin was a less worried man, too, now that he had silver with which to pay his troops and to repay the loans that Reuben had had to arrange with the local Jewish community in Sicily to tide us over. ‘It’s not nearly everything that he promised me in England,’ admitted Robin to me one morning a handful of days after Christmas, as we rode out into the mountains for a day’s hunting. ‘But it’s a start; and much better than nothing. “The lord has one obligation, greater than love itself, which is to reward most generously…” I like it, and I thank you for that, Alan, I truly do.’
I was pleased that my cheeky verse had had such a beneficial effect, but the tiny maggot’s voice inside me suggested that, when my master and I were discussing who might be the prospective murderer in our ranks, Robin had artfully planted the idea in my head that I should ask my King for his money. On the trail of the assassin, I had made little further progress, except to make inquiries at the herbalist’s in the old town and discover that he did sell wolfsbane — he said he sold dozens of ounces a week, but he claimed that he had never sold any to Reuben. This knowledge neither cleared nor incriminated Robin’s physician — even if the man were telling the truth, Reuben could easily have asked someone else to purchase the poison for him.
We were heading up into the mountains of Sicily that day in search of wild boar: Will Scarlet had found a local man who knew of a place where there was a great pig apparently ravaging the land: tearing up the crops and terrorising the local peasants. He had brought this intelligence to Little John and John had passed it on to Robin and now we were all riding in the hope of an exciting day’s sport. Robin and myself rode in front, followed by John and Will Scarlet, with my servant William and the local guide, a thin-faced, dark-haired untrustworthy-looking man called Carlo, who spoke barbarous French, bringing up the rear. William and the guide were leading the packhorses, which were laden with the nets and long boar spears. Around our horses’ hooves trotted three alaunts, great shaggy hunting dogs, owned by Carlo, and Keelie, frisky as a puppy, bright as a golden coin with canine joy.
I had never hunted boar before and I was excited to be included in the chase. Sicilian boars are fierce great animals, with enormous strength and long tusks capable of gutting a man from crotch to throat if they can get close to you, and to kill them we planned to use special heavy boar spears — sixteen-foot-long lengths of ash, two inches thick at the butt, with steel cross-pieces a foot below the spear head. The cross-piece was to stop the animal, once impaled, from charging up the length of the spear in his fury, with the wooden shaft running through his body, to get at the man on the other end.
Will Scarlet was a changed man since his whipping, more somber, silent and God-fearing, much less the happy-go-lucky chattering boy-thief I had known in Sherwood. But, in a way, the punishment seemed to have steadied him: and he seemed much more comfortable now that he was just an ordinary trooper, no different that any other in Robin’s force. He performed his duties seriously and stayed out of trouble and never flaunted his long acquaintance with Robin.
William too seemed very excited about the prospect of the hunt, and quizzed Carlo incessantly about the techniques of killing the boar, its behaviour when harassed and how it would respond to the dogs and the nets. Carlo, for all his ill-favoured looks, was a patient man and he answered William’s endless questions with good grace as best he could in his halting French. The plan was to spread the nets — they were about three foot high when erected and fine enough to be almost invisible, but they were made of a very strong bark twine — and then use the dogs to drive the boar on to them. Once entangled in the nets, and unable to run, the animal could be speared at our leisure.
Carlo took us to a rocky hilltop, covered with stunted spruce trees and bracken, and indicated a thicket a hundred or so paces away where the boar was believed to have his den. He had the alaunts leashed tightly and Keelie was also tethered by a strong rope, but it was clear the dogs could smell pig. They all strained against their confinement, eager to dash madly into the thicket and confront the beast.
William, Will Scarlet and Carlo spread the long nets in a semi-circle, downhill from the hilltop, the way we expected the beast to break, propping them up with small sticks and twigs: the net was meant to collapse when the pig charged into it. Robin, John and I took up our positions, boar spears grasped in our hands, my heart hammering as if I was about to go into battle.
Carlo, William and Will Scarlet disappeared off to the left, circling round the thicket with the dogs. They would release the hounds from the other side of the hill, and follow slowly, cautiously, beating the earth with their spear shafts, blowing horns and shouting to each other to make sure that the hog charged away from them and in the direction of the nets.
It was a cold, grey day, the sun was already low in the sky, and our breath frosted into plumes in the still air. Robin, standing twenty yards to my right, looked bored. He was still thin from the poisoning but a dab of colour had returned to his cheeks now that he was in the field. He was humming softly under his breath and examining his nails minutely. In the distance we could hear the sound of the dogs, yapping excitedly, but it seemed very far away. Twenty yards beyond Robin, Little John was sitting on a rocky outcrop, sharpening the end of his spear with a spit-smeared stone. Robin wandered over towards John, clearly on the point of saying something to his old friend… when, with no warning at all, a giant boar burst out of the undergrowth of the thicket, moving at an incredible speed, a blur of low porcine fury and bunched muscle, heading straight down the hill towards us.
It was huge, far bigger than I had expected and it moved with a silent hurtling savagery that put my heart in my mouth. It was making for the gap between Robin and me, which was now much wider, as Robin had moved closer to John. I gripped my spear tightly; any moment now, I thought, any moment the great pig will hit the nets, become entangled and then we all move in. But it never happened. The great boar charged through the space where the net should have been and didn’t slow for an instant. It fixed its mad piggy glare on me, swerved from its line and came barrelling straight towards me, three hundred pounds of muscle driven by a manic rage at our threatening intrusion into its domain. All this happened in three heartbeats: from the pig erupting from the undergrowth until he was just a handful of yards from me. And, because of the pig’s surprising appearance, I reacted slowly — but just in time: I gripped the shaft hard, leant forward and I leveled my spear at the charging animal. The huge pig launched itself at me, and as if entirely careless of his own life, he leapt directly on to my wavering spear point. The blade plunged a foot deep into its shoulder, like a sharp knife cutting through a soft curd, and stopped fast at the cross-guard with a huge jolt. The shock, transmitted through the spear shaft, felt like I’d stopped the charge of a rampaging bull. The two-inch-thick spear shaft bent, but did not snap, and my knuckles were white on the shuddering brown wood, my arm and chest muscles creaking under the enormous strain. I was holding him away from me, but incredibly, the beast was moving forward, inch by inch, and pushing me backwards with its main strength, its thick forelegs churning the earth, and my own feet sliding in the rocks and shale beneath them. The beast snarled at me in its death-pain, eyes glinting with malice, ropes of saliva swinging from long yellow tusks, which curved upwards like twin daggers in the perfect shape to gut a man.
Then it gave a shrugging shake of its brawny shoulders, one immensely powerful writhe and the spear shaft was wrenched out of my hands. The long thick pole was whipped away laterally by the pig’s movement and then came crashing back into my shoulder with the force of a swung pick-axe handle. I was knocked sideways by the shock, off my feet, on hands and knees, and then the huge animal was on me. The spear shaft slid past my face and in two bounds the open snout of the great pig was at my chest. I just managed to grab one of its massive tusks with both hands but the strength of the animal, even mortally wounded, was unbelievable. I could smell its foul breath above me, and its rank saliva, mingled with blood, was dripping on my face as I struggled to keep its grunting, slavering snout and its yellow snapping teeth away from me. The eyes, blue-black and rimmed with red, were inches from my own. It writhed again, the heavy spear shaft smashing against my left forearm, nearly causing me to lose my grip
… and then a shadow appeared to my left and I heard a high-pitched cry of rage and I felt the impact of a spear thrust deep into the animal’s body. It was William, my loyal servant William, with his great spear jammed into the beast’s side, and he was trying with only his boyish strength to heave the blade further into the monstrous straining body. The dogs were with me, too, leaping about the massive animal, barking excitedly; Keelie took a hold of its flapping ear and began growling like a demon next to my cheek. Then Robin was there and Little John, too, and there were two more jolting impacts to the beast’s body, as they plunged their spears in deeply, and the pig coughed a huge gout of hot blood into my forearms and chest and I saw the rage fade and die in the animal’s eyes and, miraculously, all that was left was a colossal weight, and the sound of breathless, hysterical laughter from my so-called friends.
We camped out that night, in a hollow in the rocks, and feasted on roast wild boar. I was not badly hurt, just bruised on shoulder, arm and chest, and a little embarrassed to have so nearly lost a wrestling match with a pig. Little John put a slightly cruder interpretation on it. ‘God’s bulging loins,’ he said after he had hauled the limp, blood-smeared animal off me, an effort even for someone of his great strength. ‘I knew you were a horny young devil but I never thought you would get so desperate that you’d fuck a giant pig to death. Bless my sullied soul, what will you young people think of next…’
It hurt to laugh — the pig’s thick churning forefeet had badly scraped and bruised my ribs, and every muscle above my waist was shrieking in protest — but I did so; I was alive and relatively unhurt, and I thought I detected a brief light of genuine concern in Robin’s eye as he helped me to my feet and patted me down briskly to check for broken bones. I thanked William profusely: but for his timely intervention, I said, the beast would have got its tusks into me and I’d be dead. ‘He lo-lolooked as if he was going to ea-eat you whole,’ said William; he seemed, if anything, more shaken by the incident than me.
‘What happened to the nets,’ Robin asked Carlo. ‘The pig came straight through them as if they were cobwebs.’ The huntsman looked slightly abashed, but shrugged, ‘Maybe they fall down,’ he said. ‘Maybe they not strong enough for him.’ He shrugged again, and spread his hands, palms up. ‘Maybe God He decided to make a hunter’s test for this young one,’ he said and nodded at me. There seemed to be nothing more to say on the subject.
We made a jolly supper-party that night on the hillside; a thousand glittering stars made a bright canopy above us and, filled with sweet fatty pork seasoned with wild thyme and washed down with a skin of wine that Little John had had the foresight to bring, it felt as if I was back in Sherwood in the happy days at Robin’s Caves.
When we had all eaten and drunk our fill, and were dozing happily by the fire wrapped in warm cloaks, Little John stood up slowly, spread his massive arms wide and intoned in a slow, doleful voice: ‘On earth there’s a warrior of curious origin. He was created, gleaming, for the benefit of men. Foe bears him against foe to inflict harm. But women often fetter him, strong as he is. And if men care for him and feed him frequently, he’ll faithfully obey them and serve them well. But this warrior will savage anyone who permits him to become too proud. What is his name?’
Little John was famous for his riddles; he had told them in the Caves in Sherwood and in the hall at Kirkton Castle, and we had much enjoyed his skill in describing a common everyday object, but using a clever, often misleading play on words to describe it. This riddle, however, was too easy; I knew the answer immediately but decided to stay silent while the rest pondered John’s words.
‘Is — is it a dog?’ asked William. He had one-eyed Keelie at his feet and he was idly stroking her golden head.
‘A good guess,’ said John. ‘But not what I had in mind.’
‘I have it,’ shouted Will Scarlet excitedly, ‘the warrior’s name is fire.’ And he was rightly applauded for his perception.
‘Your turn to tell one, then, Will,’ said Little John. And Scarlet furrowed his brow for a few moments. Finally he said: ‘A chest with only one side, is a seat for a mother; it hides her treasure of gold, but it’s just a bite for another.’
This too was a simple one, old as the hills, as well — it is an egg. The chest with only one side is the shell; the mother hen sits on the egg, which contains a golden yolk, a fine bite to someone else to eat.
I suspected that we all knew the answer — the egg was one of a handful of favourite subjects for riddles — but everyone pretended not to, so that Will Scarlet could enjoy our puzzlement, until finally young William gravely provided the answer. And so it was then his turn. He took a deep breath and gripped his own fist to control his stammer and said: ‘I am alive but do not speak. An-anyone who wants to can take me captive and cut off my head. They bite my bare white body. I do not ha-harm anyone unless they cut me first. But then I soon make them cry.’
This was one I had not heard before. And the riddle was strangely chilling, with its talk of cutting off heads and biting bare white bodies. For a while we all mulled his words but I’ll freely admit I had no idea what William could mean. Robin, however, was not so easily defeated: ‘What make you cry? In my experience it is usually a woman, but in this case… Ah, yes. White body, you can bite into it, but it makes you cry… it’s an onion!’ We all roared out approval and toasted him with the wine. And so it went, riddle after riddle, until lulled by the wine, the meat, and the gentle moaning of the wind in the rocks, sleep claimed each one of us, one by one.
The winter months passed slowly but peacefully in Messina. Each night I slept with Nur in my arms and my command of her language grew — as did hers of the French, which was the common language of the army — until we could understand each other in tolerable fashion. One night she told me of her life before we had met — and it was a terrible tale. She came from a small village not far from the coast near the Christian city of Tyre; one day two years ago the village had been raided by Cilician pirates and she had been captured along with many of the young boys and girls of the village. They had been beaten and raped, bound and taken north to the pirates’ stronghold near Seleuca. When they arrived there, the boys were cut to make them eunuchs but, to her surprise, she had been treated with a rough kindness. However, when she had tried to run away, an Arabic symbol, a small sort of squiggly backwards L, had been branded on her ankle with a hot iron, and she had been kept thereafter in a locked harem of twenty or so the girls. It was there, at the tender age of thirteen, that she was taught to please men in the many delightful ways that she now used to pleasure me. I felt a stab of guilt that my present joy should have come from such a brutal source — but she reassured me: ‘Alan,’ she said, ‘I have never willingly given myself to a man before now. And if my past pain can make you happy today, then I am glad to have suffered it.’
After six months or so in the harem, she was sold to a band of Frankish knights who wore white surcoats with the red Christian cross. I knew that the Templars were involved in the slave trade all around the Mediterranean, although they claimed that they never enslaved Christians, but I was a little shocked and saddened that they had been involved in my beautiful girl’s sordid tale. However, as Tuck was often fond of pointing out, God moves in mysterious ways, and it was through the offices of these Knights of the Temple of Solomon that she had come to me. The Templars had sold her on to a merchant in Messina, who traded in incense and silk and spices, and though she had expected to be passed on again, he kept her and a handful of other girls for his personal pleasure. That is where I had found her, in the big ransacked house in the old town. Malbete and his men had broken into the house on that night of havoc, had killed the merchant and his servants outright, but had howled with glee when they saw the quality of his harem. She had watched, speechless, nearly driven mad with terror, as the men-at-arms tied the girls to the whipping posts and raped and tortured them in turn…
I stopped Nur’s mouth with my hand at this point; I did not want to hear any more.
‘Why are men like that?’ asked Nur, after a while, in a sad, puzzled tone. ‘We give them pleasure with our bodies, we serve them food and clean their homes and bear their babies; why should men wish to treat us this way?’
I had no answer, except to say that not all men were the same. ‘You have suffered so much, my darling, and endured so much cruelty, but now you are safe with me, under my protection and under that of my master Robin, and I will never let anything bad ever happen to you again.’
Throughout the winter, Little John and I continued to take turns to spend the days with Robin, restricting the number of people who could get to him, and I began to understand what a complicated business running a small army of four hundred men really was. Each day there were dozens of decisions to be made, punishments and rewards to hand out and rations to be provided for the troops — we had long since eaten all the stores we had brought with us from Yorkshire.
Robin bought vast quantities of corn and barley from merchants in Messina with King Richard’s silver and each day our own millers and bakers ground meal and baked hundreds of loaves of bread for distribution. We had brewers too who made the ale that was another vital part of the daily fare and that as well had to be served out to the men in exact amounts. Then there were the rations of cheese and meat — fish on Wednesdays and Fridays; fruit and vegetables and dried peas and beans, but all of this was handled very efficiently by Little John and his team of burly quartermasters and I had not much more to do than relay messages from the men to Robin. He would make a decision — over a dispute between two men, or about a request to increase the ale or bread ration, or about which conroi or squad of archers would to do sentry duty that night, or go foraging for game or firewood — and I would relay his verdict to the captain or vintenar concerned.
I was still no nearer to finding out who the would-be assassin was, but there were no more attacks on my master, and it seemed as if the policy of isolating Robin from the men was paying off. He and I went and made music with the King on several occasions, sometimes with the other troubadours present, including Ambroise and the odious Bertran de Bom, and sometimes just the three of us. I could tell that the King had a real liking for Robin’s company and I believe that he was fond of me, too. I had helped him to shine with his verses, to look good in front of an audience at the Christmas feast and, in my experience, this is one of the easiest ways of making any man — prince or pauper — feel warmly towards you.
However, things were not going well for the King with regard to his royal cousin Philip Augustus. The French King had been trying to turn Tancred away from Richard and there had been much whispering, and many secret meetings in which Philip had urged Tancred not to trust Richard. Our King was understandably annoyed with his boyhood friend for this treacherous behaviour but he arranged a private meeting with Tancred, gave him lavish gifts and solemn promises, and managed to convince the shaky Sicilian monarch that he meant him no harm. However, there was a much more serious event on the horizon — a genuine cause for resentment on King Philip’s side — that threatened to capsize the Great Pilgrimage before it even set sail from Sicily for the Holy Land: the King’s impending marriage to Princess Berengaria of Navarre.
In early March, we heard rumours in the camp that the King was bringing a beautiful princess from northern Spain to Sicily with an eye to marrying her. It was a move that many in the army approved: Richard was going into battle for the cause of Christ, so it made sense to secure a bride, and perhaps beget an heir, before he risked his life in combat with the Saracens. But the fly in the ointment was that, for more than twenty years, Richard had been betrothed to Alice, the sister of the King of France. Alice was a sad woman: she had been a guest at the English court for so long — since Richard was a little boy, in fact — that she had a certain shop-soiled quality. When she was a nubile teenager, King Henry, Richard’s father, had seduced her to his bed. After a few years he had grown bored with her and abandoned her. And Richard, who was formally betrothed to her, had tactlessly declared that he would rather be damned for all eternity than marry a woman who had been his father’s whore.
I could understand Richard’s point of view. I should not care to plough the same furrow as my father, but marriage for kings is an act of statecraft and his fastidiousness made things even more difficult with King Philip, who had been urging Richard to proceed with the marriage to Alice. Richard politely demurred and as time went by this became the biggest cause of the ill-feeling between the two monarchs. Now the news was out that Richard was bringing another bride to Sicily, a Navarrese princess. And King Philip now declared that he was furious at his family’s humiliation at the hands of not one but two kings of England.
As usual, there was an easy way to mollify the proud French king. Richard sent him a gift of ten thousand marks in gold when his betrothal to Berengaria was publically announced, and our King had the good sense not to publically flaunt the fact that his bride-to-be, accompanied by his mother, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, was en route to Sicily.
However, Philip had still grumpily declared his intention to leave with all his troops for the Holy Land at the end of March so that he would not be present when this affront to his sister’s honour arrived in Messina.
King Philip of France and four great ships sailed slowly out of Messina harbour on the last day of the month, to the cheers of Richard’s entire army, which had been assembled by direct order of the King to wish their brother warriors of Christ a fair voyage to Outremer. The next day a small but richly appointed ship arrived, discreetly bearing Princess Berengaria of Navarre, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine — and my old friend and erstwhile musical mentor Bernard de Sezanne.
I had not seen Bernard for a year and a half, and while I had grown taller and filled out my frame, he had not changed in the slightest except that, as Queen Eleanor’s much admired trouvere, he was far more richly dressed than when he had been my musical teacher in our outlaw days. In fact, he was something of a popinjay in crimson and green hose and a crimson and gold embroidered tunic. He wore a magnificent velvet hat that looked like a large loaf of Sicilian bread with a long sweeping feather that arced out of the side. Beside him in my drab brownish-green tunic and hose, and travel-worn grey hood, I felt dowdy and pedestrian.
I took him to The Lamb, the tavern in Messina where I regularly met with the other trouveres. Having delivered Berengaria safely, Bernard and his mistress Queen Eleanor were leaving Sicily in a day or two to return to England, and I wanted a chance to talk to him before they left. The tavern provided the two things I knew that Bernard would require for a successful evening: large quantities of wine and a musically appreciative company. Little John was on duty with Robin and so I was at liberty. Bernard and I got to the tavern early; the sun had not yet sunk below the mountains of the west, so I could be sure of some time alone with my friend before the rest of the pack of musicians arrived.
‘Well, young Alan,’ said Bernard, smiling kindly, ‘you look more like a rough soldier every time I see you. I hope you have not given up the musical life.’ He was looking at the sword and long poniard that hung habitually from two thick leather belts at my waist. I assured him that I had not, and I could not help but boast a little about my popularity with King Richard, and his respect for me as a singer. ‘So does life in this great swarm of would-be martyrs suit you?’ he asked. I allowed that it did, and told him of my new-found prowess with the lance; I was in the middle of a tale of heroic success at charging the quintain when I noticed that his eyes had become dull and glazed, and swiftly ended the story, ordered more wine and changed the subject. ‘And how are things in England?’ I asked.
‘They are not good, Alan, to be honest, not good at all,’ he said, and sighed. His demeanor was sad but I sensed something; perhaps a small amount of joy at being able to deliver bad news. ‘The country is deeply uneasy with Richard away; each baron is fortifying his castle, the towns are building strong walls. The Welsh are making trouble, too. But the main problem is that little Willie Longchamp, the King’s Justiciar, is loathed by absolutely everybody and he can’t seem to control his own household, let alone the country. He is an awful little man — no music in him at all — but Richard did make him Justiciar and you would think he would therefore be able to command some respect; but it is seems not and his authority is now being seriously challenged by — guess who? — Richard’s royal, if not loyal, brother John.
‘Our stay-at-home princeling now swanks about the land in a quite preposterous regal style, with his own justicar, his own royal court, a chancellor, royal seals, everything — and his servants talk openly about John being the next king, if Richard were to die while on this pilgrimage. It’s quite ridiculous when everybody knows that little Prince Arthur is Richard’s acknowledged heir. It’s not good, Alan, with the King out of the country, there’s no one to keep these ambitious little toads in line…’ and he broke into a line of poetry: ‘As the earth grows dark when the sun departs,
So a kingdom is diminished by the absence of its king.’
He took a long swig of wine and wiped his mouth on his gorgeous crimson sleeve. ‘And I have worse news,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘I went to see the Countess of Locksley to pick up a letter she wanted me to give to Robin, and I found her in a terrible way. Oh, she’s fine in her health and looks, and she keeps up a noble front, but she’s very unhappy.’
He paused and I realised that he had been waiting to deliver this piece of bad news since he met me at the harbour side.
‘Go on,’ I said neutrally.
‘Well, there are these dreadful rumours about her, which are being spread by that snake Ralph Murdac, appalling rumours, the worst kind, and totally untrue, of course, but they worry her and she fears they will reach Robin’s ears.’ He was only just managing to conceal his glee at having such a delicious piece of gossip to impart.
I leaned into him, frowning: ‘What rumours,’ I said. I could feel myself growing angry. ‘What rumours, Bernard?’ I said louder in a hard tone of voice. Bernard looked at me. ‘Don’t get upset with me, Alan, I’m just the messenger, I’m not the one spreading them; I haven’t told a soul. But people are talking.’
I managed to control my temper. I was very fond of Marie-Anne, the Countess of Locksley; I had even believed myself to be in love with her for a while, and I did not like to have her name sullied by anyone. ‘What are they saying?’ I asked, trying for a more reasonable tone of voice. Bernard was Bernard, after all, my anger would not change him.
‘Well, don’t get upset, and don’t say you heard it from me, but people are saying that…’ he faltered for a few moments. But I said flatly: ‘Just tell me, Bernard.’ And finally, after much wriggling and prevarication, he did.
‘They are saying, Alan, and I am sure it is totally untrue, that the Countess was the lover of Ralph Murdac in the summer before last, and that the Countess’s son, Hugh, who is acknowledged as the Earl of Locksley’s heir, is actually Murdac’s flesh and blood.’ He sat back, having delivered this hammer blow, and watched for my reaction.
I hope I disappointed him: I held my face blank, took a sip of wine and a deep breath. ‘What a stupid notion,’ I said dismissively. ‘Marie-Anne Locksley was Ralph Murdac’s lover? Absurd.’ And I attempted a light chuckle. It came out like a donkey braying in pain.
I was spared from having to develop this rebuttal by the arrival of Ambroise and a couple of the other trouveres. I just had time to whisper savagely to Bernard that he must hold his tongue about this matter — he would not, of course — before we were swept up in the whirlwind of vinous merrymaking that always surrounded Ambroise and his friends. While Bernard and the jolly Norman butterball were introducing themselves, swapping bawdy jokes and ordering up more wine — it took less than a quarter of an hour for them to become bosom friends, by the way — I was thinking about my beautiful friend, and Robin’s beloved girl, Marie-Anne, the gossip-smirched Countess of Locksley. I had a big problem: despite my play-acting with Bernard, I knew that the kernel of these foul rumours — that Robin’s son was in fact Murdac’s — was true. And this truth could destroy us all.