with women — may God have mercy on him. But though he was probably a bad monk, he was also undoubtedly a good man, and my good friend, and I pray for his soul.’
In my mind’s eye, I pictured this bully-punishing, brawling, womanizing monk, and I thought to myself — this is very far from the gentle, musical man I knew growing up: but I would have loved this side of him, too.
Father Jean continued: ‘Pouces was the cleverest of the three of us; and he was for ever coming up with tricks and japes and little adventures that he devised to amuse us in our leisure time. He encouraged us to creep out of the cloisters at night and get a boatman to take us across the Seine and into the Ville de Paris, even though it was strictly forbidden by the order of Bishop de Sully himself and we ran the risk of being arrested by the provosts of the city, who maintained a curfew. But we felt that it was a great adventure, and we revelled in our disobedience. Once, Pouces stole Brother Cellarer’s keys and the three of us crept into his cellar and swapped the contents of a barrel of his very best Rhone wine for some cheap vinegary muck that was so full of debris, bits of twig and grape skins and such that you had to drink it with your teeth closed to sieve out the detritus. The cellarer was a lazy man and, without tasting it, served this wine at a tremendous feast for the arrival of Heribert, the Bishop of Roda. The Bishop’s face when he tasted the wine — what a picture! He thought he was being poisoned.’ Jean was chuckling. ‘We served the best wine out to the beggars of Paris, for free — just gave it away! Pouces said we were teaching the Bishop and the cellarer a lesson in Christian humility. Oh, that was a wonderful day.
‘We were punished severely, of course — a whipping apiece and confined to our cells on bread and water for a week — but, God forgive me, it was worth it.’
For the moment, all was quiet in the stable, save for a moan or two. We had been kneeling beside a man with a flesh wound on his leg, a Welsh archer named Gerry, and Jean had been cleaning and re-bandaging the deep cut as we talked. ‘You had a high old time in your youth, Father, really kicked up your heels, didn’t you?’ said Gerry to the priest, with a smirk. ‘Let’s hear a bit more about all the tavern sluts this young fellow Henry tumbled, then.’
‘You hold your tongue, Gerald ap Morgan.’ I glared at the man. ‘If you are truly so badly wounded you would do well to lie still and keep silent. But if you are feeling lively I can easily have you on the wall doing sentry duty!’
Father Jean stood up and stretched his back. ‘Let us enjoy a little sunshine,’ he said, and he went over to the door of the stable and looked out at the courtyard, where the castle was drowsing in a bright, warm spring morning. All was quiet, it seemed, and for a moment it was difficult to believe that there was a hostile army outside the gates. I quickly checked that the sentries were all in their places and alert, and then gave my attention back to the priest.
‘It was Bishop Heribert’s visit that was your father’s downfall, of course. He was a great man, very rich, well born and well connected — he had rather grand relatives in England, if I recall. The Murdacs — do you know them?’
I clenched my teeth and shook my head.
‘Well, at that time Heribert was only bishop of a minor diocese far to the south in the Pyrenees, but he was ambitious. And he was surprisingly rich for a man with such a small see. He had an enormous retinue, more than a hundred servants — we had the devil of a job accommodating all his people; monks thrown out of their cells to allow his servants a proper bed, all sorts of chaos. He was planning to stay with Bishop de Sully for several months to learn about the construction process of the cathedral, and because he was very fond of the new music we were making in the choir — and it was something quite special, may God forgive me my pride. In fact, Heribert became so enamoured of our voices that after a while he was attending every Mass and every service at which we sang: Matins, in the dead of night, in freezing January, in that draughty half-built church — he was there. The monks who had been allocated the duty of singing that office may have been sore with cold and slightly hoarse and longing for their warm beds, but Heribert was there. Praying on his knees, beaming at us, sometimes singing along — and not completely out of tune either. He even began to think of himself as one of us, but of grander rank, obviously, as our chanter, our choir master, in fact. He began to think that he was responsible for the music we were making, that we could not make it without him. This annoyed us no end, but Heribert, who was a little mad, I think, was connected to some of the best families in France and our own Bishop de Sully asked us to indulge him in his harmless fancies. But, as God willed it, Heribert had to cut his visit short. He was robbed. Right inside the Bishop’s palace, if you can believe it. One of his store chests was broken into by a thief and several costly items were taken. And, as I’m sure you have been told, your father was blamed for the crime.’
‘Can you tell me what was stolen?’ I asked.
‘There was a strange air of vagueness over the theft. Bishop Heribert was reluctant to say exactly what had been stolen. But in order to aid in their recovery, he finally admitted that a pair of elaborate golden candle-sticks and a silver carving platter and some other valuable objects had been removed.’ Father Jean rubbed his careworn face, his eyes distant as he recalled the painful past.
‘The candle-sticks were quickly recovered,’ the priest continued. ‘A goldsmith with a shop on the Right Bank reported that a cowled monk, his face hidden in shadow, had tried to sell him the candlesticks the night after they were stolen. When the artisan, a little suspicious, asked for the monk’s name, he was told that it was Brother Henri; and when he was asked to reveal his face, the monk had refused and fled, taking the two candlesticks with him.
‘The next day Henri d’Alle’s cell was duly searched by Maurice de Sully’s men-at-arms and — what a strange surprise! — the candlesticks and the silver carving platter were found among his meagre personal possessions.’
‘You don’t believe he stole them,’ I said.
‘I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t now. Your father was not a very holy monk, but he was no dirty thief!’
I winced a little, remembering my own shameful days as a skulking cutpurse.
‘So who was the culprit?’ I asked.
Father Jean sighed: ‘I do not know. But I am certain that it was not your father. That, however, was not how our noble bishops Heribert and Maurice de Sully saw matters. The candlesticks and the platter had been found in your father’s cell and therefore he must have been guilty…’
Again I looked at my own past actions and felt another twinge: I had once thrown guilt on to a boy by hiding a jewel that I had stolen among his spare clothing. He too had been driven from his home as a result. I wondered if God was reminding me of my own sins, through the words of this honest priest.
Father Jean, unaware of my guilty thoughts, carried on with his tale. ‘There was a huge scandal, of course, and although Henri protested his innocence in the strongest possible terms, he was expelled from the cathedral, and he had to leave Paris. He had no choice in reality: Bishop Heribert wanted Henri to be interrogated by the King’s provosts, which would have meant torture, to reveal the whereabouts of the other items stolen, and then for him to be tried and severely punished. De Sully demurred. As a monk, he insisted, Henri was protected by benefit of the clergy; he could not be handed over to the lay authorities for torture, trial and punishment. But had your father remained in Paris, the Bishop might have had to bow to pressure from Heribert’s powerful family. It would be better for everybody concerned, de Sully said, if Henri were to be banished. I wept when he left us, still dressed in his monk’s robe, and with one small sack of food and clothing over his shoulder. Pouces and I said goodbye to him on the big bridge that spans the Seine, the Grand-Pont — and he told me he was heading north to England.’
‘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
