tall in front of him. I was wearing my finest clothes — a dark blue tunic, scarlet hose, and soft black kidskin slippers — my jaw-length blond hair had been washed the previous day, and well-combed before dawn, I had been shaved by Thomas and I carried no weapons save for a small eating knife in a sheath at my waist.
‘I can only spare you a few minutes, my son, but I did wish to thank you personally for saving the life of our dear Brother Dominic — may he rest in Heaven. He was a good man called to God before his time. Do you have any knowledge of who it might have been who murdered him?’
‘Your Grace, I must confess that I do not, although I have my suspicions… But I must admit that it is not truly the matter of Brother Dominic’s death that brings me to you today. My name is-’
‘I know who you are,’ the Cardinal interrupted me; his voice had lost its kindly tone and cracked like a rotten branch breaking under a weight of winter snow. ‘And I know what you want. You are Sir Alan Dale — trouvere, former outlaw and liegeman of the Earl of Locksley. I know who your father was, too — that accursed thief Henri d’Alle — and I did not believe even for a moment that you came here to console me for the loss of one elderly monk.’
He glared at me, wheezing slightly in his passion, his tiny blue eyes like chips of smashed glass.
‘Let us speak plainly now, Sir Alan,’ he said, clearly trying to master himself. ‘I know the true reason why you are here today. You have it, do you not? You have that wondrous object that your father stole from me. You have it — and you wish to sell it back to me and make your fortune, that’s your grubby little design, is it not, you thief- spawned wretch? Tell me now, do not waste any more of my time, what is your price?’
I was stunned by the Cardinal’s words, and utterly bemused by his angry tone. I had to haul my jaw shut to stop myself looking like a straw-chewing yokel.
‘No, Your Grace,’ I stammered. ‘I swear to you, you are quite wrong. I do not wish to sell you anything. I have nothing to sell — nothing; I come to you seeking only information about my father.’
The Cardinal cocked his baby’s head on one side and examined me. For a long moment he remained silent and then he said: ‘Nothing to sell? Nothing?’ He peered at me for a while longer, his glass-chip eyes running up and down the length of my body. ‘Then you truly do not have it? You do not possess the — object.’
I shook my head.
‘I believe you, by Christ’s wounds, I honestly do-’ The Cardinal sounded as if he had surprised himself. ‘You might be the greatest liar in Christendom, and I the greatest fool, but I believe you. You really do not have it, do you?’
‘I do not know what this object is to which you refer.’ I was thinking: another candlestick? Whoever described a candlestick, even a golden one, as wondrous?
‘It leaves a mark, a special mark on all those who possess it — and you have no sign of that, none at all. But tell me: why should I indulge you in this? Why should I help you? You — the son of a man who stole from me; the son of a God-damned thief? I should have you whipped and thrown out of here this instant!’
I straightened my shoulders and locked eyes with him; a rougher edge entered my voice. ‘I believe my father was falsely accused. He is dead now — murdered in England these ten years past — and I believe that he was killed on the orders of the real thief. He is a powerful man, this true thief — a “man you cannot refuse”.
‘You ask why you should help me: I will tell you. If I am able to discover the identity of the true thief — and I shall in time — then I may be able to return to you this “wondrous” object of which you speak, whatever it is. Is that not a reason why you should aid me?’
The door of the chamber opened and a monk came into the room, a secretary of some kind. ‘Your Grace,’ he said, ‘Your Grace, it is time. We must be away.’
The Cardinal ignored the interruption completely and continued to stare at me. ‘Yes, I see that,’ he said. ‘Yes, you have given me good reason. I cannot think what you might seek to gain by coming here, were you a liar. Very well, I will make you a bargain. I will tell you everything that I know about your father this evening after Vespers when I return from greeting the King’s embassy at the castle — and for your part you will do a service for me in return. Are we agreed?’
‘Your Grace,’ said the monk by the door, ‘we really must make haste…’
‘What is it that you wish for me to do?’ I said. I could not imagine what this fat, old, immensely wealthy and powerful prelate could possibly want from me.
‘I want you to sing for me,’ he said, his tiny blue eyes in that oddly young face twinkling in the sunlight from the window — and suddenly I could imagine what he must have looked like as a boy, a naughty young boy. ‘Will you do that, Sir Alan? I have heard that you — like your father — have an exquisite voice. “The finest trouvere at King Richard’s court,” I heard you called the other day. Sing for me and I shall tell you all I know. Do we have a bargain?’
I smiled; it pleased me that my fame as a musician had travelled so far, and I bowed deeply in acceptance.
Heribert, the Cardinal of Vendome, left for the castle in an enormous chair suspended from two stout poles and carried by four brawny porters. The chair was surrounded by a gaggle of brown-clad monks and guarded by four yawning men-at-arms in the Cardinal’s livery. It was mid-morning when the procession bearing the great man left the abbey gates and began to make its way through the crowded streets of Vendome, south to the castle. I returned to the big refectory to await the midday meal with Thomas and Hanno; I did not expect the Cardinal to return until after dark. After we had eaten, Hanno, Thomas and I changed into rough clothes and entertained the abbey folk with a demonstration of armed combat in the courtyard — a worthwhile practice for Hanno and myself, and a daily lesson for young Thomas. As the monks of Vendome stood around in a circle and gawped at us delightedly, Hanno and I mock-fought with sword and dagger, mace and shield, until we dripped with sweat; and Thomas was made to perform a repetitive series of manoeuvres with sword and shield to burn the basic patterns of attack and defence into his very muscles. I had learnt this way myself, from an old Saxon warrior in Sherwood — and while I had hated it at the time, the old man had carved the lunges, blocks, strikes and parries of the swordsman into my soul. And when I am attacked with a blade, even to this day, even now that I am an old man myself, the block and counter-blow comes to me as naturally as my next breath.
However, the learning did not all flow in one direction. Thomas, although he was still a lad, and not yet come into his full strength, had devised a method of wrestling entirely by himself that, he claimed, cunningly used a bigger man’s strength against him. And so, in time, we put away the blades, bludgeons and shields, and Thomas instructed us in a few of his simpler moves: tripping an opponent over backwards; grappling him and throwing him over your hip; and a move to combat a man who attacks you from behind by leaning forward, head down, and pulling him over your right shoulder, a move that much resembles a man-at-arms taking his hauberk off after a day’s hard fighting.
We passed the afternoon in sport; then we washed in the abbey bath-house. I had resumed my outer finery, and was just settling down in a quiet part of the cloister with my vielle, tuning the strings of the instrument and preparing a few of my favourite verses for my recital for the Cardinal, when a great hubbub erupted from the courtyard. The cries grew louder — a wailing and shouting that almost certainly indicated extreme grief — and so I replaced my vielle in its velvet bag, slung it on my back and went to investigate.
The abbey courtyard was in total uproar — monks were running here and there, shouting their sorrow to the skies. The bell of the abbey-church was tolling a slow, dolorous beat; the senior monks had fallen to their knees on the beaten-earth floor of the courtyard and were praying aloud — and in the centre of that space was the Cardinal’s huge chair, with the Cardinal still enthroned within it. His little eyes were half-open, his head cocked to one side and lolling backwards, the front of his red robe was sheeted with wet blood and it was clear that the big man was dead. I walked towards the chair and its vast dead occupant, but when I got to within a yard or two, I felt a hand on my arm that stopped my progress and turned to see the anxious face of the hosteller at my shoulder.
‘Sir Alan,’ he said, ‘it is not seemly that you disturb His Grace.’
I looked at him, feeling as if I was in some kind of awful dream, and said: ‘I believe that he is well beyond disturbing now, Brother; I only wish to see how he died.’
The monk frowned: ‘I think that in the pain of our loss, perhaps inquisitive strangers should not be among us,’ he said. ‘We must wash our Cardinal, and bind up his wounds, and prepare his body for burial. I beg you to allow us to be alone with our grief.’ It was polite, I must admit, but I was being firmly asked to leave the abbey forthwith.
‘Before I go, can you tell me what happened to him?’
The monk seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then he said: ‘Cardinal Heribert was set upon by footpads in
