the rain falling relentlessly into his still open eyes. The deluge was beginning to wash the blood from Thomas’s victim, but the knife-mangled neck that was revealed made it clear he would never speak again. The cudgel man whose bowel I had pierced was still alive, but only just. His face was a waxy yellow, knotted with pain, and he was breathing in short, hard gasps. I knew he too had only a few moments left in this world — and I badly needed him to talk to me.
I knelt beside him and gently smoothed the wet hair from his forehead, out of his eyes. The rain fell like spears. I put my mouth to his ear. ‘What is your name, sir?’ I said quietly in French. ‘And why did you seek to attack me?’
He seemed not to notice my questions, although his breathing slowed a little — the end was very near. I repeated my questions, slightly louder this time, giving his shoulder a gentle shake. And this time, he managed to turn his head and look at me. ‘Forgive me,’ he panted.
‘Tell me your name, and whom you serve and I will forgive you,’ I said. ‘Tell me now.’
‘For… forgive me,’ he forced out again. ‘We had our orders from the Master. You had… to die. But I ask your forgiveness, Sir Alan… for the sake of Our Lady, Our Mother, the ever merciful Queen of Heaven, forgive me.’
For all that he had been trying to kill me a few moments before, I did feel pity for him. I was moved by his unusual way of begging for forgiveness. He slumped against my body, his breathing ragged, pumping, the pain riding him. I said: ‘I forgive you; but tell me whom you serve? Who is this Master you speak of — and why does he wish me dead?’
The man gave no reply but let out one long shuddering breath. He twitched once, his head fell forward, chin on breast, and his immortal soul left the cage of his body.
I laid him down as gently as possible in the street, made the sign of the Cross above him, and looked over at Thomas. He was still kneeling beside the corpse he had made, the rain splashing in the gore puddles around him. I levered myself to my feet, my back and shoulder shrieking with pain.
‘Come, Thomas, we must go. Before long the Provost’s men will come and we are strangers here, and foreigners to boot — we will be seen as enemies. I do not want to answer questions in the King’s dungeon about these men’s deaths; questions that I cannot answer. Let us leave their souls to Almighty God, and their bodies to the Provost’s men.’
Extremely bad weather, my bruised body and a stinking cold — brought on no doubt by our violent exertions in the rain that day — kept me housebound for the next week. But I did not grudge the inactivity; it gave me time to think.
I was no longer convinced that Robin was the ‘man you cannot refuse’. Twice now I had been attacked by men who sought my death; on each occasion the men involved in the attack were of the same quality: trained soldiers, most probably knights. I had been close to Robin for six years, and even assuming that he sought my death — which I did not really believe — if he had a company of murderous French knights at his beck and call I was certain that I would have had some inkling of them. So these were not Robin’s men, they belonged to somebody else: somebody they referred to as ‘the Master’. Presumably the Master and the ‘man you cannot refuse’ were the same man, and he was not Robin.
On the other hand, Robin had silenced Murdac, and had tried to prevent me from pursuing the man who ordered my father’s death. So Robin might well have some connection with this murderous Master — but what?
My reasoning could go no further.
There had been no word from Brother Michel — but I was not overly concerned. From Maurice de Sully’s point of view, I was a man enquiring into a twenty-year-old crime — it would not be high on the list of duties that needed attending to. And I had confidence that Brother Michel was a man of his word and that he would find an opportunity for us to meet with the Bishop. As he had said, I must be patient.
The students too were housebound during these unseasonably wet days. As their lessons were usually held on the Petit-Pont in the open air, they had been cancelled while this stormy weather continued. Matthew and a few of the others spent their free time in a local tavern, the sign of the Cock, and came back to the room after nightfall, rosy-faced and cheery with wine. But one of the students, Luke, a slight chap, who cared less than the others for wine and games of dice, preferred to stay in the Widow Barbette’s salle and improve his skills as a copyist. He sat for long hours at the scribe’s desk, copying out a text in Latin called the Institutiones Grammaticae by a long-dead Roman pedant called Priscian.
I was fascinated by Luke’s work — not the book he was copying, which was a turgid exposition on Latin grammar, full of advice on inflexion, word-formation and syntax, but by the process of writing. Luke bought the parchment from a dealer on the Left Bank and he would cut it to the right shape and scrape it smooth with a knife, polish it with a boar’s tooth, and then when it was ready to receive the ink, he would rule neat lines across the parchment, and down the margins, with a lead point. He bought goose quills by the sheaf from another shop nearby, and he would cut the quills with a sharp knife to make a nib, dip it in a cow’s horn of black ink and begin, in tiny precise strokes of the quill, to copy out Priscian’s dull text.
I knew my letters, of course — I had been taught by Robin’s own brother, years ago in Sherwood, and I had a decent command of Latin, too, but there had been little time for writing in the past few years of war — and I had spilled far more blood than ink since I was a boy. All the same, I loved the idea of transmitting my thoughts and feelings, and of recording deeds, and some of my better songs and poetry for future generations to read. Luke occasionally and rather reluctantly allowed me to practise my writing on the offcuts of his pages, and I believe it was then that I conceived the idea of writing this memoir that now strains your tired eyes. You have young Luke to thank for this tale, for his work in Paris gave me the idea to make a book all of my own, and fill it with my own adventures; although he was horrified by my eccentric plan to compose the story in English, my own mother language, rather than in French or good, honest Latin.
‘But, Sir Alan, Latin is the language of proper literature,’ he protested. ‘All educated people read Latin.’
‘And what of those who are not so well educated?’ I said. ‘Should I not share my songs and stories with them?’
‘If they are not educated they will not be able to read, whether it is written in Latin or English or Ethiopian,’ shot back Luke. I could see his point. They were sharp boys, my young student friends, and ruthless wielders of the formal logic they were taught; I could never manage to best them in any argument. But he did not dissuade me from setting down this tale in English — and if none can read my story in the years to come, so be it. It is all in God’s hands.
After a week of almost constant thunderstorms, the August sun returned and Hanno, Thomas and I set off for the Ville de Paris once again, this time through clean, gently steaming streets, on horseback and fully armed. My bruised back and shoulder were still stiff, marked yellow and brown and purple and remained very painful — but I was able to move. As Hanno had pointed out, I should be grateful that I was not in my grave. My Bavarian had reproached himself severely for not being with me on the day that I had visited the Seigneur d’Alle, although I had not asked him to accompany me, and the attack had come with no warning at all. Nevertheless, Hanno felt that he should have been there to protect me. He did have a thoroughly good reason to be absent from my side, though — he had discovered a Flemish ale-wife living in Paris, and although she was fat, middle-aged and married, he had fallen in love.
‘Oh God, Alan,’ Hanno had told me in mock despair, ‘she is so wonderful; sweet and plump as fresh butter, and her heavenly brew, her ale — strong, brown, bitter and clean — and tasting a little of hazelnuts. It is perfect! I love her! I think I should kill her man, that good-for-nothing Provost’s lackey; I should cut his throat and take her for myself.’
I knew that Hanno was not serious — at least, I hoped he was not. However I made him promise not to molest that unfortunate ale-husband — I did not wish to bring the wrath of the Provost upon us. This powerful royal official, who resided in the Petit Chastelet, a small fortress on the south side of the Petit-Pont, was famously corrupt and lazy. But he was responsible to the King for the maintenance of law and order in Paris and he had over a hundred men-at-arms at his command. We had heard nothing more of the men Thomas and I had killed on the Rue St-Denis — Matthew had passed by the spot shortly after dawn the day after the fight and he had reported that the bodies had been removed by someone, but what became of them I never discovered. May their souls rest in peace.
So, on a gleaming day in late August, Hanno, Thomas and I crossed the Seine at the Grand-Pont, turned right on the Ruga Sancti Germani, and left again to head north on the Rue St Martin. We were retracing the steps we had
