Outlaw

noon meal. To my joy, Hugh told me that Robin had arranged that I should become Bernard’s pupil. The Frenchman would also take over as my language teacher from Hugh, as I was far more advanced than the other students, and Bernard had also been charged with giving me lessons in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy. . and music. I was ecstatic, bubbling with happiness: I would spend all afternoon listening to wonderful music, and learning how to make it myself, and, best of all, I would be away from Guy and Will for hours at a time.

I found Bernard in the small cottage he had been given about half a mile from Thangbrand’s farmstead in a small clearing in the greenwood. I walked there on air, dizzy with joy at my prospects, mingled with some trepidation: would I prove worthy of this great man? Hugh had let slip that separate living quarters had been a condition of Bernard’s acceptance of the job as my tutor. He was a fastidious man, Hugh said, and he would not sleep in the hall with all the other flea-bitten outlaws.

He did not look particularly fastidious when I encountered him that fine early autumn afternoon, to present myself as his pupil. He was slumped on an up-ended sawn-off log outside the semi-derelict cottage; his tunic, the fine silk one from yesterday’s performance, was only half buttoned, and had what looked like dried vomit down the front. He had lost one of his shoes and, as he strummed his vielle with his fingers, he giggled softly to himself, swaying on his seat. The day before I had seen him a God-like figure, courtly lover, master of music, creator of beauty: today he was ridiculous.

‘Master Bernard,’ I said in French, standing in front of him as he sat there head drooped over his vielle, fingering the strings. ‘I am Alan Dale, and I have come to present myself to you as a pupil at the orders of my master, Robert Odo. .’

‘Shhhhhh. .’ he slurred at me, wagging a finger rapidly in my general direction. ‘I am creating a masterpiece.’

He amused himself on the vielle, playing little ripples of music and occasionally appearing to nod off for a few moments, before jerking awake. I stood there for perhaps a quarter of an hour and then he looked up and said clearly: ‘Who are you?’

I repeated: ‘I am Alan, your pupil, and I have come to serve you at the orders-’

He interrupted me: ‘Serve me, eh, serve me? Well, you can bring me some more wine, then.’

I hesitated, but he waved me away shouting: ‘Wine, wine, decent wine, go on, boy, go on, go on, go on. .’ So I went back to Thangbrand’s, stole a small cask of wine from the buttery when nobody was looking, brought it back on a barrow. Then I helped him to drink it.

As my tutor in arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, Bernard was a disaster. In fact, as I remember, he never even mentioned the subjects. But he did improve my French, as it was all we spoke together, and he did teach me music, God be praised: he taught me how to construct cansos and sirventes, love songs and satirical poems, how to tune and play the vielle, how to extend my voice, to control my breathing and many more technical tricks of his trade. He was a troubadour, or more properly, since he came from northern France, a trouvere, and his joy, he told me, was to play and sing for the great princes of Europe; to sing of love; the love of a humble knight for a high-born lady, to sing of l’amour courtois, courtly love, the love of a servus for his domina. .

That afternoon, as we drank the wine, and I scrubbed the dried vomit off his tunic with a brush, he told me his life’s story. He was born in the county of Champagne, the second son of a minor baron, who served Henry, the count. He had loved music from an early age, but his father, who did not care much for music or for Bernard, had disapproved. However, bullied by Bernard’s mother, he had arranged for his training with one of the greatest trouveres in France, and had found him a place at the court of King Louis. From the first, Bernard confided in me, he was an enormous success — great ladies wept openly at his love songs, everyone guffawed at his witty sirvantes, which mocked court life but never went too far. Louis had showered him with gold and jewels. Everybody loved him; life was good; and for a gentil young man of fine looks but no fortune there was the hope of a good marriage to one of the plainer ladies of the court. It was a glittering life: hunting parties, royal feasts, poetry games and singing competitions. But, like many a young buck before him, Bernard over-reached himself. For, as well as a deep adoration of music, he also loved, and almost to the same extent, wine and women — and it was this last pleasure that had led to his downfall.

Bernard — young, handsome, funny and talented — was very popular with the ladies of the court. Several ladies, married and unmarried, had admitted him to their bedchambers, but he had kept his lovemaking light and retained his freedom from commitment to any one lover. But then he fell in love. He was utterly bewitched by the young and lovely Heloise de Chaumont, wife of the ageing Enguerrand, Sire de Chaumont, a noted warrior much esteemed for his preux or prowess on the battlefield by King Louis.

‘Ah, Alan, my boy, she was perfect, she was beauty made flesh,’ Bernard told me, and his face gave a little twist of pain. ‘Hair like corn, huge violet eyes, a slender waist swelling to generous curves. .’ Here Bernard made the usual gesture with his hands. ‘How I loved her. I would have died for her — well not died, but certainly I would happily have suffered a great deal of pain for her. Well, not a great deal of pain, some pain. Let’s just say a small amount of discomfort. . Ah, Heloise; she was the very air in my lungs, the breath of my life.’ He took a huge gulp of wine and wiped away an oily tear. ‘And she loved me, Alan, she truly loved me, too.’

For several weeks the lovers enjoyed a passionate affair and then, inevitably, Enguerrand discovered them.

The Sire de Chaumont had been out hunting with a royal party in the woods around Paris. His horse had become lame early in the morning and so he had returned, unexpectedly, to his apartments in the palace, thinking that he might return to bed and enjoy a little sport with his young wife instead. He entered his wife’s bedchamber to discover Bernard naked and with an enormous erection striding up and down in front of Heloise’s bed, playing his vielle and reciting a scurrilous ditty about the King. The lady, also naked, was in fits of hysterical laughter when Enguerrand burst through the door. Unfortunately, the Sire de Chaumont had also removed his clothing and he too was in a state of obvious arousal. Then Heloise did the wrong thing, she carried on laughing. She looked at the two naked men, one young, one old, both now with fast-shrinking erections, and she howled with laughter.

‘Of course, there was no comparison,’ Bernard informed me with pride. ‘He might have been a lion on the battlefield but, for the bedchamber, he was equipped like a baby shrew.’ Both men left the chamber at speed. Bernard grabbed his clothes and was out of the window in a couple of heartbeats. Enguerrand retreated to the antechamber to collect his dignity and summon his men-at-arms.

‘It was not funny, Alan,’ said Bernard sternly, as the tears rolled down my cheeks. ‘It all ended very sadly. The Sire de Chaumont had Heloise beheaded — really, in this day and age, beheaded for adultery — and he challenged me to single combat; and when I refused — I only like to wield my sword in bed — he sent his assassins to murder me. My father said he could not help me; I only escaped with my life by fleeing France and coming to this miserable rain-drenched island. And — can you believe it? — he pursued me even here! He has set a bounty on my head of fifty marks and had his noble friends in England declare me outlaw, me Bernard de Sezanne, the greatest musician in France, un hors-la-loi.’ He fell silent, pitying himself, and so I poured him another cup of wine.

Every afternoon, after the midday meal, I would walk out to Bernard’s cottage and we would explore music. It was a wonderful time and I learnt more about life and love and music and passion in those few months than I had learnt in my whole life. It was an escape from the grind of Thangbrand’s, but only a temporary one. I had to return each evening to the hall and the petty bullying of Guy and Will. Wilfred had gone: packed off to an abbey in Yorkshire. Robin had arranged it. But Wilfred’s departure meant little to me; he had never been a real part of my world, more like a ghost drifting through the human world awaiting his call to a more spiritual life. Apart from my few hours each day with Bernard, life at Thangbrand’s seemed flat, unchanging: chores, dull meals, battle practice, more chores. . and long hours trying to sleep in the hall while the men-at-arms snored about me.

But, despite appearances, things were changing. For one, my body was changing: I was growing taller, and the battle practice was filling my thin frame with muscle; hairs appeared in private places on my body and my voice cracked and wavered, sometimes in a girlish pipe, sometimes a masculine growl. Bernard thought this was very funny, and would imitate my squeaking and booming. But in our singing lessons he began to teach me the