I had been entertaining the King and his senior barons in the audience room at Château-Gaillard, and when the rest had retired the King had asked me to stay behind and play something solely for him. There was but one choice: ‘My Joy Summons Me’ – a piece that I had played under the walls of Ochsenfurt in Bavaria and, by his response to it, from a high cell in one of the towers of the city, I had located my captive King when he was in the hands of his mortal enemy Duke Leopold of Austria.
I had expected the King to join me in singing some of the verses – after all, he had written the alternate ones – but while I played my vielle and sang, he stayed mute, watching me with his eyes half-closed, a smile on his lips. When I had finished, he repeated one of the verses, the third one that I had written, quietly in his normal speaking voice:
‘A lord has one obligation
Greater than love itself
Which is to reward most generously
The knight who serves him well …’
We sat in silence for a moment and then my King said: ‘Well, Blondel, you have served me well – I cannot deny that. You served me well in the German lands, and at Nottingham, and at Verneuil, too – and the Marshal tells me that you were the first man over the wall at Milly. Tell me truly, have I been a generous lord to you?’
I did not hesitate for a moment. ‘Yes, sire,’ I said.
‘Your master, my lord of Locksley, does not seem to think I am a generous lord. He complains that the lands I have given him are in French hands, and says that he will never live to enjoy them. What say you?’
I thought about Clermont-sur-Andelle, now destroyed. ‘We all live by the fortunes of war, sire, and the will of God. I think He does not mean me to enjoy Clermont.’
‘That is a good answer, Blondel,’ said my King, and he laughed. ‘When this war is over you shall have more and better lands to compensate you for Clermont – or if you choose, I shall give you the necessary silver to repair the ravages done to it.’
I bowed my head. ‘That is most generous, sire,’ I said. And I meant it. But the King was still speaking: ‘Robert of Locksley, however, does not feel that I have been open-handed. Now that the truce has been signed, he has requested that I allow him to leave my side and go off on some sort of treasure hunt – I do not fully grasp the details, but it seems he wishes to go to the Duke of Burgundy’s lands in pursuit of some fantastical object of miraculous provenance and exceedingly great value. And I am not minded to refuse him.’
The Grail, I thought, with no little shock. Robin is seeking the Grail. But the King was still in mid-flow. ‘Locksley too has served me well and I must grant him this request. However, it does mean that I cannot spare you. I cannot have all my knights departing before the ink is dry on the treaty. Some must remain to garrison the castles or, truce or no truce, Philip will be beating down all the doors in Normandy. I know that you had wished to return to England to marry your sweetheart – a commendable desire, I am sure; my mother the Queen has met the lady concerned and tells me that she is a most beauteous, mild and charming creature’ – not when her anger is roused, I thought privately, but said nothing – ‘and I understand that she is an orphan, and a ward of the Countess of Locksley. Therefore, I propose that, with your agreement, when we have pushed Philip out of these lands, I should give the lady in marriage to you – with a suitable dowry, of course, of, say, a hundred pounds in silver!’
The King searched my face, and I could see that he was enjoying the look of surprise and joy he saw on it. A hundred pounds in silver – it was a great fortune, without a doubt; I could rebuild Clermont, if I wished, or purchase a far bigger, richer manor in England. But there was more.
‘I want you here at Château-Gaillard,’ said the King, ‘holding the place for me as the Constable. I shall be coming and going, but you will have the responsibility in the next few months for my fair castle on the rock. Will you do that for me, Blondel?’
I would be the Constable of the greatest castle in Normandy, a position of vast honour and responsibility – and all that the King desired in exchange was that I postpone my wedding for a while. I bowed once again, and said: ‘You are truly a most generous lord.’
I found Robin in his chamber in the north tower reading from a leather-bound book, seated at a table piled high with parchments and scrolls. I knocked and entered and Robin barely glanced up from his book but waved a hand vaguely at a tray on a sideboard with a flagon of wine on it and several cups. I poured myself a drink and one for Robin too and waited patiently while he finished the page he was reading.