At this point, Father Jean took a deep swig from the water jug, washed the stable dust out of his throat and spat into the straw.
‘Now, Sir Alan, while I understand that you are one of those who fights, a knight, I must tell you that I do not approve of violence. I believe that Christ taught us to turn the other cheek, and we must listen to his message and obey if we wish to call ourselves Christians and assure ourselves of Salvation. Violence, to me, is distasteful. It leads to … well, to this.’ And he waved a hand around that blood-splashed stable, strewn with mangled, dying men.
‘But on this occasion,’ he said, ‘I think that God was acting through your father to punish those unruly monks in a swift and necessary fashion. Your father did not hesitate for a heartbeat – there must have been a dozen monks around Pouces, but Henri charged in like a madman, his fists swinging like great bony hammers. He was a strong man and he laid about him left and right, boxing ears and crushing noses and doubling up his brothers with swift hard blows to their midriffs. He set about Fulk in a particularly alarming fashion, hammering him again and again in the face with his left fist, then breaking his jaw with a tremendous cross blow from his right. The monks scattered in the face of his righteous fury, hauling away the half-unconscious Fulk with them – and I was somewhat alarmed too, but I saw that your father’s anger had been inspired by a desire to thwart evil, and I was reminded of Christ clearing the money-changers from the steps of the Temple. So I plucked up my courage and went over to him when the others had fled to tell him of my admiration for his actions.
‘Well, the long and the short of it is, we became friends – the three of us, Henri, myself, and poor little Pouces. And for the next six months we were inseparable.’
I found I was smiling to myself. It pleased me to think of my father as a fighter protecting the weak from bullies. And Father Jean noticed my expression.
‘You know, you are extraordinarily like him, Sir Alan. Not just in your build and features, but also in the way you move. I saw you yesterday on the wall, repelling those dogs of King Philip, and you reminded me of your father attacking a crowd of unruly monks single-handed.’
I could not speak for pride and dropped my eyes. After a moment, Father Jean continued.
‘So Henri, Pouces and I were fast friends, and we spent every spare moment we had together. Henri had the best voice, he sang like a bird, and he was fearless and strong. But he also had a weakness for women. He loved them, he loved them all, and I am certain he made the cheeks of his confessor glow red on more than one occasion when he related his carnal sins with the girls of the Parisian taverns. Even if the calamity that occurred the next spring had not taken place, I do not think that Henri was made by God for a life in the Church. He had a warrior’s soul, I fear. He brawled several times in the streets with common men who offended him in some way, and he went 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.’