Warlord(47)

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 trouvère 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 Vendôme, 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 Vendôme, 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 Vendôme 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.