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.