Our camping field began to change overnight — timber was cut and hauled in and the men began throwing up more permanent shelters than our thin canvas tents: huts with walls of woven branches, plastered with mud, roofed with turf or double layers of canvas which had been smeared with oil and wax; lean-to shelters and even small cottages with straw-thatched roofs and wooden plank walls. In less than a week, our field began to look like a village, and the same was happening all over the area to the north of Messina, where along the shore line other contingents of the army were making their temporary homes more weather-proof. Firewood was in short supply, and the men soon had to travel miles up the steep slopes of the mountains to find even a small bundle of sticks to cook their pottage. As the first autumn rain lashed down, the mood in the camp began to change: the shopkeepers in the old town had doubled the price of bread and wine, much to the anger of the men; dried fish now sold for a shilling a pound, an outrageous price; even fresh fish became scarce as so many men were trying their luck with baited lines from the ships in the harbour. There was little to do, although John did organise battle practice at least once a day for his spearmen, the archers set up butts to shoot at and Sir James took his cavalry out each morning for a couple of hours of exercise in the mountains. But most of the time the men were idle and spent the days foraging for food or firewood or gambling in the old town. Three men were flogged on Little John’s orders for brawling in the old town. There were two fatal fights between Robin’s soldiers and local men over dice before the beginning of October. Reports of men being insulted or even robbed by the locals were common.
I was lucky: Robin had taken over one part of the monastery of San Salvatore, and William and I were soon snug in a monk’s cell, myself sleeping on a stone ledge padded with cloaks and a wool-filled paliasse, William on a pile of straw on the floor. Little John, Owain and Sir James de Brus had similar accommodation in the cells next to mine, and each had been allocated a soldier-servant to look after them. Reuben had taken up residence in the old town. He knew of some Jews who lived there, merchants of some sort, and he had wangled an invitation to stay with them. I believe he had the most comfortable lodgings of all of us. Although, Robin had a proper chamber to himself in the monastery, with a fire to warm the cold stone, a small bed and a big table where his officers would meet to eat and discuss our plans. And I saw to it that he always had at least two men-at-arms keeping an eye on him at all times - whoever had tried to kill him with the adder in Burgundy might well try again.
To be honest, like most of the men, I was very bored. I practiced weapons skills with Little John every day - he was teaching me the finer points of the flanged mace - and attended as many services in Messina’s beautiful cathedral as I could. I was bitterly disappointed that we were to stay in Sicily all winter. And I had a nagging feeling that I was not worthy to set foot on the holy soil where Jesus Christ had walked, that I was too mired in sin, and that God was delaying my arrival in Outremer until I had fully repented of my transgressions and cleansed my soul. The weight of the souls of the Christians I had killed at York hung heavily upon me. But I could also sometimes hear my empty promise of salvation to Ruth echoing in my ears at night, mocking my failure to keep my word. So every morning at before dawn I would rise and attend Matins in the cathedral and every evening before I slept I attended Compline, and I went to as many services in between as I could. But, despite the ethereal beauty of the cathedral, its glorious coloured-glass windows, and its exquisite golden paintings of the Christ child and his mother on the walls, which I gazed at in humble devotion, nothing seemed to shift my deep feelings of guilt. I prayed for long, uncomfortable hours on my knees in front of the great altar, asking the Virgin for forgiveness, but still I could not shake the bad thoughts from my head. I wished Tuck were with us; he would have eased my conscience, of that I was certain.
‘God’s great fat oozing haemorrhoids! What you need is a good fight,’ said Little John, when I complained about my mood to him one afternoon. ‘Or a good fuck. Sort you out in no time.’ But the prospect of either seemed very remote.
And then, in the midst of all this gloom and guilt, King Richard decreed that he would host a day of joy and music in honour of his royal cousin Philip of France - they were not getting on at all well, so the scuttle-butt went, and this was an attempt to mend fences — and, Robin told me, I was to perform in front of two kings in the fragrant herb garden at the back of the monastery, if the weather was kind. He took me aside one drizzly morning under a covered walkway where the monks had once met for chapter and told me about the musical event and my part in it. ‘Stick to the loveydovey stuff, and maybe something traditional; nothing at all political - we are supposed to be soothing Philip’s feathers, not ruffling them,’ he said. Before I could protest at his calling my beautiful, finely wrought cansos ‘loveydovey stuff’, he shocked me into silence with his next words. ‘And, by the way, Sir Richard Malbête is here, with our lord King Richard. He arrived last night from Marseilles.’
I goggled at him. The Evil Beast was here, in Messina, with the King? ‘He was in dire disgrace after the blood-bath in York,’ continued Robin. ‘The King did not take kindly to his Jews being killed. I’m told he was really quite upset; he relies on them to lend him money for his military adventures.’ He smiled at me a in a lop-sided way. This was Robin’s financial position, too, in a nutshell. ‘So Malbête lost his lands in the North and has come on this Great Pilgrimage as a penance,’ Robin grinned at me, and then said jokingly, ‘Under your Christian logic, to cleanse his soul from the foul sin of killing Jews, Malbête must kill an equal number of Saracens.’
I frowned. I did not like it when Robin was disrespectful about the True Religion or our great mission to save the Holy Land. Robin ignored my sour look and went on: ‘Our story is that you and I were never in York, never in the Tower, and we never cut our way through a crowd of men-at-arms to get free and clear. That, if it ever happened - and it does sound far-fetched, doesn’t it? - was done by some other men. Not us. Understand?’
‘You declared your rank to the men-at-arms,’ I pointed out.
‘An impostor,’ said Robin briskly. ‘A wily Jew who wanted to save his skin by pretending to be the famous Earl of Locksley. Tell me that you understand?’
I understood. Robin did not want himself to be associated this catastrophe; he did not want to explain why he was there, or to admit that he had killed Christian townsmen in defence of Jews. Mostly, I felt he was embarrassed; it was not a glorious episode for anyone. But that was fine with me. I would be perfectly content never to think or speak of those bloody few days again. ‘What about Reuben?’ I asked. ‘When Reuben finds out Malbête is here, he will cut his living heart out.’
‘Yes, I thought of that. So I told Reuben myself that Malbête was now with the King and I promised him that, if he let the evil bastard live until we got to the Holy Land, I’d help him quietly kill him myself. I said you’d probably want to pitch in, too.’
I nodded; I’d gladly help send Malbête’s soul to join his master the Devil. ‘But why wait?’ I asked. ‘Why not just kill him now?’
He looked for a moment as if he wasn’t going to answer me, and then he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Two reasons, Alan. And this is not to be repeated. I am in deadly earnest, you are not to breathe a word of this, all right? Firstly, I don’t want to disturb calm waters just now. If the King’s knights start killing each other, even if we managed a discreet, tidy little murder, it could tear this expedition apart - it’s bad enough that Richard’s hardly speaking to Philip - and while I couldn’t care less which bunch of religious fanatics flies their flag above Jerusalem, I do want this campaign to succeed for reasons of my own. Which leads me to the second point. If it went wrong, I wouldn’t want Reuben hanged for murder in Sicily - King Richard has vowed that he will speedily execute any man who takes the life of another pilgrim; and Malbête, curse him, is a pilgrim. I need ... I need Reuben to help me do something in Outremer, and only he can help me do it. No, Alan, I’m not going to tell you what it is yet, and please don’t ask me. I’ll tell you more about it nearer the time.’
I was not the only
trouvère
to accompany the army to the Holy Land. In fact, there were quite a few of us and we had begun to gather in the evenings for wine and conviviality in a tavern in the old town of Messina where we would tell stories and play each other bits of our new compositions. I was especially fond of Ambroise, a jolly little soul, almost as wide as he was tall, with great beaming cheeks, sparkling black eyes like a bird’s and, when he chose to exercise it, a ferocious wit. He was a Norman from Evrecy, near Caen, a minor vassal of King Richard’s and, as well as composing music for his lord’s entertainment, he told me he was writing a history of the holy war. I first came across him at the edge of the crowded harbour, bent over a slate that he was scratching at with a piece of chalk. ‘What rhymes with “full dock”?’ he asked me suddenly, twisting his fat neck round to look at me. I had not realised he knew I was there. I replied without thinking: ‘Bull’s cock.’ He laughed, his whole little round body shaking with mirth, and he wheezed: ‘I admire the way your dirty mind works, but I don’t think that’s an appropriate phrase for a poem in praise of our King’s glorious arrival in Messina. You’re Alan, the Earl of Locksley’s
trouvère,
aren’t you? I’ve heard people say you are pretty good, for a youngster. I am Ambroise, the King’s man. Part-poet, part-singer, part-historian - but all gourmand,’ and he slapped his ample belly and laughed again.
We were firm friends from that day onwards.
In fact, our arrival in Messina had not been as uniformly glorious as Ambroise or the King might have hoped. The local population was a mixed crew: mainly Greeks, with a sprinkling of Italians, a few Jews and even some Arabs - and they all hated us. When we had arrived at the harbour there had been some booing and jeering from the crowd, audible even over the blare of the trumpets, even a few pieces of rotten fruit thrown. Fists were shaken, and King Richard had been extremely angry, white-faced, his blue eyes seeming to spark with fury. He had wanted to put on a show of his power and majesty and had assumed that his Sicilian audience - quickly dubbed the Messy Nessies by Little John - would be suitably awed. They were not. They seemed to regard us as something between an army of occupation, and a crowd of foreign bumpkins who could be robbed and insulted at will. The feelings of dislike, I have to say, were entirely mutual: we referred to the Greeks dismissively as ‘Griffons’, and the Italians as ‘Lombards’; the Arabs, many of them slaves, we ignored as beneath our Christian contempt.
Ambroise had the honour of beginning the musical festivities on a bright October morning in the herb garden of the monastery of San Salvatore. The weather had cleared and it was a half-warm sunny day, the sky a pale blue but streaked with woolly clouds. He opened with a simple and supposedly melancholic song of a knight who is bemoaning the departure of his mistress. It was hardly an original theme. Actually, as my friend is long dead now, I can admit to myself that Ambroise was not an enormously gifted
trouvère.
God rest his jolly soul. He had a fine voice, it is true, but his musical compositions were rarely inspiring. And, occasionally, I even suspected him of appropriating other men’s ideas. He admitted to me once that he found all the conventions of troubadour-style music-making, with its focus on unrequited love, a tremendous bore. What interested him most was poetry, specifically epic poetry that recorded dramatic events. He was talking once again about his history of the Great Pilgrimage, something he would bang on and on about when he was in his cups in The Lamb, our favourite watering hole in the old town.
If I remember correctly, Ambroise’s song began:
Farewell my joy,
And welcome pain,
Till I see my lady again ...
Grim, I think you’ll agree. And it was quite difficult to imagine rotund little Ambroise as a heart-sick swain, as he described himself later in the piece, unable to eat or drink for love of his departed lady. But perhaps I am wrong: I’m ashamed to say that I paid scant attention to my friend’s turgid verses and spent the time studying his audience instead. King Richard sat in the place of most honour, next to his royal French guest. Richard was a tall man, well-muscled and strong, although with a slight quiver to his hands when he was nervous or excited. At the age of thirty-three he was in his prime. His red-gold hair was truly regal, it glinted and sparkled in the brisk morning light; his complexion was fair and slightly sunburned, and his honest blue gaze was unflinching. His reputation as a warrior was second to none, and it was said that he loved nothing more than a good, bloody fight. Richard was what Tuck would have called a ‘hot’ man, whose anger was always near the surface, and who, when riled, was a fearsome sight. Beside him, the French King, Philip Augustus, was as different as chalk from cheese. He was a sallow, dark fellow; thin, even frail looking with large luminous eyes and, at twenty-five, the bowed back of a much older man. Tuck would have called him a ‘cold’ man, hiding his true feelings behind a wall of ice. Richard and Philip had been great friends in their youth, some even said that the young Richard had been infatuated with Philip, but it was clear in the way that they held their bodies, seated on cushioned chairs in the sweet-smelling herb garden, that there was very little love now between the two Kings. Also present were Robin and several of King Richard’s other senior commanders, including Robert of Thurnham, a knight I had met last year at Winchester and who had helped me then to escape the clutches of Ralph Murdac. He was now a very important man, Richard’s high admiral no less, and I had not had time to renew our acquaintance beyond a brief smile and nod.