King's Man (11 page)

I had made friends with a local waterman named Perkin, a snub-nosed, red-headed fellow of about my age who was the
proud owner of a sixteen-foot skiff. I was not a good sailor and had unhappy memories of travelling by sea during the Great Pilgrimage, but being carried downstream on the current of the Thames was a wholly different and quite pleasurable experience. With Perkin manning the long steering oar, we would be wafted gently down around the bend in the river to the City of London. These journeys gave me a sense of serenity: alone on the water with my new friend, and nary a sound but the slap of waves against the sides of his skiff and the harsh cry of a seagull or perhaps the occasional friendly hail of a passing boatman, I felt all my cares slip away, washed downstream, along with Perkin and myself, by the grey-brown waters of the Thames. At that time, I found it a novel experience to see the city from the water, sweeping slowly past quays where merchants unloaded their wares, their cloths and spices, and crates of exotic fruit; floating gently past the high walls of grand townhouses, past markets with fishermen crying their catch of the day, right up to the half-built stone bridge where the current, squeezed between the tall arches, speeded up in the centre of the river and we were shot through the dark tunnel on a wave of green spume and laughter. I liked to look upwards at the vault of the bridge’s arches, and the chapel dedicated to St Thomas à Becket in the centre of the structure, as we were swept under it, until Perkin quietly informed me that some of the wooden buildings that jutted out of the side of the bridge were privies and that I must be wary of falling ordure. We would return, Perkin and myself hauling on an oar each, up the calmer side of the river near the southern bank, where the bridge had yet to be completed, past the bustling Augustinian Priory of Southwark and the wide foul-smelling mud flats and miniature forests of
bulrushes, and then the long pull round the bend on the side of the open heathland of Lambeth moor and finally back across the river to Westminster.

One day, I took Goody with us in Perkin’s boat, thinking she might enjoy a day out away from the chattering women of the Queen’s court.

It was a disaster.

My feelings for Goody were muddled at that time. Having known her since she was a child, I tended to forget that she was now a young woman, and found myself treating her with the rough friendliness and condescension due to a younger sister. On that misty February morning, when I took her down to Perkin’s skiff and introduced her to the waterman, she seemed out of sorts, bad tempered and snappish, and I noticed that she had a very small spot on the end of her nose. Much later, it occurred to me that it might have been her time of the month. As I handed her into the boat she stumbled slightly and I had to catch her to stop her falling into the muddy shallows of the Thames. Accidentally, I swear on the bones of Christ, as I grabbed her body, I found myself clutching at her small hard breasts. When she was righted again, and safely on board, she slapped me, a hard stinging blow that left my head ringing. I was astounded, speechless. I had not meant to manhandle her in a lascivious way, I was merely trying to save her splashing into the filthy river water.

‘You keep your rough soldier’s hands to yourself, Alan Dale,’ she said tartly as she sat down and arranged her skirts around her in the prow of the skiff. ‘I’ve been warned about this sort of thing: men who come back from a war with only one thing on their minds. I don’t know what strumpets you encountered
on your travels in the East, but you are in Christian lands now and here you may not so easily paw a lady for your pleasure.’

Perkin began laughing so hard he almost fell overboard. I flushed with sudden impotent rage and took my seat in the centre of the boat, silent, seething. At that moment, I could have happily picked her up and tossed her in the mud. Instead, I ground my teeth and looked out to the far Lambeth shore, pretending to study a heron that was flapping lazily along a stretch of marshland. I should have made a joke about it, or apologized, but instead we set off in an awkward, burning silence.

I had chosen a bad day for seeing the sights of London; as we glided along downstream, a low bank of fog began to roll in from the distant sea. Soon we could barely see beyond the end of the skiff, let alone make out the sights of the city, bar a few occasional glimpses through the drifting smoky grey mist.

‘Keep a sharp eye out for other craft, master,’ said Perkin to me. ‘Many a good man has drowned after a careless collision mid-river.’

Seeking to make a joke, but also perhaps, in my heart of hearts, trying to take some revenge, I said: ‘Those other boats won’t have any difficulty in seeing us’ – I grinned at Goody – ‘not with that giant pimple glowing bright as a beacon on my lady’s nose! Ha-ha!’

I was trying to lighten the atmosphere. To be honest, Goody had only a minuscule pink blemish, but I saw that my jesting remark had hit home – and hard. Goody gasped as if I had struck her, her hand flashed to her face to cover the spot, and to my astonishment she suddenly burst into tears, sobbing and snuffling and covering her face as the tears streamed down it.
Once again I was speechless – I had seen this very girl once stab a dangerous madman in the eye with a poniard; and in so doing save my life – how could she be crying over a silly jest from an old friend? I felt the immediate urge to go up to the prow and put my arm around her to comfort her, but I feared she would think I was making advances again. And so I did nothing. I merely said gruffly: ‘Are you quite well, my lady? Is there anything I can do for your comfort?’ At which she burst into a fresh bout of sobbing.

We continued downstream, with Goody quietly weeping, myself feeling wretched and useless and Perkin struck dumb with embarrassment at the antics of his two passengers. After a decent interval, I turned to Perkin, and said briskly: ‘Well, we won’t be able to see much today, waterman – shall we go back?’ Then I looked to the prow, saying: ‘Goody?’ and she nodded but said nothing, her face tear-streaked, red and blotched.

We rowed back to Westminster with both Goody and me in abject misery. I could not wait to be out of the boat and away from my shame. What was the matter with the girl: was she ill? Why couldn’t she tell me? As we tied up at the wharf, I offered my hand to Goody, to help her out of the boat, but she ignored my arm and jumped nimbly on to the wooden jetty and without another word, and without any sort of escort, she hurried away into the misty morning making for the haven of the women’s quarters of Westminster Hall.

I was just turning to Perkin to pay him for the boat ride when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw two figures in the crowds by the wharf that triggered a half-memory. There, not twenty yards away, was a very tall, thin man, standing next to a huge, broad man. I knew them, but where had I seen them
before? Before I could place them, the two men turned and melted away into the thick banks of river mist and I soon forgot their presence as I tried to make amends for my clumsiness towards Goody by overpaying Perkin.

Chapter Six

I was upset and angry with myself all that day for having made Goody cry – I was very fond of her after all. And, perhaps rashly, I accepted an invitation to go drinking with Bernard that evening. My old vielle teacher took me to a tavern by the river, under the sign of the Blue Boar, where, he said, the wine was expensive but the wenches were cheap. It was a dreary place, one big low room with greasy rushes on the floor and a fire burning in a walled central hearth. At a long counter against one wall, the owner manned barrels of wine and ale, serving us foaming flagons of greenish wine from Germany between wiping at the grime on a shelf of pewter mugs with a dirty rag. Two slatternly girls, full-breasted but clad in nothing more than grubby light chemises, flitted about the place, bringing our drinks to the table with a plate of stale bread, cold pork and pickles. But while I had no appetite for women or food, I drank with sincere conviction, aiming to find oblivion
and wash away my feeling of shame with long draughts of the tavern-keeper’s surprisingly good Rhenish wine.

Bernard was dressed in bright silks and was in fine form, cracking jokes, his nose glowing with wine, and telling me about a new work he was composing – I forget the details now, but he claimed it would set the noble houses of Europe ablaze with the exquisite beauty of his music and its wondrously clever rhymes. He insisted on singing a few snatches to me, rudely demanding silence from the two or three other drinkers in the tavern – strangers, of course, rough men by the look of them, who did not take kindly to being told to be quiet by some foppish drunk – while he sang, beating the tabletop with the palm of his hand to keep time. I conceded that it was a decent enough composition, but Bernard seemed disappointed in my response. He then began to tell me about his love affairs with the ladies of Queen Eleanor’s court: they were many and very complicated.

It was clear to me, as my friend boasted and lied outrageously, that he was having the time of his life as Eleanor’s
trouvère
. However, such was my black humour that I could respond to Bernard’s bright chatter only with grunts and nods. Indeed, I must have been lamentable company, but he took it in good part. For a while I stopped listening entirely and stared around the dingy tavern, my eye eventually alighting on a big, dark-haired man who was muttering to himself and shooting evil glances our way as he stood drinking ale from a gallon pot in the corner.

I tore my gaze from the man, and turned back to Bernard to hear him say: ‘… and when the poor villein complained about the burdens of being a father and asked for compensation for
his daughter’s lost virginity, Prince John had him chained in his dungeon in a lead cope. As the heavy metal sheet was fitted around the man’s neck and shoulders, and knowing that the cope would slowly crush him to death, Prince John said: “How’s that for a father’s burden!” Which was considered very witty by everyone – well, everyone except the poor man with a hundred pounds of lead round his neck!’ Bernard laughed like a lunatic, slapping his knee and calling for another flagon of wine.

Eventually, realizing that even his funniest stories could not lift my spirits, my friend disappeared into a back room with one of the slatterns. I finished my wine and was just thinking of settling up with the owner and going to bed, when I looked up from my stool to find the big, dark-haired man looming over me, a thick oak cudgel held casually over one broad shoulder.

‘I don’t like you,’ he said, and glowered at me. He had a rough southern accent, and was clearly very drunk. ‘I don’t like you at all, or your friend, or any of your kind,’ he continued. ‘Musicians,
trouvères
or whatever you call yourselves – you’re nothing but pedlars of soppy ditties, mincing little sodomites, lickspittles to any lord who will listen to your Goddamned noise.’

The tavern-keeper called over from the ale tuns, where he was polishing a metal tankard: ‘You behave yourself now, Tom. Leave the musical gentleman alone. We don’t want any trouble here.’

The big man – Tom, apparently – ignored him.

‘I don’t like you …’ he began again. But I had had more than enough.

‘You know something? I don’t think I care for you much either,’ I said, looking up at him. ‘So why don’t you take yourself out of my face and go and find a pig to fuck – one that’s not too choosy about its bed-mates.’

Tom leaned further over me, his huge bulk nearly blocking out the dim light in that grimy den. ‘You listen to me you little poof—’

And I thought:
Yes, this will do. This is what I’ve wanted all night
.

My sword was with my other belongings at Westminster Hall, but my misericorde was snug in my boot. In fact, I had no need of either. I merely launched myself directly upwards, using all the power in my young legs, surging straight up with the force of a battering ram, the top of my skull smashing into his mouth with stunning force. Tom staggered back and, now standing, I went up on to the balls of my feet and whipped my forehead forward in a short, hard arc, crunching it into his nose in a second devastating headbutt. My poll smashed into his face like a boulder crushing a loaf of new bread. He stumbled away, spitting blood and teeth, a look of dazed incomprehension on his big ugly face, and I lashed out with my right boot, catching him squarely in the fork of his crotch. He doubled over, mooing in agony. Taking a step back, I swept up the stool I had been sitting on, swung hard and shattered the heavy wooden disc of the seat over the back of his head. Like a felled tree he toppled over slowly and crashed to the floor, landing in a senseless heap on the dirty rushes, bleeding quietly but copiously from a jagged split in the back of his scalp.

I looked up to find the tavern owner staring at me in amazement. Trying to control the shaking in my hands from
my sudden surge of rage, I fished in the purse at my waist and threw a handful of coins on to the counter. ‘That’s for the wine – and the stool,’ I said, making for the doorway. ‘And you’d better give that great ox a drink of ale when he wakes.’

I had thought that a night of boozing and brawling might make me feel better about Goody – it did not. The next day I woke with an aching head and a deep sense of guilt. I hoped I had not killed Tom in the fight the night before. He did not deserve to die for being a drunken boor.

I mentioned the boating affair with Goody to Marie-Anne that day, hoping that as a woman she would know what I could do to make things right with my young friend.

‘I would not trouble yourself too much about it,’ said the Countess of Locksley, as we shared a cold supper in her chambers. I had been summoned to entertain her while Robin was ensconced with the Queen discussing King Richard’s plight. Marie-Anne must have sensed that my heart wasn’t in my music, for after I had picked my way through a few of her favourite
cansos
, she invited me to set down my vielle and bow and join her in her meal.

‘Girls that age have a difficult time, stuck halfway between childhood and the full bloom of a woman,’ she said. ‘She ought to be married by now, really, and have babies to care for, but as she has neither land nor money, it is difficult for her to attract the right suitors.’