There was just one dark cloud on the horizon: my promise to gather information and report back to Robin. The problem was that I did not, particularly, have anything to report. The first time I went to the Saracen’s Head, which was not far from the castle on St Peter Street, it was a cold and rainy night. I met Thomas there and after the ritual question and response of the woodland folk and the town people, he told me to tell him what I had learnt in the past few weeks since we had arrived. So I told him about Bernard’s triumph, and Goody’s adventures, and I offered him all the best and latest gossip of the court: how so-and-so was sleeping with so-and-so; that this courtier was in favour with the Queen and that courtier was in disgrace.
Thomas was a truly ugly man. Apart from having only one eye, the other being just a mass of pink and red scar tissue, he had a great round head adorned with several huge smooth bumps the size of acorns on his forehead and crown, a flat, brutish nose and a sparse mangy-looking head of curly black hair. He resembled a troll or some other outlandish monster bent on the destruction of mankind. In fact, he was a decent man, if a little sardonic - and devoted to Robin. When I had finished giving him a particularly juicy story about two of Eleanor’s young male clerks who had been caught naked in each other’s arms and had been banished back to France in ignominy, he cocked his big, misshapen head on one side, staring at me out of his one dark eye and said: ‘All very interesting, no doubt. But the pot-boy here could tell me tales of the filthy frolics of young clerks. What else have you got for me? What news of the King? Or of Duke Richard?’ My face fell. I knew that they were both in France and at daggers drawn, but no more beyond that. Thomas realised that he had hurt my feelings and quickly added: ‘But you are new at this game; never fear, we will make you a spy as great as Joshua in no time.’ And he clapped me on the back and ordered another pot of ale for me.
When I had recovered from my embarrassment, he leaned forward and said: ‘What you need to do, Joshua, is to get close to Fulcold, the chamberlain. You have met him? Good. Now you need to gain his trust. And, eventually, through him to get a look at the Queen’s private letters. Hugh tells me you can read and write, that you are
litteratus
?’ I nodded. He continued: ‘That will be very helpful. Go to Fulcold and offer to help him in his duties, now that he is short of two clerks, he will be overworked; flatter him, say that you wish to learn how a clever man organises the affairs of the greatest lady in Christendom.’
He took a small sip of ale. ‘Don’t push things,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask too many questions. Be helpful, be hard-working. Never complain if he asks you to undertake a difficult or dull task. And watch for your chance.’ He was getting to his feet, preparing to leave.
‘Robin wants to know what Eleanor is saying to Richard in her letters to him, and how he is answering. But don’t do anything too dangerous, young Joshua, don’t risk getting caught. Robin says you are very valuable to him and that he is quite fond of you. I’m under strict instructions not to let anything happen to you.’ He gave me a smile and lightly punched my shoulder. Then he went on: ‘I’ll meet you here at the same time, on the same day of next month, and you can tell me how you’ve been getting on. If you need to see me before then, leave a message for me here. And give your name as Greenwood. Understood?’ I nodded, we clasped forearms, and he disappeared quickly out of the ale house and into the black, wet night.
Chapter Fourteen
I presented myself to Fulcold the next day, flattered him and gave him a present of a little yellow songbird in a small wicker cage that I bought in the town. Master Fulcold liked it well enough, and he told me that I might assist his team of clerks who kept the rolls of the Queen’s accounts and learn how a great household was managed.
He was a strange little man, immensely fat, shy and sentimental. He adored music and loved the idea that the jongleur of such a noted
trouvère
as Bernard de Sezanne was working under his auspices. When there was not much work for me to do, which was quite often, he had me play my gilded flute for the entertainment of the clerks.
As well as recording the Queen’s accounts on great rolls of parchment, the clerks of the royal household were mainly concerned with Eleanor’s correspondence - and she wrote and received letters constantly. Every morning, the Queen would rise at dawn, wash, break her fast and attend the service of Prime at the Cathedral. After that she would attend to her correspondence. She wrote to everybody, from her beloved son Richard, the Duke of Aquitaine, and Philip Augustus, the King of France, to humble knights in Poitou or Germany. And they wrote to her. But these exchanges had to be discreet as she was in theory a prisoner and the King had given orders that she was to be kept incommunicado. But the King was unwell; likely to die, many said, and if he did, Richard would inherit the throne of England.
So, every morning, the Queen would stride about her chamber dictating letters to Fulcold, who would scribble notes on parchment, which would be taken away to be turned into a fair copy by his clerks. However, as a novice, I was not permitted to do this work, not because Fulcold did not trust me, but because the parchment or vellum - the finely stretched skin of a calf or young sheep that we wrote on - was very valuable and I might make mistakes or ink blots and ruin a fine piece of writing material.
This was frustrating: Thomas would have loved to have knowledge of everything that the Queen wrote, but I dared not push the clerks too far and, when I did casually question them about the Queen’s letters, they seemed to have a blind spot as to their content, almost as if they were merely copying the words without truly taking in their meaning. So here I was, able to physically see the letters she was sending out, but unable to read their messages. I dreaded my next meeting with the one-eyed man.
Then two events occurred that were to change my mood - and the course of my life. My duties with Fulcold were light and on sunny afternoons I was still occasionally performing with Bernard in the castle gardens for the ladies. One day, after we had played together and been lavishly praised, Bernard suggested that I should make my debut as a solo
trouvère
in front of the court. The ladies thought it was a wonderful idea and the Queen suggested that I perform at a feast that was taking place in a week or so, at the beginning of July, to honour some important visitors to the castle. I would be performing in front of Sir Ralph FitzStephen, the constable, for the first time and so I was determined to make a good impression. The second event occurred when one of the clerks fell ill and Fulcold asked me to help with the making of palimpsests. As I have said, parchment was very expensive, even for a Queen, and so many of the letters that were sent to Eleanor were scrubbed clean and reused. Fulcold gave me this task and this is how I finally learnt a secret worthy of Thomas.
It was a painstaking process: the used parchment was clamped to a wooden board, where it would first be gently washed with fresh cows’ milk and then scrubbed with oat bran, which would remove most of the dried ink from its previous use. However, if the writer had pressed hard on the animal skin, some of the ink would be more deeply ingrained in the parchment and this could only be removed by scraping with a pumice stone, a grey crumbly rock that was so light it would float on water. This was a delicate task; the parchment was very thin and scraping too hard with the pumice could tear holes in the material. If you scraped the parchment too gently, of course, the resulting palimpsest would still be covered with the original writing.
‘You will be careful, my dear boy, won’t you?’ said a worried Fulcold as he assigned me a stack of parchments, some of which had already been partially cleaned.
I took special care with the parchments he gave me that day and the chamberlain was pleased with my work. Of course, I also read each document thoroughly before I cleaned it. I did so well that this became my regular employment in Fulcold’s establishment and I was pleased with myself: if I could not yet read the Queen’s outgoing correspondence, I could at least read what people were saying to her. Some letters were very intimate. Eleanor, it seemed, had an insatiable curiosity about a noblewoman named Alice, the daughter of the King of France, who it was rumoured had been King Henry’s mistress. She received several letters that I saw in the same small cramped hand describing, in extraordinary detail, the life of this unfortunate princess, who was now betrothed to Richard: what she ate, what she wore each day, even the number of times she visited the privy.
Mostly the letters contained dull fare, information that would not be of the slightest interest to Robin, I judged. For example, one letter revealed that the Count de Something had a young and beautiful daughter and the writer wondered whether Eleanor would help to arrange a suitable marriage. The Abbey of Quelquepart invited Eleanor to become a patron, their church needed a new roof and perhaps the Queen would like to contribute . . .
Then, at the beginning of July, I came across a letter that drove all this trivia from my mind. Irritatingly, it was a parchment that had already been partially cleaned but I could still make out some parts of the missive. It was a letter dated the eleventh day of February of this year, and it was from Sir Ralph Murdac.
He was coming to Winchester; in fact, he was the special guest for whom I would be performing the next day. My heart gave a jump but almost immediately I steadied myself. He could not possibly know me: we had met only once face to face, more than a year ago in Nottingham, when I was a bruised, snotty thief apprehended for stealing a pie. He may have seen me briefly again, or at least my back, when I was fleeing through the snow from his horsemen, but surely he would not remember me, surely he could not connect that ragamuffin, that peasant ‘filth’, with the polished
trouvère
playing (I dared to hope) exquisitely at a royal court. It was impossible, I concluded, and then I even began to relish the thought of performing before Murdac, inspired to greatness by my hatred for him.
But other parts of Murdac’s parchment were much more disturbing. After an illegible patch, the letter continued ‘ . . . it would be a most suitable match, I believe; the Countess of Locksley has much property but she needs a strong man to manage both her and her lands. I am that man and I mean to press my suit with her during my sojourn at the castle with the greatest vigour; who knows what magic a sweet word and a lavish gift may work on a young girl? I trust I may have your support in this venture, though I note that you mentioned in your last letter that she has formed some sort of attachment to Robert Odo of Edwinstowe. I must warn you, and I shall certainly inform the Countess, that this Robert Odo is a scoundrel, a scofflaw and that the moment the loyal forces of the King lay hands on him he will be hanged as a common felon. He has made a great nuisance of himself in Nottinghamshire, indeed all over the north of England, but his run of luck is nearly at an end. I know his every move before he makes it and I shall soon have him in my grasp and, I swear by Almighty God that I will punish him for his misdeeds to the full and fatal extent of the law.’
I read the letter through twice and then, thinking furiously, I washed it and began to scrub the parchment with pumice. That diminutive French popinjay, that lavender-scented swine, wanted to possess my beautiful Marie-Anne. The thought of his sweaty little paws on her body in the marriage bed, on her white neck, her breasts. Never. I’d see him dead first. I’d walk right up to the bastard at the feast and smash the vielle over his head. I’d plunge my poniard into his black heart. To Hell with the consequences. I was scrubbing so hard that I tore the parchment, and Fulcold came clucking over. Seeing the tear, he relieved me of my duties and sent me to lie down in my chamber and recover my temper.
I warned Marie-Anne that evening but, to my surprise, she seemed unconcerned. ‘There are many men who would marry me for my lands,’ she said. ‘Some would even try to force me to marry them. But I am safe here under the protection of the Queen. Don’t fret, Alan, I am safe while I am at Winchester.’ I was to remember her words well a few days later.
I spent most of the next day getting ready for my performance at the feast. I would be using Bernard’s vielle and I was worried that my technique was a little rusty, so Bernard helped me to prepare for the evening, running me through scales and suggesting small refinements to my bowing. I was to play four pieces only - unless my audience demanded more: firstly, a simple song that I had written in praise of the Queen’s beauty, comparing her to an eagle, as she had been in a famous prophecy, and admiring her haughty looks and towering personality. I was certain that it would go down well. Next, a
canso
about a young squire who is in love with a lady he has never even seen; he is in love with her reported beauty and the stories he has been told about her goodness. Then I would perform a
sirvantes
, a witty satirical ditty about corrupt churchmen and their dull-witted servants, which I had written while in Sherwood and which had them rolling on the floor when I performed it at Robin’s Caves. Then finally, Bernard and I would play a
tenson
, a two-part musical debate in which I would suggest with my verses that a man could love only one woman, while Bernard would argue, in each alternate verse, that it was possible for a man to love two women or even more if they were all of comparable beauty and virtue. At the end of the
tenson,
we would ask Queen Eleanor to judge which of us had proved our point more convincingly and which of us should be declared winner of the musical debate.
We practised for most of the morning, then I bathed, changed into my best clothes and we waited in an anteroom off the great hall where the guests were dining noisily. Bernard was sober and fidgety, he kept plucking at the ribbons entwined into his green silk tunic. I was nervous but I kept thinking of Sir Ralph Murdac and trying to use my hatred of him to banish my nerves. Then Fulcold was at my shoulder; it was time to go in.