‘What happened to Trois Pouces?’ I asked.
‘He died, God rest him. I left Paris later that year to make a pilgrimage to Rome, and I heard that Pouces had succumbed to the smallpox — there was an outbreak in Paris after I left the city, thousands died, the bodies piled up in the streets, and a friend told me that Pouces had been called to God.’
‘And what became of the music-mad Bishop Heribert?’
‘Oh, he thrived. He did not hold his Pyrenean post for long, his family made arrangements for him to join the Holy Trinity Abbey in Vendome; and he is there to this day — he is now a cardinal, no less! And I hear that he is as enthusiastic about music as ever.’
‘So the last time you saw or heard from my father was twenty odd years ago, at your leave-taking on the Grand-Pont?’
‘Sadly, I never saw him again. I pray that we shall be reunited in Heaven.’
‘But what about his family: the seigneurs d’Alle? Surely Henry; could have gone to them?’
‘His father — your grandfather — was dead by then, and his elder brother Thibault had inherited the lands of Alle, and, well, I got the feeling that they were not as close as brothers should be. In fact, I asked Henri if he would go to Thibault for help and he told me that he would sooner starve in a ditch than be in the same house as him and his family. There was not much love lost between them, it seems. I believe the new seigneur was concerned about the consequences of the scandal and considered that Henri had disgraced the family name by his crimes. Henri was a proud man: he would never beg for succour from anyone.’
‘And so he went to England,’ I said, letting out a long breath. Strong emotions had been stirred by Father Jean’s tale — it occurred to me that I’d like to meet my uncle Thibault, the mean-spirited Seigneur d’Alle, and express my feelings about his abandonment of my father to him fully and frankly down the length of my sword blade.
I left Father Jean in the infirmary and completed a tour of inspection of the defences of the castle. When it was done, I took a long look out over the wall at the enemy camp; I could only detect a sense of peaceful indolence among the depleted enemy, and it was hard to believe that these were the same men who had assailed us so ferociously the day before. The camp had the air of a holy day — indeed, it was Whitsun Eve if I recall correctly — and I guessed that with the departure of the King a good deal of the besiegers’ determination had gone with him. I was almost certain that they did not intend to attack us that day, and ordered half the men to stand down and eat and rest.
I shared a loaf of bread and a lump of cheese with my squire Thomas, washed down with a jug of the local wine. Thomas had cleaned the blood and filth from my sword Fidelity, and was carefully sharpening it with a stone. It seemed the lad had recovered from his fit of remorse and I decided not to mention it in case it stirred up another bout of tears. Instead, I told him what Father Jean had said about my father. Thomas listened gravely and said: ‘I think we should pay a visit to Cardinal Heribert in Vendome. That is, assuming the King comes soon to relieve us and we survive this siege.’
My thoughts had been tending in another direction, towards Paris. I was wondering what the much-loved Bishop de Sully might have to say about the matter of my father’s departure some twenty years ago and whether he might be able to throw any light on the identity of this most powerful person, this ‘man you cannot refuse’, who, like a coward, had ordered my father’s death from the shadows. But I could not for the life of me see how in time of war I might safely get across fifty miles of territory infested with hundreds of enemy knights and into the French capital.
Thomas was right, I concluded. While Vendome, too, was presently in enemy hands, it had traditionally been one of Richard’s towns and its loyalty was like a leaf in the wind. If the Lionheart’s campaign went well, we were more than likely to re-take it. And even if it could not be re-captured, Vendome might be easier to enter than the seat of the King of France himself. If I survived this siege, I decided, then I would beg leave of Richard to go to Vendome and seek out the music-loving Cardinal.
I spent the rest of the day in relative peace. I further reduced the number of sentries and allowed more of the men to rest. I talked a little longer with Father Jean, but it was clear that he had told me everything he knew, and he had no idea who the man might be who had ordered my father’s death. At dusk, after watching the French make their preparations for the night, I felt confident enough to strip off my blood-crusted suit of mail and give it over to Thomas for cleaning.
That night, sitting in the ground floor of the tower, dressed only in linen braies, thin woollen hose and a rather grubby chemise that I had been wearing for a week by then, I composed a rude little satirical ditty, what the jongleurs call a fabliau, which I named ‘King Philip’s Folly’. It told of the haughty monarch’s attempt to take Verneuil, his great mace swinging between his legs as he assailed the gates, but how the valiant men of the castle cut the mace from his body and sent him packing with a sore and gaping wound.
It was greeted with much merriment and many a cheer when I sang it that night, accompanied only by my vielle, a cherished five-stringed instrument that I played with a horsehair bow, which I was very glad to see had survived among the baggage during the giddy charge into the castle. The men liked my fabliau, and indeed, we all seemed to sense that our hour of peril had passed. And so it had, for, after a good night’s sleep and a morning practising basic sword manoeuvres, cuts and blocks, in the castle courtyard with Thomas, Hanno came to me shortly after the noon meal, as I was taking stock of the castle’s few remaining provisions, and said flatly: ‘The French are going.’
Once on the battlements I saw that Hanno had spoken truly. The remainder of the enemy forces were packing up their encampment; tents, weapons, food, fodder, horses, siege engines — the lot. By mid-afternoon, the first of their units were disappearing down a track that ran parallel to the river and led through a wooded region to the east towards the French-held castle of Tillieres.
There was much rejoicing on our walls at this sight, and I allowed a small cask of wine to be broached and served out to the men. The reason for the Frenchmen’s departure soon became apparent, for by the time half the enemy forces had entered the wood and been lost from view, we saw the first outriders of King Richard’s huge army arriving on the ridge where Hanno and I had murdered the knights two days before. At first it was just a single horseman, silhouetted boldly, almost heroically, on the skyline, then the low ridge bloomed into a forest of flagstaffs and spears. The colours of a hundred bright standards caught the slanting golden light of the afternoon sun, and the ridge seemed to swell and darken with the moving bodies of thousands of men and horses.
Although they must have known of its imminent arrival, the swift appearance of Richard’s army sowed panic among the departing French troops. At the tail end of the enemy column was the slow lumbering siege train: three trebuchets, a mangonel and some smaller fry, all being pulled on their own wheeled bases or hauled laboriously on heavy carts by teams of lumbering oxen.