Greater than love itself
Which is to reward most generously
The knight who serves him well…’
I was not looking for gain myself, truly I was not, but I dearly wished the King would pay Robin the money he had promised him. So while using a common trouvere’s theme — the duty of a good lord to be generous — I also wanted to get a subtle message across that would benefit my master Robin and help him out of his financial difficulties.
King Richard was not troubled in the slightest by my verse, and after a line or two of vielle music, improvising on my theme, he returned with: ‘A knight who sings so sweetly
Of obligation, to his noble lord
Should consider the great virtue
Of courtly manners, not discord.’
And with a great flourish of his horsehair bow, Richard played the final notes and set down his vielle. The applause was deafening. It was a brilliant rebuttal of my verse, and Richard was rightfully pleased with himself. He grinned at me across the tables laden with half-eaten food. And then, he turned to his left and forced an elderly English knight out of his place so that I might sit beside him. When I was ensconsed in a huge oak chair next to my sovereign, he filled a jewelled cup with his own hand and gave it to me, and as I drank he said: ‘Bravo, young Blondel, one day we will make more music together, you and I, perhaps a duet beautiful enough to tame the Saracens, even Saladin himself, eh?’ And he grinned at me, blue eyes twinkling, white teeth gleaming in the candlelight. I could think of nothing to say but merely nodded, murmured, ‘Yes, sire, as you wish,’ and sat back in the great chair basking in his good favour.
Then he leaned in close to my ear and said: ‘And you may tell your master, the cunning Earl of Locksley, that I have not forgotten my debt to him — and he shall have his precious silver in the morning.’
Chapter Eleven
The King was as good as his word and several heavily laden chests were brought to Robin’s chamber the next day. It was Christmas morning and the bells of the Cathedral were ringing our across the whole of Messina, summoning us to Matins with their joyful peals. A small pouch of gold was also delivered to my cell by a servant, a nervous boy who was admitted by William too early, while Nur and I were still abed. The youth, who was much plagued by pimples, said in a high squeaky voice: ‘There is a message, sir, that comes from the King with this gift.’ I nodded and said nothing, waiting. The boy cleared his throat and gabbled: ‘To Blondel, who, I trust, will never lack either good manners or generous lords. God be with you this Christmas Day.’ And with that the boy spun on his heel and was gone.
I gladly risked damnation that Christmas morning, and a severe penance from Father Simon if he found out, by ignoring the summoning of the bells to Matins and remaining entwined with Nur in our snug bed. She was delighted that the King should so honour me with gold, and began talking excitedly about the fine clothes we could buy with the money — my Arabic had improved, and she was picking up some words of Norman French, and I could now understand about one word in three of her happy multilingual chatter. I was more than a little pleased with the King’s gift myself. Robin was a less worried man, too, now that he had silver with which to pay his troops and to repay the loans that Reuben had had to arrange with the local Jewish community in Sicily to tide us over. ‘It’s not nearly everything that he promised me in England,’ admitted Robin to me one morning a handful of days after Christmas, as we rode out into the mountains for a day’s hunting. ‘But it’s a start; and much better than nothing. “The lord has one obligation, greater than love itself, which is to reward most generously…” I like it, and I thank you for that, Alan, I truly do.’
I was pleased that my cheeky verse had had such a beneficial effect, but the tiny maggot’s voice inside me suggested that, when my master and I were discussing who might be the prospective murderer in our ranks, Robin had artfully planted the idea in my head that I should ask my King for his money. On the trail of the assassin, I had made little further progress, except to make inquiries at the herbalist’s in the old town and discover that he did sell wolfsbane — he said he sold dozens of ounces a week, but he claimed that he had never sold any to Reuben. This knowledge neither cleared nor incriminated Robin’s physician — even if the man were telling the truth, Reuben could easily have asked someone else to purchase the poison for him.
We were heading up into the mountains of Sicily that day in search of wild boar: Will Scarlet had found a local man who knew of a place where there was a great pig apparently ravaging the land: tearing up the crops and terrorising the local peasants. He had brought this intelligence to Little John and John had passed it on to Robin and now we were all riding in the hope of an exciting day’s sport. Robin and myself rode in front, followed by John and Will Scarlet, with my servant William and the local guide, a thin-faced, dark-haired untrustworthy-looking man called Carlo, who spoke barbarous French, bringing up the rear. William and the guide were leading the packhorses, which were laden with the nets and long boar spears. Around our horses’ hooves trotted three alaunts, great shaggy hunting dogs, owned by Carlo, and Keelie, frisky as a puppy, bright as a golden coin with canine joy.
I had never hunted boar before and I was excited to be included in the chase. Sicilian boars are fierce great animals, with enormous strength and long tusks capable of gutting a man from crotch to throat if they can get close to you, and to kill them we planned to use special heavy boar spears — sixteen-foot-long lengths of ash, two inches thick at the butt, with steel cross-pieces a foot below the spear head. The cross-piece was to stop the animal, once impaled, from charging up the length of the spear in his fury, with the wooden shaft running through his body, to get at the man on the other end.
Will Scarlet was a changed man since his whipping, more somber, silent and God-fearing, much less the happy-go-lucky chattering boy-thief I had known in Sherwood. But, in a way, the punishment seemed to have steadied him: and he seemed much more comfortable now that he was just an ordinary trooper, no different that any other in Robin’s force. He performed his duties seriously and stayed out of trouble and never flaunted his long acquaintance with Robin.
William too seemed very excited about the prospect of the hunt, and quizzed Carlo incessantly about the techniques of killing the boar, its behaviour when harassed and how it would respond to the dogs and the nets. Carlo, for all his ill-favoured looks, was a patient man and he answered William’s endless questions with good grace as best he could in his halting French. The plan was to spread the nets — they were about three foot high when erected and fine enough to be almost invisible, but they were made of a very strong bark twine — and then use the dogs to drive the boar on to them. Once entangled in the nets, and unable to run, the animal could be speared at our leisure.
Carlo took us to a rocky hilltop, covered with stunted spruce trees and bracken, and indicated a thicket a hundred or so paces away where the boar was believed to have his den. He had the alaunts leashed tightly and Keelie was also tethered by a strong rope, but it was clear the dogs could smell pig. They all strained against their confinement, eager to dash madly into the thicket and confront the beast.
William, Will Scarlet and Carlo spread the long nets in a semi-circle, downhill from the hilltop, the way we expected the beast to break, propping them up with small sticks and twigs: the net was meant to collapse when the pig charged into it. Robin, John and I took up our positions, boar spears grasped in our hands, my heart hammering as if I was about to go into battle.