Thangbrand noticed it and began getting Guy to demonstrate particular sword and shield manoeuvres, with me as his partner. A pattern emerged: a cut or two, a clash of shields and I’d be sprawling on the ground. One day, knocked on the flat of my back for the twentieth time, I felt a great weariness in my bones and I couldn’t bring myself to get to my feet as the session ended. I just lay there listening to the sounds of the other men and boys leaving the yard: the ribald laughter, the clatter of arms, a curse or two and then blessed silence. I continued to lie there, staring up at the blue summer sky above, when a voice spoke.
‘You are not all that bad, you know,’ it said. ‘You are not strong yet, it’s true. But you are quick — very quick, I believe. The problem is that you don’t move your feet. You stand like a woodsman trying to chop down a tree. Your enemy isn’t a tree. He’s a living, breathing, fast-moving, fighting man. And, if he knows how to move his feet, he’ll kill you.’
It was a good voice, mellow and mild but with comforting depth. I turned my head and looked up at Sir Richard at Lea standing there blocking out the sunlight. He held out his hand and I scrambled to my feet.
Sir Richard had recovered well from his injuries. I had noticed him exercising with some of the other men-at-arms; I’d even seen him take a tilt at the quintain, and, of course, he struck the target beautifully dead in the centre and cantered on unscathed. He was just marking time, really, waiting for Sir Ralph Murdac to raise the money for his ransom. But there seemed to be some delay, I didn’t know what. He could have escaped any time he wished; he wore a sword, had been allocated a horse, and he was almost entirely healed. But he was a gentleman, a knight, and he had given his parole to Robin.
‘Watch my feet,’ he said. And, drawing his sword, he executed a few elegant passes, moving lightly on the balls of his feet, back and forward on the exercise yard. It looked simple; half steps back and forward, side to side, a large quick pace before the lunge. Then he drew a circle in the dirt about a yard wide and gave me his sword. ‘I’ll stay in this circle,’ he said. ‘Try and hit me.’
‘But I might hurt you,’ I said. He just laughed.
So he stood unarmed in the dirt circle and I lunged halfheartedly at him with his sword. He moved easily, casually, out of the way of the blade. ‘Come on, try harder,’ he said. I lunged again, faster this time. He moved nimbly once more, dancing out of the way. I struck as fast as I could: a snake-quick stab at his heart. He merely twisted his body to avoid the blade. I could see how he thought this would play out, and it irritated me: I’d poke at him, the clumsy boy, he’d give a manly guffaw, and skip lightly out of my path. I was well fed with such humiliation, so I hacked hard and suddenly at his head; he ducked only just in time. Then I held the sword with two hands and, with a swirl of real anger in my gut, I swung it as hard and fast as I could at his middle. If the blow had struck his waist, it would have sliced into his body and half severed him. He stepped forward, lightning fast, to the edge of the circle, caught my double handed grip on the hilt with his left hand, half-blocking my swing, his right foot was outside my right foot, his right hand was under my left shoulder, shoving hard — and I was tumbled into the dirt once again. ‘You are quick,’ said Sir Richard, ‘angry, too. That’s good. A man needs his anger in a fight.’ He helped me up again. ‘Now it’s your turn,’ and he nodded towards the circle in the dirt.
And so Sir Richard at Lea, the renowned and noble knight, taught me to move my feet. For the rest of the morning, and then every morning after Thangbrand’s battle practice for the next few weeks, I stood in the dirt circle as Richard lunged, swiped and hacked at my dodging body. He attacked slowly at first, building the basic foot movements into my mind, so that they became second nature. Then he would speed up, even try to take me by surprise. After a month, he let me use my sword to defend myself and he started by teaching me the basic blocks, and after a while some more complicated patterns; but, he emphasised again and again until I was sick of hearing it, it was my feet that mattered.
As Sir Richard and I practised in our dirt circle, we were often watched. Bernard, come to collect his daily rations from the hall, would lounge against the side of the building, grinning as I swiped at Richard and missed or was tumbled into the dust. And most days little yellow Godifa would stand solemn-faced by the edge of the practice ground and gaze at us as I sweated, and skipped, grunted and lunged on the exercise yard. She never said a word and always by the end of the session, at noon, when Richard and I would go and drink a pint of ale together in the buttery, she was gone.
I enjoyed the after-exercise drink as much as the sword-work itself. Sir Richard was taciturn at first, though perfectly amiable. But gradually I began to learn a little about him. He was more than just an ordinary knight, I discovered. He was a Poor Fellow-Soldier of Christ and the Temple of Solomon: one of the famous Knights Templar. They were the elite forces of Christendom, trained for many years in all forms of arms to become perfect killing machines for the glory of God. I was being taught to use a sword, it slowly dawned on me, by one of the best soldiers in the world. The previous year, Sir Richard told me, he had been one of the few Templar Knights to escape the massacre at Hattin, when the infidel Saladin had smashed a Christian army and murdered hundreds of Christian knights who had been taken prisoner. Later that year, Saladin had captured Jerusalem itself and the Pope had ordered a new expedition to free the Holy City from the hordes of Islam. Sir Richard had been sent back to his homeland to preach Holy War to the English and help King Henry raise forces for the great battles to come in Outremer.
He had ridden out with Murdac’s men that spring morning on a whim, feeling a need for some exercise and excitement; he had believed he was going out on a jaunt to punish a rabble of outlaws and the last thing he expected was to be grievously wounded and taken prisoner for ransom.
‘But God always has a plan, Alan,’ he said to me when I asked if he cursed his fate. And I remembered that he, like all the Templars, was a monk as well as a soldier.
The autumn approached and, with Sir Richard’s help, I grew quick with a sword. I was making musical progress, too, with Bernard; and with his encouragement I was beginning to compose my own songs. They were embarrassing little ditties but Bernard was kind — on occasion he could be scathing, but he never made adverse comments about my attempts at composition, never. So I made love songs, picturing Robin’s beautiful lady Marie-Anne in my mind and pretending that I was her lover.
At first, I found it quite difficult to play the vielle. Bernard was introducing me to some of the simpler songs he had written. But even for an easy canso, the fingering on the strings had to be precise and the changes of position executed swiftly. One day Bernard lost his temper and shouted at me: ‘On that stretch of mud over there, with a heavy sword and shield in your hands, you seem to move your feet quite daintily for that knightly oaf — all I’m asking for is that you move your fingers half as neatly for my music.’ In a flash of inspiration, I realised he was jealous of Sir Richard, and the time we spent together. I was touched. It made me realise, perhaps for the first time, that I had real friends in this wilderness.