Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) (30 page)

I strained my ears to hear him nonetheless – I had not heard any music for some time and I swiftly realized that I had longed for it without quite knowing what it was that I longed for – and I was rewarded by the sound of him merrily butchering a piece by an old friend of mine, a Norman
trouvère
called Ambroise d’Evrecy who had been on the Great Pilgrimage with me. The lad clearly favoured the northern style of poetry and music, the style of Champagne, Normandy and England – which I remember thinking strange as so many in the north sought to emulate the music of the south. But these musings were driven from my mind when he began a new tune and sang, to my utter astonishment:

He was singing a
canso
that I had written. Or that had been partly written by me. Indeed, I had composed it together with King Richard en route to the Holy Land and I was astounded that this stripling jongleur should have knowledge of it, and should be performing here it so far from my homeland. I was entranced, even though I must admit he made a mess of the vielle fingering in the middle section somewhat, and he did not correctly hit the high sung note at the end of the third line of each verse. But here he was, a stranger, in this strange land, singing my own song.

I grabbed the shoulder of Little John who was sitting beside me, and shook it roughly. ‘Listen to this, John, just listen to the lad over there. It’s “
My joy summons me
.” He’s playing “
My joy”
…’

Little John looked up briefly from his wooden plate. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s nice … are you not going to finish those last couple of sausages?’

‘Robin,’ I called down the table, ‘can you hear what that jongleur over there is playing?’

But my lord was engrossed in conversation with Tuck and waved his hand dismissively at me as if to say, Not now, Alan, I’m busy.

‘Because, if you are not going to eat them,’ said Little John staring at my plate, ‘would you mind a great deal, Alan, if I did?’

I stood up and left my boorish companions and walked over to the jongleur. I was just in time to hear him sing the final verse:

And with a final flourish of his bow, and a light smatter of applause from the indifferent crowd, he stepped off the mounting block and began to move away towards the other side of the square.

I took two fast steps and caught up with him: ‘Good sir, please forgive this intrusion. But I wanted to congratulate you on your performance…’ My command of Langue d’Oc was not perfect, I was sorely out of practice, but the lad caught my meaning and he swung round smartly with a beaming smile stretching his already generous mouth. Under his neat bowl of glossy black hair, his honey-brown eyes glowed with joy.

‘Did you like it? Did you truly like it? My uncle says I have no talent in this field and I should punish the poor ears of the world no more. But you really liked it – you swear before God?’

‘I did, sir, I have not been so pleased to hear a tune for many years,’ I said, truthfully. The boy was brimming with happiness and I was instantly infected by his good humour.

‘I am a musician myself,’ I continued. ‘Would you care to take a small cup of wine with me and my friends over there and discuss our shared interests in the Muse for a little while.’

‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure,’ said this agreeable fellow.

I introduced the young man to my friends, who received him with varying degrees of courtesy, from a ‘God save you’ from Tuck and a ‘Welcome, friend’ from Robin, to a blank, silent stare from Nur. Thomas busied himself fetching the lad a drink.

‘… and I am Sir Alan Dale,’ I said at last.

He nodded and said absently, ‘My friends all call me Tronc.’ Then, to my secret, prideful pleasure, his face suddenly changed. His eyes widened, his cheeks flushed. ‘Did you say Alan Dale, as in Alan Dale, the troubadour, Alan Dale, the knight of the Great Pilgrimage, and companion of Richard of England?’

He was goggling at me.

‘The same.’

‘But I was just singing one of your
cansos
– it is my favourite, my absolute favourite, and you … you…’

‘As I said, I have not been so pleased to hear a tune for many years, but if I may be so bold’ – I reached over and picked up his old vielle from the table. I plucked at the second string, which was a little loose, listened to its voice and tightened its tuning peg. While I was engaged in this delicate act, Tronc was chattering away, almost babbling:

‘I have written a few pieces myself – nothing to compare with your masterful works, of course, Sir Alan, but I think they may show a little promise…’

‘So you are not content to be a jongleur,’ I said, my fingers busy with the fine strings of the vielle, only half-listening to him, trying to get the tone of the middle note just right. ‘You would wish to be a fully fledged troubadour?’

‘A jongleur! No, no…’ And he burst out laughing, as if what I had said was the funniest thing imaginable. I looked at him a little oddly and wondered if things were different down here. In England and Normandy, a jongleur performed other men’s music, as he just had, while a
trouvère,
or troubadour as the southern folk called them, composed his own works. It was a question of rank. A troubadour might take offence at being called a mere jongleur, but not the other way around.

‘I can see how you might be mistaken,’ Tronc said, and laughed merrily once again. ‘I do not come to the market on a feast day to play pretty tunes for pennies – but for another reason. I know that I am not yet adept, so I come here, on my own, to hone and test my skill as a musician. It is my belief that, if I can please the crowds of people here just a little, then there is hope for me. But tell me, Sir Alan, do you know the works of Folquet de Marseilles? He too was a friend of King Richard?’

I admitted that I did not know the great man himself but said that I had admired his famous love song
‘Amors, merce: no mueira tan soven’
for many years. And so began a long, intense conversation with this extraordinary young man, who, if he lacked a perfect ear and polished technique for fine music, had at least enough enthusiasm for a dozen would-be troubadours. An hour passed, and a second, and I was just about to call for more wine, when I saw that Robin was standing at my side. And looking down the table at my Companions, I saw that they were all on their feet as well, brushing crumbs from their laps and preparing to leave, and that Thomas and Roland were leading the horses to our table. I had been so lost in my talk with Tronc that I had completely forgotten our circumstances.

‘It’s time to go, Alan,’ said Robin kindly. ‘We have been waiting on you this half hour past. We must make our way to St-Sernin or all the places in the dormitory will be taken.’

He turned to Tronc. ‘It has been a pleasure to meet you, young man. I am only sad that we did not all have the pleasure of more of your conversation. I fear Alan here has enjoyed the lion’s share of it.’

‘You are going to St-Sernin?’ said Tronc, with an air of surprise. ‘You would seek lodgings there?’

I told him that we would.

‘But you are far too late,’ said my new friend. ‘It is St George’s Day and the day of the great fair – all Toulouse is filled with merchants and travellers, pilgrims, revellers and folk from the villages hereabouts. All the cots in the dormitory will have been taken long before now. You must stay with me.’

I looked uncertainly at Robin, who merely shrugged, and said, ‘That is most kind of you, Master Tronc, but I am sure that we would be far too much of an inconvenience to your household.’

‘Nonsense, masses of room, and of course the servants will see to everything – but it might be best if you did not call me Master Tronc. Just Tronc will do or, if you insist on being absurdly formal, you may call me my lord.’

‘“My lord”?’

It was my turn to goggle at him.

‘Well, um, yes, actually, didn’t you know? I am Raymond-Roger de Trencavel, Viscount of Carcassonne, lord of Beziers, Albi and the Razès. But as practically everybody who is anybody around these parts is called Raymond or Roger or Raymond-Roger, all my friends call me by my family’s name – Trencavel – or Tronc, for short.’

As we rode away from the tavern, with Tronc walking beside my horse’s head, I discovered a little more about our noble friend. While he spent much of his time at his own court at Carcassonne, he told me that the Trencavel family had long maintained an inn in Toulouse for convenience when visiting the city. They were the vassals of the Count of Toulouse, Raymond, the sixth of that name, who also happened to be Tronc’s uncle, and the family were frequently called upon to serve the Count at the Château Narbonnais, his fortress on the southern edge of the city. So Tronc led us through the crowded streets with the familiarity of a native Toulousain, through a guard post in the wall that divided the Cité from the Bourg, and north about five hundred yards towards the pink bulk of the cathedral of St-Sernin.

The oval space around the brick-built cathedral was almost as crowded as the market square where we had spent the afternoon, but this part of the town was mostly inhabited by travellers and pilgrims of the poorer kind, with a large proportion of the city’s beggars taking refuge in the shade provided by the cathedral. I realized that Tronc had been right about St-Sernin – we would indeed have had a great deal of difficulty in finding even the meanest accommodation within its precincts.

Our new friend’s rather grand inn was on a quiet street a mere fifty yards from the pink walls on the eastern side of the city, but before we reached it, I observed a curious sight. Not far from the inn’s stout gate, a small crowd had formed around two women. They were dressed in rough black robes, belted at the waist with a thick leather-bound book dangling from the belt, their pale, thin faces seemingly shining with some inner goodness. As we approached, they spread their arms wide as if in benediction and almost all of the members of the crowd around them, some thirty people, prostrated themselves before the two dark figures and lay full length in the mud and filth of the street. The women began to recite the Pater Noster over the prone bodies of their followers:

Our Father, which art in Heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our supplementary bread,

And remit our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And keep us from temptation and free us from evil.

Thine is the kingdom, the power and glory for ever and ever.

Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer that these strange women spoke was subtly different from the Pater Noster that I am sure all of the Companions (save for Nur, of course) had been saying since we could first speak – but that was not what shocked me the most.

‘Women priests?’ I said to Tronc. ‘You have women priests here?’ I cannot remember when I have been so astonished.

‘They are Good Women,’ replied Tronc with a smile.

‘No doubt, but are they also priests, in holy orders?’

‘No, Sir Alan, that is what they call themselves: Good Women and Good Men, or sometimes Good Christians. We call them Perfects, and their followers are called Believers – and they are Christians too … after a fashion.’

I heard Sir Nicholas, who was directly behind me, mutter savagely, ‘They bloody well are not. They’re nothing but damned heretics.’

‘And the Church – and the Count of Toulouse – they allow them to preach here quite freely?’ I said.

‘They do nobody any harm,’ said Tronc. ‘They are genuinely holy folk – they eschew meat and sexual coupling and oaths and money and … and, well, all worldly evils. Besides, they have many followers – even some of the lesser nobility are Believers. It would not be, ah, politic for the Church or the Count to act against them. We do things a little differently here in the Languedoc, Alan, as you will discover if you remain with us. Live and let live, we say, and let each man and woman find his or her own path to God.’

While I was still digesting this extraordinary laxity in matters of the Faith, we entered into the courtyard of the inn and my mind was diverted by the sight of a dozen servants in yellow and white livery who debouched from a large three-storey building to take our horses’ bridles and lead us inside.

The hospitality of the Viscount of Carcassonne, the lord of Beziers, Albi and the Razès, was lavish. Servants were dispatched to fire the cauldrons in the bathhouse and for the first time in weeks I was able to soak in the luxury of a great wooden tub, with a sheet draped over the top to protect my modesty, while the male Companions made use of the half dozen other tubs. Nur disappeared temporarily and we men splashed and chatted and laughed at our good fortune – this was so much better than a flea-infested cathedral dormitory – and allowed the gallons of hot soapy water to wash away the cares of the long journey.

Then, clean, refreshed, dressed in new clothes, and hungry once more, we met at dusk in the great hall where our host Raymond-Roger de Trencavel had caused a ‘light’ supper of pigeon pie, smoked ham, roasted capons, grilled trout, ragout of beef, coddled eggs, onion soup, five kinds of cheese and many bowls of fruit to be laid out for our delectation.

As we ate heartily, I gave Tronc a limited explanation for our presence in the Languedoc. I made no mention of the Grail, for Robin had told me privately to keep that part back, but I gave him a good deal of truth. We were seeking a former monk named Michel, who now called himself the Master, and who led a band of soldiers calling themselves the Knights of Our Lady. He could be easily identified because of the strange deformity that he had been born with: two thumbs on his left hand, twin miniature digits where only one should be. We sought him because he was a thief and a murderer, who had been responsible for the death or my father Henry and also of a good friend of mine called Hanno. We sought revenge, I said, on the Master and we suspected that he might even now be in Toulouse, perhaps staying with powerful friends in the Church or the nobility, or might have passed through in the past few days.