The Lute Player (40 page)

‘Now, now,’ said a cheerful voice away to my right and beyond the wheel of the wagon, ‘never say no. Soldier’s first rule. You should sample this stew. Fresh mutton it is, though I had doubts when I first heard them crying it. Yon Richard of England should give it out—every wounded man gets fresh mutton broth. Do more good, that would, than the four aurei he gives for bravery. What’s the use of four aurei in this Godforsaken country now he’s even forbidden the women to come along? But a basin of good mutton stew, now that is something that any man’d take a risk for.’ There were noises of the stew being enjoyed. ‘What’s more, though none of those doctors would believe it, a good mutton stew’d cure all those –ing sores!’

I lifted my head and through the gathering twilight saw a Flemish archer propped against the rim of the wagon wheel with one bandaged leg sticking out stiffly, one arm hanging limp. Between his sound leg, which was drawn close to his body, and his stomach there rested a bowl of stew into which he was digging with his sound hand.

Two wounds. And still cheerful, still hungry. I was filled with admiration. And since I knew that the sores worried Escel more than anything, more than the fever and the water in the bowels, which he could accept as unavoidable, I thought I would attempt to ignore my own pain—and all the others’—in the quest for information.

‘What makes you say that mutton stew would cure sores?’ I asked, and put my head down again.

‘I once saw it do it. Wait while I drink off this liquor and I’ll tell you. I was at the siege of Therpont. That’s a long time ago and forgotten now. Fifty weeks we were shut up there, well provisioned, beef in cask, salt fish, ham in plenty. We could have held out three months more if we hadn’t been relieved. But we were rotten with sores; maybe they weren’t as festering as they are in this country, but bad enough, and many tall fellows died of nothing else. Well, one day right up to the town walls there came a little goat girl with a flock of about fifteen head. Part of the old fosse was green over with grass and maybe she thought she was safe or maybe the goat strayed and she followed them. Somebody looked down and saw this young female in her red skirt and said, ‘How about a little raid?’ They made a quick sally and brought her in. With the goats. What happened to the girl I needn’t tell you. The goats went into the pot because, as you know, though goats will eat most anything in nature, they don’t take kindly to salt herring. Into the pot they went and the old duke being a just man, every man Jack got his share. And in two days the sores were healing up like clean wounds. Nobody seemed to notice except me but then I’m a noticing man; noticed you didn’t take stew, didn’t I? And when I mentioned it they laughed me to scorn and called me Goat-gut. All the same, I know what I know.’

‘Well, that’s very interesting,’ I said. ‘And it could be proved or disproved. Go on, tell me more things you have seen and noticed. When I’m listening to you talk my arm hurts less.’

‘Bless you, I could talk all through the night telling you tales you wouldn’t believe, tales that’d set your hair on end. But in half an hour from now it’ll be –ing cold. Too cold to sleep. So I’m going now. Once I am asleep I am asleep and nothing but a good kick in the arse’ll wake me, so I’m going while it’s warm enough. If you take my advice, you’ll do the same.’

I heard him arranging himself, grunting with pain as he moved. An old campaigner, the stuff of which armies are made, brave, unself-pitying, taking the good with the bad, the rough with the smooth. And what did they get out of it? I asked myself. Every village had its old soldier, one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed, cobbling or carpentering a little, begging a little, stealing when a chance offered. And they counted themselves lucky. Thousands of others were dead in their prime; brave, cheerful, unquestioning men. Was it worth it? I asked myself. Was anything—from a little disputed throne up to the Sepulchre of Christ itself—worth the toll of death and pain that was being exacted in this one place on this one night?

And then the cold came and the pain increased. The man with the smashed jaw suddenly made a noise like a rapidly boiling pot and the smell of fresh blood tainted the air anew. And here I lie, I thought, between two dead men.

Then the thought which had not come to me before came at last. Why do I lie here? I asked myself. I have the use of my legs. I edged myself out from under the wagon, clutched the side of it with my sound hand and pulled myself upright. The great stone inside my head smashed to and fro and made me sick and dizzy and my knees turned to melted wax. My fingers melted, too. They released their hold on the wagon side and I sank down again, close to the Flemish archer who was now sound asleep. Flat on my back again, I felt better; the thunder of my heart, the smashing loose thing in my head quietened. The moon came up, a great bronze-gold plate in a dark velvet sky. I was thirsty again. And cold, colder than I had ever been in my life. I edged myself close to the archer and lay there entertaining a thought, a crystal-clear and rock-sound thought which, in after days, I tried in vain to recapture. It was very foolish, I reflected, for men to make themselves miserable about their loving or their sinning when all that was needed for happiness was freedom from pain and a modicum of comfort. I remembered all the hours when I had lain in my bed, warm and easy, fretting myself about my love and my conscience. Now, if only the pain in my arm would ease, if I could have a drink of water, if I amid be covered warm, no thought of Berengaria, no thought of the damage my new mangonel had wrought, no thought of the men I had killed would hold me back from peace.

Finally, then, nothing mattered save physical well-being. Could that be true?

The moon changed from bronze-gold to silver. Here and there amongst the wounded a man stirred and moaned—suffering pain and thirst and cold, like me. But on the whole the night was quiet.

When I saw at some distance two tall figures moving, stooping, peering and moving on again I hoped that they were water carriers but they progressed too swiftly. Just before they reached the wagon near which I lay they parted; one came on, became recognisable. Raife of Clermont, with a bloodied clout of white linen covering his ear and one side of his head.

He stooped and peered, recognised me and said, ‘Ah,’ straightened himself and called softly, ‘Here, sire.’

‘You’re hurt too,’ I mumbled.

‘Nicked on the ear. What happened to you?’

‘My arm—’

‘Arm,’ he repeated, and though he had no time to say more the single word asked why, then, had I not walked on my sound legs and saved him the trouble of searching for me? But by that time the King, moving swiftly now, had come round the wagon and was bending over me.

‘We’ve been looking for you. Are you sorely hurt?’

‘Only my arm,’ I said, suddenly and unaccountably ashamed. ‘But I couldn’t walk; I did try. I fell down—’ Through my chattering teeth my voice came peevish, childish, complaining.

He bent lower and put his arms about me.

‘You’ll be all right now,’ he said soothingly. ‘Put your sound arm round my neck.’

He straightened up, lifting me as easily as though I were a child. A voice from under the wagon said, ‘I want some water,’

‘Raife, go rouse those idle louts; I’ve said a thousand times they were to go round every hour after a battle. I’ll have them flogged in the morning… Blondel, you’re as cold as a corpse; I can feel the chill of you through my jerkin.’

‘They’re all just as cold,’ I said, speaking grudgingly because I had been sought for, found and was being carried to shelter.

‘They shall be comforted,’ he said. ‘We took Arsouf and the town is full of blankets. I’ll get you settled and then—’

XIII

We lay at Arsouf for some time while the wounded mended or died and the dead were buried. Day after day the committal words were spoken and the bugles sounded, ‘Dowse lights and all to bed,’ over men for whom sun and candle would never shine again.

Richard, whom victory had made magnanimous, had wanted the Saracen dead buried with ceremony. But Hubert Walter had said:

‘Then, sire, you must find someone else to speak the words. How can I or my like commend to the keeping of God the Father of Christ those who spit on Holy Cross and reverence the camel driver?’

‘They fought so resolutely,’ Richard said with regret. But he deferred to Walter and contented himself with orders that the Saracen dead should be carried to an appointed place and little flags of truce erected so that those who wished might come and take the bodies for burial. Yet the garrison at Acre had fought resolutely and they had been slaughtered like sheep and left to the vultures. It was, like so many things about Richard Plantagenet, incomprehensible.

From Arsouf to Jaffa and from Jaffa to Ascalon I footed it like many others whose mounts had been killed. The Saracens attacked the horses from deliberate policy, knowing that they could not be replaced in that unfriendly country, and it was now a common thing to see knights bribing the wagon drivers to carry their armour for them while they, dressed in their soft leather under-jerkins, trudged along near at hand, ready at a second’s notice to be harnessed into their mail. Or one would see yeomen or arbalesters marching along, taking turns at carrying some pieces of armour in return for a small coin or a small luxury. Fortunately the weather had changed with the coming of autumn and there were cool days when walking was pleasant; men were no longer stricken down by the sun and there were fewer cases of the virulent fever, though the sufferers from the one known as “hot-and-cold” or “double devil” still had their recurrent “bad days.”

My arm healed badly—as did so many wounds that there was some justification for the vulgar belief that many Saracen weapons were dipped in poison. To the tips of my fingers my arm swelled and stiffened and, fearing that I might lose the use of it altogether, I spent every spare moment I could in practising writing and later, when the right hand could just hold the lute, playing with my left hand. At first the process was so slow and clumsy, the results so disastrous, that I often despaired; then one day skill seemed to come suddenly. I was until lately completely ambidextrous which to a penman is a great blessing, for when one hand tires the quill can be moved to the other and the work can go on without respite.

On account of my wound I took no part in the Battle of Jaffa. I did see it and I did see the happening which, though—or perhaps because—it has been remembered in the minstrels’ tales, is doubted, called fantastic or legendary by sober men.

Richard, on the day before this battle, had had one of his “bad days” and had been able to eat nothing and had been tremulous as a poplar leaf when they harnessed him. But he fought like a fiend all day, dashing about the field, always with an eye to the spot where the fight was hottest, always with an eye to the most formidable opponent. In one encounter he was struck heavily on the helm and reeled in his saddle, recovered and dealt a blow that felled the Saracen and, turning Flavel’s head, rode straight at another—an emir by his dress—who was bearing down on him. A Christian knight who had seen Richard take that mighty blow and reel called as he passed, ‘How fare you, my lord?’

‘I’m hungry,’ Richard said, and charged on.

The emir, with superb horsemanship, swerved and circled—all Saracens, unless they chose to ride straight at their object, could be as elusive as wasps—and called out in Latin; understandable but of a kind which would have brought Father Simplon’s rod into action:

‘Hungry, great lord? Draw off, then, and eat.’

Richard, suspecting—as he explained later—an infidel trick, yelled back:

‘Eat? When the battle is joined?’

The emir, still circling like a wasp, shouted:

‘Battle is better with full belly.’

‘Draw off first, then,’ retorted Richard. And the emir, never ceasing to circle but now controlling his horse by his knees, raised his right arm high above his head while with his left hand he took a little silver whistle from his girdle and blew a long shrill blast. Immediately every Saracen turned his horse and galloped away to a little eminence which edged the field and there sat on their alert, quivering, rapidly breathing steeds while the Christian knights, puzzled by the manoeuvre, looked stupid for a moment and then turned to Richard for guidance.

‘We’re going to eat,’ Richard bellowed. ‘And I have nothing.’

That was where William the Fowler gained his place in song and story. Opening his wallet, he ran forward and presented his King with something which he had doubtless been preserving against the day when he should need it. Like my Suffolk archer’s piece of ham, it was a highly individual comestible, a round dark object wrapped in bladder.

‘A real black pudding, my lord King.’

(I took pains later to investigate this matter. William the Fowler hailed from Bakewell, from that part of England which still, in secret, held apart and called itself Northumbria after the ancient kingdom of that name. And there they make “black puddings” of congealed pig’s blood and meal enclosed in a bladder for better keeping. ‘I’d carried that one for eighteen months,’ he said when I asked him about it, ‘and if anybody’d told me I’d give it to any but a Bakewell man I’d have struck him down. But the best man deserves the best, see?’)

Richard looked at that black pudding and set his teeth into it. The Saracen emir looked at it, too, and as though it had waked his own appetite, he wheeled round and rode back to his own company. After a little time another Saracen, of lesser rank, rode out and offered to Richard of England a platter of dried figs, sweet dates and little cakes with a flagon of the curious effervescent drink, sherbet, which the strict followers of Allah and Mahomet use in place of the wine which is forbidden them.

‘Tell your man with the whistle to signal when he is ready,’ Richard said. ‘And take him this with my good greetings’ He sliced off a piece of the black pudding.

I didn’t know—nobody near at hand except William the Fowler knew at that moment that the black pudding was made of pigs’ blood and probably he did not know that to the Saracens pigs were beasts of the utmost uncleanliness. So I doubt whether anyone but I—and I only afterwards in retrospect—enjoyed the sight of a Saracen emir eating a black pudding and pretending to like it.