XVII

The hours passed happily when Eustace was away. May was graduating into June and Juliana was happy. The château worked properly, there was no discord, and indeed there was love.

There was something of fire about that girl. She was a Scorpio, I discovered – an Egyptian, versed in these things, came one day and read her fortune. She was tenacious and dangerous to cross – a water sign – but she had a strong Taurus in her character, which made her sensual and beautiful, and her moon was in Leo which was where the fire came in. The man was doubtless skilful enough, but I knew all these things from the first, though not to call them by the right names. I was a raw youth before I met Juliana, but she cooked my rawness and made me comestible. I never quite knew what I did for her because she was clever enough to keep it secret. She kept me simmering away at the back of the fire, until suddenly she was hungry, and she moved me back to the flame. I was content just to be near her and I believe that she loved me too, but she (I mean we) had to be careful. One indiscretion and all could be lost. There was no end to the list of punishments and humiliations that a wronged husband could mete out. It fairly curled the sphincter to think of them.

Over the past few weeks I had instituted a regime of lessons for the girls which was not too onerous but which included an hour or two of Latin every day. I intended that they should enjoy their Latin and not dread it as I had in the monastery. I began by teaching it as a Roman child would learn it – with words rather than declensions. ‘Milk’, ‘bread’, ‘meat’, ‘fish’, ‘water’, then adding adjectives and only then starting on declension. The verbs would follow in due course. It was not the academic way I learned it – but I had learned declensions and conjugations slowly and painfully. My new way appeared to work; the girls really seemed to be interested. They were so proud of themselves when they could ask for ‘panis’ and ‘aqua’ at table, impressing the knights and squires with their learning.

Saint-Sulpice had given me other useful skills beyond Latin, however. Medicine was one of them and illustration was another. Both of these came in very useful with the girls, since they were boisterous little things – endlessly falling over and cutting themselves – and they also loved drawing and painting, Marie especially.

Beyond these, there was a further art that the monastery at Saint-Sulpice had been famous for – its teaching of music and the making of it. I managed to borrow a little psaltery from one of the castle’s musicians, a small harp-like instrument on which I started to give the girls lessons. Music was Pippi’s especial forte.

They were both good at singing, and had a good ear. I taught them some of the new songs called caroles that were coming out of Provence, and songs for little ones that my mother used to sing, and a May song for the merry month that was so nearly over.

Pippi, six years old, had a voice like a high recorder; sweet and high, it quite caught at the heart. Marie’s voice was just a little more alto, so they made a lovely duet together. Sometimes I would chime in with my tenor, and I swear people would have paid to hear us sing ‘Sweet sorrow fills my heart’ and ‘All the birds of the morning’.

‘Do you think people would pay to hear us?’ asked Pippi.

‘Without a doubt,’ I replied. ‘Such a beautiful sound was never heard in the whole of Normandy.’

I told them that we should have travelled on the road with my friend Eliphas the Player, and we would have drawn the crowds in every town we stopped in, so sweet and high we would have been. We would have drawn the birds from the trees and the beasts from the forest like Orpheus, I told the girls, and they wanted to go out on the road that very day.

‘I think we would have to make preparations,’ I said. ‘The thing to do when people are going on their travels is to get a longish stick and a big wide handkerchief, put all the things you need to take in it, then gather up the corners of the handkerchief, tie them to the end of your stick, put it over your shoulder and there you are, ready to go.’

Then of course we had to go and cut the sticks and find handkerchiefs that were big enough to hold what they considered important, which meant large quantities of sweetmeats and a big shawl in case they were cold at night. Juliana came in while we were tying the bundles to our sticks and wanted to know what was going on.

‘We are going on the road,’ Marie told her, ‘to find Eliphant the Player, with Mr FitzR.’

‘And then we will sing to the people wherever we stop and they will come to his cart to hear us,’ chimed in Pippi.

‘And what have you got in your bundles?’ she asked, smiling.

‘We have sweetmeats and a warm shawl,’ said Marie.

‘That sounds very sensible. And what does Mr FitzR have in his?’

‘Sweetmeats,’ I replied.

‘And a warm cloak,’ added Pippi.

‘And I will take a sword in case of trouble,’ I added. ‘You never know in High Normandy.’

‘And where will you sleep when you are on the road?’ Juliana asked them. ‘When it gets dark and the wolves start to howl and the rain starts to fall?’

‘That will be a problem,’ said Pippi.

‘Mr FitzR will beat the wolves away,’ said Marie.

‘But even Mr FitzR, who is second to none in my regard, even Mr FitzR cannot keep the rain off two little girls on a soggy night.’

‘We want to go, we want to go,’ the girls shouted.

It was clear that the prospect of the adventure had really taken hold.

‘We will go for a little walk with our bundles and see how it feels. They may be too heavy,’ I said. ‘It is essential to get everything in trim and properly sorted out.’

Juliana seemed to think that this was a good idea so, after an early meal, we put our sticks over our shoulders, I buckled on a sword, and we strode up to the gatehouse and I beat upon the stout oak with my stick, Juliana observing us from a discreet distance.

‘Open up,’ we shouted.

The old First Gatekeeper wheezed himself out of the lodge. I was happy to note that his surly colleague with whom I had crossed swords on my arrival at the château was not on duty that day.

‘Whassup?’

‘We are going to seek our fortunes, and beguile the world with the sweetness of our voices,’ I said.

‘Oh all right then, if m’lady says it’s all right. It’s a hard world out there,’ he said to the girls, who began to look slightly uncertain.

We marched out, turning to wave to Juliana, who waved back at us.

‘Isn’t Mummy coming too?’ asked Pippi.

‘No, silly, or it wouldn’t be an adventure,’ her elder sister told her.

We walked on. Soon we were passing down a close avenue of trees, and slowly the forest closed in on us.

‘Do you think we should sing like Orpheus to draw the beasts out?’ I asked.

The little girls looked dubious.

‘I think they might eat us instead,’ said Pippi. ‘We would be singing away with our top half sticking out of their mouths.’

‘They might be enchanted with our music,’ I said.

‘But what if they’re not?’ said Marie.

‘Good point,’ I said, ‘perhaps we should go back for now. I will send a message to Eliphas and see what he thinks.’

Just at the moment, who should come round the corner but a jingling-jangling body of knights with our old friend Eustace at the front.

‘Halt!’ he roared, and they all stopped and looked at me.

His wicked little black eyes bulged and looked ready to shoot out at me like vindictive olives.

‘You,’ he bellowed at me, ‘what are you doing with my daughters, fellow? Are you absconding with them? Are you taking them hostage? My God and by Saint Elmo’s beard, I believe you are. Arrest that man, sergeant.’

A large man leapt from his horse and advanced towards me, but my dear little Marie came to the rescue. She stood her ground and spoke to her father in a loud, clear voice.

‘No, Father, he is not taking us hostage. He is teaching us the way of the road and how hard it can be and how poor men fare upon it. We were about to turn back at the very moment you appeared. My mother has given us permission.’

She was a true grandchild of the Duke at that moment. Even her father looked startled. Pippi joined in.

‘That’s right, Father. We are not going to be a hot … a hot … a hotsage.’

Some of the men smiled, even those iron hearts.

‘Hmph. Oh. Very well,’ said Eustace to the girls. Turning to me, he said gruffly, ‘Take them back at once and teach them some Latin if that’s what you do. You are a Latiner, teach them Latin. You are not paid to tramp around the forest like a mad monk getting up to God knows what.’

And so he rode on, and I followed after with the girls, sick at heart for my part, because kill-joy had come back.

The little girls were going to sing their May song in hall at dinner time; they had practised really hard. But then Eustace spoilt it all. He became intoxicated with the decent wine that Juliana had made the butler get in, and didn’t want to hear his daughters. He declared he would hear it tomorrow. Now he wanted to talk about war and machination, and taking sides against the Duke whose vassal he was. De Montfort had got at him as we had feared.

‘Eustace sees himself as some kind of king-maker,’ Juliana told me when we met on the stairs later. ‘But he is in truth only a pawn to be moved by his friends and removed by his enemies. It would be sad if he weren’t such an ox.’

She never used ugly words about him because she was well brought up. That made the ‘ox’ sound really horrible. As of course he was.

There were scenes over the next few days. My little charges wept bitter tears at their father’s behaviour over the May song. Their mother became moody herself, living in a quiet fury against the oaf her husband. He was a sort of angry, ugly monster whom nobody liked, maybe not even he himself.

The only good to come out of it was that he was soon out on his conspiracy trail again.