cup of wine.
Every afternoon, after the midday meal, I would walk out to Bernard’s cottage and we would explore music. It was a wonderful time and I learnt more about life and love and music and passion in those few months than I had learnt in my whole life. It was an escape from the grind of Thangbrand’s, but only a temporary one. I had to return each evening to the hall and the petty bullying of Guy and Will. Wilfred had gone: packed off to an abbey in Yorkshire. Robin had arranged it. But Wilfred’s departure meant little to me; he had never been a real part of my world, more like a ghost drifting through the human world awaiting his call to a more spiritual life. Apart from my few hours each day with Bernard, life at Thangbrand’s seemed flat, unchanging: chores, dull meals, battle practice, more chores . . . and long hours trying to sleep in the hall while the men-at-arms snored about me.
But, despite appearances, things were changing. For one, my body was changing: I was growing taller, and the battle practice was filling my thin frame with muscle; hairs appeared in private places on my body and my voice cracked and wavered, sometimes in a girlish pipe, sometimes a masculine growl. Bernard thought this was very funny, and would imitate my squeaking and booming. But in our singing lessons he began to teach me the male parts of songs. I was becoming a man, physically, at least. And when we practised swordplay on the exercise yard I remembered the blond man I had killed, and squared my shoulders, and scowled at Guy across the rim of my shield. I still ended up in the dust, of course.
There were other small changes too. Our settlement was growing. Young men, sent by Robin, had drifted into Thangbrand’s in ones and twos over the summer. For the most part, they were unprepossessing: often malnourished, exhausted and with an air of desperation. But Thangbrand welcomed them, fed them and, when they had rested, they joined us on the well-swept yard for battle practice every day. Soon there were ten of us, fifteen, twenty in a line; swinging swords or using spear and shield in combination, learning battle manoeuvres, drilling endlessly, while an exasperated Thangbrand roared at some unfortunate newly arrived vagabond: ‘No, you fool, it’s a war spear, not a ox goad. Don’t poke with it, you are supposed to be stabbing a man, not tickling him. God save us all from plough-bred peasants!’
Not all the newcomers joined us in this farcical display. The men with greater than average physical strength were trained to the bow: lifting great weights all day, rocks and sacks of grain to condition their muscles, and shooting yard-long ash arrows at round straw-filled targets a hundred paces away, not always with the greatest of success. Those men who could ride, and had brought their own or stolen horses, were trained separately, too. I was taught to ride properly by Hugh, who soon had me galloping around a paddock, jumping over small hurdles with my arms folded across my chest, gripping the horse only with my knees. He trained the cavalry contingent, too. They would gallop, with a blunt lance couched under one arm, at a quintain: a horizontal pole with a target shield at one end and a counterweight (usually a bag of grain) at the other. The pole was mounted on a vertical post and when the shield was struck from horseback by the lance the contraption would rotate at high speed and the bag of grain could sweep an unwary horseman off his seat as he rode past. Guy was fascinated by the quintain. He would watch the men practising for hours and, strangely, when they were knocked out of the saddle, though the other onlookers guffawed and wiped away tears of hilarity, Guy never did. At the end of one training session, he begged a horse for an hour and tried it himself. Of course, like all the other novices, he was tumbled into the dirt by the heavy swinging bag of grain every time he charged the machine. But he didn’t give
Every afternoon, after the midday meal, I would walk out to Bernard’s cottage and we would explore music. It was a wonderful time and I learnt more about life and love and music and passion in those few months than I had learnt in my whole life. It was an escape from the grind of Thangbrand’s, but only a temporary one. I had to return each evening to the hall and the petty bullying of Guy and Will. Wilfred had gone: packed off to an abbey in Yorkshire. Robin had arranged it. But Wilfred’s departure meant little to me; he had never been a real part of my world, more like a ghost drifting through the human world awaiting his call to a more spiritual life. Apart from my few hours each day with Bernard, life at Thangbrand’s seemed flat, unchanging: chores, dull meals, battle practice, more chores . . . and long hours trying to sleep in the hall while the men-at-arms snored about me.
But, despite appearances, things were changing. For one, my body was changing: I was growing taller, and the battle practice was filling my thin frame with muscle; hairs appeared in private places on my body and my voice cracked and wavered, sometimes in a girlish pipe, sometimes a masculine growl. Bernard thought this was very funny, and would imitate my squeaking and booming. But in our singing lessons he began to teach me the male parts of songs. I was becoming a man, physically, at least. And when we practised swordplay on the exercise yard I remembered the blond man I had killed, and squared my shoulders, and scowled at Guy across the rim of my shield. I still ended up in the dust, of course.
There were other small changes too. Our settlement was growing. Young men, sent by Robin, had drifted into Thangbrand’s in ones and twos over the summer. For the most part, they were unprepossessing: often malnourished, exhausted and with an air of desperation. But Thangbrand welcomed them, fed them and, when they had rested, they joined us on the well-swept yard for battle practice every day. Soon there were ten of us, fifteen, twenty in a line; swinging swords or using spear and shield in combination, learning battle manoeuvres, drilling endlessly, while an exasperated Thangbrand roared at some unfortunate newly arrived vagabond: ‘No, you fool, it’s a war spear, not a ox goad. Don’t poke with it, you are supposed to be stabbing a man, not tickling him. God save us all from plough-bred peasants!’
Not all the newcomers joined us in this farcical display. The men with greater than average physical strength were trained to the bow: lifting great weights all day, rocks and sacks of grain to condition their muscles, and shooting yard-long ash arrows at round straw-filled targets a hundred paces away, not always with the greatest of success. Those men who could ride, and had brought their own or stolen horses, were trained separately, too. I was taught to ride properly by Hugh, who soon had me galloping around a paddock, jumping over small hurdles with my arms folded across my chest, gripping the horse only with my knees. He trained the cavalry contingent, too. They would gallop, with a blunt lance couched under one arm, at a quintain: a horizontal pole with a target shield at one end and a counterweight (usually a bag of grain) at the other. The pole was mounted on a vertical post and when the shield was struck from horseback by the lance the contraption would rotate at high speed and the bag of grain could sweep an unwary horseman off his seat as he rode past. Guy was fascinated by the quintain. He would watch the men practising for hours and, strangely, when they were knocked out of the saddle, though the other onlookers guffawed and wiped away tears of hilarity, Guy never did. At the end of one training session, he begged a horse for an hour and tried it himself. Of course, like all the other novices, he was tumbled into the dirt by the heavy swinging bag of grain every time he charged the machine. But he didn’t give
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