Read Outlaw for Free Online Page B

opening of a passageway.
    As I rose to leave, he added: ‘Oh, and knock before you enter his chamber. He may be . . . occupied.’
    At this, John slapped the table and started roaring with laughter. Hugh frowned: ‘And don’t forget what I said about keeping your mouth shut.’
    I was nettled by his last remarks - did he think I was an oaf who would barge in on his master without a by-your-leave? Who couldn’t understand a simple instruction to be silent? And what was so funny, anyway?
    I collected the heavily laden tray - venison, cheese, bread, fruit and a jug of wine - from a board at the side of the hall which was sagging with good things to eat, whipping a couple of apples into my pouch, purely from habit, as I did so, and hefted it along the corridor that Hugh had indicated. It was a long corridor and, as the drunken hubbub from the hall diminished, I could clearly hear the sound of a woman singing. It grew louder as I approached and it was beautiful: the notes high and so pure, the tune flowing like an icy, crystal stream in winter, frothily cascading over rocks, the words of the song like drops of water sparkling in the sunlight, slowing to a clear stream, idling in a moss-fringed pool and then quickening, sliding elegantly along again as the pace of the music grew . . .
    I stopped, put down the tray, and stood by the door to listen. It was a song I knew well, ‘The Maiden’s Song’, which my mother used to sing as she spun by the fire in our cottage in the happy days before my father was taken. My father had taught us all to sing in the style of the monks of Notre Dame in Paris, not all singing the same note but each making slightly different notes that blended together in a pleasing way. Nobody else in the village could do this and we were proud of the way our family could make this distinctive new kind of music together.
    I felt a lump in my throat as ‘The Maiden’s Song’ came to an end. I felt so far from home. ‘Sing another, sing again,’ I wanted to shout but I held my tongue. Emotion was roaring around my chest. I felt very close to tears. Beyond the door there were a few murmured words of conversation and then another voice, a man’s, began: it was the old ballad ‘My Love is Beautiful as a Rose in Bloom’.
    The old version of the song is not much sung these days: from time to time some fresh-faced bard comes up with a newfangled version but the original is rarely heard. The verses are sung alternately by a man and woman and the story is of a man trying to woo his lover by comparing her beauty to various objects of wonder in the natural world. I’m sure you’ve heard it. We had sung it in my family: my father taking the male part, my mother the female, but he had taught the children to sing along in a harmonious way to both parts. Listening to the man sing his verse praising the woman’s beauty made me realise, for the first time, that I would probably never see my mother again, and I was only a whisker away from sobbing out loud when the woman came in to sing her verse.
    Before I knew what I was doing, I had joined in, singing the harmonies that accompany the female line as well as I could and, even with the door between us, our two voices twisted and melded together as solemn and bright and beautiful as a cathedral choir. There was a slight pause at the end of the woman’s verse, just a couple of beats longer than was usual, but then the man began to sing and I accompanied him as well. We worked through the full eight verses, carolling away in harmony, all the way to the bitter-sweet end of the ballad with half an inch of English oak between me and the couple. As the angelic notes of the final verse died away, we fell into peaceful silence for a few moments - and then the door was jerked open and there was Robin, his silver eyes shining in the candlelight. He said nothing but he was staring at me as if I were a spirit or ghost.
    ‘I’ve brought your supper, sir,’ I said, and I bent