Weather wasn't good at dawn, but improved during the morning. And someone was returning to Nottingham, with some interesting news: he was Alan a-Dale, the Rooster Bard, which was returning from Paris.
Formerly a close ally of Robin Hood, his accompanist when he serenaded Maid Marian at the window of the tower and then in the depths of the Sherwood Forest, he then had grown bitter and cold towards him; especially since he let Marian, his muse, be murdered right outside of their home, and his actions eventually seemed to have revealed to just have been aggravating the authorities and made the people, and especially Marian, pay their price. Everyone, Robin included, knew the feelings he had towards the noble vixen: he was the typical bard, good at heart, but adventurous and restless in his loves and passions, often lounging for unreachable ones from whose he anyway drew his inspiration. They anyway tolerated his attitude: after all, everyone knew a good musician needs a pinch of craziness to do their job; King Richard, a good poet and even considered a troubadour himself, had even made him one of the Royal Messengers, a job he was now promoted to again by now-King John. He didn't get along very well with him too, but it was a decently-paid job and also allowed him to pay for some extra perks.
With his muse having met such an undeserved death, and his former ally in complete disgrace, Alan decided it was time to move on and up his game: before entering in Nottingham, he had to stop at Friar Tuck's church, with which he'd have discussed the two main news he was bringing to town.
"That's a beautiful day and it seems I'm a bit early, judging from the door still being closed", muttered to himself. "Let's take advantage of it to make some good music."
He let his saddlebag to the ground, then grabbed his trusted gittern and checked the tuning.
"Humpf…", he grumbled, "the rain of yesterday evening and the wet air early this morning has sent it out of tune… Let's put it into tune again, and hope no string will break."
He first stretched opened the flight feathers of his right wing, and then traced down some arcane lines with his left one: he was using the "guidonian hand" to orientate himself through the process, a tool every professional musician know, but to anyone outside this circle just found an headache.
"Ok, third string… a-Re… and here we are. Second string… d'-Sol,Re… good to go. Third string… g'-Sol… Wow, that's mental!", he complained while desperately trying to keep track of the complicated note nomenclature on the same flight feathers which by now only desperately desired plucking and strumming the strings. "Why can't we have the B nominated like the other notes? Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and then the strange switch to try spelling the diapason [the octave, in modern nomenclature] onto this hexachord… Wish someone one day can invent a better system! Anyway, the tuning is done… Now let's have some fun."
The choice he made of the piece to be sung was absolutely perfect for that beautiful late April day; it might have been one of the most famous of the time, but still perfectly fit the situation:
Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu.
Groweþ sed,
and bloweþ med,
and springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu.
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
lhouþ after calue cu;
bulluc sterteþ,
bucke uerteþ.
Murie sing cuccu!
[Springhas arrived/Loudly sing, cuckoo!/The seed is growing/and the meadow is blooming/and the wood is coming into leaf now/sing, cuckoo!
The ewe is bleating after her lamb/the cow is lowing after her calf;/the bullock is prancing/the deer cavorting./Sing merrily, cuckoo!]
While he was singing it, a sense of melancholy actually pervaded him: years before, he was singing this piece precisely in that place, at Robin's and Marian's wedding, after the liturgy had finished and the newlywed couple was coming out, cheered by the crowd. The bride was the one which required that piece to be sung, as long as it wasn't part of the liturgy, for whose only the Gregorian chant had to be obviously used: thanked him with a flower from her bouquet, but promised he still would have been his muse for a long time. Instead, the couple isolated itself from the outside world, but also grew colder one each other, and just a few selected people were allowed to their chateau: Alan was among them, as Robin tried taking lute lessons, but it was a disaster; Alan suspected without motivations, his friend started just becoming lazy, and had no reasons to actually learn something. Then Marian was murdered, Robin felt in disgrace, and that was what actually drove Alan into a crisis, which only now was slowly becoming to overcome.
As those thoughts invaded his mind, wrestling with the awe he felt for the surrounding landscape and the counterpoint birds seemed to weave to his singing, Friar Tuck opened the door:
"Oh, Alan! You are finally back!", said the Friar, with a mild happiness in his voice. "News from court? What do you drive returning to your hometown?"
Alan kneeled, then pulled a scroll out of his saddlebag: "Father, I salute you. King John has announced he will carry the Royal Heir, Prince Henry, on a tour of England, to get him know his future subjects. They will arrive in Nottingham around June, ."
The Friar started having some suspects. He had to make the Royal Messenger to spill his beans, and the best way to do so with any person, as he always had told Robin, was to be friendly, starting with creeping into the conversation his favorite subject: in this case, music.
"Oh, that's great! We will immediately start embellishing the town for the arrival of the Royal Family! And tell me, what about that travel in Paris?"
"Oh, Father, I'm so happy you asked this to me!", exclaimed Allan, his eyes firing up almost like two stars just were born, "I've had the honor of being admitted to Nôtre-Dame, the Cathedral that is being built in Paris – It's awe-inspiring, once completed I'd bet it will be one of the largest, if not the absolutely largest church in the world. And it is the location of the most important Schola in the world, headed by none other than optimus organista Magister Perotinus Magnus, which I had the honor of not only personally knowing, but also taking lessons from!" said, as he took out some other parchments.
"Oh, you have often talked about wishing you one day could get to know this 'optimus organista', and now you've realized this dream! And this is music, but… Why are those staves joined together?"
"They are organa, polyphonic pieces… It means one voice, the tenor, sings a pre-existing chant, while the others add other melodies upon it. In the times of Leoninus, which was Perotinus' predecessor and teacher, just one was usually added, but Magister Perotinus usually writes for four: one tenor and three voces organales, the added ones… I mastered the technique under his personal guidance, and now I cannot wait until I will show it to the English people! Maybe, one day they will remember me as the one which brought polyphony to England…"
"Speaking of which, that is, bringing things from France to England… What about King John?"
"Oh, he was busy too, and I in fact followed his court to Paris were I was allowed taking lessons by Magister Perotinus… Well, he has concluded an armistice with the French nobility: he now has renounced to his possessions on the Continent for next six years, but hope to reorganize and take back Normandy again… Also, he's busy raising his heir to the throne, thus he has had few time to think about governing England. He's sorry, but promises he will make more for his dear English subjects."
The Friar was now understanding: it wasn't Robin and Marian being thought dead by him, and their vigilante actions no longer going on which stopped him; rather, he was busy on other fronts, but might have came back, and that could have spelt troubles for the poor people. A plan was starting forming in his mind, but needed help.
"Alan, today I must go to the Castle of Nottingham, were I will have to celebrate Mass for the Sheriff and his staff… Came with me, you must bring the message to him. Also, he will surely like to listen to this new polyphonic music you have brought from France."
"Oh, yes, Father! I hope I can one day become the main organista [composer] of the English Crown…"
"Let's start by putting in a good word with the Sheriff, he might then do it with King John in turn."
The two took thus the way for Nottingham. Alan's enthusiasm was to a stratospheric level; but he was about to have a strange surprise in the castle, for which he wouldn't know how to feel. For the moment by, we will leave him in his joy and daydreams: he wanted to enter the history of music, and cannot imagine something stopping him from doing so.