by Angus Donald
‘I have been recounting this tale to Prior Anthony here, telling him what became of Robin Hood after we joined your father’s army at Rockingham Castle in the autumn of the year of Our Lord twelve hundred and sixteen. He has been making a record of the events for posterity.’
‘Indeed?’ said the King. ‘Well, let us have it, then. I do love a good tale.’
‘Sire,’ said Brother Alan, ‘I must warn you. There may be things that are difficult for you to hear, concerning your royal father.’
‘I doubt there’s anything about Father that I don’t already know. He was an absolute shit of a man, by all accounts – awful father, terrible King. There, I said it. Now I doubt there’s anything you could say about the man that would genuinely shock me.’
‘You might be surprised,’ said Brother Alan.
‘I believe I have made my wishes perfectly clear,’ said the King, his voice taking on an altogether more regal tone.
‘Now, have that old fellow with the tray bring us some more of his cakes and a cup of wine – oh, and somebody had better send word to Clipstone that we’ll be a little late for dinner. And you, Brother Alan, may now tell me this intriguing tale of Robin Hood.’
‘As you wish, Sire,’ said Brother Alan.
Chapter Twenty-four
I should have gone over and embraced my heir, my own beloved flesh and blood, but for some strange reason I did not. Perhaps it was because I did not want to have to engage with Tilda, to decide how I felt about her acting like a mother to my boy, perhaps in some way I was afraid of her. But, for whatever reason, I acted shamefully and ignored both Tilda and Robert and strode over to join my lord at the entrance to the keep. I saw Boot looking at me in astonishment – but I ignored him too as I bounded up the steps to the keep.
Robin and I were ushered into the great hall by a trio of black-clad servants, announced by a sonorous herald.
The large hall was half-full of men: royal servants and men of the Church mostly, but a few of the peacock courtiers who always accompanied the King were with him and the usual contingent of wolf-grim mercenary captains glowered around John himself as he warmed his hands at a huge fireplace set into the wall. I saw Savary de Mauléon, the man who had saved us at Rochester, leaning against a pillar, half in the shadows and watching the proceedings with a wry smile.
King John glanced over at us as we were announced. I knew better than to expect praise and thanks from him. Nonetheless, some gratitude was certainly Robin’s due, for he and Cass had caused enormous damage to the French invaders in the south at a time when almost no one else was resisting them. A gracious monarch would have at least acknowledged that contribution to the war. But John was no gracious monarch.
‘Locksley – here at last. Where have you been? I expected you weeks ago.’
‘Sire, we had some difficulties with the forces of the enemy,’ Robin lied. ‘Difficulties that required us to take a more circuitous route to your side.’
‘Well, you are here now, I suppose. In future, when I summon you, you are to come to me as quickly as possible. No lollygagging. No dilly-dallying. There is no excuse for this shameful tardiness.’
‘Indeed, Sire,’ said Robin, ‘I shall strive to be supremely punctual in future.’
It never ceased to amaze me how Robin – a brave, proud warrior, jealous of his honour, even haughty in other circumstances – could transform himself into this smooth-talking, easy-mannered courtier at the drop of a silk kerchief, with his oleaginous ‘Indeed, Sires’ and his genuine-seeming smiles. He would be laughing at the King’s feeble jokes next. I knew I could never do it.
‘A man who is constantly late,’ the King was saying, looking into the fire and rubbing his hands, ‘is in danger of being made permanently late!’
The courtiers exploded in a gale of titters. The mercenary captains frowned.
I caught Robin wincing for just an instant before he recovered himself: ‘Ah, Sire, how very droll. You mean late as in the late Lord de Vesci, God rest his soul.’
‘May he burn in a traitor’s Hell,’ said the King. ‘He brought the Scots into our realm. When we catch up with those heathen savages, we’ll send them all to join him.’
‘Is that your plan, Sire?’ said Robin. ‘To confront the Scots army as it marches home?’
‘Maybe, maybe …’ The King had taken on a ludicrously cunning look. ‘Maybe I’ll march east instead and take on the English rebels – your old friends, Locksley. I hear Fitzwalter and his rebel scum are raising Cain in East Anglia. We’ll just have to see.’
I thought Robin would push the King for some sort of idea about his plans but he merely contented himself with another smooth ‘Indeed, Sire’.
There was a short silence. The fire crackled and spat. I shifted on my feet. My right shoulder was paining me after the long ride. And I was hungry.
Savary de Mauléon stepped forward towards the fire. ‘We were just discussing Lincoln, when you arrived, my lord,’ he said to Robin. ‘Perhaps you would care to let us know your thoughts on the matter.’
‘I think Lincoln is crucial,’ said Robin.
‘How so?’ said de Mauléon.
‘Lincoln is the high-water mark,’ my lord said. ‘So whether it stands or falls is vital to our success in this war.’
He was met with blank looks.
Robin said slowly, as if speaking to imbeciles: ‘Lincoln is besieged by the French, yes? They have the town and the lands around it but the castle is still being held against them by that extraordinary woman – what’s her name?’
‘Nicola de la Haye – a noble lady, both courageous and beautiful,’ growled Mauléon. ‘Have a care that you do not say anything against her good name.’
‘I’m sure she’s a paragon,’ said Robin. ‘She must be strong-willed to hold out so long against her enemies. How long has it been – six months? A year?’
Nobody replied.
‘The thing is that this is as far north as the French have been able to get. There are a few rebel holdouts north of there but they will wither if they receive no aid. Eustace de Vesci is dead and his castle and lands in Northumberland are now held by a child. The Scots – forget about the Scots, they just want to get home before winter sets in. My advice would be to let them go. The real enemy is Prince Louis and his men have got as far as Lincoln. If Lincoln falls, they will carry on northwards, link up with what’s left of the northern rebels and perhaps the Scots, too, and we will have lost. If Lincoln continues to resist or, better still, if we can ride to its relief and that of this brave lady Nicola de la Haye, we will have won. Lincoln will have been the high-water mark; after that the French tide is going out. The pendulum swings our way. Louis’s territory in England shrinks and his grip on our land slips a little more each day. That is why I say Lincoln is crucial. And to me it is obvious that we must ride to its rescue.’
‘So it is Lincoln today, is it, Locksley?’ said the King. ‘Last year you were urging me to hurl myself at London.’
Robin shrugged.
‘Prince Louis has made Gilbert de Gant, who is besieging the castle, the Earl of Lincoln,’ said Mauléon, with a sideways glance at Robin. And was that a wink?
‘That cur! How dare he think to bestow titles in my realm,’ shouted John. He had gone from jovial contempt to full-blown anger in an instant. His face was as red as a sunset; he seemed to be chewing on his own teeth. ‘I will gut him like a fish. I will rip out his liver. I will smash his head between two millstones …’ Then the King seemed to master himself. He looked around at the courtiers and mercenaries. He was breathing deeply.
‘Oh, get out all of you. I would be alone. Get out, go!’
We shuffled out of the hall, many of us crowding in the doorway, leaving the King glaring at the fire, his fists bunched by his sides with rage. As we left, I found Savary de Mauléon at my shoulder.
‘You did very well in the south,’ the Poitevin said, speaking close to my ear, ‘and the King knows it. Tell Locksley the King i
s grateful to him for his service.’
‘But is he?’
‘He’s like a bad-tempered child sometimes, but he is still King. And he needs men like Locksley, even if he doesn’t know it. If you won’t tell Locksley the King said it, say that I thank him on the King’s behalf for his service in the south.’
‘I will,’ I said. ‘And thank you for this. I lifted up my left arm and tapped the hilt of the misericorde that was strapped beneath the wide sleeve of my chemise.
‘Wield it wisely,’ said Mauléon. Then he was gone.
Robert, Boot and Matilda Giffard were not the only people who had unexpectedly joined the King’s army at Rockingham Castle that autumn. The next day Robin’s eldest son Hugh arrived with fifty men from Kirkton. The Locksley troops were allocated a barn in the courtyard and they filled it to overflowing with their horses, war gear and baggage; Robert, Boot, Tilda and two men-at-arms from Westbury called Nicholas and Simon, who had accompanied them, were in a stable next to it. I claimed a stall in the stable and ordered Boot to rake out the horse droppings and fill it with clean straw.
I apologised to Robert for failing to greet him when I arrived, but he waved away my apologies. ‘You were waiting on the King, Father,’ he said, ‘and I do understand that I must take second place to our sovereign. It is good to see you again.’
We discussed the affairs of Westbury for a few moments – all was well, I learned: the harvest had been gathered in without interference from either of the warring sides, and my steward Baldwin and his sister Alice had the place well in hand – and I told Robert about the kind of war we had been waging in the south with William of Cassingham.
‘Oh, yes, the famous Willikin of the Weald – the man who hates a Frenchman more than he hates the Devil. Who cuts the heads from all his enemies. We have heard tell of his bold exploits. They sing of them in the ale-houses.’
‘And what of the bold exploits of Robin Hood and Sir Alan Dale?’ I said, finding myself mildly irritated.
‘Ah … they are not sung so much,’ said my son and heir. ‘The Robin Hood tales are a bit old and stale now. What the people like are new, fresh heroes. Young men.’
‘Hmmf,’ I said. Then I came to the question that had been dogging my thoughts since my arrival.
‘Son, it is a joy to see your face and a pleasure to have you at my side but – how come you to be at Rockingham, with Boot and, ah, everybody else?’
‘Did you not know? Why – Uncle Robin summoned us. He said you would have need of us. Do you not need us?’
‘Ah, yes, of course, I need you. Absolutely. Thank you for coming.’
‘What is it, Father, exactly, that you need us for?’ asked my clever son.
‘It is not so much what I need – as your needs that I am thinking of,’ I said, racking my brains. ‘You are sixteen now, I believe. A man, full-grown. You need to be with the army, to be around fighting men, because it is time for you to see the face of battle for the first time.’ I looked solemnly into his eyes. ‘I am taking you to war, my son.’
‘Oh thank you, Father, thank you. I never thought the day would come when you would think me worthy …’ I had a horrible premonition that my son was about to burst into tears. Not the sort of behaviour to be displayed around fighting men if he wanted to be accepted. Instead, he did something far worse.
‘I must find Tilda and tell her about this!’ he said and he ran out of the stable.
I was in something of a rage that evening when I finally tracked down Robin in the tiny room he had been allocated in one of the castle’s towers. It was more a monk’s cell than a chamber fit for an earl, but Robin made no comment about it and I was too full of outrage to care. I was also feeling decidedly unwell. The long wet ride, the nights of sleeping rough, had taken their toll. My body ached and my head felt as if it were stuffed with wool.
‘What the Devil do you mean by bringing my son and that bloody woman to this place without a word to me? I care not if you order me around the country like some mere lackey – that is your right as my lord. But I do not understand why you feel you must meddle in my family affairs. It is egregious, it is manipulative, it is discourteous, it is … just plain wrong!’ I ran out of words then.
‘Finished?’ said Robin, coolly from his bed. He was half-dressed and holding a letter in his hands, looking at me with mild amusement.
‘Yes,’ I said. I took several deep breaths. ‘But why did you do it, Robin? I do not want that woman around me.’
‘All right,’ said Robin, ‘I accept that I should have told you about it before now. I apologise. But I need Tilda here and I’m sorry if it makes you uneasy but this is far more important than your temporary discomfiture.’
‘Why do you need her?’
‘I could lie to you. But I don’t want to do that. I also do not want to tell you why. So I must ask you to trust me and put up with Tilda’s presence as best you can. She is not an evil woman, I promise you. Marie-Anne rather admires her. I certainly do not believe she is a threat to you or Robert.’
‘That’s it? Your answer is, I’m not telling you, just shut up and trust me.’
Robin stood up, his face as hard as stone. ‘Sometimes, Alan, you presume too much. We are friends, yes, but I am also your lord. These are my orders: you will suffer this woman’s presence; you will cease from whining like a whipped schoolboy; furthermore you will desist from bursting into my chamber and shouting at me as if I were a tenant late with the rent. That is all. You are dismissed.’
In reply, I sneezed. And sneezed again, involuntarily spraying slime all over myself. Robin stepped across, scowling, and handed me a clean linen kerchief at arm’s length. Then I went away as ordered, grumbling and muttering complaints under my breath like a grandfather.
I stomped across the courtyard of Rockingham Castle towards the stables, damning the whole of Christendom, and particularly the parts of it connected to me by ties of duty or blood, and thinking that I wanted nothing more than to down a hot meal and a cup of wine and curl up in my cloak on the straw in my stall till morning.
But when I got to the stable and poked my head inside, the scene there made me change my mind. Robert and Boot and the two Westbury men-at-arms Nicholas and Simon were seated in a half-circle while Tilda, on her knees before them, tended a small fire in the centre. A blackened pot hung from a hook over it and I could see something bubbling inside. A delicious smell filled the air.
‘Father, you’re back. Just in time for supper,’ said Robert. ‘It is ox-tail stew with carrots and onions.’
‘And there is fresh bread – and wine, too,’ said Boot in his oddly pitched voice.
Tilda looked up at me, towering over her in the doorway of the stable, and gave a smile of such sweetness that I was tempted just to fold myself down beside her by the fire and accept a warm bowl of soup from her hands. Instead, I sneezed mightily once again and, as I was mopping my face with Robin’s kerchief, mumbled something about not being hungry and stumbled past my companions to my stall. Plucking a heavy cloak from a peg, I stripped off my tunic, boots and hose, rolled myself in it, fell into the pile of straw and went instantly to sleep.
I came struggling up from the depths of slumber and awoke knowing something was wrong. Somebody was in the stall with me; there was just enough light to see a dark figure crouching over me. I moved entirely on instinct. My left arm swept up, grasped a shoulder and heaved the form across my body, pinning it to the straw beside me with my torso. My right hand already had the misericorde unsheathed, the tip now resting below the cheekbone of a pale face, ready to plunge the blade through the eye socket into the brain.
‘Who are you?’
I felt a warm, soft body squirming under my restraining arm, my chest pressed hard to it – and found I was looking into the white face and huge blue-grey eyes of Tilda.
‘Good God, you are quick,’ she said.
I kept the dagger where it was.
‘What do you want? What are you doing in here?�
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‘So strong, too,’ she said. I could feel her trying to move under me; I pressed down to hold her still. I was aware of her breasts against my chest. She was wearing only a thin linen chemise, clearly about to go to bed. Our faces were inches apart. Her breath smelled of honey. I felt a surge of blood to my loins – God, how long had it been since I’d had a woman under me?
I rolled off her, sheathed the misericorde and sat up.
‘What are you doing here, woman?’
Tilda sat up. Her raven hair was loose, glossy, and in the dim light – a candle or rushlight was burning in the main part of the stable – I could see several pieces of loose hay caught in the black tresses. Her eyes were laughing now and she was breathing hard from our brief tussle.
‘I am still a woman of God, you know, Sir Alan. A bride of Christ. I may have fallen from grace at the Priory but I have not entirely forsaken my vows of chastity.’
‘What do you want with me?’ I said. ‘I could easily have killed you.’
My head was swimming. I desperately wanted to lie back down but I could not tear my eyes from her face.
She broke our gaze and looked to the ground by the entrance of the stall. I turned to see what she was looking at. It was a large clay beaker with steam rising from the surface of a dark liquid.
‘I brought you a hot drink – hyssop, horehound and white poppy, some dried ginger root as well, and honey for sweetness.’
I sneezed then and scrubbed at my sore nose with the sleeve of my chemise.
‘So that’s it, is it? Poison?’
‘It’s for your cold, for your …’ She suddenly looked very sad.
‘Very likely,’ I said. ‘You think I would drink any of your witches’ brews!’
Tilda moved away to the entrance and picked up the cup. She saluted me with it, held my eyes with hers and took a large sip. I saw her swallow the mouthful down.
‘It’s good for you, Alan. Drink it up – and be well.’
