King's man oc-3

by Angus Donald

  Hanno had joined our company after the siege of Acre. King Richard had captured the strongly fortified port only a month after his arrival in the Holy Land, a feat that was much admired, even by his enemies. Acre had been under siege for nearly two years at that point, and was considered all but impregnable, but Richard’s arrival with siege engines and massive reinforcements had sealed its fate. I had been sick when the citadel fell; wounded and suffering from a mysterious malady that kept me in a feeble, dizzy condition for weeks. Hanno had also been wounded and we had been allowed to recover in the same quarter of Acre, the part controlled by the Knights Hospitaller, the healing monks who combined a deep love of Christ with a fearsome reputation as ruthless fighting men.

  Hanno had been part of the German contingent in Outremer under Duke Leopold of Austria, but he had been left behind when his liege lord had departed for home after quarrelling badly with King Richard, the leader of the expedition. Our impetuous English monarch had kicked the Duke’s banner from the walls of Acre when it had been hung beside his own and the standard of King Philip Augustus of France. He said that it was not fitting for the flag of a mere duke to hang beside that of kings. Actually, it was all about money, as it so often is in warfare — and peacetime, too, as Robin was fond of telling me. Or rather, plunder. By displaying his banner next to Richard’s and Philip’s, Leopold was claiming an equal share — one third — of all the loot from the captured city of Acre. And Richard wasn’t going to allow this. From his point of view, Duke Leopold had failed to capture Acre after trying for so many months, whereas Richard had succeeded in a matter of weeks. The upshot was that, soon afterwards, Leopold quit the Great Pilgrimage, returning to Austria furious with King Richard and vowing to get his revenge.

  Abandoned by his lord because he was too weak to be moved, Hanno had slowly recovered and then joined Robin’s force of Sherwood outlaws turned soldiers. Despite the language barrier, which Hanno soon overcame, after a fashion — he had the curious habit of always speaking as if the event he was speaking about was happening at that very moment — as a hunter and warrior he fitted in well with Robin’s gang of former deer-poachers and murderous brigands. And he seemed to adopt me, taking it upon himself to teach me everything he knew about stalking large prey — whether animal or human.

  At the castles and great houses that I stayed in while travelling England on Robin’s business that winter, I was usually obliged to entertain my audience in the evenings with music, mostly of my own composition, although sometimes other men’s work, and I was pleased to notice that I had something of a growing reputation as a trouvere. At Pembroke Castle in South Wales, after hearing ‘My Joy Summons Me’ — a canso I had devised with King Richard the Lionheart himself in Sicily on the way to the Holy Land — the famous knight William the Marshal, now a great magnate and, in Richard’s absence, one of the justiciars of England, even paid me the compliment of inviting me to leave Robin’s service and join his household.

  Though the Marshal promised me bright gold and the grants of several manors, I regretfully informed him that I could not leave my master after we had endured so much together on our travels out East. He was not pleased at being refused; plainly he was not used to it, and he had some difficulty in hiding his considerable irritation.

  ‘Of course, I understand your loyalty to Locksley; I even applaud it,’ said the Marshal grumpily. He was a giant, abrupt, grey-brown man of late middle years, with huge scarred hands, who was then perhaps the most renowned fighting man in the country. We were standing on the battlements of his newly completed stone tower at Pembroke watching a multitude of labourers and masons working like busy ants to construct a curtain wall below us. ‘But you should know that your precious Earl is riding for a fall. It is well known that he is the King’s man, but King Richard is far away in Outremer and who knows when he will return. Or indeed if he ever will.’ The Marshal paused here and shot me a significant look before continuing.

  ‘Locksley has enemies here in England, and I don’t just mean that little weasel Murdac. Our noble Prince John looks askance at anyone who champions King Richard — it’s plain as the nose on his face that he wants the throne for himself — and I have heard that certain very powerful elements in the Church are after your master’s blood as well. A lot of people want to see Robert of Locksley brought down, young Alan. You should leave him while you have the opportunity. Come, throw in your lot with me, no one will speak ill of you for leaving Locksley to join the greatest knight in Christendom.’ He grinned at me to show that he was jesting about his fame and prowess, but in truth he was very proud of his reputation as a warrior. ‘Seriously, Alan, my people tell me that Locksley is doomed. Too many powerful men want to see him humbled. Join me — your exquisite music will be properly rewarded and I can always use another first-class swordsman in my household.’

  He was a good man, the Marshal, under his gruff soldierly exterior and for all his pride — and he meant well by me. Even so, I refused his offer. However, I was worried by what he had said. I knew, of course, that Prince John coveted the throne of England; part of Robin’s secret orders from King Richard when my master left the Holy Land had been to keep an eye on brother John and thwart him in his manoeuvring to increase his power, if at all possible. But I was also concerned by the Marshal’s mention of ‘certain very powerful elements of the Church’ being after his blood. Robin had long thumbed his nose at the clergy — in his outlaw days he made a particular point of robbing rich churchmen when they passed through his woodland domain — and now, it seemed, his chickens were coming home to roost.

  Since the purpose of my mission, in addition to delivering my lord’s messages, was to report anything that might concern him or his family, I scribbled a note to Robin on a scrap of old parchment and had Hanno gallop it immediately to Kirkton.

  While I waited for Hanno to return with fresh orders, I tarried at Pembroke, watching the building work with no little awe at the vast sums of money being expended, playing music for the Marshal, practising my sword-and-shield work with his household knights, and flirting discreetly with Isabel, my middle-aged host’s lovely young wife, who was more or less the same age as me. And at every opportunity I tried to find out more about the threat to Robin from the Church. More solid information came my way a few days later, and with it an unpleasant shock.

  Hanno had returned to my side, bearing terse instructions from Robin for us to return home. I was not sorry to be leaving Pembroke for I had become slightly infatuated with Isabel, and only my considerable regard for the Marshal had prevented me from expressing my passionate feelings for her. It was better to be away from temptation, I told myself. As we were packing our traps in preparation for our departure, my host appeared with a request: he wanted me to give a special performance after supper that night for an honoured guest. I was bound to oblige him, as I had been enjoying his hospitality for weeks, and I was not unhappy to do so — I wanted to perform a love song I had written for Isabel, to give her something beautiful to remember me by.

  The canso I had written for her was a rather sentimental one, based on an Arab tale I had heard in Outremer about an ordinary brown thrush and a gorgeous white rose. The knightly thrush is desperately in love with the rose but because of their differences in rank they can never be together. Furthermore, the white rose’s soft petals are jealously protected by many cruel thorns. But the thrush, mad with love and scorning all danger, throws himself on to the rose, seeking just one brief kiss, and willingly spears himself to death on the sharp thorns. And ever afterwards, all roses shall be red as blood, to commemorate the sacrifice of the thrush who died for love.

  You might think this mawkish, sentimental swill, but I may say in all honesty that Isabel adored my canso, and by the looks she gave me afterwards I believe that I might well have been invited to enjoy the full sweetness of her petals had I remained. Instead, the next day Hanno and I rode away in the chill December dawn, and I never saw my white rose again. I think that,
given the Marshal’s fearsome reputation as a fighting man, it was for the best: he was not a man who would take being cuckolded lightly.

  But I did have one encounter that night in Pembroke that was most significant to this tale. After I had performed my canso, and several other works, I was introduced to the Marshal’s honoured guest. His name was Sir Aymeric de St Maur and he was an emissary of William de Newham, the Master of the Temple in London, the head of the English branch of the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon — the renowned Knights Templar.

  This Sir Aymeric, then, was a Templar, part of an elite order of fighting monks, famed all over the world for their piety and prowess. The Templars were the sword arm of Holy Mother Church, the sacred warriors of Our Lord Jesus Christ, answerable only to their Grand Master and His Holiness the Pope himself. The Templars had been in the forefront of battle in Outremer and, along with the Knights Hospitaller, they had earned great distinction there for their ruthless ferocity in war and total devotion to the Christian cause. They gave no quarter to their enemies in the Holy Land, and asked none. As a testament to their supreme efficacy as warriors, if ever a Templar soldier was captured by Saladin, he was immediately put to death. And these fighting monks looked on this death as a blessed martyrdom.

  I had known several Templars in the past, in England and in the Holy Land, and I had always found them to be impressive men: Sir Aymeric de St Maur was no exception.

  He was a tall, broad man in his thirties, straight-backed, with close-cropped black hair, and dressed in the pure white robe of the Templars with its red cross on the breast. He was noble of bearing, every inch a soldier, but his mouth seemed to indicate a certain cold cruelty that I did not care for. And when, after the musical supper, I was introduced to him by William the Marshal he immediately took a step back, almost as if fearful of me, and made the sign of the Cross in the air between us.

  ‘You serve the Earl of Locksley?’ he said in a curious tone of voice, half-uncertain, half-accusatory. ‘The heretic? The demon-worshipper? It is hard to believe that one whose music is so clearly inspired by Heaven should serve one so steeped in foul practices.’

  Despite the compliment, I bridled. ‘I serve the Earl, and proudly, too. But he is no heretic. Perhaps he is not as attentive to his soul as he might be, and he perhaps should be more respectful of the Church, but he is certainly no Devil-worshipper.’

  ‘Is that so?’ asked this Templar, cocking an eyebrow. ‘I heard a curious tale recently about the Earl of Locksley, who you admit is so inattentive of his immortal soul and disrespectful of Holy Mother Church; though perhaps the story is false…’ He looked at me warily for a moment.

  ‘Yes?’ I snapped.

  ‘I heard…’ said the knight, and then he paused for a heartbeat. ‘I heard that Robert of Locksley, when badly outnumbered by his enemies, summoned horse-demons from the very bowels of Hell to help him win a battle in Yorkshire against Prince John’s liegeman Sir Ralph Murdac.’

  He made the sign of the Cross again.

  ‘It was just a trick,’ I said hotly. ‘A ruse de guerre. It was merely a few men in masks, and horse-drawn fire-carts and a little heathen music to put terror in the minds of his enemies. There were no black arts involved. I swear it. I swear by Almighty God, by the Virgin and all the saints, there was no devilry. He was just trying to frighten his enemies. And it worked very well, I may say.’

  ‘Heathen music? Hmm, interesting. Ah well,’ said this pigheaded Templar. ‘If you say there was no devilment involved, I must believe you.’ He clearly did not, and his voice had taken on a distant, chilly tone as if he had already made up his mind about me. ‘Doubtless the truth will be fully revealed at the inquisition.’

  ‘The inquisition?’ I said, now utterly bewildered.

  ‘Did you not know?’ said this monkish knight, feigning surprise. ‘Lord Locksley has been summoned to appear before an episcopal inquisition to be held by the Master of our Order to answer charges of heresy. Pope Celestine sanctioned it personally — and it will be rather a special occasion, I believe. As you must know, all the bishops in Christendom have been charged by His Holiness with suppressing heresy wherever they find it. Mostly it’s a way of extirpating the southern heretics, those damned Cathars, but the Master has been granted a special dispensation by the Holy Father himself to investigate Robert, Earl of Locksley. And so your lord, if he has any respect for the Vicar of Christ, God’s anointed representative on Earth, must attend a tribunal in London on St Polycarpus’s Day on pain of excommunication and an interdict on all his lands.’

  The Templar knight smiled at me grimly. ‘If what you say is true, he should think of it as a welcome chance to clear his good name.’

  I stumbled away from the conversation with Sir Aymeric de St Maur in a state of shock. St Polycarpus’s Day was the twenty-third of February, about ten weeks hence. Did Robin know about this? He must do, which is why he was summoning Hanno and me to his side. Would he then present himself at the inquisition? It would be risky not to. Excommunication was one of the most serious sanctions that the Church could impose on mortal man: it meant that the sinner would no longer be considered part of the Christian communion; once excommunicated he was publicly excluded from the Church and became a sort of spiritual outlaw, unable to receive the Eucharist and therefore damned to eternal torment in Hell. But I also knew that Robin could not give two rotten apples for the Church’s opinion of his soul. I’m not even sure that he believed that he had one. And he never willingly received the Eucharist anyway.

  The interdict on his lands was more serious. It meant that no church services could be performed anywhere on his lands: no one could be married, no child baptized, and no dead man could be buried in a large part of South Yorkshire, and significant areas of Nottinghamshire, too. And this was worrying news. To make an enemy of the Church was no small thing. Children who died in infancy would go to Hell without baptism; corpses would pile up on the sides of the roads. All his tenants and villeins would be incensed with their lord over this, perhaps even to the point of rebellion, unless Robin could succeed in getting the interdict swiftly lifted.

  But to attend this inquisition and be found guilty would be worse: the penalty for a man found guilty of a grave heresy was confiscation of all his lands and goods — and, in the most serious cases, death by burning at the stake.

  Two days later, Hanno and I were in the buttery attached to the great hall at Kirkton Castle, refreshing ourselves with two large mugs of freshly brewed ale from the butts stored there. The alewife, a big-boned woman, was fond of Hanno for some reason, and was fussing around us pressing us to have a morsel of cheese and to make ourselves free with the ale cask. I had often noted Hanno’s predilection for alewives — fat, thin, tall, short, he loved all women who brewed ale. This was no mystery, for I don’t think I have ever met a man who was more fond of drinking ale. He cared nothing for wine or mead — ale was his drink, his liquid love, and he would touch no other.

  As we drank deeply of the alewife’s powerful brew, I reflected that I had been foolish to have been so concerned about my lord. When we arrived at Kirkton that morning, after many miles of hard riding, Robin had laughed — laughed out loud when I told him about the Templars and their specially sanctioned heresy inquisition on St Polycarpus’s Day.

  ‘I know all about that, Alan. I received a letter from the Master of the Temple himself inviting me to come and meekly put my head into his noose. I wrote back respectfully declining his invitation and suggesting — very politely — that he ask the huskier novices to refrain from buggering him for a few moments to allow him time to shove this inquisition up his fundament.’

  I was shocked. I knew that Robin was fearless but to insult the Master of the Temple in such a crude way, a senior member of the most respected knightly order in the world…

  ‘But have you not made it worse?’ I asked. ‘Will they not now come and attack you here, at Kirkton?’

  ‘H
ow could I make it worse? They have declared war against me personally, they are seeking to have me burnt alive at the stake — and it is not because they are concerned about some silly conjuring tricks in a petty Yorkshire skirmish or about the state of my immortal soul. Think, Alan. You know what this is really about…’

  I knew exactly to what he referred: frankincense — the extremely lucrative trade in this incense, burnt in every major church in Christendom every day. This most precious commodity originated in southern Arabia and its trade had been a significant source of revenue for the Knights Templar and their associates in Outremer — until Robin had persuaded the Arabian frankincense merchants — none too gently, it has to be said — to trade with him instead. Robin’s friend Reuben, a tough and clever Jew, had remained in Outremer when most of the rest of us had returned to England and he was responsible for continuing the commerce in frankincense, acting on Robin’s behalf. And what lucrative trade! The little whitish-yellow crystals of frankincense, bought for pennies in the land of Al-Yaman at the foot of the Arabian peninsula, were worth more than their weight in gold in Europe. Reuben bought large quantities from the traders in Gaza for a modest amount of silver, and shipped the precious crumbs to Sicily where another of Robin’s confederates sold them on to Italy and the rest of Europe.

  I did not know the full details of the trade, but I had seen its results. When we had arrived at Dover several months ago, we had been raggedy, seasick and exhausted, but also very, very rich. We had carried with us on our long journey home — in conditions of strictest secrecy, of course — several large chests of silver, thousands of pounds’ worth, which were now lodged in Robin’s strongly built counting house in the bailey of Kirkton Castle. And that was not the full extent of Robin’s fortune. Since we had returned from the East, two more shipments of silver had arrived at Kirkton with the compliments of Reuben and a letter assuring his friend that all was well in Gaza and that commerce was booming. The frankincense trade had made Robin a wealthy man and would continue to enrich him — unless the Master of the Knights Templar and His Holiness the Pope had their way.