by Angus Donald
And with that he gave me a brief contemptuous look, picked up a goose-feather quill, pulled a piece of parchment towards him and began scratching at it. I said nothing; I merely shrugged, turned and walked out of the room.
I left the door open — but it was a poor revenge for having to swallow being called a lazy coward.
The journey to Tickhill Castle, a full day’s ride, was uneventful: it was a strongly built fortress with a high stone wall surrounding the bailey, and a tall keep built in the centre on top of a twenty-foot mound. The fifteen of us under Sir Roger’s command were allocated a section of the hall to sleep in, but we had not much space per man, for the castle seemed to be crammed with fighting men: including our party, I counted nearly a hundred men-at-arms of various ranks at the evening meal, and in the bailey the stables were filled to bursting with horses of all shapes and sizes. Something is up, I thought to myself. Where did all these men come from — and where are they going?
It has to be said that the organization of Tickhill under Sir Robert de la Mare was impressive. His servants worked all night to prepare the three wagons for the journey and to load them with the silver-filled strong-chests. Locked, chained tight, personally sealed by de la Mare, then covered with mounds of rough sacking to disguise their presence, six immensely heavy chests were loaded into each wagon and, just before dawn, three teams of eight oxen were yoked into position to pull the weight of Prince John’s ill-gotten silver all the way to Nottingham. Our fifteen men-at-arms, yawning and scratching after a short night’s sleep, formed up on either side of the ox-wagons. The castle gates swung slowly open, the drivers cracked whips, called to their animals and prodded the oxen’s rumps with sharp goads, the men-at-arms clicked their tongues to their horses and the whole convoy began its ponderous passage on the road south.
We travelled at the speed of the slowest ox and so, when we stopped at midday for a bite of bread and a drink of ale, we had come no further south than the village of Carlton in the district of Lindrick. At an alehouse near the old Saxon church of St John the Evangelist, Sir Roger arranged food and drink from the local hostelry. He seemed nervous and agitated, and he kept giving me strange, flickering glances, as if he were somehow frightened of me. Perhaps he was uncomfortable that I had been demoted for this expedition, that I had to take his orders when I had previously been a captain of my own team of tax gatherers. But I paid it little mind. It was a cold, sharp day, grey skies and a whiff of rain on the breeze, and we ate a joyless meal in Carlton in near-silence. I just wanted to get back on the road to Nottingham with the least possible delay, and I was in no mood to swap pleasantries with my fellow men-at-arms. Half an hour later, my wish was granted and we set off again.
We were no more than half a mile out of Carlton, passing through a place where we were hemmed in by dense woodland to the west with open farmland to the east, when the arrows began to fly. The first I knew of the attack was a sudden hiss and thump, followed by a scream of pain from the man-at-arms in front of me, who folded over in his saddle clutching an arrow shaft which protruded like a thin, straight branch from his belly.
Sir Roger shouted something and I turned Ghost right, facing towards the woodland in the west: I could see indistinct shapes moving in the forest gloom and arrows flickering out from the trees like horizontal hail. Scores of shafts flashed by me, on either side, and in an instant the mounted men and their horses were screaming and dying left and right. Hooded men, dark and menacing, wielding long war bows, advanced towards me through the trees like murderous wraiths, shooting as they came on. Ghost whickered and shied between my thighs and I tried to calm him as the deadly shafts sped past his flanks and sank into the flesh of his fellow beasts. One horse, spitted through the neck, screamed and reared. I saw a man-at-arms cursing an arrow in his left arm, trying to remove it, just as two more shafts smashed into his chest. I watched, immobile but for my jittering horse, while Sir Roger to my left took an arrow to the face, his helmeted head snapped backwards by the shaft before he slid dead as a boulder out of the side of the saddle. Death passed by me, surrounding me, close enough to touch, close enough to smell and close enough to feel the wind of its passing and hear its awful hiss and thump, hiss and thump. One knight, his horse stuck deep with three arrows, and he sporting a fourth jutting from his waist, managed to draw his sword and tried to charge the shadowy bowmen advancing through the woodland. He put back his spurs, shouted a feeble war cry; then his horse surged forward and he was met with a dozen more shafts that slashed out of the trees simultaneously, some taking his horse in the throat, while four or five thudded into his mailed chest. He and his mount were dead before they had travelled five yards.
And yet in all this carnage, amidst all this death and blood, Ghost and I remained untouched. I dropped the reins on the saddle horn and raised both hands, palms forward, fingers spread in the universal sign for surrender, crooning softly to Ghost to give him courage, and trying to hold him still between my knees.
Looking round quickly, I saw that all of our men-at-arms were down, and most of their poor horses were wounded or dead. The hooded wraiths with their long killing bows were no more than twenty paces from me, walking steadily forward with the soft, purposeful tread of executioners. Then I heard a familiar voice, one I had not heard for six months or more, shouting: ‘Cease shooting, men; hold those arrows. Cease shooting, you rascals!’ And out from behind a tree not twenty yards from me stepped a tall handsome figure in dark green, wrapped in a raggedy grey cloak, an arrow bag at his waist, a bow in his right hand.
‘Hello there, Alan,’ said Robin. ‘And how have you been keeping?’
Chapter Fourteen
The Earl of Locksley’s men, marshalled by Little John with his enormous old-fashioned double-edged axe, swiftly dispatched any of the men-at-arms who still lived. I stepped down from Ghost’s back and embraced Robin. My throat was choked with emotion: I had not realized till that moment how much I had missed him in the long deceitful months at Nottingham. And there were many other familiar faces grinning at me from under their hoods: Much, the son of a well-to-do miller, who loved the violent outlaw life more than the safe respectability of grinding wheat for a living; Owain, the master bowman, a valiant Welsh warrior and old friend who had made the journey to Outremer and back with me; young Thomas ap Lloyd, wielding a bow that had been cut down to match his youth and size; Little John came over and gave me a bear hug that nearly crushed my ribs; then he slapped me on the back and told me he was proud of me.
And then there was Robin.
My lord, the Earl of Locksley, looked closely at me, his bright silver-grey eyes staring deep into mine. ‘How goes it in Nottingham, Alan?’ he asked. ‘They don’t suspect that you are still my man, do they?’
‘I don’t think so. Well, they cannot be certain — but, Robin, how much longer do I have to play this role? They will find out soon: they must know that somebody is giving you information about the convoys’ movements.’
Robin stroked his lightly stubbled chin. ‘I think you must play this game just a little while longer, Alan, if you can stand it. The silver we take from Prince John goes directly to Queen Eleanor in London. And every penny we take weakens him and brings King Richard’s release a little closer.’
‘Every penny goes to the Queen?’ I said, tilting my head in a query.
‘Yes,’ said Robin, pretending to look outraged. ‘Well, I do have some expenses, obviously. But the vast majority of the money — well, most of the money — goes south to London. Don’t you trust me?’
I just looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Suddenly, we were both laughing madly.
Breathless with mirth, Robin managed to splutter out: ‘I’m not doing this to enrich myself, Alan, on my oath. I don’t need it. The Outremer trade still flows like a great glittering river. This is all for Richard. It also happens to amuse me to play the rogue again — but, upon my sacred honour, Alan, this deadly game is to buy King Richard’s freedom.’
I wi
ped the tears of laughter from my eyes, and said: ‘I think I can carry on the subterfuge a little longer, if you wish me to, and for the King’s sake, but not past Christmas, I beg you. I’m not sure I could stand it any longer than that without running mad and cutting Murdac’s throat in his sleep.’
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ said Robin. ‘Although you’d never survive to tell me the tale. No, regretfully, you’ll have to play the part for a little longer. Another three months should do it; till Christmas, as you say. But at the first sign that they suspect you — you and Hanno get yourselves out of the castle. Promise me that, Alan? The first sign of suspicion, you get out of there. I need you alive and well, my friend, not dangling from a gibbet in Nottingham market.’
While I had been talking with my true lord and master, Robin’s men had been busying themselves around the wagon train, gathering up weapons and mail coats, giving a merciful release to wounded horses, soothing the nerves of the surviving ox drivers by swearing that they would not be harmed if they co-operated with the raggedy hooded men in green and russet who now swarmed over the wagon train looking for plunder. A couple of the outlaws had been fruitlessly trying to break into one of the silver chests, but its strength had defeated them for the moment.
Little John had had the foresight to post sentries north and south on the road, and it was a rider, galloping furiously towards us down the road from the north, who interrupted my conversation with Robin.
‘Sir, sir,’ the man shouted as he drew near the wagons and flung himself from his horse, ‘there are horse soldiers coming, proper cavalry, about sixty of them, heavily armed, lances, swords, shields, and coming up very fast!’
The laughter was wiped from Robin’s face in an instant.
‘Sixty, you say?’ he asked the sentry.
‘At least, sir, not more than a mile or two away.’
A strange look crossed Robin’s face, one of cold doubt. He looked at me hard — it was not a pleasant expression.
‘What?’ I said. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
I was hurt by that look, but then I knew that Robin had a very suspicious mind. I pushed my hurt aside, and continued: ‘Forget about that for now. With only these men’ — I gestured at the twenty or so raggedy outlaws, now joking and laughing among the wagons, so different from the murderous menacing wraiths of a quarter of an hour before — ‘with only these men, you either have to run and leave these silver wagons to the enemy, or fight for it. And if you fight, you will lose. Then we will all die.’
‘Fight or run?’ Robin thought for a moment. ‘I will do both.’ He raised his chin, and using his battle voice, a timbre designed to be heard clearly over the carnage of warfare, he shouted: ‘Archers — form up on the treeline. Now. Move! John, over here, a moment of your time, if you please,’ And in a quieter tone to me he said: ‘And you, Alan, need to get out of sight. I don’t want any of these horsemen seeing you with me.’
I understood him, it was the sensible thing to do, and although I was most reluctant to be dodging yet another fight, I led Ghost into the woodland and tethered him to a small bush fifty yards from the road. Then I crept back towards the highway and began to climb the tallest, leafiest tree I could find, ten yards back from the public thoroughfare.
Peering out between the leaves some little time later, I saw a thin, single line of perhaps three-score horsemen, pennants flying, spear points glittering, red-and-blue surcoats flapping in the breeze, coming over the brow of the field on the far side of the road about three hundred yards away at a gentle trot. The attacking line looked spindly, elongated, lacking in depth and power — and yet it was the perfect formation to attack archers.
Robin’s meagre numbers — I counted fewer than twenty-five men — were in a loose line on the western side of the road, where the trees began. The archers had planted three or four arrows, bodkin-point down in the ground in front of them, but most still had full arrow bags at their waists. They were waiting for orders. At one end of the line stood Little John, bowless, but with his double-headed axe in hand, feet planted as strongly as the oak tree that stood behind him and a gentle smile on his broad brown face. At the other end of the line was Robin, bow at the ready. He wasted no time.
‘Nock,’ Robin shouted in his brazen war voice. And a score of men put arrows to their strings. The cavalry had seen our men by now and were increasing their speed to the trot — they were perhaps two hundred and fifty yards away and approaching fast.
‘Draw,’ shouted Robin. With a sound like a great creaking barn door, twenty-odd bows were drawn back until the goose-feather fletchings tickled the archers’ right ears. The cavalry were at the full canter now, sweeping down in an irresistible wave of big horses and big heavily armed men; their lances were couched and they were set to crash into the archers, skewering their unprotected bodies, and trample Robin’s few men into bloody rags.
‘And loose!’ said Robin. A score of shafts hissed out in a grey blur towards the galloping enemy. Even at two hundred yards, half a dozen saddles were emptied in a trice. But still the enemy came on, the line thinner and with many a gap, but unstoppable nonetheless.
Once more Robin gave the orders — nock, draw and loose — but faster now, and once more the arrows slashed out towards the charging horsemen, spitting men and animals indiscriminately. But the cavalry were only a hundred yards away now and the dreadful pounding of the destriers’ big hooves filled my ears.
‘Shoot at will,’ bellowed Robin. ‘Loose, loose, loose!’ The archers were desperately plucking arrows from the ground and, almost without seeming to aim, shooting as fast as they could at the looming mounted warriors. The cavalry line was no more, it was just a collection of knots of charging horsemen filled with battle fury from the killings they had endured, thundering towards the frail line of archers, their bright spear-points seeking our flesh — and they were so nearly upon us!
‘Into the trees! Into the trees!’ I could hear Robin’s bold voice above the war cries of the knights, and the screams of wounded men and horses, above the drumming of hooves on hard earth only fifty yards away. His order came just in time. The archers turned as one man, and pelted backwards into the thick woodland. I saw them running beneath me, bows still in hand, to take up new positions on the far side of a small clearing. As the archers ran across the clearing I saw the taller men ducking in a strange way, all of them bobbing their heads slightly at exactly the same spot in the clearing.
And then I smiled; for I saw what these men were ducking to avoid. It was a stout chain of steel links, rubbed with dirt to hide the gleam of metal, and it was stretched between two giant oaks twenty yards apart on either side of the clearing, secured fast to the tree trunks. The archers were forming up on the far side of the open space: not hiding, but in plain view, and they nocked arrows once again and waited for the pursuing cavalry — inviting them to attack.
They had only moments to wait.
Some three dozen horsemen came barrelling into the woodland at almost the same time. Seeing the archers in a loose huddle at the far side of the clearing they dug their spurs into their horses’ flanks and, shouting with excitement, charged straight at the footmen. The chain, which had been set at about six foot above the ground, caught two of the leading horses by the throat, and they went down in a tangle of kicking legs. The chain missed a third animal which was charging with its head held low, but swept its rider out of the saddle, almost cutting the man in half. Hard on their heels came the rest of the horsemen, their mounts crashing into the fallen horses with the terrible sound of tumbling half-ton bodies and the awful crisp snapping of equine legs. It was sheer bloody chaos: a seething tangle of horses and shields and lances and struggling men. One horse went mad with fear and began kicking and biting anything within reach. Most of the cavalry, however, stopped their mounts in time, and reined up panting and swearing, seeking a way around the mound of thrashing bloody horseflesh and the stunned and broken men-at-arms.
While this horse-borne car
nage was erupting, the archers had not been idle. They nocked, drew and loosed without ceasing, pouring out a torrent of deadly arrows; not the measured volleys of before, but individual shots, well aimed and at very close range. I saw a shaft, loosed thirty yards away, pass right through a man’s chest and still stick six inches deep in the flank of the horse behind him. Another shaft, shot from twenty yards, punched straight through a man-at-arm’s shield, through his chain mail, piercing deep into his chest. Soon the clearing was filled with heaps of dying men and kicking, screaming horses. One knight managed to make his way around the bloody mound of twitching chaos — and Little John met him with a sweep of his double-headed axe, slicing the knight’s horse’s head clean off with one blow. The knight died moments later as four arrows thudded into his belly.
And the enemy had had enough. The surviving horsemen, those who had come last to the fight in the woodland, the men who had hung back, turned their mounts and fled, streaming away back out of the trees towards the open farm land. Of the sixty men that had come on so proudly against Robin’s archers, I saw fewer than a dozen knights make their escape.
It was a stunning victory. Robin’s tiny force of raggedy peasants and outlaws, armed with little more than a few sticks and lengths of hempen string, had defeated — almost annihilated — a force three times their size of armoured, well-trained men on horseback.
And Robin had lost only a single man. We found his body by the treeline. He was a squat, well-muscled archer but he must have been slow to run on Robin’s command, for he bore the classic death wound of a fleeing infantry man pursued by a mounted knight: a bloody hole in his back where the knight’s lance had pierced him as he ran for his life.
The archers showed no pity to the wounded men they found, ignoring appeals for mercy and all talk of ransom, and cutting their throats without regard for rank or status. Then they immediately began to search the bodies for coins.
