For the sake of that dream Robin was exerting all the dominance of his character. His steady grey eyes held Richard’s. “You’ve all the gifts,” he urged. “Vision, singleness of purpose, a charm your father never possessed. Why, a man like you—”
But the spell was soon broken. Richard began to laugh self-consciously, holding up a protesting hand. “You over-rate me, Robin! I should grow fat and flabby sitting about in rooms like this, and fly into ungovernable rages with any poor, windy councillor who had the guts to contradict me.” At the bare thought he tightened up his sword belt and strode back to the window for another look at his ships. “No,” he said, with the decision of a man who knows his own job. “Let me go and spill some of my hot blood killing Saracens and then perhaps I’ll come back and do all the things you want.”
The eagerness died out of Robin’s taut stance. “A man must follow his own conscience,” he allowed sombrely. “But it will mean dark days for England.” Glancing up at Richard’s uncompromising back, he added, “Suppose the Saracens kill you?”
“There is always Geoffrey’s boy,” shrugged Richard. He picked up the little boat he had been making and set it on a chest before the fireplace, picturing young Arthur’s pleasure in playing with it. Like most big men, he adored children. “I will get Constance to bring him to England, and have him publicly proclaimed my heir before I go,” he said, bending to set the finishing touch of a red sealing wax cross on each billowing parchment sail.
This was a new complication. Robin held the hearts of the people in his hand. Unofficially, he could control and help them. But, without official status, what could he do to protect a small prince from the inevitable jealousy of John? “If Arthur comes over here,” he said anxiously, “you had better make me his guardian.”
Richard swung round, sealing wax in hand. “John is his real uncle,” he said sharply.
“But I want to do something for you—and I always hate the way he fondles anything helpless.” Had Robin noticed the gathering fury on Richard’s face, he might have answered more warily. As it was, the storm broke over his unsuspecting head as suddenly as Richard swung round from the window.
“Now, by God’s throat, you go too far!” he raged. “Is no man right but you? No Angevin to be trusted?” It was the same old story. The Plantagenets for ever divided amongst themselves, but united against the world. How often in the old days would Henry flay Richard to frenzy with his clever tongue, only to rend the first person who presumed to do likewise! “First you make me out to be a sort of glamorous mountebank, evading my responsibilities in the cause of God,” went on Richard, lashing himself into one of his ungovernable rages. “Then you refuse an earldom and in the next breath calmly demand a regency. There are still men who can’t be bought, did I say? ‘More than any of my blood brothers,’ have I called you? By God, you mean to be! My very self, with England’s heir in our hands. Why, John—whom you’re always warning me against—begins to look a lamb beside such cunning!”
Robin, who had never in his life used his strange position to get something for himself, leaned back against the table and laughed. “Don’t be a fool, Richard!” he said.
But Richard rounded on him, all sense of humour and proportion gone. “Don’t you know that without the favour of my love it is treason to call me that?”
Robin spread deprecating hands, his wide mouth jibing but tender. “I’m afraid that’s a favour you won’t find it easy to withdraw from me.”
“I could kill you for that!” raged Richard, infuriated by his cool assertion of the truth. “If you weren’t”—he had the grace to add— “the only man I haven’t strength enough to kill.”
Robin ripped open his green leather tunic. His own blood was up. “Strike, then,” he invited, almost contemptuously. “By the same line of argument it would be treason to defend myself.”
For a moment it looked as if Richard would. He rushed at him, fumbling at his sword, only to turn away with a gesture of clumsy mortification. “No man could have made me so angry,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have cared whether they came or not. Only you—you—”
All through their boyhood it had been Robin’s role to soothe his rebelliousness about forbidden things. “No need to rage because you can’t get what you’ve set your heart on,” he reminded him now. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that I must come if you command me to?”
“Command!” scoffed Richard bitterly. “Even kings can’t command comradeship—kings least of all!” Kicking a stool out of the way, he went to his father’s chair and sat down heavily. “Oh, stay safely in England and be damned to you! Only get out of my sight.”
Stiffly, a little unbelievingly, Robin bent to pick up his cloak. “Wasn’t ‘safely’ a little unnecessary, Sir?” he asked coldly.
“Quite.” Richard bit the word savagely between strong, white teeth. “I no longer care whether you’re safe or not, and to prove it I will leave you an outlaw in this cursed country you rate above my friendship.”
Robin stopped on his way to the door as if an arrow had struck him between the shoulder-blades. An outlaw. A hunted man with a price on his head. His honour gone and his dreams shattered. Not at any moment in their quarrel had he supposed that it could end like this. His thoughts flew to Johanna—to the Queen and Hodierna—women who had loved him. Richard couldn’t mean such cruelty. He turned with a gesture of appeal. He almost offered to barter individual liberty for the romantic figure that had lit up all his life. But Richard wasn’t looking at him. He had taken up a quill and was writing a deed of outlawry with firm and unrelenting hand.
Robin went out without a word. As he passed through the hall people spoke to him, but he had no idea what they said. Out in the bailey a groom sprang forward to fetch his horse but Robin remembered that the beast was really Richard’s, and shook his head. “A woodman’s son going back to the soil,” he thought ironically, throwing his cloak over his shoulder peasant-wise and making for the woods that lay between Dover and Canterbury. An hour at most, he supposed, and the price on his head would be published on every reeve hall along the south coast. He stopped at the armoury and exchanged his sword for a bow, the weapon of the common people. From now on he—who had shared the home of the proud Plantagenets—was of less account than the pigs that routed along the sides of the road.
Chapter Thirteen
Like all the Cinque Ports, Dover was quickened by contacts with the outside world, colourful with snatches of foreign speech about her streets, and entertained with news hot from the Continent or the East. The top of her quayside wall was worn smooth by the elbows of the idle. Landsmen gathered there with envy in their hearts. Touching the fringes of a more full-blooded life, they forgot their own tedious frustrations. There was always something to stare at, something to laugh at, something new. Each incoming ship brought them the intriguing spice of strange lands and each ship that slid out past the swinging beacon carried their imagination, entangled in her rigging, to the far horizon.
Having posted up his notice about the sale of the King’s park-lands, Blondel sat on a bollard in the sunshine, exchanging an occasional pleasantry with Mercadier’s men. Kentishmen had come in from all the neighbouring villages to see the great crusading fleet, and the quay was thronged with people watching a great Sicilian merchantman sliding to her accustomed berth.
Born of Norman parents and brought up in a homely Sussex manor, Blondel de Cahaignes had never been out of England except for that wonderful but swiftly terminated sojourn in Navarre. And now, watching all the bustle of preparation, it seemed part of his amazing luck that he should be going to Palestine. And not only going, but serving as personal attendant to the King. Whatever happened, wherever they went, he would always be right at the executive hub of things. And, knowing the dynamic personality of the man who had set it all in motion, he foresaw that Richard’s presence would turn every incident of the campaign to dramatic adventure. Looking down into the laden holds, Blondel felt the quivering excitement of a
ll unfledged warriors, half fear of being afraid, half exulted determination to out-dare. He would—he must—justify the trust the King had placed in him. “You will like working for him,” his ‘fair princess’ had promised him years ago. Blondel smiled at the inadequacy of the words. The fortunes of the Plantagenets meant more to him now than his own family.
Rousing himself from his dreams, he was amused to find the girl John had ogled outside the cobber’s hanging about on the steps beside him. Perhaps it was because his thoughts had been running on foreign countries, but something about her honey-coloured hair and softly rounded profile stirred him to remembrance of a girl who had once mended his capuchon in Navarre. Piqued by the resemblance, he got up and spoke to her. “So your mother didn’t lock the door?” he teased.
Seen close to, the girl was flat, fair Saxon. Her momentary eagerness as she turned held some faint resemblance to the lovable animation of Yvette, but in any case it was not for him. “Is he coming down here? Your friend, who rode past with you this morning?” she asked.
“He’s pretty sure to come presently with the King.”
“Then I think I’ll wait,” she said, with an anxious glance up the street towards the house where her mother had probably already missed her. “What is his name?”
“John. But if I were a pretty girl I wouldn’t waste my time waiting for him,” laughed Blondel. “He’s going to marry a girl called Avisa.”
It was good to take a rise out of John for a change. But before he could profit by it a young officer of Mercadier’s called out in passings, “Heard the news, de Cahaignes? The King of Sicily’s dead.”
Blondel spun round, all philandering forgotten. That meant that Johanna was a widow. She had served her sentence as a political pawn, and how they had all missed her! It had been as if some warmth had been withdrawn from life. Surely now she would be free to come home and marry again to please herself! He stared at the Sicilian ship, where there seemed to be a great deal of chatter and commotion about something. A group of sailors, coming across the swaying gang-plank, detached themselves from the rest and approached him. “They told us to come to you because you are of the royal household,” said one of them, who spoke both languages. “This half-wit countryman of mine keeps on about some message from the Queen of Sicily.”
They were swarthy, laughing men, and they pushed forward an uncouth looking fisherman, even more spectacular than the rest. Knowing no Norman he kept repeating “King—England” as persistently as Thomas à Becket’s lovely Syrian mother must have sought her merchant lover with the cry of “Gilbert—London.”
“She isn’t aboard?” asked Blondel, eagerly scanning the emptying decks.
Her spectacular messenger shook his head until his great round ear-rings danced. Translating his torrent of excited speech, the other man explained that Queen Johanna couldn’t get home at all—that William’s younger brother, Tancred, wanted to marry her and was besieging her with his affections in some tower at Messina. Even allowing for the amorous eccentricities of these Sicilians, it sounded a cock-and-bull story!
But the fisherman, over-joyed at finding someone who appeared to appreciate the importance of his mission, thrust a tiny ring of twisted steel into the young squire’s hand.
“A scurvy-looking trinket,” observed his bilingual friend. “But he was told the King of England would recognize it.”
Blondel certainly did. As it lay in his palm the years rolled back. By some trick of memory the salty South Coast tang began to merge into the aromatic smell of fresh rushes and wood smoke. He was back in the hall at Oxford, a homesick page. Because of the young intensity of his misery at the time, he remembered every detail. That hoop of twisted steel, incongruous against green velvet, upon a girl’s comforting hand. A hand that waved this way and that, introducing him to the exalted company he was to serve. “Your own duke, Richard of Aquitaine, there. And Prince John at the end. Robin and I sit where we like…” The clear, light voice of Johanna came back to him as if it were only yesterday.
He gave the Sicilians some money and beckoned to the fisherman to follow him. As old Gregory was always saying, one never had a dull moment working for the Plantagenets. Blondel was already hustling Johanna’s messenger towards the Castle. Because most of the townsfolk were either sleeping off their dinners or down at the harbour, the market square had a deserted look. An old soldier hammering a parchment to the Reeve Hall wall waked echoes from the drowsing houses. The guard stood about in groups watching him, and their officer pounced on Blondel and waylaid him, “You’re the King’s squire. Did you know?” he asked.
“Know what?” asked Blondel impatiently. All his thoughts were on Johanna, all his desire to tell the King and Robin her news as soon as possible.
“About Robin,” said the officer, nodding towards the half-fixed notice.
Blondel became aware of some ominous tension about him. He pushed past the muttering soldiers to read the thing. It was a notice of outlawry, white and unweather-stained, with the royal seal freshly impressed. In the middle, bold and clear, stood Robin’s name, and in smaller lettering there followed the usual description of his height and colouring and a proclamation of the price upon his head. The words danced foolishly before Blondel’s eyes. They just didn’t make sense. Robin, the beloved—an outlaw. Robin, whom he had last seen leaving the hall, his laughter mingling with the King’s.
“What is it? Some fool joke?” he demanded, turning to read the scowling faces of the soldiers.
One of them spat into the garbage stream that gurgled down the middle of the street. “You wouldn’t call it a joke, Sir, not if you’d ha’ been up at the castle. Them Angevin rages…” he muttered.
“They quarrelled,” explained the officer.
“But it’s absurd, man,” persisted Blondel, almost pleadingly. “Robin and the King. Richard and Robin.” The coupled names sounded like some modern version of David and Jonathan.
But the price on Robin’s head stared down at them for all the world to see. The shame of it brought hot blood flaming to Blondel’s face. Every sane and decent instinct urged him to tear the insult down. The old man who was fixing it dealt the wall a final, heavy-handed blow. “A dunnamany times I marked the arrow flights for the pair on ’em!” he grieved, the tears standing unashamed oh his leathern cheeks.
“Why, Giles! You used to be with us at Oxford,” said Blondel, recognizing him as he turned.
“Ay. An’ I mind the night he was born to Hodierna and the Queen whelped her lion cub. This be a mortal bad day for us, Master Blondel, Sir.”
“Where has Robin gone?” asked Blondel tersely.
“He’s took to the woods,” volunteered a raw young recruit, thrilled at being caught up in such strange events.
The old man trudged off with his hammer and Blondel’s gaze followed the direction of the raw archer’s nod. The woods stretched dense and dark towards the North. A sombre cloud hung over them, gathering from a clear sky as if to herald some devastating storm; just as human anger seemed to have blotted out some of the shining promise of their enterprise, leaving a sullen canker at its root. Johanna’s appeal for help might have healed it, but it had come an hour too late.
Bewildered and sore at heart, Blondel signed to the Sicilian to follow him out of the town and up the steep cliff path. The castle, which he had left resounding to a clatter of preparation, seemed wrapped in gloom. The breeze had dropped before the approaching storm, and the standard with Richard’s three crouching leopards hung listlessly from the Keep. All bustle and excitement had burned themselves out. Even the servants had ceased to chatter. The Constable’s wife had retired with her women and in the great hall men stood about in furtive groups, from time to time glancing uneasily towards the room above. The very dogs seemed depressed.
Only John, the debonair, looked unconcerned. He was playing chess with Picot, the jester—a misshapen caricature of a fellow sprawled across the dais table. Every man’s gaze followed Blondel as he hurried t
o them. “It’s true then, Sir, about Robin?” he demanded, interrupting their game without ceremony.
John looked up, a red knight suspended from his fine fingers. He waggled it resentfully in the direction of the stricken hall. “Judge for yourself, my dear fellow, by the lugubrious atmosphere,” he invited. John Plantagenet liked a comfortable atmosphere, and was astute enough to attach himself only to those who could provide one.
Marshalled at his elbow stood the little company of carved white pieces he had captured which Blondel, in his urgency, sent rolling across the floor. “What happened? What did they quarrel about?” he persisted, ignoring the jester’s lamentations as he grovelled beneath the table to retrieve them.
“How should I know?” shrugged John.
Because he had the smug look of a cat that has been at the cream, Blondel guessed it had been about John himself. Nothing, he knew, would suit the youngest Plantagenet better than to be the wedge divorcing the perspicacity of Robin from the tolerance of Richard. The King’s squire stood uncertainly at the end of the table between Picot and the waiting Sicilian, and looked up at the small squint window above. He had lived so intimately in the service of the family that he could gauge how damnably the man up there must be suffering. “Haven’t you been up to him?” he asked, feeling that it was hardly his own place to go first, and wishing with all his heart that Queen Eleanor had not gone off somewhere abroad just when they all needed her affectionate wisdom.
Resuming his game, John swooped down with his victorious knight. “Richard invited Robin up there—not me,” he pointed out blandly, surveying his opponent’s discomfiture. “Besides, I value my skin. You should have seen him throw the Constable out when he tried to protest about having the notice put up. If you have any sense, Blondel, you’ll let him cool off a bit. Who is the exotic-looking brigand you have in tow?”
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