The Death of Robin Hood (32 page)

I caught up with my lord in the antechamber and begged his pardon for my rudeness the day before.

‘It is no matter, Alan. Put it behind us. We have a great deal to do today.’

He seemed disproportionally cheerful. As we walked into the courtyard, I noticed my lord was humming. He did not appear the least put out that he had just been given an extra duty that might see him hanging by the neck from a gibbet before too long. Then I remembered my conversation with Robert that morning. And everything became crystal clear.

‘I gather then that the Scots have raided our baggage train,’ I said.

‘So it would seem,’ said Robin.

‘And yet the latest reports say that Alexander’s army is some hundred miles north of us now. I wonder how they managed that feat.’

‘Yes, it is something of a mystery.’

‘And do I understand that these mysterious marauders were masked? So that not one of them could be recognised – as a Scottish knight, I mean.’

‘Alan,’ Robin growled. ‘Have a care what you say next!’ It was a warning.

‘I make no further comment on the matter, my lord. Except to say that sometimes, just sometimes, it is a very great pleasure to serve you.’

It took us three days to march on Lincoln. And while I was prepared for a hard fight at the end of our journey, it was with a sneaking relief that I learned of Gilbert de Gant’s abandonment of the
siege. The newly made Earl of Lincoln had fled north on the news of the King’s approach. Robin and I rode with the baggage train, twelve heavily laden wagons and fifty or so packhorses holding the King’s belongings, his clothes and jewels, the silver plate for his table, his private dismantled chapel, the chests of coin from which he paid his mercenaries, the tax rolls of the clerks of the exchequer, carpets, bedding, shoes, spare armour, sacks of wheat, barley and oats, barrels of salted meat, flitches of bacon, stacks of round yellow cheeses, boxes of fruit, chests of spices – and fifty tuns of good red wine. Robin’s eighty men rode on either side of the train in two lines, Robert and Hugh each commanding a file of men. Tilda sat high on a cart full of tapestries and bedding, wrapped in a great travelling cloak, back straight, chin high, as haughty as a queen. Boot’s huge form strode along beside her vehicle, a thick oak cudgel over his massive shoulder, as if he were her personal bodyguard and not my son’s – for Robert was not the only member of my household who seemed to have fallen under her spell. She ignored me and I avoided meeting her eye. I was somewhat embarrassed by our night-time encounter. I had behaved boorishly, it seemed to me, when she had tried to do me a kindness. Yet I could not quite bring myself to thank her for the cup of healing herbs that had alleviated my cold.

The King and the bulk of the army – still mostly composed of mercenary Flemings, although the numbers of English knights in the King’s train had increased considerably since the muster at Tonbridge – rode far ahead of the slow-moving ox-drawn wagons, and so we struggled through the mire created by several thousand men and horses that marched before us.

On the second day, after noon, we heard the thunder of horses coming from the east – a score of mailed knights riding in, and fast. Robin had me gather a strong force of his men-at-arms and we wheeled to face them in no time at all, ready to drive off any marauders – my lord was taking his new duties as Master of the Royal Baggage
seriously, I noted – but it was a false alarm. It was merely Savary de Mauléon and his mud-spattered men returning from Crowland Abbey.

Mauléon reined in, halted his men, greeted Robin cheerfully and nodded at me.

‘I see the big man has you doing all the donkey work, Locksley,’ said the Poitevin, waving a hand at the lumbering column of wagons. ‘About time you did more than tease him in the council chamber.’

Robin smiled serenely. ‘So you’re back from burning a kindly old churchman out of his House of God, slaughtering the monks, raping the nuns – good work, Mauléon. A fitting commission for a man of your quality.’

Mauléon scowled. ‘I couldn’t do it, if you must know, Locksley.’

‘Truly?’

‘Yes, I went to see the abbot and told him what I had been ordered to do. We came to an accommodation.’

‘You disobeyed our lord King!’ said Robin, pretending to be shocked.

‘Abbot Longchamp gave over to me five chests of silver in exchange for the promise that I would leave his lands in peace. That should keep John happy.’

‘A solution after my own heart,’ said Robin. ‘Blackmail rather than bloodshed – I thoroughly approve, Savary. I just hope our beloved King feels the same way.’

‘You’ll help me persuade him?’

‘Of course.’

Mauléon raised a hand in farewell and he and his men galloped up the road to join the main column.

Lincoln was a beautiful and pleasingly laid-out town – I knew it slightly, of course, it being close to Nottingham, but I had never before spent more than a day or two there. It was built on the junction of
two mighty roads – Fosse Way, which led hundreds of miles south-west to Exeter, and Ermine Street, the main artery south to London – on the high north bank of the River Witham. In truth, Lincoln was two towns: an upper town, which held the castle and the cathedral and the houses of the richer denizens, the famous Lincoln wool merchants, and a lower town, walled off from the upper and containing workshops, storehouses, a plethora of taverns, houses of ill-repute and the poorer sections of the community. The grandest building in the lower town was the Jews’ House, a large stone building brightly painted in red and gold to demonstrate their loyalty to the crown and nestled just south of the dividing wall. In shape, Lincoln was an oblong, or two squares one on top of the other – the upper and lower towns – and walled all the way around in stone.

We approached from the south and drove the wagon convoy across the grand bridge over the river into the lower part of town. To our right was a wide area of water, a port with a few small ships that traded as far as France and the Low Countries, and this was the method by which the French had supplied their troops besieging the castle. As I crossed the bridge, I noted the port was unusually empty – the French craft had all set sail for safer harbours as soon as they heard of the King’s imminent arrival. Once across the water, we carried on driving our wagons almost due north up the steep rise of the main street that led to the walled upper town, where the cathedral, on the right, and the castle, on the left, straddled the road: the twin bastions of God and the King, overlooking the common stew of grubby humanity below.

There was little sign of de Gant’s occupation forces until we approached the castle walls. Here were scorch marks on the walls and empty spaces where some meaner dwellings and workshops had been pulled down to create space for crossbowmen to loose their weapons against the fortress without hindrance and men-at-arms to muster for an assault. The castle towered over this cleared space and,
looking up at its sheer stone walls, I could see why Gilbert de Gant had made no headway. Once we had reached the summit – it was no easy task to get the stubborn oxen and the wagons up the steep hill, I may tell you – we turned and entered the castle through the East Gate. Inside the walls, in the wide, almost-square bailey, we secured the wagons in a series of huge barns by the northern ramparts.

Then Robin and I went in search of the King.

We found him, as expected, with his lords, knights and mercenary captains, and the usual bright crowd of sycophantic hangers-on, in the great thatched hall in the middle of the bailey sitting down to a feast. Robin and I hastily washed the smell of ox from our hands and took our places as latecomers on the lesser tables. As I ate hungrily – it had been a hard morning – I noticed Robin looking at the faces on the high table next to the King.

‘See there, Alan,’ said my lord. ‘The young fellow next to Savary de Mauléon? In the blue tunic? Do you know who that is?’

I didn’t – and didn’t much care. I was excavating the delicious dish of pigeon pie that was set before me.

‘That is John Marshal, the Earl of Pembroke’s brother’s son.’

‘William the Marshal’s nephew?’ I said. ‘I thought he was with the rebels.’

‘Evidently no longer,’ said Robin. ‘And there is the Earl of Salisbury, King John’s half-brother, also now welcomed back into the fold. There, too, is the Earl of York, next to Nicola de la Haye – the fine-looking old biddy. Do you know what this means?’

I could guess, but I allowed Robin his moment. I helped myself to another huge scoop of the pie.

‘It means, my greedy friend, the tide has turned. Three major players have come back over to the King’s side. I heard there were factions in the ranks of Prince Louis’s men – English knights quarrelling with French over the division of the land after the conquest –
but I had not realised so many had changed allegiance. Our enemies are divided and our hand is strengthened.’

‘It would be nice if Miles and Thomas had a change of heart,’ I said, wiping the gravy from my chin with a napkin. ‘But I suppose it is too much to ask – at least in Thomas’s case.’ I had spoken without thinking and Robin turned on me abruptly.

‘You know why Thomas left?’ he said. ‘Tell me, Alan, why did he go?’

I blushed to the roots of my hair. ‘I … I cannot. I swore I would not tell.’

Robin’s eyes glinted silver. ‘It is to do with me, is it not? Thomas thought I would harm him somehow or his family. What did he think I’d do?’

I got to my feet; I could not face Robin’s inquisition and keep my word to Thomas. ‘I must go,’ I said, putting down my napkin and finishing my cup of wine.

‘Alan – I understand that you wish to keep your honour. And you love Thomas, I know that, as do I. But think on this: by not telling me what Thomas feared, you may be endangering him. Think about what is best for him – being my friend or my enemy. One day soon we may have to face him in battle, have you considered that?’

And Miles, too, I thought, but did not say it aloud.

‘He might die under my sword – or yours – if he remains with the rebels,’ continued my lord. ‘If the King can bring these men back to his banner, I swear I can do so as well.’

I could face no more of Robin’s assault and, mumbling an apology and claiming that I had urgent duty elsewhere, I left the great hall and stumbled blindly out into the bright light of the castle courtyard, my heart in turmoil.

The world seemed to be spinning around me: what Robin had said was true. My silence was keeping Thomas, and maybe Miles, too, at odds with Robin, in the enemy camp, and that could not be for
the good. Yet I had given my word. It was all horribly wrong. Here I was, serving a King I despised, supporting a cause I did not believe in and putting myself in opposition to Miles and Thomas. The tide was turning, Robin had said, the King was growing in power. I would gladly help him drive the French from England but what about my friends? How would they fare if King John was made secure again on the throne of England? How would England fare?

I could not resolve the division of my loyalties over my vow to Thomas. But there was one snarled affair, nagging like a bad back tooth, that I certainly could remedy. The world stopped spinning. I marched over to the barns where the royal baggage was housed and found Robert, now in command of a score of men-at-arms, who had been given the task of guarding the wagons.

‘Where is Tilda?’ I said. ‘I need to speak with her.’

My son looked at me speculatively. ‘She’s with the washerwomen, over by the vats. On the far side of the courtyard, yonder, by the well.’

I turned and headed in the direction he had pointed. As I walked away, I heard him clearly say, ‘About time, too.’

I
found Tilda, as Robert had promised, with the washerwomen, in a makeshift enclosure walled by flapping linen sheets hung on lines to dry. She was red-cheeked and sweaty, a black tendril of hair plastered damply to her cheek, a huge bundle of linen in her arms. A dozen women were all around her, swapping news and jests, and dumping great masses of dirty laundry into huge copper vats bubbling over small fires and stirring them with long ash poles. Steam billowed and rippled above the vats. The air inside that castle of white cloth was as muggy as on a summer day before a thunderstorm, and I felt the same sense of impending violent release. All the chatter had stopped when I pushed aside a dripping sheet and entered the washerwomen’s steamy lair. And when I found myself face to face with the woman I wished to speak to, I too was struck dumb.

Tilda curtseyed awkwardly, the bundle of linen making her clumsy. ‘Sir Alan,’ she said, ‘did you require something? Do you need something to be washed?’

The silence and stillness of the women, all their eyes on me, was paralysing.

‘Ah, Tilda,’
I said jovially, ‘there you are.’

‘Yes, Alan, here I am.’

A small powerful-looking woman with the sad eyes and jowls of a bulldog came forward and wordlessly took the bundle of washing from Tilda’s arms.

‘Yes, so, Tilda,’ I said. ‘Ah …’

Jesu, I was a man past the ripe age of forty and I could not find the words to speak to a woman I had known for many years, who had once been my lover, for God’s sake, and was now a member of my household. My head was entirely empty.

‘Ahem, it was just, you see … I just wondered, if you have the time, whether you might be kind enough to wash two of my spare chemises. They are a little soiled, I am sorry to say. Hard travelling, you know …’

Tilda gestured to the bundle of linen now in the bulldog’s arms. ‘I have them already, sir,’ she said.

‘Ah well, that’s good. Good. Very good. Thank you.’ I turned to go, took two paces. Stopped. Be a man, Alan, be a bloody man, said my inner voice.

I turned back. ‘And I wished to say thank you for the hot posset you made for my cold. It is much better now, thanks to your kindness.’

‘It was my pleasure, sir,’ she said.

‘Right, well, that’s good. Carry on.’

Sweeping back a flap of damp linen, I began to stride away.

A voice behind stopped me in my tracks.

‘Sir Alan,’ said Tilda. ‘Wait!’