The Death of Robin Hood (34 page)

I surveyed the scene from the doorway, hoping to catch the eye of a kindly passing maid so that I might beg a slice of bread and a cup of ale to break my fast, when I was astonished to see Robin and Tilda
over by a work bench in the far corner of the main room. They were very close together, leaning over the board to examine something, heads almost touching, oblivious to the mayhem all around. I did not mean to surprise them but when I found myself a yard behind Robin’s back and gave a discreet cough to announce my presence, they both jerked apart and turned to stare at me. Their eyes were filled with shock and – I can find no other word for it – guilt.

‘What do you want, Alan?’ said Robin coldly.

I was taken aback by his tone. ‘I want breakfast,’ I said. ‘What are you two doing here?’

‘It is none of your concern,’ said my lord. ‘And I would be obliged if you would leave us in peace and go about your business. I’m sure you can find someone here who will feed you, if that is what you wish.’

I was too surprised to argue and started backing away. Indeed, surprised is the wrong word. I was shocked. I felt as if I had intruded on an intimate moment between the two of them, as intimate as the act of love itself. By God, was Robin Tilda’s lover? That was absurd. No, it could not be. Robin had told me himself that he had never played false with Marie-Anne and that he never would. But what if he had fallen in love? Tilda was beguiling enough. Beautiful, even. And she had told me just the day before that she had someone in her life. Could it really be Robin? It was Robin who had insisted Tilda accompany Robert when he joined the army. He had deliberately brought her here. It all fell into place. Robin was obviously the one who made her heart beat faster!

Once I had overcome the shock, my next emotion was rage. I took myself for a long walk in the town, down to the wharf again to watch the merchant ships unloading their wares, but such was my state that I barely noticed my surroundings. I found myself stomping past the tavern where I had shared wine with Tilda the day before. What right had Robin to make love to a woman in my household?
She was under my protection. And she had been my lover. It was a betrayal of the worst kind, I decided. There is a code among men. A sacred code. You do not sleep with your friend’s former lovers, no matter how beguiling they might be.

I knew there was no point getting into a lather about this matter. I would go back and see Robin to clear the air. I would confront my lord. Ask him to his face.

But when I returned to the castle I could not find him in any of his usual haunts and, in the end, after half an hour of fruitless searching and with my head still aching from last night’s wine, I took myself to my pallet and slept away the rest of the day.

Robin’s eldest son Hugh awakened me at dusk.

‘Why are you abed, Sir Alan?’ said Hugh, frowning. ‘Are you sick too?’

I told him I was not; indeed my cold was much better.

‘All the senior knights are summoned to council in the great hall,’ he said. ‘The Earl asked me to find you and tell you to hurry.’

I
was in the great hall of Lynn Castle, with two dozen other knights, English lords and half a dozen mercenary captains, as the bells of the cathedral church were ringing out for Vespers. I found Robin conferring with Savary de Mauléon. He broke off his conversation with the Poitevin lord when he saw me, came over and put his arm around my shoulders.

‘After this council session, I want to speak with you. I need you to do something very important for me.’

‘That is good for I urgently need to speak to you, too,’ I said. ‘I must ask you on your honour—’

‘Later, Alan,’ he said. ‘After this.’ Before I could reply I heard Savary de Mauléon calling for order in the crowded room and silence, if you please.

‘My lords,’ Mauléon said over the rumble of chatter. ‘I have grave tidings that require your full attention.’

His words achieved almost complete silence.

‘The King is not well today and he cannot attend this council of his lords, and so, at his request, I am to deliver the news myself.’

‘What’s the
matter with him?’ came a hearty voice from the far side of the hall.

‘He is indisposed. A matter of a delicate stomach. I am sure it is merely a case of overindulgence at the feast yesterday. No doubt he will be well again very soon.’

‘It’s the squits,’ a man muttered to his neighbour. ‘I’m not surprised after watching him wade into that lamprey pie yesterday. Seen pigs with more restraint.’

‘Gentlemen, please,’ said Mauléon. ‘The fact is that the King requires rest, that is all. I have worse news from the south. Hubert de Burgh has taken the decision to arrange a truce with the French at Dover. As many of you will know, his men have been holding out for three months now, suffering all the onslaughts of the enemy and, together with our courageous irregular forces in the area’ – Mauléon gave Robin a nod of recognition – ‘waging war against his lines of communication and shipping with France. However, de Burgh’s men are at the point of exhaustion. He will continue to hold the castle but he will not attempt to molest the French in any other way – and in return the French will cease their mining operations against his walls and desist from their bombardment of his defences.’

Mauléon paused to let this sink in. I wondered how long the truce would last and whether Cass would be able to persuade his Wealden ‘
conrois
’ to keep from gleefully robbing the rich French supply wagons even for a week.

‘Prince Louis, we have been informed, has received reinforcements from France and, with a contingent of rebel knights from London under Lord Fitzwalter, he is coming north with the intention of bringing us to battle.’

The hall broke out in a storm of voices. I heard men shouting that Hubert de Burgh was a traitor for failing to keep the enemy occupied in the south. Others were even saying we must seek a truce of our own with the French. I did not condemn de Burgh. I knew
what three months of siege was like – the starvation, the battle fatigue, the daily sapping of manpower – and I applauded him for this neat solution. We still held Dover and that, as far as I could see, was the important point.

‘Gentlemen, pray give me silence,’ Mauléon was shouting over the tumult.

When a relative quiet was restored, the Poitevin lord said, ‘They outnumber us two to one. Accordingly, we shall be quitting Lynn the day after tomorrow – or at least the bulk of the army will leave. I shall remain here to fortify the city and deny it to the enemy. The majority of you will join the King on a march north to Newark Castle, where we shall defy the enemy from the safety of that fortress and summon our forces from the rest of England to join us. I will give you your individual orders immediately after this. But for most, I urge you to look to your men and prepare to march.’

There was a surge towards the Poitevin, men loudly demanding to be told their orders, to see the King privately, to have the situation more thoroughly explained … and I saw Robin shouldering his way through the press to me.

‘How ill is the King?’ I said to him when he had reached my side.

My lord gave me a sharp look. ‘He’s ailing nicely, thank you, and making a great fuss about it – can’t get off the privy, if you must know. Tilda’s tending him.’

‘About Tilda,’ I said. ‘I know it is probably none of my concern—’

‘I don’t have time to argue about Tilda again,’ said Robin. ‘I need you to do something for me that is far more important. And I need you to give me your word that you will do it and ask no questions. Also, that you will be discreet and tell not a single soul what you are doing. Can you do that?’

I was stung – but he was my lord. I nodded sulkily.

‘I want you to swear on your honour that you will do this and remain as silent as the grave about it afterwards.’

‘I know
how to keep a secret,’ I said crossly, thinking of my vow to Thomas. Then, at his insistence, I swore.

And he told me exactly what he wanted me to do.

The mood in the army as we left Lynn two days later was wholly different to that on our arrival there. Now we were retreating in the face of a looming threat, and even with our swelled ranks of newly rejoined knights, we felt like a beaten force. It was the second week of October by then and God gave us a foretaste of what winter had in store. The heavens opened and grey rain lanced down on us from the moment we rode out of the gates until the middle of the afternoon, when we made camp in the hamlet of Walpole, eight miles to the west. The King had made a bold show of riding his horse on the march, rather than taking a horse-drawn covered litter – Tilda had apparently fortified him that morning with a mighty draught of juice of the poppy that she had purchased in Lynn, which apart from its pain-killing properties also seized up a man’s bowels and turned them to hard clay. The rain made the condition of the fenland roads even worse and it was clear the baggage train would not able to travel at the same speed as the rest of the army. We arrived at Walpole a good three hours after the rest of King John’s force, by which time every single house, barn, hut and hovel had been commandeered by the more powerful lords. Most of the rest of the army were sleeping in their cloaks on the damp and boggy ground.

‘It won’t do Locksley,’ croaked the King. ‘It you can’t manage to keep pace, what earthly use are you as Master of the Royal Baggage?’

Robin and I were in a modest hall, inside the compound of the tiny manor of Walpole, trying to warm ourselves beside a small fire in the hearth and at the same time pretend we were listening attentively to the King’s tirade.

‘I will tell you where we are heading in the morning and it will be your
duty to keep up and ensure my possessions are with me whenever I require them.’

An old black-clad priest, who until now had been piously mumbling a long Latin prayer behind the King’s chair, leaned forward and whispered in the King’s ear, casting a spiteful look at Robin.

‘Yes, exactly,’ said the King. ‘Father Dominic points out that we required the portable chapel this afternoon so that a mass could be said and prayers offered up for my health. But where was my chapel? It was with you, Locksley, stuck in the mud miles away! You are holding us back, man. You’re a disgrace to your new office.’

The King looked very pale and he seemed to have lost a good deal of weight even in the short time that he had been ill. While Robin and I dripped and gently steamed, he ranted about total obedience and gross negligence of duty. He threatened dire punishments for my lord if such tardiness occurred again.

I watched Tilda, who was at the far end of the hall mixing a potion from a pot of boiling water and several leather pouches of dried herbs. She too looked pale and intimidated by the royal presence, and yet to my eye she appeared quite lovely, even in her plain grey robe with her hair gathered under a simple coif. Robin was a fortunate man, I thought with a fresh stab of anger – or was it jealousy? As I watched, I noticed her hands seemed to tremble slightly as she stirred the mixture into a beaker.

‘I have a solution to this problem, Sire. If you will hear me,’ said Robin. ‘I have found a local man who says he can lead the wagons by a safe passage through the marshes tomorrow – low tide is at noon, he says – and though there is a slight risk of becoming mired he swears he can show us the dry paths if we go at that hour. It would take less time for us to cross the Wash directly and in the meantime you could proceed via the well-trodden, more southerly route, which would be much easier on your royal
person. The baggage train could meet the rest of the army at, say, Sleaford in two days’ time before we proceed to Newark. That is if you can possibly do without your portable chapel for a day or so.’ Robin gave the priest a brilliant smile.

Tilda was handing the King the steaming cup. He took a small sip and spat out a mouthful of dark-brown liquid. ‘Too hot, you stupid bitch; much too hot, and too bitter. More honey, more water and be quick about it.’

I saw Tilda wince and hastily take the cup back from the royal hand. I was flooded with a wave of black hatred for this man. A pair of hulking Flemish crossbowmen flanked the royal seat and a dozen guards stood around the room watching our audience, but I was still mightily tempted to unsheathe Fidelity and hack the bastard’s head from his shoulders, consequences be damned.

‘Yes, yes, Sleaford it is, then, in two days’ time,’ the King was saying. ‘But I will have your head if you are late. Mark me, Locksley. Your head is mine if you are late.’

We were not late in meeting the King and the rest of the army at Sleaford two days later – it was much worse than that. We arrived at the rendezvous on the fourteenth day of October, bedraggled, exhausted and slathered in mud, accompanied by only nine of the twelve wagons in the royal train.

Sleaford was a market town with a small castle and a square enclosure surrounded by deep moats on all sides. It belonged to the Bishop of Lincoln and the function of the castle seemed to be mainly to protect the huge tithe barn that housed the vast quantities of grain collected from the peasants in the bishop’s See. After our arrival with the depleted wagon train, Robin first went to see the senior captain of the King’s guard, a hairy Flemish thug named Wulfram, and after a quiet conversation with this man, Robin, Hugh, Wulfram and I paid a call on the King.

John was abed in the bishop’s chamber in the stone keep, his face blotched
and slack, his eyes large and feverish. The flesh seemed to have melted from his body, leaving him skeletally thin. The air reeked of faeces and old sweat. His illness had clearly grown worse in the two days since our meeting at Walpole; I had heard that he had been unable to ride during the journey and instead had been carried the distance in a covered wagon, halting every half-mile to allow him to ease his gushing bowels.

‘I fear I must give you grave news, Sire,’ said Robin, his face a mask of sorrow. ‘But we have lost the royal treasury to the quicksands of the Wash. It is gone. Swallowed up by the mud. I know this will grieve you even more severely, but I must tell you we have also lost the portable chapel. Fortunately, we managed to salvage the bedding, tapestries and most of the food.’