The Death of Robin Hood (7 page)

I shook my head. ‘Perhaps one day, your grace,’ I said. ‘Perhaps one day.’

Our talk naturally turned to the war between the barons and the King. The abbot had strong opinions but he adamantly refused to take sides in John’s dispute with his rebellious noblemen. Each, he insisted, was as bad as the other.

‘I am a man who serves God,’ he said. ‘Although I believe I am loyal to England as well. I would not help to put another man on the throne.’

‘If you
are worrying that Lord Fitzwalter seeks the crown, I can assure you I and many other men would prevent that from happening. All we ask is that the King respects and abides by the charter to which he has already agreed and set his seal.’

‘I do not fear Fitzwalter’s ambitions, prodigious though they undoubtedly are. It’s the French I fear.’

‘The French?’ I said, surprised. ‘What have they to do with England?’

‘You have not heard?’

I shook my head.

‘There is some talk that the rebels are seeking arms and men from the French – perhaps even a small army.’

‘What of it?’ I said.

‘I fear that a French army might seek a suitable recompense for their aid – the throne of England, perhaps.’

I laughed out loud. The notion was absurd. ‘My lord Fitzwalter proudly calls himself an English patriot. He would not offer the crown to Philip of France, even if he had it within his gift. No Englishman would – all men, rebel and royalist alike, would take up arms to repel the common enemy.’

‘Can you be so sure?’ the abbot said.

‘I’m certain. Fitzwalter would not do it. And my lord of Locksley would never allow a French tyrant to rule here. Never. And, for that matter, neither would I.’

‘Perhaps it is only idle talk, Sir Alan,’ said the abbot soothingly, ‘mere dairy maids’ gossip. Have a little more wine and tell me about your family and your manor – you reside at Westbury, did you not say? Tell me about it.’

‘Thank you but no, your grace. I must be away to bed,’ I said. ‘I am grateful for your hospitality, your prayers and for succouring the people of Rochester in their hour of need, but duty dictates that I ride to London at first light to speak with Lord Fitzwalter.’

*  *  *

Although the
walls of London were well manned by disciplined troops, as I clattered over the bridge and rode into the filthy narrow streets of the city, I sensed an air of revelry, wild gaiety, almost outright debauchery everywhere. Many of the citizens I passed appeared to be drunk; others were sleeping in the streets, sprawled like dead men. Slatternly women, lips painted carmine, their abundant breasts spilling out of their chemises, called to me from the upper storeys of the houses, inviting me to spend time with them. Gangs of purple-faced men at the street corners roared and jostled and swilled from wine flasks and tankards. It might have been the aftermath of a great victory, as if we had already triumphed over the enemy – or the opposite, that disaster had fallen, all hope lost and the desperate folk were snatching a few moments of pleasure before perdition.

Cass had pleaded with me the night before to allow him to visit his family home not far from the south coast of Kent. He had heard from one of the Boxley monks that his father was sick, and did not know if he would live long. I allowed him to go, but I gave him instructions to join me in London as soon as he could and, if I had already left with the relief force when he arrived, to make his way back to Rochester. I was grateful to the youngster for his fine shooting in the sheep pastures – he had probably saved my life and the lives of many of the townsfolk – and felt he was more than owed a little time off duty to bring order to his family affairs.

Lord Fitzwalter was to be found in the great hall of the Tower of London. I made my way there and was announced by a herald at the vast double doors. Upon seeing my face, Fitzwalter gave me a friendly, long-armed wave from the centre of a throng of knights, priests and merchants, a dozen yards away. Then a servant quietly told me that his lordship was extremely busy at present and asked with exquisite politeness whether I would prefer to wait for what might be some little while or return the next day. I elected to
wait and was shown to a bench by a window, served a cup of wine and told to possess my soul with patience.

I was not the only one waiting for a chance to speak to the great man. There was a young dark-haired fellow, evidently a man of wealth, dressed entirely from top to toe in cream-coloured velvet and silk embroidered with silver stitching. Even his shoes were pure white kidskin. The man was playing with a tiny tortoiseshell kitten in his lap, teasing it with a long white feather, tickling its pink nose and jerking the feather out of the way when the little bundle swiped at it with its miniature claws. He looked up as I sat on the bench a few feet from him, and smiled. His long, lean face was bloodless, white as a lily, and with the same soft yet dense waxy texture as the petals of the flower, as if it had never once seen the light of the sun. His eyes were pale blue, and brilliant, but lacking humour or warmth. They did, however, display a keen curiosity and intelligence. Overall, he seemed to project the impression that he was somehow less – but also more – than completely human: indeed, he had a rather ethereal, angelic quality that was most disturbing, as if his soul were superior in every way to an ordinary mortal’s. The friendly smile he offered did nothing to change the blank expression in his chilly blue eyes.

‘God’s blessings on you, sir,’ he murmured in French. This, in itself, was not that significant: many, indeed most members of the English nobility in those years spoke to each other in French. But his accent was strange. It was not the jocular, barrack-room, no-nonsense Norman French spoken by the turbulent knights of England, his silky accent and precise intonation came straight from the perfumed courts of France. Indeed, his voice carried more than a whiff of the great city of Paris itself.

‘Sir Alan Dale, knight of Westbury, at your service,’ I said in the same language, taking care over my pronunciation and trying, perhaps not very successfully, to echo his sophisticated Parisian style.

‘Thomas, Comte
du Perche, minister to His Royal Highness King Philip Augustus, at yours,’ he said, then extinguished his smile and resumed playing with the kitten, driving it to a tiny frenzy with the feather tip.

So, he was an ambassador from Paris and Fitzwalter
was
either in talks with or contemplating talks with the French about military aid. Well, after what Abbot Boxley had said, it was only to be expected. And, God knew, a few score well-trained, well-armed French knights on our side would be most welcome in the struggle against the King and his legions of brutal Flemish mercenaries.

I looked at the man under my brows. He did not look like much of a fighting man. He was too slim in the shoulder and chest. And his long, pale hands were unscarred – most unusual in a man who wielded a blade with any degree of regularity. My own two fists were criss-crossed with old yellow and white cicatrices, purple lumps and bumps and even a few fresh scabs.

I was contemplating the Frenchman, discreetly assessing him, when he looked up at me suddenly. ‘Did you say Dale – or D’Alle?’ he asked, his eyes boring into me like beams of blue sunlight.

I was thrown momentarily and began to mumble something about the name being originally French until my father had made it an English name.

He said nothing at all for a good three heartbeats, he just stared at me, appraising me as I had him, and then to my utter surprise he gave a harsh seabird-like cry and looked down at his lap. The top of his thumb on his right hand had a long red scratch in the waxy white skin and a bead of scarlet was welling. The exasperated kitten had clearly become a little too exercised by the Comte’s cruel game with the feather and had carelessly scratched its human tormentor.

‘Oh,
ma petite
, so you wish to play for real?’ murmured the Comte. He grasped the cat’s left forepaw in both his long white hands and
with a single wrench snapped the limb, breaking the delicate bones as easily as if they were those of a roasted chicken.

The kitten screamed. The lower half of the tiny leg was now bent at an extreme, grotesque angle to the rest of the limb.

‘You, sir,’ I said, my gut suddenly filled with a boiling rage. ‘What in God’s name do you think you are playing at?’ I was standing, hand on hilt, and I believe I might well have drawn steel and struck the French ambassador down if a black-garbed servant had not been drawn over by the animal’s pitiable cries.

‘I fear I may have broken your little pussycat,’ said the Comte in English, handing the yowling, struggling animal into the astonished hands of the servant. ‘Be so good as to have it taken away and given physic, knocked on the head, whatever you think right …’

I was a hair away from assaulting this French fellow when I saw that Lord Fitzwalter was at my side. He stared at the mangled kitten, still struggling and wailing in the gently cupped hands of the servant, who now bore it away.

‘My dear Comte du Perche,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘I regret it extremely but I fear I will not have time to indulge in the pleasure of a private conversation with you this day. If you would be so good as to return tomorrow morning, I am sure my fellow knights of the Army of God and I would be more than delighted to receive you. A thousand apologies, of course, but as you can see I am quite overwhelmed at present.’

The Comte had risen to his feet the moment he saw Fitzwalter, and his white and silver clothing seemed to flash like the sun in the dim light of the hall. He bowed low at the captain-general’s words and said in French: ‘Of course, my dear sir, whenever it suits you. I shall be most delighted to engage with you tomorrow morning, if that is more convenient. I can see that you already have a vast number of grave affairs to vex you.’

The Comte’s
words were as smooth as his accent, but I did detect a faint flush of pink on his lily-white cheeks, for there could be no mistaking Fitzwalter’s rudeness in refusing to speak to the envoy. He had been made to wait for some time for an audience and then been summarily dismissed without it as if he were an insignificant churl rather than the highly bred emissary of one of the most powerful monarchs in Christendom.

‘You are most gracious,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘Tomorrow it shall be, then.’

The Comte bowed again, nodded to me and, whistling to a pair of servants in a similar bright livery to his own, he stalked away, pushing through the crowds towards the big double doors.

‘I do not like that fellow,’ said Fitzwalter quietly in my ear. ‘I do not like him at all. Quite apart from his disgusting casual brutality, there is something very odd, almost uncanny about him, don’t you find?’

Fitzwalter’s breath, so close to my cheek, reeked of wine. As I looked at the man, I saw that his square face was flushed with drink, although it was not yet noon. He looked strained and exhausted, too, with bags under each eye.

‘He comes with promises of aid from King Philip?’ I said.

‘Empty promises most likely. And after that disgusting display with the kitten, I am inclined to send him straight back to Paris without giving him a moment of my time. But enough of him. What news of Rochester, Sir Alan?’ he said. ‘The castle cannot have fallen already. Why are you here? Have you deserted your post?’

I bristled at the implication. ‘I have not,’ I said. ‘I come at the command of William d’Aubigny, with a personal message for you.’

‘Very well,’ said Fitzwalter, and he waved over a servant with a wine jug and sat on the bench. When we had both been served with brimming cups of red wine, had sipped and pledged each other’s health, he asked me to deliver my message.

‘King John
has come to Rochester in great force – with at least two and maybe as many as three thousand men.’

‘This is as we expected,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘Continue.’

‘They will have almost certainly taken the town by now and I expect they are besetting the castle walls. With such numbers, it cannot be long before Rochester Castle falls. D’Aubigny is well prepared to withstand them but he urges you to come with all speed, with as much strength as you can muster to its relief. Time is of the essence. You must ride to the relief of Rochester as soon as you possibly can.’

‘When last I looked,’ said Fitzwalter, draining his goblet and setting it on the window ledge, ‘I was in command of the Army of God, not d’Aubigny, nor your master Locksley. I – and I alone – will decide what we do and when.’

I was taken aback. ‘I meant no disrespect, my lord, but each day will cost us dearly in the blood of good men. The sooner we can come to their relief the better.’

‘Rochester is a mighty bastion,’ he said. ‘If d’Aubigny cannot hold for a day or two without me then I don’t know why I entrusted the castle to him in the first place.’

I stared at Fitzwalter. What possible reason could there be for his delay?

He lowered his shoulders and attempted to smile charmingly.

‘You must trust me, Sir Alan,’ he said. ‘I have matters in hand – but we cannot leave London for some days yet. There are important affairs that must be discussed here first, vital concerns that are of greater import than the fate of a single castle.’

I started to protest once more that men were most probably fighting against overwhelming numbers of enemies as we spoke, but Fitzwalter stopped me, almost rudely. ‘We cannot leave London now. That is final.’

Then he smiled again. ‘Take your ease, my dear Alan, have something to eat; another glass or two of wine will take the edge off your
urgency. We will discuss this further tomorrow. Do you have somewhere to stay?’

I said that I would be staying with a friend of my lord’s, a wealthy wine importer who had a huge house at Queen’s Hythe, on the river.

‘Excellent, I know the place well,’ he said, slapping my shoulder. ‘Now that I come to think of it, tomorrow may be a little difficult for me, but no matter – I will send for you when we are ready to ride. Have faith in me, have faith in our cause, Sir Alan, for God is on our side. It may appear that we are in difficulties at present but I promise you that we shall triumph in the end.’