The King’s Assassin (22 page)

‘Because,’ said my lord slowly, ‘among other things, that was the price demanded by the King for your freedom.’

I was speechless.

‘So you, my old friend, had better rest and eat and get back your full strength. We have another war to fight in the spring.’

I did not become stronger that winter. I became more and more sickly. Something in that experience of incarceration had got hold of my soul and seemed determined to drag me down into the pit. Perhaps the Devil felt that I owed him a soul because I had escaped certain death in that dank cell. In any case, when Robin, Little John and the Sherwood men left Wallingford Castle two days later they had to bear me in a covered cart pulled by two horses. Beside me on the bed of the cart, as I shivered and coughed and slipped off for hours at a time into a hellish delirium, lay my weapons, my sword Fidelity and the misericorde that King John’s men had taken from me. Quite how Robin had recovered them from King John, I never discovered – perhaps they had merely agreed that I would need them in Flanders – but I was grateful that my lord had been so thoughtful. As well as my personal weapons, I lay beside a bundle of long oak staves with sharp and curious iron attachments at both ends: the fruits of Little John’s noisy work in the forge.

Before we left, as I lay coughing on a bed of straw, Little John demonstrated his new poleaxe: the inch-thick oak staff was eight foot long, two foot taller than I, and at the top was socketed a one-foot spear blade. Below the spear part was welded a single axe blade on one side and a curving hook on the other. At the other end was a sharp iron butt-spike.

‘This is the perfect weapon for the foot soldier,’ Little John told me. ‘And I have your boy Robert to thank for the idea. Do you remember when he suggested some sort of hook to pull a knight off his horse? Well, with a few modifications, this is the result of his thinking. It is very cheap to make, simple to keep and use, and is devastating against enemy cavalry…’

The big man demonstrated that the poleaxe could be used as an ordinary quarterstaff, blocking sword blows, keeping the enemy at bay, and striking with enough force to brain a man; then he demonstrated how it could be used as a spear – both ends being sharp enough to punch through mail; and then, after leaping about the forge with the poleaxe, whirling the weapon about his body, he showed me how it could be used as an axe, cutting at a man eight feet away, say a French knight.

‘This is the part that Robert can take credit for,’ said Little John. ‘The hook!’ He mimed gaffing a knight’s mail with the hook behind the axe-head and hauling him down from the back of his mount before dispatching him with the butt-spike.

I’ll admit I was impressed. Footmen hate cavalry and are most often terrified of them. An armoured man high up on the back of a horse is frequently out of reach of the man on the earth and can rain down blows that are very difficult to answer. But once a knight was pulled down to the ground in the thick of battle he was easy meat for even poorly armed infantry to engulf and destroy.

‘When you are back on your feet, Alan,’ said John, bringing me a bowl of hot leek soup and a cup of wine, and tucking the blankets in around my wasted body, ‘I’ll give you a few lessons. You’ll get the hang of it in no time.’

It was nearly the end of November when we left, a season of wet and cold, a bad season to be travelling, for the roads had quickly become quagmires in the autumn rains and the wheels of the cart that carried me became stuck in holes and ruts at least three or four times a day and had to be lifted out by strong backs. I discovered from Robin that I had been in that starvation cell for seventeen days. That might not seem so much, a little over two weeks, but the toll on my body had been enormous. Despite several days of care and hot food, I was as frail as I had ever been, my arms and legs like sticks, the skin falling in loose folds over my belly, I had lost much of my hair and several teeth. But it was the damage to my insides that I feared the most. Something evil had got into my lungs and I often seemed to be drowning in phlegm. My chest hurt and I found myself panting like a hound. When I was not in the fever-lands of the dark night, I coughed almost continuously.

Robin, Little John and the Sherwood bowmen left me at Westbury, with Baldwin fussing about me, but I don’t remember much of our parting. My lord was returning to Kirkton to begin planning the spring campaign and to start raising and training troops for the expedition. Hugh said that he was happy to remain at Westbury until I was fully recovered, and he and Sir Thomas had plainly been working hard on the training of my men.

Robert was pleased to see me but dismayed to find me so weak and ill. So I forced myself to get out of bed to watch a demonstration of his prowess in the courtyard. He and Sir Thomas Blood went at it with sword and shield, around and around, and while I could see that there had been considerable improvement, I could also see that he was still far from a warrior. I applauded him lavishly nonetheless and the boy seemed pleased to have gained my admiration.

Robert asked if I would care to go hunting hares with him and his favourite hound – a long, lean, wire-haired black lurcher bitch – but I declined and asked Hugh to take the boy out in my stead. Merely sitting on a stool and watching his swordplay for an hour had exhausted me. I slept for a whole day and a night afterwards.

At the beginning of December, a letter arrived from Lord Fitzwalter. I read it alone in my chamber by the light of a brazier. It began with the usual flowery greeting, and some compliments about my courage and a hope that my health and strength were recovering. And then it said: ‘It grieves me to tell you, my friend, that you were betrayed in the matter that took place at St Paul’s. We have discovered a spy amongst Lord de Vesci’s men-at-arms who is in the pay of the King.’

None of this surprised me. I had known since my capture and incarceration that I had been betrayed. And at Wallingford the King had admitted that he had spies in de Vesci’s castle. The letter continued: ‘The wretch is even now screaming under the knives of de Vesci’s gaolers and we will have the whole truth out of him. But you may assure yourself that he is guilty. We caught him listening at the door of de Vesci’s chamber and found a sack of the King’s silver under his pallet. Your sufferings will be avenged, my friend, and I hope that will be a comfort to you.’

In fact, despite what he had done to me, a part of me shuddered to think of the poor man on the rack in some godforsaken dungeon in the bowels of Alnwick Castle. I hoped his end would be swift.

Fitzwalter concluded his letter with an invitation to come to Alnwick again as soon as I felt stronger so that I could be suitably rewarded for my pains and to discuss our future plans for the good of the kingdom.

‘By God,’ I actually said out loud. ‘He means to have me try again!’

I screwed the letter into a ball and hurled it into the brazier. I had no intention of ever having anything to do with Fitzwalter and de Vesci and their plots again. Neither did I bother even to reply to his invitation.

A couple of weeks later, and with my lungs no better, I roused myself again for the Christmas festivities. It was a wet feast, and somewhat subdued. The rain had been falling for weeks by the day of Our Saviour’s nativity, and I had hardly the strength to preside at the long table in the hall sipping watered wine while my household and the tenants from the village of Westbury made merry, singing the traditional songs and playing the old games while gorging on roast goose and smoked ham and drinking themselves insensible on vats of strong Christmas ale.

In January the snows came and blanketed the countryside, making it as pristine as a freshly laundered nun’s habit. And still I languished, coughing weakly, sleeping for most of the day and night, eating little, sweating pints despite the winter cold.

I was dying. I was sure of it. And red anger burned in my breast at the knowledge. Had I survived the horror of the cell in Brien’s Close only to cough myself into the grave at home in Westbury? I would not allow that to happen. This would not be the way I would meet my Maker. I was determined to will myself better.

I forced myself to rise each day at dawn. I took a large cup of wine with breakfast and forced down meat and bread, though I had no desire for it at all. Indeed, I would often vomit it back up again a few moments later. But I persisted. I walked the courtyard swathed in furs, and on one occasion tried rather ineffectually to swing the poleaxe that Little John had left for me. I was quickly exhausted and, trembling with fatigue, I ordered hot broth for dinner that noon with raw eggs beaten into it.

Baldwin’s sister Alice was an invaluable nursemaid to me at this time. She brought me strengthening possets of herbs, oats and wine of her own devising. She wiped the night sweat from my body and changed the stained linen sheets of the bed. She sat with me for hours as I raved and saw visions, and when I was lucid, told me of the doings of the manor and the gossip of the village. But, comforting as it was, it was not her womanly presence that I craved. I had another woman in my mind, and I could not shake the image of her from before my eyes. I wanted Tilda.

In March, when the weather was milder and a weak sun had at last emerged from behind the iron wall of clouds, I determined to act. I rose, dressed warmly, strapped Fidelity to my waist and my misericorde on my left arm and ordered a horse to be saddled for me. As Hugh, Baldwin and Alice looked on, full of anguished concern, and with a pair of young, strong Westbury men-at-arms for company and protection, I rode out of the gates of the compound and set out north on the road to Kirklees Priory.

It was a foolish thing to do. By mid-morning on the first day I was so weak that I nearly slipped from the back of my horse. My two men had to ride on either side of me with a hand ready to steady me in the saddle. I had told Baldwin and Hugh, as my reason for the journey, that I had heard good things said of the healing powers of the nuns of Kirklees and particularly the prioress Anna, and I told them that I was certain that I could only recover from my long illness at her hands.

The truth was that I wanted to see Tilda. But that journey in the brisk March wind nearly did for me. Not that I remember it all that well. I slipped in and out of consciousness for three days on horseback – for we travelled almost as slowly as men on foot – and by the time we reached the mill at the furthest part of the Kirklees lands I was tied to my horse, sagging in the saddle and three parts lost to the world.

The next I knew I was in a small cot in a bright room with linen sheets and blankets over my body, and a pretty nun, a stranger, was sitting beside the bed. Seeing me awake, she gave a squeak of surprise and rushed away to fetch a superior.

I looked about me. It was a clean, whitewashed room with a large crucifix on the wall opposite my bed. I lifted my head and felt – strange. I was weak, yes, and still thin as a weed. But the pains in my chest had gone. I gave an experimental cough and hacked a big ball of yellow-brown phlegm into the earthenware bowl beside the bed. I could hardly believe it. I felt – better. It was surely a miracle, a blessed miracle. I said a quick prayer of thanks to the carved figure of Our Lord in his Passion on the wall opposite. Then Prioress Anna was standing beside my bed, giving me a grim smile and putting a hand on my brow to feel for heat.

‘We are very pleased with you, Sir Alan. By the grace of Our Lord and the skill of my nuns, I think we have got the better of your illness. How do you feel?’

I sat up fully in the bed. Apart from a slight dizziness, I felt wonderfully well.

‘How long have I been here, Mother? I said.

‘You came here a little over two weeks ago, Sir Alan, and you were, I would say, about a slender half-inch away from death. But the sisters and I have worked night and day physicking you with infusions and purges and … well, here you are, and we are all pleased with your recovery. I was sure, at one point, that you would be gathered unto God. Absolutely certain. But you have a great healing strength in you, sir. I congratulate you on it.’

‘I can only say, from the bottom of my heart, that I thank you, Mother Anna. I would like to thank Tilda, too, if I might.’

The prioress frowned at me. ‘Tilda? Our Matilda? The sub-prioress is not here. She had been in Canterbury at a convocation with the archbishop. She is representing our house – I am far too busy to travel to these silly affairs. She will be returning soon, though, I devoutly hope and pray. Now you must rest yourself and in a little while I will ask the sisters to bring you some barley gruel.’

I was somewhat deflated to discover that Tilda was away and had had nothing to do with my cure, but I was pleased to hear that she was doing well in her vocation and had been entrusted with such an important task. And the joy in finding myself alive and nearly well was an ample compensation. I drank cold spring water and ate with pleasure for the first time in months. I attended Vespers in the priory church and gave thanks to God, once again, for my recovery. The next day I ventured out of the infirmary and walked for an hour in the famous herb garden. Two days after that I even took my horse out for a short canter over the priory lands.

There was still no sign of Tilda and I began to think of returning to Westbury. I was stronger and while I knew the journey would be tiring I believed I was fit enough to endure it. So I gathered up my clothes and weapons, and tracked down my two men-at-arms. They had been enjoying the company of the young nuns a little too much, as far as I could see, for there was a good deal of whispering, giggling and sighing from the circle of novices around them when I found them at last in the chapter house and told them they must take their leave. Rather sulkily they agreed to return with me to Westbury.

We saddled the horses and said our goodbyes to the prioress and the sisters. Just as I was thanking the lady for the kindness she had shown me, and about to mount my horse, a party of a dozen riders cantered into the courtyard, and there, a little travel-stained and flushed, and yet just as radiant as ever, was the woman whose angelic face I had spent so many hours contemplating.