The King’s Assassin (36 page)

There were other refugees in Calais from the disaster at Bouvines, a handful of Flemish knights, one or two English men-at-arms who had run from the final massacre of the spear-circle, but not many. The Germans, of course, had headed north with their fleeing Emperor and we saw neither hide nor hair of them again.

The mood among those who had lived through the battle was sour: some blamed Otto for running, others said that it was Ferrand of Flanders’ fault for recklessly attacking before the rest of the army was ready. Some men even blamed Salisbury and Boulogne for failing to come to the aid of the Germans when King Philip made his general attack on the eagle-dragon standard in the centre of our lines.

I was sharing a jug of wine and a loaf of sweet manchet bread with Robin and Thomas on the third night after our arrival at Calais – it had taken us three days to find a suitable ship and we were due to depart the next day – and I asked my lord why he thought we’d been so thoroughly beaten at Bouvines.

‘There are always a thousand factors that decide the outcome of a battle: the weather, the morale of the two sides, whether the ground favours cavalry or footmen, what was in the men’s bellies the night before battle was joined – strong wine, rich meats, or nothing at all – the sun shining in your eyes, the success of this attack or that one, a noble defence here, an act of cowardice there. But, in this case, I think that there was one overriding reason why we were beaten. It was a failure of command.’

I frowned. ‘Salisbury was not such a bad commander,’ I said.

‘He was adequate,’ Robin agreed. ‘But he was not in command of the whole army. No one was. Otto claimed it, but he never had the whole army in his hands, just his own Germans; Ferrand answered to nobody and did as he pleased; Salisbury and Boulogne resented Otto’s usurpation of command and refused to help him in his hour of need. Philip was able to fight three separate engagements, three battles, in effect, against three separate foes and win them all one by one. That is the true reason why we lost. If we had had a good overall commander, well…’

Robin raised his wine cup to me. ‘I should have listened to you, Alan. The honest truth is that we should never have fought that battle – at Bouvines or anywhere else. Philip was too strong for us.’

‘I blame King John,’ said Sir Thomas. I looked at him, a little surprised. For Thomas rarely spoke in company; he was, except in matters of war, a shy man.

He looked outlandish anyway that night, quite ridiculous. The first night we had arrived in Calais most of the men-at-arms had immediately sought out wine and ale and had quickly drunk themselves into a squalid state; indeed, Robin and I had had more than a few jugs of wine, toasting our dead friend Little John, and recalling his exploits with joy, laughter and more than a few tears. But Thomas had not joined us. He had disappeared at sundown and returned at dawn, naked and with only a filthy pair of braies wrapped around his loins. As was his practice after combat, he had found a knucklebones game in one of the dives by the harbour and this time had managed to lose everything he owned – his sword, his armour, even the clothes on his back. He came to Robin and me as we were breaking our fast, my lord and I both bleary and hungover, and confessed his foolishness.

Robin had merely laughed, but I was angry. I had dared to dream, when I found out that he was gone gaming, that he would return, like the last time, with a fortune that I could use to placate the sheriff of Nottinghamshire and his monstrous servant.

‘I did think of Robert when I was at the bones,’ Thomas had said to me earlier. ‘I was three marks up at one point and I would have stopped and given all to you. But some malign devil made me throw one last time, and then again, and in the end, well, you see my situation now…’

Thomas was dressed in a garish assortment of ill-fitting rags. An oversized once-white chemise, now stained a pinkish hue, covered his torso, topped with a very short threadbare cloak of greyish-yellow wool. His hose were grey, too, but so baggy and creased from repeated washing that his legs looked like those of that fabled African beast, the oliphant. His belt was a length of rope and his shoes were crude clogs – lumps of wood hollowed out to make a space for the feet. Robin had organised a collection of spare clothing from the men and had even bought Thomas a new sword from a Flemish knight who had decided to enter a monastery and would have no further need of it.

‘You blame John? How so?’ asked Robin that night, looking at Thomas. ‘The King was not even present at the battle.’

‘He was there in spirit – and in blood,’ said the knight. ‘It was his army; he paid for it, his silver called it into being; his brother Salisbury and his nephew the Emperor commanded the majority of it, and the other nobles were all in his pay. It was John’s army and so he is to blame for the failure of our arms.’

It was quite a lengthy speech for Thomas. But I could see he passionately believed what he was saying. Moreover, he had not finished. ‘If King John had commanded the army of the north, we might have won. All the knights there were beholden to him and honour-bound to follow his orders. There would have been a single commander, not three factions. He was not there, so he must take the blame. Also, his plan was to divide Philip’s strength. He failed at that. He did not engage Philip’s knights at Roche-au-Moine, he retreated—’

‘Hold on,’ said Robin. ‘Be fair to the wretched man. His Poitevin barons turned tail and ran. Half his fighting men abandoned him.’

‘And why did they do that?’ asked Thomas, only to answer the question himself. ‘Because they do not trust him. They do not love him, nor have they confidence in his ability as a commander. Why? Because they know him.’

There was a short silence after Thomas’s words. I agreed with everything the man had said. It was Normandy all over again. The Poitevin barons had distrusted John, and with good reason; so they had refused him their support; indeed, they had joined the enemy. These barons were no doubt already preparing their embassies to King Philip, offering to do homage in exchange for forgiveness for their disloyalty and the right to keep their lands.

‘He’s right, Robin,’ I said. ‘The blame for the debacle at Bouvines, for everything – for the sacrifice of Little John, even, lies at the King’s door.’

Robin looked at the two of us. He sighed.

‘I know,’ he said heavily. ‘He is to blame – and all across England men will be having this same conversation. The King has gambled and lost – once more. He has taxed England, and taxed her again until she was bled white, and he has thrown the money away on this attempt to win back his lands. He has lost. And they will make him pay for it in England.’

‘He deserves to pay,’ said Thomas.

‘So you, like Alan here, would kill him? You would murder the King?’

Sir Thomas said evenly: ‘If I had known at the time that Sir Alan was making an attempt on the King’s life, I would have helped him solely out of friendship. But I did not know and I did nothing. If another attempt was made I should give him all my aid, I’d give all my strength to the task, but this time out of conviction. John is not fit to be King. He should not rule our land in the way that he has done until now – with rapacious greed and no concern for justice or the rights of a free man. Imprisoning a baron here, stealing a knight’s property there, selling his royal favour like a whore. John is no rightful ruler.’

‘That is not the answer,’ said Robin. His silver eyes were sparkling in the candlelight and he seemed gripped by a strange and powerful passion. ‘Murder is never the answer, my friends. I might not have understood that in my youth, but I know it now. We must seek to curb the King, to make him subject to our will, to the law of the land. We shall have justice for all – from the King to the meanest commoner, I swear it. I mean to make England a country fit for my sons to live and prosper in. They and their sons shall live in a land free from fear of the King’s wrath, free from the whims of greedy sheriffs, free to choose what they will make of their lives. And this, my friends, is how we shall do it…’

My lord began to speak.

We returned to Dover the next day, a day and a night of sailing, though the weather was as vile as the Devil could make it. After disembarking, sore and sick, we rested one night at the priory and began the long march north the next day. The stop in Calais while we had waited for the ship had done our men a power of good. They were rested and mostly recovered from the battle – although many of those with wounds we left in the care of the monks of the priory at Dover. Those men with very serious wounds had all died either in Calais or on the march from Bouvines. Some, those whose pain was very bad, and who requested it, had had a little help in their onward journey from Robin and me. This sad but merciful task had normally been the province of Little John and we felt his absence then like a dark hole in our lives.

I arrived at Westbury with a handful of my surviving men, weary to the bone and with a heart as heavy as lead. Robin carried straight on to Kirkton with his sons and I felt even more bereft by their absence, but Sir Thomas elected to stay at Westbury and keep me company for a more few days. That was kind of him, but the paramount emotion in my heart was not loneliness but fear. It was two days past Lammas-tide and I had nothing, not even a shilling, with which to pay the sheriff.

Baldwin greeted us at the gates and swiftly organised hot baths, clean clothes and plentiful food for Thomas and my men. It was good to be home, but the place seemed strangely empty without Robert’s presence.

‘What news, Baldwin?’ I asked my steward after we had unloaded our gear and I had washed the dust of the road from my throat with a cup of well-watered wine.

‘Ill news, sir,’ said Baldwin. I saw that he looked to have aged a good deal in the few weeks we had been away. His hair was completely white now. ‘The sheriff’s well-built deputy, that Benedict fellow, came to the gates the other day with a dozen men. I would not let him in, as you instructed me, sir, but he did not seem to mind too much. He shouted up to me that it was Lammas and asked me where you were.’

I nodded. It was to be expected.

‘I told him your whereabouts were none of his business – I hope I did right, sir.’

I said he had done exactly the right thing. But there was something odd about his mien, something sly and shameful. He would not look me in the eye.

‘What else, Baldwin? Come on man, spit it out.’

‘He asked me to give you a message, sir.’

‘And, what is it?’

‘He said: “Tell Sir Alan that I am building a gallows.”’

I rode to Nottingham Castle the next day with only Thomas for company. I was going to parley with the sheriff. I had a proposition to put to him.

I rode through the town of Nottingham and stopped my horse about three hundred yards away from the gatehouse of the Outer Bailey of the castle, outside a tavern I knew, just out of bowshot from the castle walls, and sent Thomas forward.

I stood by my horse sipping a cup of ale and watched Thomas ride to the gatehouse with a feeling of looming dread. If they accepted my proposition, I was most likely doomed. If they did not, my son Robert was. For the arrangement I offered the sheriff was as simple as it could be: my life for my son’s. I would surrender my person until the money could be raised in exchange for Robert’s liberty.

I waited an age – several hours, it seemed – while Thomas spoke with the gatekeeper and someone was dispatched to take the message to the sheriff. And as I waited, drinking another cup of ale and munching bread and onions, I thought about the sweetness of life and its brevity. But one thought was uppermost in my mind. I clung to it like a drowning man to a tree branch. Whatever happened to me, by my actions this day, Robert would live to grow into a man.

Sir Thomas returned eventually, he looked tired and very sad.

‘It is agreed,’ he said. ‘Philip Marc is away – he’s at Oxford now with the King. But Benedict Malet accepts your proposal on his behalf. We will do the exchange outside the gatehouse. You for the boy, and you must be unarmed. So if you truly want to do this you’d better give me your sword now and that misericorde up your sleeve. They will search you. I will give them to Robert.’

As I walked my horse slowly to the gatehouse, I said to Sir Thomas: ‘You will do what I asked – to Malet?’

‘If they murder you, he’s a dead man, the sheriff, too, just as soon as I have my chance,’ said my friend. ‘Rest easy on that score. God go with you, Sir Alan – I pray that we shall meet again on earth – or in Heaven.’

I had only the briefest moment with Robert in the shadow of the gatehouse, time for one fierce hug, while Robert sobbed and begged me not to leave him again.

Robert was now nearly as tall as me, I noticed as I held his thin body to mine. He must be twelve years old, I reflected, nearly a man – and I knew that Robin and Sir Thomas would ward him, and keep him from harm until he was strong enough to fend for himself. They would probably do a better job than I would. And that thought gave me the courage to walk through the open door of the gatehouse.

To my doom.

I was left in the same cell that Robert had inhabited in the very bowels of Nottingham castle – which seemed fitting. I was quite literally taking his place. But whereas Robert had been allowed the freedom of his limbs and given candles for light. I was shackled by the prison guard, wrists chained to ankles, stripped to my braies and chemise, and left in the dark. However, I waited for only an hour or so before Sir Benedict Malet came to visit me with a lantern and a greedy smile. That did not surprise me – for he was not the type to forgo the pleasure of gloating over my downfall. What did surprise me was that he brought a companion with him: a tall man in a long white cloak with his head shaved in the tonsure. It was a Templar.

Benedict’s first act when he entered the cell with his guest was to kick me several times. I twisted my body to spare my wounded back but caught most of the blows on my ribs. And, mercifully, Benedict quickly became out of breath from his exertions and stopped.