by Angus Donald
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.’
In the event, I spent a full week kicking my heels in the merchant’s house in Queen’s Hythe – my host was absent on business in Bordeaux, I was told, but, as Robin’s honoured representative, a chamber had been prepared for me and my every comfort was, if not anticipated, then swiftly fulfilled by the dozens of richly dressed servants in the house. After three days I sent a page to the Tower with a message for Fitzwalter, reminding him that with every passing day, it was likely the garrison of Rochester was being further weakened. Good men were dying while we did nothing. The return message a full day later, while filled with flowery phrases and flattery, did nothing more than to urge me to have patience.
During that time, I fretted and twitched and paced the courtyard of the house, and in the lonely evenings I made myself free of the extensive cellar of my host. The debauched spirit of London seemed to have contaminated me as well. And I began to understand it a little better. Lond
on had no King, an unnatural and enervating state of affairs. The barons of the Army of God had some temporal power but everyone knew they were not a legitimate authority – and if they were to lose this contest with the King, London would be punished for their sins. The rich merchants would be fined or imprisoned; the poor might well be subjected to the horrors of the sack of the city, if John’s mercenaries were let loose: all the rape, pillage and wanton mayhem that that catastrophe would entail. No wonder so many had been driven to debauchery. I drank deeply, too, to fill the empty hours before bedtime.
However, I did have one valuable meeting towards the end of that week, with a cousin of Robin’s, a fat cleric called Henry Odo.
Henry lived in the Priory of St Mary’s just across the bridge in Southwark, although he seemed to spend most of his days in London, chatting, eating and drinking with his many friends and acquaintances. He was an effusive fellow, a little quick with a compliment, but Robin relied upon him. And there was no better man if you wanted the latest gossip.
How he knew I was in the city, I never discovered, but that was part of his mystery. One afternoon as I was tending to my horse, giving it a thorough rubdown and singing to it softly, I found him at my elbow.
‘Sir Alan,’ he said, ‘what a great joy to see you again.’
I did not know the man very well but as I was somewhat starved for company in Cass’s absence, I greeted him with enthusiasm. I invited him to take supper with me.
Over the evening meal – it was a feast, in truth, for the servants seemed to take great pleasure in providing fine fare and plenty of it – Henry entertained me with scurrilous tales of the doings of the rebel barons in the Tower. The lily-pale French ambassador had whipped a servant to death over some small mistake, Henry told me, and no one knew quite whether he should be censured or the incident overlooked since it was his own man he had killed. That did not surprise me, having seen what he did to a kitten for giving him a tiny scratch. What did surprise me was the news that Fitzwalter had no fewer than three beautiful mistresses and a pretty little Moorish catamite. If that were true, I wondered how he had the time to do anything but rut. No wonder he looked so exhausted.
Henry asked after my lord and the state of the siege at Rochester; when I had told him all I knew, which was precious little, he asked if I would be returning to my lord’s side in the near future.
‘I will if I can ever get Fitzwalter to stir himself,’ I said grumpily.
‘Perhaps you might be kind enough to give Robin a message from me,’ Henry said. ‘My people in York tell me a force is being raised by the King’s loyal men in the north to attack and seize the castles of all the rebel barons and knights in Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Many of them are here in London and their lands are weakly defended. Tell him that no moves have yet been made but that Kirkton Castle was on a list of targets for the King’s wrath.’
My blood ran cold.
‘Is Westbury on that list?’
‘I could not swear to it either way. I have not seen the list. Although, I understand that you have recently built a tower, is that so?’
He really did know everything. I nodded.
‘Then I think it would be safe to assume Westbury will be numbered among the other illegal fortifications. Unlicensed castellation is one of the transgressions that the King is particularly keen to stamp out.’
‘I will deliver your message to Robin,’ I said, ‘but will you do me the same kindness and get a message to my household in Nottinghamshire?’
‘Of course, Sir Alan,’ said this excellent fellow, ‘with the greatest of pleasure.’
‘Tell my son Robert, and my steward Baldwin, to take all the wealth they can lay their hands on, all the livestock and manor people, and decamp to Robin’s castle in Yorkshire. And to go as soon as they can.’
‘I will send my swiftest rider in the morning,’ said Henry.
I was slightly relieved by his promise. The small garrison at Westbury was much depleted, as I had taken most of the men with me to Rochester, and I knew that the few who remained would not be able to hold out for very long against a determined attack by the sheriff’s men. Robert would be much safer under the protection of Robin’s eldest son Hugh at Kirkton and the fifty seasoned men-at-arms he had there.
I went to bed that night almost sober and determined that I would confront Lord Fitzwalter in the morning and force him to ride to the relief of my friends. The sooner I could bring relief to Rochester, the sooner I could ride back to the north and protect my son. I would threaten Fitzwalter’s life if I absolutely had to. I would give him an ultimatum: ride or die. He must sally out to fight King John.
At Rochester.
Chapter Seven
There was no need for dire threats, for when I attended Lord Fitzwalter at the Tower the next morning, the first thing he said to me was: ‘I have done it, Sir Alan, I have triumphed. I have persuaded the barons that we must support William d’Aubigny and the Earl of Locksley with all our strength.’
Having been running over in my mind all the things I was going to say to force him on this very course, I was much taken aback. But I smiled and congratulated Fitzwalter on his success.
‘When do we leave, sir?’ I said.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘St Crispin’s Day. We muster here at dawn. Seven hundred knights and mounted men-at-arms. A sizeable force, I hope you will agree.’
I did. If we had the element of surprise we could fall on King John’s army while it was engaged with the siege and if it could be combined with a massive sortie from the castle, and a slice of good luck, we could indeed crush King John, as d’Aubigny had so neatly put it, like a walnut between two stones.
A force of seven hundred knights and men-at-arms takes a good deal of organising. The horses require fodder and horseshoes, and farriers to fit the shoes; the knights need their servants and baggage carts and mules loaded with piles of food and wine; there are mistresses too (and no doubt Moorish catamites) and their maids, and any number of other women – cooks, seamstresses, washerwomen, whores – for the lesser fighting men. And to my frustration there seemed to be no kind of urgency. Dawn, Fitzwalter had said, but by the time the Army of God had assembled it was nearly noon and by mid-afternoon the lumbering column had reached only as far as the dull, rough scrubland of the Black Heath southeast of the city, less than a third of the distance we had to travel. Here Fitzwalter decided to call a halt for the night, to my exquisite fury. And though I begged him to make a few more miles that day, he calmly told me the column had to stay together, for the forces of William Longsword, the Earl of Salisbury, King John’s loyal half-brother, were lurking somewhere to the south, and the Army of God must not straggle for safety’s sake and therefore travel at the speed of the slowest ox-cart.
I was in a foul mood that night for another reason. I had received a message from Cass – his father was on the point of death and he begged to stay with him in his final days to be with him when he was gathered unto God, to bury him like a Christian, and to deal with certain affairs concerning the manor of Cassingham that Cass would inherit. If it had been another man, I might have suspected him of shirking but having seen him so confident in action I could not imagine that he was craven. So I was alone, among the crowds of the Army of God, the revelling barons and their shiny whores. I ate a solitary supper, wrapped myself in my cloak and went to sleep under a thorn tree in a short but drenching shower of rain.
We made better progress the next day, reaching the manor of Dartford and a crossing of the River Darent about three miles south of the Thames. We camped again that night and I brought myself to Fitzwalter’s tent at sundown, hoping once more to spur the commander of the Army of God to greater speed. I had been away from Rochester for nearly two weeks and, for all I knew, the castle might have fallen and all my friends might be dead or captured. With the end of October in sight, winter and the close of the campaigning season was upon us. Already the road we travelled, Watling Street, built b
y those ancient engineers from Rome, was becoming hardly more than a boggy mire in the places where the big flat stones had been stolen, a serious obstacle for the awkward ox-carts, even the handcarts, to negotiate.
Fitzwalter’s tent was crowded with knights and barons, a dozen big men in mail and bright flowing cloaks. As I pushed in among them, I saw they were all surrounding and listening intently to a mud-splattered, rake-thin man in a raggedy, much-patched cloak, who seemed to be rather skittish in such exalted company.
‘… as far as the eye can see, my lords. I do not exaggerate. I … I … I swear it on the Virgin. The road to Dover is humming with men, a dozen companies of at least a hundred footmen each, I saw. And horsemen, too. I saw some five conrois of fine knights pass my hiding place in a span of half a day, foreigners by their speech.’
‘And these had not yet reached Rochester?’ said a bull-necked knight, who tugged nervously at his blond beard.
‘The first troops were a dozen miles from the town, at the manor of Sidyingbourne, your lordship, yet they were spurring onwards in terrible haste.’
‘I think we have heard enough,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘My thanks, Guilliam, the cooks are by the horse lines, they will find you something to eat. Here!’ He tossed a small purse to the muddy wretch, who seized it in the air and slithered through the throng and out of the tent.
The man’s exit unleashed a storm of conversation, almost every knight talking at once, arguing with his neighbour.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, quiet, please,’ said Fitzwalter. And when a partial hush had fallen: ‘It is quite clear what we must do. It seems the King has been significantly reinforced. We have no hope against these fresh forces combined with the men he already has at Rochester. We must return to London at once.’
The hullabaloo returned with greater force, each man now shouting his opinion.
I shoved my way through to Fitzwalter’s side. ‘You cannot do this, sir,’ I said, and felt my face flushing with anger. ‘You must not do this. The men at Rochester are counting on you coming. My lord of Locksley—’