by Angus Donald
‘You will stand over there and play your instruments quietly,’ she ordered in French, flicking a hand to the side of the room furthest from the roaring fireplace. ‘You will be still – no capering about, no hooting, snorting or making lewd gestures. You will take care not to distract us from our conversations.’
‘Nonsense, Mother, I want to hear them. I invited them to play for my pleasure not to stand silently in a dusty corner. Over here, gentlemen, over here by me, if you please.’
The Prince turned back to his mother: ‘Winkyn says they are quite marvellous. Come closer, good sirs, do not stand on ceremony. Do you need a table? Stools? Some water for your throats? Or perhaps some wine. Hey, Matteus, bring these fellows some of that new Bordeaux, hot, sweet and spiced. And be quick about it.’
‘Winkyn says …’ the Queen sniffed.
That morning we had begged a bucket of hot water from Winkyn and a razor and soap, and while the gaoler looked on unhappily, his hand on the cudgel stuffed into his belt, we took turns to shave each other with that keen blade and to make as best a job of our ablutions as we were able from the bucket and one thin, grey linen towel. The cell door stood open while we three made our toilet, splashing and joking at the novelty of it all, and we saw no sign of Winkyn’s lanky sons – it occurred to me that it was now quite within the power of my strength to overcome the gaoler, cut his throat with the razor and make an escape through the castle, scrambling down an outer wall, stealing horses and riding north for freedom.
‘Don’t get any silly ideas, Alan,’ murmured Robin, who had clearly been looking directly into my mind, as he so often did. ‘Let us see where this royal summons takes us. Don’t do anything hasty, I beg you.’
‘What are you two muttering about?’ said Winkyn, taking a tighter grip on his club and eyeing the long open razor in my right hand. ‘I want more shaving of chins and less wagging of them.’
In the great hall four hours later, with a cup of spiced wine warming my belly and loosening my throat cords, I was glad I had not sliced up the old fellow and made a dash for freedom (he had, after all, dealt fairly with us, even been kind). With an expectant Prince before me and a vielle and bow in my hands, this was a most pleasant change to our circumstances. I felt almost like my old self.
I introduced Sir Thomas and named Robin and his title, and we all bowed low before the Queen and the Prince, and then I tucked the vielle into my elbow, raised the horsehair bow and began to play.
I began with an old favourite, ‘My Joy Summons Me’, which I had written with King Richard many years ago, and it seemed I had made the correct choice. Prince Harry clapped his hands with delight, lightly bouncing up and down on his throne-like chair and beaming at me like the sun in midsummer. We continued with some of the old French lays, stirring but simple works about ancient heroes dying nobly surrounded by a ring of their slain foes. Then we moved on to the love songs, cansos about young knights who loved their lord’s ladies and yet could never have them. We ended the recital with a couple of amusing ditties about animals and their ludicrous adventures. And I had the young Prince actually crying with laughter over ‘The Lusty Fox and the Lady Rabbit’.
It seemed a good note to end on. But when we stopped and made our bows, Prince Harry cried, ‘More, more, give us some more, for pity’s sake!’
I pleaded a sore throat after so much singing, and Henry ordered more wine, a jug of ale, too, some sweetmeats and an almond cake to sustain us.
While we waited for the food and drink, he questioned us about our homes and families and the battles in which we had fought, and when the servants appeared and we were filling our bellies with his cake and wine, he turned to the Queen and said, ‘You see, Mother, these men are not murderous devils, not at all; they are good fellows who have only had the misfortune to fall prisoner in battle.’
‘They are traitors and rebels,’ snapped Isabella. ‘If your father could see you mollycoddling them like this, he would order you beaten black and blue.’
‘Father is in the north,’ said Henry a little sulkily, ‘beating King Alexander’s Scots black and blue, I have no doubt. But come, Mother, if they have been rebels against their rightful King in the past, I am sure they are heartily sorry for it now.’
‘That is quite true,’ said Robin sadly. ‘We have been shown the error of our ways these past few weeks. Now, we seek only to make amends for our sins.’
Isabella glared at him. ‘You will open your mouth only to make your vulgar music for my son,’ she said. To my surprise, Robin bowed meekly and said nothing.
We played and sang for another hour before the Prince allowed us to return to the dungeon beneath his feet, where we took our well-earned rest. But two days later, we were summoned again and invited to repeat the performance, this time in the Prince’s private apartments and without the Queen’s baleful presence.
Over the next few weeks, as the county of Dorset slowly shook off its winter slumber, our lot improved considerably. Prince Harry began to send gifts of food and wine, fresh clothes too, and once, to me, a small jewelled golden clasp to grip a fine crimson, double-thick woollen cloak. Robin was allowed to receive visitors – at first a trickle, then a flowing river, of mud-spattered men came to the castle to confer with my lord.
In March, I began to give the Prince private lessons in the rudiments of music, with the tacit agreement of his mother, and I visited his apartments every morning after I had broken my fast in the dungeon on the Prince’s fine white bread and hot, spiced red wine. He proved an apt and enthusiastic pupil, with no small measure of talent, although he did not much like to be told when he had made a mistake and when I corrected his fingering on the vielle he would sometimes glower at me in a way that reminded me a little too much of his vindictive father. At first a trio of fierce-looking Flemish men-at-arms hovered in the doorway, watching silently as I took the Prince through his exercises and repeated various basic tunes in different styles, but Harry sent them away after a week, saying they put him off his bowing, and we were left alone.
‘Do you swear that you will do me no harm, Sir Alan?’ he said on the first day that he was left in my sole charge. I might have snapped his slender neck then as easily as a twig but I readily agreed and gave him my solemn word – and with no wish to deceive on my part. I found the lad a charming pupil and although from time to time that famous Angevin temper would flare, he soon recovered his manners and would apologise handsomely for any cross word or slight. He reminded me painfully of Robert – although he was younger and did not have my son’s dazzling acuity of mind, he had the same puzzled goodness that seemed to shine like the rays from a lantern. I had an abiding sense of the essential decency of his soul – and, in truth, I wouldn’t have hurt him for all the riches in the world.
By then, I had put aside any notions of escape, for our imprisonment was no longer in the slightest way irksome – indeed, it was almost pleasant. We were well fed and well treated – and even the other imprisoned knights who were not part of our music-making had benefited from our camaraderie with Prince Harry.
William d’Einford almost wept for joy on the day I gave him part of a roasted haunch of venison – a royal gift – and a dozen freshly baked manchet loaves. I saw Lord d’Aubigny smile for the first time in months when Robin made him a present of a new suit of clothes, which he had also obtained from Prince Harry. And this was a man sorely in need of cheer. Our former commander’s castle at Belvoir in Leicestershire had surrendered to the King’s forces: John had threatened to have d’Aubigny starved to death if his castle did not capitulate and d’Aubigny’s men had wisely handed over the keys the very next day. The broken old man had retreated even more into his angry gloom at the news of the loss of his home and lands; but Robin’s gift of a blue woollen tunic, cloak and hose helped d’Aubigny forget his troubles for a short while. Most gratifyingly of all, on the Prince’s orders, Robin, Thomas and I had been lifted out of the squalor of that dank dungeon and allocated a small blue-painted c
hamber in the east tower. We had one large four-poster bed with a feather mattress between us, and a large down quilt, eight blankets, four linen sheets and two pairs of pillows for our comfort.
One day Winkyn came to see us in our new quarters, whistling at their splendour. ‘There’s some high and mighty fellow in the courtyard calling himself Seymour who says he wishes for an audience with you, my lord,’ said our former gaoler.
Winkyn had grown much more respectful since we had been moved out of the dungeon and into our fine new lodgings. Robin pulled on a clean tunic and ran a comb through his hair. In the slanting sunlight from the arched window, I noticed for the first time that his hair was now mostly a silky grey and his face, I also observed, was no longer that of a young man – it was still lean and striking, of course, but the smile and frown lines were deeply etched into his pale skin.
‘I’d better see what this fellow wants, Alan,’ he said, before departing with Winkyn.
Thomas, who had been watching the courtyard through the open window, said, ‘Seymour, my arse. Winkyn is an ignorant fool. That is Aymeric de St Maur, Master of the English Templars, down there. What on earth could he want with Robin, I wonder?’
I wondered the same thing. Aymeric de St Maur had a complicated history with Robin – and with me. Years ago, he had tried my lord for heresy and sought to have him burned at the stake; more recently, we had been at odds over a sacred relic, the true Cup of Christ, the Holy Grail no less, that Robin had denied the Templars through trickery. To make amends for that deception and to make peace with the powerful Order, Robin had promised Aymeric de St Maur that he would grant the Templars any favour they cared to ask. Just one – but whatever it was, whether the murder of a kinsman or a command to dance naked on the Sabbath in St Paul’s Cathedral, he would obey. I wondered if that was the reason for the Templar’s visit – I could not conceive of any other business the Master might have with Robin. And if the Templar had come to demand his boon, what could that favour be?
When Robin returned to the chamber, some hours later, his face was as tightly closed as a tapped mussel.
‘What did that Templar want?’ Thomas asked at once. I sensed a note of, if not fear, then certainly unusual nervousness in his voice.
‘Oh, he was delivering some news,’ Robin said casually. ‘He tells me the Scots have been pushed back again beyond the border, Berwick has been burned and there has been more fighting at Durham, Scarborough and York. Hardly a castle in the north stands against the King now. And he told me something else, too. A strong force of French knights has joined the rebels in London. They are an advance party, two hundred and forty vassals of Prince Louis of France, along with a hundred and forty crossbowmen, a goodly quantity of stores, weapons and other war materiel. Fitzwalter, it seems, has invited the eldest son of Philip Augustus to take the throne of England. And this generous offer has been gratefully accepted.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ I was shocked to my soul, but I saw Thomas frown at my impiety. Despite what Abbot Boxley had suggested some months ago, and the presence of that pale, cat-torturing envoy in the Tower of London, I would never in a thousand years have believed that Fitzwalter would offer the crown to a Frenchman.
‘He can’t do it!’ I said. ‘He can’t hand the country over to the enemy. None of us will stand for it.’
‘It is done, Alan. It cannot be undone. Fitzwalter and the other rebels are desperate. Prince Louis is a powerful force to unleash on their behalf. It’s a clever stroke, too, I would say. It may well be the winning move in this war.’
‘Don’t tell me you support this?’ I said angrily.
‘How can you ask that?’ said my lord, sounding deeply stung. ‘We have fought the French, you and I, all of our lives, in Flanders, in Normandy … Too many of our friends have fallen to Philip’s men for me to see him as anything other than an enemy. But I can see why Fitzwalter did it. And, purely as a move in this game, I can admire it.’
I grunted boorishly. To be honest, I could hardly encompass the fact that Fitzwalter – the man who claimed to act only in the interests of his country – could be so base. He had sold his country to the French to win his own war against King John.
‘There is more,’ Robin said. ‘They expect Louis to land here with an army at Easter or earlier, St Maur said. In just a few weeks’ time. It will be a full-scale invasion. King John is riding south again to confront them. He will be here with us at Corfe within the week.’
It occurred to me later that Robin had been lying – or at least not telling the whole truth. I knew him well, I knew all his moods and ways, and he was certainly not completely candid. A man as powerful as Aymeric de St Maur would not ride all the way from London to a castle tucked away in Dorset just to give us news that we would discover for ourselves within the week. But I was too appalled by the news of the French invasion to ponder any motives for my lord’s secretiveness.
I got no more out of the Earl of Locksley that day, nor on the following days, about the true reason for the visit of Aymeric de St Maur. Life at Corfe went on. Thomas and Robin loafed in our chamber and were occasionally allowed to exercise at arms in the castle courtyard. I continued my tutelage of Prince Harry. The rest of the prisoners languished in the dungeons, although now better fed and clothed, thanks to the Prince’s generosity. However, I found increasingly that my mind was no longer gripped by the task at hand. The prospect of another Conquest – of French knights rampaging through our land, slaying, stealing, burning at will – stalked my mind by day and gave me nightmares in the crowded four-poster bed at night. The French would violate England as if she were a naked virgin. Although from what I had heard of the depredations of John’s mercenaries in the north, perhaps this was already happening. Of more concern to my restive mind was this: when the King came to Corfe, would our new freedoms be respected? Or would we be slung back into the dungeon to subsist on leek pottage and hard bread?
I feared I knew the answer.
The King arrived in a burst of April sunshine, with a hundred knights in his retinue and an old friend of mine at his side: William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke.
The Marshal greeted me with a bear hug and a friendly insult in the great hall, where I had been working quietly on a small composition I was hoping to share with Prince Harry that afternoon.
‘Sir Alan Dale, as I live and breathe,’ said the Marshal, striding across the open space and enfolding me in his strong arms and squeezing painfully. ‘You’ve been fighting on the wrong side again, you bone-headed baboon. And my God you’ve become old; you look like my grandfather!’
This was rich, coming as it did from a spindle-shanked veteran pushing seventy, who had scarcely a hair on his wrinkled, sun-browned head. And I told him so.
‘Although it seems your imprisonment has not been all that vexatious,’ the Marshal continued blithely, nodding at the jug of red and plate of candied figs on the table at my side. ‘They are not starving you to death this time, I see.’
I took his hint and offered him refreshment, and we chatted like the old friends we were rather than the adversaries on opposite sides of the battlefield that we had so recently been. He asked after Robert, who had briefly been one of his squires, and who he had kindly taken the time to instruct in swordsmanship at Westbury. I asked him, in turn, if it were true that the French were coming.
He sighed. ‘Yes, it is true. Fitzwalter has gone too far this time, even for a scoundrel like him. He’s opened Pandora’s jar and every good Englishman will pay the price – perhaps for many generations to come.’
I was not sure who Pandora was but I said nothing.
‘At least your rebel lord has come to his senses,’ he said, grinning at me. ‘That is something. All cannot be lost when Sir Alan Dale and the Earl of Locksley stand shoulder to shoulder beside you on the ramparts.’
I must have looked as baffled as I felt, for the Marshal frowned. ‘Did you not know?’ he said. ‘Surely Robin told you? He will do homage to the King for his
lands this afternoon. He will renew his fealty and accept the King’s pardon for his many crimes and misdemeanours. You and I, my friend, will be seeing off these French dogs together. The Earl of Locksley is to be the King’s man once more!’
Chapter Fifteen
The mixture of emotions in my heart can scarcely be described. Robin was to renew his fealty to King John: that duplicitous, treacherous, cowardly shit-weasel was to be our sovereign lord once more. The man who had taken our surrender, then ignored his promise of mercy and casually ordered us hanged. The man we had fought against and given up our blood to defeat, who was the living embodiment of all that was wrong, cruel and evil in England. The man whose mercenaries were even now defiling the land and slaughtering our own folk in the north. We were going to swear that we would serve him and be his good and true men. I could not believe it. I would not do it, whatever Robin said. However persuasive he was. I would never serve that vile man while I drew breath.
‘I didn’t make the decision idly, Alan, surely you know that,’ said Robin. ‘It’s not a casual whim. I know John as well as you do. But think of the alternatives.’
‘I won’t do it,’ I said. ‘I will not swear to serve him.’
‘Just hear me out,’ said my lord. We were in our chamber in the east tower of Corfe, an hour after noon, and the crumbs of a rather splendid dinner were scattered on the table before us. Thomas was still chewing on a thick slice of apple pie emblazoned with a dollop of yellow Dorset cream. Below us in the great hall the King was feasting his knights.
‘Fitzwalter has invited Prince Louis in,’ Robin said. ‘You know what that means – a French king sitting on the throne of England; French lords in all the high positions in the land, a huge French army right here, ready and willing to stamp out any opposition to Louis’s rule. All English landholders will eventually be squeezed out, they have to be; Louis must reward the French knights who support him with lands in England, indeed he has already promised to do so. He cannot make land; he must take it from Englishmen and give it to his followers. It truly will be the Conquest all over again. Do you want that?’