by Angus Donald
Indeed, in some respects the poor showing at Tonbridge was a result of the King’s success in ejecting the rebellious barons from their fortified manors and castles. Many of the men with small or weak fortifications had done the same as I had at Westbury and had removed themselves and their goods and livestock from the path of the King’s ravaging mercenaries and found a stronger refuge. Some of the northernmost barons had simply retreated to Scotland, where they had been made welcome by the young King Alexander. As Robert had pointed out, I was lucky Westbury had been overlooked and that I had only suffered the loss of my tower, for many abandoned fortifications had been either utterly destroyed (slighted, as military men called it) or left intact but garrisoned by the King’s men and held against their rightful owners. This was the cause of the depletion of the King’s army – for even though only a handful of knights, mercenaries or trusted men-at-arms had been left in each manor or castle that the King had captured, so many places had been taken that his forces were spread thinly across the land.
I wondered if Miles was right to side with Lord Fitzwalter against the King. He was not the only son to take a different side to his father: even staunch William the Marshal, King John’s most trusted Englishman, had his son John in the enemy camp. Then I wondered what Miles and Thomas were doing just then in London. Drinking and chasing wenches, if I knew Miles; and Thomas was probably throwing the knucklebones. But was he winning – or losing?
There had been no reply to Robin’s ultimatum to the manor of Makeney – the messenger reported the holding abandoned, the hearth ashes cold, the hall empty. Clearly Thomas had decided to make a clean break with Robin. But it grieved me deeply that my old friend was no longer with us. I had known him, raggedy Welsh boy, squire and knight, and trusted him, for more than twenty years. I missed him and knew that I’d miss him even more when the trumpets sounded for battle.
There was one piece of good news. Robin’s squire William of Cassingham was at the Tonbridge muster and had brought with him two dozen veteran bowmen from his family lands in the south of the county. These were tough men from the Weald, many of them former poachers by the gnarled look of them, and all well versed with the bow and in moving silently and swiftly through the thick forests of their native lands. Oddly, Cass appeared entirely indifferent to our change of allegiance: when I asked how he felt about serving the King, he merely shrugged and said something similar to Thomas’s comment that Robin’s enemies were his enemies. ‘Truth be told, sir,’ he went on, ‘I will like killing Frenchmen every bit as much as I liked killing Flemings. They’re all dirty foreigners to me.’
Cass’s father had indeed died, as the squire had predicted in his letter to me, and the young fellow was now master of a sprawling holding, much of it almost impenetrable woodland, a dozen miles north of Hastings. He was a landed man of equal consequence to me now and in command of a formidable company of bowmen, yet it was a mark of his breeding that he continued to treat me with a pleasing deference as his superior. I did at least have the distinction of having been knighted by King Richard, as well as being the Earl of Locksley’s second-in-command.
The addition of Cass’s forces to Robin’s men made our lord one of the more powerful barons in the King’s retinue and should have given him a good deal more weight among the council, the handful of senior knights and lords that the King was supposed to confide in. In truth though, the King trusted no one but his Flemish captains – those whose loyalty was commanded by royal silver.
Savary de Mauléon had been badly wounded in a skirmish with the London rebels in April and was recovering at Waltham Abbey. William the Marshal was on the Welsh marches striving to contain the inhabitants of that wild region who, like the Scots, had naturally sided with the rebels against the crown. So the King should have been leaning on Robin, taking his counsel from the Earl of Locksley, now that he was once again within the fold, but John continued to treat my lord with a contemptuous indifference. Robin responded with a coolness of his own, combined with a determined punctiliousness about obeying orders. He reported to the King every morning just after first light and asked for that day’s royal commands. His duties mostly involved sending out parties to forage across Kent and Sussex for grain and livestock. In fact, he was asked to do very little by the King and I knew Robin was making work for his men to prevent them from being idle – scouting south into the woods of the Weald, discovering its pathways, passages and rare clearings; he was also occasionally sending a few men to the outskirts of London, twenty miles north, to keep an eye on rebel movements. He wanted his troops busy and familiar with the terrain of this southern land. And yet there was no sense of urgency. We were all marking time until the King should reveal his will. I took it upon myself during these days to pay a swift visit to Boxley Abbey and retrieve my arms and armour from my friend the abbot. On my return to Robin, the comforting weight of Fidelity at my side did much for my spirits.
The last time I had been at Tonbridge, I was a wretched prisoner of war with a broken leg, wheeled into a leaky barn in the castle courtyard on a donkey cart under guard with the rest of the men from Rochester. It gave me great pleasure to be a free man able to wander the outer bailey at my leisure, sword at my side, and to explore the sprawling walled town beyond and the lush green countryside around. My leg was completely healed and gave me no more than a twinge at the end of a day’s walking.
Robin had found us quarters not far outside the town and to the north and east in a customs house named Hadlow Stair, beside the Medway. It was a large, three-storied hall with a red-tiled roof and timbers a foot or more thick, built on a slight rise of land above the marshy river valley, looking south across the forested hills and valleys of the Weald of Kent. There was a wharf below the house, a platform of stout planks a few feet above the river, and the cargo boats that plied up and down to Rochester and even to the German Sea beyond were expected to stop and pay river taxes to the bailiff who resided in the hall. When Tonbridge Castle fell to the King, the bailiff, a vassal of Gilbert de Clare, the lord of Tonbridge, had decamped with his master, leaving this comfortable hall vacant. On their arrival in Tonbridge, Cass’s bowmen had quickly discovered it, reported to their lord, and Robin had declared it perfect for his needs.
I met the Earl of Locksley there on the sixth day after we had been summoned to Tonbridge, the day I returned from Boxley, and asked what news he had of the war.
‘John has summoned large ships from the leading ports on the south and east coast, filled them with Flemings and they are blockading Calais, where Prince Louis has mustered his troops. The King boasted to the council this morning that he will hold the French invaders there until they turn into greybeards, that they will never find the strength to break out. We loyal men of the royal council all agreed it was a brilliant plan.’
I made a non-committal sound in the back of my throat. It still infuriated me that Robin had to dance attendance on John and worse that he seemed to have turned into a yea-saying lickspittle like all the rest. But I vowed to keep a tight curb on my anger.
‘Prince Louis has hired a pirate from the Channel Islands, a ruffian called Eustace the Monk, to be his admiral – an unsavoury fellow if rumours are true, utterly ruthless, a man who has switched sides as often as—’
‘As often as we have?’
Robin gave me a steely glare. ‘Don’t start, Alan. I’m not in the mood.’
I mumbled an apology and after a few moments Robin continued. ‘This Eustace’s task is to lead the French across the Channel from Calais when the time is right.’
‘So when are they coming?’
‘Louis cannot come out of port with John’s ships waiting for him. A sea battle is a chancy thing and even if Louis were to triumph, the blockading force is strong enough to maul him badly. He might lose half his fighting strength before he set foot on English soil.’
‘Is there much danger of an invasion, then?’
‘Not while the royal navy is in place, no. But the King can’
t decide what to do. I have told him we should be tackling London. Storming it with all our strength – now. We could be at its gates the day after tomorrow, if only he would move. It could be ours within the week; the walls are long and only lightly held. I’ve told him that with the city in our hands, we could end the rebellion; kill it stone dead. London is the greatest rebel stronghold in England and if we were to hold the city it would be all over for Fitzwalter and his men. The north is subdued; without London they are finished. There would be no point Louis coming at all. There would be no one to receive him, no one to offer him the crown.’
Robin’s frustration was clear to behold.
‘But the King won’t listen. He doesn’t trust me, Alan. He doesn’t trust anyone. He even fears the navy will betray him; that they will go over to Louis if offered enough silver. He talks about going to Sandwich with all his forces to make ready to confront the invasion. To fight them on the beaches; to hurl them back off the cliffs. He’s a fool. And he’s going to lose the war with his foolishness.’
I could have pointed out that this was hardly a surprise. We both knew John of old and he had never been, to my recollection, anything other than a disaster as a commander. But I kept my mouth shut. There was no point in starting a quarrel.
We sat quietly, companionably, for a good half an hour, looking beyond the river over the rolling waves of woodland that rose up to a ridge on the skyline three or four miles to the south. It looked like a vast green and black wall, stretching east-west before us and forbidding us entrance to the fastness of the Weald. Guarding its secrets. For some reason, I felt a shiver of fear ripple down my spine at the sight of that ancient wilderness. Yet there was nothing to fear from a forest, surely?
I heard the bells of a nearby church begin to ring out for Vespers and the urgent clatter of servants in the house at our back. The sun had sunk, leaving no more than a few wisps of golden cloud on the western horizon, and to the south-west the cheery lights of the castle were beginning to twinkle from the window-slits. I caught the rich scent of beef and onion stew on the air and my thoughts turned towards a hearty supper, a jug of ale and a warm pallet by the hearth. Then Robin spoke.
‘It’s not so different to Sherwood, is it? It’s an outlaw’s natural playground.’
‘Hmm?’
‘The Weald, I mean. It’s untamed woodland, virgin forest, some of it. Perfect for ambushes. Plenty of places to hide. Very few people. I’d warrant you could still find wild bears in there, if you looked hard enough.’
I looked out again at the sea of dark green to the south. It was more hilly, I thought, more daunting. There was definitely something menacing about it.
‘I’d choose Sherwood over this wasteland any day,’ I said.
‘Well, yes, so would I,’ said Robin. ‘It’s home ground for us. We know it as well as the stones of our hearths. But the point I was making is that a man who wanted to hide from the law, for example, or who wanted to avoid meeting anyone at all, would not find it hard to conceal himself in the Weald. As long as he knew it well.’
I couldn’t see the point he was making. We weren’t outlaws any longer, thank God, and I prayed we never would be again.
My stomach gurgled; my mouth was awash from the smell of the beef stew. I got up from the table and muttered about finding something to eat.
‘All right, Alan, go and eat – eat to your heart’s content – but first would you find Cass and send him out here to see me? Thank you.’
The King finally made up his mind. The day after the next, which was around the middle of May, we quit Tonbridge, heading east for the port of Sandwich. A few hundred more men had answered John’s call during the week that we had sat idle in the town and we were now some seven hundred knights and their squires, pages, men-at-arms and servants – most of them mounted – when we took the road in a long muddled cavalcade of bawling men, whinnying beasts, ox-carts, covered wagons, flapping standards and jostling folk.
We had just left Maidstone on the second day of the march, when it pleased God to reveal the extent of his fury at mankind. It came in the form of a mighty wind, driving in from the southeast, with gusts so strong a man had to lean his weight right forward to take a step in the face of the onrushing air. Heavy banks of black and purple cloud rode the winds, rolling in from the coast and lashing the column with a deluge that would have sunk the ark. White spikes of lightning split the sky, stabbing the earth from Heaven. The column disintegrated, with dripping men rushing from the road to find shelter where they could, hauling horses with them by the reins.
Robin, Cass and I found ourselves with the majority of our men in a small wood fifty yards from the road, drenched to the bone, while the gale whipped the branches of the trees above our heads with a manic rage and stinging pellets of water pounded our faces. I sat at the base of an oak with my sodden cloak bunched around my shoulders and my shield held over my head. Robin sat to my left, with Cass pressed into his far side, the squire holding a shield above them both.
I thought longingly of the warm hall at Hadlow Stair and my straw pallet by the hearth. It was not even noon and yet the sky was as dark as dusk. The constant noise was appalling: the shrieking of the wind, the clattering of the branches, the endless hiss of the rain. I could barely make out the words when Robin leaned over and said in a half-shout, ‘If you think this is bad, imagine what it must be like at sea.’
He gave me a significant look.
I frowned at him. Then I grasped his meaning: the blockade. John’s navy was supposed to be keeping the French invasion fleet penned at Calais – but how would it fare in this tempest? Not well.
We stayed huddled in the wood for all of that day and the night that followed, while the wind pounded us unceasingly and the rain turned the peaty earth beneath our feet into a quagmire. It was bitterly cold, too, and we shivered and chattered in our damp attire with no hope of a fire and only the warm flanks of our companions to cheer us. Robin broke out a small barrel of strong ale and a bag of dried strips of beef from the stores so at least we were able to put a little heart into our bedraggled company as we waited for the sun to rise and the wrath of God to abate.
Not long before dawn, as I was dozing with my head jammed uncomfortably between the tree and Robin’s mailed shoulder, the noise of the storm faded, the rain receded to the random patter of drops falling from leaves to the woodland floor, and men began to stand and stretch, blink and look about them in the gloaming as if they had never seen the world before.
‘Would you like a fire, sir?’ said William of Cassingham to his lord. ‘I could heat up some of the wine.’
‘God, yes,’ said Robin. ‘Can you truly make one?’
‘Oh sir, there is always some dry stuff to be found, even after a blow like that, if you know where to look.’
And that honest fellow was as good as his word, disappearing for a spell and returning with an armful of almost-dry wood. After a few moments with steel and flint, he had a blaze going and a score of grinning bowmen standing around and warming their hands above the flames.
‘The King’s fine navy will be scattered halfway across the oceans,’ I said to Robin quietly, as I handed him a hot earthenware cup of gently steaming red wine.
‘Or sunk,’ he replied.
‘So now there’s nothing to prevent Prince Louis crossing the Channel and invading England.’
‘Well,’ said my lord, ‘not exactly nothing. I think we might have a go at preventing him.’
Chapter Eighteen
Two days later I stood with Robin on the long sand and shingle beach a mile east of the port of Sandwich looking out at the sea. Six or seven miles to the north-east, we could see a mass of big ships, their sails bellied by the offshore breeze, heading to some destination north of Ramsgate. The largest, with two high square castles front and rear, displayed a long blue-and-gold banner from its main mast: the colours of Louis of France. There were smaller sailing boats among the bigger craft, darting between them and doubtle
ss delivering messages between the Prince and his vassals.
‘It’s not much of an invasion fleet,’ I said. ‘I count only seven big ships, troop transporters that is, and even they can hold only fifty men and their horses in each. Not many men-at-arms to try to seize a kingdom.’
‘There will be more coming, many more,’ said Robin. ‘I am amazed so many stayed together during the crossing. But you make a very good point, Alan. They cannot land much more than four hundred men today. If we strike hard we can crush them before they even get their boots dry. Come on, we must speak to the King.’
King John was to be found a quarter of a mile further south on the beach, just outside a huge gold-and-scarlet-striped tent that had been pitched on the shore. As Robin and I approached, I saw that he was surrounded by the usual dozen or so beautifully dressed courtiers in silk and velvet and half a dozen grizzled mercenary captains in mail and leather. The courtiers were chattering like sparrows, drinking wine and marvelling at the sight of the small French fleet, now no more than half a mile from the shore. A dark-faced rather plump Italian churchman in scarlet, who I had heard called Monsignor Guala, seemed to be in the very act of excommunicating the enemy in the ships as they came on, declaiming sonorously in deep rolling Latin phrases. The mercenaries were silent, lean-faced men who ignored the chanting churchman and looked intently at the King, hands on hilts, awaiting his orders.
‘You see them, Locksley, you see the French dogs,’ called out the King as Robin shouldered his way through the throng.
‘I see them, Sire,’ said Robin.
‘They have the temerity, the audacity to challenge me in my own kingdom. I am God’s anointed ruler of this land and He will not stand by while His will is flouted. God will smash them – isn’t that right, Guala? He will rend them asunder, He will smite them and destroy them for ever …’