by Angus Donald
‘Tilda, what is it? What’s happened?’ I asked, closing the door behind me.
She turned her white and pink face towards me and I felt a lurch in my heart: even so disarrayed she was truly beautiful; her grey-blue eyes seemed to sparkle with her tears and her bottom lip was quivering.
‘It is nothing that should concern you, Alan.’
‘Tell me, my dear, I cannot bear to see you distressed on such a happy day.’
‘I cannot say,’ she said, and a fresh burst of weeping shook her slight frame.
‘You can tell me, Tilda, whatever it might be, I will not judge you.’
I put my hand on her shoulder and I could feel the fragile bones beneath the thin material of her gown.
‘Tilda,’ I said, my throat thick with emotion.
‘I have committed a sin, a mortal sin,’ she said, her voice no more than a whisper. ‘And I know I shall be made to pay for it by God. Robin – he made me …’
‘Shhh,’ I said. ‘Shhh, my dear, I know, I know what you have done.’
Somehow she was in the circle of my arms, her huge eyes looking up at me. Then we were kissing. I felt a roaring in my ears, like the sound of a colossal sea storm breaking over my head. Her small body was pressed hard against mine, her arms curling around my back. We tore the clothes from each other, ripping the fabric, stumbling half-naked to fall heavily on to the bed. She pulled me down on top of her and made a noise somewhere between a wail and a sob, her fingernails digging in, drawing blood against my back. I kissed her cheeks, her tightly closed eyes, her hair. As I bucked and writhed, she curled her legs behind my back, urging me onwards with loud, animal cries. I thrust brutally as if I would crush her – yet she pushed her body into me. I bellowed like a dying bull into the soft curve of her neck and thrust and thrust until I felt the pressure build inside my loins, and then with one last glorious surge against her hips I erupted deep inside.
Afterwards, spent, we lay in each other’s arms, the sweat cooling on our sprawled limbs. I kissed her tenderly and gazed into her eyes. All the hatred, suspicion and fear, all the betrayals of the past, all the pain and hurt, was washed away in that first cleansing flood of love.
‘Father,’ came a voice at the door of the solar. ‘Are you all right in there?’
‘Go away, Robert!’ I growled.
‘It’s just that I heard some odd noises – are you sure you are quite well?’
‘Go away, son, and leave me in peace. I have never been better in my life.’
We did not speak, Tilda and I, we just lay in each other’s arms for an hour – or two? Three? Who can say? – and savoured the union of our souls. We made love again, more gently than the first time, exploring each other’s bodies with lips and fingers and tongues. We kissed and held each other and then, with Tilda’s head resting in the crook of my arm, I fell asleep.
I awoke to see her at the foot of the bed dressing herself in one of my chemises. The first pink of dawn showed at the solar window. She saw me watching her and came over to the bed in the ridiculously large, flapping garment and kissed me tenderly, stroking my hair back from my face.
‘I must go now, my love,’ she said. ‘People will be wondering where I am.’
‘Don’t go,’ I said. ‘Please.’
‘I must.’
I felt a pang of cold hard anguish. ‘Is it Robin?’ I said. ‘Are you concerned about what he will say? Do not worry, I will speak to him today. He is a married man, after all, he cannot have you and Marie-Anne both. He’ll see reason, I’m sure.’
‘He will see reason – what on earth do you mean? What? Can you seriously believe that Robin is my lover? How can you think that? I would never …’
‘But you told me, last night, the mortal sin – you said you had committed …’
Tilda stared at me. ‘Surely you know. You must know. I killed the King. That is the mortal sin that will damn me. I poisoned our sovereign lord, God’s anointed ruler on Earth, pretending to heal with Christ’s love and … I killed him deliberately, slowly, painfully – and at Robin’s secret orders. He … he made me do it …’
I sat up in bed. A piece of the puzzle clanked into place.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘You say Robin ordered you to kill the King? With poison?’
‘Yes, I thought you must know. You are his closest companion, his oldest friend. How could you believe that I slept with him. I hate him. He brought about my ruin.’
This was all going too fast for me.
‘Robin brought about your ruin?’
Tilda sat down on the bed. She took my big rough hand in her tiny one.
‘I love your child-like innocence above all of your other sweet qualities, Alan, but, my darling, you are being particularly slow this morning. Robin, or one of his agents, told Anna, Prioress of Kirklees, my lover, that I had been found in the bed of Benedict Malet in Nottingham. Anna was overcome with jealousy. She beat me and threw me out in the clothes I stood up in – after more than ten years of humble service to the Church. She slammed the Priory door in my face and made me into a beggarwoman. Robin was the cause of my ruin. He caused me to be expelled from my home. I cannot believe that you would think I could love him.’
I was aware that my mouth was hanging open and I closed it hurriedly.
‘When I had been expelled, I went to see Robin, in a rage, I don’t know why – perhaps I hoped to kill him or hurt him in some way. But he sent his wife Marie-Anne to speak with me instead. She told me to throw myself on your mercy, that I would surely find a place in your household. She said you would never turn me away in my hour of need. She was right, and I will always bless you, my darling, for your kindness.’
Tilda reached out and took my other hand in hers. ‘I love you, Sir Alan of Westbury, and no other, perhaps I have loved you since we were together in Normandy. I hated you, too, for a while, yes, that is true. But what is hate but the reverse of love? My love for you has never truly died. When Marie-Anne told me to seek your help, it made a kind of sense of all that I had suffered, all my life. It made sense of my expulsion. I discovered that deep inside my soul I wanted you. I knew you were good and kind. I knew you were brave and loyal and would never hurt me. You made my heart beat faster. I wanted to be close to you, even if I could not have you. I wanted to be at your side for ever.’
I could find no words but squeezed her small hands in mine.
‘Then, when I was settled in your household, Robin came to me and told me that one day he would call on me for a special service and that the price of my continued residence in your home was obedience to that request. I had no choice. He told me if I did not do what he asked, he would see to it that I was expelled from your life. And what he asked was that I kill the King. I know I am damned for it but at least I shall have some happiness in my life with you, won’t I, my love? Won’t I?’
Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears.
I moved towards her and took her into my arms.
‘You shall always have a place with me, if you so desire it,’ I said, my throat constricting. ‘Always.’
I went to see Robin that morning. When I found my lord seated with Robert at the long table in the guest hall on the other side of the courtyard, I saw that my son was smirking like an idiot and the cheery greetings and questions that I received about the state of my health, and the inquisitions about the quality of my sleep, were tantamount to outright mockery.
‘Yes, I am quite well, thank you, Robert, and yes, it is a beautiful morning. But would you mind leaving us. I wish to have a few words with my lord alone.’
When the boy had gone, I took Robin to task. I accused him of manipulating me, of lying to me, of meddling in my affairs to an outrageous degree. I told him his behaviour towards Tilda had been despicable and that – as everyone seemed to know – now she was my lover, I would have no more of it. Enough was enough!
When I had finished saying my piece, Robin gave me a long slow look. ‘King John, our mortal enemy, the scourg
e of the people of England, is dead at my hand. You now have a mountain of silver in your counting house – more money than you could ever spend in this life. You also have a beautiful and, by the terrifying sounds we heard last night, extremely loving woman in your bed. What exactly are you complaining about?’
He was right. What was I complaining about? While I carefully considered my next sally, my lord poured me a cup of wine, shoved it across the table and said, ‘Let us make a toast, my old friend – to new love!’
And so we drank.
‘Now, Alan,’ said my lord, ‘if your wits have not been completely addled by too many womanly caresses, shall we consider the future? King John is dead – yet our country is still at war. The French have thrust northwards in strength and I do not think we may rest easy until we have driven them all from England. And there is the new King to consider. He is in urgent need of our help, I would say – wouldn’t you?’
I swear that I had not even considered the succession. My mind filled with the image of a chubby boy in velvet and silk, sitting with his haughty mother and applauding with delight as three raggedy prisoners sang ‘My Joy Summons Me’ for him at Corfe Castle. I remembered him struggling to learn the fingering and bowing of a canso in his private chambers, watched by wolfish Flemings. I recalled his childish rages. Most of all I remembered his kindness, the generosity of his gifts when we were starving in the dungeon. Henry of Winchester. Or, as he must surely become, Henry, King of England, the third of that name.
I lifted my wine cup to Robin. ‘The King is dead,’ I said. ‘God save the King!’
Chapter Twenty-nine
Although a blight had been lifted from our lives with the death of King John, there was still the matter of Robin’s son Miles and Sir Thomas Blood’s presence in the enemy camp to weigh down our souls. I had accused Robin of lying – or keeping information from me – and it occurred to me that I had been guilty of the same crime towards my lord. And so, as we rode south from Westbury a week later, heading for the coronation of young Henry at Gloucester, I decided that my duty to him and his family outweighed my oath to Thomas.
We had been summoned to Gloucester by William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. He, along with several other magnates, had been named in King John’s will as governors of England, and it seemed the old soldier had deemed it vital Henry be crowned as soon as possible. St Paul’s Cathedral in London was, of course, still in rebel hands, as was Westminster Abbey just outside the city, and who knew when, if ever, we might recapture the capital and be able to hold the ceremony in either of these venerable Houses of God. So Gloucester Cathedral it was to be – for this hallowed ground had the distinct advantage of being in a part of the land that had remained staunchly royalist.
I had spent a blissful week with Tilda, much of it in the half-privacy of our chamber at the end of the hall. But our bond was stronger than the mere shackles of lust and it was with a wrenching of my heart that I’d bade her farewell at the end of October and ridden out with Robin, Robert, Boot and a hundred men-at-arms to add our strength to the young King’s forces.
Since that day at the feast in Lincoln, Robin had not asked me about Thomas. I was glad he had respected my vow, but it made it difficult to know how to approach the subject. I found the opportunity on the main road between Derby and Lichfield, when we all made camp for the night in the mostly intact hay barn of a burned-out manor.
The men had been well fed and were bedded down, and only Robin and I remained awake, sitting around the fire in a dry corner of the barn passing a mug of wine between us, a last drink before sleep.
Robin stretched and yawned and looked as if he were about to stand and seek his blanket roll, when I stopped him with these words: ‘My lord, as you know I made a vow to remain silent on the subject of Thomas and his flight to the rebels.’
‘I recall it very clearly,’ said Robin, looking at me inquisitively.
‘But it seems to me that I am doing both you and he a disservice by remaining silent.’
‘Speak, then,’ he said, settling down again and reaching out towards me, beckoning for the wine.
I passed it to him.
‘Do you remember the day when Aymeric de St Maur came to Corfe Castle during our incarceration there and asked to speak to you?’
‘I am not quite in my dotage yet, Alan, of course I can remember it.’
‘Well, you told us the Master of the English Templars had ridden all the way from London only to give us some news of the war. Was that the truth?’
Robin just stared at me. ‘Spit it out, Alan.’
I looked around the barn at the sleeping bodies of our men. There was no one to overhear us.
‘Sir Thomas – and I for that matter – knew that it was not. You lied to us.’
‘Alan, we have been over this,’ Robin said quietly. Sometimes there are good reasons why I cannot tell you every tiny detail of my plans. Some things must remain secret. In the matter of the King, for example—’
‘You should have explained that to Thomas. He took it into his head that you meant to betray him to the Templars for the killing of Brother Geoffrey, the Templar who … who … interfered with Robert at Pembroke Castle.’
‘Why on earth would I do that? Thomas is one of mine. Or he was. Apart from the fact that I would never give up one of my own to an enemy, I thoroughly approved of his actions. No man deserved death more than that child-defiling turd-of-the-cloth. I would certainly have butchered him myself, if Thomas had not got there first. How could you even think I would betray him? Do you not know me at all, Alan?’
‘It was the boon; the favour that you promised the Templars at Runnymede. You promised you would kill a man, even a friend, if they asked. After you changed sides in the war – something he deeply disapproved of, by the way – Thomas was convinced you would do anything, even hand him over to the Templars for their punishment, if it suited your interests. That I’m sorry to say is why he ran.’
Robin was quiet for a while. He passed me the mug of wine and stirred the fire into life with a stick. The leaping flames made his face look even more gaunt and angular against the darkness. I could see he was thinking hard.
‘Thank you for telling me that, Alan. I know you take your oaths very seriously,’ he said. ‘And I concede you may be right. Sometimes my habits of secrecy are my undoing – even you and I have fallen out over my reticence in the past.’
We shared a wry smile of remembrance. And, in that moment, although a hundred sleeping men lay around us in that barn, it felt as if we were entirely alone.
‘I will try to change my ways, Alan,’ my lord said very quietly, ‘and now I will tell you two secrets that I earnestly hope you will never reveal to anyone else. I give them to you as a sign of my faith and trust in you.’
Robin looked over his shoulder. I moved in closer towards him, setting down the mug of wine.
He leaned forward and said quietly: ‘The first secret is that I too suffered – interference, as you put it – at the hands of a man of the Church when I was a boy. It was at my father’s castle of Edwinstowe and I was a little younger than Robert is now. This man, this priest, was my tutor, placed in authority over me by my father to school me in Latin and mathematics, rhetoric and law. He beat me cruelly when I had not learned my lessons to his satisfaction, invoking the name of God as he wielded the rod. And, at night, he would come to my chamber, dress my bruises with goose fat … and his fingers would stray.’
Robin swallowed. It was clear that even decades later these memories were still extremely painful.
‘He pleasured himself on my body,’ he went on in a curiously dead voice, ‘and told me that if I spoke about this to anyone he would beat me again. He told me it was my fault these things happened because I was a temptation to his lust. I tried to tell my father but I could not bring myself to explain in detail the foulness of these night-time visits. My father merely told me not to be a cry-baby and, when he discovered that I had spoken out, Father Walter
beat me more harshly than ever before. With every stroke of his cane, this priest informed me that it was not he who was punishing me but God himself, for the sinfulness of my soul. He threatened me with the fires of Hell even as he fucked me. That experience put an end for ever to my faith in God and his son Jesus Christ. And, apart from dear old Father Tuck, I have never truly trusted a churchman since.’
Robin reached down for the wine mug and drained it.
‘One day, after months of this treatment in my own home, I began to think about ending myself. I had had enough. I planned to throw myself from the battlements. I even stood there one night, with the wind whistling around my bare legs, summoning the courage to jump. I never found the necessary courage. Instead, I found another way. I made a sacred vow that I would never die at my own hand, never, rather I would fight – fight with all my strength against this foul tyranny, against all tyranny. And so I made my plans. And one night, while his back was turned, I knocked Father Walter unconscious with a billet of firewood, gagged him with his own robe and tied him to his bed. I brought the fires of Earth to play on every part of his body, a foretaste of the very fires of Hell that he had used to threaten me; I thrust his crucifix, the image of his false God, far up his fundament; finally, when he was half-mad from the pain, I cut his throat from ear to ear.
‘I have never regretted what I did to that beast, never regretted a moment of his last torments. I would have done exactly the same to young Robert’s molester, given the chance. And that is why I would never have betrayed Thomas for killing that fiend.’
I was stunned by Robin’s tale, even though I had heard elements of it before from Little John, who had fled with Robin into Sherwood after that long-ago killing. My lord had never spoken to me of such an intimate and painful matter before – not once, not even when we were incarcerated together in Corfe. I recognised that night, too, how so much of Robin’s character had been forged by his youthful torments in Edwinstowe: his bottomless courage, his implacable cruelty, his hatred of the Church and all her servants, the undying fires of rage hidden under his icy-cold exterior – I recalled that, long ago, Tuck had called him the cold-hot man for this very reason. His rebellious nature, I now grasped, came from the twin betrayals of his father, the representative of King who had failed to protect him as a child, and the predatory priest, the representative of Our Lord God Almighty who had used him so brutally and with such hypocrisy.