The Death of Robin Hood

by Angus Donald

  ‘So what brings you to our fair city of Lincoln – have you come to take up arms on behalf of good King Louis?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I said, dragging out a stool and sitting down.

  Miles plonked himself back on the bed. ‘No, that doesn’t seem your style at all. That monk’s habit suits you, by the way, you should think about hanging up your sword and retiring to a monastery.’ There was an ugly tone to his voice, very close to a sneer.

  ‘I’ve come on behalf of your father—’

  ‘The turncoat sent you, did he? You always were his obedient lap-dog. He sent you to cajole and bribe me into abandoning my allegiance, just as he did. Is that it?’

  ‘He wants you to stop all this foolishness and come home. He misses you and he says that you will always be his son. Many other men have returned to the King.’

  ‘The true King is Louis of France, not that mewling child under William the Marshal’s thumb. Louis knows my quality – I am Lord Kirkton now, don’t you know? And when we are victorious I shall be made the Earl of Locksley, too, and the self-serving cut-throat who calls himself my father can beg my forgiveness then.’

  ‘We can work everything out, Miles – your father loves you – even now. Come back to us. Please.’

  ‘Come back to what? To a life lived for ever in his shadow? To being the second son, the spare to the heir. Even when the turncoat dies, I shall not inherit – my sainted brother Hugh will be Earl after him. And he is not of true Odo blood. His claim is false. His father is Ralph Murdac, as everybody knows but is too afraid to say aloud. He’s a bastard and yet he – he not me! – will lord it over our lands when Robin is rotting in his grave.’

  ‘Hugh will treat you fairly, I’m sure of it. He’s a good and honourable man.’

  ‘He’s a self-righteous prig. But that’s your offer, is it? Come home like a good boy and all will be forgiven. No, thank you, Alan. I am somebody here, I am—’

  The flap of the door swept open and a dark figure stepped into the house. I nearly jumped out of my skin, hand scrabbling for the hilt of the misericorde.

  It was Sir Thomas Blood.

  ‘I’ve brought you some soup, Miles, you can’t live on wine alone; you’ve got to eat something—’

  I stood up. Thomas stopped dead when he saw me. He gaped wordlessly. He took a step forward, dumped a huge, steaming tureen on the table and threw his arms around me, enfolding me in a bear hug.

  ‘Alan, Alan,’ he said. ‘How good to see you.’ He released me but kept his hands on my shoulders. ‘You look well – but, what? – have you taken holy orders?’

  ‘Perhaps you two turtle doves would like to use the bed,’ said Miles, getting to his feet.

  I ignored him. ‘It’s just a disguise, Thomas,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to bring you and Miles home to Robin.’ Thomas frowned but said nothing.

  ‘I think I’ll leave you two alone,’ said Miles. ‘I need air. This place stinks of hypocrisy.’

  We watched as Miles pushed through the flap and disappeared. I saw that it was dusk. Thomas knelt and added a few sticks to the smouldering fire in the hearth, puffing it into flame with his breath.

  ‘How is Mary, Thomas,’ I asked, ‘and your son? What is his name again?’

  ‘We named him Alan,’ Thomas said, smiling at me. ‘After you. They are both well, thank you, safe in London. But I will not waste your time. I cannot go back with you to Robin. And you know perfectly well why.’

  ‘It was a misunderstanding, Thomas. Nothing more. Robin would never have betrayed you. I know for sure he would not.’

  ‘You were there with me at Corfe, Alan,’ said the knight, suddenly angry. ‘He spoke secretly to that damned Templar and then lied right to our faces. To our faces. Don’t pretend you don’t remember.’

  ‘The Templar was not seeking you, Thomas, he wanted something else entirely.’

  ‘What then?’

  I shut my mouth. I had promised Robin that I would not speak of the murder of the King to any man and I had given the same vow to Aymeric de St Maur in Gloucester.

  ‘Nothing to say?’ said Thomas. ‘Then nothing has really changed, has it?’

  I looked at him in mute desperation. ‘Come back with me, Thomas, please. I ask for my sake as well as Robin’s. Help me to bring Miles back, too. I cannot bear for us to be enemies any longer.’

  ‘That is how the dice have fallen, my friend,’ said Thomas. ‘Lady Chance has spoken. That is just how this game has played out— Wait, did you hear something?’

  He strode over to the door and lifted the flap, peering into the growing darkness.

  ‘That treacherous little shit-weasel. You must go, Alan. At once. Miles is out there with a squad of men-at-arms. The Comte du Perche is with him. Trust me, my friend, you really do not want to be taken prisoner by that blood-drunk monster. Go! Go now.’

  I was beside him at the doorway, my belly fluttering. God, it was true! Under the flap I could see Miles and the White Count in deep conversation. A score of men-at-arms in red and black stood behind the French nobleman – more men than I could ever hope to defeat. The White Count was resplendent in a cloak that seemed to shine like silver in the gloaming. Robin’s son was pointing directly at the house, stabbing a finger towards us.

  ‘Thomas, you must come with me,’ I said, fighting a terrible urge to run, to run like a frightened hare.

  ‘I cannot,’ he said, ‘but you must go, for God’s sake, go!’

  I thought, To Hell with vows, and to Hell with me for breaking them. ‘Thomas, listen, now. He did lie to us. But the boon the Templar asked of Robin had nothing to do with you. St Maur asked Robin to kill the King. John was poisoned at Robin’s command. That was the secret they discussed at Corfe. Please, come with me, now.’

  ‘Sweet Jesu – is that the truth, do you swear it?’

  Miles had evidently persuaded the Comte du Perche and he and his men were marching towards us.

  ‘There isn’t time. I’m a dead man if we do not go.’

  Thomas looked at me hard. ‘This way,’ he said, and we went back into the house and through the dark room off the side of the main chamber. I heard him fumbling with a wooden latch, I heard the sound of marching feet, the clank of metal. A square of grey opened before me. ‘Out the window, Alan,’ said Thomas, boosting me through the gap, handing me my staff. And then to my great joy, I saw his leg lifting over the sill and he was standing beside me in a narrow, filth-strewn alley behind the house, no more than two feet wide and stretching off into the dark, parallel to the town wall.

  Just as Thomas was closing the shutter, I heard the voice of the White Count from the other room, saying in his silky Parisian French, ‘There is no one here, Kirkton. If you’re playing the fool with me, I will not be best pleased.’

  ‘My lord, he was here just a moment ago …’

  Then Thomas and I were sprinting along the alley, my terror giving wings to my feet, he in the lead, our shoulders brushing the wall. We stopped, panting, then scuttled along a gap between two houses, pressing our backs flat against somebody’s wall and listening for sounds of pursuit. I could hear nothing. My heart was thumping like a tambour – just that brief glimpse of the White Count had unmanned me. I had my staff in both hands ready to strike. I would not be taken alive – I could not suffer that awful fate. Thomas, I saw, had a sword at his side. But was he with me – or against me?

  ‘You swear that what you have told me is true, Alan, about Robin and the King’s death?’ Thomas whispered.

  ‘I am finished with making oaths on this matter,’ I whispered back. ‘But as a friend I tell you, on my honour, that this is God’s honest truth.’

  Thomas said nothing.

  A French man-at-arms in red and black walked round the corner of the house from the front side. I lunged at him with the staff, using the heavy oak pole as if it were a spear. The blunt end of it smacked into the astonished man’s forehead with a crack. He dropped like a sack of turnips to the filth-covered
earth between the two houses.

  I whirled and looked at Thomas, my staff raised. He hadn’t moved an inch while I’d knocked out the French man-at-arms – his comrade in arms.

  ‘Thomas?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know, Alan. I just don’t know. But I know that we must get you out of here now,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’

  He led me further along the wall behind the houses until we were no more than fifty yards from the castle. There was no sound of pursuit. It was full dark by now and Lincoln seemed to be taking the curfew seriously for we heard little but the quick footsteps of men hurrying back to their homes before the watch caught them. Yet the castle was brightly lit, torches standing proud on the battered walls to ward against a night attack. They gave us just enough light to see by.

  I saw the White Count then, no more than twenty paces away, marching along the line of houses with the company of men-at-arms at his back. There was no sign of Miles. I was frozen in terror, standing in clear view by the wall of the last house. I stared at the man who I knew would be my doom, unable to move, like a rabbit before a snake. I felt a pair of strong arms grip me round the middle, swiftly lift and hurl me back into the shadows behind the house. I collapsed into a heap among the filth, the staff clattering away, but I was aware of Thomas stepping into the dim light and walking straight over to the White Count. Inside my head, a voice was screaming: He’s not your friend – he’s going to betray you. Just like Miles. He’ll tell the White Count and then—

  ‘You there, Sir Thomas Blood, isn’t it?’ the Count said. Even his soft voice sent ripples of fear down my back. ‘Your friend Kirkton tells me we have a spy in the town.’

  ‘A spy, my lord?’ said Thomas, the very image of innocence. I eased myself further backwards, sliding on my belly through the refuse in the alley, out of the line of sight. But I heard the next exchange as clear as a bell.

  ‘Are you deaf? Yes, a spy. Lord Kirkton says one of the pretender’s lackeys sneaked into Lincoln to see him. He said he was in his house not a few moments ago.’

  Thomas laughed. It sounded horribly false to my ear.

  ‘Ah, my lord. One should not pay too much heed to my friend Miles. He enjoys his wine and sometimes he takes a little too much—’

  ‘He’s a disgusting sot. All men know it.’

  ‘This is true, my lord, it is his curse. He has visions, he sees phantoms, my lord, when he has partaken too freely – and sometimes when he has not yet had enough.’

  ‘You tell me that this is a figment of his imagination?’

  ‘I am quartered there, too, my lord. I’ve seen no spy.’

  There was a long, long silence. I grasped the handle of my misericorde. If they came for me, there would be no point in fighting. I would draw the blade, reverse it and thrust it double-handed into my heart. I would not be taken.

  ‘You tell my drunken lord of Kirkton, that if he ever, ever troubles me again with this sort of nonsense, I will have the skin off his back for a saddle cloth. Tell him.’

  And with a blessed relief, I heard the sound of the White Count and the company of men marching away.

  A moment later, Thomas hauled me to my feet. I began to babble my thanks to him but he stopped me. ‘You gave me no choice. And there can be no going back for me now.’ He slapped me on the shoulder and I saw his smile in the dim light. ‘But, damn it, Alan, yes, I do believe you.’

  We waited a full hour behind the last house, squatting in the muck and listening out for any sounds. But the town was quiet. Then Sir Thomas led me stealthily along the town wall.

  ‘Here, here it is,’ he said. He was pointing to an arched doorway in the wall that was part bricked in and part filled with chunks of old masonry. Inexplicably, the smell of blooming roses filled the air.

  ‘I noticed this the other day. This used to be the western gate to the town, I think,’ said my friend. ‘Built by the Romans but it fell into disrepair long ago and instead of fixing it, the doorway was filled up with stone and old bricks. It is not secure though; look, see here, the stones are quite loose.’

  He reached over and pulled out a piece of masonry the size of my head.

  In no time at all we had excavated a small hole in the archway, a foot or so wide, just enough to squeeze our bodies through. And then we were beyond the wall and running west into open countryside. I thought I heard the sound of a shout from the ramparts above the sawing of my own breath, but I did not waste time looking back. I ran for all I was worth.

  With my friend Thomas Blood running at my shoulder.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  ‘Are you certain he betrayed you, Alan?’ said Robin. ‘Miles could not have been speaking to the Comte du Perche on some other matter?’

  ‘There can be no doubting it, sir,’ said Thomas. ‘I am sorry to have tell you.’

  Thomas and I had retrieved my horse and, riding double like Templars, we put several miles between Lincoln and us and then curled up to sleep under a hedge. Robin’s scouts found us in the morning and brought us to my lord. The army had risen long before dawn and was bearing down on Lincoln from the northwest, aiming to be at its walls by sun-up. Our host was now no more than a mile away and would be clearly visible from the town walls and, we hoped, from the besieged castle inside it.

  ‘That stupid boy,’ said Robin. ‘I do not know what to make of him; he seems to make the wrong decision every time, almost deliberately. Look out for him when we fight, both of you, and see if you can get him to surrender. I don’t want Miles – Lord Kirkton, forsooth – to be hurt or wounded, if we can possibly prevent it.’ Robin spurred his horse away to deal with other equally pressing matters.

  My lord had greeted Sir Thomas’s return with genuine joy – there had been no recriminations and, in a very brief ceremony in a muddy field with a dozen Kirkton men-at-arms as witnesses, Thomas had knelt before Robin, begged his forgiveness and sworn to be his loyal man once more. Robin had accepted his oath and confirmed him and his heirs and successors once more in the manor of Makeney.

  In very short order we had both donned our war gear, found ourselves fresh horses and taken our places at the head of the ranks of the men of Kirkton in William the Marshal’s battle. There were two other battles, as these divisions of the army were called, one under Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and the other under William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, and each held about a hundred knights and between two and three hundred squires, sergeants and mounted men-at-arms. Bishop Peter’s two hundred and fifty crossbowmen, and Robin’s company of fifty archers under Hugh, were spread out in a loose cloud ahead of the three battles of our cavalry, as well as further down the slope, and we were arrayed for a full-pitched battle, for it seemed the enemy had decided to come and face us outside the town walls. Certainly, far to the south and below, I could see the bright colours of the knights’ surcoats and the pennants and flags of the enemy as their horsemen spilled from the southern gate of the city, coming along the line of the river, metal spear points flashing in the rising sun.

  I was greatly heartened by this because by coming out to face us in the pasturelands to the west of the city, the enemy was making a colossal blunder. This was a battle-losing mistake. Perhaps they had miscalculated the size of our force and thought they could scare us away with the thick ranks of their horsemen now gathering below us – but it was an error nonetheless. We wanted a pitched battle, we were honestly seeking it, and they would have to attack uphill to come at us or, if we attacked them, face the extra momentum that our downhill charge would deliver. Furthermore, if we fought here, we would not have to assault the north gate and spill our men’s blood on its formidable battlements.

  We sat our horses and waited patiently while the enemy made his dispositions, the only combat being a desultory exchange of crossbow bolts from their skirmishers and ours in the green space between the two armies. Yet every man on that field knew this battle would not be resolved by bows and bolts, however deadly they might be, but by the thunder of a full-bloo
ded cavalry charge.

  It was inexpressibly good to have Sir Thomas at my side once more and I realised how much I had missed him in the previous months. He too seemed relieved to be back with his rightful lord, although we both shared a sense of guilt about the failure to bring poor Miles back into his proper place.

  ‘His soul has changed, Alan,’ said Thomas. ‘He used to be such a merry lad – always getting into scrapes, of course, but with such joy, such natural good humour. I don’t know what it was – perhaps the knowledge that he was betraying his family, or just the loneliness of being among strangers – but something inside him turned sour.’

  I thought his constant consumption of strong wine might have had something to do with it – I knew from personal experience how easy it was to allow drink to take a grip on you – but I did not say this aloud. I did not wish to sound as if I were criticising Thomas for not keeping Robin’s younger son under control.

  ‘He became mean-spirited and cruel, sly even,’ said Thomas, ‘and very touchy. He killed a man-at-arms over a spilled cup of wine in a tavern last month. He is still strong and quick and deadly with a blade despite all those nights and days of debauchery. Well, he’s young. But look, Alan, down there. Look!’

  I looked down the hill at the bright ranks of the enemy knights – they were moving. Were they really going to attack us? Were they really going to make a full-blown uphill charge against a stronger enemy force?

  The enemy crossbowmen who had been skirmishing with our bowmen were now streaming back between the conrois of French knights, leaving the field empty in front of their heavy horses.

  Were they about to make their charge?

  They were not. I saw that the troops in the rear ranks were turning their mounts and heading back into the city by the southern gate. Conroi after French conroi wheeled and put spurs to their horses’ flanks and quit the field.