by Angus Donald
Robin had cornered Miles, with a gang of French stragglers, outside a high stone wall fifty yards north of the bridge and the struggling mass of humanity. Miles had his sword drawn and the men with him looked desperate, some wounded and bloody, all wielding weapons of some kind or another. They were surrounded by a ring of thirty or so men-at-arms, crossbowmen and archers – and Robin.
‘There is no escape, Miles. Be sensible, for God’s sake. This foolishness has gone on for far too long,’ my lord was saying as Thomas and I panted up behind him.
‘Just lay down your sword and I can protect you. The alternative is … unthinkable.’
Some of our crossbowmen had their weapons spanned and all the archers had arrows on the string. It would have been the work of a moment to annihilate the Frenchmen pressed together by the wall. They lived only because Robin had stayed the archers’ hands.
‘Put down the sword, Miles. Just drop it. Look, whatever your grievance with me is, I am sure we can work it out as a family. See – I am sheathing my sword,’ said my lord and he slid his blade back into its scabbard and stood two yards from his son, holding his empty hands up and spread wide as if in surrender.
‘You always think it is about you,’ said Miles. ‘It can’t always be about you.’
I took a step closer to Robin. Miles’s face was a picture of misery, white and red, and none too clean, the marks of fresh tears clear against his grubby white skin.
‘Miles,’ said Robin, ‘my dear boy, you must know that everything I have done has been for you and Hugh.’
Miles laughed then. An ugly sound.
‘When I give the word, men,’ he said in French. ‘Be ready! Death before dishonour.’
The raggedy crew around my lord’s son tightened their grips on their weapons.
‘Miles, don’t do this!’ Robin was pleading. I’d never heard him speak like this. I’d never heard him beg.
Miles lifted his chin, took a breath, opened his mouth—
And Robin dropped his hand. The archers and crossbowmen loosed and in a whistling flash of white goose feathers and black streaking bolts every man on either side of Miles was struck by many shafts, almost simultaneously jerked this way and that by the punch of the arrows. They all fell, some quickly, some more slowly. Only Miles was untouched. He looked about him, the only man standing, gave a shout of rage and plunged his sword deep into Robin’s belly, thrusting hard with both hands.
My lord screamed: ‘Miles!’ and fell to his knees, and the boy tugged out the blade and raised its red length high over Robin’s head for the coup de grâce.
I was already past my lord’s kneeling form, Fidelity whirling, and with one savage blow I sliced through Miles’s forearms, separating the raised sword and both his gripping hands from his body.
He fell backwards with a cry, crumpling to the cobbles, lying amid the feathered bodies of his dead and dying comrades, staring in amazement at the stumps of his arms, now pulsing out twin red jets in time with the beats of his heart.
I dropped Fidelity and knelt beside my lord, looking into his face. He stared at me blankly, both hands folded over the spreading stain on his surcoat. Inside my head I was shouting: No, no, please God, no … My vision was blurring; my belly felt cold as ice.
‘I didn’t think he would do it. I didn’t think …’ Then Robin closed his eyes, his shoulders slumped, and he gently slipped sideways to the cobbles.
Boot carried Robin up the street to the Jews’ House, striding along at a brisk pace with me running alongside talking desperately, trying to get my lord to open his eyes. Like many of the richer denizens of Lincoln, the Jews had left the city when the French invaded, and we found their hall abandoned. But we made Robin a bed on the ground floor from our cloaks and pillowed his head on a rolled-up pair of hose.
We cut the mail hauberk from his body to get a sight of his stomach. It was bad, very bad. The sword had punctured the lower left side, just above the groin, and I knew it had entered the intestines and perhaps the bowel. The blood flowed thick and heavy, streaked with brown, and much as we tried to staunch it with rags they soon became sodden and useless. I got Robert to apply pressure on the wound with a wadded shirt and for the first time in an hour, Robin stirred. And screamed.
He opened his eyes and screamed again – the noise tore at my soul.
‘Less pressure, Robert,’ I said. ‘Just keep it firmly in place.’
The first thing Robin said, in a weak, reedy voice was: ‘Where is Miles?’
I confess this was the first time I had thought about Robin’s son since my lord had been carried from the street.
‘You hurt him,’ said my lord. ‘You cut him with Fidelity.’ He said it in a wondering tone as if he did not quite believe it. The tears started to flow down his lean cheeks. I tried to give him watered wine to drink but he would not take it. He weakly shoved my hands away.
‘Go and find Miles, Alan, go on. Make sure he is safe,’ he whispered.
I got up from my knees and stumbled out into the street, my tears flowing too by now. As I headed down the street I ran head-first into Hugh coming up the hill. He was slathered in blood from thigh to neck, the iron mail on his arms thick with clotting gore.
‘Miles?’ I said.
‘He’s dead,’ said Hugh, with a grimace.
‘How did he die?’
‘Badly,’ he said. ‘He started trying to walk down to the bridge, bleeding all the way, and collapsed in a gutter. No one offered to succour him. I found him half an hour ago, still living. I held him while he died.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Don’t thank me – I don’t want your thanks. You’re the one who killed him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Hugh looked at me. He seemed to be struggling to find any words to say to the man who had killed his brother.
‘He always liked you, admired you. Did you know that? When we were children he used to say that you were the deadliest swordsman in the world. He boasted that one day he would be better even than you. He talked of you when he was dying. Said you were still pretty quick for a broken-down old man.’
I sighed. There seemed to be nothing useful to say.
‘Me, of course, he abused with his last dying breaths. The little shit. Called me a bastard. A cuckoo. Called me Cain. Accused me of stealing his birthright.’
‘What did you do with his body?’ I asked.
‘I left it there.’
‘In the gutter? In God’s name why?’
‘They are excommunicate – all the rebels are. They cannot be buried in a churchyard. My father is not exactly going to give him a hero’s burial at Kirkton. Let him be buried with the rest, with his comrades, in the mass graves. Serve him right.’
I stared at Hugh. How could he misunderstand his father so badly?
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘we can carry the body up to Robin together.’
The pain grew worse over the course of that night. Despite Robin’s efforts to hide his suffering, his face was taut with agony and from time to time he gave out a whimper. Outside the walls of the Jews’ House, Lincoln suffered too. Victorious men-at-arms who had survived the bloody assault on the north gate took their revenge on the city in a brutal fashion. Boot kept the door for us, his bulk warding off even the most determined looters, but the rest of the town was subjected to one of the worst sackings I have ever seen. Gangs of drunken armed men lurched up and down the hill ransacking the houses of rich men and poor alike; women and children were raped, whole streets were set ablaze. Men-at-arms capered about draped in expensive lengths of dyed red and green wool stolen from the merchants’ houses, quaffing from jugs of wine, joking, quarrelling and fighting with their fellows over the division of the spoils.
During all the chaos, I sat beside Robin and watched as he suffered, the sweat starting from his white face, his teeth grinding together. He grew weaker and weaker; the flow of blood slowed but never quite stopped, and I changed the sopping pad at his waist ever
y hour or so. When the sun had gone down and the men were yawning, I sent them all upstairs to sleep, determined that I would keep my vigil with Robin alone. Hugh protested somewhat, but he had fought hard all day and eventually I persuaded him to retire on the promise that I would wake him in a few hours and rest myself. I had no intention of keeping that promise.
At around midnight, I awoke from a light doze to see Robin staring at me in the candlelight. His eyes seemed to shine with pain like silver mirrors but his voice when he spoke was serene.
‘You killed my son,’ he said. ‘You took little Miles from me.’
‘My lord, forgive me,’ I said, fresh tears running down my cheeks. ‘I would do anything to take back that blow. But I cannot. You must understand that I did not mean … I was trying to save …’ I broke down into incoherent sobs.
‘Shh, shh,’ said Robin. ‘Calm yourself, Alan. What is done is done and I will gladly forgive you, if you will do one small thing for me. One little service.’
‘Anything, lord, just name it,’ I said, cuffing away my tears.
‘Do you still have your misericorde?’
The realisation hit me like a hammer blow.
‘No, no – not that,’ I said, flinching away from him.
‘Alan, listen to me, we both know how this will end. Days of indescribable pain, hours of agony as I get weaker and weaker. Then, inevitably, death.’
I stared at him.
‘You know that what I say is true,’ he said.
I did know it – but what he was asking was too much.
‘Please, Alan – a quick, painless end is all I ever wanted. It is all any warrior wants. Give it to me. We did it for Mastin. Your last service to your lord. I beg you. If Little John were here, he would do it, in an instant. Please, Alan.’
‘My lord …’
‘Alan, if you love me, you will do this,’ he said and I saw that his mouth was trembling with pain as he spoke.
I got up and moved closer to him. I sat down and positioned his body so that his head and shoulders were resting across my lap. With my right hand, I pulled the slim blade from my left sleeve. The black metal seemed to glint evilly in the flickering light of the candles. I looked down at Robin; he was smiling, his lean face relaxed.
‘Be quick,’ he said, ‘strike hard. And, if there is one, I shall greet you in the next life with my grateful thanks.’
I placed the tip of the blade in the hollow between his neck and his collarbone. One hard shove and the long blade would slide deep into his chest and pierce his heart, stopping it and killing him instantly.
‘Ready?’ I said.
‘Do it,’ he said.
‘What in the name of God is going on here? Father, have you run mad? Put down that disgusting knife, this instant.’
Both Robin and I jumped at these words and I saw my son Robert, dressed only in his long flapping chemise, advancing on us with a candle in one hand and the righteous wrath of God written across his face.
‘Were you seriously about to kill him? I cannot believe you sometimes!’
‘Robert,’ I said, trying to be stern, trying to ignore the blooming relief in my heart. ‘This is not for you to see. This is a private matter. Go back to bed. Now.’
‘And let you cut his throat? I don’t think so.’
‘It’s all right, Robert,’ said my lord feebly. ‘I asked him—’
‘You be quiet – you’ve caused quite enough trouble already!’ said this skinny sixteen-year-old boy to the Earl of Locksley.
Robert fixed me with his iron glare: ‘We don’t have to kill him, Father. We can heal him. At least, I believe Tilda can heal him. She’s done it before; she told me about it last year and it has only now come back to me. A knight had a deep stomach wound from a sword and after Tilda’s ministrations, the fellow was walking again six months later. We have to get Robin to Westbury and as quick as possible. Come on, Father, look lively – help me wake the house.’
Chapter Thirty-six
It took us two nights and a day to get Robin to Westbury. Two nights and a day of jolting hell for my lord, who even carried in a donkey cart suffered all the torments of the damned as the vehicle bounced and bucked over the ruts in the roads. He took to stuffing a blanket into his mouth to muffle the sound of his screams, and I rode alongside him, my own guts burning with pity at his condition. At least twice I wondered if this journey were a terrible mistake, if we were piling agony upon agony on my lord and that the swift mercy of the misericorde might not have been the kinder option. But we were committed. My son Robert had committed us.
At Westbury, Tilda took one look at Robin, made him drink something powerful for the pain, and gave the rest of us a bare hour to wash and eat and saddle fresh horses before we set out on the road again heading north.
‘I cannot possibly help him here, Alan,’ she said. ‘For a start I don’t have the herbs, the salves, the chirurgia’s sharp blades and the cat-gut. I must put my hands inside his body to sew up the wound. I barely know what to do, even if I had all the right tools and medicines here. I have done this only once before, you know. I might easily kill him. There is only one person that I know who has the slightest chance of saving his life – and that is Anna, Prioress of Kirklees. And you know how things stand between us.’
‘She will treat Robin if I tell her to, and she will use all her powers to heal him,’ I said. ‘If she gainsays me, if I get so much as a peep of protest out of her, I will cut her throat and burn her precious Priory down around her ears.’
And so we took the road again, this time with Robin mercifully asleep but as shadowy as a corpse. Hugh rode on ahead to Kirkton – he had the news of Miles’s death to deliver to his mother, and the body of his brother, too, wrapped in a canvas shroud and bound to the back of a mule. In the moments when I was not consumed with fear for Robin, I writhed at the thought of what Marie-Anne would say to me about causing the death of her son.
Whatever she had to say to me, I would deserve.
Marie-Anne met us at Kirklees Priory, white-faced and seemingly much smaller in stature, shrunken by her grief. But she was all briskness when it came to Robin, supervising the Priory servants and our men-at-arms, having Robin carried into the infirmary on the ground floor and laying him on a long stone table, swathed in blankets. I tried to tell her how sorry I was about Robin – and about Miles. But she merely said: ‘I cannot talk to you now, Alan. There will be a time for that later.’
The Prioress, a handsome, middle-aged woman with an aquiline nose and small, brightly burning black eyes, was the true master of the situation. She consulted with Tilda – their discourse was brief but perfectly amicable; workmanlike, you might say – then all the men were sent packing from the infirmary and Marie-Anne was recruited to tear up clean cloths, boil plenty of water and mop Robin’s sweat-drenched brow.
I went and sat outside in the Priory gardens, next to their famous herbarium, with Thomas and Hugh, and we shared a glum jug of ale and a bite of bread and cheese while the three women laboured inside. Robert and Boot had been ordered to stay at Westbury, where they could attend to the gash in my son’s arm, mercifully not a serious wound. It was late May and the sky was clear and blue. None of us felt much like speaking. Hugh, who had been a rock of dependability all through the journey from Lincoln to Westbury – organising and looking after his men, making sure the road ahead was scouted for enemies as well as rough patches that would cause Robin pain as his cart traversed them – seemed to have sagged, crumbled even, now he had no further responsibilities. He looked like a scared young man on the point of tears. His only brother was dead and his father lay dying a dozen yards away, and there was nothing he could do to save him.
‘Do not fear, Hugh,’ I said. ‘I am sure the Prioress knows her trade. She has saved men from worse wounds than this one. All will be well, you’ll see.’
Hugh looked at me. I could see he wanted to believe me and yet he knew my words were false. Inside him the grief-stricken son f
ought with the experienced man of the world. The man won.
‘He has a deep stab wound to the lower belly; you and I both know what happens to a man with a wound like that. Have you, Sir Alan, personally, ever, even once, known a man to recover from such a wound?’
‘He is strong,’ I said, ‘and the Prioress is skilful. He will make it. I’m sure of it.’
Hugh said nothing. He picked at a loose thread on the sleeve of his tunic.
I could not seem to stop myself talking – a condition produced by my own anxiety. ‘You used to be a gambling man, Sir Thomas,’ I said. ‘What odds would you give our lord for a safe recovery? Evens, perhaps?’
Thomas looked at me as if I were an imbecile. I kicked his leg under the table and slid my eyes towards Hugh.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’d say better than evens on a full recovery. Yes, more like to get better than not, for sure.’
Hugh looked at the two of us, disgust plain in his eyes.
‘I am going to pray for him – in the chapel yonder. Come and find me if there is any change in his state.’
The air was somehow easier to breathe without Hugh. Thomas and I sipped our ale and said nothing to each other while the sun shone on our backs.
Finally, just for something to say, I said: ‘Do you trust the Prioress to do her best for Robin?’
Thomas tilted his head to one side. ‘Yes, I do. I know she was unwilling at first but Marie-Anne spoke to her and after that conversation she agreed at least to try. She values her reputation as a healer – and the reputation of Kirklees itself as a place where healing miracles can be worked – so yes, I think she will do her best. That does not mean I think Robin will live. Hugh was quite right: have you ever known a man survive a wound like that?’
I had not. Once again I wondered if I were not merely prolonging his agony.
After a good three hours, I saw Tilda coming across the grass towards us. She was drying her hands on her apron, but there were flecks of blood on her neck and lower jaw, which made her look as if she had just come from a desperate battle. Which, in truth, she had.