by Dan Davis
Geoffrey of Monmouth snickering, looking round at the others. Only the priests shared his glee.
I froze. “I had hoped my great victory in Dover would prove my loyalty to the Crown.”
The Marshal sighed. “You never needed to prove it to me, Richard. But there are ways to do these things. Our good friend the Archbishop of York would use it against me if I did not have you seized.”
“I apologise, my lord,” I said. “I cannot allow you to do that.”
“I am sorry, I believe I misheard,” the Marshal said, blinking up at me. “What did you say?”
“How dare you,” the pudgy Monmouth declared in a shriek, slapping the table hard enough to wobble the wine. “Good Lord, man, you should be hanged for such treason.”
“Be quiet, Geoffrey,” the Marshal snapped, without bothering to hide his irritation.
Monmouth collapsed into his seat and hung his fat head. Longspear laughed.
“My Lord,” I said, dropping to one knee by the Marshal’s chair and speaking earnestly. “There is no man alive who I respect more highly than you. As a knight, as a warrior and as a loyal servant of the crown, you have no equal. So understand that when I say I must be allowed to destroy William de Ferrers. He is hiding in Sherwood, he is killing or enslaving the good folk of the king’s forest. He is so close I can almost taste him. He is preying upon the king’s loyal forces, you know this, my lord. And it must be I who slays him. I have sworn it. I swore it twenty-five years ago. I am begging you to allow me to fulfil the oaths I have made to the innocent dead.”
The Marshal stared at me in disbelief.
“Everyone, leave us.” He spoke softly but somehow everyone around him heard his order and fell silent. The great lords and knights stood and filed out, taking everyone in the hall with them in a cacophony of muttering and clattering feet.
Geoffrey of Monmouth stiffened and leaned in to the Regent. “My lord, I beg-”
“Get out, I said,” the Marshal shot back Monmouth, steel in his voice.
Geoffrey stomped out, glaring at me over his shoulder.
A couple of silent men-at-arms stood at the back wall ten feet away, ready to defend their lord. As if any man in their right mind would attack William the Marshal, even as ancient as he was. I noted how the top of his arms were thick with muscle and his shoulders were broad though the rest of him with thin and straight.
“I have never been entirely sure of what to make of you, Richard,” the Marshal said as everyone left, leaning back into his chair. “You can fight, anyone who has seen you has attested to that. But since your return from crusade, you have had little ambition.”
“The Archbishop-” I started.
“Yes, yes. Your liege lord has kept you repressed,” he said. “Yet if you had any ambition to change the facts of your situation, you could have changed them.”
“When I returned from crusade?” I said. “I did not know that you even knew my name, my lord, let alone that you had any interest in me so long ago.”
“I take an interest in all promising knights,” the Marshal said, grandly. “But after a year or two of inaction, I ceased to expect anything from you. You were content to slumber in your hall, living a quiet life. There is nothing wrong with that. I expected you were growing old. But when you mustered for the king’s campaign, I was astonished to see you looking so young. And now, what has it been, more than ten years later and I see you have not aged a day. No wonder the men turned on you when you were caught slurping up the blood of the dead. Do not deny it. Men whom I trust told me themselves that they saw you. Your perversions are a matter for God and for yourself, as far as I am concerned but the men did not like it. The old Monmouth, he did not like it. They were jealous of your fame and then they were jealous of your eternal youth and your ability. And instead of protesting more than a little, you were content to hide yourself away again. It smacks of a certain moral cowardice, does it not? But perhaps you were right to hide. And now that I see you once more, I am struck that there must be some truth to the rumours.”
“That I have made a pact with the devil?” I asked.
He stared expectantly at me.
“May I sit, my lord?” I asked.
The Marshal stood, grabbed a jug of wine and two cups and sat down himself again. Not in the chair at the centre of the table but on the bench at my end. I sat opposite and he poured us both a cup of wine.
“My true father was Earl Robert de Ferrers,” I said.
The Marshal spilled a little of the wine he was pouring. He set the cups before us. “I see.”
“I only learned the truth of it while I hunted William near Jerusalem. And then he confirmed it to me himself when he had me captured.”
“He captured you?” The Marshal said, for I had never really spoken of that part of the story.
“But for a moment,” I said. “After I had slaughtered most of his men. But the truth is that William and I share the same father. And I do not know why but both of us aged normally, until the day we were each killed. He died at the Battle of Hattin and when he rose again, he was immensely strong and he did not age a single day after that. And his own blood, when ingested by other men, granted them increased strength also. And speed and endurance and it seemed to addle their brains. They believed him Christ reborn. It may not have been the blood that made them believe. William has a way of twisting men’s minds.”
“And you believe yourself to be the same as he?” The Marshal said, looking warily at me. “With magic blood?”
“I am the same. William and his foul beasts killed my wife and then they killed me. I was being buried by my surviving servants when I awoke.”
“Yes, I heard this part, I recall it now. Sometimes, you know, Richard, these things happen. Your servants should have called in a physician.”
“I was dead,” I said. “I died and I rose again. Since that day, I have had great strength. I have not aged a day. See for yourself. I was twenty-two years old. Today I am forty-seven or so.”
The Marshal stared at me for a long time. “And what did you have to do to gain these gifts?”
“My pact with the devil?” I asked. “Nothing. I was killed. I awoke, like this. That is it. I met no devil. William believed it a gift granted by God. It often seems more of a curse. But what can I do? This is what I am. They call me evil for drinking the blood of my enemies, men already slain. Well, I admit it. What other evils do I do? I do not kill the innocent. I seek to do right by my lord, my family, my household. I support the Church. And I loyally serve my king and his regent.”
He drank while he observed me closely. “What of this blood drinking? Why do such a thing?”
“The desire for blood is always in me,” I admitted, speaking freely to the most powerful man in England. “But I resist it. I do not kill for it. It seems that every time I drink, the desire for it only grows. And it rarely lessens. When I drink, my strength is increased even further. My speed of arm and mind both rise. And with blood, my body heals from terrible wounds in mere moments. I have been run through with blades, pierced by arrows, sliced and cut upon the face, arms, body and legs and yet I have no scars.”
“And William de Ferrers has these same... abilities?”
“He may be stronger than I. In fact, I am certain of it for he has no compunction about taking blood from men, women and children. He revels in it. In the Holy Land, he scoured the countryside taking families to feed upon. To drink dry and then discard. This increased his strength and also allowed him to make an army of men. Knights and men-at-arms who would be unremarkable in combat were in not for their ingestion of William’s blood. He is most certainly doing the same in Sherwood.”
The Marshal drummed his fingers on the table. “But why? Why here and why now?”
“Who knows what his plans are or what his ultimate goal is? In the Holy Land, he was on his way to creating an army. He wanted to carve out his own kingdom. Perhaps he has similar plans for England.”
“Do not b
e absurd,” the Marshal said. “This is not Palestine but England. One man cannot overcome a kingdom, no matter how much blood the fellow drinks, no matter his own strength. Nor how many blood-swilling swine he ensnares.”
“I do not believe he is one man alone,” I said. “I believe that there is, at least, one man working with him. The most powerful lord in the north of England.”
William Marshal wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “There is no doubt,” he said after a long pause, “that the Green Knight of Sherwood is in league with the Archbishop of York. I had my suspicions when it was my men and the men of other lords who were disappearing on the Great North Road by Sherwood and yet the archbishop moved freely up and down in many times in a year. When he had you arrested, I knew for certain.”
“And I knew for certain that it was he that planned the king’s poisoning,” I said. “It seems strange but William de Ferrers poisoned his own father.”
“Robert de Ferrers was killed by poison? But why?”
“My brother Henry killed William’s wife and child in the Holy Land,” I said. “I now know Henry was no true brother. We shared only our mother and he well knew it when we were children. In the disorder after Hattin, he slaughtered William’s family. It drove William mad. He returned after a couple of years.”
“The Massacre of Ashbury,” the Marshal said. “It was always said there was no reason behind it.”
“Reason enough for a madman,” I said.
“And now you wish to continue the slaughter,” the Marshal said.
“I want justice,” I said.
“You want his death.”
“More than anything,” I admitted.
“He should be tried,” the Marshal said, looking at me intently, judging my reaction. “This is England, not some Saracen backwater. We should bring William de Ferrers to justice. But perhaps the kingdom requires certain men to face a quieter fate. A simpler solution, for the good of the realm.”
“You believe me,” I said, not realising he was getting at something else. I was quietly thrilled, as I never expected anything but derision.
“No,” he said. “I cannot believe the half of it. Magical blood? You are some form of lunatic, I do not doubt. But there is enough truth in your words to reinforce my own conclusions. The Archbishop of York is colluding with an outlaw band in Sherwood. The archbishop, I believe, poisoned King John. The sad truth is, the archbishop may have saved England by his treachery.”
That gave me pause. “What are you saying?”
“John may have triumphed in the field, eventually. He was a competent enough commander of men. But I can do better without him. And with him out of the way, I have reissued the articles of the barons in the name of Henry, with a few corrections, of course. I have pardoned all men who come back into the king’s peace. Once we throw out the false king Louis, England shall be at peace with itself once more. And all because John is not here to poison his own well.”
“That may be the case,” I said. “It does not excuse the fact that the archbishop is a regicide.”
“Of course it does not,” the Marshal snapped. “Do not top it the morality with me, you blood slurping madman.”
William Marshal was my lifelong hero. Still, I felt an urge to twist his head from his shoulders and drink from his severed neck. I closed my eyes and allowed the anger to pass.
“How will you prosecute the archbishop?” I asked. “I would be happy to speak my evidence at a hearing.”
The Marshal laughed at my naivety. “I can never prosecute him. Even if I thought that such a thing would work, which it would not, England has enough open fighting amongst itself. All I can do is isolate him from the king and continue to outspend him.”
“That seems somewhat uncertain,” I pointed out. “Would a knife in the dark not be the better option?”
“Perhaps. And yet who would do such a thing?” he asked, speaking lightly and taking a drink of wine without looking at me.
I understood what the Marshal wanted from me.
“A man who would expect little in return,” I said. “Merely a warrant to clear Sherwood of outlaws. And perhaps a very small payment. I am nearly out of money.”
“I doubt he would let you near him,” the Marshal said, looking at me once more.
“Perhaps I know someone who could,” I said, wondering what Eva would say. She did not like her father but I feared she would feel somewhat displeased about me murdering the man, let alone helping me to do so. “Or perhaps I could take him on the road, as William has done with so many other travellers.”
“Spare me the details,” the Marshal said. “I suspect that the archbishop is content to wait until my death, as old as I am. He’s playing a game that will last longer than the players.”
“He must be of an age with you, my lord,” I said, thinking back to when I first met the archbishop. He was already old, or seemed so to me at the time.
“I suppose that he is,” the Marshal said. “Yet he wears it well. Like you, he seems to have not aged in the last ten or fifteen years.”
The silence drew out as we stared at each.
“He has not aged,” I said, deliberately.
The Marshal rubbed his eyes and leaned forwards to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Can it be true, what you say about William’s blood? The truth now, Richard, is it not some conjurer’s trick? You wear some secret eastern face paint or perhaps you are the true Richard’s son?”
“I swear it,” I said. “I will swear any oath, holy or otherwise. William’s blood, my blood, can arrest ageing if ingested. But how precisely, I do not know. Only that it seems to be effective. And I believe that for it to continue to work the archbishop must be drinking blood regularly. The blood of who, I do not know but a man of his power could be using servants or, come to think of it, those that William takes into Sherwood.”
“Good God.” The Marshal looked all of his seventy-plus years. “What can he and de Ferrers be working towards?”
“It seems our purposes are one and the same,” I said, planting my hands on the table. I would kill William and if I had the chance, I would kill the archbishop too as well. And I would reap the Marshal’s reward. “I am ready to leave for Sherwood immediately.”
“Do not get ahead of yourself,” the Marshal said. “Sit down. I have to take Lincoln first. And you will help me.”
“You must have hundreds of men here,” I said, warily. “You do not need me.”
“I have close to four hundred knights,” he said. “But you are worth ten more, at least.”
Frustration boiled up. “I am honoured to hear you say so yet-”
“And there is your wife’s son, Sir Jocelyn, plus the three squires and a score of archers you have in the woods a few miles away. My youngest son is with you also? Yes, I have exceptional men who saw your approach and shadowed you all the way from Nottinghamshire. All of you would be most useful. In fact, I have a task for you. Do not argue. You fight for me at Lincoln and then I will see you restored to your lands and you will have your warrant for Sherwood.”
“And a manor for Jocelyn.”
The Marshal stared me down. Then he sighed. “Fine. Now, listen.”
***
The walled town of Lincoln was in possession of the rebel barons, led by Thomas the Count of Perche. The castle of Lincoln was in the centre of the town and that, however, was in the possession of royalists, men who had been loyal to King John and had continued to be loyal to young King Henry.
The Marshal, after he had heard from our Wealden messengers that the French had been repulsed and delayed by our daring raid at Dover, had decided to take back the town of Lincoln and save the brave garrison of the Lincoln Castle.
“He was greatly impressed by the Dover raid,” I said to the archers. “So he wants us to fight for him here, too. In a way, that makes use of your abilities.”
“And what is our task?” Jocelyn asked, impatient as always.
We stood in the shade of a co
pse of alder where my men had made their own camp. There were hundreds of such groups of men all over the fields all around us to the north and the west of Lincoln. There seemed to be a few mercenary crossbowmen about but few enough English archers.
I wanted to let our men know what they faced. They were strangers in this part of England.
“We’re to fight our way through to the castle,” I said to him and to others, gathered together now in the Marshal’s lively camp. “The Marshal wishes us to scale the western wall of the town while his main force attacks the north gate. Once inside we will gain entry into the castle, freeing the garrison to attack from the rear while you men shoot down into the town. You will have only as many arrows as you can each carry up to the walls. There are thousands of men-at-arms in Lincoln so I suggest you choose important targets. The Marshal prays that our disruption will distract and distress the defenders. There are hundreds of crossbowmen in the city. If they are within range, the Marshal suggests we consider shooting them instead. And we are to exploit whatever opportunities present themselves. You men know I am no archer. I will leave the details up to you, Swein.”
The archers exchanged nervous looks.
“Perhaps you fellows are regretting following us into the north. But out of all Cassingham’s men, you twenty wanted glory and wealth the most. I allowed you men to come with me because Swein asked for it and because he swears you are all gifted archers and brave men. I know you expected to be fighting in the woods, against outlaws, not storming the walls of a city and fighting knights. But this is your opportunity. Fight well and you will be rewarded. When the city falls, you will be amongst the first to take what you can from the fallen and from the rebel citizens.”
A few of them, at least, began nodding and standing straighter. I would leave it to young Swein to inspire them further.
“You truly expect the city to fall just like that?” Jocelyn said to me. “We simply scale the walls and attack thousands of knights with a score of archers? No offense, my friends.”
Jocelyn was making out as if he was angry but I could tell he was excited. He was eager to prove his worth. I had not yet told him what the Marshal would give him were we to succeed. I did not want him to risk his life more than necessary.