by Angus Donald
All the King’s senior barons and knights were there, crammed into the stuffy tent, some bearing the marks of the day’s battle. The Scotsman, David, Earl of Huntingdon, was chatting to Earl Ferrers, who had been lightly but unluckily wounded in the face that afternoon by a quarrel fired from the castle. His men had made a valiant attack on the barbican of the middle bailey, and had very nearly taken it. But the falling of dusk, and a surprisingly determined resistance by the defenders, had forced them to retreat at the last, leaving their dead in piles in the ditch below the middle bailey’s stone walls. William, Baron Edwinstowe, standing alone near the back of the pavilion, gave me a cautious nod and a half-smile; I bowed slightly in return. Ranulph, Earl of Chester, stood with Sir Aymeric de St Maur and another grey-haired Templar knight talking quietly in a corner of the tent. While we waited for the King, Robin and I passed the time in conversation with William the Marshal — he had been one of the knights who had charged to our rescue that day with Richard, and he had slain many of the enemy that morning with his own hand. I thanked him for saving my life, and the lives of my men.
‘I should be thanking you,’ said this grizzled old war-hound. ‘Without your valiant assault on the gatehouse, we’d never have taken the outer bailey.’
‘Not that it has done us much good,’ said Robin with a grimace. ‘Ferrers’ assault on the barbican failed. We are still no closer to taking the stone heart of Nottingham. You might say that we just wasted the lives of a good many men today — mostly my men.’
I knew that Robin’s wound was paining him, but he was also genuinely angry about the carnage that had occurred during the taking of the gatehouse. Of the one hundred and ninety-odd men-at-arms who had charged with Little John and me that morning, more than two-thirds were now dead or wounded. And many of the badly wounded would not live through the night. Robin’s forces had been severely depleted by the attack, and we could not even say that we now had mastery of the outer bailey. No one did.
‘I don’t care for that sort of talk,’ growled the Marshal, looking sharply at Robin. ‘It was bravely done, and Alan here is to be congratulated for a difficult task accomplished.’ I smiled gratefully at William. And Robin grinned a little ruefully at me. ‘You are right, Marshal,’ my lord said. ‘That was remiss of me. You did very well today, Alan. And I thank you from my heart for your gallant efforts.’
I wasn’t sure I liked the word ‘efforts’, but before I could raise the matter, Robin changed the subject.
‘What news from the heralds, Marshal?’
The old warrior scratched his grey head. ‘Nothing very surprising: the castle still formally defies us. The only ray of sunlight is that the heralds have reported that there are those inside who, it is believed, would surrender to the King in the right circumstances. But not while the Constable, Sir Ralph Murdac, is in command there. The wretched fellow is apparently devoted to Prince John, and he has told the heralds that he does not believe that the foe encamped before him really is King Richard. He is saying that our army is commanded by an imposter, some jumped-up knight pretending to be Richard!’
Robin snorted. ‘That’s a good one — the King is an imposter! And the idea of Ralph Murdac being devoted to anyone is quite amusing, too. That little hunchbacked rat has nowhere else to go, and he knows it, so he’s dressing it up as knightly loyalty. But that’s all by the by. I take it that there is no chance of a nice peaceful surrender, then?’
‘None — while Murdac remains Constable,’ said William. ‘We must take the castle by force. It will have to be done the hard way, the old-fashioned way.’
‘Maybe — but then again, maybe not,’ said Robin, musingly. ‘Will you excuse us, Marshal? I need to speak to young Alan on a private matter.’
And, hobbling slightly from his javelin wound, he pulled me aside and began to whisper quietly into my ear.
By rights, I should not have spoken out at the King’s Council. Although I believed Richard was fond of me, I was a nobody, a mere captain of men, a youth, not yet twenty years old, of no family to speak of, and with only one small manor to my undistinguished name. But I did speak, and it changed my life. And, as it was his idea, I have Robin to thank for the results.
The meeting began with the King addressing the assembled barons and bishops, offering a brief word of thanks to the Marshal, the Earl of Locksley, Earl Ferrers and several of the other knights there for their actions that day. Then he moved on to give a resume of what the heralds had reported: namely, that the castle still defied us, and would continue to do so under the command of its present Constable. The King did not mention that Murdac considered him to be a jumped-up imposter. Rightly so: even royalty must safeguard its dignity.
‘So, gentlemen,’ said the King, ‘what we need to do is bring those big walls down. I will teach Sir Ralph Murdac to defy me, by God’s legs I will! I have given orders to my artificers to build a couple of siege engines by morning, a powerful mangonel and a good-sized trebuchet, and over the next few weeks I plan to reduce the east wall of the middle bailey to rubble. I took Acre, and that was considered an impossible task, and I can damned well take Nottingham. But I’m afraid, gentlemen, it will take some time…’
‘Sire,’ I said. I still find it hard to believe that I had the courage to interrupt my King in mid-flow, and I would not have done so were it not for Robin’s insistent elbow nudging my ribs, but I did. And this is what happened.
At first the King did not notice me. ‘We need to bottle them in securely,’ he was saying. ‘I want no food, water or provisions, and particularly no men or information going in or out of the castle. You, my lord of Chester, will take the southern section, by the cliffs…’
‘Sire,’ I said again, and this time the King noticed me.
He looked slightly annoyed to be interrupted, and I suddenly wondered if I was making a huge mistake.
‘What is it, Blondel?’ the King said, coldly.
‘Sire,’ I said for the third time. And my tongue shrivelled in my mouth.
‘Yes?’ The King was definitely getting testy. ‘Now that you have interrupted me, Alan, speak if you have a mind to.’
I finally managed to get my words out: ‘What if we were to, ah, get rid of Murdac? What if we were to — well, ah, kill him, or remove him from command of the castle in some way? Wouldn’t that change things for us?’ As I said it, I knew it sounded absurd, the sort of thing a silly child might say, and I could feel my cheeks redden as some of the most powerful barons in England stared at me, astonished at my impudence.
The King looked at me for a long, long moment, and for an instant I believed that he would order the guards to drag me away from the tent and have me hanged, drawn and quartered.
‘And how would you accomplish this?’ the King asked, frowning.
‘I know of an old servants’ entrance into the castle, sire. It is forgotten; I believe it remains a secret known only to a very few. It leads from a tavern below the southern wall of the outer bailey to a small unused buttery inside the upper bailey of Nottingham Castle itself.’
My voice was growing in confidence as I spoke. ‘It is a narrow passage, and I do not believe that a large number of men-at-arms could use it. The noise a large party of men would make would ensure detection. And once detected, they could be easily slaughtered one by one as they emerged into the castle. But one man, treading lightly, could secretly gain access to the castle this way, I believe. He would then have a good chance — if he did not put too high a value on his own life — of finding Sir Ralph Murdac and killing him. Perhaps in his chamber at night as he slept, perhaps in some other way — but I think it could be done.’
‘You may have something, Blondel,’ said the King, and he smiled at me. And instantly, all the other great men in the tent were beaming, too. ‘Without Murdac, as you say, we’d have a much better chance of getting these rascals to surrender my castle. Would you do this for me, Alan? It is a risky — one might say downright foolhardy — proposition…’
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br /> ‘Yes, sire,’ I said simply. And what else could I say? He was my King.
Richard nodded to himself as if confirming something that he already knew, and then he looked over at Robin. ‘Do you know about this forgotten servants’ hole, Locksley?’
‘No, sire,’ lied Robin. ‘But I have full confidence in Alan of Westbury. If he says it exists, it surely does, and, if anyone can accomplish this most dangerous and difficult task, it is he.’
I looked at Robin, a little surprised at his praise and by his denial of all knowledge of the tunnel. He grinned over at me and gave me a suspicion of a wink. And I smiled back.
When I tell the old tales of Robert, the cunning Earl of Locksley, of the wily outlaw Robin Hood, all too often I stress the times when he behaved badly. I tell far too often of his cruelty, or of his greed for silver, of his indifference to the sufferings of those outside his family circle, and his contempt for Holy Mother Church. And all too often I forget to mention the one thing that was perhaps his most outstanding characteristic: his kindness. If you served him well, he would pour out his benevolence on you without ever counting the cost to himself. He was, at heart, a very kind and generous man — at least to those whom he loved.
Robin had wanted me to raise the subject of the tunnel with the King because he wanted Richard to know how resourceful I was; and for the King to reward me in due course. Robin could have claimed credit for the scheme himself; he could have said that he had shown the tunnel to me, and used it to rescue me from imprisonment inside Nottingham. But he did not. That was the sort of man he was. And so, with a careless smile and a half-wink, he secured the King’s personal favour for me, and dispatched me on a great and perilous adventure — and quite possibly to my death.
Chapter Twenty-one
Hanno led the way, holding up a single horn lantern with a stub of candle in it. The yellow walls of the tunnel seemed even more grotesque than before, with weird faces seeming to leer out at me from the walls, mocking my ambitions: going into the castle on a mission of murder was far more daunting than coming out of it to freedom and safety.
It was close on midnight, and although I had not slept since the day before last, I was not tired. In fact I was burning with an excited rage that seemed to banish all my fears. I knew that, if things went wrong, I would have only a small chance of survival — but, for the opportunity to kill Sir Ralph Murdac, to take revenge for so many hurts and insults at his hands, and to do an invaluable service for my King, it seemed a risk worth taking. I was young then, and adventure and risk had a certain appeal merely for their own sake.
There were also a number of things to my advantage. I knew the castle, and the members of the garrison there knew my face, but possibly not my true allegiance. With so many folk changing sides in the contest between King Richard and Prince John, I was fairly sure that if I was stopped by suspicious guards and questioned, I could convince them that I was back on Prince John’s side. And my presence in the castle would seem to be proof of that. Both Hanno and myself were also wearing the black surcoats with the red chevrons of Murdac’s men — taken from prisoners captured in the battle for the outer bailey — with our swords belted over the top. And so I felt confident that any man-at-arms seeing me — a familiar face, inside the castle, wearing Sir Ralph’s livery — would likely consider me friend rather than foe.
The main problem would come when we emerged at the mouth of the ale-shaft; I did not know whether the old buttery had been discovered as my method of escape. After all, five months ago a condemned prisoner had disappeared in the middle of the night, killing three men, stealing a large quantity of silver and leaving a bloody wolf’s head in his prison cell — what would the garrison have made of it? Would they have searched for a secret tunnel, or remembered how the ale had previously been delivered to the castle? Would they have put it down to witchcraft? Did they believe I had magicked my way out of there? Or would they have assumed that I made my escape by more ordinary means, bribing a guard with a bag of silver and slipping quietly over the castle walls? I had no way of knowing.
I was fairly sure that Sir Ralph Murdac would not be familiar with the lower reaches of the castle: it was an area frequented by servants, cooks, butlers and so on. Not by knights, and certainly not by the Constable himself. I was staking my life that the old buttery and the ale-shaft were as we had left them — staking Hanno’s life too.
I had initially meant to go on this mission alone, but Hanno had insisted on accompanying me. ‘You get lost in those tunnels — ha-ha — and in the bottom of the castle too!’ Hanno was jovial as ever and seemed totally unconcerned about the danger when we talked quietly in the main room of The Trip to Jerusalem tavern — now deserted, for the brewer and his young family had wisely fled when the castle had been encircled by King Richard’s troops. Hanno was supposed to be seeing me off on the mission, but instead he said: ‘Best I come with you to keep you out of trouble; maybe teach you something.’ And I did not protest too much. I was very glad to have him by my side.
When we approached the final steps of the tunnel, and reached the chamber directly below the shaft that led up to the buttery, we killed the horn lantern and stood absolutely still, listening for sounds of danger from above. Nothing. Not a sound.
I stretched out my hand in the darkness and made contact with the rope. The same rope that Robin, Hanno and I had climbed down five months ago. It seemed incredible but, apparently, the buttery and this secret way into the castle were still quite unknown to the defenders.
I climbed up the rope into the dark shaft. My arm muscles were soon protesting; though I carried no shield, I was weighed down by my mail coat and sword, and by the heavy back-sack that I wore. But very shortly I sensed a space around me, and groping quickly with my left hand, I found the lip of the housing. Then Hanno was there, lighting the lantern, and I was using his big key to unlock the low, wide door that led to the old buttery.
So far, so good. The buttery, as far as I could tell, was the same as it had been five months ago.
A clatter, an appalling din of wooden noise as a small ale cask fell to the floor with a crash, toppling from a pile of larger ones. Then there was a high-pitched squeal of rage and something dark moved very fast in the corner of the buttery. My heart seemed to explode and I had my naked sword in my hand before I knew what was happening.
Hanno and I stood frozen in silence. There were no further sounds. Then Hanno laughed quietly. ‘It is just a rat,’ he whispered. ‘But he gives you a good fright, yes?’
I said nothing, but re-sheathed my sword, cursing my jumpiness. And a few moments later Hanno and I were walking confidently along the corridor outside the buttery in the bowels of the upper bailey, in the very heart of Murdac’s stronghold.
At this hour the interior of the castle was largely still — there would have been sentries on the ramparts, and groups of menat-arms bunched together in the towers on the walls, and in the guardhouses and barracks in the middle bailey, but this part of the castle was eerily quiet. Hanno and I passed only one person as we made our way towards the great tower and Ralph Murdac’s chamber: a servant carrying a tray of wine cups. The surly devil ignored us, brushing past in an irritable manner. It seemed that our surcoats gave us the invisibility we craved.
We passed a guard room at the base of the great tower, and as we walked past, I could not help glancing through the door. My eyes just had time to take in the homely scene: two or three men-at-arms in red-and-black surcoats playing dice at a table in the centre of the room by the light of a single candle, and a dozen soldiers snoring in cots around the edges of the chamber. We walked past without inviting any comment; indeed, without even being noticed. My nerves began to ease: we were going to succeed! God willing, we were going to make it all the way to Murdac’s chamber — where Sir Ralph was no doubt slumbering peacefully — without a single challenge.
The chamber of the Constable of Nottingham Castle was on the western side of the great tower, on the secon
d floor. I had not been there since that fateful day in September the year before when I had been summoned by Murdac and told that I was to accompany the silver wagon train from Tickhill back to Nottingham. Hanno and I arrived there, walking normally along the stone corridors and pretending to converse with each other in low tones, like any two men-at-arms on a midnight errand from their captain, or just stretching their legs after a long stint of sentry duty.
We stopped just short of the chamber, hearing the sound of pacing feet, and after a cautious peep around the bend, Hanno whispered in my ear that there was only one man doing duty before the door. My German friend reached down and pulled the misericorde from my boot: ‘Do it quick and quiet,’ he said into my ear, putting the weapon in my hand. ‘No noise, no fussing.’ I nodded, my heart hammering. It was time once again for cold-blooded murder. I peeked round the corner, too, and took a look at my victim. Like the sentry outside Kirkton Castle a year and a half ago, the man-at-arms outside Murdac’s door was young. But this time, when I looked into my soul, I found I had no qualms about taking his life — it was necessary, I said to myself, and that was all that really mattered.
My heart quietened, I took a deep breath and moved fast, without hesitation. Two quick and silent steps, as he was turned away from me, and I grabbed his nose and mouth with my left hand and slotted the misericorde hard and neatly into the back of his brain with my right. It was as easy as sliding a well-greased bolt on a cellar door. The blade glided home, the man kicked once and collapsed into my arms, a dead weight. That was it; there was nothing more to it.