by Wayne Grant
“Your grace, if over a thousand mercenaries enter the gates of London, I won’t be able to save the ransom. The Emperor won’t care a whit where his money comes from—and if it comes from John, Richard will never see the light of day again.”
After three years of struggle it had all come down to this—who would control London and the treasure that lay beneath Saint Paul’s? Attempting to stop John’s mercenaries short of the city held enormous risks. Marshall could scrape together no more than four hundred men to face three times that number somewhere northwest of the capital, but waiting until they reached London seemed even more perilous. Trying to defend the walls of the city with John’s garrison at his back would be folly.
So they had marched.
Four days later, William Marshall stood on the crest of a long slope that rose up from a shallow valley below. In the first light of morning, he could see a river there, marked by a line of trees. He did not know its name. There would be a ford where Watling Street crossed the stream. Behind him, on the far side of the ridge were three hundred foot soldiers and seventy mounted men. His scouts had reported that John’s mercenary army was marching southeast on the same road. They would meet soon, and this spot looked promising.
Down near the river, the frozen ground was cleared, with only a few forlorn stalks of wheat straw poking above the thin layer of frost. The slope down there was gradual and the ground firm—good ground for cavalry and it was cavalry that worried Marshall.
His scouts had counted a thousand infantry and over four hundred mounted men in the host heading his way. Most were Flemish and Irish mercenaries, but these had been joined by mounted knights in the service of William de Ferrers and other barons who had cast their lots with John. It was a force that, on an open field, would overwhelm his own. But as he looked at the slope below, he saw that this ground offered some advantages.
While the land near the river was ideal for cavalry, that changed as the road climbed to the top of the ridge. Here the slope steepened and open fields were hemmed in by thick woods. By the time the road reached the ridgetop, the forest had encroached to within fifty paces on either side. Attackers would be forced in on themselves the closer they got to the crest. He would place his men, like a cork in a bottle’s neck, across this narrow front and stand his ground.
As the sun grew brighter, he noticed that there was little frost where he stood. The ground near the river bottom was still frozen, but days of clear skies and afternoon sun had thawed the higher parts of the slope. He stepped off the road and felt the ground give—mud.
Mud would be his friend.
He heard a quiet curse behind him and turned to see Sir Walter FitzWilliam, his sworn man, extracting a boot from the clutching muck.
“Sir Walter, tell me what you think of this ground.”
He took a moment to scrape mud off his boot before looking up and carefully scanning the slope running down to the river.
“Good ground. Best I’ve seen. Shall I set the line, my lord?” Walter FitzWilliam was a bluff man of few words, but a veteran with a keen eye.
“Aye, Walter, I think we’ll fight them here.”
***
Fifty paces from the top of the ridge, men were hard at work, sharpening stakes and pounding them into the ground. Beneath six inches of mud, the ground was rocky and Marshall could hear his men curse when it refused to yield. Still, by noon, a triple line of stakes bristled from tree line to tree line, with the only gap being the Roman road with its worn stone paving.
For a moment, Marshall pictured what it must have been like when this road was new and the soldiers of Rome, their ranks perfectly dressed, had marched north to put down one rebellion or another among the wild tribes of Britannia. He had heard legends as a boy that the wild Queen Boudicca had met her end somewhere near here in a battle of annihilation with a Roman legion.
Rome might have long ago abandoned this outpost of empire, but it seemed the Britons were still warlike enough to trouble the King’s peace. His scouts had been shadowing the mercenary army from the moment they had broken off the siege of Chester. As the hired Flemish and Irish soldiers made their way, first south, then east, they had been joined by scores of Englishmen, ordered into the field by those barons who had calculated that John, Prince of England, would prevail in this fratricidal war.
A rider had reached him at mid-morning to report that the head of the enemy column would reach the river by nightfall. They would see his preparations and would likely wait until first light to make their attack. It would make for a restless and fearful night for his men on the ridge.
The scout said the enemy column was miles long. Marshall had known since he marched from London that he would be outnumbered when he met John’s forces, but he had hoped that some loyal men would heed his urgent calls for help. The Earl of Hertford had promised to meet him with another two hundred men at Towcester. When they’d marched through that village in the small hours of the night, there had been no sign of the Earl or his men. Perhaps he was late—or perhaps he had reassessed the chances of victory. Marshall sent a rider east down the road to search out any help that might be coming, but the man had not yet returned.
As the long afternoon drew to a close and the early winter sunset approached, he saw riders come out of the woods on the far side of the valley and rein in as they saw his position on the ridge. Minutes later, a solid mass of cavalry appeared, filling the road. In the cold winter twilight, sound travelled well and Marshall could hear officers shouting orders. Men peeled off to both sides of the road and began to dismount. For the next hour, foot soldiers entered the valley as the first occupants got their evening cook fires started. As the night grew dark, the fields across the river flared with hundreds of fires. It was a grim sight.
Marshall walked out beyond his line of stakes and looked back up the ridge. It was good ground and he had prepared his defence well, but in the end he knew he would lose. The men he faced were professionals and outnumbered him four to one. The mud might slow them and the stakes hinder them, but it would not be enough to stop such an overwhelming force. Yet he had to make a stand somewhere.
After a last look at the campfires filling the opposite side of the valley, he turned back toward his own lines. To the men he passed, he showed no hint of fear, but he was afraid—not of death. Death had never frightened William Marshall.
He was afraid to lose.
***
The Earl of Derby sat on a small stool in front of his tent as his servant tended the fire. William de Ferrers was in a black mood. Here in the bottom land by the river, the cold settled in, damp and clammy, and the flames barely fended off the chill. They had been marching for five days and he was sick of living like a primitive. He looked across the valley at the glow on the opposite ridge and the sight cheered him a little. Their scouts had reported at midday that the great Earl William Marshall, Marcher Lord and Justiciar of the realm, had come out from London to meet them—with barely four hundred men!
William Marshall.
He had only met the man twice and did not like him. Any man who guarded his virtue as carefully as Marshall, had to be a fraud. And that such a man had risen from being a lowly household knight to become Lord of Striguil and Justiciar of the Realm was an insult to men of more noble birth.
A de Ferrers had fought with Duke William at Hastings. Marshall’s greatest forbearer had been hardly more than a groomsman for the Conqueror’s horses. He failed to see what made Marshall suitable for high office beyond his prowess in tournament and joust. It certainly was not his breeding! But the morning would see an end to the man’s pretensions. If Marshall survived the day, his reputation would be in tatters and his decision to support an absent king would likely cost him his life. Either way it would be the end of this up-jumped pretender.
Marshall’s defeat would leave the road to London open to them and the Prince’s orders had made it clear that they must reach the city in all haste. He had been stunned when the order came to aba
ndon the siege of Chester. They had been so close! The city had to be on the verge of starvation and he had pictured many times his triumphal entry and Ranulf’s humiliation.
Things were moving in ways de Ferrers did not fully understand, but instinct told him that these were the final moves in a deadly game. He consoled himself with the thought that when John took the crown, he would get Chester back and Ranulf would surely hang for treason. Once more, he would be the most powerful man in the Midlands.
There will be scores settled then.
He held his hands out toward the fire to warm them. His black mood was gone.
***
Marshall moved among his men as night fell—joking with them and bucking up their courage. Many of these men had been his loyal retainers for years. Their deaths would be on his head. Finally, he found a quiet spot and fell into a fitful sleep. Around midnight someone shook him awake.
“My lord,” a man hissed. “Get up!”
It was Sir Walter. Marshall threw off the cape that he’d drawn around him to fend off the dew and felt for his sword.
“What is it?” he asked, slightly groggy with sleep.
“My lord, it’s a miracle!”
“Is it Hertford? Has Earl Richard joined us?”
“Nay, my lord.”
“Then what, damn it all!”
“It’s Ranulf, my lord,” said FitzWilliam with a huge grin, “come all the way from Chester!”
Marshall scrambled to his feet and saw the Earl of Chester striding down the slope toward him. The two Marcher Lords embraced as though they were long lost kin. Marshall had only met Ranulf once, at Richard’s coronation, and the man before him bore little resemblance to the boyish Earl he had been introduced to over three years ago. He wore rusted mail and a dented helmet and could have been mistaken for an itinerant knight. But the mail was otherwise well maintained and the man wore a sword like he was used to it.
“My lord, you are an answer to my prayers!” he said as he drew away. “I had not expected to see you here.”
Ranulf nodded.
“I had not expected to be here, my lord. Chester was starving, but when we rode out four days ago, the enemy was gone. I sent out my scouts and they met one of your own. He told us you were marching from London to meet these foreign bastards, though he did not seem to know why. For our part, we did not care why—we cared only that you were going to fight. I have watched my people go hungry and seen my city bombarded. Every man here is ready to get some of our own back. We’ve marched day and night to get here ahead of those people,” he said, gesturing westward into the darkness.
“And you are a most welcome sight, indeed, my lord,” Marshall said, slapping the young Earl on the back. “What have you brought me?”
Ranulf turned and gestured toward three men standing behind him.
“I bring you the Invalid Company, now one hundred strong and commanded by Sir Roland Inness and Sir Declan O’Duinne.” Roland and Declan stepped forward and gave a short bow.
“I remember you lads from Oxford!” Marshall said, clasping hands with each in turn. “The day you two rode off with the dregs of London’s gutters behind you, I feared I was sending you to your deaths. Praise God I was wrong!”
“I could not have taken back Chester without them,” Ranulf said. “I also bring Sir Roger de Laval, commander of the King’s heavy cavalry in the Holy Land and the man that brought us news of Richard’s capture. I cannot help but think that much of the mischief visited on Cheshire these past years could have been avoided if Sir Roger had been there to advise me.”
Marshall looked at the tall, worn knight with a big frame and a fringe of greying hair around a bald pate. He stepped forward and clasped Sir Roger’s hand.
“Your reputation precedes you, sir.”
“As does yours, my lord.” Sir Roger paused. “I’m told by the men who escorted her to London that you have played host to my daughter since August. Is she well?”
Marshall had not expected this—had not known that Sir Roger de Laval had survived the crusade and had somehow got home to Cheshire—the girl didn’t either. He could see the man was desperate for news of his daughter, but afraid of what that news might be.
“My lord, Lady Millicent was well and healthy when we marched four days ago. Your daughter is an extraordinary young woman. You and Lady de Laval can be proud. She bearded me on the day we met about the burden she and her mother had suffered with you gone, but she never shirked her duty to the King. My wife bore me a daughter a year ago,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve only seen the babe twice in all that time, but I hope that one day she will grow to be something like your Millicent.”
Sir Roger fought to speak, overcome by this news of his daughter.
“She was just a little girl when I left, my lord. It’s hard for me to picture her otherwise.”
“She is a fine young woman now, and beautiful, I would add. She will make some young noble a handsome wife.”
Sir Roger shot a glance at Roland Inness who was standing beside Declan.
“I believe, my lord, she’s already been spoken for.”
Marshall gave Sir Roger a small bow and turned back to Ranulf who pointed to a cluster of men gathered around in the darkness. All looked weary from long days and nights of hard marching,
“My lord, I bring you eight score archers from the mountains of Derbyshire,” Ranulf said with a flourish.
“There are no better men in a fight than the Invalids, my lord, but my Danish longbowmen might be their equal. I have seen what they can do against even armoured knights and so have those bastards across the river. They will not rejoice to face these men again.”
William Marshall looked past Ranulf at the ranks of bowmen standing tall despite the forced march they had made to reach this field. Each had a longbow that reached from the ground to above its owner’s head. Every man had a full quiver.
The odds were beginning to even.
Robin Hood
There was a small tavern in Beeston that stood beside the road running north from Leicester to Nottingham. The tavern keeper was a jolly man with a bulbous nose who sold ale that wasn’t sour and stew that had a little meat in it. He was a good-natured man who was slow to anger and quick to forgive, but he hated the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Sir Alfred de Wendenal had inflicted various injuries to his coin purse and to his pride over the past year and he nursed a grudge. He was not the sort of man to take up a sword, but he had chosen to fight back in his own way. Tavern keepers hear things—rumours and such—and every few days he was visited by a man from Sherwood Forest. He told this man all he had learned about events in Nottingham and the activities of the Sheriff. By prior arrangement, it was to this tavern that a rider had come from London with an urgent message for the outlaws of Sherwood.
William Marshall had sent his summons.
***
“Nine tons of silver?”
“Aye, Rob,” Tuck replied. “That’s what the message says. It’s the last bit of the King’s ransom. They are to have it ‘stolen’ near Newark on the road from Blythe. We’re to be blamed.”
Robin laughed.
“Your friend Marshall must have found that amusing.”
“I expect he did, but what he wants of us is dead serious.”
“Indeed it is serious, old friend. Nine tons of silver could feed every man, woman and child in Nottinghamshire for the rest of their natural lives. If we can get our hands on it, why should we turn it over to Marshall?”
Tuck looked at his friend, unsure whether Robin was serious or jesting.
“We will turn it over because we are not truly outlaws. We will turn it over because it will get Richard back and put an end to this chaos. And if that is not enough reason, we will turn it over because if we don’t, whoever is King will come to Sherwood with an army and hunt us down like dogs.”
Robin threw an arm around Tuck’s shoulders.
“Then I suppose we will have to turn it over. Let�
��s have another look at that message. We need a plan!”
***
The Sheriff led fifty horsemen out the main gate of Newark Castle at dawn. His orders from Prince John had been explicit. The last of the King’s ransom was being shipped south under guard from York. It must not reach London. He was to seize the wagons hauling the riches of the north and secure them at Newark. The men from Yorkshire escorting the wagons would be expecting them. He was to show them the seal of Prince John and they would not resist when he took the silver.
It had all been arranged.
The Sheriff absently reached down and touched the leather bag holding the Prince’s seal as he rode. He was nervous. The theft of silver intended for the King’s ransom was far different than stealing a few pigs from a peasant’s sty. It was the sort of thing that could cost a man his head—if the King ever did return. Three months ago, he would have been unconcerned. Back then, most of the nobles had concluded that Richard was dead—drowned somewhere at sea. John’s star was rising and his own star had risen with that of the Prince. But then came the stunning news that the King was alive and uncertainty had begun to seep into his gut.
He was the oath man of William de Ferrers who was wholly in thrall to the Prince, but the Earl had not been himself since he had taken the blow to his head at Chester. And with the new year had come a frightening increase in the strength of the outlaws of Sherwood. It was all troubling—but he had his orders.
***
The road from Blythe to Newark skirted the northern edge of Sherwood Forest. It was no Roman road and could be almost impassable in the spring when the rains turned the deep ruts into muddy quagmires. But in the dead of winter, it was solid enough to support wagons heavy with silver. Five miles south of the tiny village of Blythe, three huge wagons, each pulled by a team of eight oxen laboured along the road.
Thirty heavily-armed mounted men rode to the front and rear and on each wagon a man with a drawn sword sat beside the driver. Anyone within a mile of this procession could hear the bellow of the oxen and the snap of the teamster’s whip in the cold air. This was their fourth day on the road and the man at the head of the column was tense.