King's Man

by Angus Donald

  I lost one man killed and two injured in the process, and it was grim work. We were not taking part in a mad rush for glory, with the rage of battle pounding in our ears, but doing heavy, difficult, dirty work. What is more, destroying the outer bailey’s defences made the sacrifice of precious lives that morning seem a terrible waste. But when a King commands, you obey.

  It was gone noon by the time we finished, and I released the men to find food and rest as the first flames began to crackle and burn along the line of palisade. I put the torch to that damned gatehouse myself, piling straw and brushwood on either side of the wooden doors, then throwing a burning length of pine into each pile and retreating beyond the burnt strip as the column of smoke rose into the blue March sky. My task accomplished, I walked back into the town to seek out Robin and receive fresh orders.

  I found the Earl of Locksley in a big townhouse in the centre of Nottingham, drinking red wine and joking with Little John. Robin was sitting on a stool in the corner of the room with his left leg extended. He had a bloody bandage on his thigh, but he assured me jovially that it was a clean javelin wound and would surely heal, given time – if he was only allowed a little peace and quiet. Little John was lying flat on a big table in the centre of the hall, naked from the waist down. His right buttock was swollen and bloody and the black shaft of the quarrel was sticking up vertically, protruding about six inches from the mound of pink-white flesh. Nonetheless, John seemed to be in very good spirits. A nervous barber-surgeon was fussing around the big man’s nether regions, mopping at the blood that was trickling down his hip and muttering. The man, who was clearly rather frightened, kept picking up an instrument that resembled two spoons fixed together – the bowls facing each other, and the whole contraption attached to the end of a short, thin iron shaft – then putting it down again.

  Robin saw me peering at the instrument and said: ‘It’s a tool for removing arrow heads from deep wounds. The spoony part is inserted into the wound, closed around the arrow head, which allows the head to be withdrawn without causing any more damage. Totally unnecessary, in my view – Flemish crossbowmen don’t use barbed arrows for warfare. But Nathan here insists it is a marvellous invention and the decision must be his: after all, Nathan is the man who is to operate on John, when he can summon up sufficient courage.’

  I looked at Robin quizzically. And my master said: ‘John has threatened to break both of Nathan’s arms if he causes him any unnecessary pain.’ And he gave me a lop-sided smile.

  Little John was grinning owlishly at me from his position on the table. I could see that, unlike Robin, who was merely relaxed, John was thoroughly drunk. He had also been tightly strapped to the table, with several thick leather bands securing his huge chest and both meaty legs. I walked over to him. ‘Now then, John,’ I said, selecting my most patronizing tone. ‘There is no need to throw your weight about here and make such a childish fuss about a little thing like this.’

  And with my index finger I flicked the shaft of the quarrel that was sticking out of his arse cheek – hard.

  It wobbled satisfyingly, and John bellowed with rage and pain and tried to struggle free of the leather bonds that strapped him to the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Nathan the barber-surgeon looking stunned and Robin, heedless of his javelin wound, convulsed with laugher on his stool in the corner.

  ‘That,’ I said to the red-faced giant now writhing on the table and trying to reach me with great backward sweeps of his massive hands, ‘was for the punch in the face that you gave me at Carlton.’ And I grinned broadly at him to display the tooth he had chipped.

  ‘And this is to teach you not to bully poor barber-surgeons—’ I grabbed the shaft of the quarrel and pulled it free of the wound with one swift, clean jerk of my wrist. It came free easily, accompanied by a splash of black blood.

  Followed only by John’s booming roar of outrage and the sound of Robin’s helpless laughter, I ran from the room and tumbled out into the street, hardly able to contain my own mirth. It had been a long, difficult day, but that image of Little John’s crimson face, contorted with impotent fury, was one that would warm me on many a cold night for years to come.

  At dusk, the King summoned his chief counsellors to his big pavilion in the deer park. I accompanied Robin to the meeting, but only after I had ascertained that Little John was hors de combat, sleeping off a vast quantity of drink in a comfortable bed in the town, his bum cheek now cleaned, stitched and bandaged by the surgeon. I had resolved to stay well out of his way for a few days, at the very least, until he had calmed down; possibly a month – maybe even a year or two.

  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 résumé 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 …’

  ‘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.