Hood

by Toby Venables

  Worcester, de Montbegon and Fulcher de Grendon burst onto the platform behind them—and they, too, stopped dead at the sight stretching before them.

  “Gods,” muttered de Montbegon. “The King himself is come.”

  “We don’t know that,” said Murdac.

  “But the banners...”

  “It’s a ruse,” said Murdac. “The King is not with them.” There was a distinct quiver in his voice.

  “The King is returned,” insisted Galfrid. “Five days ago. I know this for a fact.”

  “This is just the army come from taking Tickhill,” said Worcester, dismissively.

  “Tickhill is north,” said Galfrid, as if addressing an idiot. “This army approached from the south.”

  Murdac gathered himself. “The King is returned,” he said. “That much is true. But he remains in the south. I have good reports to that effect. These barons, come to do his dirty work or to win favour, want us to think otherwise. And why? Because they know full well they cannot take this castle by force. Their only hope is if we give in.”

  “Perhaps we should consider...” began de Montbegon.

  “We will not!” snapped Murdac. “That is exactly what they are hoping for. What they rely upon. We have stores enough for months, perhaps years. They have a great army to feed, in a land that provides scant fare even for its own people. Let them dig in. We’ll see who starves first.”

  “The King will see to their provisioning, by whatever means necessary,” said Galfrid. “And you know he will not be content to simply wait it out. There is nothing he likes better than to break a castle. None have yet resisted him.” Galfrid drew in closer. “And you know what he did to the rebels in Aquitaine, Angoulême and the Limousin?”

  Of course Murdac knew; everyone knew. Many had nothing but awe and admiration for the Lionheart’s uncompromising, brutal methods. They made him a great general, and a great king. But it was a rather different matter, mused Murdac, when those methods were turned on you. To those outside, Richard was a robust, decisive leader; to those in the regions themselves, he had been the very reason they were perpetually in revolt.

  “Well, where is he then?” said Murdac, suddenly defiant, and gestured wide across the battlement. “Do you see him out there, riding before his army? Of course not.”

  “The fact we have not see—” began de Montbegon.

  “Others may be frightened by stories, Sir Roger,” said Murdac, turning on him, “but I left those fears in my crib. I was charged with holding this castle for Prince John, and hold it I shall.”

  He stepped to the edge of the southern battlement and looked down into the courtyard of the keep, where vast numbers of his men had now turned out, nervous eyes on him. Leaning out over them, hands on the cold stone parapet, he bellowed out in a hard, clear voice: “Prepare for siege!”

  XLIV

  Nottingham

  25 March, 1194

  “WELL, THIS IS a pretty pickle,” said de Rosseley. It was an English expression—one Ross could only have picked up from one of the grooms—but certainly it captured their situation.

  They were sitting about a flickering fire in a muddy yard on the town’s shabby outskirts, chewing on their meagre rations, cloaks pulled about them against the spotting rain. In the near distance, the jagged edifice of Nottingham Castle loomed. The stones of the great keep and inner bailey glowed orange in the night, illuminated by the flames from the blazing barbican.

  Gisburne looked up at the besieged fortress, and the drifting column of thick, black smoke before it, twisting a bent, discarded arrow shaft in his hands. “A pretty pickle,” he repeated. He poked at the blazing logs and spared a thought for the citadel’s defenders.

  Why they had not immediately capitulated when they saw Richard’s banners, Gisburne could not fathom. Surely even Murdac could not be that stubborn. Formidable as the castle was, they could not hope to win; this was no mere upstart baron at their gates, but the King himself, the great conqueror of castles, and in his own domain. By resisting, all they guaranteed was death—and a traitor’s death did not come swiftly.

  Immediately upon arrival—even before the last of his army had left the road—Richard had set about breaching the wooden stockade of the outer bailey. The reports Gisburne had heard were sketchy and at times fantastical—so it ever was, with the Lionheart’s exploits—but from what Gisburne could gather, a large force had pushed forward behind thick shields, the King himself among them. The first objective had been achieved swiftly, but not without considerable bloodshed on both sides. There was little the crossbowmen on the stockade could do to halt the advance, but once the outer bailey gate was breached, resistance—doomed though it clearly was—had been fierce. A group of defenders had even made a bold sortie from the castle itself in support of their beleaguered comrades, but were soon beaten back. It was said that the Lionheart himself had killed a knight with a crossbow. Later, men from the castle had again crept out, this time to set fire to the captured barbican—a gesture of defiance, but really no more than a gesture.

  Gisburne and his company had heard it play out—the bellowed commands, the blasts upon horns, the clash of weapons and the cries of agony and alarm—but had seen nothing. Then, finally, the evidence of it began to reach their eyes. One by one at first, and then many at a time, carried between pairs of men like sacks of wet grain, the wounded and dying were brought for the attentions of the barbers, the priests or the gravediggers. It was a sickening parade, even for one used to such spectacles: faces hacked, extremities gone or hanging, bone exposed, bellies, limbs and heads stuck with shafts of ash and oak, and so much blood and gore that a red trail was left in the mud and dung of what passed for a street.

  The women of the whorehouse opposite—among the select few to have stayed when the army pitched up, risking ruin for the sake of opportunity—stood and watched in glum silence, their hair askew, the ragged hems of their skirts caked in mud. The sounds of their sisters plying their trade drifted from the tiny, uneven windows above, and for a time had merged with the groans and babblings of the battle’s casualties.

  Battle had ceased until the next morning, but around them still were the sounds of a busy camp: the hammering of timber and metal, the cutting of wood, the rasp of blades against stone, and above all, voices—hundreds, thousands of voices, laughing, cursing, singing, praying, but most often raised in command or protest—sometimes English, sometimes French, occasionally that curious mixture of the two that made sense only to an Englishman. They were the preparations for siege, and in the sounds alone, one could divine a strategy. This was to be no mere waiting game; Richard did not starve castles into submission, he broke them. And this—the rebel castle, held in defiance by his upstart brother—was in for particular punishment.

  Gisburne looked again towards the castle walls. Somewhere in there—if they had made it that far—were Galfrid and Mélisande. In there also—still living, he hoped—was the old enginer, Llewellyn of Newport. It was entirely possible, tucked away as he was, that the whole siege could come and go and the castle change hands and Llewellyn wouldn’t even realise it. But he thought of the last time he had seen him, the old man’s fragile health, his own advice that he get out of his workshop, and worried for his wellbeing.

  Nottingham, a town Gisburne knew better than any other, had never been so full—nor, perversely, so wholly abandoned. Upon hearing the blasts of the horn from the castle guard, the inhabitants had all either taken refuge in the castle—if useful enough to warrant feeding—or fled. Now, the great sprawling army, with its dozens of factions, was camped in and about the town’s buildings—fine houses for the lords; humbler dwellings for the knights, serjeants and other men-at-arms; barns and stables for the common soldiery, where they could get them. The meadows beyond the town limits were dotted with tents, many reserved for those of status. The rest had to make do where they could.

  Gisburne and his company, at least some of whom looked like knights, had been offered ac
commodation that was at least warm and dry, but Gisburne had eschewed it in favour of a quiet corner away from the main army—and prying eyes.

  A quiet corner... Gisburne laughed to himself, assailed as he was by the raucous carousing from the packed hovel behind him, where a company of Flemish crossbowmen had taken root. It had, in part, dictated Gisburne’s decision to camp here—mercenary companies tended to keep themselves to themselves, and he doubted they understood enough English to make sense of anything they might overhear. If they heard anything; in celebration of the day’s successes they were making enough noise to raise the dead.

  Judging by the state and stink of it, the yard had until recently been occupied by a pig, something that evidently did not delight Nyght and the other horses, who were now tethered to the fence rail and drinking—reluctantly—from its trough. The fate of the creature itself could was hinted at by the smell of roasting pork now wafting from the hovel. The row of tumbledown cottages the Flemings had commandeered included an alehouse, and clearly the new residents had also discovered its abandoned wares and duly liberated them.

  All in all, they had far better things to occupy themselves than Gisburne’s gloomy band—and that was just the way he wanted it.

  “So, what now?” said Aldric.

  “There is no other course left to us,” said Gisburne. “I must get to King Richard by any means possible, and before battle is joined tomorrow.”

  Earlier in the day, they had again considered slipping away. Aldric thought it eminently possible—one might whitewash the archbishop’s wagon unchallenged, if one did it with confidence, he had said.

  Perhaps he was right, but Gisburne refused to countenance it. He had no qualms about putting himself at risk, but the others? De Rosseley might bluff his way out, but what of Asif? As long as he lay low, attracting no attention, no one in this chattering chaos was likely to notice him or care much if they did. But who here would look at a dark-skinned man acting suspicious and believe he didn’t have malice in mind?

  The lives of the rest of his company—now separated from them—also concerned him. They now found themselves among people who Richard, if true to form, would skewer, burn or publicly eviscerate for their treachery. Once before, Gisburne had put Mélisande and Galfrid in danger within the walls of a castle. He had not abandoned them then, and could not abandon them now.

  But the main reason Gisburne had to seek out the King was brutally practical.

  Some time during that afternoon a wild thought had occurred to Gisburne: that Hood might already be among them—that his men might have merged with Richard’s. It was a mad idea, but once thought, there was no ridding himself of it. Though they had searched for signs of Hood’s men, they found nothing.

  But as they plodded about the camp, he had begun to accept a harder truth. The element of surprise was now lost. The swift, lighting strike they had planned would fail—worse, it would lead them into the jaws of a trap.

  The plan had been bent further and further from its original shape to accommodate every change in circumstances. But like a bowstave, there was a point where it would break, doing harm only to the one wielding it.

  It had been painful to admit, for the course it led him to was one he dreaded. But it was clear, with Hood drawing steadily closer, there was only one option remaining.

  He needed to get to Richard, because only Richard could give him an army. And he needed an army to go to war with Hood.

  It was the very last thing Gisburne wished to do, and therefore the very last thing Hood would expect. And that was why he had to do it.

  He hated that he had been driven to this—that he had to go cap in hand to that most detested man, that lover of war. But understanding that it had to be done—committing to it, not reluctantly, but completely—inspired another, entirely unexpected feeling in him. One he had all but forgotten. Here, in the midst of disaster, surrounded by mud and death, he felt suddenly alive. It was as if some part of him, long ago fallen into slumber, had begun to wake up.

  The new plan was simple.

  All he had to do was get to Christendom’s most ruthless crusader in the midst of his own army, accompanied by a Saracen and a skull-faced heretic, admit his total failure to carry out what had been asked of him, and ask to draw a huge military resource from a siege inspired by decades of familial hatred.

  He had faced worse odds. It had been Mélisande, by a stream in Sherwood, who had reminded him of that. Something else was occurring to him now—a mad idea inspired by a mad idea—that actually made him smile.

  “This is all very well,” said Aldric. “But one does not simply walk up to a king.”

  “Especially when he is engaged in a war,” added de Rosseley.

  “And he must be alone,” said Gisburne. “If he has company, I can’t guarantee that he’ll even acknowledge me.” He spoke as if, in some grim fashion, he actually relished the challenges ahead.

  “That’s impossible,” protested Aldric. “We should just make for the forest. Nothing’s stopping us.”

  But Gisburne was smiling, an idea forming in his head.

  “There is one time it might be done,” he said.

  XLV

  Nottingham Castle

  26 March, 1194

  RICHARD SETTLED HIS arse over the hole in the board, then turned and glared at the groom. “I don’t need help,” he snapped.

  The groom bowed, gave a final anxious glance around the unfamiliar surroundings of the walled garden, then scuttled away to leave the King to the King’s business.

  Richard sat back on the worn commode, his mail gathered in his lap, his sword leaning against his thigh, and smiled to himself. Ah, yes. Perfect.

  He was back in armour. He was back at the head of an army. He had a rebel castle under siege—a good one, too—and prisoners ready to hang. His eyes flicked up to the castle walls, where he could make out guards shifting nervously on the battlements—little more than a bowshot away. Richard had taken the house closest to the castle walls for his lodging, much to his barons’ alarm. They had urged him to move further back, but even when he had stepped out and two of his men had been shot dead by crossbow bolts, he had refused. He had simply put on a coat of mail and an iron helmet, and continued to stride before the besieged walls. He meant to show these upstarts—and his own men—that he was not afraid.

  Now here he was, in the open air on a fine spring morning, the smell of burnt, blackened earth in his nostrils, the birds singing and the carpenters hammering at the gallows. Only one thing could possibly improve matters—and that was a good, satisfying shit.

  In an uncertain world, it was something Richard knew he could absolutely rely on. When it came to regularity, there was nothing to match the King’s bowels. It didn’t matter where he was, what stresses or strains he was under or what he had eaten—it was always the same, every morning, like the rising of the sun and the crowing of the cockerel. Even on campaign, when others were dropping like flies, their innards turned to quivering jelly by dysentery, he alone remained firm and true. It was a sign, he felt—to him and to others—of the great strength within him. He had no doubt it struck fear into his enemies, whose own weak bellies liquefied in terror at the prospect of facing him.

  He took a deep breath, taking pleasure in his brief seclusion—a pleasure that had only grown since his incarceration. Privacy was not something Richard often experienced, or indeed particularly valued, but there were times, he had to admit, when solitude was best, and this was assuredly one of them. Occasionally, his one-time clerk and now physician Mauger had tried to get in on it—examining what was produced for the purpose, he said, of “ascertaining the King’s good health.” Richard had said, with all the firmness he could muster, that Mauger could poke and prod all he liked afterwards—he could make them into a damned hat if he wanted—but if he ever wished to be a bishop, something the King knew he coveted, he would have to go against tradition and keep his face out of the King’s arse.

  So it had
become sacrosanct—and for this moment, everything stopped. One might say his day revolved around it, as surely as the sun revolved about the earth. Nothing was planned to clash with the daily occurrence, and all else took second place. Had the Pope himself come knocking, threatening excommunication, even he would have to damn well wait until nature had taken its course. In the Holy Land, Richard had kept King Philip of France waiting thus on more than one occasion—often rather longer than necessary, it had to be said. He chuckled to himself at the memory. So finely wrought were his guts, so predictable the movements, that it rarely took more than a few minutes to complete the process satisfactorily; but having the King of the French waiting on his turds amused him too much for the opportunity to be wasted.

  There were other, more profound reasons why he so relished this moment, however. It was still. It was without interruption, without strife, without any kind of demand upon him: perhaps the only moment this was really true. Apart from when he was asleep, of course, but that Richard largely regarded as an irritating waste of time. To be at stool, however—to have his old travelling commode brought out by his grooms, the one that he laughingly referred to as his “throne”—and to be in this state of sublime isolation, that was glorious. A perfect, still moment—a moment of prayer, almost—in which all was right. It was, he had come to realise, the only time he truly enjoyed peace.

  The sound of boot leather scraping on the wall shattered his reverie. It came from behind him, and he knew immediately what it was. It was followed by the heavy thud of feet landing on earth.

  His hand crept to the grip of his sword. Every day of his life, he had been prepared for someone to come and kill him, or to try. He was not afraid—he was never afraid—but he knew they would be. They were afraid because they were about to face the Lionheart. And he was not—because he was the Lionheart! Let them come.