Then he picked up a chair, and with a roar swung full circle and let it fly. The barons broke apart as it smashed against the council chamber wall, sending splinters of wood high into the air.
The problems that year had been many.
In March, Philip, the French king, had taken Château Gaillard. The key to the defence of Normandy and the Lionheart’s pride and joy, it had been deemed impregnable by Richard. He once said he could defend it were its walls made of butter.
In April, John’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, had died. The last of her generation, an anchor during all the storms, she was the power behind three English thrones—and one French one.
In May, the city of Caen—burial place of the Conqueror—had surrendered to the French without a fight. Caen was one of the two cities upon which control of the region rested; Rouen was the other.
In June, Rouen—lacking the will to fight for John—had followed suit.
By August, the whole of Normandy—the once insignificant duchy which had conquered England and Sicily and given John’s father his claim to the English throne—had slipped through John’s fingers.
And they laughed at him. Lackland, they called him. Softsword.
Even now, Philip was striking into the very heart of Angevin territory, and was poised not only to take Poitou, but Anjou itself. The mighty empire that had been his father Henry’s lifelong labour was unravelling before John’s eyes, and it seemed there was nothing he could do to stop it.
It should have been possible. He had the forces, he had the will. But everywhere he was betrayed.
After the siege at Nottingham and the final reconciliation with Richard, he had served his brother loyally, right to the end. And while he was never the great military genius that his adored brother had been—his interests were too diverse, his tastes too broad—he had demonstrated he knew well enough how to deploy men, and how to lead them, too. He had shown it at Évreux, and at Gamaches. He’d shown it when he’d brought the English army within striking distance of Paris, and returned with the captured Bishop of Beauvais as a prize. He had shocked them all.
But how many of those now around him remembered?
Not one. It suited them to forget. In the relentless quest to demean him and his predecessor—to make the brilliant day of the dead king the brighter by extinguishing all light in the dark night that followed—even these achievements were now ascribed to Saint Richard the Lionheart.
John turned slowly around the chamber in the awkward silence, his eyes focused on nothing. “Get out,” he muttered.
De Percy took a step forward. “My lord, if we—”
John turned on him like a wild dog.
“GET—OOOOOUT!” He held on to the last syllable until his breath was spent, his mouth dripping venom, his face so red it looked fit to burst. Half the company had quit the room before the roar ended.
He stood, then, in the emptied chamber, gradually recovering his breath. The Angevin temper... It was known, even celebrated. Richard had it; his father Henry had it. Quite clearly, he had it too. It was the result, so it was said, of the Angevin dynasty being descended from the Devil. Old King Henry had liked that story. That being the case, how could anyone blame John for these histrionics? They were his inheritance.
He chuckled to himself. Spying a flask of wine that had escaped the mayhem by the fire, he hunted around for a cup—booting a pomegranate across the floor as he did so—found one, filled it, and gulped it down. That eased things a little. He filled it again. No, they couldn’t blame him; but they would anyway.
A sound made him stop, the cup at his mouth.
No servant would enter so soon after his outburst—they knew better. For a moment he thought it must be that bastard de Percy coming creeping back. If anyone would it was he, with some new argument, some new complication, some new problem. But de Percy, like the others, had left by the southwest stair. The sound—a footstep, he was sure of it—had come from the northern end of the chamber.
John squinted through the arches that joined this chamber to the next, trying to penetrate the shadows there. He could see nothing; hear nothing. And then one of the shadows stirred and began to approach.
It was black from head to foot, and immediately familiar.
“Welcome back to the White Tower, Sir Guy,” he said with a smile. Gisburne stopped and stood before him, his head slightly bowed. John looked about him at the broken, scattered objects. “Sorry about the mess,” he said.
The knight was dressed in the familiar, black horsehide coat, although this one looked brand new. A leather patch covered his lost left eye. He seemed hardly to have aged.
John chuckled to himself. “Well, I know better than to ask how you got in...”
“Do not let anyone blame the guards on duty,” said Gisburne.
“I’ll make certain of it. It’s my castle now, I can do as I like.”
Gisburne walked over to the table, righted it, then placed a heavy gold ring upon its top. John stepped forward to investigate.
“God’s teeth,” he said. “This is my personal seal. Where did you get it?”
“You gave it to me.”
“Did I?” John raised his eyebrows, struggling to recall. If he had, it must have been years ago. A decade, at least. “You could have been issuing writs and edicts in my name all this time...” Then he laughed to himself. “But you never would, of course. Truth be told, it was probably safer in your hands than mine.”
He gave a mirthless laugh, then gestured to the chaos of destruction about the chamber—which only now struck him as a symbol of the realm as a whole. “You’re not quite catching me at my best.” He gave a deep, shuddering sigh. “Normandy has decided they prefer to bend over for the French King than to fight for me, my barons openly snipe and criticise and not even my mother is around to quell them.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Gisburne flatly.
He smiled. “Well, it’s good to see you, too.” Turning the ring idly in his fingers, he stared for a moment at the knight’s face, half in shadow. A thousand questions jostled in his mind—but just one fought its way to the front.
“I said I would never call upon your services,” said John, “and I never have. Not in all these years. And in all that time you have never come to me. Why now?”
Gisburne lifted his head. “Because you’re going to need me,” he said.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A GREAT MANY remarkable people have contributed in some way the Hunter of Sherwood trilogy—from historians and novelists to re-enactors and makers of bits of medieval kit. There are some—chance encounters at one event or another—whose names I never knew, and others who never realised they were contributing (a lucky escape for them; plausible deniability and all that). All are due my gratitude, nonetheless. So, accepting the near inevitability that some will be missed, I would like to thank:
Stuart Orme, Chris Carr, Dominic Sewell, Ian Flint, David S. Baker, Dara Hellman, Dan Melia, Gillian Pollack, Allen W. Wright, Robert Fortunaso, James L. Matterer, Alison Weir, Tom Asbridge, W. L. Warren, Bernard Cornwell, Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, William FitzStephen, Bridget Clifford at Royal Armouries, Emily Fildes at Historic Royal Palaces, English Heritage, John and Anita Van Hassel of Windrose Armoury, Nev Wilson and everyone at Avalon Archers, Nick Winter at Arbalist Armoury, The Longbow Shop, Kristoff Mussolini of Irondale Longbows, Dave Greenhalgh (Dave the Moneyer), Peter Crossman of Crossman Crafts, the legendary Tod of Tod’s stuff—maker of Gisburne’s eating knife—and most of all my long-suffering family, my equally long-suffering editor David Moore, and Jason Kingsley, for horse sense and for first having the idea to make Gisburne the hero.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TOBY VENABLES is a novelist, screenwriter and journalist who also lectures in Cambridge, England. He inhabits various time periods and occasionally writes about zombies. A descendant of the Counts of Blois and Champagne, he numbers the slayer of the Moston dragon among his ancestors, but despite being given
a longbow at the age of twelve has so far managed not to kill anyone. In 2001 he won the Keats-Shelley Memorial Prize, and squandered the proceeds. Hood is his fourth novel.
THE SHIP OF THE DEAD
Northern Europe, 976 AD. Bjólf and the viking crew of the ship Hrafn flee up an unknown river after a bitter battle, only to find themselves in a bleak land of pestilence. The dead don’t lie down, but become draugr – the undead – returning to feed on the flesh of their kin. Terrible stories are told of a dark castle in a hidden fjord, and of black ships that come raiding with invincible draugr berserkers. And no sooner has Bjólf resolved to leave, than the black ships appear...
Now stranded, his men cursed by the contagion of walking death, Bjólf has one choice: fight his way through a forest teeming with zombies, invade the castle and find the secret of the horrific condition – or submit to an eternity of shambling, soulless undeath!
“Toby Venables wields his pen all sword-like and delivers quirky flashes of fearless text.”
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Includes Bonus Content!
When Thomas ‘Only’ Atkins signed up to fight for King and Country, half the boys he grew up with ended up fighting alongside him.
The 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers were a ‘Pal’s Brigade,’ a whole town transposed to the Somme together to feed the Front’s relentless need for warm bodies. They also disappeared from the face of the Earth, on the 1st November 1916, along with nearly half a mile of mud and trenches, a Sopwith and a tank.
Finding themselves on a terrifying alien world, Tommy and his mates have to contend with man-eating plants, ravening beasts and the eerie, insectile Chatts—to say nothing of a sinister, arcane threat from within their own ranks...
The No Man’s World Omnibus presents all three novels from this series, Black Hand Gang, The Ironclad Prophecy and The Alleyman, along with a new introduction and extensive new content.
‘Kelleher has accomplished something quite difficult: He has given us an entire company of soldiers that we like, hate, or feel despair for...
The novel is action-packed; the world is a brilliantly created “death world” that portends adventures.’
RED ROOK REVIEW
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Magic, Michief, Love and War
It is the Year of Our Lord 1601. The Tuscan War rages across the world, and every lord from Navarre to Illyria is embroiled in the fray. Cannon roar, pikemen clash, and witches stalk the night; even the fairy courts stand on the verge of chaos.
Five stories come together at the end of the war: that of bold Miranda and sly Puck; of wise Pomona and her prisoner Vertumnus; of gentle Lucia and the shade of Prospero; of noble Don Pedro and powerful Helena; and of Anne, a glovemaker’s wife. On these lovers and heroes the world itself may depend.
These are the stories Shakespeare never told. Five of the most exciting names in genre fiction today – Jonathan Barnes, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Emma Newman, Foz Meadows and Kate Heartfield – delve into the world the poet created to weave together a story of courage, transformation and magic.
Including an afterword by Dr. John Lavagnino, The London Shakespeare Centre, King's College London.
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Hood Page 43