An hour later, Tuck took his departure, bearing nothing but a tall staff of oak and a small linen bag of clothes and food. As I watched him walk away through the close-set trees towards the road, looking the very image of a poor, wandering monk, I noticed that there was a certain springiness to his step that I had not seen for some years. And it occurred to me that for a long time Tuck had lived a rather dull existence as the chaplain of a great lady – and he was relishing this chance to take part in a grand adventure. I was happy for him.
Nur, swathed in her customary black, though now much travel-stained by salt-water and dust, slipped away shortly after Tuck had gone. Roland called after her disappearing form, urging her not to take any unnecessary risks. And, to my surprise, she glanced back at him, just once, before vanishing quite suddenly among the thick trees only a dozen paces from the camp.
For two days we heard nothing. Thomas and I tended to our weapons and armour, scrubbing and scraping at rust spots on our hauberks, which had bloomed there during the long sea journey from England. We laid them all out on a cloak on the ground and sharpened and polished the blades, oiled my mace and the leather chest-plate and holster for the lance-dagger, and checked straps on our shields and repainted the surfaces to make my personal blazon, the image of a black wild boar, stand out afresh on the red background.
With my war gear spread out on a cloak on the ground, I was painfully aware of how little I owned. Much had been destroyed at Westbury during the fire – a decade of accumulated possessions – and many things that I had treasured were lost for ever. Apart from Shaitan, who was no doubt taking his ease in Sherwood and terrifying Robin’s outlaw-grooms with his big teeth and lethal hooves, this motley collection of metal, wood and leather lying before me – all of which I could easily carry on my back – was my entire worldly goods. For a knight who had once been lord of a prosperous manor, and the companion of a great king, it was pitiful.
I had plenty of leisure to fret about Goody. Did she still live? She had been very close to death when I had left her. Would I be able to find the Grail in time to save her from Nur’s curse? Would the Grail even be able to save her? I had no answers to any of these questions, and they chased themselves around and around in my head from dawn until dusk.
On the afternoon of the third day, a Sunday, Robin, Gavin and Little John went out into the wood with their war bows in search of fresh meat for the pot, and Roland, Thomas and I stirred ourselves to practise our swordplay. Anything, I thought, to take my mind off Goody. We took it in turns to pair up and fence, the third man acting as an umpire. Roland was recovering swiftly from his wound – whatever magic or medicine Nur was using was proving more than efficacious and, apart from a little stiffness in his movements, you could hardly tell that it was less than a week since he had been injured. But it was Thomas who truly impressed me with his skill – overcoming Roland’s guard twice in a pair of lightning passes. He’d been with me as a squire for seven years, I realized, and it was time to begin thinking of making him a knight. Certainly he had all the prowess of one.
My thoughts were interrupted a little before dusk by the appearance of Nur. I do not believe it was witchcraft, just superior fieldcraft – she had, after all, spent many years living in the wild – but the woman was suddenly among us, as if she had popped up from beneath the soil, standing beside me as I watched Roland and Thomas exchange half-strength sword cuts. One moment she wasn’t there, the next she was.
‘Your boy Thomas is very nimble,’ she said casually, in her sing-song voice, as if we had been in the midst of a long, intimate conversation, ‘but my Roland would surely kill him swiftly in a real fight – he has the longer reach.’
I don’t know if I was more surprised by her sudden appearance, or by her apparent expertise in the arts of war, or by the fact that she referred to the young blond French knight with the large burn-scar on his face as ‘my Roland’. I found myself babbling something about the leverage possible for a shorter man with a low centre of his weight, if he moved his feet properly, when she interrupted me, cutting straight through my words with a brusqueness that bordered on insolence.
‘Yes, most interesting, Alan,’ she said. ‘Now, where is Robin? I must speak with him urgently.’
As I was gaping, speechless with astonishment – for this was a wreck of a woman, an outcast witch, who only weeks before had called me ‘my love’ and now she was treating me as if I were an irritating child – I spied Robin, Little John and Gavin coming towards us through the trees, John bearing the limp form of a fallow deer carcass across his broad shoulders, and the three of them wearing expressions of deep satisfaction.
That satisfaction was instantly dispelled, like woodsmoke in a whirlwind, for the first thing that Nur said after Robin had greeted her was: ‘Bad tidings, lord. Sir Nicholas has been taken.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘The town of Jealous Castle is roughly square in shape,’ said Nur, drawing with a stick in the pine needle-covered forest floor. The deer carcass had been slung from a stout branch and we were all gathered around by the fire as she told us what she had gleaned from her time spent begging in the main square.
‘Here is the freezing River Avance to the east’ – she drew a gently wiggling line in the pine needles – ‘and here are the town walls.’ She drew a rough square adjacent to and west of the river. ‘The castle is here,’ she said, stabbing in the centre of the square, roughly the middle of the town. ‘And it is very strong – thick stone battlements three times as tall as a man and patrolled by many sentries, perhaps a dozen. A square tower on the north-west corner of the castle forms the keep, and look-out is kept up there at all times. This is where Sir Nicholas is being held.’
We all leaned forward to take in the layout of the castle, the lines in the dirt clear-cut in the flickering flames of the campfire, and Robin said gently, ‘Tell us what happened, Nur.’
The witch nodded. ‘Some of this I saw with my own eyes from my begging place. Some of this I was told by Father Tuck this afternoon, and some I had by asking a maiden at the market who wanted a love-charm.’
Nur pointed with her stick to the rough plan of the town and drew a small rectangle in front of the castle. ‘Here is the square, and here I sat this morning’, and she stabbed a spot on its eastern side.
‘Sir Nicholas had met with the castle knights and had spent two days in their company but today he had evidently been asked to demonstrate his skills in the square – as an entertainment in front of the Seigneur d’Albret and his men—’
‘D’Albret was there?’ interrupted Robin. ‘You saw him yourself?’ Nur nodded. ‘And he did not recognize you?’
Nur gave a short dry cackle. ‘He would not know me as I look today. I am certain of that.’ She laughed again. ‘But I saw him today and spat in his shadow as it passed my begging place.’
‘And the knights – what blazon did they wear?’ asked Robin.
‘Some wore the colours of Casteljaloux – black and gold. And some wore white surcoats with a blue cross inside a black border.
‘Knights of Our Lady. Good,’ said Robin. ‘Go on.’
‘The crowds gathered and around mid-morning they watched Sir Nicholas defeat three local men-at-arms, with the greatest of ease, one after the other. The Seigneur d’Albret congratulated him personally and embraced him. And they walked together towards the castle until stopped by a man-at-arms, a dusty, mailed man on horseback, a man who I believe had just arrived in the town. This man pointed at Sir Nicholas and began to shout angrily at him. I could not hear what was said but I was told afterwards that the name of Westbury was spoken. And also that of Sir Alan Dale. And then a large number of other knights fell on Sir Nicholas, and though he struggled like a hero, they subdued him and dragged him inside the castle. And I did not see him again.’
‘This is a serious blow,’ said Robin, he looked half-angry. ‘But Westbury is so far away … Still, I should have considered the possibility that someone could recogni
ze Sir Nicholas’ – he was thinking furiously – ‘a mistake. My mistake…’ Robin gathered himself. ‘Can you tell us more, Nur?’
‘Father Tuck made some enquiries as soon as Sir Nicholas was taken. As a man of God, he has the freedom to go where he will in Casteljaloux. He talked to some of the guards there and this afternoon he told me that Sir Nicholas has been accused of being a spy in the pay of their enemies. He is being held in the castle, in the dungeon below the tower. And they have been questioning him.’
I felt a shudder ripple down my spine at that word and memories of my own time under ‘questioning’ came flooding back – a time when red-hot irons had been applied to my tenderest regions. The recollection of that agony made my gorge rise.
‘We must get him out of there immediately,’ I said. ‘He is a Companion of the Grail and we cannot leave him to the mercy of the Master. It is our duty to rescue him as soon as we can.’
There was a growl of agreement from the gathered men.
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘The sooner we rescue him, the less likely he is to reveal our presence here.’
‘Sir Nicholas would never willingly give you away!’ I was outraged by Robin’s suggestion that our friend would betray us.
‘Maybe. I do not think he cares for me overmuch,’ said Robin. ‘But, no matter, all men, even the very bravest, talk under torture. It is merely a question of time. It is my fault that he is in this predicament, and I must get him out. We go in tonight.’
Two hours after sunset, we were all crouched on the edge of the forest, a mere hundred yards from the walls of the town of Casteljaloux, each Companion more or less behind the trunk of a pine tree. The smell of resin was strong and clean in my nose, and a bead of sweat ran down my spine, but my belly felt hollow, light and cold, as it often does before an action.
The town itself lurked before us, a mass of darkness against the skyline, but with a faint orange-pinkish glow above it. Although most townsfolk would have retired to their homes at that hour, light from hearth fires, tapers and tallow candles leaked from the shutters of their windows to lighten the darkness ever so slightly above their habitations. I could just make out the square bulk of the high tower that stood guard over the castle courtyard – and wondered if the look-out was asleep or drunk, or wide wake and even now gazing in our direction, and frowning at the unusual humped shapes that he could see against the darkness of the forest. I shivered, ducked down further behind the tree trunk, and took a firm hold of my sword hilt.
We had left all the horses, our mounts and the three laden packhorses, securely fastened to a fallen tree about fifty yards behind us. And Little John had marked a path to them through the forest by stripping a small section of the bark from a dozen trees with his axe so that, even at night, if the bright three-quarter moon and the cloudless star-filled sky lasted, we’d be able to find our way by following the white flash of the naked wood.
Robin had little in the way of a plan, but the little he had he had explained concisely to us after we had packed up the camp. Tuck would let us in by a postern gate in the south-western corner of the wall of the town – that much had been arranged that afternoon between Tuck and Nur. We would cover our weapons and mail in the loose robes of Benedictine monks, which Tuck would provide for us having stolen them from the Abbey. We would then proceed, led by Tuck, to the castle where we would affect an entrance by guile, or if that failed, by brute force. We would then locate Sir Nicholas and free him. We would fire the castle, the keep and as many of the houses of the town as we could and, in the confusion, we would make our escape out of the same postern gate and back to our horses.
‘If we encounter the Master or the Grail – we may change our plans accordingly,’ said Robin. ‘But the priority is to get Sir Nicholas out and safely away. We all need to stay together. If anybody becomes separated from the rest of us, he is to exit the town by the postern gate, or any other way he can, and make his way back to the horses. Does everybody understand?’
It was a threadbare plan, I privately noted. There was much that depended on chance and much that could easily go wrong. But if we all stayed together, there was a slim chance of success. And I had to admit that I could not think of a better plan at such short notice. The longer Sir Nicholas was in the hands of our enemies, the more dangerous our situation would become. We had to act, put our trust in our fighting skills and our lives in the hands of God.
Robin had also decreed that every Companion should accompany him on the rescue attempt. ‘If we have to battle our way out, and I think we might, we’ll need every blade we have,’ he said grimly.
‘What about Nur?’ asked Roland. ‘Surely the lady should not be exposed to the dangers of battle?’
Robin simply asked Nur if she wished to come with us, or remain in the forest with the horses, and when she said that she wished to come, he overruled Roland’s objections. Later, in the last, low gleams of daylight, just before we left the campsite and started towards Casteljaloux, I noticed Little John offering her a choice of weapons, and saw the witch choose a vicious hatchet, which she fingered for a moment, feeling the edge of the wedge-shaped blade with her thumb, before tucking it in her belt.
Guided by Nur, we had made our way for two miles through the dim forest towards the western side of the town. She led us with total self-assurance through the tangled undergrowth and between the tall trees, and we followed in single file, on foot and leading our horses, all of us linked by a long rope and trying to be as quiet as possible. Even though it was not a pitch dark night, I never discovered exactly how Nur knew how to pick the right path through the trees like that – and I asked myself once again whether she might truly have some other-worldly power – but she did it, and by the time we had secured the horses, and that big three-quarter moon was high above the tree tops, we found ourselves peering out from the wall of scented pines at a dark, forbidding portion of the town walls.
We did not wait there long. At Robin’s whispered command, we crept slowly forwards, first through some scrubland and then stumbling over a knee-high wattle fence into a large kitchen garden, freshly planted with tender shoots of leeks and onions. I tried my best not to break the delicate plants beneath my earth-clotted boots, for I reckoned that some poor husbandman and his family might be depending upon this very crop for survival – but, from time to time, the sharp, homely smell of crushed alliums wafted up, pungent in the darkness.
Then, a flare of light to the right of our line of march, a square candle-lantern, seeming to spring out from the blackness of the walls. I could see a squat round body and a large round head behind it, the features made weird and demonic by the guttering yellow light. It was Father Tuck, and we hurried towards him, greeted him in excited whispers, and he pulled us through a small, narrow door, the postern gate, and inside the walls of Casteljaloux.
As we passed through, Tuck handed each one of us a thick black woollen robe and a cowl from two soft heaps on the ground, and we all wrapped them around us as quickly as we could, tied them with a length of knotted rope and pulled the shapeless, scratchy cowls over our heads. We were in a small square with tall timbered houses on three sides and a narrow alleyway leading north. The square stank of ancient piss, and worse, but the houses were locked up dark and quiet and there was not a townsman or an enemy man-at-arms in sight. Nevertheless, I found that my pulse was banging loudly in my ears and my mouth was dry and chalky.
The robes were extremely voluminous, which was good fortune for Little John and his vast frame but less so for Nur. She held the enormous garment up to her skinny chest and it still puddled around her feet on the cobblestones. So she contemptuously tossed it aside and simply pulled the cowl over her head and shoulders. Her own sombre everyday dress was close enough to our new clerkly attire to pass in the darkness of the streets.
Tuck bolted the door behind us and pushed us into in a double column, two files of four, the formation that genuine monks used while travelling. Just before we moved off, as we stood l
ooking at each other in our new robes, I was able to catch a glimpse of the faces of all the Companions, and I can remember that brief glance at my friends quite vividly to this day – Robin looking stern and noble; Little John openly grinning with delight at the prospect of the battle; Gavin seeming apprehensive and thin-faced, but hiding his fears like a good soldier; Roland’s visage grim and purposeful as befits a man with a hard task ahead; Thomas radiating a quiet calm and the unyielding solidity of an oak stump; Tuck’s mien was eager, almost boyish; and Nur – her dark, blank eyes looked out at us with the implacability of an executioner.
The streets of Casteljaloux were deserted at that hour, perhaps nine of the clock, as we hurried north in our double column behind Tuck and Robin – the town eerily quiet save for the muffled tolling of a church bell and the lonely calls of a watchman some streets away, calling out to all the sleeping burghers that all was well.
After no more than a hundred paces, Tuck led us out of the narrow streets and we turned into a large market square. It was a vast black space, now empty of the myriad stalls and carts that must have filled it by day, and on its far side I could make out the block-like shape of the castle itself. There were a few slim, vertical lights showing through the arrows slits in the walls in the high tower and I could see the silhouette of a single man-at-arms walking on the battlements. As we approached the main gate, to my surprise, it opened and half a dozen men-at-arms in the white surcoats of the Knights of Our Lady came out striding purposefully, three of them carrying bright pine-wood torches. They did not wear mail but soft tunics of fine material under their surcoats, and each had a long sword hung around his waist. We were walking directly towards them, and I confess that my heart was pounding so wildly I almost missed my step – I did not know what to do. Should we pause and let them pass, or fumble through our robes and pull our weapons? I was walking directly behind Tuck, in the second rank, and I was utterly shocked by his loud hail of ‘God bless you, good sirs, and keep you in His grace!’ when the Knights of Our Lady were within only a few yards of us.
Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) Page 20