Warlord (Outlaw 4)

by Donald, Angus

  The sun shone brightly as we rode, but a keen wind prevented the day from becoming oppressively hot, clad as we were for battle in heavy mail and helmets. I had spoken to Robin about Father Jean’s death before we left Verneuil, and he had informed the King, but there was no time to make a proper enquiry. So the great column had departed, lumbering its slow way south-west, leaving Sir Aubrey de Chambois to recover from his crossbow wound with a fresh garrison of men-at-arms and two experienced masons whose task it was to repair the castle’s walls. Sir Aubrey had been shocked by Father Jean’s death – and he had vowed that he would make all the necessary enquiries and discover whatever he could about the murder. But I had no high hopes that he would uncover the man who had killed my father’s old friend, and I said as much to Robin as we crossed the River Avre by a mossy wooden bridge and rode into the foothills of the County of the Perche.

  ‘I think you are right, Alan,’ said my lord. He seemed distracted that bright morning, almost fidgety. ‘I fear we shall never know who killed the man. And perhaps it would be best to put the matter from our minds.’ And then he fell silent, shading his eyes to scan the forested country ahead.

  I was puzzled by his answer. ‘Surely we should seek justice for the poor fellow?’ I said. ‘He was a good man, a fine priest, and he did not deserve such an ignoble end.’

  ‘He was a priest, yes – so surely you believe that he is in the Kingdom of Heaven now. So he’s happy, isn’t he?’

  I was a little taken aback by Robin’s words; I had long known, and indeed it was an open secret among his friends, that Robin was no Christian – indeed, he often mocked the Church – but I did not expect him to be so offhand about murder. I bit my lip, and Robin, sensing my discomfort, glanced over at me.

  ‘I have no objection to justice as a general principle,’ he said, giving me a half-smile, ‘so long as it does not greatly inconvenience me. But he was not one of our men, nor kin to any of us, and so I see no reason why we should be concerned about punishing his murderer.’

  I opened my mouth to protest, and then closed it again. Robin and I had had this conversation many times before and I knew well his position. His philosophy was as brutal as a butcher’s cleaver. He entertained no notions of a fair and just common-wealth of mankind; he considered such a notion a childish fantasy. Robin’s view was that a man had a duty only to protect those around him: his family and the men and women who served him or whom he served. He called this small group of souls his ‘circle’ or his familia – anyone inside it was to be protected with all his strength and resources, and I knew that he would readily give his life for anyone in that charmed ring. But anyone outside that circle – strangers, enemies, even fellow countrymen with whom he had no connection – meant nothing to him. It was a point we had differed on in the past: I felt that Christ’s teachings, indeed the whole essence of the idea of Christendom, of civilization itself, was that all men were members of a whole, beloved by God, and all deserved mercy, justice and the chance of Salvation.

  ‘Well, I should like to see Father Jean’s killer caught and punished,’ I said, somewhat lamely.

  ‘Perhaps he will be, perhaps he won’t. We do not gain or lose from it, so far as I can tell.’

  I found Robin’s disinterest irksome, and for some reason I could not stop myself adding: ‘I wonder whether there might have been anything more he could have told me about my father’s death.’ Although in my heart I was certain that he had had nothing further to divulge.

  Robin looked at me sharply – he knew all about the shadowy ‘man you cannot refuse’ and my quest to find him. ‘Alan,’ he said, ‘I understand why this is of interest to you, but I must urgently counsel you not to pursue this matter. Your father is dead, he has been dead for ten years; Sir Ralph Murdac killed him; and Murdac is dead – you must let this go. I promise you that no good will come of raking over the past. You will achieve nothing – and you may well disturb something evil that is better left in peace. Now, be a good fellow, take a dozen men and sweep that covey yonder: it’s a likely spot for an ambush.’ He handed me a small polished cow’s horn with a silver lip-piece. ‘Give three blasts on that if you get into any trouble, and we’ll come running to save you.’

  He gave me a not-altogether pleasant smile as I looped the thong attached to the horn over the pommel of my saddle, but I had the sense to keep silent. And for the next two hours, accompanied by a band of mounted archers, I thrashed through the dense under-growth of a small wood, scratching my face and hands, and my poor horse’s hide, on brambles and branches, fruitlessly searching for foes that Robin and I both knew were not there.

  The next day, Robin, it seemed, was in a better mood. As we rode along through the hilly, green and surprisingly tranquil countryside of the Perche, he gave me the news from home. Marie-Anne was as delighted as he was to be pregnant again: ‘She’s glowing, Alan – I mean absolutely radiant – and already becoming plump. I think it will be a boy; a fine tall son for me to leave behind when I’m cold in my grave.’

  Robin already had one son – a sturdy four-year-old called Hugh, but there was a secret about his birth that was never mentioned in my lord’s presence. Hugh was the true child of Sir Ralph Murdac. This erstwhile sheriff of Nottinghamshire had raped Marie-Anne and got her with child, yet Robin had publicly acknowledged Hugh as his own son – indeed, he made it clear that he would instantly kill anyone who suggested otherwise. And I admired him deeply for this act of compassion. It was a measure of his love for Marie-Anne that he took her to wife despite the fact that she had been despoiled by Murdac’s touch, and that her son Hugh was not truly his. Even so, it was clear that he was elated to have another child that was his own blood beyond a shadow of doubt.

  ‘And I have had a letter from our old friend Reuben,’ Robin continued. ‘He has left the Holy Land and settled in Montpellier to study medicine. He writes that he has a fine big house with a large herb garden, and hints that he has formed an attachment to a local widow. He’s trading a little too, he says, with the Moors of Spain.’

  ‘Not frankincense?’ I asked. Reuben, a tough, dried brown stick of a man, was a Jew who until recently had managed Robin’s lucrative frankincense concerns in Gaza.

  ‘No, not frankincense,’ said Robin. ‘Leather, spice, precious metals … Reuben is now a wealthy man, you know. Somehow, I can’t see him settling down and growing fat just yet; he has a restless spirit that will not take its ease. But I may be wrong.’

  ‘Tell me about Goody – was she well and in good spirits when you last saw her?’

  Robin smiled at me. ‘She is a fine lass, Alan, and you are a lucky man. Yes, she is healthy, and all is well at Westbury. It seems that she and your steward Baldwin have made an alliance and are turning Westbury into an orderly, productive and well-run place. She wants to please you, Alan, she wants you to be proud of her. So take a note of what she has achieved at Westbury, when you return, and make sure you praise her for it. But there is one thing that troubles me …’

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘It may be nothing, Alan, but … I still have many friends in Nottingham and in Sherwood from the old days who tell me things from time to time. And I have heard rumours, evil rumours of black magic and witchcraft …’

  ‘It’s Nur, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is. It may all be overblown, Alan. And it may well come to nothing. But they say she has been gathering followers – the mad, the deformed, the ugly, and some unhappy women who have run from their menfolk. And I have heard she has sworn vengeance on you and Goody.’

  Nur. I felt a shiver run down my spine at the mention of her name. Nur, once the most beautiful, exquisite girl I had ever seen, had been my lover on the Great Pilgrimage to Outremer. I had sworn to protect her, but had failed. My enemies had taken her and destroyed her beauty, cutting away her nose and lips and ears, and leaving her alive, a monstrous mockery of her once-lovely self. I had not protected her, neither had I continued to love her after her awful mutilati
on. And her love for me had turned to hate: she had followed me, alone, on foot, all the way home from the Holy Land, becoming wild and mad and richer in malice with every step, and she had burst into my betrothal feast and cursed Goody and myself in front of hundreds of guests. And yet Goody, my fiery, passionate Goody, had rebutted her curse and had beaten her to within an inch of her life before expelling her from the hall. And now Nur wanted revenge for all the humiliations inflicted on her. Suddenly the breeze seemed to blow cold.

  ‘Alan! Listen to me,’ said my lord. ‘I have sent a dozen good men to Westbury as a garrison, and Marie-Anne and Tuck to keep Goody company there. She is safe, among good friends, surrounded by guards, and that poor, mad, bedraggled creature can do nothing to hurt her. Alan – trust me on this. Goody is perfectly safe!’

  I prayed that Robin was right.

  It took us more than a week to travel down to Tours, and while we encountered no enemies of any significance, it was still a busy time for me. One evening, bone-weary and lying in my blankets in camp, I reckoned that I must have travelled ten times the distance of a knight riding with the King’s household, for I was constantly galloping back and forward, ferrying messages between Richard and the Earl of Locksley. I had come to the conclusion that Robin was right about Goody. She had proven herself more than a match for Nur at my betrothal feast; and Tuck, a man of God, would easily be able to counter any magical nonsense the deformed madwoman might concoct. She was safe, spiritually and physically. And I was comforted.

  I was riding Ghost, my grey gelding, one day, to allow the courser to rest, and had a message from Robin for the King in my saddlebag, when I heard the sound of screaming on the still June air. Hanno and I reined up simultaneously, and Thomas, who had been riding some twenty yards behind us, clattered up and stopped his mount to my right. We were passing through a wide, shallow valley, a sheep pasture with a stream trickling down from a spring to the east and heading away south. The rutted earth road we were on ran straight through the centre of the valley. The three of us sat in silence for a moment, and then a hideous wail of agony split the morning once again. It seemed to be coming from a small shrine – a one-roomed wooden-framed building no bigger than a cottage but with a tall cross on the roof ridge – built beside the spring, halfway up the side of the valley. I had ridden past this place the day before and had assumed that it was deserted. Now I could see a thread of smoke coming from behind the building and four horses tethered to a rail at the front of it.

  Another scream wrenched at our ears. And I thought, A wise man, knowing he had an important message to deliver to his King, would just ride on by …

  Hanno and I approached the shrine cautiously, having told Thomas to stay back on the road and if we got into trouble to ride for the safety of the main column, which we knew to be only half a dozen miles to the north. Our blades loose in their sheaths, all senses extended, and Hanno cradling a powerful crossbow that had been spanned and loaded with a foot-long steel-tipped oak quarrel, we walked our horses around the back of the wooden building. There we came across a knot of about a dozen rough-looking men gathered around a campfire. My eyes took in many things at the same time: something of a party or feast seemed to be in progress, the men were red-faced, glowing and some had hunks of bread and meat and what appeared to be cheese in their hands, and I could see a couple of half-empty skins of wine lying on the grass. One man was asleep in the lee of the wall of the shrine, cuddling a half-eaten joint of meat.

  But this was no celebration; in the centre of the group of revellers was a tight knot of men subduing a struggling bundle in brown wool – a man, and by his robe I could tell he was a monk. His feet were bare and red and blistered, and I knew with a lurch to my stomach what had been taking place here. Only one man of that company was still a-horse, gazing down on the proceedings with a crooked little smile on his lips – a mop of shaggy black hair and a deep scar diagonally across his dark face; it was Mercadier.

  He looked over at me, incuriously, and slightly inclined his black head. ‘Sir Alan,’ he said in his deep, stony voice. ‘Good morning to you.’

  I said nothing, staring at the writhing scrum around the struggling brown-clad monk. One of the routiers had a firm grip on the monk’s bare ankle, and as I watched with horror he and his fellows wrestled the limb towards the fire and, with a heave, plunged the bare sole of the foot into a heap of orange-glowing embers at the edge of the blaze. There was a sizzle and a puff of grey-ish smoke and a stench like rancid roasting pork was released into the air.

  The monk let out a long, high scream of agony. I felt sick – my mind went back to a damp dungeon in Winchester some years ago, and the pain of a red-hot iron being applied to my soft under-parts.

  ‘His cries have a somewhat musical quality, do you not think so, Sir Alan?’ said the mounted mercenary captain. ‘Perhaps you might compose something from his noise.’

  ‘What is his crime, that you should torment him so?’ I asked Mercadier, feeling my anger rise and wishing to Christ that the poor man, clearly the guardian of the shrine, would stop his terrible yowling.

  ‘Crime?’ said the scarred captain. ‘His crime is that he has failed to render unto Caesar those things that are rightfully Caesar’s.’

  ‘What?’ I was taken aback. I had not expected Mercadier to quote the scriptures.

  He sighed. ‘He will not tell us where he keeps his silver, his coin, his valuables – the rich offerings from pilgrims who come to pray at this holy little shit-hole.’

  ‘Perhaps he has none,’ I said.

  ‘That is what we intend to find out,’ was the flat reply.

  But I was slipping off my horse by then, all sense of caution flown to the winds. I marched over to the knot of men around the monk and roughly pulled one of them away by the shoulder.

  ‘Put him down,’ I said, quietly and firmly to the rest of them. Hanno was still in the saddle, but I could see that the loaded crossbow just happened to be resting on the pommel of his saddle and pointing unwaveringly in our direction.

  The routiers around the monk were confused; some glanced over at Mercadier for orders, others glared at me for interrupting their sport. They still grasped the monk by his legs, shoulders and arms, but the man was no longer struggling nor, thank God, screaming. I saw his face for the first time: he was old, perhaps sixty, very gaunt, twig-thin, with watery blue eyes and only wisps of white hair on the papery skin of his scalp.

  ‘Put him down,’ I said again, this time louder and with a little more iron in the tone. ‘Put him down, gently!’

  ‘Why don’t you fuck off, Sir Knight, and find your own church mouse to play with,’ said a squat red-bearded man who was holding one of the monk’s twig-thin arms. ‘This one is ours!’

  Without pausing even for an instant to think of the consequences of my actions, I swayed my shoulders and powered my head down and across in a short hard arc, smashing my forehead with massive force into the bridge of his nose. The redhead staggered back and fell to one knee, blood spurting from his flattened nose. He should have counted himself lucky that it had been too hot that day for me to wear my steel helm. The rest of the men holding the monk dropped their load as if it was a bar of red-hot iron, stepped back and began fumbling for their weapons. My hand went to my sword hilt and I half-drew the blade.

  ‘Leave him be,’ said a cold, dead voice with a slight Gascon accent, and every man around that fire froze. I ignored the men and their half-pulled weapons and reached down and tried to help the monk to his feet, but halfway through my action I realized that he would not be able to stand, so I picked him up bodily and slung him over my shoulder. He weighed no more than a ten-year-old.

  I straightened up and looked round the circle of statue-like routiers, a hard challenge in my stare. And I caught Mercadier’s eye as I began to move away, the monk balanced on my left shoulder, heading back towards Ghost. He was smiling sardonically down at me from his horse. A blur of movement to my right: the redhead I had knocked
down was on his feet, an axe in his hand, and he was coming for me. My sword hilt was entangled in the priest’s skinny legs. My heart banged once. The world slowed. I saw the red man, bloodied face snarling, draw back his axe to chop at my undefended head – then there was a twang, a thump and he was swept backwards, off his feet. And I found myself looking down at his writhing body, a black quarrel jutting from the centre of his chest.

  Turning my head I saw that Hanno had already slung the crossbow from his saddle and drawn his sword. I moved quickly back towards Ghost, heaved the monk on to the grey’s haunches behind the high wooden saddle, and climbed into the seat as swiftly as I could. The men on the far side of the fire were still frozen, watching me, and making the air heavy with their silent hatred.

  Then Mercadier spoke: ‘You have saved one worthless old monk, and killed one of my prime men-at-arms.’ His voice had no emotion in it whatsoever – neither sorrow at his man’s death nor anger at my interference in his actions. ‘I do not think it is a fair exchange.’

  ‘It is not,’ I said. I was angry then, and I let it show. I jerked my left thumb behind me. ‘This is a man of God, a decent fellow who does no harm but merely prays for all our souls; your man was a cowardly brute, of no more worth than a wild animal. It is certainly not a fair exchange, it is a great bargain for mankind.’

  Mercadier said nothing, just stared at me with his cold, brown eyes. I shrugged and, having nothing else to say on the matter myself, nodded to Hanno and turned Ghost around and trotted down the gentle slope to rejoin Thomas and the road north.