That thought was unbearable; I had to warn them. I plucked the twisted horn from where it had been bouncing on the pommel of my saddle, managed to get it to my lips without slowing Ghost’s thundering pace, and sounded it, once – twice – three times. The leading knight of the blue cross was right on top of us by now; from the corner of my eye I saw him draw his lance for a strike, and lunge forward, the needle-pointed blade licking out towards my lower back on the left-hand side. I saw the strike coming over my shoulder, and swung in the saddle and dropped my shield to take the blow. I felt a jarring smack, and looked down in horror to see that the lance had been deflected by my shield – and had plunged deep into Ghost’s pale belly.
The knight had released the shaft of his spear, now wedged deep in my poor mount’s entrails, the shaft drooping and tangling with Ghost’s hind legs, and the next thing I knew I was sailing high in the air, over Ghost’s neck and head, and landing with a crash on my back in the ashy dust of the road.
Stunned, winded, but with, as far as I could tell, nothing broken, I lifted my head and saw that Hanno had halted his headlong flight and turned to protect me, God love him. He was engaging the leading blue cross knight with axe and sword. There was a flurry of blows, a hack, a crunch, and the knight slumped, boneless, lolling in his saddle. Hanno turned again and was shouting something at me, but in my fuddled state I could not comprehend him. He leaned down in the saddle and reached out a hand to me, urging me to rise and mount up behind him. His mouth was moving; I could see his awful teeth and the lips curling to form sounds, and yet I could make nothing of his speech. I got to my knees and reached out an arm towards him and suddenly his horse lurched a step forward, struck by a massive blow, and I saw Hanno look behind him. There were knights all around, tall shadows in the sunlight, and horses too; kicked dust swirled in the air and the shouts of angry men flew above me – and Hanno was slipping off his horse as it collapsed under him, lanced in the belly like my poor Ghost; then he was beside me, lifting me, helping me to my feet, his face concerned. A knight on horseback loomed over us, I saw the glitter of his sword raised to strike, and Hanno was pushing me on my stumbling feet under the horse’s neck. The sword whistled down inches from my shoulder – and with a sudden rush my senses came back to me fully.
‘Into the trees, into the trees,’ I found myself shouting. I had lost my shield, as had Hanno, and we sprinted unencumbered the few yards into the thick woodland on the eastern side of the road – closely followed by a dozen or so eager horsemen. By God’s good grace, the woodland was ancient, thickly tangled with underbrush and low branches that much impeded the horsemen. We drew our swords and, by a combination of scurrying, ducking and slashing at the legs of the knights, Hanno and I somehow managed to dodge the questing lances of our enemies and squirm into the gloom of the forest. We survived to find ourselves fifty yards from the road, back to back, blades in our hands, panting and partially sheltered in a sort of dell formed by two huge fallen oak trees that formed the sign of the cross on the forest floor. The fallen trees guarded our rear, but the horsemen surrounded us. They could not easily approach through the thick trees, scrubby thorns and bushes; but neither could we escape. There were perhaps a dozen of them by now on all sides around our pathetic wooden half-fortification, and they walked their horses closer all the time; and then things took a turn for the worse – they began to dismount. Hanno and I were dead men. On foot, these knights could close with us and then their numbers would tell and we would be finished in a few moments. The knights approached silently, their faces under their conical helmets grim and bearded – eyes showing no sign of mercy.
I stepped forward, away from the rudimentary cover of the oak-tree cross, and said in French in a loud carrying voice: ‘My name is Sir Alan Dale, a knight of Westbury in the English county of Nottinghamshire. You have killed our horses and we are at your mercy: under the laws of chivalry, I offer my surrender to you for ransom, on condition that you spare my life and also the life of my man-at-arms, here.’
The leading knight, a handsome man with a bushy blond beard, who was by now no more than half a dozen paces from me, paused and looked directly at me. I saw a brief glimmer of compassion in his eyes. Then he spoke: ‘Alas, Sir Alan, there can be no surrender for you today.’
I was puzzled: ‘Why not, sir?’ I asked. ‘I have told you who I am and I have offered to yield to you – will you not accept my surrender?’
The knight merely shook his head and repeated a little sadly: ‘There can be no surrender for you.’ Then he rushed forward, in three long-legged strides, lifting his sword two-handed and swinging it in a great downward blow at my head. I swept my own sword up and around in a circle to the right, my blade deflecting his blow; at the same time I stepped in close and punched my misericorde hard into his side, through his white surcoat and mail, and deep into his liver. He fell at my feet, shocked, dying, white surcoat reddening quickly, bearded mouth working silently.
Then the remaining knights of the blue cross all charged forward together, and Hanno and I found ourselves battling half a dozen knights apiece in a murderous blizzard of blades and blows, shouts and curses. A sword hacked at my face and I ducked just in time. A lance speared at my chest and I somehow managed to deflect it with my misericorde. One of the knights clambered up on to the dead trunk of the oak tree behind my shoulder. We were dead men. And then I heard a sound that made my heart bound with joy.
A horn.
A hunting horn blown with two short notes and one long one, repeated twice: ta-ta-taaaa; ta-ta-taaaa. And in an instant Hanno and I were no longer fighting alone.
Robin’s men came hurtling through the trees on foot – silent, deadly, their green cloaks merging into the gloom of the forest and making them all but invisible. I saw Robin’s lean face contorted in a snarl of rage as he sliced his sword into the back of a knight on the outskirts of the circle around Hanno and I. Much the miller’s son, a pace or two behind Robin, let out a roar as he carved a knight from shoulder to opposite hip with one blow of his long sword. And the Locksley men were swarming everywhere, tackling the knights, two or three to each enemy, hacking with sword and knife, lunging with spears. The wise knights fled deeper into the woods – and some escaped, though many were pursued and savagely cut down – the unwise knights died where they stood.
Robin stopped before me, breathing great heaving lungfuls of air, but smiling at me, his merry grey eyes dancing. ‘You are a childish, stubborn, high-minded prig, Alan Dale,’ he said, when he had caught his breath. ‘But I would not care to be without you. I’m glad at least that you had enough wit in you to summon us with your horn.’
The next day, shortly before noon, I poked my head inside Robin’s tent, and my lord cheerfully invited me to enter. I wanted to thank him formally for saving my life. I had survived the encounter with the knights of the blue cross miraculously unscathed, except for a few bruises caused by falling from Ghost. I had recovered the body of my loyal animal friend and, although some of the Locksley men had sniggered at my sentimentality, Hanno, Thomas and I had dug a grave for Ghost and buried him at the side of the road, near the spot where he had died. I could not bear the thought of wild animals eating his carcass – or worse, hungry men of the lowest sort from King Richard’s army cutting bloody chunks off his noble frame. So we buried him deep, and I wept over his grave.
Hanno had been lightly wounded in the knights’ attack by the crossed oak trees, just before Robin’s men had arrived – a bloody score up his left forearm. But Elise, the Locksley wise woman, had washed the cut, packed it with cobwebs, stitched it and bandaged it neatly.
Robin was in a cheerful mood when I entered the tent: although the sound of my horn had forced him and two score or so of the more sober men to abandon their looting of the royal baggage train and come to my rescue, and the rest of the army, including Mercadier’s rapacious mercenaries, had come up while Robin was away, Little John had remained behind and had managed to secure a sizeable amount of l
oot for our company. And Robin had been praised by King Richard for having captured such a great prize; so my lord was quite content with the day.
When I entered it that hot July morning, Robin’s tent was taken up with a vast mound of scrolls, books and parchments, and half a dozen dusty clerks were on their knees by the pile, pulling out items, examining them and occasionally giving sharp little bird-cries of delight. One of the wagons of the baggage train had been found to contain the royal archives – letters and deeds, charters and correspondence, some of which stretched back to the beginning of King Philip’s reign fourteen years ago. And Robin had been asked by Richard to go through the correspondence and discover which of the King’s vassals had secretly been corresponding with the French. Robin was enjoying himself enormously, I could see, and I watched him as I awaited his attention, sipping a cup of light wine on a stool in the corner of the tent.
‘Here’s another one, Alan,’ my master called out, waving a piece of parchment that one of the King’s clerks had handed him. ‘William de St-Hubert is offering to do homage to King Philip for all his lands in Normandy – the disloyal little weasel. He was having breakfast with our King this very morning, I believe. Lamb’s kidneys and eggs. This letter will make him squirm when Richard reads it, that’s for sure.’
I was glad to see Robin so happy; our quarrel of the day before over the looting of the royal train seemed to have been completely forgotten.
‘This one might be of interest to you,’ said Robin, and he lobbed a scroll overhand to me across the tent, narrowly missing the tonsured head of a clerk who was rummaging through the pile of parchments. I caught the scroll one-handed, and carefully untied the ribbon that secured it and unrolled the thick yellow cylinder. It contained a charter from His Royal Highness Philip Augustus, by the grace of God, King of France, and so on … to one Thibault, Seigneur d’Alle granting him the right to build a hotel on the Rue St-Denis in the Ville de Paris. The charter was dated just over a year ago. It took me a few heartbeats to recognize what this meant: my uncle Thibault, the man who had refused to help my father in his hour of need, was now favoured enough by the French King to be allowed to build a large town house in the centre of the royal capital.
‘I have to go to Paris,’ I said.
Robin frowned. ‘Why? Do you care so much for your French relative? You’ve never even met the man.’
‘Cardinal Heribert was murdered,’ I said, ‘and so was Jean the priest. The only two people that I know of who knew my father – and who are still alive – are in Paris: my uncle Thibault d’Alle and Bishop Maurice de Sully.’
Robin was still frowning at me. ‘You are dimly aware, Alan, are you not, that we are in the middle of a war with the French?’ he asked in a mocking tone. ‘And that Paris is the capital of the French King – our sworn enemy?’
I didn’t deign to answer. So Robin continued: ‘This is madness, Alan. Your duty is to serve me and serve the King, and remain with the army. All this talk of exonerating your father is pure foolishness. He is dead, Alan, dead! He does not care whether you clear his name or blacken it. I urge you; I am in truth begging you – please stop this foolishness. No good can come of raking up the past like this. Leave it alone.’
‘I understand how you feel, Robin,’ I said, evenly. I was determined to be calm about this subject, even though I found Robin’s opposition to my quest hurtful and more than a little baffling. ‘But I must resolve this mystery – or it will cost me my own life.’
‘We’ve found another one, sir,’ said one of the clerks, holding up a large sheet of parchment. ‘Robert de Dignac in correspondence with King Philip last year—’
‘Not now,’ said Robin to the clerk, but he was staring at me. ‘What do you mean, cost you your life?’
‘Those knights yesterday – the men with the blue crosses on their shields – they hunted us like wild animals. And when I offered my surrender, they would not accept it. They wanted me dead – and I would be, too, were it not for your intervention. Somebody, most probably this “man you cannot refuse” is trying to prevent me finding out about my father. Those knights of the blue cross serve this “man you cannot refuse”, I am quite certain of it, and while initially he was content with silencing those who might tell me about my father, now, it seems, he has decided to have me killed too.’
Robin put his head on one side, and half-smiled at me: ‘Mysterious knightly assassins hunting you down? A sinister, all-powerful, “man you cannot refuse”? Are you sure this is not some addle-brained fantasy?’
‘Those knights of the blue cross wanted me dead – and not just because I was their foeman in a skirmish. They wanted me, Alan Dale, dead. Cardinal Heribert is dead; so is Father Jean – so too is poor Brother Dominic. I’m not inventing this; this is no addle-brained fantasy. I must go to Paris. If not, the knights may succeed at the next attempt.’
Robin gave a long sigh and stared at the floor of the tent for a while. ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘if you can persuade the King to release you, I won’t stand in your way.’
I found the King at the horse lines, inspecting a dozen fine new warhorses that had been sent to him as a gift from Count Geoffrey of the Perche. Clearly, that wily nobleman, currently sitting up the road behind the walls of Chateâudun, and shortly expecting to give shelter to Philip’s retreating army, was sniffing the wind and attempting to assure himself of a welcome should he decide to change sides and renew his allegiance to our King.
Richard was gracious enough to receive me and listen once again to my petition to take my leave of the army. I told him that it was urgent that I speak with Bishop Maurice de Sully, who must now be an aged man, before he died. But I did not mention my uncle Thibault – having a close relative, and a rich one too, on the side of the French King might, I felt, cast some doubt on my devotion to Richard. As the Lionheart seemed in a jocular mood that morning – I even essayed a jest to sweeten my request.
‘If I may make so bold, sire, it is entirely your fault that I need to embark upon this journey. Were it not for your hasty actions in Nottingham, I would already know the name of the man who ordered my father’s death.’
The King looked at me quizzically. ‘So it is all my fault, is it, Blondel? How so?’
‘Well, sire, had you not ordered Sir Ralph Murdac to be hanged as a lesson to the other traitors in the castle, he would have been able to tell me the man’s name!’
The King chuckled. ‘You cannot blame me fully for that,’ he said. ‘It was at your master Robert of Locksley’s suggestion that I had the man hanged. If Robin had not bent my ear, that rascal Murdac might even be alive today. I might well have pardoned him.’ And the King laughed.
I tried to match his merriment, but I felt as if a dark storm cloud had crept over the sun. The King carried on speaking, oblivious to my sudden discomfort. ‘Well, Sir Alan, because I am an exceedingly kind and generous lord – and because I have this very morning heard that the French are seeking to negotiate a truce with us – I shall grant your request to depart, and I will go so far as to wish you luck in your quest. May you return soon to my side, wiser and more content with your place among my best men.’
I managed to make my bow, and leave the royal presence with some dignity. But my head was reeling like a drunkard’s after downing a barrel of wine.
Robin had urged the King to summarily hang Murdac! Robin had silenced Murdac and prevented him from speaking to me about the orders to kill my father. A monstrous, unthinkable idea was growing in my mind. Robin himself was the ‘man you cannot refuse’. Robert Odo, Earl of Locksley, my liege lord and master, my dear friend and mentor – Robin Hood was the man who had ordered my father’s death.
Part Two
Chapter Eleven
I have shown these pages to my grandson Alan and, while he read them without pausing and with seeming enjoyment, he is a little bemused by them, I think. He has difficulty in seeing the young warrior that I once was, valiantly defending castles for kings and skir
mishing with bands of murderous knights, in the white-capped, dry stick of a man I am now. I believe that he feels I must be playing some sort of trick on him, perhaps weaving too much romance in with the truth. But he tells me that he likes the tale, so far.
‘I am glad that you went to seek vengeance for your father,’ he told me gravely. ‘That is what I would have done – it is a knight’s bounden duty to protect his honour.’
Why is vengeance so appealing, particularly to the young? There is no material reward that springs from it; a man is not richer, or healthier, or even happier as a result of it – quite often the reverse. Why does a young man’s heart beat faster at the thought of bloody vengeance taken for a hurt received? Why do we thrill at a tale of revenge? I know that we do, or at least that most men do; so many of the great lays and stories of knights and warriors are built around this idea. Is it because all men have been wronged at some point in their lives but few have ever received just recompense for their hurts? Is that why the male heart eternally thirsts for vengeance? Perhaps.
I remember on one occasion, when I was newly come to Robin’s band of outlaws and about the same age as my grandson, my lord spoke to me of the virtue of vengeance. I had been weeping over my father’s death and Robin had spoken to me quite brutally: ‘A man does not snivel when a member of his family has been murdered,’ he said. ‘A man does not cry like a babe, seeking pity from those around him for a wrong he has suffered. He takes his revenge. He makes the guilty men, the men who took that kinsman’s life, weep in pain; he makes their widows sob themselves to sleep at night. Else he is no man.’
As a youngster, I had absorbed Robin’s simple but savage message, I had thought on it often in my private moments, and it had become part of my warrior’s creed.
‘And was the Earl of Locksley really the “man you cannot refuse”, Grandpa?’ young Alan asked, when he had finished reading the parchments. ‘And did you ever have your vengeance on him?’
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