by Angus Donald
‘Enough, enough, by God,’ Little John was shouting, giving a very good imitation of fury. A thick slice of barley bread thrown by an unseen hand bounced off the back of his big blond head. ‘Enough, I say,’ he bellowed. ‘The next bastard who throws something, I swear I will batter him into bloody meat.’
‘For shame, Alan,’ said Tuck, trying to look solemn, ‘for shame. Have we not taught you any manners in your time with us? Are you still the uncouth lout we first met two years ago? Just because Robin is away from the table ...’
I had an apple snug in the palm of my hand and my fist was cocked back and ready to throw; but I managed to still myself; I knew that Little John did not make idle threats.
‘Where is Robin, anyway?’ I asked. I had caught a glimpse of Sir James’s face - his expression was one of total disgust, and I wanted to change the subject. Despite the joyous, silly anarchy of a food battle, my ill news was still looming at the back of my mind like a dark cloud. ‘Why is he not with us for this fine gathering of noble gentlemen?’
‘He’s gone to collect the Countess from Locksley village; she’s been consulting a wise woman there,’ said Tuck. ‘He told me he would be back later this evening, God willing.’
Marie-Anne, Countess of Locksley, was heavily pregnant and very near her due time, but the pregnancy had not been an easy one. She had felt sick and out of sorts for much of the early period of her term, and then restless and unhappy more recently as she became very large indeed. Marie-Anne was a beautiful woman, perhaps the most beautiful I had ever seen, with a slim figure, chestnut hair and glorious bright blue eyes, and she hated becoming so fat and lumpy as the baby grew inside her - like a great lumbering sow, as she put it - but there was something else too that was troubling her about the pregnancy. I knew not what, but it was something between her and Robin. I had once come into their solar unannounced to find them shouting at each other. This was very unusual - Robin almost never lost his temper. And Marie-Anne had always appeared to have an almost angelically serene outlook on life. I put the incident down to the trials of pregnancy and forgot about it.
Locksley village was only three miles away and even transporting Marie-Anne in a donkey-cart — she was now too big to ride a horse - it would only take Robin a couple of hours to go there and pick her up and return to Kirkton. I was sure he would return within the hour, and felt a sense of relief. The brief meal was coming to its conclusion and, one by one, the men rose from the long table. Some gathered around the fire in the centre of the hall, squatting by its heat, gossiping, throwing dice, and finishing off their cups of wine or ale; a few wandered outside the hall to the farthest building that contained our latrine - a mere plank-covered trench in the earth; some began to make up their beds against the walls on the rush-strewn floor, laying out their blankets and furs and curling up for the night. Robin had still not returned, but he had told me to wait in his chamber, and so after a quick visit to the stables to check that Ghost was comfortable, I collected two goblets of wine, a plate with a large piece of cheese, a loaf of bread, two apples and a small fruit knife and took them on a tray into Robin’s and Marie-Anne’s solar, which was at the end of the hall. I reasoned that Robin and his lady might be hungry when they returned. Then I settled down to wait in their chamber.
The solar was lit by a single good-quality beeswax candle, in a silver candlestick on a small table of the far side of the big four-poster bed. I came around the bed and placed the food on the night table; then I sat gingerly on the embroidered silk bedcover, and looked around the room as I awaited Robin’s return. It was a good-sized chamber, perhaps ten paces long by six paces wide, the walls panelled with dark wood and hung with one or two small tapestries depicting the hunt. It had a polished wooden floor that creaked slightly in the centre under a person’s weight and was partially covered by a large wolfskin rug. The great oak bed was at one end of the room against the wall, perhaps three paces in from the door. Beside the bed was a large window with a stout wooden shutter, bolted from the inside, which opened out on to the castle courtyard. At the far end of the room were two clothes chests, one each for Robin and Marie-Anne, and a washbasin on a thin iron stand with a jug of water beside it. A large dresser, on the wall opposite the door, held feminine items such as jewellery, hair pins, face powder, perfume and a large silver mirror. From my seat on the bed, I could just see my reflection in the mirror: a big lad looked back at me, taller than average, and with the broad shoulders and thick arms of a swordsman. My oval face and regular features seemed entirely unremarkable to me, save for the mop of bright blond hair on top. The merest fluff of a beard showed on my cheeks and I remembered that I had not shaved for several days. I ran a hand over my face, and looked away at the rest of the room, noting an antler rack that held cloaks and hats, a crucifix hanging on the wall - which must belong to Marie-Anne — and a large throne-like oak chair.
Considering the power that Robin now wielded in England, his private chamber was rather austere, but then he had never been a man overly concerned with comfort. Years of living wild as an outlaw had given him the ability to travel light, and apparently Marie-Anne was content with only the bare necessities of feminine life.
As I sat on the silk bedcover, I could feel the effects of the long day’s travel. I was exhausted; for weeks I had been galloping about England delivering messages for Robin - and paying for my board and lodging by entertaining unfamiliar nobles in strange castles with my music - and now, warm, well-fed and safe, I could feel my eyelids turning to lead. Surely Robin could not be long. It was perhaps two hours after sunset and he would not like to have Marie-Anne out late at night in her condition. My head was nodding, and I had an overwhelming urge to lie down. I was sure that my master would not mind if I slept for a few minutes, just to be fresh for our discussion. So I kicked off my soft leather shoes and stretched out full length on the comfortable bed. I just managed to lift my head from the soft goose-feather pillow and blow out the candle before I was drowned in sleep.
I came from deep sleep to fully awake very swiftly, like a man rising up fast from a deep pool and breaking the surface to gulp down clean air. But some devious instinct made me remain absolutely still and silent. There was someone coming into the room. I caught a glimpse of his shape, silhouetted in the doorway, back-lit by the dull glow of the banked hall fire. He was short, shorter than Robin, and much broader in the shoulder, too. And in his hand, just glimpsed, was a sword.
The man closed the door behind him, the wooden latch closing with a click, and the room was once again pitch dark. All the hair on my neck stood to attention; goose bumps rose on my forearms. I lay still for one more moment and then, the knowledge hitting me like a bucket of icy water in the face, I rolled. And only just in time. There was a whist of sharp metal passing swiftly through the air, and then a thump as the edge of the man’s sword plunged into the bed where I had been lying just a heartbeat before.
I scrambled to my feet, knocking over the night table with a deafening clatter of wood, silver and steel. Like a fool, I bent down to pick up the scattered food and utensils, hearing a patter of soft-shod feet running towards me and a hiss above my head as the sword swept over my stooping form in the black of the room. I found the fruit knife in my hand and dived under the bed and squirmed through the dust and cobwebs and out of the other side. But the swordsman anticipated my move, leaping round from the far side of the bed in the same time it took me to crawl under it. As I began cautiously to poke out my nose, there was a splintering noise as the intruder’s blade hacked down inches from my head and buried itself in the floorboards. As the man wrestled with his stuck blade, I recoiled under the bed and, turning to my right, fast-crawled out of the end of the four-poster, working forward as silently and swiftly as I could on elbows and knees, scuttling like a crab over to the far wall, and when I reached it I crouched, back to the wooden panels, knees round my ears, trying not to pant, with the little fruit knife held out in front of my body.
The room
was silent. The darkness was impenetrable. But my fear was subsiding and, in its place, a cold, hard anger bloomed. I was locked in a room with a sword-wielding maniac who was trying to kill me, and who had almost succeeded three times. I tested the edge of the fruit knife. It was very sharp, although the blade was only two inches long. It would serve. After two years of mixing with Robin’s outlaws, some of the most efficient cut-throats in England, I knew exactly how to kill a man quickly with a small blade. My heart began to slow, and I remained perfectly still as I waited for my enemy to reveal himself.
Then the man spoke, softly: ‘My lord earl, why do you not call upon your liegemen to help you?’ It was a Welsh voice; I should have guessed by the short powerful body shape that he was an archer - and that was good news. By and large, our archers were not overly proficient as swordsmen; I knew because it was my duty to train them. It was a crumb of comfort, and I felt my courage swelling with the thought. It was also clear that this man thought he had Robin trapped in the room. There was no question of my calling out. It would have brought me help, yes, but if I made the slightest sound, he would be on me with his sword in a heartbeat and, even in that total darkness, I could be cut to pieces. I would be dead or mutilated before any of Robin’s men, now snoring in the hall, could come to my rescue, and he would be out of the window and lost in the courtyard. So I remained dumb. And smiled into the blackness. He had revealed his position to me. By the sound of his voice, I knew he was standing by the end of the bed. I heard the swish of his sword as he sliced the air experimentally around his body, trying for a lucky strike. But I was three paces away and crouched low. If I stayed still he was unlikely to catch me with his sword. And, if he was to find me, he must move.
After a long silence, in which all I heard was an indistinct whisper of cloth, the floorboards gave a harsh creak, very loud in the silence, echoing like the cry of a gull. The board creaked once again and then stopped, and I knew he was in the middle of the room, standing still to make no further noise. I could see his position exactly in my mind. But I needed him to come nearer to me, without discovering my own location. Groping around in the dark, my hand alighted on the cool earthenware of the water jug. I put my hand inside to discover that it was half-full. Lifting it silently with both hands, knife between my teeth, I hurled the jug away from me and into the corner of the room. It smashed with an unbelievably soul-wringing noise and I heard the floorboards creak again as the man rushed towards the corner and began to flog the air with his sword. On hands and knees I crawled forward to where I believed he stood and, knife in my right hand, grabbed him with my left around the thigh. I was only slightly off the mark and, as I seized his knee, he let out a shriek of surprise and fear. A moment later and I had plunged the knife deep into the soft inside of his thigh, then ripped the blade out of the flesh in a scooping motion. He screamed horribly in pain and terror and I felt him batter at my shoulders with the hilt of his sword. But I had been rewarded for my strike by a great gush of his blood into my face, a hot fountain that immediately drenched my upper body, and I knew then that he was a dead man.
Dropping the knife, I scrambled out of reach of his flailing sword and scuttled back under the bed. The man’s howls filled the room, shrill and heart-rending, and I knew that the alarm had been satisfactorily raised. Scream upon scream echoed about me as his life jetted out of his slashed thigh. Then I heard him slump to the floor like a dropped sack of grain, weak and whimpering now, as he tried to staunch the torrent of spurting lifeblood. I could smell its sour iron odour. Even in the pitch dark I could clearly imagine what was happening, as I had seen it once before: I had deliberately cut through the great pulsing artery that ran down his inner thigh, and unless he could find a tourniquet to stop the blood flow, in less than thirty heartbeats he would be as dead as last night’s dinner.
The door of the solar burst open and a crowd of men-at-arms rushed in, bringing torches and rush lights and an excited clamour to the room. The man was seated, legs widespread, in the middle of a lake of blood, his agonised face drained and white. I poked my bloody head out from under the bed and stared at him.
He managed four words before he collapsed, lifeless into the crimson pool: ‘Not my boy, please ...’ he whispered and then he died.
Chapter Two
The dead man was a nobody - an archer named Lloyd ap Gryffudd, one of scores of men recently hired by Tuck from south Wales. He was an experienced man with a bow and, as far as anyone knew, a trustworthy soldier - so Owain, the captain of Robin’s bowmen, told me. It was clear that Owain felt somehow responsible that one of his men should have tried to attack Robin; he was visibly upset as we spoke later that night over a cup of wine, which I badly needed.
The household was quiet once again after the uproar. The servants had carried out the body and cleaned up the blood, and the grizzled Welsh bowman and I were chewing over the attack at the long table in the hall.
‘He must have been drunk, Alan, or just plain mad,’ said Owain. ‘He would never have been able to get away with it. He’d have been ripped apart by the men before he got a hundred yards. They love Robin, you know, absolutely bloody worship him.’
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ I said. ‘It was risky, yes, but everyone in the hall was asleep and he might well have been able to kill Robin and Marie-Anne and get away out of the window before anyone noticed. There was a saddled horse ready in the stables and, in the confusion after an event like that, Robin dead, the whole castle raising a hullabaloo - well, I think he would have had a good chance of escape. And I don’t think he was mad. I just think there was great pressure used - money or threats, or both - to force him to make the attempt.’
Owain looked even gloomier. ‘I’ll make some enquires in the morning,’ he said. ‘What do you think Robin will say when he gets back?’
‘He’s not going to be happy,’ I said. And I rose from the table, leaving Owain staring into his wine cup, and took my exhausted body to my blankets by the fire. Although I knew it was ridiculous, and that nobody wanted to kill me, I lay for the rest of the night with my unsheathed poniard in my hand. And weary as I was, with the comforting feel of a foot-long razor-sharp Spanish dagger in my fist, I slept like a babe.
Robin returned the next morning, another glorious sunny spring day, with his pregnant wife Marie-Anne. She was huge, flushed and riding like a queen in a great chair lashed to a donkey cart, surrounded by her ladies in waiting. I waved at one familiar face in her entourage, my little friend Godifa, and received a shy smile in return. Then I turned to greet Robin, and quickly apprised him of the events of last night. My lord seemed genuinely impressed that I had killed the would-be assassin singlehanded.
‘He came at you with a drawn sword, in the dark, while you were fast asleep, and you managed to swiftly dispatch him with, what, a nail-paring knife?’ he said as we walked out of the bright sunlight of the courtyard and into the dimness of the hall. It was strange to hear him pay me a real compliment without teasing me.
‘It was a fruit knife, actually,’ I said.
Robin waved my correction away. ‘I always knew that you could weave a good heroic chanson, Alan, I didn’t realise that you wanted to be the hero in these tales, as well.’ He grinned at me. The mockery was back in his voice.
‘Well, since I was asleep on your bed, and as a result was mistaken for you, my lord, I felt that a little heroic behaviour was expected of me.’
Robin laughed. ‘Your flattery is shameless. You know better than anyone how far I am from being a hero.’
‘All those excellent songs say that you are, my lord, and so it must be true,’ I said with a grin.
He gave a snort of laughter and then abruptly stopped smiling and drew me over to the long table in the hall, where we both sat down. Playtime was over. ‘So tell me,’ he said, all seriousness, ‘who was he, and why was he trying to chop me into cutlets?’
‘There is a very large price on your head,’ I told him soberly, ‘very large indeed.’ I paused. �
��It is a hundred pounds of weight in pure German silver, and it is being offered by our old friend Sir Ralph Murdac.’
There was a long silence at the table while Robin stared at me, his bright grey eyes boring into mine. It was a staggering amount to offer for one life, more than enough to allow a man to live in comfort for his whole span on Earth and still to have a large inheritance for his sons and a fat dowry for his daughters. It was more than the whole manor of Westbury was worth.
‘So the little viper has come out of his hole,’ said Robin. ‘Go and get Little John, Owain, Sir James and Tuck, then you’d better tell us all the whole story.’ I stood up and handed Robin the letter from the King, which had been burning a hole in the breast of my tunic all morning. He broke the royal seal on the parchment and began reading while I went to pass the word for his closest lieutenants.
While we waited in silence for Robin’s top men to assemble, I noticed Robin looking at me curiously.
‘What on earth are you wearing on your head?’ he asked. ‘You look like a procurer of loose women.’
I bridled a little; I was wearing a new sky blue hood that I had bought in London. It was made from the finest wool, soft as a baby’s cheek; it was embroidered with tiny flakes of gold in the shape of diamonds, red woollen stars and had a long plump tail that dangled over my shoulder like a pet snake. It was the height of city sophistication, the smart London hood-maker had assured me, and I treasured it. I didn’t deign to reply to Robin’s question and ten minutes later, Little John, Sir James de Brus, Owain the bowman, Robin and I were sitting at the long table, with mugs of ale in our hands. ‘Tuck is in the churchyard, burying the dead fellow,’ John said. Robin nodded and said nothing. He visited the little church of St Nicholas, at the southeastern foot of the castle, only when it was absolutely necessary, when not to go would be very strange. And I knew why: in his heart, Robin was no Christian. A brutal priest who tormented him while he was growing up had given him a deep hatred for Mother Church, and though he was bound by solemn promises to go on this Great Pilgrimage, he had no room in his soul for Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. As shocking, as downright evil as this must seem to you, the reader of this parchment, for some strange reason Robin’s men accepted his lack of faith. Or pretended to be ignorant of it. They loved him and followed him despite the fact that he was clearly a damned soul.