by Dan Davis
“Get the rope,” I said to Jocelyn.
Jocelyn was breathing very heavily and he had somewhat of a wild look about him. The kind of look a man gets when he has faced his own mortality. I realised that his fight against the monks had taxed him. I resolved to not allow Jocelyn to face William’s men alone ever again.
We bound Brother Tuck tightly. He reeked like an animal. He growled and spat. I had to thump him in the face and head a few times to keep him still while we bound him wrist and ankle and at elbows and knees. I balled up a rag, stuffed it in his mouth and tied rope tight around his head to hold it in place.
“Quickly now,” I said. “We must ride for Nottingham.”
“What about that fellow?” Jocelyn pointed to the hearth.
The old man with the matted beard lay curled and shaking in his filthy nakedness. “I had forgotten about him.”
“You cannot mean to leave him,” Jocelyn said.
“For the love of God,” I said. “You watch that one. Keep him on his knees with your sword at his neck.”
I removed my helm, placed it upon the large chair, and rolled the creature over. His face was caked in ordure. The stench from his mouth was like rotting meat and befouled eggs. “No,” he mumbled through smashed teeth. “No, no, no...”
“Jesus Christ Almighty. Jocelyn, they have put out his eyes.”
The broken old man shook all over. “Who? Who?” he mumbled.
“Who am I? I am Sir Richard of Ashbury. Who are you? Do you live hereabouts? Can you hear me? Can I take you to your family?”
“Prior.” He swallowed. “I am. Prior. Gregory.”
“Sweet Christ, he’s the prior, Jocelyn. Hear me, prior, you are saved. We shall take you with us back to Nottingham.”
His shaking grew violent and he reached out a hand to me. I grasped the wrist. The fingers and the thumb had all been hacked off and left to fester. The hand was black. I eased his hand back and sat him up. His other hand was missing no more than the thumb but it too was mottled with black corruption.
“Kill. Me.”
“I cannot imagine how you have suffered, good prior.” I stroked his disgusting head. “But know that your tormentors have all been killed but one and he is not long for this world. Before he dies he shall know suffering as you have known it.”
“Bless. You.”
“Say your prayers, prior,” I said and drew my dagger. When he was done, he mumbled that he was ready and I ended him rightly.
I wrestled Brother Tuck onto a steady packhorse and bound him to it while Jocelyn calmed the beast. I advised Tuck that if he caused me too much trouble I would simply remove his head and after that, he lay largely still.
Wary of the possibility of pursuit, we rode hard for Linby, Ranulf the forester’s village.
Upon arriving, we found that every soul there had been slaughtered.
Chapter Five – England Invaded
Nottingham was abuzz when we returned. I naively assumed they had heard of the slaughter so close to the town.
I was wrong.
“What has happened?” I asked a groom as we walked our horses up to the extensive castle stables. “What is all this everyone is saying about the French?”
There were fine palfreys, much finer than my chestnut riding palfrey than I had brought with me to Nottingham, unused. He was getting old and his gait was never particularly civilised but the palfreys in that yard clearly belonged to a great lord. It was a joy to see the ambling palfreys, their skin full of juice, their coats glistening as they paced softly, gently exercised by the grooms.
There were even two destriers, the most expensive and desirable warhorses for knights. The fine beasts graceful in form and with goodly stature, quivering ears, high necks and plump buttocks. I could not afford one, let alone two. The grooms were taking great care with those dangerous beasts. A destrier was trained to bite, kick, rear and ride right over people and those horses were well known to kill more stableboys than smallpox.
I had to wave coins around to get anyone’s attention. A lad found us a corner and set to work while we unloaded.
“The French, lord, the French, have you not heard, lord?” The boy could hardly get his words from his mouth he was so excited. “The French have invaded, lord.”
Anselm and Swein shared a look. I hoped that they were becoming friends and allies.
“Invaded where?” I said. “When?”
“London, probably,” the boy said, grinning. “The king is riding there to throw them back into the sea.”
“London is not by the sea,” Jocelyn pointed out.
“Well, wherever, then,” the boy said, unconcerned.
I dragged Brother Tuck from the courser, who stomped and whinnied at me.
“You are happy now?” I said to the beast.
“He is not happy, you fool,” Jocelyn said as he pushed me aside. “He is angry at you for making him carry that filth.” He brushed the courser’s grey-white coat down himself, whispering in his ear and neglecting his own war-trained stallion so that mine would be mollified. “If the French have truly landed, Richard, then we must ride to meet them.”
I cursed under my breath. “You may do as you wish. I am staying to destroy William. I have waited twenty-five years for him to turn up and I do not mean to squander this chance. Truly, Jocelyn, you must do your duty.”
Tuck, bound tightly at my feet, squirmed and groaned. I kicked him in his belly, hard and he curled up in silence.
“And what about your duty?” Jocelyn asked, brushing my horse.
“The archbishop considers me disgraced,” I said. “He will not want me where all men, especially the king, can see me and remember Gascony. All his life Hugh de Nonant has fought and clawed his way upward and his life is built upon his reputation.”
“And what do men say about me?” Jocelyn grumbled. “Your disgrace is mine by association.”
It was true but it annoyed me to hear him be so ungrateful. “Men say that you have dutifully stayed loyal, like a true knight. Like the Marshal himself would have done.”
“The Marshal would never have served a lord as lowly as you,” Jocelyn said.
I laughed. “True. You never had to stay with me. And you may go and fight the French if you wish it. I will publicly release you, if you wish to join whatever forces the king musters. You will win great fame, I have no doubt. Now is the time to achieve your greatness.”
He said nothing while he saw to the horses with our squires and I guarded Tuck, who became fitful every time he recovered from my blows. I hoped that he was almost-but-not-quite dying of thirst and suffocating. I had so many questions for him but no time to ask them so he would have to wait.
“Whose horses are they?” I said to the stable hand, pointing at the magnificent destriers and fine palfreys.
“Why, they’re the archbishop’s, sir,” he said, looking at me as if I was a madman.
“The Archbishop of York?” I grabbed his shoulder.
“Yes, sir,” the lad was frightened by my intensity so I let him go.
Jocelyn stared. “Did he say—”
“Yes. My liege lord is here. I must go to the castle. Watch the monk every moment. You do it yourself Jocelyn, allow the squires to do all else but you be sure this monster stays bound.”
Tuck was awake and he squirmed violently and shook himself, moaning from deep within his fat belly. I readied another kick but Jocelyn placed a hand on my arm.
“I think he wants to tell us something,” Jocelyn said.
“I do not have time for this,” I said and untied the monk’s gag and withdrew the sopping rag from his mouth. It reeked worse than dysenteric bowel water. I held my dagger against his neck.
“Please,” he begged. “Blood. I must have blood.”
I stared hard at him. “I heard how you like to jest. I am not amused.” I moved to replace the rag.
“I will die.” His eyes bored into mine. They were shot through with blood and I would have sworn he wa
s afraid. “I swear, if I do not have blood then I will die.”
“What do I care if you do?” I said.
“You need me,” Tuck said, his foul mouth gaping like a landed fish. “Need me to talk. About him. About the Lord of Eden. If I am dead, you will never know. A drop is all I ask. Just a drop.”
I looked at him, confused that he thought I would stoop so low as to feed him blood and I jammed the sopping gag back between his yellow teeth. He wailed and groaned. I shoved him onto his face to tie the rope about his face. His thrashing about was scaring the horses and drawing attention.
“Be still. Lie still, I say. Very well, here, then,” I said, standing and looking around. “Here is your blood for you, if it will cease your caterwauling.”
Tuck looked up from the straw, pathetic hope in his eyes.
I kicked him hard in the teeth and nose, rocking his head back. He lay still.
“You killed him,” Jocelyn hissed.
“No, no,” I said. “It’ll take more than that. But I pray he’ll lay quiet now.”
The horses started and the nervousness spread around the stables. I held up my hand, apologised to the grooms and squires for the disruption, and explained that the man I had abused was my lawful prisoner. The muttering and grumbling continued. It does not do to disturb rich men’s horses.
“Sir Richard of Ashbury,” Jocelyn said quietly. “Making friends wherever he goes.”
“Roll that thing onto his face so that he does not drown in his blood.”
“What if he does die?” Jocelyn said. “How will we explain that?”
“I have bigger concerns,” I said. “Anselm, clean my armour and have my sword straightened and sharpened. The point may require regrinding. See to it yourself that it is done properly. I go to meet the archbishop.”
The castle was a heaving with men, dressed in an array of colours, all talking of the new turn in the war. Most would be Roger de Lacy’s personal knights and squires, men that owed him service. Some few wore the archbishop’s livery. I was escorted through the castle and into the hall, where I expected the sheriff to be holding court but instead, I was taken back to the sheriff’s solar, announced and ordered in immediately.
The archbishop stood by the narrow window. He turned as I entered. He was just as I remembered him. Tall, broad shouldered, going to fat but still full of strength. His skull looked as thick as a bullock’s but his eyes were shrewd black pinholes.
“My lord archbishop,” I said, inclining my head momentarily.
His eyes were shining with inky blackness. His eyebrows knitted together over his slab of a nose. He did not look happy to see me.
“Roger, how are you?” I said to the sheriff, who looked deeply unhappy. He was surrounded by parchment and his clerks and priest buzzed about him. “So, I hear England is invaded.”
“Richard.” The sheriff glanced up at me from his seat, no expression on his face. “You have returned.” He looked back at his parchment.
In the far corner, a wiry, tall figure leaned in the shadows. One of the archbishop’s men, I assumed, though I could not make him out.
“What in the name of God are you doing here?” the archbishop said, his voice deeper and fiercer even than I had remembered. “You were to stay in that hovel you call a home until I summoned you.”
The archbishop was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom and my liege lord, yet I had to fight the urge to leap forward and smash his skull against the wall. “William is here.”
Roger and the archbishop exchanged a glance.
“So you say.” The archbishop snorted.
“You doubt it, lord?” I said, surprised.
“I do doubt it,” he said. “I doubt it very much. As I doubt your sanity and your good judgement in coming here in a time of war.”
“I have done as you asked and stayed in my lands,” I said. “But my home was attacked. The attackers were sent by William.”
The archbishop nodded. “They told you this?”
“Yes,” I said, bending the truth.
He scowled. “They said they were sent by Earl William de Ferrers?”
I took a breath. “They did not use his name.”
“Ah,” the archbishop nodded, glancing at the man in the corner as if inviting him to join him in mocking me.
“It is William,” I said. “He is hiding in the deep wood. He has killed or subdued or driven off the outlaws. He is extending his tendrils into the villages. Soon, the roads will be unsafe.”
“Absurd,” the archbishop said. “Utterly absurd. You were always a little touched, Richard and now you have lost your mind.”
“Will you tell him,” I said to the sheriff.
Roger rubbed his grey head and sent his clerks away. They closed the doors behind them. “No,” he said. “The Archbishop of York is correct. The trouble in Sherwood is the typical outlaw banditry and we shall clean them out in time.”
I stared at him. “I disbelieve what my ears are hearing. You and I discussed this. We agreed it was William. Before I left to discover more.”
Roger stared at me. “I was mistaken.”
The archbishop smirked from across the room.
The sheriff was bitter about that girl, Marian. I had forgotten her and forgotten Roger’s enmity before I left. Had he been hoping that I would be killed in the wood? Was that his plan all along? Or had the archbishop poisoned him against me, for some reason?
“And what did you discover?” the archbishop said. “You come into our presence with a filthy face and stinking of mud and manure.”
“I rode to question the forester,” I said. “In his village. He confirmed the new ruler of the wood was a knight.”
The archbishop laughed. “They always claim to be a lord, do they not, Roger? What arrogance. Jumped up peasants strap on a stolen, rusted sword and think themselves equal to a king. Richard, you have no head for these kinds of things, you know this. You are a mighty warrior, every knight in England knows it. But you are a step above simple minded when it comes to the hearts of men. That forester is as corrupt as they come. Ranulf, is he not? The warden tells me the man has been keeping the fines he forces from those living in the forest. He was spinning you tales, son.”
There was more to it, of course. I could have explained how the poor folk of Linby had all been slaughtered by William’s men merely for speaking with me. I could have told them about the destruction of the priory and the torture of the prior. But some instinct caused me to withhold the existence of Brother Tuck. Perhaps it was the hot rage that spiked through me at the archbishop’s moronic, offensive words.
“Do you mean to insult me?” I asked him.
The shape in the corner moved out into the light. It was the archbishop’s man.
Only, it was not.
It was a woman.
She wore a hauberk, covered with a black surcoat. She had no mail coif on her head but wore a padded cap ready to take one. She was broad at the shoulder but narrow as a sword blade. I would have taken her for a man but for the fine features of her face and her huge, dark eyes. Some men have a womanish look about them. Other men are as beautiful as a Spanish princess and yet I was certain the figure in the corner was a woman. I could smell her. She reeked like a knight does, of horses and leather. Yet her sweat-stinking linen undergarments smelled strongly of woman. She stared at me with defiance, anger and amusement filling her eyes. The confident stare of one warrior facing down another.
“Insult you? By speaking the truth?” The archbishop growled. “Do not stare so, Richard. This is my bodyguard, Eva.”
“Bodyguard?” I said and laughed. She stiffened, like a cat that is ready to pounce. The archbishop held out his hand to her.
“She is more capable than any man and you will watch your tongue. I trust her with my life and she has my full confidence, in all things.”
It was suddenly clear. He was swyving her. Every man knew of the Archbishop of York’s love of young girls. He usually kept his da
lliances to servants and peasants, those who would not cause a fuss and whose families would be easily bought. I had assumed him too busy and too old to keep up with such things but clearly, he had found a new perversion. Dressing up his fancies as knights. I wondered if she screwed him while wearing the hauberk. I would imagine the mail would chafe. Perhaps that was what the old goat enjoyed.
“I understand,” I said.
“No, you do not,” the archbishop said, scowling. “You will go south. We must slow the Prince’s invasion.”
“I cannot go anywhere, did you not hear? William has made himself King of the Wood not thirty miles from here.”
“Then he will wait,” the archbishop shouted. “The very kingdom is at stake. Your personal squabbles are irrelevant.”
“Squabbles? He murdered my wife. Slaughtered my brother, his family. Uncounted others. He must be brought to justice.”
Roger and the archbishop exchanged a long look.
“You have my sympathy,” the Archbishop said. “Certainly, you do. And rest assured, if William de Ferrers is truly in the greenwood, we shall roust him out, Roger and me, shall we not, sheriff? And he shall hang for his crimes. If he is there. But in the meantime, the Prince of France has landed an army upon our shores and he is aiming for London.”
I was defeated. I knew my duty. There was no way out of such a command from my lord. It was a perfectly reasonable request and not one that the king would have any sympathy with if I brought my case to him. He would never even hear it.
“The king marches to meet the French?”
The archbishop coughed. “Indeed, he does not.”
It should not have surprised me. King John was a capable enough leader of armies who could steal a march on anyone, if he so chose. But he was a far cry from the audacity and vigour of his brother Richard, who was called lionhearted for good reason.
“Where does the king go?”
“North.”
That did surprise me. “He is running away?”
“Did I not tell you he is slow, Roger? Give him a castle wall and tell him to get over it and no army in all Europe will stand in this man’s way. Give him a simple puzzle and he will stare at for a week, like a dog calculating a dice roll.”