by Dan Davis
“What in the name of God are you blathering about?” Monmouth said. “Are you feeble minded? Are you drunk?”
The son of the Marshal rubbed his nose. “How is my little brother? Is he well? Is he learning his duty?”
“Your brother?” I was tired. “Oh, Anselm? Of course. He is here. In the courtyard, sleeping in the stables. He is very well. He is a very fine squire and there is no doubt he will make a good knight.”
“Ah, that is good to hear,” William Marshal grinned. “I have not seen the boy in years. I will have him brought to me. I am glad to hear he will make a good knight in time. The Lord knows we need good fighters right now and I fear we will need them still when he comes of age.”
“Anselm is already a good fighter, my lord,” I said. “We have been fighting for the king in the Weald. Anselm has fought this whole summer. I have lost count of the number of Frenchmen he has killed.”
Satisfyingly, the Marshal was shocked. “He takes after our noble father then. Good.”
“Yes, yes, how very proud you must be,” fat little Monmouth said. “Yet another witless killer, just what England needs. What vital news do you bring? The messenger said it concerns the king’s life. Was that all nonsense? If all you hoped for was a chamber for the night then you shall be very much—”
“Poison.”
Monmouth gaped.
William Marshal froze. His whole body went rigid and his eyes darted all over my face, searching for something.
Neither man spoke so I continued.
“A while ago, I captured a prisoner. He was from Nottinghamshire but he only gave up what he knew shortly before he died. He told me of a plot to poison the king.”
“Who was this man?” Marshal asked, his welcoming, conversational demeanour abandoned. He was intense. Fearful, even.
“A monk from a priory in Sherwood. A monk who had abandoned God. And common decency. He was with an outlaw leader when that outlaw was propositioned by a lord to carry out the poisoning. It was to be the next time the king passed through Nottingham.”
“Who was the lord?” William Marshal said, his eyes boring into mine.
“The monk did not know him,” I admitted. “But he said he was a big man. A big man and a lord.”
Marshal the younger pressed his lips together.
“And you say this monk is now dead?” fat little Monmouth said. “So we have your word alone?”
“Yes.”
“How convenient,” Monmouth said, sneering. “But I suppose something must be done.”
“Word of this must reach the king,” I said, glaring at both of them. “It will reach him, immediately, one way or another.”
Young Marshal was irritated by my presumption, glancing at Monmouth as if weighing a decision. He chewed on his lip for a moment. “I suppose the word of this monk can be trusted?”
I nodded. “He was not trustworthy. He was a criminal. He lost his mind well before his end. But I knew him well enough to know he was speaking truthfully. He expected nothing in return. It was not to save his life or to make any gain. And I would not have ridden this hard and fast to bring this news if I did not think it was worth relaying. I may have made a pact with the devil but I am not a fool. I know that I put myself in danger by telling you this. I know I expose myself, to mockery at least and possibly worse. But I felt it my duty to come. If the king was killed and I had done nothing...” I was tired. I wanted blood. Or, at least, a large cup of wine.
“Sit, Richard, please,” Marshal guided me onto a stool. “I understand.”
He called a servant, ordered me brought food and wine and also that Anselm and my other men be found a place to sleep that was better than the stables.
“We will speak to the king himself,” Marshal said to me, his friendliness restored although I detected that his manner was forced and likely had been from the moment we had met. “Yes, yes, we will speak to the king and as few others as we can. Wait here, eat, rest.”
As they left, Monmouth looked at me with anger but he no longer mocked me. In fact, he regarded Marshal’s retreating back with a sort of brooding wariness.
I could make no sense of their true feelings but reading my enemies’ intentions was always a problem for me in my first one or two centuries.
That night I had no strength to ponder it so I ate, drank and slept sitting with my head upon the table until a squire shook me awake.
“What is it?” I said, bleary eyed and grabbing the man by the arm and pulling him down toward me. “What is happening?”
“Marshal the younger sent for you,” the squire said, shaking with fear. “You have an audience with the king. Please, my lord, please do not hurt me.”
I looked down and realised I had my dagger pressed to the inside of his thigh.
“Sorry, son,” I said, putting it away. “Take me to the king.”
***
Once he checked his balls were still attached, the squire led me through the castle again. It was dark. The young man’s lantern was a candle surrounded by translucent, waxed parchment and it gave off a meagre, smoky light. The keep was quiet, though still clerks, knights and priests shuffled by us carrying lanterns and candles of their own.
At a door guarded by two sturdy men-at-arms, they took my sword and my dagger and I waited while the squire went inside. After a few moments, young William Marshal slipped out of it, closing it softly behind him. His face was grave.
“The king wishes to see you,” Marshal the younger whispered, his eyes fixing me with an unreadable stare. “I warn you that he does not believe in you. And my father is with him. And also your lord, the Archbishop of York is there.”
As if I was not nervous enough at facing the king, the knowledge that Hugh de Nonant would be present made me fret indeed. I was as certain as I could be that my lord was in league with William. How could I possibly accuse the man while he was in the room. It was close to a disaster.
“I see,” I said.
“There was no avoiding it once the king got wind that you were the bearer of the warning,” young Marshal said, a strange look in his eye. “Perhaps you should play this threat down, Richard and avoid the archbishop’s ire? I pray, though, that you are given leave to pursue this plot up in Sherwood, eh? Anyway, you must go in. And I must get away.” He smiled, patted my arm and opened the door for me.
Candles flickered from the motion of the door and shadows danced over the three great men inside. It was a solar, a day room given over for use by the king, with other chambers unseen beyond. A roasted meat smell rolled over me. My stomach churned from hunger and nervous excitement.
The king himself sat at the far end of the long central table. John, by the Grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou. The titles came to mind, I had heard them announced so many times and they had a familiar rhythm, as if they were an old prayer. But no one spoke them aloud anymore. He held almost all those titles by claim but not in fact.
There he was, the man who had kneeled in Westminster Abbey seventeen years before and sworn to observe peace, honour and reverence toward God and the Church all the days of his life, to do good justice and equity to the people he ruled, to keep good laws and be rid of all evil customs.
He was eating, his head down, slurping up wine from a shining cup and sucking grease off his fingers.
On one side of the room stood the Marshal himself, the Earl of Pembroke, the greatest knight who ever lived. He was over seventy years old but stood straight and tall and was still an intimidating man.
On the other side of the room loomed the archbishop, my liege lord. Massive, bulky, wearing fine, glowing church robes resplendent in white with gold crucifixes. Above his finery was his bull’s head face, red and angry.
I did not know in which order to address them, nor what to say. So I stood in the doorway, hesitating like a maiden crossing the bedchamber threshold on her wedding night.
“Come in, you Godforsaken fool,” the arc
hbishop roared. “And shut the damned door.”
The king paused in his eating to take a drink of wine. He glanced up at the archbishop. “You are the least holy man I ever met, Hugh.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” the archbishop said, his voice rumbling from his chest.
The king smirked into his goblet and waved me over to him. I approached on the opposite side to the archbishop, nodding at William the Marshal who gave me the faintest hint of acknowledgement. He wore a fine sword at his side. He wore brilliant green over bright red.
I reached the king’s side and knelt. King John sat in a huge, solid chair carved from oak and stained a brown so dark it was almost black. He paused for a moment and looked down at me, fixing me with that stare that he had. His eyes were pools of ink. Always, he bored into your soul with those eyes, searching yours for plots and threats and signs of disloyalty.
The moment that King Philip of France had heard the Richard the Lionheart was dead, he had invaded Normandy. That had been seventeen years before and John had been fighting, in one way or another, for his kingdom ever since. The kings, dukes, and counts of France had turned against him. His own barons had jostled and provoked him.
Since taking his oath, John had fought and lost in Poitou, Gascony, Anjou, Brittany and Normandy. He had invaded and subdued Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. I had fought for the king in most of his campaigns and had watched his struggles and his failures take their toll. But in the two or three years since I had last stood before him, the king had aged a decade or more. He had grown remarkably fat. His face had a yellow tinge. He seemed old, older than I would have believed. I remembered right then that he was of a similar age to me, almost fifty. His black beard had gone grey. His hair had receded and his cheeks had sagged. There were lines around his eyes and bags under them. The rebellion and the invasion were sucking the life from him.
“You are truly in league with the devil, Richard,” the king said, searching my face. “Are you getting younger with each passing year? Dear God, your face makes me sick to my stomach.”
He waved me to the bench alongside the table and I eased myself onto it. The table was laden with plates, half eaten pies and roast birds and fishes. It was very late to be eating such a meal. I wondered if the king had lost his wits or if he had completely succumbed to gluttony. Judging by the great mound of his belly and the fat under the beard at his neck, I guessed it was the latter, at least.
“So,” King John said after cuffing his mouth. “Someone is trying to poison me?”
It took all of my will to not look at the archbishop so I just sat there, dumb.
The king glanced at the archbishop. “Would you look at the state of your man, Hugh?”
“My apologies, Your Grace,” the archbishop said. “He did not come to me first or I would have never allowed him into your presence like this.”
King John waved him into silence. “Richard is a man of action, a bringer of death and terror to my enemies, is that not right, Richard? Yes, I can well forgive a little filth at my table. I live with the reek of horse sweat in my nose, do I not? So, out with it, what is this plot against me?”
“I know little of any plot, Your Grace,” I said. “Simply that an outlaw of Sherwood has been tasked with poisoning you when you returned to Nottinghamshire.”
The king regarded me. His dark eyes were unfocused. Whether through overindulgence in wine or through age taking his sight, I knew not. The candlelight danced as servants came in to take away dishes and bring more. The king did not offer me any, for which I was glad. He slurped away more wine.
“What do you think, Hugh?” the king said, still watching me.
The archbishop sighed. “I think that someone is playing my dear Richard for a fool.”
The king nodded and glanced at William the Marshal, the Earl of Pembroke.
“Almost certainly, this plot means nothing, Your Grace,” Pembroke said with confidence. “Almost certainly the plot does not exist. And even if it did, there is no chance some outlaw could ever attempt to get close to you. But would a little prudence not be in order? Perhaps we should take care with your food and wine while we are in the shire. It would hurt us none to do so.”
King John looked up at the Marshal through heavy lids. “Do you mean to say that you do not take care with it now?”
“Of course, Your Grace,” the Marshal said smoothly. “I only meant to post guards over the wagons. And in the kitchens.”
“What a lot of fuss over nothing,” the king said, wafting away the threat with a bird’s thighbone. “Do I not carry my wine with me, everywhere I travel? The food is procured locally but prepared by my own staff, is it not? Well then, how could I ever be poisoned? Richard, how could you ever imagine some vile peasant outlaw could ever get anywhere near my royal person?”
“It is not a peasant, Your Grace,” I said. “This new leader of the outlaws was once an earl of England. He—”
The archbishop spoke over me. “He thinks the outlaw is William de Ferrers.”
The king looked between the Archbishop of York and me. “You killed him in the Holy Land.”
“Your pardon, Your Grace but William de Ferrers escaped,” I said. “I looked for him for years but I never found him.”
“That is because he died,” the archbishop growled, his huge thick robes rustling like parchment. “He died in some shit stinking hole in the middle of some shit stinking land, you imbecile. You think that he still lives simply because you failed to kill him yourself? What arrogance. You have no proof that William is the outlaw that plagues Sherwood. You simply wish it to be true. Please, Your Grace, I cannot apologise enough for wasting your time with this.”
The king held up his hand. “The latest outlaw chief in my forest, yes. I remember that he has been preying on the Great North Road, has he not? Taking coin and messengers. Taking travellers. Churchmen. What is being done about this?”
The king addressed the archbishop, for he was the most powerful lord of the north.
The archbishop bristled. “Sheriff Roger de Lacy has sent men to clear Sherwood but they were all lost. The year before last, I believe. The sheriff has sent almost every man of his to you for the war.”
“I know what de Lacy has sent me, you fool, and I asked what is being done about the outlaws.” The king burped and rubbed his fat belly, sighing with satisfaction.
“I cannot answer for the sheriff,” the archbishop said. “But I believe he has not the men to do anything until you win the war.”
The Marshal, behind me, snorted quietly but the king did not seem to mind.
“You believe the outlaw leader is William de Ferrers?” the king asked me.
“I am certain of it,” I said. “His followers know him to be a nobleman.”
“All these peasant leaders claim to be some exiled lord of somewhere or other,” the archbishop said. “It is preposterous.”
The king yawned and rubbed his eyes. “What do you say, Marshal?”
“It does not matter who the outlaw is,” the Marshal said. “He threatens the road north. I agree with you, Your Grace. Sherwood must be cleared, immediately.”
The king nodded as if he had suggested such a thing be done. “You make other knights nervous, Richard.”
“I do not mean to, Your Grace.”
“Have you stopped slurping up the blood of the slain?” he asked.
“I have, Your Grace,” I lied. “It was the momentary madness of battle, after I had taken the walls for you.”
He waved down my justifications. He had heard them before. “They say you are cursed. When men see that your face is ageless then they will know that they are quite right. My armies are crushing the barons, one after the other. Soon I will be ready to drive the French from England, for the last time. But things balance on a blade’s edge. I cannot bring you into my armies again. But your magnificent abilities can be of use to me. What’s say I find a handful of men who would fight under you. What would it take, Marshal?”
/> “To clear Sherwood? Richard could do it with twenty knights and squires and say, fifty bowmen. I am sure we could spare them.”
“There,” the king said. “Would that suit you?”
I could not believe my luck. The king would give me the men I needed to destroy William.
“It would, Your Grace.” I bowed my head.
“Fine, you do that and then we will see about you serving me once again, what do you say? Yes, yes, of course, you say yes. Go now. Let me sleep. Someone see this man out. Marshal, you will organise the men for Sherwood? Yes, yes.”
I was led out. I would have the men. My revenge was at hand.
I rushed to tell Jocelyn the good news.
That very night, the king was taken ill. A bloody flux, they called it.
I was nervous but everyone seemed sure the king would recover. He often had digestive problems, so they said. So we prepared our equipment, cleaning and sharpening. I met a few of the men that I would be leading. They seemed good enough. I had not been sold a duck after buying a pig.
Two days later, in the castle stables, I was seized by a half dozen men. I did not fight, for they were John’s own men. They escorted me through the castle, downstairs and, to my complete surprise, they threw me into the castle dungeon.
“But why,” I shouted as they closed the door. “For the love of God, you bastards, tell me why. What is happening?”
One man held the door open a crack, his candle casting his face in yellow and black dancing shadows. He spoke four words before the door slammed with an echoing boom.
“The king is dead.”
Chapter Nine – Outlawed
I stewed in that black dungeon, not knowing it was night or day. Barely knowing if I slept. A few times, I was brought water.
“What is happening?” I asked the gaoler but he ignored me.
Once or twice, there was bread.
I measured time by the level of piss and shit in my bucket but since I barely ate and my lips were cracked with thirst, I was not sure if I had been there two days or two weeks. It was like being buried alive. All I had for company was the scurrying rats and my memories. I saw, awake and asleep, my wife murdered over and over. I saw the men I had slain. I saw the gallons of blood I had spilled in a massacre in the Holy Land.