The King’s Assassin (10 page)

‘But it is a strange kind of crime, Alan. And they were strange thieves, indeed.’ He stopped, silenced by thought. I filled his cup from the jug.

A trio of monks came into the refectory, yawning and rubbing their eyes. They helped themselves to a flagon of ale from the barrel and slices of bread from the board, and seated themselves at a table on the far side of the big room, giving us no more than a brief nod of greeting. I realised that it must be nearly time for the nocturnal service of Matins.

‘Why do you think them strange?’ I said. ‘Half of England must know that you were going to sea with the Earl of Salisbury to fight the French. You were away with almost all your men. Kirkton was but lightly held. There were clearly enough of them to take the walls and they were bold, adventurous fellows, and no mistake.’

I was thinking that it was the kind of madcap escapade that Robin himself might have indulged in in his younger days. Tweaking the nose of a mighty but absent earl, young blades stealing the chattels of a rich man in the dead of night.

‘No, Alan, it is not right. It does not feel right. Do not forget that I know half the thieves in the north – some of them are my oldest, dearest friends. And those that are not my former comrades, surely they must know my reputation, surely they must understand that I will track them down and have my vengeance…’

‘We have been away a goodly length of time, Robin,’ I said. ‘Maybe with the passing of years…’ I just stopped myself from suggesting that perhaps the common people no longer feared him, that a new generation had risen without respect for his ferocity.

Robin twinkled at me as if he could read my thoughts, as I sometimes believed he could. ‘I know that I have neglected my monstrous side of late, Alan. I haven’t flayed a crippled beggar for, oh, many years, nor burnt alive a helpless starveling child in an age, but I did not expect to be chided for it, even silently, by you!’

I smiled coolly at him. We had had a number of clashes over the years, mostly about his cruelty or indifference to the suffering of others. But what he said was true – in truth he had become a little more mellow, kinder, even, in his middle years.

‘We’ll make a decent Christian of you yet,’ I murmured.

Robin scowled at me. ‘You would fail to pass for a court jester – even of the meanest sort,’ he said icily. ‘But I might take you into my service as a fool – purely out of pity at your lack of anything even resembling wits!’

‘And I would serve you, my lord, for the same pitiful reason.’

He gave me a half-smile. He had never had any love for the Church, and never would. But we’d known each other too long for these word-jousts to have much bite.

He looked solemn once more. ‘Alan, to return to the matter at hand: this business at Kirkton. If you will forgive my vanity, I am troubled by the fact that these villains clearly had no fear of me. Moreover, they did not act like true thieves. There were objects of value – a silver crucifix from Marie-Anne’s little chapel, for instance – that they did not take when they left. What thief would do that? And Cousin Henry said something else that made me think. He says I have an enemy.’

‘So what!’ I said. Robin had always had enemies – what powerful man does not? I could think of a dozen men who’d be happy to see him humiliated or dead.

‘Henry says I have a secret foe who hides in the shadows plotting my doom. He does not say who he is, he does not know, but it is someone with power, or access to power. But ill words are spoken about me, poison dripped in the ears of the mighty; Henry says whispers abound, although he claims not to know what they are.’

I still could not take my lord’s concerns seriously. ‘Do you think this all-powerful secret enemy is the one who broke into Kirkton and tore up your best cushions, ripped the curtains, smashed all the earthenware cups and plates?’

I started to laugh.

‘It’s not beyond the realm of possibility,’ my lord said, but he was chuckling.

‘Perhaps he is a hungry potter who seeks to sell you new crockery!’ I said.

‘Or an ambitious cushion-maker…’ he countered.

We were both roaring by now and it took a good while for our mirth to subside. The monks on the far table were frowning at us.

‘I knew you would make me feel better, my friend,’ he said, wiping his eyes.

I finished my ale and got to my feet.

‘We will know more when we get to Kirkton,’ I said, yawning, for the drink had fogged my mind and suddenly I yearned for my dormitory bed.

‘No doubt,’ Robin said. ‘Unless some enterprising cabinet-maker has burnt the castle to the ground before we get there.’

The castle of Kirkton was miraculously intact when we arrived on the third morning after our late-night drink in the Southwark priory. We had ridden hard and fast but somehow news of our arrival had gone before us and Marie-Anne was waiting at the wide-flung gates to greet her returning husband and her two sons. She must have been in her mid-forties then, but she was still a troublingly beautiful woman and although there was a thread or two of silver in her chestnut hair, her blue eyes were still bright and shrewd and her waist was as slender as a young girl’s. While she embraced Robin, then Hugh and Miles, and asked about their journey, I stood back and admired her. Once, long ago, I had believed myself in love with her but that feeling had softened into a warm and benevolent regard and affection, a love of some kind, no doubt, but no longer the fiery ardour of a young swain.

For a woman who had been attacked so recently in her own home she seemed remarkably calm and self-possessed. And despite all our merry-making at the expense of the unknown attackers it must have been a terrifying experience for the mistress of the castle to find armed men in her home at the dead of night.

When she came over to embrace me and welcome me to the castle, I looked into her eyes and asked her how it had been for her. She looked around quickly. Robin was deep in conversation with Sarlic, a tough former outlaw who was Marie-Anne’s personal bodyguard. His arm was bandaged and hung in a sling across his chest. Robin’s two sons had disappeared into the stables with the horses, and Little John had made straight for the big barrel of ale on the far side of the courtyard set up by the pantry and was filling himself a vast wooden mug.

‘It was awful,’ Marie-Anne said. ‘They were all in black clothes, and the night was dark, and they swarmed, Alan, they swarmed like rats over the walls and across the courtyard. Like a black tide of vermin. I have never been so frightened – I have not felt fear like that since I was a girl, since Murdac took me…’

Sir Ralph Murdac, may he rot in Hell, once High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, had captured Marie-Anne a lifetime ago, held her at Nottingham and raped her. Indeed, though no man dared speak of it in public, Robin’s eldest son Hugh was a product of that forced coupling. I had not thought of Murdac, that vile lavender-scented creature, in years. But for Marie-Anne, clearly, he lived on in her nightmares.

‘Sarlic behaved quite superbly, of course,’ Marie-Anne said. ‘He was up and armed and ready to fight in a couple of heartbeats. He and his men cut us a bloody path right through them from the hall into the keep, and we got inside there safely and barricaded the door…’

I looked behind her at the big round tower that dominated the western side of the castle. I could see marks of scorching on the wooden walls.

‘…and we kept them out without too much trouble. Sarlic’s bowmen killed or wounded a dozen attackers. Any they could see in the darkness they killed. But they were all over the place. They completely ruined my hall and my solar. Our bed is in tatters, Alan, it has been ripped to pieces, the curtains, pillows, even the mattress … I don’t know what Robin will say when he sees the damage they have done.’

‘He will simply be happy that you are not hurt,’ I said.

Robin had been right, there was something strange about the attack. Marie-Anne had said that these attackers wore black – it was the most expensive colour of cloth, worn by rich noblemen and some wealthier members of the clergy. To dye a woollen cloak a deep black meant that you needed to spend time and money on the repeated dyeings with expensive ingredients. Very poor people did not bother with dyeing their cloth at all or wore cheap brown russet garb.

These ‘thieves’ were rich men, I thought, or were in the service of a rich man.

I strolled over to where Robin and Sarlic were talking and the bodyguard nodded a brisk but cool greeting to me. For some reason, Sarlic did not care for me overmuch. I did not know why, but I had never let it trouble my sleep.

At a pause in their conversation, I said: ‘These men, Sarlic, these attackers – did they seem to you to be well trained?’

He gave a short nod.

‘To the level of a knight’s skill?’ I persisted.

The bowman looked unsure. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Perhaps not. It is hard to say. But they had at least the skills of a decent man-at-arms, or a good squire.’

‘What did you do with the corpses?’ I asked. ‘Are they already in the ground?’

Sarlic frowned at me. ‘No, Sir Alan, it is a most curious thing. When we drove them off, in the darkness in the heat of battle, they stopped and made sure that they gathered all their dead and wounded and took them with them when they retreated.’

‘What do you think their intention was, Sarlic; what did it feel like to you?’

The old warrior looked at me steadily for a long while: ‘I would say –’ he turned to Robin – ‘and begging your pardon, my lord, for I know you have suffered a valuable loss of goods and chattels – that these men did
not
come to rob you.’

‘What did they come here for then?’ said Robin. ‘Tell me, Sarlic – give me your true and honest answer.’

‘I would say that their intention was to cause fear. I would say that the intention of these men was to frighten my lady, the Countess of Locksley.’

I had sent word to Baldwin at Westbury that I would be a few days in Yorkshire with Robin and the very next day a rider from my manor appeared with a letter for me. It was a summons to a summer celebration at Alnwick Castle.

‘To Sir Alan Dale, the knight of Westbury in the county of Nottinghamshire, greetings…’ it began, and it continued, in the most flowery language to praise my skill as a
trouvère
and prowess as a noble (ha!) knight. The letter took a dozen lines of closely written parchment to invite me to an outdoor feast to be held at the end of the second week of July on St Swithun’s day and implored me to bring my vielle and to treat my fellow guests to a display of musical virtuosity. The missive finished with the words: ‘I hope very much that we will find the time amid the revelries to discuss an important matter of mutual interest.’

It was signed Eustace de Vesci.

I had not forgotten my promise to help de Vesci and Fitzwalter to kill the King. Nor had I changed my mind. I had merely been pondering how I might do it. For some reason, I had it fixed in my head that I must look the King in the eye as I killed him – some tangled notion about the sanctity of kingship or perhaps to soften the terrible crime of regicide in some way. I was not clear in my mind, to be perfectly honest. I would have liked most of all to have challenged him to a duel and killed him fair and square like a man, but that was clearly not possible. He was a damned coward but, more importantly, he was also the King of England and if he even knew I harboured thoughts about his death he would have me snuffed out like a cheap tallow candle. But if I could manage the task in any other way, I would rather not murder him like a thief in the night, creep into his bedchamber and cut his throat while he slept. I wanted to do it in daylight, for him to see my face as he died, and for me to say the words I had prepared in my mind for all the world to hear:

‘This death is made in the memory of Arthur, Duke of Brittany, whose murder at your orders I witnessed with my own eyes. Arthur, thou art avenged!’

There was one other very significant factor in planning the death of King John. I wanted to survive the event myself. At John’s court there were always dozens of knights and barons present, mostly armed, as well as scores of royal guards, bachelors of John’s household, mercenaries loyal to him and other warlike men who were likely, at the first cry of ‘Assassin’, to cut me down in an instant.

It was no easy task, I may assure you, and in the days after I received the summoning letter to Alnwick, I gave the matter some serious thought.

Robin’s mind, meanwhile, was preoccupied with the well-trained, richly clad ‘thieves’ who had apparently tried to frighten his lady.

One morning he took me with him, me alone, and we rode south into the northern reaches of Sherwood forest. He had told me not to wear anything too rich and gaudy but to be well armed. We rode fast all morning, with Robin leading me down narrow secret paths that even I, who had lived in the region for many years, did not know. Noon found us in a sun-lit clearing, apparently empty of life. And Robin stopped his horse, pulled a horn from his belt and gave two sharp blasts on the instrument. There was no response and, after a while, Robin put the horn to his lips once more. But before he could wind, I put a hand on his arm and stopped him.

My spine was crawling with a thousand invisible insects. For somehow I knew that we were no longer alone. I scanned the foliage around the edges of the clearing and although I could see nothing in the gloom of the woods except shapes and shadows, I was aware that many eyes were upon me.

‘Do not touch your sword, Alan, or any weapon,’ said Robin quietly.

‘You all know me,’ he said more loudly, his voice echoing around the open space. ‘You know my name; you know my reputation. Show yourselves.’

And, accompanied by a rustling from all around us, a dozen armed men stepped out into the clearing. At least half of them carried rough ash bows with arrows nocked, but the rest had rusty swords, long knives, wood axes, even makeshift pikes, fashioned from old blades strapped to long staves.

‘My lord of Locksley,’ said a tall, very thin man, his face drawn with pain and his right arm swathed in a filthy bandage, ‘you honour us with your presence. Put up your weapons, lads – it is Robin Hood himself, returned to us at long last.’