The Death of Robin Hood (2 page)

‘Report?’ said Robin.

‘There is nobody out there,’ I replied, reaching for a bowl. ‘If John really is coming here, he is taking his own sweet time about it.’

‘Oh, the King is coming all right,’ said Robin cheerfully. ‘He has to. His new men, his Flemings, will surely cross the Channel and land at Dover, and we bar the route to London. He must take Rochester, if he wishes to take London from the Army of God. And he must take London if he wishes to win this war.’

The so-called Army of God, under the command of the less-than-saintly Robert, Lord Fitzwalter, did indeed hold London. Robin and I had stormed the walls for him just over three months ago and as a result we had captured the capital and been able to force the King to set his seal on a great charter at Runnymede, a document that was supposed to guarantee the rights of free Englishmen for ever. But, despite solemnly swearing to abide by the charter, calling for peace in the land and renewing the oaths of loyalty with his barons, the King had renounced the agreement a mere handful of weeks afterwards. The Pope in Rome, at the King’s behest, had damned the charter, too, as shameful and illegal and had excommunicated all the rebel barons.

We had struggled and suffered and bled for that square piece of smoothed calf skin, and wrangled day and night over the terse Latin words it contained. Yet despite Robin’s insistence that by forcing the King’s hand we had struck a blow for liberty that would be remembered for generations to come, I sometimes wondered what all
the strife and bloodshed had achieved. If it had, in fact, achieved anything at all. King John, that cowardly, murderous snake, had simply ignored the great charter and spent thousands of pounds in tax silver recruiting fresh mercenary troops from Flanders and northern France. War had broken out again almost immediately between the rebel barons and the King’s new continental hirelings.

Nevertheless, our position was not hopeless. Since the sealing of the charter, many English barons who had previously been fearful of resisting the King had rallied to our cause – the Pope’s mass excommunications notwithstanding. Indeed, the constable of this very castle, Reginald de Cornhill, once a staunch King’s man, had opened its gates to Lord Fitzwalter and his men not two days before and declared himself a lover of liberty, before departing with unashamed haste and all his men for his lands in Surrey.

Yet we rebels held London, and Exeter in the south-west, and a scatter of small castles in the north – and now we held Rochester too. And, while Fitzwalter prepared the defences of this mighty fortress with his grizzled captain William d’Aubigny, Robin’s detachment of twenty archers and a dozen men-at-arms had been given the task of holding the bridge. For the King was surely coming up from Dover. And I knew it just as well as Robin.

The door of the guardhouse crashed open, impelled by an impetuous boot. ‘Do I smell yesterday’s mutton broth?’ said Miles, striding inside and unfastening the golden clasp to drop his wet green cloak on the dirty rushes of the floor. ‘Isn’t there anything a bit more substantial to eat? I could make short work of a bloody beefsteak or a dripping roast chicken – God’s bones, that would suit.’

‘It’s broth or nothing,’ said his father, with an edge in his voice. ‘You know as well as I that we are on short commons, all of us, till the supply train comes through from London. We must tighten our belts till then. And do try not to whine quite so much, son.’

‘Not whining.
Just making polite dinner conversation.’ Miles plonked himself down on the bench next to me, helped himself to a clay bowl and filled it to the brim. ‘Mmmm. Mutton broth. Nice and watery. And plenty of gristle, too, I see.’

I could actually hear Robin grinding teeth. But my lord held his peace.

‘What news from the castle?’ I said, after a long uncomfortable pause.

‘D’Aubigny has it nicely in hand, I believe,’ said my lord. ‘He says the fortifications are sound, the walls in good repair throughout, and he has enough men and arms to hold it for months against a determined assault – providing of course that sufficient food stores can be brought in.’

William d’Aubigny was a bear of a man, immensely strong and quick, and with a reputation for ferocity in battle. He was lord of Belvoir Castle, a fortress in Leicestershire about fifteen miles east of Nottingham. As a not-too-distant neighbour of ours, he was well known to Robin and to me.

‘Fitzwalter is planning to leave us, though,’ Robin said.

‘What?’ I said, swallowing a mouthful of hot soup too quickly. ‘Why?’

‘He says he’s needed in London. A grand council of the barons has been called. They’re to discuss recruiting aid from overseas and Fitzwalter says he must attend or who knows what foolishness will occur.’

‘So our gallant commander is deserting us on the eve of battle?’ said Miles. ‘Scuttling back to London. Hardly inspiring behaviour in a leader.’

Robin ignored his son and concentrated on wiping clean his bowl with a crust but I felt called on to defend Lord Fitzwalter’s honour. My relationship with the captain-general of the Army of God had not always been cordial but since the war began I had grown to like the man.

‘He is
our leader and it makes sense that he should attend this important council with all the other senior barons,’ I said.

‘Were you not invited to attend this vaunted gathering then, Father?’ said Miles. ‘How strange! Perhaps they feel that playing watchman on this ancient bridge is more your mark.’

I could have punched the lad off the bench for that insult. Indeed, I felt my right fist clench and rise from the board. But Robin beat me to it.

‘The sentry on the roof has been complaining of the cold this past hour,’ said Robin serenely. ‘When you have finished that nourishing bowl of broth, Miles, get yourself up there and take his place. I’ll be sure to send someone up to relieve you at midnight’ – Robin pretended to think – ‘or perhaps at dawn. We’ll have to see. I’d like all the serious fighting men to get a good night’s rest.’

‘But, Father, I had plans to visit the town tonight. There is this girl I want to see and as I’m not on duty—’

‘Well, you are on duty now,’ said Robin. ‘Off you go.’

‘But it’s not fair …’

‘Don’t whine, lad,’ I said, perhaps a touch smugly. ‘Obey your lord’s command.’

Miles opened his mouth to argue but before he could speak the door swung towards us and we all three looked up in surprise at the dark entrance, now wholly filled by Sir Thomas Blood’s short form, broad shoulders and steel-helmeted head.

‘Boats, my lord,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘Boats on the river. Scores of them.’

From the roof of the guardhouse, we had our first glimpse of the enemy, of the feared Flemish legions of King John. At least fifty rowing boats, downstream, three hundred yards away. Each boat was showing a single pinprick of yellow light, a lantern or open fire-pot, enabling us to see them against the blackness of the water in the failing light, and every vessel was pulling hard for the centre of the bridge.

‘Miles, get
back to the castle now. Alert Lord Fitzwalter – tell him … tell him that the bridge is under attack by several hundred of the King’s men and that we will hold as long as we can. But it cannot be for long. Tell him to come with all speed.’

‘But I want to fight. If you send me away, I’ll miss everything—’

‘For once, Miles, just do as you are bloody well told!’ My lord did not raise his voice above a murmur but there was a whip-crack in his tone that sent his younger son scurrying for the wooden stair.

‘Now, Alan, let’s see about discouraging these Flemish fellows, shall we?’

I
fear, my dear Prior, that I have begun my tale in the wrong place. My mind is not what it was, I am old and I become easily confused these days, and my tales of blood and glory stray from their proper paths. I crave your indulgence for I must tell you of what occurred some weeks before the battle at Rochester Castle, else it will make no sense to you or to anyone who might read of my deeds and those of my comrades in the years to come.

As you well know, my dear Anthony, I have spent many hours in the past few days studying the Bible, and I find much comfort there. Robin would have scoffed at my new-found piety in the face of death but it is not salvation I seek – that I leave in the hands of a merciful God – but wisdom. There is much to be found in the holy book. I am reading Ecclesiastes and that wise old man wrote, if I have managed to untangle the Latin correctly, that there is a time for everything, a season for every activity under Heaven; there is a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal …

I was healing that August of the year of Our Lord twelve hundred and fifteen, a little slowly but surely, from a painful wound to the waist I
had taken in a short, bloody fight on the walls of London that June. England, too, it seemed, was slowly healing after the struggle between the rebellious barons and the King. After Runnymede, I had dared to hope that all would be well in the kingdom for the rest of my life. That peace would reign in the land and folk would be left to sow and reap, to live, love and raise children.

A vain hope, it must now appear, but honestly held.

It was also the time to uproot, or at least to cut the barley, rye, oats and wheat that had grown tall and bright in the fields around and about my manor of Westbury in Nottinghamshire. That summer was a blazing, golden joy, long days of sunshine with only the occasional growling of a distant thunderstorm to remind us that the Heavenly Kingdom was not, in truth, at hand. All the menfolk of Westbury – my tenants from the village, the manor servants and the few freemen, old soldiers for the most part – were in their strips of field, backs bent and sickles in hand, as they lopped the nodding heads of grain from the stalks before the women following gathered them in bundles and stacked them to dry. All the local children came behind their parents, collecting the kernels of grain that spilled from the flashing blades and tucking them safely in their pouches before the wheeling flocks of birds could settle and gorge. The little ones made a game of their labours as often as not, chasing each other and shrieking with mirth. It would be a bountiful harvest, all were agreed, and if the weather continued to favour us there would be no fear of hunger or hardship till the following spring at least.

I confess I was not labouring in the fields with the other men. I was nursing my wound by drowsing in the strong afternoon sunshine, slumped on a comfortable bench outside my hall in the courtyard of Westbury, a jug of ale at my elbow, my belly full of venison stew and a blissful contentment suffusing my frame, when I heard the trumpet sound. I jerked upright fully awake – for while England
might appear to be at peace, I still kept a pair of sentries day and night on the roof of the squat stone tower in the courtyard, which was the manor’s highest point and its last refuge in war, and their duty it was to warn of the approach of strangers.

Standing, straightening my clothing, brushing at a patch of drool on my tunic and vaguely looking around for my sword – it was hanging on the wall in my bedchamber, I remembered – I heard the sentry call down to me from the tower.

‘A woman, sir, all alone. No horse, nor baggage. Looks like a beggarly type wanting a free meal.’

My elderly steward Baldwin, who with his unmarried sister Alice ran the daily business of the manor, was by my shoulder. He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Sir Alan?’ he said.

‘Let her in, Baldwin,’ I said, still filled with a glowing benevolence for the world. ‘If she needs a meal, give her a good one and whatever scraps of meat and bread we can spare for her journeying and then send her on her way.’

‘As you say, sir.’

‘I’m going to my solar to take a little n— That is to say, I shall retire to my chamber for a while to study my scrolls.’

I left the glare of the sunshine and pushed past Baldwin into the gloom of the hall. I gave no more thought to the beggar woman, for as I entered my solar at the far end and lay down on the big, comfortable bed, I fell into a deep and delightful sleep.

I awoke in the pinkish twilight of the long summer evening, refreshed and still brimming with contentment, and lay for a while listening to the sounds of the servants clattering plates in the hall, no doubt preparing the evening meal. I could hear the voice of my fifteen-year-old son Robert but I could not quite make out his words over the noise of the hall servants. He seemed animated, though, unusually cheerful, and I wondered who he was talking to. And then I heard
her
voice.

I sat up abruptly and an icy chill puckered the skin of my forearms. I
was out the door of the solar in an instant – and there she was. Seated at the big hall table a few feet from Robert, elbows on the board, deep in conversation.

‘Get away from her!’ I bawled, running towards my son and the beggar woman. They both started to their feet, shocked.

‘Robert, get away from that woman right now.’

‘Why, Father, we were—’

‘Get away. Come and stand behind me.’

My heart was racing, I could feel my face and neck hot with surging blood. I curled a protective arm around Robert. ‘Did she feed you anything? Robert – did she give you anything to eat or drink?’

‘Father, you are behaving in a very—’

‘Answer me. Did she give you anything to eat or touch your skin?’

‘Father …’ My son looked into my face and saw that I was in deadly earnest. ‘She gave me nothing. She did not touch me. We were waiting for you to wake before we ate. She will take supper with us tonight.’

‘She will not,’ I said. My right hand was groping wildly across my waist for my sword hilt but, of course, the blade was still hanging on the wall in the bedchamber. I looked at the woman, now smiling crookedly at me from the other side of the table.

‘Sir Alan,’ said Matilda Giffard in her wood-smoke-deepened voice, ‘what a joy it is to set eyes on you again.’

‘I cannot say the same,’ I said coldly.

I looked at her. Matilda Giffard, Tilda, as she was to me … a woman I had once – no, twice – thought I was in love with but who had proved herself as treacherous and cunning as a starving rat.