The Iron Castle (Outlaw Chronicles) (45 page)

By then, mercifully, I was out the door and out of earshot.

The Prioress had grasped only a portion of all that Tilda had said but she seemed unperturbed. ‘Don’t you worry, Sir Alan, she’s a feisty girl full of fire and wickedness and not yet resigned to the quiet religious life. But we will tame her, don’t you fret. Lord Locksley has been very generous to the Priory, and we are always happy to accommodate his wishes. We will keep her here, safe and sound, under lock and key, if necessary. Don’t you trouble your head about her, Sir Alan.’

As I rode to Kirkton, I realised, with a dazed sense of having escaped, that the paramount emotion in my breast was relief.

We let Sir Benedict Malet and the two Giffard servants go unharmed. Robin suggested we slit their throats and bury them in the deep woods alongside Sir Joscelyn’s corpse, but I did not have the stomach for it. The servants were guilty of no crime, as far as I knew, and Benedict – although he probably deserved death for stealing food during the siege – had a large and prominent family, including, of course, Lord de Burgh; murdering the fat toad would be bound to draw down the anger and vengeance of his clan upon our heads. So we let him go with a warning never to come north of Nottingham again if he valued his skin.

When I told Robin about my interview with Matilda, he laughed. ‘What did you expect?’ he said. ‘Women don’t see these things the same way we do. And who knows, maybe they are right: maybe war is idiotic.’

‘You did kill her father, Alan,’ said Marie-Anne, who was sitting by the hearth in the hall of Kirkton working at her embroidery.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was a fool to ask for her hand after that.’

‘I think … I think you wanted to love her more than you truly did love her,’ said Marie-Anne. ‘I think, perhaps, you would not have killed her father if you truly wanted her as your wife. You could not really have had both your vengeance and her as your bride. Her father’s ghost would have stood behind her every day at the dinner table glowering at you.’

I thought about her words. I desperately wanted to return to Westbury and to my son Robert – but I did not relish returning to a hall empty of my wife Goody. I wanted a woman by my side. I wanted a woman in my hall. In my bed. A faithful one, a woman of impeccable honour. But I did not, I realised, want Tilda.

In the event I did not return directly to Westbury. Robin asked me, as a favour, to accompany him and Little John on a short visit to Nottingham Castle, where he had arranged an audience with King John.

‘He’s being difficult about Kirkton and the Locksley lands,’ said Robin, as we walked our horses southwards down the great north road. ‘He says he will not set his seal on the charter that grants me the full rights over my lands. He wants me to serve him for another three years. He wants, in fact, for me to raise another army and go and reconquer Normandy for him.’

‘But he made a solemn and binding agreement with you – three years of service for a full pardon and your lands restored. You served him well. The three years are up.’

‘He did. And now he is breaking his word.’

We walked our horses along in silence.

‘Why do we serve this King?’ I asked quietly.

‘Oh, do shut up, Alan,’ said my lord.

In the great hall of Nottingham Castle, King John lolled in a vast oak chair. Little John and I bowed low and then hung back as Robin approached the throne and knelt humbly before his King.

‘Ah, Locksley,’ King John croaked. ‘What have you to say for yourself after that disgraceful affair at Château Gaillard? I ought to have you slung in a dungeon. You failed me at the Iron Castle, Locksley, and as a result of your failure, Normandy is overrun. What have you to say for yourself, eh?’

‘I have nothing to say about the loss of the Iron Castle or the loss of Normandy. We did our best, and were beaten, and the corpses of many a brave man in the earth there can attest that we fought long and hard in their defence. But I did not come for that. I came so that you could affix your royal seal on this charter’ – he stood and pulled a stiff yellow roll from his belt – ‘as you swore to do more than three years ago. I have abided by the terms set down on this parchment. I served you loyally, and if you will now affix your seal, I will continue to serve you to the best of my abilities as Earl of Locksley with full rights in perpetuity over all my lands.’

‘And why should I?’ sneered the King. ‘I disagree that you served me loyally. Some men say that Philip had you in his pouch all the time. Did you take his silver? I heard rumours there was a traitor in Château Gaillard. Perhaps it was you. By rights, I should have you punished.’ The King paused, tilted his head back and looked down his nose at Robin. ‘But, as I am a merciful man, I shall allow you to serve me for another three years to prove your loyalty. Then, if I am satisfied, I will grant all that you ask with regards to the Locksley lands. I think that is more than fair.’

Robin stepped in closer to the King. He spoke very softly, so that Little John and I could barely hear his words but raw menace crackled about him like a thunderstorm.

‘First, if any man wishes to assert to my face that I was in the pay of Philip, I will gladly prove my innocence on his body with my sword. Second, I shall tell you why you should fix your seal to this parchment, Sire.’ Robin took a deep breath. ‘You will seal this document because, if you do not, I will tell the world about the circumstances of the death of Duke Arthur. It will be a mystery no longer. You and I and Sir Alan over there are the only living witnesses to that crime – no one else knows the truth of that crime. But that will not remain the case for long. Do you think your barons will remain loyal to you when they know what you are capable of. That you murdered your own bound and helpless nephew. Will you ever have their trust and support again? And, with the greatest respect, Sire, without the support of your barons, exactly how long do think you will remain King of England?’

As I listened to Robin speak quietly and firmly to the King, the Seigneur’s words came back to me: ‘A kingdom is like a house, and the barons are the pillars that hold the roof up. If the pillars fall or are destroyed or taken away, the house falls; if the barons are tempted away the kingdom falls, and the king is lost.’

I watched King John’s face as Robin spoke to him. For a moment, just for a moment, his expression of cruel satisfaction slipped and I caught a glimpse of his true state of fear. Robin stood up straight before the King, his face as hard as iron, his steady hand holding out the parchment.

The King turned his head to the left, took a deep breath and bawled, ‘Someone had better bring me a candle, the black wax and the Great Seal. And someone had better bring it right now!’

Over the clatter of running servants’ feet, the squeal of tables being moved, drawers being opened, cupboards slammed, I was just able to hear Robin say, ‘There’s a good boy.’

When I began this labour, this recounting of the tragic events surrounding the loss of Normandy, I wrote that it was a tale of blood, and a tale of slaughter and sacrifice. And so it is. But now I am done with my task, I realise it is truly a tale about honour. It was Lord de Burgh’s sense of his own honour that saved Duke Arthur from cruel mutilation at Falaise – although that poor boy’s sad doom was only delayed. It was Robin’s discovery that he loved his own honour more than lands and riches that allowed him to forego the blandishments of King Philip. It was Roger de Lacy’s sense of honour that kept us fighting for so long inside the Iron Castle against overwhelming odds. It was my own honour, and the honour of the men who died, that made me decide I must kill Sir Joscelyn Giffard, for his lack of it.

Honour is what lifts us above the brutish cruelty of warfare, it makes us better men, and in that way it brings us closer to God. Without honour we are but greedy fools indulging our appetites and whims. We are not men. Yet it is not only men who must guard their honour: Matilda Giffard, in her whoreish schemes, forgot her own, as did her father, and both came to ruin.

And Agnes, the sheep farmer’s daughter from Stannington, willingly offered hers up to my grandson. And he took it.

I love him, young Alan, for all his surly drunkenness. The greatest gift I can give him is to instil in him a true sense of the importance of his honour. It is not the same as rank. A man can be the highest in the land – a King – and have no honour, as John proved by failing to come to our defence despite his solemn promises to Roger de Lacy. A man’s honour is like his soul. He must tend it, he must guard it, he must not let it tarnish. He must always strive to follow the right, the true, the honourable path.

This is the truth that I desperately want young Alan to grasp.

It was a fine wedding. Agnes was every bit as beautiful as I had been told, even though her belly was like a huge boulder stuffed beneath her buttercup-yellow linen dress. And young Alan was touchingly solicitous of her comforts at the church and afterwards at the feast in the courtyard of Westbury manor. He seemed very happy, in truth, and so did she. I did not need ask if he truly loved his new bride – the fact of it shone from his face like a silver mirror reflecting the sun.

The Earl of Locksley attended with all his household knights, and though I watched carefully to see if any of them made mock of my grandson for his choice of bride, I saw nothing of that nature. And, at least for the first part of the celebration, they kept the drinking, ribaldry and noise to an acceptable level.

My legs were troubling me on that happy day, swollen and painful, and I was carried to and from the little church in the village of Westbury by a couple of farm servants in a chair. I did, however, force myself to stand for the traditional toasts at the end of the wedding feast, and then I raised my arms for silence.

‘My friends,’ I said, ‘on this joyous occasion I have a piece of further good news to impart to you all. From this day forward the manor of Westbury shall be solely under the care of the happy couple. My beloved grandson Alan shall hold it of the Earl of Locksley in my stead – everything has been arranged; they and their children shall have this place in their charge henceforth and I devoutly hope they shall cherish it, as I have, for many a long year. I am an old man and very tired, and I have decided I shall retire from this sinful world and tend my soul for the remaining days of my life. The monks of Newstead Abbey have kindly allowed me to join their ranks, and I am told I shall be allowed to labour for as long as I am spared among the jewels of their famous scriptorium. And so, my friends and neighbours, I bid you farewell, and I urge you to raise your cups high and drink deeply to the health of the new lord of the manor of Westbury – Sir Alan Dale, the younger – and to his beautiful lady wife.’

We all sometimes stray from the path of honour; I know that I have done so many times. And when we do, we need the help of those who truly love us. Young Alan strayed but, by quiet persuasion and by means of a small but willing sacrifice on my behalf, I believe I have helped him to find his way back to it once more.

I would not say that writing historical novels is easy – no creative process is without its share of hard slog – but it does have the advantage over other forms of the scribbler’s art in that sometimes the period you are writing about offers up such superb ready-made plots that they barely need to be fictionalised at all. The storylines and themes are there for the taking, low-hanging fruit, and all a novelist has to do is insert his characters into the historical narrative, sit back and take all the credit for a rattling good yarn.

The history of King John’s rule is a perfect example of this serendipity. And it is no accident that writers from William Shakespeare to Walter Scott have been entranced by the tragedy of his life. John started his reign with an empire that stretched from the Pennines to the Pyrenees, and with the majority of the barons of England and Normandy prepared to support him. He had won the crown bloodlessly and, at Le Goulet in May 1200, he had signed what might have been a lasting peace treaty with his greatest enemy, Philip II of France. Four years later, John had lost Normandy and the bulk of his continental possessions; fifteen years later he was humiliated by his rebellious barons and forced at Runnymede to sign a charter guaranteeing their liberties. A year after that, England was invaded by a French army and John was hounded to an early death by his many enemies both domestic and foreign.

John seems to have been a deeply unpleasant man: deceitful, cruel, lazy, lustful, high-handed, suspicious. His character clearly inspired distrust and loathing in those around him, and his life should be a lesson in how not to govern a medieval empire. But he was also capable of flashes of brilliance, such as at Mirebeau, when his lightning march south at the end of July 1202 completely surprised his enemies and utterly shattered their forces. In fictionalising this extraordinary victory, I may have done John a disservice. The king deserves a lot more credit for this victory than I have granted him, for it suited me in terms of narrative to ascribe his inspired generalship to my hero Robin. But the truth is that, in one brilliant stroke, worthy of his dead older brother the Lionheart, King John ended up capturing his chief rival, Duke Arthur, and almost all his enemies in the south. If he had only capitalised on his stunning success, the world would have been a very different place today. But he did not. He vacillated after the victory at Mirebeau, and one could make a fairly good case for saying that his treatment of the prisoners he took there, many of whom were deliberately starved to death in English prisons, was the prime cause for the defection of his Norman barons to Philip’s cause and ultimately the loss of Normandy itself.

The storyline I have used for the death of Arthur, Duke of Brittany, is based on conjecture and tradition but little verifiable history. No one truly knows exactly what happened to him after his capture at Mirebeau on 1 August 1202, but we do know that John had him imprisoned at Falaise Castle under the guardianship of Hubert de Burgh. According to a Ralph of Coggeshall, a contemporary chronicler, John ordered two of his servants to mutilate the duke at Falaise but Hubert de Burgh intervened. The following year Arthur was transfered to Rouen and he vanished in April 1203. One account has it that John, when he was drunk and possessed by the Devil, killed him himself in the dungeons of Rouen and threw his body in the Seine. I have invented Hugo and Humphrey but John certainly would have had people around him of that ilk who would be prepared to do his dirty work. And it seems to me unlikely that he would have got actual, rather than metaphorical, blood on his hands.