‘But what angers me more than a cowardly attack on my lands while I was fighting the good fight in Outremer,’ Robin continued, ‘is that your master has cast suspicion on the honour of my lady wife, the Countess of Locksley.’ Robin’s gaze lashed the cowed men, many of whom were now mumbling prayers under their breath, convinced their time on Earth was nearly ended.
‘The coward Murdac claims that Hugh here, my little son,’ Robin emphasized the last word, ‘is not truly my son, but his.’
For more than a year, I knew, Sir Ralph Murdac had been spreading the rumour that he had lain with Marie- Anne and got her with child. The rumours had reached us as far away as the Island of Sicily, and they had made Robin heartsick, and a figure of ridicule, the cuckolded husband — something Robin could not abide. Worse still, the rumours were true. Murdac had lain with Marie-Anne when she was his captive, during Robin’s outlaw days, and although it was surely a forced coupling, the boy was undeniably his. I was shocked that Robin should speak publicly about these intensely private and shameful matters. Even I, one of his closest men, had never dared to speak of it to him. But it seemed he was now determined to make the subject an open one.
‘Before the Virgin, does any man here support the liar Murdac’s claim, and say that my boy Hugh is his whelp?’
The prisoners stared at the little boy sitting quietly in his nursemaid’s arms. The boy stared back with his huge pale blue eyes from under a mop of jet hair. God forgive me for saying this, but he was the very image of Murdac, a miniature Sir Ralph — and every man here could see it. Still nobody said a word.
Fast as a cut snake, Robin lunged forward with his sword, sinking the blade a foot deep into the naked belly of the nearest prisoner, who screamed in pain and collapsed bleeding and whimpering to the floor, clutching his punctured midriff. Even though I believed that Robin meant to kill them all, I was as surprised as any man in that courtyard by the suddenness and callousness of his strike.
Robin held the sword up towards the morning sky, the unfortunate prisoner’s bright blood trickling down the central channel of the blade towards the hilt. ‘I will be answered,’ my master said quietly, his voice ice-hard. ‘And so I ask you again: Does any man here maintain Sir Ralph’s claim that this is not my son?’
There was an immediate chorus of ‘No, my lord!’ and ‘By my faith, he is your son, sir!’ and similar answers from the prisoners. The man who had been stabbed gave a groaning cry, a little writhe and, mercifully, appeared to pass out from the pain.
But one of the standing prisoners took a half step forward. He was a handsome man, tall and proud. ‘I will not lie,’ he said, looking directly at Robin, matching his stare. ‘I will not go before the face of God with a lie on my lips. He is not your son — you only need to look at him to see that. Clearly his true father-’ Robin’s sword flashed out and ripped through his throat, and he dropped to his knees, gouting blood between clutching fingers as his precious life-fluid cascaded down his white chest.
‘Anyone else?’ said Robin, as still and cold as a gravestone.
Another loud chorus of ‘No, my lord! He is surely your son!’
‘You all deserve death for your actions over the past few weeks… but I am a merciful man,’ said Robin. And behind him, I saw Little John explode in a loud coughing or choking fit, covering his mouth with one huge hand, his face glowing a bright rosy red as he struggled to regain his composure. My master gave John a stern flick of a glance, and twisted his mouth very slightly in rebuke, then he continued: ‘I am a merciful man, unless I am crossed, and I may, I may now be moved to show mercy. If any man here will swear before God and the Virgin, and all that he holds dear, that he will serve me, and my son Hugh, faithfully, all his days, with all his might and main, I shall grant him his miserable life. Is any man here prepared to take this solemn oath?’
A forest of hands shot up into the air, many tied to other men’s — one particularly short man was jerked off his feet by the raised hands of two tall men on either side of him. And there was a clamour of voices declaring: ‘I will, my lord, gladly, I will.’ In fact, perhaps not very surprisingly, it seemed that the entire mass of prisoners was prepared to accept the offer of a life in faithful service to Robin.
As the prisoners were cut loose by the archers, each kneeling in turn to make the pledge of loyalty to Robin, placing their hands between his, I was struck by how clever my master had been. He had, at a stroke, recruited a score of trained menat-arms, which he badly needed, who would now find it difficult, if not impossible, to return to Murdac’s banner because they had publicly acknowledged that Hugh was Robin’s son. He had weeded out, and swiftly dispatched, the one man who would never serve him, and had displayed a ruthless strength, and a generous clemency which, it was to be hoped, would bind these soldiers to him more strongly. But would these men, Sir Ralph Murdac’s men, really remain loyal when the threat of imminent death had passed? I marked their faces and vowed that in future I would keep a wary eye on each and every one of them.
Chapter Four
During the next few weeks, Kirkton Castle enjoyed a period of peace and tranquillity that was a balm to the soul after our long wanderings. The early autumn weather was sunny and warm, and it seemed that my master Robin was pleased to be home once again with his wife Marie-Anne. Little Hugh toddled around the bailey, a cheerful, chubby little boy, who looked more and more like Sir Ralph Murdac with every passing day, although nobody was foolish enough to comment on it, and yet Robin seemed to have settled, at least in his mind, that the child was his, and he showed the infant a reserved fatherly kindness whenever their paths crossed.
In truth my master was a fully occupied man in these weeks following his return. After two and a half years of absence there was a great deal of administration of his estates to reconcile. Taxes and rents to collect, fences, sheep hurdles and bridges to mend, disputes to settle, and far-flung manors to visit, sometimes for the first time. I too had duties at my home and took leave of my master to return, briefly, to Westbury.
Robin had found a steward to run the manor for me, an elderly man, twig-thin, with steel-grey hair and a dry wit, called Baldwin — and I liked him from the first. I found when I visited that he had the place well in hand, running the manor fairly but firmly in my absence, ensuring that, after the tithes were paid to the Church, and taxes to the Crown, I had a small profit in silver and a surplus in grain. After checking his accounts, I found I had nothing to do there but ride about the lands trying to look lordly, spend the money he had gathered for me, and occasionally sit in judgement over the villagers in the manor court. Baldwin treated me with politeness and a small but satisfactory amount of deference, though he was of Norman stock, and he must have known that I was not born into the noble class. I was pleased to have such an amenable, competent man to run my lands.
There were a few empty, run-down cottages in the village of Westbury, and I gave them out to a handful of Robin’s veterans who, through injury or advancing age or just a desire to settle down and be married, wished to give up the dangerous life of a man-at-arms and till my fields and put down roots somewhere. It might be advantageous, at some point in the future, I reasoned, to have half a dozen seasoned soldiers at hand, in the event of an emergency, a fire or an attack by enemies.
I could not remain long in Westbury, however, for Robin soon had me travelling the country delivering messages to his friends and allies, testing the mood of the land. So I spent most of my days in the autumn and early winter of that year — which Tuck told me was eleven hundred and ninety-two years after Our Lord’s birth — in the saddle, and my nights at castles or religious houses up and down the length of the country. It was tiring work but not lonely as I took Hanno with me as bodyguard and companion. He had a fund of stories about his travels, telling me tales of black bears that lived in his native Bavarian forests, and the local witches, and ghouls and wicked elves who stole children away from their cradles…
Hanno had joined our company after the siege of Acre. King Richard had captured the strongly fortified port only a month after his arrival in the Holy Land, a feat that was much admired, even by his enemies. Acre had been under siege for nearly two years at that point, and was considered all but impregnable, but Richard’s arrival with siege engines and massive reinforcements had sealed its fate. I had been sick when the citadel fell; wounded and suffering from a mysterious malady that kept me in a feeble, dizzy condition for weeks. Hanno had also been wounded and we had been allowed to recover in the same quarter of Acre, the part controlled by the Knights Hospitaller, the healing monks who combined a deep love of Christ with a fearsome reputation as ruthless fighting men.
Hanno had been part of the German contingent in Outremer under Duke Leopold of Austria, but he had been left behind when his liege lord had departed for home after quarrelling badly with King Richard, the leader of the
