charge of the wharf, he begrudgingly lent us a decrepit mule to carry our baggage, weapons and possessions. And while Adam and Perkin pretended to be attending to repairs on the sailing barge, Boxley, Robertsbridge, the four monks, Hanno and myself began the two-mile trudge in the fading light up a narrow track cut through the forest to the monastery of Tuckelhausen. The mule was particularly stubborn: it had no wish to leave its dry, comfortable stable by the river and venture out in a downpour when it was clearly time for its nightly feed. Only by hauling on its bridle and beating its hindquarters savagely with a hazel switch did we get the beast moving at all.
As we set out on the muddy track, to my left I caught a glimpse of Ochsenfurt itself, a mile away through the still skeletal limbs of the trees. It was a fortress, a compact town with high walls on four sides, built in the shape of a square with each walled side no more than half a mile long, and with four powerful round towers standing guard at each corner. Somewhere inside that stronghold, I mused, most likely in one of the four big towers, my King was being held captive. My sovereign lord, a man I respected as much as any I had met, a warrior I had followed loyally and fought beside in Outremer and with whom I had enjoyed merry-making and fine music, a man who had honoured me with his company and dare I say, friendship, was imprisoned there against his will. His enemies had seized him, a returning pilgrim from the Holy Land, against the laws of God and Man, and were seeking to make themselves rich from the sale of his person, as if he were a slave.
For the first time since I had heard the news of Richard’s capture, I felt a hot surge of genuine anger in my gut. If it were ever within my power, I vowed, I would punish those responsible. And the flame of my quiet fury warmed me as we splashed along the rutted track, hauling the reluctant mule by main force, towards the drab walls of Tuckelhausen.
Abbot Joachim was rather bewildered to find himself host to a bedraggled party of foreigners when we were ushered into his cosy, brazier-warmed chamber. But he greeted his fellow abbots with a kiss of peace and ordered his servants to bring us wine and to prepare food and beds for us. We had presented ourselves at the gates of Tuckelhausen just as night was falling and the church bells were ringing out for Vespers. The monastery doors were shut, but Hanno, who spoke the local Bavarian dialect, had explained to the porters that we were a distinguished party of noble English clergymen and that we must be given entrance even at this late hour.
‘But why, my noble lords, did you not write to advertise that you were paying our humble monastery a visit?’ Abbot Joachim kept on asking. ‘We could have prepared suitably for your visit. I fear we are in a state of some disarray here, readying ourselves for the feast of St George in a month’s time. He is a very popular saint in these parts — this house is dedicated to him, as I’m sure you know — and we have many pilgrims under our roof at this moment. Indeed, the dormitory is quite full, and everything is in the greatest turmoil.’
Joachim was a worried little man, small and plump and sad-looking, with only wisps of white hair around the wrinkled bald patch of his tonsure. And while he spoke to us in Latin, his accent was so strange that it was difficult to understand what he was trying to say. On more than one occasion, we had to ask Hanno to get the Abbot to repeat himself in German so that my bodyguard could translate for us.
‘If only you had given us some notice,’ Joachim went on. ‘Just a few days’ notice…’
‘Only the Lord God Almighty can say what happened to the messenger who carried the letter that we sent you,’ intoned Robertsbridge gravely, and I realized that, for a good Christian, he was rather an accomplished liar. ‘Have you much trouble with bandits in these parts?’ he added.
‘Oh yes, oh most decidedly, yes,’ said Joachim. He seemed relieved to have found a plausible solution to the problem of our unexpected arrival. In fact, the notion that our messenger might have been slaughtered by footpads while attempting to deliver the news of our coming seemed to cheer Abbot Joachim no end. He poured the abbots some more wine, now positively beaming.
‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘scores of bandits, scoundrels by the dozen. I don’t know why Duke Leopold does not scour them from the land, the way they trouble God-fearing folk, devout pilgrims such as yourselves. We are famous hereabouts for our wine, our sausages, our women — and our bandits. Ha ha!’
Robertsbridge and Boxley, who were standing side by side, both smiled encouragingly at him and each took a small sip of wine at the same time.
‘Forgive me for asking’ — the German abbot peered closely at his two fellow prelates — ‘are you brothers, by any chance? Perhaps twins?’
‘We are all brothers in the sight of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ said Boxley with a pious smile. ‘But, no, we are not from the same earthly family.’
‘Ah, yes, I see, brothers in Christ — of course we are, of course we are.’
It seemed that we had confused the good man again.
While Boxley and Robertsbridge were given a fine chamber to share for the night, Hanno and I were told rather brusquely that we should make our beds in the stable. And that suited my plans very well.
The monastery was laid out in the shape of a hollow square around a big grassy court, with the big church at its eastern end. The stable stood at the western end of the square against the outer wall of the monastery, a long, warm building with a red-tiled roof and bays for a dozen animals. It was filled with the familiar homely smells of horse sweat and hay and oiled leather and, had I intended to sleep there, it would have made a very comfortable place to rest my head.
Instead, after we had eaten in the refectory with the canons and the other pilgrims and attended the service of Compline in the big abbey church, Hanno and I crossed the grassy court and, bidding a courteous goodnight to several white-robed canons that we passed, we retired to the stable. We pulled shut the wooden door and, checking that we were alone apart from half a dozen horses and the awkward old mule, began to examine the inside of the building by the light of a single candle stub. Hanno soon found the patch of damp straw on the ground at the far end of the stable that we were looking for, and staring up into the dim rafters above his head he noted that one or two tiles were missing from the roof, which had allowed rain water to leak in and wet the straw. He muttered ‘Perfect!’ and began to look for a way to climb the rear wall. Soon Hanno was balanced precariously on a manger, which was affixed to the stable wall at about shoulder height, while he worked to widen the hole in the roof, shoving the loose tiles aside and cursing at the loud scraping noise that they made in the quiet night.
I, meanwhile, was making my own arrangements for the mission ahead. I dressed myself in dark clothes — two tunics for the night was chilly — warm hose, stout boots and a dark cloak and hood, and smeared a mixture of candle soot and goose fat over my face and hands. It reminded me of my preparations for the attack on Kirkton: could that have been only six months ago? It seemed like a lifetime. Though I hoped that I would not have to murder anyone tonight, I made sure that the misericorde was snug in my boot — and murmured a quick prayer to St Michael, too.
Hanno had wanted to come with me on my nocturnal jaunt, but I had said no. He might have been useful, for he was a master of silent movement at night, but I felt that what I wanted to accomplish would be better done by me alone. I did not want to worry about him, or for him to worry about me, if we became separated in the darkness. And, more importantly, I needed someone to remain behind to make some excuse for my absence if one of the monks should come into the stable or if Abbot Joachim should for some strange reason summon us. In truth, I also wanted to be alone for a while. After being cooped up on board the sailing barge for a couple of weeks, the prospect of being alone in the cool purity of the night, dependent on no one, responsible for no one but myself, held a great if unusual appeal for me.
And, I confess, I was also feeling that familiar pleasurable buzzing sensation of impending action: a tightness in my stomach and a heightened glow behind my eyes. I clasped Hanno’s hand warmly before he boosted me up, then, putting one foot on the manger, I cautiously popped my head through the gap in the roof that my Bavarian friend had opened. The rising peaked roof made it impossible to see anything inside the monastery, but I listened intently until I was satisfied that the whole community was asleep. Finally I levered myself up and out until I was lying face down on the sloping tiles beside the hole and, peering into the dark interior, I whispered ‘Hanno!’ into the space below. The shaven-headed huntsman was only just visible as a darker mass in the gloom, but I could make out enough of him by the moonlight to grasp the bulky bundle that he handed up to me. It was a large sack, with two long loops of padded cloth spaced shoulder width apart that enabled it to be slung from the back. Hanno told me that in southern Bavaria the mountain men used to wear these things when they had to carry heavy loads up and down the steep hillsides of the Alps there. Reaching into this ‘back-sack’, as they are known by the Bavarians, I pulled out a coil of rope in which Hanno had carefully tied fat knots every foot and, loosening one end, tied it securely to one of the beams inside the stable roof. The rest of the coil I tossed over the outer wall of the canonry. To the sound of a barely whispered ‘Go with God!’ from my friend below, I began, very carefully and quietly, to climb down the rope, the back-sack looped over my shoulders, my muscles creaking under the strain of my weight,
