‘You will hang for this,’ I grated. ‘I warned you twice and now you will see that I was not jesting. No man under my command will be excused rape or any other crime.’
The man was huge-eyed with shock and surprise; I could see in the thatch of hair at his crotch his manhood shrivelling fast. He mouthed something at me but no words came out. Behind me I could hear the rest of the men- at-arms stirring. I turned my head and saw the fat sergeant coming forward from the depths of the stable, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
‘Fetch a rope,’ I told him. ‘We are going to hang this son of a bitch right now.’
Behind me I heard the blonde girl cry out: ‘No, please, sir…’
‘But sir,’ said the sergeant, coming round to stand by his comrade, who had still not uttered a word in his own defence. ‘He didn’t rape her. She was willing, right willing, only she’s a noisy lass, sir, as all will agree. I’m sorry if you have been disturbed.’
My sword point was still at the half-naked man’s neck, but I turned my head to look at the serving girl. The steward Geoffrey had found a blanket to cover her nakedness, and her eyes were wide and stained with tears. ‘Did this man rape you?’ I asked her, trying to sound as kindly as I could in the circumstances.
She shook her head. ‘No, sir, it wasn’t like that. Alfie and I was just… just fooling around, you might say.’
I put up my sword, and stepped away from the half-naked man-at-arms on the stable floor, feeling like the biggest fool in Christendom. ‘Ah, well, I see…’ My cheeks were growing hot, and I could think of no dignified way of ending this encounter. ‘Well,’ I said again, ‘in that case, ah, carry on…’
And blushing like a fourteen-year-old milkmaid, I left the stable and its chortling inhabitants and fled back to the safety of the hall.
Riding back to Nottingham the next day the mood among my men had changed from hatred to ridicule: it was not a pleasant journey for me, hearing fake amorous cries coming from the men-at-arms and stifled giggles for fifteen long, slow miles. Maybe I should have hanged the man after all. It would have saved me a deal of embarrassment. But we returned to the castle with saddlebags filled with silver and gold, after stopping at two more churches on the way back home. And when I delivered the loot to the clerk in charge of storing Prince John’s hoard in the bowels of the great tower, I received a compliment from the man for the amount of silver we had turned in. Prince John himself even gave me a friendly nod that evening in the hall when I was eating my supper. Clearly he was happy that I had brought home the bacon — for one of his other tax-gathering parties had not: apparently while passing through Sherwood Forest they had been robbed of every penny of their tax silver by a gang of hooded bowmen, led by a giant blond man wielding a double-headed axe.
It was my old comrade Sir Nicholas de Scras who told me the tale the next day. He was visiting Nottingham with messages for Prince John, and I confess I was very pleased to see a friendly face in that castle full of thugs and bullies.
‘The timing was impeccable,’ said Sir Nicholas as we shared a jug of ale and a bowl of earthy-tasting fish stew before a brazier in one of the guest halls in the middle bailey.
‘Locksley’s band of robbers waited until Prince John’s men had finished completing their collection — and the tax men had done well, their saddlebags must have contained nearly five pounds in silver — before they struck. John’s men were passing through a narrow defile near Hucknall when up jumped a score of archers who loosed a storm of arrows into the column of men. It was sheer bloody slaughter, by all accounts. Men and horses stuck like pin-cushions. Only two men escaped alive,’ Sir Nicholas told me, ‘and one of those is very near death. Prince John is furious. He actually began frothing a little at the mouth when he heard the news — just like his father used to do — and his chaplain and his household knights had to lead him away. This is no exaggeration, I swear; I saw it with my own eyes.’
He was still smiling quietly at his royal master’s intemperate rage when Sir Ralph Murdac came striding over to our table. ‘So this is where you’ve been skulking,’ the little man said to me, with a curl of his red lip.
‘Sir Ralph, how pleasant to see you again,’ said Sir Nicholas, rising gracefully to his feet to greet him. ‘Won’t you join us? How is the good lady Eve, your delightful new wife? In the pink of health, I trust.’
Ralph Murdac ignored him, he was staring at me with fury in his eyes. ‘You know where he is, don’t you?’
‘I beg your pardon: where who is?’
‘Don’t play with me, you dirty fucking peasant. You know where he is, don’t you? The God-damned Earl of Locksley — you were part of his foul gang of thieves not so long ago, as I recall, and even if you have been cast out as a traitor from their maggoty band of cut-throats I am certain you must know where to find them.’
‘I have no idea where the Earl is at this moment. I have neither seen nor spoken to him since the inquisition at Temple Church. He is a desperate man on the run, an outlaw, and I cannot tell you where he might be. I can, however, tell you this: if you ever call me a “dirty fucking peasant” again, I will cut off that shrivelled lump of cheesy gristle that hangs between your legs and feed it to you. Do you hear me, Murdac?’
I had leapt to my feet and half-drawn my sword, and Murdac’s hand was reaching for the dagger at his waist, when Sir Nicholas took up position directly between us. ‘Hold hard there, my friends,’ he said soothingly. ‘Be at peace. There is no need for hasty words. Of course, Alan doesn’t know where Locksley is, Sir Ralph. Nobody does but his fellow outlaws. And there is no need for language of that sort — either of you. Let us sit down and have a quiet drink and all can be resolved.’
Sir Ralph said nothing; he merely turned on his heel and walked away: left shoulder high, his stride long and infused with frustrated fury.
‘He really is an ill-mannered lout,’ said Sir Nicholas when the former Sheriff of Nottinghamshire was out of earshot. ‘Very loyal to the Prince, I’ve been told. But not one of nature’s charmers.’
I shrugged and said nothing. I was thinking about the day when I would be free to kill Sir Ralph Murdac. As far as I was concerned, it could not come soon enough.
‘So you don’t know where he is, by the by?’ asked Sir Nicholas in a kindly voice. ‘It would make things so much easier all round.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ I replied. And it was true. ‘When I was with him, Robin had more than a dozen hide-outs, scattered all over the countryside in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Doubtless he’s acquired a few more since then. He has many friends in Sherwood. He could be almost anywhere; even in Nottingham town itself. I have no idea.’
‘And if you did know where Robin was,’ Sir Nicholas said slowly, but still in his kindest, most reasonable tone, ‘you would tell us, wouldn’t you? I mean, sometimes — well, we all feel the pull of old loyalties. But the past is the past, and it’s best to be honest in these matters. Some people feel that you might have mixed emotions about serving our Prince John…’
‘I don’t know where Robin is.’ I looked directly into Sir Nicholas de Scras’s muddy green eyes. And I said slowly and clearly: ‘I swear by Our Lady Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ, that I do not know where Robert of Locksley is hiding. Do you not believe me?’
‘Of course, I believe you. But it’s best to be sure. Now, have I told you about Ralphie Murdac’s new wife? Eve, her name is — daughter of Sir John de Grey — and she is absolutely enormous. Huge! As big as a house. She must weigh at least twice what he does. But then she does come with some hefty property: the manor of Standlake in Oxfordshire is hers, she had it from her father. And now, I suppose, Murdac holds it in her name. But you should see her, Alan. Enormous, I tell you!’
‘My God,’ I said, smiling at my friend, ‘can you imagine little Ralphie Murdac climbing aboard this Mistress Eve! It must be like a field mouse coupling with a milk cow!’
And we laughed heartily, not quite meeting each other’s eyes.
For the rest of that spring and into the summer of that tiresome year, I gathered taxes from the good people of Nottinghamshire, from the rich and the poor, from church and alehouse, from blacksmith and merchant, ostensibly to amass funds for King Richard’s ransom — although few in Nottingham Castle mentioned our captive King during those warm months. Prince John did a great deal of travelling during this time, visiting his other castles in England at Tickhill, Lancaster and Marlborough and, some whispered, making secret trips to France, Normandy and the Low Countries to recruit knights to his banner and hire mercenaries. Sir Ralph Murdac was appointed Constable of Nottingham Castle by his royal master, and a knight named William de Wenneval was made his deputy. I stayed out of Ralph Murdac’s path as much as possible — I was afraid that I would lose my temper and attack him on the spot. When not out scouring the countryside for silver, I spent any free time I had with Hanno.
