‘I have been waiting for you. And while I waited, I have been talking to your Christ God,’ she said, indicating the stone cross behind her with a dirty, bony finger. ‘I have been telling Him about my troubles and asking Him to heal my wounds.’ Here Nur waved a dirty hand across her poor tortured face. ‘And he spoke to me!’
I could feel all the men behind me crossing themselves. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw young Thomas straining forward in his saddle to get a closer look at her deformed face. But Nur had not finished.
‘He spoke to me — your Christ God! And He promised to heal me, and He has promised me that we shall be together. You and I, Alan, my love, together at last.’
I could not help noticing that her command of English was much improved since I began teaching her our tongue on the voyage to Outremer two years ago. But I also felt an almost uncontrollable urge to run from her, to gallop far, far away so that I would never have to see her poor mutilated face again or feel the shame that it aroused in my breast.
‘I think we must be married soon, my love; your Christ God has decreed it,’ Nur continued. And behind me I heard a manat-arms snigger and I stiffened in my saddle. I had to tell her once and for always that I did not love her.
‘I am afraid that cannot be, Nur, my dear,’ I said, trying now to sound like a kindly uncle. ‘We may have shared our lives in Outremer, but here I am a different man. I can never be with you. I am not the marrying kind, alas. And I cannot linger here chatting either, for I must ride south this day on important business. Here, take this,’ I said, and, feeling like Judas’s paymaster, I plucked a small leather purse containing a dozen silver pennies from my belt and held it out to her. ‘Take this purse and follow the road north from here, and you will be stopped by two armed men. Say that you come from me and that you are to be given food and shelter. Robin of Locksley is there; you remember him. Go to Robin and he will shelter you until I return.’ I threw the purse to her and her bony hand, snaked out and snatched it out of the air.
‘I must come with you, my love, wherever you go. We are one, you and I — we must never be parted again,’ said Nur in a weird sing-song voice. It was as if she had heard nothing of what I had just said. The purse had disappeared somewhere inside the folds of her black robe.
‘It was very pleasant to see you again, Nur, after so long. But much as I would like to hear the tale of your travels, I cannot take you with me. You must go north to Robin; he will care for you until I return. Try to understand…’
‘No, it is you who must understand, my love.’ Nur’s voice had changed; it was higher in pitch, louder and dangerously approaching a shriek. ‘You belong to me! Your Christ God has told me this, today! He spoke to me here, in this place. You belong to me now. You have always belonged to me; and you are mine now and for ever!’
‘Stand aside, Nur!’ I said, trying to sound soldier-like and forceful, not like a man pleading for sense from a madwoman. ‘Stand aside, for I must ride on and I cannot take you with me. We will speak some more when I return. Go north to Robin. And may God be with you!’ And at that I spurred my horse onward, and the convoy of twenty mail-clad men-at-arms clattered after me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nur step backwards to avoid being trampled by the moving column of horses. She retreated up the mound on which the cross was set and began to curse and scream in Arabic at the men riding past her. I understood only a little of her speech; I had been taught a smattering of it by my friend Reuben, who came from those parts, but I believe she was wishing that their bladders be afflicted with red-hot maggots, their eyes filled with tears of fiery acid, and damning their souls to be dismembered and roasted for eternity in the seven hells of Jahannam — or some such vicious gibberish.
I turned around in the saddle to remonstrate with her for these curses and saw, just as the last horse was riding past her position on the cross mound, a small black figure launching itself at the rearmost archer in an attempt to climb on to the back of the man’s saddle. The archer, a big, brawny fellow, stiff-armed her away in mid- air and she landed sprawled in the mud behind the horse’s tail. I gave the order to trot and, with a deep feeling of shame burning in my heart, I led the column swiftly away from the stone cross and from the shrieking, bawling, raggedy, mud-smeared figure in black — huge nostril-holes gaping, teeth permanently bared, grey rat-tail hair snapping in the breeze — as it howled blood-chilling threats of eternal damnation in our wake.
The rest of the journey south was mercifully uneventful. In the late afternoon of the third day after my disturbing encounter with Nur, the cavalcade trotted along Watling Street, through the city wall at Newgate and into the noisy crowded streets of London. Ahead of us the tall spire of St Paul’s Cathedral seemed to beckon us to journey’s end, and in no time at all we were dismounting in the cobbled courtyard in Paternoster Square outside the huge old church and calling for stabling, grooms and porters to help us carry the heavy chests of silver down into the crypt, where the rest of the ransom hoard was being stored under the seals of Walter de Coutances and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. A clerk noted the amount of silver we had brought him, a little over five hundred pounds, on a vellum scroll with an air of total ennui — and I realized how little he or any London folk cared about our contribution.
I understood the clerk’s indifference when I caught a glimpse of the inside of the crypt over his left shoulder as he stooped to make a note of our delivery: the vast space beneath St Paul’s was filled to the roof with chests and barrels and heavy sacks of silver coin. We had been amazed by the wealth of Prince John’s treasury in Nottingham — but this was of another order entirely. It seemed as if all the wealth of the kingdom had been gathered here, every peasant’s half-penny, every merchant’s shilling had been collected; every miser’s purse shaken out, every baron’s money chest emptied, every church altar stripped. And not just money from England — King Richard’s overseas possessions had played their part too: Normandy, Anjou and Maine had sent silver by the cartload; his wife Queen Berengaria had organized the collection of taxes in Aquitaine far to the south. I realized later that I had been staring, over the back of that bored clerk’s rough woollen robe, at piled-up treasure with a value of about 100,000 marks — more than sixteen million silver pennies — a staggering thirty-three tons of bright metal. It was truly a king’s ransom!
Queen Eleanor herself received me that same evening in her chamber off the great hall of Westminster. As always, she was gracious and ordered wine and sweetmeats to be served and thanked me in her warm husky voice for bringing Robin’s silver safely down from Sherwood.
She made a point of being kind to me, asked after my health, and mentioned once again my exploits in Germany with flattery, charm and gratitude. For all that she was the most powerful woman in Europe, the wife of kings, the mother of kings, I found myself talking to her almost as if she were my own mother.
‘And how is my disreputable Lord of Locksley? Still causing trouble in Sherwood, I’ll be bound.’ The Queen laughed to show that she meant him no ill, and her smoky purr, as always, sent a delicious tingle down my spine.
‘I’ll wager he’s having the time of his life,’ said a figure lounging in a dim corner of the chamber that I had not noticed before. His face was in shadow, but I could see that he cradled a lute in his arms, and gracefully he struck a chord and sang a few lines of poetry — my poetry, to be precise. Oh, the merry old life of an outlaw bold, Offers more reward than silver or gold. There’s women and feasting, and wine to be poured And battles aplenty — you’ll never grow bored…
Perhaps poetry is not the right word. Doggerel, you might call it. It was one of many simple songs, set to simple tunes, that I had composed for the outlaws of Sherwood in my younger days. These ditties celebrated the life and deeds of Robin Hood, although not always with a firm allegiance to the truth, and they had spread across the country in the past few years being sung in alehouses and taverns, in hovels and manor houses from the Pennines to Penzance. Robin pretended to be indifferent to them, but I knew that he secretly loved being so celebrated by the common people of England.
‘That will do, Bernard,’ rasped Queen Eleanor, with just a suggestion of a chuckle in her voice. ‘If you wish to indulge your taste for low entertainments, I suggest you take the young Lord of Westbury off to one of your vile dens of iniquity — some cheap tavern where both of your… ahem…’ the Queen cleared her throat delicately, ‘ musical talents will be properly appreciated.’
Bernard de Sezanne set down his lute and came out of the shadows, a smile wreathing his ruddy, handsome face.
‘As ever, Your Highness, your slightest wish is my command. Come, Alan, I know just the place for us: the food is almost edible, the drink is very good — and the girls are simply unbelievable!’
I bowed low to the Queen, trying not to grin too widely, and left the royal presence with my old friend — to seek out wine, women and low entertainments.
