not put too high a value on his own life — of finding Sir Ralph Murdac and killing him. Perhaps in his chamber at night as he slept, perhaps in some other way — but I think it could be done.’
‘You may have something, Blondel,’ said the King, and he smiled at me. And instantly, all the other great men in the tent were beaming, too. ‘Without Murdac, as you say, we’d have a much better chance of getting these rascals to surrender my castle. Would you do this for me, Alan? It is a risky — one might say downright foolhardy — proposition…’
‘Yes, sire,’ I said simply. And what else could I say? He was my King.
Richard nodded to himself as if confirming something that he already knew, and then he looked over at Robin. ‘Do you know about this forgotten servants’ hole, Locksley?’
‘No, sire,’ lied Robin. ‘But I have full confidence in Alan of Westbury. If he says it exists, it surely does, and, if anyone can accomplish this most dangerous and difficult task, it is he.’
I looked at Robin, a little surprised at his praise and by his denial of all knowledge of the tunnel. He grinned over at me and gave me a suspicion of a wink. And I smiled back.
When I tell the old tales of Robert, the cunning Earl of Locksley, of the wily outlaw Robin Hood, all too often I stress the times when he behaved badly. I tell far too often of his cruelty, or of his greed for silver, of his indifference to the sufferings of those outside his family circle, and his contempt for Holy Mother Church. And all too often I forget to mention the one thing that was perhaps his most outstanding characteristic: his kindness. If you served him well, he would pour out his benevolence on you without ever counting the cost to himself. He was, at heart, a very kind and generous man — at least to those whom he loved.
Robin had wanted me to raise the subject of the tunnel with the King because he wanted Richard to know how resourceful I was; and for the King to reward me in due course. Robin could have claimed credit for the scheme himself; he could have said that he had shown the tunnel to me, and used it to rescue me from imprisonment inside Nottingham. But he did not. That was the sort of man he was. And so, with a careless smile and a half-wink, he secured the King’s personal favour for me, and dispatched me on a great and perilous adventure — and quite possibly to my death.
Chapter Twenty-one
Hanno led the way, holding up a single horn lantern with a stub of candle in it. The yellow walls of the tunnel seemed even more grotesque than before, with weird faces seeming to leer out at me from the walls, mocking my ambitions: going into the castle on a mission of murder was far more daunting than coming out of it to freedom and safety.
It was close on midnight, and although I had not slept since the day before last, I was not tired. In fact I was burning with an excited rage that seemed to banish all my fears. I knew that, if things went wrong, I would have only a small chance of survival — but, for the opportunity to kill Sir Ralph Murdac, to take revenge for so many hurts and insults at his hands, and to do an invaluable service for my King, it seemed a risk worth taking. I was young then, and adventure and risk had a certain appeal merely for their own sake.
There were also a number of things to my advantage. I knew the castle, and the members of the garrison there knew my face, but possibly not my true allegiance. With so many folk changing sides in the contest between King Richard and Prince John, I was fairly sure that if I was stopped by suspicious guards and questioned, I could convince them that I was back on Prince John’s side. And my presence in the castle would seem to be proof of that. Both Hanno and myself were also wearing the black surcoats with the red chevrons of Murdac’s men — taken from prisoners captured in the battle for the outer bailey — with our swords belted over the top. And so I felt confident that any man-at-arms seeing me — a familiar face, inside the castle, wearing Sir Ralph’s livery — would likely consider me friend rather than foe.
The main problem would come when we emerged at the mouth of the ale-shaft; I did not know whether the old buttery had been discovered as my method of escape. After all, five months ago a condemned prisoner had disappeared in the middle of the night, killing three men, stealing a large quantity of silver and leaving a bloody wolf’s head in his prison cell — what would the garrison have made of it? Would they have searched for a secret tunnel, or remembered how the ale had previously been delivered to the castle? Would they have put it down to witchcraft? Did they believe I had magicked my way out of there? Or would they have assumed that I made my escape by more ordinary means, bribing a guard with a bag of silver and slipping quietly over the castle walls? I had no way of knowing.
I was fairly sure that Sir Ralph Murdac would not be familiar with the lower reaches of the castle: it was an area frequented by servants, cooks, butlers and so on. Not by knights, and certainly not by the Constable himself. I was staking my life that the old buttery and the ale-shaft were as we had left them — staking Hanno’s life too.
I had initially meant to go on this mission alone, but Hanno had insisted on accompanying me. ‘You get lost in those tunnels — ha-ha — and in the bottom of the castle too!’ Hanno was jovial as ever and seemed totally unconcerned about the danger when we talked quietly in the main room of The Trip to Jerusalem tavern — now deserted, for the brewer and his young family had wisely fled when the castle had been encircled by King Richard’s troops. Hanno was supposed to be seeing me off on the mission, but instead he said: ‘Best I come with you to keep you out of trouble; maybe teach you something.’ And I did not protest too much. I was very glad to have him by my side.
When we approached the final steps of the tunnel, and reached the chamber directly below the shaft that led up to the buttery, we killed the horn lantern and stood absolutely still, listening for sounds of danger from above. Nothing. Not a sound.
I stretched out my hand in the darkness and made contact with the rope. The same rope that Robin, Hanno and I had climbed down five months ago. It seemed incredible but, apparently, the buttery and this secret way into the castle were still quite unknown to the defenders.
I climbed up the rope into the dark shaft. My arm muscles were soon protesting; though I carried no shield, I was weighed down by my mail coat and sword, and by the heavy back-sack that I wore. But very shortly I sensed a space around me, and groping quickly with my left hand, I found the lip of the housing. Then Hanno was there, lighting the lantern, and I was using his big key to unlock the low, wide door that led to the old buttery.
So far, so good. The buttery, as far as I could tell, was the same as it had been five months ago.
A clatter, an appalling din of wooden noise as a small ale cask fell to the floor with a crash, toppling from a pile of larger ones. Then there was a high-pitched squeal of rage and something dark moved very fast in the corner of the buttery. My heart seemed to explode and I had my naked sword in my hand before I knew what was happening.
Hanno and I stood frozen in silence. There were no further sounds. Then Hanno laughed quietly. ‘It is just a rat,’ he whispered. ‘But he gives you a good fright, yes?’
I said nothing, but re-sheathed my sword, cursing my jumpiness. And a few moments later Hanno and I were walking confidently along the corridor outside the buttery in the bowels of the upper bailey, in the very heart of Murdac’s stronghold.
At this hour the interior of the castle was largely still — there would have been sentries on the ramparts, and groups of menat-arms bunched together in the towers on the walls, and in the guardhouses and barracks in the middle bailey, but this part of the castle was eerily quiet. Hanno and I passed only one person as we made our way towards the great tower and Ralph Murdac’s chamber: a servant carrying a tray of wine cups. The surly devil ignored us, brushing past in an irritable manner. It seemed that our surcoats gave us the invisibility we craved.
We passed a guard room at the base of the great tower, and as we walked past, I could not help glancing through the door. My eyes just had time to take in the homely scene: two or three men-at-arms in red-and-black surcoats playing dice at a table in the centre of the room by the light of a single candle, and a dozen soldiers snoring in cots around the edges of the chamber. We walked past without inviting any comment; indeed, without even being noticed. My nerves began to ease: we were going to succeed! God willing, we were going to make it all the way to Murdac’s chamber — where Sir Ralph was no doubt slumbering peacefully — without a single challenge.
The chamber of the Constable of Nottingham Castle was on the western side of the great tower, on the second floor. I had not been there since that fateful day in September the year before when I had been summoned
