‘Well, I should like to see Father Jean’s killer caught and punished,’ I said, somewhat lamely.
‘Perhaps he will be, perhaps he won’t. We do not gain or lose from it, so far as I can tell.’
I found Robin’s disinterest irksome, and for some reason I could not stop myself adding: ‘I wonder whether there might have been anything more he could have told me about my father’s death.’ Although in my heart I was certain that he had had nothing further to divulge.
Robin looked at me sharply — he knew all about the shadowy ‘man you cannot refuse’ and my quest to find him. ‘Alan,’ he said, ‘I understand why this is of interest to you, but I must urgently counsel you not to pursue this matter. Your father is dead, he has been dead for ten years; Sir Ralph Murdac killed him; and Murdac is dead — you must let this go. I promise you that no good will come of raking over the past. You will achieve nothing — and you may well disturb something evil that is better left in peace. Now, be a good fellow, take a dozen men and sweep that covey yonder: it’s a likely spot for an ambush.’ He handed me a small polished cow’s horn with a silver lip- piece. ‘Give three blasts on that if you get into any trouble, and we’ll come running to save you.’
He gave me a not-altogether pleasant smile as I looped the thong attached to the horn over the pommel of my saddle, but I had the sense to keep silent. And for the next two hours, accompanied by a band of mounted archers, I thrashed through the dense under-growth of a small wood, scratching my face and hands, and my poor horse’s hide, on brambles and branches, fruitlessly searching for foes that Robin and I both knew were not there.
The next day, Robin, it seemed, was in a better mood. As we rode along through the hilly, green and surprisingly tranquil countryside of the Perche, he gave me the news from home. Marie-Anne was as delighted as he was to be pregnant again: ‘She’s glowing, Alan — I mean absolutely radiant — and already becoming plump. I think it will be a boy; a fine tall son for me to leave behind when I’m cold in my grave.’
Robin already had one son — a sturdy four-year-old called Hugh, but there was a secret about his birth that was never mentioned in my lord’s presence. Hugh was the true child of Sir Ralph Murdac. This erstwhile sheriff of Nottinghamshire had raped Marie-Anne and got her with child, yet Robin had publicly acknowledged Hugh as his own son — indeed, he made it clear that he would instantly kill anyone who suggested otherwise. And I admired him deeply for this act of compassion. It was a measure of his love for Marie-Anne that he took her to wife despite the fact that she had been despoiled by Murdac’s touch, and that her son Hugh was not truly his. Even so, it was clear that he was elated to have another child that was his own blood beyond a shadow of doubt.
‘And I have had a letter from our old friend Reuben,’ Robin continued. ‘He has left the Holy Land and settled in Montpellier to study medicine. He writes that he has a fine big house with a large herb garden, and hints that he has formed an attachment to a local widow. He’s trading a little too, he says, with the Moors of Spain.’
‘Not frankincense?’ I asked. Reuben, a tough, dried brown stick of a man, was a Jew who until recently had managed Robin’s lucrative frankincense concerns in Gaza.
‘No, not frankincense,’ said Robin. ‘Leather, spice, precious metals… Reuben is now a wealthy man, you know. Somehow, I can’t see him settling down and growing fat just yet; he has a restless spirit that will not take its ease. But I may be wrong.’
‘Tell me about Goody — was she well and in good spirits when you last saw her?’
Robin smiled at me. ‘She is a fine lass, Alan, and you are a lucky man. Yes, she is healthy, and all is well at Westbury. It seems that she and your steward Baldwin have made an alliance and are turning Westbury into an orderly, productive and well-run place. She wants to please you, Alan, she wants you to be proud of her. So take a note of what she has achieved at Westbury, when you return, and make sure you praise her for it. But there is one thing that troubles me…’
‘What? What is it?’
‘It may be nothing, Alan, but… I still have many friends in Nottingham and in Sherwood from the old days who tell me things from time to time. And I have heard rumours, evil rumours of black magic and witchcraft…’
‘It’s Nur, isn’t it?’
‘It is. It may all be overblown, Alan. And it may well come to nothing. But they say she has been gathering followers — the mad, the deformed, the ugly, and some unhappy women who have run from their menfolk. And I have heard she has sworn vengeance on you and Goody.’
Nur. I felt a shiver run down my spine at the mention of her name. Nur, once the most beautiful, exquisite girl I had ever seen, had been my lover on the Great Pilgrimage to Outremer. I had sworn to protect her, but had failed. My enemies had taken her and destroyed her beauty, cutting away her nose and lips and ears, and leaving her alive, a monstrous mockery of her once-lovely self. I had not protected her, neither had I continued to love her after her awful mutilation. And her love for me had turned to hate: she had followed me, alone, on foot, all the way home from the Holy Land, becoming wild and mad and richer in malice with every step, and she had burst into my betrothal feast and cursed Goody and myself in front of hundreds of guests. And yet Goody, my fiery, passionate Goody, had rebutted her curse and had beaten her to within an inch of her life before expelling her from the hall. And now Nur wanted revenge for all the humiliations inflicted on her. Suddenly the breeze seemed to blow cold.
‘Alan! Listen to me,’ said my lord. ‘I have sent a dozen good men to Westbury as a garrison, and Marie-Anne and Tuck to keep Goody company there. She is safe, among good friends, surrounded by guards, and that poor, mad, bedraggled creature can do nothing to hurt her. Alan — trust me on this. Goody is perfectly safe!’
I prayed that Robin was right.
It took us more than a week to travel down to Tours, and while we encountered no enemies of any significance, it was still a busy time for me. One evening, bone-weary and lying in my blankets in camp, I reckoned that I must have travelled ten times the distance of a knight riding with the King’s household, for I was constantly galloping back and forward, ferrying messages between Richard and the Earl of Locksley. I had come to the conclusion that Robin was right about Goody. She had proven herself more than a match for Nur at my betrothal feast; and Tuck, a man of God, would easily be able to counter any magical nonsense the deformed madwoman might concoct. She was safe, spiritually and physically. And I was comforted.
I was riding Ghost, my grey gelding, one day, to allow the courser to rest, and had a message from Robin for the King in my saddlebag, when I heard the sound of screaming on the still June air. Hanno and I reined up simultaneously, and Thomas, who had been riding some twenty yards behind us, clattered up and stopped his mount to my right. We were passing through a wide, shallow valley, a sheep pasture with a stream trickling down from a spring to the east and heading away south. The rutted earth road we were on ran straight through the centre of the valley. The three of us sat in silence for a moment, and then a hideous wail of agony split the morning once again. It seemed to be coming from a small shrine — a one-roomed wooden-framed building no bigger than a cottage but with a tall cross on the roof ridge — built beside the spring, halfway up the side of the valley. I had ridden past this place the day before and had assumed that it was deserted. Now I could see a thread of smoke coming from behind the building and four horses tethered to a rail at the front of it.
Another scream wrenched at our ears. And I thought, A wise man, knowing he had an important message to deliver to his King, would just ride on by…
Hanno and I approached the shrine cautiously, having told Thomas to stay back on the road and if we got into trouble to ride for the safety of the main column, which we knew to be only half a dozen miles to the north. Our blades loose in their sheaths, all senses extended, and Hanno cradling a powerful crossbow that had been spanned and loaded with a foot-long steel-tipped oak quarrel, we walked our horses around the back of the wooden building. There we came across a knot of about a dozen rough-looking men gathered around a campfire. My eyes took in many things at the same time: something of a party or feast seemed to be in progress, the men were red-faced, glowing and some had hunks of bread and meat and what appeared to be cheese in their hands, and I could see a couple of half-empty skins of wine lying on the grass. One man was asleep in the lee of the wall of the shrine, cuddling a half-eaten joint of meat.
But this was no celebration; in the centre of the group of revellers was a tight knot of men subduing a struggling bundle in brown wool — a man, and by his robe I could tell he was a monk. His feet were bare and red and blistered, and I knew with a lurch to my stomach what had been taking place here. Only one man of that company was still a-horse, gazing down on the proceedings with a crooked little smile on his lips — a mop of shaggy black hair and a deep scar diagonally across his dark face; it was Mercadier.
He looked over at me, incuriously, and slightly inclined his black head. ‘Sir Alan,’ he said in his deep, stony voice. ‘Good morning to you.’
I said nothing, staring at the writhing scrum around the struggling brown-clad monk. One of the routiers had
