set on my course and my pride meant that I could not deviate from it.
I have never felt quite so much love for Hanno as I did in that next moment: he swilled down the last of the ale in the gorgeous cup, tossed it casually over his shoulder, as if it were no more than a gnawed old chicken bone, walked to his horse and mounted smoothly. And with that ugly old Bavarian murderer at my shoulder, I galloped up the line of the wagons and on to the empty road ahead.
After a mile or two, I began to calm down, and reflect soberly on my conversation with Robin. I had in truth behaved absurdly, like a spoiled little boy: it was a foolish burst of temper and I deeply regretted it. But there was something about the glee with which Robin and his men had ripped into that royal baggage train that set my teeth on edge. It was undoubtedly a rich prize — the personal possessions of the King of France; his treasury, all the silver he needed to fund his war against King Richard. It was a prize of staggering magnitude, and any sane man would want to partake of it. So why had I reacted the way I did? Sheer bone-headed stupidity; but it stemmed, I knew, from my relationship with Robin. I so badly wanted him to be the shining Christian knight; the preux chevalier — noble, honest, devout, courtly — and when he revealed to me the man he truly was, as tempted as any other man by the glittering lure of Mammon, I found myself reacting badly. What I needed to do, I told myself, was halt the horses, turn around and ride back to Robin and beg his pardon. And help myself to a share of the spoils. Another mile passed, and another, and I was just about to give the order to Hanno when my Bavarian friend put a hand on my arm, and we both reined in.
‘Listen,’ said Hanno. And, over the jingling of our horses’ accoutrements as we slowed to a walk, and our own heavy breathing, I heard what Hanno had made out: the pounding thuds of cantering horsemen on the road ahead. And they were coming closer.
Perhaps if we had immediately turned our horses’ heads and galloped back down the road, we might have escaped; perhaps. But it is hard for a fighting man to run without even having glimpsed his enemy. So we stayed there in the centre of the road for another twenty heartbeats — while I was rendered immobile with indecision. It was Hanno who broke the spell: ‘They are too many,’ he said. ‘We must go.’
And, at that moment, a mass of enemy cavalry, a conroi of perhaps twenty riders, came into view around a shallow bend in the road.
‘Come, Alan, we must go — now!’ said Hanno again, more urgently. The enemy knights were less than fifty paces away. They saw us, and at a gleeful shout from their leader, they began their charge.
Chapter Ten
Their horses were fresh, and ours were not. We were two men, they were a force of twenty. It was as simple as that. We ran. We put our heels into our horses’ sides and ran for our lives. But after a bare quarter of a mile at a full gallop, I knew that Ghost was tiring, and glancing over my shoulder I could see the enemy knights closing on us fast. I noticed one other strange thing too; all of the knights bore the same device as the man I had fought at the baggage train — a blue cross on a white field with a black border.
It was not the blazon of a northern French noble, of that I was reasonably certain — I was as familiar as most knights were with the great barons on either side of this conflict — but this blue cross was new to me. And yet there seemed to be so many men bearing these arms that they had to belong to a powerful man, an earl or count or even duke.
As Hanno and I pounded along that dusty road, leaning over our horses’ necks and trying to urge the maximum speed from our tired mounts, I could imagine the points of the knights’ lances almost tickling my back. I snatched a quick glance over my shoulder, and saw that the leading knight was only a few yards behind. Hanno was slightly ahead of me, and I could sense Ghost beginning to founder, his smooth galloping gait suddenly changing, the horse stumbling with exhaustion for a pace or two, and then regaining its rhythm. He was a valiant beast, my Ghost, but I knew he was near the end of his strength. We were only a mile or two from the baggage train and I realized that I was leading this pack of galloping enemy knights straight to Robin’s men. Unhorsed, scattered, every man probably as drunk as a bishop by now — our troops would be easy prey. These mail-clad killers on my tail could cut the Locksley men to shreds if they came on them unexpectedly. By leading the knights directly to Robin’s force I would be responsible for the deaths of many of my friends.
That thought was unbearable; I had to warn them. I plucked the twisted horn from where it had been bouncing on the pommel of my saddle, managed to get it to my lips without slowing Ghost’s thundering pace, and sounded it, once — twice — three times. The leading knight of the blue cross was right on top of us by now; from the corner of my eye I saw him draw his lance for a strike, and lunge forward, the needle-pointed blade licking out towards my lower back on the left-hand side. I saw the strike coming over my shoulder, and swung in the saddle and dropped my shield to take the blow. I felt a jarring smack, and looked down in horror to see that the lance had been deflected by my shield — and had plunged deep into Ghost’s pale belly.
The knight had released the shaft of his spear, now wedged deep in my poor mount’s entrails, the shaft drooping and tangling with Ghost’s hind legs, and the next thing I knew I was sailing high in the air, over Ghost’s neck and head, and landing with a crash on my back in the ashy dust of the road.
Stunned, winded, but with, as far as I could tell, nothing broken, I lifted my head and saw that Hanno had halted his headlong flight and turned to protect me, God love him. He was engaging the leading blue cross knight with axe and sword. There was a flurry of blows, a hack, a crunch, and the knight slumped, boneless, lolling in his saddle. Hanno turned again and was shouting something at me, but in my fuddled state I could not comprehend him. He leaned down in the saddle and reached out a hand to me, urging me to rise and mount up behind him. His mouth was moving; I could see his awful teeth and the lips curling to form sounds, and yet I could make nothing of his speech. I got to my knees and reached out an arm towards him and suddenly his horse lurched a step forward, struck by a massive blow, and I saw Hanno look behind him. There were knights all around, tall shadows in the sunlight, and horses too; kicked dust swirled in the air and the shouts of angry men flew above me — and Hanno was slipping off his horse as it collapsed under him, lanced in the belly like my poor Ghost; then he was beside me, lifting me, helping me to my feet, his face concerned. A knight on horseback loomed over us, I saw the glitter of his sword raised to strike, and Hanno was pushing me on my stumbling feet under the horse’s neck. The sword whistled down inches from my shoulder — and with a sudden rush my senses came back to me fully.
‘Into the trees, into the trees,’ I found myself shouting. I had lost my shield, as had Hanno, and we sprinted unencumbered the few yards into the thick woodland on the eastern side of the road — closely followed by a dozen or so eager horsemen. By God’s good grace, the woodland was ancient, thickly tangled with underbrush and low branches that much impeded the horsemen. We drew our swords and, by a combination of scurrying, ducking and slashing at the legs of the knights, Hanno and I somehow managed to dodge the questing lances of our enemies and squirm into the gloom of the forest. We survived to find ourselves fifty yards from the road, back to back, blades in our hands, panting and partially sheltered in a sort of dell formed by two huge fallen oak trees that formed the sign of the cross on the forest floor. The fallen trees guarded our rear, but the horsemen surrounded us. They could not easily approach through the thick trees, scrubby thorns and bushes; but neither could we escape. There were perhaps a dozen of them by now on all sides around our pathetic wooden half-fortification, and they walked their horses closer all the time; and then things took a turn for the worse — they began to dismount. Hanno and I were dead men. On foot, these knights could close with us and then their numbers would tell and we would be finished in a few moments. The knights approached silently, their faces under their conical helmets grim and bearded — eyes showing no sign of mercy.
I stepped forward, away from the rudimentary cover of the oak-tree cross, and said in French in a loud carrying voice: ‘My name is Sir Alan Dale, a knight of Westbury in the English county of Nottinghamshire. You have killed our horses and we are at your mercy: under the laws of chivalry, I offer my surrender to you for ransom, on condition that you spare my life and also the life of my man-at-arms, here.’
The leading knight, a handsome man with a bushy blond beard, who was by now no more than half a dozen paces from me, paused and looked directly at me. I saw a brief glimmer of compassion in his eyes. Then he spoke: ‘Alas, Sir Alan, there can be no surrender for you today.’
I was puzzled: ‘Why not, sir?’ I asked. ‘I have told you who I am and I have offered to yield to you — will you not accept my surrender?’
The knight merely shook his head and repeated a little sadly: ‘There can be no surrender for you.’ Then he
