told my lord that I wanted to track down my father’s killer, he had tried to discourage me from the task. He had told me on at least three occasions to let the matter lie, insisting that no good would come of my investigations. Was he protecting himself? Was he trying to prevent me from discovering that it was his secret hand that had caused my father’s death? And there was one more thing: Robin had been present in the castle when Father Jean had been murdered at Verneuil; he was at Loches when Brother Dominic was killed; and he had been missing from the army on a private ‘scouting mission’ when Cardinal Heribert had been stabbed in his chair. Could my lord have accomplished these murders? Certainly, he was capable of them. Had he committed them? Was he even now trying to accomplish my death?
These questions chased themselves in weary circles for the next seven days, as Hanno, Thomas and myself made our way in easy stages, careful to spare Shaitan’s costly legs, on the main roads west to Le Mans and then north, through Alencon and Bernay, to Rouen. The weather was mild and cloudy but with only one rain shower during the entire journey, and we slept rough in hayricks, woods and remote barns, eschewing the company of other travellers. I was very aware that I had the best part of five pounds in silver in a broad leather money belt around my waist, the proceeds of Robin’s milking of the Tourangeaux, and now that we were away from the army, I had no small fear of meeting a well-armed gang of footpads. Large organized gangs of such lawless men infested many of the wilder regions of France, robbing and murdering unwary travellers, just as they did in parts of England. Some of these bandits were routiers who had grown bored with army life; others were peasants forced into outlawry by bad harvests, the ravages of war or by their own cruel lords. Some were simply evil men.
I did not want to meet any of them.
On the outskirts of Rouen, we stayed for one night in a monastery, and I discovered from one of the monks that what Richard had told me was indeed true: the French King was holding talks with King Richard’s Chancellor, William Longchamp, and a truce between the two sides now seemed to be imminent. The agreement was likely to allow each side to retain what territory it had. Both sides, the monk said, were exhausted by months of warfare; there would be a cessation of hostilities for a long while, God be praised.
I was weighed down with fatigue myself; Richard’s hard campaigning in the south had worn me thin, and my suspicions of Robin dragged at my spirits. I could not decide what to do about them: I knew that I must avenge my father, but challenging Robin was an unthinkable prospect. I needed to know more about the events around my father’s expulsion from Paris; and that knowledge could only be obtained by travelling to that great foreign city and demanding answers from Bishop Maurice de Sully and my uncle Thibault, the Seigneur d’Alle. I vowed that I would not leave that place until I had fathomed this mystery; and, furthermore, if it proved that Robin was responsible for my father’s death — despite my long friendship for him, and all that I owed him — I would seek a fitting revenge.
While the truce talks between Chancellor Longchamp and the French were taking place at the castle of Tillieres, ten miles east of Verneuil — and King Richard, we heard, was continuing to win a series of minor but brilliant victories against the rebels in the south — Hanno, Thomas and I found ourselves accommodation in the stone castle of Rouen. Things were not at all well in the Norman capital: Prince John had been holding the city for Richard for the past two months, but while Richard had been covering himself in glory in the south, Prince John had been struggling to hold his own in the Duchy against King Philip’s marauding men. A few weeks before our arrival, the French had captured the small stronghold of Fontaines, a bare five miles north of the walls of Rouen. Worse, Robert, Earl of Leicester, a renowned and reliable warrior — who had been charged with the defence of Normandy along with Richard’s brother — had been captured by the French while raiding the lands of Hugh de Gournay and was now being held for ransom. There was an air of defeatism in the castle, servants tiptoed, knights wore long faces and talked among themselves almost in whispers. Prince John, on the other hand, complained long and loud to anyone who would listen that Richard had not given him sufficient men-at-arms to hold the Duchy, and was to be heard suggesting that the string of reverses that his men had suffered were, in fact, no fault of his but a result of Richard’s meanness with his available troops.
I had determined to stay out of Prince John’s presence, and I came to his attention, I believe, only once during the ten dull days I spent there. At dinner one day — a surprisingly lavish feast, given our circumstances, of swan baked in its feathers, stuffed crane, roast boar’s head and stewed lampreys — I found myself staring with deep contempt at John while he talked loudly in his harsh croaking voice about secret traitors within the walls of Rouen who were undermining his heroic defence. The look I gave him was unguarded, betraying all the derision that I held in my heart for the man, and he caught my eye while he was in mid-flow about the suspected perfidy of the Jews of the town. Our eyes locked for an instant, then I quickly glanced away — it does not pay to confront royalty, it can be as dangerous as teasing a wild bear — and I saw a glow of dark anger in his eyes. Clearly he had not forgotten me, and my ‘betrayal’ of his cause a year earlier. But he said nothing, and neither did I, and the talk between him and his cronies passed to other matters, chiefly, the hunt — for John, if he was a poor warrior, was extravagantly fond of sport, war’s tamer shadow.
I took care to stay away from Prince John for the remainder of my stay in the castle, and filled the hours with battle practice with Hanno, and in the training of Thomas, who was becoming at least half-decent with a sword and shield, for all his tender years. I also took the opportunity to re-equip myself and my men, spending some of the Tourangeaux silver on new shields painted with my boar device and bundles of lances, fresh provisions and other necessities, and buying a spirited palfrey for Hanno to ride and a swift, well-mannered, three-year-old courser for myself.
When the news arrived in late July that Chancellor Longchamp had indeed secured a truce with the French at Tillieres, which was agreed by both sides to last until November the following year, Hanno, Thomas and I were rested, ready and equipped to take advantage of the cessation of hostilities and make our way onwards to Paris.
We rode out of the walls of Rouen on a blustery summer morning heading for the manor of Clermont-sur- Andelle, which stood about fifteen or so miles to the east of Rouen. This was the manor that Richard had endowed me with after the siege of Nottingham earlier that year, and as Robin had rightly pointed out, it was largesse with very large strings attached. The manor stood at the eastern edge of Normandy and it had been one of the first to be gobbled up by the French during their initial advance. It was a royal gift that I could not enjoy until King Philip and his barons had been pushed out of Richard’s domains; certainly I was not receiving its rents and the fruits of the worked land — and after the truce of Tillieres, which stipulated that each of the two warring sides should keep the territories that they had captured, it looked as if I might never receive them. But I was curious, and although it was out of our direct path to Paris, I wanted to see Clermont-sur-Andelle to know the lands that one day, with God’s help, I might possess.
By late afternoon, Hanno, Thomas and I were sitting astride our mounts at the edge of a patch of thick woodland, almost completely hidden from human sight, and gazing down at a broad water meadow beside the reedy banks of the River Andelle. In the distance, on the far side of the slow river, on a low hillock, I could see the manor that was rightfully mine: a spacious compound, well fortified with a stout wooden palisade, a large L-shaped, thatched, timber hall inside it, and a scatter of other buildings. By the river, a mill wheel turned in the race and half a dozen figures could be made out moving around the mill itself, some burdened by large sacks of grain or flour. On this side of the river, across a narrow wooden bridge, was a fenced orchard of pears and apples — it was too far for me to see, but, at that time of year, I could imagine that the first tiny fruits must be beginning to show. Standing in my stirrups, I could also make out a high cross atop a small wooden church beyond the fortified compound of the manor and a score or so of villeins’ hovels scattered between the two. Beyond the village, as far as the horizon, were broad fields, some greeny-yellow with standing wheat and barley, others fallow and thick with weeds. But it seemed an orderly place, did Clermont-sur-Andelle; not perhaps as prosperous as Westbury under the care of my efficient steward Baldwin but remarkably untouched by the ravages of war.
In the foreground, perhaps three hundred yards from our position in the trees, were four well-mounted horsemen; by their trappings and clothes, at least two of them were knights, the other two grooms or servants. The knights were bareheaded and they appeared to be related by blood — a father and son, perhaps. I could not see their faces clearly at that distance, but both men had a similar posture in the saddle and shared the same shade of pitch-black hair. As we looked on, the younger of the knights launched a large blue-grey peregrine falcon from his wrist, and we joined in watching that majestic bird soar up into the air and circle almost beyond the range of human sight.
My hands on the reins of the courser tightened into fists, and the big horse moved under me, feeling the stirrings of my outrage, but unsure of my intentions. Who were these men, and by what right did they hunt my
