even as the words tumbled from my mouth.
‘I know what you are and where you come from,’ said Mercadier. He paused, and then drawled: ‘Sir… Knight.’ There was almost no emotion in his voice: he might have been remarking on the price of the wine in the vats behind us. But I could sense a deep, deep fury inside him; a volcanic anger that he kept from erupting only with some difficulty, only by exerting a vast icy control over his whole being. He was what my friend Tuck would have called a cold-hot man: the most dangerous type of individual, according to him. I could well believe the stories that I had heard about Mercadier — his cruelty to those enemies that fell into his power; his disdain for mercy. I thought about Brother Dominic, the monk of the Holy Trinity Abbey in Vendome, and knew in my heart that I was looking at his killer.
I said nothing but made to turn away. However, Mercadier was speaking again, in that cold, stony voice: ‘I held Normandy for him when he was in prison, you know. When almost everyone else had forsaken him, and sided with John — including you, I believe, and that traitorous creature over there.’ Mercadier nodded at Sir Nicholas de Scras, who was now demonstrating a high lateral block to the crowd of men-at-arms. ‘When everyone else had forsaken the King, I remained loyal. When the rest of his fine gentlemen — ’ Mercadier pronounced the word with deep contempt — ‘had changed their allegiance as easily as a pair of soiled hose and sided with his renegade fool of a brother, I remained steadfast. My men bled and died on this very soil for the King while he was in the power of his enemies. I took this for him.’ He made a short chopping gesture with his left hand towards his scarred face. ‘And I held his land against the full might of Philip of France, as best I could. Later I took Loches and Bigaroque and Issoudun for him, and killed half my men in doing so — and yet he made you a knight. He ranked you over me! He gave you Clermont-sur-Andelle — a fine manor that he knew I had long coveted — and a knighthood! You, who are as base-born as I; you, who are no more that the scrapings of a Nottingham gutter, were given a gentleman’s rank…’
My right hand had gone to my hilt, and I think I would have taken my blade to him, had the scarred man’s dull, poisonous flow not been suddenly interrupted by Sir Nicholas de Scras’s familiar cheery voice: ‘Sir Alan Dale, my friend, how wonderful to see you! When did you get here? And Captain Mercadier, greetings — what an honour to be observed at my labours by such distinguished men of the sword.’
I turned to look at Sir Nicholas and managed a tight smile, and when I turned back to Mercadier to say something — I know not what, probably something fatuous about my grandfather the Seigneur — in reply to his insults about my origins, I saw that he had turned his back on the both of us and was walking briskly away across the courtyard.
‘What an ill-bred, loutish churl,’ said Sir Nicholas, as he stared after Mercadier’s broad retreating back.
‘He is only a little worse born than I,’ I said.
‘Well, you at least have decent manners and a proper sense of honour,’ Sir Nicholas said casually. And I smiled gratefully at him.
The erstwhile Hospitaller and I took a cup of wine together at the seller’s stand, and my friend gave me the mood of the castle. The men-at-arms had been worked hard in recent weeks but remained eager for the fight. They loved Richard for his mad ambitions and reckless disregard for his own safety, and were prepared to fight to the death for their lord and King. Richard had recently returned from a raid at the port of St Valery. He had found English ships there trading with the French, and had seized their cargoes, burned the vessels to the waterline and hanged the crews. The men had thoroughly approved of the King’s actions, and almost all of them had profited from a day or two of unrestrained looting in the captured French town.
‘You saw the King this morning, Alan — how was his temper?’ asked Sir Nicholas. ‘Is he ready to press the fight against the French once again?’
I answered my friend honestly. ‘He’s more than ready. In fact, I must confess, he seemed rather too enthusiastic, almost hectic; not as calm as I have seen him previously.’
Sir Nicholas nodded thoughtfully. ‘He appears so to me, also,’ he said. ‘But then he has so much that he wishes to achieve this season, and too little time in which to do it.’
And there we left it.
That evening, I played my vielle for my King. It was not a happy occasion. I was not well attuned to the mood of the hall, and perhaps wishing to impress the assembled barons with my sophistication, I played some new compositions. They were perhaps too mournful, coloured no doubt by my months of melancholy soul-sickness, and I struck the wrong note with that brisk, healthy gathering. The King did not care for them at all, they did not suit his current mood of frenzied optimism, and worse, Mercadier sat next to him during the performance and whispered in his ear. At one point, the poignant climax to a tale of doomed love, Richard actually laughed out loud at something Mercadier had said. I barely managed to finish the piece before withdrawing from the hall with a bow and an excuse, and as much grace as I could scrape together. The next morning we rode off to war.
Chapter Twenty-four
We sallied out of Chateau-Gaillard joyously and in great force; Richard himself and a hundred knights and two hundred mounted men-at-arms under a forest of spears and brightly coloured banners. The King was accompanied by the grizzled Earl of Striguil and his knights, but not by the Earl of Locksley, who had been ordered to hold Chateau-Gaillard in place of his royal master. I had been given the honour of leading a contingent of Locksley men in green, fifty strong, as well as my own fourteen men-at-arms, who all sported fresh red surcoats with my snarling boar device on their chests.
Before we left, Robin had taken me aside: ‘John and I are staying here,’ he said, ‘we must hold Chateau- Gaillard in case it all goes wrong and Richard has to retreat; but in truth we could do with the rest. I’m giving you a company of men, who are a little more rested than the others. And I want you to know that I have full confidence in you. Don’t feel you have anything to prove to anyone. Don’t throw the lives of any of my men away — particularly not this one.’ And he clapped me hard on the shoulder.
Mercadier, I was glad to see, was not to accompany the King; the mercenary captain had been dispatched with his own force of paid men before dawn on a mission of some kind in the direction of Beauvais, deep into enemy territory, while we followed in his tracks making north-east for the border castle of Gournay.
The countryside we rode through had been much ravaged by three years of war — by our men and Philip’s — and there was barely a farm beast alive or a cottage unburnt that we passed on our march that day. We travelled light and fast — all the men well mounted and the column unslowed by baggage or a siege train. By early evening we had travelled the twenty-five miles to Gournay and were greeted at the gate by none other than Richard’s brother Prince John, Count of Mortain and Earl of Gloucester.
My old enemy was a humbled man these days; he saluted his royal brother respectfully, without a trace of his former haughtiness, and bore him away, with William the Marshal, to his private chamber to discuss a plan he had concocted for the imminent assault on Philip’s domains. Prince John did not acknowledge me in any way, although I caught him staring at me when he thought I was not looking, and I was content to busy myself with finding adequate quarters in that crowded castle for the men and our horses. Thomas and I dined poorly on a thin cabbage soup from the castle kitchens, which we supplemented with bread, a soft Norman cheese, and a brisk red wine, from our rations.
The next morning word reached us that we were to saddle up and prepare to advance into enemy territory. As Thomas and I were chivvying the sleepy men from their warm bed-rolls, William the Marshal came striding across the courtyard to speak to me.
‘It’s Milly,’ the Earl of Striguil said. ‘We’re going to take Millysur-Therain. Do you know it?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s a small castle a dozen miles east of here — John has had intelligence that it’s not well defended and he has asked that he be allowed to lead the expedition to capture it. It was his idea, and Richard has agreed.’
‘The King isn’t coming with us?’ I asked, astonished.
‘He’s got other fish to fry,’ said the Marshal. ‘Mercadier is a few miles south of here threatening the stronghold of Beauvais, and Richard wants to remain here so that he can co-ordinate both operations.
‘So Prince John is to be in command?’ My face must have been a picture, for the Marshal laughed out loud.
