‘He was quick, and strong and he learnt fast. And he had grit. We used to practise on the castle drawbridge. The two of us on the drawbridge above the moat with half the castle servants hanging over the battlements and watching. I’d knock him in the water nine times out of ten, but he always crawled out of the mud and filth and picked up his staff again. Like I said, he was a gutsy boy. After a month or so, he could sometimes knock me in the drink — and then I felt he was ready to move on to cold steel.
‘The thing is, though we knocked each other about something fierce with the quarterstaves, he always had more bruises than he should when we stripped off to wash after a bout, and he sometimes had bruises on the face, too. I asked him about it once and he just shook his head and pretended that I had given them to him at our last session. ‘You are a cruel and brutal man, John Nailor,’ he would say, in jest. ‘You don’t know your own strength.’ He was lying, of course, and I knew it. But if he didn’t want to tell me, there wasn’t much I could do. .’
John stopped, took a huge pull on his tankard of ale, and dropped the hauberk in a wooden bucket. He added a double handful of sand and some water and vinegar and began to stir the mixture vigorously with a thick stick. ‘The thing was, I liked the boy,’ he said, speaking loudly over the grinding of the sand against the chain-mail. ‘You could put him down but he always got up again. And he never complained. Never. But I was curious about who could be knocking him about. Who would dare? He was the youngest son of a Norman baron, descended from the great Bishop Odo, who came over with the Conquerer. His eldest brother William was away with his father attending the King for most of the year. Hugh, who was only a year or two younger than William, held the post of chamberlain for the de Brewister family in Lincolnshire. It couldn’t be either of his big brothers who were beating him. It couldn’t be any of the servants or men-at arms. In fact, when I thought about it, I knew it could only be one man, but I couldn’t believe him capable of giving Robin such vicious punishment. He was Father Walter, a priest, a man of God, who had been sent by the Archbishop of York to serve as a tutor to young Robin.’ He stopped grinding the chain mail against the slop of sand, pulled the sopping hauberk out, peered at it, noticed a remaining patch of rust and dropped it back into the bucket. He took another pull from his tankard, and then went back to stirring the noisy bucket in regular grinding circles.
‘One day, when Robin came out to battle practice with me, he was in obvious pain from his ribs. He kept insisting it was nothing but I forced him to lift his shirt and show me his side. His whole torso was a mass of bruises, and at least three ribs were cracked. So I went to have a word with Father Walter.
‘He was a tall, lean man with a long curved nose that looked like a beak, and a mournful, pious expression. I pushed open the door of his room at the top of the castle and found him at prayer, kneeling on the cold stone flags of the floor before a large open window and clasping a large wooden crucifix in front of his body. He had been praying out loud and I caught the end of it: “. . forgive this miserable sinner his weakness; remove the snares of temptation from his path and make his will to resist strong. Keep me from the fires of everlasting damnation. I ask in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the one and only Son of God, Amen.”
‘He rose stiffly from his knees and turned to me: “How may I help you, my son?” he asked calmly. I stood uncertain, in the doorway. “It’s about the boy Robert,” I said and I told him that in my opinion he was being too hard on him. I mentioned the bruises and the broken ribs and I suggested, in a polite and friendly way, that he should go a little easier on him in future.
‘Father Walter drew himself up to his full height, and he was not much shorter than me, though very thin. “You insolent ox, you dare to speak to me about the chastisement of a sinner?” He was shouting at me, bellowing like the wrath of God, and I admit I was taken aback. “Calm yourself, Father, I’m only suggesting that-” But he overrode me. “You lumpen dolt, you think a few marks on the body are important. He is a fiend of Hell sent to tempt good men from the path of righteousness and I will beat him bloody, if I choose, to remove the foul stain of pride from his soul.” He ranted on and I could feel my temper beginning to rise. His noise had summoned a couple of serving maids who watched our debate, mouths agape, through the open door. “Christ’s crusty drawers, Father, there’s chastisement and there is beating blood out of a young boy on a daily basis and-” He interrupted me again, shouting: “You dare to question my actions? Get on your knees before me and beg my forgiveness or I will consign your soul to the furthermost pit and your flesh will be seared for eternity by rivers of fire!”
‘Then I lost possession of myself,’ John said, with a wry sideways smile at me, and he finally stopped grinding away at his bucket. ‘I’ve never had much admiration for priests and I don’t care to be threatened by anyone. So I grabbed that ranting bully, hustled him bodily across the room and held him out of the window upside down, by one ankle. That shut him up. He just dangled there, me holding him by one skinny leg, the skirts of his robe flapping around his head and fifty foot of air between his tonsure and the stone of the castle courtyard. A crowd formed below, though none of them thought to fetch a blanket to catch him in. Perhaps they hated him, too.
‘I said, as calmly as I could, “If you ever lay a finger on the boy again, I will end your miserable life. And to Hell with my eternal soul. Do you understand me?” He nodded furiously; his face was red, engorged with blood, but I swear I have never seen a man look more frightened. So I hauled him inside and set him down on his cot. He was speechless with terror. I don’t think anyone had ever stood up to him in his life. So I took my leave, and he sat on his cot shaking with fear and staring at me with outraged eyes. It was the last sight I had of him alive.
‘The next morning, I waited for Robin in the courtyard — we were supposed to be working on sword and dagger combinations, if I remember right. It was just after dawn but there was no sign of him. So I went looking for him, thinking he must have overslept. His chamber was at the top of the castle as well. As I walked past the priest’s room, I glanced inside. It was bad — Christ’s bulging haemorrhoids — it’s a sight I’ll never forget. And I’ve seen a few things, lad. Done them, too.
‘The priest was naked and tied to the bed. A gag was stuffed into his mouth. His entire body was covered with burns — red-raw oozing burns with blackened flesh around the edges. Around the bed were the stubs of a dozen candles and the burnt-out remains of two wooden torches that would usually have been stuck in a becket to light a dark passageway. The air was filled with a smell like that of burning pork. It looked as if every inch of skin had felt the touch of a naked flame, over what must have been several hours. I shudder even now to think about the agony that man must have endured before he was finally given release by having his throat cut from ear to ear. And, as a final insult, his own wooden crucifix had been crudely shoved up his arse, right up to the cross bar.
‘I stared at the dead man; and I knew who had done this. But, just to confirm, I looked quickly into Robin’s chamber. There was no sign of the boy, his bed had not been slept in and his clothes and weapons were gone. Then it struck me. I would be blamed for this. Yesterday, I had publicly argued with the priest and threatened to kill him — and today he was found dead. It wouldn’t be long before they came looking for me.
‘I gathered a few belongings, saddled a horse and was riding out of the main gate by the time the screaming had started in the upper floors of the castle. I ran into Robin about noon. He was sitting by the side of the southern road, calmly eating bread and cheese. As I looked at him sitting there, as innocent as a spring lamb, I found it hard to believe that he had spent the greater part of the night torturing a priest. He hailed me as I approached and I dismounted and sat down next to him. There was a faint smell of burnt pork about him, but otherwise he seemed unchanged. We ate for a while in silence, then I said: “Well, you’ve killed a man of God, for which they will hang you if you are caught. And if they don’t blame you, they’ll blame me. So what are we going to do now?”
‘“Don’t worry, John,’ said Robin, ‘I’ve got it all worked out. I think. . I think I’m going to have to get myself an earldom.”
‘I laughed in disbelief, thinking he must be mad. After all, the boy was penniless, friendless and on the run from the law for murdering a priest. But Robin calmly went on, as if he were talking about what tunic he would like to wear that day: “And, for what I want to achieve, I need to become much feared, and then very powerful, and then extremely rich.’ He looked at me with those weird grey eyes, and I realised he was perfectly serious. Then he said: “I’m going to need your help, John.”’
Chapter Eleven
Alan, my little grandson, has a fever. It came as the new leaves were appearing on the apple trees; as the first flushes of green life burst out after the bleak months of winter. His mother, Marie, my daughter-in-law and
