God, I joined his band. Yes, I joined it.’ I was babbling, shrieking with terror and pain, all self-control suddenly lost. ‘Stop, please, stop. Don’t do it. Don’t burn me there, I beg you.’
Murdac smiled, Guy actually laughed, and I felt a great, joyous relief as the heat of the poker faded away from my private regions. My buttocks were released from that terrible grip and I clenched them tight shut, bunching the muscles as tight as a fist, as if that could protect me. Suddenly, I was engulfed in a black wave of shame, a cold, sinking sadness at my own want of courage. I wanted to die, for the earth to swallow me up. I had been stripped so easily of my last shreds of dignity by that obscene threat. I
Murdac was asking another question: ‘Where is Robert Odo now?’ I said nothing. I gritted my teeth. The little man sighed; he looked genuinely disappointed. Then he nodded at Guy who plucked a fresh poker from the brazier and came towards me. As the soldiers once again laid hold of my backside and pulled the cheeks apart, I found myself babbling: ‘He’s at the Caves, at the Caves, dear God please. .’ and then I stopped in sheer surprise as the cell door opened with a thunderous crash, and through my tears of pain and humiliation, I made out a commanding figure in the doorway. Stepping forward into the light came Robert of Thurnham, clad in grey mail, his long sword at his hip.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said loudly. ‘Please excuse my intrusion. But the screams of this fellow are disturbing the Queen’s rest. She commands that the interrogation cease forthwith, to be recommenced tomorrow at a more suitable hour.’ He walked forward, drawing his sword, and cut through the rope that held my arms up behind me. I collapsed in a shaking heap in the dirty straw on the floor of the cell, my poor burnt ribs and the burn on my arse cheek chanting a melody of anguish. But, for the moment, it was over. I stole a glance at Sir Ralph and saw in his pale eyes a monstrous anger that he was trying to conceal. Guy seemed merely irritated by the turn of events. Murdac looked at me, curled baby-like on the floor, and said: ‘Till tomorrow, then,’ and suddenly Sir Robert was ushering him and Guy and the men-at-arms out of the cell. ‘Don’t get too comfortable, Alan, we’ll be back soon,’ sang out Guy as he was leaving the cell. The knight paused at the doorway to give me a final glance and, in the flickering light of the brazier, as I shivered on the filthy floor, drowning in self-hatred, he silently mouthed a single word at me: ‘Courage!’
I must have passed out, or maybe my mind just retreated into blackness from the horror of that night, for, when I next came to my senses, Marie-Anne was at my side. At first I thought I was dreaming. There were tears on her cheek and, as she cut through the ropes at my wrists with a small knife, she was murmuring: ‘Oh Alan, Alan, what have they done to you?’ She had brought an old monk’s robe to cover my nakedness and had dressed me and begun to chafe my swollen wrists before I really came to my senses. I had lost all feeling in my hands, and the shooting pains as she massaged them back to life was almost as bad as the irons. Almost.
When she saw that I had recovered a measure of feeling in my limbs she said: ‘Come, Alan, we must go quickly. Before the guards return. I have bribed them to let me have a few minutes with the prisoner. I think they believe I have a
She led me through a part of the castle that I hadn’t known existed. Down corridors, and up stairs, through twisting cob-webbed ways, until we paused finally in the shelter of a little annex at the head of a narrow passage that sloped downwards. I peered round the corner and saw that at the end of the passage there was a small wooden door in the castle wall. ‘Thomas is waiting outside, beyond that door,’ whispered Marie-Anne. That was the good news, but I could see that, on this side of it, there was a very large problem. Two problems to be precise.
Seated on two wooden stools, playing dice by the light of a guttering candle, were two strapping men-at- arms with swords at their waists. One of them I recognised as the man who had brought the brazier into my torture cell, and held my arse cheeks apart while my dignity was ripped away. The other I did not know, but there was a good chance after the fuss in the hall the day before, that he would know me. Marie-Anne whispered: ‘Maybe, if I could distract them. .’ But I shook my head. I could feel a tide of purple rage rising from my bowels up into my chest. I had been tied up, stripped, burnt and humiliated; tortured and forced to speak against my will. But now my hands were free. My head felt dizzy with what I knew I was going to do, but a great wild joy was growing inside me. ‘Thank you, Marie-Anne,’ I whispered, ‘I thank you with all my heart for what you have done, but I must do this myself.’ And pulling the deep hood on the monk’s robe forward to cover my face, I stepped out into the passage way and walked confidently towards the soldiers, hands held together in front of me in the attitude of prayer.
My steps were light, but my heart felt huge in my chest and I was aware of every inch of my body, from my poor burnt ribs, and the blistering inside my bum cheeks, to the sweat on the skin of my fingertips. I felt as if I were buzzing like a swarm of bees with dark, joyous fury.
As I approached the two men-at arms, they rose from their seats; one of the men scooping the dice and hastily putting them away in his pouch so that a man of God, as they assumed me to be, would not know that they had been gambling.
‘Can we help you, Brother?’ asked the man on the left, the taller of the two, the man who had been in the torture cell. I walked right up to him and tilted my head back as if to peer shortsightedly up at his face, and then as fast as a snake I went up on to my toes, whipped my head forward and smashed it into the bridge of his nose in a short hard arc. It was a colossal blow, with all the anger at my recent humiliation ringing through it and, coming from what appeared to be a monk, it was totally unexpected. I could feel the crunch of bone and gristle as my forehead powered into his face and and he dropped like a stone at my feet. Then I turned, the blood roaring in my veins, and launched myself at the second man, grabbing him by the shoulders and trying for a second massive headbutt, as effective as the first. His mouth was wide in total surprise, but he moved his head sideways just before my strike and all I achieved was a glancing blow as my forehead raked across his cheekbone. Then we were both on the stone floor, grappling like madmen. My rage found an outlet and I knew I was screaming incoherently as I pounded again and again at his head with both my fists in turn. But he was stronger than me and, like myself, he was no stranger to street fighting. As we rolled on the hard floor he caught my forearms, crushing them in his meaty hands, ending the rain of blows that had left his face bloody and bruised. So I brought my knee up into the fork of his legs, my kneecap driving hard into the pelvic bone and, catching him by surprise, I mashed his balls between that bony mortar and pestle. He screamed in agony, doubled up and tried to protect his ruptured privates with his hands, which meant releasing my arms. So I grabbed a hank of his long, greasy hair and smashed his head down as hard as I could against the stone floor. He was only mildly stunned, but it was enough and I took his head with both hands by the ears and smashed it twice more against the flagstones. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and suddenly I was on my hands and knees, panting, my burnt ribs bleeding, and looking down at two battered, unconscious men. Neither had had time to even draw their swords. I staggered to my feet, waved goodbye to Marie-Anne who was goggling at me with her pretty mouth wide open, unbolted and pulled open the door and stepped out into the cool night air — and tumbled straight into the arms of Thomas.
He glanced at the unmoving bodies of the men-at arms with a look of disbelief, closed the wooden door tightly behind me and said: ‘Can you walk?’ And, half supporting me, he led me down the steep path from the castle and into the dark narrow streets of Winchester itself.
For two days I hid in a back room of the Saracen’s Head, nursing my wounds with a concoction of goose-fat and herbs, waiting for the one-eyed man’s return. Thomas had collected my poniard and sword from the castle and returned them to me before disappearing off to gather information from his contacts. I wore my weapons night and day — even when I slept. Something had changed in me since that terrible night of fire and pain. I was harder; something of the boy had been burnt out of me. But I also knew myself better. I knew that I would have told them anything if Robert of Thurnham had not intervened when he did. So I vowed I would not be taken alive again to undergo more of that treatment. I would die first. On the morning of the third day, Thomas came with news.
We sat at the rough table in the common room of the tavern, eating bread and cheese. He was silent for a few moments and then he sighed and said, ‘First things first: the King is dead. God rest his soul. He died ten days ago at Chinon and his body is being taken to lie at rest in the abbey at Fontevraud. Duke Richard will take the
