immediately after birth, a baby resembles its father, and then later it takes on more of the look of the mother. The fourth point was the previously inexplicable disharmony between Robin and Marie-Anne immediately after the birth. Robin knew the child was not his — and it was my sacred duty to make sure that the rumour was squashed and that my master never found out that I was aware of his ignoble secret.
But, quite apart from Bernard’s loose tongue — and Robin would quite readily tear it from his head if he found out that my friend had been spreading this news — Murdac’s whisperers would be doing their work in England and there was a real danger that, when Robin returned, he would be a laughing stock. People would assume that he wore the horns of a cuckold, even though the truth was that Marie-Anne had been forced against her will by a monster. Robin would never admit that; he would never admit that he had been unable to protect the woman he loved. And how would this sad business affect the relations between husband and wife? If it became common knowledge, would Robin disinherit Hugh, throw him out of the family? And how would Marie-Anne feel about her baby being a universally known as a bastard, a child of rape, a nobody born out of wedlock. She would never admit the truth of that. But could Robin accept a cuckoo in the nest?
As I sat pondering these terrible truths, the party in the tavern was becoming raucous: Ambroise and Bernard were swapping couplets of dirty poetry with each other with great relish, and downing full cups of unwatered wine, and one of the other trouveres was already dancing with one of the Sicilian serving women. Leaving them to their revels, I slipped away to find my master.
I found Robin in his chamber in the monastery, reading the letter from Marie-Anne. His face was a cold, emotionless mask and as I entered the room on the pretext of bringing him his evening meal, he gave be a look of such blank metallic savagery that I almost lost my nerve and retreated.
‘Your supper, sir,’ I said quietly. And he merely indicated that I should put it on the table with a wave of his hand. I tore off a piece of the roast chicken with my fingers and took it over to Keelie, who had been watching my movements with great interest from a rush basket in the corner of the room.
‘Good news from England, sir?’ I asked disingenuously, crouched with my back to Robin, as the one-eyed dog licked the chicken gravy from my hand.
‘No,’ said Robin. And that flat single syllable sounded like a tombstone being dropped on to the grass of a churchyard cemetery. I turned to look at the Earl of Locksley; the letter was lying on the table next to his supper, but he was staring at the stone floor, seemingly in some sort of trance. For ten heartbeats we did not move; I stared at him, he stared at the floor. Then he dragged his gaze up to meet mine and said: ‘It seems your friend Prince John is causing trouble; wants to be King, I hear,’ he attempted a smile, but it never reached his grey eyes. I wanted to say something, to comfort him to tell him that it was all right, that it was not his fault that Murdac had ruined him, that it was not Marie-Anne’s fault either. But the gulf between lord and vassal was too wide. ‘Would you mind leaving me, Alan,’ said Robin. He sounded unbearably weary. ‘And tell the men that we will be departing in a week or so for Outremer and so they should prepare themselves. And tell Little John… oh, never mind, I’ll tell him in the morning. Good night.’ As I left, I saw him pick up the letter again and stare sightlessly at the thick vellum pages. I noticed that his hand was trembling slightly.
We left Messina ten days later: seventeen thousand five hundred soldiers and sailors of Richard’s grand army crammed into two hundred ships. Mategriffon had been carefully dismantled, piece by piece, and stored in one of the larger busses; the great destriers of the knights, held safely by two stout belly straps, had been lifted and swung out over the harbour by great cranes and lowered into their places in the larger transport vessels; and Berengaria of Navarre, accompanied by Richard’s sister Joanna, had been packed into a sumptuous but weatherly cog with all the comforts a mighty king could provide. With these noble ladies traveled one Arab slave girl, now a lady’s maid to Princess Berengaria, and to my mind a woman of such perfect beauty that she outshone any mortal woman alive. I had arranged Nur’s new position with Robin’s help, and a small gift of silver to Berengaria’s chamberlain, and I had never seen her so happy. ‘Alan,’ she said in her halting French as she kissed me on the dock, ‘you are a wonderful man, my saviour, my preux chevalier, and to reward you for being so kind and good, we shall do that thing again that you like so much, you know, with the leather belts and the honey
…’ I shushed her hurriedly and looked around the harbour, hoping that nobody had heard. Two yards behind me stood Little John who was organising the embarkation of our cavalry. He looked as if he had not heard a thing and I breathed a sigh of relief: too soon, of course. The moment Nur had left me to get into a skiff, he came a little closer: ‘Tell me Alan, what is the thing you like to do with the belts and the honey?’ he asked in a low, confidential tone.
I flushed a deep red. ‘It’s nothing, really,’ I mumbled, ‘in fact, I have no idea what she was talking about.’ My face was burning and I could not look him in the eye. ‘She’s a foreigner; she doesn’t understand what she is saying half the time.’ I tried a nonchalant shrug.
‘Really,’ said Little John. ‘Well, I’ll just ask her then.’ And before I could stop him, he cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed across the open water to the skiff that was carrying my beloved to her ship: ‘Nur, my darling,’ he yelled in a voice they could have heard across the strait in Italy. ‘Tell me: what does young Alan like to do in bed with the honey and the belts…?’ Half a dozen people turned around to stare at his booming voice, and I twisted fast as a greyhound and punched him as hard as I could in the belly.
In hindsight, I think the reason John folded up after my blow to his midriff had more to do with the fact that he was helpless with laughter than the strength of my punch. But, as I continued to hit him with my fists, getting in some quite decent blows to his face and body, he did manage to stop laughing long enough to grab me by the scruff of my neck and by my sword belts lift me furious and struggling off my feet and toss me into the dirty water of the harbour.
As the Santa Maria’s sail flapped and slowly filled, and the crew hauled on a cobweb of ropes to sharp whistles from the master of the vessel, I realised that I was very glad to be leaving Sicily. I had found love there, and happiness, it was true, but the air of surly menace from the defeated Griffons made me constantly uncomfortable — I never went anywhere unarmed — and the feeling of wasting time, while other Christians died for our cause in Outremer, was not a pleasant one. Also there was the problem of the assassin — I still had no idea who it might be, but I hoped that by leaving Sicily we were leaving him — or her — behind us. I felt hopeful and confident, now that we were now off again on the great adventure that I had long dreamed of. God would protect Robin, I was sure, now that we were engaged once again on this holy mission. We were heading for the Holy Land, at last, and with His help and guidance, we would soon bring the might of Richard’s immense army to bear on the Saracens. In a few months, perhaps, the holy city of Jerusalem would be free again and under good Christian rule…
On the third day out of Messina, near dusk, as the sun dipped low behind us and cast a sail-shaped shadow over the inky waves, a great storm came barrelling in from the south. The swell began to rise, causing the ship to twist and buck like a wild horse in its forward progress, the wind picked up, rattling the ropes and straining the old canvas sail almost to breaking point, and huge purple-black clouds came scudding across the grey sky — and with them came black rain, a torrent, lashing down like icy whips on to the surface of the water. Crouched under a piece of waxed canvas, at the prow of the Santa Maria, the world closed in around me. It was like being under a waterfall. The rain drummed madly on the canvas and the ship bucked and rolled beneath my cowering body; it seemed that God had unleashed his fury on the world, a cataclysm to rival Noah’s flood. Peering out from under the soaking cloth I could hardly see the next ship from me, a mere fifty yards away. The archers in the body of the Santa Maria were taking turns to bail water with their helmets but I could see that it was having little effect; for every capful of water the men threw overboard ten times as a much again and more crashed over the side as the waves pounded alarmingly against our frail craft. Soon we were alone in a roaring maelstrom of water and shrieking wind, with no other ships in sight, carried along by at unbelievable speed, dwarfed by mountainous seas, the soldier and sailors wailing, beseeching God to show us mercy but the sound coming through only in brief snatches between the smashing of the waves against the ship’s hull. I crossed myself and prepared as best I could for death, mumbling Ave Maria over and over through salt-wet lips, and I begged the Almighty in his infinite mercy to save the life of my beloved Nur, wherever she might be in this watery Hell, and if he had any spare mercy to save the lives of all the men, including mine, aboard this decrepit wooden shell that had been named in honour of the holy mother of His beloved son Jesus Christ.
All night long the storm raged, the ship tossed like a leaf in a hurricane, and I lost any sense of time passing: I crouched in wretchedness, holding tight to a wooden strut, soaking wet and freezing — my canvas
