was closed.
I was deliberately early for the dinner the next day and, finding a convenient corner in the luxurious dining hall, I sat and unobtrusively began to tune my vielle, and to think. My wrist was still not as supple as I would have liked, but it would suffice. I was very curious to see who Robin would be eating with that evening. I guessed Reuben would be a guest, as it was now clear why Reuben was so important for Robin’s plans in the Holy Land — plans that had not even the slightest connection with our avowed holy mission to rescue Jerusalem from the Saracens. Reuben was the key to Robin’s frankincense ploy because Reuben knew the trade, had worked on the camel trains, knew the right people for Robin to meet: I could now see clearly why Robin had sacrificed Ruth’s life in York, and saved Reuben’s, but the knowledge gave me no comfort. Robin had allowed a young girl to die to increase his chances of becoming wealthy. It was a chilling realisation, but somehow I was not as shocked as I should have been; it was more of a sinking feeling. I felt I was beginning to know the man that Robin truly was — not the shining, noble hero I had wished him to be, but a hard, ruthless man, who would do anything to protect himself and further his own cause. I also had the feeling that Robin had some other part of his frankincense plan that he was keeping to himself, and I dared not think what it might be.
I hadn’t had time to write any new pieces but Robin had given me to understand that I would just be playing soothing background music to entertain his guests, and possibly to prevent anyone from overhearing what was said. And so I merely ran through a few of Robin’s favourites by way of practice and waited for the guests to arrive.
The first to turn up was Reuben, looking lean and tired but in a new and expensively embroidered robe. I was glad that he had arrived first for there was something of great importance that I wanted to discuss with him: we spent a few minutes talking quietly in the music corner, and then, our mutual plans concluded, Reuben wandered away to find a servant and get himself something to drink. The next man to enter the hall was Robin’s guest, a thick-set man of medium height, whom I guessed was an Arab from his dark curly hair and intense eyes, but who wore Western-style tunic, hose and long sea-boots that came up to the top of his thighs. There was a definite salty air about him: from the way he rolled slightly as he walked, as if uncomfortable on dry land, to the heavy gold earrings in both ears, and the very business-like thick-bladed scimitar that rode on his hip. He ignored me, seated on my stool in the corner, but I was expecting to be invisible that evening. However, the Arab sailor did greet Reuben with a wary friendliness. Then Robin was in the room, accompanied by two archers who I knew slightly, and who were immediately banished to guard the door. He was dressed once again in the long Saracen robe, but was bareheaded and without the dye darkening his skin.
I began to play ‘My Joy Summons Me’, singing softly to accompany myself. And Robin looked over at me and smiled: ‘Play a little more loudly, Alan, if you would be so good. I don’t believe our guest will have heard this very pleasant tune.’
Obediently, I began to play and sing with more force, and as a result, try as I might, I could only hear snatches of the conversation during the long meal that followed. Reuben, Robin and the sea-going man, whose name I learnt was Aziz, sat on large cushions on the floor around a wide low table. Arab servants entered from time to time with dishes of unusual looking foods — tiny morsels of meat in delicate pastry, dishes of stewed mutton and chicken, bread made with honey and dates, and spiced glazed pears — and each time they did the three men broke off their conversations and waited in silence until the serving men had left and they were alone once again.
The first thing I heard, after a long, quiet speech from Aziz, was Robin saying sharply: ‘Refused my offer? What do you mean, they refused? Don’t they know a profitable deal when it’s handed to them on a plate?’ He must have heard a break in the rhythm of the piece I was playing as I strained to listen because he gave me a hard look and then lowered his voice to continue the conversation.
He forgot himself again, perhaps a quarter of an hour later, and I hear him say to Reuben just as I came to the end of a jolly canso: ‘… I don’t care if they have taken on extra protection, hired more armed men, I can still teach them a damned good lesson. I can still make them fear for their profits this year.’
Courses came, were eaten and cleared away; and the servants had just brought in a sherbert — a magnificent dish of mountain snow, lemon juice and sugar, which had my own mouth watering — when I just caught the end of something that Reuben was saying to Aziz. ‘… so you will agree to carry it for us to Messina, at the price we struck before; I take it then that you have no problem with that?’
The meal finally came to an end after a couple of hours. And my newly mended right wrist was stiff and sore by time the sailor rose to his feet, and bowed courteously to Robin. Whatever business they had been discussing, I got the impression it had been satisfactorily concluded for all parties.
Robin and Reuben also rose and bowed, and as the sailor was leaving, I heard him say, quite clearly, and it was the first time I had heard his voice: ‘Until the rising of the full moon, then,’ before he strode out of the dining hall, out of Robin’s palace and away into the night.
Two nights later, Reuben and I stood behind a small door in the top room of a half-abandoned tower in the eastern part of Acre, near the royal apartments. It was as dark as a witch’s soul, only a dim light seeping in from a small arched window on the other side of the room, and I could only just make out the shape of my friend on the other side of the doorway, as he stood with his back to the cool stone, a foot-long freshly sharpened blade in his hand. I, too, had had my poniard sharpened, but it was sheathed, for although this was work for short blades, I needed both hands free. We had been waiting in silence for more than an hour, ears straining for the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside the door.
Looking at the grey arched shape of the window in the blackness, I imagined that I could make out the faint outline on the sill of the thick rope that we had tied there when we first arrived in this room. It was our escape route; the knotted rope hung out of the window and dangled forty foot down to the stone flags of a small courtyard below, where our two horses were tied to an iron ring fixed to the wall. I was nervous; this was not battle, this was a murder we were planning; a cold-blooded execution. Our intended victim? Sir Richard Malbete, of course: a man who richly deserved to die, but Yet… Yet, in all honesty, I would have preferred to face him in open battle, rather than cutting him down like a thief in the dark.
Having said all that, having made my excuses, the plan was mine. And the key to it was my servant William. I had hesitated before involving him in a foul deed like this, unsure of whether he would be willing to help me commit murder and, worse, be willing to risk the wrath of Malbete — not to mention the King’s fury — if we failed. But when I told him that it was the Beast who had shot me with the crossbow in Cyprus, he was more than eager to help me take my revenge — he actually begged to be a part of it.
The plan rested on the King’s new fondness for Malbete, and Malbete’s desire to gain favour with his sovereign, and I had devised it when I came across a pile of the gorgeous tabards worn by the royal pages, which were awaiting a wash in the great steam-filled courtyard, draped with dripping sheets, where the serving maids did the royal laundry. I had been to visit Elise in the serving women’s quarters, because I had one very important question to ask her concerning Robin’s would-be murderer, and having had a satisfactory reply, I just happened to be passing the laundry when the mound of gorgeous red and gold cloth caught my eye. The plan came to me, fully formed, in a flash of inspiration, and after a quick check to see that nobody was watching, I stuffed a tabard inside my tunic — once a thief, always a thief, I muttered to myself — and sauntered away, buzzing with the excitement of a dangerous venture begun.
I had secured Reuben’s enthusiastic participation on the night of the secret dinner with the sailor Aziz, and two days later, William, dressed in a gorgeous red tabard embroidered with the lions of England, ventured into the Beast’s lair.
Sir Richard Malbete had occupied a small, richly furnished two-story house in the southern side of Acre, near the smaller harbour. It was a house of ill-repute, a brothel. He occupied it with a dozen or so of his men-at- arms, many bearing the marks of battle. They had been at the forefront of the attacks on Acre and had suffered many casualties in the terrible fighting before the city surrendered. They were lounging around the house’s central courtyard, drinking wine, fondling the women, a gaggle of sloe-eyed beauties, William told me later, when my servant dressed as a royal messenger walked unannounced into their presence. The men-at-arms sat up, straightened their dress, dismissed the women and Sir Richard Malbete was summoned from inside. William said that, despite the hazardous nature of his mission, he had to master an overwhelming urge to laugh when he gave Malbete the message, which purported to come from the King. The message was simple: that the King desired to
