whispered and then he died.
Chapter Two
The dead man was a nobody — an archer named Lloyd ap Gryffudd, one of scores of men recently hired by Tuck from south Wales. He was an experienced man with a bow and, as far as anyone knew, a trustworthy soldier — so Owain, the captain of Robin’s bowmen, told me. It was clear that Owain felt somehow responsible that one of his men should have tried to attack Robin; he was visibly upset as we spoke later that night over a cup of wine, which I badly needed.
The household was quiet once again after the uproar. The servants had carried out the body and cleaned up the blood, and the grizzled Welsh bowman and I were chewing over the attack at the long table in the hall.
‘He must have been drunk, Alan, or just plain mad,’ said Owain. ‘He would never have been able to get away with it. He’d have been ripped apart by the men before he got a hundred yards. They love Robin, you know, absolutely bloody worship him.’
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ I said. ‘It was risky, yes, but everyone in the hall was asleep and he might well have been able to kill Robin and Marie-Anne and get away out of the window before anyone noticed. There was a saddled horse ready in the stables and, in the confusion after an event like that, Robin dead, the whole castle raising a hullabaloo — well, I think he would have had a good chance of escape. And I don’t think he was mad. I just think there was great pressure used — money or threats, or both — to force him to make the attempt.’
Owain looked even gloomier. ‘I’ll make some enquires in the morning,’ he said. ‘What do you think Robin will say when he gets back?’
‘He’s not going to be happy,’ I said. And I rose from the table, leaving Owain staring into his wine cup, and took my exhausted body to my blankets by the fire. Although I knew it was ridiculous, and that nobody wanted to kill me, I lay for the rest of the night with my unsheathed poniard in my hand. And weary as I was, with the comforting feel of a foot-long razor-sharp Spanish dagger in my fist, I slept like a babe.
Robin returned the next morning, another glorious sunny spring day, with his pregnant wife Marie-Anne. She was huge, flushed and riding like a queen in a great chair lashed to a donkey cart, surrounded by her ladies in waiting. I waved at one familiar face in her entourage, my little friend Godifa, and received a shy smile in return. Then I turned to greet Robin, and quickly apprised him of the events of last night. My lord seemed genuinely impressed that I had killed the would-be assassin singlehanded.
‘He came at you with a drawn sword, in the dark, while you were fast asleep, and you managed to swiftly dispatch him with, what, a nail-paring knife?’ he said as we walked out of the bright sunlight of the courtyard and into the dimness of the hall. It was strange to hear him pay me a real compliment without teasing me.
‘It was a fruit knife, actually,’ I said.
Robin waved my correction away. ‘I always knew that you could weave a good heroic chanson, Alan, I didn’t realise that you wanted to be the hero in these tales, as well.’ He grinned at me. The mockery was back in his voice.
‘Well, since I was asleep on your bed, and as a result was mistaken for you, my lord, I felt that a little heroic behaviour was expected of me.’
Robin laughed. ‘Your flattery is shameless. You know better than anyone how far I am from being a hero.’
‘All those excellent songs say that you are, my lord, and so it must be true,’ I said with a grin.
He gave a snort of laughter and then abruptly stopped smiling and drew me over to the long table in the hall, where we both sat down. Playtime was over. ‘So tell me,’ he said, all seriousness, ‘who was he, and why was he trying to chop me into cutlets?’
‘There is a very large price on your head,’ I told him soberly, ‘very large indeed.’ I paused. ‘It is a hundred pounds of weight in pure German silver, and it is being offered by our old friend Sir Ralph Murdac.’
There was a long silence at the table while Robin stared at me, his bright grey eyes boring into mine. It was a staggering amount to offer for one life, more than enough to allow a man to live in comfort for his whole span on Earth and still to have a large inheritance for his sons and a fat dowry for his daughters. It was more than the whole manor of Westbury was worth.
‘So the little viper has come out of his hole,’ said Robin. ‘Go and get Little John, Owain, Sir James and Tuck, then you’d better tell us all the whole story.’ I stood up and handed Robin the letter from the King, which had been burning a hole in the breast of my tunic all morning. He broke the royal seal on the parchment and began reading while I went to pass the word for his closest lieutenants.
While we waited in silence for Robin’s top men to assemble, I noticed Robin looking at me curiously.
‘What on earth are you wearing on your head?’ he asked. ‘You look like a procurer of loose women.’
I bridled a little; I was wearing a new sky blue hood that I had bought in London. It was made from the finest wool, soft as a baby’s cheek; it was embroidered with tiny flakes of gold in the shape of diamonds, red woollen stars and had a long plump tail that dangled over my shoulder like a pet snake. It was the height of city sophistication, the smart London hood-maker had assured me, and I treasured it. I didn’t deign to reply to Robin’s question and ten minutes later, Little John, Sir James de Brus, Owain the bowman, Robin and I were sitting at the long table, with mugs of ale in our hands. ‘Tuck is in the churchyard, burying the dead fellow,’ John said. Robin nodded and said nothing. He visited the little church of St Nicholas, at the southeastern foot of the castle, only when it was absolutely necessary, when not to go would be very strange. And I knew why: in his heart, Robin was no Christian. A brutal priest who tormented him while he was growing up had given him a deep hatred for Mother Church, and though he was bound by solemn promises to go on this Great Pilgrimage, he had no room in his soul for Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. As shocking, as downright evil as this must seem to you, the reader of this parchment, for some strange reason Robin’s men accepted his lack of faith. Or pretended to be ignorant of it. They loved him and followed him despite the fact that he was clearly a damned soul.
‘By the Baptist’s bleeding bunions, that was good work last night, youngster,’ said Little John, jerking my thoughts back to the present. ‘I couldn’t have done it better myself.’ I’m ashamed to say that I blushed at that point and could find nothing to say. May the Lord forgive my pride, but I knew I had behaved well. Unlike Robin, John rarely gave out compliments and, as he was Robin’s master-of-arms, and my combat-teacher, his praise meant a great deal to me.
‘Come on, Alan, enough dramatic silence. You aren’t performing a chanson now. Tell us about the murderous plots of Sir Ralph Murdac,’ said Robin, fixing me sternly with his gaze. ‘I thought he was still hiding up in the gloomy wilds of Scotland, no offence, Sir James.’ The Scotsman scowled but said nothing.
Until a few days ago, I had thought Murdac was in Scotland, too. After the battle of Linden Lea, in which Robin had defeated Murdac’s forces, the evil little man had fled to the safety of relatives north of the border. As well as escaping from Robin’s vengeance, Murdac believed that King Richard was seeking to bring him to account for a large quantity of tax silver that the erstwhile High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire had raised, ostensibly for the expedition to Outremer. Instead of passing it on to the Royal treasury, Murdac had kept the money he had squeezed from the peasants to himself, and his guilty conscience had caused him to flee from Richard’s wrath. Clearly he still had a large amount of silver left, otherwise he could not afford to offer a hundred pounds of the precious metal for Robin’s life.
‘Well, he’s back,’ I said, ‘and he’s after your heart’s blood.’ And I settled down and began to tell my tale: ‘I had completed our business in Winchester, Oxford and London,’ I said. ‘And all had gone smoothly, so I rode north to Nottingham to deliver your gifts to Prince John…’
King Richard’s younger brother had prospered since his father’s death, being showered with lands and titles by his older sibling — already Lord of Ireland, he had been given the counties of Derby and Nottingham and made master of Lancaster, Gloucester and Marlborough and wide lands in Wales. The Prince received me in the great hall at the royal castle of Nottingham, but without much royal grace. I was very tired from travelling, soaked through from a cloud-burst, and much splashed by road-mud, but Prince John insisted on seeing me immediately. And I could do nothing but obey. He had been told that I carried a gift for him and, like a greedy child, he wanted it
