was declaring that, blood or no blood, they were his family, their honour was his honour, and he would fight to the last to defend it.
‘So I’m going home,’ Robin repeated. ‘The King is content to let me go; wants me to do him a small service in England and to keep an eye on his brother John, who is being a nuisance, apparently. The official excuse for my departure is my wound,’ and he tapped his bandaged leg, ‘but the thing is, I have done what I set out to do here; King Richard has won his battle; and it’s time to quit this God-cursed place and get back to the green dales of home. My question is — are you going to come with me?’
I was completely taken aback. He had never asked me whether I would follow him before. It had always been taken for granted. I moved my mouth soundlessly a couple of times and then Reuben said kindly: ‘We have heard that the King has offered you a position in his household; and we know that you have not been happy with Robin since…’
I was even more surprised that Reuben’s intelligence was so good. I had only been told about the King’s golden offer a mere hour before. But then Ambroise had never been particularly closed-mouthed about anything.
‘If you wish to leave me and join the King, with great regret, I will release you from my service — and give you my blessing,’ said Robin. And he gave me a sad smile, his eyes glowing with a silvery light.
I swallowed. On the one hand, a knighthood, a well-paid post as musician to the most noble monarch in Christendom, the chance to complete our task here, to free Jerusalem, the holiest city in the world, from the clutches of the Saracens; and, on the other hand, continued service to a man who seemed to have no concept of proper morality, who obeyed no civilized laws, and who would happily murder innocent Christian men, women and children for his own profit.
There was absolutely no question in my mind as to what I would do.
‘Long ago,’ I said, my tongue thick in my mouth, ‘I swore an oath to you, sir; I swore that I would be loyal until death. I have spilt much blood for that oath, too much blood — but I shall never break it. Let us go home.’
And Robin smiled.
Epilogue
When Dickon came to see me the next morning at the hall in Westbury, I had seated myself in a high wooden chair, with my naked sword across my knees. He looked very old standing there in front of me: his thin face had a yellowish tinge from drink, what little hair he had left was milk-white; the empty sleeve added to his forlorn air.
I sat there in silence for a long while, just glaring at him, while he shuffled his feet and began to look more and more uncomfortable. Then he spoke: ‘You called for me to see you, sir,’ he said in a wavering, frightened voice.
I let his words hang in the air for a few moments and then said: ‘Tell me, Dickon, how did you lose your arm?’
He was taken aback by my question. ‘But, sir, you know full well yourself,’ he said. ‘You were there with me at Arsuf. You know that I lost it to one of those dirty heathens with a great big curvy sword. Surely you remember!’
I did remember. I remembered Dickon as a bright-eyed young archer, not much older than me, a rare Englishman in those ranks of tough Welsh boys. I remember him taking his wound, a scimitar cut, in the fight with the Berber horsemen, and his cheerfulness afterwards, in spite of the pain, when I visited the wounded the day after the battle and brought food and water to them.
‘You served with Robin Hood, then; before he was made Earl, in Sherwood?’ I said.
‘Yes, sir, as did you.’ Dickon was now completely confused. I could see that he was wondering whether old age had stolen my mind.
‘What would Robin do to an outlaw who stole from him?’ I asked quietly. And suddenly, all the blood drained from Dickon’s face as he was transported back more than forty years to the wild days in the forest when my master ruled his men by naked terror.
‘I was trained by Robin — he taught me much about crime and its suitable punishment,’ I said, my voice as menacing as I could make it. Then I stood up, hefted my sword and walked over to Dickon. He fell to his knees, trying to beg for mercy but his mouth was too dry to allow him to speak. I put the sword tip against the stringy bicep of his one remaining arm, resting the sharp point gently against it.
‘Believe me when I say this to you, Dickon,’ I continued. The poor man kept glancing down at the sword and then up again to my face. ‘If you steal from me again, if you take from me so much as a crust of dry bread, I will hack off that one remaining arm and feed it to my pigs. Do you hear me?’
Dickon nodded. He was actually trembling with fear.
‘But, like our old master Robin, I do not care much for courts of law, and so I will not prosecute you in the manor court, nor the King’s court for the theft of my piglets; but I will fine you a shilling to recompense me for my loss. This is my judgment as the lord of this manor, and this is also the agreement between us as former comrades. Do you swear to abide by it?’
He licked his lips and croaked: ‘I swear it.’
‘Very well then, you may go.’ And I watched him lurch to his feet and stumble out of the hall door.
I knew that Marie would be angry that I had let him off with a small fine; and Osric would be very puzzled. But, my master Robin, although now rotting in his grave, would have approved. Dickon had fought bravely with me in the Holy Land; he had suffered with me there, and for forty years after he took his wound he had faithfully tended my pigs here at Westbury, year in, year out, rain or shine. I would never have seen him hanged for a piglet or two; and neither would Robin.
It is simply a matter of loyalty.
Historical note
The idea that Robin Hood should become a crusader might seem a perverse one, but it made perfect sense to me that an illustrious nobleman, a powerful member of the Anglo-Norman fighting caste, should be involved in the one of the greatest bellicose movements of his times — willingly or otherwise. England was gripped by a frenzy of religious fervour before and after King Richard’s departure on the Great Pilgrimage, as the Third Crusade was referred to then, and tens of thousands of knights from the Pennines to the Pyrenees, from Brittany to Bavaria, were prepared to risk their lives, their wealth and the security of their families to take part what must have seemed to them a great and holy adventure. I think it would have been a little bizarre if my fictional Earl of Locksley had not taken part in some way.
It was this religious hysteria that was the main cause of the shameful and sickening events in York of mid- March 1190. A crowd of armed townsmen, whipped up by a mysterious white-robed monk preaching hatred of the Jews, besieged about a hundred and fifty Jewish men, women and children, who had fled to the King’s Tower of York Castle (now called Clifford’s Tower) for sanctuary.
After several days of siege fighting, when it became clear that they could not safely surrender to Sir John Marshal, the Sheriff of Yorkshire, the Jews, led by Josce of York and Rabbi Yomtob, chose death at their own hands on Saturday March 16 ^ th rather than the prospect of being torn apart by a mob of blood-drunk Christians. For an academic but deeply moving account of this appalling event, read The Jews of Medieval York and the Massacre of March 1190 by R. B. Dobson (University of York).
The faith-crazed townsmen of York were led by, among others, a knight called Sir Richard Malebisse. And while my fictional villain Sir Richard Malbete is obviously based on him, it is important to be clear that they are not the same person. Malebisse was not killed during the Third Crusade and, although disgraced in 1190 by the massacre in York, he returned to prominence after Richard’s death in the reign of King John. He is recorded as
