King's Man (20 page)

I had the misericorde in my left hand and the vielle in my right when he attacked again; a scything diagonal back-hand cut with the long sword aimed at my head and coming fast from my right-hand side. I swept up the vielle and the sword crunched into it, leaving me unharmed but with a tangle of splinters and kindling, held together with five cat-gut strings in my hand. I dodged the next blow, and hopped over a slash at my ankles, trying to get in close to use the misericorde – all the while, my brain yelling its inchoate warning – and as he was turning after his low sweep, I jumped forward, jabbed at him with the misericorde – a feint – and swung the wrecked vielle at his head. He avoided the blade with a neat half-turn but the rump of the smashed instrument pivoted around the back of his head, wrapping the cat-gut strings around his throat.
Then I pulled. He dropped that wonderful sword and turned away, both his thin white hands flying to his neck to loosen the strangling cat-gut. I dropped the misericorde in turn, and leapt on his back, using my weight to drive him to the ground, my hands scrabbling for the cat-gut, wrenching it tight, the vielle strings cutting deeply into his long throat. I hauled for my life, with one hand on the neck of the instrument and one on the wreckage of the bridge. He gurgled wetly, his eyes bulged, his tongue protruded like some evil purple sausage as his body kicked and writhed under mine. I knew he was dying; all I had to do was hold on and pull the vielle strings tighter and tighter …

And then something exploded in the side of my chest, I heard the crack of bone as my body flew off the supine swordsman and flipped over. As I lay on my back, the cat-gut still in my grasp, still around the thin man’s neck, I saw a giant form, round as a glacial boulder, barely human, looming above me. I knew that I had been kicked in the ribs as I had never been kicked before; it felt like a hoof-blow from a fear-maddened stallion. I also knew what my brain had been screaming at me as I fought the swordsman: Where is his friend? Where is his giant, muscle-bound companion from the fireside? I knew now.

The ogre – for there was no way on God’s green earth that this monstrous fellow could have been wholly human – raised a gigantic foot, ready to stamp on my two wrists which were still half-hauling on the cat-gut and strangling the life out of the tall man. Hurriedly releasing the vielle strings, I pulled in my arms just as his foot came stamping down on the place where they had been moments before – and I swear I felt the earth
shudder with the impact of his boot. I rolled away from the pair of them: the thin one, now kneeling and coughing and groping for his sword, and then rising, impossibly quickly, shining blade in hand; and the ogre, striding towards me with an insane gleam in his piggy little eyes. He appeared to be unarmed but, seeing his massive ham-like hands clenching and unclenching in front of him as he advanced on me, I knew that if I allowed myself to be caught by them, I was a dead man. My misericorde was gone, lost in the struggle, and I am ashamed to say that I did not hesitate for an instant. I turned and ran, as swiftly as I could with my damaged ribs. I ran like a craven hare into the trees behind me.

With a sword in my hand I fear no man; but unarmed against a first-class swordsman and a monstrous creature from some feverish nightmare … Anyway, enough of my poor excuses, I fled. I ran for my life. The ogre lumbered after me for twenty yards or so, panting and growling behind me like a bear, but my pain and fear drove me onwards and I soon lost him in the thick cover of the wood. As I ran, I could hear the shouts in German from a couple of men-at-arms on the walls. And above their harsh cries, I could make out the calls of my King in good, clean French, demanding to know what had happened beneath his prison tower. But he received no response from his loyal subject below. I needed all my wind just to run.

My ribs were giving me a deal of trouble. So much so that I found I could not climb the knotted rope that was still hanging down the side of the wall when I reached Tuckelhausen half an hour later. I called softly for Hanno, but received no response. Doubtless my friend was sleeping soundly in the soft
hay. I was reduced to tossing stones through the hole in the roof, hoping that the noise of their rattling on the tiles or landing inside the stable would wake my friend. Fortunately it worked and I soon saw his round, shaven head poking out of the hole in the tiled roof.

Hanno managed to haul me up without too much difficulty, and not half an hour later I found myself gulping from a flask of wine, and wiping the greasy soot from my face as I told my friend the news and he strapped up my battered side tightly with long strips of linen.

He was overjoyed to hear that we had successfully located King Richard, but alarmed by the attack on me by the two mismatched assassins.

‘Who are they, Alan, and why do they want to kill you?’ he asked with a puzzled frown. ‘If they are in the service of Duke Leopold or the Emperor Henry, they must surely arrest you and you are then hanged in the square as a spy. What does this mean?’

‘They are Prince John’s men,’ I told him, and explained that I had seen them before, outside Kirkton, bringing a message from Prince John to Sir Ralph Murdac.

‘Ach so, but why do they want to kill you?’ asked my friend. He was a master of stealthy movement, was Hanno, in daylight and darkness; he could hunt and track animals and men better than any other fellow I ever knew. But he was not swift of thought when it came to the dark motives of princes.

‘Prince John does not wish Richard’s whereabouts to be known to the world,’ I said, trying to explain it as simply as possible for Hanno’s benefit. ‘The Prince must have spies in Westminster. When they told him that we were setting off on
this mission to find Richard, he gave this unlovely pair of killers the task of making sure we did not find him. If we were to quietly disappear on this journey – both of us and perhaps the monks and abbots, too – who would know about it? It might be weeks, even months, before another diplomatic party was dispatched to try to find our King. And that delay would give Prince John more than ample time to make an arrangement with Leopold.’

‘Do they attack us again?’ asked Hanno.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, although I was very far from sure. ‘But we must be on our guard, and the sooner we get the abbots to Ochsenfurt, into the presence of the King and registered as an official English embassy, the better.’

So, the next morning, an hour or so before noon, I stood once more before the gate of the barbican, at the north-western corner of the town of Ochsenfurt, while Hanno bawled up at the guards a translation of our names and rank and the purpose of our visit. It felt very different from the last time I had been before this portal only hours previously. The abbots and I were dressed in our finest clothes; clean white woollen robes for the clergymen and tall staffs topped with golden crosses, and a scarlet tunic embroidered with silver thread for me, topped by a fine new grey woollen hat. I did my best to look lordly as Hanno bellowed that we had come to pay our respects to Duke Leopold of Austria and to pay a visit to his illustrious prisoner King Richard the Lionheart of England.

The wooden iron-studded gate swung slowly open and we were ushered into Ochsenfurt by a squad of ten mail-clad menat-arms, each armed with spear and sword and proudly bearing
the symbol of a red ox, the town’s badge, on the chests of their snow-white surcoats. We were escorted through the narrow streets into the centre of town to the antechamber of a great hall, where we were offered refreshments – politely declined – before being shown into the great hall itself and the presence of Duke Leopold, loyal vassal of the Emperor Henry, ruler of much of the southern German lands, former pilgrim – and the mortal enemy of our good King Richard.

Leopold was a tall, dark, hawk-faced man, with eyes that seemed to glitter like black gems. He listened attentively to our speech, delivered in elegant Latin by Abbot Boxley, the Duke nodding and smiling occasionally, and then we all waited while a fat priest in a fur-trimmed robe translated it into German for him.

He spoke for a while in his native tongue, seemingly welcoming us to his lands, and then beside me I heard Hanno make a sharp intake of breath. The fat priest then translated.

‘My noble lords,’ said the cleric in strongly accented Latin, ‘the Duke bids you welcome to his hall and to this his fiefdom. If it pleases you, you may stay as long as you wish in the Duke’s dominions, under his protection, and rest your bones after your long journey. His Grace is pleased to have the company of such a distinguished group of pilgrims, and he feels that you will do honour to his household by your presence,’ the priest went on, ‘but …’ Here the fat man paused and gulped. ‘But his Grace fears that you are labouring under a misapprehension. His Grace has no knowledge of the King of England, and is certain that the noble Richard the Lionheart is not at this time within the confines of the town of Ochsenfurt.’

We were stunned into silence by this outright lie.

Robertsbridge began to speak, shooting little angry glances at me between phrases: ‘Your Grace, we have it on good authority’ – he turned his head and glared at me – ‘we have had some indications, rather, that King Richard may be a prisoner here within these walls, awaiting ransom by his loyal friends.’

The priest translated, and the Duke replied through him. ‘You are mistaken. The illustrious King of England is not here. I am afraid you may have been the victims of a practical joke; perhaps an amusing schoolboy’s prank. I can assure you, on my honour, that your King is not here.’

Chapter Ten

The abbots were angry, furious even, and Robertsbridge even accused me of making the whole story up, or of dreaming it in a drunken stupor. Icily I informed them that my cracked ribs were quite real, they were paining me considerably that morning, and I would stand by everything I had told them about my adventures last night. Then I demanded, through Hanno, that the Ochsenfurt men-at-arms take us to the third tower on the south-eastern corner of the town. Immediately.

Incredibly, they obeyed my orders. As we climbed the narrow spiral staircase, the whole troop of us, the four monks and the two abbots puffing and panting in my wake, I knew with a sense of gloomy certainty that the room at the top would be empty. And so it was.

It was a high, circular room with few furnishings: a narrow cot, a table and stool. Nothing else. The stout door, I had noticed on the way in, was bolted on the outside rather than
from within the room. The wooden floor was slightly damp, and there was not a trace of dust anywhere. Strangely, perhaps, I was cheered by this: the room had been cleaned only this morning, and the floor had been thoroughly washed. And although I knew I had not been dreaming my encounter with Richard the night before, it was pleasing to have such proof, if you can call a damp floor proof. Someone, without a doubt our good King Richard, had been incarcerated in this high room until a few hours ago, and since then someone else had made efforts to erase all trace of his presence here.

When I explained this to the abbots, they seemed unconvinced. But they did not go so far as to call me a liar to my face. We all trooped down the stairs, and were escorted by the Ochsenfurt men-at-arms to our quarters, a large two-storey timbered townhouse opposite the church of St Michael, in the centre of town, which had been set aside for the use of high-ranking travellers.

We gathered gloomily at the long wooden table in the parlour and while the young monks bustled about bringing us bread and cheese and wine from the well-stocked pantry, I brooded on what we were to do next.

Suddenly I looked up from my cup of wine, and asked: ‘Where is Hanno?’

Nobody seemed to know. I could not remember having seen him since we had left the great hall and the audience with Duke Leopold. He had translated my demand for the Ochsenfurt men-at-arms to take us to the tower, but no one knew what had become of him after that. I was not overly concerned, however, despite the threat of the two assassins. I knew that my wily hunter friend could take care of himself. He had
probably just wanted a little liberty to explore Ochsenfurt, drink some of the local ale, and talk his own language for a few hours.

We did not need Hanno for our discussions. Indeed, there seemed little to discuss; we found ourselves completely at a loss as to how to proceed. Robertsbridge was all for returning to the Duke and threatening him with excommunication if he did not reveal Richard’s whereabouts. Boxley, I believe, just wanted to go home. For myself, the prospect of returning to Queen Eleanor with the news that I had sung merrily with her son but had not been allowed to speak to him and had been turned away with an obvious lie was unthinkable. I argued that, since his two hired killers were in the vicinity of Ochsenfurt, it was fair to assume that Prince John was in touch with Duke Leopold over the matter of Richard’s ransom. This was bad news, as was the Duke’s refusal to acknowledge that Richard was in his custody. We could only assume that Leopold planned to hand over our King, either to Prince John or to King Philip of France. Helpless to prevent this from happening, our best hope was to remain in Ochsenfurt until the Duke tried to move Richard, at which point it might prove easier to establish contact with him.

The abbots and I were still sitting despondently in the parlour, sipping wine and racking our brains while the day quietly slipped away, when the door crashed open and Hanno came staggering into the room. He was very drunk.

‘I fin’ ’im,’ slurred my Bavarian bodyguard, a thick waft of strong ale billowing out with his breath.

‘You are inebriated, man,’ snapped Robertsbridge. ‘Go to bed and trouble us no more. We have important matters to attend to here.’

‘I find King Richard,’ Hanno said, making an effort to speak our language more clearly. ‘I find your lost lord. Come, I take you to him.’

We hurried out into the street where Hanno introduced us to Peter, a burly man-at-arms in the Ochsenfurt surcoat, who beamed at us with a face as red as the ox device on his chest. He was even drunker than Hanno. He was also, we soon discovered, King Richard’s gaoler.