King's Man (24 page)

I stared up at the starry sky and the bright full moon that hung like a fresh cheese above the rooftops. I hummed a little music to myself while I waited for Sir Nicholas to finish his business; my head was light but I was enjoying the feel of the cool air on my face. A beautiful night …

And I became aware that I was not alone. I could see perhaps a dozen figures, moving purposefully out of the gloom from the far side of the street, twenty yards away, grey shapes against the blackness, and the cold wink of steel blades in the moonlight.

As fortune would have it, though I had no more protection for my body than a tunic and short cloak, I was wearing my sword. In one smooth movement I drew my weapon and prepared to sell my life as dearly as possible.
At these odds
, I just had time to think,
I am a dead man
.

A snake of ice slithered in my belly and I realized that I was afraid. The dark mob were now advancing swiftly. They came at me without a sound, spreading out into a semi-circle to envelop me, surround me and cut me down, but I was already moving to the left, keeping my back to the wall of the tavern and forcing the oncoming men to crowd each other and change the shape of their attack. I counted eleven of them and then gave up, but I could see that they were far too many to fight one man with any efficiency – but who needed efficiency? Even if I managed to down three or four of them, they had no lack of men to take their places.

In the middle of the crowd, clearly visible in the light from the full moon, I could make out the looming form of Tom, the man I had fought on my last visit to this God-cursed drinking den. He had evidently neither forgotten nor forgiven our bout. No words were spoken, and none needed to be said. It was clear
Tom wanted revenge for the thrashing I’d handed him – and this time he’d brought a sword and all his friends to the party.

I took a pace forward and took up the high guard position, my long blade held in my right hand vertically, the hilt in front of my face, the point lancing towards the star-speckled sky; I had the misericorde held low and to the side in my left hand. Then I waited for their attack.

It was Tom who began this deadly dance, with a mighty over-hand hack at my head; this served as the signal for all his confederates to pile in. I blocked Tom’s cut with a semi-circular sweep of my sword, knocking his blade down and away, and I would have followed on with a hard thrust from the misericorde, but a man to my left swung an axe at my legs and I had to jump to save my ankles – and from then on it was sheer bloody mayhem. Blades were slicing, cutting, spearing at me from three sides, and I was moving as fast as I could, blocking, dodging, parrying, striking out wildly just to stay alive. I took a knife cut to my unprotected ribs, on the cracked left side, but managed to drop one man with a dagger-punch to the belly, and, as he wheeled away screaming, I took the hand of another man, hacking it clean off at the wrist with my sword. But I was deeply in trouble – and I knew it.

A blade probed out of nowhere and burned along my jaw before I could block it, and I wondered how much longer I could keep the mob at bay. My face was bloody and my side torn, and I could see the rest of my life as being measured in less time than it takes a leaf to fall. At that moment, as I ducked a swinging sword, I caught a glimpse of a snarling face above a dark surcoat and a whirling silver blade: Sir Nicholas was charging into the fray from my right.

My friend made no sound but for the wet smack of his sword
chopping a way into the throng of men around me. His first strike lopped a man’s head off, and then he was carving his way towards me leaving screaming mutilated men in his wake. Slice, lunge, sweep, parry, lunge. It was an awesome sight, and a part of me just wanted to stand and admire the former Hospitaller’s formidable battle skills as he hacked with pitiless efficiency through the mob. He dispatched one assailant with a dancer’s grace, thrusting his sword through the man’s belly, immediately pulling out the blade and cutting the legs from beneath another. Somehow I came out of my reverie in time to block a savage sword swipe from big Tom. But this time I managed to slam the point of the misericorde into his upper thigh, following up with a lateral sword chop to his waist that dropped him to the ground – and then they were all running. Well, those who were able to run. Half a dozen bodies littered the mud- and blood-churned street, including the groaning form of Tom, who was trying to rise on his injured leg.

Sir Nicholas rested the point of his sword on the ground and leaned on it for a moment. His breathing was deep and unhurried. I stepped to where Tom knelt and kicked him over on to his back. Booting his weapon out of reach, I put my knee and my full weight on his chest, and the point of the misericorde under his chin. ‘Who sent you?’ I demanded, hot blood running down my jaw and dripping on to his dirty upturned face. ‘Who ordered you to kill me?’

‘God damn you!’ he said, glaring at me with huge, pain-filled eyes, and spat at me. As I leaned back to wipe the gob of spittle from my cheek, a sword tip out of nowhere speared down past my chest, and sliced into his neck, cutting the artery there and spraying me with gore. Tom clutched at his red, wet
neck with both hands, and in the few moments it took me to pull back out of reach of the spatter and sheathe my misericorde, he fell still – silenced for ever.

I turned and looked up the length of the blade at Sir Nicholas, a question in my eyes.

‘That was for his insolence,’ said my knightly friend. ‘He spat upon you, he defiled you – and I could never allow a churl such as this to show disrespect to a man who fought so well for Christendom.’

I said nothing for a moment, for my emotions were mixed. I was disappointed that we would not now be able to get any information from Tom, and yet I owed my life to this slight, deadly man standing above me. Had he not come to my rescue, I would be as dead as the big man now lying before me in a lake of his own precious life fluid. So I rose painfully to my feet, mopped the running blood from my face with my sleeve, and thanked Sir Nicholas from the bottom of my heart for coming to my aid.

‘It was nothing, my friend,’ he said. ‘If I had not drunk so much wine, I would have been faster. Are you hurt?’

My wounds, thankfully, were not serious. The cut in my left side, slicing straight through the big purple-yellow bruise from where the ogre had kicked me, was shallow and only three inches long. Hanno would stitch it for me in the morning. Sir Nicholas, having studied my jawbone, told me I needn’t worry about the copious bleeding. Then he slapped me on the back and said that I would have a fine scar to remember the fight by. In truth, I have always been watched over by God and the saints in battle – either that or you could say that I had the Devil’s own luck.

And so Sir Nicholas and I, leaving seven dead bodies lying in the street for the local watchmen to find and bury, or the wandering street pigs to eat – I cared not – walked back to Westminster Hall to seek out our pallets.

At noon the next day Hanno and I set off towards Nottingham and Prince John. We had travelled only as far as Charing when we saw a horse-borne party trotting towards us. As they drew closer, I saw with a sinking feeling that it was Marie-Anne, accompanied by another woman, a priest, and a dozen men-at-arms in Queen Eleanor’s red-and-gold livery. The street was narrow at this point, so Hanno and I directed our horses over to the side to allow the party to pass. I said no words of greeting; indeed, I looked down at Ghost’s grey neck hoping that I would not catch the eye of Robin’s countess and only peeped at them out of the side of my eye.

I need not have worried. Marie-Anne, looking almost regal in her haughtiness, walked her horse past mine, head high, eyes looking straight ahead, without even giving me the merest glance. The woman riding beside her was Godifa, and I could not help but notice that she was looking spectacularly beautiful. Her hair beneath a simple pure white headdress shone like gold, her neck was long and slender and she held her chin high, which brought out the line of her jaw and elegant cheekbones. She did not vouchsafe me the slightest look either. But the priest – it was Tuck, of course – hauled back on the reins as he came close, halting his mount and hailing me cheerfully. The men-at-arms riding behind him were forced to steer their mounts around the stationary priest in order to keep up with their female charges.

‘Alan,’ Tuck yelled, although we were only a few yards apart. ‘Well met. You are back from the German lands, I see. And I hear your mission was successful. Well done! You have served the King well. But what has happened to your face?’

I lifted a hand to the freshly sewn cut on my jaw and was about to answer my old friend when I was interrupted by the Countess of Locksley. She did not speak to me, but rather called back over the rump of her horse to her confessor.

‘Father Tuck,’ she said, in a high imperious voice, ‘do not dawdle and pass the time of day with street scum and traitors. You will attend to me. Come up here, ride next to me this instant.’

Tuck shrugged, half-smiled an apology, his round face screwed up with unhappiness, but he did as he was ordered and spurred his horse to catch up with his mistress.

Hanno and I turned in our saddles to watch the party ride south towards Westminster. I was about to make some light remark to him when the right-hand lead horse peeled away from the cavalcade and a small figure began to gallop back towards us, her skirts flying in the wind. When she drew level with us, Goody hauled on her reins and brought her mount to a standstill, its legs pawing the air in front of Hanno and me. I noted that she had become an accomplished horsewoman since I had last seen her. When had I last spent any time with her? I thought to myself. Did I even really know her? Two red patches of rage coloured the soft, creamy skin of her cheeks as she brought her animal under control. And I could imagine, quite easily, that sparks were actually flying from her shining violet-blue eyes.

‘I cannot believe that you have the nerve to show your face in this country,’ she began, her voice low and crackling with anger, ‘after what you have done to Robin, after all he has
done for you …’ She swallowed a breath. ‘You deceiving, back-stabbing, hateful man!’

‘Goody,’ I pleaded, ‘if you will let me explain—’

‘You can keep your explanations. I don’t want to hear your lies – I don’t ever want to see you again. And to think that once I felt …’

She was magnificent – utterly beautiful, ravishing. Flushed, sparkling, her anger was a rare and rich jewel. If I had not been the object of her wrath, I believe I might have savoured that moment for many a year. As it was, I could only feel my cheeks flushing bright red to match hers; and a trickle of fresh blood seeping from the cut on my face.

‘Goody,’ I tried once again. ‘You don’t understand; you cannot understand … when they asked me those questions in the church …’

‘Don’t you dare to speak to me! Don’t you ever speak to me again. I hate you, I hate you!’

And, to my astonishment, she burst into tears, wheeled her horse and, spurring savagely, galloped back to join the Countess’s cavalcade, which was by now more than a hundred yards away.

Hanno had found something fascinating on the nail of his index finger and he was giving it his full attention. For myself, I was in no mood to discuss being snubbed and scolded by a pair of highly strung women, so we mutely turned our horses’ heads north towards the great Roman road and put as much distance as we could between us and the scene of my humiliation.

Chapter Twelve

Two days later, on a golden spring afternoon, with the sunlight glancing through the narrow windows, illuminating the swirls of smoke in the air and making mad and merry patterns on the rush-strewn floor, I stood before Prince John himself in the great hall that occupied the middle bailey of Nottingham Castle. The Prince was in a fine humour, feasting at one end of a long table laden with roast chickens and other dishes, laughing and jesting with a short companion seated to his right. Although the huge space of the great hall contained several dozen folk – knights, men-at-arms, priests, servants of all kinds – they were the only diners. I had been admitted to the hall by the Prince’s chamberlain, and loudly announced, but I was left to stand there, with Hanno at my side, waiting at the end of the long wooden board to be noticed by the most powerful man in the country; the man who Sir Nicholas avowed would surely be the next King of England. Yet it was not Prince
John who drew my eye as I waited patiently; it was his small, dark companion who commanded my attention. He seemed to be enjoying the Prince’s particular favour that afternoon, talking intimately with his royal master, making half-heard jests and sharing the big silver platter of succulent roast fowl. It was the erstwhile Sheriff of Nottinghamshire himself: Sir Ralph Murdac.

I was glad to note that his crippled left shoulder was still wedged high, but otherwise Murdac seemed in good health, a little heavier than when I had last seen him and clearly prospering in the Prince’s service. His familiar expensive black silk tunic was topped by a rich fur-lined mantle, though the weather was warm enough for this to be mere ostentation. His stubby fingers, smeared with chicken grease, now sported half a dozen chunky golden rings topped with fat, square-cut glinting jewels.

Riding through the town of Nottingham on our way to the castle had brought back evil memories of my younger days there as a starving cutpurse, and that bad feeling remained with me now that I was in the very heart of England’s strongest fortress. I felt unnerved, unmanned: this castle had fearful memories for me. When I was a boy it had loomed over the town of Nottingham, a source of raw Norman power. From its gates mail-clad men on horseback had emerged to terrorize the population, collecting taxes, violating young maidens and summarily hanging anyone who opposed their will. In this very hall just three years ago, these two men had humiliated me, forcing me to sing for them when I was cold and wet and tired, and then tossing me pennies as if I was some starveling mountebank.