King's Man (47 page)

The blood-streaked witch began to scramble towards the doorway, crawling awkwardly with one hand held protectively above her head.

Goody’s staff whistled down again, connecting with her forearm, and I heard the crack of bone. Still nobody else in the hall moved a muscle. Nobody else
could
move. We just goggled at the spectacle of a slight girl of no more than sixteen summers taking on the forces of the Devil single-handed and armed only with a stick.

‘And you, you bitch …’ Smash! ‘killed …’ Smash! ‘my …’ Smash! ‘
kitten
!’ Goody screamed the last word at the top of her lungs, and the heavy staff crashed down once more on Nur’s back. Goody saved her breath then, to concentrate on giving her enemy a beating she would not forget. The blows rained down with the rhythm of the threshing-room floor,
thudding into her enemy’s skinny frame; and I could see that Nur’s ravaged face was by now mashed, torn and bloody, and one arm seemed to be broken. Finally the battered black-clad woman reached the door; scrabbling on hands and knees in front of the opening, and Goody screamed: ‘Get out,
bitch
!’ The staff pounded down once more on the crawling witch’s skinny rump. ‘And don’t come back!’ Again a massive blow to the buttocks. And Nur shot out of the hall and into the darkness – and was gone.

Finally the whole hall began to come back to life, people moving and talking, many crossing themselves, and nervous laughter broke out at the far end of the high table. Some folk began to cheer Goody, and from across the room, I caught the eye of my beloved, my brave and beautiful girl. Her face was white as bone, knotted and tense, and her thistle-blue eyes still shone with fury. But she locked eyes with me and, as I smiled at her, loving her, so very proud of her courage, I saw that the muscles in her jaw were beginning to relax, and the mad gleam was draining from her eyes. Then she smiled back at me, a look of love, more pure and powerful than anything on earth; and I knew that all would be well with us.

Little John leaned over to me and, in a voice that was filled with awe, he said: ‘Alan – little bit of advice: once you’re wed, do not
ever
do anything to upset that lass!’

Epilogue

My daughter-in-law Marie is quite right: I am a foolish old man, a dotard. When I had set down these last words of my tale of Robin and King Richard, and Goody and Nur, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep on top of my bed. I awoke with the day half gone, but feeling refreshed and strangely calm. Marie and I sat down with Osric at the long table in the great hall, and we discussed all of my fears in broad summer daylight. And I have been a fool; it is true. Marie and Osric have been concerned for me. They know that I have not been sleeping well, and my behaviour – my habit of following Osric about the countryside, of watching him constantly, worst of all of leaping out on him from concealment – has been strange and worrying to them. Marie and Osric have both been deeply concerned about me for weeks now. The white powder? It was a medicine, a balm for careworn hearts and an aid to sound sleep, purchased in secret from the apothecary – who much resented having to make midnight assignations to sell his wares – and slipped
discreetly into my food so that I could not object and raise a rumpus.

It was a deception that Marie and Osric used which was kindly meant: a lie of love. And yet I feel that I have been betrayed – not by Osric, my mole-ish bailiff, nor by my bustling daughter-in-law, but by my own fogged and aged mind. Perhaps Nur’s curse has come true, at last, and I am in truth losing my mind. I see the past so clearly now, I can remember so well the days when I was young Sir Alan of Westbury, a knight of great prowess and courage. But the present? What am I now? A confused old man who leaps out at his servants from behind doors to catch them in imaginary crimes. A dotard.

I remember my glorious past so clearly, and my head is there for most of the day while I write. And where better to spend my last few years on this earth than with my younger, stronger self – with that young man so full of light and love and hope? The indignities of age come to all men who live long enough – but not all men can say that they had the friendship of kings and outlaws and heroes in their prime; that they walked proud and tall, without fear – before the weight and care of years bowed their backs. But I can. I can say, I can swear before God, that I have played my part on the world’s stage. And played it to the fullest.

Perhaps I am a silly old fool now, perhaps Nur’s malice has reached out to me from beyond the grave. I know that some might say that the black Hag of Hallamshire’s other prophecies also came true: my lovely wife Goody is dead; and my son Rob, too. But I tell myself that I do not believe in curses: that they are no more than idle talk to frighten children. And I was a warrior, once, a knight of England – and so I will fight; I will fight her witch’s curse – as Goody fought her in the hall at Kirkton on the day of
our betrothal; I will fight with all my strength to keep my mind hale and whole. I will struggle to keep my foolish fears at bay. For I can see now that Osric never had the intention of doing me harm. Nor Marie neither. We are reconciled, my loyal, harmless, mole-ish bailiff and I, and I have humbly begged his pardon for my foolishness.

But I still do not like him.

Historical note

King Richard the Lionheart left the Holy Land in the second week of October 1192. The Third Crusade had been only a partial success and, after three years of fighting the Saracens, the Christian warriors were exhausted and their numbers were much depleted by disease, desertion and death in battle. Richard finally agreed a three-year truce with Saladin, the great Muslim general, under which the Christians were to keep a thin strip of land on the Mediterranean coast and several important strongholds, and pilgrims were to be allowed to visit Jerusalem unmolested.

This face-saving temporary agreement allowed King Richard to make plans for his return home, something that he badly needed to do. In his absence, King Philip Augustus of France had been encroaching on his lands in Normandy, and his ambitious younger brother Prince John had been steadily increasing his power in England, illegally taking and garrisoning
castles with his own men and constantly undermining the authority of the officials put in place by King Richard to govern the country in his absence. King Richard fully intended to return to the Holy Land, once he had settled matters in Europe and seen off the threat to his throne from his brother, but events were to conspire against him.

Unfortunately, the Lionheart’s forthright character meant that he had made many powerful enemies during the course of the Crusade. He had fallen out with Philip of France, a close boyhood friend, and had insulted Duke Leopold of Austria, the leader of the German contingent of the crusaders. He had even alienated Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, by supporting King Tancred of Sicily against him. The Emperor controlled most of Germany and much of the Italian peninsula, southern Spain was in Muslim hands, corsairs infested the North African coast, and France was barred to him by King Philip – so Richard knew that he would have a problem getting home by land. Furthermore, the naval technology of the day did not allow ships to overcome the powerful currents flowing through the strait of Gibraltar and pass westward into the Atlantic, thus preventing Richard from taking the long way back to England by sea.

The whole story of Richard’s return is not entirely clear; the facts are fragmentary, and sometimes seem contradictory, but most scholars agree that Richard decided to attempt a clandestine eastern land route homeward. After sending his wife Berengaria by fast ship to Rome where she would be protected by the Pope, he made a feint westward towards Sicily, then doubled back, entered the Adriatic and sailed north. It was the end of the shipping season, the weather was stormy, and after
a couple of stops Richard ultimately landed on the northern Adriatic coast at Aquileia, near Trieste in north-eastern Italy – although some scholars suggest that this landing wasn’t planned and he was shipwrecked there after bad weather. Either way, that’s where the King found himself on or about the 10th December 1192, ashore with only a few companions and hundreds of miles from friendly lands.

Disguised as a Templar knight, or possibly as a merchant, Richard headed north into the heart of Europe, making for safe territory controlled by his brother-in-law Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. However, after an icy, gruelling, dangerous journey on poor roads, the King was apprehended by Duke Leopold of Austria’s men. It was only a few days before Christmas, the weather was awful and the King was apparently sheltering in a ‘disreputable house’ or brothel on the outskirts of Vienna. Some stories suggest that it was his aristocratic habit of demanding roast chicken for dinner, rather than humbler fare, that led to his discovery; other tales say that it was his companions’ practice of calling him ‘Sire’ that somehow gave away his royal identity. Neither Richard nor his companions had much talent for clandestine operations, it would seem.

Duke Leopold must have been delighted to have his great enemy the King of England in his clutches, and he promptly locked Richard up in Dürnstein Castle, a stronghold on the Danube fifty miles to the west of Vienna. He also informed his overlord, Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, of his windfall, and a letter still exists (read out by Walter de Coutances in my story) from Henry VI to Philip Augustus of France, which has the Holy Roman Emperor gloating shamelessly about the capture of this returning royal pilgrim. Seizing King Richard was
considered an illegal act, as Pope Celestine III had decreed that knights who took part in the Crusade were not to be molested as they travelled to and from the Holy Land. Both Emperor Henry and Duke Leopold were subsequently excommunicated for Richard’s detention.

As was the custom of the day, Richard was passed from stronghold to stronghold in the German-speaking lands controlled by Henry and Leopold until he wound up at Ochsenfurt in mid-March 1193. It was there that English emissaries, in the shape of the abbots of Boxley and Robertsbridge, caught up with their captive King and began the long negotiations for his ransom and eventual release.

I should mention here that I have no idea what these two worthy abbots looked like, and absolutely no evidence that they resembled each other in the slightest. My portrayal of them as near-identical was mere whimsy and was inspired by Thomson and Thompson, the wonderfully bumbling detectives who appear in the Tintin books. A homage to Hergé, you might call it.

Negotiations for Richard’s release took the best part of a year – and King Philip and Prince John really did make a counter-offer of eighty thousand marks to the Emperor to keep Richard imprisoned until Michaelmas 1194. But after strenuous diplomatic efforts by Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, the payment of 100,000 marks – an enormous sum, perhaps twice the gross domestic product of the whole of England at the time – and the handing over of hostages, the King was released in early February 1194. One little-known fact about the wheeling and dealing that preceded his release is that one of the conditions for his freedom entailed King Richard doing homage for
England to the Emperor, making Henry VI his feudal overlord. Richard submitted to this ceremony but, as this was viewed as rather shameful, great efforts were made to keep it a secret.

Sadly, there is no historical basis for the legend of Blondel and his role in locating his captive king. But the legend goes like this: after King Richard’s imprisonment in Europe, his loyal friend and faithful
trouvère
Blondel – a nickname for anyone with blond hair – searched high and low for him, playing his lute outside the walls of castles all over Germany in an attempt to find his lord. While singing a song under the walls of Dürnstein Castle, a song he had written with King Richard during the Crusade, Blondel was rewarded by a familiar voice singing the second verse from a small cell in a tower high above him. The loyal
trouvère
had found his King, and all would now be well.

Although this charming legend has many highly improbable elements, there really was a Blondel, a famous
trouvère
from Nestlé in France who was a contemporary of the Lionheart and, if he didn’t actually seek out King Richard by playing music under castle walls in Austria, at least he has been immortalized in another way, as some thirty of his songs have been preserved in French museums and libraries – including one that begins ‘
Ma joi me semont
…’ on which I have loosely based Alan Dale’s song ‘My Joy Summons Me’. In reality, the Emperor and Duke Leopold would have gained little advantage in hiding King Richard’s whereabouts from Richard’s followers. They wanted the ransom money, and they needed to be in touch with the King’s subjects if they were to negotiate a price. I have to admit that because I like the legend of Blondel, and wanted to include it as a key element of the story, I have made
slightly more of the importance of finding King Richard than would bear close historical scrutiny. If anyone is interested in reading in more depth about the real history of Blondel de Nestlé,
trouvère
culture in general and King Richard’s capture, imprisonment and ransom, I’d recommend David Boyle’s excellent book
Blondel’s Song
(Penguin Viking, 2005).

The Siege of Nottingham: 25th to 28th March 1194

On King Richard’s return to England in early March 1194, he found that the popular tide had turned against Prince John. Indeed his treacherous brother had already fled to France, leaving the men still loyal to him to hold the castles in England that he had snatched from the King. Within a few weeks almost all the major fortresses in England had surrendered to Richard’s men – and the castellan of St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall really is reported by contemporaries to have died of fright at the news of the King’s return. The last castle to hold out was Nottingham, perhaps the best-fortified stronghold in England at that time (see map at the front of the book) and considered practically impregnable.