The Death of Robin Hood (22 page)

I met the Earl of Locksley there on the sixth day after we had been summoned to Tonbridge, the day I returned from Boxley, and asked what news he had of the war.

‘John has summoned large ships from the leading ports on the south and east coast, filled them with Flemings and they are blockading Calais, where Prince Louis has mustered his troops. The King boasted to the council this morning that he will hold the French invaders there until they turn into greybeards, that they will never find the strength to break out. We loyal men of the royal council all agreed it was a brilliant plan.’

I made a non-committal sound in the back of my throat. It still infuriated me that Robin had to dance attendance on John and worse that he seemed to have turned into a yea-saying lickspittle like all the rest. But I vowed to keep a tight curb on my anger.

‘Prince Louis has hired a pirate from the Channel Islands, a ruffian called Eustace the Monk, to be his admiral – an unsavoury fellow if rumours are true, utterly ruthless, a man who has switched sides as often as—’

‘As often as we have?’

Robin gave me a steely glare. ‘Don’t start, Alan. I’m not in the mood.’

I mumbled an apology and after a few moments Robin continued. ‘This Eustace’s task is to lead the French across the Channel from Calais when the time is right.’

‘So when are they coming?’

‘Louis cannot come out of port with John’s ships waiting for him. A sea battle is a chancy thing and even if Louis were to triumph, the blockading force is strong enough to maul him badly. He might lose half his fighting strength before he set foot on English soil.’

‘Is there
much danger of an invasion, then?’

‘Not while the royal navy is in place, no. But the King can’t decide what to do. I have told him we should be tackling London. Storming it with all our strength – now. We could be at its gates the day after tomorrow, if only he would move. It could be ours within the week; the walls are long and only lightly held. I’ve told him that with the city in our hands, we could end the rebellion; kill it stone dead. London is the greatest rebel stronghold in England and if we were to hold the city it would be all over for Fitzwalter and his men. The north is subdued; without London they are finished. There would be no point Louis coming at all. There would be no one to receive him, no one to offer him the crown.’

Robin’s frustration was clear to behold.

‘But the King won’t listen. He doesn’t trust me, Alan. He doesn’t trust anyone. He even fears the navy will betray him; that they will go over to Louis if offered enough silver. He talks about going to Sandwich with all his forces to make ready to confront the invasion. To fight them on the beaches; to hurl them back off the cliffs. He’s a fool. And he’s going to lose the war with his foolishness.’

I could have pointed out that this was hardly a surprise. We both knew John of old and he had never been, to my recollection, anything other than a disaster as a commander. But I kept my mouth shut. There was no point in starting a quarrel.

We sat quietly, companionably, for a good half an hour, looking beyond the river over the rolling waves of woodland that rose up to a ridge on the skyline three or four miles to the south. It looked like a vast green and black wall, stretching east-west before us and forbidding us entrance to the fastness of the Weald. Guarding its secrets. For some reason, I felt a shiver of fear ripple down my spine at the sight of that ancient wilderness. Yet there was nothing to fear from a forest, surely?

I heard
the bells of a nearby church begin to ring out for Vespers and the urgent clatter of servants in the house at our back. The sun had sunk, leaving no more than a few wisps of golden cloud on the western horizon, and to the south-west the cheery lights of the castle were beginning to twinkle from the window-slits. I caught the rich scent of beef and onion stew on the air and my thoughts turned towards a hearty supper, a jug of ale and a warm pallet by the hearth. Then Robin spoke.

‘It’s not so different to Sherwood, is it? It’s an outlaw’s natural playground.’

‘Hmm?’

‘The Weald, I mean. It’s untamed woodland, virgin forest, some of it. Perfect for ambushes. Plenty of places to hide. Very few people. I’d warrant you could still find wild bears in there, if you looked hard enough.’

I looked out again at the sea of dark green to the south. It was more hilly, I thought, more daunting. There was definitely something menacing about it.

‘I’d choose Sherwood over this wasteland any day,’ I said.

‘Well, yes, so would I,’ said Robin. ‘It’s home ground for us. We know it as well as the stones of our hearths. But the point I was making is that a man who wanted to hide from the law, for example, or who wanted to avoid meeting anyone at all, would not find it hard to conceal himself in the Weald. As long as he knew it well.’

I couldn’t see the point he was making. We weren’t outlaws any longer, thank God, and I prayed we never would be again.

My stomach gurgled; my mouth was awash from the smell of the beef stew. I got up from the table and muttered about finding something to eat.

‘All right, Alan, go and eat – eat to your heart’s content – but first would you find Cass and send him out here to see me? Thank you.’

The King
finally made up his mind. The day after the next, which was around the middle of May, we quit Tonbridge, heading east for the port of Sandwich. A few hundred more men had answered John’s call during the week that we had sat idle in the town and we were now some seven hundred knights and their squires, pages, men-at-arms and servants – most of them mounted – when we took the road in a long muddled cavalcade of bawling men, whinnying beasts, ox-carts, covered wagons, flapping standards and jostling folk.

We had just left Maidstone on the second day of the march, when it pleased God to reveal the extent of his fury at mankind. It came in the form of a mighty wind, driving in from the southeast, with gusts so strong a man had to lean his weight right forward to take a step in the face of the onrushing air. Heavy banks of black and purple cloud rode the winds, rolling in from the coast and lashing the column with a deluge that would have sunk the ark. White spikes of lightning split the sky, stabbing the earth from Heaven. The column disintegrated, with dripping men rushing from the road to find shelter where they could, hauling horses with them by the reins.

Robin, Cass and I found ourselves with the majority of our men in a small wood fifty yards from the road, drenched to the bone, while the gale whipped the branches of the trees above our heads with a manic rage and stinging pellets of water pounded our faces. I sat at the base of an oak with my sodden cloak bunched around my shoulders and my shield held over my head. Robin sat to my left, with Cass pressed into his far side, the squire holding a shield above them both.

I thought longingly of the warm hall at Hadlow Stair and my straw pallet by the hearth. It was not even noon and yet the sky was as dark as dusk. The constant noise was appalling: the shrieking of the wind, the clattering of the branches, the endless hiss of the rain. I could barely make out the words when Robin leaned over and said
in a half-shout, ‘If you think this is bad, imagine what it must be like at sea.’

He gave me a significant look.

I frowned at him. Then I grasped his meaning: the blockade. John’s navy was supposed to be keeping the French invasion fleet penned at Calais – but how would it fare in this tempest? Not well.

We stayed huddled in the wood for all of that day and the night that followed, while the wind pounded us unceasingly and the rain turned the peaty earth beneath our feet into a quagmire. It was bitterly cold, too, and we shivered and chattered in our damp attire with no hope of a fire and only the warm flanks of our companions to cheer us. Robin broke out a small barrel of strong ale and a bag of dried strips of beef from the stores so at least we were able to put a little heart into our bedraggled company as we waited for the sun to rise and the wrath of God to abate.

Not long before dawn, as I was dozing with my head jammed uncomfortably between the tree and Robin’s mailed shoulder, the noise of the storm faded, the rain receded to the random patter of drops falling from leaves to the woodland floor, and men began to stand and stretch, blink and look about them in the gloaming as if they had never seen the world before.

‘Would you like a fire, sir?’ said William of Cassingham to his lord. ‘I could heat up some of the wine.’

‘God, yes,’ said Robin. ‘Can you truly make one?’

‘Oh sir, there is always some dry stuff to be found, even after a blow like that, if you know where to look.’

And that honest fellow was as good as his word, disappearing for a spell and returning with an armful of almost-dry wood. After a few moments with steel and flint, he had a blaze going and a score of grinning bowmen standing around and warming their hands above the flames.

‘The King’s fine navy will be scattered halfway across the oceans,’ I said
to Robin quietly, as I handed him a hot earthenware cup of gently steaming red wine.

‘Or sunk,’ he replied.

‘So now there’s nothing to prevent Prince Louis crossing the Channel and invading England.’

‘Well,’ said my lord, ‘not exactly nothing. I think
we
might have a go at preventing him.’

Two
days later I stood with Robin on the long sand and shingle beach a mile east of the port of Sandwich looking out at the sea. Six or seven miles to the north-east, we could see a mass of big ships, their sails bellied by the offshore breeze, heading to some destination north of Ramsgate. The largest, with two high square castles front and rear, displayed a long blue-and-gold banner from its main mast: the colours of Louis of France. There were smaller sailing boats among the bigger craft, darting between them and doubtless delivering messages between the Prince and his vassals.

‘It’s not much of an invasion fleet,’ I said. ‘I count only seven big ships, troop transporters that is, and even they can hold only fifty men and their horses in each. Not many men-at-arms to try to seize a kingdom.’

‘There will be more coming, many more,’ said Robin. ‘I am amazed so many stayed together during the crossing. But you make a very good point, Alan. They cannot land much more than four hundred men today. If we strike hard we can crush them before they even get their boots dry. Come on, we must speak to the King.’

King John
was to be found a quarter of a mile further south on the beach, just outside a huge gold-and-scarlet-striped tent that had been pitched on the shore. As Robin and I approached, I saw that he was surrounded by the usual dozen or so beautifully dressed courtiers in silk and velvet and half a dozen grizzled mercenary captains in mail and leather. The courtiers were chattering like sparrows, drinking wine and marvelling at the sight of the small French fleet, now no more than half a mile from the shore. A dark-faced rather plump Italian churchman in scarlet, who I had heard called Monsignor Guala, seemed to be in the very act of excommunicating the enemy in the ships as they came on, declaiming sonorously in deep rolling Latin phrases. The mercenaries were silent, lean-faced men who ignored the chanting churchman and looked intently at the King, hands on hilts, awaiting his orders.

‘You see them, Locksley, you see the French dogs,’ called out the King as Robin shouldered his way through the throng.

‘I see them, Sire,’ said Robin.

‘They have the temerity, the audacity to challenge me in my own kingdom. I am God’s anointed ruler of this land and He will not stand by while His will is flouted. God will smash them – isn’t that right, Guala? He will rend them asunder, He will smite them and destroy them for ever …’

‘Sire, we could do a little of that smiting ourselves,’ said Robin. ‘They are only a few at present and if we were to ride north beyond Ramsgate, we could catch them in the act of disembarking on the beach and hurl them back into the sea. We’re a match for them at this moment. Indeed—’

‘No, no, no, Locksley – you are too hasty. We cannot engage them here; I have not my full strength with me. I must summon Salisbury and his men, he is loyal at least, and bring the Marshal back from Wales. I will withdraw to the east and gather my full might and at the right time I shall smash them into a thousand pieces.’

‘Sire, with
the greatest respect, the time is now. They are few and they are weak, their ships scattered, their horses sick from the motion of the sea, and I swear we are easily a match for them. We must strike now.’

The King looked at Robin. His eyes narrowed and seemed to gleam yellow with suspicion. ‘And what possible reason could you have to insist that I attack them now, hmm? What makes you so determined to move me from my chosen course? Have you had commerce with Louis, perhaps? Do you seek to lure me to my doom?’

‘Sire,’ said Robin, and while there was no change to his tone (indeed, he sounded perfectly sincere and humble), I could tell he was on the edge of a scalding rage, ‘Sire, I have no desire to mislead you. I only tell you in all truthfulness that now is the moment to strike. I seek only to defeat these Frenchmen, as you do. We can break them as they land on the beach yonder,’ and my lord flung out an arm to the north-east. ‘We have a unique opportunity to beat Prince Louis – today – and win this war – today. Sire! I beg you, heed me. I seek only to confound your enemies.’

The King gave Robin a twisted smile. ‘Since you seem so aflame to fight the French, I shall grant your wish. I shall retire to Dover and gather my loyal forces to me and you shall have the honour of opposing the French here.’

‘Sire, I have only three score men-at-arms. I cannot singlehandedly confront the whole French army—’

‘Is that not what you were just urging me to do?’ said the King, and he chuckled unpleasantly. ‘I will hear none of your wriggling excuses, Locksley. You claim you are keen to fight the French. Well, there are the French – run along and fight them. And meanwhile I shall take the more prudent course. To Dover!’

The King began croaking for his steward and the royal servants, ordering them to strike camp. I looked at Robin standing alone in a
bubble of lonely space on the crowded shore and saw once again that frankly murderous look in his slate-grey eyes.