The Iron Castle (Outlaw Chronicles) (12 page)

On the days when I was busy, or could not face the dank misery of the dungeon, I sent Little Niels down with food and instructions to tell Arthur the gossip of the castle and what scant news we had of the war. The little fellow always returned to the surface with a cheery smile on his face and a tale of the jests they had shared through the bars. I was glad he was able to provide some moments of levity for the Duke in his misery.

There was no word of the ransom negotiations at all.

The months passed and summer became autumn. I had sent some money to my steward Baldwin and received a letter telling me the harvest in Westbury had been bountiful that year and all was well with my little son Robert. I exercised daily in the courtyard at the wooden paling there with Kit, working on his sword and dagger combinations mostly, and practised tilting at a quintain to keep myself sharp. I had entertained hopes in the first few weeks after my return to Falaise that I would be recalled to the army. After John’s stunning victory at Mirebeau, he had a perfect opportunity to summon all his men to the east and push Philip out of Normandy for good. If he had been his lionhearted brother, I think he might have done it. Instead, he was cautious, making small gains against the French on the march, but no clear, decisive moves. He basked, though, I heard from many lips, in the glory of Mirebeau, claiming he devised the plan and fought heroically in the battle. Those who were there knew differently, but kept their silence.

I was puzzled by John’s relative inactivity. One day I summoned up the courage to ask Lord de Burgh what the King had in his mind. He looked stern. ‘It is not my place nor yours to question the strategy of our divinely appointed King.’

I dropped my gaze, scolded. But, surprisingly, de Burgh relented and said quietly, confidentially, ‘He fears treachery, Sir Alan. He does not trust his barons and so he cannot move freely. I fear he is right to do so. Word reached me yesterday of a great blow to the King’s cause. Did you know William des Roches has lately turned traitor and gone over to Philip’s side?’

‘But why? He fought bravely at Mirebeau; indeed he was, along with the Earl of Locksley, the cause of our victory there.’

‘He claims he was promised charge of Arthur if the Duke was captured. He says he does not trust John to deal with him honourably. That is why, he says, he will serve the King no longer. Because of his treachery, now Anjou and the whole of the south is once again imperilled. William des Roches fights for Philip on the Loire, and Aimery de Thouars, too, has forsaken the King and ravages his lands down there.’

I admit I was shocked at the news that William des Roches had gone over to the enemy. But, to be honest, I could not feel the proper sense of outrage at his choice. Once again I wondered how the world would be if Arthur had become King.

‘Surely,’ I said, ‘if King John doesn’t trust his barons, doesn’t that make them more likely to be distrustful of him in return, and more likely to depart?’

‘It is quite simple, Sir Alan, an honourable man does not change his allegiance for any reason, whatsoever. None. He does not pick and choose his lord according to the way the wind is blowing that day, or by what he eats to break his fast. He makes an oath, a sacred promise; he keeps it, till death. Either his death or the death of his lord. Else he has no honour at all.’

Towards Christmas a courier from Robin arrived with a welcome chest of silver for my Wolves and me – and a sad message. Little John still lived, Robin wrote, but he was weak and growing daily weaker. He was not expected to rise from his bed again. He was being cared for at Fécamp Abbey, thirty miles down the coast from Dieppe. Apparently, the monks who cared for him considered his continued existence these past few months a genuine miracle – but they knew he could not last much longer. Tears blurred my eyes then, and I had to look away from the parchment for a moment. Robin’s other news, however, was almost as dismal – the Wolves had been dispersed across Normandy to hold some castles in their own right, to bolster the garrisons of some others and, he wrote cryptically, in some cases to ensure the loyalty of the castellan. With winter almost upon us, it seemed likely the fighting would grind to a halt. Nothing of note had been achieved after the summer victory at Mirebeau. Indeed, the situation was almost exactly the same as before, with Normandy ringed by enemies to the south, west and east. King John himself, Robin informed me, would hold the Feast of the Nativity in Caen and Robin would be accompanying him. If I could be spared from my duties in Falaise, Robin urged me to spend the days of Christmas with him there.

Caen lay only twenty miles to the north of Falaise, one day’s ride, and I stressed this proximity to Hubert de Burgh, when I asked his leave to spend Christmas with my lord. I would leave the men here under Claes and take only Kit with me. If he had need of me over the celebration period, he had only to send a rider and I would return forthwith. Hubert de Burgh grumbled a good deal but finally, grudgingly, agreed to my leave of absence.

So I found myself, with Kit at my side, walking our horses through the muddy slush on the road north to Caen on Christmas Eve, with the snow softly falling all around, making the air hazy. I had bid farewell to Arthur and made him a gift of a roast capon, two loaves of fine-milled white bread, a milk pudding sweetened with honey, a dozen apples, a bag of walnuts and a small barrel of wine, so that he and his fellow prisoners, now gaunt, stinking, filthy and close to despair, could keep the feast of Our Lord’s Nativity themselves with a decent meal. I told him I would be back within two weeks.

‘Do you think I will ever leave this cell?’ Arthur asked piteously, after he’d thanked me with tears in his eyes for the food.

‘Of course, the negotiations must be well advanced by now,’ I said cheerily. In truth, I was not sure. ‘I will ask Robin if there is news,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he can persuade the King to hurry things along.’

It was a strange Christmas: cold, crisp and melancholy. The happiness I usually felt at this holy season was entirely absent. I felt hollow, woolly headed and purposeless. We heard Holy Mass in the freezing abbey church of St Stephen on Christmas Day and afterwards feasted joylessly all afternoon in the great hall of the castle. I went to bed that night sober and restless.

As well as Robin, a great number of barons and knights attended the King and Queen Isabella at Caen, including William de Briouze, William the Marshal, Roger de Lacy and Robert d’Alençon. And a few days after the Christmas Day feast, to my delight, Sir Joscelyn Giffard arrived at Caen. I had not dared to hope that I might see Tilda this Yuletide, but now the prospect seemed imminent. Sir Joscelyn greeted me as an old friend and asked for an account of the battle of Mirebeau and my news of Falaise. I gave it to him and we spoke for a while about music. Then, diffidently, almost timidly, I asked after his daughter.

He looked at me happily. ‘I have some wonderful news about Matilda,’ he said. ‘She has agreed to become a Bride of Christ; she is with the Abbess of Caen as we speak, taking instruction, and is set to become a novice at the abbey soon after Christmastide.’

My stomach went cold. My Tilda was to be a nun, a woman taken out of the world of the flesh, away from the love of any man – and she would live a chaste life of prayer and sanctity until, old, wrinkled and dry, she was finally called to God.

‘How wonderful,’ I said, my voice shaking. ‘You must be very proud.’

‘I am, Alan, I am. Her mother would have liked the idea very well. She was wed to me when she was young, and happily so, I believe, but before the marriage it had always been her dream to live a holy life, a life in the service of God. I think she looks down on Tilda from Heaven with loving pride and approval.’

I nodded and said nothing, feeling dizzy and sick.

Sir Joscelyn put a hand on my arm. ‘I know you were fond of her, Alan, but she has chosen a better life, a far better life than she would have had as somebody’s dutiful wife, and a mother to his children. Can you understand her decision?’

‘Of course, sir,’ I said, smiling gamely. ‘She has chosen to devote her whole life to God. It is an honour for you and … and a great blessing for all mankind.’

He patted me kindly on the shoulder. ‘It is, Alan, it truly is.’

I saw Tilda only once that black Christmastide – and behaved dishonourably. I saw her walking with a group of other holy women in the street of parchment-sellers near the abbey. She looked perfect, quite perfect: swathed in a black fur-trimmed cloak, her beautiful face peeking out from under the hood, glowing with the cold, her grey-blue eyes bright, lips blood red, her soft cheeks pale as snow. She was walking perhaps twenty paces from me, across my path, noticed me, stopped and waved happily. Seeing her was a physical shock. Like a horse-kick to the stomach. I turned my back on her, without returning her greeting and hurried away, my cheeks burning with shame. I regretted it later, of course, and consider it to have been a cowardly act, but I knew I could not look into her perfect face, knowing I would never have her, and keep my dignity as a man.

I had one other less-than-heroic encounter in Caen that wretched Christmas. It was during a lavish dinner hosted by the King on the feast day of St Thomas à Becket, and I was returning to the hall after a visit to the garderobe, when I found myself confronted by the tall, dark form of Humphrey and his shorter russet companion, Hugo.

‘You!’ said Humphrey. ‘I haven’t forgotten you!’

They had both fully recovered, it seemed, from the lesson I gave them in the summer, and I saw with satisfaction that Hugo’s nose had been badly set and bore a knobbly bump in the centre.

‘Well, thanks to the mercy of God, I have managed to forget both of you. And I do not wish to be reminded. Now, get out of my way,’ I said.

I wore no sword, it being the dinner hour, and neither did they, but I had my misericorde, and I was fairly certain I could put the two of them down without too much difficulty. Going by our last encounter they had little prowess. But, more importantly, it seemed unlikely they would try to knife me in the corridor outside the hall where the King himself was feasting. The prospect of either of them challenging me to a duel was laughable. Still, I kept my hand on my dagger and watched carefully as they shuffled to the side to allow me to pass.

‘There will be a reckoning between us soon,’ Hugo hissed as I slid past. I was so close I could smell his rank breath. ‘A reckoning for you, hireling – and that traitorous child you play gaoler to in Falaise.’

‘It’s a pity,’ said Humphrey, ‘but that disloyal Breton whelp will never see his own children at play.’

Hugo cackled at his companion’s words as if he’d said something clever.

I did not care. I was beyond them by now and heading back into the warm hall – but that last exchange rang oddly in my ears. Why did Hugo find it so funny?

I got drunk with Vim, the mercenary captain, on my last day in Caen. Robin joined us briefly in the Wolves’ tower, but he slipped away when it became clear we were both planning to go at the wine in a determined, warlike fashion. Robin almost never drank to excess and he was busy with the King day and night in those days. I was drinking hard because I had behaved so boorishly towards Tilda and I was fairly certain I would never see her again. The nuns of the Abbey were very well protected against the sinners of the world, and particularly against rough and lustful soldiers. Vim drank, he told me, out of boredom. His men were well-trained, he only had a handful of them with him in Caen, and he had two competent sergeants to do the day-to-day organisation, food, pay, discipline and so on.

‘We have not seen a decent battle since Mirebeau, Alan,’ he slurred at me. ‘We are men paid to fight – and there is no fight!’

‘In the spring…’ I began.

‘Yes, in the spring we might see a little movement, but for now we trot merrily around from castle to castle with the King and his cavalcade of overbred silk-soft fools, while the Earl of Locksley holds John’s cloak hem and wipes his bum after he takes a shit, then feeds him his warm milk at bedtime. Our lord tells the King he must take swift action against Philip, against William des Roches and against the Bretons – not that John listens. Maybe I should sell my sword to Philip, he seems a far better King than our one. More like a man. They all hate him, did you know that?’

‘King John?’

‘No, Robin – yes, they hate John, most of them anyway, how could you not? But they do not like our own lord either. He has no lands in Normandy – so he has no stake in the ruling of the duchy. And he has the King’s ear. John trusts him, you see; he trusts him because he pays him, and he gives more and more of the castles over into our hands, with the lands that support them. In the spring I am to recruit and train another five hundred men – had you heard that, Alan?’

‘That is good, surely,’ I said. ‘It will mean more silver for Robin, and for us, too. The pay is good, is it not?’

‘I do not complain about the money – money is good. But it makes you soft. The more money I have, the more wine I drink. The more wine I drink, the softer I become – like an old man. I want to feel a bright sword in my hand, a swift horse between my legs and an enemy’s neck under my blade.’

I rode back to Falaise leather-tongued, my breath stinking of half-digested wine and unfulfilled lust – with Kit frowning and tutting all the way at my uncouth state.

In the second week of January, in the year of Our Lord twelve hundred and three, two riders entered the Castle of Falaise. It was a blue, clear, cold day, and Kit and I were raising a sweat in the chilly courtyard, sparring hard with each other with sword and shield, battering and blocking, lunging and parrying. The riders were hooded and cloaked against the weather and I paid them little attention – I was concentrating on keeping Kit’s blade from my body. They dismounted by the stables, gave their horses over to the castle grooms and went directly into the keep. At the gatehouse one of the men turned and looked at me, noisily clashing arms with Kit, and smiled. I held up a hand to stop the bout and saw Humphrey smirking at me. I met his look with a cold glare, then turned back to Kit. Humphrey followed his companion into the keep. Doubtless, they have dispatches for Lord de Burgh from King John, I said to myself. I will avoid them and they will soon be on their way. But something about their arrival troubled me. And as Kit and I were sluicing the sweat away in the wash-house, a half hour later, I felt a cold wind on the back of my neck and shivered. I recalled the words Humphrey had spoken:
It’s a pity – but that disloyal Breton whelp will never see his own children at play.