The King’s Assassin (29 page)

I said: ‘Gavin was a fine man, we all liked and respected him, and we all grieved when he fell.’

‘Grief…’ said Little John. ‘We spoke of pain before, Alan, and I have never felt the pain of a wound as hard as the agony of his loss. He was so perfect, so strong, so alive … Gavin. Even his name breaks my heart in two.’

I saw that John was weeping then. Fat, oily tears were rolling down his lowered face and dripping from his big battered nose. I was at a loss. I’d never seen my friend so lacking in composure. I shuffled next to him and put an arm clumsily around his shoulders.

‘I would give my life right now,’ said John, between racking sobs, ‘to spend one more day, just one more hour with him.’

I patted his vast back, not knowing what to say.

‘You shall see him in Heaven,’ I said. ‘I am sure that he waits for you there.’

Little John looked up at me. His big shapeless face was wet and oddly patched here and there with white. He gave an enormous sniff, and cuffed his running nose.

‘I think so too,’ he said. ‘Heaven – or the other place, I care not. Gavin waits for me to join him. I shall be happy again.’

After a little while, John recovered himself. He shrugged off my arm and stood tall, a dark giant in the fading light.

We returned to the camp the next day, driving a mixed herd of beasts before us: a dozen sheep, goats and pigs, even a lone ox we had found grazing placidly in a meadow. An army eats a great deal and I knew they would all be in our soldiers’ bellies before the week was out. Robin rode out to meet us as we approached the wood that was our camping ground.

My lord congratulated us on our successful raiding and then said: ‘When you have eaten and rested, Alan, get your men together and all their kit. We are moving out tomorrow morning.’

He did not look happy about it.

‘What news?’ I said.

‘Otto is finally on the march – and we are to rendezvous with him and the rest of the German contingent at Nivelles.’

‘So we are to head south – to Paris?’

‘That is the plan. I just hope we have not left it too late.’

‘Too late?’

‘You might as well know, Alan. It is bad news, I’m afraid. King John has failed us. He was besieging a fortress called Roche-au-Moine, a few miles from Angers, when the French army arrived. It seems they squared up for a pitched battle: John had the superior numbers and I believe he could have won the day. But on the eve of the fight, his Poitevin barons deserted him, those who had paid homage weeks before. Ran away. Still John could have fought, and won, with a little determination, I think: Richard would have done so. But no, King John turned and ran too and scurried back to La Rochelle, his tail between his legs.’

‘But he is still there with an army; he is still a threat to the French.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin heavily, ‘you and I might very well think so. But Philip doesn’t. He has left his son Prince Louis and a few hundred knights to keep the King occupied and Philip has now turned north with all rest of his forces and he is coming up to face us as fast as he can. He is raising men as he marches, every town and commune must contribute its militia, poorly trained pikemen for the most part, but the French barons are rallying to his banner, too, and in numbers. They smell victory.’

‘We have lost, then,’ I said. ‘Our strategy was to divide Philip’s strength between the south and the north. If he ignores John in the south and comes at us with all his might, we cannot stand against him. Surely we must flee. Surely we must make for Calais and home.’ I admit I felt a wash of relief at the thought, although the moment I felt it I realised that no battle meant no ransoms, and no hope for Robert.

‘Flee?’ said Robin, looking at me sideways. ‘No, Alan. There is still a chance we can beat him – we shall beat him. Longsword is determined to fight, and so is the Count of Flanders. Otto will surely lose his throne if he does not beat Philip, so he is ready for a battle, after a fashion. The odds against us are worse, for sure. Philip will be stronger now, but with the Germans we are still more or less evenly matched. If we all play our parts well, we can still win. Never fear, my friend, you will still have the chance to capture your prize.’

Two days later, at Nivelles, I felt a little better at the thought of impending battle. A mighty force was assembled in the fields outside the town – a vast army of some nine thousand fighting men, plus all the usual accompanying non-combatants, priests, whores, servants and itinerant peddlers, many thousands of them. It was three weeks into July, by then, and a fine unbroken sunny spell made all the banners of the assembled knights and colours of their surcoats seem even more brilliant than usual. Gorgeous blues, pinks and oranges, vibrant reds and greens, bright gold and silver, iridescent silks and satins; everywhere was the glint of sunshine on steel and the confident bellow of big men’s voices. Perhaps, I thought, despite King John’s failure to keep the bulk of Philip’s forces from us, we did still have the strength to overwhelm him. The German soldiers of Emperor Otto’s retinue were particularly impressive: their knights’ armour was of the very best quality, glittering links of polished iron that covered them from top to toe; magnificent soaring helms, set with bright ostrich feather plumes, sharp spikes or even spreading antlers; big kite-shaped wooden shields of oak rimmed with hammered steel, huge two-handed longswords, and sumptuous velvet cloaks in all the colours of the rainbow. The Emperor’s picked Saxon bodyguard was even more awe-inspiring: huge, blond, muscle-padded men, some even of a size with Little John, with great shining war axes, long daggers at their waists, domed helmets with heavy nasal guards, inlaid with silver and gold, ruddy, English-looking faces, swinging plaits and beards as thick as briar hedges. Beside them Robin’s men seemed puny beggarmen in their dull cloaks and patched hauberks, with their roughly made poleaxes and unwieldy pikes.

I had command of our little cavalry contingent, with Sir Thomas and Hugh as my lieutenants and Miles grinning insolently from the ranks. We numbered thirty-two men mounted on lean, fast horses and were lightly armoured compared with the grand knights of Germany and Flanders. In their heavy mail, elaborate helms and long steel-tipped lances, and mounted on their huge, aggressive mail-clad destriers, they looked the very epitome of arrogant lords of war, which of course they were – and I was glad I would not have to face them in battle.

Our duties were to scout out the land before the advance of the main force and to run messages between the disparate components of the allied army. And therein lay our greatest weakness: Otto’s five thousand men were a disciplined group, his proud knights and the mighty Saxon guard taking their orders directly from him, but the rest of the army was composed of small groups of minor barons and their men – companies of no more than a few hundred knights and mounted men-at-arms under the count of this place or the lord of that town. Flemish men-at-arms from Brabant and Holland, from the towns of Ghent, Namur, Dortmund and Leuven, marched with French-speakers from Lorraine, Calais and Boulogne, plus a few Norman knights too, who had lost their lands to King Philip, and our few Englishmen, of course, as well. It was not even clear who was in overall command. Otto, the Holy Roman Emperor, held the highest rank, but the Earl of Salisbury controlled the purse strings – King John’s silver jingled in every baron’s pouch; the Count of Flanders claimed command on the basis that it was his county we were to be fighting in. The Count of Boulogne claimed the honour since he was clearly the knight of greatest prowess, and he offered to prove it with sword and lance to any man who denied it.

Robin’s contingent of two hundred men made him one of the middle-ranking barons – no match in strength for Emperor Otto or the Earl of Salisbury, of course, but more powerful than some of the Flemish companies. Despite this, my lord wisely remained largely silent when the bickering began at the council meetings.

For three days at Nivelles, the commanders of the various forces argued about what was to be done. I attended Robin at these meetings, though I was too lowly to speak before the great men. Philip was somewhere in the north already, that was all that we knew for certain; he was rumoured to be at Péronne with a vast host, as many as thirty thousand men.

He was heading north-west for Calais, to slaughter the garrison and burn the English ships in the harbour and cut off any hope of retreat for us …

No, he was heading due north for Tournai to ravage and destroy the Flemish heartlands …

No, he was making straight for us at Nivelles, making a lunge north-east for the rich merchant city of Brussels.

In the end it was the Emperor’s reedy voice that prevailed. He was a slight man, handsome in a girlish way with his reddish-brown hair curled into ringlets and dangling around his pallid cheeks. He was King John’s nephew, and I thought I detected a certain family resemblance in the soft, voluptuous line of his mouth and weakness of his jaw. But he was the greatest lord of the German lands and he threatened to take his army and retreat all the way back to Maastricht if he was not obeyed without question and thus was opposition to his plans muted, if not completely silenced. So we marched for Valenciennes, where Otto planned to take up a position across the road to Brussels. There we would await the French attack.

As the army lumbered south-west on the road from Nivelles, my men and I ranged out far and wide hoping to catch a glimpse of the enemy. We saw nothing of him. At Valenciennes, we had news from the constable of the town’s fortress. Philip had passed us in the night. He was now at Tournai, twenty miles behind us.

Once again angry voices were raised in council. The Earl of Salisbury suggested that we simply ignore Philip and his army and make a lunge south for Paris, which was now undefended. Robin backed him to the hilt. But the barons of the Low Countries were adamant that we could not leave Philip with a free hand to pillage their territories – there would not be a manor or market town unburnt from Bruges to Beringen. Robin pointed out that if we marched to Paris, Philip would be bound to follow us or lose his ancestral capital, but my lord was swiftly shouted down.

Otto made the decision again. We turned the army around and began to march north following the trail of destruction left by Philip’s advancing host.

I stopped at the little hamlet of Cysoing at a local tavern with about fifteen of my men, while the rest ranged out in pairs ahead to the north and on either side, east and west, searching for the enemy. On the road behind us, stretched out over several miles, was the allied army, more than ten thousand souls in all. Robin and his footmen were in the vanguard of the main force with the knights of Count Ferrand of Flanders a mile or two behind us.

The terrified man and woman who owned the tavern willingly brought out five loaves of bread, some lengths of dried pork sausage and a barrel of wine for me and my men, and I promised them a silver penny if they could tell me anything of the French. They were a stupid couple, I thought, made more stupid by fear of the armed men watering their horses at their trough and munching their bread and sausage, and they spoke only Flemish, which I did not readily understand, but they seemed to be telling me that there were soldiers in the wood yonder, about five hundred paces from their door.

It seemed unlikely since we had heard or seen nothing, but I flipped them the silver coin and, not a moment after the tavern-keeper had snatched it out of the air, I heard the drumming of hooves and saw Miles and his scouting partner John Halfpenny come pounding hell for leather down the road from the wood towards me.

Miles reined in sharply and slid lithely off his sweating horse. The boy was in a lather of excitement himself. ‘They are there, Sir Alan, just up ahead in those woods. French knights, hundreds of them, maybe thousands.’

I still could not quite believe the youngster. He was a good lad but a little prone to exaggeration and, like his father, very fond of a producing a grand flourish. I could hear nothing, see no sign of movement ahead. I raised an eyebrow at John Halfpenny, a runtish, ugly fellow but a good and reliable soldier. ‘It’s true, sir. Horsemen, most likely French knights, in numbers. I saw a dozen of the buggers myself.’

‘Mount up,’ I called. ‘We shall go and see what we shall see.’

I sent John Halfpenny back down the road with a message for Robin, and sent another man east to find Sir Thomas and Hugh and bring them up into the wood. Then my men and I saddled up and headed at the trot up the road towards the trees. I turned my head from my position at the front of the troop and shouted: ‘We are scouts, just scouts – remember that. We look, we see and then we report back. No trying to be a hero, no trying for ransoms. We’re merely having a look. Understand?’

From my shoulder I heard Miles grumbling: ‘Told you, Alan, it’s the French army. They’re up there. Don’t you believe me?’

I gave him a sharp look: ‘I believe you, Miles, but I want to see for myself. What would I tell your father? That I heard the enemy was there from one of my troopers but did not bother to check for myself?’ I gave the signal and the whole company rose as one to the canter.

The woods were thick, tangled and dim even at noon on a bright sunny day. The road dwindled to a muddy track. Beyond it, I could see no more than a few yards through the dense trees and undergrowth on either side. There was no sign of the enemy, not a horse, not a lone man-at-arms, and I would have doubted Miles’s and Halfpenny’s account but for the fact that the track beneath us was churned by the passing of many hooves. Horsemen had been here, perhaps twenty riders, but no more. We pushed onwards into the wood. I gave the order for silence and we slowed to a walk. The trees were thinning now, it was becoming lighter and I could see patches of green pasture beyond the treeline. And then we were out the other side and looking at a broad expanse of green field stretching out to the northern horizon and a wide highway cutting across it from left the right, east to west, which I knew must be the main road from Tournai to Lille.