The King’s Assassin (40 page)

My noble lords de Vesci, Fitzwalter and Locksley discussed the King’s recent inglorious return to England; they idly chatted about the justiciar Peter de Roches’s moves to supply and strengthen the royal castles across England – including Nottingham, which I learnt was to receive an extra contingent of twenty knights and two hundred men-at-arms. They spoke generally of the deep anger that many barons – and not just those in the north – felt towards the King and his sheriffs. But they delicately refrained from discussing my disastrous attempt on the King’s life and its consequences. Neither did we talk about the mismanagement of the Earl of Salisbury’s campaign in Flanders and the shattering defeat at Bouvines. Nor did the subject of rebellion directly come up. I kept my mouth shut during the entire meal – except when I admitted food and wine – and neither de Vesci nor Fitzwalter made any comments to me, or about my silence. Yet that did not make me any less angry.

We were availing ourselves of nuts and fruit and a sickly yellowish wine, when a servant announced that a late guest had arrived. Next, a man in a long black cloak with a deep hood was escorted up to the table. The servants took away his cloak and hood and I was astounded to find myself staring at one of the last people on earth I might have expected to see in this wild northern rebel stronghold. It was his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England, Stephen Langton.

We all rose from the table and greeted the paramount churchman in England as befitted his high rank. We kissed the huge onyx ring on his right hand and he was given a vast carved chair in which to sit while servants poured water to allow him to wash his hands and face and brought a plate of food and a large and very valuable Venetian glass filled with a deep purplish wine.

While the servants fussed around the archbishop, bringing him cushions, moving the red-hot brazier a little nearer to his chair, refilling his wine glass, I considered the new arrival. He was a tall, slender man in his middle sixties, I would guess, with a long, sharp nose, deeply cut lines in his handsome face and bright intelligent blue eyes. I was surprised to see him here, for he was a man of God, a personal friend of the Pope, and since John had rendered England up to Innocent the year before, I had assumed that he must be in favour of the status quo. Indeed, I was astonished to see him breaking bread with the King’s enemies.

He saw me looking at him and returned my gaze.

‘You are Sir Alan Dale,’ he said. ‘I saw you last year in St Paul’s courtyard before the ceremony of papal homage.’

I admitted that this was so. His bright blue eyes bored into me.

‘Tell me truly, Sir Alan, if you will, did you indeed intend to murder the King?’

Before I had time to answer, de Vesci and Fitzwalter both started speaking, their words tumbling over each other: ‘…all a misunderstanding … entirely a mistake … Sir Alan meant no harm … very unfortunate … some confusion…’

The Archbishop utterly ignored the rebels’ protestations and continued to look calmly at me. When there was silence again, he raised one eyebrow.

I said: ‘Yes, my lord, I would surely have killed him had I got close enough.’

The archbishop nodded as if he had expected this answer. ‘Tell me, Sir Alan, do you still feel the same way towards our royal lord and master?’

I broke my gaze from his. I took a breath and said: ‘No, I do not. I deeply regret my actions now. My lord, the Earl of Locksley, has persuaded me that there is a better course, a more honourable and effective course to take than cold-blooded murder.’

The archbishop was smiling at me. ‘That is good, my son, for I would not wish to consort with murderers. Had you answered differently, I would have left you, all of you, upon the instant. But Christ teaches forgiveness for those who truly repent, and as His servant I can do no less. God’s blessings on you. I absolve you.’

I felt a lifting of my spirits at his words and a glow of warmth towards the great man. Fitzwalter and de Vesci were rendered as mute as I had been at dinner by the archbishop’s words and it was Robin who picked up the conversation.

‘My lord archbishop, I have been engaged these past months on a peculiar mission,’ Robin said. ‘I have taken it upon myself to question the leading men of England about their grievances with the King. If he will not hear them – and many tell me he is deaf to their entreaties – then I believe we must compel him to listen and to acknowledge the wrongs that they have suffered.’

‘There are a great many men with grievances, that is true,’ said the archbishop.

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Robin, ‘and I was inspired by your call last year for the King to renew the charter of the first King Henry – the old charter that guarantees the liberties of all free men under the crown.’

‘I begged the King to renew it – he flatly refused,’ the archbishop said with a rueful smile. ‘He even threatened to have me exiled again.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘Well, I believe it is time for a new charter. A charter that puts to the King all the complaints, all the injustices, all the wrongs of the land – all in one great legal document. He must set his seal to it, he must agree to be bound by it – or he will lose his crown. It will be a charter that he cannot ignore.’

De Vesci and Fitzwalter were leaning forward, their elbows on the tablecloth amid the scraps of the meal, listening intently to Robin’s words.

Eustace de Vesci said: ‘You would bind the King by law? The King? With a piece of parchment? What babbling nonsense is this?’

‘It seems to be an original idea, that is true,’ said Robin evenly. ‘But perhaps it is not so outlandish. Consider this: if the King wishes his vassals to serve him, the King must be bound by an agreement with his vassals. The custom has ever been thus: when a man swears homage to the King, the King too has an obligation to his man. The King is bound by this obligation, by this custom. What is the law but a legal codification of our rights and customs? The point I am making is that the King is already bound by a law of sorts in the form of our ancient customs.’

The men around the table seemed unconvinced by Robin’s argument. I had, of course, heard him repeat it many times before in a hundred halls across the land.

Robin tried a different approach. ‘The King makes the law, surely, but where is it written that he should not himself be subject to it? If he is not, and he rules by whim and force of arms, he is no better than a tyrant. And how can any man rest easy in his bed if he knows that the King, if he so chooses, can steal that bed from under him, murder his wife and children, throw him in prison for debts conjured out of the air? The King must be subject to the law so that we can all be free of his tyranny.’

De Vesci said: ‘I find it astonishing that a former outlaw should lecture me about the law of the land.’

To my surprise, Robin did not react to this insult. He smiled and said: ‘You do not like my sophistry, very well. This is my last point: if you compel the King to agree to this charter, you compel not only him, but future kings and all their heirs and descendants – for ever – to behave in a way that you have determined. You will have changed the relationship between King and subjects for the better and for all time.’

My lord fell silent. De Vesci and Fitzwalter were looking at each other. The Archbishop of Canterbury was gazing up into the ceiling, perhaps contemplating Heaven. Finally, Fitzwalter spoke: ‘What exactly would we put in this charter?’

Robin said: ‘Whatever you wanted, within reason. I have a list of grievances that I have collected from people across the country. What I propose is that, initially, we put everything we can think of in the charter, and we can work out the fine details later. We must have agreement from a dozen other magnates, a hundred other barons, before we can present it to the King. Why don’t you tell me what you want?’

‘First and foremost, we must protect the Church,’ said the archbishop. ‘If you want my support, that is my only condition.’

‘Agreed,’ said Robin.

The archbishop smiled broadly. ‘By happy chance, I have brought with me three of my household clerks – all possessing fine legal minds – they are being fed in the servants’ quarters as we speak. With your gracious permission, my lord de Vesci, I will summon them and they can begin to draw up this charter of liberties in the proper legal Latin. Is that acceptable to you all?’

Robin and Fitzwalter nodded. Our host Eustace de Vesci looked bewildered but said nothing and a servant was sent to fetch the three clerks.

Robin also disappeared to fetch a bundle of parchments on which he had written down the demands of the dozens of men that he and I had spoken with over the past few weeks. While I waited for him to return, it suddenly struck me that the archbishop’s presence here was no mere accident. Robin, clearly, had invited him to make the long journey north from Canterbury, and he must have had a good reason to comply. I looked at Lord Fitzwalter; he too, I suspected, had had a hand in engineering this meeting with the archbishop. But I was also certain that this was all news to de Vesci. I had the distinct feeling, as I often did with Robin, that I was attending an elaborate performance designed to achieve a particular end. In this case it seemed to me that Robin, Lord Fitzwalter and Archbishop Langton were conspiring together to convince de Vesci – the richest and most powerful of the northern barons, and perhaps the most difficult man of them all – to join their schemes.

The remains of the feast were cleared away. A pair of candle-trees were lit and brought forward, for night was falling. And three men in dusty black robes with the tonsures of clergy were led to the table. I may not have been attending fully when their names were announced – or perhaps I have merely forgotten them – but in my mind they were nameless, drab, grey men. Clever, no doubt, perhaps even wise, but not with the kind of fire of spirit that would make them any sort of pleasure to be with. In my mind the Canterbury clerks were the fat one, the tall one and the small one – collectively, the three wise men.

The three wise men set out their quills, inkpots and so on, Robin handed them a fat sheaf of parchments filled with his own spidery black writing, and so began one of the strangest nights of my life.

Archbishop Langton began the session by saying: ‘Despite the fact that he has made over England to the Pope, King John cares nothing for the Church – indeed, I have my doubts that he even believes in God. And, if I may, I would like the first article to which we wish to bind the King to be concerning the liberty of the Church of England. Is that agreeable to all of you?’

Fitzwalter said: ‘By all means!’

Robin said: ‘Certainly, my lord.’

De Vesci said: ‘If you must.’

I kept my mouth shut, but what the archbishop did next confirmed in my mind that this was not the first time the Primate of All England had discussed a charter such as the one Robin had seemingly just proposed.

‘Very well,’ said Langton. He leaned towards the fat clerk, who seemed to be their chief, and whispered in his ear for some time. The clerk began to write on a sheet of clean parchment, with an impressive turn of speed, a sort of note form of whatever the Archbishop was saying in his ear.

Fitzwalter turned to Robin and said: ‘So you have been taking soundings all across England?’

‘Yes,’ said my lord, ‘for some weeks and months now.’

‘And what do most people say?’

‘There is some general support for the charter,’ said Robin. ‘But if there is to be a confrontation between us and the King, most of the knights and barons would rather wait to see who will be the victor before committing themselves.’

‘I see,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘That chimes with what I’ve heard, too. And have you identified any particular grievances that people wish the King to address?’

‘It’s a strange mix of things,’ Robin said. ‘Many people are concerned about inheritance, the reliefs that heirs must pay the King to possess a dead relative’s lands. The King has been charging thousands of pounds for this right, and people want it limited to a reasonable figure – say, a hundred pounds. Then there are the widows – they do not want to be compelled to marry by the King, just so he can reward his followers with their lands. There is a good deal of strong feeling about this. But there is a whole host of other matters, great and small: my friends in Sherwood want the forest laws made less harsh, even abolished, but that would take some doing; on the other hand, some people just want a few fish weirs in the Medway removed, which I think we can manage without too much difficulty. I’ve made a note of it all here.’ Robin patted the sheaf of parchments before the three wise men.

The fat clerk cleared his throat, stood up and said in a low, quivering, portentous voice: ‘We think it should begin like this, my lords … John, by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, to his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants…’

‘You can skip the usual greeting,’ said Langton. ‘Just read out the first article.’

‘And speak up, will you,’ said de Vesci. ‘There is no need to mumble.’

The clerk began again, a little louder: ‘First, that we have granted to God, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired. We have granted and confirmed by this charter the freedom of the Church’s elections. This freedom we shall observe ourselves, and desire to be observed in good faith by our heirs in perpetuity.’ The clerk stopped and sat down.

‘That sounds all right to me,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘You’ll translate it into good Latin, in due course?’

The clerk nodded.

‘It’s a bit wordy,’ said de Vesci. ‘And you’ve got the bit about “our heirs in perpetuity” twice. If that’s just the first article, this is going to be a very long night. I’d better get them to bring some more wine.’

‘Perhaps, my lord, you might like to think about the articles you personally would wish to include,’ said Robin to de Vesci, who brightened considerably.