The King’s Assassin (43 page)

However, when I voiced my concerns to Robin he seemed unworried. ‘This will be all about momentum,’ he said. ‘Most of the barons of England support our cause, and will swiftly come to our banner if we are successful. But for the moment they are biding their time, waiting on the side of the battlefield to see who proves the strongest – us or the King. No baron wants to be on the losing side. We have to show them we can win. If we can take one or two royal strongholds, the lords will declare for us, you’ll see.’

I also brought Robert and Boot with me to Brackley. I had heard nothing from Benedict Malet or Philip Marc, since my escape, but it seemed foolhardy to leave my son alone in Nottinghamshire with only a handful of men-at-arms to guard him. He would be safer with the Army of God. Boot watched over Robert while he was with the army like a mother hen, but my boy also spent a good deal of time with Miles and Hugh. I even came back to our tent one evening to find him playing chess with Robin.

‘Your boy has an extraordinary mind,’ Robin told me afterwards. ‘I thought I was humouring the lad by playing a game with him and he destroyed me in a dozen moves. He also has some very bold ideas about what this army should do. Even more surprisingly, I find myself absolutely agreeing with him.’

The castle of Brackley, a wooden motte-and-bailey fortress on a limestone knoll to the south-west of the town, was not spacious. The Earl of Winchester, whose castle it was, and his men were housed there with Fitzwalter, who was now grandly calling himself the Marshal of the Army of God, but the rest of us had to find accommodation in the town or encamped in the wide fields around it. The place had been famous for tournaments in King Richard’s day, but to be truthful it had become something of a dismal backwater. And, as I recall, it seemed to rain hard continually for the whole time we were there.

On the third day, all the leaders of the Army of God were summoned to council in the hall of the castle and the collection of bedraggled knights, their cloaks sodden, and honking and sneezing from a cold that had already spread through the ranks from the grandest earl to the meanest churl, was less than awe-inspiring.

The King was at Oxford with a strong force of mercenaries and his half-brother the Earl of Salisbury, and a message had been sent to the King – an ultimatum, in effect – saying that unless he were to agree to the terms of the charter of liberties then the rebel barons would renounce their homage to him and a state of war would exist between the two sides. While we waited for his reply, the question on everybody’s lips was: what should we do next? There were other groups of rebel barons in arms near Exeter and Lincoln, but the feeling was that it was up to the leaders of this water-logged rebellion to make a significant move. But what?

Geoffrey Mandeville, the Earl of Essex, was the first to speak at the council. He was a portly toad-like man with fat dewlaps that jiggled on either side of his chin as he spoke. But his tone was bold and he was clear in his mind what was necessary.

‘We must confront the King at Oxford – get right up to the walls and show him our strength. He’s a coward and he will be put in fear if we confront him boldly.’

I applauded his words but I was one of only a few. The rest of the barons muttered and mumbled and blew their noses noisily.

Lord de Vesci said: ‘Utter nonsense, Mandeville, the King is far too powerful. Quite apart from his mercenaries – who alone outnumber us two to one – Oxford is a nest of royalists and a well-fortified and provisioned city. We have no hope of taking the place by force, nor of reducing it by siege. We have no siege train, for one thing. Not a single trebuchet or mangonel to bless ourselves with. We could find ourselves uselessly camped outside his walls for months. Then we would have to march away with our tails between our legs. We would look ridiculous.’

‘We will look ridiculous if we do nothing and stay here,’ replied Essex with a good deal of spirit. ‘Half my men are already sick, by God, and sleeping in damp fields is not going to improve their lot.’ But it was clear that the general opinion was against him and thereafter he remained silent.

‘I’m sorry you don’t like my hospitality,’ snapped the Earl of Winchester. ‘Perhaps you would prefer to leave my lands—’

‘My lords, quiet, if you please,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘We need to come up with a plan, not squabble like infants. Does anyone have any other useful suggestions?’

‘We put our trust in God,’ said the Bishop of Hereford, folding his hands before him in the attitude of prayer. ‘He is mightier than all the armies of the world, and the Lord of Hosts will deliver us from this tyrant – if it is His will.’

‘Well, while the Almighty is making up his mind,’ said de Vesci nastily, ‘what shall we humble mortals actually do?’

Lord Bedford rose timidly to his feet. ‘If you do not care for Brackley, I would willingly offer you my castle as a refuge – it is somewhat larger than this place and I have a dozen barracks for your men. Plenty of dry straw for all—’

Robin cut him off: ‘It is perfectly clear what we must do – to me at least and to some of the younger men in our ranks.’ He shot me a knowing wink.

‘Yes, Locksley?’ said Fitzwalter. ‘What do you suggest?’

‘We will win this contest only by a bold stroke. Only by taking the bull by the horns will we persuade the undecided barons of England to rally to our cause. We must attack, we must win and we must do it quickly.’

‘You would attack Oxford and the King there?’ said Fitzwalter, frowning. ‘That seems absurdly rash. I thought we were all agreed that—’

‘Not Oxford,’ said my lord, ‘but London.’

There was a general gasp from the twenty or so men in the hall and immediately a hubbub of shouting, frightened voices. ‘Outrageous!’ ‘Absurd!’ ‘We simply don’t have the strength…’

Robin smiled serenely until the noise fell away and then said: ‘Think on this, gentlemen: London is the richest, the most important city in England – a good deal of the King’s governance takes place there. The merchants of the city are some of the greatest men in the country, richer even than the mightiest earl, saving your presence, Essex. The wealth of the nation’s commerce is there. It is the beating heart of England.’

He quietened the rising tide of voices with an outstretched hand. ‘My lords, I know it will be a hard task, but think: if we have London within our grasp, we hold the country too. If London is ours, the King cannot hold out; he must accede to our wishes. If we have London, we have the King in the palm of our hands.’

Even I was a little shocked by the boldness of Robin’s plan. We had fewer than a thousand men – there was no way on earth we could capture a city with fifty times that number of citizens. It was stronger than Oxford by far. And if we could not take Oxford … I wondered if Robin was truly serious. Was he playing some game?’

If Robin was playing a game, I judged that he had lost. For the men in that room shook their heads, snuffled, coughed and quibbled. They muttered that he was deluded. They said he was courting destruction. The Earl of Winchester asked if he was drunk. ‘It’s young Robert’s idea,’ Robin murmured to me. ‘A very good one.’

Fitzwalter quelled the agitated crowd of damp barons.

‘I am the Marshal of this Army of God, and since quite clearly we cannot decide among us what we should do, it falls to me to make the decision. We shall not attack London, thank you Locksley, we shall not beset the King at Oxford, but we shall strike. And hard. Northampton, not twenty miles from here, is held by no lord or earl but merely by a rabble of mercenaries under a French rascal named Geoffrey de Martigny. He’s a paid man, his loyalty is to silver, let us go there and see if we cannot change his allegiance with a show of force.’

And so we marched to war.

I had been a mercenary several times and so, for that matter, had Robin. And I knew well the contempt in which many noblemen held a
stipendarius
. But it still surprised me just how mutton-headed a proud knight can be, for clearly there are mercenaries and there are mercenaries – and the better ones, the ones that last in the profession, are as true as steel once they have taken their pay. It is a matter of honour. And any man who thinks that a mercenary has no honour is a fool or else he has never fought a proper war. Geoffrey de Martigny was as loyal to King John as any man – more loyal, indeed, than many of the well-born men who camped outside his castle, for they had taken oaths to King John and were now in arms against him.

Martigny shut tight his gates, lined the walls of Northampton Castle with a hundred crossbowmen and defied us. And for all that Fitzwalter had taken a necessarily bold decision in leading us here, it was in truth a sad mistake.

We were two weeks before the walls of Northampton, two dismal weeks of squabbling, humiliation and soggy discomfort. Fitzwalter and the leading nobles rode up to the gates of Northampton Castle in driving rain and demanded its surrender. Geoffrey de Martigny, in very bad English, told them that he held the castle by order of the King and he would surrender it only to him, and so the Army of God settled down outside the walls in the vague hope that the mercenary would change his mind.

He did not. And lacking the proper siege engines we could not hope to reduce this powerful fortress. I had truly forgiven Fitzwalter for embroiling me in his plot to kill the King, and I had grown to like, if not wholly trust him since our meeting at Alnwick before Christmas. But while he was undoubtedly skilled at cajoling and manipulating men into following his desires, he was far from a gifted general.

After a week of sitting before the walls, the Earl of Essex volunteered his men for an assault on the gatehouse. And the Earl of Locksley’s men were to go in as the second wave in support of the Mandeville forces. We built ladders in the shadow of the towers, occasionally troubled by the crossbowmen taking long shots at us, but there was little blood spilt.

As the Earl of Essex’s men lined up for their assault, the foremost men-at-arms carrying the long ladders we had built, I experienced once more the crippling terror of an impending battle. My mouth was dry as sand, my limbs trembled, and though I had made sure my bladder was empty before donning a suit of mail, I felt the desperate urge to urinate. We were formed up – fifty men armed with shield and sword – behind the block of a hundred or so Essex troops who would lead the charge. I thought I was going to vomit. What was the delay? I could barely stand it. If we were going to do this we must go now. I could see the mercenaries on the walls, their heads thick as blackberries behind the crenellations, waiting with their crossbows spanned, waiting to pluck our lives from us. We would all surely die – and for what? To take a castle that would make no difference to the war in the slightest? If we were successful – and I very much doubted that we would be – it would not force King John to agree to our demands. He would have lost a few mercenaries and one town. If we failed, even if we were not killed, we’d be finished. It was madness.

I looked to my right and there was Robin, conferring with Sir Thomas; to my left Miles and Hugh were talking quietly with their men. And I felt a sudden sense that something was wrong; something vital was missing.

And then it struck me. The massive form and ugly battered red face of Little John was nowhere to be seen. His body was now lying in the earth of St Michael’s churchyard in Hathersage, slowly turning to earth itself. My huge friend, who had always had some filthy, funny, bellicose comment to make on the eve of battle, was nowhere to be seen. And it occurred to me that his sacrifice at Bouvines, which had allowed Robin, Miles and Hugh to live, was all for naught. We would fight again and again until we were all in our graves. I missed the crude old bugger, how I missed his solid comforting presence on the eve of action. His absence was an ache in my heart.

Good God, I said to myself, what is this, Alan? Whimpering before action? You are a fraudulent knight! You may no longer boast of being a warrior. You are craven.

In the event, I played no part at all in the fighting that day. Thanks be to God. Robin held us back in reserve while Essex’s men charged bravely forward with their ladders. The Mandeville men began to die before they had taken a dozen steps, sliced down by the wicked crossbow quarrels that came at them like black lightning. Three or four of the ladders actually made it to the walls, but the men climbing them were smashed away by chunks of stone hurled from the ramparts or skewered by javelins. It was clear within the time it takes to say an Our Father that the attack would fail. No ladders were up against the walls and Essex’s poor men milled like frightened sheep below the gatehouse – and died like them too, in their scores. And to my utmost relief, Robin did not order us forward to join the crowd of staggering, falling men.

There was anger at the council that night. The Earl of Essex, his toad-like face purple with rage, accused everyone and anyone of cowardice and treachery. But Robin, who had come in for the worst of his tirade, merely said calmly: ‘You do not reinforce failure. The attack had failed and I saw no reason to sacrifice my men’s lives when there was no longer any chance of success.’

There was more uproar at that, but Fitzwalter checked it by shouting for silence repeatedly until the large pavilion in which we were meeting was a little quieter.

‘My lords,’ Fitzwalter said, ‘I have news from Oxford.’

That silenced them.

‘The King rejects our demands and denounces the charter as an abomination against God and his own sacred person.’

The crowd of barons muttered and groaned.

‘This should come as no surprise; for we surely have not intimidated him with our prowess. The question remains, my lords: what shall we do?’

‘You tell us – as you seem to have all the answers,’ said Essex angrily.

‘Very well. I say in for a penny, in for a pound. If we quit now, John will hunt us down individually and make us pay for our disloyalty – we will all die or, worse, be imprisoned for life and our lands will be forfeit and our heirs made destitute.’