Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) (11 page)

As I looked at my cousin, my mind travelled back to a time a little more than a year ago, to the small castle of Dangu in eastern Normandy, to the aftermath of the bloody battle of Gisors. Roland, a subject of King Philip and consequently fighting in the enemy ranks, had been captured by Mercadier, the Lionheart’s savage
routier
captain. And such was the hatred between the English and the French at that stage in the war that each side was going so far as to blind the enemy who fell into their hands. Roland had been about to undergo this torment, by means of a burning coal pressed to his naked eyes, when I had come across him by chance and had bargained for his sight and his freedom with the mercenary.

The loathsome Mercadier had sensed that I was vulnerable and had pushed up the ransom price to two hundred pounds, an absurd sum far beyond my reach. I watched helplessly as his laughing men-at-arms made to burn out my cousin’s eyes, when Robin had stepped in suddenly and paid the ransom, in cash, right there and then, astounding everyone and freeing Roland with his sight intact. The money, heavy boxes of silver that Robin had magically produced in the nick of time, I discovered later, had been part of that huge haul stolen from the Templars.

‘Well met, cousin,’ said my relative as he stepped down from a fine grey stallion in the courtyard of Westbury, and he clasped my hand. I pulled him into my chest and hugged him, and then leaned back and looked into his face. A cheerful, healthy visage of roughly my own age looked back at me, blue eyes above a long nose, a mop of yellow-blond hair and a wide smile. He was almost a handsome man, my cousin Roland, his looks only marred by a large patch of shiny pink scar tissue on the lower half of his left cheek and extending down to his neck.

He greeted Goody and presented her with a long, rolled bolt of silk the colour of new bluebells. The gift came from Adele, his mother, and although they had never met, by some strange female alchemy the shade of the rich cloth that Lady d’Alle had selected matched Goody’s eyes exactly. For me, he had brought a pair of well-schooled greyhounds that had been bred on the Alle lands and, he boasted, were the fastest hunting beasts of their kind in France, and yet the most docile in the hall. ‘They can even be trusted around babies,’ Roland said with a grin.

We celebrated the arrival of my cousin and his men with a lavish feast, seating all the visitors and inhabitants of Westbury at long trestle tables in the hall and serving course after course of roast meats with rich sauces, pies, pastries and stews. The meats were carved at table and set before each diner on flat rounds of bread called trenchers. The bread soaked up the meat juices and the servants broke the trenchers apart after the meal and distributed them to the poorest of Westbury as alms, with the rest of the scraps of the meal, and a barrel of new ale. Thus the whole village was able to share in our joy at my cousin’s arrival.

Roland was seated at my right hand during the feast, with Goody on my left, and while we ate, he told me of the doings of my French family. ‘The Seigneur is well at court,’ Roland said, ‘and he has the King’s ear in most military matters. He has encouraged Philip to continue his support of Arthur of Brittany’s claim to the throne of England, the dukedom of Normandy and all the Angevin lands in France. Father thinks John is weak and that he will almost certainly lose in a long war against Philip – saving your presence, Alan, but your new king is certainly no Lionheart.’

‘He is my king in name only,’ I replied. ‘I have no love for him, and I will not willingly serve him in battle.’

‘That will please Father,’ said Roland with a wry smile, ‘and me too.’

When he smiled, only three-quarters of his face moved. The shiny burn scar stayed immobile and gave him a strange mask-like look. I felt a stab of guilt. Roland had received that burn in a battle at Verneuil Castle in Normandy six years before. And I had been responsible for the wound. When it looked as if we might be overwhelmed, I had ordered boiling oil to be poured on to the French forces that were attacking the castle walls I was defending. Although I did not know it at the time, Roland was one of the French knights making that determined assault. And we had faced each other again over drawn blades at the Battle of Gisors four years later. Mercifully, that time neither of us had been hurt. But it was likely that if I should choose to serve King John in his war against King Philip and his protégé Duke Arthur of Brittany – by all accounts a rather stupid twelve-year-old lad – we would be forced to face each other in battle once more, and I knew that neither of us relished that prospect.

‘If you will not serve King John,’ said Roland, ‘there would be a place for you in the ranks of King Philip’s men, and much honour to go with it. Father could easily arrange it, and doubtless the King would provide you with lands and titles, should you so wish. Would you serve with us?’

‘I have had my fill of war and the bloody squabbling of greedy princes,’ I said. ‘My heart’s desire is only to remain here at Westbury with Goody, left in peace to compose my music, and grow fat and happy raising my children.’

‘I understand what you say,’ said Roland. ‘And I honour you for your pursuit of a peaceful life, but I have not yet lost my love for adventure. Things are different for you: you have Goody, and the baby to come, and lands of your own, while I must live my life perpetually in the shadow of my father. He is the Seigneur, he is the master of our House and always will be – and I will be nobody until he is dead. And, although God forbid that his death should come soon, I cannot but think that I will remain only half a man until he is called to Heaven. No, I must seek my own path, Alan, away from the loving stranglehold of family. I cannot be happy until I have carved my own place in this world with gold and glory in equal measure won by my sword.’

‘Talking of treasure,’ I said, ‘when would you like to deliver your silver hoard to the Earl of Locksley?’

‘As soon as possible,’ said my cousin, with a strange writhe of his damaged features. ‘I have been in mortal fear of thieves ever since I left Paris. I could not bear to return to my father and say that I had been robbed on the way to paying my debt, and humbly ask for him to hand over another fortune. I did think of going to the Templars and exchanging the coin for a promissory note, but the fees that they demand for their services are extortionate. And in the end, I decided to risk it, but vowed that I would die rather than allow the silver to be stolen by bandits on the journey.’

I kept my face deliberately straight, but inside I was laughing like a lunatic at full moon. It would have been a sublime pleasure for me to see Robin receiving his payment in the form of a letter of credit drawn on the Templars.

‘We may go to his winter camp tomorrow, if you wish,’ I said. ‘But I must warn you that I will have to bind your eyes with a cloth as we approach the place. It is a secret, and its location must not be revealed, even to a friend such as you. I swore a mighty oath to this effect many years ago, and I will not break it.’

‘That seems oddly fitting,’ said Roland. ‘I must be blinded temporarily in order to pay the price for the salvation of my sight.’

Sherwood shivered under a thick blanket of snow as Roland and I walked our horses down the narrow deer tracks that took us towards Robin’s winter den – a well-hidden complex of caves that he had used years ago when he first became an outlaw. Roland had been accompanied by his protective men-at-arms a good part of the way, and then at my command he had dismissed them and submitted to the blindfold, and alone, I had led him and the two heavily laden pack mules through the secret paths towards the hidden caves of my lord.

The wood was bright with reflected light from the snow banks, and silent, the trees appearing as huddled, frosted skeletons under ragged white mantles, and we walked our horses through a cloud of our own frozen breath. Robin greeted us by the entrance to the main cave, wearing a bearskin cloak and standing beside a roaring campfire with a broad grin lighting his face and his hands resting comfortably on his hips. His beard had continued to grow since our escapade at Welbeck Abbey, and his hair was long and unkempt. He looked the very picture of an outlaw: shabby, wild and decked in animal skins. And while Little John and Gavin unloaded the silver from the mules, he poured cups of hot spiced wine and led us to the big table at the back of the largest cave.

It was delightfully warm in that wide space, kept so by the roaring fire, and the cave had an air of comfortable male clutter: swords, spears and shields were piled around the walls, and riding gear, saddles and bridles heaped in confusion; half a deer carcass hung from a hook by the entrance next to a box of apples and a large round of cheese. Half a dozen dirty, hairy men lounged about the cave, largely ignoring our intrusion, some sleeping, some drinking, some merely doing very little in a lazily, contented way. This was clearly a place of ease and comfort for men on the run from the law, with plentiful food and few rules and obligations. And yet, I could not help noticing how different it was from the early days of Robin’s outlawry. There was an aimlessness about the place that I had not seen ten years ago, and a lack of order: then, Robin had had a plan – he had been raising an army of outcasts, training them, disciplining them, forging them into a company that could take on his enemy the Sheriff of Nottingham’s forces in pitched battle. Then Robin had a goal – to be reinstated as a member of lawful society. Now, it seemed, he did not.

Little John and Gavin joined us at the table, helping themselves to cups of hot wine and pulling up wooden stools. I noticed that they sat unnaturally close to each other, their thighs almost touching. ‘Well, it’s all there,’ said Little John, nodding in appreciation at Roland. Gavin beamed at the whole table.

‘And I must thank you for such a speedy repayment,’ said Robin, smiling at my cousin. ‘Please pay my respects to your father the Seigneur when you see him.’

‘It is I who must thank you, my lord,’ said Roland. ‘I owe the fact that I can see you today to your kindness.’

Though Roland’s words were most courteous and polished, I could sense that he was uncomfortable in this fire-lit den of thieves and outlaws in the depths of the wilderness. He was more used to the cobbled streets of Paris and the grand halls of powerful nobles, and so when Robin invited us to stay and feast with him on fresh venison that night, I refused and said we had to return to Westbury before dark to keep an eye on Goody who had been particularly queasy that morning.

‘There is just one little thing I would like to show you before you leave,’ said Robin. I looked out at the winter gloom of early afternoon, saw that the snow was softly falling again, and I nodded absently, expecting some bauble, a golden or silver trinket to be produced for me to marvel over. Instead, Robin turned to Little John and said in a soft voice as cool as a breeze on the back of the neck, ‘Bring him in here, and bring the shears with you too.’ And Little John and Gavin got up from the table and went out into the grey, swirling snow.

A few moments later they returned dragging a wretched figure by the arms between them. The man was about forty years old, pale, filthy and dressed in the rags of what looked as if they had once been rich town clothes but which were now stained with sweat and dirt and a good deal of pus and blood, old and new. His skin was waxy, and a yellow-grey colour, and he was weeping freely from large brown bloodshot eyes. He had matted, curly brown hair in a fringe around his bald pate, like a monk’s tonsure. But this man was no Christian monk: he was a Jew.

‘This is Malloch Baruch, once a goldsmith of Lincoln,’ said Robin in an empty voice. ‘He accepted money from a mysterious knight to spin me a tale about the cruel Abbot of Welbeck refusing to pay for his golden altar ornaments. He came to me pretending to ask for my help but secretly helping those who plotted to have me trapped and murdered. It took some while, and no little trouble to coax the full, the true story from him but we managed it in the end … Show them, John.’

The pathetic man was slumped on his knees by the table, his hands together in front of him. John reached down with a meaty fist and pulled Malloch’s wrists up on to the table – and my mind reeled in horror.

The prisoner’s arms were tightly bound at the wrists from the heel of the palm to the elbow, but it was his crossed hands that drew the eye. He had but three digits remaining, two on the right hand, the thumb and middle finger, and a single finger on the left, the little one. Where the other six fingers and his left thumb had been there were now merely bloody stumps, some less than half an inch long, crusted and scabbed over, some festering and some half-healed, and some with a glimpse of bone poking through the dried cap of black blood. The digits had clearly been severed individually, and over a considerable length of time.

‘No, no, not again, please God, please God. I’ve already told you everything … No, please, noooooooooo!’ The man’s voice rose to a howling scream as John pulled a large pair of sheep shears from his belt. These were ordinary farm implements; two long triangles of steel linked by a U-shaped springy metal rod, the inner edges of the blades as sharp as a barber’s razor. With this tool, a farm hand could cut the fleece from a struggling ewe in a hundred heartbeats. Gavin stepped behind Malloch and grasped him firmly by the shoulders. John held the poor man’s arms fast on the table and placed the cutting edges of the shears over the man’s remaining thumb – and looked at Robin.

Malloch’s screaming was at a near-deafening volume by now, a wailing assault on our ears, and he was writhing and thrashing, trying to break from Gavin’s grip.

‘Be quiet now and stay still or you will lose the thumb,’ said Robin quietly and the man stopped his awful noise immediately.

Robin looked at me, his eyes like chips of mountain ice. ‘When I heard you were coming, Alan, I kept this fellow to hand. I want you to hear this from his own lips so that you will know that it is true. So, are you listening?’

I nodded, my eyes fastened to the prisoner’s poor mutilated hands.