The King’s Assassin (13 page)

‘Get up,’ I said. ‘We are going back to Westbury right now. Our dinner awaits.’

‘But, Alan, I have these fellows. I can feel it. I just need one more throw—’

‘Sir Thomas, you forget yourself,’ I said. ‘Come on, now.’

As Thomas stood up, the bald fellow in the red tunic said: ‘Care for a throw, sir? You have the look of good fortune about you.’

I ignored the man and pulled Thomas towards the door.

‘He owes us money,’ said a second man, a tall, hulking fellow with a purple-and-white nose very like a turnip. All three of Thomas’s companions were now on their feet. The foul air in the tavern seemed to chill as if night had suddenly fallen.

I put my hand on Fidelity’s hilt. I looked at all three men, one after the other, squarely in the eye. ‘You have taken all that he has,’ I said. ‘So I cannot think that he owes you any more. And we are taking our leave now.’

‘He owes us another sixpence,’ said turnip-nose. He too had a hand on his hilt, a long dagger stuck in his broad leather belt.

‘I say he does not.’ I knew I was a hair’s breadth away from bloody carnage.

‘Er, Sir Alan, I do actually owe them sixpence.’ Thomas looked shamefaced, but also quite determined. ‘I gave them my word.’

I looked at him in surprise. I had been expecting him to back me in this dispute without question. ‘Let us go back to Westbury,’ I said, ‘we can discuss it there.’

‘No,’ said Thomas quietly and firmly. ‘It is a matter of honour.’ And to the fellow in the scarlet tunic: ‘Will you accept my boots and cloak as payment?’

‘Throw in your chemise, too,’ said the man, smirking.

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I said, and fumbled for my purse. I counted out six silver pennies and tossed them with a tinny clatter on to the square tray.

On the ride home, I told Thomas that I would be deducting the sixpence from his monthly stipend, and also that I would pay him his fee at the end of his time with us at Westbury, or if he preferred I would pay it directly to the Templars in his name.

‘You think me a fool, Alan,’ he said. ‘But I do not always lose, you know.’

I shrugged. ‘You are a free man, I cannot tell you what to do with your money. But if you ever take Robert to a place like that, you will answer for it to me.’

We rode the rest of the way in silence.

At the end of the first week in July, I set off on the nearly two-hundred-mile journey from Westbury to Alnwick. Marie-Anne’s words a few weeks previously had struck a blow at my heart, but I had accepted de Vesci’s invitation to his summer feast. And I believed that I owed it to the lord of Alnwick and his friend Lord Fitzwalter to at least meet and discuss the issue of the King’s removal face to face.

I rode north from Westbury alone, leaving Robert in the care of Baldwin and a now chastened Thomas – and I told no one where I was going, not even them. The fewer people who had knowledge of this plot, even if it came to naught, the better.

I crossed the Tyne at the New Castle on the eve of St Swithun’s Day with my mind a little clearer as to my purpose. I would talk with de Vesci and Fitzwalter, I would entertain their guests with my poetry and music, and if we could come up with a plan together that seemed to offer reasonably good odds of dispatching John and allowing me to escape unscathed, I would agree to do the deed.

That night I was received by the monks at Newminster Abbey near the town of Morpeth and at Vespers in the abbey church I prayed earnestly for guidance from the Lord of Hosts. On my knees in the cold gloom of the church, I closed my eyes and whispered: ‘O Lord my God, guide me in my indecision. I know that red murder is a sin against your Holy Name, and that my closest friends are urging me to give up this bloody task, but my heart tells me that I must do this deed in the name of vengeance. For Arthur and all the men who have died at the King’s hand. Help me, O Lord, send me a sign, tell me if I should take this sin upon myself or pursue the path of peace that your son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, has taught us. Amen.’

The next day, as I was riding the last few miles through the lush green pastures towards Alnwick Castle, I received the sign that I had begged for.

I was cantering along the sunken road and came around a blind corner and reined in sharply as I saw a big, well-muscled man in peasant’s garb with a long knife in his hands standing by the side of the road. Beside him was a dog, a huge beast with its hair on end, its mouth gaping in a savage snarl, and a white froth of saliva garlanding its long yellow teeth. I stopped a good twenty paces from the man and beast but still my mount began to bridle and cavort in fear at the barking animal. My heart was pounding too and I had my hand on Fidelity’s hilt, ready to draw and fight – but the peasant made no move to attack me and I could see now that the beast, although it was growling and shaking its large head, was securely roped to a tree.

‘Good day to you, sir,’ said the man respectfully, and he tugged off his shapeless woollen hat. ‘Don’t be afeared of Betsy, sir, she’s well secured.’

‘What is wrong with her?’ I asked, dismounting and tying my horse to a clump of alder bushes a goodly distance away on the far side of the road. The dog was still thrashing about on the end of the rope snapping her jaws and seemingly trying to bite the man. I came cautiously closer, hand still on my hilt. ‘She looks like she has a demon inside her – or the Devil himself.’

‘I don’t know about that, sir,’ said the man. ‘I’m not a learned man, like a priest or monk – or a gentleman such as yourself. But I do know that Betsy’s run mad, sir. You see, a while back she was bit by another bitch, who was just the same way as she is now, all frothy and snapping like a wolf, terrible afeared of water, too, and a month or so later she took the madness herself. There’s no hope for Betsy, sir, it grieves mightily me to say. No hope at all.’

‘What will you do with her?’ I asked, keeping a respectful distance from the animal’s teeth.

‘Well, sir, I was aiming to end her with this here knife. But I can’t get close enough without I risk getting bit. And if she bites me, I’m Hell-bound, too. But, well, you see, sir, she was a good and faithful dog, before all this, and to be honest I can’t bear to leave her here all tied up to die of thirst…’

The man paused and looked at me imploringly. ‘She was a good dog, sir. Loyal, faithful as anything. Would you help me, sir, of your mercy, would you help me to do the necessary with Betsy? If I distract her, perhaps you could … with your sword? You would be doing me – and her, I reckon – a great service…’

I agreed, and as the fellow dodged about just out of reach of the brute’s jaws on the one side, calling her name, I came at the dog from the other. I swung with Fidelity once and took her head off with one fast sweep of the blade.

The fellow was absurdly grateful. As I cleaned my weapon on a clump of long grass, he said: ‘You are a saint, sir, and I have no doubt God will bless you in all your endeavours.’ I merely nodded at him, for I was thinking hard. ‘I owe you a great debt of gratitude for old Betsy,’ he continued. ‘And although I cannot repay you…’

‘Nonsense,’ I said, ‘you owe me nothing. In fact, I believe I owe you something for showing me the truth,’ and reached into my pouch for a penny to give him.

For God had given me the sign I had asked for. King John was the mad dog and I had been called upon by the common people of England to release him from life.

The day of the feast was one of blazing sunshine and, as it was St Swithun’s Day, the country folk said it boded well for the rest of that summer. After the rainstorms of June, I was pleased, for it now seemed that the harvest at Westbury and all across the land would be a bountiful one. I took the opportunity of good weather to dress myself in my finest clothes for the celebration: a new tunic of fine sky-blue wool, close fitting above the waist but with the new style of long, wide drooping sleeves and long flowing skirts slit in the front to thigh level to expose my new yellow-and-red stripped hose. My hose came with thin leather soles already attached so there was no need for me to wear boots or shoes, and showed off admirably, I thought, the muscular length of my legs. I had a new hat for the occasion, too, a smart black piece, shaped like a cone with a rounded point and a rolled brim. For once, I felt that I was dressed in an appropriate fashion for a feast.

An area of gently sloping sheep pasture to the south of the castle walls had been set aside for the festivities, and once I had changed my clothes in the castle and had a brief wash, I strolled through a makeshift town of brightly coloured pavilions and gaudy tents with my vielle slung on my back. My mood was light, buoyant even, the ‘streets’ of this tent-town were thronging with men and women, mostly dressed as extravagantly as myself, and I bowed and smiled at the gentlefolk I encountered.

There were tumblers, jugglers, pipers and dancing dwarfs to amuse the knights and their ladies as they strolled about between the tents, and men and maids with trays of hot pies and sweetmeats, sliced fruit and honeyed nuts, and servants with huge trays bearing cups of light red wine from Bordeaux offered refreshments to the multitude. I recognised some of the revellers, with a Yorkshireman here and there, though not many, since these knightly people were mostly from Northumbria and Cumberland, with a scattering of nobles from the Scottish lowlands. For a moment I felt very far from home. But not for long. I took a cup of wine and an almond custard cake from a passing servant, and sipped and chewed as I passed among the peacock-coloured tents. I felt the sunshine on my face and a sense of well-being, merriment occupied my mind in that hour, not murder.

At a space between the tents I saw that tables and chairs had been laid out and a small crowd of ladies had gathered around a well-dressed, fair-haired man who was singing sweetly and playing a vielle rather well. I lingered to listen as he came to the end of a
canso
about a great lady who was loved by a lowly knight, a retainer of her lord. Their love could never be, he sang, and the knight eventually threw himself off a bridge into the river out of love for her. A charming piece, if rather silly, I thought, but well performed by this musician.

I applauded with the rest of them and then caught the eye of the fair, ruddy-faced man who was performing it. It was Robert Fitzwalter, I saw, and among the crowd, almost at the same time, I spied my host Eustace de Vesci, lord of Alnwick.

Fitzwalter was an instinctively courteous man, as I had noticed when we met at Kirkton. He made some adjustments to the strings of his vielle and then silenced the chattering assembly with the words: ‘This next work is played with greatest humility as a homage to a far greater musician than I, and in memory of a noble king…’

And to my astonishment he began to sing:

My joy summons me

To sing in this sweet season

And my generous heart replies

That it is right to feel this way.

It was a
canso
that I had written long ago with King Richard of England. It had enjoyed a brief popularity many years ago, when Richard was freshly returned from captivity in Germany, and it had had a topical flavour, but I had not heard the tune for many and many a year. Lord Fitzwalter sang:

My heart commands me

To love my sweet mistress,

And my joy in doing so

Is a generous reward in itself.

I had already swept my own vielle off my back, praising God that I had thought to put the strings in tune the day before, and together we sang the last two verses of my work, with myself playing and singing a slightly different version of the tune that twined around with Fitzwalter’s lines to give a pleasing effect on the listener’s ear.

We sang:

A lord has one obligation

Greater than love itself

Which is to reward most generously

The knight who serves him well.

And then:

A knight who sings so sweetly

Of obligation to his noble lord

Should consider the great virtue

Of courtly manners not discord.

There was much happy applause from the gathered ladies, and several of them crowded around me with pretty compliments and cooing noises of admiration, and I felt my face begin to grow red at all the attention. Someone brought me another cup of wine and I allowed myself to be persuaded to play one more piece for the assembled crowd.

I gave them ‘Lancelot and Guinevere’, and had the ladies sighing; then ‘
Le Chanson de Roland
’, which made more than a few of them weep, and then ‘The Fox Lord and the Lady Rabbit’ – a ribald tale of vulpine lust and woodland virtue – which made them all roar with laughter. Then I pleaded a sore throat and summoned another cup of wine, promising to play again after sunset in the great hall of the castle. And all the while, as I played my vielle and sang and flirted with the ladies, I could feel the eyes of my lords de Vesci and Fitzwalter upon me, weighing me, or so it seemed.

After I retired from the field of combat, a young man with long curled hair leapt up and began to play a small shrill flute while his legs kicked out in some sort of manic new dance. I gathered up my vielle and bow and sauntered away from the crowds, mostly to get away from the young man and his screeching instrument, but also because I knew that Fitzwalter and de Vesci would surely follow me.

And so they did.

A short while later, I found myself sitting on a gold-painted X-shaped stool in a rather hot and stuffy cloth-of-gold pavilion on the outskirts of the tent-town, quite close to the southern postern gate of the castle, being offered yet another cup of wine – but this one iced and of far better quality that the common swill I’d had before.

The wine-bearing servant disappeared and de Vesci, Fitzwalter and I were alone in the pavilion with just the shadows of the two men-at-arms outside staining the silken door flap to let us know that we were guarded.

‘May I cordially welcome you to Alnwick Castle,’ said Fitzwalter, raising his cup of wine to me.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ I said.

‘It is my castle and I will do any welcoming,’ snapped de Vesci.