The King’s Assassin (4 page)

I said I had. And I offered my congratulations to Robin’s oldest son, who was standing beside him, wishing the young man all the happiness of the day.

‘Glad you’re here, Alan,’ Robin said quietly in my ear. ‘Something has come up. Something – ah – very foolish. But I need you to help me quash it.’

‘Hugh, perhaps you would be kind enough to take Robert to the tables in the upper field,’ said the Earl of Locksley loudly, ‘and show him where to get something to eat. You might swing by the stables, on your way and show off your birth-day gift.’

‘A horse?’ I asked Robin.

‘A destrier,’ he replied, ‘it cost me a king’s ransom. But you should have seen the way Hugh smiled when he saw the beast for the first time. Worth every penny.’

The two youngsters departed through the crowded hall, chatting in a friendly familiar fashion, Hugh’s brawny arm over Robert’s thin shoulders, for they had known each other all their lives and I knew Robert looked upon Miles and Hugh as something akin to cousins, perhaps even elder brothers. I looked beyond the two young men and found my eye alighting on two mature knights who stood out from the rest of the revellers in the solemnity of their mien. They were dressed as for a celebration in fine-cut cloth, but standing slightly apart from the multitudes in the hall, by the wall, each attended by a pair of armed servants. Alone out of the hordes in Robin’s hall they seemed serious, guarded and watchful, aloof from the revelling.

One of the men, a tall, dark-haired man in a crimson-and-white cloak, with a long bony nose and bright blue eyes, saw me looking at him and inclined his head in greeting. He did not smile but I knew that I had seen him somewhere before and so I favoured him with a courteous bow. His companion, in a glorious golden cloak, saw where his fellow was looking and also greeted me with a cautious nod, before whispering in his friend’s ear. I had the feeling that I was being discussed by these two solemn, yet gaudy fellows, a most disagreeable sensation, and I was just about to go over and interrupt their private discourse when Robin beat me to it. He plucked at my elbow and led me over to the two men.

‘Sir Alan, you know Eustace de Vesci, of course, lord of Alnwick Castle, who fought so valiantly with us during in the Great Pilgrimage,’ my lord said, indicating the dark man in the crimson cloak.

As Robin said it, I did dimly remember the man from those long-ago struggles in the Holy Land. He had been an indifferent warrior, I recalled, but proud as Lucifer. He had snubbed me once in Robin’s company, I think, called me an upstart or some such. But then I had not yet been knighted by King Richard and was just a common man-at-arms, so I supposed I must forgive him. But there was another reason why his name was familiar to me, and I found myself looking at him strangely.

‘Lord de Vesci,’ I said, ‘what an honour to make your acquaintance again,’ and I bowed once more.

‘And you must know Lord Fitzwalter, constable of Baynard Castle in London,’ Robin continued.

‘Ha!’ said the second man; a ruddy, square-set knight with brownish-golden hair. ‘Constable of a charred ruin. Didn’t you hear, Locksley? King John had it burnt to the ground in January and slighted its walls for good measure. It’s just a heap of blackened rubble now. They say the smell of smoke still lingers, months later. Not that I’d know, of course…’ Fitzwalter tailed off awkwardly.

Fitzwalter and de Vesci. I knew their names. Even in the far south of France I had heard their infamous names.

‘Ah, yes, Lord Fitzwalter, what a pleasure,’ I said, staring at the man.

‘Is there somewhere we could talk privately, my lord?’ said Eustace de Vesci to Robin. He rolled his eyes towards me. It was clear that he did not wish a guttersnipe such as me to be privy to their elevated conversations.

‘Certainly, let us talk in my solar,’ said Robin, pointing to a door set in the wall at the far end of the hall. ‘Join us, would you, Sir Alan, I want you to hear what these gentlemen have to say.’

De Vesci scowled but he began to walk in the direction that Robin had indicated. Fitzwalter smiled blandly and began to follow his friend.

I halted Robin with a hand on his arm.

‘What is all this about?’ I said. ‘What do these two villains want?’

‘They want me to kill the King,’ said Robin.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

‘Come along, Alan, we should not keep two such desperate cut-throats waiting, should we?’ said my lord.

The solar was empty – but for a large bed on one side of the room and a small table at the other at which a tray with a jug of purple wine, cups and a bowl of fruit had been laid. Robin had clearly been expecting to entertain here.

While de Vesci and Fitzwalter pulled up stools to the low table and, at Robin’s urging, poured themselves wine, I pondered what I had heard of these two men.

Eustace de Vesci was from an old Norman family that had been a power in the north-east of England for generations. He had married the illegitimate daughter of the King of Scotland, a woman of surpassing beauty called Margaret, and ruled his wide lands from Alnwick Castle, a great stronghold north of the Tyne. Like many of the barons of England he disliked and distrusted King John, but last year he had been accused of being involved in a plot to murder him. The plot had been betrayed and de Vesci had fled north to take refuge with his wife’s kin in Scotland. He had been dispossessed of his lands by the King, and if John had been able to get his hands on him he would have been a dead man. Indeed, if John knew that Robin was now sheltering him in Kirkton, Robin’s situation would be precarious, too.

I knew less about the second man. Robert Fitzwalter, once constable of Baynard Castle by the Thames, and still a power in London and in Essex, had also been named as one of the conspirators and he had fled to France to save his skin. Now, evidently, both were back in England.

Lord Fitzwalter crunched into an apple and jerked his chin at de Vesci. ‘Go on, Eustace, no need to be coy. Set out your stall,’ he said through a mouthful of mush.

Eustace de Vesci took a swallow of dark wine, looked from Robin to me and back again, and began.

‘You know King John well, Locksley, I think. You were very close to him in Normandy, in the last days there. And before that, too, as I recall. And so I would ask you a question, which I hope you will answer in all honesty, as God is your witness.’

Robin said nothing. I helped myself to a cup of wine. The silence stretched like soft dough in a baker’s floury hands. To my surprise, Robin broke it.

‘Ask, then,’ he said.

De Vesci looked down at his hands. ‘Before God, my lord, do you think that John is a good king?’

‘No,’ said Robin. A short flat statement.

‘Is he a decent, honourable, fair man, a man worthy of respect and loyalty from the ancient nobility of England?’

Robin didn’t deign to answer that; he just gave a soft snort of contempt.

‘Is John a man who will protect and guard his people, and give them justice as he vowed to do at his coronation?’

Fitzwalter interrupted his friend: ‘We all know he is not. Get on with it, man!’ And earned himself a scowl from his dark-haired companion.

‘Very well, I must ask you then, Lord Locksley: is John a fit and proper King of England?’

Robin shrugged.

De Vesci leaned forward: ‘You heard about William de Braose and his family?’ he asked but did not wait for an answer. ‘He was a good man; you knew him and liked him, I think. Well … our good William is now dead, hounded into an early grave by a vengeful King. And for why? They had been close, as close as brothers, the King and de Braose, but his wife Maud, a silly woman, gossiped that John had had young Duke Arthur murdered in Rouen, which is something that a great many people have been saying recently. And the King, when he heard, was very, very angry. He responded by claiming that de Braose owed him a vast sum of money, some say as much as a hundred thousand marks, a payment for the grant of his lands and fiefdoms. He must pay up, said the King, or forfeit all of them. When de Braose pleaded that couldn’t pay such a price, the King sent knights to take his castles and seize his person.’

Robin stared at him impassively but said nothing.

‘William fled to Ireland,’ de Vesci continued, ‘but the King pursued him there, sending a small army of knights after him. But de Braose was a wily fox – and William the Marshal and other good men gave him shelter for a while – and he evaded the searches of the King’s men and came back to Wales dressed as a filthy beggar. But he was betrayed soon enough and the King’s men followed him there, too, swearing that if he would not surrender to them immediately they would find him and slaughter him in his stinking rags. Finally the poor man escaped to France; he got out of the country with nothing more than the clothes on his back, and he died there in Paris – sick, alone and in penury. Some say he died of a broken heart.’

De Vesci leaned forward and grasped Robin’s forearm, which was resting on the table. ‘Yet still John was not satisfied,’ he said, his voice trembling with emotion. ‘He seized all his lands, all his manors and castles. He even managed to capture his wife, Maud, whose blather was the cause of all this trouble, and their son. That woman, brave in extremis, it must be said, demanded a trial; she demanded to know what crime she was accused of. She asked to be allowed to speak her defence to the barons of England, and vowed she would accept their judgement if they found that she was guilty of any crime whatsoever. But the King refused and had her imprisoned, quietly tucked away in Corfe Castle in the deepest dungeon. He gave orders that they were to receive no visitors – and no food.

‘She and her son lingered for weeks, but eventually they both died. The son, it seems, in his desperate starveling state gnawed on his mother’s corpse before the gaolers dragged it away. Ate his own mother’s decaying flesh – can you imagine what would bring you to that pass? He died soon afterwards, anyway. God rest them both.’

There was an awkward silence in the solar after de Vesci’s impassioned speech. Robin looked down at his tightly gripped forearm. The dark man released Robin’s limb but tried to lock eyes with my lord. Robin met his gaze but remained silent.

I had heard rumours of the de Braose family’s sad fate, but I was thinking mostly about Duke Arthur and his miserable death at his uncle King John’s hands. I had witnessed it personally in the dungeon at Rouen Castle. So had Robin.

He knew as well as anyone what a murderous creature the King was. But, to my surprise, my lord of Locksley merely said: ‘So … John is not a perfect, stainless monarch. Name one that ever was?’

‘Not perfect?’ de Vesci exploded. ‘The man is a disgrace. He is a cowardly murderer of women and children! Almost anyone would make a better king!’

‘Tell me,’ said Robin, ‘how come you to be in England? I had heard that the King had exiled you both on pain of death after the last … uh … incident.’

De Vesci was taken aback, quite surprised by this turn in the conversation. By ‘last incident’, Robin clearly meant the last plot to kill the King. De Vesci had been leaning forward and speaking passionately; now he recoiled from Robin, scowled and fortified himself with a sip of wine. It was Lord Fitzwalter who answered for him.

‘It is all due to the graciousness of his Holiness the Pope,’ he said.

It was my turn to be bemused.

Robin said: ‘I see. So John is prepared to submit to the Pope, and the price is your return, and something else … what else? The French invasion?’

‘What?’ I said. This was all moving too fast for me.

Fitzwalter smiled tightly: ‘I had heard that you were a sharp one, Locksley. Very well. I shall tell you. But this must go no further for the time being.’

The blond man looked at me. I shrugged, then nodded my acceptance.

‘You know that John is excommunicate, and England lies under an interdict,’ Fitzwalter said, still looking at me.

‘All Christendom knows that,’ I replied, stung. ‘But John cares little for the Church and its threats of damnation. He once told me, when he was drunk, that he doubted the existence of the Devil. I believe that he only just stopped short of telling me, the court, the world … that he doubted the existence of God!’

De Vesci crossed himself but kept his mouth shut.

‘What you may not know, Sir Alan,’ said Fitzwalter, ‘is that the Pope has given Philip Augustus his consent and permission to invade England in the name of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and claim the throne for himself – and for Christ, of course. The French have raised a huge army, tens of thousands of men, two thousand ships, too, and they have the good opinion, not just of the Pope, but of much of Europe in their plans to cross the sea and remove King John by force.’

‘Some people might imagine that you would welcome that,’ said Robin.

Fitzwalter shot him an angry look. ‘We would
not
welcome that, my lord. We would not welcome an invading foreign army on to these shores, laying waste, burning farms, despoiling the land, slaughtering the people. We would not welcome subjugation by France – England becoming the plaything of a capricious French monarch. We are English patriots, not traitors to our land. We had all that wanton destruction when the Conqueror came over in our great-great-grandfathers’ day. The north was a wasteland for two generations. Who would welcome that carnage again? That – my lord – is what we are trying to prevent.’

‘You have not yet explained how you come to be in this country, returned so soon from exile,’ I said quietly.

‘Yes, I was coming to that,’ said Fitzwalter. He smiled ruefully at me, embarrassed to have lost himself in his passion. ‘So the French are poised to invade, and they have the blessing of the Pope. But King John, seeking as always to outmanoeuvre Philip, sent an envoy to the Pope some months back offering His Holiness the Kingdom of England as a papal fief. He is handing the country to the Pope as a gift, as long as he is allowed to remain king. The Pope has accepted, of course. And John will do homage for England to the papal legate in a week’s time.’

I must admit I was speechless with outrage. King John was throwing away the country, handing it over lock, stock and barrel to a fat prelate in faraway Rome.