The King’s Assassin (44 page)

‘That’s a cheery thought,’ said the young knight beside me. I turned to look and recognised John de Lacy, the son of Roger, the man who had so bravely defended Château Gaillard a decade ago. Bull-headed Roger was now dead and this callow stripling held his lands and titles. God help us all, I thought.

‘I say we make our message to the King as clear as crystal,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘We sign a document today, now even, that utterly renounces our allegiance to the King. We make the
diffidato
, stating that we no longer consider that we own homage for our lands to the King.’

There was a stunned silence. ‘You go too far, sir,’ said the Earl of Winchester. ‘We are in dispute with John, for sure, but he is still the rightful King.’

‘What difference does it make?’ said Robin. ‘We are already beyond the pale. I agree with Fitzwalter. I say we make the
diffidato
today and cut our ties with John.’

I was a little surprised by Robin’s stance; he had always made it a point of honour to keep to his oaths, but the general consensus was with Fitzwalter, and while we were waiting for the clerks to draw up the legal document I cornered my lord and asked if he really thought this was wise.

‘We are outlaws again, Alan,’ said my lord. ‘We have been since we marched south in arms against John. I do not like to break my oath, but there comes a point when to continue to pretend to honour it becomes absurd. I feel that we have been more than patient with John – he could have met us to discuss the charter, to discuss the grievances of the country at any time, but he has refused us again and again. And this is John! He is not a man who honours
his
oaths. What was it you used to ask me in Normandy? It used to aggravate me beyond measure: Oh yes, “Why do we serve this King?” That’s what you used to say. Well, from this day forward, Alan, we do not.’

In the second week of May we left Northampton, defeated, dispirited and with our strength ebbing away. The King had responded swiftly to our declaration of
diffidato
. He had not been even slightly perturbed by it, instead he had issued a general proclamation that the lands of all the rebels were now forfeit by royal command and any sheriff who so desired could seize them and any property they contained. A goodly number of knights and barons, on hearing the King’s response, began slipping away from the so-called Army of God, many returning to their lands to gather provisions and fortify their castles. And John had gone further, he had announced generous grants of land to those barons who were wavering – bribes, in effect – to prevent them from joining our cause. It was a strategy that I had heard Robin call the stick and the carrot. For my part, I was filled with a sense of fear and dread as we tramped the twenty-odd miles to Bedford – we had decided to take up the lord of that castle’s offer of dry accommodation – for I realised that Westbury was now more than ever open to attack by the sheriff’s men and Baldwin and a handful of men-at-arms would never keep out a determined assault. At least, Robert was with me. And for that I gave thanks to God.

After I had settled Boot and my son and my few men-at-arms in a snug hay barn just outside the town, I went in search of my lord inside the castle. Instead, I found Hugh in the vast inner bailey deeply involved in arranging food and beds for his exhausted men. He seemed to have little time for me.

‘Where is your father?’ I asked him.

‘He’s gone,’ said Hugh.

‘What?’ I said. ‘Where has he gone?’

‘I don’t know where he is Alan, truly, I don’t. Father told me only that he had an errand to make and that it would take a week or so and that I was to take command of the men until he returned. He didn’t say where he was going, but he has left me with a great deal to do – so, if you don’t mind, I am rather busy just now…’

I stumbled away in a sort of daze. What errand could be so important that it took Robin away from his men on the eve of battle, away from his sons?

I had absolutely no idea.

Robin was not the only man to desert the Army of God. Over the next few days at least half its numbers melted away as men fled back to defend their homes against their local sheriffs. I could hardly blame them – the King’s vigorous response to the
diffidato
made every man of property vulnerable and, in my weaker moments, I even contemplated abandoning our cause and returning to Westbury myself. It seemed in those dark days that the flame of rebellion was guttering like a candle by an open shutter. King John, without doing anything much at all, had won – or so it seemed to me. I wondered if we had not made the greatest blunder of our lives in challenging him. His vengeance would be swift and merciless when the army was no more.

Then, as suddenly as he had disappeared, Robin returned. I found him one drizzly afternoon in the hall of Bedford Castle at a long table in conference with lords De Vesci, Fitzwalter and their host. The mood was black gloom and our defeat filled the air above their heads like a fine grey cloud. I came and stood behind my lord as he sat on a bench opposite the other lords and waited for him to notice me.

De Vesci was saying: ‘…and if we go now, and retreat to Alnwick, we can hold out against the King for a year or more. My Scottish kin will come to my aid, we can recruit more men, regroup…’ He tailed off.

‘You would abandon me here alone to face the King’s wrath?’ quavered Lord Bedford, clearly appalled at the prospect. ‘I have fed you all these past days with no stinting, and this is how you repay me?’

‘If we run back north, it is over,’ said Fitzwalter. He seemed more angry than afeared. ‘The rebellion is ended and our lives and lands are all forfeit sooner or later. Sooner, probably. There is still a chance that, if we hold on here, the other barons will come to our aid. They must want to see the charter sealed as much as we do.’

‘The other barons will not come to us,’ said Robin.

‘Thank you, Locksley, that is most helpful,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘I suppose we must be grateful that you have condescended to return to us.’

‘I say what I have always said – that the barons will not come to our aid, unless we show them that we can win. And, as I have always maintained, that will require a stroke of boldness.’

‘But what can we do?’ said Bedford. ‘Every day more and more men desert in the night. They creep away like mice. We are weaker now than we have ever been.’

‘That is why we must act now,’ said Robin. ‘We can have no more delays.’

‘What would you have us do, my lord?’ said Fitzwalter.

‘I say we take London – and we take it now.’

Robin’s words were met with a stunned silence. Then a tumult of angry words.

‘Have you not listened to a word we have said? We have not the strength to take a well-defended pig-pen at present!’ Fitzwalter was on his feet, his face beetroot red.

‘But we can take London,’ my lord said calmly. ‘London is rotten-ripe and ready to fall. I have spent the past few days there in consultation with my friends – and some of yours too, Fitzwalter. The merchants are with us – the money men want the charter of liberties and they are not afraid of the King. The Church, too, will not stand against us – my lord the Archbishop of Canterbury has seen to that. My cousin Henry has been working to this end for months and we have agreement with the guilds of the City, with the merchant princes and the bishops. If we can take the walls of London, they will rise against King John’s garrisons across the city. London is ready to fall, I say. All we have to do is find the courage, the strength of mind to take it.’

‘You are mad, sir! We have fewer than four hundred men,’ said de Vesci.

‘I could take London with twenty men,’ said Robin. ‘Sir Alan here could take it with a dozen.’

This was news to me, but I kept my mouth shut. So did the other men at the table – but out of sheer disbelieving outrage. Fitzwalter sat down again wearily.

‘Listen to me. The key is Newgate,’ said my lord. ‘We don’t need to fight all along the city walls, we don’t need to take the Tower – all we need to do is take Newgate, one small unsuspecting bastion, and get the gates open in good time, then the rest of the army can ride right in across the bridge. Once inside, the city will rise – and London is ours. They are not expecting us. It must seem like an act of gross folly for us in our weakened state to attempt to seize the biggest prize in the land. But it is not folly. We can do this – and, if we do, at one stroke we will have won this war. The barons will come to us – almost all of them, I am sure of it. And then King John must capitulate and set his seal on the charter. All I ask is that we make one bold stroke, gentlemen, one bold stroke for victory. Are you with me?’

Fitzwalter began to laugh. A bubbling effusion of merriment, he clasped his belly and roared, tears streaming down his red face.

Robin gave him an icy stare. ‘You find this amusing,’ he said.

‘No, no,’ spluttered Fitzwalter. ‘You are a devil when it comes to making fine speeches, Locksley – but I am with you. I am most certainly with you. What choice do we have but to accept this moon-crazed plan? There is no other course open to us. One bold stroke for victory!’

Three days later, at dusk, on the ides of May, Robin and I were in the chapter house of St John’s Priory in Clerkenwell, half a mile outside the city of London. Some forty Kirkton men, mostly archers, and my handful of Westbury men-at-arms were waiting outside in the courtyard preparing themselves for battle in a variety of ways. The chosen men were blackening their faces with soot and goose fat, the bowmen were checking bow-cord and shafts, swords and daggers were being given one final sharpening. Robert had been sent to bed in the Prior’s guest house. He had protested that after all his training with Thomas he was now ready for battle, but I had resolutely ignored his pleas. There was no need to risk his life along with my own. The Army of God was about several miles behind us, straggling along Watling Street in the line of march, and expected to arrive at the walls of the city by dawn; indeed, Fitzwalter had given Robin an undertaking that he and the whole army would be outside Newgate before the sun rose. The Prior of St John’s had set out food and drink for Robin’s men from the refectory and then had retired to his bed. But Henry Odo had been waiting there for our arrival. He was the bearer of bad tidings.

‘The Earl of Salisbury is on the march,’ he said in a breathless voice. ‘The King’s brother is coming to London with a force of mercenaries several thousand strong aiming to fortify the city and deny it to you. He is only a day’s ride away.’

‘Then we still have time,’ said Robin. ‘It will be tight, but we can do it if we go tonight. We must get Fitzwalter’s men inside London by tomorrow morning or he will be cut to pieces on the road and that will be the end of all of us.’

‘I have more bad news,’ said Henry, as he waved over a young monk who was bearing a tray of cups of wine. ‘The King’s constable has reinforced all the gates of London, doubled the guard. I believe word of your plan has leaked out to the enemy.’

Brother Geoffrey’s informant! Could this be his work? It would appear so. I had not done near enough thinking on this problem in recent days, not since suspecting my loyal friend Thomas and then deciding that it could not be him. But, as often happens to me, I found that not looking squarely at a problem allows the mind to come at it in other ways. I felt sure that Brother Geoffrey himself had given me sufficient information to work out who the informant must be. I was sure that there was something that he had said to me in that dank cell in Nottingham or at our meeting with the Marshal at Westbury that was of significance, but I could not put my finger on it exactly. No, it would not come, not while Cousin Henry and Robin were still disputing the attack on Newgate.

‘I must advise, my lord, against making this stroke,’ Cousin Henry was saying.

‘No. We can still do it. We must do it,’ said Robin.

We left the priory at midnight on foot. A sickle moon in a cloudless sky gave us light enough to see by – but also enough for the enemy to see us. Robin had persuaded me that a small stealthy force would stand a better chance of getting over the walls without raising the alarm, but I felt sick and shaky at the very thought of what we were about to attempt. He said that twelve men was the largest number that could make the assault but they would be supported as best they could by our archers from outside the walls, and stressed the importance of the gates: they must be opened by dawn so the Army of God could ride into the city. All other considerations were secondary.

We approached the huge bulk of Newgate, two massive square towers beside the double-doored gate, linked by a stone platform over the entrance and with walls three times the height of a man stretching away into the darkness on either side, and I felt the first now-familiar crushing sense of my cowardly fears. The gate loomed above me, thirty yards away, a stronghold packed with hundreds of men-at-arms, and my lord was asking me to assault it with a scant handful of comrades. I was battling a desperate urge to run. To flee from my friends and comrades and run blindly back into the countryside behind me. To run for ever, forgoing all responsibilities and debts of honour. To run until I could find some lonely corner of England where I could at last be safe and alone with my shame.

We stopped on the far side of a shallow, foul-smelling moat, in a sad huddle of ramshackle dwellings and workshops outside the walls – for the city had burst its bounds even then – and crouched down in the shadow of the old stone bridge. The moat had once been a formidable barrier, but over the centuries it had become filled with all the refuse of a vast city, and now it was a midden of noisome sludge only a foot or so deep. I could see the helmet of a single man-at-arms high above me, moving along the wall to the left of the gatehouse, and the glow of a brazier where the wall met the tower, but as far as I knew we had not yet been detected.

Behind me I heard Robin ordering the dispersal of his archers, each man taking up a position out of sight in the lee of a shack or craftsman’s forge, or behind a bush or one of the few trees that had not been felled for firewood. The wide highway of Watling Street led arrow-straight away into the darkness behind us.