I had thought that my soul was at an all-time low already, with the freezing of my love affair with Goody. But at this news I realized that there was yet further for my spirits to fall.
After my old music teacher’s announcement, we ate a joyless meal at the Bankside food-shop, sunk in gloom and having little to say to each other over our stale pasties and sour wine. Bernard left without even getting drunk.
The next morning, I was awoken from my slumbers by the sound of high-pitched screaming. It was a servant, one of the kitchen maids whose task it was to set the fires before daybreak. She was standing at the opened gate of Wakefield Inn and pointing to a rickety structure, a makeshift gamekeeper’s gibbet that had been erected before the portal at some point during the night. It was a simple affair, and at first I thought it was some sort of joke: a crosspiece made from a long crooked hazel bough, about the width and length of a spear shaft, supported at either end by two tripods of hazel wands. And from the crosspiece were hanging a dozen miserable animal shapes.
As I walked closer to the gibbet I could see that the two shapes in the centre were larger than the rest: they were a puppy, a newborn floppy-eared rascal that belonged to one of Marie-Anne’s dogs — and Goody’s ginger kitten, her Christmastide gift from me. Both had been eviscerated, their entrails dangling around their pathetic little furry legs, and strung up by the neck with twine to the crossbar. On either side of the puppy and the kitten hung half a dozen rats, star-lings, a robin, and even a baby field mouse. It was a gruesome collection of corpses, eerily like the sheriffs’ gibbets strung with the bodies of hanged thieves that could be seen in most towns in England, only much smaller, and in a weird way more poignant. But it was not the collection of dead animals that shocked me most. On the front gate, in blood, had been scrawled a message. It was in Arabic, and although I could not read that language with any proficiency, I could make out these words. It said: True Love Never Dies.
Nur!
She must have followed me south from Sherwood and observed me with Goody. And now she was telling me that she knew that I had found love again. I shuddered on that cold January morning at the sight of her crude daubings in — whose? — blood. And I remembered the hideous figures scratched in the wood of the gate, which I had seen on my return from Westbury only a few weeks before. Could Nur truly be a witch? Did she have powers? Was she the Hag of Hallamshire? And was she now using her magic against Goody and me?
I took a grip of myself. And then gave orders for the servants to take the gibbet away and burn it before Goody or Marie-Anne could see it.
For days afterwards, as I went about my business in London — visiting Bernard in the taverns at Westminster, at horse and lance training with Thomas on the broad high heath near the little village of Hampstead — I kept seeing a small black figure out of the corner of my eye. But, always, when I turned to look properly, it was gone. Whatever else Nur had learnt in her long travels from the Holy Land to England — witchcraft, sorcery, the casting of foul curses — she had also mastered the art of concealment in rough country almost as well as my friend Hanno.
But I did not actively seek out Nur, track her down or lay an ambush, for I still suffered from feelings of shame about the way that I had treated her. I did wish to speak to her, if only to urge her not to threaten either Goody or myself with her devilish tricks. It had been clear that the puppy and the kitten had been meant to represent Goody and myself, and the other dead animals our servants and friends. It felt like a curse on my soul, a black witch’s slow-burning malediction — and I wanted her to lift it. And in some way I wanted to make amends for her suffering; but also I had to make her accept that I’d never love her again.
If I am honest, I must admit that I did not relish another encounter with her. Any threats to her, I knew in my heart, would be empty. I could not lift my sword to her after what she had endured at the hands of Malbete and his men. More than anything else, I just wished her gone.
There are those who say that God and the Devil are engaged in a constant struggle for the souls of men; and most agree that God is mightier than the Evil One. And so it came to pass that God triumphed and the evil time at Wakefield Inn came to an end.
It ended, as in my experience so many bad things have, with the arrival of Robin — and he brought with him wonderful news.
My master clattered through the inn’s gate at the head of forty cavalrymen, straight in the saddle, proud and accoutred for war. And after embracing Marie-Anne and greeting Tuck, Goody, Hanno and me, he made a point, I noticed, of sweeping up little toddling Hugh in his arms and tickling the boy until he screamed with joy. Then he called everybody into the hall and, warming his hands in front of the hearth fire, he said casually: ‘Richard is free.’
His words were greeted with a stunned silence. We had all grown so used to our King being a prisoner in Germany — he had been there for more than a year by then — that his words took us all by surprise. So Robin repeated himself:
‘King Richard, our noble sovereign, is free. He has been released by the Emperor and, even as I speak, he is travelling with his mother towards England.’
‘But what about Prince John’s counter-offer — the eighty thousand marks to keep him till Michaelmas?’ I said, a little bewildered.
‘Oh, I’m sure the Emperor was tempted. But Richard has made a good number of friends among the German princes, and they would not have stood for that sort of underhand behaviour from their overlord. Holding a nobleman for ransom is quite acceptable, but to accept the ransom money and then renege on the deal would have provoked outrage. Emperor Henry would have faced rebellions left, right and centre from his vassals — he might even have been overthrown and lost his title. He’s already been excommunicated by the Pope, and that makes everyone, even the most ungodly German baron, uneasy. Besides, he would have made a bitter enemy of Queen Eleanor — and she is not a woman whose wrath can be taken lightly. So he did the sensible thing: he took hostages for the rest of the money that the Queen had promised him and released Richard into her care a couple of weeks ago. He has a few matters to attend to in Europe, but our King should reach England in ten days or so, weather permitting — and then we’ll see the royal cat set among the disloyal pigeons.’
Robin grinned at me, a merry devil-may-care sparkle in his silver eyes. ‘I’ve had messages from Richard’s people and we have orders to meet him at Sandwich — and then we march north, gathering fighting men on the way — we go to retake Nottingham. It appears, Alan, that we may soon be able to settle our accounts with Ralph Murdac.’
I felt dizzy with joy. All that I had been striving for over the past year, all that I had endured — the long journey to Germany, the deaths of Perkin and Adam, the strain of deception while I was playing the loyal man in Prince John’s camp, the wrestling match with Milo and the terrible night as I waited to be hanged like a felon — now it all seemed worthwhile. Good King Richard was coming home, and all would be set to rights. I found myself grinning like an idiot at everyone in our company and, by accident, my gaze fell on Goody.
She looked directly back at me, something she had not done in weeks. And quickly, privately, she smiled at me. In a heartbeat, our quarrel was over: in that moment it seemed absurd, ridiculous — a foolish trifle, an evil enchantment that had been conjured up solely to divide two young lovers, a thing of no substance at all, mere thistledown on the wind in the wild joy of King Richard’s return.