The meeting began with the King addressing the assembled barons and bishops, offering a brief word of thanks to the Marshal, the Earl of Locksley, Earl Ferrers and several of the other knights there for their actions that day. Then he moved on to give a resume of what the heralds had reported: namely, that the castle still defied us, and would continue to do so under the command of its present Constable. The King did not mention that Murdac considered him to be a jumped-up imposter. Rightly so: even royalty must safeguard its dignity.
‘So, gentlemen,’ said the King, ‘what we need to do is bring those big walls down. I will teach Sir Ralph Murdac to defy me, by God’s legs I will! I have given orders to my artificers to build a couple of siege engines by morning, a powerful mangonel and a good-sized trebuchet, and over the next few weeks I plan to reduce the east wall of the middle bailey to rubble. I took Acre, and that was considered an impossible task, and I can damned well take Nottingham. But I’m afraid, gentlemen, it will take some time…’
‘Sire,’ I said. I still find it hard to believe that I had the courage to interrupt my King in mid-flow, and I would not have done so were it not for Robin’s insistent elbow nudging my ribs, but I did. And this is what happened.
At first the King did not notice me. ‘We need to bottle them in securely,’ he was saying. ‘I want no food, water or provisions, and particularly no men or information going in or out of the castle. You, my lord of Chester, will take the southern section, by the cliffs…’
‘Sire,’ I said again, and this time the King noticed me.
He looked slightly annoyed to be interrupted, and I suddenly wondered if I was making a huge mistake.
‘What is it, Blondel?’ the King said, coldly.
‘Sire,’ I said for the third time. And my tongue shrivelled in my mouth.
‘Yes?’ The King was definitely getting testy. ‘Now that you have interrupted me, Alan, speak if you have a mind to.’
I finally managed to get my words out: ‘What if we were to, ah, get rid of Murdac? What if we were to — well, ah, kill him, or remove him from command of the castle in some way? Wouldn’t that change things for us?’ As I said it, I knew it sounded absurd, the sort of thing a silly child might say, and I could feel my cheeks redden as some of the most powerful barons in England stared at me, astonished at my impudence.
The King looked at me for a long, long moment, and for an instant I believed that he would order the guards to drag me away from the tent and have me hanged, drawn and quartered.
‘And how would you accomplish this?’ the King asked, frowning.
‘I know of an old servants’ entrance into the castle, sire. It is forgotten; I believe it remains a secret known only to a very few. It leads from a tavern below the southern wall of the outer bailey to a small unused buttery inside the upper bailey of Nottingham Castle itself.’
My voice was growing in confidence as I spoke. ‘It is a narrow passage, and I do not believe that a large number of men-at-arms could use it. The noise a large party of men would make would ensure detection. And once detected, they could be easily slaughtered one by one as they emerged into the castle. But one man, treading lightly, could secretly gain access to the castle this way, I believe. He would then have a good chance — if he did not put too high a value on his own life — of finding Sir Ralph Murdac and killing him. Perhaps in his chamber at night as he slept, perhaps in some other way — but I think it could be done.’
‘You may have something, Blondel,’ said the King, and he smiled at me. And instantly, all the other great men in the tent were beaming, too. ‘Without Murdac, as you say, we’d have a much better chance of getting these rascals to surrender my castle. Would you do this for me, Alan? It is a risky — one might say downright foolhardy — proposition…’
‘Yes, sire,’ I said simply. And what else could I say? He was my King.
Richard nodded to himself as if confirming something that he already knew, and then he looked over at Robin. ‘Do you know about this forgotten servants’ hole, Locksley?’
‘No, sire,’ lied Robin. ‘But I have full confidence in Alan of Westbury. If he says it exists, it surely does, and, if anyone can accomplish this most dangerous and difficult task, it is he.’
I looked at Robin, a little surprised at his praise and by his denial of all knowledge of the tunnel. He grinned over at me and gave me a suspicion of a wink. And I smiled back.
When I tell the old tales of Robert, the cunning Earl of Locksley, of the wily outlaw Robin Hood, all too often I stress the times when he behaved badly. I tell far too often of his cruelty, or of his greed for silver, of his indifference to the sufferings of those outside his family circle, and his contempt for Holy Mother Church. And all too often I forget to mention the one thing that was perhaps his most outstanding characteristic: his kindness. If you served him well, he would pour out his benevolence on you without ever counting the cost to himself. He was, at heart, a very kind and generous man — at least to those whom he loved.
Robin had wanted me to raise the subject of the tunnel with the King because he wanted Richard to know how resourceful I was; and for the King to reward me in due course. Robin could have claimed credit for the scheme himself; he could have said that he had shown the tunnel to me, and used it to rescue me from imprisonment inside Nottingham. But he did not. That was the sort of man he was. And so, with a careless smile and a half-wink, he secured the King’s personal favour for me, and dispatched me on a great and perilous adventure — and quite possibly to my death.
Chapter Twenty-one
Hanno led the way, holding up a single horn lantern with a stub of candle in it. The yellow walls of the tunnel seemed even more grotesque than before, with weird faces seeming to leer out at me from the walls, mocking my ambitions: going into the castle on a mission of murder was far more daunting than coming out of it to freedom and safety.
It was close on midnight, and although I had not slept since the day before last, I was not tired. In fact I was burning with an excited rage that seemed to banish all my fears. I knew that, if things went wrong, I would have only a small chance of survival — but, for the opportunity to kill Sir Ralph Murdac, to take revenge for so many hurts and insults at his hands, and to do an invaluable service for my King, it seemed a risk worth taking. I was young then, and adventure and risk had a certain appeal merely for their own sake.
There were also a number of things to my advantage. I knew the castle, and the members of the garrison there knew my face, but possibly not my true allegiance. With so many folk changing sides in the contest between King Richard and Prince John, I was fairly sure that if I was stopped by suspicious guards and questioned, I could convince them that I was back on Prince John’s side. And my presence in the castle would seem to be proof of that. Both Hanno and myself were also wearing the black surcoats with the red chevrons of Murdac’s men — taken from prisoners captured in the battle for the outer bailey — with our swords belted over the top. And so I felt confident that any man-at-arms seeing me — a familiar face, inside the castle, wearing Sir Ralph’s livery — would likely consider me friend rather than foe.
The main problem would come when we emerged at the mouth of the ale-shaft; I did not know whether the old buttery had been discovered as my method of escape. After all, five months ago a condemned prisoner had disappeared in the middle of the night, killing three men, stealing a large quantity of silver and leaving a bloody wolf’s head in his prison cell — what would the garrison have made of it? Would they have searched for a secret tunnel, or remembered how the ale had previously been delivered to the castle? Would they have put it down to witchcraft? Did they believe I had magicked my way out of there? Or would they have assumed that I made my escape by more ordinary means, bribing a guard with a bag of silver and slipping quietly over the castle walls? I had no way of knowing.