I was fairly sure that Sir Ralph Murdac would not be familiar with the lower reaches of the castle: it was an area frequented by servants, cooks, butlers and so on. Not by knights, and certainly not by the Constable himself. I was staking my life that the old buttery and the ale-shaft were as we had left them — staking Hanno’s life too.
I had initially meant to go on this mission alone, but Hanno had insisted on accompanying me. ‘You get lost in those tunnels — ha-ha — and in the bottom of the castle too!’ Hanno was jovial as ever and seemed totally unconcerned about the danger when we talked quietly in the main room of The Trip to Jerusalem tavern — now deserted, for the brewer and his young family had wisely fled when the castle had been encircled by King Richard’s troops. Hanno was supposed to be seeing me off on the mission, but instead he said: ‘Best I come with you to keep you out of trouble; maybe teach you something.’ And I did not protest too much. I was very glad to have him by my side.
When we approached the final steps of the tunnel, and reached the chamber directly below the shaft that led up to the buttery, we killed the horn lantern and stood absolutely still, listening for sounds of danger from above. Nothing. Not a sound.
I stretched out my hand in the darkness and made contact with the rope. The same rope that Robin, Hanno and I had climbed down five months ago. It seemed incredible but, apparently, the buttery and this secret way into the castle were still quite unknown to the defenders.
I climbed up the rope into the dark shaft. My arm muscles were soon protesting; though I carried no shield, I was weighed down by my mail coat and sword, and by the heavy back-sack that I wore. But very shortly I sensed a space around me, and groping quickly with my left hand, I found the lip of the housing. Then Hanno was there, lighting the lantern, and I was using his big key to unlock the low, wide door that led to the old buttery.
So far, so good. The buttery, as far as I could tell, was the same as it had been five months ago.
A clatter, an appalling din of wooden noise as a small ale cask fell to the floor with a crash, toppling from a pile of larger ones. Then there was a high-pitched squeal of rage and something dark moved very fast in the corner of the buttery. My heart seemed to explode and I had my naked sword in my hand before I knew what was happening.
Hanno and I stood frozen in silence. There were no further sounds. Then Hanno laughed quietly. ‘It is just a rat,’ he whispered. ‘But he gives you a good fright, yes?’
I said nothing, but re-sheathed my sword, cursing my jumpiness. And a few moments later Hanno and I were walking confidently along the corridor outside the buttery in the bowels of the upper bailey, in the very heart of Murdac’s stronghold.
At this hour the interior of the castle was largely still — there would have been sentries on the ramparts, and groups of menat-arms bunched together in the towers on the walls, and in the guardhouses and barracks in the middle bailey, but this part of the castle was eerily quiet. Hanno and I passed only one person as we made our way towards the great tower and Ralph Murdac’s chamber: a servant carrying a tray of wine cups. The surly devil ignored us, brushing past in an irritable manner. It seemed that our surcoats gave us the invisibility we craved.
We passed a guard room at the base of the great tower, and as we walked past, I could not help glancing through the door. My eyes just had time to take in the homely scene: two or three men-at-arms in red-and-black surcoats playing dice at a table in the centre of the room by the light of a single candle, and a dozen soldiers snoring in cots around the edges of the chamber. We walked past without inviting any comment; indeed, without even being noticed. My nerves began to ease: we were going to succeed! God willing, we were going to make it all the way to Murdac’s chamber — where Sir Ralph was no doubt slumbering peacefully — without a single challenge.
The chamber of the Constable of Nottingham Castle was on the western side of the great tower, on the second floor. I had not been there since that fateful day in September the year before when I had been summoned by Murdac and told that I was to accompany the silver wagon train from Tickhill back to Nottingham. Hanno and I arrived there, walking normally along the stone corridors and pretending to converse with each other in low tones, like any two men-at-arms on a midnight errand from their captain, or just stretching their legs after a long stint of sentry duty.
We stopped just short of the chamber, hearing the sound of pacing feet, and after a cautious peep around the bend, Hanno whispered in my ear that there was only one man doing duty before the door. My German friend reached down and pulled the misericorde from my boot: ‘Do it quick and quiet,’ he said into my ear, putting the weapon in my hand. ‘No noise, no fussing.’ I nodded, my heart hammering. It was time once again for cold-blooded murder. I peeked round the corner, too, and took a look at my victim. Like the sentry outside Kirkton Castle a year and a half ago, the man-at-arms outside Murdac’s door was young. But this time, when I looked into my soul, I found I had no qualms about taking his life — it was necessary, I said to myself, and that was all that really mattered.
My heart quietened, I took a deep breath and moved fast, without hesitation. Two quick and silent steps, as he was turned away from me, and I grabbed his nose and mouth with my left hand and slotted the misericorde hard and neatly into the back of his brain with my right. It was as easy as sliding a well-greased bolt on a cellar door. The blade glided home, the man kicked once and collapsed into my arms, a dead weight. That was it; there was nothing more to it.
Silently, Hanno was by my side. ‘Perfect,’ he said. And I was very pleased.
I passed the sagging corpse into Hanno’s arms, cleaned my misericorde on the dead man’s surcoat, slid the weapon back into my boot, drew my sword, took a deep breath and burst through the door of Murdac’s chamber, with Hanno hard on my heels, dragging the limp body of the sentry behind me.
After the gloom of the corridor, Murdac’s room was shockingly bright, lit as it was by two large candle trees. It was a comfortable chamber, spacious and warm, with costly furs scattered over the polished wooden floor, and a fire burning merrily in a large fireplace built into the outside wall. In the centre of the room was a large table, and seated at the table, his glorious long sword drawn on the surface before him, was Rix.
The tall man picked up the sword, and I could not help admiring its blue pommel jewel glinting at me in the candlelight, and the elegance of the long slim lines of the blade. I was entranced by the weapon, and my eye caressed it, even as Rix pushed back his chair, stood to his full height and said in French: ‘Ah, you are here at last. Sir Ralph has been half-expecting an assassin. And how fortunate that it should be you! We have some unfinished business between us, I believe.’
I nodded but said nothing to the tall man. Instead my eyes roamed the room, seeking out the target of our deadly intentions, the Constable.
A sumptuous four-poster bed stood against the far wall of the chamber with the thick curtains drawn. And, as I looked at it, a dark and tousled head poked out from between the drapes, blinking wildly, like a mouse coming out of its hole. It was Ralph Murdac, and his expression when he saw me was one of equally mingled fear and surprise.
‘You!’ he said incredulously. ‘You, of all people! Alan Dale — the traitor, the thief, the gutter-born rat who wants to be a knight. That it should be you who has come for me, sword in hand, in the dead of night — I can scarce believe it. Kill him, Rix; kill him now! Slice the nasty jumped-up little peasant into pieces.’