Tuck’s announcement that Robin and Marie-Anne were man and wife was greeted with a massed roar of shouted congratulations, and a few bawdy suggestions for the wedding night. Hugh, the saintly Bishop of Lincoln, seated near the royal party, frowned at this unseemly levity and Robin had to quieten his men with a hand gesture before order was restored. Then the venerable Bishop rose from his seat. Hugh was a tall, thin man, passionate and fearless, and after a curt blessing on the union of Robin and Marie-Anne, he launched into a harangue about the Holy Land, exhorting the audience to take the Cross and join King Richard on the great expedition to recover Jerusalem from the infidel.
Most people yawned through this religious rant — priests had been preaching it regularly for two years now — but one man seemed to be paying an inordinate amount of attention. Robert, Earl of Locksley, was apparently agog. When the old Bishop came to the end of his speech with the ringing words, ‘Who then will take this symbol of faith from me and vow that, with God’s blessing, they will not rest until Jerusalem is recovered?’ Robin leapt to his feet. ‘By God, I will,’ he said in a loud sincere voice. And kneeling before Bishop Hugh he received a blessing and a scrap of red cloth which had been cut into the shape of a cross.
‘Wear this symbol of Christ’s love on your cloak, my son,’ said the Bishop, ‘and remember that you are guaranteed a remission of your many sins and a place in Heaven if you die on this perilous journey in God’s name.’ I caught Robin’s eye as the prelate made him this promise, and I could have sworn that, the solemnity of the occasion notwithstanding, my master winked at me.
Other knights shuffled forward to receive the Cross, but the solemnity was spoilt somewhat by King Richard, who leapt out of his chair, strode across the hall and enfolded Robin in a great embrace, grinning like a regal mountebank. Somehow, in the few days they had both been at the castle, King Richard and Robin had become fast friends. Prince John, still seated, watched the pair of them as they slapped each other on the back, his face a study in contempt. Queen Eleanor was hugging Marie-Anne, who looked happier than I had ever seen her. I had expected her to be surprised, even shocked by Robin’s sudden decision to go off to fight a war on the other side of the world, perhaps never to return, but she showed not a trace of anxiety. And I realised, of course, that the whole thing had been a piece of theatre.
Robin had struck a bargain with Sir Richard that terrible night after the first day of battle, as we bound up our wounds in Linden Lea and waited for death at the hands of Murdac’s soldiers the following dawn. And Bernard, of course, had been Sir Richard’s emissary. I too had played my part, albeit unwittingly. The single dove that I released at dawn, trailing its slim red banner, had been the signal to Sir Richard that Robin accepted his proposal. Bernard had explained it all to me in the days after the battle, when we who were fit enough laboured to clear the reeking field of the hundreds of dead and give them a decent burial.
‘It’s all about leverage, really,’ Bernard had told me, as I hoisted the dead body of a skinny old man over my shoulder. ‘The application of the right amount of pressure at the right time. Of course, the Templars are past masters at this sort of thing. And they nearly always get what they want, one way or another.’ Bernard was being insufferably smug that day, the result I suspected of another conquest among Queen Eleanor’s ladies. He played no part in the gruesome task of carrying the bodies to a common pit, but hovered around me and my team of bowmen, talking happily and getting in the way as we lugged the corpses to their final resting place. As we paused for a slug of wine, he continued: ‘In this case, Sir Richard had long wanted Robin to join him on his great holy adventure. He wanted his bowmen, you see. He wanted the men who could do this,’ he gestured at a body, a mailed knight in Murdac’s colours, whose corpse was stuck with more than a dozen arrows. ‘That cunning fox had probably been plotting to get Robin to take the Cross ever since he was captured.’ Bernard chuckled, and then casually poured about a pint of Bordeaux wine down his throat.
After leaving us at Linden Lea before the battle, Bernard informed me, Sir Richard had ridden to join his brother Templars, and Queen Eleanor and her train, at Belvoir Castle, twenty or so miles south-east of Nottingham. There he had learnt that Murdac’s forces had been reinforced with four hundred Flemish mercenaries, cavalry and crossbowmen. He had realised that, with Murdac now so unexpectedly powerful, Robin was almost certain to be destroyed in the coming fight and, quite apart from his friendship with Robin, that would not have suited Sir Richard’s plans at all. So he sent Bernard on a fast horse with a message to Robin. Sir Richard would bring a powerful force of Templar knights to Robin’s aid, if Robin would promise to lead a mercenary band of archers and cavalry on the holy pilgrimage to Outremer the next year. Robin had no choice but to accept Sir Richard’s offer, and by the charade of taking the Cross from the Bishop of Lincoln today, the Earl of Locksley was signalling his intent to fulfil his part of the bargain.
The ceremony over, Robin convened all his senior men in a small buttery off the great hall where we would soon be dining in some splendour with our royal hosts. Hugh, Tuck, Little John, Will Scarlet and I crowded into the small space and made ourselves free of one of the opened butts of ale in there. Hugh raised a wooden mug brimming with liquid and said jovially: ‘I think we would all like to congratulate my brother on his wedding and wish him and his lovely wife Marie-Anne many years of happiness. Robin and Marie-Anne!’ We all drank, except Robin, who put down his mug untasted.
‘We have some business to conclude before we celebrate my nuptials,’ said Robin in a voice as cold as hoar frost. He looked straight at Hugh. I noticed that John and Tuck were standing right next to Robin’s older brother, as close as gaolers. ‘What business is that?’ asked Hugh lightly.
‘I know it was you, Hugh,’ said Robin, his voice grating. ‘At first it was just a suspicion, and I dismissed it. I said to myself: my own brother would not betray me, never. My own flesh and blood? A man whom I have helped, saved, loved. . The traitor cannot be him.’ He paused, fixing his gaze on his brother, waiting for him to speak. Hugh said nothing, but the blood was slowly leaving his face. ‘But then, at Linden Lea, I was deceived, by you, about the strength of their numbers. The Flemings, you told me, could not possibly be there for at least a week.’
‘I made a mistake,’ Hugh said. ‘Intelligence is never exact. My sources said-’
Robin cut him off: ‘The size of Murdac’s force was nearly double what we had supposed. The mangonel. .’ Robin appeared perfectly calm, but he had to stop and take a breath. ‘We were not luring Murdac into a deadly trap, he was luring us. Sir Ralph knew what we had planned from the very beginning. . because you had told him.’