I hope I disappointed him: I held my face blank, took a sip of wine and a deep breath. ‘What a stupid notion,’ I said dismissively. ‘Marie-Anne Locksley was Ralph Murdac’s lover? Absurd.’ And I attempted a light chuckle. It came out like a donkey braying in pain.
I was spared from having to develop this rebuttal by the arrival of Ambroise and a couple of the other trouveres. I just had time to whisper savagely to Bernard that he must hold his tongue about this matter — he would not, of course — before we were swept up in the whirlwind of vinous merrymaking that always surrounded Ambroise and his friends. While Bernard and the jolly Norman butterball were introducing themselves, swapping bawdy jokes and ordering up more wine — it took less than a quarter of an hour for them to become bosom friends, by the way — I was thinking about my beautiful friend, and Robin’s beloved girl, Marie-Anne, the gossip-smirched Countess of Locksley. I had a big problem: despite my play-acting with Bernard, I knew that the kernel of these foul rumours — that Robin’s son was in fact Murdac’s — was true. And this truth could destroy us all.
Chapter Twelve
I understand, now that I have had children, why blood is so important. When my son Rob died, I felt that quite literally a part of me had passed on as well. My wife and I had raised him with love and care and we had poured all our hopes and dreams in to him. If he had been the son of another man, would I have loved him so much, or felt his death quite so keenly? Perhaps so. But I doubt I would have felt so powerfully that he was me, in some strange way, and that his death was my death. Then, of course, in the spring of the Year of Our Lord 1191, when I realised that Marie-Anne’s child Hugh was not Robin’s son, my first thought was for the shame that Robin must feel. It was bad enough that his wife had been bedded by Sir Ralph Murdac, that in itself would have given cause for many men to disown their wives — that it must have been rape made no difference — but for her to have been impregnated by another man, and a mortal enemy at that, was almost too shameful to contemplate.
There were several reasons why I knew that Hugh must truly be Murdac’s son, and why I knew that Robin knew this too. Firstly, I had noticed the signs of a forced coupling on Marie-Anne’s clothing — her dress was torn and bloody — when Robin, Reuben and I had rescued her from Murdac’s grasp in Nottingham Castle nearly two years ago. Ralph Murdac had captured her, after the death of King Henry but before Richard had returned to England and taken a firm grip on the throne. Murdac had been hoping, no doubt, to use her as a bargaining tool and as a way of putting pressure on Robin. Secondly, when Robin had killed her captors, he had taken her into his arms and asked if she were hurt; he was in truth asking whether Murdac had dishonoured her. I remember her answer clearly, she did not say, ‘I am unharmed,’ or ‘I have not been hurt,’ but only, ‘All is well now that you are here.’ I am sure that if she had been untouched by Murdac she would have said so. The third reason why I knew the child was Murdac’s was the colouring of baby Hugh: black hair and pale blue eyes. Despite what Goody had told me about babies changing their looks after birth, it seemed too much of a coincidence that, of all the people in Christendom, the baby should resemble Sir Ralph Murdac so closely. And anyway, the wise women say that immediately after birth, a baby resembles its father, and then later it takes on more of the look of the mother. The fourth point was the previously inexplicable disharmony between Robin and Marie-Anne immediately after the birth. Robin knew the child was not his — and it was my sacred duty to make sure that the rumour was squashed and that my master never found out that I was aware of his ignoble secret.
But, quite apart from Bernard’s loose tongue — and Robin would quite readily tear it from his head if he found out that my friend had been spreading this news — Murdac’s whisperers would be doing their work in England and there was a real danger that, when Robin returned, he would be a laughing stock. People would assume that he wore the horns of a cuckold, even though the truth was that Marie-Anne had been forced against her will by a monster. Robin would never admit that; he would never admit that he had been unable to protect the woman he loved. And how would this sad business affect the relations between husband and wife? If it became common knowledge, would Robin disinherit Hugh, throw him out of the family? And how would Marie-Anne feel about her baby being a universally known as a bastard, a child of rape, a nobody born out of wedlock. She would never admit the truth of that. But could Robin accept a cuckoo in the nest?
As I sat pondering these terrible truths, the party in the tavern was becoming raucous: Ambroise and Bernard were swapping couplets of dirty poetry with each other with great relish, and downing full cups of unwatered wine, and one of the other trouveres was already dancing with one of the Sicilian serving women. Leaving them to their revels, I slipped away to find my master.
I found Robin in his chamber in the monastery, reading the letter from Marie-Anne. His face was a cold, emotionless mask and as I entered the room on the pretext of bringing him his evening meal, he gave be a look of such blank metallic savagery that I almost lost my nerve and retreated.
‘Your supper, sir,’ I said quietly. And he merely indicated that I should put it on the table with a wave of his hand. I tore off a piece of the roast chicken with my fingers and took it over to Keelie, who had been watching my movements with great interest from a rush basket in the corner of the room.
‘Good news from England, sir?’ I asked disingenuously, crouched with my back to Robin, as the one-eyed dog licked the chicken gravy from my hand.
‘No,’ said Robin. And that flat single syllable sounded like a tombstone being dropped on to the grass of a churchyard cemetery. I turned to look at the Earl of Locksley; the letter was lying on the table next to his supper, but he was staring at the stone floor, seemingly in some sort of trance. For ten heartbeats we did not move; I stared at him, he stared at the floor. Then he dragged his gaze up to meet mine and said: ‘It seems your friend Prince John is causing trouble; wants to be King, I hear,’ he attempted a smile, but it never reached his grey eyes. I wanted to say something, to comfort him to tell him that it was all right, that it was not his fault that Murdac had ruined him, that it was not Marie-Anne’s fault either. But the gulf between lord and vassal was too wide. ‘Would you mind leaving me, Alan,’ said Robin. He sounded unbearably weary. ‘And tell the men that we will be departing in a week or so for Outremer and so they should prepare themselves. And tell Little John… oh, never mind, I’ll tell him in the morning. Good night.’ As I left, I saw him pick up the letter again and stare sightlessly at the thick vellum pages. I noticed that his hand was trembling slightly.
We left Messina ten days later: seventeen thousand five hundred soldiers and sailors of Richard’s grand army crammed into two hundred ships. Mategriffon had been carefully dismantled, piece by piece, and stored in one of the larger busses; the great destriers of the knights, held safely by two stout belly straps, had been lifted and swung out over the harbour by great cranes and lowered into their places in the larger transport vessels; and Berengaria of Navarre, accompanied by Richard’s sister Joanna, had been packed into a sumptuous but weatherly cog with all the comforts a mighty king could provide. With these noble ladies traveled one Arab slave girl, now a lady’s maid to Princess Berengaria, and to my mind a woman of such perfect beauty that she outshone any mortal woman alive. I had arranged Nur’s new position with Robin’s help, and a small gift of silver to Berengaria’s chamberlain, and I had never seen her so happy. ‘Alan,’ she said in her halting French as she kissed me on the dock, ‘you are a wonderful man, my saviour, my preux chevalier, and to reward you for being so kind and good, we shall do that thing again that you like so much, you know, with the leather belts and the honey