‘Tell me first, William, how you came to be among us. Was this murder always in your heart? Had you planned this from the day we first met in Nottingham?’ He nodded. I was awed by his commitment to this vengeance. And not a little frightened. The stammer, the humility, the good-fellowship, it was all a fraud, all a means to his lethal end. ‘When my father had ended his own misery, I made a holy vow. I swore before the Virgin that I would kill the Earl of Locksley or die in the attempt.’
‘But I trusted you with my life!’ I said. ‘Would you have cut my throat too while I slept?’
‘Not you, sir, never you. You were kind to me.’ He sniffed wetly. ‘But I would gladly have killed the monster and crept away in the night, perhaps to join a monastery as a servant and spend the rest of my days repenting.’
‘And what about the boar?’ I said coldly. ‘That came near enough to killing me in Sicily.’
‘I am truly sorry for that, sir,’ sobbed William. ‘I fixed the nets to fall but then the Earl-monster moved his position. I did not mean to hurt you, sir, on my life, I did not!’
I could still hardly believe that my biddable servant had planned this, my cheerful William, who had served me so faithfully for so many miles, had had this dark murderous secret, and had kept it hidden, so well, for so long.
‘If I let you go now, will you promise to forgo vengeance on my master Robert of Locksley,’ I said formally, half-dreading the answer. ‘Will you swear on our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the name of the Virgin, and all the saints, to leave off your attempts to kill my master, and to leave our company and never return?’
‘Never!’ His eyes flashed at me. ‘I will never stop trying to slay that monster; I will hunt him down to the ends of the earth to have my vengeance; he must die a death worthy of his malignity…’ I saw that flecks of spittle had formed at the corners of William’s mouth and, foreseeing his fate, he began to struggle against the ropes that bound him.
I moved behind him, drew my poniard and, may God have mercy on my soul, I cut his throat as quickly as I could. When he stopped struggling, and I let his blood-slick body topple over on to the sand, I fell back myself as if I had been the one to suffer a death wound and I stared upward towards Heaven where God and his angels resided. But I could see nothing of the Divine. Night had fallen, and clouds covered the stars, and as I stared up into the darkness, lying boneless among the three fresh corpses I had made, I felt my own eyes fill with tears at the pity of life. As my tears welled, I thought about vengeance and feuds, of murder and holy warfare, and of loyalty and love. I pondered my loyalty to my master, which, despite his many grievous sins, had just now been put to the ultimate test; and of a boy’s love of his father that became twisted into something hideous. I had killed William because it was necessary. It was necessary for Robin’s safety, because the boy would not renounce vengeance, and I was, I discovered in that moment, despite every evil thing my master had done, still Robin’s loyal man. But there is sometimes more than one truth, and sometimes, when I have taken more than my usual quantity of wine, I believe that I killed William because of Nur.
I had not been loyal to her. After she had been mutilated by Malbete, I had screamed in horror when faced by her deformity — and she had fled. But, in fleeing, she was acknowledging that I could not love her, looking as she did. And it was true. So it follows that I had not truly loved her, for love surely transcends mere physical beauty, and, worse, I had not had the strength to be loyal to her either. And so I killed William, in some strange way, for Nur’s sake. Because I had proved disloyal to her, whom I claimed I loved, I wanted to prove that I could be loyal to Robin, whom I claimed I did not love.
On that dark beach I wept for William, and for me, and for Nur and Robin, and all of us poor sinners here on Earth, and at that very moment it began lightly to rain, and it seemed that the whole dark universe had joined in my silent weeping.
Finally, I roused myself. The blood-clotted poniard was still in my right hand. As I looked at it, I thought about all it represented. A gift from a kind man, who had been butchered before me at the command of my master; a tool that had been used to end the life of a young boy, cruelly wronged, in the name of loyalty to my master. I could hardly bear to look at it, and so, I pulled back my arm and hurled it spinning in the dark air to splash, unseen, somewhere in the forgiving ocean.
I stripped naked again and dragged the bodies as far out into the sea as I could, Keelie’s corpse too, and left them to sink and sleep for ever with the fishes, and then I washed myself once again from head to toe, scrubbing my body raw with the fine sand in the shallows. Next I dried, dressed and armed myself and walked wearily up the narrow cliff path back to the army.
I found my master in his tent, with Reuben kneeling before him tending to a wound in his thigh. He lifted his chin to me in acknowledgement when I entered and said: ‘Arrow wound: it’s not that serious, Reuben tells me.’ He waved his hand towards a tray that held a flagon of wine and several cups. I helped myself to a drink and sat on a cedar wood chest while Reuben finished wrapping a clean white bandage around Robin’s upper leg.
‘So what is troubling you?’ asked Robin, a little distantly. He sounded slightly irritated that I should have barged in on him. ‘I thought you would be carousing with the rest of them. Celebrating our glorious victory.’
‘I’ve killed Malbete,’ I said bluntly. ‘On the beach. I broke his neck with my shield.’
‘Good for you,’ said Robin. ‘So you did not need my help after all.’ He seemed indifferent, and then I saw that Reuben had given him something powerful for the pain. But the Jew looked up at me, a dozen questions in his dark eyes.
‘And I killed my servant William, too. I slit his throat from ear to ear. Also on the beach.’
That made them quiet. Both staring at me as if I were a madman. ‘He was the one who was trying to kill you,’ I said tiredly. More than anything I wanted to get to my blankets and sleep. The wine was loosening my grip on the world. I poured myself another cup. ‘He was a Peveril. He was the boy we left alive when you punished Sir John three years ago. He’s been trying to get at you more or less ever since.’
Both Reuben and Robin were stunned into silence. Then Reuben spoke: ‘That kind-hearted young servant boy?’
I stood up, finished my wine and looked directly at Robin. ‘So, my lord, you no longer have anything to fear from those quarters.’ And I turned my back on them and, ignoring the babble of questions that followed me, I stalked out of the tent and went in search of my bedroll.
Three days later we reached Jaffa. Saladin had razed the wall of the city and most of the inhabitants had fled before Richard’s victorious army. In fact, the town was in such poor repair, little more than a vast pile of rubble, that we were forced to camp in an olive grove outside the city. Ambroise had been right: Richard’s barbaric treatment of the Saracen prisoners at Acre had echoed across the Holy Land, and townsfolk would rather abandon their homes to his army than suffer siege from the victor of the Battle of Arsuf.
Ambroise pointed out exactly how clever he was when we shared a jug of local wine and a plate of figs, under a striped awning near the royal encampment. ‘He’s very fond of you, you know,’ said Ambroise, leaning forward like a conspirator, ‘the King, I mean. He thinks your music is refreshingly rustic. And he has asked me to approach you on his behalf.’ I was bemused. What could this mean? ‘Um, he knows, of course, that you serve the Earl of Locksley, and have done since, since…’ Ambroise could not think of a polite way to say ‘since he was an outlaw’ and so he just took a big sip of his wine. ‘Well, he knows, of course, that you are bound to the Earl, but certain people have been saying that you are not too happy with your place there; that there have been… words… between you and your master. And his Royal Highness wonders whether you would not prefer, or rather whether you might not consider joining his household, as a trouvere. As I say, he is fond of you, and he admires your music, and he knows that you fought well at Arsuf.’