‘But. . but. .’ stuttered Guy. He was interrupted by our host, Ralph FitzStephen. He had held his silence until this moment but now he wanted to stamp his authority on the extraordinary proceedings in his hall. ‘The accusations against the Countess of Locksley and. . and Bernard of Sezanne are, of course, ridiculous and will be ignored. But the allegations against this Dale person are serious,’ he said, ‘and must be investigated. Take him down to the dungeon and hold him securely until the truth can be ascertained.’ And with that I was dragged from the room and marched through the castle, down, down to the lowest level where I was bundled through a cell door to sprawl on a pile of foul-smelling straw. The door closed behind me with a clang.
I lay in the blackness of that stinking cell, with its damp stone walls and ice-cold floor, and listened to the scurry of rats. My gag had come loose, thank God, but my arms were still tightly tied behind my back. And they were a cause of considerable discomfort in the following few hours. Although they were nothing compared with what came later. To take my mind off my bound wrists, I considered my situation: to the good, I had powerful friends in Winchester. Queen Eleanor had known about Marie-Anne’s visit to Robin, and presumably she had condoned it; and she also knew that we — Bernard and I — had been members of Robin’s band, and that had not troubled her when she accepted Bernard into her service. Marie-Anne, of course, was quite safe from the accusations of a jumped-up soldier and I knew she would try to come to my aid. To the bad, Eleanor was a prisoner herself, though a privileged one, and she might be powerless to help. Sir Ralph FitzStephen had authority over the castle and he would definitely not turn a blind eye to charges of outlaws running loose around his halls. But, worst of all, Murdac would no doubt want to put me to the test to get information about Robin. That meant pain, a great deal of pain.
To control my bounding fears, I played the scene in the great hall over and over in my mind: Guy’s spiteful face and out-thrust finger as he denounced me; Marie-Anne’s look of fear and shock; the Queen’s anger; Murdac’s ostentatiously gallant protection of Marie-Anne; Guy’s confusion at his master’s rejection of his accusations.
We had all assumed at Robin’s Caves that it was Guy who had been responsible for leading Murdac’s men to Thangbrand’s; that Guy had been the traitor, who, it would seem, had been rewarded with the manor of Gisborne. But, as I lay there on the damp straw, in the permanent midnight of that cell, thinking about his treachery, and imagining the bloody vengeance I would take, I realised something was wrong. Something was burrowing at the back of my mind; something about the letter that Murdac had written to the Queen. I remembered it clearly:. . his run of luck is nearly at an end. I know his every move before he makes it, and I shall soon have him in my grasp. .
‘I know his every move before he makes it’; that implied that Murdac had someone in the camp who was a traitor, who was informing him of Robin’s plans. Had that been Guy? It would appear so. But why, what was Guy’s motive? Until I had spatchcocked him with the ruby, he was a fairly contented, if obnoxious, young man. And then, like the click of a latch opening a door, I knew Guy could not be the traitor. The letter was dated the eleventh of February, which was two months after Guy had left Thangbrand’s. And it followed that, if Guy was not the traitor in the camp, someone else was.
That thought gave me a chill of horror; somebody, one of my dear friends, was betraying our every move to Murdac. It could be anyone: Much, the miller’s son, Owain the Bowman, Will Scarlet, Hugh, Little John, even dear old Brother Tuck. Anyone.
But I was pleased with my conclusion; I would have something crucial to confide to Thomas when I saw him again. If I saw him again. Suddenly my spirits plunged once more. Would they hang me as an outlaw before I got a chance to talk to the ugly one-eyed brute? Where were my friends? I had been lying in this black pit for hours and nobody had come to visit me. My bladder was full and aching. I was determined not to wet myself but the prospect of sweet release, even if it meant warm wet hose, was almost too tempting. I bit my lip and held fast.
I dozed for a while and the next thing I knew the cell door was opening, blinding me with the yellow light of torches, and there was Murdac and his God-forgotten lackey, Guy. They stood silhouetted in the doorway for an instant, Guy towering over Sir Ralph, and then they entered that stinking room, followed by two men-at-arms. I sneezed violently; even above the dungeon stench I recognised Murdac’s revolting lavender scent. He came close to me and stared down at my curled form on the filthy floor. I sneezed again. Under Guy’s supervision, the men-at-arms lit torches and set them in beckets in the wall. Ominously, one of the men-at-arms set up a brazier, filled it with cordwood and oil-soaked wool and set it alight with a flint and steel. I knew it was not to keep me warm during the long, cold night. Another man-at-arms attached my bound arms, with a rope, to a hook in the ceiling and adjusted the length so that I was partially suspended from my wrists, which were still bound behind me. The strain on my arms was enormous, but by leaning far forward and standing on my tiptoes, I could make it just bearable. Then the soldier cut my new clothes from my body with his dagger, leaving me as naked as the day I was born. I was filled with shame at my nudity and kept my eyes on the straw below me. But worse than the shame was the fear. Rising like a river in spate was sheer skin-tightening terror. Somewhere in the corner, in the foul shadows of the dark cell, the Greek demon Pan was taking shape. And he was silently laughing. As I tried to control my dread, I was aware that Murdac was watching me, studying me with his extraordinary pale blue eyes.
The brazier was burning merrily by now, and Guy set three stout iron pokers in the blaze. He caught my eye and grinned unpleasantly. ‘Are you scared, Alan? I think you are. You always were a coward!’ he jeered. Then he pulled on a pair of stout leather gloves. I tore my gaze away from the heating irons and looked down again at the straw-strewn floor. I knew what was coming, I knew it would be bad beyond my imagining and I found that I was shivering with fear. I bit my tongue and determined that I would hold out against the pain, transport myself to a better place with my mind, refuse to tell Murdac anything. Nothing, particularly nothing about my suspicions about there being a traitor in the camp. That was something I had to bury deep in my brain; so deep that even I did not remember it. Then Ralph Murdac spoke, his sibilant French whine filling the damp stone cell, somehow defiling even that repugnant place.
‘I remember you. Yes, yes, I do.’ He sounded pleased, excited to have placed me in his memory. ‘You are the insolent thief from the market in Nottingham. You sneezed on me, you foul creature. And you escaped, did you not? I think I recall someone telling me. You ran off into the forest to join Robert Odo and those scum. Well, well, and now I have you again. How gratifying, how very gratifying.’ He laughed, a thin, dry chuckle and Guy immediately joined in the mirth, with a false sounding cackle, too loud. Murdac gave him a sharp look and snapped, ‘Hold your noise,’ and Guy cut short his guffaw in mid-breath.
My shoulder joints were on fire, but I gritted my teeth and said nothing. ‘So you have been with the outlaw Robert Odo’s men this past year?’ said Murdac, as if he were making conversation. I said nothing. Murdac nodded to Guy who walked over to me and punched me as hard as he could, swinging his fist up into my unresisting naked stomach. The blow winded me, but worse, it was more than my bladder could take and, involuntarily, I released a hot stream of urine down the inside of my leg. The liquid spattered and dribbled into a pool at my feet. Guy laughed and punched me again, a hard driving blow with his shoulder behind it, but then stepped back with a curse of disgust as he realised he had trodden in a pool of my piss. ‘You will answer my questions, filth,’ continued Murdac in the same dispassionate voice, as if he was merely stating a fact. I kept my silence, but my mind was whirling. The bastard was right. In time, I would talk, I knew that, when the hot irons made the pain unbearable, I would talk. But I had to work out how to order my knowledge, so that I gave out the least important information first. They might grow tired of interrogating me — if I could hold out long enough, perhaps the Constable or the Queen would intervene. Anything might happen, I just had to hold tight and stay silent.