I looked at Robin aghast. ‘It’s been stolen,’ I blurted. ‘Who would dare? And how could they…’
‘It hasn’t been stolen, Alan, at least I don’t think so,’ interrupted Robin, ‘it has been spent. By me. I handed over an earl’s ransom — quite literally — to arrange our pardons and outfitting this company for war in Outremer has not been cheap. The Locksley rents are mostly paid in kind, and with an army to feed… No, Alan, I have simply spent more than I should have. So, we have a problem. The King bids us join him in Lyons with all our forces in July — that’s what his letter said — and I have to transport four hundred men-at-arms, and two hundred horses, as well as a mountain of equipment, food, weapons and forage to France. And though the King has promised to recompense me for providing battle-ready men, I have yet to see any of his silver, and if I know royalty, I won’t see any before we parade inside the broken gates of Jerusalem.’ He paused, thinking for a moment. Then he said: ‘We need the Jews, Alan; we need Reuben.’
An hour later, Robin and myself were on the road, our horses’ noses pointing north towards York. We rode fast, just the two of us, unaccompanied by any of Robin’s men. This was unusual behaviour for a great man, and not a little dangerous, too: Robin had plenty of enemies between Sheffield and York who would be pleased to have him fall into their hands. Although he was no longer an outlaw, with the King abroad he could have been held for ransom by any avaricious baron; and then there was the matter of Murdac’s price on his head.
‘I don’t want to be bothered with a long train of servants and men-at-arms,’ said Robin when I raised my concerns about him travelling without protection. ‘And, besides, I’m taking you along to look after me,’ he grinned. ‘Are you not up to the job?’ I frowned at him. I knew why he wanted to travel light; he didn’t want anyone to know that he was short of money. He planned to visit Reuben, an old and trusted friend, arrange to borrow a large quantity of cash from the Jews of York, and be back in Kirkton in a couple of days. ‘Come on, Alan. We’ll travel in plain, ordinary clothes, a couple of pilgrims, but well armed and moving fast — no pomp, no fanfare, it’ll be just like the old days, we’ll have some fun…’
And it was fun. I rarely got to spend time alone with Robin these days, and while I was still very slightly afraid of him — I never forgot that among other heinous crimes he had condoned the murder of his own brother — I always relished his company. And we were well armed: both of us in mail coats, Robin with his war bow and arrow bag, and a fine sword, myself with my old sword and poniard. I also wore my new sky blue embroidered hood, but that was only to annoy Robin and show him that, while I’d always be his loyal man, I cared not a fig for his hidebound ideas about headwear.
We pushed our horses hard for several hours and then, as night began to fall, we bivouacked in a small wood not far from Pontefract Castle. That great castle was held by Roger de Lacy, the new Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, and we could have received a welcome worthy of an Earl in his stone hall, had we chosen; but Robin wanted to keep his journey secret; and I was happy for as few people as possible to know that Robin was roaming the countryside with only one armed retainer. I think too, in hindsight, that Robin occasionally found the trappings of his earldom a heavy burden and he longed for a return to the simple life of an outlaw; although he had never yet actually voiced this feeling to me.
Robin had brought cold roast beef, typically ignoring the fact that it was Lent, in fact, only five days away from Easter Sunday, and according to Church law we were supposed to be eschewing meat of any kind. He also brought bread, onions and a skin of wine and we made a cheerful camp with a small fire under a great spreading oak. And after we’d eaten, as the sparks danced above the fire, we wrapped ourselves in our warm green cloaks and sat cross-legged around the cheerful blaze, with our weapons close at hand. Robin took a long pull from the half-full wine skin before passing it to me. I drank deeply and passed it back.
‘Do you think Murdac actually has a hundred pounds of German silver?’ I asked him, wiping my mouth.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Every man within a hundred miles will have heard of the offer by now; and half of them will be thinking of how they can claim it. It was a very good move on his part. I salute the slimy little bastard,’ Robin lifted the wine skin towards the fire and took another long drink.
‘I had him once, you know,’ he said. ‘I had his life in the palm of my hand, and I let him go. Foolish of me; I should have killed him there and then. And I wouldn’t have this problem now. I could have avoided a lot of trouble if I had just snuffed him out there and then.’ He brought his forefinger and thumb together with a soft snap. ‘But I felt pity for him. I say pity, but it was merely weakness, in truth. He begged for his life on his knees and I couldn’t kill him. Sheer bloody weakness — arrogance, too. But then no man can see the future.’ He sighed and drank again.
‘When was this?’ I asked.
‘Here, take this; I’ve had enough,’ said Robin passing me the wine skin. He never drank to excess but I sensed that, that night, he might have wanted to. I took a small drink myself and kept quiet.
‘It was about seven, eight years ago, long before you joined us. We were just a handful of men then: John, Much the miller’s son, Owain and a dozen or so others. Waylaying rich travellers, mainly. I used to invite them to dinner in the forest, and then make them pay for the privilege. It was just a childish game, really. We were on the move all the time in Sherwood, dodging the Sheriff’s men, fearful that a decent-sized company of soldiers would find us. No more than a pitiful band of wandering footpads. I realised that I needed some real money to build the organisation I wanted; I needed, well… respect from the villages. I wanted to do something big. I needed to do something spectacular. So John and I cooked up a plan.’
He shrugged off his cloak, went over to the woodpile and threw another branch on the fire. Sitting down again, and extending his hands to the blaze, he continued: ‘We decided to rob the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests himself, in his own castle.’ Through the leaping flames I could see his face clearly: he was smiling with pleasure at the thought, his silver eyes shining in the darkness.
‘There was to be a sword-play competition at the Nottingham Fair, open to all, and we decided that John should enter, calling himself
… what was it?… something preposterous, something woody… Greenleaf, I think. That’s it. Reynald Greenleaf, was to be his name. He was to try and get himself noticed by Sir Ralph Murdac and get himself taken on as sergeant-at-arms in the castle. Well, you know John, he won the contest easily, even killing his opponent in the final round. And Murdac swiftly took John into his employment.’
I was fascinated. I had never heard this tale before. Robin rummaged in the food sack and brought out the remains of the beef joint. He cut off a thin, delicate slice, and popped it in his mouth. I took another drink from the wine skin. ‘It wasn’t a subtle plan; the robbery,’ said Robin, chewing slowly. ‘We were after Murdac’s dining silver; the best goblets, cups and plates, mazers, bowls and platters that he used on feast days in his hall. And we heard that they were kept in a locked room off the kitchen.
‘John waited three days, playing the part of a loyal man-at-arms, and after midnight on the third day he went down to the kitchen, broke open the door of the store and filled a sack with the silver plate. Halfway through, he was discovered by the head cook, a huge man, and almost as strong as John himself. Apparently, they had an almighty set-to in the kitchen, pots and pans flying everywhere, and they beat each other to bloody steak. Must have made a hell of a racket. Eventually, John managed to knock him out and get away with the sack of clanking metal. But it wasn’t a smooth escape; the disturbance made by the fight in the kitchen had roused the castle and when John galloped out of Nottingham on a stolen horse, he was followed by Sir Ralph Murdac and a score of his men-at-arms, buzzing like angry wasps, hastily dressed and only half-armed.’ Robin poked the fire with a thin stick, setting his makeshift poker alight. He waved it in the air to extinguish the blue flames.
‘Of course, we were waiting for John in the forest, and when Murdac’s half-dressed soldiers turned up, we shot them to pieces with our bows from dense cover. They didn’t stand a chance. The soldiers charged into a hail of arrows and, without proper armour, in three heartbeats there were a dozen empty saddles and a litter trail of men bleeding, cursing and dying on the forest floor. The rest had to run for it.’
He stopped for a moment. ‘But they left Ralph Murdac behind.’
‘So you captured the Sheriff himself?’
‘Yes, we had him, and he was wounded, not badly, just an arrow in the flesh of his left arm. But his horse had been pierced by a couple of shafts and had thrown him. He was terrified: surrounded by a pack of bloodthirsty outlaws, men he would have hanged on sight if he had caught them in Nottingham; his own men wounded and dying around him, the rest fled. He was on his knees, pleading for his life, tears absolutely running down his face. I’ll never forget the sight of someone so… lost.’
‘The men thought it was funny, of course — the high and mighty Sheriff, begging for our mercy. I had my sword drawn and I was preparing to dispatch him, when Tuck intervened. And in my youthful weakness, I listened to him. ‘Make him swear, on the Cross, that he will not molest us in future,’ said Tuck. ‘Make him swear, by all that is holy, that he will pay a ransom,’ he insisted, ‘and spare your soul another black stain.’
‘I was soft then, a fool, and I listened to Tuck’s plea. So Murdac swore a great oath that he would not pursue us in the forest, that we outlaws might do as we chose in Sherwood. He promised to deliver a ransom to the very spot he was kneeling on in three days’ time, I forget how much now, but a decent sum; twenty marks, I think. And, being the idiot that I was then, I let him go.’
Robin stabbed at the fire again with the stick. ‘He never paid up, of course. Perhaps he had intended to do so when he was begging for his life but, once he was snug at home in Nottingham Castle, there was no chance he was going to part with his silver to an outlaw. But, strangely, he did leave us alone, for a year or more, and it gave me more than enough time to build up my strength. All manner of people came to join me. I was made, then, with the common people. The robbery was a success, in that aspect. I had their attention, and their respect.’
‘If you had killed Murdac, it would have brought the wrath of the King down upon you,’ I said. ‘Henry would have come north with all his might and crushed you like an insect,’
‘Yes, there is that,’ conceded Robin, ‘but I wish I had slit the little poison-toad’s throat nonetheless.’
The next day, by the early afternoon, we were walking our horses through the low arch of Micklegate Bar — with its gruesome array of the severed heads of criminals set on spikes on top — and into York. It was my first visit to this great northern town, and I was most curious to see the place. As we rode down the centre of wide street to the old bridge over the River Ouse, I took in the closely packed workshops and houses, the milling citizens, the noise and smells of the streets; there seemed to be a great number of people out of doors, far more than would be abroad in Nottingham at this hour, and many seemed to be agitated about something. There were also, I noticed, many more men-at-arms among the throng that would be usual in a town this size.
Robin seemed to be reading my thoughts: ‘Sir John Marshal, the Sheriff of Yorkshire, is assembling local contingents here to go on the Great Pilgrimage,’ he noted. ‘You need to mind your manners, Alan, with so many soldiers about. Don’t get into any trouble; don’t provoke anyone to violence.’ As so often when he spoke to me, Robin was half-serious and half-joking.
Crossing the old bridge over the river, Robin and I moved into single file, and I covered my nose at the stench of the public latrines — wooden shacks that had been set up, their backs extending out over the slow moving brown water so that the townsmen could relieve themselves directly into the Ouse. To my right, a couple of hundred yards away, was the mound and high wooden walls of the King’s Tower, the great keep of York Castle, that glowered over the town as a reminder of the King’s power in the North. On my left, a quarter of a mile away, was the magnificent soaring bulk of the Minster, a huge monument to God’s glory on Earth; and next to it, slightly closer to the river, was the Abbey of St Mary’s, one of the holiest institutions in Yorkshire. Robin I knew had had problems with the Abbot in the past — he had mocked him publicly for his wealth, and robbed his servants as they travelled through Sherwood — and I knew he wanted to avoid the place, if at all possible.
We headed neither right to the castle nor left to the Minster, but straight up the hill through ranks of squeezed in houses, some of them two or even three storeys high. It was an impressive town. And yet, even though I had never been in York before, I could sense that something was wrong in the place: fellows would scurry about shouting half-heard messages to their fellows; a gang of apprentices crossed our path heading north, and drunkenly singing a song that ended in the chorus… ‘Ah-ha, ah-ha, ah-ha, another pint of ale, my boys, ah-ha, ah-ah, ah-ha, and then the Jew shall die, my boys, ah-ha, ah-ha, ah-ha
…’ It seemed that a great many people were walking up the road with us and towards the market; a tide of humanity all moving in the same direction.
I felt uneasy and glanced at Robin; he too was frowning but we pushed on up the hill until a space opened up to our left and, by the ripe smell of rotting meat, I knew we were passing the town’s shambles. Robin put a hand on my arm and we reined in at the entrance to the meat market. In a wide space, lined with rough stalls selling bloody cuts of pork and beef, and with row upon row of dead chickens hanging by their feet, a huge crowd had formed. Standing on a box at the back of the market, a short, middle-aged man dressed in a robe like that of a monk — except that it was a grubby off-white colour, instead of the usual brown — was haranguing the multitude. As Robin and I stopped to listen, more and more townspeople joined the throng in front of the monk, straining to hear his message: it soon became clear that his theme was the Great Pilgrimage, and the urgent need to free the Holy Land.
‘… and yet their beasts continue to defile our Holy places; the unbelievers’ cattle shitting on the very floors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself; their Satan-black slaves pissing in the font where many a devout Christian babe has been baptised. How long, O Lord, how long will you suffer these Saracen desecrators to live? Where is the strong right arm of the Christian faith? Where is the army of the righteous who will scrub the Holy Land clean of these filthy, Christ-denying wretches?
‘I tell you, brothers: the great men of the land are doing their part; even our good King Richard has made his solemn vow to recapture Jerusalem and rid it of these unbelieving lice that swarm on the very stones where Christ preached his blessed ministry. And all the great lords of England and France, too, are doing their part to rid the world of the foul corruption of the paynim: our noble Sheriff, Sir John Marshal, brother to Christendom’s greatest knight, William the Marshal, is summoning his men, brave knights from across the county of Yorkshire, to cross the seas and vanquish these stinking hordes of the Devil.’
The crowd was cheering by now; wrapped up in the white priest’s words. ‘But what can I do, you ask; how can I play my part in this great endeavour to rid the world of sin and faithlessness? What can I do?’ The white monk paused, searching the crowd with his eyes. ‘I am no great knight, nor lord nor king, you say. I am but a humble man, a good Christian but no sword-wielding horse-warrior, with wide lands and great estates. And to you I say this: the Devil is among you! Here! Today! In this very town!’ There was a collective hiss from the crowd. The white monk held out his arm, index finger extended and he moved it slowly over the crowd. For some strange reason, it was difficult not to follow the pointing finger with your eyes.
‘The Devil is here, I say, among you, at this moment. You do not need to go to far Outremer to fight the good fight. You do not need to risk life and limb on the long road eastwards. There are evil heretics, unbelievers, demons shaped like men who dare to reject Christ, to spit in the face of Holy Mary Mother of God… and they are right here in York; living among good Christian folk like human rats. You know of whom I speak; you know this form of mankind; they are the ones who steal the bread out of honest men’s mouths; who with their God-cursed debt payments ruin the lives of honest men; they are the race who defy Christ, who murdered our Blessed Saviour on the Cross; who even today kidnap little Christian children and slaughter them for their foul Satanic rituals…’
The growls from the crowd had been growing and then somebody shouted: ‘The Jews! The Jews!’ and the crowd took up the chant, drawing out the long syllable into a deep booming ‘Oooooooh’. It was a sound to freeze the blood, the deep roaring of the crowd chanting: ‘Jooooooos; kill the Jooooooos; kill the Jooooooos,’ low and reverberating, like the base howling of a crazed beast.
‘It is God who wills it; God wills it, I say; it is God Almighty who demands that the Jews, that race of degenerate fiends, be wiped from the face of the Earth…’
Robin was watching the monk’s performance with a grim face. The white-robed man had flecks of spittle at either side of his mouth as he exhorted the crowd to hatred. ‘Someone should cut down that madman before he drowns the world in blood,’ Robin said quietly, almost to himself.
I looked at him, worried by his tone. He meant it; and yet to kill a monk or a priest, it was sacrilege of the worst sort. As a youth Robin had been outlawed for killing a holy man; surely he could not be contemplating another gross mortal sin of that magnitude. ‘I’ve heard more than enough here,’ said Robin. ‘Let’s ride on. We need to warn Reuben.’
There was no need to warn Reuben: when we approached the Jewish quarter, which was just outside the town’s earth and wood ramparts, we could clearly see that the area had already been attacked. The street was filled with burnt and broken chattels. What had been the large stone building of a wealthy man was now a smouldering ruin; Christian looters scurried in and out of the building with armfuls of smoke-blackened goods; pots and pans, blankets and chairs, small items of low value mostly but I saw a man making off with a small iron-bound chest that looked as if it had been used for storing jewels.
‘That is Benedict’s house; or rather, that was his house,’ said Robin grimly. ‘He is the leader of the Jews in York, if he still lives. But Reuben’s place seems untouched — so far.’ He led us to a stout two-storey wooden structure a hundred paces from the bumt-out shell, set in a large garden filled with strange exotic shrubs, and huge beds of herbs, for Reuben was a healer as well as a moneylender. We stopped and dismounted at the gate. The smell of the herbs was intoxicating: I could detect fine whiffs of sage and borage, rosemary and marjoram…
I was just stepping through the gate in the garden, and looking up at the tightly shuttered windows and studded oak door, when suddenly I felt a great shove in my back and I sprawled on the brick paving of the garden path. There was a thud behind me and I turned to see the neat black handle of a throwing knife vibrating in the gatepost.
‘Reuben, it is me, Robert of Locksley, and young Alan Dale. We are your friends. We mean you no harm,’ called Robin, who was crouched behind a small bush behind me. ‘Reuben, you know us! Let us enter!’
A window shutter opened a fraction on the first floor, and I saw a brown face peering out suspiciously, curly brown hair and oak-tough brown eyes. ‘What do you want with me, Christian?’ said a hard voice.
‘Actually, I want to borrow some money,’ said Robin and his face creased into one of his finest smiles.
Reuben’s daughter Ruth brought us bread, cheese and wine. She was a comely girl about my own age; tall, slender but full-breasted, veiled, of course, but with huge liquid brown eyes, and I sensed that she was smiling at me behind the thin white curtain of fine cloth that covered her face. I smiled back at her, then dropped my eyes uncertainly, as she continued to gaze at me boldly over her veil.
‘That will be all, Ruth,’ snapped Reuben, and his daughter turned away and dutifully left us to our meal.
‘I should beat the sauciness out of her, I know,’ said Reuben, ‘but as she is my only child, and she reminds me so much of her mother, may her soul rest in the bosom of Abraham, that I cannot bring myself to chastise her.’ He ushered the two of us over to a great table in his hall, and invited us to sit. For a townhouse, it was huge, and I wondered whether the decision by the people of York to exclude Jews from living inside their walls had not, in some way been beneficial to Reuben and his tribe: compared with the cramped rows of houses in town, the Jews had the space to build themselves large, stout houses with spacious gardens between the wall and the river Foss, and yet they were still only a quarter of an hour’s walk from the centre of York.
‘These are bad times to be a Jew in a Christian land, my young friend,’ said Reuben, half-apologising with a smile as I handed his throwing knife back to him. It had been stuck nearly an inch deep into the oak gatepost, and it had taken a considerable amount of force to remove it from the grip of the wood. For such a thin man, Reuben was extremely strong, and I knew this, but his ability to throw a knife so far and so hard still amazed me. He tucked the blade away into a fold in his robe and poured Robin and myself a cup of wine.
‘You heard what happened to us in London?’ he asked Robin. My master nodded: ‘A terrible business,’ he replied gravely. At Richard’s coronation in September of the previous year, a delegation of Jews had attempted to make a gift of gold to the new King. Due to some confusion at the entrance of the palace of Westminster, a riot had broken out and the Jewish delegation had been cut down by Richard’s men-at-arms. Worse, the rioting spread through the whole city like a plague of hatred and many Jews had been hunted through the streets of London and mercilessly slaughtered.
‘But the King has since decreed that your people are under his personal protection,’ said Robin. ‘Does that not reassure you?’
‘The King is in France,’ said Reuben darkly. ‘And soon he will be on the road to Outremer. He does not care for us; we are merely his sheep, to be shorn whenever it is his royal whim. Last night the mob came out of the city and burnt down my friend Benedict’s house. He’s dead, you know, he died on the way back from London after being wounded in Westminster in the riot, but now, so too are his wife and family, dragged from the house and hacked apart in the street like animals. His treasure has been stolen; the records of his debts have been destroyed. I fear that when night falls, we — Ruth and myself — will be next. But I will kill her myself before I let her fall into the hands of a Christian mob.’ He spoke with very little emotion in his voice but a muscle jumped in his cheek, betraying his true feelings.
‘But what of Sir John Marshal?’ I asked. ‘As Sheriff, surely it is his duty to keep the King’s peace in Yorkshire.’
‘He is a weak man and he too owes money to Jews,’ said Reuben. ‘I do not think he would be too tormented if we were all murdered and his debts were wiped clean. But perhaps I am being unfair. These days I cannot tell friend from foe; these days, all Christians seem alike to me,’ he smiled at Robin to make it clear that he was speaking, at least partly, in jest. ‘But you came here to discuss money,’ he continued, ‘let us talk of gold and silver, not of death. How can I and my friends be of service to you?’
Robin nodded at me and I excused myself from the table — Robin preferred his financial conversations to be private — so I went over to the far side of the hall to examine a particularly beautiful tapestry that was hanging there: it showed the Holy City of Jerusalem, high on a hill, with depictions of the angels, archangels and ancient prophets, and I pondered how much, in matters of faith and tradition, the Jews and Christians had in common. Tuck had told me that the much of the Bible was sacred to the Jews, too. Of course, I believed then, as I still do to this day, that all Jews are eternally damned because they have not accepted Our Lord Jesus Christ into their hearts. But I also knew in my heart that Reuben was a good man, a kind man, and a loyal friend to Robin, and I could not see any reason for him or his people to be hunted down and murdered. I turned to look at Robin and Reuben, their heads bent close together, talking quietly out of earshot at the other end of the hall. I knew what Robin’s opinion would be about the murder of Jews: he had little time for religious dogma, and he would not care a jot if a thousand Jews — or Christians — were to die, if he did not have a personal connection to them; but Reuben was his friend, and erstwhile partner, and he would defend him to the death against all comers, Christian, Jew, pagan or Saracen.
Looking over at Robin and Reuben, I noticed a curious thing. Reuben was showing Robin a small packet of whitish crystals. Robin picked one up and sniffed it before handing it back to Reuben. Reuben took the small yellow-white lump in a pair of silver tongs and held it to the flame of a candle on the table. There was a crackle and a burst of white smoke, a small cloud formed over the table and a few moments later the scent reached me — it was a rich, sweet fragrance, like burning flowers, and familiar — I knew I had smelled it before in a totally different context. But where? I could not think.
Robin saw me looking at them and the fast disappearing cloud of smoke, and he frowned at me. I turned away again and resumed my study of the beautiful tapestry. What was this mysterious fragrant white substance, and why would Reuben and Robin be so interested in it?
Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, Robin called me over. The package of white crystals had disappeared, I guessed into one of the folds of Reuben’s voluminous robe, and Robin and Reuben were clasping hands solemnly.
‘So, it is settled then,’ said Robin. ‘Alan, we have a little errand to do before we go home — we are going to escort Reuben and Ruth to the castle. They will be safe there until this religious foolishness is over.’
While Reuben gathered his rolls of parchment, his account books and valuables, and Ruth packed food and clothing, I stared out of a window on the second floor. I had a fine view of the broad street outside and the gatehouse down by the bridge over the Foss. Far beyond the city wall to my right, I could see the Minster glowing in the evening sunlight; as I gazed on it in wonder, the great bells of the cathedral began to ring out for Vespers, and they were immediately followed by the chimes of every other belfry in York. The golden evening rang with the music of God, calling all to evening prayers, and the sound filled my heart. How could one think of hatred and death with that glorious din in your ears?
‘Come on, Alan, stop daydreaming or they’ll close the gatehouse,’ shouted Robin from below. He had the horses’ reins in his hands, including a packhorse for Reuben’s possessions, and I scrambled down and joined my friends.
We got to the gatehouse just as the man-at-arms was beginning to swing the great wooden doors shut. He let us through with a grumble and a dark look at Reuben and Ruth, who, even though they were well swathed in cloaks, were somehow almost instantly recognisable as Jews. As we entered the town and made our way southwest towards the castle, I noticed with growing alarm that there were still far more folk in the streets than was natural at this hour. Some passers-by shouted insults at Reuben and his daughter, but more worryingly, some began to follow us as we walked our horses down the narrow streets towards the castle. In the darkening streets, we began to attract an ugly train. I put my hand on my sword hilt, but Robin caught my eye and shook his head. One angry youth in a red-brown peasant’s tunic lifted his garment and made an obscene gesture, jerking his hips towards Ruth. ‘Jew-lovers,’ he yelled at us, and the rest of the gathering crowd repeated the call: ‘Jewlovers, Jew-lovers’. A passing man spat a great gobbet of phlegm at us, which splattered on the rump of the packhorse. I wanted to break into a trot, but again Robin signaled that we would continue to proceed at walking pace. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw another man pick up a loose cobblestone, and, with a shout of ‘Death to the Christ-killers,’ hurled it at our party. It hit Ruth square in the middle of her back and she gasped in pain. Immediately, I dug my toe into Ghost’s shoulder, turned him towards Ruth’s assailant and spurring back, I charged my horse straight into the wretch. Ghost’s chest smashed into his shoulder and he spun round and went down under the hooves of my mount. I heard clearly the crisp snap of bone, and a muffled scream, and then drawing my sword and pausing above his groaning body, I tried for a moment or so to catch the eyes of anyone in the growing crowd who would match my stare — nobody would. So I turned Ghost again and trotted back to my place in our little cavalcade.
I was feeling pleased with myself but, by riding down the stone-thrower, I had unleashed something even worse. The shouting from the crowd changed from individual taunts to massed yells, growing louder and louder. Another cobble stone whistled past Ghost’s neck, and another, then one hit Robin on the thigh with a meaty smack. He made no sound, merely drew his sword and signaled to me that now we should pick up the pace. We began to trot, the horses’ steel shoes making a sharp rattle on the cobbles, forcing angry folk out of our path. A few more stones flew, splintering on the road ahead of us, but although we swiftly outdistanced the angry mob behind us, there were more folk appearing in front. One misshapen fellow, his back unnaturally twisted, who was supporting himself on a large wooden crutch, was capering directly in our path, pointing a finger at our party and shouting: ‘Jews… Jews… Jews…’ As we approached at the trot, he swung his crutch up at Robin who was nearest to him in a vicious scything blow that would have crushed his skull if it had landed. But Robin front-blocked the blow easily with his sword, and then chopped down in a classic move that Little John had made me practice hundreds of times. The blade sliced into the twisted man’s scalp, there was a spray of bright blood and he dropped as if boneless to the cobbles.
There was a roar of rage from the crowd behind, a deep, animal sound that lifted the hairs on the back of my neck, and they surged forward in a pack. ‘Close up,’ said Robin, raising his voice above the tumult; he sounded calm, icy, as he always did in battle. ‘Close up, Alan, and feel free to take out anyone, anyone who stands in our path.’ I grinned at him nervously.
As he spoke, a man suddenly leapt from the open window of the house we were passing. He launched himself from a position almost level with me and nearly knocked me from the saddle; he grabbed me around the waist and, before I had time to react, he had straddled Ghost’s hind quarters and was punching a short knife into my back, trying for my kidneys. Praise God, my chainmail hauberk under my cloak kept the blade from my flesh. Without thinking, I swivelled fast and elbowed him hard in the side of the head. I felt his grasp loosen, so then reversing my grip on my drawn sword, pointing it towards my own body, I drove it backwards, through the gap between my own left arm and my left side, and deep into the flesh of his side. He fell away, screeching and spurting blood. We spurred back and shot out from the press of folk, and suddenly we were clear and moving fast, bloody swords in our fists, galloping towards the castle, the gates of which were only two hundred yards away. Behind us the mob howled like a wolf pack and broke into a run.
I saw a big, dark-haired man, directly in our path, cradling a great Dane axe and swaying his weight gently from foot to foot. He smiled broadly, madly, and waited for us to thunder down on him; no doubt planning to dodge at the last moment and slash the legs of one of the horses as they passed, bringing one of us tumbling to earth. Suddenly his expression changed, the smile drained away and his face sagged like a candle put too close to the fire. I noticed in the same instant that the black handle of a throwing knife had sprouted from his broad chest; he sank to his knees, the axe clattered to the ground, and then we were past. A spearman appeared on my left and stabbed a rusty point at me, but I swept his spearhead out of my way, and slashed back at him with my poniard; Robin effortlessly cut down a man wielding a huge ancient two-handed sword and then we were through the gates and safely into the bailey court-yards of York Castle.
Panting, we hauled our beasts to a halt in the centre of the broad space — and immediately noticed that something was wrong. There were no mounted men-at-arms to greet us, to ask us our business — there were almost no people in sight at all, and those we could see were in the garb of servants. Where was Sir John Marshal? We had expected to have the gate shut behind us by trained soldiers, determined to hold the castle in the face of the deranged mob. But the place seemed almost deserted. I turned to look at the gate. It was still wide open, and a column of furious, shouting citizens, filling the street, hundreds of them, was rapidly approaching. Torches had been lit to counter the gloom, and in the flickering light I caught a glimpse of a dirty white robe in the leading ranks of the throng. Then I ducked instinctively as a hail of sticks, stones, even a few arrows came showering towards us.
‘To the Tower, to the King’s Tower,’ said Reuben breathlessly. ‘All the others are in the Tower.’
I looked to my right, at the grim, brooding height of the King’s Tower, the strong, square wooden keep of York Castle. And we all spurred towards it. It was built on a great mound of earth nearly thirty feet high, and the high, stout walls added another twenty feet to its grandeur. It looked strong enough to stand until Judgment Day, and as we cantered over the narrow rammed-earth causeway that linked the Tower to the bailey, I began to feel a little safer. Leading our horses up the steep set of wooden steps that was the final approach to the keep, and through the narrow, thick iron-studded door at the top, we were welcomed by a tall balding man wearing a black skull cap, with a kindly lined face and grey beard.
‘ Shalom aleichem,’ the old man said. ‘I am Josce of York, and you are most welcome here.’ The thick oak door slammed behind us, closing out the buzz of the angry world, and the locking bar slid home with a reassuring thump.