The King’s Assassin by Donald Angus

Author:Donald, Angus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2015-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

When I reached the gates of the town the next day, I was half expecting to see the walls lined with armed men. And I halted long out of bowshot to try to gauge what sort of reception I would receive. As well as Robin’s messenger, I had sent a man from Westbury to herald my coming. I had asked for an audience with the sheriff at noon, and I had added that I came under a flag of truce. I did not seek to be shot down as Sir Thomas had slain the Flemish mercenary Nicholas of Hainaut.

Nottingham seemed entirely normal. There were a few bored crossbowmen on the town walls, who ignored me, and I was stopped by only two sergeants-at-arms at the town gates who asked my business. I sensed no danger at all.

I was wearing no mail – just a blue tunic, black hose and riding boots, covered with a long grey cloak, but Fidelity was at my waist and I had the misericorde strapped to my left wrist. The sergeants did not attempt to disarm me, they merely summoned an escort of half a dozen men from the guardroom and gave them orders to escort me to the great hall where the sheriff was holding court.

I felt no qualms until I reached the inner bailey of the castle itself. And there, the first thing I saw, over by the old alehouse, was a square-built structure, a platform on four legs as wide as a cottage, with a high beam suspended above it, the whole business newly constructed of green elm beams.

It was a gallows.

The sheriff received me in the great hall of Nottingham Castle. I knew that hall well but that day it seemed different. The space was filled with men-at-arms, mostly French mercenaries, like their lord, but I also heard the English-sounding words of Flemish being spoken by more than a few of the mailed men who stood around, laughing and joking, swigging ale or wine, and pinching the backsides of the prettier women servants. The hall had the atmosphere of a campaign tent or a barracks: drunken familiarity and sweaty male camaraderie. It was a far cry from the stiff formality and hushed awe of the place when King John was in residence – but then this sheriff, this Frenchman, was a stranger in this land: he was an occupier, sent here by the King to prey on the people and strip as much wealth as he could from the English. As a foreigner, the sheriff must feel unsure, perhaps even unsafe, which was why he kept himself surrounded by his armed men.

Not all the men there were foreigners. I was greeted, if that is the word, at the door of the hall by Sir Benedict Malet. He treated me with his usual contempt: ‘So you are here at last. Hope you brought cash,’ was all he said before leading me through the throng to meet Philip Marc, who was standing at the rear of the hall surrounded by a pack of guffawing French men-at-arms.

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