Warlord(127)

I said nothing but made to turn away. However, Mercadier was speaking again, in that cold, stony voice: ‘I held Normandy for him when he was in prison, you know. When almost everyone else had forsaken him, and sided with John – including you, I believe, and that traitorous creature over there.’ Mercadier nodded at Sir Nicholas de Scras, who was now demonstrating a high lateral block to the crowd of men-at-arms. ‘When everyone else had forsaken the King, I remained loyal. When the rest of his fine gentlemen –’ Mercadier pronounced the word with deep contempt – ‘had changed their allegiance as easily as a pair of soiled hose and sided with his renegade fool of a brother, I remained steadfast. My men bled and died on this very soil for the King while he was in the power of his enemies. I took this for him.’ He made a short chopping gesture with his left hand towards his scarred face. ‘And I held his land against the full might of Philip of France, as best I could. Later I took Loches and Bigaroque and Issoudun for him, and killed half my men in doing so – and yet he made you a knight. He ranked you over me! He gave you Clermont-sur-Andelle – a fine manor that he knew I had long coveted – and a knighthood! You, who are as base-born as I; you, who are no more that the scrapings of a Nottingham gutter, were given a gentleman’s rank …’

My right hand had gone to my hilt, and I think I would have taken my blade to him, had the scarred man’s dull, poisonous flow not been suddenly interrupted by Sir Nicholas de Scras’s familiar cheery voice: ‘Sir Alan Dale, my friend, how wonderful to see you! When did you get here? And Captain Mercadier, greetings – what an honour to be observed at my labours by such distinguished men of the sword.’

I turned to look at Sir Nicholas and managed a tight smile, and when I turned back to Mercadier to say something – I know not what, probably something fatuous about my grandfather the Seigneur – in reply to his insults about my origins, I saw that he had turned his back on the both of us and was walking briskly away across the courtyard.

‘What an ill-bred, loutish churl,’ said Sir Nicholas, as he stared after Mercadier’s broad retreating back.

‘He is only a little worse born than I,’ I said.

‘Well, you at least have decent manners and a proper sense of honour,’ Sir Nicholas said casually. And I smiled gratefully at him.

The erstwhile Hospitaller and I took a cup of wine together at the seller’s stand, and my friend gave me the mood of the castle. The men-at-arms had been worked hard in recent weeks but remained eager for the fight. They loved Richard for his mad ambitions and reckless disregard for his own safety, and were prepared to fight to the death for their lord and King. Richard had recently returned from a raid at the port of St Valéry. He had found English ships there trading with the French, and had seized their cargoes, burned the vessels to the waterline and hanged the crews. The men had thoroughly approved of the King’s actions, and almost all of them had profited from a day or two of unrestrained looting in the captured French town.

‘You saw the King this morning, Alan – how was his temper?’ asked Sir Nicholas. ‘Is he ready to press the fight against the French once again?’

I answered my friend honestly. ‘He’s more than ready. In fact, I must confess, he seemed rather too enthusiastic, almost hectic; not as calm as I have seen him previously.’

Sir Nicholas nodded thoughtfully. ‘He appears so to me, also,’ he said. ‘But then he has so much that he wishes to achieve this season, and too little time in which to do it.’

And there we left it.

That evening, I played my vielle for my King. It was not a happy occasion. I was not well attuned to the mood of the hall, and perhaps wishing to impress the assembled barons with my sophistication, I played some new compositions. They were perhaps too mournful, coloured no doubt by my months of melancholy soul-sickness, and I struck the wrong note with that brisk, healthy gathering. The King did not care for them at all, they did not suit his current mood of frenzied optimism, and worse, Mercadier sat next to him during the performance and whispered in his ear. At one point, the poignant climax to a tale of doomed love, Richard actually laughed out loud at something Mercadier had said. I barely managed to finish the piece before withdrawing from the hall with a bow and an excuse, and as much grace as I could scrape together. The next morning we rode off to war.





Chapter Twenty-four



We sallied out of Château-Gaillard joyously and in great force; Richard himself and a hundred knights and two hundred mounted men-at-arms under a forest of spears and brightly coloured banners. The King was accompanied by the grizzled Earl of Striguil and his knights, but not by the Earl of Locksley, who had been ordered to hold Château-Gaillard in place of his royal master. I had been given the honour of leading a contingent of Locksley men in green, fifty strong, as well as my own fourteen men-at-arms, who all sported fresh red surcoats with my snarling boar device on their chests.