Warlord(131)

The Marshal also evidently believed that he had done his share of the work that day for he sat down a few yards from me, resting his behind comfortably on the unconscious body of the tall black-clad knight. When I had thanked him for his timely intervention – and given thanks for his complete disregard for Prince John’s orders – he brushed away my words and said: ‘Well, Sir Alan, I am nearly fifty years old, and so I believe I am entitled to take a little rest during a battle – what is your excuse?’



With those jesting words he shamed me into rising and following the Locksley men down into the castle of Milly.


Thomas was not dead – praise God and all the saints in Heaven. He had received a nasty sword cut to the head, but his helmet had taken the force of the blow and while he was a little dazed for a day or so, and his cut scalp had bled copiously, within a week he was his old cheerful self.

Prince John was eloquent when he praised William the Marshal’s actions that day – and not a word was said about the Earl of Striguil’s blatant disregard of his orders to leave us to assault the castle alone. Victory forgives all, it would seem. John hanged all the men-at-arms he had captured, which to me seemed unnecessarily cruel – though not, of course, the knights. These downcast warriors were chivvied into a storeroom and locked in while our men-at-arms sat outside and gleefully computed their probable ransoms in loud, mocking voices, meant to be heard.

The Locksley men had taken a dozen casualties in the assault: but only six dead, which included two Westbury men and Alfred. It crossed my mind to seek out the man who had apparently twisted his ankle in the attack and so avoided making the assault, but I did not have the stomach for it. If I found that he had been shamming, I would have had to hang him as an example to the others, and I could not face the task. That was pure weakness on my part, I admit, but I was heartsick that the men had performed so badly. And they knew it.

I sent them back to Château-Gaillard the next day with a wagon containing a dazed Thomas, and told them to inform Robin how the battle had taken place, and to describe truthfully their part in it. I kept the remaining ten Westbury men with me, for while we too had been dismissed by Prince John – a detachment of the Marshal’s men were to garrison Milly – and told to return to the saucy castle, I wanted to make a private pilgrimage with my own men before returning to Robin.


We took a detour on the way home from Milly, and wandered a little to the north of our original line of march. And two days after the assault, I found myself, with ten good Westbury men around me, sitting my horse in almost exactly the same spot slightly back from the tree line, that I had occupied with Thomas and Hanno three years previously. I was gazing out between the branches at the manor Clermont-sur-Andelle – the rich manor that had once been promised to me by the Lionheart. Or rather I was gazing at the place where the rich manor of Clermont had once been.

It had been totally devastated. In truth, we had been able to smell the place on the slight breeze from half a mile away. It was the familiar stink of rural destruction: sour wet smoke and rotting carcasses, with notes of dung and despair. We trotted down across the water meadow where the two black-headed knights had flown their brave falcon to the bridge over the River Andelle, and not a living thing did we see. A holocaust had engulfed the whole settlement here, and recently, at a guess, no more than a few days ago. The hall and its surrounding palisade had been burned almost to the ground – the mill had been fired and it looked as if the fine flour in the air had exploded, too, a common enough risk, and all that remained was the massive millstone squatting like a blackened round table amid the piles of ash and charred wood. Even the church had been burned down; and the broad fertile fields of green barley and wheat had been trampled by many horsemen. The destruction was complete, absolute – as if ruin was the real objective and not gathering booty, or foraging for food. It was as if a malevolent being were punishing this manor and its wretched inhabitants for some nameless crime.

The people were all gone – perhaps driven to take refuge in a local monastery, or even to swell the throngs of beggars in the stews of Paris, though I noticed a dozen fresh graves in the churchyard, and concluded that a few villagers must have lingered long enough to bury their dead before they departed. All the livestock had disappeared, too, perhaps taken by the villagers, perhaps driven off by the marauders.

The marauders: I knew who had done this. It was Mercadier’s work. I knew that they had passed through this area a few days previously. Was it a strike at me? Was Mercadier trying to punish me for being given this manor by Richard? It seemed slightly odd behaviour, even for a ruthless warlord like Mercadier, a little moon-crazed, to be honest. I had not been receiving the benefits of these lands before they had been despoiled, and I would not have any chance of garnering any profit from them now. But I had not been damaged by his actions; I would not miss revenues I had never received.