Warlord(146)

Mercadier looked over at Robin who had appeared at my shoulder. He frowned at my lord, confused and angry. ‘Very well, my lord. I will release him to you – when I have been paid the full amount – in silver.’

Robin turned his head and shouted across the courtyard: ‘John, be so good as to bring me two of the chests from Paris. Quick as you like.’ A few moments later, Little John and two Locksley men came lumbering over with a pair of heavy wooden boxes, which they dumped on the ground at Robin’s feet.

‘Open them, would you, John; their contents are for our zealous friend here, Captain Mercadier.’

I think I was as astonished as the mercenary to see what the boxes held: each chest was packed with small, lumpy white canvas bags marked with a bold red cross. It was a symbol I had seen before. Each bag was the same size as the one Robin had given me after fleecing the merchants of Tours and, as I knew very well, they contained five pounds in silver pennies. If each chest held twenty bags, and they looked as if they did, I was staring at two hundred pounds in silver: to be exact, two hundred pounds of silver that had come from the vaults of a Templar preceptory.


Roland gulped at his wine cup, emptying it and silently holding the vessel out to be refilled; and who could blame him? My cousin, Robin and I were sitting at a table on the ground floor of the Dangu keep, in an area that the Locksley men had made their own. A few of Robin’s men-at-arms looked at the young French knight curiously – word of the vast sum that Robin had expended on him had spread speedily through their ranks.

From the courtyard outside came the sound of screams – although we had rescued Roland, the blinding continued. Mercadier was making sure that these French knights would never fight again. Each time a scream echoed around the courtyard, Roland flinched. I did too – I thought of Mercadier’s parting words as we walked away with our shivering captive and shuddered: ‘Would you like any more of them, my lord?’ the scarred mercenary had asked with elaborate courtesy. ‘I have another ten of these French rascals, if you have the silver to spend on saving them.’

Another agonizing scream tortured the night; another brave man’s sight was burned away.



‘The Seigneur d’Alle will return the money to you, my lord,’ Roland said, looking earnestly at Robin. ‘Though it will take a while, even for him, to raise that amount of coin, he will pay it. But, as God is my witness, I can never repay what you – both of you – did for me tonight.’

‘That is very good of you,’ said Robin. ‘But there is absolutely no hurry; after all, you are one of the family, in a manner of speaking.’

I looked at Robin, his face kindly in the candlelight: and I felt a strange mélange of emotions. This man, who so often appalled me with his ruthless money-grubbing, with his unstoppable lust for silver, had saved my cousin with an act of stunning, reckless generosity. And I knew that it was entirely in character. He had lightly mentioned the word ‘family’ when referring to Roland, but I realized then how seriously he took that word. I was inside his circle, that charmed circle of friends, family and servitors, for whom Robin would give his all, and so Roland, my cousin, must be saved – whatever the cost. Robin’s relentless money-chasing, his silver-greed, his methods of enriching himself, were always at the expense of people outside that circle. They were his prey.

The Templars were outside that circle: they were prey. For I had worked out by then how Robin must have obtained those chests of silver, the gleaming bounty that he gave away so lightly. He must have copied the letter of credit that I had received from the Templars, or found some clever man in Paris, perhaps a former disgruntled Templar clerk who understood the codes, to do it for him; he had then changed the sum denoted and presented the copied letter at the Paris Temple. I could imagine his cold smile when the forged paper was honoured by the Templar clerks, and his satisfaction as several chests of their silver, in bags marked with a red cross, were delivered up to him.

A part of me admired the scheme, and I found that I could fully understand Robin’s motives. To his mind, the Templars had deprived him of the lucrative frankincense trade in Outremer, and when Richard had disappointed him, he had taken his compensation directly from the Knights. Another part of me was incandescently angry: I was the man who had been issued with the promissory note by the Templars in Paris. The theft would be discovered at some point; perhaps not for a while, if the clerks were none too rigorous, but at some time in the future Robin’s crime would be detected, and I would be blamed. It might be that the Templars would seek to revenge themselves on me. And who would protect me against the wrath of the mighty Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon? Who else but Robin?