After a mile or two, I began to calm down, and reflect soberly on my conversation with Robin. I had in truth behaved absurdly, like a spoiled little boy: it was a foolish burst of temper and I deeply regretted it. But there was something about the glee with which Robin and his men had ripped into that royal baggage train that set my teeth on edge. It was undoubtedly a rich prize – the personal possessions of the King of France; his treasury, all the silver he needed to fund his war against King Richard. It was a prize of staggering magnitude, and any sane man would want to partake of it. So why had I reacted the way I did? Sheer bone-headed stupidity; but it stemmed, I knew, from my relationship with Robin. I so badly wanted him to be the shining Christian knight; the preux chevalier – noble, honest, devout, courtly – and when he revealed to me the man he truly was, as tempted as any other man by the glittering lure of Mammon, I found myself reacting badly. What I needed to do, I told myself, was halt the horses, turn around and ride back to Robin and beg his pardon. And help myself to a share of the spoils. Another mile passed, and another, and I was just about to give the order to Hanno when my Bavarian friend put a hand on my arm, and we both reined in.
‘Listen,’ said Hanno. And, over the jingling of our horses’ accoutrements as we slowed to a walk, and our own heavy breathing, I heard what Hanno had made out: the pounding thuds of cantering horsemen on the road ahead. And they were coming closer.
Perhaps if we had immediately turned our horses’ heads and galloped back down the road, we might have escaped; perhaps. But it is hard for a fighting man to run without even having glimpsed his enemy. So we stayed there in the centre of the road for another twenty heartbeats – while I was rendered immobile with indecision. It was Hanno who broke the spell: ‘They are too many,’ he said. ‘We must go.’
And, at that moment, a mass of enemy cavalry, a conroi of perhaps twenty riders, came into view around a shallow bend in the road.
‘Come, Alan, we must go – now!’ said Hanno again, more urgently. The enemy knights were less than fifty paces away. They saw us, and at a gleeful shout from their leader, they began their charge.
Chapter Ten
Their horses were fresh, and ours were not. We were two men, they were a force of twenty. It was as simple as that. We ran. We put our heels into our horses’ sides and ran for our lives. But after a bare quarter of a mile at a full gallop, I knew that Ghost was tiring, and glancing over my shoulder I could see the enemy knights closing on us fast. I noticed one other strange thing too; all of the knights bore the same device as the man I had fought at the baggage train – a blue cross on a white field with a black border.
It was not the blazon of a northern French noble, of that I was reasonably certain – I was as familiar as most knights were with the great barons on either side of this conflict – but this blue cross was new to me. And yet there seemed to be so many men bearing these arms that they had to belong to a powerful man, an earl or count or even duke.
As Hanno and I pounded along that dusty road, leaning over our horses’ necks and trying to urge the maximum speed from our tired mounts, I could imagine the points of the knights’ lances almost tickling my back. I snatched a quick glance over my shoulder, and saw that the leading knight was only a few yards behind. Hanno was slightly ahead of me, and I could sense Ghost beginning to founder, his smooth galloping gait suddenly changing, the horse stumbling with exhaustion for a pace or two, and then regaining its rhythm. He was a valiant beast, my Ghost, but I knew he was near the end of his strength. We were only a mile or two from the baggage train and I realized that I was leading this pack of galloping enemy knights straight to Robin’s men. Unhorsed, scattered, every man probably as drunk as a bishop by now – our troops would be easy prey. These mail-clad killers on my tail could cut the Locksley men to shreds if they came on them unexpectedly. By leading the knights directly to Robin’s force I would be responsible for the deaths of many of my friends.
That thought was unbearable; I had to warn them. I plucked the twisted horn from where it had been bouncing on the pommel of my saddle, managed to get it to my lips without slowing Ghost’s thundering pace, and sounded it, once – twice – three times. The leading knight of the blue cross was right on top of us by now; from the corner of my eye I saw him draw his lance for a strike, and lunge forward, the needle-pointed blade licking out towards my lower back on the left-hand side. I saw the strike coming over my shoulder, and swung in the saddle and dropped my shield to take the blow. I felt a jarring smack, and looked down in horror to see that the lance had been deflected by my shield – and had plunged deep into Ghost’s pale belly.