Robin Hood and the Holy Grail: Chapter One – read a free extract
This is an extract from the first chapter of my latest Robin Hood novel, and the last story in the bestselling Outlaw Chronicles series. Hope you enjoy it. Robin Hood and the Holy Grail is available from Amazon in paperback and eBook formats.
Chapter one
All the bells of Bordeaux rang out, as if in joyous greeting, as the long, red-and-black barge bumped gently against the wood of the dock. It was a Sunday, and while I knew full well that every church in that great city was merely summoning its parishioners to Holy Mass, it still felt as if, after a long period of suffering and hardship, we were being welcomed home by the glorious silvery peals from these many Houses of God.
I leapt out of the prow of the barge with the mooring rope in my hand and, skidding slightly on the slimy wooden decking, I bent to a nearby stone bollard to secure the boat – a trading vessel that had plied the River Garonne between Bordeaux and Toulouse for more than twenty years. The man who had once owned this barge, a great, roaring, red-bearded fellow called Christophe d’Agen, was dead by my hand less than a week before. He had been stealing valuable spices from a cargo belonging to a merchant friend of my lord the Earl of Locksley, better known as the outlaw Robin Hood and, when I discovered Christophe’s larcenous scheme, he attacked me and I was obliged to dispatch him.
We had appropriated Christophe’s vessel and made good our escape by sailing northwest along the Garonne from Toulouse to Bordeaux for six anxious days, to bring us to this quay in the duchy of Aquitaine. We were now in the territory of England’s King John, although that dismal monarch was far away in his own realm that Sunday morning in early September in the year of our Lord 1209. We had escaped all our enemies in the Languedoc and County of Toulouse and arrived safely, with a valuable cargo of stolen silver, and no sight or sound of any pursuers.
Therefore, my heart was light and my mood merry, as I helped the other members of our company climb out of the tethered barge and on to the damp wooden planks of the quay.
“I mean to drink a prodigious quantity of wine this night,” said someone behind me. “And I strongly urge you to join me, Alan. We deserve a decent drink after all our efforts this year.”
I turned to see Robin’s huge, red-faced lieutenant, Little John, grinning at me. The marks of two black eyes, not quite faded, made shadows under his bright blue eyes. I returned his grin for, although it had been I who gave him those twin bruises, it had merely been part of a rough jest between us, and we were fast friends once more.
“I’ll gladly join you, John,” I said. “And I know just the place for a good carouse . . .”
“Hey, Christophe,” called another voice from the quay. “I want a word. Where’re you hiding?”
I turned again and saw an older man, white haired and with one leg, dressed in raggedy seaman’s clothes, hopping across the quay towards the barge on a wooden crutch.
“Christophe!” this fellow called again. “Come out, man. You owe me a shilling for the favour I did you last . . .” He stopped hobbling two yards away and gaped in surprise as the rest of Robin’s crew, including my lord, clambered out on to the quay.
Two members of our dozen-strong company were carrying a heavy strong-box marked with the arms of the Count of Toulouse, and several others were toting bedding, clothes, baggage and assorted weaponry. But they looked exactly what they were: a company of coterels – so called because of the little sleeveless mail coats they wore – a band of hard-fighting, hard-drinking routiers. Mercenaries. Men regarded by most people from the Pennines to the Pyrenees as the very scum of the earth.
“That is Christophe d’Agen’s barge, is it not?” said the one-legged man. “It must be – I’d recognise that ugly, battered old wash-tub in any port in Christendom. So where is her captain, eh? Where’s my friend Christophe d’Agen? And who the Devil are all you people?”
People say curiosity killed the cat. That may well be so because this fellow’s curiosity was, in that moment, seriously endangering his life.
Little John took a long stride forward and seized the one-legged man with a huge hand by the neck, lifting the fellow effortlessly, and holding him up in the air. The poor man’s Y-shaped wooden crutch clattered noisily on the planks of the quay,
“Listen carefully,” Little John said to the desperately wriggling fellow in his grasp. “This is not Christophe’s barge. This is our barge. Do you comprehend me?”
I took a step toward the pair of them. “John,” I said, “there’s no need for . . .”
Then Robin was there, too, at Little John’s side, looking up intently at the slowly choking man, his one leg kicking madly a good eight inches above the decking.
Little John turned to look at his lord. “Shall I snap his scrawny neck?” he said.
“I don’t think so, John.” Robin flicked a finger at the group of onlookers who had gathered on the quay to watch the commotion. “Set him down, if you will.”
The giant warrior released the one-legged man who immediately tumbled to a limp, gasping heap on the slimy planks. The old man looked furiously up at Little John, rubbing hard at his squeezed neck.
Little John stared back at him, but Robin said soothingly: “You will have to excuse my large friend here. But he cannot abide folk inquiring into our personal affairs, I’m sure you understand.”
The one-legged old man did not look as if he understood at all. He groped around on the planks of the quay until he had found his crutch. Then he gathered it under him and slowly levered himself upright on to his feet. Or, rather, to his foot.
“Who are you people,” he said again, his face twisted in rage. “Why do you travel in Christophe’s barge? And where is Christophe d’Agen?”
To be honest, I admired the crippled man’s courage. He was faced with a dozen armed strangers, one of whom had just casually half-strangled him, yet he didn’t flinch from repeating his original questions, which were, in truth, accusations.
“Christophe is in Toulouse,” said Robin. That, at least, was true. I had left him lying in a pool of his own blood outside his warehouse. But I could see this old busybody might prove a problem for us in Bordeaux.
“I leased this barge from him for one month, said Robin. “To transport all my men here.”
“I’ve known Christophe for twenty years. He would never allow another man to sail off in his best barge. It would be like lending out his wife, God rest her soul.”
“I offered him two livres for the barge for a month. He agreed.”
The old cripple looked impressed. Two livres was a vast sum.
“Still,” he grumbled, “it is not like Christophe to give up his . . .”
“What is your name?” interrupted Robin.
“I am called Roget of Jonzac.”
“Then you are the very man I am looking for,” said Robin. “Christophe asked me to give you this. He said he owed you money for some favour you did for him.”
My lord reached into his belt and pulled out a slim leather purse. He shook it gently and the pleasant musical sound of clinking silver coins could clearly be heard.
The one-legged man stretched out a hand for the purse, but Robin pulled it back, just out of his reach. “How do I know you are the Roget that Christophe mentioned?” he said.
“I am Roget – I have just told you that. Christophe promised me a shilling for information about a merchant who needed river transport.”
“You might be an imposter, trying to steal the real Roget’s coin.”
“But I am not. I swear it. Ask any of these people here. I am Roget One-Leg, also called Roget of Jonzac.
“Hmm. Then I suppose that we must trust each other’s word,” said Robin. “I am willing to pay Christophe’s debt to you but, in return, you must also respect our desire for privacy. I want no gossiping about our affairs. Will you promise me that?”
“Yes, indeed, no gossip from me. I swear by Our Lady,” said Roget.
Robin handed over the purse and the one-legged old man tucked it away, turned quickly and began to hobble away across the quay.
Robin glanced at me, and I grinned at him. “Neatly done, my lord.”
“I might have bought a few days’ grace,” he said, “but that one will be filling the taverns with his story by nightfall. We must move swiftly.”
End of extract.
Robin Hood and the Holy Grail can be purchased from Amazon in either paperback or eBook formats. The audio book is coming soon!
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