XXIII

 

 

GISBURNE WAS FIRST to arrive back at the Green Man. For what seemed an age he sat nursing a mug of ale in the sweaty interior, fighting to keep his eyes open as the hectic life of the inn heaved and jostled and about him. Ripe-smelling bodies barged into him as he sat. Noise butted his ears. The musicians – whose tunes were raw and rhythmic, but fashionably exotic – played loud to be heard above the febrile crowd, and the patrons spoke louder still to be heard above the music. As evening drew on, it began to merge into a meaningless jumble, rattling in Gisburne’s head like pebbles in a butter churn.

When Galfrid finally appeared, weaving through the raucous customers, he, too, looked ragged.

“Success?” yelled Gisburne above the racket.

“Yes,” said Galfrid. “Eventually.”

“Good,” said Gisburne. He drained his cup and stood. “Let’s go.”

Galfrid looked crestfallen. “Really? Aren’t we staying for just one?” Only then did Gisburne realise Galfrid had been about to sit. The squire now looked around the place, throbbing with life, as if his one desire was to lose himself in it for a while. Why, Gisburne couldn’t imagine, but he was certainly in no mood to humour him.

He wasn’t sure the place had ever held much of an appeal, given that it had welcomed him with the grinning mask of Hood, and what little interest it subsequently possessed had rapidly worn thin. With little to do – struggling for something to focus on in the manic blur – his ears had sought out other people’s conversations, and in the last half hour he had forced himself to endure the idiotic bile of three men on a neighbouring bench who had, at great length and in great detail, decried the entire Arab race in the most foul terms imaginable. Had he more energy, he might have felt compelled to go over and point out to them that the spices they enjoyed on their meat, the dried fruits they ate from their bowls, the backgammon they played upon the table and the music they stamped at and cheered on with such drunken enthusiasm were all the products of those “filthy Arabs”. But what he really wanted to do was just nail their tongues to the table.

Clearly, it was time to leave.

“Let’s just get there,” he said, and took up a cloth bundle from the table and thrust it into Galfrid’s arms. “I saved you some bread and cheese. And a pickle.” Galfrid took one more longing look around the low-lit interior before being hustled out into the street by his master. Gisburne was glad to be drawing this long day to a close. All he wanted now was to sleep.

Outside, it had grown surprisingly dark, the streets of London in a strange lull; the day’s activities and trades largely gone or winding down, those of the evening starting to take over. Above them, as they untied the horses, the face of Hood – now lit by a burning flambeau in anticipation of the night’s custom – looked positively demonic.

“How was your reception at the Tower?” said Galfrid as they moved off. Far behind them, its battlements were just visible, blood red in the setting sun.

“Frosty,” said Gisburne. “The tide is not in John’s favour.”

“Was it ever?”

“So, how did you fare? Better than me, I hope.”

Galfrid sighed, and looked shifty. “It wasn’t easy. It’s still Whitsun week – it seems nearly every bed in London is taken. But I’ve found something. For tonight.” Gisburne wondered at that – for tonight – and the fact that Galfrid avoided his gaze as he said it. He was considering whether to query it when the squire spoke again.

“Why did you not trust me to know about Llewellyn leaving messages?” He did not look Gisburne in the eye.

“What?” The question caught Gisburne completely off guard. He wasn’t at all sure he wanted to tackle it. Not now, at least. “It wasn’t a question of trust,” he said. “Of course I trust you.”

“And the fact that we would be meeting with Prince John? And that he was not in his carriage as you had led me to believe?”

“Galfrid – such information is a burden.”

“You trust me to carry your other burdens. It’s my job. Why not these?”

“I told you, it’s not about trust. It’s just...” He struggled to find the words.

“It’s just that if I were captured, I might divulge the information? Under torture?”

So, that was it. Gisburne had been a fool. He had thought he was protecting his squire. Or sometimes just playing a stupid game with him. But he should have guessed that Galfrid’s incarceration at Castel Mercheval – and his treatment at the hands of Tancred’s vile servant Fell the Maker – would leave marks. Not on his body, perhaps, but marks all the same.

“You think I would break,” said Galfrid. “That I would talk.”

Gisburne shook his head vigorously. “No! You’re the last person who would.” But, deep down, he wondered whether he really had harboured such fears. “I’m sorry if it offended you,” he said. “Truly. That was never the intention. You know what I’m like. I keep things to myself. It’s a hard habit to break.”

Galfrid nodded slowly. “I do know it,” he said. “But if you think me weak...” He hesitated, as if uncertain whether to continue. His tone strove to remain matter-of-fact. “If you think me weak, then you must say. For if it is the case, I am no longer worthy to serve you. I am here to relieve your burdens, not become one.”

Gisburne rode for a moment, feeling the steady rhythm of Nyght’s hooves beneath him. Galfrid was not above fishing for compliments on occasion – and, God knows, he probably needed to, given Gisburne’s poor record for offering encouragement – but this was not one of those times. This was something else – something more fundamental. Galfrid was not threatening, or making a point, or trying to win some kind of victory over his master. He simply could not bear the idea that he might put his master in danger – that he might somehow fail him. Gisburne felt sick at the thought – panicked by the possibility that Galfrid might leave. The strength of feeling caught him completely by surprise. He had been self-contained and self-reliant for so much of his life. But then, his life had been small – what he could achieve, limited. Now, he was changing things, putting them right. And suddenly it struck him, as never before, that he could not do this alone. “There’s no one I trust more in the whole world,” he said. “No one.”

Galfrid nodded. “Fine,” he said.

“And I hope you trust in me too,” Gisburne just wanted this over. To go back to normal. To have a decent night’s sleep, and to wake up, and for those things he relied on – which were remarkably few – to still be there.

“Now I do,” said Galfrid. Then, after a moment, added: “Except when it comes to your piss-poor dress sense.”

Gisburne burst into laughter. He laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. Even Galfrid – capable of maintaining inscrutability in the most extreme of circumstances – could not hold back a chuckle.

For the next half hour they exchanged insults, and recounted some of the more absurd episodes in their history.

As they rode, Galfrid leading the way, the streets grew narrower, darker, more crooked. They were once again in the labyrinth – underfoot, a rich, ripe stew of mud and mire, straw and ash, dung both human and animal, decaying matter of all kinds, rags, bits of bone and collapsed parts of the dilapidated façades. As they proceeded, these gaunt, teetering hives pressed ever closer, as if threatening to bring their seemingly permanent state of collapse to a sudden, shuddering conclusion. Past them slunk strange creatures in human form – some hurrying upon their way, others entirely without direction, looking as if they had only recently emerged from the dank swamp, and might at any moment disappear back into it.

They turned into a long, straight lane, so cramped that both were forced to dismount and lead their reluctant horses, trusting their own boots to the stinking trough of filth. To Gisburne it resembled nothing less than a recently drained river bed, complete with the stink of dead fish.

Up ahead, where the way widened a little, there could now be heard shouts, laughter, raised voices. Some place of nocturnal business, Gisburne supposed. On either side, whores hung out of windows, their obscene mutterings – many barely intelligible – building to a horrid crescendo as knight and squire passed. Gisburne flinched as grubby fingers reached out and stroked his face. He could smell them even above the street’s own stench.

“Christ, do we really have to pass through these foul culverts to get where we’re going?”

Galfrid looked suddenly shifty again. No sooner had he reached the bawdy house than Gisburne understood why. The squire stopped before its doorway. “Now, before you judge it too harshly...” he began, red-faced.

Gisburne stared at his Galfrid in disbelief, then back again at the awful, mouldering structure. “These are our lodgings?” Over the door, fashioned in wood and painted a vivid red, was an enormous and rather badly carved penis.

“Just above,” said Galfrid, and gestured to the upper floor of the misshapen pile.

“There are rooms up there?”

“Well, a room,” said Galfrid. “Of sorts.” Down a narrow alley along one side of the house – if such it could be called – Gisburne now saw there was a rickety wooden stair, its wood green and half rotten. At the top, a creaking door flapped open.

Gisburne had slept in ditches, caves and rat-infested barns in his time. Once, he’d slept in a tree. Right now, he would have traded this for any one of them. His gaze descended once more to the enormous phallus above their heads. He noticed now that its upper side was soiled by a splatter of something that had evidently been tipped from the window immediately above. A slimy tendril of decayed vegetable matter hung from it, swaying limply in the breeze.

“I know, I know,” said Galfrid, sheepishly. “So, it’s above a knocking shop. But it’s the best I could do. It has decent stabling at the back.”

“Stabling?” said Gisburne, still aghast. “It sounds like it’s got an entire farmyard.”

From within, since their arrival, had issued a relentless chorus of bovine grunting, accompanied by a cacophony of moans, cackles, hoots and shrieks, like animals undergoing some kind of torture. As Gisburne stood, it was punctuated by a guttural roar, a piercing squeal like a skewered piglet, then what sounded like someone vomiting from a tremendous height.

“God in heaven,” he sighed, his dream of a good night’s sleep rapidly evaporating.

“It looked better in daylight,” said Galfrid.

“What is the name of this hellhole?”

“It’s Master Bigot’s place,” said Galfrid.

“And the street?” said Gisburne. Galfrid looked back at him, his face a perfect blank. “So Prince John knows where to find us, should he need to...?”

Galfrid shifted on his feet, then muttered something under his breath. Gisburne only half heard. “What did you call it?”

Galfrid sighed heavily. “Gropecunte Lane,” he said.

 

 

AT THAT MOMENT, a squat man with a head like an inflated pig’s bladder barrelled out of the front door, his arm around a young woman in a filthy dress. Her skin was like tanned leather and she had no front teeth, but Gisburne judged her to be little more than seventeen.

“Ah,” said Galfrid with a cough. “This is Master Bigot, our host.”

Master Bigot’s eye’s widened at the sight of Gisburne. He let go the girl and, smiling broadly, extended a hand. Gisburne had no wish to take it. “I understand you is stayin’ with us,” said Master Bigot. “We is ’onoured, Sir... Sir...?”

Gisburne nodded, but did not take the bait.

Bigot laughed it off. “And this ’ere’s me pride and joy,” he said, and put a thick arm around the young woman’s shoulder again. “Me lovely daughter Custancia. She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” She giggled like an idiot, her tongue clacking behind toothless gums, and he gave a gravelly snicker that made Gisburne feel physically sick.

“Like what you see, eh, gentlemen?” leered master Bigot, and gave her a squeeze. “Sixpence buys ’er for your bed, to warm you up whenever you so please.” On cue, and with all the passion of a fishwife gutting a haddock, Custancia hitched up her skirt to the knee, pushed her ham-like arms together so her generous breasts bulged still further and gave a gap-toothed but vacuous grin. Bigot leaned forward, confidentially. “There’s nothing she won’t do.”

Gisburne’s hand went to the pommel of his sword – and by great effort of will remained there. “You are most generous, Master Bigot,” he said. “But I couldn’t possibly take your money. We’ll just knock the sixpence off the rent.” And with that, he turned and walked to the wooden stair.

“Wha – ?” said Master Bigot. “But I...”

“Goodnight, Master Bigot!” called Gisburne. Bigot turned to Galfrid for support – but the squire simply smiled, and turned on his heel to follow his master.

“New lodgings, Galfrid,” hissed Gisburne as he climbed the stair, still gripping the sword pommel. “Before I have to kill Master Bigot.”

“How long have I got?” asked Galfrid. Gisburne paused at the top of the stairs, before the rickety door. As he did so a great, gruff “Ooooh!” reverberated from below.

“If I stuff my ears with wool, I may just hold out till morning,” said Gisburne through clenched teeth.

Galfrid gave a world-weary nod, then turned to get the rest of their baggage. As he passed the still bemused Bigot, the squire raised a finger and poked it at their host’s face.

“And if any of your lackwit customers tries to fuck my horse,” he said, “I’ll cut your balls off.”