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present. ‘I couldn’t have done it better myself.’ I’m ashamed to say that I blushed at that point and could find nothing to say. May the Lord forgive my pride, but I knew I had behaved well. Unlike Robin, John rarely gave out compliments and, as he was Robin’s master-of-arms, and my combat-teacher, his praise meant a great deal to me.
    ‘Come on, Alan, enough dramatic silence. You aren’t performing a chanson now. Tell us about the murderous plots of Sir Ralph Murdac,’ said Robin, fixing me sternly with his gaze. ‘I thought he was still hiding up in the gloomy wilds of Scotland, no offence, Sir James.’ The Scotsman scowled but said nothing.
    Until a few days ago, I had thought Murdac was in Scotland, too. After the battle of Linden Lea, in which Robin had defeated Murdac’s forces, the evil little man had fled to the safety of relatives north of the border. As well as escaping from Robin’s vengeance, Murdac believed that King Richard was seeking to bring him to account for a large quantity of tax silver that the erstwhile High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire had raised, ostensibly for the expedition to Outremer. Instead of passing it on to the Royal treasury, Murdac had kept the money he had squeezed from the peasants to himself, and his guilty conscience had caused him to flee from Richard’s wrath. Clearly he still had a large amount of silver left, otherwise he could not afford to offer a hundred pounds of the precious metal for Robin’s life.
    ‘Well, he’s back,’ I said, ‘and he’s after your heart’s blood.’ And I settled down and began to tell my tale: ‘I had completed our business in Winchester, Oxford and London,’ I said. ‘And all had gone smoothly, so I rode north to Nottingham to deliver your gifts to Prince John...’
    King Richard’s younger brother had prospered since his father’s death, being showered with lands and titles by his older sibling - already Lord of Ireland, he had been given the counties of Derby and Nottingham and made master of Lancaster, Gloucester and Marlborough and wide lands in Wales. The Prince received me in the great hall at the royal castle of Nottingham, but without much royal grace. I was very tired from travelling, soaked through from a cloud-burst, and much splashed by road-mud, but Prince John insisted on seeing me immediately. And I could do nothing but obey. He had been told that I carried a gift for him and, like a greedy child, he wanted it immediately. So I attended him in the great hall, wet through and chilled to the bone - a sorry sight in front of the dozen or so richly dressed courtiers and royal cronies present - and handed over Robin’s gift. It was a magnificent matched pair of hunting falcons that I had bought in London on Robin’s instructions. They were exquisite birds, tall with wide mottled wings and creamy breasts speckled with black; elegant curved beaks of a light blue hue turning to black at the cruel tip, and hooded in soft red Spanish leather, adorned with silver bells. I was particularly pleased to have persuaded the falconer in London to part with them, although it had taken a large quantity of my master’s silver to strike the deal. I also gave Prince John Robin’s letter, which I knew wished him well and contained the usual platitudes from a fellow magnate and powerful neighbour - Robin’s main castle of Kirkton was, of course, less than forty miles north of Nottingham, and some of the other manors he held were even closer.
    Prince John, a young man of less than medium height, with dark red curly hair and a thick-built body, adored the falcons. He was very fond of hunting and he crooned over the birds like a mother over a newborn baby. The letter he merely glanced at, and then handed to the man standing next to him: a tall, well-built knight, poorly-dressed for royal company but wearing a fine sword, and with a distinctive lock of white hair sprouting over the centre of his forehead from a russet thatch. He stared