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Fitzwalter had said to my lord, just as I was striding over to Robin to congratulate him on his timely escape and our victory. Robin had looked at the flames, now licking up the bridge’s support pillars, even dancing along the rail, but said nothing, his face as blank as a stone.
    ‘I have to go, Locksley,’ said Fitzwalter. ‘But I will return with a sizeable relief force and as much food as you could hope for. You have my word on it. And it must be me who goes. Who else can persuade the barons in London to part with sufficient men and provisions?’
    ‘Go then,’ said Robin. ‘But know, sir, that I hold you to your word.’
    ‘Good, look for me in a couple of weeks or so. I know that you and d’Aubigny between you can keep out the King till then. I have confidence in you, my friend. I will rest easy knowing that Rochester is in safe hands.’
    ‘Just go, man,’ said Robin, turning away. And Lord Fitzwalter did, trotting his horse through the drifting smoke across the bridge with the two knights at his back.
    Robin frowned,scratched his fair head and tentatively advanced a pawn, threatening my knight in the centre. The moment he lifted his fingers from the piece, I pounced. I slid the knight two squares forward and one left.
    ‘Ha ha!’ I said, trying not to sound too pleased with myself. ‘I have you now!’ The knight threatened both his bishop and his queen. And when he duly moved his queen out of danger and I took his bishop, he would be in check. Two moves after that and it would be mate. The second game was as good as mine.
    I looked at my lord’s face to see how he would take this unexpected reversal in his fortunes and was irritated to see that he was not paying either me or the board the attention it surely deserved. He was looking beyond my shoulder at one of the open doors that connected the two halves of the great hall.
    Rochester was an unusual castle in this respect. It had a massive square keep, on three floors, with strong towers at each corner, but the great hall was divided into two parts by a thick stone spine wall running down the centre punctuated by two stout iron-bound oak doors and a portal opening on to a well shaft. I turned on my stool and saw that the second chamber was in turmoil, servants were running here and there, mailed knights were calling for their squires and striding through the open doors.
    Cass appeared at the chess table. ‘Sir, the enemy have been sighted. King John is approaching the walls,’ he said.
    Robin was on his feet. I got to mine more slowly. ‘Come, Robin, let us finish the game,’ I said. ‘You have seen the King before, many times.’
    ‘In what strength?’ he said to Cass.
    ‘I cannot truly say, sir. Many hundreds of knights. Horse, baggage, siege engines, I think. Thousands. His whole army, I believe.’
    Robin was already moving across the hall.
    ‘Wait,’ I shouted. ‘Just a few more moves. You can’t leave now.’
    He wasgone. I remembered myself, felt ashamed. I beckoned a servant.
    ‘No one is to touch this board,’ I said. ‘No one – on pain of death. Do you hear me? I am quite serious. Do
not
clear away this chessboard.’
    The man nodded and I clapped him on the shoulder and hurried after my lord.
    When I had puffed my way up to the roof of the south tower – I was no longer in the first flush of youth, to be honest, and at forty years of age, after decades of war, running up stairs was becoming something of an ordeal – I found the square space crowded with knights, men-at-arms and the castle servants. I nodded to a few of the knights that I knew – Osbert Giffard, William d’Einford and Thomas de Melutan – and forced my way through the throng to find a place beside Robin and Cass, on the eastern side, overlooking the cathedral. Far below us the curtain wall that marked the exterior of the outer bailey was also lined with men and women, all staring out over the walled town of Rochester. It seemed everyone in the castle had