by Dan Davis
There was a narrow stairway up to the floor above. Along the corridor a short way, she turned the handle into a small parlour. I followed, ducking inside after checking there was no one watching. The room contained a table with a lamp, a couple of plain chairs and not much else. Beyond was a bedchamber.
“Do not trust a word that he says,” Marian said, planting herself in the centre of the space. I stood with my back almost against the door.
“The sheriff?”
“Whatever pretext he summoned you on, do not take him up on it.”
“Actually, I came to see him,” I said. “He is an old friend.”
Her face closed up. “A friend, is it? What sort of friend would lie to you?”
“What lies did the sheriff tell me?”
“That my father may yet live.”
I stopped myself from saying that her father would have lived up until William needed blood to drink.
“So you know differently?” I said. “I might have expected that a young woman would pray her father be returned to her.”
“Oh, do not be an imbecile,” she said, her pretty face twisted in contempt. “I could not bear it if you were simple. I loved my father. He was the kindest, sweetest man who ever lived. But he was a fool with money and he trusted far too readily. He took up this foolish mission though I begged him not to.”
“I knew your father,” I said. “He was indeed a good man. A capable knight. He could not have known the evil he was up against.”
“But the sheriff knew,” she said. “He chose my father because he wanted me. The sheriff wants me to be his wife.”
“You are speaking madness, girl,” I said. “Roger is already married. Has been married for years. He has children grown.”
“He has sworn his undying love for me,” she said, standing up straight. She pointed at me. “There, right there where you are standing he fell to his knees and begged me to marry him. He would divorce his wife, he said. He would have her charged with adultery and a divorce would be simple. He would put a child in my belly, a son who would inherit. He would disinherit his own sons for me, declare them bastards. He would give me the world if only I would marry him.”
Some men went mad with lust but it was difficult to believe Roger would risk so much, even for a girl as lovely as the one before me. “Was he drunk?”
“When is he not? I refused him, so the sheriff sent my father off to die but now pretends that he is not.”
“How does your father being alive help him to marry you?”
“He sent off my maid and my friends,” she said, emotions other than anger creeping into her voice. “One night he forced his way in here, then into my bedchamber. He forced his fat body upon mine. I should never have opened that door to him but I knew enough what to expect to keep a dagger on me all the time. A dagger held against a man’s loins is as a miracle cure against his ardour, did you know that? I keep the door barred every night. He cajoles and begs me to move to a chamber nearer to his. I am certain there is a passage through the walls into that chamber, I hear the guards allude to it. It is where he brings his women.”
I still struggled to understand. “Yes but how does your father’s life help the sheriff more than his death would?”
“If my father is alive then I am a guest of the sheriff. If my father is dead then I become a ward of the king, who can marry me off to who he likes. And whom he likes would probably not be Roger. Although I suspect the sheriff fears that the king will take me for himself. None of these prospects fill me with joy.”
“I do not doubt what you tell me. And I am sorry you have been subjected to this. But I doubt that your father can be brought back to you. The man they call the Green Knight is not one to hold prisoners for long. Sir Geoffrey was a good knight. His shield saved my life once. He stood guard over me after I slipped upon the top of the wall at Acre. I owe him my life.”
She screwed up her lovely face. “What madness do you speak? How can you have fought with my father? He was a young man when he took the cross. It was many years before I was born.”
“Twenty-five years ago, I would say.” It felt like a different life. I had been truly young back then.
“How can this be? You are surely no older than twenty-five years yourself.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Forty-seven,” I said. “Thereabouts. In truth, I stopped counting years ago.”
“I had hoped and prayed that you would take me away from here,” she said. “But you are a witless fool and a liar, just as he is. Why would you even say these things? Am I supposed to be impressed? Go away. Leave me to my fate, then. It is God’s will, I suppose.”
I forced myself to laugh, lightly, as if I was unconcerned by her words. “I swear to you,” I said. “I know that I have a youthful aspect. But I knew your father. He had the most beautiful voice. He would sing and a crowd of battle-hardened old soldiers, drunk and rowdy by the fire would fall silent and weep.”
She paused and looked up at me. “My father has not sung since my mother died. Ten years ago.”
“Then I am sorry to hear that.”
She stepped closer to me, tilting her head up. She smelled good. Her neck was exposed to me, the beat of the great veins either side of her throat warming her skin, sending her scent up to my nose. It was the smell of honeysuckle flowers, sunshine on ripe wheat and hard apples. The scent of her neck was different to the scent of her hair and the warm musk of her breasts beneath her clothes. It was the smell of life, youth. Fertility.
“You are truly that age? But your skin is so smooth.” She reached up as if to touch my face then pulled her hand back to her breast and held it with her other hand against herself. Her lips were parted slightly, she breathed lightly. She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and frowned. Her eyes were huge and bright, flicking, searching all over my face.
I was beginning to understand how Roger de Lacy had become obsessed with the girl.
“What did you mean, you hoped I would take you away from here? I cannot carry you away from the sheriff’s care. How could I do it?”
“He is not your liege lord, is he? You could defy him. And I am free to go where I please. I am no prisoner.”
“He is the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. He is the king’s representative in the shire where I hold my land. I cannot defy him, he would take grave offence. And anyway, I have nowhere to take you. I ride into Sherwood Forest, into the deep wood, to finish what Geoffrey began. There will be battle, girl.”
“Do not girl me,” Marian said. “I will take care of myself. I have been without maids or servants for months. I will not get in your way.”
“It simply cannot happen. I do not expect all the men I take with me into the wood to survive. I will not lead you to your death, Marian. And I cannot send you to my home, especially if I am not there to protect you. The sheriff, if he is as infatuated with you as you say, would simply go there and take you back. All that would change is that I will have risked my position and my chance to take revenge on the man who has slain your father.”
For a moment, as she took a deep breath, I thought she would explode with anger. Instead, she sighed a great shuddering sigh and slumped into a chair. She held her head in her hands upon the table.
“I understand. And thank you for listening to me. But I do not know how much longer I can fend him off,” she said, her words muffled by her hands.
She was truly desperate. If Roger had tried to force himself upon her once then it was likely that he would do so again. The young woman was desperate indeed and she had asked me for my help. I did not want to make Roger my enemy. I did not want to be distracted from my task.
I approached where she sat. Her head snapped up and she watched me warily as I sank to one knee before her.
“If what you say is true,” I said and held up a hand to stall her protests. “I swear that I shall do all I can to help you. Consider me a friend, lady Marian. But now I must go.”
Chapter Four – B
rother Tuck
I rode for the woodland two days later. With me were Jocelyn, Anselm and Swein.
The sheriff had provided me with provisions and even a few shillings for the paying of bribes but he had provided me with no men. He had, in fact, been distant and surly to the point of rudeness since that first night. No doubt, one of his men had seen me conversing with Marian after all, or even entering or leaving her chambers.
I had gone to see the Warden of Sherwood in his large Nottingham house. The man was too drunk and terrified to be of any use and I had no patience for sobering him up just to beat the truth out of him. He had given me the name of one of his deputies, however, and his village.
“How can the sheriff expect us to succeed without providing us with a few more men?” Jocelyn was unhappy about the venture, as well he should have been.
“Indeed,” I said, absently.
If I were thinking more clearly myself I would have known something was up with the sheriff’s strange lack of support.
Instead, I was thinking of Marian.
It was a shaping up to be a lovely day. Bright, warm. The blossom on the crab apples lit up the hedgerows. Fat bees flew about, happy after their long slumber wherever it was that bees went over winter and drunk on nectar.
We rode at a slow pace along the road north from Nottingham, toward York far to the north. The woodland of Sherwood started on the right hand of the road. So close to the town it was well used and coppiced in the under layer and free from brush. It was a light, peaceful, pleasant woodland.
I knew, however, that the place grew dark and impenetrable just a few miles to the north. Inside the deep wood, at the centre, there were few people other than the outlaws. Outside the couple of villages, there was little more than a few charcoal burners and swineherds, if indeed, William had allowed them to continue to live there.
“Or even a servant or two,” Jocelyn said. “With our lack of men, we need Anselm to be fresh for fighting so Swein will have to do all our armour maintenance and fetching water and cooking.”
If Swein heard him, and he must have done, the young man said nothing.
“Swein must also save his strength,” I said. “We will need his bow. We will scrub our own armour when needed and fetch our own water. Come, Jocelyn, you have been on campaign before.”
“This is no campaign,” he said. “This is madness.”
“Yet you come,” I said.
“Of course,” he snapped. “I have as much as you to revenge for what William did. More, even.”
“Then pray that we succeed,” I said.
“What about Anselm?” Jocelyn asked under his breath. “Do you really wish to risk the life of the Marshal’s son?”
“His fifth son,” I said. “Anselm will never receive a thing from his father, except the weight of expectation. He must make his own way in the world, just as his father did.”
“In other words, you do not care if he dies.”
“Do not direct your anger at me,” I said. “Save it for William and his monsters.”
Jocelyn rode on ahead. I wanted both us and our horses to be rested, so we stopped at midday to eat the food we had bought in Nottingham and to water the animals. The meat was freshly cooked in the castle kitchens and the bread was freshly baked. We ate largely in silence, other than the sound of Swein slurping and smacking his lips.
Jocelyn stared at him. “He attacks his food like a bull charging a gate,” he said in French.
Swein froze and stared, aware of an insult when he heard it, no matter what language it was spoken in. His hand tightened around his hunk of bread, squeezing it together. “What did you say?”
Jocelyn smiled and answered in English. “Speak not with your mouth full, you uncouth swine.”
“Jocelyn, attend to your food. Swein, be not so eager to take offence. Turn and watch the trees for enemies, string your bow. Have you forgotten that we are in enemy lands, or close enough? An arrow could find its way into your back at any moment here. This may the last meal any one of us eats. We must rely on each other. Our enemies are out there. So I will have no more of that, not from any of you.”
That sobered them well enough and I finished eating to the sound of blackbirds chirruping in the hedgerows and the sun warming my face.
“They say in the tavern that the sheriff has himself a lovely piece all shut up in his castle,” Jocelyn said as we dressed in our hauberks.
“Is that so?” I said.
“They say she is a great beauty. Young and unmarried.”
“Indeed?”
Jocelyn stared at me. “I knew it,” he wailed. “You have seen her.”
I said nothing, strapping my belt around my surcoat.
Jocelyn was outraged. “You spoke to the maiden, I know you did. I can see it upon your face. What was she like?”
“She was a girl,” I said. “Old enough for marriage, I suppose.”
“Describe her to me,” he said.
“You should find a wife,” I said. “As soon as is possible.”
“That is what I am doing,” he said. “Tell me about the girl. Has the sheriff deflowered her yet?”
“For the love of God, Jocelyn,” I said. “We have more important things to discuss. Mount your horse.”
The road was deathly quiet, other than the birds and the ceaseless breeze in the twigs of the branches above. The leaves shimmered with an infinite variety of greens upon the browns and black.
“Not far till the village of Linby,” Swein said, walking by the horses with his bow at the ready and his arrow bag over his shoulder. “Track comes up down there, then you go into the wood a ways. They cleared out a good few acres for planting years back. Paid old Ranulf a tidy sum for the pleasure. Not bad land, so they say.”
“I hope this forester is still here,” I said. “Or at least, uncorrupted by William’s influence.”
“If not, we can just talk to the villagers, right?” Swein said.
“You can trust nothing a peasant says to you,” Jocelyn spoke in English. Swein’s head jerked up but he said nothing.
“Nor will I,” I said. “William twists people to his will, in one way or another. Whether his reach extends this far, we will discover. But you will be respectful to these people. They will have suffered. We will ask for ale and bread and we will eat. And I will ask the questions. Do they know you here, Swein?”
“Some might,” he said. “That good or bad?”
“I do not know.”
Soon after, we took the track and rode through the trees until they receded into a few small fields upon either side. A spring trickled along the side of the road, growing ever larger. We rode into the village. I counted six houses, arranged roughly in two rows leaving a road down the centre. There was no church or chapel. A pig snorted from somewhere.
“Where are they all?” Jocelyn asked.
“Hearth fires still burning in the homes,” I said. I could smell them, along with fresh oat cakes.
“They are all hiding,” Swein said.
I strode for the largest house. “Jocelyn, Anselm, stay out here and watch the trees. Swein, come with me.”
The ground was muddy and there was pig shit everywhere. I ducked inside the dark house. It was dry inside and smoky. “I am looking for the forester,” I shouted. “The warden’s deputy. I am come from Nottingham. From the sheriff.”
The fire crackled in the central hearth. A slowly bubbling pot swung atop it by a long chain to the rafter above.
Swein shrugged.
Outside, I looked to Jocelyn who waved his left hand low, toward the trees behind the house I was in. It was a sign we had worked out while campaigning for King John. It meant there were men hiding there. Jocelyn must have glimpsed shadows in the trees. His other hand rested on the pommel of his sheathed sword. Anselm stood by him, looking everywhere but where the men were and failing to appear relaxed.
“I have come from Nottingham,” I shouted into the trees. “I come to talk. I am not here
for outlaws. I am not here to impose fines nor to inspect boundaries.”
The only answer was the wind in the leaves.
“I will pay silver for any man who will sit and speak with me,” I shouted.
Pigs squealed again. They had been herded into the house next door, one with the door closed. No doubt, the owners sat inside, trying to silence their animals, fearful of my intrusion. It was as though I had wandered into enemy country yet it was not ten miles from Nottingham and not nearly as deep into the wood as I had to go.
Twigs crunched and Swein placed an arrow on his bow cord and peered through the trees. I held out my hand to forestall him. A man of about forty years stepped through. He was dressed surprisingly well, in a dirty but well-made surcoat over a bright blue tunic. His face was deeply lined, cast in the shadows from his cap. When he drew near, he looked at me most unhappily.
“Never know who’s coming, these days,” he said, looking at me dressed head to toe in mail. My helm was upon my horse but otherwise, I was ready for war. “I am Ranulf, the forester here.”
“And I am pleased to hear you say so,” I said. “For it is you that I have come to speak to.”
“Ah,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “And you are?”
“Thirsty, thank you, Ranulf the forester. Shall we drink some ale in your home?”
He pulled off his cap and scratched the top of his head. The hair was thinning and he had some sort of weeping sore on it. It reeked of wet cheese. “The thing is, my lord, I think it would be best if you spoke to the warden instead of me.”
“What a wonderful idea,” I said. “Sadly, the poor man was too drunk to speak. When I sobered him up, all he did was weep and vomit until I allowed him a little wine. For a short while, he babbled about a terrible Green Knight in Sherwood stealing the king’s revenue and how I should seek out his loyal forester, Ranulf of Linby who would know everything about this knight. What village is this?”
“Linby,” he allowed, glum and defeated. “Best come in, then. I suppose.”
“Wait here,” I said to Swein. “Watch all ways.” Swein nodded, eyes already darting about.
