Rise of the Wolf (The Forest Lord Book 3)

by Steven A McKay

  “We were given a tip from someone that saw you in the street earlier today,” the soldier replied. “He says you're Robin Hood's men.” The sergeant shrugged, as if sick of hearing these tales that inevitably turned out to be nothing. “I don't care if you are or not, but you're coming to the castle with us –”

  Before he could finish his sentence Allan stood up and rammed the back of his head into the guard's face, sending the man reeling, nose shattered and bleeding before he collapsed onto the filthy rush-covered floor in a daze.

  The remaining three guardsmen, used to dealing with rowdy drunkards, moved in to restrain their leader's broad-shouldered assailant, but, belying his inebriation, Allan side-stepped the first man's grasp and hammered a meaty fist into his opponent's cheek, sending the man sprawling into another table, drinks and outraged patrons scattering all about the place as screams of fright and roars of anger filled the air.

  “I told you I was one of Robin Hood's men!” The minstrel shouted towards the middle-aged lady he'd been trying to seduce earlier. “You didn't believe me but –”

  He was cut-off mid-sentence as the two remaining guards came at him. One rammed a wooden cudgel into his midriff and, before he could even bend over in deflated agony, the other tackled him to the ground and began to rain blows down on his head.

  As the two guards battered his friend senseless, Gareth – bloodshot eyes wide in fear – fell to his hands and knees and pushed his way between the legs of the rest of the drinkers who stood watching the confrontation with glee.

  “That's enough,” the guard sergeant mumbled, pulling his men away and holding his broken nose gingerly. He aimed a final kick at Allan who lay, battered and unresisting amongst the vomit-and-ale-soaked rushes on the floor, before looking around the place in anger.

  “Where's the other one?” he shouted. “This one's mate. Where is he? Tell me, now!”

  The inn's patrons looked about the room innocently. Like drinkers everywhere they had no intention of helping the law capture one of their own, even if they didn't know who the fugitive was, or what he was supposed to have done to warrant arrest by the local militia. Many of them had been in the tavern all day and had shared a laugh and a joke with the thin young man who'd said he came from the nearby village of Wrangbrook.

  The front door closed quietly behind him as Gareth slipped out and sprinted into the shadows, praying desperately that the furious soldiers hadn't beaten his friend to death.

  Now what was he supposed to do? He was no fighter, he couldn't batter his way through the guards manning the gatehouse, and he was no charismatic charmer that could simply talk his way out of the situation either.

  Christ above, he thought fearfully, how do I get out of this one with my hide intact?

  CHAPTER NINE

  In the end, Gareth's lack of charisma and nondescript appearance proved to be his salvation. He was able to join the steady flow of people leaving the city, having made his way hastily to the Chapel Bar gate before any alarms were raised and he simply walked right out as if he was a member of a noisy family who didn't even notice he'd latched onto their party.

  The guards didn't give him a second glance, and, for once in his life he was glad to be such an unremarkable fellow.

  He knew his luck might run out though, when the sheriff's men circulated his description. It was possible someone at the gate would realise he'd passed through not long ago and the chase would be on. One of Robin Hood's gang was a prize the soldiers would spare no effort to claim.

  With a glance over his shoulder he sucked in a lungful of air and broke into a run again, leaving the main road and shoving his way past bushes and low-hanging branches, his eyes able to pick out a way through the foliage thanks to the many months he'd spent living in the greenwood with the outlaws.

  After a while he relaxed his pace, chest heaving and throat burning, the sweet smells of spring filling his nostrils as he hawked and spat out a thick glob of phlegm. Even if the law did come after him, they'd never manage to catch him now, he was sure.

  When he ran, gasping, into the clearing the outlaws were using as a camp-site the men that were there turned in surprise at his sudden appearance. If enemies were to try and sneak up on them the lookouts that were posted day and night should alert them to their approach, but Gareth knew exactly where he was going and had managed to get past the sentries and to the camp without the alarm being raised.

  “It's Gareth!”

  Little John appeared from his camouflaged shelter at the cry, a pair of worn brown trousers in one hand and a bone needle in the other. “Where the fuck have you been, lad? And where's Allan?”

  More of the gang started to appear, anxious to hear the young man's news.

  “Taken,” he gasped, bending to place his hands on his thighs, gasping for breath.

  “I knew this would happen,” Robin shouted, pointing in anger at Gareth who winced at the force of his leader's ire. “You should never have gone off without saying anything to the rest of us. I assume you went to Nottingham for the tourney and the sheriff's men took him?”

  “It wasn't my idea, it was Allan's,” Gareth protested, his voice high and reedy, like a scolded child trying to shift the blame to a naughty playmate. “That friar you robbed, Brother Walter – he must have seen us going into the inn and told the guards. I was lucky to escape. Allan took a hell of a beating...”

  “Ah, bollocks,” Robin slumped heavily to the ground, staring at the dead embers of the previous night's cooking fire, his expression unreadable.

  Allan was one of the men Robin was closest to in the group. They had become firm friends when, together, they'd rescued Will Scarlet's daughter from her enforced servitude in Hathersage. They had been blood brothers ever since. The idea of the cheerful minstrel being imprisoned in the city jail made him feel physically sick; he'd been captured and held there himself the previous year. It had been a horrible time that had almost broken the outlaw leader's spirit.

  He hated to think what an experience like that would do to his friend. And he knew the sheriff would take no chances with his captive this time around; there would be no repeat of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet's daring rescue of Robin the previous summer. Allan had no chance of escape.

  “What d'you think'll happen to him?” Gareth asked.

  Will gave a snort. “What do you think? They'll hang him as part of the tournament, won't they? More entertainment for the crowd.”

  “Never mind that,” Little John rumbled. “The question is: what are we going to do about it?”

  Robin didn't answer and neither did anyone else. They knew there was nothing they could do to help Allan.

  “He's as good as dead...” the Hospitaller sergeant, Stephen, muttered ruefully, shaking his head. “Good lad too.” He crossed himself and glared at Gareth, silently accusing the youngster for the minstrel's predicament.

  “It's not my fault – he was going anyway. I just went along to see how he got on, so you can stop giving me dirty looks you old prick –”

  “Enough!” Robin roared, jumping to his feet angrily. “It's done. There's no point in the rest of us falling out.”

  The men sat in silence for a while before Little John also stood up and moved back into his crude shelter before reappearing with his enormous longbow and quarterstaff, both of which were a foot longer than any normal ones.

  “I know we can't storm the castle,” the giant said to Robin as the rest of the men looked on in surprise. “And I know we can't sneak in through the latrine like Will and Tuck did. But I can't just sit around here waiting on news of Allan's hanging to reach us. I'm going to the city.”

  Robin shook his head in disbelief. “You can't – the guards will shoot you on sight. You stick out like a nun in a brothel for fuck sake!”

  John shook his great bearded head. “I'm not going on a suicide mission. I just want to go and see if I can hear what the local gossip is. The travellers coming out of the city might be able to tell us what's happening.
”

  He looked around at the rest of the men. “I know it's pointless, but it's better than sitting here doing nothing. I'm going.”

  It was a futile gesture but Robin understood his big friend's feelings.

  “Fine,” he nodded after a moment's thought. “Let me gather my own weapons and some food. I'll come with you. We'll go to Penyston and buy a couple of horses for the journey first, though. Might come in handy.” He was rewarded with a grateful look from John before he turned to Will Scarlet. “You look after things here while we're away, all right?”

  Will shrugged in resignation. “Might be an idea for us to move to a new camp,” he said. “Just in case they –” he broke off, not wanting to voice his fears for their captured friend. “Just in case Allan tells them where we are.”

  Robin agreed. “Good point. Why don't you lead the men back to the old camp near Selby? You know, the one we were used for a short time last year? Seems as good a place as any. We haven't camped there for a while. There's no reason Allan would even think of telling the sheriff we were hiding out there again. And Groves doesn't know anything about it since he'd left us by the time we were camping there.”

  Robin collected his weapons while everyone else moved to gather their things for the move. They'd done this so many times over the years that it was second-nature to them – like a well-rehearsed scene from a play.

  Before he left with John, Robin took Stephen aside.

  “Will's calmed down a lot in the past year or so,” he told the Hospitaller. “But he's still prone to moments of madness if his temper gets up. He's the obvious person to lead you all when me and John aren't around, but he needs someone to make sure he doesn't react in anger if there's trouble. Someone to keep a cool head.”

  Stephen nodded. “I'll keep an eye on him,” he promised. “I never wanted to be a leader myself – I've always been happy to be a sergeant. But even Sir Richard needed someone to tell him to calm down at times.” He smiled wistfully, the memories of his former master, hanged a few months before by the sheriff, coming back to him in a rush. “You and John go to Nottingham and see if you can stop Allan suffering the same fate as my master did. Don't worry about us, we'll be fine.”

  Robin grasped the Hospitaller's arm in farewell before shouting goodbye to the rest of the men and haring off into the undergrowth.

  “God be with you,” Stephen mouthed, with a final, hopeful wave to the two departing outlaws.

  * * *

  “You? In God's name, I can't believe it. You dare show your fat face around here again? After what you've done?”

  Prior John de Monte Martini raged at Tuck, obviously forgetting the flabby shape of his own lined red visage in the astonishment of the friar's unexpected return as Edwin, job done, backed from the room and closed the door gladly behind himself.

  Tuck stood, head bowed, as de Martini continued his tirade for a while longer, listing the friar's transgressions against him, punctuating his verbal stabs with a fist that he slammed every so often onto the table that separated them.

  “Eh? You Franciscan bastard. I should have had you excommunicated. How dare you show yourself in my priory again, as if nothing had happened?”

  Tuck spread his hands wide, not seeking forgiveness, but time to explain his side of the story.

  “Go on then, man,” the prior gesticulated towards him. “Let's hear it. Let's hear why I shouldn't have you burned at the stake like the heretic – nay, wolf's head – that you are.”

  Tuck nodded into the expectant silence and placed a hand into the folds of his cassock before drawing out the little ornate reliquary that he'd obtained from St. Mary's in Brandesburton. He was rewarded with a small spark of interest that flared in de Monte Martini's eyes.

  “I have it.”

  The prior stared hungrily at the reliquary, knowing it was somehow significant and knowing too that he coveted it. But the man had never seen it before, the friar remembered. It had been stolen from Tuck years ago by one of his own mercenaries, before he had a chance to give it to de Monte Martini.

  “The relic you sent me to Eze in France to collect. The one that was purloined from me just as I'd returned here.”

  It took only a moment for the prior to recall exactly what the former wrestler was talking about. He had given Tuck a huge sum of money to buy the artifact; its loss wasn't something a man as driven by worldly wealth as de Monte Martini could ever forget.

  “Christ's beard!” He stood up, fingers grasping the edge of the table spasmodically. “You have it? Truly?” His voice dropped and he looked at the little box in Tuck's hand longingly before his tone hardened again. “How?”

  The prior knew Tuck had been living amongst the outlaws in Barnsdale so the friar saw no reason to hide the facts of his story; besides, he didn't want to lie on holy ground to his superior. Even if the man was a wicked bastard that cared more for coin than he did for God.

  When he finished his tale the prior simply stared at the reliquary hungrily before demanding the friar hand it over to him.

  Tuck did so, then allowed the sweating, flushed prior to struggle for a while before he leaned forward and flicked the hidden switch that popped the box open and revealed the sandy-coloured hairs inside.

  Christ's beard.

  Both men held their breath and gazed in awe at the sight before them. They beheld a part of their saviour's own body; something that had miraculously healed Tuck when he had been thrown into an unnatural deathly sleep by the crossbow bolt of Sir Guy of Gisbourne and the icy-cold waters of the Don. Something cut reverentially from Christ's face when he'd been taken down from the cross, before his resurrection and ascension to heaven days later.

  Tuck wondered, as he always did on looking inside the reliquary, why the hair wasn't darker as he'd have expected, coming from a Judean as it supposedly did, but... who was he to question God's holy relic?

  “It's incredible.” Prior de Monte Martini breathed in excitement and Tuck could almost see the gold coins flashing in the man's eyes as he contemplated how much money this sacred object was worth. Fortunes, no doubt. More than he'd given Tuck to pay for it years earlier for sure. Relics like this only ever appreciated in value.

  And here was this wolf's head, outcast from the prior's own service, returning to the fold like the Prodigal Son and handing it to him to do with as he pleased.

  He clasped his hands and offered a prayer of thanks, eyes raised skywards, a grin on his jowly face.

  “Truly, God works in mysterious ways, Brother Stafford. Welcome back to Lewes.”

  Tuck smiled in relief, glad that his gift had pleased de Monte Martini but knowing the prior wasn't likely to just allow him to settle into an easy life amongst the Benedictines here.

  Although de Monte Martini's face glowed with pleasure as he waved Tuck out of the room the friar couldn't miss the sadistic spark that still burned in the man's eyes when he watched him depart.

  Still, it was a start. He was back in the Church again, no longer an outcast, with good men he called brothers even if they were from a different order. Not the type of brothers he'd spent the last few months with, like Will Scaflock, John Little and Robert Hood of Wakefield but his brothers just the same; brothers in God's service. Edwin the gatekeeper and Ralph the bottler and all the other acquaintances he'd missed during his time in Barnsdale.

  He was looking forward to spending his days praying, reading the bible, tending the vegetable garden that lay inside the priory walls and having a pallet and a roof over his head every night even in the harshest of weathers. Thick stone walls were much better than trees for keeping the ice-cold winds of winter at bay.

  It was no life of luxury in the priory, for sure, but it was a sight more comfortable than sleeping rough on the frozen earth of the forest, when the leaves had blown from the trees and the icy rains and bitter gusts battered the greenwood as it did every single year without fail.

  Aye, he was glad to be back in Lewes, even if he would badly miss his friend
s in Barnsdale. He just hoped the prior wouldn't make his life too miserable.

  * * *

  “You think you could take me, minstrel?”

  Allan stood, watching Sir Guy of Gisbourne warily, wondering what was happening but knowing whatever it was wouldn't be pleasant.

  “Eh? A man with one eye? Look at you.” The Raven had appeared almost silently inside Allan's gloomy cell and now moved to grasp the minstrel's great arms firmly. “Strong. Younger than I am. Angry.”

  Allan remained silent, warily watching his despised enemy but not wanting to bring any more trouble down upon himself. Robin's stories of his time in this very dungeon last year had been sickening, and the minstrel knew the bounty-hunter could turn violent at any moment if provoked.

  “What do you want?” he asked, trying to keep Gisbourne in sight as the man continued to walk slowly around the cell, losing himself in the shadows where the light from the softly guttering torch he'd placed in the sconce on the wall didn't quite reach.

  “I want to prove myself. Your friend hurt me badly not so long ago, and I'll never be the swordsman I was before Hood took my eye. I may never be able to shoot my crossbow very accurately either.” His hand caressed the stock of the weapon. “I was very fond of this crossbow too – it got me out of trouble more than once. Almost killed your friar companion too.”

  Still he kept circling Allan, as if his feet were bewitched and he couldn't stop them moving.

  “So what is it you want from me?”

  “I want you to fight me, wolf's head. It's as simple as that.”

  It had to be a trick. Allan wanted to grin and tell the king's man he'd be glad to beat the shit out of him but he knew Gisbourne was no fool and, despite the loss of an eye, was probably still deadly. He held his tongue and at last the black-armoured Raven stopped walking and glared at him.

  They were about the same height, although the lawman was slimmer – wiry where Allan was broad-shouldered and brawny, so their eyes met across the dank cell although the smoke from the torch made the minstrel blink and Gisbourne nodded.