Matt nodded in understanding, wandering over and lifting a wooden bowl from beside the fire which he ladled some of the pottage into.
“You can tell them to come out,” he grunted through mouthfuls. “I haven’t been followed, I managed to lose them.” He met Robin’s eyes, meat juice dribbling down his chin, but his look was unreadable. “The bastards got James and Paul though.”
Robin cursed, his stomach lurching again at the thought of two of his friends not coming home to camp tonight.
“Who got them?” he demanded.
Matt placed the bowl of food on the ground, clutching his chest and scowled momentarily. “Gisbourne and his men,” he replied. “Sly bastard rode us down. Shot James himself, while one of the riders stuck a blade in Paul. One of them tried to do the same to me – gave me a kick in the face the prick – but he knocked me down the side of the trail. Steep bit. I slid down a good fifteen feet, battered my chest off a bloody rock at the bottom.” He grimaced again. “Still, I was lucky. Their horses wouldn’t follow down after me, so I was able to get away before any of them bothered to dismount and chase me on foot.”
He gulped down the rest of his pottage and lay back on the ground with a groan. Robin felt a pang of guilt. It was clear Groves was in genuine pain – the blood caking his face and the exhausted look on his seamed face weren’t an act. The man had been hurt and made his way back to the safety of their camp, surely hoping for a better welcome than this.
“You’re sure you weren’t followed?”
“Nah,” Groves muttered without lifting his head from the grass. “I don’t think they were too interested in a chase – they’d killed the other two lads anyway. Bastards.”
“You hurt anywhere else?” Robin asked, but he was met with silence and he realised Matt had fallen asleep.
Shaking his head, sick of the harsh life they were forced to lead, the young outlaw called for the men to return to camp, with the lookouts ordered to be extra vigilant throughout the night.
In the morning they would try and recover their fallen friends’ bodies for a proper Christian burial.
Robin felt almost as tired as Matt. Their former leader, Adam Gurdon, had known the greenwood of Barnsdale better than anyone; he had been an ex-Templar knight, a man of considerable military skills. And yet, when Gurdon had betrayed them and tried to hunt the outlaws down he hadn’t been able to kill even one of the group before Robin had rammed his sword through the turncoat’s chest.
But Sir Guy of Gisbourne – a stranger to the area – had, in the space of a few days, managed to put Friar Tuck into a sleep he might never wake from and now he’d slaughtered two of their mates and promised to do the same to Robin.
No wonder the locals talked about this sinister black knight in hushed tones.
Little John, as he did so often, guessed what his young leader was thinking and walked over to slap him reassuringly on the arm.
“Have faith,” the giant growled. “You'll see: things'll work out. A raven is no match for a wolf.”
CHAPTER NINE
“I can’t speak bloody Latin!”
“None of us can, this is a waste of time.” Will nodded agreement with Allan-a-Dale, who had been tasked with holding the relic and praying for Friar Tuck’s cure.
“Why do I have to do this anyway?” Allan demanded. “I’m not a priest. I only know the one Latin prayer, and it might be a prayer for crops to grow for all I know!”
“You know how to make a sermon though,” John replied. “Always blabbering on about stuff. If you hadn’t become a minstrel you’d have made a damn good bishop.”
There was laughter at that which somewhat eased the tension in the air.
Although the men didn’t visit church frequently – how could they? – they were all Christians. They all believed in the power of God and his saints. The presence of a true holy relic had them in awe, and the atmosphere as they gathered around their unconscious companion was both nervous and reverential.
Matt Groves had been typically condescending when the ornate reliquary had been produced by Robin, who told the men it couldn’t be opened.
“Of course it can be opened,” Matt had laughed mirthlessly. “Give it here, I’ll open it.”
“We can’t damage it,” Robin shook his head. “It’s not ours. Father Nicholas was good enough to let us borrow it – we return it to him as he gave us it.”
“Let’s have a look,” Peter, the old sailor held out his hand curiously. “I’ve seen lots of strange boxes. We used to carry all sorts of foreign cargo on the ships I worked on. Maybe I’ll be able to see how the thing opens without breaking it.”
Robin handed the reliquary over cautiously, but Peter took it as carefully as if he were handling a newborn babe.
Eyebrows lowered in concentration, the sailor turned the box this way and that hunting for some catch that might unlock the fancy little case, then he exhaled softly in defeat before giving it back to his leader with a puzzled frown.
“It doesn’t need to be opened anyway,” Robin said. “Father Nicholas told us he’s seen people cured by the relic even inside its box and I trust him.” He bent down and placed the box on Tuck’s chest. It rose and fell slightly with the friar’s shallow breathing and Little John ordered the men to get on their knees and pray for their friend.
“In nomine Patris,” Allan had started before he had given up in frustration.
“Just repeat that prayer you said the other day. The Latin one. You don’t have to pretend you’re a real churchman.” Robin nodded encouragingly at the embarrassed minstrel.
With a sigh, Allan bent his head again, the rest of the men following his lead and clasping their hands piously as he recited the prayer he'd memorized as a child. As he finished, the respectful looks the other men gave him encouraged him to continue.
“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,” he mumbled, before he glanced at Tuck and his voice grew in strength and confidence with the desire to see his friend well again. “We are gathered here to ask you, St Peter, to help our companion. He is a good man – a man of the cloth – who almost drowned and now can’t be revived. By the power invested in this, your holy relic, we humbly pray you will cure our friend.”
He couldn’t think what else to say, so some of the outlaws muttered, “Amen,” and Will whispered, “Is that it?”
“Just pray, for goodness’ sake!” Little John hissed, and the men bowed their heads and closed their eyes again, silently sending their supplications to the venerable Saint.
Nothing happened. No flash of lightning, no angelic healing hands appeared to help Tuck.
“It'll work eventually,” Robin told the men. “Have faith. We'll pray for him again tomorrow.”
* * *
Matilda felt enormous.
Her ankles were swollen. Her back and legs ached, and her breasts were becoming so heavy she worried they'd hang like empty sacks when the baby finally arrived.
Her parents tried their best to help her through the pregnancy, but they had their work to do every day, as did she. What she needed was her husband beside her, to look after her and make her feel better about the changes her young body was going through.
What she didn't need was to be pawed at.
Robin had made his way through the forest to visit that morning, upset at the relic's failure to cure Friar Tuck, and knowing Henry and Mary would be out at the fletcher's shop so he could spend some time alone with his wife, despite her irritation the last time he'd seen her.
Matilda had let him into the house, overjoyed to see him, but she was beginning to wish he'd never turned up.
“Stop it!”
Robin flinched in surprise at the rebuke as he tried to caress Matilda's swollen breasts in the dimly lit room.
“They hurt,” she glared at him.
He apologised with a bemused smile and cuddled her for a few moments, before the swelling in his trousers overcame his good sense and he tried to slip a hand between h
is pregnant wife's legs.
“Are you an idiot?” Matilda shouted, shoving the surprised outlaw away. “I told you: my body aches.”
Robin looked at her in confusion and she almost felt sorry for him. He looked so young and innocent and was obviously too stupid to understand what was wrong.
“I'm sorry,” he mumbled, his eyes downcast momentarily, before they rose and settled again on her swollen breast and she could actually see his erection swelling again underneath his trousers and knew exactly what he was thinking.
“I'm sick every morning. My feet ache. My legs ache. These” - she cupped her breasts, fury rising in her again as she saw Robin's eyes light up - “are breaking my back! And this baby is keeping me up all night, kicking and jumping around like a court jester!”
It was true. Matilda was exhausted. Her legs jerked when she tried to rest, and the baby rolled about inside her so distractingly she hadn't been able to fall into a proper sleep for days.
“I've never felt so tired in my whole life,” she told him, glaring at him as if it was, somehow, his fault. “Sleeping rough in Barnsdale as a wolf's head was easy compared to this.”
All she wanted was a cuddle and for Robin to spend a little time talking to her about what she was going through. But she could see from his expression he was only interested in sex.
He tried to hide it with a placating smile, but his eyes roved over her heavy breasts when he thought she wasn't looking and, when he cuddled her she could feel him pressing himself against her backside almost in desperation.
“Get off me!” she shouted, pushing him away. “Go back to your mates in the forest. Maybe one of them will let you stick it in them.”
Again, the confused expression on his handsome face made her hesitate, but she was in no mood to deal with this.
“Go. Come back when you can be a proper husband.”
Bemused and upset, Robin stormed out the fletcher's house without another word.
* * *
The inn at Finchley proved to be as cosy and inviting as Stephen had hoped.
By the time he reached the village the snow was falling heavily and the wind whistled about him, making him glad of his thick black surcoat, emblazoned with the white cross of his Order.
This far from the North he saw no reason to hide the fact he was a Hospitaller, so when the snow had started he’d taken the surcoat from his pack and gratefully put it on.
When he’d ridden into the village the locals had bowed their heads or smiled up at him respectfully. Everyone knew the Knights of St John. When Stephen had first joined the Order fifteen years ago he had been inordinately proud of the normal folks’ respect for the military Orders. The Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights – even ex-Templars, if any were discovered – were generally held in great esteem by the common people of England.
After a decade and a half of travelling the world and fighting thankless battles, Stephen had grown apathetic to the views of strangers. The villagers saw a man wearing chain-mail and automatically assumed he was someone of power and significance; a man somehow worthy of respect for the horse he rode and the attire he wore. But Stephen had fought beside plenty of courageous, loyal, Godly men who’d been nothing more than simple yeomen, like the good men of this village.
He’d also known plenty of cruel, selfish and damn evil men who acted like the red, black or white cross emblazoned on their shield somehow absolved them from whatever immoral deeds they chose to be involved in.
Images of women raped, children brutally murdered and rows of worthy foes treated like cattle at the slaughterhouse by ‘honourable’ men in the name of Holy War filled his head and he cursed inwardly.
Aye, he had seen some terrible things before he came back to England as Sir Richard-at-Lee’s sergeant-at-arms, but it didn’t help to be maudlin.
Passing an old church dedicated to St Mary, he reached the inn – the Wheatsheaf from the crudely painted sign over the door – and, with long practised ease climbed from his mount, leading it towards the adjoining stable.
There were no stable-hands around, so Stephen found a vacant stall for the palfrey and made sure it was secure. He patted the beast on the neck fondly. “I’ll send someone out to tend to you, lad,” he muttered, feeling somewhat foolish. He’d never owned a pet as a boy, and always felt like an idiot talking to animals, but this horse – which he’d never even given a name – had served him well for years and, despite his reticence, there was a bond between them that the sergeant acknowledged.
With a backward glance at his mount, which seemed to be looking at him with an amused expression on its long face, he huddled into his surcoat and walked round to the front of the building.
The sound of music and song filled his ears as he pushed the sturdy door open, wandering gladly into the warmth and light cast by a well-banked fire on the far wall of the room. The rushes on the floor hadn’t been changed in a while, so the stench of dung, urine and stale vomit permeated the air making the room smell worse than the stable, but it was to be expected in a place like this; Stephen knew he’d get used to it within a short while.
Locals nodded gaily to him as he made his way to the bar and waved the inn-keeper over.
“I’ll have an ale – warmed if you please. And my horse needs tending to.” He handed a coin to the man, who nodded pleasantly and shouted through a door at someone – the stable-boy presumably – to move his lazy arse and see to the gentleman’s steed.
“There you are, my lord,” the barkeep smiled, placing the mug of ale in front of Stephen. “There’s a couple of pokers in the hearth – help yourself.”
The sergeant lifted the mug with a nod of thanks and weaved his way through the crowded room to the fire. He lifted a poker from the flames and placed the red-hot tip into his ale, which hissed as it instantly warmed, and took a small sip, grinning in satisfaction as the mild heat filled his mouth and spread throughout his body. They brewed their ale strong in Finchley!
He made his way back to the bar, sipping his warm drink as he went. “I’m no lord,” he told the inn-keeper. “I’m only a sergeant, but I do need a bed for the night.”
“You’re in luck,” the man replied, with a broad smile. “I have a room for you: bed freshly made up, floor newly swept – you’ll have the best night’s sleep you’ve had in ages, I promise you.”
The Hospitaller nodded. He’d heard it all before, in every inn in every town in Christendom and beyond.
“Aye, very good. I don’t give a shit about the dust on the floor. I’ll sleep like a babe as long as it’s cheap.”
The inn-keeper laughed good-naturedly and moved off to serve another customer. “A shilling for the night,” he smiled over his shoulder. “I’ll do you some pottage and a few ales too. Can’t say fairer than that.”
Stephen nodded and raised his mug in salute. “Good enough.”
He took a long pull of the powerful warmed ale and looked around the room which was filled with dancing shadows cast by the cosy orange glow from the roaring fire in the hearth.
There were twenty or so villagers in the large room. Most of them were singing along with a man playing a battered old gittern. Stephen wondered how they could hear what the hell he was playing over the sound of their own tuneless voices, but they all seemed to be having a good time.
The sergeant’s gaze roved across the people, seeing the usual types in a village of this sort: peasants; yeomen; a priest; a couple of hard-looking fellows that probably made a living guarding property somewhere nearby… and there was the loner, sitting by himself in a dark corner, nursing a mug. Stephen wondered what tragedy had befallen the man, whose eyes looked dead as he gazed at the table in front of him.
His eyes moved on and widened slightly as they came to rest on a beautiful red-headed girl, no more than twenty-five or twenty-six summers, seated at a table with an older man – her father, no doubt. She wore a tight fitting dress which did little to hide her ample bosom, even though it showed no bare skin at all.
Stephen found himself staring at her, admiring her figure and her clear, pale skin.
As if feeling his gaze, the girl suddenly looked straight at him and the Hospitaller flicked his eyes away in embarrassment.
He took another sip of his ale and looked over at the red-head again. She was staring at him, her full lips opened in a little smile, showing whiter teeth than Stephen had seen in a long time.
Christ, she was lovely!
He had fought in many battles, and killed many men. He had travelled the world, and seen sights most men would never see.
But he had only lain with one woman in his life, and even that single night’s pleasure lay heavy on his soul, as it had been a betrayal of his Order's vow of chastity.
Vows meant little to some men. Priests, bishops, cardinals and, unbelievably to Stephen, some popes had lain with women – and men! – whenever they felt like it. Even the Hospitallers in England had been tainted by sexual scandals: the young preceptor at Buckland had been removed in disgrace after rumours of fornication with the nuns they shared a building with. The Prior of England, under instruction from his superiors in Rhodes, had eventually replaced the young preceptor with a much older man, hoping it would put an end to any more scandals.
Stephen took all his vows seriously. He had dedicated his life to the service of Christ and his Hospitaller master, Sir Richard. He had been terribly drunk the night he had slept with the lovely olive-skinned girl in Rhodes. In fact, he had been so drunk, he could barely remember what had happened, but he knew the alcohol had rendered him incapable of any legendary feats of lovemaking.
He felt guilty – dirty even, that he had broken his vows. But, deep down, it rankled even more because he couldn’t remember much of it.
At least if he had a clear memory of an incredible night’s loving with a dusky beauty the guilt and shame might be worth it!
Irritably, he turned away from the flame-haired girl and drained the last of his ale, shouting at the bar-keep to refill his mug.
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