The Wolf and the Raven

by Steven A McKay

  “Keep your hands by your sides.”

  The voice came from directly behind them, startling both men.

  They had been so engrossed in their conversation, and what was happening on the gallows, that they'd failed to notice the soldiers coming up through the crowd at their backs. Four of them, two armed with swords and two with pole-arms levelled directly at their midriffs.

  Singly, Stephen knew he could have taken them or at least evaded them in the crowd. They didn't have the look of killers. They did have the confident look of competent guardsmen though; men used to violence and dealing with it.

  There was no escape.

  “Don't even think about it,” he said quietly to Edmond, whose eyes were flicking between him and the guards as if uncertain what to do. “Even if you got away from this lot, you'd never get out of the city. So relax.”

  He made a show of patting the tanner's son on the back as if he was calming a child after a tantrum. These guardsmen had no idea who he was, and Edmond wasn't an outlaw, so Stephen hoped they'd be left in peace if the guards knew there was no threat to them.

  Unfortunately, Robin Hood's recent escape had made the sheriff and his men jumpy. They weren't about to let anything similar happen again.

  Stephen collapsed on the ground as the pommell of a sword cracked against the back of his head, and Edmond fell a moment later with a cry of rage.

  “Stay down!” the sergeant-at-arms grunted through teeth gritted in pain, grasping the angry younger man by the arm.

  The four soldiers moved in, ringing the two downed men and disarming them, while the crowd which had hemmed them in so tightly just moments earlier pulled well back in case they should suffer the same fate.

  The sheriff's men, fully in control now, ordered the pair to their feet and shepherded them through the crowd, past the gallows and towards the castle.

  A tall man, dressed all in exotic-looking black armour, watched as they passed and Stephen met his gaze, knowing it must be the man the people called The Raven: Sir Guy of Gisbourne. The king's hunting dog.

  Gisbourne stood with a bald, hard-looking man by his side, and three of the sheriff's men behind him. As Stephen and Edmond were marched past them, one of the blue-liveried sheriff's soldiers swung his head to watch, staring at the sergeant with a bemused look on his face.

  “That's the knight's man! The Hospitaller!”

  Gisbourne and his bald companion turned to look at where the soldier was pointing. “Hold!” Sir Guy commanded, looking at the shouting guardsman. “Let's hear what this man has to say.”

  “I remember him from last year when we tried to ambush Robin Hood and his men,” the man shouted as Stephen and Edmond were forced to stop moving. “He was with them, wearing the Hospitaller cross.”

  Stephen wished he hadn't left his sword back in the forest now, but he still had his dagger and its weight on his thigh was reassuring, although he knew it would not be enough to let him escape from this.

  It was clear Gisbourne knew Stephen was a dangerous man, but his confidence was unmistakable as he moved around to stand directly in front of the sergeant.

  “Is that true? “

  “I'm Sir Richard's sergeant-at-arms, yes.”

  Gisbourne smiled, but it was a strange smile and Stephen wondered if the man was all there.

  Nicholas Barnwell suddenly reached out towards the guard holding Edmond and took the tanner's confiscated sword from him. “This is a nice blade,” Gisbourne's man whistled, noting the fine craftsmanship. “A Hospitaller knight's blade I'd say. I'd better hold onto this.”

  “Come to rescue your friend?” Sir Guy asked Stephen, who glared at Edmond, assuming the young tanner had stolen his master's old sword.

  “No,” Stephen shook his head sullenly. “I'm no fool. There's no way anyone could rescue my master from this. I came to pay my respects, that's all.”

  “And you?”

  Edmond glared at the dark bounty-hunter. “I came to try and undo the evil that I've done. I should never have turned the good knight over to you lot.”

  Gisbourne laughed, and turned back to Stephen. “You are also a wanted man. A wolf's head. I will have you taken onto the gallows beside your master...you can die together.”

  Stephen looked impassively at the king's man, honestly not caring at that moment whether he lived or died. It seemed a foregone conclusion anyway.

  “Where would you go if I release you?”

  “To my Order's headquarters in London,” Stephen shrugged, caught off-guard by the sudden change in the conversation and forgetting that the Hospitallers no longer required his services.

  Gisbourne laughed. “Your Order? Why do you think your master is here? Your Prior's steward sent word to the sheriff saying Sir Richard was a traitor and should be hanged, along with you if you were caught. You see,” he leered into Stephen's face, “you are an outcast. A rebel, wanted by the king, and disowned by your own Order. You are dead.”

  There was silence then, as the bounty-hunter smiled, fingering the black crossbow that hung from his shoulder and the two captives looked uncertainly at their supremely confident captor, wondering where this was all going.

  “And yet...I need a messenger.” Gisbourne spread his hands. “Another one I mean. My last one saw his friends shot in the back and that's made it hard for me to find another one. You,” he nodded at Stephen, “are, according to the guard here, acquainted with Robin Hood.”

  “We've met.”

  “Good. Then his men won't shoot you before you can deliver my message. Are you listening?”

  Stephen shrugged.

  “I said, 'are you listening', monk?” Gisbourne's open hand slapped him a stinging crack across the face and the Hospitaller was shocked by the speed of the blow. He hadn't seen it until his head was rocking backwards from the force.

  “Aye, I'm listening,” he growled.

  “Good. I sent word to Robin Hood a few days ago that I wanted to meet him in the forest on Monday. I've heard nothing since. He is, no doubt, hiding somewhere, like an old woman awaiting the grim reaper.”

  “Or maybe he's waiting until you ride through Barnsdale so he can stick an arrow in your throat.”

  “Maybe.” Gisbourne shrugged. “I wouldn't be surprised. He couldn't beat me in a straight fight, so if he resorted to hiding in the trees and shooting me from a distance, well...like I say, I wouldn't be surprised.”

  Stephen said nothing to that. He didn't particularly like Hood or his men. They'd held him and Sir Richard up as they travelled through the forest last year. He'd wanted to attack them, even if there had only been the two of them against the outlaw's entire gang, but his master had ordered him to stand down. In the end they had, together, ruined one of the most corrupt noblemen in England, a man who had hoped to destroy Sir Richard and steal his lands.

  So Stephen remained silent as Gisbourne insulted Hood.

  “We know the general area of the forest where the outlaws are living,” the Raven went on. “You will take my message to him.” He spoke and Stephen listened, nodding as the enigmatic bounty-hunter finished telling him what to say to Robin.

  “What about this one?” a soldier asked, shoving Edmond forward with the butt-end of his polearm.

  Gisbourne waved a hand dismissively. “He's nothing. Look at him. He can go with the Hospitaller – sorry, I should say, former Hospitaller. Let them watch their friend hang first though.”

  The wicked laughter followed them as they were led back to the gallows by the soldiers.

  “What now?” Edmond asked quietly.

  “Now?” Stephen muttered. “Now we say a prayer as my master draws his last breath. And then we find Hood and watch him tear that bastard Gisbourne's head from his shoulders.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “So he's changing his tactics,” Robin nodded after he'd heard Stephen's message from Sir Guy of Gisbourne. The Raven's intelligence on the rough whereabouts of Hood's gang had been accurate, and the sergeant, with
Edmond silently trailing him, had been spotted by Allan-a-Dale as they moved none too stealthily through the undergrowth that morning. Moments later the two men had found themselves surrounded by heavily armed outlaws who appeared, seemingly, from nowhere. Edmond had almost shit himself.

  “Instead of threatening us with violence and killing our men,” Robin went on, “he's trying to play on my pride in order to flush me out.”

  The Hospitaller nodded. It was true: many men would rather face death in a hopeless battle than be called a coward and have their reputation sullied. Gisbourne's message had simply demanded, again, that Hood meet him in a neutral location and fight one-on-one, like warriors, to the death. If Robin didn't show up, the whole country would know he wasn't the fearless legendary hero of so many folk-tales told in ale-houses all over the north of England.

  “I don't really care, for myself, if people think I'm a coward,” the outlaw leader said. “And, honestly, the idea of facing that bastard again does frighten me. But one of the reasons we've been able to endure life in the forest is because the people in the villages around here respect and even, to an extent, fear us. They know we'll reward them if they help us and they know we'll hunt them down if they betray us to the law. The legend that's grown up around us is an essential part of our survival – if the villagers think I'm a coward they'll begin to lose respect and life around here will become even more difficult.”

  He wasn't just thinking of himself, or the men. Matilda and the rest of his family in Wakefield were left in peace, partly because they were well-liked in the village, but also because the people there had seen what happened to any who betrayed Robin's friends. Little John had killed Simon Woolemonger the year before, after he'd told the former steward, Adam Gurdon, that Matilda had been helping the outlaws. The girl had been arrested and almost raped before they rescued her – and Woolemonger had paid the price, publicly, for crossing the outlaws.

  News of that episode had travelled far and wide and had, so far, made anyone else with a big mouth too afraid to inform on the gang.

  If Robin refused to face Gisbourne that fear and respect he commanded would be gone and, with his wife due to give birth to their first child, it was never more imperative that his family were left in peace.

  “Where am I to meet him?”

  “Dalton, to the south-west of here.” Stephen described a small stone bridge not far from the village. “It's a short walk from Watling Street Gisbourne says.”

  Robin looked at Little John who nodded. “True enough. It's a small bridge, just wide enough for a cart to cross, with a lot of trees around either bank. If you fight him there, the rest of us can hide amongst the foliage. If he brings his men and betrays you like the sheriff tried last winter, we can shoot him down and escape back into Barnsdale.”

  “Presumably that's why he chose the spot,” Robin mused. “So we know we can trust him. He'd have picked somewhere more open if he wanted to ambush us.”

  “You really think he's just going to turn up and fight you, alone? Without trying to capture or kill the rest of us?”

  “I do, aye. I think he's a vain man, desperate to make a name for himself. We've become famous” –

  “Notorious!” Will Scaflock grinned.

  “Aye, that too,” Robin smiled. “Everyone's heard of us now, and the daft tales of me being a giant, with eyes of fire, that can beat ten men single-handedly...Hunting us down isn't enough for Gisbourne. He wants the whole country to know the Raven defeated me, fairly, in single combat.”

  Stephen agreed. “He was more interested in fighting you than anything else,” he told them. “By rights he really should have had me handed over to the sheriff, to hang beside my master. Two Hospitaller's on the gallows...de Faucumberg would have loved that. Yet Gisbourne decided to let me carry his message to you instead. The man's a maniac.”

  The outlaws bowed their heads in silence for a moment, still upset over the news Stephen had brought of Sir Richard-at-Lee's death.

  “What if Gisbourne does beat you, though?” Little John wondered. “It'll demoralize the people.”

  “And make many of them more likely to turn the rest of us in if they get a chance,” Friar Tuck muttered. “They'll see your death as the beginning of the end for us.”

  “He won't beat me,” Robin growled, glaring round at the men. “He won't.”

  “If he does,” Will shrugged. “I'll stick an arrow in him before he can enjoy his victory.”

  “No! If he beats me, you let him and his men go. If we hope to be treated honourably we must act the same way, or no one will ever trust us again. If I lose, I'd suggest you all move camp, maybe even move out of Yorkshire altogether.”

  The faces around him were grim, imagining the worst.

  “What are we all worrying about?” John shouted, forcing a grin onto his big bearded face. “Robin's the best of all of us with a sword. If anyone can beat that bastard Gisbourne, it's him.” He looked up at the sky, noting the sun's position. “And we'd better get a move on if we're to reach Dalton by mid-afternoon.”

  The men moved silently, thoughtfully, to gather their weapons and strap on whatever armour they owned, while John stood in front of his young leader and grasped him by the shoulders, staring into his eyes.

  “You will beat Gisbourne,” the giant told him. “You must, for all our sakes, and for your family. Remember: the wings of a raven are no match for the jaws of a wolf.”

  Robin met his friend's stare and nodded, but, in truth, his guts were turning themselves inside out at the thought of meeting the black-clad king's man again.

  “What about you?” the outlaw captain asked, turning to the former Hospitaller sergeant. “I'm sorry about Sir Richard...he was a good man. I'm proud to have met him.”

  Stephen bowed his head, acknowledging Robin's comment but also hiding the pain in his eyes at the thought of his master's hanging. “Fuck knows. My order betrayed me, and I can't go back to Kirklees.” He looked out at the trees surrounding them. “I suppose this is my home now, the trees of Barnsdale – I'm a wolf's head, just like you.”

  “Then you'll join us,” Robin replied, making it a statement rather than a question. “A man of your knowledge and experience will be very welcome in our ranks.”

  The sergeant gave a small smile, relief plain on his pock-marked face. “Thank you, lad. I'd be honoured to serve under you, until I can clear my name with my Order.” No matter what, Stephen would always think of himself as a Hospitaller.

  “Let's move!” Little John's massive voice split the air, and he hefted his great quarterstaff south, in the direction of Dalton. As he passed he handed a sword, one of the outlaws' spares, to the weapon-less Hospitaller who took it gratefully.

  “What about him?” Stephen gestured to Edmond who had stood silently beside him since they'd been surrounded on the path by the outlaws, and now looked up sullenly at the famous young wolf's head, expecting to be turned away – or worse – once his part in Sir Richard's death became clear. It seemed his place in life was to forever be rejected.

  Robin shrugged, pulling the laces tight on his gambeson and moving off after John and the rest of the men with a preoccupied look on his face.

  “He can come with us, for now, if he wants,” Little John shouted over his shoulder. “Once this is over we can hear his story and decide what's to be done. Get yourself a weapon from the pile of spares over there, lad. You didn't hear anything in Nottingham about the lads that helped Robin escape with Tuck and Will did you?”

  Edmond and the gruff Hospitaller shook their heads and John shrugged, hoping that was good news. Roger and Godfrey had sent a messenger into the forest to let the outlaws know they'd started the fires in Nottingham and spread the word to panicked citizens which explained the unexpected diversion that had allowed Robin and his two friends to escape the city. John had sent a sizeable reward back to them with the messenger, but he worried the two men might have been found out by the authorities.

  It seemed not t
hough – Gisbourne and the sheriff would have surely made a big deal of their capture if their part in the famous wolf's head's escape had been discovered. Barnsdale would have been alive with the news if anything had befallen Roger and Godfrey.

  “Come on, lads,” John shouted, breaking into a jog. “Pick up the pace!”

  Stephen, happy enough with the longsword Little John had given him, shoved it into the sheath at his side and, none too friendly – he was still unsure how to deal with the tanner's son – beckoned Edmond to follow.

  Sir Richard's captor must be able to handle himself in a fight – he'd bested a Knight Hospitaller after all – and that might be useful in the next few hours. One way or another, Stephen thought, things would forever change for the outlaws today, and the more swords raised on Robin Hood's side the better.

  They moved out, to Dalton. And Sir Guy of Gisbourne.

  * * *

  Andrew was a fast runner, and agile, despite his youth. He had been sent into Barnsdale once before, a year ago, to take news to Robin Hood and his men.

  That time it had been bad news: Matilda, Robin's lover, had been arrested by Adam Gurdon.

  This time he had better news, and he pumped his legs as fast as he could, ignoring the stitch in his side until it eased and he found the wolf's heads' camp, and Friar Tuck.

  The outlaws had kept the horses the friar had used to escape from Nottingham with Robin and Will and it was just as well, as Tuck was the only person left on guard in the camp and young Andrew's news had to be carried to Robin as fast as possible.

  “God's thanks to you, lad!” the friar roared, as he hauled himself onto the back of one of the palfreys. “Get back to Wakefield now. I'll take your news to Robin!”

  The horse was fresh and Tuck had picked the strongest of them so he made good time. He knew exactly where the outlaws were going, having passed through Dalton with Will not so long ago on their way to rescue Robin.

  “Christ, please let me be in time.” he prayed, whipping the big horse furiously along the road. “Robin has to know!”