by April Hill
At the first crack of the strap, Mrs. Nubbs emitted a shriek that may well have been heard in Nottingham. The sound of it drew a cheer from the onlookers, many of whom were standing on kegs and even the plank dining table to improve their view.
In her years at the abbey, Alice had witnessed a larger number of genuine beatings than she cared to remember. Curiously, though, she found that she couldn’t describe what was happening to the unfortunate Mrs. Nubbs as a beating, even though the lady’s dreadful screams might have indicated to a more sympathetic observer that she was being torn limb from limb on the rack. Her insults had stopped, replaced by an endless wail of apology and fervent pleas for her husband’s forgiveness. Had there been any question in the minds of the observers that Nubbs could carry on in the face of his wife’s piteous cries, they were soon put to rest when that gentleman paused for just a moment, repositioned the squalling victim with one arm firmly around her waist, and laid into her inflamed buttocks with the wooden paddle. The giant paddle was the most fearsome object in his possession, and – Alice would learn – the most dreaded implement of correction in camp.
What followed brought winces from even the most stalwart of Robin’s “merry men,” and even Will Fletcher was seen to flinch as the paddle rose and descended with three final, loud cracks. There was little pity from the assembled women, though, who had awaited this moment with a distinctly unchristian longing and were now savoring every screech of agony that issued from the hapless Marsilla’s mouth.
When he had finished his work, Nubbs rested for some seconds while Mrs. Nubbs lay in a sodden heap across his knees, blubbering and gasping. Finally, she stood up and in the brief moment before her skirts fell back into place, the audience was treated to a glance of her swollen and inflamed backside, each fat mound streaked with livid red and purple welts. It was apparent to everyone present that Marsilla Nubbs would not be sitting down with ease for some days. When she waddled off to her hut, holding her throbbing buttocks with both hands, small clusters of onlookers began crowding around Nubbs the Potter, enthusiastically thumping him on his strained back.
As the crowd broke up and wandered off, Fletcher caught Alice’s eye for a moment and winked.
The incident had made one thing abundantly clear to Alice and she understood perfectly well the implication of Will Fletcher’s knowing wink. Mrs. Nubbs’ whipping, while obviously not prearranged for her benefit, had made Fletcher’s point all too clearly. She did not have his permission to continue on to London and any attempt to leave without permission might well result in something similar to what had befallen Nubbs the Potter’s well–spanked wife. Alice swore under her breath as she watched Fletcher stroll across the clearing in the direction of his hut. The man doubtlessly believed that witnessing Mrs. Nubbs’ misery would discourage any further discussion of London.
But Alice was far from discouraged. She would simply have to bide her time. She would need help, though. Arthur was a devoted and valued friend, but it was clear that he would be of no further use. Somehow, in her rare moments away from the open spits and steaming pots, she would find a way to send a message to Geoffrey.
As it always did, thinking about Geoffrey de Reynaud and their future together raised Alice’s spirits. Geoffrey, the mysterious “friend” who had arranged her escape, and to whom she was planning to flee as soon as possible. Geoffrey, the man with whom she had fallen desperately in love, and trusted above all others – even Uncle Henry. The man in whose arms she would soon be wrapped and whose kisses filled her dreams.
* * * * *
And so, on the next morning, Alice glumly took her usual place in the “kitchen” alongside the crude but cheerful Fanny Kimball, preparing the camp’s daily fare. As Fletcher had suggested to Alice on her first day, Fanny Kimball was a very large woman with rolls of fat that gave her the appearance of being as wide as she was tall. Though she was often querulous and vulgar and endlessly obscene, Fanny was, in her own simple way, the camp’s philosopher. At St. Mary’s even the suggestion of profanity was punished by a full month on stale bread and four sips of water a day, and when Alice remarked to Fanny that her coarse language would have resulted in a severe scourging and forced purging, Fanny wasn’t insulted. She put her head back and roared with laughter.
“Aye,” she said cheerily. “But all o’ that would take off some o’ this fat, would it not, though in an uncommon disagreeable way?”
Each day, Fanny and more than a dozen other red–faced women worked long hours at the open fire–pit in the center of the clearing. It was here that the huntsmen’s sparse daily catch was gutted, skinned and roasted, or tossed into one of the vast iron kettles that bubbled constantly, filled to the brim with oats, onions and turnips, beans and peas, and what other vegetables could be had.
It had been a long, hard winter in Sherwood and in a forest rich with game, the entire camp still suffered from almost constant hunger. Killing one of the king’s deer would bring his dreaded Foresters down upon the camp more assuredly than any other offense. The surrounding peasantry was permitted a limited catch of the few dace, gudgeon and grayling left in the frozen rivers, but hooking or netting a salmon or trout could bring a beating, or the loss of an eye. For Robin’s illegal camp, the pickings were even sparser. At this moment, only two lean pigs remained in the sty and a scattering of scrawny chickens – all reserved for an emergency or an unexpected late winter storm.
“We move camp when necessary,” Fletcher explained, when she asked about the lack of food. “Our enemies know we’re about somewhere, but unless we take enough large game to annoy John, himself, the foresters fear searching for us or attacking the camp. We’ve bested them badly in the past and their loyalty to John or even a far–distant Richard doesn’t appear to include taking an arrow in the throat. Setting snares and traps will anger them, though, so in the winter, we go hungry much of the time. Most of our men disperse to their villages during these months to try to feed their families, while the rest of us remain here and make out as best we can. With God’s help and a bit of luck, though, it appears we’ve come through another winter.”
The camp itself was little more than scattered clusters of rude wooden huts built around the center fire–pit, but nearby, beneath the cliff were a series of habitable caves, where the women and children assembled when danger seemed imminent. The huts varied in size from tiny to quite large, where two or three related families lived together. While most of the dwellings appeared to be constructed of little more than branches, thatched twigs, and slabs of bark, here and there, a more substantial “cruck” house could be found, assembled of wattle and daub. For the most part, though, the homes of Robin Hood’s followers were poor and makeshift affairs. High in the forest’s now leafless canopy, other platformed structures were visible, accessible by ropes, twisted vines, and crudely built ladders. It was to these aeries that the camp’s defenders fled when attacked, where they stood ready to repel the assault from above with a hail of arrows.
Alice had learned that the camp was run in rather a free manner, with all the members appearing to understand their duties and their place in the loose hierarchy of command. With Robin briefly away, Will Fletcher was the group’s presumptive leader, spokesman, and final arbiter of what disagreements arose among various members of the diverse community. There seemed to be few rules, yet people lived closely together in relative harmony. Strong drink and its too–frequent use was an ongoing problem, bringing with it occasional quarrels, fisticuffs, and more than one broken nose. The drunken combatants generally made their own peace within a few days, and when they did not, Will Fletcher often stepped in and settled the dispute.
The work of the camp was also delegated in a fairly democratic way, with each man or woman performing the task at which he or she had a specific talent. Marksmen, and those with the sharpest eyes spent their days in the treetops, watching the pathways through the forest for intruders, and poised to send a flaming arrow of warning into the camp below should that ha
ppen.
The job of lookout often fell to the camp’s younger boys, those small enough to crawl into a tree’s fragile highest branches, yet old enough to fully understand the weighty role they filled. Their job was by far the most critical to the camp’s survival, more important even than that of the hunters and gatherers who went out daily to glean the surrounding forest for food. “Dead men do not dance, however gay the banquet,” was a phrase Alice had heard often, and a young sentry caught sleeping on his long, tedious night’s watch was guaranteed a healthy half–dozen warning stripes across his bared rump with a stout birch rod. His second offense would bring a suitably impressive strapping at the stern hand of Bri’n the Blacksmith, and a degrading demotion to cook’s helper, toiling amongst the crowd of sweating, red–faced women.
After the brief alarm brought on by Mrs. Nubbs, (wherein two of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men had been slain and buried somewhere deep in the forest,) some days went by with no further sign of trouble and it was finally decided that the camp was in no immediate peril. No other unwelcome visitors from their long–sworn enemy appeared to be lurking about.
“Aye,” Fletcher commented, “our friend the Sheriff is an impatient man and would not have hesitated to call on us had he known the camp’s whereabouts. He understands that such a delay would give us time to prepare. So, it appears that we can rest a bit easier for now, and thank God that Mrs. Nubbs’ wagging tongue didn’t kill us all.”
Alice saw the potter’s wife about the camp occasionally and each time the poor woman seemed subdued and respectful, particularly to her husband.
“So, this is how husbands here gain submission from their wives?” she observed bitterly to Fanny, “by whipping them mercilessly and in public?”
Fanny threw back her head and laughed. “Ye’d not be weeping for that silly bitch if ye’d but seen the lumps and bruises she’s given poor Nubbs, afore he grew the balls to take a paddle to her rump. I’ve seen Marsilla bust the man’s very own pots o’er his head more ’n once, for no reason but pure spite. Nay, if ever a fat ass wanted a paddle across it, it was that one. We’ll all sleep safer for it and ye’d best know it. There’s none here can put us all at risk without payin’ a fair price for it.”
Fanny was right, as Alice learned very quickly. Discipline in the camp was always tight and often harsh, and even the camp’s children were not immune. When two girls of nine and ten wandered into the surrounding forest while playing a game of hide and seek, a frantic search party was dispatched to look for them. The girls were eventually found, cold and frightened, but safe, but their woes were far from over. They were carried kicking and screaming to Fanny Kimball, who took each of the young culprits across her broad lap and spanked them soundly with a great wooden spoon. The weeping children were then whisked off, quite possibly to suffer an additional thrashing at the hands of their worried and angry parents.
“That seems terribly severe,” Alice observed to Fanny, afterward, “for such an innocent misadventure. Surely, these poor girls didn’t endanger themselves purposely.”
Fanny gave her a hard look. “That may be, but there was good folk frightened for no good cause, and good time wasted in findin’ the silly fools. After today, they’ll not go off again without their heads on, I’d make ye a promise o’ that. I know there’s some don’t hold with the whippin’ o’ girls, but I’ve borne four o’ my own, and I’ve come to know that a red, blistered bottom’s an uncommon good cure for much of the daft–headedness that ails ’em.”
Alice shook her head, but made no further complaint. Fanny was not a woman she cared to have as an enemy.
* * * * *
Unfortunately, the real lesson of the two lost girls was lost on Alice and less than a week later, she left the clearing by herself, more in search of solace and some small measure of privacy than anything else. It was a mild day, almost spring–like, and the sun was shining, so she took a slice of bread and cheese and left behind the almost constant noisy hubbub of the camp. She made careful note of where she walked and tried to leave small signs along the path - a broken branch here, a tiny pile of stones there – to mark the way back.
Within just yards of the clearing, the vast forest grew quiet and deeply still, a great relief from the daily din of crying children and constant chatter. Alice had never before truly appreciated the infinite silence and profound solitude of the convent. She smiled at the memory of the countless hours she had spent kneeling with pebbles under her bruised knees in punishment for breaking the Grand Silence by avidly gossiping through the walls of her silent cell with another novice.
She strolled aimlessly through the woods, kicking piles of damp leaves and glorying in the newly budded trees, until she found a comfortable spot to sit and read. She had left when the midday meal was finished and cleared away, and with luck, her absence wouldn’t be noticed until it was time to start supper.
An hour later, though, the sky began to darken and the gathering clouds threatened rain. Reluctantly, Alice got up from where she’d been reading and began the short walk back to camp. When she failed to find the first marker – a large toadstool she’d uprooted and placed in the crook of a tree – she was only mildly concerned. It might well have fallen. The next one would be more obvious, amounting, as it did, to a small sacrilege. (She had formed a cross of two sticks, and crowned it with another, smaller toadstool.) At the Abbey, she would surely have been paddled for such a thing, she thought, giggling with pleasure.
But the cross had also disappeared, and in its place, a pretty little brook had arisen where there had been none before. Either a miracle, a tired Alice mused irreverently, or she had lost her way. Just as she sat down to think, there came a thunderous boom, a crack of lightning, and the sky seemed to split open. A moment later, it began to rain – very, very hard.
* * * * *
Alice spent the long, terrible night huddled beneath a rough outcropping of stone that was almost, but not quite, a cave. After several hours of fitful sleep, from which she was awakened by claps of thunder that seemed to rattle her teeth, she finally fell into a deep slumber and awoke sitting in a foot of freezing water. The tiny creek had overflowed its pretty banks and flooded her “bedroom,” bringing on its tide a variety of slimy creatures and a great deal of mud. She staggered through the deluge and made her way to the nearest tree, hoping for shelter, but finding little. By morning, she was convinced that even a thorough thrashing with one of Fanny’s wooden spoons would be a welcome relief, if she could simply find her way back.
She stumbled down one path and then another, only to find that all of them led nowhere, or back to where she had started. Finally, exhausted and cold, Alice dropped to the forest floor, out of breath and annoyed, and waited patiently for death.
When death didn’t arrive in the next hour, Alice became bored, and struggled up and trudged on. She felt a bit warmer while walking and when the sun finally broke through the morning fog, her spirits rose. They were immeasurably lifted when she heard a distant hunting horn. She rushed toward the sound, beating her way through the thorny brambles with scratched hands. Just ahead and coming toward her, she saw two men. One of the men was thin and the other fat, but both were dressed in the same gray hoods and mantles. With a sinking heart, she recognized the two as Royal Foresters. Turning quickly, she ran back the way she had come and as she ran, heard the unmistakable sounds of running feet and the long, low, terrible howl of baying hounds.
As a child, Alice had been a tomboy with a talent for running and balancing precariously on garden walls and for climbing forbidden trees. It was also a talent for which she was regularly punished – ordered to hold up her skirts and lower her stockings so her plump legs could be switched by her governess or even by her normally indulgent father. Proper young ladies, he explained patiently, did not climb trees. Now, as she scrambled like a monkey up the thickest, tallest tree she could find, Alice made good use of that long–forgotten talent and reached the highest branches only seconds befo
re a brace of snarling, howling deerhounds threw themselves at the tree’s sturdy trunk. Behind them, out of breath, but even now pulling arrows from their quivers, were the two King’s Foresters.
“Come down!” the thin Forester shouted, “and show yourself!”
Alice trembled, but didn’t move or speak.
“You’ve trespassed in the King’s Wood!” the fat Forester yelled. “Show yourself now, or be shot through as a poacher of the King’s game!”
“I am no poacher!” Alice screamed down to them. “I am a mere woman, and the King’s true subject, and have only lost my way in the forest! See you, here? I have no weapon.” She raised her hands.
“Your name, wench?” the thin one asked. Alice hesitated.
“Might it be Mistress Alice Johnstone?” the fat one cried, chortling. “Mayhap the escaped thief from St. Mary’s convent?”
Alice swore under her breath, and climbed higher. “No, sir. My name is... uh... Fanny!” she shouted. “Fanny Godwell, from Papplewick village.”
“Well, Fanny Godwell from Papplewick, come down and show yourself,” the thin one yelled, sneering. “We will see you safely back to your village, this very day.”
“Kind thanks, gentlemen,” Alice replied from her unsteady perch. “But I do believe I can find my own way there, now that the storm has passed.”
The Foresters’ patience ended abruptly.
“Get your pretty ass down here, wench, or….”
Suddenly, a familiar voice sang out.
“I think the King would not appreciate his woodsmen threatening an innocent subject,” Will Fletcher remarked. He stepped out from behind a nearby tree, a longbow slung carelessly behind his back. “And a helpless stripling of a woman, at that.”
The fat Forester lifted his crossbow, laughed, and then leveled the weapon at Fletcher’s chest. “Stand your ground, brigand, and raise your hands!”
