“’E’s not standing. ’E’s sat on his arse.” Gisburne expected the man to guffaw at his own joke – then realised he wasn’t aware he’d made one.
“What is his crime?” said John, testily.
The man’s face darkened. He leaned in, as if divulging something secret. “The scarlet sin. The sin God hates...”
The three travellers looked at each other. Slowly, the scene began to make a kind of sense – the three women separate from the rest, looking themselves like the condemned. But it was customary for them to fare much worse. Gisburne had seen terrible things done to unfaithful wives – flesh branded with hot irons, ears cut off, sometimes noses, too. They were outcast – marked for life – if they survived the ordeal at all. The man, by contrast, was often simply sent packing.
“But it’s more than that,” continued the man, as if anticipating the questions in their minds. “This one’s no mere man. ’E’s got the Devil in ’im...” He leaned in even closer as he whispered this, as if doing so would prevent the Devil from hearing. “The scarlet fiend bewitched three of our most respected women. Then, when he was caught in the act, he just laughed. But we was wise to ’im. We heard all about ’im, see. ’E’s played this game before, has William Gamewell. So, he sits in them stocks till Lady Isabel’s man comes. Then we’ll see a celebration – and I reckon half the shires of England will be cheering along wi’us.” He laughed again, but there was a wild look in his eye – a look at once defiant and pathetic.
Gisburne looked back across the village green, and finally realised what it was the villagers were building. A pyre. And a stake. They meant to burn their captive – on the very spot where, seventeen days ago, they had celebrated the emergence of new life.
“Isn’t all this premature?” said Gisburne. “If the judge has not yet even arrived...”
“Oh, ’e’ll be found guilty, all right,” said the villager, a sudden note of bitterness in his voice. Gisburne wondered, then, what his relationship was to those three women. “And burning is the only way. The judge will see that! I told you – the Devil is in ’im!” His eyes blazed with their own demonic fire as he spoke. “Burning! That’s the only way wi’eretics and perverts – and ’e’s both!”
Of course. It made sense now – or as much as it could ever make. There was no discontent in their midst, no straying from the path. The Devil – the outsider – made them do it. And so they could remain in denial about their women’s sins. They could focus all their ire on the satanic villain, and, once the problem was burned away, carry on as if nothing had ever happened. Perhaps it was necessary for the cohesion of so small a community. Perhaps it was for the best. But Gisburne wondered how long the illusion would last.
John, meanwhile, had stepped forward, his face flushed with indignation at the man’s presumption – but Gisburne gripped his arm. He had heard enough. With a simple nod, he turned away, leading Nyght with one hand and dragging John with the other.
The villager, suddenly remembering his purpose as if awoken from a dream, hugged his pail and scurried away.
IN SILENCE, THE endless round of song echoing at their backs, the travellers continued on their way. Ahead, the road snaked to the left. To their right, almost entirely obscured by the inn, lay the village church. Past the bend, they could see another road forking off to the right, heading south-west, while other, lesser trackways joined the hub at the same point – five in all.
And at the junction of these crossings, set back from the road on a bare patch of earth and positioned so all those passing could clearly see, sat the scarlet fiend himself.
Gisburne stopped. This was no Red Hand – not unless the Red Hand’s disguise was more devious than they could ever have imagined. There was no armour. No dragon’s head. No fiery breath or feet the size of fish-kettles. William Gamewell was every inch the ordinary man – his frame thin, his limbs wiry, his hair hanging lank and greasy. What set him apart was his face. It was not that there was anything out of the ordinary about the thin nose and thinner mouth – marked and battered though they were by the stones and animal bones and clods of dung that lay about him. Nor were the beady eyes and pock-marked cheeks any different from a thousand other men. It was, rather, the expression that played about these features that was troubling.
It was at once smug and resentful, confrontational and dismissive – even now, confined and humiliated as he was by the stocks, sitting in his own filth. It was an expression that had about it that quality that men most fear in others – that made them step aside for him, and avoid his gaze: it knew no fear, and it did not care. Little wonder that the village thought him possessed by the Devil. In death, Gisburne imagined, he would seem utterly unremarkable. In life, he was trouble incarnate.
“What are you looking at?” he said. His voice was a sneer.
“Nothing,” said Gisburne, his eyes remaining fixed on the prisoner.
“Ooh,” said the man, in mocking tones. “You’re scary. I’d be quaking in my boots – if I still had any fucking boots.” He waggled his bare feet stuck out before him. They were filthy and covered in cuts and bruises, his ankles rubbed raw from the wooden boards that held him in check. Gisburne guessed, from the look and smell of him, that he’d been there for two days at least.
“You should learn to have more respect,” said John.
“Why?” said Gamewell.
John’s eyes flashed with anger – but the reply left him lost for words.
“You don’t even know why, do you?” laughed Gamewell.
“I’ll not waste words on this vile excuse of a man,” said John to Gisburne, and turned away.
“Do what you like,” said Gamewell. Then he spat in the dust, and cocked his head back towards the village green. “But d’you hear who they’re singing about back there? That outlaw up north. The one they call Hood. Does he show respect? No. He kicks respect in the balls. And he’s doing all right. Everybody loves him.”
“And this is you ‘doing all right,’ is it?” said Gisburne. Galfrid gave a snort of a laugh at that. “Whilst they’re singing they’re also building your funeral pyre. That should teach you something.”
“Yeah, not getting caught. Not thinking so small. Not letting people live who get in my way.” He glared at Gisburne as he said it, as if goading the knight to harm him – daring him to. Then he tore his gaze away and slumped back. “Maybe I’ll hook up with that Hood next time. I’m sick of being surrounded by idiots.”
“Next time?” repeated Gisburne with an incredulous laugh. “You think there’ll be a next time?”
“Christ, maybe the villagers are right. Maybe he does have the Devil in him,” muttered Galfrid.
“Is that what they said? Well, maybe I like having the Devil in me. But not as much as those three whores liked having it in them...” He gave a hoarse laugh. Gisburne felt himself shudder with revulsion. He could not imagine by what means this man made himself attractive to women – it was if his very flesh was poisonous. “You know why they want to kill me? Why they want me to suffer as I die? Not because I fucked their wives. No. Because their wives wanted me to... That’s the part they don’t want to believe.” He chuckled. “What a joke. Do they think I’ll beg for mercy? For forgiveness? I won’t beg. Oh no...” He leaned forward, his eyes wide, a string of saliva dangling from his mouth. “I’d fuck them all again, and their daughters, even as the flames were licking about me. And you know what? They’d cry out for more.”
John turned and went to draw his sword. Gisburne again gripped his arm before it was half free of the scabbard. “For God’s sake, let’s just get out of here,” he said, and pulled at him. But the Prince would not budge.
Gamewell and John stared at each other for what seemed an age. Then, all at once, something seemed to change in Gamewell’s face. He frowned, then strained forward as if to peer closer at John, then gave an odd little chuckle. “They say it takes a villain to know a villain,” he said. His eyes narrowed, his thin mouth creasing into a reptil
ian smile. “And I know a true villain when I see one. Well, well, my lord,” he sneered. “Fancy humble little me meeting y –”
He never completed the sentence. Without a word, Galfrid stepped forward, swung the head of his pilgrim staff about and brought it up hard under Gamewell’s chin. There was a sickening crack. One of Gamewell’s teeth arced through the air, accompanied by a spray of blood and spittle, and bounced on the compacted mud of the road. Gamewell’s eyes rolled backwards into his skull, and he slumped forward, insensible. In tense silence, all three hastily mounted up, and headed out at the gallop.
FOR A WHILE, John had ridden ahead. Gisburne wasn’t sure if the Prince were doing so for his sake or theirs, but either way he was relieved. The Prince blew hot and cold, and his anger would pass, but he could live without the distraction of it in the meantime.
“The twenty-fourth day of June,” said Galfrid, out of the blue. Gisburne turned and stared at him. “I know that’s what he’s counting down to. The feast day of St John. I just don’t know why. What’s so significant about that day?”
Gisburne held his gaze, uncertain where to begin.
“Does the answer lie in London?” Galfrid continued.
“He’s not simply following us there. He’s making sure. Herding us.” It was exactly what Salah al-Din had done at Hattin. He had avoided engaging his enemy, and instead goaded and lured the Christian army towards the battlefield of his choosing. Then he had annihilated it. “That is where the Red Hand chooses to fight his battle. I realise that now. Where it was always going to be fought.”
“But do you know why?”
Gisburne looked away. “I have an idea. Part of an idea, anyway.” He hardly wished to speak of it. It was incomplete, unclear. And the connection it implied did not please him. But it would not serve them to be in denial. It never served anyone.
“Something is set to happen upon the feast day of St John? Something other, I’m guessing, than the celebration of a saint?”
“It’s the reason Prince John is going to London,” said Gisburne. “That date is... significant. To one man above all others.” Then, after a moment’s thought, he added: “And no saint, either. The very opposite.”
Galfrid stared at Gisburne for a time, as if reading his thoughts.
Gisburne did not even need to look back at him to know the question on his squire’s mind. He was certain, too, that he already knew the answer. But he decided to provide it anyway. It was time to speak the name once again – the name of the man who he had allowed himself to believe was buried.
“Hood,” he said.
III
LONDON
XIX
Syracuse, Sicily
May, 1185
SYRACUSE WAS IN uproar. Even now, after the hours of darkness, every street and alley thronged with Norman, Italian and Arab soldiers in the service of the King, their ranks swollen by mercenaries from England, France, Brittany, Brabant and every one of the Angevin counties and dukedoms.
There were tens of thousands of them; far more than the city could reasonably hold. During the day, the fierce heat pressing upon this vast, disparate army – many of whom were unused to the conditions – made men terse and volatile. But if anything, the cooler nights were more hectic. In every thoroughfare a river of sweating bodies jostled and shoved, torch flames glinting on shining faces. Weapons clattered against armour, against cobbles, against each other. There were curses, guffaws and raucous bellowings in every language. Here, the clop of hooves; there, the rumble of cartwheels. Drums were beaten, nails were hammered, oxen lowed and stamped – and on every side the ceaseless sounds of laughter, argument and song, interspersed with the wail of pipes and fiddles, spilled from open doors and side streets.
“Is it much further?” said Baldwin, looking about nervously. Gisburne wove through the heaving crowd ahead of the man-at-arms, edging past two Sicilians who were performing some kind of dance with sticks – to much laughter from their surrounding onlookers.
“Not much,” he said above the din. “Just down here, I think.” Gisburne knew exactly where he was, but he understood Baldwin’s anxiety. Even to one well-versed in the ways of cities, these streets all looked alike.
“I hope we find him,” said Baldwin. Gisburne doubted the boy had seen so many people in his entire lifetime, let alone in one place, at one time.
“We’ll find him,” said Gisburne. “With your help.”
Baldwin gave a weak smile, hurrying to keep up, his fingers occasionally nipping at Gisburne’s sleeve like a child afraid of losing its parent. Gisburne glanced back at Baldwin’s pale, guileless face and judged it time to give the boy a little more reassurance. “When it comes to finding your way back,” he said, in somewhat more confidential tones, “here’s a tip: just follow the moon.”
Baldwin nodded, looked relieved, then laughed. “Like a moth!” he said.
“Yes,” said Gisburne with a smile. “Just like a moth.”
THE CITY OF Syracuse, perched on the extreme eastern tip of Sicily, was one of the jewels of the Mediterranean. Once revered by the Greeks for its beauty, and a formidable city state in ancient times, it had lost some of its lustre since those great days. Yet its strategic significance, if anything, had grown.
A century had now passed since the Normans – at the peak of their first great wave of conquests – had wrested Sicily from the hands of the Arabs. They made of it a new kingdom, and with characteristic vigour had restored its glory, reasserted its status and expanded its power. Sicily was a stepping stone – a base from which other prizes might be claimed – and its King was not one to pass up such opportunities. North and west of it lay the great Christian kingdoms of Europe and the Holy Roman Empire. To the south and east lay Africa, the spreading empire of the Sultan Salah al-Din, and the beleagured Holy Land, where even now tensions were mounting. None of these, however, were to be the object of the eighty-thousand-strong army.
Most of these men were now crammed into the easternmost quarter of the city, on the island of Ortigia, from which the greater part of over two hundred ships were preparing to depart. For now, the mood was celebratory, the level of anticipation high. Men revelled in the close quarters, the camaraderie, the adventure that was to come. But conditions were already turning squalid. Feeding the vast army and their horses in these cramped conditions was something that their commanders had easily mastered; getting rid of their filth, and their frustrations, was not. If things were not to change soon, that mood – that wildness – would turn on itself. But in two days, when the ships were fully provisioned, the troops would begin to board. Then they would be heading east – to take Byzantium.
Though he admitted it to no one, it was the sea voyage – in the bowels of a pitching tarida, heavy with horses, water, weapons and men – that Gisburne dreaded far more than the battles that were to follow.
Gisburne’s new master – the master of all these tens of thousands, now – was William II, the Norman king of Sicily. William the Good, they called him. Gisburne had never seen him, nor did he expect to. It was said the king rarely set foot outside his palace in Palermo, where he enjoyed the finer things in life. In this, he was quite unlike his grim, pragmatic Norman forebears. In just about every other respect, the pleasure-loving king was Norman through and through. Ruthlessly efficient, militarily decisive and energetically devoted to securing his rule, he was as vigorous in diplomacy as he was in war. Like all Normans, he was also driven by an an unquenchable desire to expand his realm, and entirely unhampered by self-doubt – traits inherited, Gilbert de Gaillon said, from the fearless Norse adventurers from whom they were descended. No challenge was too great. Nothing beyond reach. Though master of but one small island, William had engineered a marriage to the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and invaded Salah al-Din’s empire at Alexandria. Now, he was set to conquer his old rivals, the Byzantines.
And yet, within the kingdom of Sicily itself, William had presided over almost two dec
ades of peace. Under his rule, people of different cultures and faiths were tolerated – even encouraged. Trade boomed. The arts flourished, ultimately finding their most perfect expression in the cathedral at Monreale, a Norman church whose architecture combined Syriac and Italian influences with the work of Byzantine artists and Muslim sculptors. It was, quite literally, a golden age.
But with gold comes envy, and resentment. Subversive elements had arisen within Sicilian society. Meeting in secret, they dedicated themselves to resisting Norman rule, exploiting the oppressed poor to their own ends. Gisburne had heard whispers of them from the moment he landed on the island, but so elusive were they, he had begun to wonder if they were a no more than a myth.
THEY CAME TO the mouth of the cramped, crowded alley. “The moon’s been at our back all the way,” said Gisburne. “Which tonight means the harbour should be somewhere down... Here.”
They turned right into a wider thoroughfare. Along it, and heading in the same direction, carts laden with barrels rumbled – clearly destined for the ships at anchor in the bay. In spite of them, the crowds now thinned enough to allow Baldwin to come up alongside him. Baldwin was at least a foot shorter than he, and half his weight. How he was going to survive what lay ahead, Gisburne could not imagine. “How did you say you knew him again?” said Gisburne.
“In Aquitaine, sir,” said Baldwin, enthusiastically. “There was I, fresh from England, knowing no one, lost amongst this great host of dour-faced Flemings and yearning just to hear my own tongue spoken again when a lump of bread is thrust at my chest and a voice says: ‘You look like you need a good meal!’” He laughed. “Turned out he was from the next village.”
“What was the name of that village again? Yours, I mean.” asked Gisburne. In truth, he remembered it perfectly well. He just wanted to keep the lad talking. It would keep his mind off things, at least.
Guy of Gisburne- The Omnibus Page 56
