“Extra rations of the Prince’s venison if you get all three arrows within the garland!” Hood slapped the nearest man on the shoulder as he passed—hard enough to almost knock him off his feet. But the man beamed. The rest gave a hearty cheer, and urged on those who were shooting with renewed vigour.
Micel felt his heart lurch at that cheer, and he understood, more keenly than ever, that he was alone. A failure. It seemed the harder he tried to serve his master, the harder it became. Sometimes he envied the others their unquestioning faith.
It had all been so simple when Robin Hood’s band was a distant, seemingly unreachable goal. An ideal. It was easy to love him then. But then the dream had become reality; the ideal, a real man. As Micel had drawn closer to his idol—revelling, as everyone did, in the man’s ability to inspire all around him—that vision had begun to blur. As the ideal faded, so other unwelcome details came into focus: the sweat on his shirt, the blood beneath his nails.
Then there was the occasional look in Hood’s eye, beyond the heroic defiance. To Micel, it looked like cruelty, though it had not once been directed at him. After the escape from the Tower, Hood had even afforded him the greatest honour possible, admitting him to his inner circle; had given him the mark, shared only by the most trusted: Took, Lyttel, Scarlet, O’Doyle... and Marian. He looked at the crude tattoo upon his wrist—the snarling head of a wolf—and itched at it. Why he had been so honoured, he was not certain. A couple of those Hood kept close had fallen from favour of late, so perhaps he was looking to the future. Ensuring a supply of fresh blood. Whatever the reason, his master had shown him such favour that to disappoint him seemed, to Micel, the worst thing imaginable.
Lyttel had been some help at first, but not now. The big man had been withdrawn of late. Micel had no idea now what went on in that shaggy head, and, in truth, he feared finding out.
No. It was his problem—his failing—and he would fix it alone. These were challenges to be overcome, like those God had sent to His most devoted, to test them, and he would serve Hood to the end. Apart from anything else, Micel yearned to recapture that heady thrill he had once felt when he looked upon his master. It was, perhaps, the one thing driving him on. He wondered if Christ’s disciples underwent such struggles. Thinking so was a help to him.
Hood stopped before the rock that marked the far edge of the village, and turned and turned again, as if looking for somewhere else to go; but there was nowhere, except back again. Along the same ranks of archers. The gleaming smile faltered, and gave way to a flicker of explosive rage, as fingers flexed into claws. It was fleeting, but in that moment Micel felt he was looking upon a terrible beast pacing the limits of its captivity. Hood drew his leather gloves from his belt and slapped them against his palm in irritation.
Normally, Hood laughed through all eventualities, but his great plan, and their increasing activity, had involved restraint, a quality that did not come naturally. His mood had worsened in the past couple of days, when something had failed to come to pass. For some time beforehand he’d seemed expectant of something—something that filled him with almost child-like glee. Micel did not know what it was, although he had heard Hood repeatedly refer to a “guest.” How a guest was to be welcomed in this secret place, or who it might be, Micel could not imagine, but for days, their master had refused all but the simplest food, saying he would feast when their guest joined them. Sometimes he seemed to speak of their unknown guest as an old friend, other times as an enemy. Often, both.
Then, two nights before, the joyous anticipation had suddenly been crushed. Micel had been in Hood’s great hall, building the fire, when several of Hood’s spies came to him with news of a clandestine gathering in the forest. Of Barons. Eyes flicked in Micel’s direction, and the rest was whispers. Hood’s eyes burned with fury. He bared his teeth and kicked a smouldering log across the rush-covered floor, sending a shower of sparks up to the rafters. Micel chased after the log, only barely managing to stamp out the burning rushes. Oblivious, Hood had snatched up his bow, stalked out into the night and, with a roar of wild rage, had loosed an arrow at the moon. The great, gnarled warbow was bent so far, and the arrow flew with such power, that Micel wondered if it would ever come to earth.
Hood had been like a caged animal ever since.
He turned and slapped his gloves against the towering rock, as if challenging the earth itself to combat. It was from this rock that Hood addressed the faithful, and he alone stood upon its pinnacle. Took and occasionally Will Gamewell had at times spoken from the rock—at one time, even John Lyttel had been afforded the privilege—but none presumed to stand upon the very top. That was Hood’s place; a spot that Lyttel had once jokingly referred to as “the pulpit.” None had laughed, and Lyttel had stayed quiet after that. The rest did not even dare to touch the rock, now. Not in plain sight. But every once in a while, late at night, Micel spied a ragged peasant place a surreptitious hand upon it, as if hoping to draw divine energy from a holy relic.
Something made Hood turn—notes of music piercing the excited chatter of voices. A jaunty tune, plucked upon an instrument; a man’s voice, trilling some absurd lines of doggerel. A woman’s laugh. Micel sought out the sound, and through the milling crowd, near the cooking fires, spied the Irishman Alan O’Doyle—and opposite, the Lady Marian. Micel had not seen either of them smile in days, and then only in each other’s company. O’Doyle plucked the lute again and pulled a face. Marian laughed and placed a hand upon his arm. Looking back at Hood, Micel saw his master’s eyes fixed upon them.
Hood grinned and nodded cordially as O’Doyle’s gaze met his. The Irishman dutifully nodded back, and Hood’s empty grin widened, his eyes glinting like black stones. Then Micel heard his cold voice mutter: “That minstrel’s got to go...”
Something made Hood look up then—a sound Micel had not even heard. His master stepped forward and frowned as if to listen harder. There was, finally, a distant whistle, then another. A lone figure wove through the throng, which parted before him. The archers ceased their practice, and the chatter hushed. All eyes turned on the man as he fell to his knees at Hood’s feet.
“Well?” said Hood, his eyes wide.
“The moment you have been waiting for has come, my lord...” panted the runner.
“I am not your lord. No man is.” Hood knelt down and leaned his head forward to hear the messenger’s urgent whispers.
Micel just had the opportunity to register a look of triumph upon Hood’s face before his master stood suddenly and gripped him by the shoulder. “Rose!” Hood bellowed. Marian looked up in response. No one dared call her anything but Rose now. Micel saw her face fall, become drawn once more. “Come!” Hood gestured, and she hurried forward.
A moment later, Micel found himself standing by Hood’s side upon the pinnacle of rock, with Marian upon the other.
“My friends!” called Hood. As he spoke, a silence fell, so total that even the wind in the trees seemed to abate. Micel had known there were many hundreds here—far more than this village could sustain—but seeing this multitude now stretched out before him, he felt his mouth go dry and his knees quiver.
“News has come to me that I must share with you,” said Hood. “News for which we have been preparing these many months, and which cuts to the very heart of all we have become. In this place—upon nothing—we have built a family.”
At that, Micel felt Hood’s right arm around his shoulders, and saw that the outlaw’s left was wrapped about Marian’s slender waist. They were a tableau, an image of a perfect family.
“Who are we?” continued Hood. “We are the people that they did not want, the ones on the roadside, that they wished to imprison and kill. Is it because we are evil that they did this? No! It is because we are a reminder of their failures. Of their wilder natures.
“And who are they? They are the ones who flex their muscles to show their strength, their superiority. But those with real strength have no need to prove it. And we shall show them how
weak they are. They eat meat with their teeth and they kill beasts that are nobler than they are—these things they have never truly had to fight for—and then have the gall to condemn those who possess real strength.
“They put you in a dark cell, and to them that’s the end. To me it is the beginning! There is a world in there, and I’m free. It matters not what walls they build. Walls are nothing! We’re all our own prisons, we are each our own jailer. A prison is in your mind... And can’t you see I’m free?
“They expect to break me... Impossible! They do not know how Robin Hood thinks, because Robin Hood has not yet shown them his true self. I show people how I think by what I do, and do it I shall. There is pain along this path, to be sure. But pain is worthy. It teaches you things. And through it I have learned their game.
“They thought they could lock me in a dungeon and forget about me. But they can’t forget. They will never forget. They think that if I am dead, their world will be better. But I’m what lives inside each and every one of them, had they but the courage to look. And it is because they lack that courage that I know we will win. They whimper and squirm and peep over the parapet at the shadow of their own death. They think of nothing else. But in my mind I live forever. I am not ruled. We are not ruled; they are ruled. By fear: of the dark, of the forest, of the wolf.
“My friends, the world is turned upside down. But we shall put it aright. This land is on the brink, on the very edge of chaos. And we may now tip the balance! I don’t blame them for this precarious state. No, I blame King Richard! Yes, yes, it’s true! This land is his, after all. His task was defending his people instead of deserting them to fight in foreign climes. What kind of king is it that swaps the rich garden of England for the desert, and leaves the tending of it to an outlaw like me? I’ll tell you... It is one who understands that we must be tested. Like a new-forged blade, we must be plunged into the fire to emerge the stronger. He gave us this opportunity to show our mettle. He set an example to us—of iron will, of steel in battle. Of an unbending weapon with the strength to do what must be done.
“And so we must also be thankful to them—the rich, the high-born, the privileged, the weak, the pious, the pompous. For here we stand, because of them. We are all their children.
“They will say I made you do what we are about to do. But you will know that is not true. You know that we are a new and better kind of family—one they cannot understand. One founded on new rules. On no rules. A pack, bound by more than blood. And I will tell them: ‘These children that now come at you with bows and spears and knives, you taught them. I did not teach them. I just helped them to stand.’
“And to you now I say this: if you are not strong enough to stand on your own, do not come and ask me what to do. I want no weakness around me. I don’t tell people what to do, I simply... do. That is my one law. Be as you truly are. Become your true self. And do what you must do. And so, he who has no stomach for this fight, let him leave now. Freely.
“You have endured much to be here. This forest is wide. It can shelter, clothe and feed a band of good, determined men. Good swordsmen, good archers, good fighters! But we are not beasts born to cower—not boar or deer for them to hunt, for them to consume in pretence of supremacy. Nor were we made to grub a living amongst these dank roots, the stink and rot of dull nature. But this long night draws to an end, and from this forest we shall be reborn to a new life! A life in the full glare of the sun, where all is bathed in light and seen equally. I have heard it said that to see all at once with equal clarity is madness. Chaos. But those who say it are cowering in the dark dungeons of their own minds.
“We are sworn to despoil the rich. But you all know I do not covet gold. What means gold to me? Gold crowns are trinkets! There is a greater treasure: to become golden, to be bathed forever in sunlight, to live and be remembered in the mouths of men, and in their minds be forever bright. Let me tell you now: King Richard returns, and our day has come.
“Had I not seen the sunshine in the desert, perhaps I would be satisfied with the cell. It was the Lionheart first showed me the sun in all its glory, though he knew it not. And so I say, it is time to emerge into the light! To stand exalted by our King, to join with the lion, and show that the wolf, too, is strong, that like he we are not the ruled, but born ourselves to rule!”
As the speech had gone on, the chuckles, gasps and rumbles of assent had grown in volume and intensity, until finally, at Hood’s last utterance, the crowd had cheered with such force that Micel felt his head spin, and the rock tremble beneath his feet. And yet, as the hundreds of voices battered him, he found his streaming eyes fixed not on the triumphant multitude, but on the distant, ragged, empty-eyed figures who lay dying or slumped against trees at the edges of the village—skeletal outcasts now too weak, or too old, to draw a bow.
V
Village of Gisburne
9 February, 1194
GISBURNE ARRIVED HOME exhausted. It had been a hard ride from Halifax, but despite the temptation to stop there, with night falling and the threat of imminent rain, he had pushed on. He yearned for his own walls about him, the satisfaction of his own front door closing at his back. And solitude; that too. Though that could be a mixed blessing.
Weary and damp as he was, his heart leapt when he finally caught sight of the squat, thatched manor house along the turn in the road. It was a feeling that had not changed since childhood—one he had often longed for on the battlefields of France, Byzantium and the Holy Land. These days, it came into view somewhat sooner, thanks to the newly built round tower at its western end. It loomed above the trees, its fresh-cut stones almost white in the moonlight; an addition his father had often dreamt of, but never had the funds to achieve. The old man’s ambitions always had exceeded his means. He once nearly bankrupted himself to donate a pair of stone pillars to the local church. The privations it caused were felt by the family for months afterwards—but it was, he felt, appropriate to a knight of his station. Or, perhaps, of the station to which he aspired. Immediately after his encounter with the Red Hand, Gisburne had set work in motion; not for his own sake—he had no dream of being a castellan—but for his father’s memory. The work was now almost complete, only the harsh winter weather had brought the masons’ work to a stop.
The house itself was silent. No light burned in the window. No smoke issued from the chimney. Gisburne rode straight on to the stable. He knew full well that if he allowed himself to get settled inside the house, stirring himself to stable his horse would be all the harder.
Nyght, his mount, got short shrift all the same. He would sort him out properly tomorrow, though he had no doubt the stallion would show his displeasure for the whole of the next day. At times like this, he almost regretted having no groom.
There were no servants in Gisburne’s house—no one to keep the hearth warm in his absence. This was something visitors would have found peculiar, but he never had any. Not that he was entirely bereft of help; the Horton woman cleaned and laundered, her husband cooked and maintained the property, and their elder boy tended the horses when needed—all tenants of the modest Gisburne estate. But they came and went, and of late he had given even them leave when he was in residence. Beyond that there were only the tenant farmers who worked the land, and by and large he left them to their own devices. Or rather, under the watchful eye of Old Oswald of Sawley, who had managed the day-to-day running of the estate since his father’s day. And in turn, they left him to his. There were stories told of him and his ways, he knew—most of them pure fiction. Well, let them talk.
He did not mind doing things himself. It pleased him to keep busy, and besides, he liked things his own way. After years of self-reliance on the road and in battle, fighting for pay with not even a squire to support him, such ways had become ingrained.
Once, there had been a squire about the place, but he did not want to think about that. It served no useful purpose.
Rummaging in his purse in semi-darkness, he felt the distinct
ive, heart-shaped bow of the iron key. He turned it in the lock, feeling the dry grate of early rust, and pushed inside. The shutters were closed, the interior pitch black. Dumping his saddle bags, he stumbled in through the dark, thought about pushing the far shutter open, then changed his mind. His eyes would adjust soon enough.
He crouched by the hearth and made a token effort to light a fire, but the damp had well and truly set in and the tinder was having none of it. His will sapped, he pulled a sheepskin about him and sat in darkness, chewing on a chunk of stale bread and some dried meat until, finally, even being half-upright was too much, and he slumped down upon the musty straw pallet that he kept near the main fireplace.
DESPITE THE TIREDNESS deep in his bones, sleep eluded him. He lay for a long time, listening to the familiar sounds of the house. The creak and crack of timbers, the rattle of shutters. The whine of the wind in the thatch. Somewhere above him, a mouse or bird scratched. A fox barked in the distance. And, off towards the paddock, in harmony with the sighing of the trees, he could hear the squeak and clank of Sir Pell.
Sir Pell had been Gisburne’s idea; but it had taken the genius of Prince John’s enginer, Llewellyn of Newport, to realise it, and to christen it. Frustrated in his fight training by the bland simplicity of the traditional wood-and-straw pell—really, little more than a scarecrow—and seeking something more challenging than the quintain, Gisburne had determined to devise a new kind of device: one that would react, move and fight back. Llewellyn’s initial suggestion, cutting as ever, was that what Gisburne needed was another human being. The challenge had fired his imagination and, after a month of discussions and experimentation by Llewellyn, Sir Pell was born.
Guy of Gisburne- The Omnibus Page 94
