Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand

by Toby Venables

  “Shouldn’t we question him?” whispered Galfrid. “Find out what he saw?”

  “Of course we should,” said Gisburne, barely able to keep the resentment out of his voice. “But let’s use our own eyes first...”

  Any minute spent out of Gryffin’s company seemed a minute well-spent.

  FOR SOME TIME, Gisburne stood and stared at the thick wooden door of the keep. It was still closed and locked – the key lost since that terrible day, the woman said – and had evidently frustrated the assailant. Not that it mattered much. Next to it, a fresh, ragged hole had been smashed through the wattle and daub wall, as if by a charging bull. This was how the Red Hand had finally gained entry.

  There had been other attempts first. The door itself, and much of the plaster around it, were burnt black. The steps below were untouched, as if whatever flames had licked at the door had come straight at it, out of the air. Beneath the charred surface, they could see that the wood had been battered and scored, as if some great thing had smashed at it.

  Galfrid raised his eyebrows. “A dragon...” he said.

  At the edges of the crow-black, crackled surface, some thin, tarry substance – sticky to the touch – still adhered. Gisburne sniffed the residue on his fingertips. It summoned vivid images: a lake of fire in the sewers of Jerusalem; a burning ship upon the part-frozen Thames; the interior of Llewellyn’s workshop. Greek Fire – or something similar.

  Gisburne turned to the woman. “Show us where it happened,” he said.

  She had stood by silently as they carried out their observations. Gisburne wondered what must have been going though her mind – how their strange, uncertain fumblings must look to her. Now, he supposed, she was without purpose, her future uncertain.

  Without a word, she led them through the jagged opening and across crunching plaster to a stairway, the air heavy with the smell of mildew and damp plaster. So dark was it, once inside, that both Gisburne and Galfrid stumbled as they ascended the creaking stair.

  It led to a cramped upper chamber in the square tower, where Bardulf had evidently attempted to take refuge. A weak light shone through the small window. Despite the boards having recently been scrubbed, a grim ghost of spilt blood still stained half the floor. It stretched before them, describing a weird, semi-human shape – like some lingering spectre of Sir Walter.

  “Was there a scrap of fabric anywhere on the body?” demanded Gisburne. “Or somewhere nearby, perhaps, with letters upon it? Marks of some kind?” The servant just stared at him and shrugged, vacantly.

  “There was marks on the wall,” said a small, reedy voice, “but they was cleaned off.” Gisburne turned and saw the little girl framed in the doorway. The woman swiped the child with the flat of her palm, then grabbed her bony arm as if to drag her away.

  “Wait!” Gisburne raised his hand. “What marks, girl? Can you remember what they were?” The child looked wide-eyed at Gisburne, then stared up at the servant woman.

  “She knows no letters,” muttered Galfrid.

  Gisburne tried again. “Where were they? These marks? Show us...” She tore free of the grip of the servant and trotted over to a paler section of the stained, mould-flecked plaster wall, near the head end of the blood-ghost.

  She extended a skinny arm. “There.”

  Gisburne and Galfrid examined the wall. Faint, smudged marks were still visible.

  “L... I... X...” read Galfrid. “Licks?”

  Gisburne slapped the side of his own head. “Idiot! I’m an idiot... L.I.X... L.I.V...They’re not words, they’re numbers. Fifty-nine... fifty-four...”

  “Numbers...” repeated Galfrid. “Numbers of what?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gisburne, placing his fingertips on the place where the marks had been made. “But it seems this Red Hand is trying to tell us something.”

  “Or make us look like idiots,” said Galfrid. “What could he possibly want to tell us? And why?”

  Gisburne ignored the question, and instead turned to the little girl, kneeling down and taking her by her shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.” And he pressed a silver penny into her hand. Her face lit up – making her, for that moment, the one bright thing in the whole of Sir Walter’s bleak domain.

  GISBURNE STRODE BACK down to the foot of the castle’s wrinkled, rutted mound with renewed vigour.

  “So, what now?” said Galfrid.

  “To Nottingham,” said Gisburne. “But there’s someone I need to see first.”

  “An enginer?” ventured Galfrid. “An alchemist?”

  “A priest,” said Gisburne, and hauled himself into Nyght’s saddle.

  IX

  Fountains Abbey

  7 May, 1193

  THE ABBOT HAD the bluest eyes Gisburne had ever seen. “You should know, Sir Guy,” he said, testily, “that I have little time and even less sympathy for his Lordship Prince John. That means I have little time for you.” He turned and directed his attention back to a half-written parchment on the small table, leaving Gisburne standing. Apart from a wooden chest, a low pallet bed and the chair in which the abbot himself sat, it was the only piece of furniture in the room.

  Gisburne had heard that Ralph Haget could be difficult. How Haget had come to learn of Gisburne’s connection with the Prince, however, he did not know. He supposed the toadying steward Gryffin must be right: word had spread since Christmas – since Clippestone. How much, he could not be certain. It was inevitable, he supposed, given what had happened, but it did not please him. He had grown used to relative anonymity. To return to England and discover himself with a certain fame... Others dreamed of such things. But to Gisburne it seemed yet another obstacle to getting the job done.

  “I am grateful that you agreed to see me...” said Gisburne. “I have only a few questions to ask. It will take very little of your time.”

  “Your Prince makes no secret of the fact that he hates all things connected with the clergy and God’s holy houses,” grumbled Haget, still on the same track, as if Gisburne had not spoken at all. “I’ve heard he’d prefer it if we all shut up shop and crawled back to the Pope. God help us if he should ever become King.” He looked aloft, somewhat apologetically, and crossed himself.

  “Don’t believe all you hear, abbot,” said Gisburne – although at least half of it was true.

  Haget grunted irascibly. “Hm. Where there’s damp, there’s usually rot.”

  Haget’s own reputation, it seemed, was also deserved. It had been a hard ride from Gisburne’s home to Fountains Abbey. He had needed to make the journey in a day, and was hungry, thirsty and exhausted, and knew he stank of horse and the road. But neither food nor drink, nor even somewhere to sit had been offered – nor did it seem likely. It was said Haget’s hospitality could be selective, even to other prominent members of the clergy. Gisburne could now personally vouch for it.

  RALPH HAGET WAS fifty-three, but looked younger. He was fit and lean, and had a tough, no-nonsense bearing that to Gisburne was familiar; a military man at one time, he was willing to swear. The straight, neat scar on his chin – a wound that could only have been inflicted by a blade – supported this view. Perhaps he could use that insight. He might have to.

  Fountains Abbey was the second house of the reforming Cistercian order to have been established in the north. Its relations with the local population had not always been cordial. In 1146, a mob – displeased with its abbot – had burnt all but the church to the ground. Fortunately, the next forty years had seen improvement in the abbey’s circumstances, and prosperity had brought major rebuilding and expansion in the grand style.

  Gisburne had left Galfrid ogling the abbey buildings, knowing he was always happy with some ecclesiastical architecture to look at. He had been vague about why he wished to come here, but suspected that Galfrid had begun to deduce the reasons anyway. The squire was not a fool. Yet Gisburne found it difficult to share matters that touched upon his personal life. Combat, physical pain, injury, danger –
these things were easy to deal with. Affections – those were hard.

  This also made his encounter with the already hostile Haget all the more challenging.

  “I wish to ask about someone,” he began, somewhat awkwardly. “They were in your care. Well, not exactly... But in a manner of speaking –”

  “Name?” said Haget, cutting him off.

  Gisburne stared at him, momentarily blank.

  “This person – he has a name?” expanded Haget, as if speaking to an idiot.

  “She...” said Gisburne. “Lady Marian Fitzwalter.”

  At that, Haget burst into sudden laughter. He rubbed his brow and shook his head in disbelief. “So all this is about a woman? Is this the kind of errand Prince John sends you on?”

  Gisburne felt his face redden. “It is not for the Prince that I am here. Not for anyone.”

  “Well then... Why didn’t you say so at the start?” Haget calmed himself and sniffed. “So, I am not talking to John, or John’s messenger, but to Guy of Gisburne himself.” He nodded. “People talk of you, of the thing you did. You have stirred up a hornet’s nest. But I don’t trust tittle-tattle. Who is this man I am talking to, and who asks my help?”

  Gisburne shrugged, bemused. “Just what you see.”

  “What I see is a man who is a knight, but who doesn’t look like a knight is supposed to look. More like...” Haget did not complete the sentence, but Gisburne knew where it was going.

  “A mercenary,” he said. The word stuck in his mouth. But he understood Haget’s game. He would have to give if he was to receive. “I fought as one. Fought for pay. There were many years like that, before knighthood finally came.”

  “Finally? Then it was denied you?”

  “I was unlucky.”

  “I don’t believe in luck, good or bad. What happened?”

  “I was squire to Gilbert de Gaillon. He was killed, disgraced. Because he dared question a man of influence. I was left as a squire without a knight, and no patron would take me on after that. I made my way as best I could.”

  Haget nodded slowly. “You were not a crusader?”

  “No.”

  “Because you did not believe?”

  Gisburne did not believe – not in that way. But that was not the issue. “I was just a man doing a job.”

  “And are you still?”

  “Now I am better able to choose what job I do, and why I do it. A poor man doesn’t have the luxury of opinions.”

  Haget gave a thin smile at that. “Where, then, did you fight?” he said, and leaned towards Gisburne. “Give me one name that I will know. The one that scarred you the most.”

  Gisburne stared into the stone wall. “Hattin,” he said.

  Haget’s eyes widened at that. When it came to scars, Hattin had left its mark on all of Christendom. For Gisburne, personally, there was perhaps just one other that had struck as deep. It had been fought in a forest in Boulogne, and ended with the destruction by fire of a mad Templar’s castle – but that battle had no name.

  Haget sat back in his chair, then, and narrowed his blue eyes to slits. “And this man of influence you spoke of,” he said, “what was his name?”

  Haget knew. Gisburne was sure of it. It was a trap – or a test. But he saw no point in holding back now, even if his words were tantamount to treason. “Richard, Duke of Aquitaine,” he said. “Now King Richard – called the Lionheart.”

  Haget interlinked his fingers. For a moment, Gisburne thought him about to pray. “Well, at least we understand each other a bit better now,” he said. “I appreciate a man who speaks plainly.” He sat forward, suddenly back to his former bluff self – but with the edges knocked off, this time. “And I know a soldier when I see one, Sir Guy. I was one myself.” Gisburne silently congratulated himself. “Fought for King Henry against Louis of France. Gave it up when I was just about your age. I’d seen enough. Done enough.” He fixed his ice-blue eyes on Gisburne again. “You know what I mean.”

  Gisburne did.

  “For some, the suffering and bloodshed of others gets easier to bear. Becomes nothing. That’s what they always tell you will happen, when, as a young knight, you have that first taste of true slaughter. When it leaves its wretched taste in your mouth.” He shrugged. “For me, it was the exact opposite. It started easy, then got worse. And, like you, I was not enamoured of my king. It was 1170 when I left that life behind – the year Thomas Becket was slain in the cathedral. Had I not turned from soldier to monk, I doubtless would have participated in Henry’s invasion of Ireland in the year that followed, and witnessed further atrocities.”

  Gisburne wondered if the fate of Becket had been the last straw – the bloody act that had finally pushed Haget’s disgust over the edge. “Many men believe it is possible to be both soldier and monk together,” he ventured.

  “You mean the Templars, the Hospitallers? So-called warrior monks?” Haget almost spat with indignation, and slapped his hand on his desk so hard it shook. “Warrior monk! What an absurd contradiction! Better to fight for money, as you did. That is more honest.” He calmed himself. “I have many friends in those orders. Men who I respect. But I...” He broke off, as if struggling to find the words, or uncertain whether he should be uttering them. Such a view went not only against that of the crusading King and the Pope, but his order’s own great champion and revered luminary, St Bernard of Clairvaux – who had himself preached the Second Crusade. Haget took a deep breath. “I am not of the opinion that bloodshed is the solution to our woes. Christ said, ‘Love thine enemy.’ There is no ambiguity in that phrase. None.”

  “But it is a hard principle to adhere to when an enemy is bent on destroying everything you hold dear,” said Gisburne.

  “All war is disaster,” said Haget. “Sometimes necessary, but disaster nonetheless.” He thought for a moment, then spread his hands before him. “Christ sent out his message using twelve men of simple faith. With frail words, and no more. He believed them adequate. Do you know how the prophet Muhammed spread his doctrine? Through conquest, at the point of a sword, with an army ten thousand strong. We judge them harshly for this – even use it as an excuse to exterminate them – but at least when they fight and kill for their God, they’re not making themselves hypocrites.”

  Gisburne could not fault Haget’s logic. And, even if he was at odds with the totality of his view, he admired how the man held firm to it. It put him against the tide of opinion – even put his person in jeopardy. But he had seen war. He was at least better informed than the hotheads who merely sent others to their deaths.

  “Tell me,” said Haget, after a long pause, “what is this lady to you? Lady Marian?”

  “We grew up together,” said Gisburne. “Have known each other near our whole lives. I think it was expected, at one time, that we would be promised to one another. That did not happen. But I...”

  Haget held up his hand. “But you still have hope.” He nodded, his expression suddenly softer – almost fatherly. “Hope is the greatest gift we have. Sometimes the only one. But it is not always easy to bear.”

  “I need to know how she came here, and the circumstances under which she left,” said Gisburne. “Nothing has been heard of her since. It is believed she went into Sherwood, and took up with Hood’s gang.”

  Haget took that in, and sighed gravely. “The Cistercians are a supremely practical order,” he said. “We do things. Help people. Contemplation is fine for the soul, but it will not put bread in a poor man’s belly. That is what brought me here. Lady Marian, too.” He fiddled with the edge of the parchment, suddenly awkward, as if struggling with feelings of guilt. “Many pretend to be good people; some of us – most of us – do good deeds and think good thoughts because we know we should. But there are very few, I have found, who are truly good – good to their souls, without hint of taint or compromise. Who do not have to try to be good. But Lady Marian was such a person. Perhaps the purest, kindest person I have ever encountered.”

  Gisburne k
new it too. Many times he had feared for her, believing her nature too trusting. Now those fears had come to fruition. “Go on,” he said.

  “We see to the needy,” explained Haget. “That is part of our mission – a continuation of Christ’s own. Lady Marian endeavoured to support this in whatever way she could. Her zeal for the underdog and the neglected members of our community was passionate. As too, unfortunately, was that of Brother Thomas.”

  “Took...” said Gisburne. He heard hatred in his own voice.

  “Thomas Took was a brilliant man. But also deluded, and dangerous. At odds with the world. He had already fallen out with his Dominican brethren at Glastonbury, and came here seeking a return to fundamental Christian values. I sympathised, and welcomed him – admired him, even. I suppose it was partly vanity. I saw something of myself in his stubborn, rebellious ways. But over time, it became clear that his views were more extreme than I had ever imagined. He had formed certain radical notions on the subject of property that hinted at sympathy for the Albigensian heresy. He had begun to believe that the physical world was inherently corrupt. You must realise that we cannot countenance such a view. What surrounds us is God’s creation. To question its nature is to question God himself. ‘We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God hath prepared for us to do...’” He shuddered. “He also believed in taking up arms to enforce his view. He’d put all wealthy men to the sword, if he had his way. That was what drew him towards Hood, who he began to revere. And also the insanities of a disgraced Templar named Tancred de Mercheval.”

  The name – coming from nowhere, entirely without warning – struck Gisburne like a hammerblow. “Tancred?”

  “He is no longer of that order,” said Haget. “His own philosophy is...”

  “I know about his philosophy,” snapped Gisburne. “Such as it is.”