Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand

by Toby Venables

  Gisburne turned back to John. “One other thing,” he said, more tentatively this time. “Your appearance...”

  John looked vaguely mortified, and put his hand to his chest. “Is it not fitting to the purpose?” Concerned that the Prince would be unable to resist the fine silks and richly embroidered cloth that he regularly favoured, Gisburne had requested he wear something suitable for a long day’s hunting in the saddle. He had specified that they be his oldest riding clothes, and had also instructed John’s personal servant and groom to pack his horse accordingly, knowing that this was not something to which a Prince was accustomed. These two trusted individuals were the only ones permitted to know of the change to the plan, and even then only the night before. They now travelled with the impostor in John’s ornate carriage.

  John, meanwhile, had followed his instructions to the letter, and inhabited his role perfectly – although his oldest clothes, it seemed, were still newer than Gisburne’s newest.

  “The clothes are excellent,” said Gisburne. “Exactly right. But the rings...” He nodded at John’s fingers. “They announce you like a fanfare.” Gisburne drew his horse alongside John’s. John’s eyes narrowed as Gisburne held out his hand.

  “Isn’t this precisely what Hood is supposed to do?”

  “I’m saving him the trouble,” said Gisburne.

  “You are a tyrant,” said John, then, pulling off the rings one by one, dropped them into Gisburne’s palm. Gisburne tipped them into a pouch, pulled its drawstrings tight and stowed it in the bag upon his belt.

  “Am I now fit for the journey?” said John.

  Gisburne nodded, and turned Nyght about. “It’s five miles to Berughby,” he said. “We’ll overnight there.”

  “And tomorrow?” said John.

  “The Great North Road,” said Gisburne.

  XIII

  The Great North Road

  16 May 1193

  THAT DAY THEY had arisen early, and after a leisurely breakfast turned their horses south onto the Great North Road. The three of them were in a bright mood. It was fine weather, the going was good, and all had slept soundly the night before at a crossroads inn near Berughby – the only fleeting interruption to Gisburne’s slumber occurring some time in the early hours when John had chosen to piss in a pot less than a yard from his head.

  It was still morning when Gisburne turned his horse about and said to Galfrid: “Keep a close eye on the Prince.”

  “Of course,” said Galfrid. He followed on, just behind John, his expectation being that Gisburne would dismount and answer a call of nature at the verge. But at the sound of hooves he turned, and saw that Gisburne was riding away at the gallop, heading along the track towards the village of Ganthorpe. “Right...” he muttered. Gisburne had said the minimum, and then rushed away before Galfrid had time to ask questions; he always did that when he was hiding something.

  “Anything wrong?” called the Prince, looking back.

  “No,” said Galfrid, having not the faintest idea. “Everything’s fine.”

  The wait for Gisburne’s return must only have been minutes, but seemed to last forever. He rode up alongside Galfrid without a word, slowing to the others’ pace, just as if nothing had happened.

  “Everything all right?” said Galfrid.

  “Fine,” said Gisburne, without making eye contact. He was breathing hard, and Nyght was steaming. Wherever he’d been, he’d ridden hard there and back.

  “So what was all that about?”

  “All what?”

  “One minute you’re sticking to the Prince like pitch, not letting him out of your sight, then suddenly you’re riding off.”

  “It’s nothing important,” said Gisburne. “I’ll tell you when it is.”

  “When it is...?” repeated Galfrid, with a frown.

  Then John’s voice rang out ahead. “We’ve passed beyond my lands,” he said.

  “I DON’T LIKE it,” said John. “Feels like leaving home for another country.” The lands to the north-east of England were John’s domain – a miniature empire, centred on Nottingham, over which he ruled with little interference. It was a sudden reminder to Gisburne that from here, there would be many more threats than the Red Hand.

  “London practically is another country,” muttered Galfrid, coming up alongside.

  “More literally than perhaps you realise,” said John. “You know that I granted them freedom? In return for the loyal support of the citizens of London when I stood against Longchamp, that time he squirrelled himself away in the Tower. Now they elect their own mayor, and rule themselves. A commune. Neither my father nor my brother would ever have sanctioned such liberty – not for a million silver marks.” He thought for a moment. “Well, perhaps my dear brother would. He’d have sold the lot – and for far less – when he was looking to fund his crusade. For a million he’d have let the French tow it to Calais and use it for a midden. Then, with England plunged into poverty, off he would go and squander the lot on conquering the entire known world. How will people remember him, I wonder?”

  “Men are rarely remembered as they really were,” said Gisburne. “Kings even less so.”

  John sighed, and nodded sadly, as if contemplating his own fate. “You know, when Saladin died, all he had in his possession was a single piece of gold and 40 pieces of silver – not even enough to pay for a funeral. The ruler of that great empire had given away all the wealth he had to the poor amongst his subjects. Godless he may be, but he could teach many of us something of chivalry and Christian virtues. Of noble kingship.”

  “He knew how to win battles,” said Gisburne. A vivid impression of the disaster at Hattin, where Salah al-Din had crushed the Christian forces, momentarily flared in his memory.

  “His people will remember him as a great man,” continued John. “Even his enemies respected him. Do you ever wonder how will posterity treat us?”

  The words I try not to were on the tip of Gisburne’s tongue when up ahead, on the road, he spied movement. Two figures on foot, gesticulating wildly. He gestured silently to Galfrid – but the squire had already seen for himself. They drew in front of John, one on each side. Then he, too, caught sight of the figures. “What’s this?” he said, and raised himself up in his saddle.

  They were dressed as pilgrims. There were no horses to be seen, and they were a long ride from the nearest village. Both were hatless, their clothing awry, and – as Gisburne could now hear – were crying out for help. He could make out the words robbery and outlaws. To most travellers, this signified honest men in distress. But something about the manner of their dress – and the fact they did not run to seek aid, but remained rooted to the spot, flanked by convenient cover – told Gisburne a different story.

  “Christ’s boots,” he sighed. “Not this again.”

  “Pilgrims? Robbed?” said John as they neared. “On Whitsunday? This is an outrage. We must help them. Gisburne – you and Galfrid dismount and bring them aid.”

  Gisburne brought Nyght to a halt. “With respect, my lord, I suggest we spur the horses and pass them at the gallop.” In his mind, he added: ...or just trample them into the dirt.

  “You may suggest it, Sir Guy,” said John, his tone suddenly testy. “But I insist we offer help.” Perhaps, thought Gisburne, it was thought of posterity and honour that had suddenly turned John into a good Samaritan. Perhaps the memory of Thomas Becket haunted him. Either way, the impulse was admirable – but it wasn’t the Prince’s head at risk.

  “These men are no more pilgrims than I,” said Gisburne.

  John was having none of it. He shook his head. “I’ll not have on my conscience the possibility that I left two pious men in distress.” And he gestured towards them. “Please...”

  A memory forced its way into Gisburne’s mind – from almost a dozen years ago, when he was still a squire, but as vivid as if it were unfolding before his eyes. It was of the Prince’s brother Richard sending Gisburne’s knight and master Gilbert de Gaillon into a
n ambush. He pushed it aside, reminding himself that the Prince’s safety was his primary concern. And this would not have the same conclusion. Gisburne nodded dutifully, and trotted on, Galfrid close behind. “Let’s make this quick,” he muttered to the squire, and dismounted some ten yards from the two men, who were still wailing about thievery and murder.

  NO SOONER HAD he got within five yards of the pair than a third leapt out of the bushes, clad all in green, with a part-drawn bow trained on them. He gave a loud laugh. “Take not another step!” he cried, triumphantly, “for I am Robin Hood! Now, hand over your valuables!”

  Gisburne looked him up and down, and sighed. “Do you find this works for you?”

  The robber’s smile faltered for an instant. “Have you not heard of my legend?” He puffed himself up again. “Now, hand it over unless you want to feel my arrow point. My patience wears thin!”

  Gisburne stood and stared at him for what seemed an age. The arrow was shaking, the archer’s grip awkward, providing an inadequate rest for the shaft. Gisburne shook his head slowly. “You’re not Robin Hood.”

  “I am!” he insisted. There was a hint of panic in his eyes. The two ‘pilgrims,’ who had merely stood throughout the conversation, began to back away.

  “You are not,” said Gisburne, and took a step forward. The archer twitched, the arrow shaft clacking against the bowstave.

  “How would you know?” he spat.

  “Because I’ve met him,” said Gisburne. He heard Galfrid step up beside him. The panic in the archer’s eyes was almost frantic. “I’ve fought him. And Robin Hood would not let me do this...” In one swift movement, Gisburne dropped, grasped a stone, and hurled it at the bowman. It cracked against his forehead and bounced off into the brambles, the feebly loosed arrow whistling above Gisburne’s head. The archer howled and staggered, blood coursing down his face. He recovered just in time to see Gisburne boot him in the balls.

  The pilgrims did not look likely to be rushing to their comrade’s aid, but they were not afforded the chance. Before either could make a move, Galfrid strode forward and smashed the left kneecap of the nearest with his mace. Seeing all was lost, the third made an unexpected lunge between Gisburne and Galfrid and leapt on Nyght’s back. In triumph, his pilgrim robes almost falling off him, he kicked his legs against the destrier’s flanks, and shouted “Yah! Yah! Yah!”

  Nyght moved not an inch. The ineffectual outlaw’s expression changed to one of dismay as, with growing desperation, he found himself sat, heading nowhere, spurring the horse uselessly like an idiot.

  “Bloody horse won’t bloody move!” he cried out to no one, a profuse sweat breaking out on his brow.

  Gisburne, walking towards him, raised his right hand, then swept it downwards. Nyght immediately dropped and rolled onto his side, crushing the outlaw’s right leg beneath his flank. They probably heard his shriek in Stanford.

  For a moment, Gisburne stood over the wailing, sweating outlaw as he made futile efforts to free his leg. He was letting the thief see him – letting him take in his adversary, and wonder at what was to happen next. The man’s eyes were wide with fear. “I had my horse taken once before,” said Gisburne at last. “Didn’t like it. Nor did he. So we came to an agreement – decided we didn’t want that to happen again.” He turned his head to one side so he could look the man squarely in the face. “Shall I make him roll all the way over on his back?” He turned his finger in a little circle.

  “No!” cried the man. “Please!”

  After a moment, Gisburne turned away, leaving the man there a little longer.

  Galfrid, meanwhile, regarded the writhing figure at his own feet, clutching the shattered knee, huffing through his mouth with such ferocity that he was foaming at the mouth. Galfrid shook his head. “You’ve heard the phrase ‘thick as thieves’?” he said. “It’s you they were referring to.” And he booted the man in the ribs.

  THEY RODE AWAY, leaving the pilgrims with two good legs between them.

  “Yes, yes...” said John in response to the silence. “You were right and I was wrong.” Gisburne did not feel any reply was needed, and so said nothing. “Still...” John continued. “The man with the bow... Incompetent as he was, he may yet have hit his mark, and taken your life. Did that not give you pause?”

  “If I paused for thought every time I stood before someone who might kill me,” said Gisburne, looking straight ahead, “I’d be dead already.”

  John nodded, but the look of concern did not leave his face. “Be careful, Sir Guy,” he said. “You’re not the Red Hand. Arrows can still kill you...”

  XIV

  Clairmont Castle

  16 May, 1193

  THE DAY HAD been warm. Now, with the light beginning to fail and the temperature plunging, a heavy mist had risen from the moist, black fenland soil. For a while, the roofs of Clairmont Castle – the highest points for miles, save a few huddled trees – had stood proud of the low swirl, like some great stone ship sat low in a pale ocean. But, bit by bit, that sea had risen to completely envelope them.

  All was quiet as Hugh de Mortville strode across the courtyard, his shaggy hound Conan skittering about him. No movement but the guard on the gatehouse and the flap of a lone crow on the manor house chimney, their sounds weirdly muffled by the fog. He rubbed his hands. The cold, damp air now nipped at his fingers, but within he felt a warm glow – a glow of contentment. His belly was still full from the great Whitsun feast, his head pleasantly swimming from the wine that had accompanied it.

  There was a satisfaction in his soul, too. He never had been the most sociable sort, but for the feast – held at noon that day, as it was every year – he had opened his doors to all his tenant farmers and their families. It was a chaotic, often raucous affair – so different from the noble gatherings he was occasionally forced to attend. Those, he hated. But the Whitsun feast, a gesture of appreciation to all those who contributed to the wealth of his estate, was a truly joyous occasion. For the week of Whitsuntide that followed, villeins were excused all work. Doubtless the prospect of a holiday helped fuel his tenants’ good cheer. Some nobles chose not to observe it – or rather, chose for their villeins not to observe it. De Mortville thought such behaviour reprehensible.

  He hoped his own tenants thought him a fair man. In life, he had always striven to be. But he had other, more selfish reasons for sharing the feast, too. Those he welcomed on this day were not jaded nobility, but peasants to whom this was a genuine wonder. Their joy was honest and unrestrained. Lacking any immediate family of his own, their pleasure was also his.

  At the main gate, he shared a good-natured joke about the weather with the porter, and the heavy doors beneath the elaborately timbered gatehouse were heaved open. His hound leapt with excitement. As he passed over to the mossy stone bridge that spanned the moat, Conan scampering ahead, he felt the sudden chill from the water and the damp air, and pulled his cloak tighter around him, the stillness of his surroundings a sharp contrast with the day’s clamour.

  DESPITE ITS NAME, Clairmont was not really a castle. It had been a long time since there had been any threat worth worrying about in these parts. No one passed by the estate of Hugh de Mortville. It was on the way to nowhere, which meant only those with the purpose of visiting its lord were likely to come this way at all. The rest took little interest – if they even knew it existed. Most avoided the Fens altogether, believing them a bleak, savage place.

  And that was exactly how Hugh de Mortville liked it.

  So he had built for himself not a castle, but a moated manor house. What it lacked in defences, it made up for in comforts. True, it had a wall, and a gatehouse, and beyond that a moat – which in these damp regions needed so little encouragement to fill that it frequently flooded – but at its heart, the long three-storey stone house was not a fortress, but a home. A place not to cower and shiver, but to live – unmolested, in a manner elegant and congenial – in peace and contentment. This, de Mortville was convinced, would be the
new way.

  It had fireplaces and chimneys. It had large windows filled with glass. It even had piped water which could be heated by fire – contrived, with great difficulty, by an ingenious Welshman of de Mortville’s acquaintance. Only at one end, where a stout, square tower topped with battlements made a token stand, did it in any way resemble the castle familiar to his contemporaries. But even this, as with the other supposed defences, was built more for show than protection.

  After all, there was nothing to fear way out here. Not any more.

  IMMEDIATELY OUTSIDE THE gate, on the left side, was a small collection of sticks – half a dozen or so. These were Conan’s sticks, and here was where he left them when the game of throw and fetch with his master was done. Some showed signs of splintering about the middle from the attentions of his teeth, but otherwise had been treated like treasured objects, carefully placed for the next day’s play. De Mortville had encouraged the dog in his tidy habit. Hereabouts, trees were few, and good throwing sticks a rare commodity.

  He selected one – a good, thick stick, still a little green – and showed it to the hound. Conan leapt, then dropped half flat, front paws splayed before him, tongue lolling, his wide, expectant eyes fixed on his master.

  De Mortville smiled and feigned a throw. Conan started, but didn’t fall for it. With a laugh, de Mortville swung again and sent it spinning through the foggy air ahead of him, past the end of the bridge. Just a short throw to begin with. Conan, big though he was, was off like a rabbit, diminishing to a grey phantom as he plunged into the enveloping mist.

  De Mortville strode after him, humming a tune to himself.

  CONAN – AN IRISH Wolfhound – was the second such dog that de Mortville had owned. The first had been a fine silvery-grey bitch with an unpronounceable name that had been presented to Prince John by Irish chieftains back in 1185. It was a great honour, apparently – but John had showed little interest in the dog, and somehow de Mortville had ended up adopting her. Three years later she had died with bad bones, but not before she’d had three pups with one of Eustace Fitz Warren’s hounds. One died, one went to Fitz Warren, but the last, and smallest, upon which de Mortville had taken pity, he’d kept. He named the dog ‘Conan,’ a name he remembered from Ireland which meant ‘little wolf’ or ‘hound’ – or so he had been told.