Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand

by Toby Venables

  There were four exceptions to this state. Each of them, Gisburne now recognised, was the mark of the Red Hand. The first was the right leg, which had suffered the attentions of fire. The burning extended little higher than the knee, but below that part had burned with a flame so fierce that the shin was eaten to blackened bone. The second was the head – or what was left of it. Its thick, rank smell filled the air. This, Gisburne supposed, must have been lifted upon a shovel or some other implement as the body itself was carried. He imagined them placing the gory, flattened mass here with a mixture of repulsion and reverence, bits of straw and of gravel still mixed with it from the courtyard, the shovel scraping on the stone as it was withdrawn. This part was no longer recognisable as human. At least, not at first. Though still attached to the body via a battered web of flesh and a few meagre sinews, taken on its own might have been anything – a trampled animal, the waste of a butcher’s shop. Then, one noticed human teeth, and – still intact, now fixed in a permanent stare – a single eyeball. Gisburne felt his gorge rise at the sight of it.

  The third was the right hand – or, rather, the lack of it – hacked off by the attacker, and, according to the Steward, never found.

  But it was the fourth thing – by far the least of them – that captured Gisburne’s attention most fully. Upon the chest – passing directly though the breastbone – was a neat hole, barely bigger than that made by a carpenter’s awl. Thick blood was caked around it, staining de Mortville’s deep blue velvet tunicella black. The puncture might have been made by a bodkin arrow or a slender misericorde, but Gisburne knew it was the result of neither.

  “That is where the scrap of cloth was nailed?” he said, extending his finger towards it.

  The Steward nodded, appearing as if he wished nothing more fervently than to be able to look away, but was unable to do so.

  “And the cloth itself?” said Gisburne. “What of that?”

  “Removed,” said the Steward. “Discarded. Before I could prevent it.” It was clear he regretted the loss, and in observing Gisburne’s methods, he was coming to regret it all the more.

  “Discarded where?”

  “I suppose...” The steward shrugged. “Tossed into the midden.”

  “Show me where that is,” said Gisburne.

  MINUTES LATER, GISBURNE was knee-deep in muck – a slimy, layered chronicle of the castle’s waste, about which thrummed a thick cloud of black flies. Beneath the surface, some of the matter was now so rotted it had turned to a kind of black soil, which smelled almost like fresh hay. But what lay above it – the addition of more recent weeks, warmed up by today’s sun – was not so sweet.

  Gisburne had tied a cloth doused in vinegar about his face and now, a look of intense concentration in his eyes, poked about the heap with one of Conan’s discarded sticks, turning over gnawed bones, rotting vegetables, mussel shells and things now unidentifiable.

  This heap was thoughtfully positioned beneath the northern tower of the eastern wall – downwind of the castle – but even upwind of it, Galfrid caught its pungent reek.

  “What is he doing?” said the steward. It was less a question, more an expression of disbelief. He knew well enough what Gisburne was seeking – but he had never seen a knight lower himself to such a task.

  “There’s nothing he likes better than wading through other people’s filth,” said Galfrid, deadpan.

  The steward stared at him for a moment, then back at the absurd sight of Gisburne, prodding and poking at rubbish with his dog-gnawed stick. Fascinating as this sight was, Galfrid’s attention had wandered to the near featureless horizon. The light was failing. Night fell quickly here. Another half hour, and they’d be in pitch darkness.

  A cry of triumph made him turn. In the next moment, Gisburne was wading back towards them, cloth pulled from his face, hand held aloft in a gesture of victory, as if he had recovered Escalibor from the waters of the enchanted lake.

  It was no sword but a triangular, bloody scrap of weathered oilcloth. He extended his hand to his squire. On it, written in charcoal, Galfrid could clearly make out the figures: xxxix. And piercing the fabric was a small spike of iron.

  Gisburne drew it out, and held it aloft in triumph. “This is what I sought...” he said.

  “A nail?” said the bemused Steward.

  “A horseshoe nail,” replied Gisburne. He looked the steward in the eye. “Thank you,” he said. Sincere as his expression was, Gisburne’s tone carried a finality whose significance the steward did not at first grasp. “You may leave us now,” added Gisburne. The steward shuffled, bowed, and edged away.

  The moment the steward was out if earshot, Gisburne turned back to his squire, his eyes burning with a new fire. “A man who wields a hammer. Who uses charcoal and fire. And this...” He held the nail up between thumb and forefinger.

  Suddenly, Galfrid understood. “A blacksmith...”

  “A blacksmith who has made himself armour. Who has the skill to fashion a helm into the head of a beast. And this oilcloth...” Gisburne held it out again. “Weathered.”

  “A tent? Cover for a wagon? A sail, maybe?”

  “Whichever way you look at it, a traveller. We know he’s been on the move these past weeks. And that his appearance, when he strikes, is startling. Terrifying. Yet he moves unseen. Day to day, his appearance is nothing out of the ordinary.” Gisburne’s words were rapid, tumbling out of him.

  “He would need the means to carry this armour. And to live and make his fire. He has help, maybe?”

  “No,” Gisburne shook his head vigorously. “He works alone.” He held up his hands. “I know, I know – I speak from pure instinct now. But I’d stake my life on it, Galfrid. This armour of his... He builds a fortress around himself. I’ve seen other such men. They are solitary, trusting no other.”

  Galfrid puffed out his cheeks. “Then he must have a horse as extraordinary as himself. How could any carry such weight?”

  “What if it is not a horse?” said Gisburne.

  “What else could it be?” said Galfrid.

  “No horse was ever seen. He was always on foot.”

  Galfrid spread his hands apart in exasperation. “But how else could he have got to John’s chambers in Nottingham so soon after the slaying in the woods? He got there ahead of Wendenal’s guard, even though they were riding full tilt. What other way is there? Wings? Sorcery?”

  “Misdirection...” said Gisburne. “Not sorcery. A trick.”

  “A trick..?”

  “What if we’re looking at this the wrong way around? What if the parchment had been there all along – if he had placed it there before the attack? These are not random actions. He plans ahead. With meticulous precision.”

  Galfrid rubbed his chin. “Then... His transport would not need to be fast at all.” He thought at once of the tracks that de Mortville’s men had found – and dismissed – that same morning. “A wagon...”

  Gisburne nodded. “A wagon capable of carrying such a man, and his armour, and his tools.”

  Galfrid stared out across the flat marshy plain, the previous day’s fog now completely burned away by the sun. He laughed to himself. “An itinerant blacksmith...”

  “Whitesmith, too, perhaps,” said Gisburne. “Not a sorceror. Not a dragon. A common tinker.”

  “A distinctive one, though, if he is indeed a giant.”

  “Hard to hide on foot, but not so much when hunched upon a wagon. He’s invisible, Galfrid. The very antithesis of his monstrous disguise. A thing so ordinary, so banal, it is completely overlooked, even when it’s in plain sight.”

  “My God,” said Galfrid. “We might have seen him on the road. At some wayside inn. We would never have known.”

  “We have to hope he was as oblivious to us,” said Gisburne. “That he still believes John to be travelling with his entourage. Nothing suggests otherwise.”

  “At least we know what we’re looking for.”

  “And if we can tackle him in that guise, while
he is divested of his metal skin, we know we can capture or kill him.”

  “But if we don’t?” asked Galfrid. “If chance doesn’t put him in our path before he comes looking for John? Before he disappears into the swell of London?”

  At that, Gisburne said nothing. His head was held low, his brow furrowed deeply. It was a moment before Galfrid realised his master’s attention was focused on the scrap of oilcloth. “These numbers must tell us something...” he muttered.

  “Or they’re the ramblings of a madman,” said Galfrid. “Fifty-four, fifty-nine, thirty-nine...”

  “No, the other way” said Gisburne, distractedly.

  “What?”

  “The order you said is the order we encountered them, not the order in which order they occurred. Thirty-nine was on Whitsunday, and fifty-four – Wendenal – upon Mayday. But Walter Bardulf was the first, five days before that.”

  “Fine,” said Galfrid. “Fifty-nine, fifty-four, thirty-nine... But what does that tell us? We know who – after a fashion, at least. But when are we going to know why?” He threw up his hands again. But when he looked at Gisburne again, his master’s expression had suddenly changed. He was staring into the middle distance, his furrowed brow flattening as his eyes grew wider.

  “Galfrid,” he said. “When is Whitsunday?”

  Galfrid looked back at him, perplexed. “Are you mad? It was yesterday. I know your grasp of time is poor, but even you can’t have forgotten that day...”

  “But how do we decide when it is?”

  Galfrid shrugged, baffled by the line of questioning. “It’s fifty days after Easter.”

  “And Lent? How long is that?”

  “Forty days, from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday. But...”

  “And Christmastide?”

  “Twelve days.”

  “Exactly.” Gisburne’s eyes blazed. “We count the days,” he said. “Do you see? He’s counting...” It was as if, in Galfrid’s mind, pieces that had previously been obscure were suddenly shifted into their proper relationship. Thirty-nine had occurred fifteen days after fifty-four, and fifty-four five days after fifty-nine. They were days. Numbers of days. And they were going backwards. Counting down. But to what?

  Gisburne’s face, momentarily one of triumph, suddenly fell. “What day is this?”

  “Monday. The day after Whitsunday.”

  “No, the date...”

  “The seventeenth day of May.”

  Gisburne stood motionless, his hands frozen mid gesture. “By Christ...” his face paled. The fingers of his right hand tightened into a fist about the nail. “It can’t be.”

  Galfrid’s mind was racing – calculating. “What? Can’t be what...?”

  Gisburne turned and looked past him, all sense of triumph gone. “We must gather John tomorrow and get him to London with all possible speed. No more delays. No more pretence. And I must speak with Llewellyn.”

  “Counting to what?” said Galfrid.

  But Gisburne, lost in thought, would say no more.

  XVIII

  The Great North Road

  18 May, 1193

  THEY STOPPED ONLY once more before London. Three miles from the Templar town of Baldac Mare’s shoe had finally given out, and after an hour seeking out the one blacksmith still working during the Whitsun holiday, they had finally fallen into an inn for the night – despite Gisburne’s reservations about the place. He did not relish the company of Templars.

  For the past few days Gisburne had been possessed by a growing sense of dread. It was not just the attack at Clairmont – although that had snapped him out of any possible complacency. Even before this, he now realised, he had felt things closing in around them. Now he knew their luck, such as it was, was running out – that it had been running out from the moment they had set foot upon the road, like the sands in Llewellyn’s cherished hourglass.

  Before Baldac, a peculiar event had occurred that had impressed this fact upon him.

  They had been approaching a village in the southernmost reaches of Huntingdonshire when Gisburne had left the company and diverted briefly from the road – once again without explanation to the Prince or his squire. This time, however, Galfrid had spied the intricate mark – painted in white on a tree – as he did so.

  “So, who is it?” Galfrid had said upon Gisburne’s return.

  “Who’s what?”

  “Who is it leaving the messages?”

  Gisburne sighed. His squire was no fool. “Llewellyn,” he said, with a sigh.

  Galfrid nodded, his eyes still fixed ahead. The Prince chuckled with delight. “So, Llewellyn leaves a message, marks the way to the spot with his astrological symbols. You pick it up, and thus are aware if there has been any incident with the wagon train up ahead. Correct?”

  “Exactly that,” said Gisburne.

  “Ingenious!” John laughed again. “And has there been any? Incident, I mean?”

  “None,” said Gisburne. “But after Clairmont...” He did not complete the sentence. Gisburne had not told John everything about Clairmont. Most, but not all. Not about the numbers, nor the date to which he believed they led. He would tell him, but not now. Not while they were still on the road – still vulnerable. His instinct was to keep things contained, and controlled.

  It was plain that the Red Hand was moving south. Heading for London, Gisburne was certain. If so, for reasons best known to himself, he had stayed his hand – against John, at least. Or the one he thought to be John. The outrage at Clairmont had just been a reminder – something to tease and spur them on their way. Gisburne did not doubt that by now the train, too, would have heard the news and picked up their pace. He thought again of John’s unfortunate decoy, cowering in his carriage, and hoped the man – whoever he may be – was well paid.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?” said Galfrid, gloomily.

  “You didn’t need to know,” said Gisburne.

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Of course I do,” said Gisburne. “I didn’t wish to burden you with it.” In truth, Galfrid’s question stung him – but he wasn’t sure if he was feeling slighted, or just plain guilty. He could hear the sullenness in his own voice, and that irritated him, too. “Well, you know now, anyway.”

  Galfrid sighed and nodded.

  It had seemed John might take up the cudgel then – but a sound, coming and going on the wind from the village ahead, prevented him. A moment later, all thoughts of argument were forced from their heads.

  THE WHOLE VILLAGE – which Gisburne later learned was named Evretoun – seemed in a state of celebration. The sound of their joyous singing – men, women and children all together – rose and fell on the air long before its source came into sight. When it did, Gisburne saw a great throng of people gathered upon the village green – the whole community, it seemed – their throats filled with song as they prepared for some kind of revelry. At the centre of the green the maypole stood, still adorned with wilted spring flowers – but a little distance from it, something new was being constructed. And it was this that was the focus of the activity. Some women gathered bundles of sticks, which they ferried towards it. Others sat in a circle about a pot and prepared food. The menfolk, meanwhile, were busying themselves at the site of the new structure, chopping, sawing and hammering, children and dogs capering about as they did. And all sang at the top of their lungs, each saw stroke, hammerblow or swing of an axe in time with their jaunty song.

  “Can you believe this?” said Gisburne.

  “Not entirely,” said Galfrid.

  “Such joy!” said John surveying the sunny idyll, his eyes glittering with delight. “Now, this is what England is all about...” As the tune went round for the third time, they found themselves finally able to make out the words:

  Robin’s in the green-a

  Fa la-la la-la laa!

  His bow is ever keen-a

  Fa la-la la-la laa!

  His merry men are seen-a

  Fa la-la la-la laa!r />
  Dancing in the green-a

  Fa la-la la-la laa!

  Gisburne felt his limbs tense involuntarily. Nyght skipped in response. John looked to him, holding up a reassuring hand. “It’s just a song,” he said. “Nothing more. Just a song...”

  Gisburne knew it was true. In all likelihood they would just as happily be singing about gathering blooms in May, or a shepherd and his sheep. Doubtless many knew little or nothing about the man they called Robin Hood. Yet Gisburne could not remain as sanguine as the Prince. The plain fact remained, this was the song they had chosen to express their contentment today – the song that brought them together, and made young and old feel as one. Yes, just a song; but it was never just a song. Behind it lay something far deeper, and more troubling.

  THEY CONTINUED TO ride slowly by, a handful of the villagers looking up and cheering or waving as they did so. John could not resist waving back, his smile beaming, his head rocking in time with their music. As they rode on, Gisburne suddenly noted a single point of discord amidst all the merriment. Beneath a tree, sat apart from the rest, three women were sewing, their expressions an odd mix of shock and grief, as if they had recently suffered some great mortification. One had a bruise upon her cheek, and swollen left eye. Over them stood a man with his arms folded and an expression like thunder.

  Gisburne felt Nyght quicken slightly. Ahead and opposite the green was an inn, and outside it a broad trough of water. All took the opportunity to dismount and stretch their muscles as their horses drank.

  “What do you suppose this is all about, anyway?” mused John, gazing across at the structure – which thus far consisted of little more that a rough-hewn post some twenty yards beyond the maypole. “A wedding, perhaps, or...”