At that moment, a young man came hurrying out of the inn clutching a bucket before him, its contents – apparently ale – slopping about and splattering the dusty road as he did so.
“You there!” called John. The man looked about, as if momentarily convinced John must be addressing someone else. “What is it you celebrate here today?”
He gave a broad, gap-toothed smile. “We caught ourselves a villain! Red-handed.” He said. “A scarlet one!”
Gisburne’s heart missed a beat at the words. A scarlet villain. Red-handed. Surely that would be too good to be true.
“What manner of man is he?” he said.
“See for yourselves,” said the man, indicating ahead, where the road curved away, out of sight. “’E’s in the stocks round by the crossroads, awaiting justice.” He turned as if to go, then stopped and turned back again with hatred in his eyes. “Just make sure and kick some dirt in his face or whip ’is feet as you pass.”
“Awaiting justice?” said John. “But the stocks are a punishment in themselves...”
The man laughed. “Well, we wasn’t about to let that one wander about free.” His expression grew suddenly serious, and he drew himself up. “There was those was for hangin’ him there and then. But we says no – it’s got to be done proper. So our protector, Lady Isabel de Clare, Countess of Pembroke, God bless ’er” – he crossed himself – “is sending her man to mete out justice to ’im. And that is a meat we shall all savour, and no mistake!” He chuckled at his own joke.
De Clare. Gisburne knew that name well. His father had mentioned it often in his youth. It had been in relation to Lady Isabel’s father, Richard de Clare, known to all as ‘Strongbow,’ who had been a thorn in King Henry’s side when Gisburne was a lad of no more than nine or ten. Richard de Clare, so Gisburne had since learned, was Earl of Striguil and Earl of Pembroke – though Henry had stripped him of the latter title. He had ventured to Ireland with great ambitions, and little to hold him back. There he had married Aoife, daughter of Dermot MacMurrough, the deposed King of Leinster. MacMurrough’s fee was help in restoring his crown – but before long, de Clare had set his sights on making himself king of that place. His army was formidable, bolstered by a contingent of Welsh longbowmen against whom, it seemed, nothing could stand.
Henry, whose grip on Ireland was tenuous at best, watched matters develop across the Irish Sea with increasing disquiet. There were negotiations with de Clare. For a time Gisburne’s own father must also have been caught up in it, for he spoke of it often. Finally, his patience gone, Henry had invaded Ireland – but by then, Gisburne’s father had stopped speaking of the matter altogether.
Henry’s ultimate solution had been to keep his enemy close. De Clare’s daughter Isabel became a legal ward of Henry II, who kept a close watch over her inheritance. She was one of the wealthiest heiresses in the kingdom, owning land in Wales and Ireland and numerous castles on the inlet of Milford Haven, including Pembroke Castle. She had also inherited the titles of Pembroke and Striguil.
Gisburne’s father occasionally joked that Isabel would make a fine match for his son. But that was a vain hope. Never one to allow his possessions to lay idle, Henry’s heir, Richard the Lionheart, had married off the seventeen-year-old Isabel to William Marshal within a month of his coronation, elevating the landless knight to the nobility and making him one of the richest men in England. William was twenty-six years her senior. Widely considered the epitome of the knightly virtues, the man who would become known simply as ‘the Marshal’ was also the most humourless, insufferable, self-righteous bore Gisburne had ever had the misfortune to meet. It was said he was the only man ever to unhorse the Lionheart, whilst campaigning for Henry against his rebellious son. He had spared Richard’s life, but killed his horse to prove the point. This act secured William an even greater reputation – and the respect of the man he knew would soon be King. On the whole, Gisburne would rather have seen the horse spared – better yet, that King Stephen had carried out his threat to launch the boy William from a trebuchet during the siege of Newbury Castle.
“Of what does this man stand accused?” asked John.
“’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 ordi
nary 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 reptilian 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 a
head 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.
Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand Page 16
