“It’s all right, madam,” Galfrid had said. “We’re all right. Just cuts and bruises and trampled English pride.”
Then she had looked from her gentlemen tenants to the fine but dishevelled lady who now stood in the hall – her hall – and back once again to Gisburne and Galfrid. When neither spoke, Mélisande herself took the initiative.
“I am Mélisande de Champagne,” she said. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“Lady Mélisande is the daughter of the Count of Boulogne,” added Galfrid. At this, Widow Fleet gave an intake of breath, then flushed, passed the candle from hand to hand, then bowed, then ran out of things to do entirely.
“I must apologise for disturbing you at this late hour,” said Mélisande. “Some trouble upon the streets, as you can plainly see.”
“Oh, my lady, it has been terrible these past days!” The Widow looked upon Gisburne and Galfrid with infinite admiration. “And these good gentlemen came to your aid?”
“Something like that,” said Mélisande with a wry smile. “But all is well. And we must to our beds. Ready for the morrow.” She caught Gisburne’s eye, her smile fading.
“It is late to venture again into these troubled streets,” said a troubled Widow Fleet. “One of these gentlemen must see you safely back, or...”
“Or I could just stay here,” said Mélisande sweetly, her hands spread apart. She turned to Gisburne. “If you’ll have me.”
Widow Fleet, who had never seen or heard the like in all her born days, stood like a shrunken effigy of a woman, impossibly torn between scandalised outrage and overwhelming pride at having such a person under her roof. She finally gave in entirely to the latter, and broke into embarrassed laughter like a madwoman.
“Well, it’s decided, then,” said Mélisande, smiling warmly, and grasped her hand. “You are most kind.”
Widow Fleet blushed scarlet. Then as they turned toward the cramped stair, their long shadows cast before them, she bowed again, and laughed, and put her hand over her face, then, still tittering like a hysteric, scuttled away back to her bed.
“I DIDN’T THINK to see you again so soon,” said Gisburne. He stroked his fingers down her cheek, along the length of her slender neck and across her naked shoulder, sweeping aside the cascade of red-gold hair as he did so.
Mélisande shifted in the bed, propped her head upon her right hand, and made a show of scowling at him.“You know, those are the first actual words you have spoken since we got here?”
“Sorry about that,” said Gisburne. “But I am glad to see you.”
Mélisande’s scowl turned once again to a smile. “I could tell.”
He reached his hand behind her head, and kissed her upon her lips. She tasted of roses and spiced wine.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
She looked around at the crazed inscriptions covering every inch of wall. “I could tell that too.” She turned her gaze back to him. “Not just because of the drawings.” And suddenly, she was not smiling – her expression instead turned to something deeper, strangely sad – something that made Gisburne wish to clasp her to him as tight as he knew how.
All at once, a loud snort made them start. It was Galfrid, in the neighbouring room, snoring. Gisburne and Mélisande simultaneously broke into stifled, adolescent giggles. The moment they had reached the top of the stairs, Galfrid had yawned very deliberately and immediately made himself scarce – an act, for which Gisburne would be eternally grateful.
“Well, at least we didn’t keep the poor fellow awake,” she said.
His hand traced a line across her breast, and down further still to where her waist dipped. The skin across her ribs was still discoloured from her injury. It looked grey in the moonlight. He stroked his fingers across it. “Does it hurt?”
“Only when I breathe deeply,” she said. “Or fast. Or when I exert myself.”
“Ah,” said Gisburne. “Sorry again.”
She touched his cheek. “Stop apologising. I said it hurt; I didn’t say I minded. But what about you? Are you hurting?”
“Just a few cuts and bruises,” he said. “An average night.”
“I didn’t mean that,” she said.
He stared at her for a moment, uncertain just what she did mean. There were many types of pain. But which was she referring to now?
“That shoulder of yours,” she said, poking the left side of his collarbone. Then she stroked it gently. “Your souvenir from Hattin. How is it?”
“It comes and goes. With the weather. With the phases of the moon. The tides. Who knows?” He have a half-shrug. “I have been training with the bow again. It has helped.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Gisburne the bowman. Is there no end to your talents?”
Gisburne gave a weak smile. There was an end, a limit. He just hoped, this time, he had not reached it.
She turned, and lay on her front, one leg kicked in the air, her hair strewn across her pale back. “That man,” she said, “Ranulph Le Fort. What did he say to you?”
Gisburne had changed after talking with Ranulph. Both Mélisande and Galfrid had seen it, he knew, but neither – until now – had asked. And now that someone had, he found it was too big, and struck to deep, for him to explain.
“A long story,” he said.
Mélisande lifted herself up onto her knees, studying the wall by the bed. “Is it to do with this?” Pinned immediately above where they lay was the parchment relating the altercation between Ranulph and the Irish lord.
“Yes,” said Gisburne. “How did you guess?”
She shrugged, and tossed her hair. “It wasn’t a guess. Ranulph’s name is upon it. And John’s. And it relates to Ireland.”
“But when did you read it?”
Mélisande smiled. “Don’t worry your head about that...” And she ruffled his hair. Then she leaned in, squinting at the parchment in the gloom, and placed a finger upon it. “But what is this name? La...?”
“Liadan,” said Gisburne. His voice was flat, without emotion. “The Red Hand’s mother.”
“My God. You found his name? Who he is?”
“Yes,” said Gisburne. “Finally.”
“This must help your task,” said Mélisande.
Gisburne said nothing. He turned on his back and gazed for some time at the dark beams above. “Ranulph leaves tomorrow on a ship bound for Calais,” he said at length. “It belongs to one Thomas of Baylesford, and sits at the wharf at Byllynsgate. Baylesford is dead, but he laid plans in advance – for himself and Ranulph to escape the Red Hand. I have arranged for you to take Baylesford’s place.”
“But I...”
“It is arranged,” insisted Gisburne.
Mélisande leaned over him, resting upon his chest, and moved a strand of hair from his forehead with her finger. “You are trying to keep me safe...” For once, she seemed to accept her lot. “So it is to be like before. A single night together before one of us departs on a ship... But what of you?”
“Tomorrow we prepare. The Red Hand will come. He will find a way into the Tower, no matter what anyone does. And then he will try to take his revenge. It’s there we will make our stand.”
“Revenge for what?”
“For his family,” said Gisburne.
Mélisande’s expression saddened as she gazed off into the distance. “It is terrible when one is condemned to be so full of hatred.”
Gisburne sat up, and with one hand on her cheek, kissed her on the forehead. “Goodbye, Mélisande,” he said.
She frowned at him as he drew back. “Goodbye?” The remaining warmth drained from her face. He glimpsed something in her he had rarely seen. She was frightened. But not for herself – never for herself.
Gisburne smiled a reassuring smile. “I’m saying it to you now because I know when I awake in the morning you will be gone.”
“It’s a long time until dawn,” she said. “Surely you can do better than just ‘goodbye’?”
He put his lips to hers, wrapped a
n arm about her waist and pulled her towards him.
LI
HE WAS NOT sure how long he had dozed, but the moment he opened his eyes all trace if drowsiness fled. It was still dark, the moon shining through the half open shutter. Mélisande was still there, her arms entwined about him, her soft breaths against his cheek.
With infinite care he extricated himself from her sleeping embrace and stood.
THE NIGHT WAS supernaturally still. It seemed impossible to believe that this was a city in turmoil, in a kingdom on the edge of chaos. For a moment he paused, listening to the soft sounds of Mélisande as she slept. He gazed back at her willowy, naked form, her tousled hair spread across the white linen of the sheet – her beauty rendered ethereal by the moonlight. He did not know when he would see her again.
Scrabbling in his bag at the foot of the bed, he drew out an irregularly shaped scale of metal, then threw his nightshirt over his head and pulled on his boots.
Creeping across the creaking boards, he took the longbow and quiver from the corner of Galfrid’s chamber, and, as he headed back to the stairs, grabbed the plump leg of ham that had sat upon the table awaiting their return that evening, and which had, until now, been entirely ignored.
GISBURNE DREW A bodkin point arrow from the quiver at his back, and took aim. At the far end of the yard, the ham hung from the crudely repaired post, and upon it – its dark surface glinting in the pale light – the plate of armour that the Red Hand had lost.
He drew. Loosed the arrow. It glanced off the metal, sailing high across the yards. He nocked another, heaved on the great bow and released. With a sharp crack the shaft shattered, splinters flying in the night air. He took a step forward, and shot again. Again, it went spinning, and did not bite. Another step forward. Another arrow loosed. Time and again he shot and advanced, shot and advanced, each sent towards its mark with increasing fury. Arrows bounced off, sent in all directions, until finally he stopped less than three yards from his target. His last arrow, and that alone, was embedded in it.
He pulled the arrow from the joint of meat. The metal scale came with it. Nearly half the bodkin point arrows were now lost or destroyed. But the last of them had penetrated the battered, deformed plate by almost an inch.
V
JUDGEMENT
LII
The Forest of Sherwood
February, 1193
HEREWARD STAMPED HIS numb, crudely swaddled feet upon the frozen earth and looked about him at the assembled company. Two hundred – maybe more. An army. That was how Hood had encouraged his followers to think of themselves. But today, in the weak winter light of this bleak and frosted glade, they seemed an army of the damned.
Shivering, grey-faced as ghosts, wrapped in rags and dwarfed into insignificance by the towering, creaking black shapes of age-old trees, they were an army not merely in retreat, but on the verge of collapse – beaten not in battle, but by the merciless daily grind of their bleak, meagre existence. As he took in the lifeless eyes and foggy breaths, Hereward shuddered. It wasn’t just the cold. He felt himself in the company of wraiths. He had known things were bad, but this supposed rally had hammered home the scale of that creeping disaster. They stood, now, empty of purpose. Leaderless, directionless. Lost.
Today may yet change all that. Today, if the monk Took had his way, they might leave this spot with new fire in their bellies. An army once more. It was not too late – the fire had not entirely gone out.
But Hereward did not want to think about that.
Took was the one point of fierce energy in the small, circular clearing. Clad plainly in his monk’s habit, with a conical helm upon his head and a sword strapped about him, he strode tirelessly back and forth, one hand upon the sword’s pommel. Every few paces he would stop and – thrusting out his chin, his black beard grown full these past few weeks – throw a challenging glance towards the men. And, as if by sorcery, every man upon whom this gaze fell tensed, as if awoken from a frozen slumber, and stood more upright – their defiance and boldness, perhaps, a little greater. It was a rare gift Took had. A different kind of inspiration from that which Hood had provided, to be sure, but Took remained a real danger, nonetheless.
Only three times before had he seen the whole band gathered together in this place – and the last of these had dealt them a shattering blow. That had been the occasion John Lyttel had informed them of the loss of their beloved leader. Today, however, was different. This was no mere gathering to pass on a piece of news or decide upon some matter of internal politics. It was something that had never been attempted before. A meeting; an alliance, perhaps. None knew for sure. All they did know was that it was a parley with others from outside of their close-knit and jealously-guarded group – that it meant admitting strangers to the secret realm they had carved out for themselves in these ancient woods. It was an act that, likely as not, Hood himself would never have contemplated.
Even Hereward did not know for sure who their guest was. Took had kept that information close. But there had been rumours. They had filled the assembled company with trepidation. So feared was the man’s name that few even dared utter it. But if the rumours proved true, and they survived the encounter, Hereward would have the greatest prize his master could wish for. Then he could return to his old life – his real life – and be Hereward no longer.
It was, now, the only name to which he answered. That part – growing accustomed to a new name – had been easy. Stopping himself from turning his head whenever he heard the old one, the real one... That had proved far harder. Fear of discovery and death had ultimately provided motivation. But now he vaguely wondered how long it would take to fully divest himself of his new name.
It had been carefully chosen. It was commonplace, so would not draw attention; it was Saxon, and so aligned him with the oppressed classes. It was also the name of the rebel who had resisted the Norman yoke after the Conqueror’s invasion. Little wonder the story’s currency had grown of late. It was an insider – a monk – who had finally brought about that troublesome rebel’s defeat, revealing a safe path through the Fens to the pursuing Norman army. That was the part the new Hereward – Hereward of Sherwood – liked the most. It was the part from which he drew strength – the part which he judged Sherwood’s outlaws to have forgotten, and its lesson with it. Well, they would remember it soon enough.
It was painfully clear, today, that numbers were severely depleted. And anyone could see in the gaunt, half-starved faces that their mettle was dwindling, too. Merry men. That’s what folk called them: Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Now there was no Hood, and as for them being merry... Hereward fought to suppress a laugh. Spirits crushed, bodies withered and weak. Fingertips turning blue – or, in some cases, black. The dead of plague and famine looked merrier.
They had been no less cold and hungry when Hood had been here, of course. But somehow, then, that had looked like tenacity. Like the driving hunger of the lean wolf in winter. A hunger for action, for change. Now, they merely looked defeated – no longer predator, but prey. Hereward almost felt sorry for them. Almost. But even if they did recover – even if they found their fighting spirit again – they would all hang by St John’s Day. He would see to that.
Many had cut loose around Yuletide. Those who joined the previous summer had been first to go. It was easy to be a noble outlaw when the sun shone; with warm feet and a full belly, one could follow any cause, no matter how slight. Come winter, the natural hardships of the forest had begun to take their toll. Then came the hammerblow of Hood’s capture, and the baffling silence that followed. It was this, finally, that had crushed their resolve. At first, the capture had sparked outrage. For a day or two, it had even looked like this outlaw rabble – accustomed, until now, to the measured guerrilla tactics of the forest – might turn into a rebel force, and march on Nottingham. There had been many who roared terrifying oaths to that effect. Small as their numbers were, Hereward feared the smouldering flame could yet spread. If it did, many hundreds of
others – the disaffected, the hungry, the wronged – would flock to their banner, and set this land afire.
But no word came. Not of execution. Not of burial in a grave, unmarked or otherwise. Nor of burning on a pyre. It was as if Hood had simply disappeared.
The big man, John Lyttel, had tried his best to rally them as the new year dawned. All liked and trusted him – even Hereward. But, respected though he was, John Lyttel was no leader. Hereward had seen it before, at other times, in other battles. Contrary to what many believed, the common fighting man did not want thoughtfulness and consideration from his general. He wanted strength – and something more. Something decisive – even cruel. That, he would follow – far easier than he would follow a good man. On the battlefield, empathy was an unwelcome companion. And that was John Lyttel’s deficiency. He offered milk, when what they craved was blood.
Things had shifted with the rise of the monk Took. He had ideas. He was a man of reading, versed in philosophy, yet not afraid to act. He was good with a sword – that fact had won him respect within the first week of his arrival. But whilst John Lyttel for the most part lay dormant – awaiting either imminent threat, or orders – Took had a fire behind him. He had that same, grim determination common to so many of Hood’s die-hard followers, but advantage in life had also given him ambition, and the means to further it.
His swift ascendance had been a surprise to Hereward – something for which he had not been prepared. The spur that Took promised was not something Hereward welcomed. It threatened to give them new hope, new purpose; make them dangerous again. It was everything Hereward was sworn to resist. And yet, in spite of himself, he had felt a curious thrill at the possibility of the outlaws’ renewed energy. It was, perhaps, a mood to which even he was not immune after so long amongst them.
Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand Page 40
