by Maureen Ash
Suddenly one of the bowmen from the riverbank appeared silently through the trees and made his way to the sheriff’s horse. “My lord, the Templar is preparing to take the brigand across the water. He has lashed the outlaw’s wrist to his saddlebow and is riding his horse down into the water.”
“Hell’s teeth,” Camville swore under his breath. “Once he is on the other side, we cannot reach him quickly. I told him to make them bring the boy to him.”
“They would not, lord. I heard them refuse.” The archer looked up, a slightly puzzled frown on his face. “Lord, I think the Templar must have a plan.”
“Why do you think so, man? For the sake of Christ, spit it out.” Camville’s face had flushed a dangerous red.
The archer remained unperturbed at the harsh words, used as he was to the sheriff’s temper. “Because he only made a pretense of tying the outlaw’s wrist,” he replied. “I could see clearly. He wrapped it, made as if tying a knot, but did not do so. Fulcher can slide himself free at any time.”
“The bastard,” Camville swore. “If he loses me my captive and does not recover the boy, I’ll hang him instead, Templar or no.”
“Easy, father,” Richard counselled. “De Marins is not a foolish man, nor a cowardly one. We must see what it is he means to do, then assist when it is needed.”
“Aye,” the sheriff agreed, somewhat reluctantly. “We will wait, but not too long, and from a nearer perch than this.” He urged the powerful stallion he rode nearer into the trees along the riverbank, and signalled Ernulf and the band of men-at-arms behind him to follow as quietly as they could. When the sheriff called a halt, they were near enough to the river for a quick charge to bring them through the trees and to the waterside in moments.
The other archer who had been watching at the river’s edge came sliding back through the trees. “My lord sheriff, the Templar is well out into the river now. Almost halfway across.”
“Then let us pray to God that my brother is there to help him when he reaches the other side, for our horses would need to sprout wings to come to his aid.”
The water was cold and writhed like a snake. Fulcher felt the shock of it, like red-hot iron on the welts and bruises on his body, as he slipped into the water at the Templar’s side. He had felt the shudder that Bascot’s mount had given and the need for its rider to urge the horse forward with a dig of spurs. On the other bank, the trio holding Gianni watched intently, the boy seeming to shrink as he reached his hands down between his knees and crouched, waiting. Other shapes were appearing in the trees behind them, along with the outlines of bows, held nocked and at the ready. Above, the sky was darkening, seeming to lour in elemental disapproval. The rain continued to fall.
“How much farther?” Bascot asked Fulcher.
“Not yet. We must go just a few more paces.” The outlaw had to pull himself up out of the water to make himself heard by the Templar. Once he had spoken, he dropped back down, easing his shoulders.
They were in the middle of the river now. The water was surging up around the chest of Bascot’s horse, streaming alongside in waves, soaking Bascot to the thighs and cresting in Fulcher’s face like the flap of a curtain. The brigand could feel the slip of the rope at his wrist, the Templar’s boot and stirrup digging into his side, and the rough uneven bed of the river as his feet touched it lightly and bounced away, letting himself be carried forward by the horse’s strength, not his own.
Bascot’s horse suddenly stumbled, its hooves hitting the hard ridge of gravel that ran down the river just a little off the middle of its course. The grey lifted one foreleg, then the offside hind, as it prepared to scramble up the obstacle it could only feel, not see. At that moment, Fulcher pulled on the rope around his wrist, sliding it free, and said the one word, “Now.” Almost immediately he dove under the animal’s belly, coming out on the other side. Bascot felt him grab at his stirrup, the hand snake up his boot and grasp the dagger, then Fulcher pushed away, sliding into the current and cutting through the water with powerful strokes. Bascot let out a shout, wheeled his horse in the water and drew his sword. The outlaws on the bank ran forward, shouting at each other and pointing to where Fulcher’s dark head could be seen just above the surface of the water as he cleaved a path away from them.
Arrows erupted suddenly into the air as the bowmen in the forest shot their missiles, not at Bascot, but at their supposed comrade. Bascot knew then that Fulcher had told him the truth. Frantically, he twisted his head, looking for Gianni. The boy was still there beside Edward but even as Bascot spied him, the lad, with a quick movement, bit the arm of his captor so that the reeve’s nephew let out a yell and released him. Then Gianni shrugged, gathered his legs under him and ran, straight for the river. Bascot spurred his horse forward, towards the boy. The grey slipped at first, confused, then pushed with all its strength as his hind legs gained the top of the gravel ridge. Bascot guided him along it as Gianni, running like a deer, reached the bank and jumped as far as he could, legs flailing wildly to give him more distance. He landed with a splash in the water only a few yards from Bascot and, with one bound, the grey leaped forward and the Templar scooped the boy up from the roiling river, dragging him across the front of his saddle.
On the western bank all was confusion. The outlaw archers turned to aim their arrows at Bascot, and the Templar swung Gianni up behind him and pushed his shield over his shoulder so that the boy could huddle underneath its protection. He could feel the lad’s hands clutching at the back of his surcoat, holding on like a leech. Then a shout of warning sounded from the woods behind the archers and from the screen of trees, William Camville burst, his two squires and Roget close behind, swords in hand. The terrified bowmen scattered towards the water but, from the eastern bank of the Trent, the sheriff now appeared, his mount at full gallop and a deadly mace swinging from his hand. The castle men-at-arms were fanned out on either side of him, short swords at the ready.
The battle was of brief duration. Apart from their bows, most of the outlaws had little in the way of weaponry-a few cudgels, some rusty knives, the crude blades of scythes. Some half dozen of the outlaw band were killed outright and almost twice that number captured. Only one of the sheriff’s force sustained an injury; a man-at-arms had his wrist bone broken as one of the outlaws, more desperate than the rest, tried to wrest the soldier from his horse. The outlaw had died from a sword slash delivered by Richard Camville, the blow almost cleaving the man’s torso from the lower part of his body.
The sheriff was well pleased with the outcome of the foray, although he showed some disappointment at the loss of Fulcher. “Still, de Marins, I agreed to exchange him for your servant and that is what we have done. These other miscreants will pay the price for his escape. And I will ensure that they pay dearly, not only for his loss but for that of my deer.”
It was full dark by the time they reached the gates of Lincoln castle, with the captured outlaws, bound at the hands and to each other, stumbling between the men-at-arms guarding them on either side. Gerard and William Camville, along with Richard and the two squires, rode at the head of the procession, the sheriff for once in a jocular mood, while Roget and Ernulf passed a wineskin back and forth and exchanged jokes with the men of the garrison. More somber were the foresters, Tostig and Eadric. Bascot wondered if this was because they had not been able to capture Green Jack or whether it was because Fulcher, a poacher on the territory in their care, had escaped.
But the Templar gave the foresters, the outlaw leader and Fulcher no more than a passing thought. At his back Gianni was fast asleep, wrapped in one of the soldier’s cloaks and with the cap that Ernulf had given him-rescued from the head of one of the captured outlaws-fastened securely on his head. To feel the boy’s chest rise and fall in the soft rhythm of sleep and to know that he was safe, that was enough.
Twenty-five
Fulcher struggled against the river’s tow after he pulled away from the Templar’s horse. Staying underwater, and close to the bank, h
e had surfaced only briefly to snatch a mouthful of air when it became necessary. The arrows loosed by the outlaws fell thick around him at first, pushing through the water near his head, shoulders and legs, finally losing their impetus as the current swept them away. When he judged it safe he let himself drift into a stand of osiers and, under their screen, came to a halt and cautiously put his head above the water and looked back. In the distance he could hear the sounds of fighting, like a buzzing of hornets, above the roar of the river but no one, neither soldier nor outlaw, came in pursuit of him.
Easing back into the river he swam, with the powerful strokes that seemed more natural to him than walking. He would put a good distance between himself and the warring factions downstream before coming out from under the protective blanket of the river. As he cleaved through the water, the sting of the contusions on his body eased, the deep ache of his bruises started to abate and he began to feel the life of the river around him; otters at play as they fed, trout darting between his legs, a heron prompted into hasty flight, startled by his sudden appearance. Clumps of reeds swept by on the periphery of his vision, then a willow with branches low from the heavy rain alongside clumpy fronds of sedge grass. How he had loved the river when he had, as a child, accompanied his father and uncle as they had gone out, in the early part of the evenings, to set snares for the eels that provided their livelihood. He had loved it all, even weaving osiers to make traps or, in winter, fashioning nets from hemp that his mother had made from nettles gathered in the summer and then pulped and spun, just like wool. He had proved himself even better than his kinfolk at discovering the secret places where the snake-like fish loved to gather, especially in winter when, with only instinct to guide him, he would creep quietly into the mud and unerringly find their nests.
His family had been poor, but he had never lacked a full belly-most often eel stew thickened with barley-or wished for a home within the protective walls of a nearby village. Their shack on the water’s edge was always damp, but it had been clean and they had been free of a lord’s demands, for his father’s family had long before been granted their plot of ground on the riverbank and held their status as free men. He had been happy then and had expected to continue so. And perhaps he would have, except for his sister, a young girl who, although barely nubile, was possessed of a shape that belonged to a girl of far older years but had retained the mind of a child.
His mother had tried to keep her daughter by her side, but often the girl would wander off to pick the wild flowers that grew in the grass alongside the riverbank or to sit in a shallow pool, unaware of the wetness of her clothing, as she laughed with glee at the little fish come to nibble her toes. She had been doing just that on the day a lone man-at-arms from the garrison at nearby York castle had ridden past the spot where she was sitting. Fulcher knew she would have felt no fear of the man as he approached her, for she had never been treated with other than kindness by her kin or the villagers. No inkling of the dangerous lust her ripe breasts and shapely bare legs could incite in the stranger would have occurred to her.
Fulcher had been on his own with her that day, his mother gone to trade eels for flour from the miller on the far side of the village. So engrossed had he been in making himself a new belt fashioned from dried eel skins that he had not paid enough attention to his sister, and had not noticed when she strayed from the spot where he had left her playing with shiny stones collected from the riverbed.
It had been her screams that had alerted him to her absence and he had leaped up, fear pounding in his throat as he dropped the belt and ran towards the noise. The pool where she was wont to sit was not far from their hut, in the shade of a stand of elder and oak, and it was from that direction that her howls of terror were coming. As he ran, Fulcher could hear the harsh threatening tones of a man’s voice mingled with his sister’s, then suddenly her shrieks had stilled, and when he came to the place where she had been sitting he saw her body sprawled half in, half out of the water, her head with its long fair tresses lolling on a tuft of grass, and her legs splayed wide apart. The water beneath her buttocks was tinged pink and he could see her maiden blood smeared on her thighs. Beside her stood the soldier, still pulling up his hose, looking down at her with disgust on his face. The man spun around when he heard the sound of Fulcher’s approach, his hand going to the dagger at his belt, but he was not fast enough to stop the boy’s wild rush.
Fulcher never knew afterwards where he found the strength to kill the man-at-arms. He had been only fifteen, albeit tall and with shoulders well muscled from constant swimming. But the soldier had been a man in his prime, hardened from practice with sword and lance, and should not have needed to expend much effort to defend himself against a lad with little experience of fighting apart from friendly brawls with village boys his own age. It must have been that Fulcher’s headlong charge at the soldier had taken him by surprise, for the man-at-arms fell backwards into the shallow water and had no time to recover before Fulcher fell on top of him and was smashing at his face with a large stone picked up from the bottom of the pool. On and on Fulcher had pounded, aiming below the protection of the leather cap the man wore strapped to his head, crushing nose and cheekbone until the face was no more than a bloody pulp and the water around the two struggling figures streamed with gore.
Whether one of the blows killed him, or if the soldier drowned in his own blood, Fulcher did not know, but suddenly he had become aware that the man was dead. Only then had he turned to see to his sister. She still lay as she had when he had first come upon them, sprawled as though in careless sleep, but with eyes wide open and sightless. Gently Fulcher had picked her up and cradled her in his arms, but the unnatural tilt of her head to one side told him that her neck was broken. He had carried her back to his family’s one-room shanty and had sat, cradling her in his arms, until his mother returned.
After that, events passed in a blur. His mother had gone to fetch his father and her brother from where they had been setting out traps for that night’s catch. Haltingly, through his tears, Fulcher told them what had happened. His mother had hastily packed a small sack with some hard bread, a few onions and some eels pickled in their own brine in a little mud-and-clay jar. She had added a small stopped pottle of ale before his father and uncle had hurried him from the shack to where a small coracle, one of the two boats they owned, was fastened to a stake in the riverbank.
“You must run, son, and hide. Once the soldier’s body is found there’ll be a hue and cry for him who did it. For all the whoreson’s evil act was deserving of death, his lord will still hang you for killing one of his men. Go far and go fast. And may God protect you.”
Fulcher had never forgotten the last look he had of his family. His father, tears creasing the deep folds of his face as he spoke; his uncle pressing the knife he had always prized into his nephew’s hand before clasping him with rough tenderness about the shoulders; his mother, face white with strain, wrapping him in her arms and murmuring a prayer as she kissed his cheek. Still dazed with shock, he had done as they instructed and lowered himself into the little boat. Only once had he looked back as he worked the paddle that skittered the tiny craft over the water. The remnants of his family had stood as though in a tableau like those painted on the walls of the village church, frozen stark against the sun-washed blue of the sky and the green trees of the forest at their back. It was the last time he was to see them, or they him.
Although that had been many years ago, Fulcher had always kept them in his mind’s eye and in his heart, through the days that followed when he had been fearful of capture and during the months afterwards as he had foraged for food and shelter. He had kept clear of towns, working when he could for cottars glad to exchange a bowl of food for a helping hand, stealing when there was no employment to be had. Even through one terrible snowbound winter when he had been forced to poach the king’s deer to stay alive, he had never forgotten his family.
Many years had passed before he had finally come t
o Sherwood and had crossed the path of Green Jack. In all that time he had never slain another man. He had promised the Templar that he would kill Jack if he had the chance. Would he? The sounds of fighting behind him after he had swum away from the Templar’s horse did not bode well for Jack’s band of outlaws, or for their leader if he had been captured. The sheriff was not a man known for his clemency. It could be that Camville had taken Fulcher’s revenge for him, or perhaps the Templar had, especially if his young servant had been harmed.
Fulcher knew that his best course would be to continue his flight southward, follow the Trent’s course and put as much territory between himself and Lincoln as he could, past Nottingham perhaps, south to a part of England he had never been before. He had only to lay up somewhere and get himself dry, beg or steal some clothing that was warmer than the rags he had on, and then keep going. But if he did, he knew that the memory of Green Jack would follow him, haunt him; that if he did not find out whether his old adversary had escaped or been captured and hanged, he would never rest. Whatever patch of the greenwood in whatever part of England he stepped into, he would be looking for Jack behind every tree trunk, in every dark copse in the midst of winter. No, he had to go back, back to the camp and see if he could find out what had happened. If he came upon a victorious Jack with the Templar in his clutches, Fulcher would challenge him, and in doing so, probably die. But if Jack’s plan had not worked, if he had been taken, then he could safely leave the fate of the treacherous outlaw leader to the sheriff. Either way, Fulcher would be satisfied that their old score was settled.
