The Chronicles of Robin Hood

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  Behind him in the darkness of the barn he heard a faint whisper and a groan, and then soft footsteps over the threshing floor; and it seemed to him that Much and the other villeins were making enough noise to rouse the half-mile-distant village itself. But there came no hush in the thick babble of voices beyond the lighted windows, and no figure appeared in the doorway. And now the four villeins were beside him, like shadows in the dusk, and Much was already running for the gate.

  There was a tiny grating sound as the heavy bar was lifted and the bolts drawn back; but Robin did not turn his head. He was moving backwards towards the now open gate, with his eyes on the flickering golden window-squares that had so recently meant home to him, and his arrow still nocked to his bowstring. Then the tall gate-timbers were on either side of them, and the next moment they were all outside, and Much, aided by one of the other villeins, was silently closing the gate and jamming it with the bar, which he had thoughtfully brought out with him for the purpose.

  A few moments later Robin spoke to his five followers crouching in the ditch beyond the wind-break. ‘Listen, lads. You all have bows hidden under your pallets. Oh yes, I know you have. Go and get them. Get any other tools or weapons you have in your huts—food—anything that might be of use to us. Be quick, and come back to me here.’ He detained one of the men as he rose in obedience. ‘Diccon, what of your wife?’

  Diccon, the only married villein, said dully: ‘She has gone to her brother up t’village, Master. I did send her away yesterday when first we got news of you being outlawed.’

  ‘Good!’ Robin said. ‘Now go after your fellows—swiftly, lad.’ As the four figures sped away into the twilight he turned to Much, who crouched beside him in the ditch. ‘Much, my friend, an hour ago you said you would come to the Greenwood with me; but think, lad—there is still time; if you go back to your hut now, no one will think to connect you with this night’s work. For myself and my four farm-lads there is no way back, but for you the road is still open, if you take it in time.’

  ‘I will take no road back,’ said Much gruffly. ‘I will go with you to the Greenwood, Master Robin, if you’ll have me for your man.’

  ‘I will have you for my man, Much—very gladly,’ Robin said, and put out his hand to grip the other’s shoulder.

  Silence fell between them. Robin was watching the low humps of the villeins’ huts in the gathering darkness, listening for any sound of discovery from the farmstead behind him. Once he and his little band had gained the shelter of the forest they would be safe, for no man-at-arms in all broad England could find Robert of Locksley in Barnesdale Forest—if he had no wish to be found. But between the villeins’ huts and the Greenwood there was a good space of open land, and he could not be content until it was crossed and the trees of the forest all about them. So he heaved a sigh of relief as a figure detached itself from the nearest hut and came running towards him through the dimmit. Another followed it, another, and another, and the desperate small band was complete again.

  Then Robin rose silently to his feet and went back by the way that he had come earlier that evening, along the wind-break and up through the hazel thicket to the sheltering darkness of the forest; and at his heels stole five shadows, less silent than he, for they were less skilled in the ways of the wilderness that was now to be their home.

  Behind them rose a sudden yell, and a thunder of blows against the timbers of the jammed gate. But the great trees were already between them and the open country, and the mazy fastnesses of the Greenwood closed about them.

  Later that evening, in a clearing several miles from Goddethorne, in the very heart of Barnesdale Forest, the six men faced each other round a fire they had built of hastily-gathered branches. They had eaten a very scanty supper, for of the small amount of food that the villeins had been able to bring from their huts something must be set aside for the next day, and they were still hungry. They had left behind them the life and the fields that they and their forefathers had known for generations; the four farm villeins were dazed by the rush of the day’s events, and in pain from the brutal flogging they had received that morning; and they sat staring dumbly into the fire which lit their weary faces with a fitful golden radiance.

  Much was taking stock of their possessions: six bows and two-and-twenty arrows (five of them clumsily made), three spare bow-strings, a reaping-hook, a leather bucket, a rusty sword, a wooden platter, two coils of hempen rope, an old brown cloak, his own and Robin’s hunting-knives, some pieces of bread, and a little coarse flour. Little enough, but it would suffice until they could come by more.

  Robin sat with his hands locked round his updrawn knees, looking from one to another of his little band with a very kindly eye.

  ‘Lads,’ said he at last, ‘Diccon, Barnaby, Gurth, Watkin—thank you for trying to defend Goddethorne for me.’

  Barnaby shook his head slowly. ‘Us did what us could, Master Robin—us and Trusty. But ’twas little enough us could do with sticks and stones ’gainst they devils. And they killed old Trusty.’ Barnaby was the cowman, and he had worked Trusty since the dog was a half-grown pup, and loved him almost as well as did Robin himself.

  ‘Aye, they killed old Trusty,’ Robin said, half under his breath; then he rose, and stood looking down at the five faces in the firelight. ‘It is the Greenwood for us now, lads. There is no place for us in the world of men any longer, and to-morrow you also will be outlaws and wolfsheads, with every man’s hand against you.’

  There was a fierce muttering from the men around the fire, and Watkin, who was older than the rest, spoke for them. ‘Us don’t care for that, Master, if you will lead us.’

  ‘Lead you?’ cried Robin. ‘Then listen to me, lads, for if I am to lead you I will not have you become like the robbers who make honest men’s lives a terror. Firstly, you shall harm no woman, nor any man in woman’s company, for the sake of Mary the Mother of Our Lord. Secondly, you shall not rob or molest any poor man or honest yeoman who works for his bread as you and I have worked; nor any poor knight errant; nor any child. But against the rich merchants and the barons and pot-bellied churchmen who trample the weak beneath their feet and scoop the poor possessions of humble folk into their greedy pouches, you may do what you will. Thus, and thus only, will I be your leader. Men of the Greenwood, do you accept my terms?’ His voice had grown louder as he spoke, and his last words rang through the midnight forest like a challenge to oppression and injustice.

  The men answered him gladly, fiercely: ‘We accept your terms, and we will have you for our leader, Robin of Barnesdale.’ They scrambled to their feet and came to him one by one; and there, kneeling beside the fire, each man set his hands between Robin’s in token of fealty and swore to be true to him and to each other, to the death if need be.

  Afterwards they lay down around the fire and, being worn out with the day’s events, for the most part were soon asleep. But for a long time Robin lay wakeful on his back, staring up at the stars which sparkled here and there through the branches, and listening to the stealthy night-sounds of the forest, thinking about Goddethorne—and Trusty—and wondering very much what the future held for himself and his little band, and making plans for their betterment, until at last he too fell asleep.

  2

  How Robin met with Little John

  SPRING HAD COME early to Barnesdale Forest. There were primroses in sheltered hollows, leaf-buds on the bare trees, hazel catkins scattering their golden pollen to the dancing winds; and on the topmost branch of a giant lime-tree which reared its head high above the other trees of the forest a blackbird was singing his heart out to the morning, shouting that winter was gone and the world turning green once more.

  On the sloping hummock of turf between two great roots of the lime-tree sat Robin, with his back propped very comfortably against the trunk. He was fixing new leather straps to a buckler, but from time to time he glanced up at the men taking their ease in the wide glade before him. It was but nine months since he and his little com
pany had taken to the Greenwood, but already their number had been increased from six to twenty by other villeins weary of their bondage or outlawed for such crimes as shooting the king’s deer because they or those they loved were in want.

  Robin had worked them hard to make them what they were; schooling them in the use of bow and quarterstaff, in sword and buckler play, and in all the hidden, nameless lessons of the forest and its ways. He had trained them well, knowing that their very lives depended on his training, and as his glance fell on first one burly figure and then another, he was well pleased with the result.

  Each had been a hunted fugitive when he came to the Greenwood, miserable, ragged, hungry; but freedom and training, as well as good roast venison, had worked a powerful change in them, and now they were a goodly company of which any leader might be proud: stalwart of body, bright of eye, with the bearing of free men about them, each clad in tunic and hose of good Lincoln green cloth which they had obtained some time before from the pack-train of a rich merchant on the Lincoln to Doncaster road.

  Robin finished his task, and, laying aside the buckler and outworn straps, he stretched until the muscles cracked behind his shoulders, and relaxed once more against the tree trunk. He was glad to be back in Barnesdale after the winter spent fifty miles to the south in the dry caves of Dunwold Scar in merry Sherwood; for much as he loved all the forest country, Barnesdale was nearest to his heart.

  Idly his glance wandered over the glade where he had made his summer headquarters. The stabling for the outlaws’ few horses had been built half underground, and showed no more than a raised turf knoll, its entrance well hidden among brambles and young trees. The rude wooden shelters and cabins which they had built to save themselves the cheerless business of sleeping in the open in wet weather, were bowered so deep among the trees at the edge of the glade that a passer-by would scarce notice that they were there at all—not that passers-by were to be expected, here in the deep heart of Barnesdale Forest, where even the king’s foresters did not come for fear of wolf or hobgoblin or the terrible phantom horse that was supposed to roam those glades.

  A little stream ran down the centre of the glade, bridged in one place by a baulk of timber for convenience, though it was so narrow that the taller of the men could easily step across it; and among the young green rushes of the bank knelt Much and Diccon, who were cooks for the day, cleaning the cooking-pots by scouring them with sand in the running water.

  In the centre of the glade burned the fire (cooking-fire by day, camp-fire when the sun had set), and the blue smoke from it rose like a great slim feather up into the spring sky above the tree-tops.

  Four of the men were sitting on their heels in a square, playing knucklebones with much laughter; another sat by himself, mending a rent in his hood. Two more were engaged in deep discussion, jabbing at each other with their forefingers to give point to their words, and several, scattered about the glade, lay outstretched in the pale spring sunshine, simply being lazy. One of these, a man somewhat older than the rest, lay close beside Robin, with his hands behind his head, gazing up into the still bare twigs of the lime tree against the blue, and whistling lazily in imitation of the blackbird.

  Presently Robin spoke to him. ‘The larder is empty, Will, and it is your turn and mine to fill it.’

  Will Stukely, or Will-the-Bowman, as he was often called, ceased his whistling and sat up. ‘Aye, Master Robin,’ he replied, and, getting to his feet, took his bow from its resting-place against the trunk of the lime tree. He moved with a certain trained stiffness that was quite unlike the loose-limbed ease of the others, for Will had been a man-at-arms in King Henry’s army in his youth.

  Robin also reached for his bowstave, and, getting up, set the butt against his foot; and bending the great stave, he slipped the bowstring into place. As though his rising had been a signal, a new alertness came over the men in the glade. The gambling party pouched their knucklebones; he who had been mending his hood rolled it into a ball and pitched it at the head of his nearest neighbour; one by one the lounging figures got to their feet. It was time to set about their daily tasks of the camp. Simon-the-Fletcher betook himself to his arrows; Ket-the-Smith to his little forest forge. There was firewood to be gathered, fodder for their few horses, and fresh fern for bedding. A little party under the orders of Much-the-Miller’s son were arming themselves before going up to the Pomfret road, there to lie in wait for any traveller whom fate might deliver into their hands.

  Robin and Will Stukely parted on the farther side of the little brook and went their separate ways—Will northward towards Pomfret, Robin south through the dense forest towards the wide glades of the Nottinghamshire border, which were generally rich in game. But to-day the deer seemed to have deserted their usual haunts, and, with all his hunter’s skill, the only game Robin saw that day were a few fallow does with their long-legged fawns beside them, and these must of course be left unmolested.

  Evening found him once again within a short distance of the Stane Ley, as the glade of the giant lime-tree was called. He was angry with himself for failing to produce meat for his men. He had been thinking of Marian, whom he had not seen since he became an outlaw, and must never see again. Altogether he was not in the best of humours as he turned a corner in the narrow path he had been following and headed down towards a stream which ran chuckling over its speckled stones at the foot of a gentle slope. It was the same stream which, higher up its course, rippled down the Stane Ley, but here it was much broader and the path was carried across it by a narrow railless bridge, scarcely more than a single great beam.

  He had reached the bridge and mounted upon it, and was already beginning to cross, when out from the thick hazel-scrub on the farther bank stepped a gigantic young man clad in the rough garments of a villein and carrying a quarterstaff, who leaped on to the bridge and came striding across it as though Robin had not been there at all.

  Robin was annoyed by the man’s truculent aspect and his want of courtesy in mounting the bridge when he himself was already upon it and had therefore the right-of-way. So he strode on, and the two met in the middle.

  Robin was a tall man, but his head came only to this young giant’s shoulder, and he had to tip his head back to look up at him, which annoyed him still further.

  ‘Where are your manners, fellow?’ he demanded haughtily. ‘Could you not see that I had already mounted the bridge before you set your great platters of feet upon it?’

  ‘Aye,’ replied the giant, with good-humoured effrontery. ‘But if it comes to manners, little man, where are yours?—The small should ever give way to the great!’

  ‘You impudent lout!’ cried Robin, who was now thoroughly angry. ‘Out of my way, or you will regret it!’

  The giant laughed tauntingly. ‘Nay now, do you get out of my way, or you will regret it!’ and he shook his quarterstaff.

  Back a few feet leaped Robin, and bending his bow, nocked an arrow to the string.

  The stranger looked at him for a few moments, consideringly, and then shook his head. ‘You’ll never let daylight into poor John Naylor, and him with only a quarterstaff for his defence? If this be Barnesdale courage, little man, I will get me back into Cumberland, where men fight fair in their quarrels!’

  Robin knew that the man’s words were just, and he lowered his bow at once. ‘There is truth in what you say,’ he said frankly, ‘so I will lay aside my bow and get a staff to match yours from the hedge yonder. Wait for me here upon the bridge, and I will show you that Barnesdale men also fight fair in their quarrels!’ And so saying he went back to the bank. Carefully he chose and cut a small ground-oak, and trimmed off its branches, while the giant upon the bridge stood leaning on his quarterstaff and watched him good-humouredly.

  A few moments later Robin rejoined him, twirling the hedge-staff in his hand to test its balance. ‘Now let us begin,’ said he, ‘and he who is first tipped into the stream shall be the loser.’

  The other grinned. ‘With all my heart. Bu
t I warn you, little master, I shall not be the first to cry “quarter”.’

  Robin laughed grimly as he brought up his staff, ‘We will soon see if your deeds are as brave as your words!’ said he.

  So they fell to upon the narrow bridge, and a strange fight they made of it, though a fierce one, for every step they took backward or forward along those rail-less timbers was fraught with danger of a ducking, and the very force of their blows at times came near to tipping them off the bridge into the swift-running water below.

  For a short while neither of them gained any advantage, for Robin was forced to admit that this great oaf was as quick as a cat when it came to quarterstaff play, while the stranger found that his opponent, though a head shorter than himself, was almost as strong, and had an even better sense of balance. But at last a blow from Robin’s staff laid open the cheek of the stranger, who laughed and cried out: ‘First blood to you, little man!’ and instantly began to press forward, striving to bring the fight to an end.

  Robin resisted fiercely and their staffs rattled together as though threshing corn—now to the left, now to the right, as cunning attack was met by cunning defence—defence which, in its turn, became attack. Backward and forward they moved on carefully planted feet, bright-eyed and grim, while the little torrent swirled beneath. Then the stranger’s staff wavered out of line, Robin pressed in through his defence, and the next instant felt a stunning crack on the head. Something warm trickled down his forehead, and for a moment he all but lost his balance.

  ‘Second blood to you, my friend!’ he cried, and shook his head to clear the blood out of his eyes. He strove furiously to come at his opponent, but could not break down his whirling guard.