The Hooded Men

by David Pilling

  If Richard dies...

  He had no choice but to get stuck in. If Richard was killed, and word reached his kinsmen that Hugh had done nothing to prevent it, his life would not be worth a halfpenny.

  He made his way back down the stair to the kitchen, now empty and silent. The murdered pantler still lay on the flagstones; a grossly swollen corpse, eyes staring at the ceiling, blood oozing from the vivid slash in his flabby white throat.

  Anger kindled inside Hugh. The pantler had been a bully and a fool, a holy terror to his servants, but didn’t deserve this. His killers might have knocked him senseless. Instead they chose to murder an unarmed man out of sheer spite.

  All of Hugh’s hatred came flooding back to him. The invaders were cowards, murderers and traitors. Alan Kirkby was right. There was only one way to deal with such vermin.

  “God for King Edward!”

  The cry rose unbidden to Hugh’s mouth as he dashed outside. He looked around eagerly for a target. The nearest hooded man had just stabbed an elderly servant in the belly. His victim wept for mercy, gnarled hands clasped over the great hole in his stomach. His guts glistened pink and wet in the pale light of the moon.

  Hugh covered the distance in two strides and rammed his sword into the hooded man’s kidneys. The latter gasped in shock and pain, threw his head back, mouth open, eyes full of terror. Hugh released his sword, stuck in flesh, gripped the man’s head with both hands and gave a savage twist.

  The crack of a broken neck filled him with fierce joy. He let the limp body fall, tugged his sword free. A feeble hand snatched at his ankle.

  “Please...” the old man begged. “The pain...I would not die slow...”

  Hugh didn’t hesitate. He raised his bloody sword in both hands, carefully picked his spot, and thrust it into the servant’s heart. The man gasped, shuddered, lay still.

  There was no time to reflect. A gigantic figure loomed over Hugh and blotted out the stars. Lost in shadow, he peered up at the hooded monster, full seven feet tall, who stood silent and motionless before him.

  “I know you. I have waited for you these past four years. I knew you would come back.”

  The voice was deep and slow. Hugh’s mind flashed back across the years to a midnight street in York. He remembered his duel against a giant in black, swords flashing as they fenced in and out of a circle of moonlight.

  Hugh took a step back. The fire in him died a little. He would only survive this by keeping a cool head. Despite his size, he remembered the giant as being devilish quick, and his height and reach gave him a massive advantage in a fight. Not to mention his strength. Those big hands, with knuckles the size of farthings, were powerful enough to crush a man’s skull.

  “You should have stayed in my past,” said Hugh. The giant chuckled, deep in his throat, and attacked.

  His broadsword flashed like a serpent’s tongue at Hugh’s face. He brought his own sword up in time, just, and caught the thrust on his crossguard. The sheer power of it sent bolts of agony up and down his wrist.

  Wincing at the pain, Hugh gave ground. He had to keep his opponent at blade’s length, defend for all he was worth, tire him out. Assuming the giant could be easily tired. He was ridiculously light on his feet, like a bear trained to dance, and graceful with it.

  Hugh could scarcely retreat quickly enough. The giant’s sword flashed down at him from every angle. Dazzled by the blur of steel, he could only bring his blade up, down and across with all his strength. This, as his old Aragonese instructor once told him, was the rotten swordsman’s last resort.

  Sancho’s soft, lisping voice echoed inside Hugh’s memory. “This is called the Cross of Acre,” he said as they fenced back and forth across the gymnasium at Winchester. “A desperately crude tactic, only to be used as a last resort. If you find yourself outmatched, fighting for your life against a better swordsman who means to have your blood.”

  The Aragonese gave one of his gentle smiles as the wooden blades clashed. “He won’t be able to get past it. Nobody can. But he won’t need to. Unless you are supremely fit, you will collapse of exhaustion after a few minutes.”

  As always in matters of swordplay, Sancho was right. Hugh was reasonably fit, but he had never been an athlete. After three or four excruciating minutes he started to sweat. His wrist ached from deflecting an endless storm of hammer blows. The giant, meanwhile, showed no signs of tiring. He came at Hugh with furious speed and skill, forcing him ever backwards. Hugh tried to sidestep, to break into open ground, but his opponent was alive to that trick.

  “Back against the wall, little rat,” he growled. He was trying to box Hugh in, deny him space and push him back against the castle wall.

  Once I have nowhere left to run, he can chop me up at his leisure.

  Around them the battle raged. Hugh took little notice of it, the mass of struggling figures, clashing swords, screams and moans and curses. He was too fixated on his own survival. Predictably, there was no sign of Richard. How many times had Hugh come to his rescue over the past few months? Dragged him out of one tavern brawl after another, guarded his back against any number of enraged debtors, gamblers and cuckolded husbands? Now, the one time Hugh was in need of saving, the selfish little bastard was nowhere to be seen.

  His strength was failing. His wrist was on fire. He took another step backwards, and his back touched cold stone. He was trapped.

  The giant unleashed another quicksilver thrust at his head. Hugh parried it, two-handed. Warm sweat dripped into his eyes. He shook it away, leaped aside as the sword lashed at his ribs.

  Hugh cried out in pain. He had landed awkwardly on his ankle, and now it threatened to give way under him. The giant laughed, a grim and mirthless noise. He stood over Hugh, towering like Death incarnate, sword held aloft. He would bring it down and carve Hugh clean in two.

  The giant staggered. For a second he rocked on his feet, like a mighty tree hit by a sudden blast of wind. A man in a plain brown smock – Hugh vaguely recognised him as one of the castle grooms – had smacked him on the back of the head with an axe handle.

  One massive hand shot out and seized the groom by the neck. He was lifted clean off his feet, legs kicking, eyes popping, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come. With a snarl, the giant hurled him aside like a rag doll.

  Hugh took his chance. His only chance. He ignored the pain in his ankle and dived at the other man, aiming to stab upwards into his crotch.

  Once again the enormous figure moved with incredible agility. He sensed danger and dodged aside. Hugh screamed inside his head.

  God damn it all to hell!

  At least he drew blood. The big man was quick, but not that quick. He hissed in pain as Hugh’s blade cut across his thigh, slicing through black cloth and the flesh beneath.

  Overbalanced, Hugh fell on all fours. An enormous black foot stamped down on the blade of his sword. Iron fingers closed on the back of his neck and lifted him into the air.

  He was dangled before the giant’s face. Under the hood he wore a mask over his nose and mouth. His eyes were like two dark pools under heavy brows. Fires burnt in their depths.

  Hugh fought for breath. He was held several inches off the ground, one-handed, in a grip like a steel vice. If the giant applied the slightest pressure, he would crush Hugh’s windpipe.

  “Go on, then,” he rasped. “Get it over with. Just make it quick.”

  The dark eyes glinted. Hugh shut his eyes, waiting for the deathblow. Compelled by such monstrous strength, the giant’s blade would most likely carve his skull in two.

  The iron pommel of the sword cracked against the back of his head. Stars wheeled before him, red and yellow and purple. He plunged into the pit.

  9.

  On a high, wind-blown ridge in the Yorkshire dales stood Hode Castle of Hode Hill. The castle was small, nothing like the mighty strongholds of great earls and lords, but impregnable on its high rock. A square tower stood at one end, the gatehouse opposite, the whole guarded by a wall of lim
estone and a double ditch.

  Hode had stood guard over the Vale of York for over two hundred years. A lonely sentinel, it was first thrown up by the Norman conquerors of England to defend the north against invading Scots. For centuries it was a rough place of earth and timber, a garrison outpost with few comforts. Generations of men at arms had stood on the wooden palisade and peered north, shivering in their mail as rain and snow pelted across the frozen tops.

  Sir John d’Eyvill, the current lord of Hode, stood on those same battlements and looked south. Thanks to him, the old timber fort had largely disappeared, the wooden palisade torn down and replaced by walls of thick masonry. He wanted Hode to be impregnable. No enemy, however strong, would be able to take the hilltop fortress by storm.

  The roof of the great tower offered a dizzying view. Below him stretched the wide fertile plains and marching hills of North Yorkshire, Kilburn and Thirsk. All was silent, save the ghostly winds whipping across the heights and the occasional bleat of a distant sheep, carried on the breeze.

  This was, in his view, the most glorious sight in creation. Nobody who knew John would have him down as a sentimental soul. He was a harsh and brutal man, a firebrand who relished war and fire and bloodshed. Yet he was also intensely jealous of his lands. This earth, this soil spread out before him, was all in his keeping. His most precious duty in life was to guard it, with the sword if necessary, and pass it on to his heirs.

  Mine, he thought. All mine. Up here, it is possible to believe I am a god.

  He grinned crookedly. The priests would have him excommunicated for such blasphemy. Not that they could get inside his head. Nor did John fear their bells, books and candles. He had been excommunicated before, in his youth, and came out of it with a whole skin. No lightning bolts were thrown at him from Heaven, no demons appeared to drag him down to the bowels of Hell. John was left strangely disappointed.

  His eye fixed upon three riders galloping over the rough road winding through the southern dales. To begin with they were three tiny dots under a rapidly moving cloud of white dust. John rested his heavy arms on the parapet and watched the dots grow larger.

  They were headed straight for Hode Hill. He frowned and considered turning out the guard.

  For three men? John smiled at his own nervousness. I grow wary in my old age.

  He was glad to see the riders slow to a canter; his life as an active soldier had made him appreciate the value of horseflesh. If any man of his company rode a horse into the ground without due cause, John had him flogged.

  Then he recognised the lead rider. John had known that tall, spare figure, upright as a lance in the saddle, all his life. Robert, his younger brother, had come home.

  What the devil for?

  Now the horsemen had gained the spur of Hood Hill. They rode at an easy pace up the steep escarpment below the gatehouse. John left his vantage point on the great tower and made his way across the narrow inner ward to the gates.

  “My brother is here,” he said gruffly to his steward. “Let him in.”

  The steward vanished inside one of the towers flanking the gate. John waited, impatiently tapping his foot. Moments later the chains inside the gatehouse started to clank and rattle, and the drawbridge slowly descended.

  Robert and his companions dismounted before passing under the gateway. John looked critically at his brother. They had not seen each other for over a year, but Robert seemed in good health. Blooming, in fact. He was lithe as ever, striding on long legs, his face tanned and healthy. His thin, hook-nosed face showed the blood of their Norman ancestors, lively and expressive rather than handsome.

  “Brother John!” Robert cried. He strode over to John, arms flung wide, and caught his brother in a fierce embrace. John returned it without quite the same warmth. He was the shorter and burlier of the two, and had never liked the fact his brother was a clear head taller than him.

  John quickly disengaged and stood back to hold Robert at arm’s length. “Robin,” he said, using the other’s pet name. “You look well. Very well. The forest life must agree with you.”

  Robert’s sallow face creased in a grin. “Certainly, at least in the summer months. There’s nothing like sleeping out in the greenwood under starry skies. Winter is sheer hell, of course – do you remember the winter we spent in Sherwood in ‘65?”

  “I’m unlikely to forget it,” John answered drily. “Unless my memory plays tricks, I believe it rained solid for three months. Every day and every night, while we sat and froze our backsides off in that damned cave. Living off the king’s deer, curse them. To this day I can’t stand the taste of venison.”

  His brother laughed. There was something hollow and forced about the sound. John’s suspicions were roused. Robert had something bad to tell him.

  “Come and eat,” he said. “My grooms will try and save your horses. God’s death, they look ready to drop! You never did know when to spare the whip.”

  He glanced at Robert’s companions, who gave him a respectful nod. John knew these men of old. They always put him in mind of a bear and a whippet. The hulking giant was named Jon Littiljohn. Fully seven feet tall and bald as an egg, much of his face was lost under a bristling black beard.

  The other, Will Scathelock, was a much smaller man with a shock of bright red hair, his yellow slice of a face permanently twisted into a leer. It wasn’t his fault: one side of his mouth was disfigured by a knife-slash, the legacy of some ancient brawl. He had his name, Scathelock – or lock-smasher – from his skill at breaking and entering.

  These two were Robert’s boon companions. They had served him most of their adult lives, followed him everywhere, obeyed his orders without question. John appreciated the value of such men, even if there was something freakish and unsettling about them.

  “Go to the kitchens,” John said distantly. “Tell cook you are free to eat and drink your fill, on my orders. Tonight you can bed down in the hall.”

  The red-haired man touched a greasy forelock. “Our thanks, lord. You are always generous.”

  He and his hulking comrade wandered off to the kitchen. John noticed that Littiljohn walked with a slight limp. “They will stuff and swill themselves sick,” Robert said cheerfully. “Good lads, though. Loyal to the death. I’ve lost count of the times they saved my skin.”

  John led him into the hall, a long half-timbered building with a tiled roof, sheltered under the limestone wall. Here, over a meal of salt beef and rye bread washed down with brown ale, Robert explained the reason for his visit.

  “Walter Devyas is dead,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “He was taken in Sherwood and cast into the dungeon at Nottingham. The constable didn’t hang him, though. Earl Ferrers sent his men to get inside the castle at night and cut Walter’s throat before he could spill any secrets.”

  John was impressed. He and Ferrers had been allies in the recent wars, and the earl had recently contacted John with an offer to renew their old partnership. As yet John had sent no definite reply. Age and defeat had made him cautious. Before committing himself, he wanted to see how Ferrers’s revolt panned out.

  “Nottingham is a tough place to break into,” he said. “Perhaps the strongest castle north of Trent. How did they manage it?”

  “The caves,” replied his brother. “In exchange for a few shillings, one of the kitchen drabs agreed to open the secret gate at night.”

  “Not a very well-kept secret, if a maid knew about it,” remarked John. Robert shrugged and crammed some more roast beef into his mouth. He had always been a voracious eater, and never seemed to gain any weight. John reckoned his brother had hollow legs.

  “So the men of Ferrers cut their way into Nottingham castle,” John went on. “Cut their way past the garrison, cut Walter’s throat and then cut their way out again?”

  “More or less,” said Robert after he had gulped down his meat. “It was a bloody and difficult operation, of course. I was told over half of them died in the attempt.”

  He jerked his
thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “My man Littiljohn was part of the expedition. Ferrers sent a message to our camp in Sherwood, asking for volunteers. Littiljohn was the only one to put his hand up. It sounded like madness.”

  Robert wryly shook his head. “Do you know, Littiljon thinks he cannot be killed in a fight. He really believes that. No human hand will lay me low, he once told me. Some old hag prophesied over his cradle.”

  John shifted impatiently. Robert sensed his brother’s mood and ploughed on.

  “So, they fought their way into the dungeon, killed the gaoler and took his keys, broke into Walter’s cell. Poor man, he thought they had come to save him.”

  “Don’t waste your sympathy,” John snorted. “Walter Devyas was an oaf. Ferrers should have killed him years ago. A rabid dog must be put down. He wouldn’t have held up under interrogation either.”

  “Oh, I agree,” said his brother. “You may be interested to know that Roger Godberd led the raid on Nottingham. He killed Walter with his own hand.”

  John raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. “Indeed? He and Walter were old comrades. No honour among thieves.”

  He brushed crumbs from his moustache and fell quiet for a moment. The wheels of his mind turned over. Earl Ferrers had shown himself to be more ruthless than he thought. Ferrers had always been wild and unpredictable, with little wisdom.

  This was different. The earl had sent a band of picked men, in the knowledge that many of them would die, to murder one of his most faithful servants. All to stop the man flapping his mouth to the king’s interrogators. An impressively cold-blooded act, and it had worked.