XXX
THE STREAM TURNED northward, and they followed it. As they picked their way through the trees, keeping the plash and purl of the water at their right hand, the forest began to change. The ground became uneven and rocky, the air strangely still and heavy, with the musty scent of fungus. The oaks were huge and ancient here—like something out of an old legend, de Rosseley said—great roots bulging and entwining beneath their feet, and everything about them furred with green moss, as though all were part of one giant, slumbering creature.
They walked using bowstaves for staffs—all except Aldric, whose crossbow was slung across his back. Here, under the canopy, the six-foot lengths of yew caught on every branch and bramble.
Still, they served the purpose well enough. The spike on the foot of Gisburne’s bow, which bit satisfyingly into tree roots, sank disconcertingly into mud, which was a small irritation. Mélisande’s bow, by contrast, had been without a spike or ferrule of any kind, so Aldric had improvised by tying a stuffed leather pouch about the nock. “A boot for the bow,” he called it. It didn’t sink into any but the softest mud, leaving Mélisande, who had begun with a disadvantage, ending up better off than any of them. Gisburne admired the ingenuity; they would have need of that.
For a long time, nobody spoke, their footfalls cracking and rustling in steady rhythm. After perhaps an hour, the ground began to broaden and flatten, and they were again able to walk side by side. Their spirits lifted. There was even an little dappled sunshine sneaking between the branches. One could almost imagine they were out for a spring stroll, or on a morning hunt.
“So,” said de Rosseley. “Tell us more of Hood. I know all about what he is now, but not how he got there. What of his history?”
“Now that is a tangled tale...” said Galfrid.
“One hardly worth telling,” said Gisburne.
Mélisande snorted. “Gisburne once claimed he had lost all interest in Hood.” She gave him a sideways look. “And yet, here we all are...”
Gisburne smiled a little uncomfortably. “That never was entirely true,” he said. “For all I might have wished it were. After Hood’s escape from the Tower—after the Red Hand—I was obsessed with him. We were, by then, making plans for Inis na Gloichenn, but in truth my mind was only half on that task.”
“I remember it,” said Galfrid, casting a glance at Tancred, who walked in silence on the far side of the group.
“Even then, I was reminded daily how we came by the information, that it was by Hood’s pleasure we were able to act at all. But, strange though it may now seem, it was not the idea of finding him that possessed me, or not exactly. Rather it was finding out who he was. What he was. Where he had come from. I had known him for years—fought by him, shared food and drink and lodgings with him—and yet, I came to realise, he remained an enigma.”
De Rosseley sighed. “A pity your enigma will not be solved before we finish him.”
“But it was,” said Gisburne.
Galfrid missed a step; Aldric almost walked into him.
“It was?” Galfrid moved up closer. “You said that knowledge was lost.”
“Hood had gone to great lengths to obscure it, but everything leaves a mark somewhere. I just had to learn to stop looking for the tracks, and start looking for the hiding of them.”
“Well? Come on, man—who is he?” said de Rosseley
Gisburne shrugged. “No one.”
“That’s it? That’s your answer?” de Rosseley looked far from satisfied.
“He’s not a god, not a devil—though both have been claimed, from time to time. Just a man. Born to a woman, like everyone else. Like I said, hardly worth telling.”
“Born to a woman?” repeated Mélisande. “My God. You found his mother...”
Gisburne nodded. “I did.”
“Well, come on, man, tell us,” said de Rosseley. “We’ve little else to entertain us.”
And so, as they trudged on through the forest, Gisburne related the story.
“It was ten years ago when I arrived in Sicily to fight for William the Good, in his war against the Byzantines. That was where I met Robert of Locksley, as he was then known, in an inn marked out by a blue boar. I took him as I found him; a charismatic if reckless character, a fearless fighter, and a matchless bowman. Only years later did I learn that, before Sicily, he had gone by the name Dickon.
“Dickon Bend-the-Bow was a master archer—some say the greatest who ever lived. He had emerged from the Forest of Dean one day and joined with a troupe of entertainers bound for London. Within a month, people from near and far were clamouring to witness his tricks—before he disappeared without trace.
“I went to the Forest of Dean. I spoke to some who claimed to have known him. They described a quiet, reclusive man, who lived alone in the forest. He’d had no great archery skills back then, they said. When asked how he had suddenly acquired them, they claimed he had made a deal with the Devil by a crossroads.”
“A reasonable assertion...” said de Rosseley.
“He had also, rather less reasonably, grown by six inches. What became of the real Dickon—the quiet, reclusive Dickon—is anyone’s guess. I dare say his bones lie somewhere in that forest. He was a man who had a use, and who would not be missed, much like the poor soul from whom Hood stole the name Robert of Locksley. But then, quite by chance, I happened upon stories of another great archer, further north, who had been accused of poaching deer and made a daring escape. He exactly fitted the description of Dickon Bend-the-Bow, and Locksley, and Hood. I followed the stories north, forgetting names—he used so many—and trying to look beyond them, to something else. There are many things Hood is good at hiding, but his talent is not one of them.
“By degrees, they led me to an account of a young adopted boy, of prodigious talent and unpredictable temperament, who had left his father dead in Skipton and fled into Bowland forest. I talked with the mother—the widow Godberd. I could see that the one she spoke of was Hood, as clearly as if he were before me. She, too, could tell that I knew him without it being said. But in her eyes was no desire to see him: no yearning, no sadness. Only fear.”
“Skipton?” said Galfrid. “But that’s...”
“...less than a dozen miles from my home, yes.” He laughed at his own words, as if hearing them aloud made them absurd all over again. “We could have met, played together as children. All this searching, all these travels—from here to the Holy Land—and it leads me right back to my own doorstep.” He sighed and shook his head. “From there, it was but one more step. The child that Godberd took in had come from the priory at Kyrklees, the bastard child of a young nun. A nun who is there still.”
“And the father?” said de Rosseley.
Gisburne shrugged. “Only she knows the answer to that. De Gaillon always said that to know your enemy was to have power over them. That’s what the Red Hand taught me—to turn the skills of the hunt to the discovery of the truth. Following the signs to their source. But as I was asking those questions, working my way back, putting the mosaic together piece by piece, I discovered that Hood was doing the same. Our paths almost crossed a number of times. I met with several people who said they had spoken to another on the same matter. Sometimes he went in disguise, but I knew it was him. Doubtless there were times when he heard stories about me. And finally he, too, found the truth about Kyrklees. About himself.”
“You went there?” asked Mélisande. “Met her?
“I lingered outside the gate. For near half an hour, I pondered what I would say, what I would ask.”
“And then…?”
“I turned and rode away.” He shrugged. “What was the use? What purpose would it serve? All this time, I had thought if I could only find out who he really was, where he really came from, then I would know something of true value. But it meant nothing. I understood him no better than I ever had.”
Another great sigh left him. “From that moment, I decided I was done with him.”
“Until the Lionheart turned up...” said de Rosseley.
“But what of Hood?” said Mélisande.
Gisburne shook his head. “It would seem that, having discovered the truth, he too went no further. I think perhaps he was protecting them. The priory can cover up a bastard child, hide the odd indiscretion, but not that.”
“Protecting?” said Galfrid. “That doesn’t sound like the Hood I know.”
“There are other things,” said Gisburne. “The priory has received regular, generous gifts from an anonymous donor.”
“Not unusual for a religious house,” said de Rosseley.
“But the manner of their delivery is. Silver and gold deposited upon the ground outside the gate. Left in a heap, like household rubbish. The nuns of the priory take the gifts and utter prayers of thanks, and doubtless know better than to question them too closely, but here’s the thing... Empty though their bellies are, the local people know better than to touch the gifts. To do so means death.
“None would even speak of it that I found—none except one, who I eventually persuaded with a promise of bread and meat. He told of another poor soul—starved half out of his mind, by all accounts—who filched a single silver cup from the pile. It was stolen anyway, why not have it? He disappeared that same night. Not a trace; not until two days later, when his flayed corpse was found nailed to a tree, his eyes pierced by Hood’s green-fletched arrows.
“Anyway... What all this told me was that Hood had taken an interest, sought the answer to the great mystery—which had been a mystery even to him. He had begun to do something he had never done before: to question who he was, his place in the world. And I have come to understand, in recent weeks, that this makes him a hundred times more dangerous.”
All walked in silence for a while, until they became aware of a sound ahead: the roaring of water. Gisburne’s heart sank at it, and what it might mean.
The trees thinned, confirming his worst fears. Ahead was a wall of sheer rock, from the top of which tumbled the source of their stream.
“Is that on your map?” said Galfrid.
Gisburne strode from one side to the other in agitation, his eyes scanning the rock face. “There must be a way. Aldric? Can we scale this?”
Aldric pulled a pair of lenses from his bag and squinted up at the cliff edge. It was not high, but it was high enough—as impenetrable as a castle rampart. “Well, we have a grapple and rope, but nothing that could get it up there.” He sighed. “Even if we did, the rock is crumbling. We couldn’t trust it.”
De Rosseley threw down his bow in frustration. “Dammit!”
“Look for steps cut into the rock,” said Gisburne. “Caves, fissures, anything. This is the path. It has to be.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” said Galfrid, irritably. “We know the village is on a stream, but it doesn’t mean that the path follows it.”
“Then there’s a way around,” insisted Gisburne. “We have to find it.”
“You do that,” said Galfrid, gloomily. “I’m going for a piss.”