It was, Erasmus thought, usually at this point that the master villain, having told the hero all his plans, left him in an easily escapable situation whilst he went off to polish his nails. Unfortunately, the Sheriff had never seen any of the outings of James Bond and seemed unaware of the rules of the game. Not only had he failed to give Erasmus any indication of how he intended to dispose of Marian, he’d left him in the same inescapable dungeon in which he’d found himself several days before.
This time, however, there was no hope of rescue, since none of Marian’s band were imprisoned with him and because, as far as they were concerned, he was now gone from their lives for ever. It was, Erasmus reflected gloomily, something that could easily become true if he couldn’t find a way out.
He looked around the dungeon; the only other prisoner seemed to be the man who talked to the wall. It seemed he must have recently had a tiff with his stony-faced friend, because he was sitting with his back to it and his arms crossed in a purposeful fashion. Erasmus looked up at the ceiling: the trapdoor was roughly placed over the centre of the room so, even if he could have scaled the walls, there was no way he could then reach the trapdoor and escape. The walls themselves were largely formed from the natural rock of the crag on which the castle stood. Here and there, mortared stones filled holes that would originally have led to the warren of caves and tunnels which honeycombed the town. There was nothing obvious that could be used to chisel away at the mortar, either. The only solid items in the dungeon were himself and the madman and Erasmus imagined that, insane as he was, his companion was unlikely to allow the teacher to use him as a tool to gouge at the wall. Erasmus stared at his own feet, noticing in passing how dirty his boots had become, and contemplated his situation.
It had come as a shock when he’d discovered that Robin Hood was corrupt. Deviations from the traditional legend aside, there had been nothing to suggest that the greatest outlaw of them all was working hand in gauntlet with his arch-enemy. That Deloial was corrupt in some way he had suspected, but then he’d never liked the man. You could never trust the quiet ones – a lesson Erasmus had learnt from numerous physics classes through the years. It did explain Marian’s attitude to Robin, though: if she’d come to Sherwood to join with the outlaw then found he was actually working for the Sheriff, then it was bound to shatter her illusions to some extent. It spoke volumes for her character that she had taken up the gauntlet herself, rather than retreating into a life of cynicism or denial.
The most upsetting thing was that the Sheriff was right: history showed, or had shown – it wasn’t going the same way at the moment – that Robin’s impact on mediaeval England was minimal. It had taken a plague that wiped out a large part of the population of England and a rebellion that grew out of it to break the King’s monopoly on power and to mark the beginning of the end of serfdom. Even after that point, it had simply drawn the battle lines for an even bigger rebellion several centuries later. If the historical impact of Robin was so small, then perhaps a change to history didn’t matter.
Erasmus shook his head – no, Robin might not have made a difference in himself, but without his legend there would have been no Peasants’ Revolt in the fourteenth century, no civil war in the seventeenth and no suffrage movement in the nineteenth and twentieth. People needed heroes – they needed something to cling to and aspire to. The question was, how could he fix the problem? He couldn’t go back to where he’d broken history and make sure that things went the right way second time (or rather third time) around: simply turning up had thrown Gisburne’s horse, so there was no telling what turning up twice in the same place could do. Could he go back home and stop himself from making the journey? No, probably not: if he hadn’t made the journey, then he couldn’t possibly come back and warn himself not to make it. Erasmus wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if you hit a paradox in time, but he didn’t want to be the person to find out.
It was clear that what he had to do was to try to mend history so that it more or less ran along the right lines. That way, legend would only remember the good times and the influence of Robin would remain for future generations. Which brought him back to escaping from the dungeon: clearly any plan to save history by making Robin back into a hero would be seriously jeopardised by the death of the only man who could make it happen. He looked around the dungeon again – there was still nothing obvious he could do. The madman seemed to have moved: Erasmus couldn’t see him at the moment. He studied the shadows but, curiously, the man seemed to have vanished into thin air. Moving across the room to the place he had seen him last, Erasmus found vast amounts of straw, neatly piled against the wall. He prodded at it, expecting to find the madman hiding underneath, but there was nothing but straw.
Cautiously, he moved some of the material to one side and there beneath it was a pile of stones, carefully arranged to take up the minimum amount of space. To the left of them, to Erasmus’ amazement, was an irregular hole, just big enough for a man to crawl through into the tunnel beyond.
Despite his youth, Erasmus was in some ways a child of the old school. Brought up on a diet of classic children’s fiction, he had memories filled with stories where small groups of children found themselves in secret passages and mysterious labyrinths which, oddly enough, no adult ever seemed aware of. The shame of it was that, like many a child of his reading habits, his first visit to a stately home had been slightly disappointing. There were, he found, no mysterious foggy moors, no heavy wooden panels which, when pressed, revealed an ancient brick tunnel leading to a secret quay, and the simple act of removing a book didn’t cause an ornate bookcase to swing around on some well-oiled, totally invisible, mechanism and transport him into a hidden room. There were underground passages, of course – some castles were built with a siege mentality and had links between defensive areas – but, more often than not, the only notable passageways were means for food to make its way from the kitchen to the dining room without, shudder at the thought, one of the guests having to catch sight of a servant. Erasmus was, therefore, thrilled about the secret passage in a way that made him feel he ought to be wearing short trousers and carrying an old torch.
The excitement of the discovery first began to lose its shine after a hundred yards or so. The lack of short trousers wasn’t a particular handicap, but the lack of light definitely was. The tunnel being carved by the passage of ancient streams through the rock itself, there seemed no practical reason why it should be straight or, in fact, even tall enough for a man to crawl through comfortably. The only reason Erasmus persisted, despite frequently knocking his head on the tunnel roof, was that the tunnel had to be passable for the madman to have disappeared down it. There was always the possibility he’d taken a different branch of the passage, which frequently forked or joined with other routes through the rock, but Erasmus tried to put this somewhat depressing thought from his mind.
As he bumped his head on the ceiling for the umpteenth time and suppressed the urge to swear, he consoled himself with the fact he was making some distance between himself and the dungeon, and that he should be prepared to live with a few bumps and bruises if it meant avoiding a worse injury later on.
After half an hour or so of crawling along on his belly, Erasmus was grateful to find the tunnel began to increase in height and, a few minutes later, it widened into some kind of natural chamber. Erasmus took advantage of the space to stretch and to flex tired muscles and rub his various aches. He was still engulfed in near-total darkness and he had to grope ahead of himself to find where the tunnel left his cavern.
He wondered how far he had come: he’d been making fairly steady progress and it had been downhill all the way, but he had absolutely no idea how high the castle rock was, or where the caves came out. He wondered briefly whether he was likely to emerge outside of the town entirely, but this seemed an unlikely possibility since, if he could get out of the town through the tunnel, then someone else could quite easily get in. In his own time, some of the caves were open to the public, but he knew these were just a fraction of the total number and, besides, he hadn’t been round them for years and had never really paid much attention to the layout.
After a short rest, Erasmus decided he should press on. There was no telling if his escape would have been discovered by now and, although a well-built soldier would have considerable difficulty in following him down the passage, it was quite possible they’d know where the other end was. Every moment he wasted increased the chance of an ambush where he eventually came out. Reluctantly, he bent down and prepared to crawl onwards, but he was startled to find something crawling through in the other direction. The creature jumped at his touch and Erasmus pulled back rapidly and pressed himself against the opposite wall.
‘Who are you?’ said Erasmus, hoping the creature was at least human. He didn’t want to think about what else could be lurking in these tunnels.
‘Mumble, mumble, wall, mumble, mumble,’ came a reedy man’s voice in reply and Erasmus realised this was the madman from the dungeon, presumably returning to his prison.
‘Why are you going back?’
‘Mumble, mumble, home, mumble, mumble.’
‘You think that pit is your home?’ Erasmus was astounded.
‘Mumble, mumble, wall, mumble, mumble, friend.’
Erasmus couldn’t make this out at all, but it was obvious the man had been incarcerated for so long he had been driven beyond the point of insanity. Clearly, he didn’t know he had ever had another life. A thought occurred to the teacher and he squinted through the darkness, trying to make eye contact with the madman.
‘Do you come down here often?’ he said.
‘Mumble, mumble, food, mumble, mumble.’
‘Someone feeds you?’ There was a mumble with an affirmative sounding tone, so Erasmus took this as a yes. ‘Who?’ he asked.
The reply was utterly unintelligible and Erasmus decided not to pursue the matter – after all, even if the man could name the mysterious provider of food, the name was unlikely to mean anything to him. Presumably, when the man had first made his way down the tunnel, someone at the other end had taken pity on him. Perhaps they too had failed to understand his lack of desire to escape, or they didn’t know he had come from the dungeon.
A nagging thought occurred to Erasmus. ‘Have the soldiers ever realised you’ve been out?’ he said. The man grunted, a sound which Erasmus took to mean he didn’t understand. ‘Soldiers,’ said Erasmus. ‘Men with swords.’
Although it was dark, Erasmus could sense the man begin to tremble at the mention of swords. Perhaps he had been badly mistreated on his arrival and the emotional scars had led to his decline. Seeing he wasn’t going to be able to get any useful information from the man, Erasmus reached out for him and patted him on the shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring way.
‘I’m going to go now,’ he said. ‘You can come too if you want. I’ll protect you from those nasty soldiers with their nasty swords.’
At the mention of swords, the man pushed past Erasmus and scrabbled up the passage back toward the dungeon. Erasmus listened to his retreat for a few moments then, with a sigh that seemed to say everything about the state of feudal England, he bent down and resumed his crawl toward freedom.
The last five minutes of the journey were probably the longest of Erasmus’ life. Despite the slightly more roomy nature of the lower tunnel, the journey was no bed of roses. In fact, by the smell, Erasmus was of the opinion it was a public toilet. The continuous drip-drip-drip sound also made him feel a distinct urge to make a contribution himself. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling and only the knowledge that he wouldn’t have another change of clothes for over three-quarters of a millennium kept his bladder in check. As he screwed up his nose, tried to ignore the noise and crawled ever onwards, he mused on the fact that human beings seemed so trained to respond to sounds and smells. It didn’t make a lot of sense: he hadn’t had a drop to drink for over three hours and yet his bladder, acting on information received by his ears, felt an overpowering desire to function, as if to show whatever was dripping he was capable of a far more impressive display. The smell response, now that made sense: humans, for all their intellectual advances, were still animals and the sense of smell was a normal mammalian way of identifying food, territory or even sensing fear in an opponent. From the smell of it, either someone was extremely frightened or they were making a huge statement about the land they owned.
As the tunnel roof rose once more, Erasmus scrabbled to his feet and was surprised to see a puddle of light on the floor in front of him. He spent a couple of moments staring at it, allowing his eyes to adjust to the increase in light, then continued onwards, stopping every so often as the light became progressively brighter. After a few minutes he found himself emerging into a cave that was actually open to daylight. In the middle of the cave was a huge pit in which large pieces of fabric seemed to be floating in some kind of solution. The smell was atrocious and Erasmus realised this was a tanning pit, where urine was used to strip material from skins to produce leather. His bladder still on the alert from all the dripping, Erasmus glanced around to make sure he was alone, then relieved himself into the pit. After all, a little extra fluid wouldn’t make any difference.
Unsurprisingly, the tannery was not a popular place and Erasmus, relieved in more than one sense, made his way to the front of the cave and looked out to get his bearings. He appeared to be in one of the small streets in the town’s eastern district. The street was empty, but he had no idea what he would encounter beyond it. He clung to the shadows just inside the cave and reviewed the situation. Clearly, he wasn’t a famous face in Nottingham so, as long as he didn’t run into someone who recognised him, he ought to be able to just walk out of the town. He checked his appearance: he appeared a little scuffed, but no more so than any other mediaeval serf.
Across the street was a horse trough; Erasmus crossed over and took the liberty of washing his face and hands. His hair felt itchy and unwashed, but he refrained from dealing with that, reasoning that a man who looked as if he’d recently been doused would be more likely to attract attention. Now was the moment of truth: he took a few deep breaths and walked, as naturally as he could with his aching limbs, towards the end of the street.
It is one of the great ironies of the human condition that the hardest thing to do is to appear to be acting naturally. Acting naturally comes naturally, but the way a person acts under stress is not naturally the same as the way they act when they are relaxed, so it is actually unnatural to act as you would when relaxed when you aren’t. Under such circumstances, muscular control becomes erratic – the limbs either seem stiff and move jerkily, or they flop around like those of a damaged marionette. Walking, something which most humans master before they reach two years of age, becomes a labour as the nervous man attempts to exert control over the way in which the limbs are moved, rather than simply thinking about where he is going and leaving his motor systems to deal with the nitty-gritty. Erasmus’ movements were like those of a giraffe in a straitjacket and it was fortunate that, as he gambolled from shadow to shadow, there was nobody observing his progress.
By the time he reached the corner of the street, Erasmus had more or less straightened out his movements and he peered around the corner to get the lay of the land. To his left, the road snaked up the hill towards the castle gate, to his right it ran down at a gentler gradient towards the town wall. The town gate was guarded, but he knew the only guards who’d actually seen him were the ones Marian’s band had left strewn on the floor of the bailey. Walking at a comfortable pace, his posture somewhere between confident escapee and subservient peon, Erasmus made his way towards the town gate. Yards from freedom, a sight caused him to dive into a side street, where he leant on a wall, breathing heavily.
Spying round the corner, he confirmed his first observation: entering the town on horseback was the familiar form of Guy of Gisburne, riding his great white horse with a confidence which made it seem as if he’d learnt to ride before he could walk. As he rode through the gate, Gisburne stopped to engage the guards in conversation and Erasmus, allowing years of self-restraint to slip slightly, swore under his breath. He’d have to wait until the knight moved on.
For a man of so little intelligence, Gisburne certainly seemed able to spin out a conversation and Erasmus maintained his vigil for at least twenty minutes before he saw the knight adjusting his position in his saddle in a way that seemed to signify the conversation was at an end. The teacher ducked into an alley between two houses and watched the junction from the shadows. Presently, Gisburne rode past at a leisurely pace and Erasmus estimated he probably ought to allow a few minutes for the knight to reach the castle gate.
The seconds seemed to drag past and it was just as Erasmus was straightening up and preparing to move on that he heard the strains of a commotion coming from the direction of the castle. It was a voice, yelling with all the energy of a town crier on amphetamines, and as it grew nearer, Erasmus strained to hear the words.
‘A prisoner’s escaped! A prisoner’s escaped!’
‘Damn,’ Erasmus muttered under his breath. Now the gate wasn’t an option. He watched as Gisburne rode back towards the town gate with considerably more urgency than he had ridden away from it. He’d probably check whether the guards had let anyone out, find that they hadn’t, then organise a search of the town. There wouldn’t be anywhere to hide and, if they’d worked out how he’d escaped the dungeon, they’d make sure there was no repeat performance – assuming they didn’t just advance his execution. Erasmus racked his brains for a solution then it hit him – he could call on Molly.
By daylight, Molly’s house was a ramshackle affair: the daub walls were cracked and peeling and the wooden beams were swollen from the effects of too many wet summers. The door was held on its hinges in a way that seemed to show a lack of enthusiasm for falling off, rather than a grim determination to stay in place. Erasmus knocked on it as heavily as he considered safe and, receiving no answer, he pushed it open and stepped inside.
Coming in from the daylit street, the inside of Molly’s house seemed darker than he remembered. Erasmus stumbled around by the faint illumination of the wall torches, looking for any sign of the old woman. Finding none, he made his way over to the bed and looked up at the roof. If he squinted, he could just make out the telltale glint of daylight that framed the removable panel. Stepping gingerly on to the bed, Erasmus stretched up towards the roof and began to finger at the panel…
‘Burglar!’ The voice gave Erasmus a fright and he lost his balance and fell heavily on to the bed. More accurately, he fell heavily on to the figure of Molly who was lying under the sheets.
‘Rape!’ Molly screamed, apparently having decided that Erasmus wasn’t here to steal the family silver.
‘Shh,’ said Erasmus, extricating himself from the panicking woman and pulling the sheets away from her face. ‘It’s me, Erasmus.’
‘Murder!’ Molly yelled. ‘Burglary! Rape! Mmmm…’ Erasmus clamped a hand over Molly’s mouth, cutting her off mid-scream, and listened intently. He couldn’t hear anything that showed the woman’s screams had been heard. Putting a finger to his lips, he released his hand from Molly’s mouth. Molly watched as he moved his hand slowly to his side.
‘Ra—’ she began and Erasmus muffled her with lightning speed.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s me, Erasmus. I’ve been here before. Do you remember? With Marian?’
The woman’s face showed no sign she recognised him and Erasmus paused, his hand still over her mouth, and considered the situation. He could stay here until the heat was off, but he’d have no way of knowing when that was. Alternatively, he could gag Molly and make his escape through the roof. Molly had her own ideas, however, and she bit Erasmus’ palm with some vigour, causing him to utter a scream of his own. He pulled his hand away and examined the palm – there was blood on it.
‘Rape! Murder! Burglary!’ Molly began again and Erasmus heard the unmistakeable sound of horse’s hooves approaching. Realising he had no time to go over the wall, he looked around for another avenue of escape. There was only one door and the wattle and daub walls at the sides of the house had no windows. Feeling he was rapidly running out of options, Erasmus shoulder-charged one of the side walls, crashing through into the next house along just as Gisburne entered Molly’s house through the front door.
He found himself in a house very similar to Molly’s, with a simple bed, table and a cooking pot suspended over a hearth. Fortunately, the residents were currently elsewhere and Erasmus was able to pick himself up and dust himself off without the interruption of screaming peasants. As he looked around him, he noticed Gisburne staring at him through the hole in the wall. The two men exchanged glances for a moment, neither making a move as they did so, then – the moment over – Gisburne began to pull his armoured bulk through the wall, enlarging the hole as he did so.
Wasting no time, Erasmus charged out of the front door and began to run towards the town gate. Twenty seconds later, Gisburne emerged from Molly’s house and, without bothering to remount his horse, gave pursuit. The gate was only yards ahead and the two guards were standing around chatting casually. Erasmus knew that, if he ran fast enough, he could get through the gatehouse before they knew what was going on. Unfortunately, Gisburne realised this too.
‘Stop him!’ Gisburne yelled. The guards looked up and noticed Erasmus bearing down on them at a brisk pace. They drew their swords and took up a defensive stance. Seeing no other option, Erasmus turned to the right and began to run back up the road to the castle. As Gisburne passed them, the guards joined in the pursuit and the sound of three armoured men echoed around the streets. There was such a commotion that people came out of the tavern to watch. Erasmus nodded a greeting as he puffed past them – the peasants didn’t greet him in return, but simply stared, their tankards in their hands as he made his way up the hill towards the castle.
It was more or less at this point that Erasmus realised a plan of some description might be useful. He was being pursued by three armoured men: they were probably fitter than he was, but their armour would prove something of a burden if the pursuit ran for any length of time. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the pursuit was taking place in a town with a castle, which undoubtedly held a garrison of such men and, even if the soldiers were so stupid as to chase him three at a time whilst their companions rested, it was unlikely Erasmus could outrun them for ever. What he needed was a way to escape from them where their armour would be a disadvantage, but their numbers wouldn’t counter it. Without really thinking about it, Erasmus turned into the side street with the tanning cave. His pace had slowed from his initial sprint to a jog and he began to get a strong sense of déjà vu.
This time, however, there was no time machine waiting to take him away – he had to fashion a solution from the environment in which he found himself. Pulling up next to the horse trough, he paused to wash his sweating brow. Perhaps it was the cooling effect of the water on his brain, or perhaps just taking the time to rest, but he was then struck by an idea. He pulled on the trough experimentally and found that, with a little effort, he was able to drag it to the centre of the road. He then carefully disguised it with some hay from a bale by the wall and stopped to catch his breath as he admired his handiwork. From the street entrance it looked like an insubstantial pile of hay had been left in the road. At that moment, Gisburne entered the street and Erasmus, feeling a little more confident, began to run gently away from the knight. After a few seconds he heard a combination of crashes and splashes that sounded like an ancient piece of farm agriculture had landed in a millpond. Looking back he saw Gisburne had fallen for his ploy and was now lying stunned in the horse trough.
Behind him, the two guards continued the pursuit, giving a wide berth as they passed the trough. Erasmus ran on, trying to keep just a few yards ahead of his pursuers. As he entered the tanning cave, he was assailed with the unpleasant smell of the urine-filled pit and he almost faltered. Of the two prospects, however, a dousing in urine was considerably better than a light stabbing and he recovered in time to take a running jump across the tanning pit to the other side. The first knight, realising such a jump would be impossible in armour, stopped on the other side of the pit, his arms flailing against the momentum he’d built up. Unfortunately, his companion was completely unaware of the situation and, unable to stop in time, he cannoned into the back of the first knight, sending them both crashing into the pit. Leaping backwards to avoid being splashed, Erasmus watched the guards sprawling for a moment, then ran around the pit, past the horse trough and down to the now unguarded town gate. He didn’t stop running until he was safely concealed amongst the trees at the forest’s edge.
As he stopped to gather his breath, Erasmus looked back at the town behind him. Somehow, the high walls, the grim towers and the keep that loomed above them seemed less oppressive now. In a way it was a shame that twelfth-century man seemed to be unable to make that leap of perception – to see that a castle was only as good as the men who guarded it and, in these days at least, that meant the castle was defended by a group of men with the same brain to brawn ratio as the average footballer. How long had civilisation been held back because the animals were running the zoo?