XLVIII

 

 

Nottingham Castle – October 1190

 

WILLIAM DE WENDENAL didn’t have time for this. It was late, he had eaten and drunk too much, and until moments ago had been in that part of the evening where, the day’s obstacles successfully negotiated, it had seemed safe to expect nothing more taxing than a conversation by the crackling log fire with his honoured guest and a slow slide into unconsciousness. But now – thanks to the recent intrusion of one of his serjeants – his head was hot with the business, and he was already feeling the gnaw of indigestion in his chest.

The poacher had been caught red-handed and would hang – that was beyond doubt. But, given the circumstances, it had seemed politic to grant this one an audience. Not that he gave a damn for the thieving wretch, but his guest had taken an interest, and that did matter. Wendenal needed to show every courtesy; his career might well depend upon it. He wasn’t happy about it, all the same. Apart from anything else, the encounter would very likely mean him having to speak English, which he hated. And in front of this most esteemed visitor, too. It was just embarrassing.

He sipped his wine agitatedly, his eyes making a fleeting connection with those of the other man, the two of them – until recently engaged in animated discussion – now standing in an expectant – and, for Wendenal, awkward – silence. He felt exposed. On show. As he strode impatiently, his guest – his own goblet abandoned – drifted away from the warming glow of the great fireplace, retreating towards the shadows. He seemed to like shadows, to be at the edge of things. Or perhaps it was his having to be at the edge of things that was the source of his everpresent, smouldering frustration. There was much Wendenal could not know or guess about the man. Some said his whole family was descended from the Devil – a tale that his guest’s father had apparently related often, and with obvious relish. Wendenal poked at the fire irritably and watched the orange sparks fly up the chimney. If the granting of this simple request would send the Devil-prince off to bed happy, then he would do it. As far as his own feelings were concerned, though, to make any kind of favourable impression this night, the miscreant’s story was going to have to herald the Second Coming at the very least.

There would the usual protestations of innocence, of course. He’d heard them a hundred times before. “I didn’t do it.” “It was someone else.” “I was with my wife.” “I was with someone else’s wife.” Or, occasionally, there would be pathetic attempts to justify the crime, as if the laws of the land were suddenly mutable, and open to negotiation. “I had to do it.” “Someone made me do it.” “My family was starving.” Dangerous notions of that sort had been spreading like a plague of late. But such delusions had always been about, if one knew where to look, festering in corners, ready to infect the desperate and weak-minded. Last Lammastide, one poor wretch even had the nerve to claim God told him to do it – appearing to him in the form of a woman with the head of an owl as he was emptying his bowels in the woods. So, a liar, a thief, and a blasphemer, all in one.

Clearly the man’s wits had cracked – and what dark thing had crept in to take possession wasn’t Wendenal’s concern. That was a matter for clergymen. What was meted out here was earthly justice, and here the flesh was punished without prejudice. That was his way. Even-handed, absolute. When one stood in judgement, sympathy was the enemy of clarity. Anyway, if he were to give credence to every story that came his way, there wouldn’t be a single guilty man in the whole of the two shires.

Something unusual in this particular poacher’s story had caught his serjeant’s attention, however. And, more importantly, that of his guest. Wendenal had known poachers make such claims before, of course – and more often, of late. One couldn’t blame them for it when faced with death; the desperate but vain attempt to imbue their lives with some value, to wriggle free of the noose. Part of him admired their tenacity. But the greater part was appalled by the arrogance. By what warped sense of propriety did these stinking, ragged clod-rakers think they had the right to bargain with him, holder of one of the highest offices in the land? Did they seriously believe they could face him as an equal and make him barter, as if in some dung-strewn peasant market? When it came to it, none ever had anything of value to offer anyway, nothing to give their life even fleeting worth. This one would undoubtedly follow the same course.

The case was cut and dried: he had been captured in the forest with one of the king’s deer shot dead at his feet and would be strung up within the week – tonight, if Wendenal had his way. Strictly speaking, the law required only flogging or a fine for the crime of poaching – but such lawbreakers were, almost by definition, never good for the money, and there had been too many liberties taken in recent months for Wendenal to be satisfied by leniency. But for now, it would do no harm to indulge the whim of his visitor. And, he had to admit, he trusted his loyal serjeant’s gut on such matters more than he trusted the wisdom of many of his knights. After all, hadn’t he risked his master’s displeasure to bring this to his attention?

At the clatter of the guards’ approach, Wendenal drained his goblet of wine and slapped it down on the oak table. Fortified by drink and a simmering irritation, he turned to face the doorway and struck a suitably authoritarian pose – catching a last glimpse, before he did so, of his guest hastily retreating beyond the tapestries before being swallowed up entirely by the deep shadows at the far end of the chamber. That was how his friend – no, he did not dare call him “friend”, not quite yet – how his ally liked to do things. To observe. To take note. To weigh up. So unlike his hothead of a brother, thought Wendenal.

The heavy door clanked and creaked, and the prisoner was brought forward.

The man who stood before him, his hands bound, cut a curious figure – one that Wendenal could not easily fathom. He was tall, dark haired, with fine features, his physique that of someone who had grown up well-fed and – unless Wendenal misread the signs – trained in the fighting arts. (Fed by whom? And trained for what?) His bearing, whilst not exactly noble, was certainly far from the hapless peasant Wendenal had been expecting. Yet, at some point not long ago, the course of this man’s life – and his fortunes – had undergone a dramatic change. His appearance was ragged, his hair long and lank, his visage neither properly bearded nor properly razed, his apparel that of one who had been months on the road. (The road from where? To where?) The clothes themselves – inasmuch as they could be discerned one from another – were a strange mix of the exotic and the commonplace, a layering of the richest and the most mean garments. So what was he? Built and equipped for combat, certainly, but clearly no knight. Garbed like one come from the Holy Land, but clearly no pilgrim.

The man stood straight, unmoving, his head only slightly bowed. That he had lived and fought hard was clear. There was no fat on him; his limbs, though not large, were like iron – something beaten and shaped in extremes. Where the tanned flesh was exposed, scars were visible – Wendenal counted at least four, on his forehead, chin, forearm and the back of his left hand. Each had been inflicted by a blade – save the one on his forearm, whose long shape looked like a burn. Most striking of all was his face, which showed absolutely no fear. No anger, no resentment, no defiance. The look – or, perhaps, it was the absence of a look – unnerved him. To allow time to muster his thoughts, Wendenal turned slowly about and paced before the prisoner, searching for some clue in his face. The man’s dark eyes – fixed on a point on the stone floor, some yards in front of him – glinted in the firelight like steel, revealing nothing whatsoever. Once or twice Wendenal had seen the look on campaign – the look of a man who had been to Hell and returned, and who had nothing left to fear.

“My serjeant says you know who Hood is,” said Wendenal in his careful, precise English. Much as he detested speaking the language, it was still better than hearing someone mangling his native langue d’oïl. “So, we make this simple. You tell me what you know, and I tell you whether it gets you a reprieve. If you delay, or say nothing, I assume what you know is nothing.”

The man did not respond. For a moment, Wendenal was unsure if he had even heard. “Well? Can you tell me who Hood is?”

“No one can,” came the dour reply.

Wendenal gave a snort of exasperation. “As I thought,” he said, reverting to his own language. “Pointless. A waste of time.” He raised his hand.

“But I am the only man alive who knows the true madness in that mind.” Wendenal stopped mid-gesture. “I can find him. I can identify him. I can stop him. And nothing would give me greater pleasure.” The reply was in perfect langue d’oïl.

Wendenal looked at the man with narrowed eyes. “How can you claim this?”

“I fought alongside him for two years and more. We ate and drank together.”

“And yet you say you do not know who he is?”

“I know what he called himself: ‘Robert of Locksley’. But I do not believe he knew anything of the village whose name he bore – nor it of him.”

Wendenal snorted dismissively. “It’s in your interest to maintain that little mystery, of course. Suppose he is exactly who he says he is?”

“Then I am the Earl of Huntingdon. I don’t doubt there was a Robert of Locksley once. Perhaps there still is. But I am certain it is not he.”

Wendenal threw up his hand in frustration. “This is absurd. You say you know him better than any man, then that you do not know him at all. That you have information, and that there is none to have. Which is it?”

“I never met anyone who knew him before. It is as if he stepped out of a void. He is without name, without lineage – outside of history. He is like the biblical plague of locusts – he consumes everything of worth in one place, then, when it has nothing left to offer him, he moves on. Changes his name. His appearance. His voice.”

“His voice..?”

“I once saw him conversing with a Scotsman over drink. At the start, you’d swear he was from England’s northern shires. By the end, one could not tell the difference between his voice and the Scot’s. It was as if he was consuming him. Becoming him. As if he could not help himself from doing so. As if he needed others’ souls in order to continue his existence.” He let his head drop. “Unless, of course, he really is a Scot, and the accent I knew was an act.” He looked up again, his eyes suddenly keen and urgent. “This man is a danger. To me, to you, to everything. Just now he is the famed outlaw of Sherwood. That game will last him a good while. Through it he unexpectedly finds himself on a par with kings. He has never tasted that kind of power before. And having tasted it, he will not loose his grip. Believe me when I say he will push this game to its ultimate conclusion.”

There was an air of doom in the man’s final words. Of apocalypse. Wendenal forced a sceptical laugh – an attempt to hide the extent to which they had disturbed him. “Or he will be brought to justice like any other rogue.”

“That would be preferable, yes,” said the man, softly. “That’s what I offer.”

“And only you can achieve this?”

“This man is not like any other rogue.”

“So, you are suggesting I simply let you loose to go galloping after him?” Wendenal laughed, his guards joining him.

“It would be a start,” said the man, and the laughter stopped.

“This is ridiculous. Just words. Wild stories. Perhaps you should’ve considered a career as a storyteller rather than a poacher. You certainly seem to have more skill in the former than the latter. But so far you have not given me one hard fact. Not one!”

The man’s brow creased in frustration. He made as if to step forward but was restrained by his guard. “He has a cross tattooed on the inside of his left wrist. Like this...” He pulled back the sleeve of his tunic to reveal a small, blue-black symbol, its ink blurred at the edges. “We had them done at the same time. Also his right hand is smooth. No wrinkles or marks. It was thrust into a fire during a skirmish in Sicily. For a time he could not shoot a bow. There were those who said he never would again, but he proved them wrong. He delights in proving people wrong. There is also a star-shaped wound on his right thigh, from a mace blow. Again, he was lucky.”

“His thigh..?” said Wendenal, his voice rising as he spoke. The underlying question was clear. The man almost smiled.

“He’s not my type.” Then, after a pause, added: “We lived and ate and drank together for thirty months. Mercenaries. Through driving snow, heaving seas and parched desert. At Hattin...” Wendenal’s eyes widened at the mention of that name. “You get to know a man, whether you like it or not.”

“And yet, in all that time, there was not one clue as to who he really is?”

“Just one.” His face darkened, as if at some troubled memory. “A name. ‘Rose.’ It is dear to him. It recurs, over and over. But whether it was a mother, a sister, a wife or a lover...” He shrugged, looking defeated, as if finally acknowledging the paucity of the information. “Perhaps one day we shall know.”

Wendenal stared at him for a long time. Part of him wished only to have this man dragged away and flogged. God knows, he’d taken up more than enough of his time and energy. He was arrogant, defiant. Possibly a fantasist. Yet there was something... Something Wendenal could not place. Something that – against all reason – rang true, and that stayed his hand. He mulled over the man’s words. Mercenaries. That was what he had said.

“He is not a knight?”

The man’s jaw clenched. “He is not.”

“But then, who exactly are you?”

The man’s eyes remained cast down at the floor. “I’m no one.”

Wendenal had to admit that the man, infuriating and baffling as he was, had a knack for keeping one’s interest. “Well, let’s see...” With a gesture, he indicated for his serjeant to search the man’s baggage, scanning the gear as it was spread before him. “Are you a knight?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then you’re a thief. This hauberk is a knight’s property.”

“I am no thief!” snapped the man, his eyes blazing. The guards gripped his arms again, and he calmed himself. Wendenal indicated for them to release him. “I am not a knight. I was denied that honour. But the mail is mine nonetheless.”

“It’s of little interest to me what wager or bartering delivered this into your hands. Only the deserving have the right to wear it.”

The man shrugged and nodded. “I’d dearly like to see a world in which only the deserving wore mail. We’d have fewer knights, I grant you, but the quality would certainly go up...”

This was too much. Outraged, Wendenal struck the man a heavy blow across the face. “Who are you to pass judgement on the quality of knights?” he snapped.

The man staggered, straightened, and stood firm, wiping the blood from his lip. “One who has seen the best and the worst of them,” he replied. He fixed Wendenal’s burning eyes with his own. “Enough to know that apparel may be deceptive. That a man may wear the crown of a king, though there be a more deserving head.”

Wendenal stared at him in stunned silence. How was he to respond to this? Was it possible, after all, that this man had some powerful information – that he knew of his allegiances? “Now you add treason to the crime of killing the King’s deer,” Wendenal said, carefully. “If you thought to talk your way to leniency you’re going about it the wrong way.” The guards stifled a laugh.

“I merely speak my mind because I tire of doing otherwise,” said the man. “But no deer died at my hand.”

“Ah. Now we come to the heart of the matter. ‘I didn’t do it.’ Serjeant?”

The serjeant flushed, and stepped forward. “He was caught standing over the body of a stag, his arrow in its eye. Had his horse not been lamed in its pursuit, he would surely have made off before we got to him.”

The man gave a sigh of exasperation. “My horse was not lamed in the pursuit, but cut with a knife. As you’d know if you bothered to look.” The serjeant glared at him. “And where is the bow I am supposed to have used?”

Wendenal frowned at the serjeant. “Well?” There was certainly no bow among the accoutrements spread before them. The serjeant simply looked embarrassed and cornered, then finally shook his head in defeat.

“A longbow is hard to hide. So, am I supposed to have shot an arrow with no bow, and then hamstrung my own horse?”

“If not you, then who?”

The man reached into his jerkin. All the guards about him flinched. The serjeant gripped his sword – but before he could act, the man had pulled out a broken arrow and flung it to the ground before his captor.

Wendenal fumed in the tense silence, his eyes fixed on the eight-inch length of ash shaft. “Was this man not searched?” he rumbled.

The serjeant flushed, his eyes panicky. “I don’t know how he...”

“Never mind,” snapped Wendenal.

The man pointed at the broken fragment. “This is the arrow that killed the king’s stag.” The goose feathers on its fletched end were dyed green, bound with green linen thread. A distinctive touch. “I dare say you’ve seen the like before, piercing the bodies of men you sent into the forest.”

Wendenal did not raise his eyes. “I know from whose bow this arrow comes.”

“I saw him. Spoke with him. Moments before your men arrived.”

“You saw him?”

“That is how close your men came to the one known as Hood.”

Wendenal heard a sound behind him, in the shadows. A clearing of the throat. A low whisper. He nodded, and looked the man in the face.

“Tell me what happened.”