She ought to have arrested him instead, on the chance, for it had indeed been Robin Hood himself. In order to share the jest with her, late that same night after all of them were safely back in their greenwood hiding holes, they invented their noble method of trying letters round arrows and shooting the same over the town wall or into some field convenient to both forest and castle.
Since then, they had at least confined their outrages to robbery, mockery, and horseplay without bloodshed, so that it came almost to resemble a game of chess. Since then ... until now. Now, it appeared, Master Hood was using another peculiarly vile gambit, with blameless young Denis FitzMaurice as the kidnapped pawn.
CHAPTER 6
THE MILLER’S BRAT
The hours of midsummer darkness were short between Saint John’s Eve and Saint John’s Day, but to Denis FitzMaurice they seemed very long. At the lady Marian’s direction, they lodged him in the small tiring-tent, providing him a pallet stuffed with fragrant grasses, sheets of mingled linen and silk, a blanket, and two goose-down pillows. At his own request they left him to sleep fully clothed, like a monk or a pilgrim or a man on quest. Midge tied his wrists together in front of him, not ungently, with an unworn ladies’ silk girdle from the Lancaster merchants’ goods. His left ankle still being tender and swollen, they did not bind both his legs, only tethered his right ankle by a long rope to a millstone.
So he might have slept in comparative comfort. Instead of which, true to his resolution of escape, he set to work, freed his right foot at once, and had almost slipped the bonds from his wrists when the outlaw guard—who proved to be Will Stutely— came inside the pavilion to check on him. He felled Stutely with a doublefisted blow, but not soon enough nor hard enough to stop his shout, so that other outlaws quickly overwhelmed him.
This time they stripped him bare, which was of course the usual and natural way to sleep; but they severely modified the comfort by retying his hands behind his back, using hemp cord for the additional friction which made tighter knots. Little John, who supervised the whole process, from Stutely’s removal with a bloodied nose to the retethering of the captive’s right ankle on a shorter rope, ended by lifting Denis back onto the pallet and tucking him in like a nurse with a child, afterward ushering his pair of underlings outside again and following them with the lantern.
Denis found some consolation in that, as they settled down once more around his pavilion, they jested less about him than about Will Stutely’s nose. They greatly admired the dealing of buffets, and Denis seemed to have won as much respect for drawing their comrade’s blood as though he had demonstrated prowess with the longbow.
But what was the respect of outlaws worth to an honest man? Nothing but additional discomfort, if their earlier tenderness signified that until the near success of his first attempt to escape they had taken only half seriously the intention implicit in his refusal to pledge his parole. And as the minutes and points and hours of time wore on, no memory of moral satisfaction at downing Will Stutely could ease physical sensation.
Though the new bonds did not cut deeply into his wrists or right ankle, the new knots defied all attempts at loosening, coupled as such attempts were with the increased awkwardness of his movements. Besides, hemp rope prickled. Nor could he find any unstrained position for resting between struggles. At length he contrived to bunch up some of the sheet behind his wrists and thus protect his back from the hempen prickles. The sheets naturally slid away very quickly during his contortions, leaving most of his body uncovered, and he was unable to pull them around him again. Midsummer nights in the forest were not like midsummer days in field or town beneath a blazing sun, and gooseflesh tended to form whenever he rested too long.
But twice or thrice he was vaguely aware, as though in a doze, of someone bending over him, no doubt to check his security again; and each time, on awakening fully, he found himself once more snug beneath his sheets and blanket.
When early dawnlight began filtering through the pavilion’s linen walls, he rose, stumbling over the tether, hoping to find relief for his shoulders and arms by sitting with his back to the tent post or, better, one of the tree trunks that pressed close against the cloth walls on two sides.
The millstone to which he was tethered lay near one of these tree trunks, and suddenly he glimpsed an oversight in the outlaws’ precautions. Cursing himself for not having seen it earlier, marveling that so far all of them had missed it as well, he settled down beside the stone and, after several researches into the best leverage, began clumsily rubbing his wrist bonds on the rough edge.
The inspiration was excellent in principle, but the work was monotonous and the exhaustion of an unsatisfactory night blunted his purpose. After an indeterminate time, he woke from a state intermediate between deep doze and full slumber to find himself covered once more with the sheets and the blanket, though still leaning against the tree. Midge the miller’s son was crouching beside him, laboriously pushing, shoving, and sliding the heavy stone beneath the tent cloth to the other side.
Glancing round into his open eyes, Midge sat back on his heels, panting, to look him in the face. “Naughty Sir Squire!”
“Good morning to you.” Denis found, to his surprise, that he was smiling at the young outlaw.
“Will Stutely is going around saying you ought to be trussed like a capon. With bowstrings. Or strung up from a branch, like venison.”
“As I was yesterday?”
“That was different!” Midge protested hotly. “That was only to catch you.”
“Ah.”
“So you’d best behave. You’d not like being trussed with bowstring.”
“I am not greatly enamoured of being trussed with hemp.”
“No? Anybody’d think you were.”
“I cannot keep my body covered, nor brush away insects, nor so much as rub the sleep from my eyes.” Nor catch a sneeze, nor scratch the itches that visited every inaccessible part of his body from knee to ear, nor manage many other things left unspecified in courteous conversation. “I have never been able to repose for long face down, and any other posture brings severe numbing aches in either or both of my shoulders and arms. Moreover, on my left middle finger is a hangnail of monstrous length, which I can do nothing save wiggle back and forth.”
“Then why not give Robin your word of honor? He’s still ready to take it, no matter what Will Stutely says.” Midge chuckled. “In truth, I think Robin’s even readier now than yesterday. He says there’s no treachery in any man who can give buffets like that. You bloodied Will’s nose well and truly!”
“Then my sojourn here will not have been void of interest for you. Will your minstrel put me into one of his ballads?”
“Depends how you turn out. Say, it’s not to late to throw in with us.”
Denis ignored this last. “And you. If I were to pledge you my word for the tenth part of an hour today, would you accept it and unbind me for that length of time?”
“Aye, I guess. If Robin’s ready to trust your word, they can’t blame me for trusting it, too.”
The squire considered the miller’s younger son, slim, beardless, so much narrower of shoulder and shorter of chest than his oxlike brother. The temptation might prove too strong to overpower this lad—without injuring him, of course—and escape through a quick slit in the tent’s back wall. And thus dishonor himself forever. Too great a price even for so precious a prize as freedom, or so noble a motive as preventing his lady the sheriff’s visit to the forest. Yet the thought of enlargement, even running naked in the woods (possible, on a warm summer day, and he could snatch a sheet along with him) called to him so clearly that, remembering his efforts at the millstone, he made one impulsive effort to snap the frayed rope. The jerk merely shook the sheet from around his shoulders.
Midge redraped it. “You just rubbed a few strands. Or else I’d have tied a new rope first thing. Well, do you pledge me your word?” The boy sounded eager.
Sighing deeply, Denis shook his head
. “No. Not that I put less faith than you in my own parole,” he hurried to add, “but that the ache of freedom so falsely near might prove still more painful than these bonds.”
Midge shrugged. “You couldn’t get far anyway, not by daylight, not in Robin Hood’s own forest.”
“It is the king’s forest.”
“It’s us who use it,” the young outlaw replied, so equably as to nip further debate. Then, echoing the prisoner’s sigh, “Well, don’t let Stutely be the one to catch you at it again. You’d like it even less being tied with bowstrings. They’d bite. Especially if Stutely had the tying.”
“So long as I have not pledged my word, my right to attempt escape must be understood. Even by daylight, even in Sherwood forest.”
“Oh, I understand it. And Robin understands it, but he might give Stutely next binding of you anyway, just for sport. And to let him get quits for his nose. So don’t give Will Stutely any more arguments.”
“May I trust you not to inform him?”
“Would I be warning you about him otherwise?” Midge winked and promptly stood up. “Well, I’ll make sure Much and me be the ones to check you, so often Stutely never gets excuse to do it.”
“I suppose I must render thanks for the courtesy. Meanwhile, how are we to manage such small matters as dressing and feeding?” (And other things.) “Or am I to be kept here fasting and naked all the day?”
“Oh, we’ll get Much and Little John to help with all that.” Midge winked again—or so Denis thought—and quit the tent.
Denis tried to examine his reaction to the boy. Midge the miller’s brat was an impious Puck who would grow up—assuming that he cheated the gallows long enough—to become a lawless ruffian, and who seemed to bear the chief responsibility for inaugurating this present outrage. Denis ought to have experienced anger and dismay when he woke to find Midge putting his best hope out of reach. Why, then, had he experienced a surge of something pleasantly but irrationally akin to friendship? Was the relief so strong at night’s passing and daybreak’s promise of some change? Or was the human need for companionship so intense that even rogues and outlaws, if not manifesting active enmity, could come within a few hours to seem familiar and friendly?
Midge did not return along with Much and Little John; but three other men did, including the other Will—Scarlet—who stood in the doorway and dabbed a pomander daintily at his nostrils. Actually, the outlaws’ encampment smelled rather better than Nottingham town, or many parts of Nottingham castle at certain seasons: for the camp was open to all the greenwood air, and the relief arrangements, though rude, were scattered at short distances downwind. So Scarlet’s pomander was pure affectation, but it seemed a long-standing mannerism rather than a studied insult against anyone in particular. There was some compliment, however inconvenient, implied in his presence and that of the two rougher comrades who stood watch just outside, as though tall John and broad Much might have needed help to discourage any escape slender Denis could have attempted during his precious moments unbound.
“Master Much,” he inquired almost gaily, reveling in the free use of rosewater and scented soap at the silver basin, “why is your brother called Midge?”
Much grunted. “For being one pesky mite.”
“Ah. I thank you for enlightening me.” Lathering his face, Denis let his fingers linger over cheeks and chin. “I hardly dare suppose you might trust me with a razor?”
“That we would not, Sir Squire,” said Little John. “But we have our own barber here in greenwood, and Nick Shore can see to thy chin when he’s seen to ours, all in good time to greet thy lady sheriff. Aye, most of this day she has given us to make ready for her visit.”
His tone was good natured, but his words reawakened the squire’s misgiving. Desperate and fantastic schemes began to obsess his imagination—of casting the washbasin in Little John’s face, of toppling the tent with a thrust to its supporting pole...
But all such inspirations dashed against the cold fact of threescore outlaws within immediate beck and call. No, if he were to escape, it must be accomplished with stealth. For the present he saw little choice but to suffer being bound again as soon as dressed, then led outside to be tethered by the wrists to one tree and by the right ankle to another.
His left ankle, heedless of the night’s general discomfort, had shrunk back to more or less its normal circumference, though still manifesting some discoloration and tenderness. He supposed it was more to this fact than to the outlaws’ unreliable good humor that he owed his small measure of freedom: he could sit resting against the larger tree, or stand and walk several paces back and forth (although rising with hands pinioned in back required a bit of practice before it could be accomplished with any sort of grace). But each lead-rope was too short to allow his reaching the knot that held the other rope fast, while his ankle tether being strung across a third tree between prevented him from slipping into partial concealment beyond the edge of the clearing.
He strolled within his bounds for a while, exercising his left ankle and watching the camp’s activities with a view to determine how soon he might risk doing whatever he could find to do towards escape.
“Hist!” said someone in the bushes.
Walking as close as the ropes allowed, Denis crouched to peer through the leaves. He glimpsed a brown frock and a pink pate.
“It’s me, Father Tuck,” whispered the fat friar. “Come to free thee of thy sins.” As Denis could find no ready reply, Friar Tuck went on, “Well, well, boy, come and confess. I still have Robin, John, Much, and half the band to shrive before I sing Mass. And Scarlet—aye, our Will Scarlet always takes the fifth part of an hour all to himself.”
Torn between outrage and amusement (who then had shriven the outlaw priest?) Denis parried with politeness. “Let me not take up your time, good friar. I confessed yesterday to the holy sisters’ chaplain at Little Kirkly.”
“Eh?” said Friar Tuck. “Well, as you will, but sit awhile and search thy soul, my son. For sins we have always with us. Aye, always with us,” he added complacently, as if he had sins momentarily confused with hunting hounds, two or three of which did indeed bound forward to greet him when he emerged from the bushes.
Denis sat and searched his soul, not for sins, but for means of escape. By doubling his leg up beneath him and arching his back, he could bring the bound ankle within reach of his fingers. That much he had accomplished last night. Nothing more, because it was tediously awkward. He thought, with experience and persistence, he might eventually slacken the knot; but were he to contort himself into the requisite position here, in open daylight, some of the threescore pairs of eyes would be sure to notice. Was there any appreciable hope of wriggling his wrist bonds loose without chafing his skin to the very tendons?
CHAPTER 7
THE HOSTAGE’S DAY
Denis was ostensibly watching the outlaws take their turns seeking out Friar Tuck’s woodland confessional in the far bushes when he saw the lady Marian coming toward him. At once he halted his secret search for a tree root or bit of bark sufficiently rough to fray hemp, and stood to greet her.
Today she wore a hooded mantle of white silk and a kirtle of samite that seemed to change from blue to green as she moved among the dapples of sunlight and shade. Both her kirtle and her hood were embroidered in gold. Her little shoes, too, were thick with golden silk; and only their toes flickering from beneath the hem of her skirts belied the illusion that she glided rather than walked.
“My lady,” he said, reverencing as she approached.
The lady of Sherwood smiled. “My chaplain Tuck is concerned for your spiritual well-being.”
“My lady, to me it seems that at present my body is in greater need than my soul of pious ministrations.”
“Hush!” she said lightly. “If we bound you with any tenderer precaution, we should have Will Stutely grating at our ears to the drowning of all other sounds.”
“Who is the master here, my lady? Robin Hood or William
Stutely?”
“Robin. But they accept his rule where they accept no other precisely because he has the art of coddling them in lesser matters.” As Denis started to protest, Dame Marian touched her fingers to his lips. “Never to kill nor harm a woman is one of Robin Hood’s greater laws, that he imposes on all who follow him. Will you grant that, in comparison, how he secures his prisoners is a lesser matter, one which may allow for some compromise with his captains and lieutenants?”
“My lady, I stand reproved.”
“Nay, I did not come to reprove, only to debate a little. Besides, your parole will bring you full freedom of your limbs, in spite of Will Stutely’s protests.”
She looked into his eyes. She was a tall woman, of equal height with him. (The lady sheriff was slightly taller.)
Respectfully, he shook his head.
She sighed. “Not even to me?”
“No, my lady. If I could give my word to anyone here, it should be to you.”
“No harm will come to the sheriff’s person from any of us.” Instead of the usual insulting hint of treachery on the sheriff’s part, Dame Marian added simply, “Whatever happens.”
“Since you promise that, my lady, I believe it. Nevertheless, she must suffer some indignity merely in coming here to parley with—forgive me—outlaws. And it would be unjust beyond measure for my freedom to cost her one farthing.”
“You’ll find it wonderfully difficult to escape us,” the lady Marian understated. “But your lady sheriff should prize such loyalty greatly.”
“She inspires loyalty, my lady.”
“Well,” said Dame Marian. “And you truly feel you have nothing to confess since yesterday morning?”
He guessed that she was thinking of his attack on her lover. Her loyalty to Robin Hood, however misplaced, was as great as his to the sheriff. Now he searched his soul, and still could find no guilt in holding a blade to the throat of an outlaw and murderer. His cause had been good, and the action like that of battle. If there were anything to repent, it was that he had not rid the country of its chief rogue, though the band afterward tear him apart for it. So he could not give the apology she must desire. But neither could he refuse it and continue looking into her eyes. Lowering his gaze, he repeated, “Nothing. That is...”
The Gallows in the Greenwood Page 6