Much drew his knife, but the lady Marian shook her head, held one hand forth to stop him, and caught up her own silk kerchief.
“You praised my spirit before now,” Denis said, then closed his mouth and offered no further resistance to the gag, since a lady tied it. She tied it softly, little more than a reminder to hold his peace.
Meanwhile, Friar Tuck was asking, “This mockery, son Robin? And what is more to the point, what of our little Midge?”
“Hostage for hostage,” the leader replied. “So Madame Sheriff screamed at me from the town’s wall, and so she affirmed it with this!” From his pouch he drew a parchment wadded as though in rage. “Her men came out in force, a full score by torchlight, and struck it into the town gate. With a sorry poor blade. Aye, the woman must have planned it beforehand to the letter, leaving only a blank for the name.”
He threw the parchment to Friar Tuck, who smoothed it so that the dark line of the knife slit could be seen. “‘To the outlaw Robert of the Hood,’” he read. “‘Know that we pay no extortion to lawless rogues, brigands, and murderers. But free Denis FitzMaurice unharmed within these two days, or Midge the miller’s daughter hangs on the third day from our castle gallows, as all outlaws deserve to hang.’”
A quavering sigh forced itself through Denis’ nostrils.
“She means no exchange!” cried Will Stutely. “She means to hang Midge whatever we do. So I say, hang the fellow’s body on our own gibbet and send his head back to her on a clothyard shaft!”
Denis pressed his head back against the cavern wall and closed his eyes so that Stutely would not read fear in them.
“No!” said the lady Marian. “Do not go back to wanton killing, Robin. I believe he suspected nothing of what she planned, and would undo it if he could.”
The sheriff’s squire nodded, though he would have undone nothing if his lady had captured any male outlaw instead.
“Aye,” said Friar Tuck. “Moreover, you did snare this lad against God’s Truce and man’s custom. You cannot kill a fellow for that you yourself have taken him unfairly.”
“And I believe with Will Stutely,” Robin Hood replied, “that Madame Sheriff means us treachery yet again. The only way to have Midge back is to rescue her ourselves.”
“How?” Scarlet inquired. “The thing was simple enough when it was a mere trick of posting ourselves round Nottingham town square in disguise, but with Madame Sheriff’s gallows inside the very castle walls...”
“As to that,” said Stutely, “Madame Sheriff’s squire should prove able to tell us the watchword or some secret way inside, if we put the question to him politely enough. You can trust that task to me.”
“I’ll help thee,” grunted Much.
The lady Marian stood. “When we came to live with you, Robin, my priest and I, you swore us an oath—and said you were glad to swear solemnly a thing that chimed so in tune with your own heart—that you would kill cleanly, at need, or not at all, and never harm a helpless man.”
“Aye,” said Alan a Dale. “I’ll make no more ballads about any man who tortures another, or allows such things done.”
Robin Hood laughed hollowly. “I had no such thought, beyond a threat or two perhaps.”
Denis looked up at the lady Marian. For the first time since being gagged, he made a sound in his throat, a short hum on a rising inflection, and was appalled to hear it emerge like a whine from one of the hounds that pressed close around them.
“Would you speak?” Dame Marian asked.
He nodded.
“We need no more of his sauce, Robin,” said Stutely.
“We are Englishmen, Will Stutely,” the outlaw chief replied. “And, being Englishmen, we’ll condemn no man without letting him speak word in his own behalf.”
Dame Marian knelt and undid the gag. Denis coughed once, cleared his throat, and spoke:
“Your only way of getting Midge back safe is to let me go as my lady the sheriff stipulates.”
Stutely snorted. “He has a brave care for his own skin!”
“Let be, Will Stutely,” Little John rumbled, speaking for the first time. “So have we all.”
“If you had let me leave with my lady the sheriff after Evensong today, this would not have happened!”
Friar Tuck nodded. “There could be some rap of truth in that. Aye, son Robin, it’s not impossible our poor Midge is undone by thine own greed. Among the seven deadly sins, is greed.”
“What’s done is done,” said the leader. “And it’s sure that my lady the sheriff means us treachery yet again. By God, she presumes too far on her womanhood! A pledge made, sealed, and then broken within the hour!”
“She made you no pledge,” Denis protested. “A simple handshake is no promise given beyond the truce of the present moment. She’s shown no dishonor, only the craft of any good general.”
Hood said, “Gag him again.”
“No!” Denis cried, and hurried on, “I have no love for you or any of your people, Master Hood, save for the gentle ladies, and your good minstrel, and I respect Friar Tuck in that he is a priest—but I would not for the world or my own soul’s sake see Midge hanged!” His voice caught. He had hardly guessed, till now, the force of his own emotions.
“She watched you hung up, my son,” the friar observed with what under happier circumstances might have passed for a chuckle. “Spread the noose for your foot with her own little brown hands, she did.”
Denis thought he flushed. “That is between her and me. I would hang again, but it’s my life only that can save hers.”
“Then tell us the watchword,” said Robin Hood. “Or guide us into the castle by a secret way. Every stronghold has some escape route hidden beneath its walls.”
“No,” Denis said simply. “I could not betray my lady and my comrades, not even if Will Stutely put the question to me in the way he would like. But set me free, and my lady the sheriff will restore your comrade safe and whole.”
“But it is also true,” Friar Tuck remarked, studying the parchment, “that Madame Sheriff makes no such promise as to restore Midge if we release Squire Denis, only to hang her if we do not.”
“The promise is implicit!” Denis exclaimed. “The message was penned in haste! Let me go in time, and I pledge you my own word for Midge’s freedom!”
Stutely shouted, “Put it to the vote! I say kill him. A ‘clean death’ if you’d waste whatever use he may have—but at once, before he beguiles you further with his lying tongue. Who holds with me?”
Stutely’s leman and the two nameless outlaws lifted their hands, following Stutely’s lead.
“And I hold that his only guilt lies in blameless loyalty,” said the lady Marian. “Who votes with me for an end to all vile bloodshed?”
Friar Tuck, Alan a Dale, and Dame Eleanor lifted their hands immediately. After a few heartbeats, Little John and Will Scarlet did likewise. Then George a Green, and last of all Much the miller’s son grudgingly raised one hand.
“Aye,” said Robin Hood. “Will Stutely, thou’rt a faithful fellow, with thy comrades’ good ever to heart, but leave us now and see to Arthur a Bland’s company at Yewlock.”
“You’ll regret this, Robin,” said Stutely. “Not from my works, from his. That yeoman’s a fool who trusts the promise of any noble lordling or sheriff’s minion.” Scowling, he caught up his weapons and picked his way out of the cave, followed by the three who had cast their votes with him. Little John moved aside to let them pass, then came just inside the opening again. Denis breathed a little more easily when they were gone.
“Take me to the forest’s edge and set me free,” he repeated. “As I would have delivered my own ransom, I vow solemnly myself to escort Midge safe back to you.”
The outlaw leader shook his head sadly. “Nay, lad. I might trust you, but not your sheriff. Never again, not for so much as a crust of moldy bread. I’ll not risk her making a forsworn man of you. Nay, you’ll rest here with us until Midge is either saved or ... past savin
g. And then ... we’ll see.” He moved farther into the cave, picked up a wine flask, and drank from it, afterward wiping his mouth with his hand. “In the morning we go back to Oakglade. A pleasanter place than this for summer and fair weather. Midge will not betray it, no more than Squire Denis will betray his own folk’s secrets. And if she would, why, she knows this cave as well as she knows that glade.”
11
The Betrayal
If the preceding night had been less than comfortable, what remained of this one was worse. The ladies Marian and Eleanor tended the prisoner’s scratches and replaced the bloodied bandages around his around his rope-worried wrists before Much retied the ropes yet again; but even minor hurts were bothersome during hours of inactivity. The outlaws left one small horn lantern alight, and by its glow someone seemed perpetually to be checking his bonds. When Much or Scarlet or George a Green was not bending over him, one or other of the hounds was thumping its tail close by, nudging Denis on its way to the cave mouth, or returning to shake off water from the rain that had begun to fall outside; or one of the outlaws’ half-tamed cats was prowling near on its nocturnal rounds. The straw bedding, moreover, was old, musty, hard, and not devoid of its own life. Added to all this, the prisoner’s stomach, as though divorcing itself at last from the anguish of his mind, began to gnaw fiercely at his ribs.
Yet despite all, there were so many dreams, and so many lapses between one bond-check and the next, that he knew he must have slept for a considerable portion of the night. Therefore, he did not reach his decision in the cobwebs of a sleep-starved brain.
“Master Hood,” he said in the morning, very calmly, as the party prepared for its return to the glade of the ancient oak, “I am ready to pledge you my parole.”
The yeoman looked at him. “What’s changed your mind at last, my lad?”
“Discomfort. Perhaps a touch of despair.” He guessed that Hood might want to hear him express dissatisfaction with his lady the sheriff’s behavior. That he would never do, but he gazed back steadily into the outlaw’s brown eyes. “I do not know whether I am to live or to die, Master Hood. But, if the latter, I should prefer the free exercise of my limbs for a few days, at least. I am exceedingly weary of being bound. I will swear to you on Friar Tuck’s prayer-book, if you wish, that I will not attempt escape.”
“Nay,” Hood replied, “thy word’s enough for me without the Book. That man who’d forswear his own word would forswear Holy Writ just as lightly.” With that, to the exquisite relief of the prisoner’s body, he cut the ropes.
They still insisted that Denis wear a blindfold for the longish journey back to Oakglade, but did not rebind him. He opened his eyes beneath the blindfold, but made no attempt to sneak it up. The lady Marian led him by one hand, and when he grew tired (and alarmed that a mere two nights should so have weakened him), they set him on the horse that Robin Hood had captured yesterday when the sheriff’s party loosed it in their retreat, and had himself ridden to the very townwall in pursuit. The horse was Nippet, one of the sheriff’s own best rouncies. Denis knew him well, and stroked his brown neck often during the ride.
He spent the day eating, sleeping, and taking exercise. He thought as little as possible.
The somber mood that hung over the camp did not affect every outlaw equally. A number, who must have been less close to Midge, seemed to regard the new development as stuff for another fine adventure, so that there was talk of storming the castle on the third day. But only the coarsest rogues questioned the hostage’s disinclination to laugh at their crude jests.
He took part in two wrestling matches and one small archery contest, and managed an occasional smile, as when his arrow went two feet wide of the wand. Though he lost at the wrestling and archery, he won respect by besting every opponent at swordplay, including two who had formerly been soldiers. On the whole, he was satisfied with the return of his strength.
There was a purely animal satisfaction in going off alone as need demanded. At such times, though he noticed sharp glances thrown in his direction, the same eyes rarely darted them at both his departure and his return. Had Will Stutely been present, Denis suspected he would have been more closely watched; but Stutely being elsewhere, with the company under Little John’s kinsman Arthur a Bland, no other outlaws showed themselves inclined to question their leader’s rule for the new liberties allowed the captive. As nearly as Denis could determine, not even an informal guard posted itself around the small pavilion when he entered it to nap on the soft bedding.
Robin Hood and his council of seven sat apart most of the day in conference, and whenever Denis approached them they fell into a brief silence, sometimes barely perceptible as a pause that rippled round their circle before they greeted him with conversation on some innocent subject. So there was a limit to their trust. Having established last night that he would in no way assist them in any sort of rescue attempt that entailed penetration of the castle or possible violence to his own comrades, they prudently guarded their plans from his overhearing.
But in all else they showed perfect faith in his promise. He guessed that the coarser outlaws might accept it largely because they saw him all at once so docile after so many impulsive efforts earlier. The leaders, however—the lady Marian and her chaplain, Master Hood himself, Scarlet and the minstrel, Dame Eleanor and perhaps even Little John—trusted him because they too believed in the code of honor. And Midge’s brother Much no doubt trusted Denis because these others trusted him.
It would be the last time anyone ever put such faith in the word of Denis FitzMaurice.
He knew that God allowed no soul to be tempted beyond its strength. Therefore, every soul’s integrity was a fortress impregnable from without, subject only to betrayal from within by its own free will. Thus God had just cause to condemn, human society to shun and scorn any man who broke his own solemn word. But perhaps Denis had hung too long head downward the day before yesterday. Perhaps the flux of blood had somehow loosened the very weave of his brain, for now he found there might be things worth purchasing even with the irretrievable coin of one’s personal honor.
His greatest fret, as evening drew on, was whether or not to take Nippet. The outlaws would surely have sentries posted all night, and a man on foot might hope to elude their notice more easily than a man with a horse. On the other hand, where forestry was the outlaws’ excellence, horsemanship was the squire’s. True, Hood possessed other captured mounts—horses, asses, mules, and a pretty donkey—but, given a fair start and sufficient moonlight, Denis judged he could distance pursuit. At extreme need, he might even slip down and hide while the fast brown rouncy led the pursuers astray in the dark. Often during the day he let himself be seen stroking, rubbing, and cajoling Nippet, and feeding him such tidbits as horses love. All of which was perfectly natural, for the rouncy was an old friend from Nottingham castle, and a fellow prisoner ... albeit a valuable one for his own sake, who ran no risk of being put to death.
His second greatest fret was the shortness of the midsummer nights. Only in the hours of darkness would he stand any fair chance of eluding the outlaws’ eyes and arrows. Happily the moon, not quite at her half, ought to be with him.
At sunset he retired to the little pavilion as if for the night. He undressed and lay abed, in case any outlaws should look in on him. None did. They seemed willing to regard the tiring tent as a kind of monkish cell.
There was no danger, now, of his dozing off. Today had been the first day of the sheriff’s ultimatum. Tomorrow would be the second, and on the third day Midge would die.
Without question, the lady sheriff would carry out her word if forced to it. No such delicacy regarding women held her hand as held her enemy’s. A woman herself, she was above the demands of chivalry toward her own sex, free to give fair and impartial judgment on female as well as male. Upon seizing Mary Beecham two winters ago, in her house with the evidence of her guilt fresh about her and her own frenzied confession on her lips, the sheriff had seen her hanged at
once from one of her own roof beams. Afterward, to those who claimed that Mary Beecham ought to have been spared for the assizes which would have sentenced her to burning alive at the stake for petty treason, Dame Alice had replied that they had taken her in the act of preparing to fly from justice and therefore liable to the penalties for outlawry. That women could not be outlawed, but only “waived,” the sheriff dismissed as a lawyers’ quibble of words, and that no such official sentence had been handed down under whatever name she shrugged off as a mere formality.
So his lady the sheriff would be as swift and merciful as the mechanics of death allowed. But Midge would hang all the same. Unless redeemed in time.
When the last sounds of waking activity had faded and the night was full, Denis dressed quietly, gropingly, in the dark. When dressed, he peered out. The moon had not yet risen, but little horn lanterns, interspersed with cages of glowworms, hung from low branches at intervals around the glade.
Moving with the utmost caution, he plucked the nearest cage smoothly from its branch. An outlaw lying wrapped in his blanket nearby turned over and muttered a sleepy question.
“To relieve myself in the woods,” Denis replied, very low. Either it satisfied the outlaw or he had not really wakened, for within a few ounces of time he was snoring again.
Expecting at every heartbeat to be challenged by a sentry, Denis made his way to the artificial side-clearing among the trees where the beasts were stabled and tethered. This was the most delicate step thus far. He might cut all of them loose to baffle mounted pursuit; but he judged that his best hope lay in stealth, not confusion.
Murmuring reassurances to Nippet, stroking him tenderly and moving softly so as not to disturb the surrounding animals, he searched out and untied the tether. He would have to ride bareback and use halter instead of bridle. Fortunate that of all the sheriff’s horses, Robin Hood had captured the one Denis rode oftenest. No, it was more than chance: his lady must have chosen this horse for his mount could she have completed the ransom and brought him safe away with her yesterday.
The Gallows in the Greenwood Page 10