Here FitzMaurice’s script left off, but another hand had printed across the bottom of the leaf, “Tomorrow morning early, at the gallows within Sherwood’s edge, but for this time spare as many in the rout as you can.”
“So.” Dame Alice flung the parchment down before Sir Hugh. “You were not entirely in the wrong, old fox, but my own wild notion was more nearly in the right. He only lied, he has not gone renegade. He is indeed besotted on the wench, but not to the point of turning outlaw himself for her sake! Dame Edith, give the tanner’s son a silver mark and send him home. And close the door on your way out.”
Dame Edith glanced at the parchment, but knew better than to tarry when the sheriff commanded her in that tone of voice.
So soon as they were gone and the door closed, Sir Hugh said, “A trap, my lady. An obvious trap.”
Someone knocked at the door. The pages had come back with the branch of candles from the chapel. Dame Alice received it from them and sent them off on fresh errands immediately, the one to the cellar for ale, the other to the kitchen for meats, bread, and fruit. When they were gone and the door shut again, she turned back to her captain.
“So you scent a trap, Sir Hugh? Well, I do not! But wake Squire Thomas there and ask if he can believe it of his friend, that Denis FitzMaurice would not only turn outlaw, but willingly bait a trap for his old companions with such a message as this, and then fill it with blots and leave it unfinished!”
Awakened with a dash of water, Courtland sobered quickly but not completely, and agreed that if his friend FitzMaurice had freely penned such a message to bait a trap for them, it was very strange; but perhaps he was under constraint and had filled it with blots and left it incomplete to warn them off.
“Go to your bed and wake in the morning ready to ride,” the sheriff told him. Turning back to Sir Hugh, “But have no fear, old fox. The old vixen will know how to scent out the lay of the land. Should it prove a trap, I will leave us a way to retreat with no losses. And should it not be a trap, then you’ll agree young FitzMaurice is worth the saving!”
“Aye,” said Sir Hugh.
The sheriff sat, drained off her ale, and thought with renewed appetite of the food to come. “Do you remember all Master Hood’s pretty tricks on us? How he came to snatch the villain Stutely from the gallows and hanged my dear Roger of Doncaster instead?” Her jaw clenched, but she worked it free with a harsh laugh and went on. “How he put on Guy of Gisbourne’s horseskin ... played the butcher beneath our very noses in the streets of Nottingham town ... cloaked himself to win my golden arrow? I think, old friend ... I think that at last my turn has come to beat Robin Hood at his own game!”
17
The Gallows in the Greenwood
During the night Denis had dreamed, in those few hours they slept, that the trial too, sentence and all, had been merely part of the ruse to ensure Midge a marriage. This comforted him. But in the morning the outlaw sentries were still thick around the little pavilion that had served as bridal bower.
Since no other priest was at hand, he did not scruple this time to make his confession to Father Tuck. After Mass, he even found sufficient appetite for a light breakfast of fruit, bread, and ale.
“Best start now,” Robin Hood said, wiping ale-froth from his mouth as he glanced at the shortening shadows. “By the time we come there and return, the sun will almost have cleared the treetops.”
The lady Marian, who had eaten very little but sat near Denis and Midge to make pleasant conversation, rose, kissed the condemned man on the forehead, and departed at once without another word. Denis stood, feeling more awkward than afraid. Midge stood with him.
Hood’s captains and lieutenants—John, Scarlet, Much, the friar, Stutely, and the minstrel—closed in around them, and most of the company gathered behind; but none of the women, so far as Denis could see, with the exception of Will Stutely’s leman.
They could not all crowd at once into the small clearing around the gallows; but they could straggle in procession through the forest and, no doubt, watch from tree branches or take their turns filing past. A healthy man’s dance on air could last several moments.
“Where is the message?” Denis asked.
Alan a Dale handed it to him. He unrolled and read it through again. It was scarcely more satisfactory than his earlier, discarded effort. But it would have to suffice.
“Will you begin wearing it now?” Hood inquired politely.
“No, in case some falling drops should wet it.” Though the morning sky was clear, several pattering showers had fallen in the night and the greenwood still glistened with watery accumulations which the leaves shook down from time to time. Denis rolled the parchment again and re-entrusted it to the minstrel. Little John began uncoiling a length of rope.
“Robin,” said Midge, “you have another good custom. You will never kill a man in the presence of any woman who pleads for his life.”
“And therefore, sweet Midge,” Robin Hood replied, “we cannot have you coming along with us today.”
She planted her feet and seized her husband’s right hand in both her own. Her brother shook his head and laid his large palm on her shoulder as if to steer her away by main force.
“Go now, sweetheart,” Denis told her softly. “I would as lief not be there myself, but the next best thing will be to have you not there.”
Glaring around at them, she cried, “You’re like all men! You play with death like as if it was sport and a mummer’s play!” She shook off Much’s hand and seemed about to turn on her heel.
“Midge,” said Denis, “don’t leave me with such parting words as those.”
She threw herself on him for a last kiss and fierce embrace before pushing away through the crowd of outlaws and disappearing among the trees beyond the glade. Denis hoped she would stay far from the gallows-clearing until after his body was found and reclaimed. Hanged people’s faces were never handsome.
Little John bound his hands behind him, not overtightly. “No blindfold,” Denis requested.
“A blindfold will hardly be needed for this walk,” Hood agreed courteously.
The birds sang; the summer flowers sent up their fragrance; the leaves still sprinkled down pure droplets like holy water from an asperge; and the stolen gallows, when they reached it, loomed dark with undried rain and bright with patches of filtered sunlight.
Someone was sitting crouched at the foot of the gallows: a figure cloaked head to rag-bound feet in the dark tatters of an old beggar-woman, at first glance half hidden in the shadows. As they approached, she prised herself up, leaning heavily on a gnarled staff, and hobbled towards them, bent almost double.
“There’s rumor abroad that Robin Hood hangs another o’ Madame Sheriff’s knaves here today,” she rasped, cocking her cowled head. So deep were the folds about her face that it was almost as though the empty hood of Death peered up at them.
“I am Robin Hood, old dame,” said the outlaw leader.
“And this be yon sheriff’s knave?” She turned the front of her hood at Denis. Taking a step backward from the thick smell of onions on her breath, he could see nothing of her features save the tip of a beakish nose, blackened teeth, and the suggestion of a sharp chin. She cackled merrily. “A boon, Master Hood, since they call ye good to the poor! Yon sheriff hung a poor old woman’s only son. Let a poor old woman hang yon sheriff’s man.”
It was too much. “For your loss, good woman,” Denis told her with as great courtesy as he could muster, “I grieve and offer all commiserations —”
“Aye, do ye now? I dare say!”
“—but my lady the sheriff hangs no one without due cause.”
“Eh, so my poor lad deserved it, did he?” she shrilled, thwacking at the squire’s leg with her crooked staff. “And thou thinks thee doth not, eh? Eh?”
Ignoring the smart in his calf, he drew himself up. “No doubt I deserve lifelong dishonor and disgrace. I do not think that I deserve to die.”
“Think thy
self better than Adam, do ye?” She turned back to the chief outlaw. “Well, what say ye, Master Robin Hood? What will ye give a poor old woman to be your hangman? A silver penny, eh? It’s all I’ll ask. I’ll ask no more, not I! No more than a silver penny and the pleasure o’ doing the deed.”
Stutely protested, “It’s my task, Robin.”
Little John, who stood by knotting the noose, looked humorously from Stutely to Hood to the harridan. “Think her stout enough for the work, Rob?”
The leader eyed the crone and rubbed his chin. “What say you to that, old dame? Have you strength enough for the task in your old arms and back?”
“Strength enough?” She cackled again. “Aye, strength enough and more to fix the noose, and stand him up on a stool, tie fast the other end o’ rope and kick stool away.”
“Aye, maybe,” Stutely objected, “but we brought no stool, and I have strength enough to haul him up bodily on the rope.”
Denis said, “I find all this recapitulation of detail extremely distasteful.”
“Aye, my pretty lad, but nobody cares for that!” With another cackle, the beldame produced a three-legged stool from the folds of her cloak and held it out triumphantly in her grime-caked claw of a hand. “See here, Master Robin Hood, I’ve brought stool myself. Nay, let be your silver penny, I’ll do it for a farthing. For naught else but the bare honor of doing it!”
The stool was short, looked rickety, and one leg had been broken and splinted together with rags; but it might serve the purpose. Hood glanced at it, slapped his thigh, and laughed. “So be it, old dame! We’ll give you your turn for the honor, and if it bungles, why, here’s our own Will Stutely ready in reserve.”
“You will not kill a man in one woman’s presence,” Denis protested, “and let another serve as his executioner?”
“Between a woman who begs for a man’s life and one who begs to hang him, lad,” said the outlaw, “there’s a large difference.”
“Ah! I understand—equal expressions of chivalry, variously expressed. Master Hood,” Denis added in a much lower voice, “I ask only that you not pin the parchment to my chest until after she’s gone, lest she mistake it for some mockery.”
“Eh? What’s this?” cried the harridan, unfortunately overhearing. “Parchment, eh? Let’s have a look!”
The minstrel gave it to her. She clawed it straight and squinted at it, turning it this way and that, prodding at it. “Aye, neat letters, very neat. Here be an ‘E,’ and here an ‘A.’ What is it they say, all o’ them together?”
The squire closed his eyes. “They reveal my shame and request prayers for my soul.”
“Aye, well enough.” She thrust the parchment back at Alan a Dale. “Well, do what ye wish with this, but let me get on about my business.”
Little John threw the noose up over the crossbeam and tied the rope’s other end provisionally to one of the uprights. Still bent almost double, the crone tugged Denis over and positioned him beneath the crosspiece. Father Tuck followed, holding up a silver crucifix stolen from the bishop of Hereford, and murmuring suitable prayers.
“Have done, ye fat old priest!” snapped the old woman, clouting him with the knob of her staff. “If he be not shriven yet, the worse for him, but clear away and leave me space to work.”
Father Tuck laid his hand on the condemned man’s head, finished the prayers in a rapid mumble, brushed his cross in the air over Denis, and retreated, rubbing his shin. The old woman was bustling about hither and thither, arranging the stool, measuring heights, and checking knots. Denis closed his eyes again and strove desperately to prepare his soul for death.
What was the bloodthirsty old beldame doing at his wrists? He started pulling away from her touch. She seized his hands, held them fast, and whispered at his ear, in the sheriff’s accents, “No move yet! Follow my lead.”
He experienced a spasm of joy and disguised it with a cough. Opening his eyes, he glanced around. The outlaws did not appear to have noticed anything.
Gathering it up somehow so that it did not fall, Dame Alice got the rope untied from his wrists, hurriedly chafed his hands, and pressed the hilt of a sword into his right palm. “When I stand clear,” she whispered.... “Now!”
She sprang to one side and straightened to her full height. Cowl shaken back and cloak flung open, she stood revealed as herself in hunting-dress, a sword in her right hand, a bugle-horn in her left. Almost simultaneously, Denis stepped forward to brandish his blade.
“So, Master Hood!” cried the high sheriff of Nottingham. “Now let us try your notable custom. I am a woman, and I beg my squire’s life of you.”
Will Stutely’s leman stepped out of the commotion and raised her longbow with the arrow nocked ready.
“Hold, Ragnild Greenleaf!” said Robin Hood. “Man or woman, whoever ranges with me obeys my laws.”
Ragnild Greenleaf lowered her bow, but did not unnock the arrow.
“So, Madame Sheriff,” Hood went on with a laugh. “But it must be confessed, you are no ordinary woman! True, your life is sacred to us, and therefore I see no course but to remove your presence from among us and give Will Stutely back his office.”
“You will not get a noose around my neck now,” said Denis.
Master Hood smiled and continued addressing the sheriff. “Unless, perchance, you’ve brought the ransom we once agreed upon?”
“I have brought better.” She lofted her bugle-horn. “One blast on this brings threescore strong archers and men at arms, and a score of mounted knights and squires. True, you may choose to scatter among the trees rather than stand and fight, but many of you will be hunted down nonetheless and die like the wild boars you so closely resemble.”
“Where be these fourscore men and score of horse?” said Little John.
“Aye, Robin,” Stutely put in. “Our watch would have seen them from the forest’s edge.”
“They will have seen more than usual poor peasants in the fields and poor artisans on the road,” said Dame Alice. “And ascribed their numbers to the rumor of today’s hanging. My archers and men at arms are among those peasants and artisans, disguised as I was disguised, and by your own boasted ‘laws’ you dare not risk injuring the true peasants and artisans before my men reveal themselves. Not on your own ground, not to stop a rescue. Not if you would keep what love you have from the silly common folk. My mounted men wait behind the tanner’s stalls.”
Hood said happily, “Well, then, so it’s to be another pitched battle, is it? With rules of tourney and medley.”
A smallish figure swung down from a low tree branch, landing lightly. Midge! She dashed forward to take her stance beside Denis, flourishing her quarterstaff.
“Aye, Robin,” she cried, “and if a medley, I stand here with my bridegroom!”
“May I speak!” said Denis. “Master Hood. Your own best scheme to rescue the miller’s daughter appeared to be some plan of pitched attack on Nottingham castle. Which should have resulted in considerable death, maiming, and bloodshed— probably to townsfolk as well as to combatants—and very likely have failed in its object. I sold my honor to bring her back safe with no such bloodshed to anyone. Let that not be undone here and now! I will never submit to the noose while I have a sword in my hand, but I’ll die fighting you one by one. Only let there be no medley on my account.”
“Two by two,” said Midge.
“Three by three,” said Dame Alice with a laugh.
“Aye, Robin,” said Ragnild Greenleaf, “and let me be first to take on Madame Sheriff.”
“Now by Our Lady!” shouted Robin Hood. “Away! Clear away and leave us! Here’s too many people by several times. Away and retreat safe to earth, all but my captains John, Scarlet, and Much.”
At his words they began melting away into the forest, some more readily than others, even the minstrel and at last, by Hood’s specific command, Stutely and his leman. How many lingered secretly nearby, veiled in the foliage, it was impossible to say; but only Friar Tuck dar
ed remain openly with Robin Hood and the three captains.
“Nay,” Hood said then, shaking his brown head, “we’ll not fight today. But there has been treachery here, and I’ll not rest until I know which of my own people betrayed our plans to Madame Sheriff, and hang that traitor flayed and basted from this same gallows in Sir Squire’s place!”
“Will you, Robin?” The lady Marian, clad like a man in Lincoln green, with longbow in hand and quiver of arrows slung across her back, stepped into the clearing and walked over to stand with the sheriff and Midge, as though forming a triangle around Denis. “You must hang me, then, for it was I.”
“No, I was the one!” said Midge.
“Midge brought the squire’s first message to me,” Dame Marian went on calmly. “But Midge can neither read nor write. I was the one who wrote where and when across the bottom, tied the parchment round my arrow, and shot it into Piers the tanner’s field last night. Robin, Robin, I left my own house and lands, where I was mistress, to live with you in greenwood and be your love! Could I sit and see you destroy these lovers’ lives for the sake of mob rule and some foolish questions of honor?”
For several heartbeats no one spoke. Then Friar Tuck murmured, “Dona nobis pacem.”
“Well,” Robin Hood said heavily, “what’s to do?”
“A truce,” Dame Marian replied. “For these lovers, permanent truce. For the rest of us, truce today.”
“My little manor of Roecourt has lain in the charge of a steward only for several years,” said Dame Alice. “I am willing to give it in tenure, with its fields, woodlands, and chattel, to Denis FitzMaurice, to hold under me and my heirs for so long as he and his new lady, both or either, remain alive. And perhaps, if they behave themselves, to any heirs of their bodies as well.”
“My lady,” Denis said, blushing to remember that she had read both of his farewell messages, “I am dishonored and do not deserve —”
“Then hold the manor in peace, and avoid knighthood if you can!” the sheriff snapped. “God knows, it is an overcostly honor in any case, and a good man can do as well without.”
The Gallows in the Greenwood Page 14