by Paul Doherty
'But why?' Ranulf stepped forward, ignoring the surprised looks from Sir Peter's household. 'Why should an outlaw murder one of the King's sheriffs and attempt the assassination of another? He must have known it would only bring royal fury down upon his head.'
Corbett nodded. Ranulf was correct: the outlaw and his band could roam the greenwood, plundering at their will. Other outlaws did the same in forests up and down the kingdom. So why attract attention to himself?
'Sir Peter, my manservant's question is significant.'
The under-sheriff shrugged and spread his hands.
'First, Sir Eustace issued a proclamation saying this Robin of Locksley or Robin Hood should be killed on sight. He also called him a coward, a caitiff and a traitor. The outlaw replied by demanding Sir Eustace do public penance for his remarks or suffer the consequences. Sir Eustace refused and…'His voice trailed off.
'But why poison?' Corbett insisted. 'Why not in public as Sir Eustace was travelling through the town?'
'Master Clerk, you have served as a soldier?'
'Yes, I have.'
'You have seen men lose their courage? Well, so did Sir Eustace. He refused to venture out of the castle. He became obsessed with the idea that there was a traitor here in the castle, perhaps in his very household. Vechey changed. He was nervous, agitated, neglecting himself and drinking far too much.'
Corbett stared round. Too many ears here, he thought. He leant over and whispered in Sir Peter's ear. The sheriff looked at the guards and Lecroix. 'You may go.'
The soldiers hastened from the hall but Lecroix was sluggish. Dragging at his straggling moustache, he shuffled to the door then abruptly turned round.
'My master was tidy,' he declared as if refuting Ranulf's and Branwood's assertion.
'What do you mean?' Corbett asked.
'Nothing,' Lecroix replied. 'He was just tidy, especially in his own chamber.' And he shuffled out.
Corbett waited until the door closed then turned to Roteboeuf.
'You are the clerk of the castle as well as Vechey's secretarius?'
The young man cheerfully nodded.
'Did he say anything to you? Anything at all?'
'No. Sir Eustace kept to himself, glowering and throwing dark looks at everyone.'
'I tried to speak to him,' Father Thomas put in. 'But he told me to look after my own business and he would look after his.'
'And you, Sir Peter, why should Robin Hood try and kill you?' Corbett caught the glint of hatred in the man's eyes. 'Sir Peter?'
The sheriff splayed out his fingers and studied them carefully.
'Eight years ago I was travelling north through Barnsleydale. I was and still am hoping to marry the Lady Margaret Percy. I had bought her a piece of silk, costly and very precious. Robin Hood and his outlaws stopped me, took my gifts, stripped me naked, tied me to my horse and left me to public ridicule.'
You hate well, Corbett thought, noting a muscle flicker high in Branwood's cheek. The under-sheriff swallowed hard.
'When Sir Eustace issued his proclamation, I openly defied Robin Hood, calling him a coward, a skulking caitiff, the illegitimate son of a yeoman farmer. I challenged him to a duel a outrance on the High Pavement of Nottingham.' He pulled a face. 'You know the outlaw's reply.'
'You are sure,' Corbett asked, abruptly changing the conversation, 'that the outlaw himself never comes into Nottingham?'
'Why do you ask?'
'Because I think he might be captured by stealth, rather than by force. His Grace the King is most insistent that he is taken. Once this threat is removed, Edward intends to take the field against the Scottish rebel William Wallace.' Corbett looked at Ranulf, the strange words on the parchment his manservant had brought from Paris running through his brain. He blinked. 'Yes, as I was saying, the King needs the roads north free for supplies and men. Robin Hood is to be killed.'
'How?' Branwood sneered. 'By you and two servants?'
'No,' Corbett replied, stung to the quick. 'You have heard of Sir Guy of Gisborne?'
'Yes, he holds the lands near Stifford on the Lancashire border. He was once sheriff here during Robin Hood's early depredations.'
'Well,' Corbett replied, 'Guy has offered his services to the King and they have been accepted. No man knows the forest better than Gisborne. He is now at Southwell with a dozen trained foresters and sixty archers.' Corbett was pleased to see the hauteur drain from Branwood's face. 'Tell me,' he continued quickly, 'what do you know of the outlaw?'
Branwood seemed discomfited by the reference to Gisborne and Corbett cursed his own ineptitude; it might appear that the King had no confidence in Branwood while Gisborne's presence was supposed to be secret.
'Robin of Locksley,' Branwood began slowly, gathering his thoughts, 'was born a yeoman farmer. He inherited the small manor of Locksley with some fields and pasture rights. As a young man he fought in the King's armies in Wales where he became skilled in the use of the long bow.'
Corbett nodded. He had seen the strength and power of this weapon, increasingly used by English archers instead of the crossbow. The height of a man in length and, fashioned out of polished yew, a skilled bowman could use it to loose four arrows each a yard long, capable of piercing chain mail, in the space of a minute.
'Robin of Locksley was born for war,' Branwood explained. 'He took part in the troubles in the old King's reign but then came back to Locksley where he was drawn into a fight with royal verderers who, some say, murdered his father. Robin killed three of these and fled to Sherwood for sanctuary.'
Corbett listened carefully; what Branwood was telling him agreed with the information he'd gathered before he left Westminster.
'Robin was a skilled bowman,' Branwood continued, 'a good soldier who knew the forest paths like the back of his hand. He was joined in the forest by Lady Mary of Lydsford together with a Franciscan nicknamed Friar Tuck.'
Corbett looked at Friar Thomas who grinned back at him.
'Not all friars are men of God,' he quipped. 'Old Tuck was a rogue who had his cell at Copmanhurst near Fountaindale. When the King issued pardons to Robin Hood, Tuck was sent to fast on bread and water in one of our houses in Cornwall where he later died.'
'What else?' Corbett asked.
'Others joined Robin,' Roteboeuf spoke up. 'A huge giant of a man, bigger than Naylor, called John Little, nicknamed "Little John", an ex-soldier and a savage man. Robin's other principal lieutenant was Will Scathelock or Scarlett.'
'You see,' Branwood intervened, 'Robin of Locksley was quite unique. He imposed discipline on his own coven and was careful not to hurt the peasants or those who might betray him. He plundered churchmen or lords, and those he could not terrorise into silence, he bribed.' Branwood shrugged. 'You know the rest of the story. Six years ago His Grace the King came north. He issued pardons to Robin and his men, even,' he added bitterly, 'giving the wolfshead a place in his household chamber. Robin took his men to serve in the Scottish war.'
Corbett held up hand 'I saw him,' he murmured. 'A tall, swarthy-featured man, his hair black as a raven. He always wore Lincoln green under the royal tabard. He was a captain in the company of royal archers. Harsh-faced,' Corbett mused. 'He reminded me of a hunting peregrine. Enough,' he concluded. 'Sir Peter, what do you propose now?'
'Tomorrow morning,' the under-sheriff replied, 'I intend to take a company into Sherwood Forest. I suggest, Sir Hugh, that you come with us.'
'Is that safe?' Corbett asked.
'No, Master Clerk, it isn't. But what can I do? Stay shut up in the castle like some widow in mourning? I am the King's officer in these parts. I cannot allow Robin Hood to ride roughshod over the King's authority here.'
'Shouldn't we wait for Gisborne?'
'Gisborne can do what he wants!' Branwood snapped. 'Now, you wished to see Vechey's chamber?'
Corbett nodded and Branwood, dismissing the rest apart from Naylor, led them up a spiral stone staircase to the second floor. The dead sheriff's room was still se
aled and locked. Branwood removed the wax, opened the door and waved Corbett in.
The bed chamber was as tawdry as the rest of the castle. A great battered four-poster shrouded in thick serge curtains dominated the room. A long, iron-barred chest stood at the foot of the bed. There was a table, some stools, two other chests, and in a corner a stout oaken lavarium bearing a large pewter bowl. At the other side of the room was a trestle bed with a straw mattress and some woollen blankets.
'Lecroix slept there?' Corbett asked.
Branwood nodded. Corbett kicked aside the dirty rushes and stood in the centre of the room. It was a stark, almost monastic cell. The walls were plastered with lime and the only windows were three arrow slits in the far wall. Branwood lit a cheap oil lamp and handed it to Corbett, who went across to the bed and pulled back the curtains. The bed was dirty and stale, the bolster, sheets and blankets faded and grimed with dirt. Branwood was correct. Sir Eustace's neglect of himself was more than apparent. Corbett scrutinised the sheets, bolsters and blankets but smelt nothing except stale sweat and body odour. He then examined the goblet still containing a little wine but this, too, seemed harmless as did the few sweetmeats on a pewter plate in the middle of the table. The flies had been busy over them. Corbett summoned up his courage, closed his eyes and popped one into his mouth, chewing it carefully until its cloying sweetness became too much. He went over to one of the arrow-slit windows and spat it out, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
'Ranulf! Maltote!' he ordered. 'Examine the rushes!'
Whilst they did this Corbett tested the water, now stale and laced with dirt.
'Master,' Ranulf called out, 'there's nothing amongst the rushes.'
Corbett stared bleakly at Branwood.
'You are right, Sir Peter. There s nothing here, so how was Vechey poisoned?'
'I am no physician. Maigret said the potion must have been powerful. Henbane, arsenic or foxglove.'
Corbett picked up the napkin from the lavarium, it bore finger marks and Corbett caught the odour of sugar and sweetmeats. He remembered the sores round Vechey's mouth.
'What happens, Ranulf, if you have scabs and wipe your mouth with a napkin?'
'The napkin often grazes them and the bleeding starts again.'
'Well, that napkin was definitely used by Vechey. There are blood specks on it.' Corbett waved his hands in exasperation. 'There's nothing here,' he murmured. 'God knows how Vechey was murdered.'
'Come,' Sir Peter called, almost jovially. 'Sir Hugh, you must be tired. Let me at least show you around the rest of the castle then perhaps you can rest.'
Corbett was about to refuse but realised such information would be necessary and they all followed Branwood as he led them up the three floors of the keep and on to the battlements. Sir Peter stood by the crenellations with Corbett half-listening as he described the rest of the castle. The clerk relished the cool breezes and enjoyed the beginning of a glorious sunset. Then something in Sir Peter's words caught his attention. Corbett followed the direction of Branwood's outstretched hand and stared north, beyond the crowded houses and streets of Nottingham, where the green sea of forest stretched as far as the eye could see.
'You see the problem, Sir Hugh? How can you hunt a man in such a vastness? Horsemen are useless, foot soldiers are terrified. There could be an army hidden there and you would not realise until you stumbled into a trap.'
'Does the outlaw use horses?'
Sir Peter smiled maliciously. 'Now that's the outlaw's weakness. A poor horseman, he much preferred to go on foot. Of course, amongst the trees a mounted soldier is useless.'
He then led Corbett and his party down through the three floors of the great keep, along dusty passageways, under arches where the stone was fretted in a dogtooth pattern, and out into the dusty baileys. In the inner bailey the makeshift execution platform was now being washed down. Beside it, the decapitated corpses of the criminals were being shoved into arrow chests, the tops nailed down before burial in one of the town cemeteries. A grey-haired woman keened beside one of these whilst the hard-bitten soldiers took the decapitated heads and fixed them on poles, as if they were pumpkins, to display along the castle walls.
Half-naked children played in the dust, impervious to the horrors around them. Farriers were busy, the fires of the smithies blowing hot and fierce, and the sound of hammer on anvil was deafening. Chickens scrabbled for corn, competing with the lean, dirty pigs. A group of castle women washed clothes in vats of greasy water whilst a small girl, armed with a wand, tried to impose order amongst a flock of geese alarmed by the snarling of one of the mastiffs. In the outer bailey soldiers were training in a half-hearted fashion until Naylor appeared when they set to vigorously against the quintains and stuffed figures fastened on poles.
The castle was a military stronghold circled by walls, the great keep its hub whilst the garrison and their families slept in rooms and outhouses built against the walls. It was well served: Corbett saw the fowl coops, the small rabbit warren, its burrows already covered with nets as the warrener hunted for fresh meat and a large dovecot standing on the outskirts of a small orchard. Although the garrison seemed busy and purposeful, Corbett sensed that the castle was under siege, as if the garrison dare not venture beyond the gates.
'How many soldiers do you have here?'
Branwood stopped and stared up at the red-gold sky.
'A full muster. One knight, five serjeants-at-arms led by Naylor, twenty mounted halberdiers, thirty foot and about the same number of archers.'
Corbett looked up at the castle wall where Sir Peter's pennant, three golden castles on a sarcenet background, snapped defiantly in the evening breeze.
'Do you think it is wise to enter the forest tomorrow?'
'As I have said,' Branwood snapped, 'I have no choice. I have to display defiance to the outlaw. But, come, I will show you the cellars.'
He led them back into the keep, through an iron-studded door and into dark, cavernous cellars, well above a man's height, which stretched under the floor of the keep. The cellars had small alcoves or recesses; two mangy cats hunted in their darkness as Sir Peter led them by hogsheads of wine, iron-hooped barrels of beer, sacks of grain and other supplies.
'You said there were secret entrances?' Corbett asked.
Sir Peter, who had taken a sconce torch from the wall, beckoned them over to an alcove, moved a sack of grain and showed them a trap door.
'As I have explained, the castle is built on a stone crag riddled with passageways and tunnels. This is one entrance but there could be others we do not know about.'
'Don't these make the castle vulnerable?'
'No. If a siege began these trap doors would be sealed.'
He led them back up the steps and ordered Naylor to show them their own chamber, saying he had other pressing duties to attend to.
Corbett ignored the polite snub. Naylor took them to their own room on the second floor of the keep, the same passageway as Sir Eustace's. The chamber was long, low and black-beamed but fairly clean. The hard stone floor was swept and laid with fresh rushes, some still green and supple. The sheets and blankets on the trestle beds were clean. There were chests and coffers, some with their locks unbroken, a table, one box chair, a bench and a number of stools. The walls had been freshly limewashed though rather hastily: the workmen covering the flies that had died there and barely disguising the scrawled picture of a lion drawn by some long gone artist. There were pegs for their clothes and a large black crucifix bearing the twisted, tortured figure of the dead Christ.
Once Naylor was gone, a servant brought up a wooden tray bearing a jug of cold ale and some cups. All three drank thirstily and then began to unpack the saddlebags. Corbett saw Maltote pick up his sword belt to throw on the bed.
'No, Maltote!' he ordered.
The messenger dropped it as if it was hot and Ranulf grinned at him.
'I have told you before,' he whispered. 'Old Master Long Face hates you to touch weapons.'
>
'I heard that, Ranulf,' Corbett shouted over his shoulder. 'Maltote, you are one of the best horsemen I have ever met but you know my orders. Never, in my presence, touch a sword or dagger. You are more dangerous than a drunken serjeant waving his sword around a packed tavern.' Corbett stared at him suspiciously. 'You are carrying no dagger?'
The round-faced messenger stared owlishly back, his childlike eyes full of apprehension.
'No, Master.'
'Good!' Corbett murmured. 'Then finish unpacking. Go down to the castle buttery. Steal or beg something to eat and drink and then ride to Southwell. I showed you the way as we entered Nottingham. Go to the crossroads and take the Newark road south. You'll find Sir Guy of Gisborne lodged at the sign of The Serpent. Tell him that we have arrived in Nottingham and that tomorrow we enter the forest. However, he is not to move until he has spoken with me. Bring him back with you, not to the castle but ask him to lodge at the tavern at the foot of the crag. What was it called?'
'The Trip to Jerusalem,' Ranulf added. He was sharp-eyed for any ale house they passed, to slake his thirst, draw the unsuspecting into a game of dice or sell his 'miraculous' medicines to those stupid enough to buy them.
'Bring him there,' Corbett ordered.
Maltote nodded, washed his hands and face at the lavarium and scurried out.
'You are too harsh on him, Master.' Ranulf grinned. 'He has great ambitions to become a swordsman.'
'Not whilst I am alive,' Corbett muttered. 'Ranulf, he's lethal. Did you see him at the Lady Maeve's supper before we left Bread Street? He was gutting a piece of meat and nearly took his fingers off.' Corbett turned back to his packing. 'And who is this Master Long Face?'
'No one,' Ranulf guiltily replied. 'Just someone we both know.'
Corbett grinned to himself, laid the last of his clothes in one of the chests and hung his two robes on a peg. He tried not to think of his wife Maeve who had so neatly folded everything, chattering like a magpie as she tried to hide her unease at her husband's departure. A picture of her flashed into Corbett's mind: ivory white skin, those deep blue eyes, that beautiful face framed by long golden hair.