Hood

by Toby Venables

  No less amazed was Gisburne, who was still mulling over the words she had uttered. Did she really mean that she had learned from the hashashin first-hand? How? When? He had discovered much about her in the past few days, yet so many things remained unknown between them.

  “Lady Mélisande is proof that the smaller force can defeat the greater,” he said, “but only by attacking in ways the opponent does not anticipate.” He looked across to Galfrid. “Like Inis na Gloichenn...”

  “Inis na... what?” said de Rosseley.

  Galfrid sighed heavily. “The defeat of Tancred de Mercheval,” he said in a monotone. “Upon a lonely Scottish isle of that name. Don’t worry that you haven’t heard of the battle; hardly anyone has, outside of this hall, and I doubt anyone else ever shall. We walked right in, were on him and his men before you could say ‘knife.’ We chose the harder course that day. I suppose you could say the aim was achieved.” With that, Galfrid poked at the logs again, sending a burst of sparks up the chimney.

  Gisburne silently thanked the squire for his grudging intervention. “The plan is this,” he said. “We go into Hood’s village under cover of darkness, when their every instinct tells them no one will come. When they are unprepared.

  “We find Hood. It will not be hard: he will be at the very heart of the nest, and has never considered himself in need of protection. Leave him to me. You will take down his generals, and then we set the place ablaze. Fear and panic will do the rest. Those five hundred will have no idea how many are attacking them, whether we are seven or seventy times seven. And they are not soldiers. Most will flee as soon as the confusion hits. The rest will not stand their ground for long when so many of their fellows are put to flight. A handful will fight to the last—the core of men who Hood calls the Wolf’s Head—but with Hood dead, even they will falter.

  “All of us here have different skills; all will be needed to get us there, and to get us out alive. But I believe we can do it. We can get him. We will get him. I have no desire to send anyone to their deaths, least of all the people in this room, but I need those about me I can trust. The Wolf’s Head—those Hood can call upon when his life is threatened—is no more than a half-dozen strong. The rest will scatter. Thus, we are a match for them. More than a match. And we will have surprise in our favour.”

  De Rosseley nodded at his words, and smiled. “You’ve changed your tune,” he said.

  Gisburne frowned, and saw de Rosseley and Asif exchange grins.

  “You said ‘we,’” explained Asif.

  “And ‘us’,’” added de Rosseley.

  Mélisande raised her cup. “To us,” she said, her eyes on Gisburne’s. “Together.” Asif, Aldric and de Rosseley joined the tribute.

  “This is all well and good,” said Galfrid, “but there is one thing you have failed to mention...”

  XVIII

  THIS TIME, GALFRID turned from the fire to face Gisburne. “How do we attack when we don’t even know where he is? When there is not one person outside of the robber gang who can say where, in these thousands of acres of forest, Hood’s village lies?” There was a challenge in his tone—or perhaps he suspected there was more to Gisburne’s plan than he was letting on.

  “Is this true?” said de Rosseley.

  “We do not know precisely,” said Gisburne. “Finding his lair will be our first task.”

  “And how, tell me, is that to be done?” said Galfrid, not addressing Gisburne, but the whole of the rest of the party—a rhetorical question at his expense. “Many of you may feel you know forests; some may even think you know this one. But you do not. Much of Sherwood is open woodland, heath and pasture. Plenty of space for a horseman to pass. Good for hunting. That is the purpose of it, after all. Doubtless you know other places much like it. But that is not Hood’s forest.”

  He stepped closer, his eyes still on Gisburne.

  “There are parts of this woodland where the trees close in and block out the sunlight, the shrubs and vines twist together till passage is choked, the rocks rise up on either side or fall away at your feet into fissures and caves. Into these places, no horseman may go. We must make our final approach on foot—into this realm where wild boar and wolves roam free. March is Mud-Month, and this year has seen rain like no other. Even if we knew where we were going, the going would be hard.”

  “What do we know of its location?” said de Rosseley.

  “They call it ‘the village to which no roads lead,’” said Galfrid. “It is the stuff of legend, for it has never been found. No one who has ever been there has returned, or if they have, they will not speak of it.”

  “But the very fact it has not been found tells us much,” said Gisburne. Galfrid laughed dismissively, but he pressed on. “We know it is far from roads and paths, well away from the hunting courses—out of sight of all who might pass. Not even the Foresters venture here. It needs water, so we know a stream must flow nearby. That narrows the possibilities all the more. And like wolves, Hood’s men have a range. They will go so far, and no further. If we consider all their attacks over time, they will define an area at whose heart their nest will surely be found.”

  “But that area must still encompass dozens of acres,” said Aldric.

  “Hundreds...” corrected Galfrid.

  “If it is as you say,” said Asif, “we could pass within fifty yards of his camp and not even know it.”

  “Why do this now?” said Aldric. “Why not gather more knowledge first?”

  “It must be now,” said Gisburne. “Or never.”

  “Do we really not know any more than this?” asked de Rosseley.

  Gisburne drew a small scrap of dirty cloth from inside the battered black gambeson and flung it on the table. On it were marked crude lines and smudged shapes. “This was drawn by someone who was there. A guide to its location.”

  There were no names upon the map, no numerals. Nothing to indicate scale or orientation. “This could be anywhere...” said de Rosseley.

  “Or nowhere,” added Aldric. He frowned at it, then pointed at a curious row of uneven dots. “What are those?”

  “I believe them to be traps,” said Gisburne. “That’s why my meeting with you was so fortunate, Aldric. We will need the skills of an enginer to pass them safely.”

  Aldric, Asif and de Rosseley exchanged uneasy glances.

  “When we encounter them,” continued Gisburne, “we will know for sure we are close.”

  Galfrid—the only one of them to have seen the map before—eyed it suspiciously. “Traps...” he said. “Have you divined the map’s meaning, then?”

  “Not yet,” said Gisburne. “Not entirely. But there are other sources that I believe may yet make sense of it.”

  “Other sources?”

  “There was another agent of Prince John. Richard Fitz Osbert—a veteran of John’s Irish campaign, whose name was also on the Red Hand’s list of intended victims.”

  “Good God,” said de Rosseley. “I knew him, back then.”

  “He was a member of Hood’s band. He lived among them for weeks. They knew him as ‘Hereward.’”

  “‘Was’?” said Aldric. “You said ‘was’...”

  “He was betrayed. Killed. But he managed to get some fragments scraps of information out. It was he who said that the village was protected by traps.”

  “Scraps...” said Galfrid.

  “On their own they mean little, but combined with what else we know...”

  “They mean nothing!” snapped Galfrid. “We know nothing.” He stepped towards Gisburne. “Hearsay. And dots! Face it—if his intelligence was worth anything, we’d have been about this task months ago when he was still alive, when he was still some use. What good is he to us now? The only outsider to ever see Hood’s camp, and he’s dead and gone.”

  “No,” said Gisburne. “There is another.”

  Galfrid stared at him, mute, his expression slowly turning to one of dread. For the first time since his arrival, the cynical mask had fall
en entirely away. He looked shaken, uncertain. Perhaps some part of him knew.

  Well, it was as good a time as any. Gisburne craned his neck, looking past the gathered company to the door at the hall’s far end, and gestured to the servant lingering there. He disappeared from view before the others could turn, but as they did so another, taller figure filled the doorway.

  And as they looked upon it, every one of their faces fell in horror.

  It walked forward slowly, the firelight glinting off the cold metal that encased its head, then some half-dozen yards from them stopped and gave a bow, and in a muffled voice that was barely more than a low hiss, said: “God save you all...”

  XIX

  ALDRIC DROPPED HIS cup and took three steps back. Wine splashed red across the flagstones. Asif—suddenly finding himself in the company of the monster who had almost beheaded him in the sewers of Jerusalem—uttered a prayer, or perhaps a curse. Even de Rosseley, to whom Tancred was little more than rumour, recoiled in horror at the extraordinary vision. “Gods...”

  But it was Galfrid to whom Gisburne looked. The old squire turned fully to face him.

  “Why would you do this?”

  “Galfrid...” began Gisburne.

  “Why would you do this?” Galfrid’s eyes were wide. He looked ready to commit murder.

  “This is not the Tancred you know. If you will only listen to him...”

  “Listen...?” Galfrid let out a loud, disconcerting laugh, utterly devoid of mirth.

  “I understood this meeting might be difficult...” breathed Tancred.

  Galfrid, incredulous, stared at Tancred, then beyond to the door by which their unexpected guest had entered, and a tall, muscular, bearded man who looked on with grave inscrutability. The last surviving Norseman of Inis na Gloichenn.

  The squire laughed again—a grating, joyless sound—and threw up his hands in exasperation. “This is insane. Does no one else think this is insane?” But all were too stunned to speak. Galfrid threw what remained of his drink into the fire, ale hissing on the hot stones of the hearth, then slammed down his cup and turned on Gisburne, his whole body vibrating with fury. “Keep your gold; keep your mission. I’m done with it.” He turned for the door, but before he had taken two steps, turned back. “Second thoughts. I’ll take the gold. Have my share brought. Coming here cost me dear. I’ll have that back, at least.”

  “Galfrid, please...” Mélisande tried to take hold of his arm, but he shook it off and headed out without looking back.

  Mélisande caught Gisburne’s eye, and he shook his head solemnly—but she pursed her lips in defiance and went in pursuit.

  HE WAS ALREADY turning into the small chamber when she caught up with him.

  “Galfrid. Galfrid!”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  She followed him in. “It’s not what you think. And we need him. He is the only man alive who knows where we will find Hood.”

  Galfrid was already stuffing his belongings into his bag. He did not look up.

  “You knew, didn’t you?”

  “There was never going to be an easy way to tell you...”

  Galfrid was struggling to cram everything back into his bag in his haste, and slapped a pair of hose back down on the bed in frustration. “I’d only just unpacked this bloody stuff...”

  “Leave it unpacked,” she urged, and placed a hand on his arm. “Stay. Please.”

  “I should not have come. Should not have trusted him...”

  “Then trust me.”

  “After this?”

  That sparked a flash of anger in her. “I was Tancred’s prisoner too—or have you forgotten? I was there, in that same dark place, with the same horrors...” She calmed herself. “I was doubtful, just as you are. But I tell you, he is changed. I have seen it.”

  “It’s an act,” scoffed Galfrid.

  “No. This is something different. That’s what Gisburne saw in him. The blow he took to the head—it wiped away years of his life. The bad years. Please. Let him prove himself. He deserves this chance.”

  “Deserves? He deserves to be dead!” spat Galfrid.

  “Tancred is dead. The Tancred we knew. What stands in that hall is what was hidden beneath. The good man he once was.”

  “Then what use he had died with him!”

  “We have to try. Hope that he may remember...”

  “Remember? You want him to remember?” Galfrid screwed up his face and shook his head, as if his thoughts buzzed at him. “Gisburne knew I would have nothing to return to—that I would have burned my boats with de Puiset in Durham—but if he thinks that will stop me riding back out of that gate, he’s mistaken.”

  “Please, Galfrid. Stay. If not for his sake, then for mine. For the one who suffered alongside you.”

  Something in her speech pierced his defences. He sighed heavily, and rubbed a hand over his face. Then he turned to face her, his expression altered.

  “This mission is madness,” he said.

  “Isn’t everything we do?” She smiled. “It will be a little less mad with you than without you.”

  GISBURNE AND THE others were seated about the table when Galfrid returned. Little had been said during his absence, and the atmosphere had remained awkwardly charged—with Aldric glancing every few minutes at the looming Norseman, who simply stood in the doorway unmoving, like a sentinel. None, so far, had seemed keen to acknowledge him.

  In some respects, it had gone far better than Gisburne could have expected. It had been Tancred himself who had led the stilted conversation, first apologising—in the most humble and courteous of terms—for his horrific appearance. It was not, he said, what anyone wished to look at over a meal.

  De Rosseley, with equal grace, thanked him, then added—perhaps a little too pointedly—that he tried not to judge people by appearances. Tancred’s simple honesty and unaffected manner carried an unexpected, near-unbearable poignancy—all the more so because Tancred himself seemed entirely unaware of it. Gisburne could see it struck all about that table. Their resistance softened, they even began to talk. Hatred was easy to maintain at a distance—far harder face-to-face, no matter how monstrous that face may seem.

  The awkward silence returned with a vengeance when Galfrid walked back into the hall. Gisburne’s heart leapt at the sight of him—then sank again at the thought of the work that was still ahead. He could not imagine how Mélisande had achieved it. Such tricks of persuasion had always eluded him.

  Galfrid stopped short of the table. For a moment, Gisburne thought the squire had returned with the express purpose of delivering another damning speech—but his demeanour said otherwise. His head was held low. The fire had gone from him.

  Then Gisburne realised.

  The only places remaining at the table were the seats either side of Tancred, which the others had carefully avoided. Gisburne stood and offered his own place. “Here,” he said. “I need to go anyway.” He looked to the door, in the hope of seeing Mélisande, but there was no sign.

  Galfrid said nothing. He simply took his seat and set about the food.

  It was Tancred who spoke first. “Squire Galfrid,” he said, pleasantly. Galfrid froze, but did not look up. “I have wronged you. I was told this. More than that, I see it in your face. I remember none of these things. That is my curse. I can only pray that the Good Lord forgives them, and gives me the power to put right what I have done.”

  “Pass the mustard,” grunted Galfrid, and stabbed his eating knife into the table.

  Another small obstacle had been negotiated. When Mélisande entered and saw Gisburne on his feet and making to leave, she stopped.

  “You’re going?” she said. “Do you not eat with us?”

  “Things to do,” said Gisburne.

  “Please, join us, my lady,” called de Rosseley.

  She smiled sweetly, but for the moment remained by the doorway.

  Gisburne turned to address the table. “Eat. There is more being brought: poached fish and po
tage; pickles and fruit, too. Simple Lenten food, but good. In the morning you will find more food upon this table. Make the most of it. When you are all gathered tomorrow morning and have breakfasted, meet me by the Great Pond—and then we shall begin in earnest.”

  “Begin what?” said Aldric.

  “Training,” said Gisburne.

  “God’s teeth... All I ever do is train,” said de Rosseley. “I’d hoped for a holiday. At least tell us what type of training. We do need to know how to dress, Gisburne; not all of us wear the same clothes for everything we do.”

  “Dress for war,” he said. Then he turned to leave. “From now on, I want you ready for battle day and night.”

  As he passed Mélisande, he paused. “I don’t know how you did it,” he muttered, “but thank you. Now, please join them. Enjoy this moment.”

  Mélisande caught his sleeve before he could hurry off again. “‘Ready for battle day and night’?” she whispered. “What exactly do you have in mind?”

  Gisburne did not return her smile. “From now on, you will have the Queen’s Chamber to yourself. I will sleep here, in the great hall.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “It’s a time of fasting, Gisburne, not total abstinence.”

  “It’s just—”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I understand. There must be discipline. And I shall be good. But you need to eat, Gisburne.” She pinched his arm. “Without your strength you have nothing.”

  Gisburne avoided her gaze. “Make sure they are all there tomorrow,” he said, and walked away.

  XX

  THE NEXT MORNING was cold, and a low mist hung over the lake. But the rain held off—and no-one had chosen to leave in the night. Another obstacle overcome. Gisburne was grateful for the smallest achievement.

  They had dressed as instructed. De Rosseley, predictably, looked magnificent in his armour. Hardly less formidable, though, was Asif, clad in the hashashin’s scale armour beneath his black cloak, or Tancred—startlingly transformed into the man they had once fought so viciously. Galfrid stood a respectable distance from him; the last time he had seen Tancred with a sword, it had been at his throat. The squire’s gear was as simple and practical as ever—but next to Aldric’s ramshackle garb, it appeared luxurious. Mélisande, meanwhile, maintained an air of mystery. Her hair—uncovered—was back in a single tight plait; the rest of her was covered, literally head to foot, by a fine, green wool cloak.