“My lady, I—” began the contrite guard.
“Never mind!” she snapped. “You are tasked with challenging all who come to this gate, and that you have done. Excellent! What is your name?”
“Cuthbert, my lady,”
“Cuthbert...” repeated Mélisande. “I shall mention you to the Prince. But there are more pressing matters. As you see, the dangers upon the road have required me to travel in disguise, but now that you have forced me to reveal myself outside of the castle’s protection, I stand vulnerable to enemy arrows. So, before this encounter ends with your lord made a widower, I suggest you lower the drawbridge!”
Galfrid, who had traversed this gate more times than he cared to remember, had never seen it opened so fast.
“Who are you calling arelic?” whispered Galfrid as they clattered across the wooden bridge.
“Well, at least I said you were valuable,” muttered Mélisande.
Almost before they had passed through the gateway, the counterweights either side were lowered and the bridge drawn back up—then the guard, every bit as skinny as Galfrid had anticipated, his mail ragged-edged and ill-fitting, came bowling out of the door at the base of the tower.
“I shall announce you, my lady,” he said. And with that the guard—already out of breath, but keen either to curry favour or avoid further disaster—ran ahead of them up the winding, gritty path to the gatehouse of the inner bailey.
“So,” muttered Galfrid as they went, “what happens when they find out you are not Prince John’s wife? Isabella is known here, and believe me, you are very little alike—in either looks or temperament.”
“But if and when they do, we shall already be inside,” she said. “And if we haven’t got Murdac’s attention by then... Well, I’m sure we’ll think of something.”
“Assuming we don’t get killed first,” said Galfrid.
She gave him one of those sweet smiles with which she was so adept. “Well, I could just tell them that my father was the Count of Boulogne and my grandfather King Stephen of England,” she said, then she geed her horse and trotted on past the panting guard. “Come on, Master Cuthbert!” she called, cheerily. “Keep up!”
Galfrid watched Cuthbert toiling behind her, then glanced back at the barbican and idly wondered how these outer defences would fare when Hood’s men came knocking.
XXXVII
Sherwood Forest
24 March, 1194
“CAN YOU SEE?” called Gisburne. “Is it them?”
Aldric shifted from one swaying branch to another in the treetop, and squinted through his eye-glasses. “There’s a dust cloud. A big one, past the river. Heading north—towards the town.”
“How did they get there so fast?” said Asif. “Are you sure those glass-eyes of yours aren’t deceiving you?”
“I’ve never seen them put to such a use,” said de Rosseley. “I thought such things were to help half-blind monks illuminate what was right under their noses.”
“Well, these are to help illuminate what is far away from mine,” said Aldric. “And yes, I am sure.”
So keen had he been to use his lenses, in fact, that when the opportunity arose, he had been up the tree like a squirrel. Gisburne had commented upon the apparent improvement in Aldric’s shoulder, and allowed himself a smile. Mélisande had been right; pain meant nothing if you had the right motivation.
“Then we’ve found them...” said Gisburne, smacking a fist into his palm, as much in relief as in triumph.
He hadn’t thought it possible to lose close on a thousand men, yet somehow they had managed it. His plan had seemed simple enough. Once Hood’s army were set upon the Nottingham road, they would follow them as far as Basforde, then strike out east, turn south again, and lie in wait just past the crossing with the western road—where Gisburne knew there was a copse of trees that could provide good cover.
All had gone well. Not far beyond Hemps Hill, with the town almost in sight, they had made their move. The going was swift—there had been no rain now for three days—and they reached their goal in good time. Here, the approach broadened out into meadow, with an isolated copse of very ancient trees—their chosen hiding place—at the meadow’s southern end. The meadow itself was far more open than Gisburne remembered it, with the low-lying shrubs and grasses barely into their spring growth. That was good. Hood would have no cover.
Gisburne placed himself behind a massive bough, which over the decades had dipped so low from the main trunk that the end had sunk into the ground. From here, he could turn his bow a full third of a circle, commanding a broad sweep of the road ahead. The sun was almost directly behind their backs—and directly in Hood’s eyes.
The plan was unchanged since Clippestone. Gisburne would target Hood; Aldric would back him up with the crossbow. Both would then move on to secondary targets. The others each had targets of their own. Gisburne had carefully described Hood’s inner circle to them—the hard-liners of the Wolf’s Head who had kept things going even when Hood was languishing in the Tower. Asif, Tancred and de Rosseley would go for Took, Lyttel and Will the Scarlet; and—in Galfrid’s and Mélisande’s absence—Aldric would target O’Doyle, and Gisburne himself would deal with Much. From there, with all Hell breaking loose, they would take out as many of the lesser lieutenants as they could—David of Doncaster, Gilbert White Hand, Arthur a Bland and others—taking off to a safe distance on horseback if things became too hot.
It almost seemed too easy. As they stood, bows ready, arrows nocked, a feeling rose up in him, as unwelcome as it was unexpected; nagging at his innards, and pulling his mind from the task. Something he had not experienced with such force since the day he had stolen the eating knife.
He felt ashamed.
Gisburne was a practical man, a pragmatist. It was what he prided himself on, what he had most admired about Gilbert de Gaillon. But no matter how he thought about what he was about to do, how he justified it in terms of the greater good—and, by God, there was plenty of justification to be had—it felt dishonest. It felt wrong.
It was, after all, what Hood would do. What the old Tancred would do. What Richard would do.
Two faces loomed in his mind, accusing him. One was the boy Much, as he had once looked: a driven and passionate youth for whom Hood was as yet only a dream. He could not, no matter how he posed it to himself, feel good about the boy’s imminent death. But Hood had forced his hand. Word was that he had accepted him into the Wolf’s Head—and a chance survivor of a raid upon the Great North Road had seen the tattoo, fresh on the boy’s wrist.
The other was Marian. Whether she would be with the band was a possibility he had entirely avoided. Yet a possibility it remained.
He had done worse things, more desperate things, but always out of necessity—in extremis. This was calculated, a strategic choice to render the enemy powerless. And it was this, perhaps, to which his soul objected: it felt less like battle than slaughter.
But he had to do it. Inasmuch as anything could be considered right, in this grey, grey world, this was right.
The feeling, he now understood, had been with him from the very start of the mission. He’d thought it would ease as things progressed, but it had only grown more acute. This was, he supposed, how it felt to be a general.
And, so, these thoughts churning in his breast, they’d waited.
And waited.
The realisation that Hood was never coming dawned only slowly.
Gisburne had paced back and forth in fiery agitation, for the first time entertaining the idea—surely impossible—that Hood knew he was being pursued. If so, the rules had undergone a radical change, and surprise—their most valued weapon—was lost. But he could not believe it was the case. He would not.
He had dispatched Aldric and de Rosseley—one north along the road as far as Hemps Hill, the other northeast, back across White Moor—to track them down.
De Rosseley had returned first, horse steaming from the ride. No sign. Then Aldric; also
nothing. It was, said Aldric, as if the road—the very earth—had simply swallowed them up.
They had, evidently, done what no one could have anticipated and turned west—away from Nottingham.
It made no sense. Every step Gisburne had taken in the past few hours, every decision he had made, had been built on the absolute certainty that the great castle was Hood’s goal.
“He has to come there,” said a baffled Gisburne. “It is the last great symbol of Prince John’s authority, and where the Lionheart will certainly head. There is no other place it makes sense for him to go.”
“I am forced to agree,” said de Rosseley. “Though it appears there is something he wishes to do first...”
De Rosseley’s insights—he had the keenest soldering instinct Gisburne had ever known—were at times profound, but this time, Gisburne could make neither head nor tail of it. There was something else, that much was clear. But what it could be was beyond him.
“What is to the west?” said Asif.
Gisburne shook his head. “Villages. Just a string of villages...” There were no castles, no rich barons, no challenges. Just people. People of no consequence—without power, without wealth, without even food to put in their...
And that was when he began to understand.
They had headed south, skirting around Nottingham, feeling their way. Of Hood’s army, there was no sign—yet Gisburne could almost sense them out there to the west. Like wolves, circling at a distance. Mocking them. Was it really possible that Hood knew? Had the game swung back in the outlaw’s favour?
Gisburne remained convinced Hood’s ultimate goal was Nottingham—but his opponent, mercurial as ever, seemed in no great hurry to get there. And Gisburne now believed he understood why. Hood would be going from village to village, taking in as many as he possibly could along the way, striking out west and following the villages in a great arc around the town, before turning back northwards to make the final move. It would take time—days—but put Nottingham under far greater threat than Gisburne had ever realised.
Hood had never led an army into battle. What he would do with it, when he finally had the chance—inspired by the example of the merciless, butchering Lionheart, whose legend he sought not to match, but to exceed—made Gisburne shudder.
He thought then of Galfrid and Mélisande—who by now must be there—and how things might unfold if he were to fail.
But then, courtesy of the most trivial of things—dust on the breeze, spied by chance from the top of a tree—fortune had swung back in their favour: the opponent’s move revealed.
Gisburne mused on his fragile luck. Had the past few days not been the driest for weeks, there would have been no dust, and they might never have found Hood’s army again—or not before they struck.
As Aldric swung down from one bough to the next, Gisburne leapt back on Nyght. “They’re on foot and have had a long march. But even if their fervour has them break into a run, they cannot reach Bridgeforde before we can. We’ll cut ahead of them there. I know a way through the woods—a forester’s path—it’ll take us straight to the road north of the bridge. And then... we’ll have him.”
De Rosseley mounted up, shaking his head in bafflement. “They must have circled right around the town and crossed the Trent near Cliftone. For what? What possible purpose does it serve?”
“It makes little difference now,” Gisburne said, turning Nyght about.
This was not quite true. But if it made the kind of difference Gisburne suspected, it was not the kind of news he wished to give. Get the job done first. Kill the one they had been sent to kill—take the head off the wolf, then worry about whatever came after. The plan remained the same.
“Hey!” called Aldric, dropping down from the tree. “Don’t leave without me!”
They rode at a gallop, following Gisburne’s lead. After a few moments, he turned east off the road and plunged down a narrow path through dense trees and scrub.
It was tortuous for the horses, and no less so for the riders. So dark was it that the bumps and hollows in the damp, sheltered earth were impossible to see, and the lower branches battered and threatened to unhorse them.
Yet they neither stopped nor slowed—if anything, their hooves pounded faster, Gisburne putting on a burst of speed as they drew close—until they were almost on the road upon which Aldric had seen Hood’s men advancing.
Only then, as Gisburne spied the ragged hole of daylight ahead, did a rogue thought intrude on his singleminded pursuit. It was something Asif—who knew these lands the least of all of them—had said: How did they get there so fast?
At the time, so eager had he been, he’d dismissed Asif’s objection out of hand. But now, as they hurtled towards the light, he was suddenly gripped by a terrible doubt.
They burst onto the wide road; Nyght reared wildly, and the others almost piled into the back of him. Talos whinnied in complaint as Asif’s horse butted into his flank and the Arab lost a stirrup.
For there, surging past them towards Nottingham, filling the road in both directions as far as the eye could see, was a multitude of armed men, some mounted, many on foot, banners flying, helms and blades glinting in the sun, near-blinding them.
The nearest soldiers recoiled at the sudden appearance of the horsemen, barging into others as they drew back and gripping their weapons tighter. A shout went up. In an instant, Gisburne understood his dreadful error.
It was an army, but it was not Hood’s army.
XXXVIII
Nottingham Castle
24 March, 1194
FOR ALL HIS ineffectiveness at the barbican gate, Cuthbert proved an invaluable asset once inside. He saw them safely past the porter and watchmen to the inner bailey, where he made sure their horses were led away to be fed and watered. Then—much to their surprise—he accompanied them further still, securing their entry to the courtyard of the great keep itself. Mélisande had requested he did not reveal her true identity, a secret with which, for now, only he could be trusted. Cuthbert, seeing the logic of it, and clearly happy to be co-conspirator to the Prince’s wife, had readily agreed.
Galfrid sensed the poor lad was rarely, if ever, the centre of anyone’s attention, and was making the most of the situation—perhaps dreaming of advancement. Whether his superiors would think him worthy of it if they knew what he had done, Galfrid frankly doubted. But right now, as so often in the past, he had occasion to thank God for stupidity.
Once they were in the keep, no one seemed interested in them. They faced no challenges, and no one rushed to welcome them either. The only thing that attracted any attention was Mélisande’s outlandish garb—and few seemed to know quite how to respond to it.
The castle courtyard was buzzing with people; more than Galfrid had ever seen here, and few of whom he recognised. Those he did tended to be grooms, cooks and buttery staff—good if you needed food, drink or your horse looked after, which Galfrid very often did, but not for much else. A good number of these fine fellows, upon seeing the squire, gave him a smile and a cheery greeting as they went about their business. Some, on catching sight of Mélisande, paled and scurried away in a kind of uncomprehending, existential terror.
“Do you not know any people of real consequence around here?” grumbled Mélisande.
“I know the daughter of the Count of Boulogne,” said Galfrid, deadpan, “granddaughter of King Stephen of England...”
Ignoring him, Mélisande scanned the milling crowd, hurrying about on various tasks, none overly keen to make eye contact with the odd-looking strangers. When a grey-haired man whose size of hat marked him as someone of importance—a steward, perhaps—saw Mélisande looking his way, clearly about to address him, he hastily dropped his eyes.
She took a step towards him. “Pardon me, but...”
He looked at her, terrified, and without a word fled from the pair of them, almost careering into a scullery maid struggling with a pair of full buckets.
“Well!” said Mélisande, in ge
nuine disgust. “I’ve never seen such rudeness. Is this what passes for a welcome in Nottingham?”
Galfrid chuckled. “Had you been you in a fine gown, he would now be fawning at your feet...”
“Do you have a gown?” said Mélisande, irritably.
“Not on me,” admitted Galfrid. “Perhaps if we—”
But she had already made another move—straight ahead, this time, and directly into the path of a grandly armoured man in a mail coif, greying beard jutting from his chin. Galfrid recognised the captain of the castle garrison, the very man who, less than a year ago, he had given a black eye in a local tavern. The captain stopped, startled, Mélisande blocking his progress, and Galfrid lowered his head and pulled his hood a little more over his face.
“Pardon me,” said Mélisande, sweetly. “I am in need of assistance...”
The captain looked Mélisande up and down with a baffled expression, and—finding it impossible to tell what class of woman she was—decided to hedge his bets. “Madam,” he said, bowing his head an inch or two as a afterthought.
“I am a French noblewoman and close ally of Prince John,” she said. This much, so far, was true. “It is essential that I see Sir Radulph Murdac as soon as possible.”
The captain, unable to judge the truth of the claim, was clearly not eager to get into negotiations. “Sir Radulph is taking counsel and cannot be disturbed,” he said
“But I must get a message to him,” she said, with a degree of breathy pleading in her voice.
The captain visibly softened. “I cannot grant that privilege, my lady. Sir Radulph has asked for there to be no interruptions. They are also taking lunch and likely to be some time yet. But if I may find someone to see to your needs in the meantime...”
“May I know where this consultation is taking place?” she asked, as if the question were no more than an idle fancy.
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