Sir Richard grinned in relief and led his son and sergeant-at-arms back down the gangplank and onto the bustling street where they could see the gaudy green and gold sign for the Dog and Duck swinging in the autumn breeze.
“Come on,” the Hospitaller shrugged. “We’ll be out of sight in there at least.”
“Aye,” Stephen smiled as one of the prostitutes waggled her tongue at him suggestively. “And I’ve been choking for a drink all day!”
Simon grinned at his father’s gloomy sergeant, a man he’d known almost all his life. “Who’d have thought it? All it takes to put a smile on your face is the thought of an ale and a saggy old pair of tits.”
Sir Richard howled with laughter at that, as Stephen grimaced, and they made their way through the packed street to the inn.
“When you see your brother,” Richard smiled at his son, “tell him I miss him, and I’m proud of him.”
Simon nodded, pushing his way through the people thronging the docks.
“I’m proud of you both,” Sir Richard continued. “You’ve been fine sons.”
Despite the hour – it was almost sunset – the street was still heaving with people and, as they approached the door to the Dog and Duck with dry mouths, Simon suddenly stumbled, the people around him buffeting him as he fell forward.
Stephen grabbed his right arm and made to help him up, but the young man felt like a lead weight and, as Sir Richard grasped his other arm, Simon collapsed, face first onto the ground.
“What’s wrong” – the Hospitaller demanded as he looked at his son and saw the red stains spreading over his back.
“Stephen!” he roared, trying to pull his sword from its scabbard. “He’s been stabbed!”
The crowd, which had been pressing so close until then, suddenly parted, leaving the three men in a circle of their own as the burly knight drew his blade and held it defensively over his fallen son. Stephen had his own weapon drawn by now and the two men searched the mass of people for threats.
A man was pushing his way, forcibly through the people on the street and, when he looked back, Stephen gave a cry of rage and raced after him, waving his sword over his head to try and clear the way.
Sir Richard, fearing the worst as the small red wounds on his son’s back had spread to form one great crimson stain, knelt down and grasped Simon by the shoulder, turning him over.
The young man’s eyes were glazed, staring straight up, unseeing.
Lifeless.
Despenser’s men had managed to catch up with them.
The commander of Kirklees screamed in despair. His beloved son was dead.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Friar Tuck bandaged Will’s wound, but the outlaws knew it was hopeless.
Robin felt a great sense of helpless frustration. To have rescued Scarlet’s daughter, only for the hot headed fool to impale himself on a sword in a moment of madness before he could be reunited . . .
Little Beth was inconsolable, having to be dragged off her father in despair, while Tuck tended to him.
“We need to move fast, Robin,” Little John said to his young friend. “If we’re to stop Gurdon locking Matilda away in some Nottingham dungeon, we have to catch up with him.”
“What about Will, though?” Allan-a-Dale asked. “We can’t just leave him here to die.”
John expression was dark as he turned to Allan. “Will only has himself to blame for what’s happened. He let his temper get the best of him and he’s paid the price. We need to help Matilda while we still have the chance. If Adam gets her into the city she’s as good as dead – we would never be able to rescue her from there. If we can catch them on the open road in time though…”
Beth had stopped crying by now, and she gazed at Robin forlornly. “Please help my da,” she sniffed. “I have no one else.”
Robin leaned down and clasped Beth’s small hand in his own.
“I won’t lie to you…your da took a terrible injury. It doesn’t look good for him. But we won’t leave him here. And whatever happens, lass, you won’t be alone. We have friends and family in the all the villages around Yorkshire. We will find you a home, with good people.”
He smiled reassuringly at Beth, and she nodded in return, but her eyes flickered to Will again, which brought a fresh bout of sobbing.
Robin patted her awkwardly on the arm and stood up. “Tuck. You, Allan and young Gareth there make a stretcher and carry Will back to our camp. Make him comfortable and…just do what you can for him Tuck.”
The friar met Robin’s eyes and both men knew what the young leader meant – Will would need the Last Rites before the day was out.
“Come on, Beth, help us find some straight branches to make a stretcher for your da,” said Allan, leading the girl into the trees. Gareth, a fifteen-year-old outlaw from Wrangbrook, followed them, eyes roving across the ground searching for sturdy sticks.
Robin turned away sadly. “You foresters can be on your way, as I promised.”
The captives stood up gratefully, relief plain on their face. Most of the outlaws around the great forests of England would not have been so merciful.
“Just remember this day,” Robin told them, “should we ever find ourselves in a situation like this again, with the roles reversed.”
The foresters nodded and moved gratefully off along the road towards Nottingham. Their big leader, Samuel, grasped Robin’s hand firmly.
“I thank you for our freedom, Hood. If ever the day comes when I can aid you in return, know that I will do all I can for your men.”
Robin clapped him on the arm, nodding, although he knew it was unlikely Samuel would find himself in charge of men often, after his rout at the hands of the outlaws. It was plain the middle-aged forester was no gifted leader of men. But he was another friend to the outlaws, and they needed every one they could get. Robin waved the grateful man off and checked his weapons were firmly secured.
“Make ready to move lads!” he roared at his men. “Adam must still be on the road to Nottingham. We might have time to catch up with him if we cut through the forest. He must only have a couple of men in his party now, so, as long as we move fast enough, we can stop the bastard and repay him for everything he’s done.”
“Let’s move!” Little John’s huge voice shook the trees, and the outlaws moved into the hidden pathways of the forest that they knew so well, yet which would have been invisible to any outsider.
Friar Tuck, Allan-a-Dale and Gareth quickly fashioned a crude but sturdy stretcher and eased Will onto it. Then they, along with Beth, struck off towards their camp.
“How do we know Gurdon is on the Great North Road?” Matt Groves demanded as the main party of outlaws hurried through the forest. They had collected the two horses and brought them along, in case Gurdon saw them coming and tried to get away, but no one was riding them just now. Robin wanted them as fresh as possible, should they be needed for a chase.
“I found out his plans from Henry Woolemonger, before I ran him through,” Little John replied to Matt. “Adam’s plan was to crush us at Hampole Dyke while he escaped unchallenged with Matilda.”
“If it had worked he would have wiped us out in one blow,” the teenager, Arthur, grunted. “Just as well you four came along when you did.”
Little John nodded. “Aye. Now we have the element of surprise with us. The turncoat bastard thinks we’re all dead. He’ll be in no great hurry to deliver Matilda to the prior.”
“That’s my fear…” Robin admitted.
“What do you mean? Surely if they take their time it gives us more of a chance to catch them?” Much glanced over in surprise at his boyhood friend.
Robin stared ahead of him, face set in determination, as he picked up the pace, forcing the rest of the outlaws to speed up to avoid falling behind.
“Aye, Much, but Adam and his men…left alone with Matilda; in no great hurry…they might just decide to make a whore of her before the prior gets her into that brothel of his.”
Adam Gurdon was a brutal man. Much expected he would enjoy using Matilda – whether she consented or not. Much had known the girl as long as Robin; she had been a good friend of his in Wakefield too.
“Come on lads,” he shouted, pulling alongside Robin. “Time for the bastard to pay for his betrayal!”
* * *
“All right boys, let’s take a rest and have something to eat.” Adam Gurdon reined in his horse and his two companions followed suit gladly.
The late summer sun was still warm and the three lawmen were thirsty, as was Matilda who had been forced to endure a steady stream of inane and often filthy chatter from Gurdon and his men as they made their way along the well-worn road.
The bailiff dismounted smoothly and, none too gently, helped Matilda down.
“Sit.” He pointed her towards a large boulder, on to which she gratefully slumped. The girl was not used to riding, and even after a short period on horseback her whole body, particularly her buttocks, felt stiff and sore.
Gurdon’s two foresters made themselves comfortable on a rotten old log, and drank their fill from their ale skins, murmuring contentedly as they relaxed in the warm sun.
“I’d love to know how you managed to fool the outlaws into thinking you were Adam Bell,” one of them suddenly asked the bailiff, shaking his head wonderingly.
Gurdon laughed and shrugged his shoulders, wiping wine from the side of his wet lips.
Almost everyone in England knew the folk tales about the outlaw Adam Bell, a Saxon hero, who hailed from the town of Inglewood. Bell, with his friends Adam Cloudesley and Clim of the Clough, had great adventures, outwitting the sheriffs and lords of whichever county the tale happened to be told in.
“What did Adam Bell look like, lad?” Gurdon asked the forester.
The man racked his brains for a while and looked to his grizzled companion for support, but neither of them could answer the question.
“Exactly,” Gurdon smiled. “The stories don’t say. All I had to do was find a small group of outlaws, tell them I was Adam Bell and, before long everyone believed it was true.” He dropped his ale skin and pulled an apple from his pack, eyes sparkling merrily as he bit into it. “If he ever lived,” Gurdon went on, spitting juicy flecks of fruit from his mouth, “Adam Bell and his mates must have died years ago. Who could say I wasn’t him?”
The foresters nodded in admiration at their new bailiff’s ingenuity.
“Here, girl.” Gurdon, having half drained it, passed his own ale skin to Matilda. She took a sip, but found it was much more bitter, and stronger, than she was used to.
“You like that?” Gurdon watched her drink, his eyes roving across her body unashamedly.
Matilda squirmed under his gaze and handed the ale back to him defiantly. “No, I don’t. It tastes like piss.”
The three men laughed at that.
“I can see why young Hood covets you so much, girl,” the bailiff told her, wiping the thick sheen of sweat from his forehead. “You’ve got a fine body on you, eh lads?”
The other two made lewd replies, grinning like young boys, but their eyes were humourless. Matilda felt a cold shiver run down her spine.
“You can forget about Hood,” Adam continued, taking another drink of his ale. “He’ll be dead by now. Him, and the rest of those fools I used to lead will have chased off after you, right into the ambush my men prepared at Hampole Dyke.”
Matilda felt her blood turn to ice, but her captor continued, walking over to stand before her, triumphantly.
“Those idiots will walk right into a storm of arrows, and any that survive the first volley will be cut down where they stand by my foresters.”
Matilda remained silent as Gurdon carried on, a self-satisfied smile playing around the corners of his mouth.
“There’s no one left to help you, girl.” He leaned down to look into her eyes, grinning savagely. “The prior will make sure you’re tried, and found guilty of aiding the outlaws. Then…”
His hand moved slowly down to cup Matilda’s left breast. “Then the prior will put that body of yours to work in his brothel – the ‘Maiden’s Head’. It’s a nice place; you’ll have a lot of fun there.”
The two foresters grunted. “I’ll be in to visit you a lot, girl,” one of them promised, staring at her malevolently. Matilda felt the panic begin to build in her. Tears filled her eyes as Adam pulled her top down to expose her nipples, drawing more grunts and gasps from the two foresters.
She desperately wanted to fight the bailiff off, but her arms wouldn’t respond as she screamed inside and tried to block out what was happening to her.
Gurdon leaned down further and roughly bit her breast, pushing her legs apart, and the girl felt a wave of black despair wash over her. She and Robin would never be together now.
She thought of all the good things in her life: her loving parents and her friends in Wakefield, her home. She went limp with grief as she thought of Robin, shot through and broken by the arrows of Adam Gurdon’s men.
“There boys, she’s starting to relax. She’s a natural!” the bailiff laughed and stood up, undoing his trousers as Matilda watched numbly.
“Now, girl. Open that pretty mouth of yours…”
* * *
There was no time for anyone to plan or prepare. Robin had taken the lead, his men struggling to keep pace with him as he pushed himself on, tortured by visions of Adam abusing Matilda.
They were beside the river again, which followed the course of the road at this point, and the water gurgled noisily over a small waterfall, so neither party heard the other until Robin jogged around a small rise and almost ran into Gurdon, his breeches at his ankles, Matilda sitting in front of him and his two henchmen laughing gleefully. Their faces fell as they caught sight of the outlaw just two yards away, but the bailiff had his back turned, and neither of the foresters had ever seen Robin before, so they were slow to draw their weapons.
The young outlaw stopped dead in his tracks, frozen to the spot, as Matilda squirmed, tearfully trying to keep Gurdon’s cock away from her mouth.
Then she saw Robin appearing like an avenging angel, and felt a surge of elation. He wasn’t dead! As her lover’s hand moved to his sword hilt, Matilda looked up at Adam Gurdon with a look of fierce triumph and opened her mouth.
Robin swiftly drew his blade and rammed it into the nearest forester’s guts before the man realised what was happening. He dropped to his knees like a stone, and Robin savagely ripped the blade free, spilling the man’s intestines onto the grass.
Too fast for the eye to follow, the outlaw spun completely around and hacked into the side of the second man’s sword arm. The forester collapsed, bellowing, clutching at his near-severed limb.
When she’d seen Robin attacking, Matilda had taken Adam’s manhood in her mouth…and bit down as hard as she could.
The bailiff screamed in agony as half his cock was completely severed, blood pumping thickly from the horrendous wound. Matilda spat it onto the grass in front of his disbelieving eyes.
“You fucking bitch!” he screamed in shock, feebly clasping his hands over his bleeding crotch, the shock at his mutilation rendering him oblivious to the fate of his two companions. “I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you!”
His cries were cut off suddenly, as the point of a sword erupted out the front of his chest.
Robin leaned in behind his former mentor and whispered in his ear. “You won’t be killing anyone. I’m going to take your carcass to Nottingham and leave you there for everyone to see.”
He pulled his sword free with a wet, sucking, sound and kicked the sagging Gurdon sideways onto the grass, where he clutched at his terrible wounds, whimpering pitifully.
Matilda, adrenaline pounding in her veins, picked up Gurdon’s severed penis, and rammed it into his weakly protesting mouth furiously.
“There, you can suck it yourself now, you evil bastard!” she shouted hysterically, forcing him to gag on it.
The second
forester had tried to make a run for it, his sword arm almost hacked off by Robin, but Little John and the rest of the outlaws had caught up with him. They pushed him back into the clearing, crying like a child and clutching his arm in terror.
John took in the carnage before him, eyes wide in disbelief. “What do we do with this one, Robin?”
Hood turned, his face frozen in a grimace of rage, and calmly drove his sword into the man’s belly.
“Leave those two animals,” he said, pointing with his sword to the two foresters. “Gurdon we take with us.”
No one argued, as Robin lifted Matilda to her feet and took her in his arms. She was shaking uncontrollably now, as the adrenaline faded and shock took its place.
“He said you were all dead,” she sobbed.
Robin held her fiercely, his own hands starting to shake as he stroked her strawberry-blonde hair. “Aye, that was his plan, but we beat him Matilda. We’re fine. And you’re safe now.”
They stood like that for a while, everyone silent in the face of the awful violence they’d just witnessed, before Little John spoke to two of the outlaws.
“Lift Adam. We should get moving.”
Robin nodded. “Me and Much will take his body to Nottingham, and make sure Prior de Monte Martini and everyone else in the town finds out what happened to him. That’ll send a message to anyone else that might decide to come hunting us.”
It seemed an extreme gesture to Little John, but right now, in this mood, Robin was in charge, so the giant simply nodded his head and promised to take Matilda safely back to their camp with the rest of the men.
“We’ll meet you back there when we’re done,” Robin said, his gaze still vacant, his sword still drawn, dripping blood onto the pale green grass.
“All right, we’re done lads. At last. Let’s get back to camp and celebrate!” John smiled half-heartedly, and some of the men cheered as they began the journey home.
Although they had beaten Adam and gained their revenge for his betrayal, most of the outlaws felt it was a hollow victory. They knew they would still be wolf’s heads when they woke up the next day, and the day after that. No matter how many of their pursuers they killed, they would never be able to go back to their families and a normal life again.
Wolf's Head (The Forest Lord) Page 18