Outlaw oc-1

by Angus Donald

  As I looked around the village I saw signs of an evil I could hardly contemplate: the broken, chopped bodies of half a dozen peasants were scattered about the muddy street. The corpse of a priest lay a few yards away, an arm outflung in death. I noticed that some of his fingers were missing, hacked off, no doubt, for the rings they had borne. A girl, her throat slit and gaping like an extra mouth, was propped up sideways against the tumbled stones of the ancient stone cross in the centre of the hamlet. Her skirts had been tucked up around her chest and her naked lap was a mess of caked blood. I saw that someone had taken a knife to her white buttocks and I looked away quickly.

  ‘It seems they are all dead but her, sir,’ said Owain, indicating the grief-stricken woman. He and some of the men had briefly ridden around the tiny village looking for wounded survivors. The woman holding her dead son stared up at Owain on his horse and then at Robin kneeling beside her. He was offering her his wine flask. She took a sip and then a gulp and then began to sob quietly, her eyes closed, her chin sunk on her neck.

  ‘Which way have they gone?’ Robin asked her. She carried on crying, ignoring his question. ‘Which way?’ he asked again. She looked at him bewildered and then she indicated the northern road out of the village with a bloody finger. ‘We will be back to help later,’ Robin said, ‘but now we need to catch the men who did this. And make them pay.’

  ‘We paid you,’ the woman said in a low voice. Robin flinched, but he kept her gaze. ‘For protection,’ the woman continued. ‘Your men said that if we paid, you would protect us from. .’ the woman’s free arm waved at the scene of carnage in the muddy street. Robin stood up. ‘I failed you,’ he said. The woman stared at him. ‘But I will catch them,’ Robin continued, ‘and I swear I’ll make them regret that they did this.’ She nodded: ‘Catch them,’ she said, her voice rough. ‘And kill them, kill them all.’ Robin nodded and put the wine flask into her hand. We saddled up and Robin detailed one archer to ride ahead as a scout. He looked blankly at me. ‘I told you to go to Thangbrand’s,’ he said, but without much emotion. I shrugged.

  ‘Don’t ever disobey me again,’ he said, and his eyes flashed like a knife drawn in the night. I nodded, too dispirited to be truly frightened, and we rode out of the defiled village and took the northern road.

  That night we camped, cold and fireless in a high wood of beech trees. Matthew, the archer-scout, had reported back to Robin. The Peverils were less than half a mile away, feasting on stolen roast mutton round a great blaze in a hollow below and to the north of our beech wood. They had not bothered to set any sentries, Matthew reported, and were drinking plundered casks of ale round the fire, and singing. They also had a captured woman with them and were taking turns to rape her.

  The night air was cold but Robin had forbidden us a fire. We were to march down upon the Peveril camp, leaving the horses behind, and attack them on foot just before dawn. They were twenty-four men. We were nine. But they would be in a drunken sleep, unaware of our presence until we struck. We were cold and we were angry — the men had been shocked by what had been done at Thornings Cross — and, best of all, we were led by Robin. The enemy would all die, of that I was certain.

  I was on the edge of sleep, wrapped up in my cloak and hood, sitting between two roots with my back to the trunk of a comfortable tree when Robin came over to me.

  ‘In the morning, take care that you don’t get yourself killed,’ he said quietly. ‘Hang back when we go in, these are very dangerous men.’ I shook my head. ‘Do not disobey me further,’ Robin said, his voice chilling.

  ‘I can fight,’ I said. ‘I’ve learnt a thing or two at Thangbrand’s.’ I wanted very much to pay them out for what they had done at Thornings Cross.

  ‘You haven’t learnt nearly enough,’ said Robin. ‘I want you to hang back, come in when the fighting is nearly over. And even then be careful.’ I said nothing, feeling strangely sullen, mulish.

  ‘Look,’ he said, his voice dropping so that no one but I could hear him, ‘you are more valuable to me than a common archer. Truly. Bernard says you have real talent. I don’t want you dead in some forgotten skirmish, I need you alive.’

  I continued to sulk. Did he think I was afraid? Had he forgotten that I had already killed a man in battle?

  ‘You are just like your father,’ said Robin. ‘He was a headstrong man, who did not like to be given orders.’

  ‘Will you tell me what you knew of him?’ I asked, wanting to change the subject. ‘He never spoke to me about his life before he came to Nottinghamshire, met my mother and fell in love with her.’

  ‘Really? How strange that I should know more about him than his son,’ he said, and settled down beside me, back to the tree. ‘Well, he was a good man, I think, and kind to me, and a truly wonderful singer. But you know that already. He came to my father’s court at Edwinstowe when I was just a boy of nine or ten. He was a trouvere. .’ I sat up straighter against the tree, my interest quickening. Robin went on: ‘. . and when he came to Edwinstowe during the winter, my father invited him to spend Christmas with us. We had little entertainment in that district and his music made the castle seem warmer and brighter during the short, cold days and long, frozen nights of that season.’

  ‘Where had he come from?’ I asked. I found it difficult to imagine my ragged father, the field-toiling villager, as a silk-clad trouvere, keeping his Christmas at a great lord’s castle.

  ‘He had come from France. His father was known as the Seigneur d’Alle, a minor landowner, and Henri d’Alle, as the second son, was destined for the Church. As I remember, he joined the choir of the great cathedral they were beginning to build in honour of Our Lady in Paris. But something happened. He never spoke about it but I believe he fell foul of Bishop Heribert, a cousin of our own Sir Ralph Murdac, as it happens, and a powerful man in the Church. Heribert was, from what I have heard, a thoroughly corrupt priest, but at the time he was in sole charge of the cathedral music at Notre Dame. There was a rumour of stolen gold plates and candlesticks and your father was blamed. They told him that if he admitted that he had stolen the gold, he would be forgiven and, after a penance, allowed to remain in the Church. He refused absolutely. I am certain that he was innocent, by the way, and so maybe he was right to refuse to admit guilt. But, he was a stubborn man, and by refusing, he was forced to leave the Church and France itself and take to the road in England as a trouvere, entertaining the nobility with music at their castles. He never forgave the Church for discarding him; at times he was even openly hostile to its priests.’

  Robin paused, hesitating for a moment’s thought, and then he continued. ‘At Edwinstowe, I had a priest-tutor sent by the Archbishop of York. He was a brutal man, and he used to beat me often. He’s dead now, of course, but he plagued me somewhat when I was a boy. Your father spoke to him. I do not know what he said to the man, but that Christmas, while your father was there with us, there were no more beatings. And I am grateful to him. I feel I owe him, for that brief respite.’

  He fell silent. Then he said: ‘So, you see, I feel that I owe you a little because of the help your father gave to me that Christmas, and of course the joy that his music gave me. And so I ask you to promise me, be careful in the morning. Hang back.’

  ‘What they did today, the Peverils, at the village, I want to avenge that,’ I said, hoping to please him with talk of vengeance.

  He sighed. ‘They deserve to die, they deserve to suffer. But, if I am honest, what we are doing tomorrow is in my own interest, too. For years the Peverils have respected me and my demesne. They acknowledge me as Lord of Sherwood. Now they have broken our pact and shown a lack of respect and I must teach them a lesson, them and others like them, that when I stretch out my hand to protect a village, a family, a man, they are protected. I must demonstrate that I will defend my realm. My safety, and my freedom, and my future all depend upon this. If men do not fear me, why should they not inform the sheriff of my whereabouts? Why should they pay me for protection, pay me t
o give them justice, if they think I can deliver neither?’

  ‘Is it not a simple matter of right and wrong?’ I said. ‘These are evil folk and they must be punished.’

  ‘There is that. But right and wrong is rarely simple. The world is full of evil folk. Some people would even say that what I do is evil. But if I were to rush about the earth punishing all the bad men that I found, I would have no rest. And, if I spent my entire life punishing evil deeds, I would not increase the amount of happiness in this world in the slightest. The world has an endless supply of evil. All I can do is to try to provide protection for those who ask it from me, for those whom I love and who serve me. And in order to protect myself and my friends, men must fear me, and to make men fear me, I must kill the Peverils tomorrow. And you, my young friend, must hang back.’

  I could see his teeth grinning at me through the darkness as he rose to his feet. And I smiled back at him. After he had left, I pulled my cloak tighter and tried to sleep, but his words haunted me. Was the world really a place with an endless supply of evil? Yes, we were all sinners, that was true. But what of Christ and his promise of forgiveness and eternal life?

  We attacked the next morning, in the grey light just before dawn. It was less a battle than a slaughter. Robin’s men advanced on silent feet, took up positions behind trees less than thirty paces away, and loosed arrow after arrow into the sleeping forms on the ground by the remains of the large campfire. The first victims’ screams awakened some of the Peverils but few in their drink-befuddled state managed to get all the way to their feet, and those who did were cut swiftly down with a relentless barrage of arrows. Then we charged, and the survivors were hacked apart as John, Robin and the six bowmen stormed through the camp wielding axe and sword in a welter of swinging steel, screaming men and spraying blood. I had meant to hang back as Robin had asked but, when he blew his trumpet for the attack and the men charged, I ran with them, the blood running hot in my veins.

  I was in no danger, though, as I faced no opponents. All the enemy were dead within a dozen heartbeats from when the first arrow shaft was loosed. Except two.

  Sir John Peveril had an arrow in his shoulder and one through his heel and he swung a heavy falchion, a thick bladed sword, in menacing sweeps at the three bowmen who surrounded him. ‘I want him alive,’ shouted Robin, and Little John, who was behind him, stepped forward and swung his great axe, cracking the back of his skull with the flat of the axe-head.

  Sir John dropped immediately and lay still.

  The other survivor was a mere boy, no more than ten years old, I reckoned. He had not received a scratch, the archers being reluctant to target such an insignificant foe. He was quickly disarmed of his rusty, short sword and trussed up like a Christmas goose.

  Sir John Peveril, meanwhile, had been spreadeagled and tied down securely to four pegs driven deep into the ground. Robin made sure that the pegs were at least a foot deep in the soil and that they were immoveable. Then the men stripped Sir John’s clothes from his body and woke him by taking turns to piss in his face. As the man awoke, roaring, spluttering and cursing, he looked down at his naked body, strapped to the woodland floor, and his eyes widened with terror. He lifted his head and made out Robin in the first rays of the sun, standing above him like the Angel of Death, and his control dissolved. His whole body began to shake with terror.

  ‘Rob. . Robert, please,’ he stammered through slack lips. ‘I’ll pay you, I’ll pay you anything you like. Just cut me loose. I swear, I swear, I will go away. I will leave, I will leave England. .’

  Robin looked away from the dribbling, piss-drenched coward, pegged and helpless on the ground in front of him. I followed his gaze. He was looking off to his left at a pale object on the ground. It was the naked body of a young girl, dead, bruised face turned to the sky; the waist and legs sheeted in black blood. Robin turned back to Sir John. His face was a cold mask of indifference.

  ‘Pick a limb,’ he said.

  ‘What? What?’ spluttered Sir John.

  ‘Pick a limb,’ said Robin, in a voice of ice.

  ‘Yes, right, of course, Robert. I deserve to lose a limb. But can we talk about this. . I can make reparations. . I can pay back. .’

  ‘Pick a limb — or you’ll lose them all,’ said Robin, implacable. He nodded to Little John who was standing by, his great axe held casually in one hand.

  ‘God fuck you, Robert Odo, and all those you love. May all the demons of Hell carry you now to the rotting pit. .’ Little John took a step closer. Sir John shouted: ‘The left, God damn you all, the left arm. I pick the left arm.’

  Robin nodded. He turned to Little John and said: ‘Let him keep the left arm; remove the others. And I want three tight tourniquets on each limb before you cut. I don’t want the bastard bleeding to death.’

  I would like to forget the sound of Little John’s skilful axe as he carried out Robin’s orders, three hideous wet crunches; and the screams of Sir John before they gagged him; and the sight of his unconscious torso, with a single white arm still attached, the fingers clutching deep into the soil to ride the agony, but I never shall, if I live for another fifty years. I could not watch it all and Robin, perhaps as a kindness, ordered me to check that all the rest of the enemy were dead. One was not, but he was badly wounded and unconscious with two arrows in his belly, his eyes fluttering and rolling. As I sawed down on his windpipe with my sword to send him onward, I heard the last meaty hack of John’s great axe-blade and a great sigh of held breath expelled from our bowmen. None had been killed and only two had slight injuries. It had been a great victory, but the punishment meted out to Sir John had dimmed the men’s spirits; they had had their vengeance.

  We set the boy free, unharmed, leaving him to tend to the mutilated half-man that was his captain and to pass on the message to all the other Peverils that this was Robin’s work. Then we wrapped up the corpse of the girl and, loading it on to a horse, we left that grim hollow and our dead enemies where they lay.

  Robin delivered the corpse back to the woman at Thornings Cross, and gave her silver, which had been recovered from the Peverils. Owain had been wrong in his report that all the villagers were dead; several had run into the woods when the Peverils had charged into their village and had thereby saved their lives. All the inhabitants were in the tiny churchyard as we rode off, mid-afternoon, digging graves for their friends and family: a group of miserable peasants, survivors, toiling in the shadow of the church, dwarfed by mounds of fresh earth.

  It was after dark when we returned to Thangbrand’s and I felt drained of all energy both in body and spirit. When Robin came to say goodbye to me the next day — he was returning to his cave hideout in the north — I could not look him in the face. I had slept badly, suffering nightmares in which Sir John Peveril was pulling his truncated form towards me over the floor using only his remaining arm.

  Robin took me by the chin and lifted my face so that I was forced to look into his bright silver eyes. ‘Do not judge me, Alan, until you know the burden I am carrying. And even then, do not judge any man, lest you be judged. Isn’t that what you Christians preach?’

  I said nothing. ‘Come,’ said Robin, ‘let us part friends.’ And he smiled at me. I stared into his silver eyes and knew that as horrified as I was by his cruelty, I could not hate him. I smiled back, but it was a pale, watery grimace. ‘That’s better,’ he said. And he clasped my arm once and was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Autumn was approaching; the days were growing shorter now and Sherwood, glorious with leaf-hues of copper and gold, was often filled in the early morning with a freezing mist. I began to wear my padded aketon almost daily and, when I visited Bernard for my music lessons, the first thing he’d do would be to ask me to make a fire to warm our fingers. With Robin absent, my adventure in Nottingham and the awful mutilation of Sir John Peveril seemed to belong to another world, like a dream — or a nightmare. I had returned to life at Thangbrand’s as if nothing had happened.
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br />   Sir Richard was leaving us. Murdac had flatly refused to ransom him, even though it was his clear duty to do so, as Sir Richard had been serving him when he was captured. By rights, Robin could have executed him. He didn’t, though; Robin sent him a message saying he was free to go and that it had been an honour to have him for so long as a guest. We held a feast to mark the knight’s departure from Thangbrand’s, for he was much liked and respected by the outlaws, and I performed for the first time as an apprentice trouvere, thinking of my father as I sang.

  I am afraid it was a dreadful song, unworthy of his memory, delivered without accompaniment, about a knight who having travelled the world and done great deeds and won great renown was finally returning to his hearth to hang up his sword and husband his lands. I have tried very hard to forget it, but I recall rhyming plough with slow, and I think that gives you its flavour. My poor efforts were kindly applauded by the company — and then Bernard sang. It was one of the finest performances I ever saw him give: he started with a bawdy, stomach-clutchingly funny song about a rabbit knight that wants to mate with a lady rabbit, with much amusement about finding himself in the wrong hole; then Bernard, judging the amount of wine and ale that had been taken perfectly, gave them a classic song of doomed love, Lancelot and Guinevere. Those rough outlaws were weeping by the time he bowed the last exquisitely beautiful chord. And then, again judging his audience perfectly, he gave them a stirring battle song to lift their spirits: the tale of Roland dying heroically at Roncesvalles, a ring of slain Moors at his feet and his horn clutched to his heart. They cheered Bernard to the rafters at that. And then everyone, including me, drank themselves unconscious.