by Angus Donald
I told nobody but Bernard, who was delighted and who insisted on drinking a toast to my manhood. He said he would write a song one day about raising a posse comitatus to recapture my lost virginity. Cat, it seemed, told everybody about my callow first attempt at the act of love. At the evening meal, Guy set the hall a-roar by taking a mouthful of ale and then swiftly squirting it out on the table as he jested long and loudly about the speed of my ejaculation. Will actually pissed himself laughing — and Guy naturally pretended that he had followed my example of involuntary emission. I should have felt deep hatred towards him. Normally his teasing antics would drive me to near-violent fury. And I did feel anger, at some level, but it was overlaid with sort detached pity for him: as if I were God himself looking down on an unfortunate mortal from a comfortable cloud. I knew exactly how I would serve him very soon. He did not.
It was several days before the theft of the ruby was discovered. The first I heard of it was a thin, high-pitched repetitive screeching, almost like a blast on a whistle, coming from the hall. I was on the practice ground with Will, going through the usual evolutions with sword and shield. We both ran immediately to the hall and the source of the awful noise. It was Freya, of course; she was in her chamber, kneeling on the floor with the contents of the jewel box scattered around her. She had ripped her plump face with her fingernails and blood streamed down her cheeks; now she was tugging at her thin grey hair and pulling it out in great greasy strands. All the time she kept up that appalling squealing, which only paused as she gulped a fresh lungful of air: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, ah, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, ah, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. .
We all stood there staring at her, crowded into the chamber, in a half circle around this soft mound of screaming womanhood, kneeling on the earth floor amid the accumulated loot of a lifetime. She was terrifying, a blood-drenched howling madwoman, immobilising all with the eldritch horror of that awful, awful noise.
Then Thangbrand shouldered his way through the throng and hit his wife a huge open-handed wallop around the face. Freya was hurled across the chamber against the wall and mercifully she stopped howling. She curled herself into a great grey foetal ball and lay there sobbing and shivering while Thangbrand herded the rest of us out of the chamber and into the hall. I caught his livid eye as I left the room, and his gaze projected such an animal ferocity towards me that I involuntarily took a step backwards.
Hugh gathered everyone together in the hall at noon. His thin, tall figure in its black tunic and hose was even more schoolmasterly than usual. He cleared his throat: ‘It seems there is a thief among us,’ he said. Somebody sniggered — about half the men in the hall were on the run from the law for playing fast and loose with other people’s property. ‘Quiet,’ he snapped, his eyes roaming the hall and extinguishing any merriment with their bleak gaze. ‘There is one here who steals from his comrades. We will find him out now and he will be punished. Everyone is to form up in one long line — now, do it now. Form a line with your left hand on the shoulder of the man or woman in front.’
The puzzled outlaws shuffled into a great line, snaking up and down the hall. Then, at Hugh’s command, we all felt in the pouches and pockets of the person in front. ‘You are looking for a jewel, a great and precious jewel,’ said Hugh. I felt totally calm. The man-at-arms behind me ran his hands over my body in a cursory search and rummaged in my waist-pouch. He found nothing, of course. It might have been foolish to steal the ruby but I wasn’t stupid enough to keep it on my person. Nothing was found.
The outlaws, despite Hugh’s severe gaze, refused to take the situation seriously. ‘I reckon you might need to be searched a bit more thoroughly,’ said one broad-shouldered ruffian to Cat. ‘Plenty of places you might have hid that jewel ain’t been properly investigated yet. I’d better take a look.’ Cat waggled her behind and giggled: ‘No extra charge to you, my big beauty!’
Thangbrand, hand clenched tightly on his sword, was striding about the hall, the embodiment of bottled fury. He kept glancing over at me. In a low voice, shaking with rage, he said: ‘Search their chests; and start with his.’ And he thrust out a finger directly at me. There was nothing in my chest, of course, except dirty clothes, as was soon proved. But Thangbrand continued to glare at me while the search was widened. The outlaws started hauling out the chests of their friends from against the wall of the hall where they were normally kept and pawing through their trinkets, keepsakes, smelly old hose and crusty drawers. No ruby was found. Instead, an infectious air of suppressed hilarity passed through the assembled men and women, with outlaws trying on each other’s clothing and cavorting around the hall to jeers and cheers. Then suddenly, Will Scarlet gave a great yell of triumph and everybody stopped and stared at him. Held above his head, glinting bloodily in the sunlight, was the great ruby.
‘Where did you find it, boy?’ asked Hugh. Will’s eyes opened wide. It was almost comical: he had belatedly realised what his find meant. He said nothing but he was staring straight at Guy, who was standing near the open door. ‘Where did you find it, boy?’ said Hugh once again, with iron in his voice. ‘In whose chest did you find it?’ Will was still staring at Guy and then with shaking hands he lifted his finger and pointed straight at him. Guy’s face went white. He said: ‘No, no. .’ The hall was frozen in shock. Thangbrand’s son? How could Guy steal from his father? Thangbrand’s face was crimson with fury. In the silence, the rattling scrape of his sword being drawn. Then, blade in hand, Thangbrand stalked towards his grey-faced son. Guy was terrified: he lifted both hands out in front of him, fingers outstretched, as if to push away the silent accusation; to insist upon his innocence. But Thangbrand was still advancing, naked sword in his fist. Then, suddenly, Guy’s nerve snapped and he turned, quick as a rat, and dashed out through the open door of the hall and away into the sunshine.
Chapter Eight
After a long life, in which I have committed many sins, I look back on that moment in Thangbrand’s hall with mixed but powerful feelings. I did a terrible thing by hiding the ruby in Guy’s chest; and I fully meant to cause the harm that it did — breaking for ever the bond of love that had existed between Guy and his father Thangbrand. And Thangbrand, in his rough way, did love Guy. He loved him even after the discovery of the jewel in his chest. If Guy had not run, if he had kept his nerve and denied the theft and stood his ground, he might have been punished but Thangbrand would never have killed his own son.
I have asked God for forgiveness for what I did to Thangbrand and to Freya, who had been kind to me in their own way. But I have not asked forgiveness for what I did to Guy; and I never shall. He was a vicious bully and a boor, and he proved that day a coward too; he made my life miserable at a time when I was weak and vulnerable. And I hated him for it. In my mind, he was my enemy from the first few days at Thangbrand’s when he beat me and threatened me. There were further insults and far greater injuries, and I could never forgive his sneering at Bernard’s music, but it was after that first beating a few days after I arrived at Thangbrand’s that I started to consider how I might engineer his downfall. My lovely wife, who is with God and his angels now, used to tell me I was ruthless, without pity; Tuck once told me I was a ‘cold’ man, but neither of those descriptions is quite true. I feel pity and I have shown mercy. But Guy was my enemy, a hated foe who had wronged me — and he was stronger than I. And if I defeated him by guile, so what? I defeated him, that is all that counts. Frere Tuck would not agree; but Robin would have understood: he would have called it vengeance, and considered it his duty.
By the time we in the hall had recovered from the shock of his exposure as a ‘thief’, and had tumbled out of the hall into the weak winter sunshine, Guy was long gone into the greenwood. Hugh organised a pursuit of sorts, but it was half-hearted: a handful of mounted men riding into the woodland and coming back an hour or so later saying they had seen nothing. The truth is that nobody really wanted to catch him. As far as everyone knew, he had harmed nobody but his father. Even Thangbrand’s fury ha
d abated somewhat; the ruby had been recovered, Freya had been put to bed with a jug of warmed wine and the prospect of meting out rough justice to his own son was not one that the old Saxon warrior relished. So Guy was gone. Good riddance, said most folk. I kept my mouth shut.
Life returned to normal at Thangbrand’s. The weather had turned cold, with the first flurries of snow whipping through the skeletal branches of the trees. It didn’t settle into drifts on the practice ground but Thangbrand decided anyway to suspend battle exercises for the winter. He seemed to have lost heart after the departure of Guy and grew morose and sullen, remaining in his chamber sometimes for days at a time, only emerging to answer calls of nature and bark orders for food to be delivered to the room. Freya too seemed dazed, stunned. She would sit silently by the fire all day spinning wool into yarn, unspeaking, almost unmoving, intent on her spindle.
I, on the other hand, was feeling rather cheerful. Christmas was fast approaching, the season of feasting and storytelling, of drinking and music and merrymaking. There were rumours that Robin would be coming south from his great cave hideout and would spend Christmas with us at Thangbrand’s. And I was looking forward to seeing my master again — it seemed an age since our adventure at The Trip to Jerusalem — and perhaps impressing him with my musical prowess.
Christmas with my mother had always been a meagre affair but here in Sherwood with the outlaws, with Robin — and without Guy to torment me — I was expecting to wallow in song, good food and joyful companionship.
Without battle practice taking up half the day, the fighting men and I had time on our hands and we spent it preparing for the twelve days of celebrations for our Lord’s Birth. Supervised by Hugh, we cut timber into logs for the great pile by the side of the hall, helped the alewives brew great vats of beer, hindered the cooks, who were preparing the pies and roast meat for the feasting, and decorated the buildings with holly and mistletoe.
Despite the Christmas preparations, I found I had more time for music with Bernard. We would sit in his little cottage away from the noise of the hall, drink wine and play music together all night, sometimes with little blonde Godifa, whom we called Goody, listening quietly and shyly joining in the choruses in her lovely, clear little voice. Sometimes it was just the two of us, Bernard playing on his vielle and me accompanying him on an elegant wooden flute that he had carved for me. He taught me almost his entire repertoire from ridiculous smutty ditties to the great heart-bursting bitter-sweet romances. Sometimes we just talked. As well as music, Bernard loved wine and he loved to talk — about the women he had loved, about courtly life in France, and how he hated this outlaw existence, as he put it, ‘pissing away the remains of my youth in this wilderness, surrounded by tone-deaf oafs who couldn’t tell fine music from a monk’s fart’.
He was rarely dull, except when he was very drunk, when he would go on and on about love, its wonders, its pains. And even then he would soon realise his pomposity and make mock of himself. I liked his company a great deal and I began to stay at his cottage more and more, wrapping myself up in a cloak and sleeping on a pile of hay in the corner of the room when the fire died down and the wine and the music and the talk were finished. It was too much trouble, late at night, to stumble back to the hall and find a place among the snoring outlaws. Occasionally Hugh would give me a scolding for ignoring my evening chores. But, in truth, there were plenty of people to lend a hand and I was seldom missed when I stayed over at the cottage. Bernard didn’t seem to mind at all that I had, in effect, moved in with him. And my laziness was to save my life.
In the mornings, I would brush the hay from my clothes, splash my face with water and hurry the half mile or so back to Thangbrand’s to begin my morning chores. Then I’d be back by midday to begin another round of music and talk that would last half the night. Sometimes Goody would curl up at Bernard’s, too, when she had been staying up with us past midnight. We were a happy little group: Goody always eager to please, delighted to run errands for Bernard and myself. Bernard was drunk almost permanently — but he could take a huge amount of alcohol and still appear sober, and still play his vielle with wonderful delicate skill. I had not so hard a head — though I had turned fourteen that summer and counted myself a man — and I would mix my wine with plenty of spring water, as the Greeks and Romans used to do, Bernard told me.
On the eve of Christmas, we performed together in front of the whole community: as well as half a dozen pieces for flute and vielle, I played two of my own compositions, solo; Bernard performed an epic poem of King Arthur that he had set to music. He finished our performance with a haunting vielle tune, a swooping series of bitter-sweet chords that made the hairs on your neck stand, to which I sang the tale of a woman mourning her lover who had been killed in battle. It was a triumph; even Thangbrand applauded and smiled for the first time in weeks. Hugh made a pretty speech and described Bernard as a shining ornament to our fellowship. ‘He makes me sound like some trinket, a golden earring or something,’ muttered Bernard to me under his breath.
Hugh also led the prayers at midnight on that Christmas eve, as he was a monk-trained clerk, and deeply religious, and as we had no priest. I had hoped that Robin would be there but it seemed that he had been delayed in the north, and Tuck with him. Outside the warm hall we all trooped, at midnight, our breath steaming in the silver moonlight and, as the plump flakes of feathery snow began to fall, we gave thanks for the birth of Our Saviour. It was deathly cold, too cold to linger and after muttering a hurried Pater Noster and one Ave Maria, we all trooped back into the warmth of the hall. This was the only religious element during the whole of Yuletide but, by then, I was used to the unchristian ways of Robin’s band. Prayer, though, keeps the Devil away and afterwards I wondered if perhaps, just perhaps, we had been more attentive to our souls on that Christmas night, we might have kept the horror that was about to fall on us at bay.
After those few brief prayers, the drinking began in earnest — all night and into the days and nights that followed. Christmas became something of a blur: huge barrels of ale, heated with red-hot pokers, with honey and spices added, were left open by the fire in the centre of the hall, where they stayed pleasantly warm. Men and women filled great flagons from them and guzzled until the liquid ran down their cheeks. One fool actually fell into one of the butts, and had to be hauled out spluttering, laughing and streaming with ale before he drowned. The outlaws staggered about roaring and laughing and chasing the women folk; some having the courtesy to go outside to piss or to puke, others just adding to the slurry on the rush-strewn floor.
The long table in the hall, normally dismantled every day after the noon meal, was left standing for the twelve days. The more sober outlaws gorged on the food that the servants brought to the table: roasted pork, fresh and salted, steaming platters of beef and haunches of venison, hot loaves from the bake-house; pigeon pies, boiled salted lampreys, spit-roasted goose; cheeses. . At the end of each day the servants, those who were sober, cleared away empty platters and scraps and two strong men piled the unconscious revellers at the side of the hall out of the way of passing boots. Then the storytelling would begin. The men told fabulous tales of giants and wizards and monsters; of the dog-headed men of the Far East, and of the monopods, men who had only one giant foot each, under which they would shelter from the rain or sun by lying on their backs and using their single giant foot as a roof. Then there were the lissom girls who lived in the great oceans and who had a fish tail instead of a pair of legs. According to some of the outlaws, there was even a monster lurking nearby in Sherwood — a werewolf. This was an evil man who could turn himself into a beast and who hunted other men and ate their flesh. Though I knew this was just idle fireside talk designed to frighten the listener, a shiver ran down my spine and, just then, as the tale was being told, out in the forest, a wolf howl sounded and one of the men, an evil-faced rascal named Edmund, leant forward, looked me in the eye and said: ‘That’s him. That’s the man-wolf. And tonight he’s h
ungry for human blood.’ His brother, Edward, who was sitting beside me suddenly grabbed my shoulder and I jerked with surprise, hurling the contents of my ale pot over myself. The outlaws fell about laughing, absolutely rolling on the filthy floor in uncontrolled merriment. I couldn’t see anything funny at all. Then my neighbour, the one who had startled me, slapped me on the back and someone brought me another pot of ale, and the stories continued.
There were three fights that I knew about that Yuletide, and only one of those fatal; a stupid row over who should enjoy Cat’s favours that ended in a stabbing. While they were arguing, I led Cat quietly out to the stables and, while two outlaws fought to the death over the rights to her body, I took possession of her in a far more satisfactory way than our first fumbling time together. Well, I enjoyed it more. She was just happy to receive her silver penny.
The dead man was hauled away and stacked to freeze by the woodpile outside. The snow was thick on the ground by now and he would be buried when the earth thawed enough, and the men were sober enough, to dig a grave: it might be many weeks. Thangbrand judged it a fair fight, another barrel of ale was fetched, a toast was drunk to the dead man’s memory and the feasting carried on.
Even Bernard was disgusted after the sixth day — and he had been roaring and gorging and puking with the best of them — so we filled a sack with food from the long table and rolled a barrel of wine out to his cottage and continued our own celebrations there. God be praised, that decision saved our lives.