by Angus Donald
He fell silent, thinking, and perhaps conserving his breath as we walked up that steep hill. Then, as we neared the top, he said: ‘It seems to me that God is everywhere, God is all around, God is this. .’ He swept his hand in a wide curve around him, indicating a swathe of woodland. It looked particularly beautiful that spring day. We had reached the top of the hill and we looked over a rolling stretch of lush greenery. Below us, twenty yards or so away, our horses were tied in the shade of a magnificent spreading hornbeam, bright green with new leaves. Below the tree, a purple carpet of bluebells, like a rippling sea that flowed away seemingly endlessly through the forest. It was a golden afternoon; a light wind rustled the new leaves, and a pair of larks swooped and played in the branches. Just as Robin spoke, a stag stepped out of the trees ahead of us. Its noble head was crowned with a huge set of spreading antlers; its liquid eyes surveyed us from beneath impossibly long eyelashes. We froze. Robin and I were alone, the hunt servants were still struggling up the hill out of sight behind us with our equipment. Robin had a strung bow in his hand and a linen bag full of arrows at his belt. But he didn’t move. The great red animal stared at us and we looked back in wonder. It was a perfect specimen, in its prime: head alert, mounted on a long proud neck, glossy muscular haunches and long clean legs ending in neat black hooves. It stood four-square, and shook its antlers in our direction as a challenge; every inch the king of the forest. I looked at Robin out of the side of my eye, expecting him to raise his bow. But he didn’t move. Eventually, after a final long regal look at us, the great deer trotted back out of sight into the woodland. And I found I had been holding my breath.
‘Was that beautiful creature not a fine example of God’s presence?’ asked Robin. ‘God made that animal, and there is much godliness in that splendid beast. I need no priest or bishop to tell me that.’ He was speaking the vilest heresy — I knew that none could come to Salvation without the Church, but part of me, a wicked corner of my soul, could not but agree with him.
There was one distressing note in my life at Robin’s Caves. It was the captive soldier that Robin had taken just before he had rescued us from the wolves. He was kept in a small wooden cage, a short way from the main cave, which was just high enough for him to stand and long enough for him to lie down straight. I stumbled upon him one day when I went out to stretch my legs. He was filthy, confined as he was and open to the weather, and near starving, too, as he was fed only slops that a pig would refuse. Everyone in Robin’s band just ignored him but I couldn’t get him out of my mind. His name was Piers, he told me, and, feeling sorry for him, I would steal food from the kitchens and bring it to him from time to time, and talk to him like a human being.
He was not an intelligent man. Just a local Nottingham boy, an orphan who had been forced to beg and steal for his bread in the town and had even been outlawed for a time and had hidden out in Sherwood. When he told me this, I felt a bond of kinship with him. But then a cold realisation crept into my stomach. And I knew why he was being kept here, a prisoner with no ransom value. He had once been part of Robin’s band and then he had run away from his comrades to rejoin lawful society. With a shock, I knew I was looking at a corpse. Quite apart from the fact that he had participated in the slaughter at Thangbrand’s, he had, as Robin would see it, betrayed the band. He was, as Robin had said, a ghost; a dead man breathing.
I kept my face calm as he told me how he had joined the city watch and then, after a few years, and after much sweat and many a hard knock, had made the leap into the ranks of Sir Ralph Murdac’s elite cavalry. It was something of which he was very proud. He was, as I have said, a very stupid man. He had no wife, nor children, and little conversation besides constant complaints about his conditions. His wound had been healed by Brigid, though he was not grateful, and called her a witch, but without room to exercise, and little food, his muscles were wasting away. In truth, he was a miserable fellow. But my heart was filled with pity for him nonetheless and I prayed that his end would be swift and painless. My friendship with Robin would be sorely stretched, maybe even to breaking point, if I had to witness another punishment of the like meted out to Sir John Peveril.
The only other person who spoke to Piers was Tuck. Once, when I came to see the poor man, I found Tuck in earnest conversation with him. And another time, when I approached the cage, I heard Tuck saying prayers for the poor man’s soul. But though I felt pity for the caged soldier, a part of me, a shameful part, began to hate him just a little, too. I hated him because he was weak, and stupid, and helpless — and because I could not help him. But mostly I hated Piers because he was the cause of a great rift between the two men I most liked and admired.
I had been exercising my sword arm, which was by now fully healed, with some of the men in the woods outside the caves, when a great thunderstorm had gathered almost without warning and drenched us. As we all streamed back into the main cave, dripping and cursing, I saw Tuck and Robin standing almost nose to nose. The atmosphere in the cave crackled like lightning. Tuck, flanked by his great wolfhounds Gog and Magog, was shouting: ‘. . don’t tell me you are seriously going to go through with this blood-thirsty pantomime.’
‘I have told you my reasons,’ Robin replied in a voice as cold as charity. The great dogs, sensing their master’s hostility to Robin, began to growl deep in their throats, a terrifying rumble that was almost as loud as the thunder outside the cave.
‘You think this. . this barbaric, blasphemous, pagan display will bring you power over these people, that you will be seen as some kind of incarnation of a god? You are chancing your immortal soul with this nonsense, you are risking-’
Robin, his face like a stone, interrupted him. ‘Do not speak to me about my soul, priest!’ The dogs’ growling had reached a higher pitch, their lips pulled back to display their huge white teeth. I remembered what they had done to the wolf pack, and shuddered. Robin ignored the animals completely. As I stood there, stomach churning with anxiety, I heard a creak behind my ear and turned to see Much, the miller’s son, with a bow in his big hands, an arrow nocked, and the string at full draw. It was pointing at the dogs. I looked around the great hall of the cave and I saw half a dozen other men, either with bow strings drawn and aimed at Tuck, or clutching their sword handles ready to sweep out their blades and cut the monk down.
The two men stared at each other, faces inches apart, neither giving any quarter in this dispute, and then Robin broke the locked gaze and looked around the cave. He had a curious expression on his handsome face; just for a second he looked like a guilty schoolboy. In that intense, private communion with Tuck, he had seemed unaware that bloody violence was only a heartbeat away. Now, as he realised that the cave was poised to break out into war, a flash of irritation rippled across his face.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Much, put that bow down,’ he snapped. ‘And the rest of you, put up your swords. Now! We are all friends here.’ Then he looked back at Tuck and gave him a half smile. The monk shook his head, almost smiling too, and fondled the heads of his great animal bodyguards, quieting them. The tension was draining out of the cave and the men began to move about, unbuckling their war gear, starting to clean their muddy swords, and drying the rain from their faces with rough woollen blankets. Tuck said quietly to Robin: ‘I can’t stay here, I can’t be part of this. .’ And Robin said simply: ‘I know.’
Tuck plucked up a bundle of his belongings from a corner of the cave, whistled up his dogs and, without a word of goodbye, he strode out of the cave and into the rain.
Easter was approaching and with it the beginning of the new year. And we had wonderful news: Marie-Anne would be traveling up from Winchester to pay a visit to Robin at the Caves. I had dreamed of her on many a cold night, her beautiful Madonna face framed in blue and white, and now that she was coming, I could barely contain my excitement. I even went so far as to bathe my whole body in a freezing stream, rubbing my skin with a mixture of ashes and fat and scrubbing it clean with fine sand from the st
ream bed. I washed my clothes, too, though they were a sorry threadbare collection of rags after so long in the wild. There was new cloth to be had, bales and bales of the dark green wool that Robin’s men wore as a badge of their allegiance to their master. One day I begged for a length of cloth from Robin to make myself a new surcoat and he took me to a chamber far at the back of one of the smaller caves where the stores were kept. Robin showed me a roll of fine green wool and told me to help myself to as much as I wanted. I was grateful but Robin brushed aside my thanks and left me to cut my cloth.
There were two other men in the chamber, engaged in a curious task. Using the same dark green cloth, Lincoln green I have heard it called since, they were cutting thin ribbons of material, less than half an inch thick but of extraordinary length — about ten yards long. When I asked the men what they were doing, I was told: ‘We’re making summoning thread.’ And when I asked what that was they just chuckled and said I’d find out in good time.
Marie-Anne arrived with almost no fanfare and a small retinue of a dozen soldiers from Gascony, liegemen of Queen Eleanor, her mistress. But she had an immediate effect on the camp. She kissed me affectionately on the cheek, admired my new exercise-given manly physique, asked after my singing — which to be honest, I had rather neglected since coming to Robin’s Caves — and left me more in love with her than ever. She was introduced to Goody, took one look at her dirty face and raggedy clothes and ordered a great cauldron of water heated and an area to be closed off with curtains. After Goody had been forced to wash — she had to be dragged screaming into the hot water and forcibly scrubbed — Marie-Anne soothed her sulks by getting an outlaw tailor to make her a new silk dress and tying ribbons in her hair. Within a day or so, Goody was her willing slave.
Robin seemed immeasurably happier now that she was by his side at last. It was a strange, unpleasant sensation to see them together. I found that I resented Robin for having her love. My master had aroused many emotions in my heart in the year I had known him: awe, fear, disgust; but also respect, affection, maybe even a kind of love. Now I felt angry with him for spending so much time alone with a woman for whom I would have done anything. They asked me to sing with them one evening, soon after Marie-Anne’s arrival, but I could not bear the thought of the three of us being together and so I pretended that I had a head cold and was not in good voice. I could see that Marie-Anne was hurt by my boorish refusal; Robin too seemed puzzled.
I knew I was being childish, and berated myself for my stupid behaviour, but I could not help myself. When I saw them together I could see that they truly loved each other, and it burned my soul like cold fire. At dinner she would sit by his side and while Robin engaged in rough banter with the other outlaws, I often saw him taking her hand in his below the table. Marie-Anne’s presence seemed to have had changed Robin’s demeanour; he was more light-hearted, even boyish around her. In fact, everyone seemed more cheerful with Marie-Anne in the camp; the laughter around the Caves was louder, the men went about their tasks with merriment and snatches of song. I was the only one who was out of sorts.
Fortunately, there was plenty to occupy my hands while I brooded on life and love: Robin was planning a great gathering for Easter and all the men and women of Sherwood who served him, or who did not care to offend him, were to be summoned to a great feast in the heart of Sherwood to mark the beginning of the new year. Little John had set me and several other outlaws to making a great plank table in the shape of a ring, enough to seat five hundred folk for the Easter meal. As well as a great deal of gorging at the gathering, there would be games and contests, gift-giving, singing and dancing, and displays of martial prowess.
Hugh returned to the Caves the day after Marie-Anne’s arrival, and he brought with him a large ox-drawn cart that was filled with wicker baskets. The baskets contained hundreds of doves and were each marked with a letter crudely painted on the wicker lids. I greeted Hugh, who seemed very pleased with himself, and asked him what the doves were for: ‘Are we going to eat them at the feast?’ I asked. He looked shocked. ‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘These are home-loving doves, very special, and they’ll be used for the summoning.’ I was mystified and he explained.
‘These doves know where their home is, where their mate and nest is, and they can find it even when they are hundreds of miles away. The Caliphs of Baghdad use them to send messages by attaching tiny written notes to the birds’ feet. But as few people hereabouts can read, we use them to communicate a simpler message.’
I had no idea then what a Caliph was, and I had never heard of Baghdad, but I was intrigued by the idea of communicating with birds. Hugh continued: ‘We transport the birds far from home and then release them with a long thin green banner attached to their legs. The birds can then be seen for miles as they fly home, the banner flapping beneath them. A home-loving bird with a green banner is a message; it means simply: “Robin of Sherwood summons you”. And all who would serve Robin are then required to arm themselves and travel in exactly the opposite direction that the birds are flying.’
I must have looked confused because Hugh frowned and snapped, ‘It’s very simple, boy, just pay attention,’ exactly as he had when he was my schoolmaster. Then he pulled out a dagger from his belt and began to draw in the bare dirt at my feet. He stabbed the dagger into the ground six times, making a rough circle of marks. ‘Each one of these is a farmhouse, with a dovecote, that Robin uses as a safe place. Here, for example,’ he stabbed one of the marks in the circle, ‘is Thangbrand’s. May he rest in peace. Here,’ he stabbed again at another mark, ‘is Selwyn’s Farm; this,’ he stabbed again, ‘is Kirklees Priory.’ He looked to see if I had grasped it; and indeed an understanding of the elegance of the system was dawning on me. He stabbed the point of the dagger in the centre of the circle. ‘We are here at Robin’s Caves, but we have doves with us that make their homes in all these places.’ He indicated the marks in the dirt circle. ‘When we release the doves, they fly home trailing the green banners.’ He drew lines from the central point to all the outlying marks on the circle, making a star shape. ‘A loyal man who sees the dove on the wing knows he must march in exactly the opposite direction to the dove’s flight and he will meet up with our patrols who will guide him — and scores of his fellows — into the camp. Simple, eh?’
It was. And I was impressed. ‘But don’t the banners get tangled up in the tree branches, trapping the doves?’
He nodded. ‘Some do, and they are usually pulled down by farmers who sometimes eat the dove. Some men bring the dove back to Robin, and he is careful to reward those who do. Some of the doves are taken by hawks. It’s not perfect, but it does work. It summons Robin’s people from distances of up to fifty miles in all directions.’
A few days later I saw the system in action. Hugh and myself and several outlaws took the cartload of doves to the vast clearing in the woods where we would be feasting in a few days time and after attaching each dove to a banner, which took a surprisingly short time — the birds lay quietly in my grasp as I tied on the green material round one pink foot with a simple knot — we released them and watched as they soared up into the sky, circled the clearing until they found their direction, and then headed off, north, south, east and west, trailing the thin green banners behind them. ‘In a few days,’ said Hugh, ‘there’ll be a multitude here.’
And he was right. Two days later the patrols started to bring in the people of Sherwood. There was a motley collection of humanity: mostly they were outlaws, outcasts and runaway serfs, who scratched a living in Sherwood but were not members of Robin’s band. Many of them wore the same Y-shaped amulet as Brigid around their necks, but not all. Some wanted to serve Robin as men-at-arms or bowmen; some just wanted a decent meal and a drink. But there were others too: well-fed yeoman farmers with quarterstaves in one meaty hand, men for whom Robin had done a favour at some time; villagers looking for justice or a small loan or help against an oppressive lord of the manor; apprentices from the towns, who h
ad slipped away from their masters for an illicit holiday; small merchants looking to sell their wares, and, strangest of all, two brothers who lived deep in Sherwood and who shunned all settlements. This strange pair, who dressed entirely in animal skins, were not outlaws in the way that we were, because they had never lived within the law. Both wore the Y-shaped amulet; they were pagans, who worshipped the old gods of the forest: Cernunnos, the horned deer god and his consort the Triple Goddess, who was maiden, mother and crone all at once, the deity that Brigid, the Irish wise woman, served. They avoided settlements with their Churches and law courts, unless it was absolutely necessary. I was intrigued and made friends with them: a grizzled old hunter called Ket the Trow and his brother who was known as Hob o’ the Hill, who was a charcoal burner, and who reeked of pungent smoke. Neither of them stood taller than my shoulder and I had not finished my growing yet. But they were superb mimics and could imitate all the birds of the forest with great accuracy and could hunt and track better than anyone else in Sherwood. They were devoted to Brigid and Hob especially seemed to be impressed with the little row of dimples that was my memento of the night of the wolves. ‘A wolf bite is very dangerous,’ said Ket, while Hob nodded wisely beside him. ‘Our uncle was bitten by a wolf, and he died a week later.’
‘He fell out of a tree, while picking mistletoe, and landed on his head,’ said Hob, looking at Ket with disapproval.
‘Yes,’ said Ket, ‘but why was he picking mistletoe? To make a cure for a wolf bite gone bad.’
Robin’s Caves were transformed by the crowds, who began arriving on the Easter Saturday morning and were clearly in the mood to make merry, and this quiet area of woodland became as busy and muddy and colourful and noisy as the Nottingham Fair. Anyone who arrived clutching a summoning dove was duly paid a silver penny by Robin, thanked and relieved of the bird, which was put back in the appropriate basket. Some of the visiting folk had brought tents; others quickly threw up crude huts made from turf and tree branches, to shelter them at night, and then they hurried to one of the larger caves where Little John was serving out great tankards of ale, free to all who asked him. Pedlars with trays of gimcrack goods, brightly coloured ribbons and whistles, lucky tokens and sweetmeats, roamed about crying, ‘What do you lack?’ in an attempt to sell their wares. There were dog fights and wrestling matches, foot races and a tug of war. An archery contest was held, which Robin won, to absolutely no one’s surprise. He even beat Owain, the Welsh captain of his bowmen, who had first taught him the use of the war bow. Queen Eleanor’s Gascon cavalry gave a demonstration of their prowess, galloping about and spearing cabbages nailed to poles at head height. Bernard judged a children’s singing contest and then got drunk and sang bawdy songs for hours to an audience of equally drunken revellers. A travelling storyteller, a wise old man named Wygga, with a grey pointed beard and a mischievous grin, kept scores of people entertained with his marvellous tales of long-ago battles. I sat at his feet for hours, entranced by the bold deeds of King Arthur and his knights, and vowed to remember his fabulous stories and to make up my own songs about them one day.