by Dan Davis
“I knew it,” Jocelyn said. “An outlaw.”
I ignored him and Swein continued.
“They hunted me but they never found me. I followed their trail in the day, stalked them and watched from afar when they rested. Like the first, I waited until he come away from the others. Arrow through his head just in front of his ear. Went in one side and poked right out the other. So I reckon, anyway. Don’t rightly know what they thought had happened. They just drank his blood and moved on.
“But when I took the second of them, they knew then that I was hunting them. They kept watch. They were ready to chase me, baiting me, so I waited. Then last night, it was raining, so I crept up close, waiting for one to go piss so I could send a shaft right through his eye. The rain weren’t too loud and I got close enough to hear them talking, arguing.”
He hesitated, aware no doubt he was talking too much himself.
“Tell it all, Swein, tell all and tell it right now,” I urged him on. “No point to holding on to anything. Only the whole truth will help you now.”
“This were just outside your house,” Swein said. “Outside your wooden walls, in a meadow.”
“Why did they argue?” I asked.
“Two of them were saying they were supposed to burn your house down in the night and burn all the other buildings. They were supposed to start fires outside the doors and throw brands into the thatch but it was raining so those two they wanted to wait. The other two said their strength was wearing off every day and they should attack anyway, burn down the house from the inside after they killed everyone who mattered.”
“No need to ask who won the argument,” Jocelyn quipped.
“They got over the walls like they were nothing. Almost jumped right over the gateway. And what could I do about it by then? A wall between me and them and my bowstrings, even my spares, were wet through because I slipped when crossing the river down by the crossroads. I did not know what to do. So I thought I should warn you. I climbed the wall myself and while they were trying to find a way in, I tossed stones at your house and cried out warnings.”
“That was you shouting,” I said. “In the night. I remember. I thought it was them, jeering and mocking us, meaning to frighten us.”
“I did shout. Then I ran and waited. I hoped you would finish them all off. They were afraid of you, even the ones who said they were not. When the two outside ran, I followed until it dried and I got one of them. The other man chased me. He was moving too fast for me to hit his head so I shot into his torso while he charged me. Three arrows in the chest and he did not even slow. He would have killed me for certain if you had not arrived and killed him for me.”
“Your arrows killed him eventually,” I said, shaking my head. “Not I. I wanted him alive.”
A smile grew under his bloody nose.
“So you killed four out of six men,” I said. “Six of William’s monsters. Men filled with the power of William’s blood. Men who were stronger and faster than most knights.”
“If what he says is the truth,” Jocelyn said.
“Indeed.”
“It is the truth,” Swein shot back, his blue eyes reflecting the bright sunlight of the doorway behind me.
“But why?” I asked. “Why would you do this?”
Swein opened his mouth and thought better of whatever it was he had been about to say. “Because they deserved it.”
“Do you know where their leader is?” I asked. “The man of evil you mentioned.”
Swein nodded. “I followed them to here from there.”
“Well, where is it?” I grabbed his shoulder. “Out with it, for the love of God.”
“Sherwood,” Swein said. “The man of great evil is in Sherwood.”
“Anselm,” I said and stood up. “Untie this man.”
Jocelyn started behind me. “Surely, you do not believe this pack of lies?”
“I do.”
“His story is preposterous,” Jocelyn said.
“We shall clean him up and bring him to dinner. I shall have Cuthbert find him an old shirt and tunic of mine. They will hang slack upon him but he is almost of a height with me, do you not think?”
“Richard,” Jocelyn said, his tone grave. “You cannot invite this man into the hall to eat with us.”
I considered Jocelyn to be a dear friend and he was, along with his sister, the closest thing to a real family that I had in the world. But I was also his lord.
“It is my hall,” I said, fixing him with my best stare. “And I say who dines within.”
Swein looked between Jocelyn and me with wonder, fear and amusement in his eyes. Anselm untied the many knots securing Swein to the post.
“What are you smirking at?” I said to Swein and leaned in once more. Close enough to breathe in the scent of blood drying on his nose and lips. I held the point of the dagger to his face. “If you do anything to make me suspicious of you, if you make any sudden movements or touch anything that I have not given you leave to touch, then you will be the next man who gets a dagger to the eye. Do you understand?”
He paused for a moment and nodded.
“Good,” I said. “Because I am famished.”
***
“Emma, may I introduce Swein,” I said as I escorted the freshly scrubbed young man into my hall and to the top table. The servants had the hall trestle tables set up and ale and food were being served. Dinner, held at midday, was both the first and the main meal of the day. So it was hearty and could take up much of the day itself. I had known many a dinner to become daylong drinking sessions, depending on the company.
Emma broke off speaking to my steward Old Cuthbert, turned and smiled at Swein as if he was an old friend.
“A pleasure to meet you, Swein,” she said, “I am told that we have you to thank for saving our lives last night.”
“Lady Emma is Jocelyn’s sister,” I said to the skinny young fellow.
Like most men, Swein was flustered by her beauty and stood to gape at her like the commoner he was. Emma wore a simple but long, pale green tunic with unfashionably short sleeves. Her hair was styled simply but it shone golden, even in the dimness of the hall.
I nudged Swein with my elbow. “Speak a greeting, you simple-minded young fool,” I said.
Swein, I guessed, had lived as a farmer or worked in the woods his whole life, even before fleeing justice and living as an outlaw. His life had no doubt been rough, green, and small. No doubt, he knew every soul in every village for ten miles around and not a single thing about the world beyond.
Emma was a creature from another world. She and Jocelyn had grown up in the Holy Land in a wealthy, noble family after both their parents died. I had abandoned them there, truth be told, when they were very young. But they had received an upbringing that was proper to their station. Emma had been married and widowed by the time she and Jocelyn found me again in Derbyshire. She was around ten years older than Swein, perhaps pushing twice as old, but it seemed to me that the years had only enhanced her beauty.
“Morning, my lady,” Swein mumbled and bobbed his head.
“Sheer poetry,” I said.
Emma laughed. “Come and sit with us,” she said.
Jocelyn stomped by and took his customary seat next to my empty chair. Anselm moved to sit beside him. Emma sat in the chair to my left and invited a stunned Swein to the stool next to hers. The lad had murdered two men, almost been killed himself, was then captured, bound and threatened with flaying just that morning. Yet now we treated him like an honoured guest. He kept looking about at the servants laying food and drink before us as if fearing it was all a trick.
In truth, I was not especially afraid of him. He could shoot a bow, no doubt about it but he was barely into his manhood, I guessed, and willowy as a girl. And I mostly believed his story. I wanted more of it but he was too nervous. I wanted him to feel safe and to begin to trust me.
And if he attempted to flee or to harm anyone in my house then I would take off his hands
and torture the whole tale out of him.
“What do you intend to do now, Richard?” Emma asked, pouring ale into Swein’s cup. While my servants made Swein presentable, Jocelyn had told his sister everything that had occurred that morning.
Jocelyn spoke up before I could answer. “Turn the lad over to the sheriff and be done with him.” He took a slurp of his ale.
Swein’s head shot up. “I ain’t done nothing, my lord,” he said. “Nothing that weren’t their due.”
Jocelyn paused with his cup half to his lips and stared at the lad in shock.
“Speak like that again,” I said to Swein, “and I shall cut out your tongue.”
“Richard,” Emma said, offended. “Cut out your own instead. This is not a tavern.”
I caught Jocelyn smirking. “And you can wipe that idiot smile from your face,” I said to him, feeling like a disrespected father to bickering children. “Do not leap down the man’s throat every time that he opens it and do not disagree with me. I know your feelings. You have made yourself perfectly clear on this matter. Stuff your mouth up with bread, won’t you? Why, in God’s name, can I not have peace in my hall?”
“A lord himself sets the example for his household to follow,” Emma said, cutting bread for Swein.
I rubbed my face.
Jocelyn and Emma had never respected me. I was their last resort, their last port of call in their travels from the Holy Land to their ancestral seat. I knew they were with me because they had nowhere else to go in the whole world. That was fine by me. I loved them both and without them, I would have no one. So I put up with their disrespect. And they knew it well.
“Those who attacked us were certainly William de Ferrer’s men,” I said to Emma, as gently as I could, for William had murdered her mother. “It was in their manner.”
She nodded. “By that you mean they fought with that ferocity particular to William’s devils?”
“Indeed, and there is more. William sent them. Swein here says he followed the attackers from the Forest of Sherwood,” I said, looking beyond her at the young man shoving cheese into his mouth straight from the platter, not offering any to Emma’s plate. “And that is where their master lies. I shall have the full tale from Swein on the way.”
“On the way?” Jocelyn said, coughing out his ale. “You do not mean to travel to Sherwood?”
“William is there.”
“That monster is most likely long dead,” Jocelyn said. “Those men were strong, I grant you but enough ale can drive a man into a killing frenzy, we have both seen it on the battlefield. You desire William to be so close because you want to kill him yourself. And that has you seeing things that are not true and trusting the word of a peasant outlaw and confessed murderer. William is dead, I tell you. Leave it. You cannot know different.”
“Dead he most certainly is,” I said. “But that has not stopped him from sending men to burn us in our sleep. I am sure. It must be William. It was in the way they moved. Although he is not using his own name, I am certain it is him. The way those men spoke. They were filled with his madness, with the way William twists men’s minds. He has come home. Come home to England, bringing murder and madness with him. I know, yes, I know.”
“This is not suitable talk for the table,” Emma said, her face pale.
The servants were listening very closely. It was so quiet in my hall that I could hear a blackbird trilling in the courtyard.
“You are quite right,” I said to her. “Let us eat. We have preparations to make. I will leave in the morning. And Jocelyn, Anselm and Swein will accompany me.”
“In God’s name, you do not mean to ride us into Sherwood looking for a dead man?” Jocelyn said.
“Firstly, we will ride for Nottingham,” I said. “To see the sheriff.”
***
“Please, lord,” Swein said quietly. “Do not take me to the sheriff.”
We stood in the stable yard, in the murk before dawn the next day. My grooms preparing our horses and my servants organising our supplies and equipment. Jocelyn and Anselm were with us, seeing to their own horses. Anselm was across the yard whispering sweet words to his sorrel rouncey, a well-tempered beast with good stamina and a charge that would embarrass no one.
I wondered what I could do to bind Swein to me. Whether I should attempt to frighten and bully him into compliance or to be kind and welcoming.
“I am not taking you to the sheriff,” I said. “I am going to see the sheriff, a man who is my friend. You are merely coming with me so that you may help me find William. Your great evil in Sherwood.”
Swein looked me in the eye and lowered his voice. “You cannot hold me captive,” he said. “I am free to leave. I am not wanted in this shire.”
My instinct was to punch his teeth down his throat and choke him but I controlled myself. Perhaps he saw my thoughts reflected in my eyes, as he took a step back.
I grabbed his upper arm. He twisted away. For such a skinny young fellow, he was immensely strong. But my grip was iron.
“You go nowhere but where I say,” I said. Swein looked about for help but my men paid us no mind. “You are outlawed in at least one county. You appear to be friendless. And no man who is not mine knows you ever were here. What is to stop me from burying you with the men you killed, out beyond the rubbish heap?”
“The king’s justice?” Swein said, holding my gaze. “Or God’s?”
I laughed at that. “I have seen little of either. Listen to me. Does the sheriff know your face?” I released his arm.
“One of his bailiffs does.” Swein rubbed his arm. “A great giant of a man, a nasty piece of work.”
“So, a single man. I doubt we shall see him and if we do, I shall swear that you have served me for years. And Swein is not your true name?”
He looked sullen.
“Well, Swein you shall be from now on,” I said. “Tell me, for what crime were you summoned?”
He scuffed his boot on the ground. “A crime far outweighed by the punishment.”
“Do you want me to beat it out of you?” I asked. “I would rather not do so. If you tell me true, no matter the answer, I shall not take you to justice nor allow you to be taken while you serve me. Not even if it were murder or homicide.”
He plainly did not believe me. But what choice had I allowed him? “I took a deer.”
“Ah,” I said. “In Sherwood?”
“My father were outlawed in Yorkshire when I was a boy. Few years back. We went to Nottinghamshire, my dad’s brother died, left his land to us. Sherwood was a good place. But the foresters are proper bastards. My dad bought a few pigs and herded them back to our little wood. But to get there he had to go through Sherwood, he had to. No other way. The forester found him, said he was feeding his pigs on the king’s acorns. Then they said our land was in the king’s forest and that we hadn’t permission to dig a ditch around the boundary. They charged him and fined him so much that we lost everything. Then, last winter I took a deer. We were starving. They caught me. Said that as I were sixteen years old I would be tried as a man. I ran into the wood.”
I understood why he had run instead of face a trial. A friendless man had no chance against the warden, verderers and foresters.
The penalty for taking a deer in the king’s forest was death.
In 1216, nearly a third of the land in England was under the law of the forest. When people say forest today, they mean to say a large wood. But back then, a forest was an area of land where the king himself had legal control over the management and distribution of all resources within the borders of the afforested land. Mainly, the kings claimed land for themselves as a means of generating wealth for themselves and also to create lands for hunting. A forest could be wooded but also had heathland, farmland and villages within. Sherwood had all of the above but was one of the few forests in England that remained almost entirely dense woodland. That wood was some of the finest hunting land in the country and contained thousands of deer and boar, the
hunting of which was the exclusive right of the king and his foresters. The shire wood of Nottingham contained a half dozen deer parks and a couple of remote hunting lodges maintained by lords that existed for the king to hunt in.
“So that was where you found William?”
“He ain’t called William,” Swein said, shaking his head. “They call him the Green Knight. They call him the Lord of Eden. Some folk say his name is Sir Robert. I never saw him. Saw his men, though. They’re stronger than you would believe. Faster than you can see. They rounded everyone up. My father fought them. They killed him and I ran. Some of the men who attacked your hall? They was there. The rest are back in Sherwood. I’ll go back and kill as many as I can before they catch me.”
I looked closely at him. If he was telling the truth, it meant he was a remarkable young man.
“Your arrows took William’s men in the eyes,” I said. “You must be a fine archer.”
“Finest in all England, lord,” Swein said, his eyes shining.
Jocelyn snorted. “So says every other peasant in England.”
“It is the truth,” Swein said to me without even glancing at Jocelyn, who mounted, eager to be off. There was little he loved more than riding.
“What other weapons can you use?” I asked.
“My fists?”
I made a decision.
“Swear service to me,” I said.
“You what?” Swein said, looking left and right. “Lord.”
“I need a squire.”
“Richard,” Jocelyn said from atop his sleek courser. “You cannot mean to take this peasant as a squire.”
“A page, then,” I said. “Does it matter what we call him?”
“He is a man grown,” Jocelyn almost wailed. “He is as common as the dirt under his nails. You would make a mockery of the position, whatever you call it.
“It is not as though I mean to make him a knight,” I said. “Someone needs to replace Geoffrey. I was happy enough without while we were at home. We can look for more men in Nottingham but with the country the way it is, I may need someone to help me.”