castle. So many of my good men had fallen in the East in defence of Christ’s teachings that I found myself left with a mere fifty Christian souls capable of giving battle to my enemies. Unless I wished to surrender my family and my lands to a cur who holds the Church’s laws in contempt, I was therefore forced to resort to subterfuge, to use a low trick.
‘This man’s wild talk of fire-breathing horse-headed men is all nonsense, the babbling of a coward,’ said Robin, indicating Murdac with a flick of his left hand, but not deigning to look at him. ‘True, I rolled fire-carts into his camp; and true, my men wore sheepskin masks, painted to look like horses’ heads, to frighten his craven men-at- arms, but there was no heresy involved, and it is ridiculous to imagine that demons were summoned. We prayed to Almighty God and his only son Jesus Christ to deliver us from our enemies and by His good grace — and the strength and prowess of my men — the enemy were defeated.’
Here Robin stopped, and the Master stared at him for a few heartbeats, waiting to hear more. ‘Can you prove any of what you say?’ the Templar leader said finally.
Robin beckoned to me. ‘I call upon my loyal vassal Alan of Westbury to bear witness to the truth of what I say. Alan took part in that action, and he is a good Christian soul who would never allow himself to become involved in anything that went against the teachings of the Church. Stand up, Alan. Come forward and speak.’
I walked as calmly as I could into the centre of the church; my legs felt soft and my belly fluttery, and I was conscious of the gaze of more than thirty pairs of noble eyes. But keeping my chin up, I stared straight at the Master, and said: ‘What the Earl of Locksley says is Gospel true. There were no horse-demons summoned; it was merely a ruse de guerre, a trick to make the enemy fearful of us.’
There was a rustling sound from around the church and mutterings of approval. I could feel the opinion of those gathered there turning in our favour like a great tide. The men gathered here were warriors, first and foremost, and many of them had used a cunning ruse or two to achieve victory.
‘Very well, you may both return to your seats,’ said the Master.
As we walked back to our places in the south-western quarter of the church, Tuck was beaming at us. When we took our seats, he began to utter words of congratulation, but Robin cut him off. ‘It’s not over yet, Tuck,’ my master whispered, ‘not by a long march. That was merely the first clash of swords.’
‘I call upon Sir Aymeric de St Maur to produce further evidence,’ boomed the Master, and looking to my right, I saw that, as usual, Robin was correct.
The Templar knight was standing over a wretched creature: a man, half-naked and lying on his side, his arms bound behind his back, who had been beaten and misused in the most appalling fashion. Patches of his flesh were burnt, red raw and oozing from the hot irons — and I remembered with a shudder my own torture at the hands of Sir Ralph Murdac. But there was something else about him that troubled me even more: tattooed on the poor man’s chest, easily visible thanks to his bound arms, was a symbol in the shape of the letter Y. I knew that sign, and I knew what it meant.
My mind leapt back to an awful night in Sherwood Forest nearly four years ago and a wretch no less terrified than this man now before me — a man who was tied to an ancient stone and butchered in a demonic ceremony as a sacrifice to a pagan god — a ceremony of worship to Cernunnos, a woodland deity, a figure that the Church regarded as a foul demon. Robin had played a leading part in the ceremony, and worshipping the demon Cernunnos must certainly be viewed as heresy of the vilest kind.
Sir Aymeric de St Maur dragged the wretch to the centre of the church by his hair. And the man lay there weeping, either with pain or fear, cowering on the floor before the Master. Every man in the room seemed to crane forward to get a better look at him.
‘This villein is known as John,’ began Aymeric, speaking, as we all had until this point, in French. ‘He once belonged to the manor of Alfreton, but he killed a man and ran away from justice five years ago and took to living wild in Sherwood Forest. He became a beggar and a footpad — and a demon-worshipper, as is indicated by this mark on his chest.’
Aymeric pointed to the Y-shaped tattoo. Beside me, Robin sat up a little straighter and cocked his head to one side, observing the unfortunate villein with a speculative but still astoundingly untroubled eye.
‘We had to use a good deal of persuasion on him,’ said Aymeric, giving the prisoner a savage kick that caused the man to writhe on the floor, smearing the stone flags with his blood and burn fluids, ‘but finally he confessed to his foul deeds. And he told us a very interesting story concerning the Earl of Locksley.’
There was absolute silence in the church, not a cough, not a shuffled foot.
Sir Aymeric continued, his voice echoing in the stillness: ‘This man claims he participated in a diabolical ceremony at Easter four years ago in which a prisoner of war, a man-at-arms known as Piers in the service of Sir Ralph Murdac, then the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, was sacrificed to a demon called Cernunnos by a notorious local witch. During the ceremony, Robert Odo, who went by the name of Robin Hood in those days, fully took part in the bloody, heretical ritual. Indeed, he claimed that he had been possessed by the demon Cernunnos himself.’
There were gasps all around the church and every eye now fixed itself on Robin and our little group. I saw that the Bishop of London was shaking his silver head and chewing on one fingernail. He looked as if he were ready to burst into tears.
‘Is this true?’ asked the Master, addressing the wretch on the floor in English. ‘You, villein, is what Sir Aymeric says true? Did you participate in a blood-thirsty heretical ceremony worshipping a false god, in which the Earl of Locksley also played a central part?’
The tattooed man gave a little moan of fear, and stammered: ‘Oh yes, sir, please don’t hurt me. It is true, every word of it. I swear before Almighty God, and Jesus, Joseph and Mary, and all the saints, please…’
‘That’s enough!’ Aymeric reached down and cuffed the man violently around the head, and the poor wretch slumped to the floor and resumed his silent weeping.
‘Take him away,’ ordered the Master, switching back into French; and the poor man was dragged off and bundled down the steps to the crypt by two burly Templar sergeants.
‘What response do you make to this accusation?’ the Master asked Robin.
My lord rose to his feet. ‘That man has clearly been tortured out of his wits and would say anything to ease his pains. By Church decree, by the decree of the Holy Father himself, his testimony has no validity in an inquisition,’ he said briskly. ‘By Church law, a tortured man’s testimony is not acceptable. Am I not correct, Master?’
The Master conferred with his two wardens. There was much rustling of parchments and consulting of scrolls and then one of the wardens whispered at length in the Master’s ear. Finally, after a lot of shrugging and frowning, the Master pronounced in a heavy, sullen tone: ‘It seems that we must disregard the evidence of this villein. It appears that he may have been tortured and his evidence is therefore not valid. But I believe that we will hear more on this matter in due course. Sir Aymeric, proceed!’
Robin shrugged. He turned on his heel and walked over to Tuck and myself and sat down again, crossed his legs and began looking at his fingernails. He still seemed absurdly unruffled by the proceedings.
I marvelled at his composure and was trying my best to emulate it when I heard the Master saying: ‘Call the next witness.’
Over the half-hour that followed, a succession of poor men and women were brought out into the centre of the church by Sir Aymeric de St Maur. Each vowed to tell only the truth, then each was asked two simple questions in English: ‘Have you ever seen Robert of Locksley by word or deed engage in heretical activities that run counter to the teachings of Holy Mother Church? And have you ever seen Robert of Locksley participate in a ritual that might be considered demon-worship?’
Each time the witness came to the centre of the church and mumbled his or her way through a story — some of which were sheer moon-addled fantasy, tales of the Earl of Locksley spitting and stamping and pissing on crucifixes in secret ceremonies at the dead of night, or copulating wildly with a black goat while flying through the air; some were no more than innocuous tales of Robin taking the Lord’s name in vain after stubbing his toe on a rock. All, as far as I could tell, were false. It soon became evident that all the witnesses had been well paid. One man even thanked Sir Aymeric in front of the court for the silver he’d been given.
Throughout all this — the lies and fantasies and lunatic accusations — Robin remained composed. Occasionally he would lean forward in his seat to hear a particular man or woman’s testimony, but he did so in the manner of a benevolent old priest listening to the outlandish confession of one of his parishioners. Occasionally he yawned and stretched as if overcome with ennui.
And Robin was not the only one in that church who appeared to be mildly bored by this pantomime. I caught some of the knights in the round chamber yawning, too, and muttering to their neighbours. They did not seem to be
