these good people, I had grown up around them, as one of them. These were the folk whose sweat and toil would create the silver that one day, I prayed, would bring King Richard safely home.
We stopped at noon at an alehouse, and while my men ate bread and cheese and sucked down the local ale at a rough table in the sunshine outside the house, I spoke to them about our mission, and told them what I expected from them when we reached the manor of Mansfield.
‘We are not going there to loot,’ I said sternly to a gathering of big, violent men in iron-ringed coats with sharp swords strapped to their waists. ‘We are not going there to steal. We are going there to collect the rightful taxes that are due, and not a penny more.’
There was some grumbling and muttering at this. I waited patiently for silence and then continued:
‘Most especially we are not going to rape, or abuse, or kill anyone. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Begging your pardon, sir, but what is to be our share of the take?’ asked the sergeant, a fat man, grey at the temples and scarred from battle.
‘We do not share in what you call “the take”. Do you not receive a daily wage of two pennies from Prince John, a recompense for service to your lord? That is your share of the take. That is the money you are being paid to perform this labour. I want you all to understand this. Every coin that we raise will go to Nottingham. Father Stephen has the amounts that we are to collect listed on his rolls; we will collect them, with firmness and fairness, and deliver every penny to the account-keepers in the castle.’
There was an outbreak of tumult, angry men hammering pewter mugs on the tabletop and shouting at me. I had not made any new friends with my little speech. The priest, our lettered clerk, looked at me with his darting, rodent eyes; then he looked away quickly. I would find no support there.
‘So what do you get out of this, eh?’ said the sergeant. He was red in the face and waving his finger underneath my nose. ‘Kindly tell me — and the lads here — what your share will be. More than the few extra pennies we might have scraped up, I’ll be bound.’
I grabbed his finger in my left hand and his wrist in my right, and twisted, bending the digit back against the joint. He gave a high-pitched animal scream of pain that shocked the noisy table into silence. I leaned into him so that our faces were only inches apart.
‘When you address me, Sergeant, you call me “sir”. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and I could see that his fat face was greasy with pain-sweat.
‘Yes what?’ I demanded, and gave his finger joint a sharp twist. He howled again but managed to squeal: ‘Yes, sir! Yes, sir!’
‘Not a penny of this tax money will stick to my fingers — nor to yours. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Fine,’ I said, and released him. ‘Now, all of you, get mounted. This respite is over; we’re riding out.’
The mood in our little cavalcade after that was as sour as a bucket of week-old milk that someone has pissed in. I rode at the head of the column, with the sergeant riding immediately behind me, nursing his twisted finger and shooting me looks of molten hatred. I suspected that I was the least popular captain in England that afternoon — but I did not care. I did not believe they would try to murder me, and risk incurring the wrath of Prince John. And if they did not like me, well, I could live with that. The most worrying thing was that I could hear the echoes of Robin’s voice in my ear saying, Interesting — once again you turn to violence, Alan; inflicting pain to impose your will. I’ll make a real man of you yet!
I began to sing loudly to myself as I rode, chiefly to drive the sound of Robin’s laughter from my head.
Chapter Thirteen
Our first stop that afternoon was at a church serving a tiny hamlet about three miles south of Mansfield. The old priest protested when I sent in the men-at-arms to strip the altar of a pair of golden candlesticks and a wide silver plate, but he desisted when Father Stephen informed him that we were collecting for the ransom of the King. Whether he believed us or not, he was not foolish enough to question eight armed men.
One of the soldiers suggested that we might take a burning torch to the soles of the old priest’s feet to see if he had any more silver hidden away but, with a sigh, I said no and explained again the rules of our mission that day. No robbery, no abuse, no rape, no murder. The message finally seemed to sink in then, and we were in and out of the church in less than half an hour, having taken everything of value that we could see.
Our next stop was the manor of Mansfield. It was a royal manor, set in a bowl of countryside on the western edge of Sherwood Forest, much irrigated by rivers, and held by a mutton-headed steward called Geoffrey who had lost a foot fighting for Richard in France during the interminable wars between the Duke of Aquitaine and the late King Henry.
Geoffrey was happy to pay up the three shillings and eight pence that Father Stephen demanded of him and, as the day was drawing on, he offered us accommodation for the night to spare us the fifteen-mile ride back to Nottingham. We spent the rest of the afternoon collecting money from the village, which went without incident — except that one old woman claimed she had no coin and we were forced to accept a scrawny and ancient cockerel instead. Then we returned to the manor house and presented the bird to Geoffrey’s cook, as recompense for our bed and board.
Geoffrey provided the men with a small barrel of ale, several loaves of bread and a big pot of frumenty, a cracked-wheat porridge flavoured with cabbage, leeks and chervil, and allowed them to take their ease in the stables. And while the men relaxed with a pair of dice and the remains of the ale, Father Stephen and I repaired to the hall to eat a tough chicken stew and drink wine with the steward.
The meal was served by a pretty girl of about fourteen years, I would have guessed, blonde and blue-eyed, like an angel. She reminded me a little of my lovely Goody in her looks, though she did not have Goody’s alarming fire and passion. But she brought the food swiftly and served it neatly, and busied herself unobtrusively tidying up the table when we had eaten. I saw Father Stephen watching her movements with his dark little eyes and wondered how seriously he took his vows of chastity.
After the meal, I asked the steward for news of the area and he told me two things that were of much interest to me. Firstly, the notorious outlaw Robin Hood had been very active in the area in recent weeks, robbing churches and churchmen as they passed through Sherwood Forest. Robin had even attacked a large manor over towards Chesterfield that belonged to Sir Ralph Murdac, robbed it, driven off the livestock and burnt it to the ground. I reflected that my lord had not been idle while I was in Germany, and he had clearly not forgotten his code of vengeance: Murdac had burnt his castle at Kirkton, so Robin was paying him back in kind.
But, according to Geoffrey, the locals had worse to fear than the depredations of ruthless outlaws. Stories abounded of a black witch, a hideous crone with strange demonic powers, who had been seen by a number of people as far afield as Derby and Sheffield. It was said that she could turn a man to stone with one look from her terrible eyes; that she could curse a pregnant woman’s unborn child; and that the Devil visited her every night and they fornicated in a foul and unnatural manner beneath the stars, the witch crying aloud in her ecstasy in a Satanic tongue. Father Stephen crossed himself hurriedly, and the steward followed his example as he ended his tale. Clearly the Hag of Hallamshire had not been idle either while I was away. I recalled Elise’s words to me in the winter, when she passed on the warning from the wise woman Brigid, and felt an unfamiliar prickle of unease at the base of my spine. I crossed myself, too.
Just then, a long, loud wailing cry shattered the night, and I jumped to my feet. It was the cry of a woman in torment and it was coming from the courtyard just outside the hall. I clutched at my sword hilt, and while Father Stephen fell to his knees, hands clasped in prayer and gibbering in terror, the steward grabbed a lantern and he and I made our way out of the hall, across the courtyard and over to the stable.
Inside the stable, my eyes were met by a most disgusting sight. By the dim light of the lantern, I could see a pair of round hairy buttocks pumping away like a pair of blacksmith’s bellows on top of the little blonde girl who had served our dinner. The culprit was one of the men-at-arms under my command, and he was clearly raping the poor girl on a large mound of hay. Once again she gave that long wailing cry, clutching at his back and bucking her hips — no doubt trying to heave him off her frail young body.
I took a step forward and grabbed the man by the scruff of his tunic, and hauled him off the girl — kicking him sharply in the face to subdue him while I drew my sword and put the point to his neck.
