unearthly pain. It exploded on the rush-strewn packed-earth floor, and out of the wrecked shards, dozens of small black-winged creatures shot into the air, squeaking bundles of black fur and leathery skin that flapped past our heads, causing many folk to visibly pale and duck before them. And the bats were not the only living things to crawl from the smashed shards: half a dozen poisonous adders slithered out, making for the darkness at the edges of the hall; beetles, lizards and two rats were also liberated by the crashing pot, and these beasts scurried under the tables.
The woman — I could clearly see now that it was Nur — was emitting rhythmical eerie shrieks, like some hellish music that sent shivers running down all our spines. Every eye in the hall was on her, and this night she looked truly terrifying. Her face had been whitened with some kind of paste, but black circles had been painted under her eyes to give her even more of a skull-like look. Her mutilated, glistening nose had been reddened, and her cropped ears and grinning lipless mouth all added to the vision of horror.
Then she began to dance; capering and still screaming from time to time, gibbering and prancing madly in the shards of the broken pot, her rat-tail hair bobbing and swaying about her ruined face. We were all frozen to our benches, not a man could move. I could not drag my eyes away from the awful spectacle; it was as if I was deep in some devilish enchantment, and I was not alone. No one spoke a word, no one moved a muscle while Nur danced her mad dance and sang her awful music in the centre of Kirkton’s newly built hall.
We were spellbound.
Finally she let out one final eerie screech, and came to a halt in front of the high table where I was sitting with Goody at my side, with Robin and Marie-Anne and Little John and Tuck. Nur thrust out her hand at me and I saw with a shudder that it held a human thighbone: ‘I curse you, Alan Dale,’ said Nur, in a low voice bubbling with hatred. ‘I curse you and your milky whore!’ And she pointed the bone at Goody. I was frozen with shock and terror at this unholy visitation; I could not move my arms or my legs, I could only stare in horrified fascination at Nur’s snarling, ravaged white-daubed face, and listen to her hate-filled voice, and the poison that spewed from her lipless mouth: ‘Your sour-cream bride will die a year and a day after you take her to your marriage bed — and her first- born child shall die, too, in screaming agony. But your days, my love, my lover’ — Nur slurred these words in a hideously lascivious manner — ‘your days will be many, your life long, yet filled with humiliation and ultimately despair. You will lose your mind before you lose your life — that is my curse. For you promised yourself to me, and…’
‘No!’ A girl’s voice, low but vibrant with passion and loud enough to reach the edges of the hall. I turned my head, the muscles seeming to creak with the strain, and saw that it was Goody speaking. ‘No,’ she said again, more loudly this time. ‘You will not come into this hall, on the day of my betrothal, with your tricks and your jealousy and your malice. No!’
Goody stood. She was staring directly at Nur, her blue eyes crackling with anger. ‘Get you gone from here!’ said my lovely girl. And Nur seemed to be as surprised as the rest of us at Goody’s fiery courage. The woman in black lifted her thighbone, pointed it at Goody and began to speak. But my beautiful betrothed was faster than the witch. She grabbed Little John’s staff that was leaning beside her against the table, and smashed the thighbone from Nur’s hands. Then she launched herself over the table, seeming to almost fly through the air — directly at the woman in black.
Goody’s first blow with the blackthorn caught Nur around the side of the head, jolting it to one side with a splash of red droplets. ‘You fucking bitch!’ said Goody, her voice beginning to rise. ‘He belongs to me.’ Her second blow smashed into Nur’s mouth, splintering teeth and dropping the appalled creature to the floor. ‘Listen carefully to this, bitch. He’s my man.’ The staff slammed down on to her shoulder. ‘And if you ever come near us again, bitch…’ Goody dealt Nur a double-handed lateral blow across the spine that landed with a sickening thump. ‘If you come near us once more, bitch, I will make you really suffer.’ A smash across the back of the neck sprawled Nur among the rushes.
The blood-streaked witch began to scramble towards the doorway, crawling awkwardly with one hand held protectively above her head.
Goody’s staff whistled down again, connecting with her forearm, and I heard the crack of bone. Still nobody else in the hall moved a muscle. Nobody else could move. We just goggled at the spectacle of a slight girl of no more than sixteen summers taking on the forces of the Devil single-handed and armed only with a stick.
‘And you, you bitch…’ Smash! ‘killed…’ Smash! ‘my…’ Smash! ‘ kitten!’ Goody screamed the last word at the top of her lungs, and the heavy staff crashed down once more on Nur’s back. Goody saved her breath then, to concentrate on giving her enemy a beating she would not forget. The blows rained down with the rhythm of the threshing-room floor, thudding into her enemy’s skinny frame; and I could see that Nur’s ravaged face was by now mashed, torn and bloody, and one arm seemed to be broken. Finally the battered black-clad woman reached the door; scrabbling on hands and knees in front of the opening, and Goody screamed: ‘Get out, bitch!’ The staff pounded down once more on the crawling witch’s skinny rump. ‘And don’t come back!’ Again a massive blow to the buttocks. And Nur shot out of the hall and into the darkness — and was gone.
Finally the whole hall began to come back to life, people moving and talking, many crossing themselves, and nervous laughter broke out at the far end of the high table. Some folk began to cheer Goody, and from across the room, I caught the eye of my beloved, my brave and beautiful girl. Her face was white as bone, knotted and tense, and her thistle-blue eyes still shone with fury. But she locked eyes with me and, as I smiled at her, loving her, so very proud of her courage, I saw that the muscles in her jaw were beginning to relax, and the mad gleam was draining from her eyes. Then she smiled back at me, a look of love, more pure and powerful than anything on earth; and I knew that all would be well with us.
Little John leaned over to me and, in a voice that was filled with awe, he said: ‘Alan — little bit of advice: once you’re wed, do not ever do anything to upset that lass!’
Epilogue
My daughter-in-law Marie is quite right: I am a foolish old man, a dotard. When I had set down these last words of my tale of Robin and King Richard, and Goody and Nur, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep on top of my bed. I awoke with the day half gone, but feeling refreshed and strangely calm. Marie and I sat down with Osric at the long table in the great hall, and we discussed all of my fears in broad summer daylight. And I have been a fool; it is true. Marie and Osric have been concerned for me. They know that I have not been sleeping well, and my behaviour — my habit of following Osric about the countryside, of watching him constantly, worst of all of leaping out on him from concealment — has been strange and worrying to them. Marie and Osric have both been deeply concerned about me for weeks now. The white powder? It was a medicine, a balm for careworn hearts and an aid to sound sleep, purchased in secret from the apothecary — who much resented having to make midnight assignations to sell his wares — and slipped discreetly into my food so that I could not object and raise a rumpus.
It was a deception that Marie and Osric used which was kindly meant: a lie of love. And yet I feel that I have been betrayed — not by Osric, my mole-ish bailiff, nor by my bustling daughter-in-law, but by my own fogged and aged mind. Perhaps Nur’s curse has come true, at last, and I am in truth losing my mind. I see the past so clearly now, I can remember so well the days when I was young Sir Alan of Westbury, a knight of great prowess and courage. But the present? What am I now? A confused old man who leaps out at his servants from behind doors to catch them in imaginary crimes. A dotard.
I remember my glorious past so clearly, and my head is there for most of the day while I write. And where better to spend my last few years on this earth than with my younger, stronger self — with that young man so full of light and love and hope? The indignities of age come to all men who live long enough — but not all men can say that they had the friendship of kings and outlaws and heroes in their prime; that they walked proud and tall, without fear — before the weight and care of years bowed their backs. But I can. I can say, I can swear before God, that I have played my part on the world’s stage. And played it to the fullest.
Perhaps I am a silly old fool now, perhaps Nur’s malice has reached out to me from beyond the grave. I know that some might say that the black Hag of Hallamshire’s other prophecies also came true: my lovely wife Goody is dead; and my son Rob, too. But I tell myself that I do not believe in curses: that they are no more than idle talk to frighten children. And I was a warrior, once, a knight of England — and so I will fight; I will fight her witch’s curse
