mangy and armed with no more than a rusty eating knife, but I had no time for mercy. She ran at me, ahead of the pack of her sisters, and I killed her, God forgive me, turning Shaitan in a tight circle and decapitating her with one sweeping blow of Fidelity. The women were screaming now in rage and fear, and they were nearly all upon us. And I put back my spurs and we five big brave men charged away into the safety of the forest.
Safety — that is an odd word to have chosen. True, we were away from the clearing and the terrifying advancing wall of chanting, stone-throwing women, but we were very far from safe. Our horses could not move swiftly in the thick undergrowth, and while one of the men-at-arms and I dispatched two more crazed women, a burly matron waving a carving knife and a slight pretty girl with one arm, who chased us into the trees, after that there appeared to be no one immediately behind us as we forced our horses through the gaps in the thick green wilderness. I could hear scurrying, however, and the cracking of sticks on either side of our path, and sometimes the grey blur of a figure slipping from tree to tree in the gloom of the forest; half-glimpsed and wraith-like. This was their territory, and we were the interlopers. Worse, I did not know which way to go to find the Great North Road and safety. My heart was beating like a tambour; my skin clammy with fear and the cloying warmth of the forest. The going was as hard as before, and we all took turns to hack a slender path through the undergrowth and create a road between the silent trees with our swords. I cursed myself again and again for my foolish haste in seeking to confront Nur. Rage filled me: I would return, I vowed, with a conroi of hard men, thirty mailed lancers, and scour this village of madwomen from the face of the earth with fire and sword — if God allowed us to escape with our lives today.
The attack came without warning; two dozen women, running in screaming from our left flank, two of them leaping on to the back of one of our hapless men-at-arms and dragging him from the saddle. They had no proper weapons to speak of — only sticks, stones and clumsy clubs, and one young girl wielding a heavy iron skillet. But they killed our comrade with their numbers. They used their teeth, when they were in range, and battered him bloody with rocks and broken tree branches, anything that came to hand. I killed another woman with a slash that opened her belly, and Thomas fought like a hero, slaying our enemies with short controlled strokes of his sword, but I had no time to admire his growing skills. A young girl of barely fifteen summers leaped down on me from the branch of a tree overhead. For an instant, her glaring, snarling face was inches from my own, her teeth snapping wildly at my nose like a mad dog’s, and then I managed to shrug her off, hurling her down to the leafy ground to my left. Shaitan, who was usually a model of composure in any melee, lost himself so far as to buck dangerously, whinnying with terror, and almost causing me to lose my seat. As I tried to calm him, the young madwoman came at me again, and I crushed her skull with one overhand blow of my mace. The women were all around us now; screaming curses, clawing at our legs and battering at our backs with home-made clubs; we killed them as fast as we could — easily spitting skin-and-bone bodies on our swords, hacking clean through scrawny limbs — but still more of these demented creatures came bounding out of the trees, and those we killed too. We feared them and their reckless ferocity, but in truth they were no match for us and, in our fear, we killed without mercy. And we lost another good man in that frenzied, unequal battle, pulled from his horse by the howling pack, and Thomas took a flung stone hard to the face that rattled his teeth, but by the time we had cut ourselves free of them, a dozen of those poor demented women would never breathe again.
I saw Nur only once more that day, through a narrow passage amid the trees, both scratched, emaciated arms raised and the staff twitching as if urging on an invisible army of fiends. She caught my eye and gave a great bubbling cry and pointed the staff at me, but no crazed women came hurtling out of the greenwood to attack us, and I think she believed she was assailing us with magic, summoning evil spirits to accomplish her revenge.
By God’s good grace, we found a path of sorts at our horses’ hooves and we urged our mounts into a canter, and then a gallop. And we were free and clear. A quarter of a mile later, I reined in; my heart still pounding; and looked over what remained of my little patrol; Thomas was there, his cheek red, shiny and already starting to swell; and Alfred, the senior man-at-arms, but beyond that, two riderless horses, their empty saddles mutely accusing me. I’d lost two good men in that pointless woodland skirmish, and had been routed by a gaggle of unarmed women.
Chapter Twenty-two
There was no more talk of our wedding at Westbury. A few days later Baldwin discreetly told me that the mistress had asked him to unmake the arrangements; Goody and I never mentioned the subject at all. My beloved was a much-subdued woman for many days after the affair with the lamb-baby, and she listened to my tale of the disastrous foray in the Alfreton woods in silence. When I had finished my story, Goody asked one or two questions, and then she said: ‘You must kill her, Alan. I underestimated her — we both did; but she clearly has a terrible hold over the poor women in that place, and she will surely send them against us again. She will not stop until you and I are dead. You must take enough men this time — end this once and for all.’
‘I thought that you felt sorry for her,’ I said.
‘I pity her, I really do, Alan — and I do not believe that she has any true magical power. But those outcast women in her encampment, they believe she does. And they are the real threat to our happiness. You do not know very much about women, Alan, but they are keenly aware of each other in a different way to men. When women come together in a group they can change and become quite unlike any gathering of single individuals. Something happens — perhaps it is just a little magical — and powerful bonds are formed; as strong, I believe, as any bond that a company of men can form in the face of battle. In a group of close, loving women, the power and support that each member feels can be almost visible — a great force for good. But it can also be directed towards evil. These woodland women, reviled, rejected by their villages, by their men, have formed such a group. Inside that tattered gathering, these poor women have found love and acceptance; and having tasted that happiness they will not allow an outsider, a man, to take it away. I am not surprised at their ferocity: they will willingly die for their sisters, just as men, I’m told, will give their lives for each other in battle. They will gladly die for their kind, and for Nur, who gave them a home. So you must kill Nur. You must kill her before she truly harms us. Go, Alan, gather the men, and destroy her.’
But gathering enough fighting men was to prove difficult for me. I had only eleven surviving men-at-arms at Westbury, including Thomas, and that number was about to be greatly reduced. I had agreed with the messenger from Archbishop Hubert Walter that I would present myself, armed, mounted and equipped for war, at London in three days’ time when the moon was full. And if I were to fulfil my obligation, I would have to set off the next day. But I did not wish to leave Goody alone at Westbury under the menace of Nur and her coven of demented harridans.
It was Goody who came up with the solution to my problem.
‘Send Thomas instead,’ she said, when I was discussing it with her, on a sunny morning in late April. Goody and Ada, a servant girl from the village who had wet-nursed Marie-Anne’s baby Miles, were churning butter in the dairy. It was a physically demanding job, requiring stamina and strong muscles, but Goody seemed to relish it, as she did so many humble tasks that another woman might have felt beneath her dignity as the lady of the manor. ‘Send Thomas and three men-at-arms,’ she said. ‘That way Archbishop Walter is getting four men for the price of one — he cannot complain too much, even though I am sure that he and the King would rather have the renowned and most puissant knight, Sir Alan Dale.’ She poked her little pink tongue out and I smiled back at her gentle teasing. ‘What other choice do you have?’ she continued. ‘Either you go and leave me here to face Nur and her women alone, or you refuse the summons and incur the wrath of the King. It is simple. Send Thomas.’
I looked out of the dairy window and saw my squire in the courtyard. He was training with sword and shield against Alfred, a veteran man-at-arms in his early thirties, and I realized, as I watched the strokes, counter-strokes, parries and blocks, that Thomas was not half bad. He rode well, I mused, and God knew he was a reliable, brave and resourceful fellow. He had not mastered the lance yet, which was my fault, for I had been neglectful of his training in recent months, but as a swordsman he was competent, even skilful. I struggled to remember how old he was at that time: he must be nearly fifteen, I thought, and I’d been of a similar age when I fought my first battle.
‘I shall send Thomas in my stead, and two good men-at-arms under Alfred,’ I announced. ‘Thomas can report to Robin when he gets to France and my lord of Locksley will doubtless take him under his wing.’
‘What a very wise decision, my lord,’ said Goody, a suspicion of a smile twitching her lips as she pounded the
