back.’
I could see his teeth grinning at me through the darkness as he rose to his feet. And I smiled back at him. After he had left, I pulled my cloak tighter and tried to sleep, but his words haunted me. Was the world really a place with an endless supply of evil? Yes, we were all sinners, that was true. But what of Christ and his promise of forgiveness and eternal life?
We attacked the next morning, in the grey light just before dawn. It was less a battle than a slaughter. Robin’s men advanced on silent feet, took up positions behind trees less than thirty paces away, and loosed arrow after arrow into the sleeping forms on the ground by the remains of the large campfire. The first victims’ screams awakened some of the Peverils but few in their drink-befuddled state managed to get all the way to their feet, and those who did were cut swiftly down with a relentless barrage of arrows. Then we charged, and the survivors were hacked apart as John, Robin and the six bowmen stormed through the camp wielding axe and sword in a welter of swinging steel, screaming men and spraying blood. I had meant to hang back as Robin had asked but, when he blew his trumpet for the attack and the men charged, I ran with them, the blood running hot in my veins.
I was in no danger, though, as I faced no opponents. All the enemy were dead within a dozen heartbeats from when the first arrow shaft was loosed. Except two.
Sir John Peveril had an arrow in his shoulder and one through his heel and he swung a heavy falchion, a thick bladed sword, in menacing sweeps at the three bowmen who surrounded him. ‘I want him alive,’ shouted Robin, and Little John, who was behind him, stepped forward and swung his great axe, cracking the back of his skull with the flat of the axe-head.
Sir John dropped immediately and lay still.
The other survivor was a mere boy, no more than ten years old, I reckoned. He had not received a scratch, the archers being reluctant to target such an insignificant foe. He was quickly disarmed of his rusty, short sword and trussed up like a Christmas goose.
Sir John Peveril, meanwhile, had been spreadeagled and tied down securely to four pegs driven deep into the ground. Robin made sure that the pegs were at least a foot deep in the soil and that they were immoveable. Then the men stripped Sir John’s clothes from his body and woke him by taking turns to piss in his face. As the man awoke, roaring, spluttering and cursing, he looked down at his naked body, strapped to the woodland floor, and his eyes widened with terror. He lifted his head and made out Robin in the first rays of the sun, standing above him like the Angel of Death, and his control dissolved. His whole body began to shake with terror.
‘Rob. . Robert, please,’ he stammered through slack lips. ‘I’ll pay you, I’ll pay you anything you like. Just cut me loose. I swear, I swear, I will go away. I will leave, I will leave England. .’
Robin looked away from the dribbling, piss-drenched coward, pegged and helpless on the ground in front of him. I followed his gaze. He was looking off to his left at a pale object on the ground. It was the naked body of a young girl, dead, bruised face turned to the sky; the waist and legs sheeted in black blood. Robin turned back to Sir John. His face was a cold mask of indifference.
‘Pick a limb,’ he said.
‘What? What?’ spluttered Sir John.
‘Pick a limb,’ said Robin, in a voice of ice.
‘Yes, right, of course, Robert. I deserve to lose a limb. But can we talk about this. . I can make reparations. . I can pay back. .’
‘Pick a limb — or you’ll lose them all,’ said Robin, implacable. He nodded to Little John who was standing by, his great axe held casually in one hand.
‘God fuck you, Robert Odo, and all those you love. May all the demons of Hell carry you now to the rotting pit. .’ Little John took a step closer. Sir John shouted: ‘The left, God damn you all, the left arm. I pick the left arm.’
Robin nodded. He turned to Little John and said: ‘Let him keep the left arm; remove the others. And I want three tight tourniquets on each limb before you cut. I don’t want the bastard bleeding to death.’
I would like to forget the sound of Little John’s skilful axe as he carried out Robin’s orders, three hideous wet crunches; and the screams of Sir John before they gagged him; and the sight of his unconscious torso, with a single white arm still attached, the fingers clutching deep into the soil to ride the agony, but I never shall, if I live for another fifty years. I could not watch it all and Robin, perhaps as a kindness, ordered me to check that all the rest of the enemy were dead. One was not, but he was badly wounded and unconscious with two arrows in his belly, his eyes fluttering and rolling. As I sawed down on his windpipe with my sword to send him onward, I heard the last meaty hack of John’s great axe-blade and a great sigh of held breath expelled from our bowmen. None had been killed and only two had slight injuries. It had been a great victory, but the punishment meted out to Sir John had dimmed the men’s spirits; they had had their vengeance.
We set the boy free, unharmed, leaving him to tend to the mutilated half-man that was his captain and to pass on the message to all the other Peverils that this was Robin’s work. Then we wrapped up the corpse of the girl and, loading it on to a horse, we left that grim hollow and our dead enemies where they lay.
Robin delivered the corpse back to the woman at Thornings Cross, and gave her silver, which had been recovered from the Peverils. Owain had been wrong in his report that all the villagers were dead; several had run into the woods when the Peverils had charged into their village and had thereby saved their lives. All the inhabitants were in the tiny churchyard as we rode off, mid-afternoon, digging graves for their friends and family: a group of miserable peasants, survivors, toiling in the shadow of the church, dwarfed by mounds of fresh earth.
It was after dark when we returned to Thangbrand’s and I felt drained of all energy both in body and spirit. When Robin came to say goodbye to me the next day — he was returning to his cave hideout in the north — I could not look him in the face. I had slept badly, suffering nightmares in which Sir John Peveril was pulling his truncated form towards me over the floor using only his remaining arm.
Robin took me by the chin and lifted my face so that I was forced to look into his bright silver eyes. ‘Do not judge me, Alan, until you know the burden I am carrying. And even then, do not judge any man, lest you be judged. Isn’t that what you Christians preach?’
I said nothing. ‘Come,’ said Robin, ‘let us part friends.’ And he smiled at me. I stared into his silver eyes and knew that as horrified as I was by his cruelty, I could not hate him. I smiled back, but it was a pale, watery grimace. ‘That’s better,’ he said. And he clasped my arm once and was gone.
Chapter Seven
Autumn was approaching; the days were growing shorter now and Sherwood, glorious with leaf-hues of copper and gold, was often filled in the early morning with a freezing mist. I began to wear my padded aketon almost daily and, when I visited Bernard for my music lessons, the first thing he’d do would be to ask me to make a fire to warm our fingers. With Robin absent, my adventure in Nottingham and the awful mutilation of Sir John Peveril seemed to belong to another world, like a dream — or a nightmare. I had returned to life at Thangbrand’s as if nothing had happened.
Sir Richard was leaving us. Murdac had flatly refused to ransom him, even though it was his clear duty to do so, as Sir Richard had been serving him when he was captured. By rights, Robin could have executed him. He didn’t, though; Robin sent him a message saying he was free to go and that it had been an honour to have him for so long as a guest. We held a feast to mark the knight’s departure from Thangbrand’s, for he was much liked and respected by the outlaws, and I performed for the first time as an apprentice
I am afraid it was a dreadful song, unworthy of his memory, delivered without accompaniment, about a knight who having travelled the world and done great deeds and won great renown was finally returning to his hearth to hang up his sword and husband his lands. I have tried very hard to forget it, but I recall rhyming plough with slow, and I think that gives you its flavour. My poor efforts were kindly applauded by the company — and then
