down my mother’s face. I was the last of her family: my father dead; my younger sisters Aelfgifu and Coelwyn both died within weeks of each other two summers ago after a short, agonising illness in which they had vomited blood and voided a black stinking liquid. And now I, her only surviving child, might be taken by the law tomorrow and have my hand hacked off. Or worse: hanged like my father as a thief.
I must confess that, at that moment, outside the church with my weeping mother, I felt not fear of the sheriff’s men, nor sorrow at the deaths of my father and sisters — the uppermost emotion in my heart was excitement. Robert, Lord of Sherwood, was here; Robin Hood: that great and terrible man, feared by Norman lords and English villagers alike. He was a man who preyed on the rich, stealing their silver and killing their servants as they passed through his realm; a man who, scorning Sir Ralph Murdac, did as he pleased in the great Royal Forest of Nottingham, who was, in fact, its true ruler. And in a short while, I would be before him.
As I looked up at the church door, I noticed something amiss. A dark lump had been affixed above the lintel. In the flickering light of the torches, I could just make out what it was. It was the severed head of a young wolf, eyes still open and glittering madly in the torchlight. A huge nail had been hammered through its forehead, transfixing it to the wood. Either side of the head and on the doorposts, black blood had been smeared. I felt a sense of almost unbearable excitement, a euphoria soaring up through my lungs and into my head. He had dared to desecrate the church with the body of an animal, to make it, for one night, his own. He dared to risk his immortal soul with a pagan symbol in the sacred precincts of our Mother Church. This was a fearless man indeed.
At last, after what seemed several hours, the giant beckoned us and pushed open the doors of the church. My excitement had reached a fever pitch and, although my bruised head was throbbing, I held it high as we walked inside.
Scores of thick tallow candles had been lit and, after the darkness outside, it was surprisingly bright in the church, which was half-filled with villagers and a sprinkling of grim-looking strangers, with hoods pulled forward over their faces, some standing, some seated on wooden benches around the walls. A clerk, a middle-aged man of thirty or so, sat at a small table to one side of the church, scribbling on a roll of parchment. And a great wooden chair had been set immediately below the altar.
In the chair sat an ordinary-looking young man, slim, in his early twenties, with nondescript brown hair, and dressed in a badly dyed, patched dark green tunic and hose and partially wrapped in a grey cloak. His clothes were no different to any man in our village — they were, perhaps, even more drab. It was a shock. Where was the great man? Where was the Lord of the Wood? He wore no sword, no gold, no rings, no signs at all of his status and power, except that behind him stood two tall, hooded men each with a long-sword and six-foot bow. I was deeply unimpressed; this was no outlaw lord; he looked like a villein, like me. An image of Sir Ralph Murdac leapt into my mind: his costly black silks, his lavender scent, his air of superiority. And then I looked again at the ordinary man in front of me.
He was leaning forward, eyes closed, elbow on the arm of the chair, his chin cupped in his hand, fingers wrapped around his cheek, listening to a short, very broad man with reddish brown hair, in the coarse robes of a monk, who was speaking quietly and earnestly into his ear. The monk finished speaking and came over to us. Robin sat back, sighed, and opened his eyes. He looked directly at me and I saw that his eyes were as grey as his cloak, almost silver in the candlelight. Then he closed his eyes again and fell back into contemplation.
‘My name is Tuck,’ said the monk in a strange, sing-song accent, which I took to be Welsh. ‘How can I be of service to you?’
My mother held out her hand to the monk: in it was a single hen’s egg. ‘It’s my son,’ she said, all in a rush. ‘The sheriff’s men are coming for him; and they’ll cut his hand off or hang him for sure. Take him with you, Brother. Keep him safe under the protection of the Lord of the Wood. Sanctuary, Brother. For the love of God, give him sanctuary in the forest.’
I looked into the Welsh monk’s eyes: they were mellow, light brown, the colour of hazelnuts, sad and kind. He took the egg and slipped it into an open pouch on his belt, not bothering to buckle it shut.
‘Why are they coming for you?’ he asked me.
My mother began gabbling: ‘It’s all a misunderstanding; a mistake; he’s a good boy, naughty sometimes, yes. .’
Brother Tuck ignored her. He asked again: ‘Why are they coming for you, boy?’
I looked him straight in the eye: ‘I stole a pie, sir,’ I said as calmly as I could, my heart beating like a Moorish drum.
‘Do you know that stealing is a sin?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And yet you stole anyway — why?’
‘I was hungry and, and. . it’s what I do — thieving. It’s what I do best. Better than almost anyone.’
Tuck snorted, amused. ‘Better than almost anyone, eh? I very much doubt that. You were caught, weren’t you? Well, there must be penance. All sins must be paid for.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Tuck took me by the arm, not unkindly, and led me forward to Robin’s chair. The Lord of the Wood opened his eyes and looked at me again. And I completely forgot his drab exterior, his homespun villein’s garb. His eyes were extraordinarily bright: it was like staring at the full moon, two silver full moons. The rest of the world dissolved, time stood still, and it was just me and Robin in a dark universe lit only by his eyes; he seemed to be drinking me in through his stare, discovering me, understanding my sins and my strengths.
When he spoke it was in a musical voice, light but strong: ‘They tell me you chanced your arm for a pie?’
I nodded. He said: ‘And you wish to serve me? You wish me to take you under my protection?’ I was mute; I made the barest tilt of my head.
‘Why?’
I was taken aback by his question: he must know that I needed to escape the law, that I needed sanctuary, and yet I sensed that he wanted a less obvious answer. I looked into his silver eyes and decided to tell the truth, as I had to Tuck. ‘I am a thief, sir,’ I said, ‘and I would serve under the greatest thief of all, the better to learn my trade.’
There was a sharp intake of breath, all around the church. It occurred to me belatedly that perhaps Robin did not care to regard himself as a common felon. One of the hooded men behind Robin half-drew his sword but stopped when Robin raised a pacifying hand.
‘You flatter me,’ said the Lord of the Wood. His voice had grown cold, his extraordinary eyes now blazed like naked steel. ‘But that was not what I meant by my question. I did not mean why would
I could think of no reason. So I hung my head and said nothing. He continued, his voice as chill as a grave: ‘Can you fight like a knight, clad in hard steel, dealing death to my enemies from the back of a great horse?’
I remained silent.
‘Can you draw a war bow to full stretch, and kill a man with one arrow at two hundred paces?’
He knew that I could not; few grown men could achieve such a feat, and I was then a slight boy.
‘So what can you offer me, little thief?’ The mockery dripped from his voice.
I lifted my chin and stared back at him, little spots of anger on my cheeks. ‘I will give you my skill as a cut- purse, my willingness to fight for you as best I may, and my absolute loyalty until death,’ I said, far too loudly for the confines of the small church.
‘Loyalty until death?’ said Robin. ‘That truly is a rare and valuable thing.’ His voice seemed to have lost its scorn. He considered me for a few heartbeats. ‘That was a good answer, thief. What is your name?’
‘I am Alan Dale, sir,’ I said.
He looked surprised. ‘Is your father’s name Henry?’ he said. ‘The singer?’ I nodded. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Robin that my father was dead. He was silent for a while, regarding me with those great silver eyes. Then he said: ‘He’s a good man. You have his resemblance.’ Suddenly, he smiled — as shocking as a blast of a trumpet — white teeth gleaming in the dim church. His coldness slid away like the shedding of a cloak, and he was transformed. I knew by his sudden warmth that he would take me and I felt my heart bound with joy.
