Outlaw

But, as I lay there on the damp straw, in the permanent midnight of that cell, thinking about his treachery, and imagining the bloody vengeance I would take, I realised something was wrong. Something was burrowing at the back of my mind; something about the letter that Murdac had written to the Queen. I remembered it clearly:. . his run of luck is nearly at an end. I know his every move before he makes it, and I shall soon have him in my grasp. .

‘I know his every move before he makes it’; that implied that Murdac had someone in the camp who was a traitor, who was informing him of Robin’s plans. Had that been Guy? It would appear so. But why, what was Guy’s motive? Until I had spatchcocked him with the ruby, he was a fairly contented, if obnoxious, young man. And then, like the click of a latch opening a door, I knew Guy could not be the traitor. The letter was dated the eleventh of February, which was two months after Guy had left Thangbrand’s. And it followed that, if Guy was not the traitor in the camp, someone else was.

That thought gave me a chill of horror; somebody, one of my dear friends, was betraying our every move to Murdac. It could be anyone: Much, the miller’s son, Owain the Bowman, Will Scarlet, Hugh, Little John, even dear old Brother Tuck. Anyone.

But I was pleased with my conclusion; I would have something crucial to confide to Thomas when I saw him again. If I saw him again. Suddenly my spirits plunged once more. Would they hang me as an outlaw before I got a chance to talk to the ugly one-eyed brute? Where were my friends? I had been lying in this black pit for hours and nobody had come to visit me. My bladder was full and aching. I was determined not to wet myself but the prospect of sweet release, even if it meant warm wet hose, was almost too tempting. I bit my lip and held fast.

I dozed for a while and the next thing I knew the cell door was opening, blinding me with the yellow light of torches, and there was Murdac and his God-forgotten lackey, Guy. They stood silhouetted in the doorway for an instant, Guy towering over Sir Ralph, and then they entered that stinking room, followed by two men-at-arms. I sneezed violently; even above the dungeon stench I recognised Murdac’s revolting lavender scent. He came close to me and stared down at my curled form on the filthy floor. I sneezed again. Under Guy’s supervision, the men- at-arms lit torches and set them in beckets in the wall. Ominously, one of the men-at-arms set up a brazier, filled it with cordwood and oil-soaked wool and set it alight with a flint and steel. I knew it was not to keep me warm during the long, cold night. Another man-at-arms attached my bound arms, with a rope, to a hook in the ceiling and adjusted the length so that I was partially suspended from my wrists, which were still bound behind me. The strain on my arms was enormous, but by leaning far forward and standing on my tiptoes, I could make it just bearable. Then the soldier cut my new clothes from my body with his dagger, leaving me as naked as the day I was born. I was filled with shame at my nudity and kept my eyes on the straw below me. But worse than the shame was the fear. Rising like a river in spate was sheer skin-tightening terror. Somewhere in the corner, in the foul shadows of the dark cell, the Greek demon Pan was taking shape. And he was silently laughing. As I tried to control my dread, I was aware that Murdac was watching me, studying me with his extraordinary pale blue eyes.

The brazier was burning merrily by now, and Guy set three stout iron pokers in the blaze. He caught my eye and grinned unpleasantly. ‘Are you scared, Alan? I think you are. You always were a coward!’ he jeered. Then he pulled on a pair of stout leather gloves. I tore my gaze away from the heating irons and looked down again at the straw-strewn floor. I knew what was coming, I knew it would be bad beyond my imagining and I found that I was shivering with fear. I bit my tongue and determined that I would hold out against the pain, transport myself to a better place with my mind, refuse to tell Murdac anything. Nothing, particularly nothing about my suspicions about there being a traitor in the camp. That was something I had to bury deep in my brain; so deep that even I did not remember it. Then Ralph Murdac spoke, his sibilant French whine filling the damp stone cell, somehow defiling even that repugnant place.

‘I remember you. Yes, yes, I do.’ He sounded pleased, excited to have placed me in his memory. ‘You are the insolent thief from the market in Nottingham. You sneezed on me, you foul creature. And you escaped, did you not? I think I recall someone telling me. You ran off into the forest to join Robert Odo and those scum. Well, well, and now I have you again. How gratifying, how very gratifying.’ He laughed, a thin, dry chuckle and Guy immediately joined in the mirth, with a false sounding cackle, too loud. Murdac gave him a sharp look and snapped, ‘Hold your noise,’ and Guy cut short his guffaw in mid-breath.

My shoulder joints were on fire, but I gritted my teeth and said nothing. ‘So you have been with the outlaw Robert Odo’s men this past year?’ said Murdac, as if he were making conversation. I said nothing. Murdac nodded to Guy who walked over to me and punched me as hard as he could, swinging his fist up into my unresisting naked stomach. The blow winded me, but worse, it was more than my bladder could take and, involuntarily, I released a hot stream of urine down the inside of my leg. The liquid spattered and dribbled into a pool at my feet. Guy laughed and punched me again, a hard driving blow with his shoulder behind it, but then stepped back with a curse of disgust as he realised he had trodden in a pool of my piss. ‘You will answer my questions, filth,’ continued Murdac in the same dispassionate voice, as if he was merely stating a fact. I kept my silence, but my mind was whirling. The bastard was right. In time, I would talk, I knew that, when the hot irons made the pain unbearable, I would talk. But I had to work out how to order my knowledge, so that I gave out the least important information first. They might grow tired of interrogating me — if I could hold out long enough, perhaps the Constable or the Queen would intervene. Anything might happen, I just had to hold tight and stay silent.

Guy walked away from my bent naked body towards the brazier, and my eyes followed him. By now, the tips of the irons were glowing a deep orange-red. He shoved one deeper into the fire and pulled out another, tracing small circles in the air with its gaudy point.

Murdac slowly repeated: ‘Did you join Robert Odo’s band of murderers?’

Again I held my tongue and Guy moved forward with the glowing iron in his right hand. ‘This will make you sing, little trouvere,’ he sneered, and he laid the burning metal against the naked skin of my ribs on my left side. A white whip of pain shot through my whole being. I jerked my body away from Guy and screamed — a long howl of agony and fear that echoed round the stone room long after I had controlled myself and snapped my mouth shut.

‘Did you join Robert Odo’s band?’ asked Murdac again. ‘It’s a very simple question.’ And I shook my head, teeth clamped hard on my lips to stop myself from speaking. Guy touched me again on the ribs with the iron with a fresh burst of indescribable pain and once again I screamed until the sinews in my jaws were cracking.

Guy returned the first iron poker to the flames and pulled a second from the crackling blaze. The tip glowed the colour of ripe cherries. He came and stood close to me; I could feel the heat from the metal on my chest. He whispered into my ear: ‘Keep silent, Alan. We can do this all night, if you do. I do hope you will keep silent, for my sake.’ And he giggled. Then Murdac spoke again, his siblant voice cutting through the pain in my ribs. ‘Did you join Robert Odo’s band?’ I said nothing but tensed my body and cringed away from Guy, who was still beside me with a yard of red-hot iron in his gloved fist. He paused for a few heartbeats and I held my breath and then, deliberately, he rubbed the iron lightly up and down against my right side, smearing the skin like a man spreading butter on a piece of bread. I howled like a madman while the skin blistered and burnt, and a gout of steam and a foul smell of cooking meat attacked my nostrils. He pressed the burning metal harder against my raw body and I bellowed: ‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you both. .’

Guy stepped back, and replaced the iron in the fire. He looked enquiringly at Murdac, who nodded. Guy grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my face up and brought his close in so that our noses were inches apart. ‘No, no, no, Alan,’ he said, leering at me. ‘It is not us, it is you who is going to be fucked.’ And he made a gesture of command to the men-at-arms.

Two soldiers grabbed me and wrenched apart my legs, holding them steady in a steel grip. Guy took another bright-hot poker from the brazier and moved behind me. Murdac said: ‘For the last time, Alan, did you join Robert Odo’s band? Answer my questions and this pain will stop, I swear it. It is entirely up to you. Just answer my question; who will it hurt if you talk a little? I already know the answers. Just answer my questions and the pain will stop.’ I bit my lip and shook my head. Then my buttocks were roughly pulled apart by the soldiers, and I could feel the immense heat of the iron against my shrinking ball bag, and the strip of sensitive skin between it and my arse, the glowing iron not touching, thank God, but radiating with a huge malevolent intensity at my most intimate areas. Then the molten tip of the poker just grazed the soft skin on inside of my right buttock cheek and, though the pain was less than the burns to my ribs, I screamed long and loud enough to wake the dead: ‘Yes, yes, by