the string on his powerful machine until it was caught by a ratchet and held in tension. He then loaded a foot-long wooden bolt, a quarrel, into the groove at the front of the weapon, and advanced into the forest ready for battle. In a quarter of an hour, the whole company had been swallowed by foliage and was completely lost to view. I knew what they were doing: they were going to hunt down our bowmen; arrow against quarrel, they would fight it out at close quarters in the greenwood — and there were at least two hundred well-trained mercenaries to our sixty men.
‘Alan,’ said Robin, urgently. ‘Get yourself into the wood; find Thomas and tell him to pull back, a fighting retreat, pull back but slowly. I need those Flemings off the field for as long as he can keep them there. He’s to pull back to the north, towards us, and, when he can’t hold any longer, make a break and run for the manor house. Deliver the message and come straight back to me. I’ll need you today. Understood?’
I felt a lump of fear in my throat but I managed to say as calmly as I could: ‘Pull back, but slowly. Then they make a run for the manor. I come back here.’
‘Good lad; off you go!’
I squeezed my grey gelding through the ranks of the hedgehog and galloped hell for leather for the treeline, angling the horse north, away from where the crossbowmen had entered the forest and towards the manor. As I got into the trees, I slipped from the saddle and tied the grey to a bush. As I recovered my breath and looked about me I could see no one. But for the beating of my heart there was no sound at all. I felt as if I was alone in the world, and far from the rough companionship of the spearmen and the comforting presence of Robin and John, I realised I was afraid. I crossed myself, drew my sword and began to push my way through the thick undergrowth, forwards to where I had last seen our bowmen. There was not a sound in all the world except the faint rustle of leaves as I moved forward and the creak of branches moving above me in the slight breeze. I had the strange sensation that I was underwater, in this green and almost silent world. Where were our men? Where were the enemy? I stopped and listened again. Nothing. The wood was close around me and I could see no more than half a dozen yards in each direction. It reminded me of happier days, hunting red deer with Robin and, without realising it, I began to follow the methods of stalking I had learnt with him. Each foot placed in front of the other with deliberation and care so as not to break a twig or make any sound. Step, step, step, stop, stand absolutely still and listen. Then step, step, step, stop and listen. There was nothing here, I was sure of it. Where was everybody? I felt like a lonely soul in a green fairy otherworld, away from the blood and pain of the open battlefield, which lay, I knew, only two dozen or so yards to my right. The ancient trees, so closely packed that their branches intertwined, towered above me like the roof of a giant wooden cage, but the undergrowth was light, a few ferns and scrubby bushes. I pushed aside a trailing frond of ivy and ventured deeper into the gloom. Step, step, step, stop and listen.
And then I nearly jumped out of my skin: a huge blood-curdling scream, an impossibly loud soul-racked cry of agony, and only a dozen yards ahead a man in dark green suddenly appeared from behind a tree, staggering, with a thick black stalk protruding obscenely from his neck; and the quiet green world exploded into noise and movement. From behind me and to my left there came a sound I knew well: the
When my breathing was calm, I leant forward and whispered in his ear the message from Robin. He put his face close to my ear and whispered: ‘Pull back? As if we have any choice. We’re being slaughtered like hogs here.’
I poked my head round the thick trunk of the tree and peered into the gloom of the forest. I could see nothing. A few yards away, lying half-buried in the leaf-mould where Thomas and I had briefly wrestled, was my sword. I got to my feet in a crouch and made to step out and collect my weapon when Thomas roughly pulled me back behind the tree, and just in time. Two crossbow quarrels thunked in the bark of the tree exactly where my head had been moments earlier.
‘Watch yourself, Joshua,’ whispered Thomas, half-laughing at my expression of shock. ‘You’re not in Winchester Castle now. There’s one of the bastards, just behind that elm yonder. When he next peeks out, I’ll skewer him and you can collect your blade and then we’ll pull back a mite. You watch him for me. Give me the signal. All right?’
Thomas stood tall, picked up his bow and selected a shaft from his linen arrow bag. He drew the string half way back and stood with his broad shoulders to the oak’s rough bark, in cover but facing directly away from the enemy. At the level of his feet, I peered round the curve of the trunk through the green curls of a sprouting fern, exposing as little of my face as I could. There was nothing to be seen. The wood was eerily empty and silent, but, if I really strained my ears, once in a while I caught the scurrying rustle, like a rat in a barn, of a man moving fast through undergrowth. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end but, staying as still as stone, I watched the big elm Thomas had indicated. Presently, I saw a shape move against the outline of the tree. Just a flicker, but it immediately attracted my gaze. I waited a little longer. Then suddenly far ahead and hidden from view a rough voice shouted something in a language almost like English but that I could not make sense of. It was clearly an order from the Flemish captain for his men to push forward, for, as I watched, parts of the trees ahead detached from themselves and resolved into human figures. Men were peeling themselves away from the cover of the wood and cautiously beginning to move forward. I looked up at Thomas and nodded. In one smooth movement, he pulled the string back to his ear, turned round the side of the tree and loosed a yard-long ash shaft into the body of the Fleming a dozen yards away. The arrow passed straight through him, bursting out of his back and flashing away through the undergrowth. The man gave a small cry and sank to his knees, but in that time I scuttled forward, scooped up my sword and bounded away to safety behind a fallen beech tree before the man finally collapsed with a bubbling sigh to the ground. The other bowmen were loosing their shafts, too. And half a dozen crossbowmen were cursing in pain and stumbling and dropping to the floor. But the shadowy shapes were still advancing; I could see dim figures making short quick runs from tree to tree. I poked my nose out a little further, trying to see if any of our men were close by, but a dozen deadly black quarrels hissed above my head and clattered through the branches. They were winning. We were losing. It was time to go.
From the safety of my fallen beech tree, I waved at Thomas and he gave me a grin and a jokey salute. Then, gathering his bow and arrow bags, he suddenly sprinted a few paces, away from the big old oak and the fast-approaching Flemings, to the safety of another tree. I saw him conferring with another green-clad bowman and his friend, who in turn ran in a crouch back to another tree and another bowman to spread the message. I began to crawl away too. Not daring to lift my head, nor run upright, I snaked my way through the undergrowth on my elbows and knees, making for my horse. A part of me felt guilty at leaving the bowmen to their unequal fight but, I told myself, my duty was to Robin. Though I could not repress a feeling of relief to be escaping that silent slaughter in the treacherous murk of the greenwood.
Something of the terrible atmosphere in that deadly wood had affected my horse. He was trembling with fear and whinnied with pleasure at my return. That friendly noise was nearly the death of me.
I had the grey’s reins in my fist, my sword was sheathed, and I was soothing him with my free hand when some instinct, some God-given warning, caused me to turn my head and at that moment, out from under the low-hanging branches stepped a tall lean figure in the green and red checked surcoat of a Flemish crossbowman. He was a big man of about thirty years, round-headed with greasy light brown hair. He was pointing his weapon directly at me, the stock snuggled into his right shoulder, string drawn back taut, the quarrel lying innocently in the groove to the front. I was staring at my own death. And the man smiled, revealing his yellow rotten teeth, an awful grimace of victory.
