I paused to consider. Robin was God knows where in the north, Thangbrand’s was a smoking ruin by now, my mother was dead, my village had been destroyed, but, from nowhere, an image of Marie-Anne came into my head. She, I knew, was at Winchester, far away from Murdac and his murderous horsemen. And she could put us in contact with Robin. ‘We march south,’ I said, trying to sound decisive, and I stuck out an arm in the direction that I guessed led towards Winchester. And Bernard turned without a word, Goody gripping on to his back like a monkey, and began to tramp through the snow. I walked backwards behind them, brushing at the marks in the snow with the branch, trying to erase our footprints as best as I could, and blessing the falling snow that would, given enough time, cover our tracks.
All that frozen grey afternoon, as the snow fell steadily, we tramped through the woodland. Sometimes we carried Goody on our backs, sometimes she walked by herself. She never complained as we trudged through the silent white landscape. I was sure our tracks must have been covered by the snow and, after an hour of quiet progress, I dared to hope that the horsemen had abandoned the chase. The only living thing we saw was the low, lean form of a wolf, a grey shadow running through the wood on a course parallel to our own. January in Sherwood, I remembered, was known as Wolf Month; there were tales of babies snatched from their cradles by starving wolves in January, even one tale of a wolf leaping out from ambush on a mounted man and biting a chunk of flesh out of the horse’s rump before disappearing back into the forest.
I picked up a broken branch and hurled it in the direction of the grey slinking beast, and it shambled away, disappearing into the gloom of the twighlit wood. On we marched, legs numb from cold. We were drenched and exhausted. As night began to fall, I knew we must find a safe place to rest: Goody’s fingers and nose were blue with cold and Bernard’s face was a sickly yellow colour. Suddenly, from directly ahead, there was the shocking blast of a trumpet. Galvanised with fear, we dived down a snowy bank and cowered beneath the white roots of a beech tree, as two horsemen in Murdac’s black-and-red livery galloped past. I was certain that they hadn’t seen us as they thundered by, but what worried me was that they had come from in front of us, not from behind. In despair, I discovered that I had completely lost my sense of direction and, in the gloom of coming nightfall, we must have been walking in circles. I realised with dread that I had no idea where we were or in which direction we should be heading. As we crouched under the bank, beneath the lattice of snow-covered roots, trying to muffle the noise of our teeth chattering, I tried to work out which way we should be heading. But my brain was clouded with the cold. And as the snow continued to fall, it dawned on me that the threat of Murdac’s horsemen notwithstanding, if we did not find warmth and shelter soon we might not survive the night.
After another quarter of an hour of trudging through the snow, in the last of the light, we came upon the perfect place to camp. I don’t mean to blaspheme, but there are times in my life when I feel as if the Lord God Almighty has ordered the world just for my benefit. As we stumbled through the snow, numb with cold, terror and fatigue, we came into a small clearing in the forest, at the centre of which was a huge, ancient oak tree, several yards across, which had been hollowed by time and rot into a half-open tube, with space for three to sleep inside. We were not the first to have used this as a resting place: scraping away the snow near the entrance, we found the remains of a fireplace, with large blackened stones placed to reflect the heat and muddy cinders. And inside the hollow trunk, neatly stacked, was a small pile of dry kindling and a dozen seasoned oak branches, snapped into logs. We knew it was a risk, and that the light would be visible for hundreds of yards in all directions, but we needed the warmth of a fire. So I made a blaze with the flint and steel in my pouch, we huddled in our tree shelter and waited for our limbs to unfreeze. We had no food - we had left the remains of pork and bread under the holly tree that morning - but as the warmth filled the round wooden space, my mood began to lift. Goody, who had not said a word since she had seen her mother and father cut down at Thangbrand’s, snuggled up to my side and began to weep quietly. I cuddled her skinny body to me and stroked her fine golden hair until she fell asleep. Bernard, on the other hand, seemed to become more irritable and twitchy than relaxed as the heat flowed back into his body. He appeared to have forgotten our hideous adventures and soon he was recovered enough to complain about our lack of wine. ‘There was an almost full wineskin by the cottage door; why on earth didn’t you grab that as we were leaving?’ he asked me testily. I said nothing. My stomach growled and my mouth was dry but we had nothing to eat, let alone Bernard’s precious wine, so I chewed a few handfuls of snow and just sat, gazing into the fire, allowing my clothes to dry out, and thinking about that terrible day. Had anyone survived except us? Were there others scattered in the forest, dying of their wounds in the cold? Thangbrand was dead, I’d seen that horror; and Freya, no doubt, had been butchered with the rest. But where was Hugh? Had he managed to escape?
Suddenly I sat up straight with a jerk. I had been dozing. Bernard appeared to be asleep, lying stretched out along the curve of the inside of the tree. Goody was cocooned in a cloak at my feet. What had awakened me? It was danger of some kind or another. The fire was dying down, but the moon was bright and nearly full. I threw another log on to the hearth and, as I watched the sparks burst and the flames revive, I saw, at the far edge of the clearing, in the bright moonlight, the figure of a man. And he was walking towards us.
My hand leapt to my belt and settled on the comforting handle of my poniard. And I gave Bernard’s sleeping form a kick. The man walked across the clearing directly towards our fire. He was skeletally thin, with a lean, hollow face, covered almost to the eyes with a grey beard. His greasy grey hair fell to his shoulders. His lips were twisted into a smile of greeting, and I caught a glimpse of small sharp yellow teeth. As he came closer, I could see that he was dressed in what appeared to be a cape of wolf pelts, and a wolf-pelt kilt, his feet bound in grey rags. I could see his naked chest and prominent ribs beneath the cape - by God, he must have been cold - and his skin, filthy and covered with scratches and half-healed cuts. He carried a heavy wooden club over one shoulder and, as he arrived at the other side of the fire, I could see he was shivering. He raised his free hand in greeting.
‘Good evening, masters,’ he said. He spoke haltingly as if he was not used to human speech, but there was something familiar about him. ‘Of your mercy, allow a poor man a place by your fire . . . and a morsel of your meat, if you have some.’ I looked at Bernard, who merely shrugged, and moved his legs to allow the man to come around to our side of the fire into the shelter of the oak tree.
‘We have no food,’ I said. ‘But you are welcome to the comfort of our fire.’ He came into the shelter of the oak tree, put down his club, squatted down and held his hands out towards the fire. His arms, too, were painfully thin and covered with old scabs and fresh scratches. I eyed him suspiciously. I couldn’t rid myself of the idea that we had met before. Nottingham, perhaps?
After a few minutes silence, in which Bernard appeared to have fallen back to sleep, the man said: ‘May I ask, master, what brings you young folk into the forest on such a cold night - and without food or horses?’
‘That is our business,’ I said stiffly. ‘Not yours.’ I didn’t want to tell him anything about ourselves. There was something about him, a feral quality, that put me on my guard. And I silently vowed that I would not fall asleep while he was in our company.
‘It
is
your business, master, and I’m your guest. I’m sorry for my impudence, and I beg your pardon.’ He looked shy and embarrassed as he said this, and I felt a little guilty for being so gruff with him. But I was still not easy having him with us inside the hollow tree. And I was more and more certain that we had met before. ‘I’m going to sleep now, master, by your leave,’ the man said. And I nodded at him and tried to smile encouragingly to make up for my earlier discourtesy. He looked at me a little longer than was quite comfortable and I noticed his eyes, a light brown almost yellow colour, and then he curled up in his wolf-skin cape, for all the world like a large skinny dog, and went to sleep.
Bernard was snoring lightly by now and Goody hadn’t moved a muscle since the strange man had come into our camp. She was still wrapped from nose to toe in a cloak and lying unmoving at my feet. I put another log on the fire, gathered my cloak around my shoulders and determined to stay awake.
Sometimes a man’s will is just not enough. It was warm in our little tree shelter. The fire stones reflected heat into the wooden chamber and the sound of Bernard’s gentle breathing had a soothing effect. The horror and then terror of that long day no doubt also had their impact and soon I felt my eyelids drooping. I got up, walked around in the cold outside the shelter; scrubbed my face with snow. But when I sat down again my head began to droop once more. And I slipped into a strange dream world.
I was riding behind Robin in a cavalcade of soldiers. I galloped at his left shoulder, the position of honour. Before me, above me, his banner fluttered bravely in the wind: a grey wolf’s head on a white field. I gazed at the stylised image of the wolf’s mask on the flag as it rippled in the breeze and then, suddenly, the image changed and the animal face came alive, the black and grey brush-strokes on white linen became real fur, sharp pointed ears and snarling teeth and the animal was glaring at me. And then, with a roar it leapt, straight out of the banner, straight towards me. And I awoke with a start.
The strange man was standing over the sleeping form of Bernard holding his club in one hand. As my eyes opened, the weapon swept down and cracked into the
trouvère
’s head. I shouted something wordless and fumbled at my belt for my poniard. He turned and I was shocked by the transformation from the meek man humbly begging my pardon a few short hours ago. He had become a fiend, a beast: his yellow eyes glittered in that grey-bearded muzzle of a face, his mouth was slightly open and a thread of drool hung from his lips. ‘Meat,’ he said, almost in a whisper, ‘fresh meat. And it just walked into my house, without a by-your-leave, and made itself a fire. A fire to cook itself on.’ He laughed, a dry maniac cackle. I knew then that the Devil had entered him and he was mad. He advanced towards me in a crouch, the club held in both hands, the thick end swaying from side to side. ‘Come to me,’ he said. ‘Come for supper.’ And he laughed again. My hand was wet on the handle of the poniard; I stood erect and watched the movement of the club. It was hypnotic, and it was only by using considerable force on myself that I wrenched my gaze upwards to his eyes. I was scared, trembling with hideous ancestral fears, but I knew enough to wait, and watch those terrible yellow eyes for an indication of his attack.
Goody woke up and pushed her head out of the cloak. She was lying on the floor between me and the wildman. He stared at her. ‘Pretty, so pretty,’ he crooned. ‘So sweet and juicy. Welcome to my kitchen, little miss.’ He sucked the thread of saliva back into his mouth and swallowed it, smacking his lips. I took a pace forward, poniard extended in my right hand, so I was standing over Goody, but in doing so I stumbled slightly and was unbalanced. And then he moved - as fast as lightning. He feinted to my head with the club, a straight jab with the blunt end, and, when I pulled my head back out of range, he changed the stroke and the hard wood came crashing down on my right wrist. The poniard dropped to the floor and skittered away to the wall of the tree shelter. Then he leapt at me and, with Goody’s cloak tangling my feet, we both crashed to the floor.
He was amazingly strong for such a thin man; perhaps it was the strength of madness, for as we rolled on the ground he kept me pinned easily and he was trying to bite me, on the face and throat. I kept him away but with only the greatest difficulty. I could smell his breath, a strange faecal odour, and his yellow eyes blazed like candles in his snarling face. Fear was my friend - I locked my hands around his neck and, made more powerful by my terror, I held on for grim life, while he thrashed and kicked and scratched at my face and body. But he was too much for me, and he broke my grip and rolled on top of me, red mouth gaping, drooling and searching for the big veins in my neck. And I could only keep his sharp teeth from my life by pushing weakly on his sweat-slicked chest and shoulders. My grip was slipping and his face closing into my soft flesh. I screamed: ‘Goody, get the poniard!’ And with a heave that took all of my remaining might, I flipped him off my body and managed to pin one of his arms with my knee as he writhed on his back on the ground. I grabbed his free right arm with my left and for a second stared down at the hideous face of this beast-man. His eyes left mine and suddenly looked beyond me, above me to my right, and then I felt the rush of air past my face and two thin girlish arms, locked around the handle in a double grip, plunged the poniard hard down punching through his left eye and beyond into his tortured brain. The beast jerked once, twice, and then was still: the body limp, the arms spread wide in the shape of a crucifix . . . the head nailed to the earth floor by a foot of cold Spanish steel.
I fell back panting with exertion. Goody rushed into my arms and I held her rocking slightly and gazing at the dead man - for truly in death he was no longer an animal. Just a man, dead. His wolf kilt had ridden up over his hips during the fight and I noticed that between his legs there was . . . nothing. Just a dark ugly scar. It was then that I recognised him: it was Ralph, the rapist who had been beaten, mutilated and exiled from Thangbrand’s in my first few weeks there. Well,
requiescat in pace
, I thought. May God forgive you for your many terrible sins.