I knew I was being childish, and berated myself for my stupid behaviour, but I could not help myself. When I saw them together I could see that they truly loved each other, and it burned my soul like cold fire. At dinner she would sit by his side and while Robin engaged in rough banter with the other outlaws, I often saw him taking her hand in his below the table. Marie-Anne’s presence seemed to have had changed Robin’s demeanour; he was more light-hearted, even boyish around her. In fact, everyone seemed more cheerful with Marie-Anne in the camp; the laughter around the Caves was louder, the men went about their tasks with merriment and snatches of song. I was the only one who was out of sorts.
Fortunately, there was plenty to occupy my hands while I brooded on life and love: Robin was planning a great gathering for Easter and all the men and women of Sherwood who served him, or who did not care to offend him, were to be summoned to a great feast in the heart of Sherwood to mark the beginning of the new year. Little John had set me and several other outlaws to making a great plank table in the shape of a ring, enough to seat five hundred folk for the Easter meal. As well as a great deal of gorging at the gathering, there would be games and contests, gift-giving, singing and dancing, and displays of martial prowess.
Hugh returned to the Caves the day after Marie-Anne’s arrival, and he brought with him a large ox-drawn cart that was filled with wicker baskets. The baskets contained hundreds of doves and were each marked with a letter crudely painted on the wicker lids. I greeted Hugh, who seemed very pleased with himself, and asked him what the doves were for: ‘Are we going to eat them at the feast?’ I asked. He looked shocked. ‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘These are home-loving doves, very special, and they’ll be used for the summoning.’ I was mystified and he explained.
‘These doves know where their home is, where their mate and nest is, and they can find it even when they are hundreds of miles away. The Caliphs of Baghdad use them to send messages by attaching tiny written notes to the birds’ feet. But as few people hereabouts can read, we use them to communicate a simpler message.’
I had no idea then what a Caliph was, and I had never heard of Baghdad, but I was intrigued by the idea of communicating with birds. Hugh continued: ‘We transport the birds far from home and then release them with a long thin green banner attached to their legs. The birds can then be seen for miles as they fly home, the banner flapping beneath them. A home-loving bird with a green banner is a message; it means simply: “Robin of Sherwood summons you”. And all who would serve Robin are then required to arm themselves and travel in exactly the opposite direction that the birds are flying.’
I must have looked confused because Hugh frowned and snapped, ‘It’s very simple, boy, just pay attention,’ exactly as he had when he was my schoolmaster. Then he pulled out a dagger from his belt and began to draw in the bare dirt at my feet. He stabbed the dagger into the ground six times, making a rough circle of marks. ‘Each one of these is a farmhouse, with a dovecote, that Robin uses as a safe place. Here, for example,’ he stabbed one of the marks in the circle, ‘is Thangbrand’s. May he rest in peace. Here,’ he stabbed again at another mark, ‘is Selwyn’s Farm; this,’ he stabbed again, ‘is Kirklees Priory.’ He looked to see if I had grasped it; and indeed an understanding of the elegance of the system was dawning on me. He stabbed the point of the dagger in the centre of the circle. ‘We are here at Robin’s Caves, but we have doves with us that make their homes in all these places.’ He indicated the marks in the dirt circle. ‘When we release the doves, they fly home trailing the green banners.’ He drew lines from the central point to all the outlying marks on the circle, making a star shape. ‘A loyal man who sees the dove on the wing knows he must march in exactly the opposite direction to the dove’s flight and he will meet up with our patrols who will guide him - and scores of his fellows - into the camp. Simple, eh?’
It was. And I was impressed. ‘But don’t the banners get tangled up in the tree branches, trapping the doves?’
He nodded. ‘Some do, and they are usually pulled down by farmers who sometimes eat the dove. Some men bring the dove back to Robin, and he is careful to reward those who do. Some of the doves are taken by hawks. It’s not perfect, but it does work. It summons Robin’s people from distances of up to fifty miles in all directions.’
A few days later I saw the system in action. Hugh and myself and several outlaws took the cartload of doves to the vast clearing in the woods where we would be feasting in a few days time and after attaching each dove to a banner, which took a surprisingly short time - the birds lay quietly in my grasp as I tied on the green material round one pink foot with a simple knot - we released them and watched as they soared up into the sky, circled the clearing until they found their direction, and then headed off, north, south, east and west, trailing the thin green banners behind them. ‘In a few days,’ said Hugh, ‘there’ll be a multitude here.’
And he was right. Two days later the patrols started to bring in the people of Sherwood. There was a motley collection of humanity: mostly they were outlaws, outcasts and runaway serfs, who scratched a living in Sherwood but were not members of Robin’s band. Many of them wore the same Y-shaped amulet as Brigid around their necks, but not all. Some wanted to serve Robin as men-at-arms or bowmen; some just wanted a decent meal and a drink. But there were others too: well-fed yeoman farmers with quarterstaves in one meaty hand, men for whom Robin had done a favour at some time; villagers looking for justice or a small loan or help against an oppressive lord of the manor; apprentices from the towns, who had slipped away from their masters for an illicit holiday; small merchants looking to sell their wares, and, strangest of all, two brothers who lived deep in Sherwood and who shunned all settlements. This strange pair, who dressed entirely in animal skins, were not outlaws in the way that we were, because they had never lived within the law. Both wore the Y-shaped amulet; they were pagans, who worshipped the old gods of the forest: Cernunnos, the horned deer god and his consort the Triple Goddess, who was maiden, mother and crone all at once, the deity that Brigid, the Irish wise woman, served. They avoided settlements with their Churches and law courts, unless it was absolutely necessary. I was intrigued and made friends with them: a grizzled old hunter called Ket the Trow and his brother who was known as Hob o’ the Hill, who was a charcoal burner, and who reeked of pungent smoke. Neither of them stood taller than my shoulder and I had not finished my growing yet. But they were superb mimics and could imitate all the birds of the forest with great accuracy and could hunt and track better than anyone else in Sherwood. They were devoted to Brigid and Hob especially seemed to be impressed with the little row of dimples that was my memento of the night of the wolves. ‘A wolf bite is very dangerous,’ said Ket, while Hob nodded wisely beside him. ‘Our uncle was bitten by a wolf, and he died a week later.’
‘He fell out of a tree, while picking mistletoe, and landed on his head,’ said Hob, looking at Ket with disapproval.
‘Yes,’ said Ket, ‘but why was he picking mistletoe? To make a cure for a wolf bite gone bad.’
Robin’s Caves were transformed by the crowds, who began arriving on the Easter Saturday morning and were clearly in the mood to make merry, and this quiet area of woodland became as busy and muddy and colourful and noisy as the Nottingham Fair. Anyone who arrived clutching a summoning dove was duly paid a silver penny by Robin, thanked and relieved of the bird, which was put back in the appropriate basket. Some of the visiting folk had brought tents; others quickly threw up crude huts made from turf and tree branches, to shelter them at night, and then they hurried to one of the larger caves where Little John was serving out great tankards of ale, free to all who asked him. Pedlars with trays of gimcrack goods, brightly coloured ribbons and whistles, lucky tokens and sweetmeats, roamed about crying, ‘What do you lack?’ in an attempt to sell their wares. There were dog fights and wrestling matches, foot races and a tug of war. An archery contest was held, which Robin won, to absolutely no one’s surprise. He even beat Owain, the Welsh captain of his bowmen, who had first taught him the use of the war bow. Queen Eleanor’s Gascon cavalry gave a demonstration of their prowess, galloping about and spearing cabbages nailed to poles at head height. Bernard judged a children’s singing contest and then got drunk and sang bawdy songs for hours to an audience of equally drunken revellers. A travelling storyteller, a wise old man named Wygga, with a grey pointed beard and a mischievous grin, kept scores of people entertained with his marvellous tales of long-ago battles. I sat at his feet for hours, entranced by the bold deeds of King Arthur and his knights, and vowed to remember his fabulous stories and to make up my own songs about them one day.
On Easter Sunday, a great feast was given at noon. Everyone sat on rough benches at the huge hollow circular table that I had helped to construct from sawn planks in a clearing near the caves. We were about five hundred souls in all. Eighteen red deer and a dozen wild boar were roasted on spits and stripped to the bone by the hungry hordes. A hundred chickens, and two hundred loaves of bread were brought out to the great round table with great vats of pottage. The wine and the beer flowed like rivers; and all of it was provided as Robin’s gift. Everyone ate their fill and became drunk and joyful. It was wonderful; some of the poorer folk looked as if they had not had a decent meal in weeks, and the great round table was suffused with a spirit of raucous harmony, with people from all parts of the country mingling in peace. There was only one thing that troubled me. I mentioned my fears to Hugh, who was sitting beside me toying with a sallet, a bowl of cold boiled vegetables and herbs, and sinking great drafts of wine. ‘With all these people here, surely this place is secret no longer. Will not Sir Ralph Murdac know where to find us?’
Hugh shook his head. ‘We’re too strong now,’ he said, slurring his words ever so slightly. ‘There must be three hundred fighting men here at this moment eating Robin’s meat. Murdac would have to strip Nottingham bare to even match our numbers. No. If he wanted to take us he would have to gather a real army, a thousand men or more, and we would get wind of that long before he was ready to move.’
I was comforted by this thought, and set to my plate of roast wild boar in a sauce of preserved brambles with enthusiasm. As I chewed, another thought struck me, and I looked sideways at Robin’s brother. ‘Hugh,’ I said, emboldened by his booze-suffused face to ask him a personal question. ‘Why are you an outlaw? Surely a man of your skills could find a place in a noble household? Perhaps you could even serve the King, keeping him safe from his enemies, the way you do for Robin.’
Hugh sighed, and I could smell the sweet fumes of wine on his breath. ‘You don’t have any family, Alan, do you?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘They are a blessing and a burden,’ he said in his schoolmasterly way, as if beginning a lecture. ‘A family is like a great castle; a source of much power and strength - but it is a prison, too.’ I poured him another goblet of wine and he nodded his thanks before continuing: ‘Our father died shortly after Robin was declared outlaw. Some said it was of a broken heart. The old baron loved Robin best of all his three boys, though he was the youngest. He never much cared for William and me, and had the old bastard lived he would have probably persuaded the King to give Robin a pardon, I think. But the Archbishop of York, the saintly Roger de Pont L’Eveque, insisted that Robin be punished to the full extent of the law for having foully murdered one of his servants. And, as Robin would not come in from the forest to face judgement, he was declared outlaw by the Archbishop. Soon after that, the old baron had a seizure and died, and William, our eldest brother, took over his lands. Then Archbishop Roger died. But, by then, Robin had a list of serious crimes to his name a yard long, and Ralph Murdac was after his blood.
‘Neither Robin nor I are close to William, though he is only two years older than me. He is everything that Robin is not: pious, mean, timid, cautious and respectful of authority. He’s something of a shit-weasel, to be honest.’ I was slightly shocked to hear Hugh talk of his older brother in this way. And he seemed to sense this through the wine.
‘To William’s credit,’ Hugh continued, ‘he has made Robin a standing offer: surrender to him and he will intercede with the law, and try to get leniency. Robin’s not interested, of course; he’d much rather negotiate from a position of strength, which is why he does all this.’ He made a sweeping gesture with his hands at the hundreds of happy, red-glowing faces at the tables to our left and right. ‘Robin would rather have a private army at his back, a couple of hundred loyal men-at-arms, and a dozen barrels of silver to spend when he asks for a royal pardon. And he’s right, too.’ He took a deep swig of wine. ‘He’s always right, you see, always. Not like me. I’m always wrong. Always in the wrong.’ His drunkenness was entering the self-pitying stage.
‘So how did you come to be with Robin in the forest?’ I pushed him.
‘Because of a woman, of course,’ said Hugh. And he laughed, his head hanging loose between his shoulders, chuckling and chortling until his noises began to sound more like sobs. Then cuffing his face with his sleeve, he turned his bleary eyes to me and asked: ‘Have you ever been in love, Alan?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You
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seem to think that love is an amusing game, something to pass the time. But it is not.’ He lifted his bleary eyes to mine. ‘Love is pain,’ he said with a perfectly blank expression. ‘Love is an agony that banishes sleep and turns bread to ashes in your mouth. I have loved, and I know what I’m talking about.’
He paused there and stared at me but I said nothing. I wanted him to continue but I felt the belligerence in his tone, the truculence of the self-pitying drunk, and I knew enough to stay silent.
‘I was in love,’ he said, after little a while, ‘with the most beautiful woman in the world. Most beautiful girl in the world. Jeanne was her name and she was the daughter of Richard de Brewister. Oh God, she was beautiful!’ He took another sip of wine and straightened his shoulders, trying to sober himself. ‘I was Lord de Brewister’s chamberlain. I ran his household, kept his accounts - oh, five or six years ago now - and it was there that I fell in love with Jeanne. She loved me, too. And when Jeanne became with child, I wanted to marry her but Sir Richard wouldn’t hear of our union. He had set his sights higher, on an Earl or a Duke, not the second son of a minor baron, a mere clerk. He sent me away, in disgrace; the unfeeling bastard, he sent me back to William. And he sent her to a nunnery, where she was to bear the child, in secret. It was a boy. But I heard . . . I was told . . . that God took them both during the birth.’