The Rise of Robin Hood Read online

  Angus Donald was born in 1965 and educated at Marlborough College and Edinburgh University. He has worked as a fruit-picker in Greece, a waiter in New York and as an anthropologist studying magic and witchcraft in Indonesia. For twenty years, he was a journalist in Hong Kong, India, Afghanistan and London. He is married to Mary, with whom he has two children, and he now writes full time from home in Tonbridge, Kent.

  Also by Angus Donald

  Outlaw

  Holy Warrior

  King’s Man

  Warlord

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 9781405528887

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Angus Donald 2013

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

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  Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Angus Donald

  Copyright

  Begin Reading

  Spears of early morning sunshine drove through the lichen-green branches of a lush and sprightly oak tree and down on to the gold-flecked brown hair of a young man crouched at its base. The tree, one of many hundreds of thousands like it in that ancient forest, formed part of a wall of dense greenery on the western side of a leaf-strewn track. The forest road, while undoubtedly one of Henry Plantagenet’s royal highways, might easily have been mistaken for a subterranean tunnel, for the oaks reached up from either side and joined above, their leaves and limbs mingling promiscuously into a thick canopy and allowing only the odd parcel of daylight to gleam through.

  This thoroughfare, the main and indeed only direct route from Derby to Sheffield, was in poor condition that summer – one thousand one hundred and eighty years after the Incarnation of Our Lord – for there stood no sizeable manor or village nearby with responsibility for its upkeep, and its royal lord was far away, tending to his vexatious affairs across the Channel. And so in stretches it had become mired and muddy, with deep patches of near-bog, and the surface made treacherously uneven, on the drier parts, by roots and ruts, half-submerged boulders and fallen branches.

  And it must be admitted that the young man at the bottom of the tree – a rake-thin stripling of perhaps fifteen or so summers, with curious silvery-grey eyes – was not in the best of condition either. He looked hungry and unkempt, and was as poorly garbed as a beggar. The sagging, scuffed leather boots, roughly patched grey hose and dark-green tunic that he wore were all smeared with leaf-mould and earth, and torn in places. He had clearly been sleeping under the summer skies for a month or more, and his disordered hair had not felt the tug of a comb for a fortnight at least. But the scabbarded sword – strapped to his lean waist by a leather belt, and surprisingly clean and well-kept – indicated that this was no ordinary discontented young villein or unruly apprentice seeking sanctuary in the woods from a cruel master.

  ‘We need to cut here and here, John,’ said the youngster to his companion, indicating invisible intersecting lines on the tree’s trunk with his none-too-clean index finger, ‘and dig out a handle in the living wood, here, to attach the rope. We do the same to each of the trees that I’ve marked. And I think I have found a bough, up ahead, that will serve as my station. But it does seem a pity to fell so much prime timber without a very good reason.’

  His friend, a vast, muscular man with a rosy sun-baked face and yellow hair, was kneeling a yard or two away, searching for a roaming louse in his thick blond beard. As poorly dressed as the younger fellow, he carried about twice his bulk. A yard-long double-handed woodsman’s saw was balanced against the giant’s brawny knee, its teeth bright with fresh sharpening; a long keen-edged spear lay in the leafy-litter by his right hand, and two fat coils of rope hung from his shoulders, one on each side.

  ‘No shortage of trees in Sherwood,’ the big man said. Then he chuckled, a bubbling rumble of mirth. ‘And we do have a good reason, Robin. Nearly five thousand round, bright, silvery reasons, if what your blacksmith friend in Derby said is true.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Robin, ignoring the jest. ‘I just wish there was some other way to do it without bringing down so many old oaks.’ He sighed. ‘Well, come on, John, hand me the end of that saw, will you? They’ll reach this spot by noon, if not before. We need to spend a little of our sweat.’

  ***

  The constant jolting of the cart was making the skinny woman ill. It was not the fear, she told herself firmly, it was not the dread of what was to come the next day, or the next, or perhaps the day after that: the hungry red flames, the spiteful jeers of the crowd, the searing agony of scorched flesh, and lungs filled with tarry, suffocating smoke. No, it was not her forthcoming trial and execution that had caused her to cough a thin brown gruel down the front of her already filthy sackcloth dress. It was the wild stirring of the cage, the twisting and hopping of the airy wooden cube that held her, as it jounced over the rough forest track drawn on the cart’s two solid creaking wheels by a patient donkey. She clutched at the Y-shaped amulet that hung on a thin cord over her puke-soaked dress and bounced between her small breasts. She would not allow herself to fear. She was in the hands of the old gods, the true gods of these Blessed Isles: indeed, even now, in her moment of shame and weakness, she had a sense that Cernunnos, the horned spirit of the woodland, the age-old trickster, was close at hand; and the Great Mother, the ever-loving matriarch of the world, would surely keep her strong throughout the coming ordeal and, when it was over and the killing fire of the Christians had consumed her tortured flesh, her spirit would be taken directly into the Mother’s loving bosom. For a blissful eternity.

  The woman fixed her eyes on the glossy brown haunches of the horse that walked beside her cage and a little in front, watching the play of the equine muscles under the skin, her thin right hand grasping at a solid ash-wood bar as the cart under her feet wobbled and bucked. The big stallion bore on its back a man-at-arms in a mail hauberk and chausses, helmeted, spurred and carrying a twelve-foot steel-tipped lance. A kite-shaped shield slung on his back showed by its bold crosses of scarlet and white that the man served the Bishop of Lichfield, as did the blazons of the other eleven men who made up the conroi. So, too, did the leader of this well-armed party of travellers – Archdeacon Richard, the Bishop’s trusted servant, who rode on a beautiful white palfrey at the head of the column and who had not once condescended to look into the wretched woman’s eyes during the three days they had been on the road.

  The escort of men-at-arms was not to prevent her escape, the woman knew – a couple of sturdy serving men could have fulfilled that purpose; the dozen soldiers were there to protect the wagon. It was four-wheeled and heavy, drawn by a single pair of lumbering oxen, and carried a precious cargo. The kind that would be attractive to the packs of masterless men and starving bandits said to infest these dank woodlands.

  They were taking it and its cargo north to York. And her, too, for her trial. The Bishop had decreed a hearing before a panel of solemn churchmen for the foul crime of heresy. There could be only one outcome – the soul-cleansing fire. As the donkey cart lurched wildly over a tree root, her stomach clenched like a fist and her mouth filled once again with the sour ta
ste of her own belly juices. But she was not afraid; she could not allow herself to be afraid.

  ***

  Archdeacon Richard reined in his horse, barely able to check his growing fury. Another damn delay. They had already wasted a day in Derby while they waited for two of the horses to be re-shod. And, of course, once released from duty, the men-at-arms had taken the opportunity to drink themselves to near-insensibility in a common alehouse. The whole God-given day had been forfeit, the men almost all too drunk to ride after the noonday meal. It was only with threats, kicks and curses that they had been mustered from their sodden slumbers to their duty at cock-crow today. And now this: a vast, bushy tree had evidently been felled by a recent storm and was lying directly across the road in front of them, like a round, impenetrable hedge. The horsemen might have picked their way round the obstruction; the heavy wagon and the donkey cart, never. The Archdeacon called angrily behind him to the leader of the men-at-arms, a grey-faced, hang-dog fellow who sat his horse a half dozen yards away, waving the man forward to his side.

  ‘Get your drunken good-for-nothings to start clearing this blockage immediately, Sergeant. I want it done within the hour. We are already late.’

  His words were interrupted by a light, musical voice, calling out in good French from high on his left, somewhere in the canopy of trees: ‘Good day to you, kind sirs! May I bid you a friendly welcome to Sherwood Forest.’

  Both the prelate and the unwell-looking sergeant whipped their heads around searching for the speaker, but it took a few moments for them to make out the form of a cheerful young man in ragged clothes, his face shrouded by a deep hood, seated on the limb of a tree, a dozen feet above the road’s western verge.

  ‘What do you want?’ The Archdeacon’s words rapped out, more a command than an enquiry.

  ‘I regret to inform you that I must levy a soul tax on all the travellers who use this fine road – it is a shilling a man, I’m afraid, to pass this point. My deepest apologies. But for a gentleman of your quality, I’m sure that will not present any difficulties.’

  ‘Who the Devil are you to demand payment of me?’ said the priest. ‘I ride on the Bishop of Lichfield’s business; I ride on God’s business. Get you gone, you contumelious cur, or I will have the hide ripped from your back for your impudence.’

  ‘You refuse to pay?’ said Robin happily. ‘Very well. How about a prayer for my soul? I’m sure that a saintly fellow such as you must have the ear of the Almighty.’

  The young man stood up on the branch. He balanced easily, lightly supporting himself with his left hand on what appeared to be a taut rope, disguised with mud and leaves, that rose up at a forward angle and disappeared into the canopy.

  ‘A blasphemer, too! Sergeant, take up that man immediately. Bind him; throw him in the cart with the witch. I want him flogged raw, hanged and quartered the instant we get to York.’

  ‘So, you will not even pray for me? Ah, well . . .’ Robin lifted his right hand, waved it in the air, twice, as if hailing a friend.

  And, it seemed, the entire wall of trees at the western side of the road began to move.

  A few feet behind the last man-at-arms in the conroi, a rope jerked up from where it had lain unseen in the mud of the track, springing iron-taut for several moments under enormous strain, until a wedge-shaped chunk of timber the size of a small pig squealed and popped out from the base of a tall tree. And the big oak, unsupported now except for the couple of inches of trunk remaining, started to lean into the road, and, slowly, to fall, shrieking with protest, and finally landing with an earth-shaking thudding bounce directly across the highway. The travelling party erupted into chaos; horses screaming, men-at-arms shouting foul oaths. A couple of unfortunate men at the rear of the column were smashed from their saddles, their bodies crushed by the falling wood; even those quick enough to spur out of the toppling tree’s path were clawed by its outermost branches as they tried to make their escape. And, worse, there was no clear direction to run: the travellers were hemmed in before and behind by an impenetrable leafy barrier.

  In the centre of the column, another rope leapt up horizontally from under the legs of the men-at-arms’s skittering horses, another fat wedge was tugged free and another giant trunk began its leisurely but lethal fall on the Bishop’s now wildly panicking band of trapped men. Yet another tree, nearer the front of what had been the column, was jerked from its semblance of rectitude, and it toppled and crashed on to the track, catching a man-at-arms attempting to flee, a thin branch spearing his mailed chest, smashing through ribs, lungs and heart, and nailing him to the muddy forest floor. It seemed as if all Sherwood were collapsing like a row of skittles tumbling to an expertly lobbed bowling ball, trees going down one after the next, each apparently knocked into the road by an invisible, God-like hand.

  It all happened in fewer than a dozen heartbeats – the conroi shattered by this arboreal assault. A few brave souls had hauled out swords and were desperately seeking an enemy to battle. Others urged their mounts off the tree-strewn road and into the forest. One limb from a falling tree fell directly on top of the ash-wood cage that held the young woman. The cage bulged under the weight of the branch, split with a crash, and burst open like a sun-welcoming flower around its unscathed occupant.

  The woman slowly stood, emerging from the wreckage of her wooden prison. For a heartbeat, she looked about at the chaos of careering horses and shouting men-at-arms, of toppling trees and springing mud-caked ropes. She looked at Archdeacon Richard, still astride his madly skittering horse at the head of his disordered company, his mouth open in a perfect ‘O’ of surprise. She looked beyond him and up at the hooded young man standing on a tree limb calmly surveying the chaos he had caused.

  Then she ran like a hare into the trees and disappeared in the gloom of the greenwood.

  A moment later, the young man pulled sharply on a hidden rope behind him; he bounced once, hard, on the limb on which he was standing, and the whole branch severed at the trunk, but was still attached to the higher branches. It gave a loud creak, a crack, dropped a foot, and began to loop down across the road straight towards the Archdeacon, like a gigantic child’s swing.

  The sawn branch – a couple of hundredweight of solid wood, with the young man still perched atop its green bark and hanging on to the ropes that reached up into the leaves – swung down like a pendulum into the shock-frozen Archdeacon, hitting his left arm and chest and his palfrey’s neck all at once, and hurling both the venerable priest and the poor beast across the track to the ground. The thinner end of this unusual weapon, the lighter leafy branches, slashed across the conroi sergeant’s sickly face, swatting him from the saddle as well and sending his horse crashing through the thick undergrowth, neighing in terror. The log, still bearing the laughing young man, reached the maximum extent of its arc on the far side of the road and began to make the return journey. When it reached the lowest part of its trajectory, Robin leapt from his perch and landed as softly as a cat on the forest floor.

  He pulled his long sword from its scabbard – the hungover sergeant was running at him, yelling madly, his face badly ripped and bleeding, hacking down at Robin’s head, a killing blow. But Robin’s sword was up, and he caught the swinging blade against the cross-guard, twisted his wrist and shook the other man’s weapon away and to the right, unbalancing the fellow. Robin’s left fist shot straight out, the power coming from shoulder and hip, and he caught the man a stunning blow on the jaw. The sergeant stumbled away on jelly legs, arms loose by his sides, and Robin ran him through the hollow of the throat with a step and lunge. The man dropped, blood fountaining from his neck.

  As Robin jumped back to allow a panicked riderless horse to gallop safely past him, he spotted the Archdeacon on his hands and knees in the mire, trying to crawl into the forest. The young man ran to the priest, lifted his sword, swung, and hacked the sharp edge into the prelate’s neck. The blade sliced through his thick gold-embroidered woollen cloak, the hand-stitched silk ves
tments beneath, through the collar of his fine linen chemise, on down into the muscles that supported his skull, carving through vein, sinew, fat and cartilage, crunching the bones of his spine, and coming clear through the other side, freeing the tonsured head to roll in the mud of the forest floor.

  One of the Bishop’s men-at-arms, a rare fellow still in control of his horse in the carnival of frightened men and their hysterical mounts, kneed it towards the hooded man who had just dispatched his master. The soldier spurred back and set his mount thundering at Robin, his long lance couched, a shout of rage on his lips. Robin turned to face him, gripped his sword in both hands, and—

  A long blur, a dark object, slashed through the air and sank into the charging horse’s neck. It was a thrown spear, and for a few instants it waggled almost comically from the thick muscle before the horse’s legs failed it and the animal tumbled, somersaulting over its own forelegs in death, crushing its bold rider between the high back of the wooden saddle and the ground, snapping his spine like a twig. Robin was forced to dodge the hurtling mass of dying man and mount as it came towards him, a spray of horse blood soaking the front of his tunic as he scrambled out of its path, and the spear shaft slashing just over his bare head.

  A huge blond figure came sprinting out of the greenery on the eastern side of the road, following the flight of the spear.

  ‘The wagon, John. We must take the wagon,’ shouted Robin. And, sword in hand, he ran down the track, hurdled a fallen branch, ducked under another limb, towards a knot of men around the wagon and the oxen yoked to it.

  ‘God’s fat cock! Did you honestly think I’d forget that?’ muttered the giant, tugging his spear free from the meaty suck of the dead horse.

  Several of the Lichfield men-at-arms had been crippled or killed by the barrage of falling trees, some had been carried away by their fear-maddened horses, some, their courage sapped by a surfeit of ale and the general confusion, had fled when it seemed that the forest itself was attacking them – but three remained at their duty by the wagon, one still a-horse and two standing on the bed of the vehicle.