The Outlaws of Sherwood (15 page)

“I shall set him digging a privy vault ditch long enough for all of Nottingham town,” said Much. “He can dig till he has no skin left on his hands, and cannot play his wretched lute.”

“Tie him up and leave him in a cave, more like,” said Will. “A pity it is we need him for the day.”

“Brides have been married by proxy ere this,” said Much. “And brainless boys too.”

Robin laughed. “Now that he would not forgive us—and I think I cannot blame him for that. We will carry him tomorrow fettered and gagged, if it seems necessary.”

“And I shall jerk the rope,” said Much.

Little John and his companions left before dawn, to lie in wait near the manor house till the bride party would leave; and to those left behind, the air became frangible with tension, and struck at the eyes and in the breast like splinters of glass. There were several hours to wait till it was their turn to make their way to the chapel in the forest. Even the sound of beeswax smoothed on a bowstring was troubling; and when the string slipped away from its handler and snapped against the bow, everyone jumped.

“This won't do,” said Robin. “We shall set out at once.”

“We might go the long way round,” suggested Will, “and wear the fidgets out, as with a fractious horse.”

Robin shook his head. “We shall have need of all our edge to face down our Normans; for I think St Clair will not yield quietly.”

“Quietly?” said Will, who had jumped the farthest when the string cracked. “I should hope not.”

The ones that were to go picked up their bows and staves and knives, and settled their boots and belts and tunics, and then all melted discreetly into the undergrowth. There were very few left behind; most of them were already departed on other errands, watch-standing and message-bearing. Greentree became merely a quiet glen deep in Sherwood, and birds sang undisturbed in the branches at its edge, and the sunlight fell in a small bright patch in its center.

Those that followed Robin stepped, as always, on rock and moss and leaves, that would not take a footprint, and avoided soft low ground. Robin automatically looked for water to cross; his folk's boots were stiff with wax and grease as a result of this habit of their leader, and there was little grumbling, if one or two sighs, as they waded upstream through one of the many rivulets that wandered all ways through Sherwood, as proof of insufficiently treated toes or ankles became apparent.

They had a longish wait when they arrived at the chapel, but it was easier, lying on cool earth or outstretched on huge branches behind screens of oak leaves, and watching for what they knew would come, than waiting purposelessly in camp had been. No one fell asleep and only a few noses itched. Robin observed at his leisure that the baron's chapel was smaller than Friar Tuck's, but in better repair; there was not merely glass, but coloured glass with leading in all its windows, and the stone walls were shiny with fresh scrubbing.

There was a brief distraction in the form of Friar Tuck's arrival; it had been decided that the quicker the rearranged bridals took place, the better. “Not that I have any great doubt that if St Clair wishes to find out who performed the service he will be able to, whether or not he sees me. But I like the thought of doing it with dispatch, however disrespectful this may seem,” was Tuck's reaction to the proposal.

“But can the fat friar walk so far?” said Will.

“Hmph,” said Tuck. “Just tell me when it is—I already know where—and attend to your own part of the business.”

Alan-a-dale was put in the charge of Much, with a severe warning to behave himself. Fortunately he seemed tractable enough now that the day was finally here; his face was pale and he looked everywhere around him very anxiously, his eyes opened so wide that the rest of his features seemed pinched. “I hope she will have the strength,” he murmured at intervals, whether or not there was anyone to hear—or to pay heed. Robin's and Will's eyes met sardonically once after this comment, each wondering if some of the young lover's apprehension might be for himself.

Will heard the approach first, but as he turned his head to attract Robin's attention, Robin's own head turned and his eye brightened: there was the faint but unmistakable sound of a party of horsemen who did not care for the noise they made, or to what distance it might be audible. Thus it was still some little time before any of Robin's party could see anything. Soon it was apparent that the approaching parade was a celebratory one; someone was singing a merry song, and the horses' harness jingled with the sort of trappings left off more sober processions.

Even to eyes peering through leaves the bride was readily detectable among the other riders. She sat upon a white horse with flowers in its mane and tail, and she wore a long bright gown suitable for a noblewoman on her wedding day. She did not truly ride, for her horse was led, its bridle in the hand of a man in the dark plain garb of St Clair's men at arms. But she did not have the demeanor of a prisoner so much as of one so frail as to need protection from most of life, even the direction of one's own horse. (Robin thought of Marian, and wondered where she was. Curled up in a window embrasure somewhere in Black-hill, perhaps, staring out over Sherwood, and thinking of the adventure she was not a part of. There had never been any question of her accompanying them—to Robin's profound relief. She knew as well as anyone that she could not risk the ill chance of St Clair's recognising her. But, perversely, Robin missed her presence at his side; he would have liked to hear her breathe through her nose when the bride came into sight.) The bride's hands were delicately crossed before her on the pommel, and she swayed lightly, like a flower, to the horse's slow pace. Her head was a little tipped down, and her shoulders a little bowed: not as one in fear or sorrow, but as one content to wait on events.

They rode to the door of the chapel, and the priest was helped down from his pony and went bustling into the small building, with two clerkly figures carrying bundles hurrying after him. There was a general hubbub of dismounting, and then the guardsmen sorted themselves out into a double row, as if their only purpose were to honour their master's wealth and pride by their numbers; and they stood on either side of the chapel door as the lady's horse was led up. There was a pause; it seemed to be expected that the baron would wish himself to help his bride dismount; that on his arm only she should depend this day. But a little gesture of his gloved and ringed hand changed this; and two guardsmen sprang forward, one to hold the lady's stirrup, and the other to offer her his hand.

She seemed to drift down from the saddle, as if she weighed no more than the flower she seemed; as if she hid a flexible stem beneath her long skirts instead of ordinary human legs with particular joints capable only of particular movements. She barely touched the outstretched hand, and her stirrup never trembled. The man who had held her horse led it away; as it flicked its tail, one of the braided flowers detached itself and fell to the ground. The lady stooped—a pause; this gesture had not been a part of the day's pattern—and picked it up; and then stood, idly turning it in her fingers, as if surprised it was only a flower.

The guardsmen stood back to their places, and the bride's waiting-women came forward, and flung a scarf over the bride's head and shoulders. She looked up, momentarily, into the trees, as if she was looking for the succour she hoped for; but Much, who lay close enough to see (Alan was stowed several trees back, for safety), thought she looked dazed, and her eyes glanced where they would, without her thought to direct them.

The baron turned, still without touching his bride, and strode into the chapel; a faint twinkle, as of lit candles, gleamed at the leaf-shadowed windows. The flower-lady followed, her waiting-women close behind, as if they anticipated propping her up when she drooped; and several of the guardsmen followed. The others remained in their ranks on either side of the chapel door; a little way off, the horses stood and stamped. There were three other Norman-looking men who might have been friends or debt-bearers of St Clair who also entered the chapel, though with no great enthusiasm in their step; and these were followed by a little nervous man the watchers guessed was the bride's father.

“It will perhaps be not so uneven a match,” said Robin in Will's ear; “they are not conspicuously armed, for all that there are unpleasantly many of them.”

All in range were looking to Robin now, and he nodded. Those who saw him turned and nodded to others watching them, and the signal so went round the circle of outlaws.

Who dropped out of their trees, and sprang up from their underbrush, and fell—almost silently—upon the guardsmen. Rafe and Jocelin so neatly seized the man holding the horses that the horses were not disturbed, and only one or two even put their ears forward in curiosity.

All did not go quite so smoothly at the chapel door. One of the guardsmen managed half a shout before he was felled by a stave-end briskly applied to the back of his head; and there was some unavoidable stir caused by the violent collision of struggling human bodies. Even so, by the time those in the chapel had realised that something was amiss, Robin's folk were the victors; and Much and Will were occupied in tying the hands of the two baron's men still conscious—who were gargling angrily through the cloth gags that had been shoved none too gently halfway down their throats. More desultorily Gilbert and Simon and Sibyl were knotting together the wrists and ankles of the unconscious men, in a long untidy row. The guardsmen inside with the baron burst out the door, to be adroitly tripped up by some casually but firmly held staves just above the level of the threshold. The first went down like a poleaxed ox, and the others were too hard on his heels to do otherwise. As they yelled and thrashed at each other, the outlaws jumped on them.

St Clair himself came last, and he had taken the time to draw his sword; and he stood in the doorway with the women behind him, and none could, for the moment, get at him. The outlaws dragged the bound guards out of the way; and the tip of the baron's sword waved gently back and forth, in rhythm with his seeking gaze; nor did either tremble. The sword was a dress-sword, such as a man might wear to his wedding; but it was good steel for all that, and the wrist that held it was brawny.

Robin stepped forward to face the baron, planted his staff on the ground and leaned upon it, as if it were no more than a walking stick. St Clair could not come at him without having been felled several times by Robin's folk on the way; there were several staves eagerly raised just for that purpose. But the baron did not acknowledge the opponents ranged against him; only his arm moved, till the glittering tip of the sword paused, drawn to Robin as to a lodestone. The gesture was smooth, graceful, and easy; as if the two of them were about to square off alone in a friendly match long anticipated. But St Clair's eyes were not friendly.

“There is some purpose behind this outrage?” said Roger of St Clair, and his voice was as steady as his eye and hand.

Robin thought of Little John, and wondered if the baron might himself be thinking of what could be going forward at his home, while he was so delayed.

“There is,” said Robin; and then there was a rustle behind him, and St Clair's eyes flicked away, over Robin's shoulder; and first they widened, and then they narrowed, and St Clair's face turned a shade redder, and Robin's folk gripped their staves more fiercely.

“Can you not guess what our purpose might be on your wedding day, Norman pig?” said a young voice, so thick with hatred that its natural beauty disappeared under the burden of it. “Can you not guess that the good Saxon earth might rise up under your pig's feet and throw you down rather than let you marry an innocent Saxon maiden?”

Robin, from the corner of his eye, saw the spasm cross Much's face, and the jerk of his staff as if he felt Alan's neck beneath it. On threat of being left behind in a sack hung from a tree, the boy had promised, upon the spotless virtue of his lady fair (his choice of oath), to stay well back while the outlaws dealt with the baron's men. “Your hands know the shape of a lute, but not of a bow or staff so well; and on a matter so close to his heart any man might slip,” Robin had said, with a patience growing rapidly threadbare.

Alan began to speak of honour, and—

“Stop your noise,” said Little John; “cowardice is not spoken of. Do you want to risk—possibly the white neck of your lady—on your own fumbling? For I doubt not that you would fumble.”

Alan, who would have died before he admitted that he was still afraid of Little John, was persuaded to agree to terms; but Robin, not for the first time, found himself wishing Alan-a-dale had found some other band of outlaws to ask for help.

Robin had hoped to take all the Normans, neatly, at once, though he had guessed that St Clair's was a cold mind, not easily clouded by anger or crisis; and Alan had stayed out of the fighting, sticking to the letter of his promise if no more. From where Robin stood he could just see the flower-lady, glowing faintly in the darkness of the chapel, behind the baron's raised arm; he was sure Alan could see her too. It was hard to blame the boy too much; but it was equally hard not to.

“Fine friends for a young worm,” said St Clair. “And you, the leader, I guess, of these other worms, why do you waste time with such a worm's tale as that of my late bard? I thought he sang too little sweetly for listening long when his throat lay under my roof-tree.” The tone of St Clair's voice was a more effective goad than a slap with the flat of his sword might have been; and now Alan's was not the only flushed face among those that faced the Normans. “I had heard of the new bandits within Sherwood, but I did not think they would crawl so far.”

Much started forward, and the baron turned to him in a flash; but Robin cried, “
Much
!” and he paused, wavering, and St Clair laughed: a laugh that was a killing offense by itself. “But I would rather begin, as I doubt not the beginning was, with the bard-worm's tale. Shall I call my bride out-of-doors that she may see your blood flow?” The baron's sword-tip moved from its aim at Robin's vitals to a point a little to Robin's left; and Alan, with a strangled noise, leaped forward.