And the enemy had had enough. The surviving horsemen, those who had come last to the fight in the woodland, the men who had hung back, turned their mounts and fled, streaming away back out of the trees towards the open farm land. Of the sixty men that had come on so proudly against Robin’s archers, I saw fewer than a dozen knights make their escape.
It was a stunning victory. Robin’s tiny force of raggedy peasants and outlaws, armed with little more than a few sticks and lengths of hempen string, had defeated — almost annihilated — a force three times their size of armoured, well-trained men on horseback.
And Robin had lost only a single man. We found his body by the treeline. He was a squat, well-muscled archer but he must have been slow to run on Robin’s command, for he bore the classic death wound of a fleeing infantry man pursued by a mounted knight: a bloody hole in his back where the knight’s lance had pierced him as he ran for his life.
The archers showed no pity to the wounded men they found, ignoring appeals for mercy and all talk of ransom, and cutting their throats without regard for rank or status. Then they immediately began to search the bodies for coins.
One of the ox-drivers had been killed, too. Some escaping knight, overcome by frustration at his defeat or just plain bloodlust, had hacked into the back of the man’s head as he was passing the wagons, and now the poor driver lay dead at the feet of his draught animals, his brains softly leaking from his cracked skull into the green grass.
‘Greetings, young Alan,’ said Little John. ‘Did you enjoy my little trick?’ He gestured with a vast hand at the mound of dead and dying horses in the centre of the clearing, now being picked over by outlaw archers looking for valuable weapons, armour, silver bridles, expensive horse knick-knacks and, as always, food and drink.
‘It was astounding,’ I said. And I meant it. ‘But where on earth did you get the steel chain?’
‘I made it,’ said Little John, with undeniable pride in his voice. ‘God’s great pimpled buttocks, did you think it fell from the sky or was given to us by the fairies?’
‘But-’ I said, and stopped.
‘Forgive me, Alan. I was forgetting,’ said Little John. ‘You’ve been away from us for a while. I learnt the blacksmith’s trade in London. Just by happenstance, you might say. I needed to be near the Temple Church — Robin’s idea, of course — and there was a blacksmith’s right opposite the place. So, for a goodly fee, and no questions asked, I became a rather elderly apprentice for a few days. I learnt a thing or two, as well.’
My mind went back to a figure I had glimpsed on the day of Robin’s trial. A tall blond man with an eye patch who seemed to have absolutely no interest in a large force of mounted soldiers appearing right on his doorstep.
‘So it was you who arranged Robin’s escape?’
Little John laughed. ‘My master at the smithy was asked to provide the Templar’s gaoler with the locks and chains to shackle Robin. And I arranged with the blacksmith to have the honour of undertaking the task.’
I snorted at this. The thought of Little John as a biddable blacksmith’s apprentice was almost too comical to believe.
‘I locked up Robin in the presence of the gaoler, but — would you believe it? — I botched the job: loose pin in the locking mechanism. Well, I was so ashamed of my shoddy work that I thought it would be better to take Robin and myself away from there as soon as possible. Once Robin was loose, we only had to kill a couple of Templar sergeants, climb a wall, and ride like Hell for Sherwood. The whole thing went as smoothly as shit passing through a goose.’
The big man was laughing now, and I joined him. I was very pleased to see Little John again: I had missed his rough good humour, appalling impiety, and his unique attitude to life, viewing the world as such an easy place in which to live. As we laughed, Robin came over to me.
‘It’s time you were going, Alan. So, I’m afraid, you need to decide — where do you want it?’
‘What?’ I said, stupidly.
‘Your story when you get back to Nottingham is that you were wounded in the fight — knocked out, perhaps — and when you came to, you were the only man left alive. Does that sound plausible?’
‘Oh, ah, I suppose so…’
Robin looked over at Little John, and gave a tiny nod.
And I ducked.
A fist like a granite boulder whistled over my head, its massive flight ruffling my blond hair, and I turned to look at Little John in alarm.
‘Stand still, Alan. It’s got to look authentic,’ said John, frowning. ‘Unless you’d rather have a flesh wound?’
‘We could always do that,’ said Robin, drawing his sword. My lord was enjoying this — the steel-eyed bastard.
‘All right, all right.’ I braced my feet, clamped my mouth shut and closed my eyes.
Are you ready?’ said John.
‘Yes — just get on with it,’ I said through gritted teeth.
The blow, when it came, was like a whack in the face from a well-swung mallet. I was knocked up and backwards, and landed with a winding thump on the horse-churned grass of the clearing. A moment’s deep blackness, then bright-red sparks shooting through my skull. When I opened my eyes, Robin was standing over me, his face full of concern.
I sat up groggily, and spat out a fragment of tooth. I could feel blood running down either side of my mouth from my smashed nose. I saw that my hands were trembling as I gently felt my squashed hooter. By the wiggle at the bridge, I knew it was broken.
Little John came over to me, leading Ghost.
‘Can you sit a horse?’ asked Robin, helping me to my unsteady feet.
‘Course he can,’ said Little John, handing me the reins. ‘Christ’s crusted bum-crack, the boy’s no weakling. And I only gave him a gentle tap. He’ll be fine.’
My head spinning, my face dripping gore, I climbed wearily up on to Ghost’s back.
‘I’ll pay you back for that one day,’ I mumbled to John, before nodding painfully at Robin and guiding Ghost out of the clearing and back on to the road to Nottingham.
It took me half a day to ride back to the castle: my head was splitting, my mouth and nose throbbing with pain. I amused myself on the ride back by thinking of ways I could revenge myself on Little John — nothing dreadful, I mused, but it’d be good to get my own back on the big lug.
It was dusk when I rode through the wooden gates of the outer bailey and up the rough road to the stone walls of the castle. I did not bother to wash before reporting to Sir Ralph that catastrophe had occurred to his Tickhill silver convoy. I figured that a bloody visage might speak volumes in my defence. And so, with the skin on my face cracked with dried blood, and my nose and mouth swollen and still smarting badly, I entered the great hall in the middle bailey to make my dolorous report in person to the Constable of Nottingham Castle.
Murdac was not alone: while I had been away Prince John had returned to his strongest English fortress, and as I walked over to his throne, I felt an air of something not quite right stir the hairs on the back of my neck.
I bowed to the Prince, and nodded at Sir Ralph Murdac, who as usual was standing hunch-shouldered close beside his master. On the other side of the royal chair was a third man: Sir Aymeric de St Maur, the Templar knight. Interesting, I thought to myself — the Templars are siding openly with Prince John. And then I pushed the thought aside and began my report on the robbery of the silver wagon train by the notorious outlaw Robin Hood and my fictional role in its heroic but unsuccessful defence.