Tuck did not stay long at Thangbrand’s. He delivered his ragged charges for training and collected the chest containing Robin’s Share, swelled by a summer of plundering travellers in Sherwood. Then he left, accompanied by a dozen of the more competent men-at-arms, some mounted, some on foot carrying bowstaves. I thanked him for bringing me the tidings of my mother and told him that I now had a double reason to seek revenge on Sir Ralph Murdac: the deaths of both my mother and my father. ‘Revenge is for fools,’ said Tuck. ‘Christ teaches forgiveness.’ I must have looked bewildered because he continued: ‘Always remember that God has a plan, my son. We sinners may not know what it is but He does,’ and he pulled me towards him and hugged me. As I buried my face in his rough monk’s robe, with its earthy scent of sweat and woodsmoke, I remembered that Sir Richard had used the same words. Then Tuck blessed me and rode away with his silver and his soldiers into the depths of Sherwood.
With his departure, the cavalry school at Thangbrand’s was suddenly short of recruits and Guy, having proved his quality at the quintain, was absorbed into its ranks. I was still training with Thangbrand as a foot soldier but, thanks to Sir Richard’s help, I was now demonstrating his hackneyed sword moves to the new arrivals. Bernard was impressed with my progress at music; I had a natural ear, he said, and I was now composing with increasing confidence: indeed, one set of verses that I created at this time, about the threshing of corn and the winnowing of chaff, is still being sung to this day. I heard local peasants singing it just the other day as they worked; the words have changed slightly but it is still my simple tune. When I asked one of them about the song, he said it was traditional. That made me smile and remember Bernard’s waspish comment: ‘I don’t know why you waste your time writing chants for grubby peasants. Life is about love, boy, love, it’s the only fitting subject for a trouvere.’
But I didn’t know anything about love, except for a strange yearning to see Marie-Anne again. Lust, on the other hand, was something I was beginning to know a great deal about; indeed I felt it daily as a growing pressure in my loins. Tuck had warned me about the sin of onanism; it would make me go blind if I indulged myself, he said. The other boys at Thangbrand’s, particularly Guy, jeered at this notion but I liked and respected Tuck and, for his sake, I tried very hard to abstain.
There were a dozen or so women at Thangbrand’s: fat Freya, of course, and the wives and daughters of the men-at-arms. Little yellow Godifa, of course, if you could count her as a woman. And there was Cat — gorgeous Cat — about seventeen summers old, with creamy skin, generous breasts, red hair and startling green eyes. And she was available. She was available to anyone for a silver penny. She had haunted the fringes of my thoughts since I had first set eyes on her rutting against the wall with the outlaw on the first night after I joined Robin’s band. I knew she had sometimes lingered by the battleground to watch me at sword practice with Sir Richard but I had never had the courage to speak to her. And yet I lusted after her, I lusted almost day and night. Particularly at night. When I could no longer control myself, under my blankets, amid my snoring companions in the hall, it was she who appeared in my mind, naked and beckoning. The problem, as I saw it, was that I didn’t have a single penny or anything valuable that I could exchange for her favours. I did, however, know where to get them.
As well as Cat’s lubricious charms, the great ruby that I’d seen in Thangbrand and Freya’s chamber had also been at the back of my mind. Although Thangbrand’s ferocity had terrified me, as time went by, my curiosity about the contents of that metal box buried in the floor was growing. What was in there apart from that great jewel? I decided to find out.
My chance came soon enough. Winter was knocking on the door at Thangbrand’s and with it Slaughter Day. On this day, all the farm pigs — there were about half a dozen — which had been fattened in the wood all autumn would be killed, cut up and preserved in salt for the winter. We did not have enough feed to keep them through the cold months and so if left alive they would lose weight until they were skin and bone, or even dead, by spring. So we killed them.
Slaughter Day was something of a celebration at Thangbrand’s: there was a lot of work to be done, penning, killing, scalding the flesh to remove the bristles; dismembering the carcasses and packing the meat in casks of salts. But it was also a feast because a lot of the meat could not be salted and so it was eaten in a variety of forms. Sausages were made from thoroughly cleaned intestines; the heads were boiled in great vats to make brawn; the air was filled with the delicious scent of roasting pork as the off-cuts, and odds and ends of pork, not worth salting, were cooked and eaten hot. More or less everyone was involved in the work, which was supervised by Freya and Thangbrand. But I slipped away at the height of the blood-letting, muttering that I had an errand to run for Bernard, who, of course, was not the slightest bit interested in gorging on pig meat with the rest of us, not when he had his own private barrel of wine and his beloved vielle at home. Bernard claimed that the squealing of the swine hurt his sensitive musical ears.
With everyone either at the pig-pens, the slaughter yard or in the kitchen, a separate building because of the risk of fire, I slipped unnoticed into the hall and crept into Thangbrand and Freya’s chamber. My heart was fluttering like a trapped bird, though I knew the chance of someone catching me was slim, and my mouth was dry. It was a sensation I knew well from my days as a thief in Nottingham; I liked it. And I had an excuse ready: Bernard had lent Freya a comb, I would say, and I had been asked by him to retrieve it.
The door to the chamber creaked appallingly as I pushed it open. I called out to Freya to say that it was only me, knowing well that she was elbow-deep in pig’s blood at the slaughter yard, and went inside. Although it was full daylight outside, I could barely see in the gloom of their bedchamber. It had no window and the only illumination came from spears of light that bored through tiny holes in the wattle-and-daub wall and from under the eaves. There was little furniture in the room: a big curtained double bed, a chest for clothes, a table and two chairs. I went straight to the corner where I’d seen Freya on her knees a few weeks before and put my hand to the earth floor where I thought the box had been hidden. I found nothing under my groping fingers, just smooth earth. I brushed my fingertips back and forwards, in wider and wider sweeps: nothing. I couldn’t understand it; had they moved the hiding place? It was likely, Thangbrand knowing that I had seen it. And then I heard someone coming, footsteps outside and the door creaking. . and in a blind panic, forgetting my comb story, I scuttled under the bed and curled in a tight ball at the far side by the wall. Visions of Ralph, the rapist who had been beaten and castrated, flooded into my mind. And the informer whose tongue had been sliced off outside the church. And Sir John Peveril. If I was caught stealing. . it didn’t bear thinking about.
From under the bed I could see the boots of two men. The door creaked shut. Then a man was kneeling by the foot of the bed. I couldn’t breathe. I thought my lungs would explode with terror. It was Hugh; I could just make out his long, thin shape and, O merciful God, he was facing away from me tugging at something in the floor. Through my naked, shivering fear, I had a cold clear thought: they hadn’t moved the hiding place! Hugh pulled out something from the ground — it looked like a small bag. There was a chink of silver as he passed it to the other man. And then he spoke: ‘So it is agreed, then. Tell your master to be careful. Tell him to speak to no one about this. Tell him. .’ The other man interrupted rudely: ‘He knows this business better than you.’ There was an awkward silence for a few heartbeats, and then the boots moved, the door creaked and they left.