We all stood there staring at her, crowded into the chamber, in a half circle around this soft mound of screaming womanhood, kneeling on the earth floor amid the accumulated loot of a lifetime. She was terrifying, a blood-drenched howling madwoman, immobilising all with the eldritch horror of that awful, awful noise.
Then Thangbrand shouldered his way through the throng and hit his wife a huge open-handed wallop around the face. Freya was hurled across the chamber against the wall and mercifully she stopped howling. She curled herself into a great grey foetal ball and lay there sobbing and shivering while Thangbrand herded the rest of us out of the chamber and into the hall. I caught his livid eye as I left the room, and his gaze projected such an animal ferocity towards me that I involuntarily took a step backwards.
Hugh gathered everyone together in the hall at noon. His thin, tall figure in its black tunic and hose was even more schoolmasterly than usual. He cleared his throat: ‘It seems there is a thief among us,’ he said. Somebody sniggered — about half the men in the hall were on the run from the law for playing fast and loose with other people’s property. ‘Quiet,’ he snapped, his eyes roaming the hall and extinguishing any merriment with their bleak gaze. ‘There is one here who steals from his comrades. We will find him out now and he will be punished. Everyone is to form up in one long line — now, do it now. Form a line with your left hand on the shoulder of the man or woman in front.’
The puzzled outlaws shuffled into a great line, snaking up and down the hall. Then, at Hugh’s command, we all felt in the pouches and pockets of the person in front. ‘You are looking for a jewel, a great and precious jewel,’ said Hugh. I felt totally calm. The man-at-arms behind me ran his hands over my body in a cursory search and rummaged in my waist-pouch. He found nothing, of course. It might have been foolish to steal the ruby but I wasn’t stupid enough to keep it on my person. Nothing was found.
The outlaws, despite Hugh’s severe gaze, refused to take the situation seriously. ‘I reckon you might need to be searched a bit more thoroughly,’ said one broad-shouldered ruffian to Cat. ‘Plenty of places you might have hid that jewel ain’t been properly investigated yet. I’d better take a look.’ Cat waggled her behind and giggled: ‘No extra charge to you, my big beauty!’
Thangbrand, hand clenched tightly on his sword, was striding about the hall, the embodiment of bottled fury. He kept glancing over at me. In a low voice, shaking with rage, he said: ‘Search their chests; and start with his.’ And he thrust out a finger directly at me. There was nothing in my chest, of course, except dirty clothes, as was soon proved. But Thangbrand continued to glare at me while the search was widened. The outlaws started hauling out the chests of their friends from against the wall of the hall where they were normally kept and pawing through their trinkets, keepsakes, smelly old hose and crusty drawers. No ruby was found. Instead, an infectious air of suppressed hilarity passed through the assembled men and women, with outlaws trying on each other’s clothing and cavorting around the hall to jeers and cheers. Then suddenly, Will Scarlet gave a great yell of triumph and everybody stopped and stared at him. Held above his head, glinting bloodily in the sunlight, was the great ruby.
‘Where did you find it, boy?’ asked Hugh. Will’s eyes opened wide. It was almost comicaclass="underline" he had belatedly realised what his find meant. He said nothing but he was staring straight at Guy, who was standing near the open door. ‘Where did you find it, boy?’ said Hugh once again, with iron in his voice. ‘In whose chest did you find it?’ Will was still staring at Guy and then with shaking hands he lifted his finger and pointed straight at him. Guy’s face went white. He said: ‘No, no. .’ The hall was frozen in shock. Thangbrand’s son? How could Guy steal from his father? Thangbrand’s face was crimson with fury. In the silence, the rattling scrape of his sword being drawn. Then, blade in hand, Thangbrand stalked towards his grey-faced son. Guy was terrified: he lifted both hands out in front of him, fingers outstretched, as if to push away the silent accusation; to insist upon his innocence. But Thangbrand was still advancing, naked sword in his fist. Then, suddenly, Guy’s nerve snapped and he turned, quick as a rat, and dashed out through the open door of the hall and away into the sunshine.
Chapter Eight
After a long life, in which I have committed many sins, I look back on that moment in Thangbrand’s hall with mixed but powerful feelings. I did a terrible thing by hiding the ruby in Guy’s chest; and I fully meant to cause the harm that it did — breaking for ever the bond of love that had existed between Guy and his father Thangbrand. And Thangbrand, in his rough way, did love Guy. He loved him even after the discovery of the jewel in his chest. If Guy had not run, if he had kept his nerve and denied the theft and stood his ground, he might have been punished but Thangbrand would never have killed his own son.
I have asked God for forgiveness for what I did to Thangbrand and to Freya, who had been kind to me in their own way. But I have not asked forgiveness for what I did to Guy; and I never shall. He was a vicious bully and a boor, and he proved that day a coward too; he made my life miserable at a time when I was weak and vulnerable. And I hated him for it. In my mind, he was my enemy from the first few days at Thangbrand’s when he beat me and threatened me. There were further insults and far greater injuries, and I could never forgive his sneering at Bernard’s music, but it was after that first beating a few days after I arrived at Thangbrand’s that I started to consider how I might engineer his downfall. My lovely wife, who is with God and his angels now, used to tell me I was ruthless, without pity; Tuck once told me I was a ‘cold’ man, but neither of those descriptions is quite true. I feel pity and I have shown mercy. But Guy was my enemy, a hated foe who had wronged me — and he was stronger than I. And if I defeated him by guile, so what? I defeated him, that is all that counts. Frere Tuck would not agree; but Robin would have understood: he would have called it vengeance, and considered it his duty.
By the time we in the hall had recovered from the shock of his exposure as a ‘thief’, and had tumbled out of the hall into the weak winter sunshine, Guy was long gone into the greenwood. Hugh organised a pursuit of sorts, but it was half-hearted: a handful of mounted men riding into the woodland and coming back an hour or so later saying they had seen nothing. The truth is that nobody really wanted to catch him. As far as everyone knew, he had harmed nobody but his father. Even Thangbrand’s fury had abated somewhat; the ruby had been recovered, Freya had been put to bed with a jug of warmed wine and the prospect of meting out rough justice to his own son was not one that the old Saxon warrior relished. So Guy was gone. Good riddance, said most folk. I kept my mouth shut.
Life returned to normal at Thangbrand’s. The weather had turned cold, with the first flurries of snow whipping through the skeletal branches of the trees. It didn’t settle into drifts on the practice ground but Thangbrand decided anyway to suspend battle exercises for the winter. He seemed to have lost heart after the departure of Guy and grew morose and sullen, remaining in his chamber sometimes for days at a time, only emerging to answer calls of nature and bark orders for food to be delivered to the room. Freya too seemed dazed, stunned. She would sit silently by the fire all day spinning wool into yarn, unspeaking, almost unmoving, intent on her spindle.
I, on the other hand, was feeling rather cheerful. Christmas was fast approaching, the season of feasting and storytelling, of drinking and music and merrymaking. There were rumours that Robin would be coming south from his great cave hideout and would spend Christmas with us at Thangbrand’s. And I was looking forward to seeing my master again — it seemed an age since our adventure at The Trip to Jerusalem — and perhaps impressing him with my musical prowess.