Moments later, Robin’s head appeared over the parapet, followed lithely by the rest of him. Reuben cleaned his bloody knife on the soldier’s surcoat and between us we rolled the dead man over the wall and down into the darkness. Robin clasped Reuben’s arm and murmured: ‘Lead on, old friend,’ and we were hurrying along the walkway and down some steps into the entrance of a small guard tower, one of dozens built into the castle’s curtain walls. Robin had his sword out, the naked blade winking in the moonlight, and I saw that Reuben had his knife in his hand, so I hastily drew my own sword, too. We plunged down a spiral staircase into the heart of the guard tower, my heart beating like a blacksmith’s hammer, the pulse banging in my ears.
Down and down we went, in pitch darkness. And suddenly I blundered into the back of Reuben, who had paused before a wooden door. By the candlelight leaking out from the cracks in the door, I could see that it was occupied. We stood there in the gloom for a few moments, listening; me trying to control my pumping heart and ragged breathing; Robin and Reuben seemingly as calm as if they were on a summer’s picnic in Sherwood. Reuben held up two fingers, indicating that there were two men inside, and Robin nodded. And waved his hand forward. Before I knew what was happening Reuben had pulled the string that lifted the latch on the wooden door and both he and Robin burst through. I followed as fast as I could but only in time to see Reuben hurling his heavy knife with extraordinary force and accuracy five yards across the room to smack into a man-at-arms who had apparently been dozing on a stool. The thick knife punched straight into the man’s chest and into his heart, and the man coughed once, twice and dropped to the floor. Robin was almost as fast as Reuben’s flying dagger; he took two quick paces forward and sliced the life out of the second soldier with a whip-like slash of his sword to the throat. There was a spray of blood and the man, who had been warming his hands by a brazier, swayed slightly for a moment or two, brimming blood from his gaping neck, and then collapsed to his knees, his face falling with an awful crunch and hiss into the glowing coals. He was clearly dead as he moved not a muscle as his blood bubbled and hissed and seethed around his scorching face.
It had all been over in less time than it takes to string a bow. And not a word had been spoken, not a cry made. Robin lifted his victim clear of the flames and dragged him over to the second corpse. He reached down to the dead man’s belt, unhooked a bunch of keys and strode over to a locked door in the corner of the room. In a couple of heartbeats, the door was open and Marie-Anne was in his arms. After a long embrace, Robin drew back and looked into her face. ‘Did he hurt you?’ he asked. I noticed that she looked pale and thin and her fine hunting gown was badly torn and covered in mud and filth, and what looked like blood. She hugged him close to her again and muffled by his cloak I heard her say: ‘All is well now that you are here.’
As I looked at Marie-Anne clasped in Robin’s arms, and saw the love that was so clearly between them, and how right they looked together, I felt something inside me shift. The resentment that I had felt towards them at the Caves was completely gone. She was still my beautiful Marie-Anne, I could see her beauty in a dispassionate way, even thin-faced and grimy as she was, but she had subtly changed. Something indefinable about her was different. I still loved her, but perhaps for the first time I saw her as a real woman, a woman with fears and joys, pains and pleasures, rather than a goddess, to be worshipped in a dream. She was not mine, I knew then, and she never would be.
We wasted little time: Robin hurried Marie-Anne out of the guard house and up the narrow spiral stairs. At the top, we paused to see that the wall was clear of sentries; then we were jogging along the wall and in no time Robin and Reuben were lowering Marie-Anne in a loop of rope to the ground. I followed, with Robin just feet above me, climbing hand over hand down the knotted rope. I saw Reuben’s head, once again, outlined against the greying sky; the rope was pulled up and we three were scrambling up the other side of the ditch and back to where we had left the horses.
Pride is the worst of my sins these days, but I cannot help but feel a glow of satisfaction that I was part of that night’s work. It was a quintessential Robin exploit: precise, well-planned but with no frills and based on speed, good intelligence and audacity. But, above all, what made it typical of the way Robin operated was that it was successful. As the three of us trotted back up the track towards Linden Lea in the golden early morning light, we were greeted by the surprised sentries at the ramparts with a blast of trumpets. The noise woke the rest of the outlaw band who, tumbling out of the hall and the outbuildings, saw Marie-Anne was returned, and began to cheer us until the manor’s encircling palisade seemed to tremble with the tumult. No one seemed to mind that Robin had deceived them the night before in pretending that the attack would be today. John handed me down from my horse and said: ‘I knew that devious swine was up to something,’ before nearly crushing me to death in a welcome bear-hug. Many, many people, friends and relative strangers, crowded round me to hear the story of the rescue, which I was not too modest to tell, although I may have exaggerated my role by a small amount. When breakfast was brought out and set on the trestle tables in the courtyard, Linden Lea took on a holiday air, with men shouting jests and insults to their friends, and raising mugs of ale to Marie-Anne’s safe recovery. Sir Richard shook me vigorously by the hand and told me that he was proud of me. I felt lighter than air, a genuine hero and I was grinning so much my face began to hurt. For a moment, the jollity was interrupted by another fanfare of trumpets and, looking out over the valley, I saw a great column of men and horses and baggage approaching down the track to the south that ran parallel to the stream. I was alarmed, at first, and then I saw Thomas’s ugly old face out in front of the column, and Much Millerson beside him, and behind them a horde of familiar faces all dressed in dark green and armed to the teeth with war bows and swords, spears and axes: I was looking at the full strength of Robin’s private army, almost three hundred men-at-arms and bowmen, each armed, trained and disciplined by Robin and his officers — and spoiling for a fight.
We welcomed them into the courtyard of Linden Lea; more food was fetched, someone broached a cask of wine, and all across the open space the newcomers were told the story of how Robin had rescued Marie-Anne from the jaws of the Nottingham beast. As stories will, it grew in the telling. And continued to grow in the years that followed. Robin had single-handedly slaughtered a hundred men, according to a version I heard a few years ago. He had hidden in the belly of a great deer to gain entrance to Murdac’s feasting hall, according to another story. But the truth, I believed, was impressive enough.
After an hour or two of feasting, Robin had a plank set atop two big barrels and vaulting onto it he shouted for silence in the noisy courtyard. The men were not completely sober at this point and Robin had to call three times for quiet before he had their attention.
‘My friends, we are well met here, and firstly it is right that we should thank our host, the generous provider of this shelter and this fine food and drink: Sir Richard at Lea.’ The knight, who was standing next to me, took a modest bow and was lustily cheered by the outlaws. ‘I would also like to thank all of you for joining me here in this beautiful valley, and I will tell you what we are here to achieve. There are many here with a price on our heads, myself included,’ there was another loud cheer, and Robin took an ironic bow, ‘and there are many here who have been forced to leave their families, their hearths and homes by so-called law-men, by bullies who claim power of life and death over you in the name of the King.’ The mood in the courtyard had grown more sombre now and there were one or two angry growls. ‘And there are many here who have been injured, humiliated and denied your natural rights as free Englishmen.’