The Clerk of the Green Wax helped him into the saddle and swung up behind him. The boy stank, his hair was thick with grease, and beneath his cloak Ranulf could feel his thin body and bony arms. For a brief moment he went back years to when, garbed in rags, he had fought along the alleyways and runnels near Whitefriars. He was glad he had brought the boy; it dulled his fear of the forest, of becoming lost. The boy chattered like a squirrel, divulging all the secrets of the tavern, telling how Master Reginald was a bully but fawned on the foreigners who came and went as they wished and ate like lords. Ranulf listened intently. He did not want to prompt the boy, who, for a silver coin, would have told any lie about the taverner. So engrossed was he, it was a shock to realise how deep the forest had become. Only the occasional cawing of a rook or the rustling in the undergrowth betrayed any sign of life. On one occasion he thought he was lost, but the boy pointed their way through the trees and said they were safe. They reached a small crossroads where a forest trackway cut across their path. Here, the boy slipped down from the saddle, and stared owl-eyed up at Ranulf.
‘You’ve got to stay there,’ he warned. ‘You mustn’t move. I’ll be back before you know it.’
Then he was gone, leaving the trackway, pushing through the undergrowth, disappearing into the darkness of the trees. Ranulf had no choice but to wait. He felt tempted to ride on. It wasn’t the gloom, the snow or the greying sky above him, but that ominous silence, as if people were watching from the trees, waiting for him to make a mistake. His horse stamped and whinnied, and the sound echoed like the crack of a whip. Ranulf dismounted and hobbled his horse, which was restless at its master’s unease. He stroked its neck, talking softly, reassuring it, trying to control the beating of his own heart. He thought of Lady Constance and wondered if she would give him a token, a light kiss perhaps, a brushing of the lips. His horse whinnied again and moved. Ranulf heard a click and turned slowly. Six men stood there, garbed in rags, tattered hoods pulled over their heads; three carried weapons, swords and axes, and the leader and the two standing either side of him brought their crossbows up, bolts in the grooves, the cords winched back.
‘You have a fine horse. We could take that, the saddle and harness and sell them in the nearest town. Your weapons too. You also have silver coins.’
‘Aye, you could do that,’ Ranulf warned, ‘and the King’s men will see you hang. Are you Horehound? I’m Ranulf-atte-Newgate, Clerk of the Green Wax, a King’s man. I have come to offer you a pardon.’
‘I told you, I told you.’ The tap boy appeared swift as a rabbit from behind a bush. ‘I told you who he was.’
The crossbows were lowered, and the outlaw leader came forward, pushing back his cowl and the ragged cloth covering his mouth and nose. A dirty narrow face, the nose slightly twisted, a scar coursing down his left cheek. He had cropped grey hair, his moustache and beard were dirty and clogged with grease, his eyes were sharp and quick. Horehound stretched out his rag-covered hand. Ranulf grasped this and pulled the man closer, gripping him tightly.
‘No, don’t worry.’ He saw the fear flare in the outlaw’s eyes. ‘I’m not here to trap you. The day you met us,’ Ranulf half smiled, ‘in the cemetery at St Peter’s, you spoke of a “horror in the forest.” What did you mean? You know something, don’t you, about the maids who have been killed?’
‘I know a lot of things.’ The outlaw leader turned to the men on his right. ‘Don’t I, Hemlock? Isn’t that right, Milkwort?’ The two grunted in agreement. ‘A full pardon,’ he turned back to Ranulf, ‘you promise that?’
‘For every one of you,’ Ranulf replied. ‘Full pardon and amnesty, as well as silver to help you on your way.’
The outlaw fished beneath his rags and took off the crude-looking cross dangling round his neck; he thrust this into Ranulf’s hand.
‘That’s been in holy water and blessed by a priest. Swear your oath and come!’
Ranulf never forgot the subsequent breathless wandering through that frozen forest. The outlaws left the boy with one of their gang to guard the horse, and in single file, Ranulf behind the leader, entered the trees; an ancient place, the outlaws confided, full of elves, sprites and demons. Ranulf hid his fear, for the forest was a truly terrifying place. The trees clustered in as if they wished to surround and trap him, icy branches stretched down to pluck at his hood or catch his cloak. Snow-covered briars and brambles tugged at his ankles. He could make no sense of where they were going; to all intents and purposes he was lost, yet Horehound trotted on like a lurcher dog, every so often stopping to warn Ranulf to follow him more closely as they avoided an icy morass or marsh. Occasionally an animal was startled or a bird burst out of the branches, making Ranulf’s heart leap and the sweat start. They crossed a gloomy clearing where the sky was only slivers of light between the trees, then ducked back under the dark canopy, following paths as treacherous and dangerous as any alleyway in London. At last they stopped at the edge of a glade, and the outlaws fanned out behind Ranulf, reluctant to go any further.
‘They be afeared,’ Horehound taunted, ‘but I’m not.’ And off he went.
Suddenly, in a clearing, they came upon the ‘horror in the woods’. Ranulf could tell that, despite the fresh fall of snow, someone had been here recently. Horehound pointed to the grisly find and, taking him back through the trees, brought him to the edge of the swamp and the second corpse. By the time they reached the morass, Ranulf’s stomach was queasy at what he’d just seen: a girl, flesh decomposing, eyes hollowed, cheeks pinched. He agreed with Horehound, before they covered up the remains, that it was a young woman who’d been hanged from the oak branch above them. The second corpse was different. This time the outlaws helped scrape away the snow and ice and drag the body from the oozing mud. Ranulf used the snow and the edge of his own cloak to clean the face, trying to avoid those staring eyes. His hand moved across the corpse and brushed the quarrel embedded deep in her chest. Using his dagger, he cleared away the mud to reveal the purple wound, the feathered flight and the encrusted blood.
‘Nothing to do with us,’ Horehound announced. ‘Neither of these deaths, that’s what we tried to tell you in the cemetery. We will not be blamed and hanged for the murder of these poor wenches.’
‘That’s why I came,’ Ranulf said. ‘My master, Sir Hugh Corbett, wishes to have words with you.’
‘I had heard that,’ the outlaw leader replied. ‘The taverner, Master Reginald, he told the boys to pass the message on, as if it was beneath him. I did not know what to believe. It may have been a trap but you’ve sworn your oath, haven’t you?’
‘I have.’ Ranulf stared at the man squatting before him, the rest of his companions standing in a semicircle around them. He glanced at the corpse sprawled in the snow, hair, flesh, clothing and blood-encrusted mud.
‘The end of life.’ Horehound followed his gaze. ‘No better than a rabbit.’
Ranulf got to his feet, and in a loud voice repeated his oath. Then he told the outlaws to bring the corpses back to the castle; he would ride with them. Later they must bring the whole band. They would be given fresh clothing, hot food, money and a pardon written out by the King’s own man and sealed in the Crown’s name, so no one could lift a hand against them. Ranulf would have liked to examine the corpses more carefully, but he was aware of the passing of time, how cold and hungry he had become. He had done what he had come for and was determined to be free of this dreadful forest as quickly as possible.
When men and animals become angry they have a desire to do harm and possess a soul of malignity.