Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) (2 page)

Stepping forward myself, I shouted, ‘Goody, get back. For God’s sake, keep away from him!’ But my determined wife appeared not to hear me; she continued her calm, graceful walk towards Shaitan, crooning soft nonsensical phrases, arms out; and the crowd split before her, the folk moving aside to clear her passage like a swept-back pair of bed curtains. Shaitan saw my lady coming; he twisted his head and fixed her with his dark, malevolent eye. Then he nodded once, as if making his mind up about something, brayed deafeningly with furious outrage, and reared high on his hind legs, his broad forefeet wind-milling above Goody’s head; heavy, iron-rimmed hooves the size of roof shingles pawing the air above her fragile skull.

My heart stopped. The moment was frozen: the massive, furious, tar-black animal rearing up high against a pale sky, and before it, the slender figure of Goody, arms spread abroad like Our Saviour in his Passion on the Cross.

I screamed, ‘No, no!’ And took a fast step closer, reaching out blindly for a trailing rein. And then Shaitan came down. He laid his hooves down softly, one after the other, with a delicate precision, on the ground in front of Goody, scarcely creating a puff of dust. His long dark head bowed before my wife, nostrils warmly puffing, forehead knocking playfully against her breasts and belly; and Goody stroked his muzzle and satin neck with her left hand, still crooning, and her right arm moved smoothly along his flank. The cheese knife slipped between his belly and the twin girths holding the saddle in place, slicing through the tough binding leather in a couple of jerky thrusts. It was only then that I noticed the blood, dark fluid on his dark hide, seeping down Shaitan’s flank from beneath the high saddle, showing up scarlet on Goody’s white hand.

‘Help me, Thomas, quickly now,’ said Goody to my squire, who had got to his feet and was brushing the dust of the courtyard from his hose. And between them they carefully lifted the heavy wood-framed saddle from Shaitan’s back, and the blood-and-sweat-stained blanket beneath it, and Thomas bore them away and into the gloom of the stable.

I found myself at Shaitan’s head, his bridle in my shaking hand and I stroked his broad nose, and silky-hard jaw bones for a hundred heartbeats, blowing softly into his nostrils and murmuring apologies to him. I looked between his ears over the muscular arch of his neck and down into the broad hollow of his back, and I could see the wound clearly, a gash a couple of inches long running laterally to the left of his spine, just above the glossy black bulge of his haunch.

‘This is the culprit, sir,’ said Thomas returning from the stable with a small grey-brown object in his right hand. It was a bent three-inch nail, a little rusty and oddly small in his strong brown hand but still sharp, and now smirched with horse blood and hair. ‘This must have become wedged under the saddle somehow, then worked its way through the blanket when Matthew rode him across the courtyard.’

‘How is Matthew?’ Goody’s voice broke in.

‘He’ll live, my lady,’ Thomas replied, his natural grave cheerfulness already reasserting itself. He smiled in admiration at Goody. ‘That arm is certainly broken – but it will be a good lesson for him. It will teach him that grooms should always check their gear carefully before saddling expensive destriers – and that they should not try to ride their master’s mounts without permission!’

I put my arms around Goody then, and crushed her to me, that awful moment – when Shaitan had towered above her like a solid black mountain, ready to fall on her head – still echoing shrilly in my soul. ‘Promise me, promise me, my love, that you will never do something as foolish as that again,’ I said, my words muffled by the white linen cap atop her head. I could smell the scent of her hair through it; and a perfume made of crushed summer roses that she sometimes wore. ‘You must be careful, my darling; I do not think I could bear it if…’

Goody broke our embrace. She pushed back her body in the loose circle of my arms and smiled up at me. ‘Oh do shut up, you silly man,’ said my beloved, her violet-blue eyes glinting. ‘I knew Shaitan would never really hurt me. What a fuss you do make!’

I had planned, with Thomas as an escort, to take Shaitan out for a good long gallop that morning – nowhere wild and dangerous, he was too valuable a beast to risk a carelessly broken leg by some mishap over rough ground – but the destrier was badly in need of some exercise. And while I did not fear that his wound was serious – it was a deep cut, no more nor less, and the head groom had already doctored it with a poultice of old bread and goose fat – I could certainly not ride him for some weeks. I was, however, reluctant to relinquish my own urge for fresh air – I had not left the compound of Westbury for some days, and I itched for the sensation of speed and freedom. I was more than ready that day to leave the mysteries of tallying the manor’s revenues to Baldwin and Father Arnold, and enjoy some sunshine on my face and feel the wind in my hair. So I ordered a feisty bay mare from the stables to be saddled instead, strapped on my sword and found an old riding cloak. While I was waiting for my mount, I took a look at Thomas’s shoulder.

My squire told me it was nothing but I made him strip off his chemise and inspected the two matching bright-red curves of swelling flesh on his chest and back that were the result of Shaitan’s savage bite. He was right: no bone was damaged, the skin was barely broken, but I knew that the bruising would be spectacular and so, while my squire bore his wound stoically, I left Goody to apply a herb-laced salve of her own devising and cantered out of the main gate, leaving all my cares behind me.

And so it was that I found myself alone, on a fresh horse, riding out into the Nottinghamshire countryside that fine July morning. The fright that I had taken over Goody and Shaitan had made me a little reckless, and I put my spurs to the bay’s sides and we galloped for a mile or so, taking the road towards Nottingham and heading due south. The sun was warm on my face, the horse moved smoothly under me and we ate up the ground together. On a whim, I took a path off the main road down a long tunnel of trees and, pounding along at a canter, my breath coming easily, I felt my anxiety over Goody recede. I was conscious of a deep sense of well-being: I was healthy and strong, not yet twenty-five years old; married to a wonderful woman and lord of a small but bountiful manor. On that morning, it seemed, all was well. I had proved myself as a man in war, many times, but I had no urge to seek out battle again. I had silver in my coffers and strength in my limbs. I was content to husband my lands and raise fine sons and daughters with Goody for the rest of my days.

As I cantered along the tunnel between the trees, I reflected that in the full robes of midsummer, Sherwood was as fair as a maiden on her wedding morning: the oak and elm and ash each cloaked in glowing green hues; each trunk plump with sap and bursting with life; each sun-blessed clearing fecund with bright wild flowers. The forest floor was alive with the scuttle of rabbits, the boughs rattled with the chasings of squirrels, the calling and clatter of pigeons through branches and the quick-moving shadows of large game, red deer and the very occasional glimpse of wild boar.

I surged along that narrow track, urging the bay ever onward, out of sheer exuberance. The quickening forest life all around, the rhythm of my breathing, the cleansing feeling of swift forward motion, all added to my bubble of well-being. A hart bounded out in front of my horse’s nose, surprising both me and my mount and I tugged the reins to check my pace, clamped my knees to keep my seat and hauled the bay to a halt. I found then I was laughing in the saddle after that slight shock, laughing for no reason but from a profound lightness of heart; a beneficent balance of the humours I had not felt in many months.

The mare was tiring, pecking against the reins and the sun was now soaring above me, not far off noon, so I turned my mount back towards the main road, and was content to walk her sedately along the leaf-padded track through the trees. I was thinking then about dinner at Westbury, and how pleasant it would be to sit at the table with Goody and share a dish or two of meat with her and a flagon of good wine; and after dinner, perhaps, we would retire to our chamber together during the long, hot afternoon, and close the wooden door on the world. Perhaps this afternoon we might between us make our first strong son…

I heard a rustling in the wall of leaves to my right, the sound of a large animal moving through the undergrowth with little attempt at stealth. And ahead of me to my left I heard the crack of a breaking stick. In my joy-fuddled state, I merely frowned, puzzled as to what could be making these unusual noises – a clumsy deer, a sick boar? And then, simultaneously, four men stepped out of the greenwood and stood in the track to bar my path ahead. They were very dirty, ill-clad peasant folk in greeny-brown rags, three of them favouring dark hoods, and armed with a motley collection of weapons: cudgels, quarterstaves, an axe; two held rusty swords, one a spear. I had my hand on my own sword hilt by then, and whipped my head around when I heard a noise behind me. Three men of similar ilk stood on the path behind my horse.

Seven desperate men were now ranged against me; wild men of the woods, no doubt; thieves and killers … well, I had fought and won against longer odds – I was well schooled in war, well armed, well mounted, young and dauntless. I took a deep breath, my stomach muscles tightened and…

‘Look up there, Sir Alan, if you please,’ said the foremost man, a slim, almost girlishly good-looking rogue, with dark curly hair on his bare head and a vicious-looking woodsman’s axe resting on his shoulder. His right arm was pointing upwards, ahead of the mare’s nose and to my left. My eye followed his pointing finger and my heart sank. Standing on a stout branch of a tree, twelve foot above the forest floor, was an archer: a long yew bow was in his powerful hands, an arrow nocked and aimed at my heart, the trembling hemp string in his fingers pulled back all the way to the man’s grubby right ear.

‘Take your hand off your sword hilt, Sir Alan – and sit very, very still if you wish to live,’ said Curly-hair.

I did as I was ordered. The men swarmed around the bay, two of them taking a firm hold on either side of the bridle, and Curly-hair pulled my long sword from its scabbard and held it up in the air with a whistle of admiration, as well he might. It was a beautiful object: a long slim blade of Spanish steel, sharp as a barber’s razor and engraved in tiny gold letters along the fuller with the word ‘Fidelity’. Above the wide steel crosspiece, a long leather-wrapped wood-and-iron hilt balanced the unusual length of the blade and the pommel was made of a thick, heavy ring of silver encasing a magnificent jewel, a sapphire of palest blue. It was a costly sword, worth almost as much as Shaitan, and a blade that I had won in single combat to the death with its previous owner: it soured my belly like a draught of bad wine to see it in another man’s hands.

Curly-hair’s greed for that blade was plain to see. ‘I shall safeguard this for you, Sir Alan,’ he said, in a voice thickened with a kind of lustful envy.

Surrounded by these men, I was led, still a-horse, off the main tunnel-like track and into deep forest. For several miles, indeed for more than an hour, we plodded along pathways that were often no more than deer tracks a few inches wide. The men were silent, watching me closely from under their hoods, with Curly-hair leading the way, my sword Fidelity on one shoulder and his axe on the other. They offered me no harm as we travelled along, and when I asked them where they were taking me, their only response was to mutter that I had been invited to dinner. And I began to relax, for I knew who it was that had ordered these men, these desperate outlaws, to fetch me. It could only be one man; and, as far as I knew, he did not wish me any harm.

At last we came upon a wide clearing in the forest, an encampment of some permanence. A few crude shelters had been constructed at the edge of the space from cut wood and branches. A deer carcass turned on a spit over a fire in the centre, and two dozen or so men, women and children busied themselves; the men sitting in groups and drinking from a barrel of ale, or playing at dice or cleaning their weapons; the women sewing furs, mending their rags, moving about with bundles of firewood or bawling lovingly after scampering children. Two tall figures stood on the far side of the open space: one, a giant nearly seven foot tall, with shaggy blond hair that fell below his shoulders, was leaning on a vast double-headed axe. He was in earnest conversation with his companion. This fellow, though a little shorter, was still a well set-up, handsome man of about thirty-five years old, unshaven, dressed in a scuffed leather jerkin and black hose, a long sword at his waist. He watched me advance across the clearing and dismount before him, a smile on his lean, stubbled face, his lively grey, almost silver eyes sparkling with mischievous joy.

‘Ah, there you are at last, Alan,’ said Robin. For before me stood Robin Hood, Earl of Locksley, my friend, mentor and liege lord. ‘Don’t you ever leave the comfort of your hall for a healthy breath of fresh air these days? I’ve had men all over Sherwood waiting to waylay you for some days.’

I turned to my curly-haired captor, who was now standing beside the blond giant, and held out my right hand. ‘I’ll take my sword now, if you please.’ The young man glanced quickly across at Robin and with a deep sigh of regret he flipped the blade off his shoulder and put the leather hilt of Fidelity into my hand.

‘God’s bulging ball-sack, I’m surprised to see you out and about, young Alan! I imagine you’ve barely left your bed, these past few weeks,’ said the huge man, chuckling lewdly. He turned to Robin and said, ‘You know what these lusty newly-weds are like: rut, rut, rut, all day, all night … I’ll wager Alan and Goody have been banging away five times a day like a pair of love-drunk rabbits.’ He affected a hideous, false woman’s voice. ‘Ooh, Alan, do come back to bed and bring your big sword with you…’

I paused in the act of sliding Fidelity back into its scabbard and glared at the giant. ‘I give you fair warning, John Nailor: if you ever speak about my wife in that disrespectful way again, I will shove this blade so far up your fat arse that you’ll be using the point as a tooth-pick.’ I looked hard at the big man, holding his eye, then slammed the sword home into its sheath.