Path of the She Wolf (5 page)

The meal they produced was magnificent by their standards. The woodland folk sang, danced and drank, toasting the hoped-for lifting of the Forest Laws. Some of the young boys got a little too bold with drink and staggered off in the direction of Sherwood, swearing that they’d tear the fences down, and let out the deer.

Their mothers were fearful at the idea, but Magda was scornful. ‘They’ll be in no fit state to tear anything down. They’ll end up snoring in a ditch.’

The Forestwife and her friends slept late the next morning. As they rose and began to set everything to rights, some of the lads came stumbling back through the clearing, weak-legged, sick and dazed. Marian made them drink a mug of steaming herb tea, sweetened with honey, while Magda gave them a good telling off.

‘Serves you right,’ she snapped. ‘Puking up like little pigs! What a waste of good barley ale! I hope you have thudding heads all day!’

‘We all have to learn,’ Marian told them, smiling. ‘I seem to remember a little lass that performed a wild dance one May Day feast. Then fell over and had to be carried sick and weeping to her pallet.’

‘Hmm!’ Magda, frowned. ‘It was the dancing that made me sick not the drink!’

Brigit swept up dutifully around their feet, saying nothing, but listening and watching, taking everything in.

When the sun was high in the sky, the lads were sent home to stop their mothers from worrying. ‘Fresh air and a good fast walk through the woods!’ Magda told them. ‘That’s what you lot need!’

Dusk was falling when Gerta came back into the clearing, her face all creased with worry.

‘What is it Gerta?’ Magda asked. ‘Have those grandsons of yours still got thick heads?’

‘Thick heads or not, I don’t know. I’ve not seen them all day,’ said Gerta angrily. ‘Our Jack swore he’d mend the fencing on our close, for my grey gander keeps escaping. When those lads get back I’ll wring their necks. I wondered if you’d seen them?’

Magda shook her head. ‘No, I’ve not seen your lads, but I shouldn’t fret,’ she soothed. ‘They’ll be sleeping it off under some hedge. We’ve had some of their barley-brained comrades here. Marian dosed them for their pains, but we’ve not seen your three.’

Gerta folded her arms and shook her head. She looked exhausted. ‘I’ve asked all their friends,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve been walking round the woods since noon. All they can tell me is that my lads
did
go off towards Sherwood with axes stuck in their belts.’

Magda began to feel uneasy. Gerta was much loved in Barnsdale, for despite being old and poor, she’d taken her three young grandsons to live with her when their parents both died of the fever. She’d struggled to raise them on her pitiful earnings in her small hut close to Langden. Gerta loved the three boys fiercely and, though she was getting bent and thin with age, she usually kept them well disciplined with the sheer force of her temper.

‘Axes in their belts?’ Magda muttered. The picture that came into her mind of the three lads marching towards Sherwood brought a chilling touch of anxiety. ‘I’ll fetch Marian and see what she thinks,’ she said.

Marian came out from the cottage followed by Brigit;
she was immediately concerned. ‘Towards Sherwood?’ she confirmed. ‘With axes?’

They made Gerta sit down and without being told, Brigit brought out a warm drink for the old woman. Marian bent and sniffed the brew. ‘Camomile,’ she said. ‘Well chosen, lass.’

‘Soothes anxiety,’ the girl told her solemnly. ‘So mother always said.’

They stood quietly, watching the old woman sip the brew. Marian did not want to make Gerta more fearful, but she was filled with foreboding. The sound of a horse clopping through the darkening woods made them even more worried, but it was Isabel who rode into the clearing. She swung down from her sturdy grey mare and they saw from her face that she had something bad to tell them.

‘What now?’ whispered Marian.

Isabel would not speak straight out. She sat down beside Gerta and took hold of her hand, then began speaking gently, hating the news that she brought. ‘There’s three young lads been caught chopping down palings on the edge of Sherwood.’

‘No!’ Gerta cried.

Isabel nodded. ‘I fear so. Hundreds of deer are loosed, and the verderers furious. The new Sheriff de Rue, has sent word, they’re to be hanged.’

‘Ah no!’ Gerta cried again.

Magda gasped. Brigit’s hands shook as she took the cup back from Gerta; only Marian was stony-faced.

‘Not my lads?’ Gerta whispered. The old woman started
rocking backwards and forwards while Magda sat down on her other side and tried to comfort her.

Isabel’s face twisted with pity. ‘There’s more, but I don’t know whether to say it!’

Gerta stopped rocking at once. ‘Tell me!’ she demanded. ‘I have to know!’

‘The three will not give their names, but the oldest is a tall dark haired lad and the youngest fair and nowt but a child.’

‘My Davy! They cannot hang my Davy. He’s only eleven years old!’

‘If my father and Robert were here,’ Magda growled. ‘If only Tom were here.’

‘Well, they are not,’ said Marian angrily. ‘They have gone off on a wild goose chase. What fools we’ve all been! How could we think the King would end the Forest Laws just like that?’ She snapped her fingers hard. Then she took a deep breath and sighed. ‘Well, our men are not here, so we must take action ourselves.’

‘Aye,’ Isabel agreed. ‘We must do something, but what? We must think hard and fast. The lads are due to hang tomorrow at noon at Ollerton Crossroads. The Sheriff himself will ride there to see it done.’

Marian frowned, tapping her head, racking her brains for an idea. Then she suddenly looked up. ‘I’m asking myself, what would Robert do if he were here? And, I think I know.’

‘Huh!’ Magda snorted. ‘He’d disguise himself in filthy rags. He’d dress himself as a potter, or a priest, or a tinker, and he’d go marching right up to the gibbet!’

‘Exactly!’ Marian agreed. ‘And that is what we will do! We’ll disguise ourselves and we shall go marching right up to the gibbet. But, I do not fancy filthy rags; I have a much more respectable idea. The boys live close to Langden, do they not? The Sisters of the Magdalen are Langden’s nuns. Couldn’t they insist on seeing them; to pray for their souls? Surely any man who refused such a request would fear his own soul damned!’

‘Aye,’ whispered Gerta, faintly hopeful. ‘My hut’s within the bounds of Langden Parish. The sisters would have the right to beg such a favour! But even if you managed to get them away, then the sisters would be followed and punished. We’d all be punished!’

‘Yes,’ said Isabel. ‘But if we disguised ourselves as nuns and called ourselves by another name, not the Sisters of the Magdalen, then perhaps it could just work! It seems your brave lads will not admit they are from Langden, so the Sheriff doesn’t know where they really come from. I think they mean to save us from trouble by keeping quiet. It might be just that courage that brings us the means to save them!’

‘You could call yourselves St Bridget’s Nuns,’ Brigit suggested, her voice shrill with sudden excitement. ‘There were St Bridget’s nuns, who lived near Goldwell when I was a babe. Mother named me after them. But the last old nun died three years ago and now the convent stands a ruin in the woods.’

Marian hugged her. ‘Clever lass!’ she cried. ‘It would sound real and even familiar, but if the Sheriff should send
his men to hunt St Bridget’s nuns, they’d find nothing, but a deserted convent.’

Magda laughed. ‘It seems we have our plan.’

‘Yes, but we must speak with Mother Veronica,’ said Isabel. ‘I know she’ll help

‘I’ll take my bow and arrow,’ Magda cried. ‘Though I never thought to see myself as a nun.’

‘Yes,’ Marian agreed, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright with anger. ‘And I must go to Ollerton too. I do not like to leave the clearing without a Forestwife, but my shooting skills will be needed.’

‘Shall I come with you?’ Brigit whispered.

Magda shook her head smiling, touched by the offer. This quiet child was certainly no coward. ‘She really is as brave as a wolf,’ she murmured.

The hopes raised by their plan made Gerta calm and strong once more. ‘No honey,’ she told Brigit. ‘You and I, little lass, we shall be Forestwife while Marian is away. I dare say we can manage well enough together, just for a while.’

Marian nodded. ‘That is a good plan Gerta.’ She unfastened the beautiful woven girdle that she wore, the girdle of the Forestwife, retying it carefully around the old woman’s thin waist. ‘Take care of it,’ she said. ‘And any who come seeking help.’ She kissed them both, then reached to take down her bow from the nail above the small window.

‘Get mine too,’ Magda was eager to be off. ‘I shall fetch the new made arrows from the lean-to.’

‘No,’ Marian told her. ‘There is something important for you to do first. Ride with Isabel and fetch Mother Veronica and Sister Rosamund? We need some real nuns, if we are to be convincing and ask if we may borrow extra veils and habits. Oh, and Isabel, I think we are going to need more horses. Can you find us some?’

Magda and Isabel rode through the woods, obedient to Marian’s orders. ‘I love her when she is like this,’ Magda cried. ‘Suddenly she throws aside all her carefulness and hurls herself into a wild adventure, all fired up.’

‘Yes!’ Isabel agreed, her face drawn with anxiety. ‘But what we plan is fraught with danger. Magda?’ she said, touching the young woman’s arm. ‘I do not forget how you came with Marian to rescue me when the wolfpack walled me up, leaving my mother and me to die. You risked your lives to save us then, and now we all risk our lives again for Gerta’s lads. This is just as desperate and fearful a thing to attempt!’

Three new-made gibbets stood on the old platform outside the lock-up at Ollerton Crossroads. The Sheriff of Nottingham’s men were busy stringing up nooses. The news
that there was to be a hanging had caused quite a stir so that the worn grass around the lock-up thronged with people. Some cheerfully elbowed their way through the crowd to get a good view of the spectacle, but many were moved to pity.

A skinny washerwoman pushing a handcart piled with dirty linen and small children spoke with sorrow. ‘So young I hear. Nobbut bairns!’

‘Does not this new charter change the law?’ asked a stooped and aged alewife who carried her wares in buckets, fixed onto a wooden yoke across her shoulders. ‘A hanging’s good for business, but I thought the laws were to be changed.’

‘Who knows what it does? Can laws change over night like that?’

‘They say the Sheriff is making an example of them, won’t let it go unpunished. He fears to have every young ruffian in the wastes ripping down palings if he shows mercy’

‘That man hasn’t got a drop of mercy in his veins,’ came the reply.

Others saw humour in the tragedy. ‘Good on the lads,’ an old man chuckled. ‘They don’t die for nowt. The King’s deer run wild through Barnsdale and there’s plenty with a full belly for once.’

‘Aye,’ the washerwoman laughed and dug him in the ribs. ‘The scent of stewed venison reeks from every hut.’

Shortly before noon a plump, elderly nun came pushing
through the crowd towards the lock-up, followed by six of her sisters.