Robin Hood (31 page)

T
HE SHERIFF OF
Nottingham had just lathered his face to shave when he heard the commotion outside
his home. Holding his razor in hand, he walked to his door and stepped outside to see what was happening.

He recognized Godfrey's men right away, saw the king's tax collection force fanning out through the village, and he grinned at the sight. The rabble in this town had ignored him and mocked him in equal measure. They had refused to submit themselves to his authority, and had dismissed him as a man of little consequence. And none had shown him less respect than the troublemakers up in Peper Harrow.

Well, their time of reckoning had arrived at last. The sheriff was a loyal servant of His Majesty, King John. Few others in Nottingham could claim as much. He would enjoy watching them get their comeuppance.

He watched as Belvedere walked through the village, directing his men, and shouting to the villagers.

“Tax collection! Valuations free! No exceptions!”

Belvedere seemed to be enjoying himself. He grinned broadly, and nodded his approval as the soldiers moved from house to house, taking what they could.

The sheriff leaned against the door frame and grinned as well. Yes, he would enjoy watching this.

T
UCK COULD HEAR
the tax collectors' cries from within the Church of Saint Edmund, and he hurried around his small nave hiding what he could from King John's men. He had little time, and with Loxley and his friends gone for the time being, it fell to him to protect the people of his parish as best he could.

He went to the church door and peered outside. A group of soldiers marched his way. Tuck barely had time to close the door again and sit down in the nave. He tried to look nonchalant, but when the
soldiers kicked in his door, he started and jumped to his feet.

The men swarmed into his church and quickly discovered his stash of mead. They began to help themselves. Tuck mourned the loss of his golden drink, and he feared what the men would do to the chapel. But he also recognized an opportunity when it presented itself. As the soldiers drank, he slipped out of his church.

G
ODFREY HAD TAKEN
thirty of Adhemar's men and led them up the lane to the manor on the hill. Loxley's home. The fading scar on his cheek itched as they approached the stone gates of the house. He was looking forward to avenging the wound.

Entering the courtyard, which was little more than a dusty feeding ground for pigs and chickens, Godfrey swung himself off his mount, sword in hand.

“Loxley!” he shouted. “Show your lying face.”

His men spread out and advanced across the yard, weapons drawn, searching for the impostor shamelessly claiming to be the man Godfrey himself had killed. Apparently he wasn't done killing Loxleys. He was fine with that.

O
NE OF THE
leaders had set up a long table, using broad wooden boards set on barrels. This man was now overseeing the collection of what seemed to be every piece of property the people of Nottingham owned. And Marion, caught in a collection line with the others, could do nothing about it. She had a small blade in her belt; she always did. But these men were armed with lances and swords. Any attempt she made to fight them off would end in her own death.

So she watched and grieved as the people of her village—all of them of modest means—stepped up to the table one by one and handed over spoons and knives, tools and silver needles, mementos and heirlooms that could never be replaced and which never should have been taken in the first place.

After some time, Marion couldn't even bring herself to watch. She couldn't remember feeling so helpless. And yet, moments later matters turned far worse.

She reached the table and the soldier there didn't even look up at her.

“Name?” he demanded.

“Loxley,” she said, refusing to give in to the feelings of humiliation she read on the faces of her friends and neighbors.

“Christian name?”

“Marion.”

“Land?”

“Five thousand acres.”

Upon overhearing this, a man sitting at the end of the table stood and approached her. He was her height, with a clean-shaven head, a trim beard, and small, widely-spaced eyes. She hadn't seen him before this day, but she had heard others calling him Belvedere, and she had watched him as he oversaw this brutal “tax collection.”

He came around the table and took her by the arm none too gently.

“Lady Marion,” he said with an unctuous smile, “this is no place for you.”

She tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, but he tightened his grip.

“Let go of me!” she said.

Belvedere ignored her and beckoned to one of his
men; a rough-looking sort who bore more resemblance to a highway thief than to a soldier. The ruffian strode over and the tax collector whispered something to him. Marion heard little of what he said, though she did make out the word “barn.”

The ruffian leered at her and then dragged her away from the village center, his hand viselike on her arm. Marion shouted at the man to let go of her, but he might as well have been deaf. The villagers stared after her, but none of them came to her defense. Nor could she blame them. They were as helpless against these hooligans as she.

The ruffian pulled her down a deserted lane to an empty barn. He thrust her inside, and for an instant Marion feared that he meant to force himself on her. But the man merely leered again and then shut the barn door. She rushed to the door and tried to push it open, but he had already barred it. She searched frantically for another way out, but found none. She was trapped.

A
T FIRST NO ONE
responded to Godfrey's challenge. He and his men stood in the courtyard of the manor, waiting, until Godfrey began to wonder if all the Loxleys had abandoned the place.

But at last a door opened and a man stepped into the daylight. It wasn't the man Godfrey had expected. Rather it was an ancient knight, his face deeply lined. Godfrey did notice though, that the man wore a sword on his belt. He also appeared to be blind. He didn't look directly at any of them, but instead held his head high and said, “Who calls here?”

Godfrey took a step to the side, so that he was far from the area where the old man was looking. His soldiers laughed.

“You mean here?” Godfrey asked, in a mocking tone. He sobered quickly. He had a man to kill. “I call for Robert Loxley.”

“My son is not here to answer you,” the old man said.

“That's the truth. Your son is dead in a French ditch.”

The old man's hand flew to the hilt of his sword. “And who are you to say so, sir?” he demanded, steel in his voice.

Godfrey had started to move as the codger spoke, and made his way behind the man. As he finished his question, Godfrey shoved him to the ground.

“I, sir?” he said. “I am the man who killed him.”

The absence of Sir Robert, or whoever the man really was, disappointed Godfrey, but at least he had the old man for a bit of sport. And it seemed that the ancient knight had no intention of being dispatched without a fight. He climbed to his feet and, amazingly, drew his sword.

“Fight me, who dares!” he roared.

Godfrey glanced at his men. “Lord have mercy upon us,” he said, feigning abject terror. This earned him another laugh from the soldiers.

“Amen to that!” said the old knight.

Godfrey raised his sword and stepped toward old Loxley from the left, attacking the knight's off hand. He swung hard, intending to end this fight with a single stroke.

Somehow though, whether because he wasn't as blind as he made out, or because he heard Godfrey's approach, Loxley managed to parry the blow at the last moment. He moved deftly, swinging his sword with the ease and grace of a younger man.

Surprised, Godfrey stepped back. Perhaps this
wouldn't be the easy kill he'd imagined. All the better. He turned his sword and slapped at the old man with the flat of the blade, toying with him. Loxley lunged for him, stumbled. He swung his sword so hard that he nearly spun himself off his feet, but Godfrey stepped away nimbly. The legionnaires laughed uproariously.

Godfrey stepped back out of the man's reach and sketched a small bow for the men. But this small movement seemed to be all Loxley needed to fix his position. Suddenly the old man launched himself at Godfrey, swinging his weapon with both hands. Godfrey blocked the strike, but only just. He backed away quickly, forced off balance by the power of the old man's assault.

But Loxley wasn't done. He swung his sword a second time and a third. Having located Godfrey, he fought with the skill and determination of a seasoned warrior. Godfrey parried desperately, but even so, he was unable to block one strike that caught him in the side. Only his chain mail saved him from being cleaved in two. The rings of his coat were torn open, and Godfrey stumbled down and to the side.

Which proved to be Loxley's undoing. With Godfrey no longer just in front of him, the old man blundered on straight ahead. Godfrey rolled to his side, and was up on his feet an instant later. But Loxley was past him.

After taking a step or two, Loxley halted, seeming to realize that Godfrey was no longer in front of him. Godfrey strode toward him, gripping his sword. They had wasted too much time on one old man. He pulled back his blade, and stabbed Loxley through the back. The old man's back arched; his sword clattered to the ground. Then he collapsed to his knees, toppled over, and was still.

T
he sheriff had finished shaving and had put on his finest day clothes. He opened the door of his house intending to greet the tax collectors properly and to demonstrate to all in the village that he was the Crown's chosen representative here in Nottingham. Perhaps that would earn him the sort of deference he deserved.

Upon looking out at the town, though, he couldn't help but notice that the king's men seemed to have gone a bit far in their collection of taxes. Throughout the village, bedlam reigned. People were screaming, not in outrage, but in terror. Houses burned, men and women lay dead and wounded in the street. Yes, these people needed discipline, but this struck him as too much.

Several of the French soldiers stood just in front of his house along with the bald, bearded man who had
come to the town days before. The sheriff thought his name was Belvedere.

He greeted this man as if they were old friends.

“
Excusez-moi!
” he said. Excuse me.

Belvedere turned to look at him.

“I'm French on my mother's side,” the sheriff went on in a confidential tone.

“Ah,
ouí!
” said the bald man.

The sheriff's smile broadened and he winked at the man. “Ah,
ouí.
”

Another group of men hurried past, also carrying brands. Belvedere barked an order to one of them, and the man threw one of the burning brands through the window of the sheriff's house.