“I like such a task on both counts,” said Rafe. “’Tis lucky for me that Much has not a town girlfriend, for he could gossip the devil himself to a standstill, and I should spend every day in a tree, straining my eyes after foresters, and never see my Lucy at all.”
“Hmph,” said Much. “It is Will who owes me the apology.”
“In a perfect world doubtless you would receive one,” said Will cheerfully. “But you must make do with this world, in which you will not.”
“Enough,” said Robin. “Alan will wear himself out playing peace between you two.”
Simon appeared at the edge of the firelight and touched Bartlemey on the shoulder, who sighed, stood up, and disappeared into the darkness. Several other such exchanges were taking place nearby. “There will be purses to empty before the week is out,” said Simon; “Sir Miles has been heard saying loudly that the outlaws of Sherwood are a bad knight’s excuse for carelessness, and he means to try us as we deserve. He should be here by sunset, the day after tomorrow.”
“Good,” said Robin. “I had feared that his friends would talk sense to him, and he would go the long way around; and we have need of every groat soon. Rafe, your most particular care is to find out what the sum of the mortgages comes to; gossip always exaggerates, so if we take twice over what you can tell us, we shall be safe.”
“I shall cast my ear abroad also,” said Marian.
“Be careful,” said Robin sharply.
“Be careful, Rafe,” said Marian.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sir Miles did a great deal of bellowing when eight men in Lincoln green fell on him from the treetops, roped him neatly off his horse, caught that horse’s bridle as it would have plunged away, knocked his men off their horses likewise, and began to delve into the saddlebags without further ado.
“If you do not be quiet,” said Robin conversationally, as Sir Miles thrashed on the ground and roared that if there were a man among them he would challenge Sir Miles to single combat and that Sir Miles would then water the ground with his blood, “I shall gag you. I begin to think that I should enjoy gagging you.”
“This is not honourable behaviour!” shouted Sir Miles.
Robin grinned. “I hope not. I am, after all, an outlaw and a rogue.”
“I could slay you with one hand tied to my belt!” howled Sir Miles.
“Very likely. Which is why, you see, I took the precaution of tying both your hands to your belt, as well as your feet to each other, before venturing to discuss our business with you.”
“Business!” shrieked Sir Miles. “I’ll show you business! I challenge any man of you to single combat! I—”
“Yes, we’ve heard all that. You are not listening to us,” said Robin. “If any of us wished to face you in single combat, I assure you he would have come forward by now. Cecil, gag this man for me.”
“Gladly,” said Cecil. Sir Miles bucked and gurgled and grew red, but the noise level dropped instantly, as Cecil finished his knots and stood up. He still wore his hat—Robin had observed that he slept in it—but he had tied it around his forehead with a bit of ragged twine, and with the camouflaging dirt smudged on his face and a grin wider than Robin’s own, no one looking at him could have guessed that a fortnight before he had been—wherever he had been, sleeping in a real bed, wearing linen shirts, and firing at straw marks. “How do the saddlebags look, youngling?” said Robin.
“Good,” said Cecil. “Heavy.” There was an exceptionally frantic grunt from the now purple-faced man on the ground before them.
“Heavy with the right kind of contents, I trust,” said Robin.
“You need have no fear of that,” said Little John, nodding toward Sir Miles. “If he carried lead he would be calmer.”
“’Tis not lead,” said Cecil. “Gold coin and a few gems.” Robin opened his eyes and whistled. “And sausages, too. I find,” Cecil added sheepishly, “that I miss sausages.”
“There are worse vices,” said Robin.
Little John moved dispassionately out of the way as Sir Miles rolled toward him. “It is well you gagged the fellow,” he said. “His noise could have brought foresters fifty miles. They are not such bad woodsmen that I want to build a church tower and hang a bell in it to toll over our doings.”
The other men were roped together and blindfolded, and made to walk with gentle, or mostly gentle, prods from staves to tell them which way to go. Sir Miles would not walk. When they hauled him to his feet, he attempted to kick the man who untied his ankles. Robin thrust his staff between his legs, and without his hands to save himself, he fell heavily. “That is a curious trick for an honourable man,” said Robin, watching the knight roll back to the tree he had lain against and struggle that way again to his feet. He tried to kick Robin this time, and Robin did not try to be gentle when he bashed his staff between Sir Miles’ ribs and pelvis. This time when he fell, he lay still for a few moments.
“Tie his legs again,” said Robin, “and untie his mouth; but hold that bandage ready, for my ears are sensitive.
“We are taking you and your men to a place where we can pick you over at our leisure; but we have no wish to be kicked while we are about it. You will be blindfolded anyway, and more liable to kick an unoffending tree than any of us.”
Sir Miles was a little curled up where he lay; he looked as if his side probably hurt him. “I will not co-operate with my captors,” he said hoarsely, “who took me and my men all unfairly.”
“You will do what it suits us you shall, and it suits us to prevent you from arriving in Nottingham yet. Your choice is merely of how uncomfortable you wish to make it for yourself.”
“I will not co-operate,” said Sir Miles, beginning to get his voice back. “And my family will not ransom me.”
“He thinks we are Saracens,” said Little John. “Trust a Norman not to know the difference between a Saxon and a Saracen.” Cecil giggled.
“Your family will be put out by no such demands,” said Robin. “We have no dungeons for the keeping of prisoners, even if we wanted the trouble of them.”
“As a knight and a man, I will not co-operate with my captors!” bellowed Sir Miles, fully recovered, though he winced as he drew breath. “I challenge any—”
“Gag him,” said Robin, and Cecil leaped to obey. Simon, who was in charge of the other captured men, looked inquiringly at Sir Miles and then at Robin. “Er—what do we do with him?”
“If he thinks it more manly to be thrown like a sack of meal over a horse’s back and hauled, then we can oblige him, I guess,” said Robin. “He had his choice. I will add, sir,” he said to the man on the ground, “that we would have led you by smooth ways, and you would not have fallen, unless, of course, you were trying to kick the trees. Blindfold him, and bring his horse.”
Sir Miles was not a happy sack of meal; he flailed so much that he made his high-bred war-charger uneasy (“Silly beast to be riding through Sherwood anyway,” said Cecil. “Perhaps he was expecting a tournament,” said Little John), and they had to shift him to a more tranquil mount. “We should tie his hands and feet to the stirrups,” said Simon crossly, after they had made the transfer. “That would quiet him.”
“No,” said Robin. “If the horse fell or bolted I would not have even an enemy so vulnerable.”
There required three men to hold him at last; one to lead the horse, one to hold him at the neck, and one at the ankles. It was not a pleasant journey. “Less comfortable for him than you,” said Robin over the horse’s back, as he took his turn at ankle-holding, to Simon, who had Sir Miles’ collar. Sir Miles contrived to overbalance himself once, and only Robin’s strong hold on his feet prevented him from falling over the other way to the ground. “If you do that again I shall let you fall,” said Robin, “and break your neck, if fate wills. My patience wears thin.”
“At last,” murmured Simon.
Sir Miles was tamer after that, but from Robin’s words or from exhaustion, only he himself could have said, a
nd no one wished to try inquiring. The other men went submissively enough and, as Robin had promised, none fell, nor had trouble keeping his feet, for the outlaws gave warning when necessary to a blind man.
Sir Miles got no supper that night, for the three or four times his gag was briefly removed he immediately began shouting; and as Robin was as cautious about noise in the smaller camps at Growling Falls and Millward as he was at Greentree, Sir Miles was not given more than half a word’s roar before he was shut up again. Perhaps from his example all his men were very well-mannered, and while they looked uneasily at the green-clad folk who faded in and out of the shadows, they were willing enough to eat the food given them.
Upon the next morning, rather lighter of the greater portion of their gear, they were taken to a different part of the forest than where they had been waylaid; and Sir Miles rode face down across the back of his charger this time, for that was the one horse too conspicuous for resale. But the sack of meal rode listlessly today, and seemed rather troubled by saddle-sores. The parting was simple. Little John loosened the bonds on one of Sir Miles’ men, and left him to struggle free and help his fellows as the outlaws went silently away.
Rafe came back with one sum for Sir Richard’s mortgages and Marian another, but they were not so far different, and Robin doubled the higher one. “Usury,” said Little John. “The lower figure is usury.”
Robin shrugged. “The taxes the Normans would hold us for are usury; I see little difference. And we shall be paying Norman usury with Norman gold.”
“Got from Saxons,” growled Little John.
“The system isn’t perfect,” said Robin with a grin; “keep your eye on the short term, my friend. If we look farther than tomorrow’s stew or keeping Sir Richard’s lands in the hands of the last local Saxon lord with power enough to be a nuisance to the Normans, we shall merely go mad.”
“Which would be no fun at all,” said Much; “and there has to be some fun in exchange for all the long boring hours lying on tree limbs never designed for the support of human flesh.”
Nottingham was so loud with talk of Sir Richard that as the day of confrontation grew near, the outlaws of Sherwood felt they could almost hear the distant murmur of many voices from the isolation of Greentree. Even the foresters were more active, as if the sheriff’s excitement at the prospect of a final stunning blow against that last strong Saxon lord in his jurisdiction was infectious.
Little John and Cecil had a brisk set-to with four men in an area of Sherwood Little John had chosen for its comparative safety from the depredations of sheriff’s men and foresters. Cecil, as a new member of the band and one of the youngest, was obliged to spend much of his time washing dishes and hauling wood. The hero-worship he was developing toward Little John was magnified by the fact that it was a tremendous treat for him to escape the grisliest camp chores and go scouting—like a real outlaw, as he felt, although he was very careful that Robin should have no complaint of his dish-washing and wood-hauling. But Little John continued to deal with him as if with an infant Little John was merely too polite, or too obedient to Robin’s orders, to leave behind; and Cecil resigned himself as best he could to his master’s always selecting the least dangerous territory for guard duty when the infant was accompanying him.
But it was Cecil who gave the alarm: Cecil who, in Little John’s words, was halfway up a tree while Little John was still turning to look. Cecil gave the low whistle Robin’s folk all knew as warning, and as Little John wriggled an inch or two farther along his branch to bring Cecil’s tree into view, he saw Cecil drop on the heads of the foresters. It was neatly done; the man Cecil landed on fell to the ground at once and lay stunned; and Cecil had felled a second with his staff before the other two knew he was there. Little John by this time was out of his own tree and halfway to the fray, cursing (silently) the impulsiveness of children; and as the two remaining men turned to make short work of the boy, who had used the only good staff-blow thus far in his repertoire and was now faintly nonplussed by its demonstrated effectiveness, Little John’s readier staff caught one of the two under a shoulder-blade and spun him round, and cracked his head against a tree. The other one, gaping, made a fatal error in judgement and failed to decide which enemy to meet first, with the result that he was lifted off the ground and thrown to one side by the combined strength of Cecil’s one good blow, reapplied with vigour, and another swift stroke from Little John.
“You damned young idiot!” Little John said. “What did you mean by that show?”
Cecil set his jaw. “I gave warning and attacked. We are near Greentree here; we are not merely to watch; we are supposed to attack. I did as I should.”
“You did not wait to see if I would aid you!”
“Wait!” said Cecil, with scorn. “I knew when I whistled it would make them pause just a moment, and I wanted them to pause under my tree. And they did. I knew you would come.”
They were patting down the unconscious men for anything worth stealing, or any broken bones; automatically they took the arrows from the quivers of the two men who carried them; Robin enjoyed shooting the king’s deer with the king’s foresters’ arrows, despite their shorter length. “You did not know I would come,” said Little John, pausing over one man’s purse, which contained a few small coins. “You did not wait for the counter-sign.”
“Pfft,” said Cecil, flaring up. “What do you take me for? I told you why I could not wait; they would have moved on.”
“I might have been asleep,” Little John went on doggedly, returning the purse to its place untouched. He remembered Robin’s tales of his days as a king’s forester, and this man’s face did not look as if it belonged to a bad man.
“Not you,” said Cecil, as if it disgusted him to have to make any answer to such a suggestion. “If you had sent me out with—with Aymer, I would have waited for the counter-sign.” Aymer’s skill with longbow and quarterstaff had led Robin to make one of his few mistakes in accepting someone into his company; a mistake corrected barely a sennight before, when he was sent on to follow up news of work in a small Northumbria town. “Where his opinion of himself can get in someone else’s way,” said Robin. “Maybe the weather will dampen him a little,” said Much.
Little John almost smiled. “Aymer. Mmph. You have learnt flattery somewhere. Promise me that you will wait for the counter-sign if you are sent out with anyone else. I ask you this, I, Little John, who never sleeps.”
“Or Robin,” said Cecil, ignoring the sarcasm.
“Or Robin, who, as leader, certainly never sleeps. Promise.”
“Or—”
“Only Robin or me,” said Little John firmly. “Promise.”
“I promise,” muttered Cecil. “I fear I have dislocated this man’s shoulder.”
Little John felt the arm delicately and agreed. “Leave it for now. We’ll try to carry him a bit gently. We don’t want to risk him coming to himself now by trying to snap it back; they’ll all have headaches enough later without giving any a second knock.” He stood up and gave the sharp burst of short whistles that Robin’s other scouts in earshot—were there any—would know meant help was asked.
“You know,” said Cecil demurely, still sitting on the ground, “you wish to punish me for doing exactly what you would have done in my place.”
Little John looked down at his pupil. If Cecil had looked up he would have seen a real smile on his teacher’s face. “Not with Aymer.”
Cecil did look up then, but Little John had pulled his face into its usual long lines again behind the disguising beard. “Come,” said Cecil. “Confess.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind. That was a nice stroke you made, taking down the second man.”
“Thank you,” said Cecil. “I have an excellent teacher.”
“A good thing too or he would never keep up with you,” replied Little John in a tone of voice that would have terrified Cecil less than a fortnight earlier. “But it is time you learnt a few more basic strokes; if th
ese fellows were anything but mutton-heads they would have blocked so plain a blow easily. And perhaps in the lessons your teacher may also knock a little sense in that hot head of yours.”
“If I had waited for the counter-sign and they had moved on, I should have missed my leap, for I do not leap well either,” said Cecil. “Do not think that I am not grateful that they are mutton-heads,” he added, a little sadly.
Little John gave a snort that might have been a laugh, and then several of Robin’s folk faded out of the trees around them, and the carrying of the victims to safer—that is, more confusing, or so the outlaws hoped, from a forester’s point of view—territory began. “We heard the warning whistle, but we were at some little distance,” said Bartlemey, who was the first to appear; “and I see you needed no help. You the glory and we the brute work,” and he smiled at Cecil, because he remembered his first weeks as an outlaw, and had learnt a bruising lesson or two from Little John himself.
“Don’t give him any encouragement,” said Little John; “he should have waited. An outlaw interested in glory will have a short life.”
Bartlemey winked at Cecil, who smiled sheepishly and looked side-long at Little John, who was bending over the man with the dislocated shoulder. “Take his feet,” he said, addressing no one in particular, but it was Cecil who jumped forward. “If we are lucky, and these men run to type, they will not remember exactly where they were when the wrath of God fell upon them from above; but we had best tell Robin to set an extra watch this way for a little time to come.”
It was hard to go quietly through trees anyway, and, Cecil thought, the sweat running in his eyes, impossible to go quietly while carrying half a man; but Little John made no protest about the noise they were making. He was intent on where they were going, and Cecil, trying not to stumble, was glad merely to hang on and follow. The other men seemed to recognise where they were when Little John stopped and they all lay their burdens down; only the man with the injured shoulder had the luxury of being carried by two pairs of arms. Cecil looked around, trying to behave as if he didn’t feel entirely lost; Little John was frowning. “It is curious there are foresters this way at all, but perhaps the weight of the sheriff’s frustration is making even the Chief Forester a little cleverer.” He turned to Cecil. “Rip off a bit of this man’s tunic and bind his eyes; if he wakes while I set his shoulder, we will get away before he figures out which hand can pull the bandage off for him. Now kneel on his chest and hold that other hand down—and watch that he doesn’t kick.”