Free Outlaw by Angus Donald Page B

only an hour had passed since we had been warned by the spy. I hitched my sword belt, turned my back on the bloody clearing and walked after the column, following my victorious outlaw lord.
     
    We turned off the Great North Road soon afterwards, and on to a series of lesser tracks, each one narrower than the last. The great green wood closed in around us until the sides of the ox-carts were whipped with branches and the sunlight was rarely seen. The rutted pathway twisted and turned so regularly that, in the gloom of the forest, I soon lost track of north and south, east and west. As darkness fell, I realised that I was hopelessly lost. But Robin clearly knew where we were heading and we plunged ever onward, travelling by the light of a few pitch-wood torches, until we arrived at an ancient hall, deep in the forest.
    Robin left us there: Hugh, the wounded men-at arms, the women, the children, the livestock, the cumbersome ox-carts and their loads of tribute, Sir Richard and me. The steward of the hall, Thangbrand, a grizzled old warrior, had killed a pig and prepared a feast for Robin and his band, but I was filled with strange melancholy humours after the battle and could barely eat; I kept thinking of the blond boy I had killed - his face hung before me when I closed my eyes, red mouth smiling, showing his white teeth, as blood seeped around his neck from the hideous wound in his spine. He was too young to have been one of the men who had killed my father, yet I had no doubt he would have obeyed such an order. So I believed I had taken at least some measure of vengeance for my father in taking this man’s life, even if he was only a symbol, an embodiment, of the forces that had deprived me of my parent. And I was very glad that Robin had seen me kill this enemy; but why then did I feel so miserable? It was too much to understand, so I retired to a corner of the hall, wrapped myself in my cloak and tried to block out the sound of carousing around the ale barrels and find the oblivion of sleep.
    Robin and his unburdened cavalcade left the next morning. Every man was freshly mounted on horses from Thangbrand’s stables. Tuck embraced me and urged me to mind my manners and consider my immortal soul every once in a while. Little John gave me a powerful slap on the back. When Robin himself came to bid me a brief farewell, I knelt and asked if I might not accompany him, but he raised me up and told me to obey Hugh in all things and attend to my lessons with him. ‘You will serve me better with a little education under your belt, Alan. I need clever men around me. Learn from Thangbrand, too,’ he said. ‘He was once a great fighter and he has much to teach you. One kill doesn’t make you a warrior, though it was a fine start, a very fine start.’ He smiled and clasped my shoulder. ‘I’ll be back soon, never fear,’ he said. ‘Doubtless, I’ll have need of your new skills before long.’ Then he turned his horse and cantered away. As I watched him ride away through the trees, I felt suddenly uncertain, bereft, even a little afraid. I was alone among strangers in the middle of the wilderness.
     
    Thangbrand’s hall, like his name, was a throwback to Saxon times. Built of sturdy oak posts and wattle-and-daub walls, in a wide clearing hidden deep in Sherwood, it appeared to exist in a simpler time, a time before the proud Frenchmen came to these shores. A large oblong building, with a high thatched roof, the hall was the centre of a settlement of about thirty folk. A rickety wooden palisade surrounded the hall and its outbuildings: stables, granaries, workshops, a smithy, a cookhouse and several ramshackle huts where the lowlier human inhabitants slept, along with the animals. It was in one of these that Sir Richard was lain. He had sworn to Robin the night before, on his honour as a knight, that he would not try to escape until his ransom was agreed and paid by Sir Ralph Murdac. In truth, he was too much knocked about