Free The Rise of Robin Hood by Angus Donald Page A

and lungs filled with tarry, suffocating smoke. No, it was not her
     forthcoming trial and execution that had caused her to cough a thin brown gruel down the front of her already filthy sackcloth
     dress. It was the wild stirring of the cage, the twisting and hopping of the airy wooden cube that held her, as it jounced
     over the rough forest track drawn on the cart’s two solid creaking wheels by a patient donkey. She clutched at the Y-shaped
     amulet that hung on a thin cord over her puke-soaked dress and bounced between her small breasts. She would not allow herself
     to fear. She was in the hands of the old gods, the true gods of these Blessed Isles: indeed, even now, in her moment of shame
     and weakness, she had a sense that Cernunnos, the horned spirit of the woodland, the age-old trickster, was close at hand;
     and the Great Mother, the ever-loving matriarch of the world, would surely keep her strong throughout the coming ordeal and,
     when it was over and the killing fire of the Christians had consumed her tortured flesh, her spirit would be taken directly
     into the Mother’s loving bosom. For a blissful eternity.
    The woman fixed her eyes on the glossy brown haunches of the horse that walked beside her cage and a little in front, watching
     the play of the equine muscles under the skin, her thin right hand grasping at a solid ash-wood bar as the cart under her
     feet wobbled and bucked. The big stallion bore on its back a man-at-arms in a mail hauberk and chausses, helmeted, spurred
     and carrying a twelve-foot steel-tipped lance. A kite-shaped shield slung on his back showed by its bold crosses of scarlet
     and white that the man served the Bishop of Lichfield, as did the blazons of the other eleven men who made up the
conroi
.
     So, too, did the leader of this well-armed party of travellers – Archdeacon Richard, the Bishop’s trusted servant, who rode
     on a beautiful white palfrey at the head of the column and who had not once condescended to look into the wretched woman’s
     eyes during the three days they had been on the road.
    The escort of men-at-arms was not to prevent her escape, the woman knew – a couple of sturdy serving men could have fulfilled
     that purpose; the dozen soldiers were there to protect the wagon. It was four-wheeled and heavy, drawn by a single pair of
     lumbering oxen, and carried a precious cargo. The kind that would be attractive to the packs of masterless men and starving
     bandits said to infest these dank woodlands.
    They were taking it and its cargo north to York. And her, too, for her trial. The Bishop had decreed a hearing before a
     panel of solemn churchmen for the foul crime of heresy. There could be only one outcome – the soul-cleansing fire. As the donkey
     cart lurched wildly over a tree root, her stomach clenched like a fist and her mouth filled once again with the sour taste
     of her own belly juices. But she was not afraid; she could not allow herself to be afraid.
    ***
    Archdeacon Richard reined in his horse, barely able to check his growing fury. Another damn delay. They had already wasted
     a day in Derby while they waited for two of the horses to be re-shod. And, of course, once released from duty, the men-at-arms
     had taken the opportunity to drink themselves to near-insensibility in a common alehouse. The whole God-given day had been
     forfeit, the men almost all too drunk to ride after the noonday meal. It was only with threats, kicks and curses that they
     had been mustered from their sodden slumbers to their duty at cock-crow today. And now this: a vast, bushy tree had evidently
     been felled by a recent storm and was lying directly across the road in front of them, like a round, impenetrable hedge. The
     horsemen might have picked their way round the obstruction; the heavy wagon and the donkey cart, never. The Archdeacon called
     angrily behind him to the leader of the men-at-arms, a grey-faced, hang-dog fellow who sat his horse a half dozen yards