Free The Rise of Robin Hood by Angus Donald Page B

away,
     waving the man forward to his side.
    ‘Get your drunken good-for-nothings to start clearing this blockage immediately, Sergeant. I want it done within the hour.
     We are already late.’
    His words were interrupted by a light, musical voice, calling out in good French from high on his left, somewhere in the canopy
     of trees: ‘Good day to you, kind sirs! May I bid you a friendly welcome to Sherwood Forest.’
    Both the prelate and the unwell-looking sergeant whipped their heads around searching for the speaker, but it took a few moments
     for them to make out the form of a cheerful young man in ragged clothes, his face shrouded by a deep hood, seated on the limb
     of a tree, a dozen feet above the road’s western verge.
    ‘What do you want?’ The Archdeacon’s words rapped out, more a command than an enquiry.
    ‘I regret to inform you that I must levy a soul tax on all the travellers who use this fine road – it is a shilling a man,
     I’m afraid, to pass this point. My deepest apologies. But for a gentleman of your quality, I’m sure that will not present
     any difficulties.’
    ‘Who the Devil are you to demand payment of me?’ said the priest. ‘I ride on the Bishop of Lichfield’s business; I ride on
     God’s business. Get you gone, you contumelious cur, or I will have the hide ripped from your back for your impudence.’
    ‘You refuse to pay?’ said Robin happily. ‘Very well. How about a prayer for my soul? I’m sure that a saintly fellow such as
     you must have the ear of the Almighty.’
    The young man stood up on the branch. He balanced easily, lightly supporting himself with his left hand on what appeared to
     be a taut rope, disguised with mud and leaves, that rose up at a forward angle and disappeared into the canopy.
    ‘A blasphemer, too! Sergeant, take up that man immediately. Bind him; throw him in the cart with the witch. I want him flogged
     raw, hanged and quartered the instant we get to York.’
    ‘So, you will not even pray for me? Ah, well . . .’ Robin lifted his right hand, waved it in the air, twice, as if hailing
     a friend.
    And, it seemed, the entire wall of trees at the western side of the road began to move.
    A few feet behind the last man-at-arms in the
conroi
, a rope jerked up from where it had lain unseen in the mud of the track,
     springing iron-taut for several moments under enormous strain, until a wedge-shaped chunk of timber the size of a small pig
     squealed and popped out from the base of a tall tree. And the big oak, unsupported now except for the couple of inches of
     trunk remaining, started to lean into the road, and, slowly, to fall, shrieking with protest, and finally landing with an
     earth-shaking thudding bounce directly across the highway. The travelling party erupted into chaos; horses screaming, men-at-arms
     shouting foul oaths. A couple of unfortunate men at the rear of the column were smashed from their saddles, their bodies crushed
     by the falling wood; even those quick enough to spur out of the toppling tree’s path were clawed by its outermost branches
     as they tried to make their escape. And, worse, there was no clear direction to run: the travellers were hemmed in before
     and behind by an impenetrable leafy barrier.
    In the centre of the column, another rope leapt up horizontally from under the legs of the men-at-arms’s skittering horses,
     another fat wedge was tugged free and another giant trunk began its leisurely but lethal fall on the Bishop’s now wildly panicking
     band of trapped men. Yet another tree, nearer the front of what had been the column, was jerked from its semblance of rectitude,
     and it toppled and crashed on to the track, catching a man-at-arms attempting to flee, a thin branch spearing his mailed chest,
     smashing through ribs, lungs and heart, and nailing him to the muddy forest floor. It seemed as if all Sherwood were collapsing
     like a row of skittles tumbling to an expertly lobbed bowling ball, trees