Rise of the Wolf (21 page)

“I won't be long. My companion will not awaken while I'm away.”

“Eh? How d'you know that?” Philip wondered, but Osferth had already shut the door and was gone.

Tuck woke in the morning, surprised to have slept such a deep, dreamless sleep in the recently deceased villagers' bedroom. He couldn't remember waking at all during the night which was unusual for him as he often had to get up to empty his bladder in the small hours. And yet, despite his unbroken slumber, his head ached just behind his eyes and his mouth was dry.

“God above,” he mumbled as he rose and stretched the kinks from his back. “How much of that ale did I drink last night?”

Osferth, who was already up and looking fresh, simply smiled and tossed a water-skin to his companion who pulled out the stopper and sucked down the cool liquid greedily.

“What time is it?”

“Sun's just coming up,” Osferth replied, pointing to a small chest in the corner upon which lay a bowl of tepid water. “Philip must have left that there for us.”

Tuck used the liquid to rinse the sleep from his eyes before drying himself off with his sleeve. “All right, we better get moving then. We want to get to Dodworth as soon as we can. The longer we tarry the more chance there is that my friends will be captured.” He threw his pack over his shoulder and lifted his great quarterstaff. “We can break our fast on the road, come on.”

Philip wasn't about and the travellers assumed he must have gone off to work, trusting them not to steal anything from the house. Tuck looked around and wondered what they could steal even if they were so inclined; there was little of any value in the small dwelling which seemed to exude an air of sadness still, or maybe that was just the friar's imagination.

“Let's go.” He opened the door and moved outside. Their horses were in a small stable adjoining the church and, as Osferth got the mounts ready Tuck decided it would be polite to give God's greetings to the local priest before they left.

He knocked on the door but no-one answered and a villager shouted across to him. “Father Martin's not in. He was up before dawn and borrowed my horse to run some errand. I've no idea where he's gone though.”

“No matter,” Tuck smiled with a wave of thanks to the man. “It's not important. God give you good day.”

They climbed onto their mounts and resumed the journey north, with dark glances at a sky that was filled with looming thunderheads.

“Come on, Horbury isn't far,” Tuck shouted, kicking his heels into the old palfrey. “Let's reach it before we get a soaking.”

* * *

James had tried, he really had, but there just wasn't any honest work available for him in Horbury. He wasn't an outlaw himself, for he hadn't been caught doing anything illegal, but the locals knew he kept company with thieves and wolf's heads and, as a result he couldn't even get a job labouring in the fields or on the site of the building works at the new brewery that was being built just outside the town.

How was he supposed to live an honest life if no-one would give him the chance to support himself?

His meeting with the portly friar just weeks earlier had truly had a profound effect on him and he'd vowed to stop his robbing ways before he was either declared an outlaw or killed by a forester's arrow. Christ, Sir Guy of Gisbourne and his men were staying in the town; the close proximity of the feared bounty hunter should have been enough reason for James to live within the law.

And yet, here he was, hiding under a bush, hood up as the rain had come on with a vengeance, flanked by two of the men the friar had bested so violently. The third member of their gang hadn't been so lucky – Tuck's blow had cracked his skull and he'd died the next day. Not that any of the rest cared much – none of them were close friends, simply acquaintances and the threat of violent death was an ever-present threat when you earned a living stealing from people.

Now they sat and watched the road for unwary travellers with coin to spare and little chance of fighting off the robbers.

James scowled. If people wouldn't trust him enough to employ him, what choice did he have but to live like this? He needed to put food on his table didn't he? It was just as well his wife had died young, before she could give him a child. He could barely even fill his own belly never mind anyone else's.

There was movement on the road and he sat up straighter, squinting through the torrential rain to try and make out who approached.

“Someone's coming,” Mark, their short leader growled, his voice hopeful. “Perhaps this one'll have more about him than that last bastard.”

They'd stopped a young merchant a short time before, travelling alone, and it soon became apparent why he hadn't felt the need to hire mercenaries to guard him on the dangerous northern road: he had little money on him and his 'wares' consisted of a pack filled with strange smelling ointments and liquids in glass bottles. The man had tried to explain to them what they were – some kind of medicines apparently – but Mark had silenced him with a brutal punch to the side of the face before taking his purse and sending the sobbing man on his way in disgust.

“Medicines for fuck sake. What good's that to us?”

James didn't reply, he was staring at the road as their potential targets approached at a fair pace, their mounts' hooves covering the distance to their position in good time.

Suddenly Mark gave a small, gleeful hoot and turned to his friends happily. “It's the friar, he's back.”

“So it is.” Ivo, the man whose teeth Tuck had broken muttered agreement, his hand pressing unconsciously on his lips, feeling the empty spaces left by the friar's cudgel. “Good. This time we'll be prepared for him. We'll see how
he
likes losing a few teeth.”

“And his balls too,” Mark spat the words viciously, still furious to have been beaten – humiliated – by a man of the cloth. “James, get an arrow ready. You can let his mate in the black robe ride on, but take out the greyfriar's horse. Once the prick's on the ground me and Ivo will take care of the rest.”

James hadn't told his cohorts what had happened between himself and the friar when they had tried to rob the man before. How could he? They were already angry that he hadn't skewered the bastard when he had the chance; there was no way he could tell them he'd had a nice, friendly chat with the clergyman. Instead, he'd claimed to have been hit in the guts by the cudgel which he said the friar had thrown at him. Once he'd been on the ground, gasping for breath, he said, the friar had retrieved the weapon and raced off on his horse.

It was a feeble story and his cohorts had given him suspicious looks as he told it, but they had no reason to suspect he was lying. Little did they know Friar Tuck had made a friend of James that day and now, here was Mark demanding the young archer shoot the clergyman's horse...

“No.”

The robbers swivelled their heads to glare at James who returned their looks with eyes as steely as their own.

“Do you not realise who he is?”

“I don't give a fuck who he is,” Ivo spat. “He's going to pay for what he did to us.”

Mark pointed his dagger angrily at James. “Just you get an arrow ready, dickhead, or it'll be
your
balls I'll be slicing off with this.”

“Are you stupid?” James retorted more confidently than he felt in the face of his violent companions' ire. “How many friars have you heard about around here that can fight as well as he does? That's Friar Tuck. Robin Hood's mate.”

Mark and Ivo were too angry to back down and their hated target was nearing their position rapidly, the horses close enough now that the spray thrown up from their hooves was visible.

“Shoot him now,” Mark ordered, his eyes blazing in anger. Never before had James stood up to him or refused to do as he was told by the older, if smaller man. “Shoot him you arsehole, before he escapes or so help me God I'll cut your fucking eyes out.”

James shrank back from his leader, knowing the man was just deranged enough to carry out his threat. He looked towards the road and realized he only had moments to take his shot before Tuck would be past and safely out of range.

“Shoot him!” Ivo shouted, the rain slicking the long black hair against his angry face.

James took a deep breath, his stomach contorting as if filled with a dozen live larks like one of the extravagant pies the wealthy supposedly ate, and raised his longbow with the arrow already nocked and ready to loose.

“Holy Mary, mother of God, protect me,” he prayed and aimed along the shaft of the big missile, pointing the iron broadhead not at the mounted clergymen, but towards his own robber-companions.

Stepping backwards, slowly and carefully he held his aim steady as he distanced himself from the shocked – and utterly furious – Mark and Ivo who stared at him vengefully.

“I knew that story you told us about him throwing his cudgel at you was bollocks,” Mark grated.

“I'm not shooting his horse just so you two can kill him. The man spared all of our lives the first time we tried to rob him, when he could just as easily have slit our throats. Hell, he'd have been given a
reward
for killing us; but still he let us go.” He held his bow steady in his left hand while he quickly leaned down and grabbed his small pack of food with the right, throwing its strap across his shoulder before drawing the bowstring taut again and resuming his slow, backward movement. “Besides, he's a man of God for fuck sake. You don't kill a man of God!”

“I'll fucking kill
you,
you whoreson,” Mark roared, his face scarlet, and Ivo screamed his own murderous oath.

“And on top of all that,” James continued, shouting himself now, “he's one of Robin Hood's gang. If they found out we'd killed him they'd come hunting for us. You want Little John coming after you? 'Cause I don't.”

He was a fair distance away from them now and, with a sigh of relief lowered the longbow, fitted the arrow back inside his belt and, curses filling the air behind him, broke into a loping run towards Horbury. Mark and Ivo were both well-known outlaws and wouldn't come into the town after him, especially not with Guy of Gisbourne lodging in the Swan as he was.

Aye, the Swan,
James thought as his long stride carried him north.
That's the safest place to be just now. Mark will never dare to follow me there.

He'd use his share of the money they'd stolen from the medicine-seller to pay for a room, then decide what to do next in the morning.

It had been a foolhardy move to cross the two outlaws but... by God it had felt good!

* * * 

Tuck and Osferth made fine time but were not quite fast enough to outrun the oncoming clouds which overtook them and spilled their chilly contents on the travellers when they were still some distance from Horbury.

They cantered past the three robbers hiding in the undergrowth at the side of the road, oblivious to the danger that was so close and, by the time they reached the town and found sanctuary from the downpour in an inn, the clergymen were both drenched.

“In God's name, it's Tuck.” The landlord smiled in surprise when he spotted the dripping friar who shook the water from his tonsured head like a great dog.

“Aye, Andrew, it's me – don't just stand there grinning like a lack-wit, man. Warmed ale for my companion and I!”

The inn-keep hurried to do as he was told, bustling over a moment later with two gently steaming mugs, the smile still on his face as he looked down at the seated clergymen.

“I heard you'd left Robin Hood's gang and gone back down south; didn't expect you'd be back here again, but it's good to see you, father.”

Tuck sipped his ale and wiped the remaining dampness from his forehead with a big hand before returning the landlord's smile. “I did leave Robin and the rest of the lads,” he said. “But I need to find them again, and quickly. Do you have any word of their whereabouts?”

It was before noon and, apart from the three of them, the place was empty at that time of day, but a loose tongue could be fatal and the man's eyes settled on Osferth.

Tuck waved a hand reassuringly.  “Have no fear, this is my friend, one of the Benedictines from Lewes: you may talk freely in front of him.”

Still, the inn-keeper seemed inordinately nervous, his eyes casting about his own inn to make sure no-one was hiding in the shadows and he leaned in close to address the friar in hushed tones.

“I haven't seen any of your companions around here in a long time, but word is Will Scarlet and some Hospitaller were in Selby buying supplies a few days back. Maybe they have a camp near there?” He shrugged but remained bent over beside them. “You'd know better than me.”

Tuck looked thoughtful. Maybe Robin did have a hideout somewhere close to Selby but they'd never camped there when Tuck was with them. Still, the friar hadn't been with them as long as most of the others and it was possible there were camps the outlaws knew of but Tuck had never visited himself.

“One other thing, Brother,” the landlord continued, his eyes again darting nervously around the shadows.

“For God's sake, Andrew, spit it out. There's no one here other than us – it's
your
inn, you must know that yourself!”

The man looked somewhat embarrassed and gave a nervous smile before continuing. “You're right, of course, but it does no harm to be careful when the likes of Sir Guy of Gisbourne are about. Aye,” he nodded in response to Tuck's anxious expression. “The Raven has taken lodgings just up the road in the Swan. Apparently the sheriff ran him out of Nottingham when Robin took the silver arrow.”