Romancing Robin Hood (4 page)

She felt strangely optimistic. Finally, Grace could see that all her work was beginning to pay off. Her novel was coming together, and the usual small voice of doubt at her superior's reaction at her prioritising of projects was, for once, happily lacking.

Determined to make the most of the day before her, Grace was already logged onto her office computer by eight o'clock, and was halfway through preparing a tutorial on the impact of the Black Death on the East Midlands for the MA students still in residence when, at ten o'clock, her stomach reminded her she hadn't eaten since her takeaway last night.

Saving her work, Grace grabbed the notes she'd written for the next chapter of her story and headed towards the senior common room, the prospect of a cuppa and suitably sticky muffin accelerating her speed.

Mathilda woke up disorientated by her surroundings. She had been laid upon a rough pallet stuffed with straw to make a mattress. A makeshift tapestry divider was drawn closed at her side, telling her that she was still in the main hall of the Folvilles' establishment, but had been moved to one of the servant's beds near the kitchen door to recover from her faint.

This consideration did not square with what she'd heard about the Folville family. Neither did the question about Robyn Hode, nor the amused demeanour of the man who'd asked it.

Mathilda had heard it said that Eustace de Folville would rip your head off with his bare hands if he so desired. There was no way that the man she had encountered could be Eustace. On the other hand, she wasn't finding it difficult to believe that her clergyman jailer had been a Folville. Richard, the rector of Teigh, fitted perfectly into an image of the family that rumour and gossip had spread all over the shire. She'd heard stories about the family, of course, and although they always seemed to slip through the fingers of the law whenever a crime occurred, Mathilda knew with certainly that the family had been responsible for the organisation of thefts, kidnaps, assaults, and even the death of Baron Roger Belers three years earlier.
¹
That murder of a Baron of Exchequer had been the stuff of local gossip ever since. Mathilda had been sixteen in that year, 1326, when the news that a gang led by the Folvilles had come together to dispose of the old man. She clearly remembered her father and brothers talking about Belers' death in hushed tones, more in awe and relief at the removal of such an unscrupulous man who, rumour said, had acquired much of his lands illegally, than in horror at the manner of his death. The gossip went further: that two men Mathilda had never heard of before, Henry de Heredwyk and Roger la Zouche, had paid the Folvilles to removal the baron from the face of the earth.

No one had ever been properly tried for the crime, but at the same time, everyone knew who was responsible, and enough suspicion had arisen for the Folville family to have their lands at Reresby taken from them; more as a warning than an official punishment.

Mathilda rubbed her forehead; it was hot and sticky despite the cool of the room, and she feared she might be feverish. Or perhaps it was sheer terror, as she contemplated the household's reputation. When she'd asked her eldest brother, Matthew, about Eustace after Beler's death, he'd simply said, ‘he commits evils' and refused to be drawn further. It was a simple sentence, but it had been enough to make Mathilda want to keep well away from the Folville villages and manor.

The Folville family, from what Mathilda knew of them, had adopted crime as a way of making a living, alongside the maintenance of their lands and overseeing of the immediate area, although few would have been foolish enough to accuse them of such activities face to face. Thus, the family of brothers had made their presence felt beyond Ashby Folville, across the Hundred of East Goscote and the county of Leicestershire as a whole.
²

Mathilda sat up slowly on the bed. Her head thudded, but she no longer felt dizzy. She supposed she should try and escape, but realistically Mathilda knew that would be suicide, and might well endanger her family. She felt as helpless as she felt useless. Should she sit where she was until someone came to sell her to move? Should she announce that she was awake?

Aware of voices beyond the tapestry curtain, Mathilda could hear approaching footsteps. Someone was moving across the hall to where she'd been placed to recover …

The sound of
Doctor Who's
TARDIS landing cut through Grace's concentration, forcing her to return to the present time-stream so she could answer her mobile.

‘Hi, honey,' Daisy's interrupted thoughts of all the possible ways out of Mathilda's plight.

‘Hello, everything OK?'

‘Fine. Look, I'm really sorry to disturb you at work, but it's this bloody wedding stuff. It's only a small do but it's already taking over my life. Anyway, I need to hassle you about getting a bridesmaid dress.'

Hearing the stress in Daisy's voice, guilt stabbed at Grace; she'd totally forgotten about her emailed promise to sort out a shopping date that morning, ‘Of course, no problem at all. Hang on …' putting the phone down for a moment, Grace rummaged in her bag for her diary ‘… here we go. Now, when's good for you?'

‘Any late afternoon in July, or any weekend apart from this coming one and the two before the wedding.'

Grace flicked through her calendar. That hardly left any time at all. She caught sight of the following Friday's appointment in Nottingham on her calendar. She supposed that once she was there she'd be on the way to Hathersage anyway, and if her Friday was being disturbed, she might as well lose the Saturday as well. ‘I could head your way a week tomorrow. I have to be at Nottingham University all day, but I could come up to you from there and stay over, if you could stand it. Then we could shop on the Saturday.'

‘That's fantastic,' Daisy failed to keep the surprise out of her tone.

‘Why so shocked?'

‘Well, come on, honey, you're not the easiest lass to drag away from work, even over a weekend.'

Grace blushed down the phone, ‘I'm sorry, Daze, but I promise you, nothing is going to come between me and my best friend's wedding.'

‘Not even a certain gentleman in green tights and his associated criminal rogues?'

‘Not even them!' Grace was surprised by her determination, and was even more surprised by the fact that it was genuine. She wasn't going to let her need to work ruin Daisy's big day. ‘I can't promise to find a dress I like though!'

‘Well if it comes to that, neither can I. These magazines are useless unless you're stick-thin with fake boobs and perfect skin.'

‘That's you and me out then.'

Daisy's sigh was audible down the line, ‘I'm sure there must be a shop in Sheffield with exactly the sizes 14 and 16 we're searching for.'

‘Of course there will be; let's hope they're not in pink frou-frou though, shall we!' Grace was relieved to hear Daisy chuckle down the line, and was suddenly reluctant to hang up. It was, she realised, a long time since she'd spared the time to have a proper chat with her friend. Still, if she was going to have a weekend off, she'd better crack on now, ‘I'm sorry Daze, I have to go. I have scripts to mark and a viva to prepare for.'

‘Sure thing. I'll see you in nine days!'

After she'd shut off her phone, Grace sat quite still. It had been years since she'd considered her outward appearance beyond the requirements of comfort and a gesture towards token smartness. She knew she didn't look too bad; she wasn't a fashion disaster or anything. She was just
ordinary
; jeans, T-shirts, jumpers, casual jackets, trainers – all the normal stuff. Nothing special; just normal. A feeling of inadequacy swept through Grace. How could she possibly do Daisy and Marcus justice? She didn't have a clue about how to be a bridesmaid, let alone what to wear.

The papers on her lap began to slip off, and the action of retrieving them brought Grace back to herself. For a split second she was shocked to find herself sat in the common room and not in her office.

‘Ridiculous woman.' She murmured to herself, slugging back the remains of her cold tea, and heading back to work and the fourteen projects on the role of women in medieval society that awaited the judging scrawl of her red pen.

Chapter Five

The marking of the dissertations seemed to have taken forever. In three days' time Grace was due in Nottingham. The parcel that had been couriered over from Nottingham University containing the thesis lay untouched on her desk, and all the good intentions Grace had had about checking out some of the academic papers Dr Franks had produced to get a grasp of his field of study had come to nothing.

Taking a deep breath, Grace pulled the word-heavy doctorate out of its protective padded envelope and turned to its abstract.

This dissertation addresses the different manners in which lawlessness was dealt by those holding the office of Sheriff in the county of Nottinghamshire between 1300 and 1372. It will attempt to analyse this civil servant's role against a background of great historical change; the procession of three monarchs, Edward I, Edward II, and Edward III, the impact of the Black Death, and the subsequent economic boom that came in its wake, alongside the continual wars and the impact of the taxation needed to finance them.

An attitude of violence, fraud, and thuggery had become almost acceptable in the fourteenth century, and was certainly expected as a form of self-advancement for both the sheriff and his officials. This dissertation will look at this perception of behaviour in relation to the literary ballad evidence and political songs of the period which …

Grace closed her eyes. She'd need some strong coffee if she was going to read all this today, or, better still, – she needed to hide. If she stayed in her office then she'd only be interrupted. Anyway, the Robin Hood posters on the walls were staring at her, telling Grace to get on with her novel. Ignoring the combined reproachful looks of the paper outlaws, thankful she had no teaching scheduled until the new term in October, Grace gathered up the thesis and headed to the library.

Heading down the steps that took her from her building, towards the ugly glass rectangle that held the university's supply of books, Grace consoled herself with the fact that at least the thesis should be an interesting read.
I might even learn something for my own book.
With that idea, Grace disappeared into the semi-tranquillity of the library basement, and sat amongst hundreds of unread PhDs, all lined up on the shelves, haunting the place with the ghosts of long-past students and their fleeting visits into the world of extended knowledge.

‘Dr Harper?'

The voice was speaking with the forced calm that only library assistants and primary school teachers can manage. ‘Dr Harper, I'm sorry to disturb you.'

Grace looked up in surprise, blinking slightly as her eyes adjusted to not staring at endless rows of neat Times New Roman.

‘We're closing, I'm sorry.'

‘Closing?'

‘Yes, it's ten o'clock.'

‘At night?'

‘Yes.'

Grace felt stupid, and wasn't sure she believed the sensibly skirted young woman who hovered at the side of her table. She peered at her own watch. Ten o'clock. She'd been here, engrossed in her reading, since three o'clock.

‘I'm sorry, yes, of course, I lost track of time.'

‘Thank you, Dr Harper.'

‘She must think I'm crackers,' Grace muttered to herself as she closed the thesis. It had been much better than she'd expected it to be. In fact, it was excellent, and she had already, with only a mild pang of guilt, noted a few points for use in her own work, vowing to herself that the young writer would get a mention in her acknowledgements.

A list of possible questions and queries to ask at the viva were scribbled in her notebook, and even though she still had the final chapter and conclusion to examine, Grace felt on a firmer footing now she knew what the postgraduate had researched so thoroughly. It was important not to put herself in a position of potential ignorance next to the internal examiner. For an indefinable reason, which Grace was putting down to professional pride, she didn't want to appear an inferior historian compared to the apparently ultra-clever Dr Franks.

Her stomach growled at her as it always did when she walked home, as if it was calling out to the local takeaways all on its own. Never having mastered the art of being a domestic goddess, Grace rarely cooked, and it seemed cruel to her that although she hardly ever ate, yet she was a size sixteen – well, a fifteen really. Fourteens didn't quite fit, and sixteens were a bit big. Yet she wasn't worried about her body – or hadn't been worried until this wedding business had begun. It wasn't long now until she had to go shopping, and suddenly her unruly hair, ample bust, and padded hips, seemed even more unruly, increasingly ample, and more heavily-padded than before.

She could hear her mother's words echoing at the back of her head, telling her only child off for not looking after herself properly. Whenever Grace's mum phoned her, she conveyed how worried she was about her daughter's solitary lifestyle – which really meant, ‘Why don't you get yourself married and give me grandchildren?' Grace always said she was fine thank you very much, and that she'd think about all that sort of thing after she'd finished her books.

The books. They had become her latest reason for not doing anything else with her days. In the odd occasional burst of honesty, usually at about three o'clock in the morning if she was having a sleepless night, Grace knew the books were merely the last in a long line of excuses. First there had been her degree, then her PhD, then building up her post-doctorate experience, followed by getting a good reputation as a junior lecturer; and in all that time the only interesting men she'd given any real quality time to had been dead for hundreds of years – if they'd even existed in the first place.