Paul Doherty: The Demon Archer

Ashdown Forest, or so they said, was as old as the island itself. The chroniclers, those who prided themselves on this sort of knowledge, maintained that dragons once lived there while the great giants, Gog and Magog, had set up home among its dark oak groves. These ogres had celebrated their bloody feasts, eating the flesh and grinding the bones of their victims. All manner of creatures were supposed to lurk in its marshy, tangled depths. The gossips talked of the woadman, a fearsome, shaggy-haired giant, with one red eye and hooked teeth, who prowled the trees at night looking for prey.

The outlaw, the wolfs-head known as the ‘Owlman’, ignored such rumours. True, Ashdown Forest could be a lonely, gloomy place but it teemed with life: the badger dug his sett; the foxes had their lairs; hawk and kestrel nested with crow and rook in the branches above; rabbits and hares loped across the moss-strewn glades. Deer, both the fallow and the roe, flitted like golden ghosts through the green darkness. Above all, it was owned by Lord Henry Fitzalan and the Owlman’s hate and fear were reserved for him. The Owlman took his name, not so much because of the way he dressed, in dark lincoln green, thick leather boots and tarred leathery hood, but because of his silence: the way he could flit through the trees and make his mark, irritate and vex Lord Henry whenever he so wished.

At dawn on the feast of St Matthew 1303, the Owlman had left his lair to practise great mischief against his enemy. He had reached the edge of a clearing and stared across at the lonely church of St Oswald’s-in-the-Trees. Brother Cosmas was sitting outside on a bench, a tankard in his hand. The Owlman studied him fondly from the shelter of the trees. He dare not approach this fiery Franciscan, a man who spared neither himself nor his parishioners. A preacher who could conjure up visions of hell and quote copiously from the Book of Revelations, about the three unclean spirits which sprang out of the mouth of the Great Dragon.

Behind the church loomed the charnel or ossuary house. The Owlman watched the smoke rising from this. So it was true what the forest people said, those parishioners of Brother Cosmas, that he had decided to tidy up the cemetery, digging up old bones, placing them in the charnel house while removing others to be consumed by fire. The church, despite its deserted appearance, was a busy place; it served the woodcutters, charcoal-burners, verderers, poachers, aye, even outlaws who lived in the forest depths.

The Owlman studied the front door of the church; above it the great carved Doom depicted Death surprising a king, his queen, noblemen and bishops. Underneath were the words the Owlman knew well:

As you are, so once were we,

As we are, so shall ye be.

The Owlman grinned, a salutary warning! It was a pity Lord Henry Fitzalan did not heed it. A hard manor lord, Fitzalan enforced the forest laws and demanded his due at all seasons. Lord Henry would not even ignore a crime as lowly as the theft of a farthing. The great lord didn’t come here. Like all the owners of the soil, he had his own private chapel or, when it so suited, he’d visit those high-born ladies under their prioress the Lady Madeleine, she who carried her head as if it was as precious and as sacred as the relic of St Hawisia, of which she and her priory were so proud.

The Owlman paused to check the arrows in his quiver. Unseen by the friar, this mysterious outlaw of Ashdown then knelt and crossed himself, quickly reciting his favourite prayer.

‘Christ beside me.

Christ behind me.

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left.’

Afterwards a short aspiration to St Christopher. The Owlman pulled down his jerkin and took out the silver cast medal which hung from a piece of twine. He stared at the saint, the Infant Christ on his shoulder. They said that if you looked on St Christopher, just after dawn, then you would not die violently that day. The Owlman would need all the help and protection this saint could give him. Lord Henry, or so the gossips said, had organised a great hunt down near Savernake Dell. He’d fenced off an enclosure for his French visitors, lords and clerks from across the Narrow Seas, to kill the deer which his foresters and verderers drove into it. The Owlman was determined to be present. He wanted to do so much mischief, create so much havoc, that Lord Henry and his guests would never forget this day’s hunting.

The Owlman picked up his bow by the cord-grip round its centre and hurried on. He had to be near Beauclerc hunting lodge in order to watch Lord Henry and his guests leave. The Owlman moved quietly, eyes constantly studying the trees and ground ahead of him. He was now part of a deadly game. Lord Henry’s foresters and verderers, sly knaves all, would love to trap him, haul him as a prize before their master. Or, worse still, if they captured him, execute the forest law, throw a rope over a branch with the end round his neck; then the bastards would squat and watch him slowly choke to death. The Owlman, however, was cunning. More versatile and quick than any reynard, he knew all their wiles and traps while they would never guess who he really was.

The Owlman paused on the edge of a clearing and scrutinised the ground carefully. It had rained yesterday afternoon but the strong autumn sun had dried it up. He looked for any disturbance, any sign of a pit being dug or a rope being laid or one of those great steel traps, their teeth like razors, carefully concealed beneath a bed of red-brown leaves.

When he was about to go across he heard a sound from his left. He quickly took an arrow from his quiver, notching it to his bow, but then relaxed. A fox, triumphant after his early dawn hunt, stepped out of the trees, proud as any champion from the tourney, a lifeless rabbit hanging on its jaws. The fox, arrogant as a prince, trotted across the clearing and disappeared into the bushes on the far side. The Owlman sighed with relief; if the fox sensed no danger, why should he?

He slipped across, silent as a shadow, and reached the welcoming fringe of trees. Here the ground dipped as it fell down to a forest trackway. The Owlman paused. A busy place this, used by forest workers, travellers and pilgrims to the priory of St Hawisia. Merchants, who lodged at night at the Devil-in-the-Woods tavern, a large, spacious hostelry two or three miles further down the road, also journeyed here. The Owlman listened carefully. No sound, no sight. The early morning mist was now lifting. Birds sang in the trees on the other side. He could hear no warning chatter, no alarm raised by those heralds of the forest who always complained so raucously at any trespass on their private domain. The Owlman regarded such birds as his scouts. After all he had been trained well. He had grown up in forests and knew every bird call, every sound. He could distinguish what was usual and what was threatening, what was old and what was new. Satisfied, silent as the fox he had just seen, the Owlman padded down the bank towards the trackway. The birds above began a clamour but this was usual. Once he had passed they returned to their morning song, their usual matins. He paused. He liked that phrase. God’s creatures sang the divine office as well as those haughty nuns in their lavishly decorated priory. Perhaps one day he should pay them a visit, create a little mischief for Lord Henry’s half-sister.

The Owlman hurried on. He never really knew what happened. Perhaps it was God’s way of showing that pride does come before a fall, that he had grown too confident. He reached the far edge of the trackway when he caught a glimpse of steel in the undergrowth. Just in time he drew back, away from the cruel man-trap hidden there. He picked up a stick and furiously lashed out. The trap shut with an angry iron clang so loud that the Owlman missed his footing, slipped on some mud and went tumbling down a bank. He reached the bottom, his hand immediately going to his dagger, gazing fearfully around. He had lost his bow and saw it lying a yard away from him, so he crawled across, pressing down with one hand. He was stretching out when he felt his fingers go beneath the carpet of soil and leaves, touch something cold and soft, something which shouldn’t be there.