Paul Doherty - Assassin in the Greenwood

'Most of them are free,' Friar Thomas proudly announced. 'Or nearly so. They grow their own crops and only spend two boon days working on the manor lord's domain.'

Corbett nodded. The Franciscan seemed well liked. As they rode into the village he was greeted by a host of thin-ribbed, near-naked children who jumped round like imps from hell, chattering and calling, pointing at Corbett and asking Friar Thomas a stream of questions in high reedy voices. Their parents, faces earth-stained or burnt brown by the sun, also welcomed their priest as they came back from the fields to hear mass and break their fast before returning. Friar Thomas greeted them genially and, by the time they reached the church, a small procession had formed behind him. Outside the cemetery, the friar and Corbett dismounted, two peasant lads taking their horses whilst Thomas led Corbett into the musty darkness of the church. It was a simple building with no pillars or glass windows. The floor was beaten earth, the altar a simple stone slab. Corbett crouched with the rest before a crude wooden altar rail whilst Friar Thomas donned his vestments in an adjoining chamber and came out to celebrate the fastest mass Corbett had ever heard. Friar Thomas did not gabble the words but he spoke swiftly. He moved through the epistle and gospel on to the offertory and consecration before dismissing his parishioners with a swift benediction.

'A quick mass, Father,' Corbett remarked, watching him disrobe in the small vestry.

Friar Thomas grinned. 'It's the belief which counts,' he replied. 'Not the elaborate ritual.' The friar nodded towards the church door. 'My parishioners have fields to tend, crops to harvest, cattle to water, children to feed. If they don't work, they starve. And what then, Master Clerk?'

'Assistance from Robin Hood?'

The friar's fat face creased into a wreath of smiles. 'Well said, Clerk,' he murmured.

'You approve of the outlaw?' Corbett asked.

Father Thomas neatly folded the vestments, placed them in a wooden coffer and padlocked the lid.

'I did not say that,' he replied, straightening up. 'But my people are poor. A girl marries at twelve. By the time she is sixteen she will have had four babies, three of whom will die. She and her husband will wrap the little bodies up in a piece of cheap cloth for me to bury out in the graveyard. I'll say a prayer, wipe the tears from their eyes and quietly curse their misfortune.

'These villagers are the salt of the earth. They rise before dawn, they go to sleep when it's dark, they plough their fields in the depths of winter, leaving their babies under a bush to suck on a wet rag, hoping they will keep warm in the piece of cow hide in which they are wrapped. They make a little profit, and then the tax-collectors come. They fill their barns and the royal purveyors snatch it. The lords of the soil prey on them: if there is a war, their houses burn and they are cut down like grass.'

Father Thomas stuck his podgy thumbs into the dirty white girdle round his waist. 'If the King wants soldiers,' he continued, 'their young go swinging down some country lane, leaving the air full of their chatter and song.' The priest's dark eyes swept up to meet Corbett's and the clerk saw tears brimming there. 'Then the news comes,' he continued, 'of some great victory or some great defeat, and with it a list of the dead. The women come here. They crouch on the dirty floor – the wives, the mothers, the sisters – whilst I,' the friar added bitterly, 'hide like a dog in my vestry and listen to their sobs.' He sighed. 'A year later the wounded return, one without a leg, another maimed. For what?'

'Did you bring us here to tell me this, Father?'

'Yes, I did, King's Commissioner. When you return to Westminster, tell the King what you have seen. Robin Hood is in the hearts of all these people.'

'I know that,' Corbett replied. 'Like you, Father, I come from the soil, and like you I found an escape.' He stepped closer. 'But there's something else, isn't there? You minister here and not at the castle. Your heart's with these peasants. Robin Hood the outlaw, the famous wolfshead, must have made an approach to you.'

Father Thomas turned his back as if busying himself, putting away the cruets in a small iron-bound coffer.

'I asked you a question, Father?'

Father Thomas turned, a defiant look in his eyes. 'If Robin Hood walked into this church,' he retorted, 'I would not send for the sheriff but…' his voice trailed off.

'But what, Father?'

'Well.' The friar leaned against the wall and clasped podgy hands round his generous stomach. 'Yes, I brought you here so you can take messages back to the King. But there's something wrong.' He busily washed his fingers in a small bowl of water and wiped them carefully with a napkin. 'In former years when Robin Hood ran wild with his coven, the villagers were never attacked and the outlaw shared his goods.'

'And this time?'

'Oh, the peasants are safe and the outlaw distributes good silver, but it's to buy their silence.' The friar walked to the door. 'We should go.'

Corbett stood still. 'Father, I asked a question and you did not answer.'

Father Thomas turned. 'I know you did, Sir Hugh. Yes,' he continued wearily, 'I have seen the wolfshead. He came here, late one evening, sauntering up the nave like some cock in a barnyard. I was kneeling at the altar rail. When I turned he was there, dressed in Lincoln green, a hood pulled across his head, a black cloth mask hiding his face.'

'What did he want?'

'He asked for my help. If I would give him information about what I saw in the town and the village. Who was moving where? What monies were being transported? Would I tend to the spiritual comfort of his men?'

'And what was your reply?'

'I told him I'd dance with the devil first under a midsummer moon.'

'Yet you said you understood him?'

'No, Sir Hugh, I understand the poverty of my people.' The priest wriggled his fat shoulders. 'This was before the murders in the castle or the killing of the tax-collectors. But I don't know… I just did not like the man. His arrogance, his coldness, the way he stood leaning on his long bow. I felt a malevolence, an evil.'

'And what was his reply?'

'He just walked away, slipping out into the night, laughing over his shoulder.' 'Did you tell the sheriff?' 'Sir Eustace or Sir Peter? Never!'

Corbett dipped his fingers in the stoup of holy water just inside the vestry door. He blessed himself. 'I thank you, Father. You'll return to the castle?'

'In a while,' replied the friar. 'You go ahead.'

Corbett walked back into the church, stopping to light a taper before the rough hewn wooden statue of the Virgin Mary. He closed his eyes, praying for Maeve and baby Eleanor, unaware of the figure in the shadows at the back of the church, glaring malevolently towards him.

Corbett, lost in his own thoughts, let his horse amble back to Nottingham. He was tired, a stranger unused to hunting the evil which hid in the blackness of the forest. He was also distracted by thoughts of pressing business in London where the King would be seething, expecting an immediate solution to the cipher's secret.

Corbett grasped the reins of his horse and half-closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the bees buzzing in the grassy verge on either side of the track, the angry chatter of birds offset by the haunting, bitter-sweet song of the thrush. Concentrate! he thought. Sir Eustace Vechey's death is the key to the matter. He recalled the words of Physician Maigret about the deadly potions used.

'I wonder!' he exclaimed aloud, opening his eyes and watching the white butterflies float on the morning breeze like miniature angels, their wings reflecting the light. Corbett, now intent on the conclusion he had reached, kicked his horse into a gallop and rode into Nottingham.