Angus Donald - Outlaw

‘You must watch this,’ said Brother Tuck. ‘This is your penance.’ A small crowd had formed to observe. The man’s eyes, huge with terror, rolled in his head. John the giant came over to the man. He pulled the sodden gag out of his mouth and wedged a thin iron bar, crossways, at the back of his mouth, over his tongue, hard up against the hinge of his teeth. One of the men-at-arms strapped the bar in place, with the leather strip that had been used to gag him. The victim was moaning loudly, half-choking and writhing his body, eyes closed, mouth grotesquely forced open by the iron bar. He might have been laughing. The two men behind the wretch steadied his head, and held it still with the iron bar. John produced a pair of iron tongs from his pouch and seized the man’s tongue by the tip. In his other hand he held a short knife, razor sharp.

I knew what was coming and a wave of nausea burned my stomach. In my mind, my own right arm was on a block in Nottingham castle, an axeman standing over me, the axe swinging high and. . I turned my head away from the victim before me, choking back bile. . Then I felt two strong hands grasp my own jaws and force my head back towards the scene in front of me. The victim’s eyes opened and he stared at me for an instant. He was grotesque, like a stone demon on the side of a church: huge gaping mouth and his tongue pulled out by the tongs. ‘This is your penance,’ repeated Tuck quietly, keeping his powerful hands round my face, forcing me to look. ‘See how Robin serves those who inform on him to the sheriff. Watch and take heed!’ And John the giant sliced through the thick root of the tongue, with one sweep, and then dodged quickly as a fountain of blood roared from the man’s mouth. The man was screaming, a bubbling liquid howl of livid pain and, released by his captors, he fell to the ground, still tightly trussed, bellowing and jetting gore from the bloody cave of his gaping mouth.

I wrenched my head away from Tuck’s hands and staggered to the wall of the church where, my head reeling with disgust and horror, I retched and puked, and brought up the remains of the beef pie that had brought me to this present situation. After a while, when there was nothing more in my stomach, I leaned my forehead on the cool stone of the church wall and gulped down the cold night air.

As my head cleared, I realised fully for the first time what I had promised when I swore loyalty until death to Robin. I was now bound for life to a monster, a devil who mutilated others for merely speaking to the sheriff’s men. I knew then that I had left the world of ordinary men.

I had become an outlaw.

Now, as I look back after nearly sixty winters, I can hardly believe how soft I was then. I was to see worse in my time with Robin, much worse. And although I never enjoyed watching another’s pain, as some in our band did, I did learn to hide that weakness in time, as becomes an outlaw, or any man. On that spring night, however, I was young, only thirteen summers old. I knew little of the world and its cruelties, I knew very little about anything. But I was about to learn a great deal.

As I leaned my head on the church wall, staring down at the remains of the beef pie, I could sense a stir of activity behind me: a sudden busy-ness. There were men gathering the tribute and loading it into ox-carts, horses being brought, outlaw-soldiers shooing away the curious villagers, and Robin was there, mounted and giving orders. A man pulled the bloody wolf’s head off the church lintel and threw it away into some bushes. The candles were extinguished, the church door locked and it seemed that within minutes we were packed up and on our way. There was no horse for me, I was a poor rider anyway, but Tuck stumped along beside me, leaning on a staff, as we joined the slow-moving cavalcade of carts and mounted men and beasts that snaked away into the woodland.

Dawn was just breaking as we moved off north-west, out of the village and along the farm tracks until we joined the road that wound north through Sherwood Forest. This great wood of the shire of Nottingham was a royal hunting preserve that stretched for a hundred miles north of our village. It was a huge expanse of territory, at some points being fifty miles wide, containing many villages and hamlets, fields and commons; but most of the land was woodland, home to badgers, rabbits, wolves and wild boar, and, of course, the King’s deer. To hunt King Henry’s deer was a capital offence, punishable by hanging if a man was caught ‘red handed’, stained with the deer’s blood; even to be caught with a hunting dog in the forest could bring you branding or mutilation. And two toes from each of the dog’s front paws would be hacked off to stop it running swiftly again. Not that this constrained Robin’s followers, I soon learnt. If they were captured they were dead men, anyway. But they seemed to take a special pleasure in flouting the forest laws, murdering the King’s foresters and eating as much venison as they wished. It was almost part of the band’s identity. ‘We were Robin’s men; we ate the red deer, and we laughed at the law,’ one grizzled outlaw told me simply, but with immense pride, years later.

As I walked along on that morning, through the sharp spring sunshine, through the tall alders and kindly beech, and the thick trunks of ancient oak trees, with the feathery fingers of lush green fens caressing my legs, the horrors of the night receded and Tuck, who walked beside me leaning on his staff, began to talk. About nothing at first — just talking as we walked through the peaceful woodland.

‘I have met hot men,’ he said. ‘Men who could become angry in an instant; some say they have too much yellow bile in their bodies; too much of the element of fire. These are violent, angry men, who in their passion would strike you dead. Our own King Harry is one; an intemperate fellow. In his rages, he will roll upon the ground, you know; quite literally biting the rushes on the floor. Chewing them. Rush-muncher, his servants call him, when his back is turned, when they think it’s safe to joke about their lord.’

I stared at him: the King? Who would dare to mock the King? And Tuck went on: ‘And I have met cold men, so-called phlegmatic types, with too much water in their veins. A man who would take a blow to the face from a man who had seduced his wife. And he would say naught, but then have his wife quartered and send the seducer a severed leg tied with her garter ribbons. Oh yes, and smile at dinner with him, drink a toast to the man’s health.

‘Both are dangerous, of course, but the worst men are the ones who appear cold, but inside they are hot. They have the raging power of anger but the icy control of a calm man. This cold-hot man, this phlegmatic-choleric man, is the one to fear.’

‘And my master,’ I asked. ‘Is he a cold-hot man?’

Tuck shot me a sideways look. ‘Well done, boy. You’re quick, I see. Yes, Robin is such a man. He’s cold-hot. And when he is very angry, that’s when he is at his coldest. And then God help his enemies, whoever they are, for Robin will have no mercy on them.’

‘Is he a good man?’ I asked. Forty-odd years later the question still makes me blush. The monk just laughed. ‘Is he a good man?’ he repeated. ‘Yes, I suppose, he’s a good man. He’s a sinner, of course. We all are. But a good man, too. If you asked me is he a godly man, I’d have to say no. He has his own peculiar notions about God but he has no love, no love at all for Mother Church. Oh, quite the opposite. He mocks it. And takes pleasure in robbing and tormenting its servants.’ Tuck crossed himself. ‘I pray the Lord Jesus will open his eyes to the truth one day.’ Piously, I crossed myself too, but what I was feeling was an intoxicating shock of excitement. Such boldness, to mock God’s representatives on Earth; what contempt for his immortal soul, of Hell itself. Like the wolf’s head nailed to the church door, it was dizzying.