The Death of Robin Hood Read Online Free

morning.’
    She wasn’t, of course.
    The next morning, from the roof of my tower, I could clearly see her, a black shape under the willow tree, still as a stone. It crossed my mind to order out the men-at-arms then, and have them move her on with their spear butts, but I had not the heart for it. I contented myself with issuing stern orders to all the servants that Matilda Giffard must not be allowed to set so much as a toe within my walls again.
    We were very busy over the next few days with the harvest and, while I cannot pretend that Tilda disappeared from my mind completely – she hovered constantly on the fringes of my thoughts like an unpaid debt – I did manage to banish her from my daily processes. I ignored her, in truth. She stayed by the willow tree day after day, moving very seldom, at least in daylight, troubling nobody as far as I could tell and slowly, almost imperceptibly, becoming absorbed into the landscape of Westbury.
    Four days after the tearful scene in the hall, Robin arrived.

Chapter Three
    Mylord came apparelled for war and with two score mounted men-at-arms at his back. He was in high spirits, oddly, for the news he bore was almost all bad. Over a cup of wine in my hall, he informed me that the King had reneged on the promises given at Runnymede and that we were summoned once more to war by Lord Fitzwalter and the Army of God. I confess my heart sank at the news.
    ‘We knew it couldn’t last, Alan,’ said my lord. ‘When has King John ever kept a promise, let alone one extracted at the point of a sword?’
    He made a good argument: John was one of the most duplicitous men I have ever had the misfortune to encounter, indeed the bitter hatred felt for him by the barons of England had much to do with his untrustworthiness, but my dreams of a peaceful existence had been scattered to the winds by Robin’s arrival.
    ‘I need you, Sir Alan,’ he said. ‘I need your sword once more. Will you come?’
    I nodded dutifully. I could not in good conscience resist a call to arms from my lord: he had made me, raising me from a penniless thiefto the prosperous knight I was today. He’d given me everything. I owed him my life and my lands.
    We were joined at dinner by Sir Thomas Blood, Robin’s man and an old friend of mine too who had once served as my squire and had painstakingly trained my son Robert in the arts of the sword. He also was in high spirits and he proudly showed me his shield, which was freshly painted with a new blazon, the head of a buck with an arrow in its mouth. The buck and the arrow were in Robin’s honour – a reference to a time in his youth when he was a famous outlaw.
    Robin had granted Sir Thomas the small manor of Makeney in Derbyshire, a richly deserved reward, for Thomas had been his loyal knight for many years now. He was also a newly married man, having taken a bride, a pretty girl from Westbury, in fact, called Mary, who had recently given birth to their first child, a dark, chubby, perpetually bawling boy. Clearly they needed their own home.
    ‘You will probably have learned this already, Alan,’ said Robin, ‘but Philip Marc is back, too. Despite what the charter decreed, John has returned him to the exalted post of High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests.’
    This was news to me. ‘What happened to Eustace de Lowdham?’
    ‘Oh, he has graciously agreed to step aside and has accepted the role of deputy sheriff. The fool says he’s happy to have been relieved of the burden of high office.’
    Philip Marc was my enemy. He was a French mercenary, fanatically loyal to the King, who had hounded me for taxes I did not owe and had even seized my son Robert for a while in an attempt to force me to pay. Lord de Lowdham was a weak-willed but amiable fellow who the rebel barons had induced to take the shrievalty after Runnymede. I was surprised King John had not had him permanently removed.
    ‘It gets worse,’ said Robin. ‘Sheriff Marc has a