The Death of Robin Hood Read Online Free Page A

remit to destroy all unlicensedstone castles in Nottinghamshire and there are more than a few landholders hereabouts who are hastily pulling down their new walls to avoid exciting his ire.’
    I looked out of the open door of the hall at the squat stone tower that I had built in the courtyard two years before. My keep, my refuge in time of trouble. I had been so proud to have raised it. It made me feel like a real knight, less of a gutter-born churl who had done suspiciously well for himself and was now aping his superiors.
    I tore my eyes from it and said: ‘How are Marie-Anne and the boys?’
    As well as Miles, Robin had another son, Hugh. They were as unalike as iron and silk. Hugh, the eldest, was a steady, sensible man, a little dull and priggish to my mind but a decent fighter and a fellow who once he had fixed his mind to something would never give up until it was accomplished. Miles was another man altogether: wild, pleasure-seeking, irresponsible – and loved by almost everybody who met him.
    ‘They are busy,’ said Robin. ‘Hugh is to be constable of Kirkton while I am away – he’s recruiting more men and strengthening the walls of the castle. Marie-Anne is laying in stores in case of a long siege. Though I hope it won’t come to that. You are welcome to send your household there if Philip Marc becomes overly oppressive.’
    I thanked him distractedly. I was still thinking about the tower and wondering, given its relative insignificance compared with some of the greater fortifications in the county, whether it might escape the sheriff’s notice. ‘And Miles?’ I asked.
    Robin said nothing for five whole heartbeats.
    ‘I cannot understand that boy,’ he said at last. ‘He has no regard for discipline at all. He tells me he is wedded to the rebel cause, to the great charter of liberties, that he is afire to teach the King and all his foreign mercenaries a bloody lesson – but when it comes totraining with our men, organising our forces for battle, preparing, if you like, to teach that bloody lesson, he seems to have no interest.
    ‘He spends half the day abed. He is up half the night with the wine jug. Every week he is involved in some new scrape, usually involving too much drink and some unfortunate local girl. I tried confining him to the castle and he blithely ignored my orders and spent two days absent – God knows where. He came back, refusing to give an account of himself but with a badly cut lip and his best clothes torn and stained with blood. I took away his horse and his purse; he borrowed a mount from a farmer, robbed a travelling monk of two shillings and set out on his revels again. He is twenty years of age yet behaving like an unruly apprentice: always surly, disrespectful to Marie-Anne, downright rude to me. He is a thorn in my backside, to be honest.’
    I tried not to smile at Robin’s words. Miles sounded exactly how I imagined Robin to have been when he was his son’s age. There was a secret about Robin’s sons that was never mentioned for fear of angering the Earl of Locksley: while Miles was truly his son, in looks as well as character, Hugh was not. He was the fruit of a forced coupling between Robin’s enemy, the former sheriff of Nottinghamshire Ralph Murdac, and Marie-Anne, who had briefly been his prisoner. Murdac was long dead but Hugh resembled him in many ways – the same colouring and shortness of stature, although, praise God, he did not seem to have Murdac’s evil ways and had proved himself to be as true a man as any in Robin’s ranks.
    ‘You can wipe that foolish grin off your face, Alan Dale,’ said Robin. ‘Miles is joining us here tomorrow. And you will see how much you like his company then. At least, I left orders to that effect at Kirkton. I couldn’t find the damn boy when I left. I’m taking him with us on campaign. I dare not leave him at home: he’d probably burn the castle around his mother’s ears.’
    ‘So whereare we going?’ I