“Hold!”
The command brought Robert back to the present and he reigned in his horse, beside Will.
Three Norman soldiers, dressed in chain-mail and armed with pike and swords, blocked the road. Behind them was an Inn, and Robert saw a man, held by two more soldiers, struggling wildly, as a third slipped a rope noose over his head and tightened it around the man’s neck.
A woman tried to push her way to him and upon seeing Robert and Will, she pleaded with them for help. “Please help us, Masters,” she cried. “They’re going to hang my Sam just for hitting him!” She pointed an accusing finger at a finely dressed youth, who looked to be three or so years older than Robert, and who was riding a white palfrey, a horse more suited to a woman than a man, Robert thought.
The youth dabbed a bloodied rag to his nose and an un-hooded and unfettered Falcon rested upon his right forearm.
“What’s afoot here?” Will demanded. “Since when did you hang a man for giving a bloody nose?”
“Hold your tongue,” the young man cried. “You do not question your betters, and that is something you Englishmen had best learn, and with haste.”
“And who is going to teach us, that lesson?” Robert asked pulling up his hood in order to remove his bow from his shoulder. He notched an arrow onto the string. “I order you to release that man, or I swear upon my oath that my arrow will teach first you, and then your men, your last lesson while on this earth.”
“I am Sir Guy of Gisbourne, boy, and after I have hung this knave I shall…”
The falcon launched itself up and in pursuit of a pigeon, but before it could reach its prey, Robert’s arrow speared the pigeon in mid-flight. Arrow and dead bird fell at the feet of Gisbourne’s men.
Gisbourne’s eyes widened in surprise when he saw Robert had already loaded a second arrow; an arrow that was now aimed at his head.
“From here it will split your head in two, so what’s to do, Guy?”
Will, not waiting for an answer, and with his sword in one hand, urged his horse through the men at arms and removed the rope from the prisoner’s neck.
“Get thee gone, while you still can, Guy of Gisbourne,” he said. “Else I, Will Stutly, swear that six men shall lie buried here today.”
Gisbourne nodded. “The day is yours, Stutly, but someday it will be mine, and on that day I shall hang both you and young Rob in his hood.” Without as much as a sideways glance at Robert, he trotted his palfrey away, leaving his footmen to follow on behind.
“Thank you, masters, and praise be to God that he sent you to save us.” The woman cried, clinging to the man they had saved from a hanging. “All Sam asked for was the money due to him for feeding the Norman and his men. Four pennies it was they owed us.”
“But when I asked for payment, he refused.” Sam, rubbing at his neck, took up the tale. “And after he and his men had devoured every morsel of food put before them. He said our food was only fit for dogs, English dogs. And that’s when I hit him."
“He squealed like a stuck pig and fell backwards off his stool, cracking his head on the floor,” His wife said. “And that’s why the Norman lord ordered his men to hang Sam.”
“Guy of Gisbourne is as English as you and I.” Will growled. “It would seem the rumours that he has affected a Norman accent and mannerisms, in order to curry favour, are well founded. English dogs, are we? Then perhaps we should catch the traitor, and let him feel our teeth.”
“But not today, Will,” Rob said. “We must to Nottingham and see to my mother and sister, once we and our horses have fed…”
“Hmm, I am not persuaded that it’s the need to be with your mother and sister that prompts your desire to hasten home, as much as your desire to return to the arms of your bride-to-be, the Lady Marion.”
Robert blushed, but nodded. “That’s the truth of it. I cannot perceive how the most beautiful girl in the whole of England, could make a gift of her love to me.”
“I cannot perceive it myself. “Why chose she you, when there are so many comely men to choose from? It’s a mystery that I never will fathom.” He laughed at the jest and Rob laughed with him, for tonight he would be in the arms of the woman he loved more than life itself.
“Please sirs dismount and I will stable your horses, while my wife prepares you a meal worthy of a English Lord.” He spat, onto the ground. “You are a fine bowman, Rob in the hood and a curse be upon the Normans.”
Rob and Will dismounted, and after stretching their legs, they followed the woman into the inn.
