He had broken down and was weeping openly now, the tears running down his long face, and I was embarrassed for him. When he had been my stern teacher at Thangbrand’s, I had never seen him drunk, never seen him so vulnerable. I wanted to get away from him, to flee from his humiliation but, instead, I put my arm clumsily around his shoulders, and he seemed to draw some comfort from it. So I asked what happened next.
‘I was so unhappy after she died, I couldn’t settle. Back at Edwinstowe, I was just a hearth knight, the younger brother of the lord. I would never inherit anything, I’d never be allowed to marry, I would just live out my life in his shadow, existing on his generosity, on the scraps from his table. I was desperate. I thought about taking Holy Orders - I have always tried to love God with all my heart, and to serve Him, but William wouldn’t allow it. He wanted me close at hand, a grateful dependent, living on his largesse, for ever. I think deep down he hates me. But then Robin summoned me. He reached out from the forest to save me.’
Hugh made an effort to compose himself. He sniffed and dabbed at his red eyes with a linen napkin. Then he blew his nose with a loud trumpeting sound. ‘Robin needed me, you see. His band had really grown; from just him and a few friends waylaying travellers in Sherwood to the whole complicated circus you see today: with safe houses, and informers, and his travelling court, delivering his justice to the people. He’s just like a king, in fact, deciding the fate of hundreds, maybe thousands of people, he’s got a decent treasury, he makes loans to distressed knights, to merchants, he practically has his own army . . . And he asked
me
to help him. It wasn’t much of a decision, really. Poor dependent hearth knight, a gentle beggar really, or chief minister to a king, albeit an outlaw king.’
The feasting went on long into the afternoon and early evening, with jugglers and acrobats and fire-eaters entertaining the diners long after they were full to bursting. And, as a full moon began to rise in the night sky, I staggered away from the table, my stomach tight as a drum, and went back to the cave to find my warm straw bed. I left Hugh snoring at the table, his long balding head resting on his arms.
I awoke after only a few hours. The big moon was high in the sky outside the cave but it was not the moonlight that had awakened me. Some of the men were moving about in the cave, quietly, almost stealthily, dressing in warm clothes and moving in ones and twos out of the entrance and into the night. All was quiet except the soft rustling of fur cloaks and woollen surcoats as the men dressed and made their way out into the bright moonlit night. I was curious. Where were they going at this hour? Many outlaws were still curled up and snoring, oblivious, but I decided to follow the men and see what I could see. So I jumped up, pulled on a big hooded cloak with wide sleeves over my shirt and followed them.
There must have been half a hundred men and women walking away from the cave and the crude huts of the visitors and into the wood. It was an eerie sight after that boisterous day, but everyone was silent, almost reverent as they walked away from the hearth fires and into the dark, wild wood. Gripped by a sense of excitement, I pulled the hood of the cloak well forward over my face, and followed the silent crowd. I felt part of some great and solemn secret as I walked along behind two outlaws I knew slightly, through the trees along an old path much overgrown with creepers and brambles, the path indicated by small candles set into the forks of trees at regular intervals. Once we were deep in the wood, I caught up with the two men and they greeted me with nods but no words and somehow I knew instinctively that I should not sully the night with my questions. We walked for the best part of an hour in silence following the path of candlelight ahead and then, all of a sudden, we came out of the woodland to the edge of a piece of wild moorland, and I could not suppress a gasp of surprise. It was the moorland of my feverish nightmare at Brigid’s, with the great grey stone exactly as I had dreamed it, the slanting shape of the ancient rock pointing at the same angle to the sky. But there were the shapes of about fifty dark-robed figures, hooded and solemn, surrounding the ancient stone before which was burning a great fire; and strapped to that great granite rock, naked, gagged, illuminated by the flickering flames and with his eyes huge with terror was the prisoner Piers.
Chapter Twelve
As I stared at Piers, a drum began to beat; a slow heavy regular booming that sounded like the heartbeat of a giant beast. I was glad of my cloak’s deep hood, and I pulled it even further forward, for I did not want to catch the poor wretch’s eye. Or look anyone full in the face. It was shame, I suppose. I knew now why Robin had preserved this enemy soldier, this traitorous former outlaw, and my blood ran cold as I realised the blasphemous cruelty that was to be perpetrated this night. But for some reason I could not move; could not protest. I did nothing but watch with mounting horror as the ungodly ritual unfolded. And when it was over, when I was tormented by the voice of my conscience, I excused myself with the thought that I could have done nothing to save his life in a crowd of fifty blood-lusting pagans; that to try to disrupt that Satanic ceremony could have led to my own death and would have served no purpose. But the truth is darker than that. I did nothing but watch because a part of me, a rotten corrupted corner of my soul, wanted to see the ritual played out. I have told myself that it was witchcraft, that I was rendered immobile by magic that night, but the truth is that, like all the other participants, I was curious and some part of me wanted Piers’s lifeblood to be spilt for the ancient gods.
The big drum’s deep booming was joined by another lighter but still thumping pulse, and then yet another drum, a half beat before the first two. All together, that awful combined rhythm sounded the death of the terrified man tied to that ancient rock:
ba-boom-boom; ba-boom-boom; ba-boom-boom . . .
In spite of myself, I found that I was moving in time to the beat of the drums, swaying from side to side, my conscience dulled, made drunk by the rhythmic pounding. As I looked about me, I saw that all the other men and women there were swaying, too. Then they began to sing: a grave anthem with a haunting melody that I had never heard before. It had a majestic beauty, though, a hymn to the Earth Goddess from whom all life springs, the source of all fertility. I did not know the words but the song was powerful, irresistible, and I too was caught up in the joy of the music and, as the hymn came to an end, with a series of rising notes and a shout, I found myself chanting along with the crowd ‘Hail the Mother . . . Hail the Mother . . . Hail!’
At that last great cry of ‘Hail!’ a figure stepped out of the circle of worshippers into the central space by the fire. It was a woman dressed in a long black woollen robe embroidered with stars and hares and crescent moons. Her face, partially obscured by the hood of her robe, was painted pure white and she carried a small round iron pot in one hand and a bunch of mistletoe in the other. She stepped gracefully over to the fire before the great stone. She raised the pot and the mistletoe and, seemingly looking straight at me, she said in a loud clear voice: ‘Are you ready to come into the presence of the Goddess, the Mother of the World?’ And the crowd answered, shouting with one terrible voice: ‘We are ready, Mother, we are ready!’
The priestess knelt before the fire and, after muttering a prayer, she threw a handful of herbs into the fire, making it flare up with a green-blue light. Then, with her eyes closed, she passed the iron pot slowly three times through the flames. She stood, opened her eyes and, walking slowly round the circle of onlookers, she dipped the mistletoe in the iron pot and flicked a spray of water over the celebrants, crying: ‘By fire and water, thou art cleansed.’ As she moved round the circle dipping and splashing the congregation, I dreaded her coming to me. It was only Brigid, I knew, in that weirdly embroidered robe with her face terrifyingly whitened with chalk. It was only the kindly woman who had healed my arm. But a horror was growing within me; I was sure that a nameless evil was among us and, as she approached with water pot and mistletoe, I kept my face down to the earth and a shudder went through me as I felt the cold water splatter on my cloak.
When the priestess had completed the purification of the congregation, she stepped into the circle of light by the fire and, eyes flashing and with a great cry of: ‘Behold the Mother!’ she stepped out of the robe in one quick movement and stood there, quite naked, her arms outstretched. Her body was painted with a jumble of mad symbols, the images running one into another: on her lower belly were three intersecting crescent moons in a bright white entwined star shape. They could only dimly be made out behind the red and blue and yellow stripes and swirls that seemed to grow up her body to her chest. Her full breasts had been painted red, with black zig-zag lines seeming to shoot from her nipples; her outstretched arms had been painted with green serpents, speckled with bright yellow dots; it looked as if the snakes were coiled around her arms and were squirming towards her heart. Where there was room, the rest of her body was covered with symbols depicting the animals of the hunt: stags and hares, dogs and hawks - a wild boar growled silently from her hips through a great pair of tusks. She stood still, allowing us to admire the designs on her naked body. And in spite of my revulsion at this pagan display, I felt my loins move. She had a beautiful body, in the full flush of womanhood: round perfect breasts, still pert and bountiful, a slim waist, flaring to smooth generous hips, and the dark bush nestling in the crotch of her long slim legs. I could feel my prick stiffening in my drawers.
I tore my gaze away from her nakedness and looked, as if as a punishment for my lust, beyond her to Piers, bound to the rock. He too seemed mesmerised by her nakedness; his eyes were huge and dark and I guessed that he had been drugged. Then I noticed, in the far edge of the firelight, behind the great stone, the form of a wild deer. A great spread of antlers and the muzzle of a noble beast were just visible in the moving shadows. It couldn’t be real; no hart would come this close to such a gathering. There were gasps of wonder from the congregation as they caught sight of the beast and a murmur went up like the whisper of wind through a willow tree: ‘Cernunnos, Cernunnos, Cernunnos . . .’ And out from behind the grey stone stepped a creature, the like of which I had never set eyes on before.
It walked on two legs, like a man, but the body was much smaller, hunched over and covered with tanned brown leather almost to the ground. Huge wide antlers sprouted from its head and over its face it wore a wooden deer mask. But the way it moved was unmistakably like a deer, the nervous movement of the head, the sudden starts and then that incredible stillness that overcomes an animal when it is watching for danger. As it began to make its way around the circle of celebrants, I was struck by how uncannily real it was; something about the delicate steps, the angle of the head. And then I knew what - or rather who - it was. It was Hob o’ the Hill - I had seen him imitate the deer and several other beasts for our amusement the day before. Now he was playing the part of an ancient forest god. When the man-deer had walked the circle, with a leap, the creature disappeared behind the rock exactly as a stag will bound away into the forest when it sees the hunter.
I turned to watch the priestess and saw that now she was armed with a tiny bow and arrow, like a child’s play-thing, and, as I looked, she fired a shaft into the darkness behind the rock. A great wail went up from the congregation, and the cry of ‘Cernunnos, Cernunnos . . .’ began again growing from a whisper into a full-blooded chant. From behind the rock stepped a man, naked but for a deer-skin kilt around his loins. His face was painted brown, the eyes circled in white to make them appear huge, and on his head was mounted the same great spread of antlers that Hob had worn before him. His hand was clutched to his heart, from which an arrow protruded between his fingers, a very thin trickle of blood, as if from a light scratch, running down his naked chest. It was Robin, I realised with a sinking feeling of inevitability. And as the cry of ‘Cernunnos’ reached a peak of frenzy, he collapsed gracefully in front of the stone and lay still, the arrow in his heart pointing to the sky. As I stared down at his body, amid the whirl of conflicting emotions, something struck me as strange about his brown-painted face; it was his mouth. Every now and then it seemed to give a faint twitch. In this solemn moment, at the height of this powerful ritual, which was clearly an offence to all that was Christian and decent, Robin’s corpse looked as if it were trying not to laugh.
The congregation fell silent - nobody but me seemed to have noticed Robin’s facial contortions - and into the quiet, into the firelight in front of Robin’s dead body, stepped Brigid, now robed again, but with the hood thrown back and a fierce, determined expression on her face. She was holding an iron mace in her right hand, and a rope noose, and the iron pot in her left; around her neck, on a thin leather string, was a large black flint knife that glittered in the firelight with ancient malice. She walked to the great stone. Piers, gagged and bound, was staring up at her with pleading eyes. Their eyes met, I’m sure, for an instant but there was no mercy in her and raising the mace she cried: ‘In the name of the Mother . . .’ and smashed the heavy iron ball into the side of that poor wretch’s head.
He slumped immediately, lolling at the neck, and I felt nothing but a sense of great relief. ‘Dead or unconscious,’ I thought, ‘he feels nothing now.’ And then I realised that, in my mind, I had already accepted the inevitability of his death - and my guilt began to flow like the blood that ran down Piers’s cheek.
Brigid looped the noose around his unstrung head and, crying ‘In the name of the Mother’, once again in a shrill voice, she pulled hard on the end of the rope, tightening the hemp until it cut deep into the soft skin of his neck. Piers made no movement except when Brigid tugged a few times on the rope and I thought: ‘Thank God, he is at peace now.’ I was wrong.