The Death of Robin Hood by Angus Donald Read Free Book Online Page B

gates,’ I said. ‘Many of you will have already seen his host from the walls. These are ruthless men. Killers without pity or remorse. The simple truth is that the castle cannot shelter you all
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hold out against the tyrant. It would be starved into submission in days. Only men who will fight shall be admitted. If you will not or cannot fight, the choice before you is stark. Come with me and live. Or stay and allow your wives to be defiled and your children to be slaughtered before your eyes. You must make that choice now.’
    I spokethe truth yet I did not feel entirely comfortable with my words. I knew that it was indeed the duty of the lord of a castle to defend the townspeople – but I have been at sieges where the ‘useless mouths’, the non-combatant weak, old and sick, have been admitted, and it does not end well for anybody. In all, it truly was better to get these people away from the fighting. As fast as possible.
    In the end it was easier than I had feared and less than an hour later, with Cass mounted at my side, I was leading a mob of about two hundred frightened men, women and children down St Margaret’s Street, roughly south, along the riverbank. As we passed out of the town gate, I saw Mastin and a pair of his archers on the walls above, outlined against the pale grey sky.
    ‘Bastards are not more than three or four miles away, Sir Alan, best hurry your fucking flock along!’ he shouted.
    I waved in reply.
    Mastin’s words were heeded by the folk of Rochester and some began to make more haste. But, as most people had ignored my instruction to bring only what they could carry, we were a snail-paced column with men pushing carts piled with goods, others staggering under huge burdens and some folk even herding pigs, cows and sheep along with them as they walked. One woman was trying to drive a gaggle of geese in front of her, using only a twelve-foot-long ash wand with a rag on the end.
    By noon we had put only two miles or so between us and the town, and the column was strung out over several hundred yards. I looked over my left shoulder, to the north-east, and saw that the enemy host was but half a mile from the town walls, and was already spilling out on either side of the road and beginning to seek out places to pitch their tents. If we could see them, they could surely see us.
    Cass and I rode back along the column, urging the stragglers to greater speed as we went, and keeping one eye on the King’s army. Atthe rear I stopped to berate a very fat, middle-aged woman who was sitting on a great cloth bundle, breathing like a bellows. Her face was the colour of a ripe cherry and covered with pearls of sweat. Her dog, a mangy black-and-white beast with one eye, started barking at me and snapping at my horse’s legs. I was tempted to end the cur and urge the fat besom along with my sword-tip, when Cass called out to me: ‘Sir, over there, sir, we have visitors!’
    I twisted in the saddle and saw to my dismay a knot of horsemen spurring towards us across the open sheep pasture. Six, no, seven men. Not knights – light armour, no pennants on their spears – but mounted men-at-arms anyway, probably scouts. I cursed. I looked beyond the head of the straggling column to a wood of beech and ash not half a mile to the south, a possible refuge of sorts.
    ‘Orders, sir?’ said Cass.
    ‘Christ. Orders, yes.’ I could not think what to do. There could be no disguising what the column truly was and, poor as the Rochester folk were, they still had goods and chattels worth plundering. Even if they had not, the King’s Flemings might slaughter us just for the joy of it. Cass and I were the only fighting men among this multitude. Two against seven. Not good. Worse, we could not allow the scouts to reconnoitre us and report back to their commander. That would bring down half the King’s army on our heads.
    ‘Have to kill them all – every single man,’ I muttered under my breath. I hauled out my sword