40
Ralph and Alan were miserable. They were living on venison and cold water, and Ralph found himself dreaming about food he would normally scorn: onions, apples, eggs, milk. They slept in a different place every night, always lighting a fire. They each had a good cloak, but it was not enough out in the open, and they woke shivering every dawn. They robbed any vulnerable people they met on the road, but most of the loot was either paltry or useless: ragged clothes, animal fodder, and money, which would buy nothing in the forest.
Once they stole a big barrel of wine. They rolled it a hundred yards into the woods, drank as much as they could, and fell asleep. When they woke up, hungover and ill-tempered, they realized they could not take the three-quarters-full barrel with them, so they just left it there.
Ralph thought nostalgically of his former life: the manor house, the roaring fires, the servants, the dinners. But, in his realistic moments, he knew he did not want that life either. It was too dull. That was probably why he had raped the girl. He needed excitement.
After a month in the forest, Ralph decided they had to get organized. They needed a base where they could build some kind of shelter and store food. And they had to plan their robberies so that they stole items that would be really valuable to them, such as warm clothing and fresh food.
Around the time he was coming to this realization, their wanderings brought them to a range of hills a few miles from Kingsbridge. Ralph recalled that the hillsides, bleak and bare in winter, were used for summer grazing by shepherds, who had built rough stone shelters in the folds of the landscape. As adolescents he and Merthin had discovered these crude buildings while out hunting, and had lit fires and cooked the rabbits and partridges they shot with their bows. Even in those days, he recalled, he had craved the thrill of the hunt: chasing and shooting a terrified creature, finishing it off with a knife or club - the ecstatic sense of power that came from taking a life.
No one would come here until the new season's grass was thick. The traditional day was Whitsunday, also the opening day of the Fleece Fair, still two months away. Ralph selected a hut that looked sturdy, and they made it their home. There were no doors or windows, just a low entrance, but there was a hole in the roof to let smoke out, and they lit a fire and slept warm for the first time in a month.
Proximity to Kingsbridge gave Ralph another bright idea. The time to rob people, he realized, was when they were on their way to market. They were carrying cheeses, flagons of cider, honey, oatcakes: all the things that were produced by villagers and needed by townspeople - and by outlaws.
Kingsbridge market was on a Sunday. Ralph had lost track of the days of the week, but he found out by asking a traveling friar, before robbing him of three shillings and a goose. On the following Saturday, he and Alan made camp not far from the road to Kingsbridge, and stayed awake all night by their fire. At dawn they made their way to the road and lay in wait.
The first group to come along were carting fodder. Kingsbridge had hundreds of horses and very little grass, so the town constantly needed supplies of hay. However, it was no use to Ralph: Griff and Fletch had no end of grazing in the forest.
Ralph was not bored waiting. Preparing an ambush was like watching a woman get undressed. The longer the anticipation, the more intense the thrill.
Soon afterward they heard singing. The hairs on the back of Ralph's neck stood up: it sounded like angels. The morning was hazy, and when he first saw the singers, they seemed to have halos. Alan, obviously thinking the same as Ralph, even gave a sob of fear. But it was only the weak winter sun lighting the mist behind the travelers. They were peasant women, each carrying a basket of eggs - hardly worth robbing. Ralph let them go by without revealing himself.
The sun rose a little higher. Ralph began to worry that soon the road would become sufficiently crowded with marketgoers to make robbery difficult. Then along came a family: a man and woman in their thirties with two adolescent children, a boy and a girl. They were vaguely familiar: no doubt he had seen them at Kingsbridge market during the years he lived there. They carried an assortment of goods. The husband had a heavy basket of vegetables on his back; the wife balanced on her shoulder a long pole bearing several live chickens, trussed; the boy had a heavy ham on his shoulder and the girl a crock that probably contained salted butter. Ralph's mouth watered at the thought of ham.
The excitement rose in his guts, and he gave Alan a nod.
As the family drew level, Ralph and Alan came out of the bushes at a run.
The woman screamed and the boy gave a shout of fear.
The man tried to shrug off his basket but, before it fell from his shoulders, Ralph ran him through, his sword piercing the man's abdomen under the ribs and then rising up. The man's scream of agony was cut off abruptly as the point of the sword penetrated his heart.
Alan swung at the woman and cut through most of her neck, so that blood spurted from her severed throat in a sudden red jet.
Exhilarated, Ralph turned to the son. The lad was quick to react: he had already dropped his ham and drawn a knife. While Ralph's weapon was still on the upswing, the boy darted close and stabbed him. It was an unprofessional blow, too wild to do much damage. The knife completely missed Ralph's chest, but the point caught in the flesh of his upper right arm, and the sudden agonizing pain made him drop his sword. The boy turned and ran away, going in the direction of Kingsbridge.
Ralph looked at Alan. Before turning to the girl, Alan finished off the mother, and the delay almost cost him his life. Ralph saw the girl throw her crock of butter at Alan. Either accurate or lucky, she hit him square on the back of the head, and Alan fell to the ground as if poleaxed.
Then she ran after her brother.
Ralph stooped, picked up his sword in his left hand, and gave chase.
They were young and fleet, but he had long legs, and he soon gained on them. The boy looked over his shoulder and saw Ralph coming close. To Ralph's astonishment the lad stopped, turned, and came running back at him, screaming, knife raised in his fist.
Ralph stopped running and lifted his sword. The boy ran at him - then stopped outside his reach. Ralph stepped forward and lunged, but it was a feint. The boy dodged the blow; then, thinking to catch Ralph off balance, tried to step inside his guard and stab him at close quarters. But that was exactly what Ralph was expecting. He stepped nimbly back, stood on the balls of his feet, and thrust his sword precisely into the boy's throat, pushing it through until the point came out of the back of his neck.
The boy fell dead, and Ralph withdrew his sword, pleased with the accuracy and efficiency of the death blow.
He looked up to see the girl disappearing into the distance. He saw immediately that he could not catch her on foot; and by the time he fetched his horse, she would be in Kingsbridge.
He turned and looked back. To his surprise, Alan was struggling to his feet. 'I thought she'd killed you,' Ralph said. He wiped his sword on the dead boy's tunic, sheathed his blade, and clamped his left hand over the wound in his right arm, trying to stop the bleeding.
'My head hurts like Satan,' Alan replied. 'Did you kill them all?'
'The girl got away.'
'Do you think she knew us?'
'She might know me. I've seen this family before.'
'In that case, we're now branded as murderers.'
Ralph shrugged. 'Better to hang than starve.' He looked at the three bodies. 'All the same, let's get these peasants off the road before someone comes along.'
With his left hand he dragged the man to the edge of the road. Alan picked up the body and threw it into the bushes. They did the same with the woman and the boy. Ralph made sure the corpses were not visible to passersby. The blood on the road was already darkening to the color of the mud into which it was soaking.
Ralph cut a strip off the woman's dress and tied it around the cut in his arm. It still hurt, but the flow of blood was less. He felt the slight depression that always followed a fight, like the sadness after sex.
Alan began to collect up the loot. 'A nice haul,' he said. 'Ham, chickens, butter...,' he looked into the basket the man had been carrying, '...and onions! Last year's, of course, but still good.'
'Old onions taste better than no onions. My mother says that.'
As Ralph bent to pick up the butter crock that had felled Alan, he felt a sharp iron point stick into his ass. Alan was in front of him, dealing with the trussed chickens. Ralph said: 'Who...?'
A harsh voice said: 'Don't move.'
Ralph never obeyed such instructions. He sprang forward, away from the voice, and spun around. Six or seven men had materialized from nowhere. He was bewildered, but he managed, left-handed, to draw his sword. The man nearest him - who presumably had prodded him - raised his sword to fight, but the others were grabbing the loot, snatching chickens and fighting over the ham. Alan's sword flashed in defense of his chickens as Ralph engaged with his antagonist. He realized that another group of outlaws was trying to rob him. He was filled with indignation: he had killed people for this stuff, and now they wanted to take it from him! He felt no fear, only anger. He attacked his opponent with the energy of outrage, despite being forced to fight left-handed. Then an authoritative voice said loudly: 'Put away your blades, you fools.'
All the newcomers stood still. Ralph held his sword at the ready, suspicious of a trick, and looked toward the voice. He saw a handsome man in his twenties with something of the nobility about him. He wore clothes that looked expensive but were filthy dirty: a cloak of Italian scarlet covered with leaves and twigs, a rich brocade coat marked with what appeared to be food stains, and hose of a rich chestnut leather, scratched and muddy.
'It amuses me to steal from thieves,' the newcomer said. 'It's not a crime, you see.'
Ralph knew he was in a tight spot but, all the same, he was intrigued. 'Are you the one they call Tam Hiding?' he said.
'There were stories of Tam Hiding when I was a child,' the man replied. 'But every now and again someone comes along to act the part, like a monk impersonating Lucifer in a mystery play.'
'You're not a common type of outlaw.'
'Nor are you. I'm guessing that you're Ralph Fitzgerald.'
Ralph nodded.
'I heard about your escape, and I've been wondering when I'd run into you.' Tam looked up and down the road. 'We happened upon you by accident. What made you choose this spot?'
'I picked the day and time, first. It's Sunday, and at this hour the peasants are taking their produce to market in Kingsbridge, which is on this road.'
'Well, well. Ten years I've been living outside the law, and I never thought of doing that. Perhaps we should team up. Are you going to put your weapon away?'
Ralph hesitated, but Tam was unarmed, so he could not see the disadvantage. Anyway, he and Alan were so heavily outnumbered that it would be best to avoid a fight. Slowly, he sheathed his sword.
'That's better.' Tam put an arm around Ralph's shoulders, and Ralph realized they were the same height. Not many people were as tall as Ralph. Tam walked him into the woods, saying: 'The others will bring the loot. Come this way. We've got a lot to talk about, you and I.'