The outlaw's tale

Author's Note

About the Author

O hateful harm, condicion of poverte!

With thurst, with coold, with hunger so confoundid!

To asken help thee shameth in thyn herte;

If thou noon aske, with nede artow so woundid

That verray nede unwrappeth al thy wounde hid!

Maugree thyn heed, thou most for indigence or stele,

Or begge, or borwe by despence!

The Man of Law's Prologue – Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer

The green shade of the forest was streaked and flecked with shifting gold sunlight.  In the patterns of shadow and light, the dozen men sat or leaned or lay at ease against the great boles of the trees and their high-humped roots.  Only their leader stood straight, his arms folded across his chest, his weathered, not unhandsome face creased deeply by his smile.  “So," he said, “we're agreed we must not dine this day without an unexpected guest come to our table?"  His men's grins answered his own at the jest.

Their leader eyed them all, considering; then said, “Will Scarlet, Little John and... uh, Hal, Evan, you bring our guest from the greenwood road."

Will stood and swept his filthy red hat off in a bow that was far more elegant than his ragged-hemmed green tunic and patched-out brown hosen.  “My lord Robin, as you say, so shall it be."

But among the other men who had risen two were shoving at each other, trying to shoulder one another out of the way.  “I'm Little John this time," the smaller of them claimed.  “It was me he looked at."

The other, hardly medium-tall, made a rude noise.  “Sit down, lack-inches.  John is the big one.  This is for me."

A third man lounged upright from a tree, broad-shouldered but no taller than either of them.  “Now there you're both wrong.  If anyone's Little John, it's me.  And aside from the fact I can butt both your heads together when I want, I'm the best of us at quarter-staving."

“For which there won't be much use on this ‘adventure’," called one of the men still leaning against another tree.  “Come on, Nicholas.  Before it comes to blows.  Which one is Little John?"

     Their leader pointed at the medium-tall man.  “You."  And added to the broad-shouldered man over the general laughter and comments, “You can go fetch the venison with Tom."

There was a groan from both Tom and the erstwhile Little John at that, and jeers at them from everyone else.

The chosen Little John went to join Will and Hal where they waited at the clearing's edge.

The fourth man, still stretched on his back with a root for a pillow, his eyes closed to the pleasure of a sunbeam on his face, said without moving, “Maybe someone else instead of me.  I might be recognized.  She's not a fool, and neither is the steward."

Nicholas considered that and nodded.  “Right enough.  If this fails us, we'll need you for later.  Cullum, go instead."

With a pleased chuckle, a short, freckled, brawny fellow rose to join Will and John and Hal.  In a falsetto that went but poorly with his wide chest he sang a cheerful parody of a maidservant's holiday song.  “‘I've waited long for today: Spindle, bobbin, and spool away!  In joy and bliss I'm off to play, Upon the King's highway!’"

The four of them disappeared by a faint path into the leaf-shadowed forest, leaving more laughter behind them.  Quietly Evan said, from where he still lay beneath the tree, “You know, Nicholas, you play that jest overmuch sometimes.  I think there are days you really believe you're bold Robin and we're his merry band."

The winter of the year of our Lord's grace 1434 had been cruel with frost and snow, and the spring had been harsh, and cold.  There had been fears of a famine year like the last, but May was come and fair weather with it.  Frevisse still wore the cloak she had put on at dawn when they left the priory, but it was thrown back over her shoulders.  Sister Emma had long since shed hers, with much fussing and bundling and wondering whatever could be down with it, until Master Naylor had taken it and strapped it with his own behind his saddle.

The three of them rode in no great haste, abreast across the crown of the road to avoid each other's dust.  Frevisse had long since relaxed into the pleasure of the journey and the warm day, lulled by her horse's easy rhythm and soothed by the sweet air.  She was even past being bothered by Sister Emma's chatter.  Summer flowers arrayed the wayside grass and hedgerows with their rich yellows, purples, whites, and sometimes reds and sky-caught blues.  Birds sang as if making up for their lost spring.  Everywhere was green – fields and pastures and rough road edges well into their summer growth.  Here along the uplands to where the road had climbed were flocks of sheep and their leggy, bright-faced lambs; the hollow clappering of their wooden bells kept company with the birdsong.  The summer-smelling air was warm on Frevisse's face where it was free of her white wimple and black veil, and she had found that after so long confinement to nunnery walls, she had forgotten how wide the sky could be - deep blue today and adrift with mounded, shining clouds.  And this afternoon they would ride through a forest.  How long had it been since she had ridden through a wood?

They would be five days away from St. Frideswide's, Frevisse thought.  Or more if the weather changed and they were delayed.  She felt a little guilty at the pleasure in that thought, but reminded herself that she was come not because she’d sought to, but as Domina Edith's choice for Sister Emma's companion.

But then, in all honesty, she suspected the prioress had chosen her to accompany Sister Emma to her niece’s christening
because
Frevisse’s winter restlessness had grown past hiding as spring came on.

The journey would have its trials.  Sister Emma was a constant chatterbox whose tongue ran as if on wheels whenever freed from the nunnery’s rule of silence.

But at the prioress’ order to accompany her, Frevisse’s winter longing had risen free in her like a fire blown upon. Sister Emma’s chatter had seemed nothing when set against the chance of riding out from St. Frideswide’s into everything that had been calling to her all this while from beyond the priory walls.

Now, though, she had been in Sister Emma's company five hours and the pleasures of travel were already dimming under the constant flow of her voice and the knowledge that there would be four more days of it.  They would reach Sister Emma's cousin's house before Vespers today, and tomorrow ride on in company with the family to her brother's house in Burford.  The christening would be the day after that, and then two days to return to St. Frideswide's.  She closed her eyes: Five days of Sister Emma's unabated chatter.

“And it's so hot.  I never thought it would be this hot.  And it's only May.  Still, that will help the hay along, I daresay, and that's to the good.  Are the priory's meadows doing as well as they should be, Master Naylor?  We nuns pay more attention to such things than you'd think, you know.  And we notice when things go ill, and there's been enough of that lately, hasn't there?  But it's all to the better now, I trust."

Master Roger Naylor, the priory steward, nodded.  He had come with them as their necessary escort, and would ride on alone from Sister Emma's cousin's to tend to priory business in Oxford and return for them after the christening.  He was not given to talk at the best of times, and his long, lined face rarely showed more than concentration on the task at hand.  Frevisse suspected he had stopped actually heeding anything Sister Emma said miles ago.

“And the dust!  Really, should the roads be this dusty so early in the summer?  Are we short of rain?  Hasn't it rained enough of late?  I should think it had except this road is so dusty.  And such heat.  I could almost wish it were raining.  It would be pleasant to ride in the rain, don't you think?  A cool, gentle rain."  She sighed at the blissful thought.  “And I've read somewhere that rain is good for the complexion.  Or maybe my sister told me that.  Not my sister-in-law, who has the new baby – another girl, but they've had two boys, too, so it isn't so bad – but my sister, Bertille.  Yes, I'm sure she told me a gentle rain is good for the complexion.  She always rinses her hair in rain water and she's always had beautiful hair.  It's a pity her nose is shiny pink.  It's all those colds she has, not that I don't catch colds easily but not so easily as she does.  You remember her, don't you, Dame Frevisse?  She came to visit me Easter before last and brought me new handkerchiefs.  I do go through handkerchiefs like a wastrel through his inheritance and was so grateful for them.  But at least there's no danger of catching cold today, it's so hot!"

“It will be cooler in the woods," Frevisse offered.

“Yes, yes, it will.  I do love the forest.  I always have.  All my family does.  Oh, we did love to go Maying in the woods when I was a girl.  Everything so beautiful ...."

Frevisse did her best to stop listening.

The road dropped from the sheep-grazed uplands in long, easy slopes.  There was a village, and they paused to buy ale and eat some of the food the kitchener had packed for their going.  Familiar, nunnery food of brown, unbuttered bread and some withered apples left from last autumn's harvest, tasting the better for being eaten sitting on an unfamiliar well-curb.  There were few villagers about, everyone too busy in the fields this time of year to have spare interest for casual passers-by.  Only a threesome of small urchins in loose tunics, bare-footed and bare-headed, came to scuffle and stare at them from a safe distance, and skittered off giggling when Frevisse turned to stare back.

When they had finished eating, Frevisse found she could have gone on sitting there a while in the pleasant sunshine.  It had been rather too long since she had been riding, and there were already twinges of the stiffness she would have tomorrow.  Besides, the place was pleasant, the day was hardly half gone, and they were already more than half way to Sister Emma's cousin's.

But Master Naylor rose and said, firm and sensible, “So let's be on then."

“Neither fair weather nor daylight last forever," Sister Emma agreed, “So journey while you may."

Sometime in her girlhood she had read a book of Wise Sayings, and was fond of showing how many she remembered.  Now she bounced to her feet and set about tidying her black habit, brushing away crumbs real and imaginary and straightening her wimple and veil.  More slowly, Frevisse followed suit, knowing what was coming.  They had already been through putting Sister Emma on her horse this morning in the nunnery's stableyard; now the ordeal would have to be gone through again.

At Sister Emma's fussy insistance, Master Naylor first checked all her horse's girths and bridle straps to be sure they were secure, and then that the horse was well tied and could not sidle.  She had chosen to have a box-saddle that let her ride sitting sideways and lady-like; but since she was somewhat short and round she could not mount it by herself without an especially tall mounting block.  St. Frideswide's had had one, the village did not, and so Master Naylor was going to have to take her by the waist and lift her into her saddle.

Frevisse expected Sister Emma would manage a lengthy session of false starts, reprimands, instructions, and fits of giggling at the impropriety of it all before letting Master Naylor accomplish his simple task.  But Master Naylor grasped her firmly between his two hands, lifted her swiftly, and plopped her ungracefully into her seat before she had barely begun to squirm.  Surprised and somewhat jarred, Sister Emma stared at him, words momentarily failing her.

Master Naylor turned away to Frevisse who had been standing beside her own horse, watching with unseemly amusement.  She shook her head.  A stableboy had held her bridle when she mounted this morning, but she was more confident now; old skills had come back to her.  She had asked for an ordinary saddle, one that let her ride astride, the way she had ridden both in her childhoold and after she had come into the care of her uncle Thomas Chaucer who knew more than many about the manners of the best-born of England and agreed that safety and ease of riding were to be preferred over fashion.  Now, with her reins gathered in her hand, she swung herself up into the saddle, ignoring Sister Emma's tut-tutting as completely as she had ignored it this morning.  She smiled down at Master Naylor, and caught the trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth before he nodded to her and went away to his own horse.