The Noble Outlaw Read Online Free PDF

had a shock of bright ginger hair poking from under the pointed hood of his leather jerkin.
    'A rabbit and a cock pheasant. And lucky to get those in this weather,' grunted their cook for the day, a gaunt fellow of part-Saxon blood. He stirred the small cauldron with a length of twig pulled from the roof, swilling round the onions and chopped turnips that simmered in the salted water.
    'And bloody awful weather it is, especially for the likes of us,' grumbled a third man, clutching his soiled but expensive worsted cloak more tightly around his shoulders. Philip Girard had taken it last month from a fat monk he had waylaid on the Plymouth road, reckoning that it would be of greater benefit to him on Dartmoor than to the owner sitting in the warming room of Buckfast Abbey.
    'Thank God we've got a better place than this to go home to,' grunted Peter Cuffe, the ginger-haired youth. 'Though some living rough on the moor have not even a burrow as good as this one, poor sods.'
    He looked around their shelter, which was formed by a couple of drystone walls built at right angles to an overhanging rocky bank. The walls narrowed to an opening, outside which was another barrier of moorstones to stop the wind, rain and snow from beating directly into the den. The whole was roofed over with untrimmed branches supporting grassy turfs. From a distance of a few score yards, the whole place was virtually invisible, blending in with the uneven terrain of the moor, especially now that everything was covered with a powdering of snow. Long ago, it had been a shelter for the tinners who used to work a nearby stream, but it had been abandoned as the lode was exhausted. Last year, their gang had repaired the crumbling walls and put a new roof across them, providing another hideout to add to the others they had concealed across the central part of Dartmoor.
    'Isn't that damned broth ready yet?' demanded the fourth member of the group, who had been squatting on a log at the back of the cavelike shelter. He had an air of authority which marked him out as the leader and though his clothing was plain, it was of a better quality than the jumble of garments that the others wore.
    'It'll do, sir. At least it'll be something hot to pour down our gullets,' replied Robert Hereward. There was a general shuffling around as each of them groped in his small pack and drew out a wooden bowl and horn spoon. The cook had a stale loaf which he broke into quarters and handed round; then he dipped the bowls into the pot and speared some meat and bones into each with his knife.
    He passed the first bowl to their leader, then they crouched again around the fire, as the shelter was too low for anyone to stand up.
    'This is all we'll get until we reach Challacombe,' warned Hereward. 'God willing, Gunilda will have something better for us when we get back.'
    There was silence for a time, broken only by the slurping of hot soup and the noise of small bones being spat on the ground. When the last drops had been scraped from the bowls and the crusts finished, Peter Cuffe produced a small wineskin with a silver neck and stopper, another prize obtained by highway robbery. He passed it first to the man on the log, who drank deeply before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and passing the bag on to Philip Girard.
    'That was good stuff, these Exeter merchants do themselves well,' exclaimed Sir Nicholas de Arundell. The dispossessed lord of Hempston Arundell was a powerfully built man of average height, with a strong, handsome face. His close-cropped fair hair was a legacy from his Saxon mother Henneburga, but the rest of him was pure Norman, the first Arundell having arrived with William the Bastard. He was thirty-three, but the hardships of the last decade showed in his face, making him look older than his years.
    As the men stuffed the bowls back into their shoulder packs, Girard questioned their chief. 'Are we going back in this weather?' he growled. A former huntsman, he