The Rise of Robin Hood Read Online Free PDF Page A

use of the bow
     with huge good humour, had told him that to make a true archer took a dozen years of training. He himself had drawn his first
     light bow as a seven-year-old and the massive development of his chest and arms was proof that he had continued his training
     ever since and that he was able now to wield one of the man-killing war bows of the Welsh mountains.
    The bow that Robin held – only a loan, Owain had firmly reminded him – was a lighter hunting bow with a draw weight of no
     more than fifty pounds. But Robin still found it took all of his strength to haul back the string and loose the shaft.
    And he did so then, sending one of Owain’s yard-long arrows with a triangular barbed hunting point across fifty yards of woodland
     to bury itself deep into a spot just behind the pricket’s shoulder. The animal staggered under the punch of the shaft, then
     leapt in the air, its instinct to run unquenchable. But it was mortally wounded, the arrow point had sliced through
     skin and muscle and lung and lodged deep in its beating heart. The pricket’s two elastic bounds after the strike caused the
     wildly thumping heart to lacerate itself against the razor-like edge of the arrow head. Within twenty yards the deer had foundered
     and collapsed, folding its body almost gracefully on the green grass and, just as Robin and John sprinted up to the still
     animal, the last spark of life went out of its eyes.
    ‘A fine kill,’ John said approvingly. ‘It would make very fine eating, I have no doubt, after it has hung for a week or so.’
    ‘You know as well as I do, John, that this venison is not for our pot,’ said Robin, frowning at his friend. ‘This animal is
     to be given in tribute to that Hussa person, as we both agreed. We have an urgent debt of honour to settle with him.’
    John grunted. ‘Yes, there is an unpaid debt between us, that’s for sure.’
    ***
    The next morning, a little before noon, Robin and John walked into the encampment of the Lord of Sherwood. It was a strange
     settlement based around a number of caves of varying sizes set in a limestone cliff and with the addition of a scatter of
     crude huts fashioned from tree limbs and turfs, some thatched with coppery bracken.
    It was a difficult place to find, despite Owain’s detailed instructions, and they had taken several wrong turns before finding
     themselves standing at the edge of a wide, empty circular space in front of the dozen or so caves. The area was filthy, and
     littered with refuse: old bones and rags and discarded broken clay ale pots, even little piles of faeces – animal and human
     – in plain sight. The place stank. It seemed Hussa had not bothered to mark out any area as the camp midden.
    The incoming pair were unarmed, as Hussa had decreed, and the gralloched pricket was laid across John’s broad shoulders, while
     Robin carried nothing more than a long, thin bundle wrapped in an old piece of cloth. Nevertheless, their advance was halted
     by one of the tall, bodyguarding men-at-arms, who held up a flat palm and then insisted on checking that they carried no weapons.
     Robin called out cheerfully to Owain, who was standing a dozen yards away, but when the Welshman approached to
     take the cloth bundle, and receive a few profuse words of thanks from Robin, the young outlaw got no more than a restrained
     nod of recognition in return. The man-at-arms ordered Owain away and quite roughly patted both Robin and John all over their
     tunics and hose, looking inside belts, hoods and boot tops, to ensure that neither carried so much as a fruit knife.
    When the man-at-arms had finished his labours, he nodded across the open space at the Lord of Sherwood, who was sat at a throne-like
     chair before a broad table, sipping from a vast drinking horn. In front of Hussa, on the table and only inches from his hand,
     lay the double-headed axe.
    ‘Best look inside the deer, eh?’ came the deep, gruff voice from behind the table.