As quickly as he could, Jack rolled, cursing the stab of pain that shot up into his groin as he did so, to see if Warin had recovered. It was with a sigh of relief that Jack realised the older archer had not moved. Already an acrid stink was beginning to fill the air from the scorching of his flesh and clothes. Jack pushed him off the burning embers and turned him over. The dagger had taken him clean in the heart. He was as dead as Geraint.
When Fulcher pulled himself from the riverbank he travelled quickly and quietly back to the place where Green Jack had been making his camp on the day that Fulcher and the others had left the band, praying it had not been moved in the interim. It was full dark now and the wet rags he wore clung to him like freezing fingers of river weed, bringing shivers to his body whenever he paused to catch his breath and bearings. He kept the Templar’s dagger in his hand, wary not only of being discovered by Jack’s men, but of wolves. Once or twice he glimpsed a shadowy shape moving amongst the trees, but they drifted away at his approach, proving to be only small animals as fearful as himself. Above him a nearly full moon shone a silver light through the bare branches of the trees, showing him the path he sought clear like a snail’s track through the forest. The rain had ceased but it had grown colder, and there would be frost before morning. He hoped he was either warm or dead by then. He might be both, perhaps. The teachings of the church warned that the flames of hell were as hot as the heart of the sun.
When he came to the dell where the camp had been situated, he took care not to let his presence be known until, by peering through the surrounding foliage, he could see a few people were still gathered there. Only women and children seemed to be huddled in the small glow of a dying fire, but then he noticed that on the periphery of the dim circle of light were two of the younger men of the band, sitting hunched over on the ground and staring into the dark. All looked forlorn and miserable, and there was no sign of Jack or any of his bowmen.
Fulcher straightened and walked into the enclosure. At the noise of his approach, a few of the women started up in fear, clutching their children to them, while the two men bolted upright, one clutching a stout wooden club in one hand while the other brandished a piece of rusted iron that had once protected the wheel of a cart.
“Peace,” Fulcher said as he went up to them, mindful of their nervous glances at the dagger in his hand and of the fear on the faces of the two boys, as well as the countenances of the women.
“We didn’t know the bowmen were going to shoot at you, Fulcher,” one of the young men blurted out, the one with the old shard of wheel rim clutched in his fist. “Jack only told us we was to lure the Templar to our side of the river and then we’d get to hold him for ransom as well as loose you from Sheriff Camville. ’Twould be a double victory, he said, with plenty of silver paid as ransom for the Templar. I swear, he never said aught of playing you false…”
“He’s telling the truth, Fulcher, ’though I don’t suppose you’ll believe me,” one of the women interjected. She had most likely once been very pretty, but now weeping sores covered her face and neck, and her hair, a matted tangle of grime, hung lank around her shoulders. “Jack told us just what Will said-the women and those of the lads who weren’t one of his trusted bowmen, that is. Said it would be a great victory over the sheriff to get you out of his clutches and hold the Templar for ransom besides. Black-hearted liar that he is, we believed him. Even cheered him for being so bold on behalf of you, an old enemy. Well, do to us what you will, Fulcher. Our men are gone, all except for Will and young Thomas here. There’s no one to hunt, or keep us safe. We’ve naught to face but starvation or being eaten by wolves. If you’ve a mind to kill us, at least it’ll be a quick death.”
Some of the children started crying at her words, burying their faces in their mothers’ bosoms. Fulcher hunkered down by the fire, laying his knife between his feet. “I’ve no mind to hurt any of you,” he said. “Tell me what happened at the riverbank. Were all the men taken by the sheriff? Where is Green Jack?” As he spoke he reached out to the warmth of the fire, holding his hands in plain sight.
Reassured by his manner, a babble of voices broke out as they explained what had happened, how the sheriff and his soldiers had burst from the wood and captured or killed most of the men, and how the Templar had retrieved his servant and got away.
“Me and Thomas only escaped because we were at the back, hidden in the bushes,” Will said. “When the horsemen rode out from the north, on our side of the river, they had swords and maces. Dropped our men like they was a rack of skittles at a village fair.” He looked down, shamefaced. “We ran. I had only this”-he lifted up the club, which he had laid across his knees-“and Thomas’s weapon was not much better. We just ran and kept going until we couldn’t hear the fighting anymore. Then we made our way back here.”
“And Jack? Do you know if he was taken with the others?” Fulcher asked.
Another woman spoke. Heavily pregnant, she was sitting on the ground near the fire, an old rag drawn around her head and shoulders for a shawl. Her eyes were dull, uncaring. Fulcher remembered that she had once been Jack’s doxy. “Not him,” she said. “Not Green Jack. Never even came near the fight, just stayed back and let the others carry out the devil’s plan he had made.”
“How do you know that?” Fulcher asked, nodding with thanks as one of the other women passed him a rough wooden mug filled with watered ale heated over the fire. Talli’s sister, he noted; Talli and Berdo must have been among those taken by the sheriff.
“Followed him, didn’t we?” Now it was the first woman who had spoken that piped up. “Well, I did, anyway. Mary, here, she couldn’t keep up, what with her belly being so big.”
“Followed him to where?”
“When all the men left, with the boy, to where they was to meet the Templar, I saw Jack go off in a different direction, with Warin and Geraint. I heard him tell the others that he would meet them in a little while, that he was going to make sure the sheriff’s men had not got onto our side of the river.”
She stopped and picked at one of the sores on her chin, then continued, “Me and Mary thought it was strange, for he went upstream, not down, and there’s no ford there for the soldiers to cross, not without making a commotion. So we went after them. I saw Jack climb up into a tree, high, the way he does, and thought at first that maybe he was doing what he said and could see better from up there. But he didn’t come down. And Warin and Geraint waited at the bottom. Never stirred towards where the other men were.”
“Then the noise of fighting at the riverbank started.” Mary took up the tale, her voice still listless. “I was scared, but I waited until Leila came back, and then we ran here as fast as we could. Then Will and Thomas turned up.” She nodded in the boys’ direction. “We all just stayed here. We didn’t know what else to do. We couldn’t run, not with the children. Besides, where would we go? We thought that if the soldiers came and found us, it’d be no worse a fate than being a meal for the wolves.”
“So you don’t know where Jack is?” Fulcher asked, his anger at the outlaw leader beginning to burn bright again.
“Only that he probably made his way south,” Leila said. “Wouldn’t go north, would he? Sherwood’s trees peter out a few leagues that way and he’d be in open country. He likes to be deep in the greenwood, does Jack.”