They never arrived.
From the south, out of a fold in the valley floor, unseen by Hugh’s men, a fresh conroi of cavalry trotted forward. Wearing the same green-and-red surcoats as the Flemish crossbowmen, but mounted on big horses and armed with long spears, half a hundred fresh mercenary horsemen galloped out of their hiding place and smashed straight into Hugh’s exposed flanks and rear. There was chaos; our line of attack completely disrupted, and all but a handful of horsemen at the head of our charge were immediately engaged in a fight for their lives with the Flemish cavalry. Spears were soon abandoned in the close-quarter carnage, and horsemen wheeled and hacked at each other with sword and axe and mace. They were evenly matched, at first. But then the mounted sergeants, the remnants of the first disastrous cavalry charge, who had been roaming the field in ones and twos, flocked to join the cavalry battle and our horsemen began to die. A few, a pitiful few, managed to break through the enemy lines and, forcing their mounts through our weary ranks of spearmen, joined their comrades in the relative safety of the hedgehog. But many men in Lincoln green were cut down in their saddles, surrounded by two or even three black and green-and-red-clad killers on horseback. A few of our men, shamefully, turned their horses north and rode hard for the hills and safety.
I looked away from the battlefield, away from the blood-drenched mayhem of struggling, dying men on horse and on foot. I blocked my ears to the screams of the wounded. I could not bear to watch the final onslaught that would see the dark ranks of my enemies swamping that exhausted ring of my friends. I looked up at the deep blue sky, at the bright sun blazing above the western hills and a flight of swallows arching over that God-forgotten field of blood, high above the pain and gore and the stench of death. I closed my eyes against the bright sunlight, and listened to the wind in the treetops around me. . and I realised that I could hear something else, too. A rustling sound, and a noise that was almost like a murmur. I imagined I could hear voices, I could hear voices, and then the drums began. Ba-boom-boom; ba-boom-boom; ba-boom-boom. . I couldn’t believe my ears. I shook my head but the noise was still there and growing stronger. Ba-boom-boom; ba-boom-boom; ba-boom-boom. . I had heard that pagan sound before, months ago on a blood-soaked night near Robin’s Caves.
I looked down at the ground, twenty yards beneath my feet and through the leaves I could make out the top of a man’s head, shaved into a tonsure, the reddish-brown hair surrounding a sun-browned bald pate. It was a monk, and I saw then that he was carrying a war bow. And beside him sat his two great and terrible beasts: the wolfhounds Gog and Magog. My heart gave a great leap. It was Tuck.
With a shout of joy I shinned down the tree as fast as I could, nearly breaking my neck as I fell the last few yards. It was indeed Tuck, and he was not alone. There were a dozen shadowy figures in the gloom of the forest behind him. I welcomed him with an embrace, crushing his strong squat body to mine and smelling once again the homely earth scents of his brown robe. My mind was bubbling with questions. But before I could get them out, Tuck held up a hand. ‘Answers later, Alan, we have work to do now.’ The drums were still booming, slapping the air with their ancient call to battle, and I saw that the forest was thick with people, scores, hundreds even. A woman approached through the trees; she was clad in a long dark blue robe decorated with stars and crescent moons. Her forehead was painted in what looked like dried blood with the Y symbol. In her hands she held a thick black staff of hawthorn. It was Brigid. In my happiness, I embraced her too. She smiled at me, but a little oddly, blankly, without the comforting brown warmth that she had displayed when healing my bites and burns. She seemed filled with a cold hatred, a black fury, only just contained within her body, and I instinctively recoiled from her as if repelled by an invisible force. Over her shoulder, I saw more comforting figures. Little Ket the Trow, in a leather breastplate, holding an enormous club almost as tall as he was; his brother Hob grinning at me through the leaves of a low-slung branch; and many more: outlaws who were not members of Robin’s band, travelling beggars, Sherwood villagers, wild men from the deep forest. . They had all come to battle. The drums were booming, battering the inside of my head and then Tuck said in a calm, cool voice, ‘Madam, I believe you must attack now, or it will be too late.’ Brigid nodded, she paused, took a deep breath and threw back her head. And, with a wild, ululating scream that set the hairs all over my body standing on end, she hurled herself past me and burst out of the treeline and on to the field of battle. Behind her streamed hundreds of men, and even a few women, screaming just as wildly, many with the pagan Y painted on their foreheads, just as many without, but all armed with whatever they had brought: clubs, rusty swords, axes, mattocks, scythes — I even saw one old man with a grain threshing flail — and all of them crazed with the blood-lust of battle.
It was the home-loving doves, you see. On the afternoon before that secret ride to rescue Marie-Anne, Robin had asked me to release three baskets of doves, each with his thin green ribbon attached. Those birds had flown high in the late afternoon sunshine, while everyone else was in a war meeting with Robin, and then the birds had headed back to their dovecotes, trailing Robin’s message: Arm yourself, all you who would serve me, and come! With those birds, he was summoning all of his woodland power. Every man in the whole of Sherwood who sought his favour, every man with a debt of gratitude he wished to discharge. I found out later that Brigid had also called all the men and women of her ancient religion together, from as far as North Yorkshire and the Welsh marches, luring them with the promise of the rich spoils of battle and the chance to strike a blow for the Mother Goddess. Tuck had seen the doves and had come, joining up with Brigid’s cohorts: a Christian monk and a pagan priestess marching together. All for love of Robin. When I told the story to friends, years later, few believed me, but I swear it is true.
This rag-tag horde of outcasts, madmen and religious fools charged out of the treeline like a host of avenging ghouls, screaming their war cries. And Brigid raced ahead of them battering Murdac’s men out of her path with the blackthorn staff that she wielded in both hands with savage, manic energy. Like twigs before a great river of humanity, all the black-clad troops before the charging horde were either swamped or swept away. In the forefront of that yelling, charging mass bounded Gog and Magog, silent and slavering. One of the great dogs leapt at an unfortunate man-at-arms in the rear ranks of the force surrounding the remains of the hedgehog, and with a snarl and a crunch had ripped off the lower part of his face. The man dropped his weapon and staggered back, hands groping at the bloody mash where his jaw had been. Then I saw a howling raggedy figure, stick thin, cut through both the man’s legs with a single blow of a scythe. The other huge dog, no less savage, was biting through padded aketon sleeves, crunching through the arm bones of Murdac’s men, crippling dozens in the course of that terrible onslaught. Brigid’s men and women attacked with an almost inhuman frenzy, striking down soldier after soldier with mattock or club, finishing them on the ground with knives, and then tearing at their clothes, almost before they were dead, seeking out coins and other valuables hidden about their persons. Brigid herself seemed to have the strength of ten men, felling armoured foes with mighty blows of her thick staff and screaming paeans to the forest gods and encouragement to her followers. The scrum of enemies around the hedgehog dissolved, Murdac’s troops, both horse and foot, wiped away by the ravaging army of raggedy pagans. Those who did not run immediately for their lives, were dragged down and slaughtered.