Assassin in the Greenwood

had the information but it made no sense.
    'What does it mean?' the King had shouted. 'By God's tooth, what does it mean?'
    Corbett had quietly explained that the cipher was new, concocted by one of Philip's principal clerks. It would be known only to the King, his inner group of counsellors and his generals on the French border.
    'Why can't you break it, Corbett?' the King had begged.
    'Because it's like nothing we have ever seen before.'
    The King had raged and mimicked him.
    'Your Grace,' Corbett quietly insisted, quoting a famous maxim from logic, 'any problem must always contain the seeds of its own solution.'
    'Oh, God be thanked!' Edward had snarled and gone on to stare at Corbett with his half-mad, blood-shot eyes. 'And what happens if you unlock the cipher, Clerk? Philip now knows we have it. The bastard might change it!'
    Corbett disagreed. 'You know Philip cannot do that. The military preparations are made – any change in plan would cause terrible chaos. He has time on his side and could invade any time during July.'
    'In which case,' the King snarled, 'you have only days!'
    Corbett closed his eyes. Just before he'd left Westminster his conclusion about Philip was proved correct: the French had taken other precautions about the cipher with deadly consequences for himself. Corbett sighed, opened his eyes and stared down at the cipher. The briefer such messages were, the more difficult to unravel.
    ' "The three kings go to the tower of the two fools with the two chevaliers." What does it mean, Ranulf?'
    His manservant still gazed gloomily through the window.
    'Do you miss London?' Corbett asked. 'Or are you still smarting over the Lady Mary Neville?'
    Ranulf heard his master but stared bleakly at the sunset, trying to control the rage seething within him. He had loved the Lady Mary Neville with every fibre of his being: her dark, lustrous hair, those lips he had crushed against his own when she had invited him into her bed, wrapping her cool white body round his. Then she had discarded him as she would a piece of needlework. She had fluttered her eyelashes and said she really must return north in the company of Ralph Dacre whom she described as a distant kinsman. Ranulf knew different: Dacre was a court fop with his curled, prinked hair, tight hose, buckled shoes and a blue quilted jerkin which hung just above his elaborate codpiece. So Lady Mary had tripped out of his life, leaving him to seethe with discontent. Ranulf glared over his shoulder at Corbett. Affairs of the heart were his personal business.
    'It's not just the Lady Mary!' he snapped. 'You mean the clerkship?'
    'Yes, Master. Thanks to you, I am skilled in French, Spanish and the use of protocol, but the King still refuses to elevate me to the position of clerk.'
    'He is playing with you,' Corbett replied. 'He wishes to test you.'
    Ranulf sneered. 'Thank you, Master, but I suspect the clerkship will slip as easily through my fingers as the Lady Mary Neville did.'
    Corbett went across, grasped his manservant's shoulders and swung him round.
    'Is this the famous Ranulf-atte-Newgate, the lady's man, the roaring boy! I need you, Ranulf, yet you lean against the wall like some lovelorn maid!'
    Ranulf's green, cat-like eyes blazed with anger.
    'It's true!' Corbett snarled. He went across to the crucifix and put his hand over the figure of Christ whilst lifting the other to take an oath. 'I, Sir Hugh Corbett, Keeper of the King's Seal, do solemnly swear that if you assist me in these matters, if you break this damnable cipher, you, Ranulf-atte-Newgate, will attend the service in St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster where you will be accepted as a clerk and receive your fee and robes.'
    Ranulf knew an opening when he saw one. He grinned.
    'So, Master, why are you wasting time? There was no need for the oath.'
    'Oh, yes there was!' Corbett retorted. He sat down at the table again. 'But let's leave the cipher for the time being and concentrate on matters in hand.' He picked up a fresh piece of parchment and began writing.
    'Item – Robin of Locksley, Robin Greenwood, Robin Hood was, is, an outlaw. He's a skilled bowman, a good war-leader, he has been pardoned once and has returned to the forest to continue his depredations. According to Willoughby, there was a woman present and a huge giant of a man. So this Lady Mary of Lydsford and his erstwhile companion John Little must have rejoined him.'
    Ranulf sat down opposite him.
    'This Robin,' he interjected,