Assassin in the Greenwood

be?' he stuttered.
    'Anyone. A strolling player, some priest, a beggar on a corner. Even worse, Achitophel always remains in the shadows. We know he is responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen of our agents in France and the Low Countries. Sometimes he – though it could as well be a woman – strikes himself; at other times he hires someone else to carry out the task. Achitophel may be in this castle now or he may have spent good silver to buy the services of someone here. They will have one task and one task only: to kill me.'
    Ranulf leaned back on the bed and groaned.
    'Achitophel,' he murmured, 'an assassin in the castle, outlaws in the forest, the King screaming about a cipher no one understands!' Ranulf raised his voice. 'The three kings go to the two fools' tower with the two chevaliers.' He closed his eyes. 'Hell's teeth, Master!'
    'But let's leave that,' Corbett replied briskly, getting to his feet. He took out his writing implements, smoothed out a piece of parchment on the table and pulled the candle closer. 'Improve your reading, Ranulf. Tell me again what the clerk at Westminster wrote about Robin Hood.'
    Ranulf sat up and unrolled the parchment Corbett had given him, studying it carefully with lips silently moving. Ranulf was proud of his ability to read and never lost an opportunity to demonstrate his skill to his master.
    'Sir Peter Branwood has already told us most of it,' Ranulf began. 'The outlaw was born Robin of Locksley. At the age of sixteen or seventeen he fought with Simon de Montfort against the King.'
    'Stop!'
    Corbett raised his face from the parchment and stared at the sliver of night sky through the arrow slit window. He felt uncomfortable. At Westminster the King had glossed over this. Was there something Edward hadn't told him? Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, had forty years ago led a most serious rebellion against the King. De Montfort, who had owned lands around Nottingham, had only been defeated after a bloody battle at Evesham. Was Robin Hood nurturing old grievances?
    'How old does that make Robin now?' Corbett abruptly asked.
    Ranulf screwed up his eyes in concentration. 'Evesham took place in 1265 so the outlaw must be in his mid-fifties, about fifty-five or fifty-six.'
    'Mm!' Corbett mused. 'Old, but there again, the King and his generals are much older and quite capable of leading the most taxing campaigns in the wild glens of Scotland.'
    Ranulf shook his head. 'What I can't understand, Master, is that according to what this clerk has written, Robin Hood was an outlaw who preyed only upon the rich. He was well known for his generosity, especially to the poor who openly supported and protected him. True, he did fight pitched battles in the forest but never once did he engage in wanton killing or secret assassinations such as the murder of the tax-collectors and poor Vechey. So why now?'
    'Perhaps his mind has turned?'
    Ranulf wearily threw the parchment back on the bed.
    'Master, I am tired. This day has been long enough.'
    He began to undress and Corbett, feeling his eyelids grow heavy, did likewise. He blew out the candles and lay for a while staring into the darkness. Images pressed in on him. The cipher, Maeve's face as she said farewell, the old King shouting in his fury, Lecroix swinging by his neck from that beam and Vechey's corpse lying cold and forgotten in the death house. Outside a dog howled at the summer moon and bats flitted against the castle walls. From a nearby stand of trees an owl hooted mournfully. Corbett shivered, rolled over and fell asleep wondering what tomorrow would bring.
    Just outside the castle, Achitophel the assassin sat drinking in The Trip to Jerusalem. The murderer steeped in the blood of Philip's opponents carefully sipped his wine and stared round the crowded tavern full of soldiers and servants from the castle. Achitophel kept in the shadows. He stared through the open window at the dark mass of the castle and carefully plotted Corbett's death.

Chapter 4
    The next morning Corbett and Ranulf breakfasted on ale and a loaf of bread fresh from the castle bakery then went down into the courtyard. The sky was overcast with thick black clouds massing, threatening rain. Branwood joined them, dressed in a chain-mail jacket with its coif pulled over his head. He cradled a visored helmet in his arms.
    'I hope it doesn't rain,' he moaned. 'If it does we will have to turn back.'
    'Is this wise?' Corbett asked. 'Again, yes. We have no