Assassin in the Greenwood

drowned the song as customers sprang to their feet at the alarm: 'Fire! Fire!'
    Corbett joined the rest in the yard. Ostlers were dragging horses from the stables and the air was sharp with the acrid smell of burnt straw. Corbett saw a wisp of flame from the end stable but servants carrying buckets of water soon doused the fire. The atmosphere relaxed, the customers laughed and everyone trooped back into the taproom. Corbett took his seat and grasped his tankard, then stopped. He had to stretch out for it, from right to left, but knew he'd never have left his tankard there. Maeve was always nagging him about resting cups and jugs at the edge of tables.
    'You are lazy,' Hugh, she would berate him. 'You like to pick up your cup with the minimum of effort. Baby Eleanor loves that too.'
    Corbett stared at the tankard. Someone had moved it, but why? A servant rushing by the barrel to get to the door? Or someone with a more sinister intent? He took the tankard and cradled it in his hands. He peered quickly round the tavern. He could recognise no stranger and was sure no one was watching him. He lifted the tankard, sniffed it carefully, and beneath its malty tang caught something more subtle, sharp and acrid. Corbett put the tankard down and breathed deeply, trying to control his panic. Had it been poisoned or was he losing his wits? He remembered the rat-catcher he had seen outside, sprawled on the cobbles, his back to the tavern wall, sunning himself. Corbett went out and stood over him. The seamy yellow-faced man looked up.
    'You have business with me, sir?'
    Corbett produced a coin and gestured at the man's empty rusting cages. 'Could you catch me a rat?'
    The fellow caught the glint of silver and his mouth broke into a toothless smile.
    'Can a bird fly?'
    He picked up one of his small cages and shuffled across to one of the outhouses where hay and grain were stored.
    Corbett sat and waited for a quarter of an hour. At last the fellow returned. Now his cage contained a long-tailed, fat-bellied rat which pushed its snout aggressively against the wire, yellow teeth protruding, blood-red eyes gleaming in fury.
    'A prince among rats,' the fellow declared. 'You wanted it alive?' He held out a dirty claw for the coin. Corbett handed it over.
    'There's another for a piece of cheese and your tongue remaining silent about what you see.'
    The man shrugged, dug into his greasy wallet and handed Corbett a piece ot spongy cheese so putrid it stank. Corbett placed the small cage on the ground, the piece of cheese next to it. The rat pushed its snout against the bars, tantalised by the smell. Corbett then poured the contents of his tankard over the cheese and, using a stick, pushed it into the cage. The rat attacked it voraciously, peeling off strips like a man would an apple. The cheese disappeared, the rat raised its head, sniffing at the air, then suddenly moved sideways. It rolled on its back, dirty underbelly up, clawing the air. A greenish substance trickled between its jaws as it convulsed in its death throes.
    'That's the last time I'm eating that bloody cheese!' The rat-catcher's beady eyes studied Corbett. 'Or better still, Master, perhaps you should be more careful what you drink!'
    Corbett went back into the tavern, shouting for the landlord as he tried to control his own fear at the horrible death he had just escaped. He handed over the tankard as well as another coin.
    'That is the most expensive meal I have ever bought.'
    The taverner looked at him quizzically.
    'I want that tankard destroyed,' Corbett insisted. 'And a cup of your best claret. But I will choose the cup and broach the cask myself.'
    Guy of Gisborne stopped and peered through the trees on either side. His red face glistened with sweat under his heavy iron helm and mailed coif. He smiled in satisfaction as he surveyed his line of foresters and verderers.
    'I'll show the King,' he whispered, 'his sombre clerk and that bastard Branwood how to kill an outlaw!'
    Gisborne's heart skipped a beat in pleasure at what he planned for Robin Hood. Gisborne detested the wolfshead with his much vaunted love for the common man, his consummate skill with a bow, his knowledge of the forest and, above all, the way he had on several occasions tricked and ambushed Gisborne himself only to receive the King's grace and favour.
    Gisborne ground his teeth and winced in pain at an abscess high in his gum. He had been forced to watch Robin Hood become a member of the King's own