Assassin in the Greenwood

vicinity.
    Ranulf looked up as the crowd suddenly roared. A black-garbed, macabre procession preceded by a blast of trumpets entered the market place. Ranulf glimpsed the nodding black plumes fixed between the horses' ears. Two dark-garbed executioners, a host of city officials following, clustered round the ox-hide hurdle on which Branwood had been fastened. Royal archers went before, beating a way through. The procession stopped at the foot of the scaffold. Branwood was untied and, preceded by six tormentors dressed like devils, hustled up the steps.
    Corbett took one brief look but Branwood was unrecognisable, hair and beard now straggly, his body one open wound from neck to crotch. Two of the tormentors pushed him to the railing of the scaffold for the crowd to glimpse, then back towards the ladder and the waiting noose.
    'I have seen enough,' Corbett whispered.
    Followed by Ranulf, he fought his way back through the crowd, into the cool darkness of the archway of St Bartholomew's Priory where a white-faced Maltote stood holding their horses' reins.
    'Come on!' Corbett urged.
    They mounted and made their way out. Corbett shielded his eyes from the sight of a figure jerking on the end of a rope as the drums began to rattle out their death beat. In a few minutes they were clear of the market place, pushing their way through the narrow alleyways into Aldersgate. At last Corbett reined in.
    'It's all over, Ranulf,' he whispered, leaning over to pat his horse's neck. 'We will ride to Leighton. The Lady Maeve is waiting for us.'
    'And Uncle Morgan?' Ranulf interrupted. Corbett rubbed the side of his face. 'Oh, yes, we must not forget dear Uncle Morgan!' 'And after that, Master?'
    Corbett half-smiled. 'You are free to go back to London. I think I'll stay at Leighton to see what news arrives from across the channel.' He grasped Ranulf's wrist. 'But whatever happens, by Yuletide, Ranulf, you will be a man of substance, a royal clerk, ready to climb the greasy steps of royal preferment.'
    On the same day Corbett rode to Leighton the French army marched on the city of Courtrai. Philip believed no force could withstand the cream of French chivalry: phalanx after phalanx of heavily armoured knights, columns of men-at-arms and serried ranks of Genoese bowmen. The French were confident of success. They, the chivalry of Europe, the finest army in Western Christendom, would ride down the simple artisans, weavers and burgesses of Flanders.
    By nightfall of that same day, Philip and all the great lords of Europe were shocked to hear that this army was no more. The French had attacked but the Flemings were waiting: Philip's knights charged courageously, time and again, only to break against the massed cohorts of Fleming foot soldiers with their long pikes and short stabbing swords. Courtrai was a disaster for Philip and what was left of his army fled in haste back across the border. All the French King could do was kneel before the statue of his sainted ancestor and bitterly wonder what had gone wrong.
    Around Nottingham the forest stood silent, a sea of green under the darkening sky. Hoblyn the outlaw crouched beneath the spreading branches of a great oak tree, his eyes never leaving the trackway.
    Times had changed but Hoblyn, now past his fifty-sixth summer, was philosophical. As a youth he'd run wild with Robin Hood. When the great outlaw leader had accepted the King's pardon, Hoblyn had tried the path of righteousness but found it difficult to follow. He had returned to the forest, killing the King's deer, keeping a wary eye out for royal verderers and looking for the occasional unprotected traveller.
    Then Robin had come back and Hoblyn had rejoined the band. Like the rest, he wondered the reason for some of Robin's actions but saw no need to question him. Robin was always a will-o'-the-wisp. He was the son of Herne the Huntsman and wove magic to blend with the trees and talk to the birds and animals as well as the goblins and elves who lurked in the forest. Now Robin had gone again. Something terrible had happened in Nottingham. The taprooms of different taverns were full of tittle-tattle: how Robin had killed the sheriff; how he had wrought vengeance on the sheriff's evil serjeant-at-arms, John Naylor; how Robin had gone away but one day would return. Hoblyn could not make sense of it. All he knew was that the outlaw and his chieftains had gone. No more would the horn sound, summoning him to a meeting or to receive whispered