The Gallows Murders

then wolfed down the biscuits, emptied the wine flask and wondered what I should do. Help had arrived, but why like this? Why Herne the Hunter? I recalled the legends about this mythical figure, supposedly the ghost of a huntsman unjustly hanged from a great oak in Windsor Forest hundreds of years before. He was supposed to still haunt there, with demon hounds and devil riders.
    I drew in my breath, great sucking gasps, calming my heart, clearing my mind. Of course, the Great Beast was as superstitious as any old gypsy woman, and I knew what my anonymous benefactor intended. I had been given wine and food to build my strength, a mask bearing antler horns, a long bow and a quiver of arrows. I was no longer to be Roger Shallot but Herne the Hunter.
    I made sure there was no wine left in the flask. I pushed that back into the sack, together with the woollen cloth which had contained the biscuits, and hurled the whole lot among the bushes. I heard the long wailing blast of a hunting horn and, on the breeze, the strident, whining howl of the dogs. The hunt was about to begin, but who was to be the hunter?
    I ran on, confident ‘I’d escape. I splashed across a small brook and climbed a bank; my legs and hands were caked with mud. The King had instructed me not to remove the deer-skin, but he had not told me what I could put on it. I jumped back in the stream and, scooping up handfuls of mud, began to coat myself from head to toe. By the time I had finished, I did look like some woodland demon sprinting through the trees. Behind me the deep bellows of the dogs grew nearer. As they did, Shallot the coward was replaced by Shallot the cunning.
    There was a break in the forest. I scampered up a steep hill and squatted in the bushes at the top. At last the two great hell-hounds came like arrows through the trees. They stopped at the foot of the hill, casting around for my scent. I was pleased to see the mud had at least confused them. Now, despite my poor eye, I was a consummate archer. I came to the brow of the hill, notched an arrow, and drew it back. I tested the wind against my cheek. The breeze was light, hardly noticeable. Now I love animals, and dogs and horses are my favourites, but those two great mastiffs Death and Pestilence were set to tear me limb from limb. I drew in a deep breath and let the arrow fly. Down it sped, catching one of the hounds deep in the throat. The dog jumped up and fell on its side. The other gave a howl of rage and charged up towards me. Another arrow was notched. I no longer felt afraid. My only regret was that it wasn't Henry but some poor dog coining towards me. Again I loosed, but the dog was moving too fast and the arrow skimmed above his head. Other members of the pack were now breaking through the trees. I seized another arrow, took aim, and hit the animal full in its slavering jaw. It swerved, crashed, the slid back down the hill. The other hounds, sensing that something had gone wrong, milled about at the bottom. Their keeper gazed fearfully up at the apparition at the top of the hill.
    ‘I am Herne the Hunter!' I bellowed, my voice sounding muffled behind the mask.
    The hunter dropped his whip and stared up at me. I notched another arrow to my bow and took the bastard full in the shoulder. After that, I sprang up, did a strange dance, and disappeared behind the bushes. Well, what more could I say? Of course, the hunt was finished. The leading hounds were dead. One huntsman was wounded. I now began to double back, thoroughly enjoying myself. Near the forest edge I glimpsed the soaring battlements of Windsor Castle.
    I doffed the mask, hid the bow and quiver-arrows in the undergrowth, washed off the mud in a nearby stream and walked, cool as any courtier, back through the village. I ignored the astonished looks of traders and hawkers as I strolled back to the castle. Oh, how my blood sang and the fire burned in my belly! Chamberlains and servitors looked at me as if they had seen a ghost. I found my way back to the stable-yard and imperiously demanded a cup of sack and a dish of stewed meat. I sat down with my back to an outhouse wall and ate and drank my full in the warm sunlight.
    The hours passed. I grew a little cold. There was no sign of the hunt returning, so I seized a cloak and began to wander the palace. Rumours of my escape had already swept the royal household and, although the day before, people would have seized me and escorted me to the nearest horse-trough, now they