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that night?'
    Both men shook their heads.
    'On the same evening,' Corbett continued, 'you, Sir Peter, returned to the hall for a cup of wine you had left. Now, if our good physician is to be believed, that too had been poisoned. A mere sip of it turned your bowels to water.' Corbett looked at the friar who had been sitting on a stool, hands on his knees, half-dozing. 'Father, I beg your pardon, Where were you when Sir Eustace's corpse was discovered?'
    '1 had gone back to the chapel to clear up after saying mass. Sir Peter sent a servant for me. I went up and did the only thing I could. I anointed the body and blessed it.'
    'You have seen many corpses. Father?'
    The friar's merry eyes met Corbett's.
    Aye, Sir Hugh, more than you have. I served as King's chaplain with the armies on the Scottish march.'
    'And when you saw the corpse and anointed it, would you say that Sir Eustace had been dead for hours or had died shortly before Sir Peter knocked on the door?'
    The friar narrowed his eyes.
    'The corpse was growing stiff,' he replied haltingly. 'Still supple though there was a tightness to the limbs. Sir Eustace retired an hour before midnight. I anointed his poor remains somewhere between eight and nine in the morning.' He stared up at Corbett. 'To give you an honest answer, Sir Hugh, I believe Sir Eustace may well have been dead by midnight.' The friar laughed sourly. 'The witching hour when more souls go to God than at any other time.'
    Corbett scratched his brow, genuinely perplexed as well as tired and weary after his journey. He rubbed his eyes. Nothing, he thought to himself, there is nothing here, not even a loose thread.
    'So,' he breathed, 'we do not know how Sir Eustace died or who killed him?'
    'Oh, yes we do,' Sir Peter spoke up. 'The wolfshead Robin Hood!'
    'How could he?' Corbett retorted. 'Enter a castle at the dead of night and administer a deadly potion to a man already on his guard against him? Why do you say that?'
    Sir Peter dug into his wallet and tossed a greasy piece of parchment across.
    'Because that's what Robin Hood claimed he did.'

Chapter 2
    Corbett stared in disbelief at the scrawled writing on the parchment: Sir Eustace Vechey, self-styled Sheriff of Nottingham, executed by order of Robin Hood. Peter Branwood, self-styled Under-Sheriff, executed by order of Robin Hood.
    Corbett mouthed the words slowly and stared at Branwood. 'So you too were supposed to die. But why didn't you show me this immediately?'
    'I told you that Robin Hood was responsible! Vechey is dead and so should I be. There's no doubt this wolfshead has sympathisers in the castle. I thought,' he coughed selfconsciously, 'I thought I should watch you. See what conclusions you drew.' He shrugged. 'Now you have it.'
    Corbett stared at the parchment again. 'By the cross!' he swore. 'This outlaw does take on styles and titles! He finishes his letter: "Given at our castle in the Greenwood".' Corbett tossed the parchment back at Branwood. 'I want to see that bastard hang from the castle walls! Where was this proclamation left?'
    'It wasn't. It was despatched by arrow into the outer bailey.'
    Corbett looked at a huge cobweb in the corner of one of the roof beams.
    'The letter proves one thing,' he declared. 'It says "by order of", so the poisoner must be in the castle. I don't accept that some criminal has the God-given power to go through stone walls.' Corbett paused. 'You did say there are secret passages here?'
    'In the cellars below, yes, a veritable warren. The castle and town are built on a huge crag. The caves and tunnels were used by people long before the Romans came.'
    'But why?' Ranulf stepped forward, ignoring the surprised looks from Sir Peter's household. 'Why should an outlaw murder one of the King's sheriffs and attempt the assassination of another? He must have known it would only bring royal fury down upon his head.'
    Corbett nodded. Ranulf was correct: the outlaw and his band could roam the greenwood, plundering at