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for that old trick? “I say, what’s that behind you?” A ruse that was well into its dotage when Cain killed Abel?’
    Brother Tuck nodded. ‘He swallowed it. But try not to mention it to anyone. The poor boy is still very sensitive about it. He was very young, you must remember, and thoroughly drunk.’
    I controlled my snorts of laughter with a mouthful of cider: ‘What happened next?’
    ‘Well, I fished him out, of course,’ said Tuck. ‘He was quite unconscious, and so I wrapped him up in a blanket and let him sleep in my cell for the rest of that day and the whole night.
    ‘In the morning he was awake, with an aching head and a mouthful of apologies, and I fed him broth and we talked, and made peace between ourselves. We have been friends ever since. And, a few years later, after he was declared outlaw - which is a story for another day - he would visit me quite often, and sometimes leave wounded comrades at the cell for me to tend. Until he found someone who could heal them better than I. But that too is another story. Anyway, I have never seen Robin the worse for drink since that day. And I have never seen him openly display his anger. But he is angry inside - why, I do not know, but inside he is boiling and outside, these days at least, he is ice. He is the quintessential cold-hot man.’
    The noon meal was over. All along the column Robin’s people were packing away food sacks into the carts, sweeping crumbs off clothes, throwing away scraps. I was feeling full and not a little sleepy after such a huge meal. I had not slept the night before, though the hideous scenes with the man whose tongue was carved out seemed like no more than a nightmare in the glorious afternoon sunshine. Tuck noticed my tiredness and suggested I ride in one of the carts for a while. So I made myself a nest among the sacks of grain and bales of hay in the largest cart and lay back as the cavalcade moved off down the road. I thought about Tuck’s story; trying to imagine Robin, the calm, controlled man that I had met last night, as that raging drunken youth, but it seemed incredible, so I dismissed it from my mind and very soon the swaying of the cart and the soft familiar noises of the cavalcade lulled me to sleep.
     
    When I awoke it was dark, a crescent moon was high in the sky and the cart was in the courtyard of what looked like a large farmstead: a long hall with stables and various outbuildings. I must have slept all afternoon and for the early part of the night. There was nobody around, but the horses were housed, next to a dovecote, in an open shed, one of many off to the side of the hall itself. One of the horses was more striking than the others: pure white and more richly caparisoned than any I had seen on our journey here or, in fact, ever: it was the mount of a lady, not some well-to-do farmer’s wife, but a noblewoman. I stared at the horse for a while thinking that the bridle alone would be worth five marks, and, very briefly, I considered lifting it. I was hungry again and there were sounds of revelry - great gusts of raucous laughter and music - and a strong smell of roasting meat and spilled ale coming from a partially open door at the side of the house. I’d never get away with the bridle, I thought. I didn’t even know where I was exactly, and I had nowhere to run to, and nowhere to sell the loot. So, scrambling out of the cart, I brushed the hay and seeds off myself and went to the half-open door in search of food.
    Inside the hall was a scene to make the Devil blush: a big, hot, noisy communal room with a huge fireplace at one end; a haunch of venison on the spit at the fire being turned by a sweaty, grubby, half-naked boy; Robin’s men and women sprawled around the room or slumped drunkenly at a table, which was littered with the remains of their feast - broken bread, a small lake of spilled ale, piled greasy wooden platters, scraps and animal bones. In one corner of the hall a couple were mating like