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XII. The Pilgrim

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The alehouse The Pilgrim—“established 1132” according to the painted signboard above the entrance—was a cavern. A second, larger noticeboard leaned in the entryway. Thomas caught the word “prize” on one of the parchments. Two windows, carved out of the front wall, contained stained glass panels that spilled light into the main room. He couldn’t help but wonder if the panels had been stolen out of some abbey or cathedral. Thomas ducked his head and stepped over the threshold.

The alehouse was doing decent business—in fact, Geoffrey and Osbert from the Waits were perched on stools around one of the pillars, and raised tankards to him as he came in. “Found your tanners then, Robyn?” Osbert asked.

“I did, thank you. Where are the others of your company?”

“Gone tae work, or else gone home.”

Geoffrey grinned. “But traveling makes the two of us thirsty, as does performing.” He stood and proclaimed: “Morality plays and theater, sleight of hand and all manner of rude gestures! The Waits shall perform again!”

Across the room, someone yelled, “Oh, piss off!”

Thomas took in the space around him. It was in essence one large, long room. It had been dug out around six supporting pillars, each of them broadening near the base to a wider circular shelf or table, like a horizontal skirt around which customers could stand, or sit on one-legged stools, and rest their wooden tankards. Near the back of the cave stood a winch frame over a square hole in the floor. Kegs from a cellar below were hoisted up as needed: a cave beneath a cave. Off the back end of the room were entrances to still more caves. And across the room, on the far side of the serving shelf, one familiar bearlike drinker was sleeping, balanced despite being unconscious on a one-legged stool, arms outstretched across the table as if holding it down. A cluster of four tankards stood beside his head. His costume was of a green identical to Thomas’s. To Robert Hodde’s. Almost certainly the burly, heavy-bearded face must belong to Little John.

He turned back to the two members of the Waits. “I see someone I believe I know,” he said. “Excuse me, good yeomen. I shall buy you drinks anon for your many kindnesses, but first I must pay a debt.” He made a brief bow, then headed to the shelf where the tankards were being filled. He drew the pouch from his belt and immediately sensed its lightness. He held it up higher. Some of the stitching in one corner of it had come apart—probably a result of his dunking in the water by Sir Richard. Most of the contents were gone. He had three gold coins left, likely because they were slightly larger than the silver pennies had been.

Frustrated, he bought two tankards of ale, shoved the change of silver pennies back into the pouch, and stuffed it down into his quiver where he wouldn’t lose all the coins if they fell out. He carried the ale to the table where Little John sprawled and set it down, noting as he flipped another one-legged stool upright that, pressed between his knees and the base of the massive sandstone pillar, John had a worn leather satchel. Thomas laid his staff and bow across the table before leaning in the direction of his acquaintance.

“Little John,” he whispered, and shook him gently by the shoulder.

John sat up all at once. Bleary-eyed, at first he didn’t seem to know where he was, and said, “’Ey up,” as he might have greeted anyone. Then he focused upon Thomas’s cotehardie. He leapt back off the stool, which fell over as he stood. “Ghost!” he cried.

The alehouse went quiet. Across the room, Geoffrey and Osbert stared his way.

Smiling broadly as he glanced around, Thomas replied, “No ghost, Little John. Here, I’ve brought you another ale.”

But John was having none of it. He looked Thomas up and down, then pointed at the tear in the material. “You stole his clothes.”

“Yes, well, he came to my hut to die. What was I to do?”

Little John pondered that, then examined Thomas more closely. “You are Woodwose? I don’ believe it. Why, you’re no more’n thirty year, an’ cut yer ’air.”

“I dressed the part—poured ashes over my head, in my beard.” He’d had little truck with John and the rest of Hodde’s ever-changing band, mostly just with Hodde himself.

John shook his head. “You playin’ old man—Robbie said Woodwose’d been there forever.”

“All right, I’m his nephew. Here, drink your ale.” He pushed the tankard in front of the outlaw.

John laughed. “Ah, tha had me goin’ there, thinkin’ yer nah human.”

Thomas glanced around. Everyone in the alehouse had stopped paying attention. Quietly, he said, “I was there when he reached the hut. Hodde told me of the prelate and Much. I went and saw for myself. How did you elude those knights?”

Little John took a pull on his ale. Then he picked up his overturned stool and perched upon it again, stuffed the satchel between his knees. “I know them woods better’an deer do. Even so, those two stayed with me halfway to moonrise. Ran ’em into Bilhaugh Wood to shake them so’s I could find Robbie, an’ did that. In your hut like you say. Hid through night then, and later I come upon e’en more a their kind, and their queen.”

A chill clenched his back. “You saw Nicnevin?” He wanted to urge John to show him exactly where she’d come through, although he knew she wouldn’t be there now nor would have left a sign of her intrusion.

Little John asked, “That her name? Not Mabily?” The look of suspicion came over him again. “How’s it you know that? Or any of it?”

Thomas contemplated the numerous ways he could explain, but all of them required him to relive all that the elven had done to him, the cruelties inflicted, the deaths he held them accountable for. Finally, he just replied, “I’ve tracked them, a long time. They attacked my family. My brother, I . . .” He shook his head that he didn’t wish to continue. After a moment, he said, “The Yvags can look just like knights.”

Yvags. Demons have a name, then.”

“They do.”

“Well, stirred up all Sherwood now, they have. Tales flying all around taverns and inns about witchcraft in the wood, demons on road, e’en more’n I seen. Some this day are dead, I hear, from meeting them.”

“Including Hodde.”

He looked glum. “Poor Much were first. Stupid boy, showing off for Robbie, who neh wanted him ta step out.”

“I’m sorry he died, too, but I still don’t understand why. What did you three steal from that bishop?”

The outlaw slammed down his tankard and grabbed the satchel. “You tell me, ’cause I can’t e’en explain ’em.” He shook the contents out onto the sandstone table: three palm-sized iridescent pyramids covered in some sort of alien script.

In a panic, Thomas grabbed them up and dropped them into the empty tankards.

“How did you—”

“What the bishop were carryin’, what them knights want back from me, an’ what I wish I’d never clapped eyes on.” He reached out and grabbed Thomas by the wrist in a grip of iron. “But you know, don’t you, Woodwose?”

Their gazes met. John didn’t believe for a moment that he was nephew to the old man of the woods. “I know,” he admitted. “The Yvags use them to hollow someone out. I’ve . . . seen it once.”

“What ya mean, ‘hollow’?”

He gestured at the cavern around them. “Like these Nottingham caves. The Yvags scoop you out so they can live inside you. The way they did with your late bishop.”

Little John shook his head that he didn’t understand.

“He’d been dead a long time before you shot him. He was a lich, and a knight very like the two that chased you inhabited him, rode him.”

“One a those knights . . . ?”

“No, another, somewhere else. A different knight. Hidden. Asleep. Pretending to be the bishop.”

“But why?”

“To control fortunes—in this case of the church—money, property, laws, kingdoms. Always kingdoms,” he said. That came from one of the few rhymes that he’d spouted in the house in Chinon. Janet had written it down somewhere.

Never kings, but always kingdoms.

Never thrones but always ears.

Crucial words, spoke in whispers,

from our hands put power in theirs.


As his rhymes went, its meaning was crystal clear.

John scratched at his beard a moment. “Bishoprics?” he offered.

“Oh, yes. These”—he pointed to the three tankards—“make that all possible. Right now you have kept them from taking over three people of power and influence. They had plans to do so if they had these, and your bishop was delivering them somewhere. Maybe here in Nottingham.” He thought about what Little John had said about witchcraft, and glanced around. Skinwalkers only inhabited people of influence, but glamoured Yvags could be almost anywhere. “They are demons, and if Nicnevin’s about, they want these very badly. Which means, they won’t stop coming after you.”

“Well, then, let’s just smash the damned things.”

“You don’t want to do that, assuming you could. You smash these together, likely there’d be no Nottingham left—everything from the castle to the River Leen would be leveled, smoke and sand.”

Little John gaped at him, continuing to stare as he picked up the tankard Thomas had bought him and drank the rest of his ale before setting it down. He belched appreciatively. “All right, you know so much of it. What do we do, then?” he asked.

“We flee.”

“Listen, Robbie had a hoard of coins, all set aside. We could take it—”

“To his brother. I already gave it.” John glowered at him. “It’s what he asked of me before he died. Why I’m here in Nottingham.”

Little John was crestfallen. “You make a terrible outlaw, Woodwose. You should’a kept it—I mean, were already stolen. I spent my last coin on ale. Thought maybe a buyer I’d find for these things but ne’er got that far. I’m skint.”

“I’m not far behind you.”

“Then what do we do? I think we don’t another night dare stay in Sherwood.”

The knights would be coming, glamoured and watchful. By now they’d be in Doncaster, Worksop, maybe Mansfield; eventually they must arrive if they weren’t here already. He looked around suspiciously while wondering about Sir Richard and the rest of the outlaws in the king’s forest. “We should drop those damned things in the sea where no one can have them.” For all he knew, the Yvags might already have acquired more. The weird pyramids remained beyond his ken. How difficult was it to create a thing that sucked out the soul? Difficult enough if Nicnevin was opening gates across Sherwood to hunt for them.

Thomas saw that the two Waits had gotten up to leave but then stopped in the entryway to stare at the noticeboard. He might not be able to trust many people in Nottingham, but counted the group of players among them. At the very least they might know where he and John could hide for a night or two.

“Come on,” he said to Little John. The two of them headed for the exit.

As they neared, Osbert was saying to Geoffrey, “We should ha stayed away another week, old friend.”

“This is all about Benedict,” Geoffrey said. “You and I are expected another duty to perform.”

“What duty is that?” asked Thomas as he approached.

“See for yourself.” Geoffrey thrust a hand at the large parchment nailed up on a tall slab of wood leaning against the stone wall.

This contained the word PRIZE Thomas had glimpsed on the way in. The sheriffs of Nottingham were heralding that on the morrow in the market square there would be a fair for both Norman and Saxon boroughs that included two contests of martial skill: One would feature the bow. The other would be the quarterstaff. The sheriffs were offering a prize of 240 gold pennies to be divided between the two winners (unless, unlikely as it was, one person should triumph at both). Thomas read it out. Little John chortled. “I ought to enter that. I’m clever wi’ staff.” He shook his own quarterstaff as if to prove it.

“We’ll mark you down on the list. The two of us,” said Osbert gloomily, “are doomed to officiating the rolls.”

Thomas asked, “So then how is this about Benedict?”

“’E were champion with the quarterstaff last year. And year before.”

“Did you enter this last year?” Thomas asked Little John.

“Me? I weren’t e’en hereabouts. Never have entered no contest.”

“Well, you’re entering this one.”

Geoffrey sized him up. “He might actually compete with our Benedict. What’s your name, then?”

Little John tilted his head, locked eyes with Thomas. “Greenleaf,” he said. “Reynold Greenleaf.”

“I feel I’ve met you somewhere. That possible? Have you trod the boards?”

“Trod what? Nah, lots a men built like me. Like yer Benedict.”

Geoffrey nodded.

Thomas asked him, “Tell me, cousin, where might be a good place to spend a night in Nottingham?”

“You’re just leaving it,” Geoffrey replied. “The Pilgrim’s an inn’a sorts as well as alehouse. More carved-out rooms beyond.” He pursed his lips. “But how is it you aren’t staying with your uncle?”

Thomas smiled broadly. “Like Benedict warned me.” He held his nose. “A stink to make you blind.” They all laughed.

“Well, you could take us up on our offer,” Osbert interjected. “Join the Waits an’ sleep below castle wi’ the Normans. Or at Chandler’s Lane gaol, where we’re going now.”

“Be first to sign up for contest in morning,” Geoffrey prompted.

“Of course, as new men, you’d be this night on watch.”

“Which is what?”

“Ah, ye walk the market square, and down here,” said Osbert. “Broad marsh across the London road tae Sneinton hermitage, then across tae Lenton Priory an’ back again.”

Added Geoffrey, “Keep watch for anything coming over Trent River Bridge.” The two traded an arch look. “’Course, until Goose Fair season, nothing ever does.” Then they laughed at whatever private joke this contained.

Thomas cast his eye upon Little John as he replied, “I believe you’ve talked me into it.” At least he knew the Waits weren’t glamoured Yvag and might even stand their ground, and that was one less worry, one less threat to watch. “How about you, friend Reynold? Keeps us out of the woods tonight.”

Little John nodded. “Then I’m for it.”

“Oh, I do hope not,” said a happily well-oiled Geoffrey. “Soldiers, to the gaol, then!” he cried, and led the way as if leading a charge, Osbert laughing after him.


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