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V. The Bridge
Over the Maun



The limewood tree was massive and ancient. Even after many seasons, Thomas recognized it. There were mostly oak here. Limewood abounded elsewhere, south in particular, in Lyndhurst Wood. He could recall Much, who must have been twelve or thirteen at the time, climbing up into it quick as a squirrel, disappearing in among the leaves where he “magically” found a ram’s horn that he blew into, sounding a thin trumpet blast that sent birds leaping from branches all around them.

“Care tha t’go up?” Hodde had invited him. “All manner of surprises in old trees.” He’d declined. Much, clinging casually to a branch, grinned down at him.

Now, standing before the limewood tree once more, he wondered if Hodde had meant to tease him with his treasure way back then.

All signs of that camp were gone now; the forest had reclaimed them. The area around the tree was grassless and flat, not even a hint of a cooking fire. All the same, this was the tree Hodde had meant and no mistaking it.

He scanned the woods once more. Then, satisfied that it lay empty of spies, he leaned his staff and bow against the tree, put down his bag, and started climbing. The diverging boles made it easy to reach the higher branches off the main trunk within the canopy. Like Much that day long past, he disappeared within the leaves, the colors of his cotehardie and leggings blending into them. He reached a point where the bole split into two, which fit with Hodde’s description. Now he was looking for a larger hole—one “as big as his head,” but looking straight up, he didn’t see it. There was a fist-sized knotty hole in front of him. He grabbed onto it and swung himself around the main trunk. There, on the backside of the tree bole, was a hole the size of a hornet’s nest. Gingerly, he reached into it. You never knew what might have taken up residence in such a tree.

His fingers brushed against soft leather. He patted the shape, trying to judge its size. Then he closed his fist around the tied-off neck of the large pouch. It jingled when he lifted it. He swung back against the trunk of the tree, and the heavy pouch chinked against his thigh. He climbed back down, then knelt and untied the thong that secured the neck of the pouch. Inside were all manner of coins, mostly short-cross silver pennies. He quickly tied the neck again and clambered up the tree a second time.

He swung around the trunk once more and reached into the hole. The first thing he touched was the ram’s horn. He drew it out. He was tempted to blow into it as Much had, but overcame the urge to draw that much attention to himself. He set it aside, reached in again. Sure enough, he found a second pouch. He lifted it out, then patted around in the hole. There was nothing else in it. He put the ram’s horn back.

The second pouch proved to be much smaller, a belt pouch with a thick drawstring. Inside it were more coins, a few of gold.

Thomas returned to the larger pouch. He stuffed the maniple, cincture, and gold cross in with the cache of coins, then laced it closed again. He placed it into his empty mason’s bag. The smaller pouch he tied onto his belt ahead of the two Yvag daggers. The prelate’s possessions and the large bag of coins and jewels would provide for Hodde’s family. The small pouch would do for him in Nottingham—a delivery fee. He picked up his bow, thanked the tree for its bounty, and set off on his way.

He must stick to less traveled routes and keep off the King’s Way near where he’d found the bishop’s bones. He’d no desire to meet those two knights. By now, he suspected, they would have slain Little John and be looking instead for Robert Hodde and the ördstone he had inadvertently snatched. They would not be easily satisfied.


Keeping to less-traveled routes meant also that he did not cross the River Maun at the village of Mansfield. Another bridge lay near the so-called King’s Palace, a Romanesque complex in the king’s deer park at Clipstone that he’d heard of but never seen. Thomas feared both of them would be too visible and too busy. If other skinwalkers or glamoured knights were about, they might be watching such crossings—especially for someone dressed like him. He circumvented the deer park, or at least what he remembered of its boundaries from decades ago, and followed the course of the river from there. The first crossing he came upon was a much more restrictive rope bridge. It hung from stakes driven in at each end and had planks tied in place every few feet above the fast-flowing water.

Wearing his bow across his back, he carefully worked his way from one plank to the next. He reached the middle of the bridge when a knight appeared on the far bank.

Thomas stopped. If this was one of the two knights who had attacked Hodde, a strange sword was about to be drawn. But the knight did not draw a sword. Like Thomas he held a quarterstaff.

On a closer look he appeared shabby. His surcoat, blue displaying a white cross, was filthy, as were his hose. His shirt of mail bore signs of rust; in places rings had separated altogether. He wore no helm, and his graying brown hair was long and matted, his short dark beard peppered with white. This was no Yvag. This was someone living in the forest. Not one of the elven then, though possibly a threat all the same.

The knight called out, “There is a fee to cross this bridge.”

Thomas replied, “How so? The bridge at Mansfield requires no fee.”

“Yet, you choose not to cross there.” The knight pointed with the staff. “What is in thy sack?”

Thomas glanced at it as if only just discovering its presence. “Well,” he remarked, “whatever it is, at day’s end you won’t possess it.” As he spoke he let his foot find the previous plank, then took a step back.

“Surely one such as yourself knows the price of travel.” The knight stepped onto the bridge, and took a second step. He wore no sword at all that Thomas could see. No weapon but the staff. That suggested he was persuasive with the staff.

Stepping back off the bridge, Thomas said, “I believe I’ll seek passage elsewhere.”

“Ah, but already you walked onto the bridge. Your fee cannot be waived.”

He nodded, knowing it would go this way. He would not turn and run although he could certainly outrun a man in mail. He shrugged off the shoulder bag. “You really ought to post a sign, you know.”

“Oh, but then nobody would ever cross.”

“I do not see them lining up as it is.” He pulled the bowstring over his head and set the bow down, the arrows from his quiver beside it.

“Well, there’s some truth in that. You could just pay me.” He was in the middle of the bridge now.

“I couldn’t.” He stepped back onto the bridge, then took one, two planks and suddenly jumped to the next; at the same time he swung his staff past his right ankle and straight up hard, but the knight blocked the strike at his genitals, turned the staff aside, continued the movement in an arc, and struck Thomas in the shoulder. He lurched off-balance, turning as he stumbled, his back to the knight, a seemingly helpless target. Guided by instinct then he thrust the staff straight back. The knight had taken the bait and lunged forward, and the staff drove into his belly, doubling him over. One foot slipped between planks, and he desperately grabbed a rope to yank himself upright.

Thomas swept the staff around his own legs as if describing a skirt. The tip caught on one of the ropes or he would have knocked the knight’s feet out from under him and finished it. As it was the staff only nicked one ankle while the knight danced aside and thrust at Thomas, who batted the strike away.

“You’ve had practice,” wheezed the knight. He swung at Thomas’s knee.

“Not for a”ð—he parried the strike, directing the other’s staff to slide harmlessly along his—“very long time.” Quickly, he flicked his staff up into the knight’s chin. Even as it struck home, the knight’s staff rebounded off the plank beside him and caught Thomas’s knee as he stepped forward. He missed his footing and fell, against and over the ropes. He glimpsed the knight tipped backward, feet off the boards, as he toppled into the river.

The current grabbed hold of Thomas. He stabbed his staff hard into the riverbed and let it drag him around it, out of the main current, then swam for a large boulder. Slowly, he hauled himself over it and to the riverbank, where he crawled out, spitting and coughing. He lay there a moment to gather his breath. “Four seasons full, I did not bathe,” he muttered, and, using the staff for leverage, pulled himself into a seated position. “And now twice in one day.”

With a groan, he climbed to his feet.

“I think I do not need another.” Unsteadily he squelched back to his things. Of the knight he saw no sign. The weight of that mail hauberk had probably dragged the fellow to his death in the Maun.

Thomas gathered up his bag, his bow and arrows. He wiped water off his face. He turned to step onto the bridge . . . and there stood the knight on the far side, soaking wet and holding his chin carefully as if ensuring that his jaw still worked. One of his leggings was around his ankle.

Thomas shook his head. “Another round? Or do you waive your fee for the outlaw who bested you?”

“Bested me? You’re soaked to the bone.”

“And you’re much cleaner than when I first set eyes on you, sir knight.”

The knight considered himself. “Very well. A draw, then,” he proposed.

Thomas stepped out onto a plank. The knight didn’t move.

He continued across the bridge and as he neared the opposite side said, “Let us agree to no more man-to-Maun challenges today.”

Laughing, the knight agreed and offered a hand to Thomas, who accepted. The knight pulled him the final step. “Free passage.”

Thomas glanced back. “Do you do much business on this little bridge?”

“None at all, I’m afraid,” replied the knight. “Everyone else has run away at the sight of me.”

To which Thomas laughed. “Two outlaws, then.”

“Well met.” They strode off together. The knight introduced himself as “Sir Richard atte Lee. By preference I’m not an outlaw, you understand, purely by circumstance. I am, ah . . . out of favor, you could say. You fight well with a staff. Who trained you?”

“A man named Alpin Waldroup. He was a mercenary archer.”

“So, dead, I take your meaning. I do not know his name. Was he a Crusader?”

“No. This was . . . some time ago.”

“Not that long surely. You are, what, thirty years of age?”

He made a smile. “A little older.”

“And your name?”

Thomas, out of practice, had no false name at the ready. Besides, by now, he thought, nobody would know his name any longer. “Thomas . . . Thomas Rimor,” he said.

Sir Richard raised an eyebrow. “As in the ballads?” He half sang:


“‘True Thomas the Rhymer did on Huntley Bank sit,

Plucking the strings of his lute, hey ho.

Met he there the Queen of Fair Elfland,

She seeking a worthy tithe to recruit . . .’”


“Ah.” So, the songs lived on. “The names are similar, yes.”

Sir Richard seemed to accept this. “Well, then, Thomas Rimor,” he said, “come to my camp and let us break bread and crack cups of ale. It’s too late in the day to wander deeper into these woods no matter where you’re bound.”

“And my sack?”

“Upon my word, I won’t touch it.”

Thomas walked along awhile before replying, “Some bread would be very nice.”


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