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  Though I am now at my leisure to proceed tranquilly with my history, stopping to comment upon this and that – or e’en to put my pen down and smooth out the folds of my garments, or walk my old limbs about the cloister in profound thought, or take a bucket to feed our abbey’s pigs with scraps (for pigs swallow aught that be given them), before returning wearily to my writing labours – in truth this is an impudence, as there was scarce the hair’s width of a moment between Henry’s last words above, that uttered the miserable name of the Lord’s betrayer, and my pursuant action.

  Nay, I cannot hold it off any longer!

  Just as I was taught in the wood (and without waiting for any command), I did howl mightily in the manner of a wolf, raising my heavy sword on high; and bending down [from the saddle], swept the two-handed blade low across to smite the screeching boy above the shoulders with no more than a small jolt to my grip, that the nightingale might sing no longer, nor utter words of betrayal, nor insult, nor admonition, nor even kindnesses, nor ever see the Maytime flowers again.

  Sometimes I think I was indeed a real felon: the type of person for whom this action bears the same kind of wrath as is required to break a man’s nose, and who thinks no more of it afterwards. And it was not as in the kind of play loved by lewd folk, where the slain man is resurrected, and dances foolishly, healthy in every part: nay, the boy’s two parts lay divided for ever, his single soul fled – and warm, fresh and pure was the blood that spattered all my face, turning it to crimson, and blinding my eyen with its child’s ferventness.310

  And so the piping voice was stilled, and the soul deprived of its small house that was clove in two, and I know not whether the boy hath joined the numberless sinners in Hell, as an unbaptised infant might, wandering disconsolate on its plump little legs (though ne’er singed in my view) – or mayhap hath received the eternal grace of Our Lord: but nothing will wash his stain from mine own soul, for his blood crept deeper than my flesh, and beyond e’en the grasp of confession and repentance – were I to crawl in stinking rags on ten thousand stony pilgrimages, under hail, storm or burning sun, with a hundred lashes for every mile passed, though the distance be eternal.

  6

  See how the ivy’s shadows fall upon the page, their shapes carven and fretted by the sunlight! Though by God’s bidding I have seen more years than any man I know, yet I do still delight in such simple sights, more precious to me than any number of gawdy palaces. And though my entire body aches as I write, yet but three fingers serve. And though all our books be held in an iron-girded oaken chest, there are but two locks between all their treasures and a thief, and naught between them and fire. And so likewise between this life and the next, there is naught but a breath, that the lungs press out and then cease, which ceasing they have never done once in an entire lifetime.

  And whither the soul is bound, dependeth on the simplest action in a life; for all worthiness may be shredded on an instant by a single fault, as the stealing of a carpet from a hedge might cause a woman to hang, who is otherwise blameless, if the judge be as severe as He is severe in His hatred of sin; just as wicked actions may be pardoned by true regret and heartfelt confession, from the infinite well of His compassion and forgiveness. Yet in that confession, if there be the slightest tread of fraudulence, then the confessor may hope for as much of Heaven as the most haggard and shaggy demon.

  There is no fraudulence in my confession.

  It is not as those false books be, full of images of the Virgin Mary Our Holy Mother, that are yet inspired by a devilish and notorious art, and must be burned as heresies.311 Clear proofs of my fidelity to the truth are manifold, and e’en to be found in the nonsense that is sung of Robert Hodd, now appearing under the false coin of Robyn Hoode, and of his rabble of felons: for in them I hear my very own words as clipped coin312 – yet some remain true, just as some leeches be not false murtherers.

  And if you take these several true words one by one, you might see their actual lineage in all that I have been setting down in plain witness here on these pages, over the last twelvemonth or more, in order to drown these direful ballads and so forth, that have all the merit of the ghastful and rueful noise two cats make when proffering to fight one another.

  Thus if one jingling rhyme says that Muche and Litel John went forth to the king, and another that we hastened straight to No[t]yngham to free our master,313 then neither is true. And that infant scrap that declares Moche did smear himself in henbane to make the grey-eyed damsel called Isabel love him, is of no more verity than the gabble of a hen, or of a rimpled woman, toothless, with frenzy in the head.314 For durst I own that these crippled and disgusting ballads are my distant progeny, against which I pit my bitterest gall [galla].315

  Instead, we buried the four parts of the cloven cadavers in the soft ground of the forest by the false way, far from anyone’s sight save that of a curious ruddock;316 then covering the turned earth with rent moss, that it look not grave-like, I could not help a prayer escape my lips (in a whisper), but Lityl John thought it an oath. We little spoke, for fear we should be heard by human or spirit or owlish ear, for it is well known that owls bear murtherers’ secrets to others, repeating the name of the guilty. And I knew that Litel Johnn had heard my name spoke by my former master, and my face recognised, for he did glance at me in suspicious wise as we toiled, using our swords to make a shallow grave.

  Having seized all the papers that brother Thomas was carrying on his person, including a letter from the clerk of the shyref declaring what had occurred (with the shyreff’s seal upon it), we set out for our camp. I bore Henry’s harp, that was indeed of beautiful workmanship and of the sweetest tone, e’en sweeter than mine own that had been broke to pieces by my present companion, and which I still grieved for secretly.

  Look louringly upon that last inked page, for on it I wrote ‘mine own’ – when that [harp] had in truth been wickedly thieved from the hermit: I rebuke my own temerity, for I must ever strive to be purer in myself, e’en at my great age, as the sea sets itself to smite the sand each moment, ceaselessly, though its waves be more than five thousand years old.

  As we washed ourselves free of blood in a [flooded] marl-pit on the highway, my companion seized my head by the hair and asked me most grimly if I had aught to confess: for now he knew that brother Thomas, the betrayer of our master, who didst boast of his filthy triumph, was that same fat monk they had robbed last year: and whose loyal page was none other than myself.

  I replied, trembling, that brother Thomas was indeed my former master. ‘He being indeed that very same monk you robbed in the rain a year ago,’ I asseverated, ‘when I was with him on the road. Yet I was afraid to say this before the others, and most particularly Flawnes.’ It is nigh eighty long years since this came to pass, but I feel afresh the pricking at my throat of his dagger, and the pain of my gripped hair, for the burly felon believed he now knew who it was had informed the monk, as to the whereabouts of our great master! And for that minstrels and other sly wretches, merry-andrews and buffoons and tumblers, oft pass secrets and inform, under the guise of merriment and solace, he was right to be suspicious.

  I denied this fervently, asking would I have committed murther if this were true? – nay, one does not slay one’s friends. And Litel John laughed, for he cared not a straw for killing, friend or enemy, as he had swallowed entire the foul heresy of Hodde’s: that for a free spirit there was no sinning in the world, only the act that is fully desired and chosen by your self; and that the one sin possible is to be fearful of sinning and of the utter freedom of self-desire, were that desire to bring down all Creation and cover the lands with the seas, as in the Flood.

  Then he released me, or rather threw me to one side, saying he would sunder the bones of my thighs by stamping upon them, if I were lying. For despite his belief in freedom from sin, he did hate any act that was against himself or his master – though oft he took grievously against the latter, as thieves must quarrel between themselves. (And now no doub
t they gore each other with their horns in the burning fiery torment of Hell, in perpetuity.) I do not the good thing that I will, but the very evil thing I hate.317

  And this injury to me I believed he would indeed carry out, for he was built like a bull and of a bull’s sour-tempered visage: and I trembled mightily, saying that if I were lying, may he sunder my arms also, for I would be like a traitor fit only to be broken on the wheel. And I bid him look at the seized papers; and so doing, Litel Johyn found nothing to prove me guilty.

  In truth, I was in a kind of palsy that taketh men after battle or some great shock; for all seemed like in dream, and my limbs grew heavy and then light, and my mind was so full of evil spirits it was as a raised stage of boards, with a hollow treading of boots and a ringing in my ears as of trumpets, horns, tabours and pipes, mixed with coarse shouting and the mocking fooleries of players braying like donkeys, that my brain became as a churchyard full of wrestlings and lewd pastimes.318 Thus, instead of regretting my hideous act of murther, I was lifted [levatus] from it, and delivered entire to Satan like a mouse be to a cat or a weasel, there to be played with for sport.

  Yet God in His mercy is ever on the look-out for repentant sinners, even the worst. After youth, or after virtuous old age,319 the cold earth will have us each one, whate’er we do; and He will pluck us therefrom like turnips.

  We rode back to the outlaw camp, and there Litell John related what had happened, not naming brother Thomas as my former master, and thus keeping me safe from their violence. He told [the felons] that the monk’s head had been cut like a buck’s;320 and his prattling page had fared likewise at the hands of brave Moche, and a great cheer sounded that might have been heard across the moor to the very horizon.

  The ram’s horn was blown with its mournful sound, and a meeting was held under the great oak, to plan the release of our leader from his dungeon. One outlaw there was, named Roger Wylde, who had been kept in the same prison in Notyngham by the baron for unlawful reasons, and whose foot had rotted away there after a month, and so he walked with a crutch. Yet he was fiercer than any, and a fine rider and bowman, despite being crippled. He made a drawing upon the ground, telling us how a way might be made into the prison, from a postern door in the castle. If we persuade the sentry there, by imposture and false papers, we might enter and turn left by the kitchens, then descend by a low and modest door into the dungeons below, and hide in a certain place indicated [upon his drawing], that is a blind recess. The porter passing that spot with his keys, as he does at a certain hour every night, we might overpower him and unlock the dungeon.321

  This same gaoler having two fierce hounds that biteth sore, being closed in a dark place by day and then released by night for the prison watch, we must take marrow-bones in our pockets, for they are illfed and covetous, as all hounds be; and hating the rod their master uses freely upon them, they fear anything that smelleth of him, and so Whyld said that we must wear their master’s cloak or other article.

  Will Scathelocke said we must be numerous enough and well-armed, that we might enter hidden in a cart of rushes, for they have much need thereof; and all present roared their affirmation. But Littel John with great firmness said, ‘Nay, we must be two only, and slip in and out like mice through subterfuge, and not fight a battle we would be sure to lose, trapped in that cursed castle. Again I will take Moche, for he is a mere boy, and no suspicion will fall on us then. And one other only will I take, to guard the horses beyond the walls.’ And he chose a young felon that called himself Merciles Greenleas,322 who had long and lanky hair like a wench’s.

  There was much protest from the outlaws, and I feared I would faint from the clamour, and my heart-grieving, and from the swarm of tiny fiends in my head; yet Litel John so smote the tree with his great fist that its leaves shook, for he was a veritable Herod323 in his wrath. He said, ‘The boy will bring his harp, for while none of you handsome ass-heads will ever be admitted while the scerf324 fears aught, few ever refuse a minstrel; most of all a blind one!’ And by this I knew he meant me to be as a fraudulent beggar or fiddler, that only pretendeth to be sightless – which state is the most wretched of evils.325 And I was afraid that, so numerous are those who pretend to such states for false gain, I might be tested with a flame before my eyes.

  Our forger prised the seal from the monk’s papers and pressed it with great skill onto another paper finely writ by him, to persuade the serjeant that we had the sheryf’s seal, if he were (at the first) to refuse us entry. This being a desperate and bold plan, with little chance of success to my mind, I retired to my hut in great perturbation of thought, while Litl John raided the Nonerye, that held but two women caught on the road – one being a cross-eyed tumbler who stood on her hands for the felons’ merriment, the other a serving-wench with scars of pock upon her face.326

  Having placed Henry’s harp on my lap, it was in vain I tried to make sweet music from it over several hours, for my fingers trembled so, and great was my sorrow and shame. I perceived how the ends of my fingers were blistered, as though the strings of fox-gut were of brimstone. And then I considered how all my body would be so blistered, and continually, by the flames of Hell; and that it was five thousand, one hundred and nine years since Cain first suffered there, for some say he lived seventy years after slaying Abel in the year 3875 [before Christ], yet this is a mere morsel of time to what remains.

  When I slept, the dead boy’s angelic head danced in my dreams like a bitter gall: at first it was covered by all manner of workmanship in gold and silver and precious stones, like the choicest relic, and grinned at me as it dripped blood; the head then shrank and attached itself to that cold worm of slime, the houseless snail,327 to crawl upon my cheek and into my nose that I could not breathe, the obstruction prattling all the while over the cackling of the night-crows [nycticorax],328 and shouting the name ‘Jubal’, son of Adah – Jubal being the father of all those who play the harp, as it says in Genesis [iv, 21]. Such was my terror and shame that I might have died, yet the Lord brought me out of this horrible vision into life, that I might be living proof of His mercy.

  And now I think that the boy’s fate was being certified to me, as being one of purgation or even damnation, either because he was unaneled and unconfessed, or that he had committed sins I knew not of; and was indeed a liar and e’en worse in that holy house of St Edmund’s, that was a soft bed for the catamite [cinaedo].329 Yet e’en out of my dreams I could not wash my hands of his red blood, for I had more blood upon me (to my mind) than a butcher, or a barber, or a soldier, or e’en an executioner.

  And when I rose that morning at dawn, I was as one who has been in the stocks: so benumbed that I could scarce stand, let alone walk.330 Yet once in the saddle, I grew hardier, and many of the felons wishing me courage in the way desperate men do oft show generosity to their kind, I felt an unfeigned and boyish excitement, swelling again with pride as if bound like a knight for the Holy Land. Yet was I as far from that inspired office as any person can truly be: mistily and fresh though the woodland air lay about us in that dawn, bitter as wormwood was the air in my mouth, for my entire body was corrupted. Though a gallon of honey were to have been poured over my head,331 to the intoning of innumerable paternosters, nothing could have sweetened me, save the intervention of the Divine Will.

  The hill-tops were gilded by the early sun, when the three of us rode out side by side to rescue our master from the lightless dungeon. How lovely was that May morning, with white blossoms upon every hand, and the tender leaves of the boughs trembling! Among the countless birds and their melodies, there sang a ruddock on a high branch, which promised fine weather,332 and much solace was there in the wayside blooms as we continued dry-shod on our horses, whistling and disputing when men passed us, as honest minstrels might, and humming like the bees upon the bramble-flower.

  And I thought, being still seethed in heresy and unbelief, that Hodde must yet be living, or the Creation would have dissolved around us into the illimitable sea of e
ssence, in which I would take angelic form with all the elect, and know true bliss. And this foul incredulity – or rather, over-credulous nonsense – had so taken hold of my brain, that I truly believed that all living things and all human souls must depend for their existence upon a single felon, which is worse even than [the beliefs of ] Jews or infidels.

  Litell John was costumed in black, that he might pass the better unperceived in the dungeons, with a false beard of goat’s hair stuck on like a player’s, though with his brute face unswollen by the tincture of berries; while I was nearer my true self, knowing no one in [N]otynggam, with naught but an oil upon my eyelids that made them darken as if bruised, and a black cloak too large for my fourteen or fifteen years. I recall nothing more of our journey but a sudden feverishness that gripped me in Scherwode and made me alight, to spout foul liquids among the trees (to my false father’s great impatience); as a pilgrim recalls nothing of his sea-voyage but sickness and the taunts of sailors – if they do not toss him overboard as some do, with all his companions, after taking their payment.

  Very soon on the following day were the two of us before the postern gate, that lies well within the ditch [and rampart] of Nottyngam – walled meanly in wood in those far-off days, with over-gilt upon the names where … [sentence unfinished]. The city gates not being long unbarred, we had passed through them as smoothly as grease, the whiles a pustulent leper was being driven off with stones, as none would whip him for fear of contagion.

  The postern gate, flanked by two towers with many arrow slits pierced (these even cut in the merlon333 of the battlements above), was set into the south side of the castle, whose stone is very stout. The serjeant on this gate believed us, by our papers and appearance, that we were hired for the [sheriff’s] entertainment over supper,334 yet said we must return in the afternoon, for there were too many idlers within already.