Chapter 2

Robert the former poacher, now Robert the Hunter, arose from his bed early that cold Christmas morning. His small interior room on the second floor of the castle's wing did not enjoy a window, but he could feel the chill radiating through the thick stone walls. Outside it was snowing and quite hard, he was certain of it. Although he had no sun to tell the time, he was also sure that it was just barely dawn. The habits of years spent in the woods could not be broken in a single day, even with a soft bed to lie on!

Dressing in one of his better new outfits quickly, he made his way down the stone hallway and down the flight of spiral steps that led to the ground floor, where the great hall and the kitchens were. He was hungry. He had not eaten well this winter, and the single good meal the night before had not been enough to set his stomach back to right.

Checking the dim growing light of sunrise outside, he dispassionately watched from the frozen courtyard as the earl's former huntsman, Reginald, was led out from the dungeons and his bonds were unfastened. Three armed guards stood at the ready as one of the King's priests then came forward, ready to administer the official oath. Reginald spat upon the frozen ground, nearly upon the feet of the churchman, but in a low muffled voice that barely carried across the courtyard, the disgraced former huntsman took the oath of banishment with no particularly obvious relish or sincerity.

"I swear on the Holy Book that I will leave the realm of England and never return without the express permission of my Lord the King or his heirs. I will hasten by the direct road to the port allotted to me and not leave the King's highway under pain of arrest or execution. I will not stay at one place more than one night and will seek diligently for a passage across the sea as soon as I arrive, delaying only one tide if possible. If I cannot secure such passage, I will walk into the sea up to my knees every day as a token of my desire to cross. And if I fail in all this, then peril shall be my lot".

Given a small loaf of bread and skin of water just stiffened enough with sour wine to keep it from freezing, the banished miscreant with his cross in hand was escorted to the gatehouse, and then down the path so that he could set foot upon the king's road on his road to exile. If he should step but a foot off of the road until he reached Colchester to take ship from England, his life would be declared forfeit.

Still the disgraced woodsman delayed in taking his departure as he paused to take a last look around him. When his eyes met Robert's they froze and glared in barely contained malice. No words were spoken but indeed much was said. His was a look of sheer maliciousness, of implacable animosity and hatred, and Robert was sure that banishment or not that their paths would cross again some day.

With a prodding from the point of a sword, Reginald was marched down the hill from the castle, down the snow covered dirt path that connected to the old stone roadway. One his boots touched that ancient stone, his path was set, and with his cross held before him, the treasonous huntsman would take the road northwest to Colchester, to take ship to the continent. As he watched the disfavored woodsman be marched out of sight from the castle gates, Robert again thanked his stars that this was not to be his own fate, that the wheel of fortune had indeed turned greatly for him!

The king and the earl were much absent with their own private pursuits for most of that Christmas day, so Robert was much at liberty to enjoy the feasting and took the opportunity to explore as much as he could of his new home, under the able direction of Clare. Although he was a bit disappointed that her tour of the castle and its connected outbuildings didn't include the more secretive passages that she had hinted of the evening previously, he still was shown nearly everything else of interest and it made for a very pleasant and informative morning.

Built shortly after the conquest by a companion of the Conqueror, the first Aubrey fitzHenry, the original motte and bailey castle defended both the convergence of the Bran and Blackwater rivers and the vital London to Colchester road. Named Larkford castle, it was as large and secure as any in the land. The walls in most places were said to be sixteen feet thick, proof against any enemy assault or the bitter winds of winter, and also giving plenty of room for small passageways that snaked throughout the entire hillside structures, with plenty of opportunity for furtive travel to assignations, and other secretive deeds. In the hundred years since, the succeeding earls had added new heavy stone additions onto the keep, building secure storerooms and barracks for his soldiers, along with a good stone wall surrounding the entire hill to guard against any attack.

Surrounded by heavy forest on all sides, much of Essex remained tree covered, especially in the central and western parts of the shire. Indeed, with a royal hunting lodge but a mile away, much of these heavy woods were now considered royal forests. Here and there a small village or hamlet, along with a few smallholdings, were slowing wresting away good farmland from the forest, but most of the land west of Colchester remained virgin forest that had rarely ever known the unfriendly cut of an axe. Just across the bridge over the Bran river, the local village of Chipping Hill stood in the shadow of the castle right upon the old Roman road from London to Colchester, now a primary Royal road.

Centrally placed, the earl could send his riders to every hundred, all nineteen of the ancient administrative districts of the shire, in a matter of hours, or at most a day. Sparsely populated, the deep forests attracted lawless men and the wild fenlands near the coastline were ever the homes of smugglers and wreckers, those that sought to incite shipwrecks along the marshy coasts to plunder its cargoes. The old King Henry II had considered those pirates of the shore a particular menace to his rule of order and he had enacted many laws against those crimes and sent regular large patrols of soldiers to deter their deprivations, but under the late King Richard enforcement had been lax and the wreckers had once again become bold.

Other than the old Roman stone road that went from London to Chelmford to Larkford to Rivenhall and then Colchester, the other roads of Essex were bare and primitive, mostly little more than dirt game trails that had sometimes been widened by wagon travel. Although Essex didn't quite get as much rain as some of the other shires of the kingdom, and the forested terrain was largely flat with minor river and stream valleys, any good storm or snowfall could delay and complicate travel. There were a few decent dirt roads through the forest that connected the larger villages and/or led to the only two major towns, Colchester and Maldun. Being nearly the midway point between London and Colchester, the local village of Chipping Hill, just across the Bran River from the castle was reasonably thriving and secure from most misfortune. The earl at his nearby castle had nearly one hundred resident soldiers and had the authority to summon up to an additional four hundred local men and lads during an emergency to help raise an army for the king in a time of need.

The elderly earl had been under much disfavor during the reign of the old great King Henry II, and also during the relatively brief reign of King Richard. It was his ancestor the first Earl of Essex, in 1133, who had served King Henry I as his Great Chamberlain of England, but he was one of the nobles who had declined to serve his daughter, the Empress Matilda and instead swore loyalty to King Stephen during the long civil war, receiving the title of Earl of Essex for his loyalty. His son also fought faithfully for Stephen as well and inherited the lands and titles, only to nearly lose them when King Stephen's own son and heir died, leaving the throne open to Matilda's son, the temperamental Angevin Prince Henry. Also named Aubrey fitzHenry, he was eventually pardoned by King Henry II and the suspicious new Plantagenet king reluctantly upheld his title and lands but never placed him in any position of responsibility. His son, yet another Aubrey, who became the 3^rd and current Earl of Essex, had fought for over twenty years for the three kings, first serving the then Prince John well during the difficulties in Ireland, and then later on crusade with King Richard.

At last once again now under royal favor, the old earl was indeed one of the very few who had the king's ear and the old schemers were said to be as thick as thieves. The new king, like his older brothers and his father, was said to be of mercurial temper, and a man who trusted no one, but as much as he did trust anyone at all, it was the old earl ... always eager and willing to do the king's bidding. Robert was certain that he would be quite at the center of any storm that brewed, as a servant of the earl, or a pawn of the inexperienced king.

Our tour of the castle and the grounds now over, we returned to the keep and its fine grand hall on the third floor, Robert's pretty lady guide took her leave from him and in fact paid him little if any attention for the rest of the afternoon. Plans or ambitions for me or not, she was the acknowledged daughter of an earl, albeit a bastard one, and she had made it quite clear that a common woodsman could never aspire to hope for her hand.

Instead, while enjoying a great many goblets of good Gascony wine, Robert began to more casually meet his co-workers, the other foresters and huntsmen in both the earl's and the king's service. They had all met in the forest the previous night and again later at the feast that evening, but with the earl's wine flowing heavily today and their masters nowhere in sight, most were more inclined to talk and were much more free with their words, but with a few casual hints, they let him know that they wished to have some words in private.

When the castle huntsmen and foresters gathered together into a semi-circle, outside in the snow of the stable yard, the former poacher realized that he had not quite yet gained their trust, or even yet their respect.

Their leader, a tall Welshman by the name of Lefan (or Evan) apGriffyth nodded at one of his troop, a strong Irish lad by the name of Elston, and at once he took off his winter fur wrap and he stepped forward into the center of the ring to join me.

"You're a fair shot with a bow, it is true, and I can'na equal your skill there ... but the lads would like to see how well ye can handle yerself, upclose with na' but yer hands and wits to protect you. Shall we have a tumble or three then? Just friendly like."

It had been years since Robert had engaged in a wrestling match, but having lived with two older brothers, both now dead in the Holy Lands having gone on crusade as armsmen with King Richard and their father, he had learned some fighting skills the hard way, losing far more often than he had ever won. Still, defeat is often a more useful teacher than victory, and slowly as a lad he had learned how to at least hold his own against older and stronger opponents. Still, as the young hunter now discovered, a 'friendly' bout with these lads just meant no eye gouging and no hand weapons, but nearly everything else was permissible.

Caught nearly at once off of guard, Robert just ducked under a bull-rush but not before taking a hard punch off of his right ribs that was powerful enough to have cracked them if the blow had struck solidly. His foe was taller and with longer arms, so a stand-up slugging match would ill-benefit him. Instead, Robert ducked inside the next wild punch, which had been aimed at his head, and moved inside close where his smaller size would now be an asset and not a liability.

With a swift knee in the groin and a hard elbow to the back of the head as the strong Irish lad stooped over in pain, Robert had his foe near helpless face down into the snow and pinned his right arm hard and firmly behind his back until the lad groaned his submission. Releasing his prisoner, Robert was about to arise when he was struck by surprise from behind by Evan, along with his remaining four men.

With the odds now quite against him, at five against one, Robert knew that he stood little if any chance, but he ducked most of the initial blows, tripped up a couple of his attackers, and even got in a few good hard but swift punches that bloodied a pair of noses and split a lip or two, still the outcome was never really in doubt, Once he had been grabbed by each arm and his superior mobility lost, there was little he could do to stop or mitigate the flurry of kicks and punches that ensued.

It was apparent that his attackers were waiting for him to submit and then the blows would cease, but for some perverse reason Robert felt ill-inclined to surrender and he fought as best he could with nail and tooth, scratching for every bit of freedom that he could muster, and much to their surprise he eventually managed to roll away to freedom and groggily made it to his feet, quite in pain and more than a bit punch-drunk, but still he stood and readied himself to fight.

"Now there's as brave of a lad as I've beheld in years!" Evan laughed, and motioned that the fighting was all over. "You've proven yourself and shown that you can more than hold your own, and indeed probably handle any two of us in a fight, fair or unfair. You've given just as good as you took, and made no complaint or submission. I've got the measure of you lad, and you're one to fight to the very bitter end against all odds. I'd figured you to run, as would most men facing five-to-one odds, but you held your ground and showed not the slightest fear and took on us all. For that alone, you more than have my respect."

The two men warily grasped hands in friendship, and the troop of companions washed their faces of blood and soothed their bruises with hands of gathered snow and a great flask of good rich Gascon red wine. Robert had passed their initiation test and now he was truly one of them, a brother-in-arms.

As they began to wander back towards the keep, and the upstairs feasting hall, Evan took Robert aside for just a moment to speak privately.

"Robert, you're more than my master with a longbow, and certainly my better with your fists as well, as Elston is our local champion, but how are your skills with a blade? You were taken in the woods without any sword and likely needed them little while you hunted in the forests."

"I have, or rather had, some very slight training with blades, from the hands of my elder brothers before their bones bleached the infernal sands of the Holy Lands, but undoubtedly my skills are rusty. If you could help better them with practice, I would be most grateful."

"Aye, in blades I do indeed have much skill, and after the feast days have passed I can much oblige you in giving you refresher instruction. I hear whispers that you have an urgent task that will soon take up your time, but when that is complete I will be entirely at your disposal!"

With an oath of friendship exchanged, the two skilled warriors returned to the keep and began their holiday feasting in earnest.

Now that he was now quite accepted as an equal, Robert feasted together with the Earl's and King's huntsmen and foresters and they found themselves becoming a bit more friendly indeed when the word came that the Earl himself would now like a private word with him.

Like his secretive daughter, the nobleman knew well that the walls in this castle could have ears, and after he greeted him he escorted his new hunter up the staircase of the main keep tower until they were standing upon its roof, looking out over the heavy forests of Essex that stretched out in all directions. He bid his three roof guards to go down below, leaving the two of them alone to speak in the later winter afternoon. For now the snow had stopped but the wind was bitingly cold and Robert deferred his sightseeing from the top of the high keep tower so that the elderly Earl could speak his mind and get back below to warmth as quickly as possible. Indeed, the nobleman had a great deal to say and it was important that their words remained private.

"The King has plans for you my young man, great plans. He has spoken of little else since we captured you yesterday. Did you know that yesterday, Christmas Eve was King John's birthday? He considers you a gift, brought down from heaven for his use, to serve his every secret whim. You might go very high in service, earning wealth and lands, with great estates of your very own someday, but first, as but a little test, he has an urgent task for you, and by doing this task you will also be serving me and gaining my favor as well."

"I shall do my best, my lord." He humbly replied. "Tell me your will!"

The problem was both simple and yet rather complex. Along the coastal trail north of the town of Maldun, smugglers and wreckers were now much back in business and they often also preyed upon travelers upon the roads. In the last several weeks, several of the earl's scouts and mounted patrols had been fired upon with crossbows or arrows. Several soldiers had been killed, most recently about a week ago, one of the earl's messengers who had been sent to the nearby manor of Robert D'Arcy and his Knights of St. Michael. His body was found slain on the roadway not a few yards away from that of a freshly slain royal messenger, traveling the other direction down that same coastal road from Colchester, heading towards Maldun and then London.

To compound the mystery, although the two bodies were each found still lying in the roadway where they had fallen, yet a third body of an unknown man, killed about the same time, had been dragged off into the fens and hidden, and had been found only by accident by the scouts that had discovered the murder scene.

Most likely, the two messengers had just been unfortunate to be at the wrong place at near the exact same time, but still no effort could be spared to track down and punish the killers. The slaying of a king's messenger was a treasonous felony and King John would not be satisfied until the murderer had been found and dealt with.

Until this murderer was caught, Robert would remain here, his potential career permanently on hold, even if it took him the rest of his life. Once this task was done, other immediate opportunities awaited. But as of dawn tomorrow morning, finding the killer or killers of these messengers was his primary task.

Robert was given the names of the soldiers in the patrol that had found the bodies later that same day, just as the snow began to fall covering all of the tracks in the area. One of the soldiers was a fairly skilled scout and Robert resolved to question this man first, right before the evening feast, before yet more good red wine muddled the man's memories.

Robert needn't have been at all concerned, the young scout in question, John of Tipcroft, had drunk from his goblet sparingly that afternoon and indeed he had as good of a memory for the details of the murder scene as the Hunter could have hoped.

"Indeed, I remember that day extremely well!" The young soldier insisted. "Leek, or rather Leget, his real name, had been sent off at first light to deliver an important message from the earl to the manor of Sir D'arcy, near the coast north of Maldun. The trip was about fifteen miles, and it had rained hard all night long and we were fairly sure that snow would follow soon, so Leek wouldn't have dawdled or stopped anywhere along the way. We expected him back by mid-day, at the latest, and when he didn't return by mid-afternoon, Barton and I rode to go check on him."

"Why were you so concerned so soon about his delay in returning?" Robert asked.

"With the mud he wouldn't have taken any of the forest trails, and he would have undoubtedly taken the longer but better road south from Cambridge and Dunmow that crosses the old stone road southeast through the villages of Hatfield and then Sangford and then through the hamlet of Keybridge, along the coastal road. We had hoped that he had just lost a shoe on his horse, but we feared that the fen archers had taken him, so we made haste to ride to his aid. Indeed at each village we noted that they had seen him ride through fast, with haste in the early morning, but none had marked his return. It was late in the day when we reached their bodies, Leek and the royal messenger, both had been struck full in the chest by a crossbow bolt and left to die where they had fallen in the road."

"Tell me everything you remember," The Hunter encouraged.

"There were no shadows at all as the heavy snow clouds quite blotted the sky. It was already dark and the trees to the left of the roadway seemed to hide a hundred menacing archers, lurking in wait for us, so Barton stayed on his horse and rode off gather the royal mount, which had gone to graze in a open field on the left, while I tried to collect Leek's mount, which had gotten itself nearly stuck in the coastal fen on the shore side of the road. That was where I had found the third body, which had been dragged off of the road and deliberately put into a marsh pond. If I had not gone there after the horse, it never would have been found!"

"Most fortunate indeed, but how could you tell that this third victim had been dragged from off of the roadway? Wasn't the new snow now covering all of the tracks?"

"Indeed it was!" John agreed. "However this victim had been killed a bit earlier, probably also in the morning when it was still raining hard, before the snow. Once I found the body, I could still see the two drag marks in the soft ground along with some boot prints where the body had been drug from the road and into the marsh. With but an inch of snow still, these traces could still be discerned. Indeed, I quite saw even a pool of blood in the road where his body had lain for a bit, then apparently moved a few feet but left again to rest for a few minutes, as another smaller pool of blood was evident, then finally moved away and secreted."

"That sounds most deliberate. What did that indicate to you?" Robert enquired, although he already quite knew what had occurred.

"First that this third victim, a commoner who was rather poorly dressed, was in fact the original intended victim of our killer. The assassin had waited in lurk for his victim, killing him with a single crossbow bolt, but before he could be moved from the road, the messenger arrived. The royal one, I think first. Then the killer started to move his original victim but was once again distracted by the arrival of yet another traveler, this time Leek, I think. Expertly slain as well with a single crossbow bolt, the murderer now had the time to carefully hide his first body, but he dared not stay long enough to secret away his other two victims."

"A sound assessment." The former poacher agreed. "Could you tell where the assassin waited for his original victim, or had the snow covered those tracks?"

"Once I'd recovered Leek's horse and we'd placed all three bodies onto the two mounts, the snow was then coming down hard and the mud now well covered with snow, but I'd wager that the killer was waiting on the marsh side of the road, in a small copse of trees on a slight rise, right where the road takes a little bend up to the north, less than half a mile before the small trail leading to Sir D'arcy's manor. If I had been waiting to kill someone, that is where I would have been! From there, you can see around both curves in the road for a good ways down the road."

"Are there any other markings along that road to help me find the murder site?"

"Ah ... actually there is one that we left behind us. Barton had taken along with him a small brown unglazed wine jug, and when we stopped to first inspect the bodies his hands were so cold that he dropped the jug and it broke upon the ground. It should still be there in the roadway, but perhaps under some inches of snow now."

Robert agreed that finding the jug ought to be fairly simple, and after a few more casual questions he thought that he could indeed quite easily now find this ambush location. Finding tracks after a week's worth of heavy snow would be challenging, but after several years of living in the forest, he thought he had an idea or two that would make this seemingly impossible task a bit easier.

His royal majesty King John had nothing to say to the former poacher that evening at feast. He was already much in his cups and his eyes saw little other than the lifted bodice and the pale white cleavage of the Earl's wife. Indeed, Robert found that he could make his departure from the festivities early and virtually unnoticed. Most of the diners were already well in their cups even before the meal and by the time he had eaten his fill already a great many heads, noble and base, were resting on the tables with much snoring to be heard.

Gathering provisions for his scouting trip, he found a great amount of left-over food from the feast in the kitchen, and Robert took advantage of this to gather up a good many slices of roast and venison, a half of a chicken, along with two new loaves of bread and he placed them into his old weatherworn but still sturdy traveling sack. At least this next time when he went out into the woods he wouldn't go hungry.

As for traveling in the woods, his new court clothes of course would never do. In fact, his new foresters leathers also seemed much too new for his current purpose, as they appeared to have never in fact been previously worn. For what he needed to do now, these new working clothes just wouldn't do. In fact, he now realized that he needed his old poachers' clothes, no matter how torn, thin and ragged as they might be. It took him several hours to find where his old clothes had been placed in the laundry. Having not yet been washed, due to the holiday, Robert was pleased that they were exactly as he had left them the night before, and fortunately they had not yet been either used for rags or thrown away as uncleanable and unrepairable. He made a note that while this outfit was exactly what he needed for his spying, he did need a slightly better, and less stinky, outfit for this sort of thing in the future.

His supplies gathered, the hunter once again dressed as a miserable hermit of the forests leading a loaned horse from the stables, left the castle through the small night-gate and lost himself in the comforting and familiar surroundings of the Essex forest. The night was dark and cold, with no moon or stars to guide him, but Robert knew the path and could have guided himself to any part of the great forest in the dark or even blind-folded. He knew virtually every tree and his mount, which was at first nervous about riding in the near total pitch black darkness, soon relaxed and quickly bore him to his first destination.

Tonight, for the start of this particular mission, he had decided that a short trip back to his old poaching hut to gather a few items would be the best way to start. This was quickly done, leaving him with enough time to take a short nap before dawn. He'd have a long day ahead of him, but there was always time for another chance for prayer at his wife's grave at sunrise.

The night spent at his old poacher's hut helped to sharpen his nerves and instincts, preparing him for the subtle plan he had devised. Packing a few extra items in his pack, Robert stopped by the forest graves at the first light of dawn to offer a final prayer for their souls, and that they might pray for his safety during these next few very uncertain days. While his plan was good, nothing in world was for certain and the wheel of fate, a notoriously fickle mistress, was ever likely to turn her back on him yet again. Still, the hunter felt no fear, and only a sense of relief as he began his long ride in the snow covered forest.

The hunter was now on the prowl!

With the excellent scouting report from John of Tipcroft, the former poacher decided that since the slain scout Leek had not stopped at any of the towns or villages in-route to his destination, that he could safely bypass them. There were no clues to be found there! On horse, traveling over about a foot or two of young snow, Robert didn't think that following the same better roads would save him much, if any, time. He also wanted to ponder his thoughts in quiet, alone in the forest as long as possible. Accordingly, he decided to follow the left bank of the Bran River to the bridge at the village of Sangford. This was the most direct path to the eastern coastal road, as the birds flew, and even if he was seen his old worn-out outfit would attract little if any attention. His bow was discretely wrapped up inside of his bed blanket along with his quiver, so his weapons would not be immediately at hand in the event of an emergency. Stealth, rather than boldness, was more useful ... at least for the start of this investigation.

There was a slender trail that followed the river southeast to the village of Sangford. It wasn't much wider than a game trail and certainly unsuitable for a wagon, but for a lone man on horseback, the pathway was more than suitable. Besides, he had never taken this path before and now that he was in the Earl's service, this knowledge might be very useful to him later.