Hooded Man (41 page)

“If you’d waited for the rest of us, we’d probably have got them all,” replied the man in the cap.

“This woman was in serious trouble.”

“Yeah, and so were you, Robbie.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Jack?”

“You’ve... Well, you’ve been out of the game for a little while, boss. You’re rusty. That psycho almost had you.”

Robbie grunted, ignoring his friend. Then he turned to her, pulling down his hood as he did so. She saw him for the first time, in the glow of the moon – a glow that gave his features a strange kind of warmth. He was clean-shaven and handsome, just like folk said. Oh, she’d heard the stories all right. Who hadn’t? It was why she figured it might be safe to come into York tonight. The Hooded Man and his forces were cleaning up the area, or so went the rumour.

Finally, she found her voice. “Y-you... You’re him, aren’t you? The Hooded Man?”

“What gave it away?” Jack answered before the man could say a thing.

Though it was hard to tell in this light, she could swear Hood’s cheeks were flushing. He nodded shyly, like he was embarrassed to admit the fact.

“Are you going to help the lady up then, Robbie, or should I offer my services? Which, I might add, I’d be happy to do...”

The Hooded Man held out his hand and she took it, feeling its strength. Her heart was pounding, not because of the skirmish, not because she’d been seconds away from dying, but because she was this close to him. Could he feel it too? Their connection?

As she rose, she stumbled slightly, unsteady on her feet. She fell into him and he held her there for a second... before the embarrassment crept back and he righted her, letting go. She felt somehow bereft, but still managed: “Thank you... Robbie.”

“It’s Robert,” he corrected, stooping to pick up her bag and handing it to her, “or Rob.”

“Or sometimes even Robin,” added Jack, grinning.

Robert sighed. “Only this big lug calls me Robbie, I suspect because he knows how much I hate it.”

The big man feigned offence, then grinned again, resting his staff on his shoulder. “And I’m Jack. Always a pleasure to help out a damsel in distress... ’specially one as pretty as you are, ma’am.” Once he’d got a smile from her, Jack turned to address his superior. “Looks like all those hours of stake-out actually paid off. We got most of ’em.”

“I wanted all of them,” said Robert.

“Who are they?” she asked as they walked towards the men having their hands bound behind their backs.

“We’re not entirely sure; some kind of cult,” Robert informed her. “We’ve had reports of them cropping up in various locations. It never ends well for their victims.”

Sacrifice...

She could see now that they were merely wearing make-up. Their faces and shaved heads had been painted white, the eye sockets black in contrast. Mimicking the deceased to intimidate the living. She peered closer at one of them, trying to make out the tattoo on his forehead. The robed figure bared his teeth, snapping like an animal before the young man holding him could pull him away.

“You might want to get back a bit, miss,” he told her.

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “You did good work tonight, Dale. I’m proud of you.”

The youth beamed, clearly delighted by the praise. “Are we taking these back to Nottingham?”

“I believe that’s the plan.”

“You’re going back to the castle? To Nottingham Castle?” the woman asked Robert.

He nodded.

“Then please... take me with you.” Robert was silent and she looked at him pleadingly. “I’m begging you. I have nowhere else to go. I’ve got no-one... not since my mum... my family...” She didn’t need to finish that sentence; they’d all been there, it was reflected in their eyes. His especially. The hurt, the pain he’d tried to bury but which still lurked there, slumbering in his mind – and only took a prod like this to wake.

“Come on, Robbie,” said Jack. “The lady’s been through a lot tonight; what harm can it do?”

“All right, all right,” said Robert. “You can come along.”

She flung herself at him, giving him a big hug. “Oh, thank you, thank you.” Jack coughed and she felt Robert tensing up. This was obviously too public a display of affection. Pulling back, she then gave Jack a hug as well. “Thank you. Thank you both.”

“Er... Jack, when the others get back, ready the horses.”

“Sure thing,” said a happy Jack, walking away, out of the alley, and taking the men and prisoners with him.

“So,” Robert continued, turning to her; he’d looked more comfortable facing death than he did right now. “What’s your name?”

“Me?” She hesitated for a second or two. “Do you know it’s been so long since anyone asked me that? It’s Adele.”

Robert stuck out his hand. “Well then, Adele. Pleased to meet you.”

She smiled. “And I’m so very pleased to meet you, Robert... the Hooded Man.”

CHAPTER TWO

S
O MUCH HAD
changed, and yet so much remained the same.

Take this place they now called home, for example. The castle itself still looked the same, on the outside at any rate. But inside things were definitely different. Instead of a barracks for an army, this was now a headquarters for the fledgling constabulary they’d built up over the past year and a half. Ever since they’d kicked that Frenchmen’s arse; just a handful of them against his entire militia. Robert had killed the self-styled Sheriff of Nottingham himself, while the rest of the men had mounted a covert attack on the castle.

The castle doubled as a home for Robert and those closest to him. Like Mary, the woman who’d coaxed him out of the forest, who’d taught him to love again after his own wife and son had died from the virus. Like his second-in-command, Jack, a former wrestler from the US who had come to Sherwood to join Robert’s fight against injustice.

And it served as a home to him, Mark, a boy who’d had to grow up way too quickly: a former scavenger on the streets who finally found a new family. He’d first met Robert at one of the makeshift markets on the outskirts of Sherwood, and soon afterwards the man had saved his life – just like he had so many others. He and Mary had taken on the mantle of adoptive parents, loving and protective. But like all good parents, they also set the rules – some of which Mark completely disagreed with.

Like the one about his training. He was ready, but Robert kept putting him off.

“You need to face your fears properly first.”

As Mark walked down the East Terrace, towards the Middle Bailey, memories flooded back to him of the first time he came to this place. Bundled into a truck, hands tied, then deposited down in the caves beneath the castle – which now held all of De Falaise’s modern weapons (as Robert often said, “His way is not our way.”). There he’d been tortured, used to lure Robert from Sherwood. Mark looked down at the stump of a finger, all that was left of the digit the evil psychopath Tanek had cut off and sent to Robert. The stump ached sometimes, especially in winter, and he even felt it there wiggling occasionally.
Phantom pains
, they called it. The mind not letting go of the past.

Mark shook his head and walked towards the Bailey where Robert’s men – his ‘Sherwood Rangers’ – were being put through their paces. Swordplay (techniques mainly gleaned from books: “You can find out everything about anything from books,” Mary had said); archery; hand-to-hand combat. It was all going on down there. In lighter moments, Mark couldn’t help comparing their training ground to something out of an old James Bond movie.

Jack would just love that, he thought to himself.

Mark watched as arrows smacked into painted targets; as men tackled each other with wrestling moves Jack had imparted, and martial arts skills either taught by Robert or passed down from Reverend Tate’s time. The holy man had returned to the village of Hope, along with Gwen, who he’d known from before his time in Sherwood. They’d left right after Gwen had given birth, in spite of Mary’s concerns about letting them go. Gwen had wanted to put the failed community of Hope back together, in memory of her beloved Clive – who the Sheriff’s men had so brutally killed. Tate had gone with her, arguing that the people out there needed spiritual guidance much more than they all did. Mark wondered, though, how much it had to do with Robert’s personal thoughts about faith.

Not that Tate had been the only member of their family they’d said goodbye to. Bill had also gone off to start again after constantly butting heads with Robert. The outspoken local hadn’t agreed about the gun situation at all, especially when it came time for him to relinquish his canon of a shotgun. “He’s daft as a brush,” Bill had told Mary. “Judas Priest! With them weapons rusting away down in the caves, we can really make a difference, an’ what’s Robert want to use? Bloody swords and sticks!” Last Mark heard Bill was back running markets, up the coast this time. He was doing all right, too, by the sounds of things. Oh, Robert kept tabs on him all right – just in case he needed help. He was still very fond of the man who’d once been his second, even if he was too proud to admit it.

Arriving at the top of the steps, Mark suddenly had a flashback to when the Bailey had been used as a staging ground for De Falaise’s executions. The men below were clattering swords together – swords which, along with other ancient weapons, had either been gathered from various museums or made on the grounds by their budding blacksmith, Faraday (who also shoed horses and gave the men riding lessons). Robert and his Rangers shunned the jeeps, tanks and motorbikes left behind, not only because fuel was becoming a rare commodity, but, again, because they represented a different time. They’d rely on other defences to protect the castle, like the projects some of the men skilled in woodwork had been drafted into. Robert promised they’d be as effective as anything modern weaponry could offer.

Now in Mark’s mind, the training session was replaced by the gallows that mad Frenchman had made.

Of all the times Mark had come close to death, that had been the worst. The feel of the rope cutting into his neck, the agonising wait for De Falaise to give the signal for them to be dropped; how helpless he’d felt...

The Hooded Man had intervened, of course. Or more accurately, Mary dressed as the Hooded Man, walking in through the gates down there. That had taken some guts, switching places with Robert to prevent him being killed. It had proved distraction enough for the rest of Robert’s forces to attack, but it could all have ended so differently.

Phantom pains... Just phantom pains...

Robert told him once what De Falaise had said right before he’d killed the man, ramming arrows into his throat and eyes, breaking them off.
“It is only just beginning,
mon ami
.”
What he’d meant was anyone’s guess, but in a sense he’d been right. As they’d begun their policing of the region, Robert had discovered just how hard it was to keep the peace. Even though people came every day to join his ranks, volunteers like the new recruits below, he still had too few men – and now they were widening their protection to surrounding cities like Sheffield, Doncaster, Leeds, Manchester... things were even tighter.

Which was one of the reasons Mark couldn’t understand Robert’s decision.

“You’re just not ready yet,” he’d told him when he asked again.

“I’m almost fifteen, not that much younger than Lee and his friends.” Lee Keegan was a student from St Mark’s School down south, who’d showed up a while back asking Robert for help in defeating some guys they called the Snatchers. He’d eventually loaned them some Rangers, in spite of being stretched so thinly. “I’m not a kid anymore... I haven’t been for a long time.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. You’re simply not prepared, Mark.”

“After everything I’ve been through? You’re joking.”

“It’s
because
of everything you’ve been through. You need time, son.”

“You mean like you’re taking?”

Robert had flinched and Mark regretted it as soon as the words had tumbled out of his mouth. It had never been Robert’s intention to run this operation; he’d never imagined he’d have to organise patrols on this scale when he gathered together his band of men in Sherwood. Hell, he’d taken enough convincing to get involved, even after saving Mark’s and Bill’s hides. By doing so, Mark knew he’d exorcised some of the demons from his past. But once that had been done, he’d spent more time in his office than he had on the streets. When it came right down to it, the responsibility rested on Robert’s shoulders alone. And it wasn’t fair to criticise him for that.

Nevertheless, the man had seen little action since undertaking his work at the castle. The legend of the Hooded Man might have spread, but the reality of the situation was very different. Which was probably why he’d started to brush up on his basics again, why he’d begun going out on missions in spite of Mary’s opposition. She said there was no reason to risk his life anymore, but every reason to stay safe. Mark felt guilty about that; like maybe he was the one who’d started Robert thinking about it again. But he was only saying what all the men thought. If they felt like he was hiding away behind a wall, while they tackled who knows what, then their respect for him wouldn’t last.