The Lost Diary of Robin Hood’s Money Man. Steve Barlow

July 1190, 10.10amTo[email protected]Subject:Crusade

      We’re finally off!

      Richard and Philip Augustus met up at the Abbey of Vezelay (near Paris). We all said a few prayers and now we’ve begun the trip. We’re marching to Marseille to meet the English fleet. The French are off to Genoa, and then we’ll all meet up at Messina in Sicily. After that, it’s on to the Holy Land to see if “Salad-is-in” (one of Richard’s jokes – everyone had to laugh or else).

      Mind you, it’s not all good news. I’m afraid your boss, old Earl David, won’t be coming with us. He hadn’t been on a horse for so long that when he tried to mount up today, he fell straight off the other side and broke his neck. You’d better tell that silly ass Robert to get his armour polished and come out to join us.

      Yours, as ready as a fox outside a henhouse,

      Basil

      I showed Basil’s news to Robert.

      “Oh, poor old chap!” he said.

      I pointed out that now that his uncle was dead, he was the Earl of Huntingdon. (I suppose that makes Marian the Earl’s Girl.)

      He said, “Oh crikey, I suppose I am. That means I can go on the Crusade. Whoopee!”

      I tried to talk Earl Robert out of going with the Crusade. I said that if he turned his back for a minute, the Sheriff would steal his lands and all the peasants would suffer. Earl Robert said he was sorry, but a chap had to do what a chap had to do, don’tcherknow.

      “Anyway,” Robert went on, “it was my uncle who gave you your bally job, and now he’s dead, you’re working for me. So if I say I’m going on the Crusade, I’m bally well going on the Crusade. And if you don’t stop moaning, I’ll find someone else to look after my estates. So there!”

      I shut up.

      So now my new boss is off somewhere practising sword strokes, shouting things like, “Have at you, Saracen scum”, and Marian’s locked herself in her room to have a jolly good cry.

10th July 1190

      What am I doing here?

      I’m sitting under a dripping tree. I’ve got a tree root sticking in my back and a bottom full of pine needles.

      I said there’d be trouble from the Sheriff, and I was right. On Earl Robert and Marian’s wedding day we were all at church, so of course nobody was carrying any weapons. The priest was droning on in Latin and I was wondering where I’d put the ring when the doors burst open and in came the Sheriff, Guy of Gisborne and a bunch of heavies, all armed to the teeth.