Romancing Robin Hood Read online

  Romancing Robin Hood

  Jenny Kane

  Dr Grace Harper has loved the stories of Robin Hood ever since she first saw them on TV as a girl. Now, with her fortieth birthday just around the corner, she’s a successful lecturer in Medieval History, working at a top university.

  But Grace is in a bit of a rut. She’s supposed to be writing a textbook on a real-life medieval gang of criminals – the Folvilles – but she keeps being drawn into the world of the novel she’s secretly writing: a novel which entwines the Folvilles with her love of Robin Hood – and with a spirited young girl named Mathilda, who is the key to a medieval mystery …

  Meanwhile, Grace’s best friend Daisy is unexpectedly getting married. A reluctant Grace is press-ganged into being her bridesmaid – and starts to re-evaluate her own life. Is her devotion to a man who may or may not have lived hundreds of years ago really a substitute for a modern-day hero of her own?

  It doesn’t get any easier when she meets Dr Robert Franks – a rival academic who Grace is determined to dislike but finds herself being increasingly drawn to …

  Dedication

  Romancing Robin Hood is dedicated to the academic and administrative staff of the History and Archaeology Departments of Leicester University. Particular mention must go to Prof. Norman Housley, Dr Neil Christie, and Mrs Lynne Wakefield, and their colleagues, with whom I worked as both a student and a member of staff between 1990 and 1999.

  I would also like to extend a special thank you to Anthony Horowitz, Richard Carpenter, and the entire cast of the 1980s television series Robin of Sherwood. Without your wonderful writing and performances, my Robin Hood obsession would never have started in the first place, and this novel would never have been written.

  Jenny x

  Author’s Note

  As a teenager I was as obsessed with Robin Hood.

  I devoured any information I could find about the famous outlaw legend. Then, as an A Level student, I studied the reality behind the criminal organisations that plagued England’s Midlands in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

  By the time I was in my early twenties my obsession was unstoppable – I wrote my PhD thesis about the subject, a factual work which consumed my life for five head-thumping, Latin-reading, happy, manically busy years. This study can now be found hiding under a layer of dust in a university library somewhere. Romancing Robin Hood has shamelessly borrowed from – and somewhat corrupted – my doctoral research.

  Within this novel I play fast and loose with history. Although I don’t stray unreasonably far from reality, this is a fictional story which shies away from too many historical terms and phrases. So whatever you do, don’t go using the ‘history’ included in this novel to answer questions in the pub quiz!

  To absolve my historian’s conscience, which I have to confess has found ‘messing’ with history every bit as difficult as Dr Grace Harper does within the following pages, I have provided a set of references at the end of the book to set help the record straight!

  Jenny x

  Map of Mathilda’s Leicestershire

  Chapter One

  Raising a cup of tea to her lips, Grace Harper leaned back against her pine chair and blew carefully through the steam which rose from the liquid’s surface before taking a sip. It was the first cup from the third pot of tea she’d ordered that afternoon. The scalding drink slid down her dry throat, a throat which her friends joked must be coated with asbestos, such was her ability to drink tea almost directly from the kettle.

  Staring through the teashop window, Grace watched the shoppers stroll by in a never-ending stream of flip-flops, T-shirts, and a staggering variety of different lengths of shorts. It was as if everyone on England had decided to expose as much flesh as possible, and as wholeheartedly as possible, just in case the burst of late June heat was the only sun they saw all summer.

  Grace drew her wandering attention back to the reason for her weekday escape from the office. With constant interruptions from research students and fellow academics alike, she had been finding it increasingly difficult to marshal her thoughts for the opening chapter of the book she was trying to write.

  Two hours ago she’d gathered up the printed sheets of what made up her manuscript so far, and headed for the quiet of Mrs Beeton’s tearooms. She’d read it twice already, and now sped through it again. A notebook lay next to her teacup, and Grace added an additional point to the rough list she’d made of things to check out and expand on, before sighing into her cup and turning back to watch the stream of pedestrians pass by the window.

  Writing a book in the academic world was a bit like running an incredibly slow race. With your legs glued together, and at least one arm tied behind your back. Everything took so long. The research, the checking, the double-checking, the making sure you were one step ahead of everything else already published on your subject, and then racing (tortoise-style), to get your book out there before a similar historian, in a similar office, in a similar university, produced their book on an identical subject in a similar fashion. Then, of course, there were the constant interruptions. Students and fellow lecturers always wanted something. Not to mention the secretaries, who were forever after some pointless piece of administrative documentation that the occupants of the ivory tower had decreed it necessary to add to the already overwhelming mountains of paperwork.

  At least, Grace thought to herself as she picked her sketchy plan and first draft back up, fanning herself with them in an attempt to circulate some air in the stagnant café, no one else studies what I study in quite the way I do.

  Admitting defeat, and stuffing her work back into her large canvas bag, which was more suited to the beach than landlocked Leicester, Grace pulled out the square envelope that had arrived in the post that morning, and pulled out the card within. It showed a guinea pig wearing a yellow hard hat and driving a bulldozer.

  The card could only have come from Daisy. Grace read the brief message again. Daisy’s familiar spidery scrawl, which would have been the envy of any doctor, slopped its way across the card, illustrating that it had been written in haste. Grace could picture Daisy clearly, a pen working over the card in one hand, a packet of pet food in the other, and probably her mobile phone tucked under her chin at the same time. Daisy could multi-task with all the prowess of a mother of three.

  Daisy, however, wasn’t a mother of any sort. She had long since vowed against having children, human children at least, and after her degree finals had swiftly cast aside all she had studied for in order to breed rabbits and guinea pigs, house stray animals, and basically become an unpaid vet. Daisy’s home, a suitably ramshackle cottage near Hathersage in Derbyshire’s Peak District, had become her animal rescue shelter, the base of an ever-changing and continually growing menagerie of creatures, which she always loved, and frequently couldn’t bear to be parted from. Grace smiled as she imagined the chaos that was probably going on around Daisy’s welly-clad feet at that very moment.

  It had been the card’s arrival in the post that morning that had made Grace think back to her youth; that strange non-teenage hood she’d had, and of how it had got her to where she was now. A medieval history lecturer at Leicester University.

  Grace had met Daisy fifteen years ago, when they’d been students together at Exeter University, and they’d quickly become inseparable. Now, with their respective thirty-ninth birthdays only a few months ahead of them, Daisy, after a lifetime of happy singledom, was suddenly getting married.

  She’d managed, by sheer fluke, to find a vet called Marcus as delightfully dotty as she was and, after only six months of romance, was about to tie the knot. The totally unorthodox (but totally Daisy!) invitation Grace now held announced that their nuptials were to be
held in just under two months’ time at the beautiful Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. Daisy had then added a postscript saying that she would personally shoot Grace if she didn’t turn up, with some mild torture of an especially medieval variety thrown in if she didn’t agree to be her bridesmaid.

  ‘A bridesmaid!’ Grace grimaced as she mumbled into her cup, ‘Bloody hell, it makes me sound like a child. If I was married or had a partner I’d be maid of honour, but no, I’m the bloody bridesmaid.’

  Swilling down her remaining tea Grace got to her feet, and carried on muttering to the uncaring world in general, ‘Robin Hood, you have a hell of a lot to answer for,’ before she hooked her holdall onto her shoulder and began the pleasant walk from the city centre, down the picturesque Victorian New Walk, towards the University of Leicester, and an afternoon of marking dissertations.

  It was all Jason Connery’s fault, or maybe it was Michael Praed’s? As she crashed onto her worn leather desk chair, Grace, after two decades of indecision, still couldn’t decide which of the two actors she preferred in the title role of Robin of Sherwood.

  That was how it had all started, ‘The Robin Hood Thing’ as Daisy referred to it, with an instant and unremitting love for a television show. Yet, for Grace, it hadn’t been a crush in the usual way. She had only watched one episode of the hit eighties series and, with the haunting theme tune from Clannad echoing in her ears, had run upstairs to her piggy bank to see how much money she’d saved, and how much more cash she’d need, before she could spend all her pocket money on the complete video collection. After that, the young Grace had done every odd job her parents would pay her for so she could purchase a myriad of Connery and Praed posters with which to bedeck her room. But that was just the beginning. Within weeks Grace had become pathologically and forensically interested in anything and everything to do with the outlaw legend as a whole.

  She’d watched all the Robin Hood films, vintage scenes of Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Errol Flynn, Richard Greene, Sean Connery, and Barrie Ingham. As time passed, she winced and cringed her way through Kevin Costner’s comical but endearing attempt, and privately applauded Patrick Bergin’s darker and infinitely more realistic approach to the tale. Daisy had quickly learnt to never ever mention Russell Crowe’s adaption of the story – it was the only time she’d ever heard Grace swear using words that could have been as labelled as Technicolor as the movie had been.

  The teenage Grace had read every story, every ballad, and every academic book, paper, and report on the subject. She’d hoarded pictures, paintings, badges, and stickers, along with anything and everything else she could find connected with Robin Hood, his band of outlaws, his enemies, Nottingham, Sherwood, Barnsdale, Yorkshire – and so it went on and on. The collection, now over twenty years in the making, had reached ridiculous proportions and had long since overflowed from her small terraced home to her university office, where posters lined the walls, and books about the legend, both serious and comical, crammed the overstuffed shelves.

  Her undergraduates who’d chosen to study medieval economy and crime as a history degree option, and her postgraduates whose interest in the intricate weavings of English medieval society was almost as insane as her own, often commented on how much they liked Dr Harper’s office. Apparently it was akin to sitting in a mad museum of medievalism. Sometimes Grace was pleased with this reaction. Other times it filled her with depression, for that office, its contents, and the daily, non-stop flow of work was her life – her whole life – and sometimes she felt that it was sucking her dry. Leaving literally no time for anything else – nor anyone else. Boyfriends had come and gone, but few had any hope of matching up to the figure she’d fallen in love with as a teenager. A man who is quite literally a legend is a hard act to follow.

  A knock on her office door dragged Grace from her maudlin thoughts of permanent spinsterhood.

  Professor Davis, the head of school, stooped to allow his tall slim frame through her door. Grace liked the professor, and was often thankful that she had such an easy-going boss, unlike many of her sister departments, which seemed to be run along the lines of private dictatorships.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Grace,’ Davis smiled, flashing his dazzling white teeth at Grace as he gave her office his usual amused look of disbelief. ‘I’ve had a call from Nottingham Uni, they need an external examiner for one of their PhD student’s viva exams and I thought of you. It’s a bit of an emergency, they’ve been let down by their previous examiner and the viva is soon-ish.’

  Grace sighed inwardly; this was precisely what she didn’t need. Her time to write was precious enough without the amount of work involved in supervising a viva eating into it. Assessing a research student and their work during the most important exam of their careers was not something Grace would contemplate taking lightly. It would take hours of careful preparation. Keeping her opinion to herself, her voice was light as she asked, ‘What’s the subject?’

  The professor read from a sheet of paper he was carrying, ‘It’s entitled – wait for this! The Sheriff of Nottingham; suppressed and oppressed over-worked civil servant, or out-and- out villain; the story of a fourteenth-century official.’

  ‘Good grief! Sounds like the work of a future tabloid journalist.’

  Davis smiled again; his gleaming grin clashing with his dark skin. ‘That’s pretty much what I thought. He’s supposed to be a good student, this Christopher Ledger. His supervisor is Dr Robert Franks.’

  Grace frowned; she thought she knew all the medieval academics in the country, but his name was new to her, ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A new chap they’ve just got in. He’s been spreading the knowledge in the USA. He did four years in Houston, and now he’s taken on a post at Nottingham.’

  It was ridiculous to feel worried, but Grace couldn’t keep the mildly anxious edge from her voice as she asked, ‘What’s his speciality, this Dr Franks?’

  Davis pulled out a chair, understanding exactly why his colleague was enquiring, ‘He’s an expert on medieval landscapes and architecture, and the nobility that came with them.’

  ‘Ah, hence the Sheriff of Nottingham-themed doctorate.’ Grace was relieved that her academic territory hadn’t been invaded so close to home. ‘Is he good?’

  ‘Very, apparently. He could help you with your own research, maybe. I believe Franks has access to the remaining land and forestry records of Nottinghamshire for the fourteenth century.’

  Grace nodded, ‘I admit some extra original evidence in that area would be useful.’

  ‘How’s your magnum opus coming on anyway?’ Davis rose to his feet, ‘Bit slowly right now I should think, after the admin avalanche that’s fallen upon us from a great height over the last few weeks.’

  Hiding her crossed fingers behind her back, Grace replied, hoping she wouldn’t blush and give away her major exaggeration from the truth, which was that only a very sketchy draft of it existed so far, ‘It’s been tricky fitting it all in, but I’m at the second draft-checking stage. The skeleton is there, just needs the padding out to go now.’

  ‘Excellent. I know there’s no set deadline for it yet, Grace, but the sooner you finish your textbook, the sooner we can get it on the course reading list, and the better your career prospects; but I’m not telling you anything you don’t know! Well then,’ her boss heaved himself away from the filing cabinet against which he’d lent, ‘I’ll leave you to it. I’ll tell the Nottingham lot you’ll do it then, shall I?’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘Thanks, Grace.’

  Chapter Two

  The sky was the sort of brilliant blue that primary school children happily daub in thick stripes across the top of any outside scene they happened to be painting. Free from a single cloud, it shimmered with a hazy heat from a piercing sun, whose rays were only diminished by the cover of a group of aged oak trees which huddled together at the end of Daisy’s vast garden.

  ‘I’ll make a deal with you,’ she said to the sky, ‘you st
ay like this for my wedding, and I’ll let you rain as much as you like for the rest of the summer. Deal?’

  Laughing at herself, Daisy arranged a large wooden-framed run on one of the only patches of grass that her guinea pigs hadn’t yet gnawed down to the roots. Despite the lawn’s size, Daisy hadn’t ever bothered to purchase a mower. With her ever-expanding livestock there was no need. Chatting to the animals as she placed hutches, pens, and runs in position, Daisy started the daily task of carrying the various furry creatures from their indoor to their outdoor accommodation. Glancing back up at the perfect sky, her mind returned to its preoccupation with her forthcoming nuptials. The fact it was happening at all was a miracle really.

  Daisy hadn’t grown up picturing herself floating down the aisle in an over-sequinned ivory frock, nor as a doting parent, looking after triplets and walking a black Labrador. So when, on an out-of-hours trip to the local vet’s surgery she’d met Marcus and discovered that love at first sight wasn’t a myth, it had knocked her for six.

  She’d been on a late-night emergency dash to the surgery with an owl a neighbour had found injured in the road. Its wing had required a splint, and it was too big a job for only one pair of hands. Daisy had been more than a bit surprised when the locum vet had stirred some long-suppressed feeling of interest in her, and even more amazed when that feeling had been reciprocated.

  It was all luck, sheer luck. Daisy had always believed that anyone meeting anybody was down to two people meeting at exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, while both feeling precisely the right amount of chemistry. The fact that any couples existed at all seemed to Daisy to be one of the greatest miracles of humanity.

  She pictured Grace, tucked away in her mad little office only living in the twenty-first century on a part-time basis. Daisy had long since got used to the fact that her closest friend’s mind was more often than not placed firmly in the 1300s. Daisy wished Grace would finish her book. It had become such a part of her. Such an exclusive aim that nothing else seemed to matter very much. Even the job she used to love seemed to be a burden to her now, and Daisy sensed that Grace was beginning to resent the hours it took her away from her life’s work. Maybe if she could get her book over with – get it out of her system – then Grace would stop living in the wrong timeframe.