Alan is in thrall to Osric’s younger son Alfred. He looks on the young man as a hero, a kind of demigod, and he copies everything the tall farmhand does. Alfred had taken to wearing a band of linen around his brow, to catch the sweat before it dripped into his eyes as he worked his sickle on the standing wheat. And so, of course, little Alan must fashion a similar cloth headband for himself, too. When Alfred let slip that he was fond of buttermilk, Alan began following him around with a pitcher of the liquor in case he might be thirsty. Harmless boyish foolishness, you will say. Possibly, but I have decided that I will soon send Alan away to be educated in accordance with his rank at another manor far away. There, he will learn to ride and fight like a knight, and dance and sing, and write Latin and French: I do not want him growing up to be a field hand. This infatuation with Alfred may well be harmless but I know that blind admiration of an older man by a younger fellow can cause great anger and hurt when the boy discovers that his idol is not the hero that he seems. I had that very experience myself with Robin of Locksley.

My master first appeared to me as a heroic figure: brave, strong and noble — just as Alfred might appear to young Alan — but I remember well the sickening lurch in my belly when I learnt that Robin was not so, that he was as grasping and cruel and selfish as any other mortal man.

I know that am not being just to Robin, when I castigate him for being selfish, cruel and greedy: it was I who misunderstood him, not he who deliberately tricked me. But I still feel rancour, and shame, when I remember the good and noble men who died so that Robin might gain riches. But those who read these parchments shall judge for themselves, and in these pages I shall write as truly as I am able about Robin’s adventures beyond the sea, and mine, in that hate-ridden land where men butcher each other by the thousand in the name of God, that country of crushing heat and choking dust, of demon scorpions and giant hairy spiders — the place that men call Outremer.