The outlaw leader strode away and returned, bearing a small bowl filled with black tar. Willoughby's hand was grasped again as the man styling himself Robin Hood coated the stumps with hot tar.

Willoughby could bear no more. He closed his eyes and screamed himself into a dead faint. When he recovered the pain had receded to a savage ache. The tax-collector, holding his damaged hand against his chest, stared round the glade. The chests taken from the carts had now been emptied and were being thrown on to the roaring fire. The horses had disappeared. Willoughby glimpsed the weapons of his escort piled beneath a tree whilst their former owners sat in a long line near the fire, pale and frightened in the glare of the torchlight. All fight had gone out of them; they looked terrified by the cold-blooded ruthlessness they had witnessed.

The outlaw leader came and squatted before Willoughby. He thrust a piece of roasted venison into his good hand and placed a goblet of thick red wine beside him. Willoughby looked away. The meat roasting over the fire gave off mouth-watering smells and the tax-collector, despite his pain, realised he hadn't eaten since the previous evening.

'I am sorry,' murmured Robin Hood, the mask still over his face, 'but I had no choice. Look around you, Tax-collector. These are savage men, wolvesheads. If they had their way they would kill you all. They hate you, despise your royal master, and see the money from those chests as rightfully theirs. Now come, sit with us by the fire – and keep a civil tongue in your head.'