The Lost Diary of Robin Hood’s Money Man. Steve Barlow
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Название: The Lost Diary of Robin Hood’s Money Man
Автор: Steve Barlow
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Книги для детей: прочее
isbn: 9780007571567
isbn:
Robert loves board games, as long as they’re not too complicated. I tried to introduce him to chess (which Crusaders brought back from the Holy Land) but Robert is useless at it – he calls knights “horsies” and can never work out which way they go.
So we went back to Three Men’s Morris, where you have nine holes on a board and all you have to do is get three pieces in a row without being blocked*.
Robert’s favourite game is queek, where you throw pebbles on to a chess board and bet whether they’ll land on a black or white square. He plays this game with Marian. When she loses, she shouts, “Wats!” and “Oh, dwat!” Then she blushes and says, “Oh, pardon my Fwench.”
Robin laughs just as much when he loses as when he wins, but there’s no skill in a game like this and I get bored out of my skull.
The Sheriff hates the Saxons and treats them like dirt. This is because they keep teasing him.
The Saxons called Nottingham “Snottingham”, but when the Normans came over and asked the name of the place, some Saxon told them, “It’s Snottingham,” and they thought he said, “It’s Nottingham”, so they got the name wrong on all their maps. Of course, Normans never admit they’ve made a mistake, so they insist on calling it Nottingham – but the Saxons still call it Snottingham, and whenever they see the Sheriff of Snottingham they shout out, “Hey up, Snotty!” and run off laughing.
* Exactly as we now play noughts and crosses.
I’ve just received a chain mail from Cousin Basil.
| MICROHARD CHAIN MAIL MESSAGE |
| From | Basil Count de Money ([email protected]) |
| Date | 4 July 1190, 10.10am |
| To | [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.
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.
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