Also close by the heath, but on the far side of the pond and its swarthy huddle of dwellings, loomed a structure much preferred by the colliers as a point of interest, and upon which the single, murky eye of the tavern gazed unblinking as they drank within. This was the gibbet that gave the village green its name. On this Monday afternoon in October, which by now had sunk past twilight so that five stars glimmered over the sullen heath, the gallows stood silent and empty as a thunderstruck oak. Only if we were to fumble at the base of this crooked tower would we find a sign of its fame and frequent use. For there were carved the initials of every victim of the noose, and as the colliers in the Heath Tavern told anyone who asked, upon a round of ale being paid for, every name dug into the scaffold was one borne by a highwayman.

  The highwaymen of Thornton Heath, even as they were overshadowed by the gibbet, were much respected, and even admired, by those lower crooks, the colliers. One might even have said that certain of them were revered. For whilst the colliers were often alone deep in the wood, and were frowned upon for besmirching all they touched with their habitual soot, they were in no way outlaws. Rather, they were essential, albeit grimy, members of the small community at Gallows Green, and the villagers would not have got along so well in life without them.

  The colliers’ crimes were minor, and supplied fodder for grumbling, gossip, and the occasional eruption of vengeance meted out at the stocks. But the highwaymen shone with the glamour of the true outlaw. They stole not from the poor of Thornton Heath, but from those who, in opinions shared at the Heath Tavern, could afford it. They punished the arrogant, the greedy and the stubborn, with that most romantic of deaths: a pistol shot ringing out across the heath, a wisp of smoke spreading through the trees, and likely the lament of a lady, too late offering a string of salt-watered pearls to the widowmaker.

  As the heath absorbed the last film of light, as dew into a rug, on that Monday evening in October, and the colliers asked for more ale so that their throats were now thoroughly wetted, they began to talk. Always their conversation creaked before finding its runners, for days and nights alone in the wood can rust a man’s words, but find a track they did, and it was the same one that had occupied them now since midsummer.

  Old Graves, a grandfather among the charcoal men, began. His wool cap was tugged down to his eyebrows. It was said not only that he had worn it now for over thirty years, but that it was hard as a burnt pie crust and would crumble to ash should he ever take it off. His bloodshot eyes squinted from a face as shrivelled as a peppercorn, and he scratched continuously at his neck as he spoke.

  ‘Saw him again. Last week,’ he said, and shook his head.

  ‘Her.’ It was Canter, a young collier, spry and not yet wizened by the elements, who spoke. ‘Saw her again,’ he repeated.

  There was a snigger from Pullet, who sat beside him whittling a stick between his knees.

  Old Graves glared at Canter. ‘No woman could handle a bow like that,’ he said. He shook his head again, and went on scratching.

  ‘No man would don a costume like that,’ said Canter, and smirked.

  ‘No man has a pair of horns. Nor woman, neither.’

  There came a halt in their talk, and they listened to the scrape of Pullet’s knife on his stick, and the spitting of the fire.

  ‘Red, this time,’ said Old Graves. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he took a drink to hide it.

  ‘Satin, was it? Or velvet.’ Canter mimed a swish of skirts, and Old Graves could help himself no longer. He laughed, a sound between a cough and a caw that made Pullet abandon his whittling and look up.

  ‘Too small,’ he said.

  ‘What’s it you’re carving?’ asked Canter.

  ‘Too small to be a man. Only up to here.’ With his knife Pullet touched his breastbone. Then he added, ‘Pretty.’ He returned to his work.

  ‘Pretty!’ Canter snorted. ‘Can’t tell a man in a frock from a maiden, this one.’

  The shaking of Old Graves’s head grew vigorous. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘Face like a lady, I seen it. Soft-looking. Like the vicar’s daughter, but finer, somehow. Delicate.’

  Canter drank. ‘A woman highwayman, with horns. In a red gown. With bow and arrows, to boot. You two agreed on that?’

  A glance passed between Old Graves and Pullet, who sighed. ‘Ask Elliot,’ he murmured, cocking his head.

  The other two leaned to peer out through the tavern’s only window. On the track that led from the pond and across the heath to the wood, a lantern bobbed.

  ‘Here he comes now.’ Canter thumped Old Graves on the back.

  ‘No,’ said Pullet. ‘That’s him heading out.’ He brushed the wood shavings from his lap. ‘Told me she’s called Oberon.’

  ‘He,’ said Canter. ‘He’s called Oberon.’

  ‘Oberon,’ Old Graves echoed. ‘There’s something.’ He began to pack his pipe. ‘Pretty, though,’ he said.

  *

  The name of Thornton Heath’s latest highwayman of note was already well known to Carolina Pye. For weeks now, she had drifted about the vicarage, whispering Oberon to anything that might keep her secret: the stone cherub in the dark corner of the hallway; the portrait of Carlita Pye that forever daydreamed on the landing; the cook’s cat.

  She had whispered Oberon most often to her own reflection, attired in these moments in her mother’s preserved wedding dress. This she had snuck, very late one night, from the chest in her father’s chamber, and secreted in her own wardrobe. Alas, the fabric was not only a dull brown, but moth-eaten, despite the layers of paper and cloth in which it had been folded all these years. But if Carolina stood back from the mirror, screwed up her eyes and made believe the dress was a royal blue, she could conjure the image she desired.

  The odour of the dress was musty, that of stale cloves and the dead wood of the chest it had lain in, so Carolina had brought to her room handfuls of leaves, a clump of dry moss and a sprig of hawthorn with its berries. If she crushed these between her palms and sniffed, she could bring to her mind the wood, and around the image in the mirror sprung dark trunks and the flutter of falling leaves. With a single candle, placed on the far side of the room, it could almost be moonlight, and Carolina gazed and implored, Oberon, Oberon, until the enchantment ebbed and her wicked face appeared once more in the glass.

  Wicked, she knew she was, for Carolina had until now been a model vicar’s daughter: obedient, kind and willing. These qualities she had brought to her recent courtship by Lowell Bearmont, of whom her father approved, and whose reputation in his own village of Dulwych, where he was a master at the college, was one of rectitude and good manners. Carolina had been content. The match would please her father; it would certainly please Lowell, whose round eyes fixed upon her every moment they were in each other’s company.

  So it had been humiliating, upon her visit with Lowell to Dulwych to see the college and his cosy lodgings there, to find herself feverish. She had not spoken of it, had not asked if they might take a pause in their perambulation of the endless college grounds, and by the time they were sipping tea in Lowell’s parlour, the late September sun sinking already beneath the eaves, she had been overcome with faintness. She hoped that she had sunk back against the couch with grace, and that her mouth had not fallen open or her tea tipped upon the rug. But she had awoken to Lowell shaking her shoulders, shouting her name, and had burst into tears.

  So, it had been her fault, unable as she had been to quell those tears or to find composure, that Lowell, concerned to the point of exasperation, had declared they would ride back to the vicarage. They had sat in silence in the coach, Lowell’s eyes no longer upon her, and as they rattled up the hill, he called to the driver to make haste.

  The coach turned on to the woodland road, the shortest route to Thornton Heath, and as the trees bent over them, dusk turned to night. Carolina leaned away from Lowell to gaze out at the trunks that seemed, in her fevered vision, to step closer as the coachman’s lantern lit them, and at the ever-changing patterns of black and grey beyond. A fox sat by the road and looked straight up at her. The trees grew taller, thicker, casting night up from their branches. The road grew rougher. She glimpsed three deer, leaping away through the undergrowth, the spots on their flanks flashing, and she was about to turn to Lowell and tell him when there was a shout and the abrupt halt of the coach threw them both forward.

  A horse whinnied. Footsteps approached, on Lowell’s side. Carolina pressed a hand to her mouth, and felt her whole body turn hot with fear. Lowell’s face was rigid as the door of the coach swung open. There stood a figure, not two feet away from them. She felt Lowell flinch at the sight of the bow drawn taut, and the arrow, fletched with black feathers, that was aimed right at him.

  But the figure was curious. The archer wore a blue gown that trailed on the road. Spiking from the crown of the head were horns like velvet antlers. The hair was a knotty tumble, the colour indistinct in the weak lantern light, but the face – Carolina found herself rapt. She could not have said that it was a man’s face, nor that of a woman. It was, above all, enchanting. The lips were pursed, the eyes sardonic. The thrust of the chin, the line from it to cheekbone and temple, made her feel she might weep again.

  ‘Say my name,’ said the beautiful mouth.

  And while Lowell stuttered that he did not know, how could he, Carolina felt her own mouth form the word, Oberon. It felt as soft and sweet as a cherry rolled upon her lips. The juice of it wetted her tongue. She said it again.

  The figure nodded but did not smile. ‘Step down.’

  Lowell was pulling a purse from his coat, holding it out, but Carolina pushed past him and jumped to the ground. Oberon let the bowstring slacken, staring all the while at Lowell, who quailed still in the coach.

  Carolina felt she was floating. She was both there and not there, both dreaming and more awake than she had ever been. Oberon took one step towards her and kissed her. There was a scent of ivy flowers, of the air before a storm. She opened her eyes and saw that Oberon was holding a robin. She reached out her hand. The bird hopped on to her palm and nestled there, warm and thrumming.

  Oberon drew the bow taut once more and aimed the arrow at Lowell.

  ‘Take it,’ Lowell cried, and threw his purse down on to the road.

  Oberon laughed and nodded to Carolina, who reluctantly climbed back into the coach. And before she could catch another glimpse of their assailant the horse was moving, the wheels were rolling, and Lowell, his head in his hands, was making a terrible croaking sound.

  On they drove, through the Great North Wood, until the trees receded and the stars spread above the vast black of the heath. The bird in Carolina’s hands seemed to sleep. She did not look at Lowell until they were slowing alongside the vicarage, and he cleared his throat.

  ‘We will not speak of this,’ he said, his voice thin with shame. ‘We will tell your father you were ill. This is true.’ He glanced at the bird. ‘Now, let us put that wild creature away from us before it scratches you.’

  But Carolina would not let go of the robin. There was a struggle, then, as Lowell tried to prise open her fingers. The bird panicked and stabbed at his hands with its beak. Carolina felt its feet scrabbling and its wings lifting, so that when she did let go it bolted and flew back and forth inside the coach until Lowell threw up his hand and dashed the blackbird against the door. Its little body fell lifeless at his feet, and Carolina dropped on to her knees, gathering it up as her hot tears splashed upon its poor, broken head.

  All this Carolina recalled as she lay on her bed in her mother’s wedding dress, and wept. Since that night she had sent no word to Lowell, despite two letters she had received from him, begging her forgiveness for his cowardice, urging that they must reunite and write over that memory with happier ones. Her silence felt vengeful, a source of both pained pleasure and guilt. But lying there, a single robin feather pressed between her fingers, Carolina began to see that she might both wreak her vengeance upon Lowell, and at the same time make him her conduit to Oberon. For what other excuse did she have to pass through the wood, but to travel to Dulwych that she might comfort her heartsick love? She sat up and wiped her eyes.

  If Lowell really would do anything for her, as he declared in his last letter, then all she need do was lure him. If her deceit convinced him of her regret, and her abiding affection, he would come at her bidding and drive her in his coach along any road she wished, at any time she desired. She would be wicked. And she would be happy.

  *

  Carolina Pye was not the only woman upon whose lips the name Oberon rolled sweet as a cherry. In the village of Gallows Green, and in the farmhouses, taverns and other remote dwellings that edged close to Thornton Heath, a caged robin had become a possession much prized. Where they were heard singing from windowsills, a passer-by could be sure that, within, a woman whispered to herself, Oberon, as she went about her work. And Carolina Pye was not the only woman who connived to travel with a male companion, across the heath and into the wood, in the hope of enchantment.

  The gossip amongst the charcoal burners, upon their reunions at the Heath Tavern, continued apace. Oberon wore a green gown, or a silvered one. Oberon’s bow was for show, and he carried a pistol beneath his skirts. His horns were real, and sensitive to touch. Oberon was a gypsy woman, hiding at the home of the queen of the gypsies, Margaret Finch. Oberon was Margaret Finch herself. The robins Oberon was said to give as gifts never sang, or they sang all night long. He never took money, or he took so much and was so successful that he must by now be the richest highwayman Thornton Heath had ever seen. She kissed only women, and never men. She bewitched travellers. She was a witch. Oberon would surely hang.

  Wagers were placed as to when a brightly coloured gown would be seen fluttering from the gallows, for it was only a matter of time.

  On this gloomy evening in early November it was Canter who began, rising from his stool by the tavern fire to declare, ‘One month! If Oberon does not hang by the last day of the month, I’ll pay for every drink taken in this house.’

  Old Graves scratched his neck. ‘No crime committed. Can’t hang a man for handing out robins.’

  ‘He is armed,’ said Canter, stretching to mime a bow and arrow, and knocking Pullet’s shoulder so that his whittling knife clattered to the floor. ‘Only a matter of time.’

  ‘No man’s made hue and cry,’ Old Graves replied, shaking his head. ‘And who of us has seen him of late?’

  ‘Her. Elliot’s seen her,’ said Pullet. Retrieving his knife he pointed it at Elliot Brown, who sat alone by the window, staring out. ‘He’s been watching.’ He returned to his whittling beneath the tabletop.

  ‘What’s that you’re carving?’ asked Canter, but Old Graves nudged him.

  ‘Not heard a word from Elliot these last weeks, have we?’ Old Graves’s reddened eyes narrowed and his crust of a cap sank lower, indicating a frown. ‘Likely knows something.’

  Elliot Brown, a slight man of middle age, had, like his fellow colliers at Gallows Green, worked his kiln in the wood since boyhood. To an outsider, he would have been indistinguishable amongst this clan: his skin and clothes were as stained with soot as the next charcoal man’s. But unlike his fellows, Elliot Brown rarely threw off the reticence borne of days and nights alone in the wood once the ale at the Heath Tavern was flowing.

  He drank, perhaps a little faster and deeper than the others, for he shared so little conversation with them. He rarely stayed late, despite the tavern being much the warmest and most convivial spot about Thornton Heath, but would leave just as another round was poured, while all eyes were turned to the barrel. Some thought him a miser, though he was not disliked. What distinguished Elliot Brown from the other colliers was that he did not consider his spells of solitude in the wood a chore.

  Even in winter weather, and during the longest nights of the year, he was content to be alone with the trees. He did not talk to them, nor to himself, but his thoughts found shape when he knew that all around him stood only trunks, and he had favourites against which he leant or sat to doze. Never had Elliot Brown been moved to give his heart to man or woman, for none had seemed to offer him the solace that he easily found beneath the branches of a forgotten oak, or in the serene twists of a hornbeam.

  Old Graves, Canter, Pullet and all the charcoal burners of Gallows Green were well used to Elliot’s pensive presence. But his sparse words had dwindled to nothing as autumn had set in, and while their suspicion that this new taciturnity hid a secret was correct, their divination of the nature of that secret was not. Elliot knew no more than the rest of them about Oberon. He had listened to the same rumours. He had heard a caged robin sing from the farmhouse window. He had, along with many who worked in the wood, glimpsed Oberon riding through the gloom. It is true to say that Elliot Brown’s glimpses had been longer, and more numerous, but they had furnished him with no certainties about Oberon, except for one: he was besotted.

  He had not identified the feeling. Rather, he found himself split between two compulsions. The first led him to neglect his work, forgetting to check the flow of smoke from his kiln and instead pacing about until, without thinking, he allowed his feet to carry him off, through the wood. He walked through dusk, into the night, listening for the tread of a hoof, watching for the shadow of an antler, the flash of a brightly coloured gown. The second compulsion led him to self-imprisonment, sitting in the Heath Tavern under the gaze of the colliers, so that shame would prevent him from making these wandering pursuits.

  His obsession was both a joy and a curse. He felt already that it would ruin him, yet he could not relinquish it, for that strange face, that slight body, lived now in his mind and drove all else from his consideration. Elliot Brown whispered the name, Oberon, to himself a hundred times a day, a hundred times a night. His lips, so unused to regular speech, throbbed with it.

  The heath he looked out upon, on this particular Friday evening in November, seemed a chasm between the green and the wood, and the pale road, just visible still, a narrow bridge across that might break at any moment. Oberon, surely, was amongst the trees, making a fool of the world, scorning fools such as Elliot. He wished he could laugh and shake his head at this nonsensical presence, and place a wager with Canter that made of Oberon a passing amusement.

 

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