Hanged by Robert the Horrible, a friend of William the Conqueror, they boxed the compass with fishy eyes. North, east, south, west, and north again, there was no hope for the kind, the poor, and the thoughtful. Across the road from the gibbet lived Elmer the woodcutter, his wife Ivy, and Ethelbert, his ten-year-old son. Behind Elmer’s hut was the forest. Elmer closed the door of his hut, closed his eyes and licked his lips and tasted rue. He sat down at the table with Ethelbert. Their gruel had grown cold during the unexpected visit from the squire of Robert the Horrible. Ivy pressed her back to the wall, as though God had just passed by. Her eyes were bright, her breathing shallow. Ethelbert stared at his cold gruel blankly, bleakly, his young mind waterlogged in a puddle of family tragedy. “Oh, didn’t Robert the Horrible look grand, though, sitting out there on his horse?” said Ivy. “All that iron and paint and feathers, and such extra-fancy drapes on his horse.” She flapped her rags and tossed her head like an empress as the hoofbeats of the Normans’ horses died away.
