“Do you think we’ll ever see her again?”
“Sure we will. Maudlin’s the kind of woman who bears a grudge.”
Shadow and Plus One stopped to sniff at a green pine seedling poking through the snow. In a few weeks, the snow would be so deep there would be no green at all.
“Right. So, what’s our plan?”
Marion grinned. “Do I really sound like that?”
“Pretty much.”
“I’m insufferable.” He flashed her a grin and followed it with a wink.
“We-e-e-ll, you’re not exactly insufferable. Not all the time at any rate.”
“Thank goodness for that. Now, where’s the axe?”
“On the back of Plus One.”
“That’s her name all the time now?” Marion asked.
“It kind of suits her.”
“Poor horse.” Marion took the axe and checked the blade, making sure it was clean and sharp. In the Shire Wood, the big trees would take an effort to cut down, but they would burn for longer than the thinner branches.
“That one’s pretty good,” Robyn pointed to a mid-sized tree. “At the risk of sounding insufferable, may I suggest a plan?”
“You’re going to keep rubbing that in, aren’t you?”
“At every opportunity,” this time Robyn gave Marion a wink and a grin. “Why don’t we take turns in whacking the tree, then we’ll get it down in half the time.”
“Or, at the risk of sounding even more insufferable,” Marion looked like he was really enjoying himself. “We take a tree each and fell two in the same time. Unless you’re not strong enough to bring down a whole tree by yourself.”
Robyn took the bait. “I’ll take this tree, you find your own.”
“This is my tree, I’m closest to it.” Marion made ready to swing.
“Or,” Robyn interrupted and Marion missed his mark, the axe striking at a bad angle and barely making a dent. “You chop the trees, then I chop the branches off when we fell it.”
“A dizzying array of options,” Marion swung truly and made a hefty slice into the trunk. Another whack sent a wedge of wood flying out.
“Honestly, I could stand here and plan all day,” Robyn said.
“Fine by me,” Marion kept swinging that axe, creating a sizeable wedge in the tree. “But then again–” thwack “–You’ll freeze if you don’t–” hack “swing into action soon. You know the old saying, ‘Cut your own firewood and it warms you twice’.”
Watching him swing that axe warmed Robin all the way through anyway.
She picked a mid-sized tree a few paces away and smudged the bark with mud to give her something to aim at.
Thwack! Grunt. Swing, thunk! Four swings in, her muscles burned with pain. Her shoulders felt ready to fall off. She’d barely made a dent in the tree. Marion had already carved a pie-sliced wedge right through to the middle of his tree. Now he turned the axe around and swung with the blunt side of it into the wood, just above the cut. The tree wobbled as it creaked and groaned. He whacked it again; the trunk split to the side and crashed down.
“You are so amazing right now,” Robyn said.
The both grinned as the snow fell in thick blobs. Marion walked over to Robyn’s tree, a tree that didn’t look in danger of falling any time soon.
“Let’s take it in turns then,” he said as he hefted his axe.
In companionable silence, they hacked and cut their way through this one. Despite both of them working together, this one took longer than the first to bring down.
“I think I picked the wrong kind of tree.” Robyn said.
“It’s an oak,” Marion said after taking his swing. “We’ll not be through this before Christmas.”
“What sort did you cut down?”
“Think it was a birch. Bit easier on the arms than this.”
“I have an idea.” Leaping into action, Robyn climbed up the tree, scaling the branches like a ladder. “Throw me the rope.”
“OK, whatever the lady wants.” Marion threw the coil of rope towards her. “You know if you’d planned this, you could have tied the rope to you in the first place before you climbed up there.”
“Shut it. I’m getting the job done.” Her fingers fumbled as she tied the end of the rope high up around the top branches and trunk. “Right, take the end of it. Tie it to the horses, get them to pull the tree over.”
The horses stood well out of the way, under the boughs of a fur tree, which kept its needles even in the depths of winter. Robyn scrambled down the tree, her fingers burning from the cold. How beautiful would an open fire be right about now?
“I get it,” Marion tied the rope to the back of Shadow’s harness, then rubbed the horse’s neck to calm and soothe her.
Shadow was having none of it and whinnied her displeasure. Even though the horses had thick hairy coats, they must be freezing too.
“Marion, you whack through the other side of the tree, I’ll hold Shadow steady so we can pull it over and get it down sooner.”
Creak, thwack!
Groan, riiiiiiiip crash!
“We did it!” Overjoyed with success, Robyn grabbed Marion in a fierce hug which ended with them giggling and kissing in the snow.
“We got a whole two trees down.”
“Yeah.” Robyn was exhausted already.
“There’s not much daylight left, we’d better get them back.”
For all their effort, it looked pretty measly. They’d have to come back early tomorrow, and the next day, and the next to have a hope of keeping the people of Sheffield warm through the rest of winter.
Noises and singing came from between the trees. Turning, they saw Joan, Georgia, Wilfred and Madge approaching. They had axes and ropes in their hands and smiles on their faces.
“What are you doing here?” Robyn asked.
“We couldn’t let you do this on your own,” Joan said, “We’re a team!”
The sight of her team filled Robyn with sunshine. Soon the forest rang with sounds of thwacking axes and falling trees. In no time, the others strapped the trunks together and urged the horses to drag them towards the castle.
“Race you back,” Robyn said, tearing off from Marion.
“Hey wait!” he shouted.
Their breaths came out in thick misty puffs, their faces pink and flushed from exertion. On they ran, for the sheer joy of being alive and being happy. Robyn was in the lead, holding the front of her frock off the ground to stop her from tripping. Marion closed the gap, laughing as he tried to catch her.
She was laughing so hard she couldn’t keep running, the hem of her skirt soaked with melted snow.
They both looked wild and a little bit crazy. Near the gates, they snuggled for warmth, waiting for the others to arrived back with the horses and the larger trees for burning.
“What’s that?” Robyn pointed to a small fir tree Joan carried with her.
“I thought it would be nice to have something green to decorate the bailey.”
Once in the castle gates, Robyn and Marion took in the bustling scene.
By the kitchens, Mother Eleanor milked a cow they didn’t recognise. Somebody else close by milked Bella, listening to Eleanor’s helpful instructions. Everything looked busy and settled, everyone had something to do to help get them through the cold months ahead.
As Marion had predicted, in the past few weeks people from outlying villages had come to Sheffield for shelter and protection. The castle was packed. As each new group came, they brought with them small supplies of food, blankets, animal skins and live animals as well. Eleanor was in her element teaching young boys and girls how to milk the cows, while Joan’s elderly parents showed folks how to make warm nesting boxes for the chickens so they’d have a steady supply of eggs.
Snow continued to fall, coating the bailey in a blanket of magic. Here and there small fires burned in braziers. People huddled around them, keeping warm. Robin noticed their furtive glances, because they wanted to know what they should do
next.
What did they do next?
Bunker down and survive, Robyn thought.
Well, she’d think of something soon. With Marion’s help. And Will’s and Madge’s and Joan’s and Georgia’s. And even her mother’s help, if she could get her away from the cows for any length of time.
Marion put his arm around Robyn’s shoulders and guided her to the stairs of the old tower. Burnt patches were still visible on the walls, but the smoky smell was mostly gone now.
“I have a surprise for you,” he whispered.
They climbed the stairs to the landing and Marion reached behind a tapestry. Those tapestries were marvellous for hiding things!
He held out the re-strung bow and gave it to her.
“You fixed it!” Admiring the craftwork, she held the bow and pulled the string back, loving the tension and the strength of it. “Thank you so much!”
“I’m not sure how much use we’ll get out of it, but I wanted to fix it for you,” Marion said.
A grin formed. “You sneaky thing. I had no idea you’d done this. Thank you Marion, thank you so much.” She gave him a warm kiss and hugged him tightly.
“I’ll fix more things if this is how you thank me,” he said with a wink.
She gave him another kiss for good measure. It warmed her all the way to her boots.
“Interesting.” Robyn said, full of curiosity. “When I kiss you, I warm up. Have you ever noticed that happening to you?”
“I was just thinking that myself. Might need to try it again and test it though.” Marion’s kiss made her heart beat way too fast from the sheer joy of it.
Eventually they broke away. Through a grin, Robyn said, “Kissing is a very good way to stay warm in winter.”
Marion snuck in one more kiss. “That is a brilliant plan.”
***
The End
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I have been a fan of the Robin Hood legend for as long as I can remember. I’ve loved the various movies and TV series, especially the 1980s British version starring Michael Praed. (Showing my age here.) I also loved the reboot with Jonas Armstrong, Lucy Griffiths and Richard (swoon) Armitage. All that leather! Yowzers!
But it always bothered me that there was only one girl in the story, Marian. This never sat well with me, as all my friends growing up happened to be girls. That meant we couldn’t ‘play’ Robin Hood because we couldn’t all be Marian, right?
Where was our female folk hero?
Historically, the time Robin was supposed to be ‘robbing from the rich and giving to the poor’ was around the 1190s. History tells us Prince John (Boo! Hiss!) was regent of England while his older brother King Richard (The Lionheart) was off fighting the first of many crusades.
King Richard wasn’t on his own, he had a whole army with him. Armies made of strapping young men, with their families in tow to source food, cook meals, tend the wounded, make and repair armour and so on.
So why, every time there was an adaptation of the Robyn Hood legend, the forest of ‘Sherwood’ in England is full of healthy, able-bodied blokes? Those blokes should have been on the Crusades as well.
Marion used to be a common boy’s name. It meant ‘son of Mary’ and was incredibly popular until the early 20th century. It fell out of favour around 1922, when a massively successful movie of Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks, was released. The next Robyn Hood movie in the 1930s, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, felt like the nail in the coffin for Marion as a boy’s name.
The most famous male Marion would probably be John Wayne, who was born Marion Morrison, in 1907. His first screen credit was in 1929, as ‘Duke Morrison”. He became John Wayne for his 1930 role in The Big Trail.
But enough mining Wikipedia for information. I love history, and I know women played a much bigger role than we’re led to believe. After all, if not for women, we wouldn’t actually be here. If you think about it, at the time of Robyn’s exploits, just about everyone except for royalty and the clergy were illiterate. People told news and shared stories verbally or with paintings, so it’s easy to understand why a flutterby later came to be called a butterfly, and a norange was slowly turned into an orange. Pies made of umbles (offal) became ‘humble pie’ and even earned an idiom to go with it.
If you have a listen to the names of Robyn’s ‘merry band’ so many of the crew sound like women. Allan a’Dale is easily Ellen. George a’Green is Georgia Green, Robyn is such a girl’s name and as I’ve already said, Marion is totally a boy. The rest of the roles all fell into place. Little John was clearly Joan, from a hamlet called Littleton. Much is Madge. (Some stories have Midge for Much, but this too could still be a woman.)
But who was Friar Tuck? It had to be Robyn’s mum, the ‘mother hen’ of the group, advising them to keep nice and ‘tie their frocks’. Will Scarlet, however, didn’t undergo gender re-assignment. He also didn’t wear red, not in the green and brown forest where he would have stood out like a beacon. No, he’s red because of his allergies (which were a totally new thing in the 1190s.)
When it did come time to write the stories of Robyn’s outlaws down, to share them widely, the times had changed. Two hundred years had passed. That’s plenty of time for the names and tales to get muddled up. Old stories were looked at through contemporary eyes, altered to fit the prevailing moods and tastes of the time. Who were the writers? Royalty and monks. Mostly blokes. They wrote about what they knew, and they wedged a religious sort in there (Friar Tuck) to make sure Robin’s soul didn’t burn in the fires of everlasting hell. Or they simply loved the idea of having a kick-arse monk, because religious clerics yearned for adventures themselves.
My deep and abiding love for history couldn’t help sneaking into this book. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that nobody called the particular wooded area of England ‘Sherwood Forest’ until the 1800s. Earlier than that the region was referred to as the Shire Wood. I loved it, so I used it.
Although I was playing with history, I wanted the characters’ daily lives to feel authentic. They couldn’t jump in a car and drive to Nottingham, but digital maps showed me how far someone could reasonably walk (or ride a horse) in one day. How convenient, Sheffield is a day’s walk from Loxley!
Of yet more interest was the city and castle of Sheffield itself. This was one of the first castles in England to be reinforced with stone walls. Prior to about 1150, most castles in England (and these were mott and bailey-style buildings consisting of a single tower and a big fence around a flattened bailey, or yard) were made from timber. They burned magnificently when under attack, and had to be rebuilt.
Imagine my utter delight to discover a very real Maud of Sheffield! The real Maud was born in the 1170s in Sheffield itself. She was the only surviving child of the Lord of Hallamshire and the last of the De Lovetots. I lost days to researching the people of the time, but it was so much fun. In my story, Maud remains unmarried and therefore retains control of the castle estate. In real life, she was married off and had six surviving children. Her husband joined one of the later crusades, and was never seen again. Secretly I think Maud wanted it that way.
Yes, I donate every year to the Wikipedia appeal, because Wikipedia is so very useful.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ebony McKenna is the author of the ONDINE series, about a teen whose pet ferret starts talking with a Scottish accent.
The titles in reading order are:
The Summer of Shambles
The Autumn Palace
The Winter of Magic
The Spring Revolution
Other works:
1916-ish
Novellas:
Lara’s Christmas Gamble (set in the Ondine’s world of Brugel)
Dangerous Honesty (from the anthology Dangerous Boys)
www.ebonymckenna.com
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Robyn and the Hoodettes Page 21