by M. C. Frank
She opened her eyes, a little disoriented, and saw his kind face leaning towards her, his black eyes shining with intelligence and humor as always. But something seemed to shadow them today, and with surprise she saw that it was concern for her. She wanted to tell him not to worry about her all the time, that she would be fine, but she was too exhausted to. She let her heavy eyelids drift closed again.
“I know you are tired,” he said, and his voice was so soft it was hard to imagine that it was the same voice that led the whole camp into battle, “I know and it is my fault for having pushed you too far, but please try to swallow a little of this. Come on, it will do you good.”
She wanted to tell him that his voice was the only thing keeping her from going under, but she had no energy to speak, and every breath she took was beginning to ache alarmingly. I won’t have an attack now, I can’t, she told herself, but then Robin’s voice seemed to fade in the distance and she lost consciousness.
Robin saw her head fall limply to one side, and moved quickly. He put his one arm beneath her shoulders, supporting her, and with his other hand he shook her softly at first, then more fiercely as he saw that she was not responding.
“Wake up, come on, open your eyes,” he told her, as if somewhere in her subconscious she could hear him. “I know you can hear me, my girl, come on, don’t do this to me.”
She opened her eyes slowly, gasping at the pain in her old wound, and he lifted the flask of wine to her lips, still supporting her. He was relieved to see some color returning to her cheeks as she drank, and he hardly spoke as he carefully fed her some of the jelly Tuck had brewed earlier, except for soft murmurs to show her he meant to encourage her for making the effort.
She sat up when the wooden bowl was half empty and tried to look away, suddenly embarrassed.
“What is it?” he asked and reached for her, thinking she was feeling unwell again.
“Nothing,” she replied still looking away, “except you’ll be thinking now that I am weak and useless. And you will be right too.”
He set the bowl down gently, and lifted a finger to her lower lip, brushing an imaginary speck away.
“No,” he said slowly, “that’s not at all what I was thinking.”
He tried to make her face him, lifting her chin with his thumb, but she resisted and he did not want to press her. He let his hand drop.
“Look at me,” he said and waited. “Look at me.”
She lifted her eyes and it was all he could do not to kiss her right then.
“What I am thinking is that I should be taking better care of you,” he said, and she knew he meant it, for his boyish eyes were serious, boring into hers, and a little sad.
“I knew that a woman in camp would be an impossible encumbrance to all of you,” she said, seeing how his jaw ticked once at the word ‘impossible’, “and I was foolish to think…”
“No,” he interrupted. “That’s not how it is with you, Rosa. You are one of us; you have put your life on the line for me and my men, and now that I’m looking at you, you are so fragile and exquisite, and I can’t help but admire how much strength your slight frame holds. I wonder… Were these the only times you have helped us? Were these we know all the sacrifices you made, was that all? Or is there more I will never know, I will never be able to thank you for?”
She felt the color rising to her cheeks and turned away from him. You won’t find out, ever, she vowed silently, as she had many times in the past year.
“I spent hours looking at you when you were sick, trying to guess your secrets, the terrible pain your heart must hold, and how much of it is due to me,” Robin continued and she lifted her face to see he wasn’t looking at her, but somewhere in the distance. His eyes were hooded again, his lower lip as if about to tremble. “How will I ever discover, how will I ever know you completely…? Sometimes I think that is what I desire most in the world, more than anything else. More than justice, more than peace.”
He turned to look at her as he said this and his eyes were wild. She could see a fire burning in them and a pain so deep it scared her. Involuntarily she leaned back, away from him and even though the movement was slight, he saw it, and schooled his expression. He reached out tentatively and took her hand in his, enveloping it between his fingers.
“Are you cold?” he said, distracted. “Your hands are like ice.” He rubbed them gently with his, trying to communicate to her his warmth. “Come, I must get you inside to rest.”
But she was reluctant to get up, to leave him. The little glimpse she had seen of his soul was too small, it had left her hungry for more.
“But let’s make one thing clear,” Robin said suddenly, without letting go of her hand, and she wondered if he shared her reluctance to part. “I thought I would keep you here until you were entirely well, until you were healed completely, I mean. I thought I’d be safe from losing you until you had gotten back your strength and then I’d harden my heart and find you a safe home in one of the villages where I am well-known and, I hope, loved.”
He stopped and took a deep breath that sounded more like a painful sigh, not noticing her panic at the mention of her leaving the forest.
“But, you see… I was a fool,” he went on, “and I didn’t know my own heart.”
He turned to look her straight in the eyes.
“I can’t let you go, Rosa, that’s the truth,” he said and his voice trembled slightly when he said her name. “I thought I could, but I can’t. Your presence here is as essential to me as sunshine, as air. It is extremely selfish of me, but I know that I will never send you away, I know in my heart I won’t be able to do it. If ever it becomes unbearable for you and you ask me, I will release you at once. I will send you anywhere you want to go, I myself will take you there. I’ll build a palace with my own two hands and take you to live in it like a princess.”
He chuckled at his own folly, but his laugh lacked its usual humor and brilliance. As he knelt there before her, his muscles flexing beneath the fabric of his tunic, he looked like a proud, wild stag, one with the forest, its king and beauty, and her heart almost ached to behold him.
“Or at any rate, I will find you a safe home where you will be loved and taken care of,” he went on. “I don’t know if you will be taken proper care of here in the forest, and you see that already I am making a terrible job of it, but the thing is, you have become one of us now. Losing you would mean losing the most treasured of my men, the most valuable and” he paused a minute and when he continued his voice was a whisper “the most beloved.”
They remained like this for a while, no one speaking or moving and then Robin lifted his hand to brush away a strand of hair that fell on Rosa’s forehead, gleaming like rich gold in the slant of the sun’s last rays.
“And the bravest of my men,” he added softly, a smile beginning to form itself on his lips. “Definitely the bravest. By far.”
“Master, please…” Rosa began, but right then a bellow reached them from the other side of the tree, where the men were attacking their meal with vigor.
“Chief, where are you? The stranger is eating us out of hearth and home! Come put a stop to his appetite!”
“Robin! Come here!” jolly voices joined in, laughing.
Rosa and Robin exchanged a smile and he lifted one finger to signify that she should wait for him as he sprung to his feet.
When he came back however, mere minutes later, she was peacefully asleep, leaning against the crook of one of the tree’s thickest roots that rose from the ground. A surge of jealousy flooded him irrationally, for the brown embrace that held her was not human, and still he envied it with a fierceness that surprised him.
Robin smiled ruefully, mocking his own violent reaction. He had finally lost his mind, that was for certain.
He stooped and lifted her carefully in his arms so as not to wake her. He took her to the cabin, which the men had started calling ‘Rosa’s cabin’ and covered her with a thick fur. He stayed for a moment, watchi
ng the rhythmical rise and fall of her chest beneath the covers, and then, reluctantly, he left.
CHAPTER 8
THE BLACKSMITH
“So,” Robin addressed himself to the newcomer, who had already made himself comfortable around his camp.
He swallowed a large bite of meat, and regarded the now empty bone he held in his hand with disappointment. He had no recollection of having consumed it. Immediately, someone handed him another chunk of deer meat and he sent the man a grateful glance before he bit into it with gusto.
“I am guessing you may have another name besides this, ‘Julian of the Dangling Limbs’?” he asked around a mouthful, sending his men into roars of laughter with the new nickname he had only just thought of.
Julian laughed too, and Robin lifted his eyebrow appreciatively. He was better inclined to like a man who could laugh at himself.
“I have taken upon myself the name of Fitzwilliam,” he said “ever since I was eleven. My father’s name being William -as far as I knew- it seemed an inspiration at the time. However most people call me ‘Julian the Smith’.”
“What was wrong with your given name?” Little John asked roughly.
“Only that it didn’t exist,” Julian answered good-humoredly. “My father, the said William, refused to acknowledge me, and my mother to name me after him. She would give me the name of another man, but I would have none of it.”
Robin observed him in silence as he spoke, leaving the questioning to his men.
“And why would your mother give you the name of another man?” Gregory asked.
“She was -is- wed to him,” Julian said and Robin saw that his expression was no longer that of unprecedented glee, but his eyes were dark and reserved. And sad -infinitely sad. All of a sudden, Julian clamped his lips shut and seemed to not want to speak one more word. It was a different man that Robin saw before him, full of despair and pain, a man that hang upon life from a tender thread which would at any moment break and leave him in the void.
“You don’t have to tell your story, if you don’t want to,” Robin said easily. “Everyone who is willing to fight for justice is welcome here, and that’s what you have to prove my friend, not your ancestry.”
Julian just nodded solemnly and kept his mouth shut.
“Still, chief,” Matt said, “it makes one wonder, what business did the woman have going around naming her children herself when she had a husband?”
Everyone laughed at this, and Julian sank lower on the ground.
“He wasn’t living with us,” he said in a deep tortured voice that silenced everyone.
Matt looked at Robin guiltily, and Little John tried to amend the situation.
“You have to admit, Robbie,” he said, “that this sounds like a story.”
Everyone thought the same, that the stranger was most probably lying, but his brow was so dark and his eyes so sorrowful that they daren’t speak it out loud. It might be the woeful tale, common enough, of an illegitimate child growing up with parents that weren’t too happy of its existence, but the man was so tight-lipped about his past that it was almost certain that he had something to hide.
“A story for round the fire at night, I mean,” Little John added.
Julian got up abruptly.
“If it’s a story you want from me, I had better leave straight away,” he said, his tone suddenly bitter.
He turned to Robin.
“If you want my blood, my sword, my life, I lay them at your feet, brave Robin Hood, and at England’s. I was planning on throwing myself in the river, but then I thought of two things. First, I can swim and I hear that makes it harder to drown.”
He paused, expecting chuckles, but no one laughed. Every eye was glued on him, unblinking.
“And then I said to myself, maybe there’s a cause worth dying for. So I thought of you. If there is one place away from memories, from stories of one’s past and from women that are at the root of all evil, it’s this forest. Was I mistaken, Robin Hood, or does the fight for justice no longer feature amongst your first priorities? Have I stumbled upon a camp of clowns and mistook it for the Merry Men?”
He gazed straight at Robin defiantly, anger burning in his eyes, and for a crazy moment Robin was sure he had seen that piercing color somewhere else, and that he knew it by heart.
“Your anger does you justice, stranger,” he said, getting up to stand toe to toe to the man, and discovering they were almost of the same height. “I for one am not interested in your story, only in the honesty of your heart. As for laying your life at my feet, I don’t want it and you had better take it back. You are to choose what you do with it. Give it for England, give it for wealth, give it for power. I can only judge as far as my eyes can see. Only remember, you have not proved yourself yet, and you will be treated as a stranger until then.”
Julian seemed to be satisfied with this answer, and relaxed a little.
“Thank you, Robin Hood,” he said, “I hope I can pass your tests or die trying.”
“There is no need to be dramatic,” Robin said dryly as he dropped back on the ground again and motioned for him to do the same. “And women, you will see, are honored in this camp and outside of it, as each one of these lads has a mother.”
“In fact, there is a woman right now-” Gilbert began to say, but Robin cut him off with a warning look.
“There was a lady Alice who lived among us for… let’s see, a week or so,” he amended quickly, but Julian interrupted him with an incredulous look on his face.
“A lady?!”
“Well, she had to stay somewhere, seeing as we kidnapped her on the day of her wedding, until her own sweetheart could marry her and carry her off,” Robin replied, laughing at the stranger’s disgusted look. “But that’s a whole other story.”
“I remember her rescue,” Gilbert continued half-closing his eyes at the fond memory. “Those were good times, eh chief? Now, her stay here was another matter entirely…”
“Our White Hand here was a bit smitten with her,” Robin said slapping Gilbert’s shoulder with all his might. “That is, until she gave him a disgust of womenfolk everywhere with her missish ways and whims, but really Gil, she was but a woman, and a gentlewoman at that, she wasn’t used to our ways…”
“She didn’t give me a disgust of womenfolk,” Gilbert said with dignity. “There are some women, ladies even…” he stopped himself abruptly, and Robin knew he was thinking of Rosa.
“Yes, well,” Robin said sarcastically, “one cannot expect the fairer sex of as great things as our own powerful one, but we will have to endure them as best we can, won’t we?”
He expected a roaring protest, but to his surprise and shock, when Julian spoke it was to agree with his preposterous words, not to laugh at them.
“Lying, manipulative shrews they all are,” Julian exclaimed angrily, frowning to himself as to a demon of his past, not even noticing Robin’s intention to mock him.
Robin stared at him curiously, wondering what kind of woman in this man’s past had given him such a distaste of the entire sex.
“You do sound bitter,” he said kindly. “I look forward to seeing you resist the charms of the girls down at the tavern where my men often go to wile away their lonely winter nights.”
“They have no charms for me whatsoever,” came the abrupt answer.
“Well, you know best, my friend,” Robin said. “Only take care that you do not find yourself forgetting what I told you, about the way my men behave towards women, or you’ll get a glimpse of my fury. And let me tell you, my fury is not a pretty thing to see.”
“Of course,” Julian said with a wry smile, “I will abide by your code of honor. In my experience, a mother can be the worst criminal possible… But I suppose you will have to find that out for yourself. There was only one girl I…” he paused and glanced around at the intent faces that were watching him. He seemed to remember where he was and he shook himself out of his reminiscing. “I only meant,” he added in a
lighter tone, “that we will be safe from them in the forest, at least.”
Robin studied him and wondered whether he should tell him about Rosa. Then he suddenly burst out laughing.
“You know, Julian,” he said, “the small, slight lad who helped you get down from the tree while John was away… he was-”
He stopped and reconsidered. Maybe it was because he was so fiercely protective of her, and even though he knew it deep inside that this man’s heart was true, he didn’t want to risk exposing her. Maybe he didn’t trust him all that much yet. On the other hand, it was more than obvious that the man called Julian harbored a really strong dislike for women. Wouldn’t it be safer for everyone if he knew beforehand that there was a girl in the forest?
“The little lad, you say?” Julian asked. “What of him? I didn’t see him here at the camp, or I would have a few words to say to him…”
Robin looked at the man again and laughed louder. No, he wouldn’t tell him now. He would let him find out for himself. It was worth a good laugh, whatever the outcome.
“What I want to say is, I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you say ‘we’ll be safe from them’,” he told him, “but let me tell you right now. Safe is the last thing you are in the forest. From anything.”
…
It did not take long for Julian to find an opportunity to prove himself to Robin Hood and his men. Two days later, he went along on the scouting trip to Nottingham and Robin himself joined the small party, not trusting him entirely yet.
While they were there, an accident forced his hand: one of the guards accosted a stooped old woman who refused to move out of his way. There was nothing to do for Robin and his men but to defend her, although Robin much preferred not to openly provoke the guards, but to face them in his ground, on his own terms.
It could not be helped this time, however, and a full combat ensued during which Robin noted with satisfaction -and a little admiration too- that Julian held his own very well, fighting with both courage and precision.