“My lady,” Robin affirmed with a bow. The woman gasped.
“Will you please come in?” she begged. “To have Robin Hood in my home . . . .”
“I would, my lady, but there are others who have need of my coin.”
“Of course, of course! Go,” she called, “and God bless you, Robin Hood!”
* * * * *
Robin was still pondering the encounter when she arrived back at the outlaw camp. As she sank onto her favorite bed of moss, Nicolas came up to greet her, looking rather debonair in his new Lincoln Green suit. With only a few outfits remaining to be made, nearly everyone had their new clothes by now.
“The Sheriff sent soldiers into the forest again today,” Nicolas was saying. “They did not even get as far as Apple Road this time before one of your patrol teams discovered them. A few threatening arrows in their direction, and they decided they had business somewhere else.”
“The team did not kill anyone, did they?” she asked.
She could swear that Nicolas rolled his eyes. “No, Robin.”
“A curious thing happened today,” she mused. “A lady saw me leaving money on a window ledge and called to me by name—Robin Hood, she called me. She acted like I was someone special—like I was royalty!”
Was it her imagination, or was Nicolas refusing to meet her eyes?
“Funny, that,” he said.
“Ni–ck . . .” she protested.
“Well, what did you expect, Robin?” Lot asked, looking up from the stag he was roasting. “The people want someone to thank. You have done more for them than any sheriff or lord. What do you think we answer, when they ask us who we are?”
“We are the Merry Men of Sherwood,” Shane called from somewhere high in the branches of Old Tryst. “Humble vassals of our jaunty leader, Robin Hood.”
“You are not my vassals!” Robin reproved.
“But we are,” Nicolas informed her. “We swore to you when we agreed to follow you, and you have given us no reason to gainsay you. We are well recompensed for our service, and more importantly, by helping us to right the wrongs we have all suffered, you have given our lives purpose, and a noble one at that. We are proud to be known as your men.”
Robin shook her head—it embarrassed her to be treated with such deference. She had not given out of a desire for recognition, and would have preferred to remain anonymous, or to at least let her men take the credit. Still, it was clear that her band would not permit that. Humbled by their loyal conviction, she let the matter drop.
* * * * *
To Robin’s confused pleasure, small gifts began to appear along the verge of the forest—a loaf of coarse bread, a small bag of flour. The people of Nottinghamshire had little they could spare to give their enigmatic benefactors, but they still felt the need to thank those whose gifts of coin meant their families could endure for another year. While these tokens of appreciation were usually half-spoilt by the time one of Robin’s scouts stumbled across them (Robin, for her part, suspected there were many more such gifts that hungry woodland creatures had ensured they would never find), the sentiment remained unmarred.
One day, a pair of scouts returned to say that a merchant convoy was making its way from Mansfield Town toward the High Road; Robin and her cadre of elite archers (with the exception of Lot, who preferred his role as camp cook) set out to intercept.
The panicked whinnying of horses was the first indication that something was amiss. Raising a hand to warn her archers to silence, Robin crept forward through the bracken to peer at the road.
Three guards were trying to steady their mounts as they clustered around a laden wagon. Their swords were out in their hands and they wore expressions of fear and loathing on their faces. A fourth man lay dead in the dirt before the wagon, an arrow shaft through his chest and his head half-crushed where his horse had trampled him in terror.
A hundred paces down the road, an archer was holding the entire convoy at bay, threatening them all with his drawn bow. He had a hood pulled up over his face.
“Surrender!” he shouted. “Surrender to Robin Hood!”
Robin’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. Gasps of indignation came from the others, who had come up behind her to peer through the bracken as well.
“The gall of the imposter!” Glenneth hissed in rage. “Taking on your name and hunting on our turf!”
“Does it matter?” Nicolas asked. “He is not doing any different than what we usually do.”
“But we give our money away to the poor! Who is to say he will not keep it all for himself?” Shane demanded.
“And ’e killed a man!” Will Stutley piped up. “’E definitely killed a man!”
“Hey, I know him,” Murray interrupted, looking not at the archer but at the merchant in the cart. “I used to run errands for him before I became an outlaw. He is a good man and an honest mercer—the only one I know.”
“We surrender!” the merchant called, leaning halfway out of his cart to place a restraining hand on the shoulder of a guard who looked ready to charge down the archer, never mind that he would surely be slain before his horse could take a dozen steps. “Only kill no more of my men!”
Robin had witnessed enough. “Shane, Glenneth, I want you to flank that archer from behind. The rest of you, come with me. We are going to put a stop to this villainy.”
She strung her bow, as did the others, keeping one eye to the scene playing out beyond the verge. The imposter was creeping forward along the road, eyeing the wagon with unadulterated greed. He kept his bow drawn and his arrow trained on the merchant, though Robin could see his muscles trembling from the unaccustomed strain of keeping it pulled back. If he were not careful, he was going to loose the shaft by accident.
Robin gave the twins just enough time to reach the archer before she stepped out onto the road. “Halt!” she cried, letting loose an arrow at the same time. It struck the archer’s bow and knocked it from his hands, causing his arrow to whiz off harmlessly to the right. With a frightened cry, the man scrambled for his weapon, seized it and stood up, only to find himself surrounded on all sides by men in Lincoln Green.
The merchant and his guards gaped at the newcomers, at first too startled to react; slowly their expressions changed from fear and shock to utter hopelessness. Robin gave them a reassuring smile.
“Please, do not fear,” she said. “We mean you no harm.”
“Who are you?” the merchant demanded, his voice wavering.
“I am Robin Hood,” she said. The imposter let out a low groan and sank to the ground.
The merchant had experienced too many shocks that day, and when he spoke next his tone was merely weary. “Of course you are. Just take it all. But please, do not kill my men.”
“Robin Hood and his band never kill except in defense,” she said sternly, not so much to the merchant as to the man sitting with his head in his hands. “And we only take from those whose actions towards others are unjust or cruel. I have it on good authority that you are ever kind and honest in your dealings. As such, you have nothing to fear from me. Take your goods and your dead and continue on in peace, for none shall waylay you again.”
Though clearly suspicious, neither the guards nor the merchant wished to question this unexpected turn of events. Two of the guards warily dismounted and picked up the body of their slain comrade, wrapping him in burlap from the wagon and laying him inside.
The third guard rode a little ways along the road and returned after a moment leading his companion’s horse, which had only fled around the bend. Within minutes, the entire convoy was under away.
“See that they make their destination safely,” Robin told the three men standing beside her. They nodded and disappeared into the trees.
Robin walked over to where Shane and Glenneth were guarding the would-be brigand, who was still sitting on the road with his head bowed in despair. She squatted down in front of him.
“Why did you do it?” she asked in a voice that was terrifyi
ng in its tranquility. The man began to shake, but when he finally looked up, his voice was defiant:
“Why should I ne do it? Why should ye be the only ones to steal from the rich?”
“Do you think we just take from whoever we feel like it?” Robin demanded coldly. “We have to be certain that their fortunes are ill-gotten. We have to know them. Do you think I do not know who is who and what is what? I tell you that I do; and furthermore, my people never take a life to take a purse.”
“I did ne mean to take his life,” the man said, a sob breaking through the cock in his voice. “He had a crossbow, and I was so scared . . . .”
Robin took a closer look at the imposter and saw that he was only a couple years older than she was. His face was thin to the point of gauntness, and underneath his bravado of manner, he was clearly terrified. Pity warred with Robin’s ire, and in the end, pity won out.
“I know what it is like to kill a man without intention,” she commiserated quietly. “It haunts you, or it should. You can never make it right—all you can do is try to ensure that it never happens again.”
“I just wanted to feed my family,” he whispered. “You left us some coin, but it all went to our lord—we owed him so much in rent; and the children are so hungry . . . .”
“Go home,” Robin advised him, rising to her feet. “You cannot help your children if you are an outlaw, or dead. As it is, you are fortunate that the convoy could not see your face, and so cannot identify you.” Reaching out her hand, she helped the man to stand, but did not let go right away, ensuring that she had his full attention for what she was about to say. “But lest you be the first of many, let it be known to all that Sherwood Forest is Robin Hood’s territory, and that he will deal harshly from now on with any man found to be masquerading under his name, or who waylays its thoroughfares without his permission, or who takes the lives of any within its bounds—including those of the rich.”
The man nodded anxiously that he understood, and scurried away the instant she released his hand, hastening down the road in the opposite direction of the convoy. With a troubled sigh, Robin turned away from him and examined the scene of the encounter with a sorrowful gaze. Something glinted beneath a bush by the verge, catching her eye.
* * * * *
This time when Robin strode into the tailor’s shop, he was standing in front of the reed partition with her bundle in his hands, as though he had been waiting for her.
“That is new,” the tailor remarked, indicating a silver bugle adorning Robin’s right hip.
Finding the bugle had been the only bright moment in Robin’s encounter with her imposter. Most likely, the instrument had fallen from the slain guard’s belt and had been kicked aside by his bolting horse, skittering off the road to land beneath a bush. The convoy, distracted, had not noticed it fall, and in the haste of their departure, the bugle’s presence beneath the hawthorn bush had been overlooked.
Robin kept the bugle with her to remind her of the influence she could have on others—both for good and for bad, though she soon found herself carrying it for its own sake as well. It was a sweet, lithe instrument with a mirthful voice that traveled far, and she used it now to sound her raids, rather than bellowing. This caused her band to joke that her voice was not deep enough to resonate through the trees on its own, so she needed the bugle to do her shouting for her. Robin did her best to laugh at such jests, even though they gave her concern. How long before someone truly gave thought to her peculiarities: her whiskerless face, her leaner thews, her odd habits? She had no false illusions—only the ingrained belief that a woman could never achieve (and would certainly never try to achieve!) what Robin had done prevented her people from suspecting her gender. If ever they should have cause to doubt that assumption . . . .
“Yes, it is,” she told the tailor simply, indicating with her tone that the subject was closed.
He nodded. “Forgive me. I notice a man’s accouterments out of habit.”
He handed her the bundle containing the last of the Lincoln Green suits she had ordered, but rather than disappearing behind the screen as was his habit, the tailor lingered.
“Our account is settled, is it not?” Robin asked, puzzled by his odd behavior.
“What? Oh, yes . . . yes, it is.”
Robin waited several seconds, but when he said nothing more, she murmured, “Well, good day,” and turned to leave.
“Ye will have heard of the Sheriff’s archery contest—” the tailor spoke up suddenly.
“Archery contest?”
“Ye have not heard of it?” He looked as though he regretted raising the topic.
“I have heard of it now. Tell me.”
“It seems,” the tailor said slowly, in the manner of one weighing the impact of his words, “that a company of outlaws is making trouble for our good Sheriff. He has put a price of £200 on its leader’s head, and £50 on any of his men; strangely enough, no one has even attempted to claim the reward. Perhaps people are afraid to undertake the warrant—it is said that these outlaws can appear and disappear at will, so perfectly do they blend into their surroundings. Or perhaps the people’s lack of interest is more . . . charitable.”
Robin’s gaze sharpened on the tailor. How much did he know, or guess?
“The Sheriff has proposed an archery contest,” he went on, “to try and attract men who might be willing to take up his warrant. The prize for the winner is said to be an arrow of solid gold.”
“A tempting reward,” she allowed noncommittally.
“Yes, indeed. These outlaws are reputed to have fine aim, and their leader the finest of all. If ye ask me, I think the Sheriff intends to attract more than bounty hunters—I think he intends to attract the bounty itself.”
“Surely no outlaw would be foolish enough to walk into such an obvious snare,” Robin remarked.
The tailor had yet to take his eyes from her face, shadowed as it was within the depths of her hood. “Indeed, we must hope not.”
She gave the man a small bow of farewell, acknowledging his warning. Clearly, he had guessed who she was and just as clearly, he had no intention of turning her in. It was good to be acquainted with such a man.
“Good day, Master Tailor,” she said, hoisting the sack over her shoulder and heading out the door.
His reply was almost inaudible as he closed the shop behind her, “Good day . . . Master Archer.”
* * * * *
Her men exchanged exasperated glances across the fire. They had been trying for the last quarter of an hour to dissuade Robin from attending the Sheriff’s tourney—without success.
“Robin, ’tis a trap! Eadom—you know Eadom, the innkeeper at the Blue Boar Inn—he told me that some soldiers were in there drinking the other day, and they as good as said so. You will be putting your own head in the noose if you go into Nottingham for this contest.”
“Tsk, tsk, Lot, will you quaff away all your money?” Robin demanded with mock ferocity, attempting to change the subject. “We will not lend you more just so you can go and drink it all away.”
“Robin, this is serious,” David insisted, refusing to let her divert their concern. “I was there, too, and I heard the same. Do you value your neck so little that you would risk it for pride? Have you thought about what will happen to us if you get caught?”
Robin made a face, instinctively balking at his suggestion that it was pride that goaded her actions. Well, perhaps it is a little, she admitted to herself. But it is more than that. It is about standing up to the Sheriff. He needs to know that he cannot rule me or intimidate me. Flouting him to his face will merely be an added bonus.
“I am certain that you would all survive without me,” she assured her friends, holding up a hand to stave off their protests, “but as it is, I have no intention of being captured. When I go to Nottingham, I promise that none shall know me for Robin Hood. Will that satisfy you?”
David scowled. “Do we have a choice?” His voice bespoke resignation.
<
br /> She gave a merry laugh. “None at all.”
CHAPTER 10
THE GOLDEN ARROW
THE LANCET GATEWAY through the wall around Nottingham Town was crammed with people, all trying to shove their way into the burg. Their discordant voices hurt Robin’s ears and the crush of their bodies made it difficult to move. What little space she had instantly disappeared as a horse and litter wedged their way into the passage, forcing those on foot to squeeze together against the tunnel walls to keep from getting trampled.
As soon as the nobles’ conveyance had passed, the peasants expanded into the gateway once more, carrying Robin along with them. A wave of sound slammed into her as they spilled into the town, making the tunnel rumpus seem like a soothing whisper by comparison.
“Pasties! Get yer hot pasties!”
“Sweetmeats! Barley sugar! Quarter farthing a strip!”
Robin staggered as an overeager vendor bumped into her. Rather than apologizing, he shoved a pasty in front of her face, hollering the price.
Desperately muffling her ears with her hands, Robin stumbled away from the man and towards the leftmost edge of the horde, opposite the current of the crowd. After living in the quiet greenwood for nearly a year, the frenzied commotion and the clamor of peddlers were almost too much for her to endure.
“Certain you will not change your mind, Robin?” David cried, battling his way toward his comrade, his voice barely audible above the din.
She shook her head, but the motion was lost amidst the jostling of the throng; at last, the two friends broke free and stood together in a fallow field, panting hard.
David had accompanied Robin into Nottingham, in spite of her protests, as had Shane, Glenneth, and several of the others. It was their risk to bear, they had argued, and worth the danger to see their leader trounce the Sheriff at his own game; but Robin knew their real motive was to be on hand in case something went wrong. Their concern gratified her, but she still would have preferred they had stayed behind.
Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) Page 11