Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood)

by R. M. ArceJaeger

  The air went out of John with a whoosh! Will did not wait. He hooked his staff under Little John’s cudgel and wrenched it from his grasp; with a final swing, he smote John a blow upon the head so hard that it sounded as if someone had felled a tree, and Little John crumpled to the ground and did not move.

  “Is he dead?” Marian asked, sounding close to tears.

  Dead, dead, dead. The chorus rang through Robin’s mind as she blindly forced her way through the crowd, trying to get to Little John. At last, she broke through the circle of onlookers and immediately skidded to a halt, not certain if she could endure any more shocks that day.

  Will had laid down his cudgel and was helping a grimacing Little John to his feet. Both men were gingerly touching their crowns; their fingers came away bloody. Without warning, Will stretched out his hand, and after a second’s hesitation, Little John took it, their bloodstained palms sealing their peace.

  “Well done, Scarlet,” Little John rumbled amidst the cheers. “Well done.”

  Then, with their arms around each other’s shoulders like the best of friends, the two men staggered back to the Trysting Tree and to an anxious Marian, leaving an astounded Robin to watch them go.

  CHAPTER 15

  MANY SECRETS

  “SO, WHAT IS going on between you and Little John?” Marian asked curiously, wiping a strand of wind-tossed hair out of her eyes. She was kneeling in an amber meadow, hunting through the blazing autumnal leaves for herbs and roots for Edra. Her arms and face were streaked with dirt, but Robin, who had offered to help her, was still mostly clean, and was staring into the shrouded sky for the fifth time that hour, her gathering forgotten.

  Robin’s thoughts flew back to her with alarming haste. Marian had ceased in her collecting and was innocently weaving a rich green sprig of maidenhair fern through her hair; she watched Robin’s reaction to her question with avid interest.

  “There is nothing going on,” Robin replied a shade too quickly, standing up and dumping the few scraggly plants she had gathered into Marian’s basket. “Nothing at all.”

  “Ah, I see. And is that the same sort of nothing that was going on that time I caught you making doe-eyes at the miller’s son?” Marian teased.

  “I have not been making doe-eyes at John!”

  “Protest all you like, dear sister,” Marian replied, getting up and looping her basket over one arm while she dusted stray leaves from her skirt. “Even he noticed you staring at him last night.”

  Robin blushed. She certainly had not meant to gape. She had just lost track of her thoughts until John, feeling her eyes on him, had turned to her and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  Ever since the fight with Will, her friendship with Little John had grown even stronger—especially once Little John realized she had no desire to replace him with her cousin. But that closeness meant Robin was even more hard-pressed to control her feelings toward him, and last night she had let her defenses lapse.

  “It was just a stare,” she protested dully. “Nothing more. And Little John accepted my excuse easily enough.”

  “Because he thinks you are a man,” Marian filled in.

  “Exactly.”

  “If you told him the truth about yourself, he would not see you that way anymore.”

  “I—” Robin snapped her mouth shut, afraid that if she said anything more, if she listened to that calm voice of encouragement, she would be tempted to do just that. And there were a thousand reasons why telling John the truth would be a terrible idea.

  “Just think it over, all right?” Marian asked, wrapping an arm through one of Robin’s. “Love is a wonderful thing; we should not have to hide it.”

  * * * * *

  Back at the camp, Marian unloaded her basket of herbs in Edra’s hut while Robin waited outside.

  “I hope no one is at the stream right now,” Marian exclaimed when she returned. “I cannot wait to wash this stink off me!”

  “How can you stand the reek?” Robin asked, wrinkling her nose at the cabin. A mere whiff of the interior was enough to give Robin a headache; she could not imagine having to live there.

  “Oh, you get accustomed to it after a while. But my skin is covered in the smell right now, and I want to be able to sit among people tonight.”

  With a small wave, Marian headed for the stream, climbing down the granite rocks to the shallow pool that the men had dammed off for bathing.

  Robin was about to turn away when a light giggle caught her attention. She turned back just in time to see two small figures disappear into the bushes that topped the rise.

  “Are your heads so thick,” she demanded imperiously, snatching hold of their collars and dragging them out of the brush, “that you think they can withstand a walloping? Or perhaps your parents will do the honors for me, when I tell them that I had to outlaw their already outlawed sons for spying on a woman bathing!”

  “We meant no harm, honest!” one of the young boys cried, twisting in her grasp. His friend nodded furiously in agreement.

  “Well, I do mean harm if I ever catch you peeping again. Now, git!” Robin commanded, flinging them back in the direction of the camp.

  Still they lingered. “Please, Robin? Just this once?” they begged.

  “No! Marian is off limits. Now you have two seconds to disappear, before I take a cudgel to your backsides!”

  They scampered, exchanging nudges of smug surmise and stifling snickers as they went.

  Robin kept guard at the top of the rise until Marian returned, smelling strongly of lye and attempting to weave the sagging fern frond back through her sodden locks.

  “Even in an outlaw camp, the boys cannot seem to keep their eyes off you,” she teased, helping Marian over the last few rocks.

  “Boys? What boys?”

  “Just a couple young lads.” Was it Robin’s imagination, or did Marian look faintly disappointed? “Remind me sometime to show you where I bathe—I will not always be around to chase off your admirers.”

  “Am I such an inconvenience to you?” Marian asked wistfully.

  Robin turned to face her, shocked. “No! I am pleased that you are here. Truly I am.”

  “It is just, you are so busy—so many people rely on you here. You have made a whole life for yourself, and I do not really feel like I am a part of it. I try and help Edra . . . but I do not think that anyone really wants me here.”

  “I want you here,” Robin insisted, seizing her sister’s hands. “You belong here as much as anyone.”

  “And I suppose you think that is comforting?” Marian challenged, a teasing gleam in her eye. Robin laughed, glad to let drop the subject of not belonging.

  * * * * *

  As autumn began to merge into winter, several more bedraggled families found their way into Sherwood Forest, each bearing a tale of eviction at the hand of the Sheriff’s new captain—a man so vicious he made even the most heartless of mercenaries pale by comparison. With nowhere to go and still reeling from the brutality of their treatment, they had sought refuge with the only protector they knew: Robin Hood.

  Robin had no choice; basic human decency demanded that she take them in. As winter progressed, the sight of a weary stranger staggering into her camp, guided by a man in green, became an all-too-common occurrence, one that never failed to send a surge of frustration coursing through Robin. No matter how she tried to disperse the monies her band obtained, it seemed there was always someone who fell victim to a poor harvest and the Sheriff’s unrelenting taxes.

  “Just imagine how many more families would be camped around our fires if not for the money you leave them. You cannot save everybody,” Little John told Robin one day.

  “But look at them!” she cried, indicating a recent addition to the camp whose family make-up included an infant and two unsteady toddlers. “They do not belong in the greenwood. They belong in their own house—not crammed into a little hut in a wintering forest, with naught but the clothes on their backs to call their own. It is not right
!”

  “Since when has our Sheriff ever concerned himself with what is right? Look, Robin,” Little John said, “why do you think they come here? It is because you are the only one who seems to care what right is.”

  “Stealing is not right,” she argued inimically. “It is a crime.”

  “Stealing a person’s home because they cannot pay an unjust tax is a crime—not returning that tax to the people it was taken from. You taught us that. Have you forgotten?”

  “No,” Robin admitted. She knew that Little John was right, but for once his words did not comfort her.

  “You are a hero,” Little John insisted.

  But looking into the eyes of the families clustered by the fire, Robin did not feel very heroic.

  * * * * *

  Robin supposed she should have seen it coming. A man would have known exactly what was going on when some of the new, unattached girls who had sought haven in the Sherwood with their fathers or their brothers began to take it in turns to bring Robin her meals. They would have seen the truth behind the shining eyes, the giggling whispers, the innocent run-ins or the earnest greetings. But Robin, consumed with her own secrets, failed to recognize theirs until it was almost too late.

  “Are ye sure ye will ne have more stew, Robin?” a girl named Valerie asked for the third time in as many minutes. Robin let out a deep sigh of impatience. It was one thing to be proud of one’s cooking, but honestly—how much did these girls think she could eat? She had already had her fill and then some, but still they pestered her to have more. A serving rotation had been Marian’s idea, since she hated to stand in line, but now Robin was beginning to yearn for the days when each person had obtained their meal for themselves.

  “No, thank you,” she repeated, struggling to stay polite. “Truly, I cannot swallow another spoonful of your excellent repast.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “If he does not want it, I do!” Shane exclaimed, jumping up and snatching the bowl out of the woman’s grasp. He gave her a dazzling smile.

  Flustered, but unable to protest, the girl stalked away. Shane watched her go, a trifle disappointed. He looked down at the soup in his hands. “Does anyone want this?”

  When they shook their heads, he collapsed back down onto a log with a sigh, setting the bowl aside. His eyes never strayed from Valerie as the girl returned to her friends (the young women immediately huddled together, conferring urgently).

  “Let us have a song, Allan!” Shane suddenly cried, leaping back onto his feet. “One that will set our toes to tapping and our feet to dancing!”

  Allan, a slim slip of a boy, obediently picked up his lute and drew his hand across the strings, causing a cascade of tones to thrill through the air. Allan was one of the band’s more recent additions, and though shy and quiet most of the time, an emboldened self seemed to spring from within him whenever he was called upon to sing. Suddenly boisterous and jolly, his voice—a surprisingly rich tenor—would surge forth as strong and pure as a stream born of melting snows.

  “Nonny, hey Nonny, beauteous and bonny, come and dance with me . . . . We will spin through the meadows and romp in the shadows beneath the greenwood trees . . . .”

  The transformation Allan’s voice wrought in her band never ceased to amaze Robin. For the moment forgetting all their worries and cares, her people would grab as partner whoever was close at hand, dancing merrily with them in the twilight. Against the blaze of the fire, their silhouettes flickered black and red, accentuating their movements and making her dizzy just to watch them.

  “Come on, Robin!” Marian called, appearing suddenly from out of the sea of dancers. “Dance with me!”

  “I do not dance—” Robin began, but Marian would hear no protests. Seizing hold of her sister’s hands, she pulled Robin into the cavorting circle. Robin had to move then, or risk being crushed by the prancing feet and flailing arms. One moment she was dancing with Marian, the next Will had her by the waist and was spinning her in circles—Shane caught her by the arm then and began to perform a high-kicking step that she did her best to mimic; David seized her by the shoulder and they capered around each other, clapping to the beat. For one brief instant, Little John held her—his arm was wrapped in hers and they were dos-á-dosing around each other, and Robin could not remember why she had ever hated dancing before—this was wonderful, this was real, this was right—and then suddenly Little John was gone and she was dancing with Valerie.

  Robin’s mind was still whirling from her brief moment with John, and maybe that was why she did not realize the impending danger until it was almost too late. Before she could register what was happening, Valerie had the edges of Robin’s hood wrapped in her fingers and was pushing it back, stretching onto her tiptoes as she did so to kiss Robin squarely on the lips.

  It was Robin’s instinctual reaction that saved her—a split second before Valerie would have pulled down the hood and Robin’s disguise along with it, she caught the girl’s wrists and flung her away from herself in harrowed disgust.

  Valerie fell to the ground; the men nearest to Robin were staring. Snatching at her slipping hood and feeling like she was going to be ill, Robin turned and ran out of the circle. Behind her, she heard someone call, “Do not bother with him—he is saving himself for the Lady Marian!” and thought that it might be Shane.

  * * * * *

  “You certainly know how to make an exit,” Marian told her sister the next day, once Robin finally heeded her pounding and let her into the cabin. “Poor Valerie is quite distraught.”

  “Oh, Valerie is distraught?” Robin seethed, her voice rising slightly as she shut the door. “She kissed me—which, by the way, is an experience I would like to forget, thank-you-very-much—and she almost gave away who I truly am as well!”

  “Just because you have no clue what to do if a woman kisses you, does not mean she jeopardized your identity. Lots of men would have reacted the same way. Although running away was perhaps a bit much,” Marian added thoughtfully.

  In irritation, Robin yanked off her hood, revealing her thick yellow braid. “This is what she almost did,” she announced hotly.

  Marian’s eyes widened in surprise. “You mean you have not cropped your hair yet? Robin! Of all people, how could you be so foolish?” she scolded. “Think of all your hard work, and all it would take is some rogue knocking your hood from your head to destroy it! You have gone to such lengths to disguise your voice and amend your habits, why in the world have you kept your hair this long when it is the one thing you could easily change?”

  “It has worked brilliantly for me!” Robin answered with vehemence. “It has let me slip into and out of Nottingham more than a few times . . . and it helps protect my head against buffets from John’s quarterstaff!”

  “It is too risky, Robin. If you intend to keep up your charade, you must cut it.”

  Robin turned away, but as much as she tried to resist the truth of Marian’s words, she knew that her sister was right. She had kept her hair long as her one vanity, not for any of the reasons she had listed—those had merely served to excuse not shearing it.

  “Let me do it,” Marian told her, her eyes softening a bit at the look on Robin’s face. “I promise to be quick.”

  Robin tried to think of some argument she could give, some further reason not to cut her hair . . . but Marian was right: it was too risky. Valerie had proven that. With a nod of surrender, Robin dug beneath her bedding for her dagger and handed it to her sister with great reluctance. Marian took it, but hesitated; even she seemed loath to cut the golden locks.

  “Just do it,” Robin whispered, her eyes closed tight.

  The blade began to saw at her braid; as the heavy strands fell away, Robin felt some vestige of the woman she had been—Robin of Locksley, daughter of Sir Robert of Locksley; a noblewoman—to which she had so stubbornly clung, fall away at last.

  Finally, the shearing blade grew still. Tentatively, Robin shook her head—wisps of gold fluttered around her
neck, and her head felt strangely light. She touched the bottom of her hair—the ends curled up softly around her fingertips, freed of the weight that had dragged them down for so long.

  Robin turned to her sister. “What do you think?”

  “You will pass,” Marian said thoughtfully, looking her over. “Although I doubt there is a prettier boy in all of Nottinghamshire. You had better get used to the girls wanting to steal a kiss.”

  Robin blanched.

  * * * * *

  After Marian left, Robin sat for a while turning over her hood in her hands. It made her feel peculiar to know that she did not need to wear it anymore to protect her identity. She reached up to touch her short hair. How would her people react to seeing her with her head uncovered for the first time?

  Part of her wanted to get it over with, to face their startled exclamations and thus free herself of her hood’s shadowy confines, but she was not quite ready to cast her namesake aside. At last, she pulled on her hood with a sigh. I will go without it tomorrow, she promised herself reluctantly.

  True to her word, Robin deliberately left her hood aside the next morning, stepping into the sedate bustle of the camp with her head completely unadorned. She felt highly self-conscious, and waited expectantly for someone to notice her newly cropped curls.

  Expectation soon turned to astonishment, however, when for the first time in over a year, no one raised their arm to her in greeting, nor came up to her to share some tale. In fact, no one gave her more than a passing glance, clearly dismissing the youth with the shaggy gold hair for just another recent arrival.

  Marian was right, Robin thought with wonder, gazing around. People really do see only what they expect to see!