“I may not be a man,” she went on, speaking softer, “but I am still the Robin you knew. Do not throw away everything we have worked for, everything we have achieved, just because my gender is different than yours.” She was speaking of their friendship as much as the band, and she saw the awareness of that in his eyes.
After a moment, Little John reached over and picked up the singed rabbit, brushing celadon grass off the meat.
“Would you like some?” he asked, his tone carefully bland.
Robin tried not to look surprised and considered whether eating was even possible at the moment. Her wound made flame lance through her chest with every breath she took. Swallowing was agony. How in the world would she manage food? “Please,” she said at last.
Little John helped Robin into a sitting position, leaning her back against a tree and pulling up the cloak where it had fallen. He touched her no longer than he had to.
It was a struggle to eat, but Robin managed, more for the comfort of the familiar task than because she felt truly hungry. The last time she and Little John had sat around a campfire eating rabbit like this, Robin had used the time to study him; now it was Little John who studied her, and she was not certain he approved of what he saw.
“So,” she asked at last, when the silence had stretched on for longer than she could bear. “Am I to be let live?”
She deliberately posed the same question he had asked of her the night they had first met. She tried to say it lightly, but there was too much truth in the query. What was he going to do?
He frowned. “I do not know what to make of you, Robin. You are not who I took you to be, and I cannot forgive you for that—but everything that mattered about the Robin I came to the Sherwood to seek . . . all the reasons why the Sheriff hunts you and the people love you and your men follow you—you are still all that. I think.”
“So you will not tell anyone?” she asked, unable to prevent a note of begging from creeping into her voice.
He considered for a long moment. “I cannot promise you that,” he said at last. “I need time to think. But I will not mention anything to anyone for now.”
Robin could hardly have expected a more positive response, and yet she had, and she felt her stomach twist with disappointment and anxiety. Still, Little John had promised to safeguard her secret for now, which was something. She would have to be satisfied with that.
* * * * *
Horrified gasps met the pair when they returned to camp, Little John carrying Robin in his arms, wrapped inside his cloak. Within seconds, anxious onlookers had surrounded them, their voices rising as they demanded to know what had happened, offered their aid, and loudly promised vengeance on Guy of Gisborne and the Sheriff as the story spread.
To Robin’s relief, Little John took her straight to her cabin. He helped her lie down on her fern bed, the effort of reclining bringing tears to her eyes as her wound split open anew.
“I will go get the healer,” he offered, rising back up.
Just then, Marian rushed in, followed closely by Edra.
“I will tend to my—to Robin,” the girl announced loudly, dropping the armload of unguents, herbs, and cloths she had been carrying onto the ferns. She then began to push Edra and Little John out the door, insisting over the healer’s protests that she would attend to Robin herself.
Before Little John left, he gave Marian a long, appraising look. After his promise to Robin last night, he had kept mostly silent except to ask a few questions, which Robin had answered as truthfully as she could. He now knew that Marian was her sister, and that Will was indeed her cousin, and that she had been born well-off, although he did not know that her father was Lord Locksley.
Whatever Little John saw in Marian’s face must have satisfied him, because he gave her a small nod of acknowledgement and stepped outside, shutting the door behind him. Through the walls, Robin could dimly hear him telling Edra that the wound was very minor, and that Marian’s presence might do more to speed Robin’s healing than any herb could do.
Thank you, John, she wept in silent gratitude as Marian began to peel away her bandages, which seemed to have welded themselves to her skin. Thank you for that much.
Days passed. At first, the agony of her wound left Robin too exhausted to do anything but sleep. She roused only to drink the broth that Marian brought, or when her bandages needed changing.
As her body began to heal, however, Robin found unconsciousness beginning to elude her, and she would lie awake for hours on end, unable to move and with nothing to do. Soon the confines of her hut began to oppress her, and she fretted so much that Marian, exasperated, finally agreed that Robin could go outside if she promised to sit quietly under the oak tree and not exert herself. Will dutifully carried his cousin to her moss-strewn spot, propping her up against the tree trunk and giving her one of the new deerskin blankets that Murray had tanned especially for her.
The sight of Robin sitting in her old spot raised her people’s spirits tremendously—rumors had been blazing like wildfire through the camp that she was mortally injured, or had even died. Robin thought this was silly since David and Mara (accompanied by little Hannah, who had gazed at her with solemn eyes) had been in to see her several times, as had the twins, Will Stutley, and several of the others, and they had all announced to the camp that she was mending well. But fear gave rumors strength, and they had persisted until Robin’s presence proved them false.
Little John, she noted bitterly, had not been by since he had returned her safely to the camp. Robin tried not to brood over this, but could not succeed. Marian claimed that Little John inquired often about how she was doing . . . but if that were true, then why did he not come to see for himself? If he were still her friend, then surely he would have come. No, it was far more likely that the discovery of her deception had destroyed his feelings of friendship for her, and his inquiring—if indeed, he really did inquire at all—was merely out of courtesy, nothing more.
Such thoughts had plagued Robin’s mind through her long, inert days spent recovering in her hut, and she had feared that even out here in the sun, they would persist. However, her people’s relieved expressions when they saw her back at her perch, and the eagerness with which they came up to talk with her, babbling on about the weather and other camp inanities in their need to speak, heartened Robin tremendously; she found that she could not remain gloomy for long. Their anxious concern buoyed Robin through her frustrating days of incapacity, as her muscles reknit themselves and her tissues healed, until at last the day came when she could pick up a bow again for the first time and send a goose-fletched arrow winging through the trees. Though the strain in Robin’s chest made the arrow veer wide of its mark, the cheer she received echoed all the way to Mansfield Town—the whole camp had turned out to watch their brave leader bend a bow again.
But in spite of Robin’s mending body, her spirit stayed wounded; Little John alone remained aloof throughout her recovery. He still sat beside her at meals, but he chose to converse with Will Stutley and David rather than with her. Whenever they passed each other by in the camp, he was cordial, making no obvious effort to avoid her presence, but making no effort to seek her out, either.
One night while Marian was changing Robin’s bandages—unnecessarily, as it turned out, for her wound was almost fully healed and in spite of the day’s activities, had not wept—Robin could not help venting some of her frustration.
“I do not know what to do! If only he would give me some sign, one way or the other, then I could decide what action to take—but I cannot tell what he is thinking! And I dare not ask, in case he decides against me. It is driving me mad!”
“Are we still talking about the fact that Little John knows you are a woman now, or are we talking about something more?” Marian asked as she gathered up the wrapping.
Robin’s response was muffled, her head suddenly buried in her arms. With a tender smile, Marian reached out to stroke her sister’s short-cropped hair.
&
nbsp; “Why not just tell everyone who you really are?” she suggested for the hundredth time. “You cannot stay a fair-faced lad forever. John knows the truth, and he is still here. You said yourself that he admitted you were a good leader. Your friends will support you.”
Robin shook her head, rejecting her sister’s words.
“Would it be so terrible if they did find out?” Marian asked again.
“Yes,” Robin groaned. “It would be the end of everything!”
Helpless in the face of such illogic, Marian gathered her healing supplies into her basket. She wished she could provide an anodyne for her sister’s heart as she had for her wounds, but this was something that Robin would have to work through herself. With a kiss to the top of her sister’s prone head, she exited the hut, leaving Robin to struggle with the pain in her chest that no ointment could heal and no bandage could contain.
CHAPTER 17
A MEET DIVERSION
AFTER HER LONG convalescence, Robin was grateful for any excuse to stretch her legs, so when the time came for the twins to go disperse the month’s monies to the needy in Cuckney Town, she gladly chose to accompany them.
Although she had not really thought she would need it, Robin had heeded Marian’s advice and brought along her cudgel for use as a walking stick. Now, after a day spent hiking through the forest and the farms of Cuckney Town, she found herself fully appreciating its aid. Even though Marian had declared her to be completely healed, Robin’s trip left her feeling more tired than she had supposed she would be—it would clearly still be some time before her body would regain the level of fitness it had possessed prior to her injury.
“What is he doing?” Glenneth demanded harshly, interrupting Robin’s musings.
“Poaching our good King’s deer!” came Shane’s snarled reply.
Robin turned to look at them, startled by their sudden ire; just a few moments before, the twins had been chatting lightly together as they walked through the greenwood. Now they were halted, their expressions indignant. Following the direction of their gazes, she saw what they had espied: a stranger stalking a herd of deer.
Now, someone not from the Sherwood might have wondered why this sight should have so concerned the trio—after all, Robin’s band poached deer often enough themselves. But whereas her band hunted to survive, the sturdy attire of this unknown tracker and his well-fleshed appearance bespoke a secure if moderate existence. Clearly, he had no need to hunt the King’s deer, and whatever one might say about Robin and her band, no one could claim that they were not loyal to the King. Her band viewed themselves less as poachers and more as unofficial foresters, granted the right to vert and venison as long as they protected the King’s land and all those within it.
If the King’s deer were in danger then it was Robin’s duty to protect them, in spite of her desire to avoid a confrontation. Also, there were the twins to consider—as their leader, she needed to provide the proper example. This poacher could not go unchallenged.
“Hold!” she shouted, marching forward and startling the man from his perch in the bracken. The deer, also startled, leapt away.
“Wassat?” the hunter growled, rolling to his feet with a wrestler’s grace. He immediately adopted a defensive crouch, casting a regretful glance after the fleeing deer as he turned to face Robin. “Who are ye to tell me, ‘Hold?’”
“We are the King’s foresters,” Robin said, widening her stance and deepening her voice even lower than normal in response to his challenge. “And we cannot let one such as yourself steal our good King’s deer.”
“I am no thief!” the man cried, surprised. “I admire the deer, and I like to watch them graze—indeed, I like it more’n anything. I was ne hunting them!”
“A likely tale!” Glenneth scoffed.
But now that Robin looked closer, she could see that the man carried no bow—only a thick quarterstaff clenched tightly in his white-knuckled fist. Robin cast around for a way to apologize without losing face, even as her hands tightened upon her own cudgel in instinctive response.
The man, misinterpreting her grasp on her staff, raised his own in defiant threat. “I care ne who ye are, ne whom ye purport to be—no one has ever made Arthur a Bland cry ‘Mercy’ before, and ye shall ne today!”
“Is that so?” Shane demanded. “Thief or not, your tongue has earned you a drubbing! I would delight in the task myself, but I cannot deny my master the pleasure.” He gave Robin a short bow. “He will give you a drubbing that will knock all the pretty words loose from your head, ‘Mercy’ included.”
“Ye call this boy, ‘Master?’” Arthur a Bland sneered, raking Robin with his gaze and dismissing her just as quickly. “I will break him beneath the first blow from my staff.”
He began to circle Robin who, seeing there was no longer a way to escape from a fight, reset her grip on her cudgel and settled into a small crouch.
A faint whistle signaled the start of the bout as Arthur’s staff shrilled through the air. Robin moved to block the blow and struck back quickly with her own staff; the man parried her attack effortlessly. So they went, each warding the other’s blows until sweat dripped from their brows and their hands began to slip on their staves.
A deep ache was growing steadily in Robin’s left shoulder; her muscles, softened from her recovery, protested the strain of the battle. She began to guard her movements, trying to ease the pain, until at last she moved too slowly to block a blow, and her opponent’s staff smote heavily upon her ribs, forcing the air from Robin’s lungs and leaving her gasping for breath.
Arthur a Bland swung then what he was sure would be the winning stroke, but to his patent surprise, his opponent blocked it. With more strength than she had shown yet, Robin struck back, the pain in her side fueling her determination to end the bout. Just as she unleashed the blow that would fell her opponent, her shoulder seized in a crippling spasm, jerking her cudgel and causing it to strike the other staff at a ruinous angle; her stave jarred horribly in her hands for a moment and then broke in two.
“Blast,” she said, and then ducked as her adversary cast another blow at her head.
“Foul!” Shane and Glenneth cried together, racing forward to defend their unarmed friend. Her opponent backed away, spinning his cudgel menacingly.
“Come on, then!” he snarled. “I may just be one man, but even if you prove as stout as this fellow turned out to be, I will fight you all to the bitter end! I will not cry ‘Mercy’ to anybody!”
“Enough!” Robin shouted, seizing the back of the twins’ tunics simultaneously. When it seemed as though they would ignore her command, she repeated it again with stern emphasis: “Enough.”
Reluctantly, they obeyed her, relaxing their aggressive postures and taking a step back—Glenneth first, and Shane a moment later. “Aye, Robin,” they submitted, the disappointment in their voices clear.
“Robin?” Arthur a Bland gasped. “Robin Hood?” His gaze passed from one Lincoln-clad man to the other, coming to rest on the flaxen-haired youth he had just fought, the boy the dark one had called, “Master.” Arthur’s grip on his staff grew weak as he made the connection, and the wooden pole clattered to the ground.
Robin flinched and winced, her shoulder and side still throbbing from the match. To add to her vexation, the man she had just fought was now gazing at her in disbelief and apparent awe. “What?” she demanded crossly.
“I did ne realize,” he began, his voice quivering a little. “I would never have wanted—never have dared—to raise my staff against ye. Forgive me.”
Bewildered by his abrupt change of demeanor, but unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth, Robin seized the opportunity to salvage her reputation and her pride.
“There is nothing to forgive,” she informed the man. “We were wrong to accuse you of poaching, and there is no shame to admit it. I, for one, am glad of any soul who is stout enough to defend against injustice.”
The man beamed at her self-consciously. “’Twas nothing
.”
“Indeed, it was something,” Robin said, barely masking the rueful note in her voice as she touched her tender ribs. “You keep fighting against injustice, Arthur a Bland, no matter how small it may be. We have great need of such men.”
Her words stunned Arthur, but he quickly recovered. “Oh, let me join ye!” he begged. “To live a life in the forest I love, to see the dun deer always and to have brave men like ye for my companions is the height of my desire! Yessir, and if ye will forgive me my impertinence, I would be most willing to join yer band!”
The force of his unexpected response took Robin aback. She had been speaking of society in general, not of her band, but this man had clearly misconstrued her meaning. Still, she could not very well take back her words—there had been enough misunderstanding between them for one day. Even so, she tried.
“No one in my band would be here if they had anyplace better to be. Either they have lost their homes due to taxes, or they cannot return to them because they are outlaws. You still have a place in society. Consider well the riches you possess before you abandon them.”
Arthur a Bland gave an indifferent shrug. “I have no family to miss, and what is a house to me? Merely a place to sleep, and I can do that here as well as anywhere else. Let me join ye!” he beseeched.
His choice baffled Robin, but she nodded.
Immediately, Shane and Glenneth came forward to clasp their new comrade on the shoulder, buffeting him with their accepting laughter, their natures as quick to forgive as they were to attack. They spent the rest of the return journey through the Sherwood tossing the tale of what had just happened back-and-forth between them as they walked, all the better to recount the occurrence once they reached the camp. Amazed by how the story was aggrandizing before her very ears, Robin followed the threesome at a more sedate pace, shaking her head in silent wonder.
Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) Page 21