Little John obliged her, counting the coins aloud in a booming voice while the Sheriff stood by stiff as stone. When the last of the silver and gold sat upon a wooden trencher and the tally read three hundred pounds, Phillip Darniel turned away without a word and mounted his horse.
“Nicolas, go with him,” Robin commanded. “Night is nearly upon us and I would not have our guest lose his way in the forest.”
“No!” the Sheriff bellowed, visibly alarmed. “I have no need of guidance.”
That was an obvious falsehood, but Robin, seeing the fear in the Sheriff’s eyes, understood why he might not want to be alone with one of her men.
“Then I will lead you myself,” she announced. Seizing hold of the horse’s reins, she led the placid mare into the trees. As she wended her way along invisible forest paths, doubling and occasionally tripling back until Darniel could not possibly keep his direction, Robin wondered if the Sheriff might not spur his horse into a canter and trample her beneath its hooves, or try to stick a concealed dagger in her back. She was almost surprised when they reached the High Road to find that she was unscathed.
She handed the reins back to the scowling man. “Farewell, Sheriff. Go in peace, and remember your feast in the forest the next time you seek to cheat a man.” With that valediction, she slapped the horse on its hindquarters, startling it into a forward leap. Without waiting for his beast to settle down, the Sheriff kicked the horse into a gallop, racing down the moonlit road until all that Robin could see were clouds of silver dust.
Robin exhaled slowly and turned her gaze away from the road. Facing the slumbering shadows of the forest, she called out loudly into the darkness: “Come out, then, whoever you are, and tell me why you are following me!”
CHAPTER 19
THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS
WILL GAMWELL stepped out of the shadows.
“Whatever are you doing here? I did not ask to be followed,” Robin rebuked him as she recognized her cousin, but she tempered the reprimand with a smile. “Still, I suppose I should be thanking you, since I suspect the Sheriff would have tried to retaliate against me, if not for your presence. Likely, he sensed you behind us as I did and chose not to risk it.”
Will quirked his head, as though her words surprised him. “If so, I am glad I was present, though I must confess that my guardianship was accidental. I wanted to talk with you.”
Now it was Robin’s turn to quirk her head. “I am glad to know you have such faith in my ability to self-protect,” she told him dryly. “Could your conversation not have waited until I got back to camp?”
“I wanted to talk to you away from camp.”
Robin frowned, and walked back into the Sherwood, Will falling into step beside her. “Well, we certainly are ‘away.’ So, talk.”
Her cousin’s tone grew stern: “You have gotten caught up in this role of yours—in being Robin Hood. You have forgotten how it affects other people.”
“Of course I have not forgotten!” Robin exclaimed, taken aback by his censure. “That is why I brought the Sheriff here, so that he might see us not just as outlaws, but as people—deserving people who need a sheriff who will do rightly by them. If the Sheriff shows leniency to even one family as a result of today’s experience, then bringing him here will have been worth all the risk and displeasure. I thought you of all people would understand that.”
“I am not talking about the Sheriff!” Will seized Robin by the arm, halting her forward progress. “I am talking about Marian.”
“What?” Robin blinked at her cousin, completely confused. “What does Marian have to do with this?”
“You heard the Sheriff earlier, what he thinks she has become. And he is not the only one. If you keep up this charade, you will ruin Marian’s reputation.”
“She is living in a camp of outlaws. Technically, her reputation is already ruined,” Robin pointed out pragmatically.
“Not to me!”
Will’s explosion startled several birds from their sleep in the trees; Robin jumped at the sudden outburst, and even her cousin seemed surprised at himself. He continued on in a more controlled tone, “Did you never wonder why no one has questioned your right to steal Marian away in the first place? Why no one has even dared flirt with her since she came to live here? They think the two of you are in love!”
Robin gaped at him, shocked. “I never thought—I will straighten them out, tell them there is naught going on between us . . . .”
“You cannot!” Will took a deep, steadying breath. “Try to understand: no one is going to make a bid for her if they think she is Robin Hood’s lady. You are the only protection she has here. But it kills me, the smirks and the whispers and the jokes, each time they see the two of you alone together.”
He sank down onto a lichen-covered log as he spoke, almost collapsing through the rotten wood. Will scarcely noticed, however, and buried his head in his hands. Robin, bewildered and alarmed, bit back the urge to demand further explanation and simply waited.
“I thought you and I would always be together, you know?” Will declared suddenly, still not looking at Robin. “Even after you ran away, I half-envisioned myself going to London Town to find you there. But those were the dreams of a youth, with a youth’s focused attachment, and I know better now. I care for you deeply, Robin, and I always will, but I love Marian. I love her!”
The abruptness of this revelation should have startled Robin, but oddly, it did not. Back at the manor, she had sensed Will’s friendship toward her starting to change into a deeper attachment, but she had pushed the awareness aside, afraid to acknowledge a devotion she could not return. Now, she was relieved to hear that those sentiments no longer prevailed.
“Have you told her?” she asked with solicitude, sitting down on the soft grass in front of her cousin, rather than risk the crumbling wood.
“Yes. That is the problem,” Will sighed, fingering the wilted aster stuck through his buttonhole. Robin saw it and wondered at its presence—as a youngster, Will had always shunned such frippery, yet ever since he had come to the Sherwood, he constantly seemed to have some sort of flower upon his person. She had stopped noticing it, but now the oddity struck her anew.
“You two have been speaking with flowers,” she said in sudden realization. “That white primrose you dropped in the road by the Blue Boar Inn—that was from Marian, was it not? She always did like that sort of romantic foolery.”
“She gave it to me when she thought—we both thought—that she would have to marry the Sheriff. To tell me farewell. And now that she is free to return my affections . . . now it is I who must refuse her.”
“But why?” Robin asked. “If you two truly love each other, then why should you not be together?”
“Because I am an outlaw, Robin!” he burst out. “Even if the Sheriff does not know by now that Will Gamwell and Will Scarlet are one and the same person, what kind of life can I offer Marian, without title or deed to my name? She was meant for more than a peasant’s life; I cannot give it to her.”
Robin scowled at such stupidity, but she kept her voice level. “You cannot really think that Marian cares about all that. If you truly did, you would have let her marry the Sheriff.”
“Mayhap I should have,” Will moaned. “Maybe I was wrong—”
“I am going to whip you with the flat of my blade if you do not start acting sensible,” Robin announced, forsaking empathy and rising to her feet. “For shame, Will Gamwell! Blaming me for Marian’s reputation because you are too lackwit to marry her. I am not the one who should be her protector—you are. And if you refuse—if she gives up on you and falls for someone else—then you shall have only yourself to blame!”
Robin strode away, leaving a stunned Will alone with the echoes of her words. Let him chew on that for a while, she thought, pleased with herself. He will come to his senses. Men just like to make things difficult.
* * * * *
Robin did not have to wait long for Will’s decision. She
was sharpening her sword by the river the next morning when Marian came flying into her.
“Careful!” Robin cried, dropping the sword and throwing one hand behind her to keep from falling over as Marian seized her in a desperate hug. “Never ever grab someone when they have a sword in their lap!”
“Look at this!” Marian cried, ignoring Robin’s rebuke and thrusting something under her nose. Robin blinked, and craned her head back until whatever it was came into focus.
It was a small bouquet of blue violets, bound together with an ivy vine. So Will had made up his mind, then—but was his resolution what her sister wanted to hear? She chanced a glance at Marian’s face: it was shining with happiness.
“Will has asked me to marry him!” Marian exclaimed.
Robin smiled, taking her sister’s hands. “How wonderful!”
“You do not mind?” the girl tentatively asked, some of the excitement leaving her eyes as she sat down next to Robin. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I know that Will used to like you, so I thought perhaps you might, even if you do like Little John now . . . .”
“I do not mind in the slightest. I am very happy for you both,” Robin told her sincerely. “When will you have the wedding?”
“In the spring, when all the flowers in bloom. It seems only right, considering how much they helped us when we could not freely speak of what was in our hearts! And what are a few more months to one in love?” She kissed her sister on both cheeks. “Oh Robin, I am so happy!” Then Marian bounded back onto her feet and skipped away, leaving a startled and slightly lonely Robin to watch her go.
The band did not know what to think about Will and Marian’s unexpected engagement.
“But Marian is your girl!” Allan protested to Robin, bemused and a trifle disappointed—he had almost finished composing a song about the two outlaw lovers, and now he could not use it. “I mean, she is, is she not?”
“The maid Marian,” Robin emphasized, not for the first time that week, “is no more my girl than she is yours. We were friends in the before time, as we have been ever since—that is all. I am quite pleased that she is with Will.”
Still, Robin understood the confusion the outlaws felt at the betrothal—it was strange even for her to see Will and Marian together as a couple. She mentally kicked herself for not noticing the signs of their affection before. How could she have missed the tenderness with which Will treated Marian, or her sister’s radiant smile every time his eyes met hers?
She watched the two of them now from where she stood, half-hidden by a tree. She should have left the glade as soon as she stumbled upon them, but something about their blissful innocence gripped her heart and held her fast. They were just standing together, Will weaving sprigs of grass through Marian’s hair while her brown locks flowed in the breeze. His fingers combed through the strands and caught.
Just then, something snagged in Robin’s own hair and she spun, surprised. Little John blinked down at her, his hand poised in midair.
“It suits you,” he said lightly, lowering his arm and looking beyond her toward the small clearing, where the couple was now walking away, hand-in-hand. Robin reached up and gingerly felt the object in her hair—it was a flower, which came away in her hand when she touched it. A shiver ran down her spine.
“John?” she began, but the eyes he turned toward her were blank, and the words she wanted to say died away in her throat. “What made you change your mind?” she asked instead.
Little John frowned and plucked at a loose thread on his tunic. “I suppose it was you bringing the Sheriff to our camp and then letting him leave again. No one else would have done it. Every person here hates the Sheriff, and nothing—not even three hundred pounds—could have made them give him up once they had him in their clutches. Nothing but you. For you, they let him go. He owes you his life, and he knows it.”
“I never thought of it like that,” Robin admitted. “I wonder if that was the real reason he did not stab me in the back ere he left.”
“He may try to yet,” Little John warned. “He is a wily one, that Sheriff.”
At that moment, a small motion distracted their attention—a doe was peeking its nose into the now-empty glade. Robin felt a small tug on her quiver as Little John pulled out an arrow, handing it to her. “Did your father truly want you to marry him?” he asked with affected indifference.
“Mmm,” Robin murmured, slipping the pansy that she held into her quiver and stringing her bow. “Yes. But I did not much care for the idea.” Her arrow sailed out, passing through the shrubbery to strike the deer’s hidden heart.
Little John helped her gut the kill, and then insisted on carrying the carcass back to the camp. She argued with him briefly before giving in, simply to hear them talk. She had not realized until that moment just how much she had missed Little John’s company; by the look on his face, neither had he.
They walked together to deliver the deer to Lot, Robin teasing that if she did not accompany him, Little John was certain to steal credit for the kill. Lot grinned at the two of them as he accepted the beast, and those standing nearby wore a smile on their faces as well, glad that the pair’s tacit estrangement had ended. No one had liked seeing Robin Hood and Little John at odds, whatever their reason might have been.
* * * * *
“We should go buying!” Marian exclaimed later that afternoon, startling her sister, who had been lazing by the river with a dreamy smile on her lips.
“What? Why?” Robin asked, sitting up far too quickly and making her head spin.
“To celebrate you reconciling with Little John, of course!” Marian said. “All you ever wear is that green suit of yours. You should get something pretty, something bright . . . especially if you want to draw his eye.”
“I hardly think a suit would do that,” Robin commented wryly, even as she remembered his hand placing a flower in her hair.
“But a dress would,” was Marian’s wicked reply.
“Marian! I am not getting a dress.” Robin lowered her voice, even though there was no one nearby to hear them. “How would I explain it?”
“Well, a new suit then,” her sister conceded. “Or have you something better to do?”
“Not really,” Robin admitted. “I suppose I am due for some new clothes. All right then, when do you want to go?”
“First thing tomorrow!” Marian announced.
But the next day when Robin went in search of her sister, she was nowhere to be found. Just when she was about to give up looking, Marian came running up to her, her face flushed with excitement.
“Will wants me to go patrol with him, do you mind?”
The abrupt change in plan took Robin aback, and she found herself feeling a trifle disappointed—she had begun to anticipate the excursion—but she quickly regained her composure. “Of course not. We can go some other time.”
“Some other time? Do not even think of it!” Marian replied. When she saw that Robin was about to defer, she grew stern. “Robin, it is high time you acted for yourself and not for other people. Just go get the suit, all right? You can thank me later.”
“Yes, my Lady,” Robin said with a smile, sweeping her sister an elaborate bow. Marian laughed and gave Robin a peck on the cheek, and then dashed off to find Will.
* * * * *
It had been several months since Robin’s last visit to Lincoln Town. The burg was much as she remembered it, with one exception—when she got to the tailor’s shop, there were purple-clad guards lurking out front.
She ducked back behind another shop before they could notice her. Why were these soldiers stationed here, so far from Nottingham? Most towns had their own colors for their guards—purple identified those men who answered directly to the Sheriff. Had the tailor requested the protection? But why not from his own town, if such security were needed . . . and why would the Sheriff have granted his permission?
The small snap of a cracking branch made Robin look up in alarm. A young boy, dressed in f
ilthy, yet well-cut clothes, was peering down at her through the boughs of a tree. Without warning, he tumbled down and dashed towards the guards. Robin made a grab for him, but missed. Desperately, she turned to take flight, but a tremendous bellow of pain made her halt mid-step. Turning toward the sound, she risked a curious glance around the corner.
Rather than alarming them to her presence, the boy had run up to one of the guards and kicked him in the shin. The second guard was already in pursuit while the first, still yelling curses, drew his sword and hobbled after the lad as well as he could, using the blade as a cane.
Amid this turmoil, the tailor appeared in the doorway of his shop, peering furtively around. When he espied Robin peeping out from behind a nearby building, he beckoned to her. “Quickly!” he mouthed. With one last glance at the retreating guards, Robin hurried over to the shop.
The tailor pulled Robin into the back of the store and tugged the reed divider closed between them, leaving her alone in a small chamber. The room was sparse, possessing a hearth and two pallets in one corner, some cookware, a few personal belongings, and not much else. There were no windows or doors. Completely bewildered, Robin put an eye to a crack in the screen, wondering if she had made a mistake in trusting the old man.
After a few moments, she could hear the loud imprecations that marked the return of the guards, and their threats of what they would do if they ever caught the boy. The tailor inquired something to which the guards snarled a reply, and then he closed the door to his shop.
“Brutes,” the tailor said, reappearing from behind the screen. “Keep yer voice down.”
“Why are they here?” Robin asked in a whisper.
“The Sheriff sent them. A week ago, he got clever and decided that since I am the only dyer who can produce cloth in Lincoln Green, if he put guards around my shop, then he would catch one of ye when ye came to buy. Never mind that those brutes scare off my customers in the meanwhile!” He spat on the floor. “Of course, if the Sheriff were a tad bit cleverer, he would have hidden his guards like I hid my Roland, and not posted the purple peacocks in broad daylight where ye can espy them a mile off.” The man was seething. He seized a jug from one corner of the room and took a swig, offering it to Robin when he was done. She thought it best to take it.
Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) Page 24