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

by R. M. ArceJaeger

  “I think you are right, Will,” Robin said to forestall an argument. “But I would rather not wait to see if she summons any soldiers or not. Where is that secret passageway you spoke of?”

  According to what Nella had told him, the tunnel was hidden inside an unused guardhouse at the edge of the bailey. Though they found the place quickly enough, they had to linger in the open for several uneasy minutes before Robin could find the appropriate key; at last, they gained access to the room.

  The place was small, made much smaller by the large amount of clutter littering the floor. There was barely enough space for the three of them to crowd inside and still leave the door ajar to provide some light. Trying not to trip, they shoved and piled the ancient armaments and rusting equipage into tall stacks against the walls. The raucous objects would have made an excellent alarm had anyone been around to hear.

  Eventually, the three of them managed to shift enough of the jumble aside to reveal a two-foot square trap door, latched to the floor with a heavy iron padlock.

  “Hurry, Robin,” Will encouraged as she tried to fit various keys into the lock. Just as the padlock snapped open, the room suddenly brightened as someone pushed the door—now unimpeded by oddments and gear—wide to its fullest extent.

  “Hey, what do you think you are d— Father?” Johnny asked, breaking off his accusation at the sight of Robin hunched over the trapdoor in Gisborne’s horsehide suit. “Father, what is going on? What are you doing?”

  Only then did he register the green-clad men flanking his father, and one man in particular. “Will?” he asked, astonishment etched all over his face.

  The next instant, Little John’s hand was at Johnny’s throat, pinning him against the wall and causing several piles to crumble in the process.

  “Let him alone,” Robin said, dragging down on Little John’s arm.

  “But he knows who we are—”

  “I know what he knows. Let him be.”

  Reluctantly, Little John released his grip on the youth, but did not relax his wary stance. Johnny sagged against the wall, rubbing his throat.

  “You killed my father,” he said. It was not a question.

  Robin nodded. “I am sorry.”

  “Then you are the only one.” He took a deep breath and shot a nervous glance at John before fixing his gaze back on Robin. “With his death, my destiny is once more my own. Earlier, you said that I would have made a good Merry Man—let me prove to you I still can be. Let me come away with you now!”

  Robin glanced at Little John, whose expression was clearly skeptical. Johnny saw, and pressed on: “I have spent years serving in this vile place, serving the greedy pursuits of the Sheriff and my father. If I stay, it will destroy me. Let me join you! I swear I will devote myself to your cause and live a life committed to philanthropy.”

  Robin rested her hand on Johnny’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. He met them steadily. “Then you are welcome to my band,” she said.

  He smiled at her, but his gaze was already sliding back to Will, true friendship gleaming from both their eyes. Little John shook his head in consternation, but did not question Robin further. Instead, he pushed away the objects that had fallen and raised the heavy trap door, then climbed down into the tunnel. A moment later, a dim glow flared from within; John had evidently found and lit a torch. One by one, the others descended through the trapdoor and into the sandstone passageway, until the guardhouse stood abandoned once more.

  CHAPTER 24

  ROYAL REQUEST

  ROBIN WAS THE LAST to step out of the dark tunnel and into the white blaze of morning. Squinting against the sudden brightness, she turned to look up at the ridge behind her; red and gold sandstone cliffs towered above her head, and at the top squatted the Sheriff’s black castle. Soon its residents would realize she had escaped, but with luck, they would not think to look for her outside of Nottingham Town until she and her friends were far away.

  Alert for any signs of pursuit, the foursome trudged their way back to the forest in single file, pausing only as needed to empty the snow from their boots. In spite of the cold, Robin doffed Gisborne’s horsehide tunic and allowed it to trail behind her as she walked; the heavy material brushed a light capping of snow into the tracks so that from a distance, their path would be nearly impossible to discern.

  They reached the boughs of Sherwood Forest without encountering a single soul, but that all changed once they were inside the greenwood.

  “Stay low,” Little John warned, gesturing them down into the bracken. No sooner had they ducked into the cover of the fronds than a group of soldiers sauntered past.

  “What are they doing here?” Robin hissed.

  “Trying to make sure no one leaves to go rescue you,” Johnny confessed, looking abashed. His expression brightened. “Not that they succeeded!”

  “Hush!” Little John and Robin whispered simultaneously.

  The soldiers paid the group no heed, too busy grousing amongst themselves about having to work on Christmas Day to hear or notice anything unusual.

  Once the soldiers had passed, Robin and the others rose silently to their feet. Warily, they made their way deeper into the woods.

  They had to pause often at first to hide from the Sheriff’s men, but for the most part, his soldiers seemed content to meander in small groups near the forest paths, sounding their horns on occasion and complaining to each other in loud voices. The number of soldiers diminished the further the foursome traveled into the forest, though their caution meant it was still well past noon before they finally reached their home.

  Marian was the first to espy them, and giving a shout of sheer delight, ran to greet her sister. Instantly, the rest of the band leapt up from where they had gathered by the fire—masks and revelries forgotten, the traditional boar hunt foregone—to await the outcome of their leader’s rescue. They surrounded her now, overjoyed to see Robin alive again. As her cousin picked her up and swung her around, heedless in his euphoria of Robin’s bruised and noxious state, she was aware that at that very moment she might have been swinging from the walls of Nottingham Castle, and her eyes filled with tears of love for her friends.

  They pressed in around her as Will set her down again, their elated shouts melding in Robin’s mind with the echoes of the soldiers’ cries during her fight in the church. Reality seemed to waver before her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to separate the trauma of the past few hours from the rejoicing of the present moment, and failing.

  “We should let Robin get some rest,” her cousin commanded, having observed the whitening of her face. Reluctantly, the others parted to let Will—one arm wrapped around her shoulders to steady her—deliver Robin to her cabin. A pot of steaming water and a slightly soiled rag was brought for her use, and in the privacy of her hut, Robin finally wept as she washed the dried blood and muck from her body.

  She had barely enough energy left to pull on her spare suit before sleep won the effort to shutter her eyes. With a grateful sigh, Robin curled into a ball on the fronds of her bed and yielded herself to exhaustion.

  Her sleep was deep and dreamless . . . for perhaps ten minutes. Then Marian, with a look of intense apology, shook her awake.

  “I am truly sorry, Robin, but Will Stutley says you hurt your arm; I need to check on it before it has time to set.”

  “’Twas my shoulder, but it is fixed now,” Robin mumbled, her mind groggy with sleep. “’Twas just put out, not broken.”

  “Even so.”

  Marian helped her sister to sit up, steadying her with one hand while she examined her shoulder with the other.

  “Does that hurt?”

  “Just a little,” Robin answered with some surprise, coming more fully awake. “Not anywhere near what it did before.”

  Satisfied that the joint was where it should be, Marian wrapped Robin’s arm in a sling of cloth, which would keep the shoulder in place while the tendons tightened.

  “I also brought this,
” she said, holding out a bowl of yellow-green ointment. “It will help with the swelling in your face.”

  As Marian began to dab on the salve, Robin could not suppress emitting a small yelp. The paste stung like a hundred bees against her abraded skin.

  “You should hear the tale that Will is relaying,” Marian began, trying to distract her sister from the balm’s bite. “He was on his third rendition when I left, and the number of guards and perilous battles seems to grow with each retelling. From the way he describes it, you would think that Little John had killed ten men with his bare hands, and of course, you and Will both had your share of the felling.”

  Sadness filled Robin that the events of the night could give pleasure to anyone, and she groaned. “Can no one stop him?”

  “Oh, everyone is just soaking it all up,” Marian hastened to reassure her. “They are so glad you are safe; they need to celebrate. The tale just adds to their joy.”

  “How delightful.”

  “Well, I—hold still, Robin! Really, you are just as fretful as Little John. He had barely gotten back before he took off again, for who knows what reason or where. There. I am done.”

  Marian rocked back on her heels and surveyed Robin’s face with approval. Her smile wavered. “Is something the matter?”

  Robin shook her head, hastily masking her concern with an expression of gratitude. Marian’s words had filled her with a confused anxiety, and had ignited in her the intense desire to seek out Little John and reaffirm that everything was all right. But she knew that in her current condition, her sister would never permit it.

  So instead she smiled up at Marian. “Thank you,” she said, giving her a one-armed hug. Marian returned the affection with a careful embrace that still managed to convey her relief.

  “I am so glad to have you back! If you ever do something so foolish again . . . but there, I promised myself I would not scold. Get some sleep, and we can talk more when you wake.”

  Taking the now-empty bowl of balm in her hands and giving Robin one last smile, she left her sister to her slumbers.

  Rather than going back to sleep, however, Robin waited until Marian had made her way back to the bonfire and to the fierce celebration that was now underway, and then slinked out of her hut and into the trees. The afternoon sun illuminated the trail of oversized footprints leading away through the snow, and without hesitation, Robin followed it.

  She discovered Little John sitting on the fallen bole that spanned the Sherwood’s most turgid river, his posture nearly as bent as on the day she had first found him there. Robin sat down beside him, clutching around her shoulders the blanket she had brought with her in a futile attempt to keep off the cold.

  “Thank you for coming back for me,” she offered, when Little John made no stir to speak.

  Little John did not look at her, but gazed instead at the turbulent waters below their feet, where tiny cakes of ice swept by and occasionally leapt up to tap the soles of their boots. “I thought you were going to die,” he told her at last. “I thought they were going to hang you, and it was all my fault for leaving you behind.”

  “It was my decision to stay,” Robin reminded him, torn by the wretchedness she saw in his face. “I should have listened to you.”

  “I have never killed a man before,” he continued, staring at his hands. “It was so . . . easy. I should not have thought it easy.”

  Guilt clawed at Robin; now she understood the distress that had caused him to distance himself from the company of the camp. “John, I am so sorry. If I had only heeded your advice, you would never have been placed in a position where you had to.”

  He did not reply. His silence to her spoke volumes. How he must hate her for this!

  Feeling utterly miserable, Robin rose to her feet, not wishing to burden him further with her presence. A large hand fastened around her wrist.

  “Stay,” he said, looking up at her for the first time. “Please.” Robin hesitated, and then sank back down onto the log.

  Little John went back to staring at the river, but he did not relinquish his hold on her wrist. She almost missed his next few words, so lowly did he speak.

  “It is strange to think that killing a man should have been easier for me than this seems to be. But I promised—I swore—that if God gave me another chance, I would not neglect it.

  “I am seven-and-twenty years old, Robin, and in all that time I have never met anyone—any woman—like you. When I thought I had lost you, I nearly went wild. I realized . . . so many things, and I knew in that moment that I would either rescue you or hang beside you, but I could not endure a life without you.”

  Robin felt her breath quicken at his words, billowing out before her in brief puffs of frost. Is he saying what I think he is saying?

  Little John was looking at her now, his eyes shining with more intensity than a summer sun. He clutched her chilled hand in both of his own, as though to secure her for fear that what he was about to say would make her bolt.

  “I love you, Robin. I love you and I need you the way the stars need the night, and the clouds need the air, and the streams need the rain. I cannot exist without you. Tell me you feel as I do, for truly I cannot bear to be nothing more than a friend to you any longer.”

  Robin struggled to find her voice, but the lump in her throat made speech impossible. Encountering only silence, Little John’s face fell.

  “What a fool I am, to think that a woman like you could ever feel that way about someone like me. Please forget I said anything. I shall not trouble you again.” He started to rise.

  Robin shook her head and pulled on his hand until he sat back down. Her voice when she spoke trembled violently, but not from the cold. “I have desired—dreamed and prayed—for so long that you would speak thusly to me. I thought you would never, could never—”

  She was unable to go on.

  At her words, Little John’s expression had transformed from one of wretched hopelessness to one of exultant disbelief. Unable to contain himself any longer, he burst out, “Then you do care for me! Oh Robin, say you will be mine! Let us be together so that from this day on, whenever people think of Robin Hood and Little John, it shall never be one without the other!”

  But before Robin could make a reply, Little John quickly checked his enthusiasm, his tone turning solemn. “Only . . . Robin, you would have to lay aside your guise and declare yourself to be the woman you are—otherwise, we could never have a life together. It might mean losing the friendships you have built here and your position of leadership if the others reject you. Would you be willing to forsake all that? Then, too, there is your family to consider. You are the daughter of a nobleman and thus by all that is proper beyond the reach of a peasant like myself—a fact I know I should not forget! Yet forget it I must, for my heart demands I ask: Robin of Locksley, of the Sherwood, of the Hood—will you marry me?”

  Tears coursed down Robin’s cheeks, so different from those she had cast earlier in her despair. How quickly she had gone from being the most pitiable creature on earth to the happiest! Her throat closed over her voice and choked off her reply, so she merely nodded, ducking her head.

  Little John stood up, pulling her gently to him. His arms wrapped around her in a mantle of warmth, strong and protective. His heart beat against hers, fast and fierce—almost as fast as her own. Robin met his eyes and felt her breath catch at the naked emotion she saw there.

  “Lord, who am I to deserve such grace?” he prayed, his voice husky. “You are so much more than I ever dared imagine might exist.”

  “I exist. I am here. And I am yours now and forever,” Robin replied, finding her voice at last.

  He kissed her then with so much gentle love that her bruised lips made no protest, and neither of them said anything more for a long time.

  * * * * *

  Alabaster clouds drifted upon the late-spring sky, pushed across the blue expanse by a light warm breeze that teased of summer. That same breeze sifted through the trees t
o ruffle Robin’s hair as she tugged at her tunic and cast another anxious glance into the forest surrounding the camp.

  “They are late,” she said for the hundredth time that morning.

  David shot her a look of compassionate understanding. “It is early yet. They will be here.”

  He caught her hand as she went to tug at her tunic again. “Stop that. You look fine. Very . . . very beautiful.”

  To Robin’s surprise, he blushed and dropped her hand.

  Robin sighed. It had been months since she had revealed her secret to the band, but even David—loyal, stoic David—was still uncomfortable around her at times.

  She had felt so alone, standing under the tall oak tree and calling for everyone’s attention. Little John had offered to stand up with her, but Robin had refused, knowing she needed to appear confident and strong on her own. In truth, she had never felt more afraid. The Sheriff’s wrath and the battles for her life had evoked less terror in her than staring into the eyes of ten-score woodsmen and announcing to them that she was a girl.

  Some of the men had been angry—she had expected that. But she had not expected the way their gazes would wound her as they changed from astonished disbelief into rage, or the way their expressions of betrayed trust would rend her heart. She had felt like the worst of traitors at that moment and had wanted to cower away to her cabin and never come out again, but she had forced herself to stand tall and to accept their indignation.

  Not all of her people had reacted with fury, however. A few, like Will Stutley, had thought the whole thing a terrific joke. At first, Robin had presumed that was because they did not believe her, but the truth was clearly evident once they had cause to consider it. Their delighted laughter at her announcement had been at their own blindness and the impotency of the Sheriff, foiled time and again by a girl. Their amused guffaws had helped ease the ire of the others and had given a lighter perspective to her charade.

  In the end, despite their initial shock at her announcement, the majority of the band had continued to accept Robin as their leader. The respect and honor they felt for her were rooted too deeply within them to be dislodged by even such a startling revelation, and while a few bandsmen continued to dispute the propriety of taking orders from a woman, in the face of such solid and well-regarded supporters as David, Will and Little John, their voices were scarcely to be heard.