The Outlaws of Sherwood

by Robin McKinley

  “I could not let your father’s bow into their hands if I could help it,” she said. She tried to smile at him, but the grimness of his expression made it hard for her. “I could not. Robin—you haven’t listened to what Much wants to tell you; you are too anxious to make us believe we aren’t listening to you. He—we—need you, and we need the—the heart of you. I thought perhaps the heart of you is that bow; or at least it was all I could save.” She looked at him measuringly, trying to gauge how black was his mood. “The cottage would have been a little difficult to carry away secretly.”

  His temper flared then, and hers flared right back, and Much told them, half in alarm and half in amusement, to keep their voices down.

  “And do you think you may tell me what I will and will not do, for our friendship’s sake—or for aught else, perhaps?” said Marian. “Do you think that you have either the right or the wisdom to preach so to me?”

  “Had I wisdom I would have eluded Tom Moody yesterday, and we would not be speaking so now. But, yes, I tell you you put yourself at risk needlessly—”

  “Needlessly? And how do you mean ‘needlessly’? Have you further decided the future of the Saxon race on our green island that it does not include the small measures that each of us Saxons may take? Even to the needless risk of helping a friend?”

  “It is not seemly—”

  Much said hastily, “I don’t think you want to talk about seemly, Robin, unless you really want to be thrown head-first into the fire. But—”

  “A bow!” cried Robin in frustration. “A few feet of ash-wood bent and bound in such a way as a Welshman once showed my father would hurl an arrow farther than his old bow ever could. For this—”

  “We haven’t got an army to throw the Normans out of England,” Marian put in, her cheeks flaming from Robin’s last remark. “The only thing we have to fight with is symbols. You are become a symbol, or you will—”

  “If you will,” murmured Much.

  “And, I thought, a symbolic prop might be of help to you,” said Marian, and the anger seemed to drain out of her. “Besides putting you in a better humour. I was wrong.”

  “Did you know what she was about last night?” said Robin. “No,” said Much. “But I wouldn’t have told you even if I had, you know.”

  Robin looked from one to the other. “You have discussed this revolutionary force between you before.”

  “Yes,” agreed Much, “but only because you refused to join in the discussions. We have not kept you out.”

  “And I have developed some taste for theory—and will-o’-the-wisps,” said Marian.

  “If you mean to reproach me,” said Much, “I don’t blame you. But—”

  “But there is Norman blood in my veins, and your friends are not sure of me,” said Marian. “I have never gone cold or hungry, that is true. But you do not know, because I have not told you, what it is like to have a half-Norman father who despises all things Saxon, including his wife, who I believe died of it; including his own tainted blood and his daughter’s. He believes that he would have done much greater things in his life had he had the good fortune to marry a Norman woman; unfortunately no Norman woman with the dowry his estates needed would have him. I have quite a romantic view of the Saxons, you know,” she said with a bitter smile; “I blame all my faults on my Norman blood, and my virtues on my Saxon. I like Much and his notions.”

  Robin said, trying to sound patient, “But you have just admitted to a ridiculously romantic idea of the Saxons; we will not prove any better than the Normans at close inspection.”

  “I disagree with you there,” said Much.

  “I did not say ridiculous,” said Marian. “I said romantic. I will settle for the truth; and I find myself quite anxious to seek it.”

  “You’re both hopeless,” said Robin, hopelessly. “The king will catch us if the sheriff should fail to; and then the Saxon race can be symbolically and romantically hung by the neck till dead.”

  “If you want to talk romance,” said Much, “do you really think the Lionheart is going to win Palestine? But it’s a glorious idea, and he’s the only Norman I’ve ever thought of liking. If he came home and tried ruling, I might pay attention.” There was a rather implausible owl-hoot from outside, and Much’s head snapped around. “If he can’t get it better than that, he might just as well shout,” he said, and got to his feet to let the next member of the Saxon revolution indoors. “You know, Robin, you can ask Marian to promise not to do it again; after all, your father had but the one bow.”

  Robin made an inarticulate sound and stood up; Much threw up his hands in mock terror and said, “See here, you aren’t going to start on me. Besides, you’ll make a bad impression on my friends,” and opened the door.

  Robin was embarrassed to discover that by the end of that first evening he was involuntarily feeling a reluctant hope for Much’s plan of a few stalwart outlaws harassing the Nottingham sheriff and his fellows from a base hidden in Sherwood Forest. It was perhaps as well that he decided to think positively, if for no other reason than that his was one voice against several, all of them good talkers. Much himself was better than good; he was inspired. “Do remember that we are starting small,” said Robin, amused, at one point, when Much was outlining a grand idea for releasing all the prisoners in the sheriff’s gaols. “You will soon have us believing we can walk on air and pick locks with our fingers.”

  Much had been right that his friends would be glad to meet Robin; and they seemed to accept Marian as well—perhaps because she proved as fanatical as they were, he thought. But he found also that he was a little ashamed of himself for pouring water on the fire of their enthusiasm, when the bottom of that enthusiasm was that they were keeping him alive—they who could earn a welcome purse of coin instead by turning him over to the sheriff’s men.

  That first even there were seven of them: Robin himself, and Much and Marian; the leather-worker, Harald; Jocelin, a carpenter; and Simon and Gilbert, both yeomen under the same Norman lord. The hours passed swiftly, and Robin’s head swam with talk and smoke—which refused to rise and go through the hole in the roof as it should, but preferred to snake around nose-level through the room—and exhaustion. He was still tired from the day before; and his nerves were pulled their tightest besides at the knowledge that for all the days that remained to him the threat of that purse of coin would follow him. He also had small patience with theory, however finely and logically it went together; and half to keep himself awake and half in pursuit of some small shadowy thoughts of his own, he began to draw bow-shaped marks on Much’s hearth with a piece of charcoal. “You get to clean that off again,” said Much, when he noticed; “my father is a tidy man and my sisters are worse.”

  “Um,” said Robin.

  It was probably nothing but a way of distracting his mind; but then his mind was pitiably grateful for anything by way of distraction. The next day, hidden again in his loft, he strung his father’s bow for the first time in months and tried to pull it. Various things pinged and popped across his chest, down his shoulders and back; he pulled it, slowly, as if to control the flight of the arrow he did not notch: once; twice; thrice. He could not pull it a fourth time. His wrists shook with the strain; he looked at them dourly.

  He did not have a great deal of time for such exercise after that. At his own insistence he left Much’s barn the third day; the sheriff’s men had not been back, as Much pointed out, but they would be back, as Robin pointed out. He carried with him a parcel of food and two blankets, both bows, what arrows he had left, a small axe, and a small shovel. “I feel like a pedlar,” he said to Much, as his friend tried to help distribute the load. “I shall probably make as much noise as one, too—crash, crash, bong, clang, clang—oh, stop it. You’re just making my shirt ruck up underneath with your tugging.”

  “If you were a donkey you’d bray,” said Much cheerfully. “You’re welcome; I’m glad to have been of assistance to you.”

  Robin grinned, but th
e grin fell away. “Come to think of it, I’m glad to have something not to thank you for.” They stood looking at one another for a moment. “Thank you,” said Robin. “Thank you for my life.”

  “Pfft,” said Much. “You know me, I just like to tell stories. How could I resist getting close enough to this one to tell about it later? I’ll see you in a day or so.” And he turned and went back downhill, toward the mill.

  Robin went the other way; up into the undergrowth behind the barn which soon enough became Sherwood Forest, for Whitestone Mill lay with the forest at its back, where the stream that turned its wheel first emerged from the great trees. He was going to a place he knew, a place he thought was as safe as any might be for such as he, a place he had discovered once while chasing a (legitimately) wounded deer. He’d noticed it then for no particular reason—he thought—as somewhere that might be rendered both relatively comfortable and relatively defendable; and dismissed the notion at once for fear of what thinking about it might lead to. It had permitted itself to be dismissed, but it had never quite gone away completely, and he’d visited the little glen once since then—only once, because it was far off the usual way of the king’s foresters in Sherwood. There was no need to visit it, awkward as it was to get at, through a jungle of hundreds’ years’ growth, undisturbed by humankind; and yet at the heart of the jungle was a bare space, sheltered on one side by a tumble of boulders extended by a tangle of two fallen oaks and the vines that laced them round; and, most wonderful, with a stream running at one edge of it, and a quiet pool at one end.

  On the second evening round Much’s fire he had suggested the place, hesitantly, knowing that his words would be the doom of the seven who listened to him—a man named Humphrey and a man named Rafe had joined them this night, and Marian was not there—and all had at once agreed to it. He did not like it that they deferred to him so easily. The most comforting explanation for it was that he was the only forester among them, and might be expected to know Sherwood best; and he would have liked to leave his musings there. But whether he wished to acknowledge it or not, the price on his head gave him an aura; however accidentally he had gained it, and however greatly he wished he could be rid of it, in their eyes because of it he was the real thing, and thus they would follow his lead.

  Three days after he left Much’s barn he crept back to it, to leave a pre-arranged mark for Much to see there; and retreated to wait at that place they had played in as children, where Much and Marian had found him, less a day still than a sennight since. “I was beginning to think you were simply going to disappear,” was Much’s greeting.

  “I thought of it,” said Robin.

  “’Tis a good thing you did not think of it long, for we’d have ferreted you out, did we need to hire king’s men to do it.”

  “That’s rather what I thought,” said Robin. “So here I am.”

  The first trouble was that it was soon obvious Much would not be able to find his way again to Robin’s new—hiding place. Robin could not call it home, not yet; he carefully thought only one hour, or at most one night, ahead. Much was a competent woodsman as folk go who do not earn their living by it; but he did not have the points of the compass in his bones as a man must when he cannot see the sky. “I’ll lead you here and back for now,” said Robin. “At this rate, whether we have arrows or not we will not have time to shoot them; everyone will be fully occupied by getting lost.”

  “I can learn a track,” said Much with dignity.

  “But we can’t afford to have a track,” said Robin. “The existence of a track suggests that it leads somewhere. You—all of you—will have to learn where it is, and work obliquely. More obliquely than a forester. Never mind. Here we are.”

  Much ducked under the last concealing branch, and found himself at the cave mouth. “You have been busy,” he said admiringly.

  On the first day Robin had discovered that the boulders leaned into a bit of a hill, hidden by trees, and that there was a bit of a cave in the bit of hill, which he thought might later be enlarged. He began to build out a half-roof, half-screen from the cave opening, weaving green branches till his hands were raw and sticky with sap. He also found a spot, not too near, not too far, to dig the first privy.

  He also strung his father’s bow again, and drew it, gritting his teeth against the instant pain in his shoulders, which were already weary from digging. He tried to recall what his father had told him about the making of it, about the man who had given it to him; but all he could clearly remember was the obvious thing: that a bigger bow threw an arrow farther. He knew from his father’s example that there need be no loss of accuracy. He worked his shoulders back and forth a minute till the rubbery feeling faded a little, and pulled the bow again. What remained to be seen was whether mere dumb desperation could accomplish anything.

  He led Much most of the way back to the mill again, trying not to let it dismay him how long a lead Much needed before he began to recognise where he was clearly enough to make his own way. He promised to meet Much again in another two days.

  Much was not alone the next time; Rafe and Harald were with him—and Marian. “I wished to come before,” she said, “but Beatrix has been sick, and the world centers on Beatrix when she is sick. It would have been conspicuous had I left her.” She grimaced. “Much as I would have been grateful to. But see here: I have brought you something useful, and not in the least symbolic.” She undid the pack on her back and revealed the first fold of a long length of heavy green wool. “Is it not splendid? It is just the thing for outlaws who must sleep in the rain, and who will be tearing themselves on twigs and thorns. It is very stout stuff,” she went on, pulling it between her hands to show the closeness of the weave, and not looking at Robin. “Here are needles and thread too—although I suppose I will have to show you how to use them.”

  A little silence fell, as Robin looked at Marian, Marian looked at her pack, Much looked at both of them, and Rafe and Harald looked puzzled. “What do you say, Robin?” said Much, with the air of a man who needs to bridle a horse whose ears are flat back and whose eye is rolling.

  Robin swallowed. “I say—I must say—thank you. You are right that you will have to show me—us. I can sew up the holes that thorns have made, but I do not know how to cut and shape.”

  “I can do most of the cutting for you,” she said, lifting her eyes at last to his, “and leave the seams for you, if you promise to have a care to sew them straight.”

  And it was Marian who said, when they had come again to Robin’s camp, and Robin was trying to find out how much more of the way Much might have learned this time, “I can take us all back, Robin; you can stay here and start on some seams while daylight lasts.”

  The four men blinked at her. It had not occurred to Robin to question Rafe or Harald, for a horse-coper and a leather-worker were not expected to have much woodscraft. But it had not occurred to him or to Much to look to Marian either. “You can come with us a little way if you like, and be certain I am not bragging,” said Marian. “But I know where we are and where we came from.”

  “And furthermore she will do it obliquely,” said Much. “How do you do it obliquely?”

  Marian stared at him. “What are you talking about? It is only that I have long preferred the company of trees. My father’s house, with Aethelreda there, runs very well without me; I spend more of my time at Blackhill than at the city house, and there is only so much embroidery I can do without going mad. I taught myself years ago, when I was still young enough to be thrashed for coming in late for dinner, not to get lost, for fear of being forbidden to go among my friends again. I cannot stop Beatrix from quarrelling with everyone, but I can get our party back to Whitestone Mill.”

  “Oh,” said Robin.

  “Now,” said Marian hastily, “is there anything you need at once that I might get for you more easily than some other? Leather, perhaps. It is your craft, is it not?”

  “Yes, lady, it is,” said Harald slowly. He and Rafe were tryin
g not to be dismayed that the lady with Norman blood in her was the only one besides Robin himself who could go freely through Sherwood. But the blankness of Robin’s and Much’s expressions was comforting, for there was no fear in it for the lady’s loyalty. And it was true enough that Robin’s folk would have need of friends, and a lady would be useful. “It—it would be a great boon to me to have leather in my hands again.”

  “Not to mention letting you off much of the digging and the stonepiling and the getting slapped in the face by the sharp edges of things like leaves that aren’t supposed to have sharp edges,” said Much. “It’s that for you, Rafe, you know; there are no horses to trot out in Sherwood.”

  “Where did the wool come from?” said Robin.

  “It was a bad dye lot,” said Marian. “You will see. They were glad to have it go away at almost any price; but the cloth is good, and leaves and trees are rather streaky too, aren’t they? You’ll blend in the better for the streaks. Let me measure you across the shoulders, and I will cut out the first shirt.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Spring passed swiftly as Robin and his small band began to make, or tried to make, or blundered toward making the ways and means that would enable them to live in Sherwood; if not beyond the reach of, then relatively safe from discovery by, any of the sheriff’s men or the king’s foresters. There was a little coming and going as prospective outlaws made their final break with their previous lives—and Robin began to mutter under his breath about using the thread Marian had brought for tying to the wrists of would-be outlaws who could not go six steps from the home camp without getting lost. Marian was still his only other truly reliable guide, although Much went wrong seldom, and Rafe through sheer tenacity was learning. “An eye is an eye, isn’t it?” he said. “And I’ve a good eye for a horse. Wish trees had four legs.” Harald made a pair of shoes for Gilbert, who had none, and even spring in Sherwood is hard on bare feet.