“It is perhaps another form of starvation,” he said, “although I would have said there was no other form of starvation, those months ago when Robin found me.” He looked at her, and she bit her lip against asking him what he thought of her now. “But then I did not think,” he continued, “till I knew—Marian, that a lady could shoot straight, or not mind the calluses on her fingers—or learn to stand guard duty, and handle a staff.” Cecily thought she perceived a twinkle, but was not sure. “You may be grateful that I had known Marian some time before Cecil appeared, and had known Cecil some time before Cecily—appeared. Else I might have tied her in a sack and left her for the foresters to find.”
Cecily sighed. “Well, you do see why it was Cecil.”
“I see,” said Little John. “I do not exactly pardon you, but I do see.” He had unfolded the bundle, and set various things aside, and now handed her a red tunic. “It was simply my fate to be saddled with you. I have long thought Fate has a tricky sense of humour.”
Cecily remembered, some weeks ago, when the talk at the fireside had come round to the absent Little John and how he had resisted—and never quite given up resisting—the presence of women in the camp. Cecily was in the tree she used on the occasions when Will or Marian was present; she could neither see nor be seen, but she could hear quite clearly. Her blood had run cold at this. “I’m glad I was here before him,” said Marian, “or we might none of us have got through. There’s a lot of him to get around.”
“It’s a tunic,” said Little John. Cecily found herself holding it out in front of her as if uncertain of its identity. She shook herself, lowered her arms. “Yes.”
“What ill thoughts were you thinking, not of the tunic, then?” said Little John, and she heard herself saying, “Friar Tuck said that you did not care for women because you had had your heart broken.” Her tongue stopped just before she added what Marian had said next: “In his slow, methodical, deep-eyed, immovable way—I think he likes having things to be against. I pity the woman who tries to break that heart.”
“I’ve not had my heart broken,” said Little John, calmly. “I had three silly sisters and, briefly, a silly wife—who left when I first got into trouble. She was relieved to have the excuse, and the demesne court was relieved to grant it her; she had by that time a more suitable husband in her eye. That was several years ago. Now, turn that tunic right-side up, if you have recognised it yet, and put it on. We must look pretty fine to compete with the crowds today. If I’ve forgotten how to wrestle, then we can be shabby again. There’s hose for you too; what you’re wearing didn’t fit you even before you started tearing them to shreds.” She pulled her tunic off, self-consciously; she’d hastily patched her shirt that morning (too late now) and was wearing a shift beneath it as well. Muffled in pulling the new tunic over her head, she almost didn’t hear Little John ask: “What was the man you were to marry like?”
“A toad,” she said violently, re-emerging. “He had no neck, and a dome-shaped head with no hair on it, and very large poppy eyes.… He was even a kind of pale green, I think, though they tell me he is very fierce in battle.”
Little John laughed, and she looked at him reproachfully. “I do not blame you for not wanting to marry a toad,” he said gravely, and pulled his own tunic off. She said, so quietly that he might not have heard her, “And he would not talk to me.” She thought: I don’t think he cared if I knew how to talk.
Little John pulled his shirt off after the tunic and then picked up a small pot of something which she now recognised as tallow. “If you would attend to my back, I will deal with the rest of me,” he said. “A wrestler should be a little slippery.”
He offered her the pot, one long bare arm stretched out toward her, the pot cupped in his broad palm; she took it from him daintily, her fingertips not touching his hand; and he turned and sat just before her, his head a little bowed. She noticed that he’d trimmed his hair when he cut off his beard. He was so close to her that she was conscious of the warmth of his skin. Blindly she dipped into the pot with her fingers, slapped some of the soft grease on Little John’s back, and began to smooth it out. “Careful,” said Little John. “That’s all there is, and there is a lot of me.”
“The dogs will follow you,” she said, her voice a little high.
“So long as none decides to try a taste,” he said. “Use your hands, for pity’s sake. My brother used to do this for me, and he would nearly knock me over.”
“You must have been smaller then,” she said. She began to use the palms of her hands, rubbing the long round muscles in a circular motion, using the heels of her hands around the shoulder-blades, running the edge of her palm down the spine. She was not so young that she did not know what was happening to her: why her heart was beating too fast, why her breath came hard; why there was a knot in the pit of her stomach which spread into a terrifying warmth over her lower belly and thighs. She knew, and tried to pretend she was Little John’s brother, and failed.
“That should do,” she said, after a few of the simultaneously longest and shortest minutes of her life; and Little John moved away from her, and turned to pick up the grease pot. She absent-mindedly went to rub her sticky hands down the front of her bright new tunic, when there was an exclamation from her companion and her arms were nearly jerked out of their sockets as Little John grabbed her wrists. “Not on the tunic! Have you no sense?” He rubbed each of her hands down each of his forearms, and she closed her eyes briefly and thought about fraternal relationships, and then Little John said: “Here—are you all right? I am sorry, did I hurt you?”
“Not nearly as much as all the bruises from my quarterstaff lessons, my friend; a mere dislocated shoulder or two is but nothing,” she said with a fair imitation of her usual tone.
He dropped her hands. “Fortunately you are a fast healer,” he said. “But you look unwell. Are you afraid of our adventure today? Robin may be right that we are wrong to risk ourselves this way.” He rubbed at one sticky forearm. “I do not know but that I feel uneasy myself.”
She shook her head. “A little. No, not really. Robin is always right about that kind of thing, but I still want to go with you.”
“You need not.”
Her stomach was beginning to feel like a stomach again; the cramp was fading to a queer unfamiliar ache that she did not care for but could live with; and all of her began to feel on more familiar territory. “Stop trying to protect our youngest and weakest member,” she said equably. “You have already invited me, and I wish to go.”
He looked at her a moment longer, but when she lifted her eyes to meet his something happened to his face, and he turned away, and picked up the little pot of tallow again. Cecily pulled on her new hose—which fit her much better than her old ones—and then began to tear bits of leaves into littler bits while she waited for Little John to finish his own preparations; and put her mind to what they might see today in Nottingham.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They could hear the noise of an unusually large crowd before they reached the main road. They were so accustomed not only to the relative silence of the woods, where loud noises were liable to be wild boars or king’s foresters, but to the sense of being outlaws, that it took them a conscious effort of will to step out and join the throng of holiday-makers and people with wares to sell on the way to the Nottingham Fair.
Little John was noticed at once; in a sky-blue cloak he could hardly be missed. Cecily’s eyes had bulged when he shook it out, last, from the bundle he had carried from Greentree, and swept it on. He grinned at her expression. “We’re supposed to draw attention, remember? And the lad I took this from is on his way to Scotland.” By the time they arrived at the outskirts of the town, where the commons was already thick with little booths and bright-dressed jongleurs and acrobats tumbling between them, Little John had gathered a following.
The first match was barely a match at all. The other man came up to Little John’s collarbone, and Little John, to Cecily’s
eyes with some embarrassment, took him gingerly up at his long arms’ length, tied him in 6ne or two knots, and laid him tenderly on the ground. Cecily passed her hat around for coins in something of a daze; the two of them were immediately offered the first of the ale that Humphrey had told them to drink for him; but Little John refused politely and Cecily did the same.
They moved slowly along the commons; Little John stopped once or twice to flatten another would-be wrestler, while Cecily held the sky-blue cape. Her hat was soon sagging from the coins it carried. “I guess you haven’t forgotten how,” said Cecily.
“Mmph,” said Little John. “I don’t know yet whether I have or not; these poor fools are just the strong men from their villages; they are no contest. After they’ve worn me down a little, one of the real wrestlers will appear from somewhere and challenge me.” He looked down at her. “But your hat is already heavy, is it not? We don’t want to attract cut-purses; that’s not what we’re here for.”
“Besides, one of them might recognise us,” said Cecily.
“There’s that,” agreed Little John, and stopped at a horse trough to pour some water over his head. The sun was hot, particularly on faces accustomed to the forest shadows.
“You’ll get your nice cape wet,” suggested Cecily.
“Water will dry,” said Little John. “You watch yourself and leave me to watch myself.”
“Sir,” murmured Cecily.
They did not have to ask many questions for the people who flocked around to watch Little John to give them the current gossip; the two of them were obviously not from Nottingham, and the town was buzzing with the tale of Sir Richard of the Lea, and Robin Hood, and the sheriff’s fury.
“Robin Hood is more than man,” said one goodwife seriously.
Cecily said with real curiosity, “What is he, then?”
The woman lowered her voice. “He’s an elemental, of course, child. I see by your face you’re of good Saxon stock. Robin Hood is one of the old gods come back to save England from the Normans.”
The man lounging outside her stall with acorns under cups for unwary folk to bet on, said, “That’s why he has to come to the archery contest, and the sheriff knows it. Why, you don’t suppose the sheriff wouldn’t have caught him a fortnight ago at Mapperley if he’d been an ordinary man, do you? I’ve just been up there—the folk are all so pleased to have their own master back they are in a mood to spend coin freely—and they all say that Robin came with a handful of men. It’s not canny.”
“The sheriff hung three robbers this week,” the woman said comfortably; Cecily found herself swallowing rather hard. “You can see ’em hanging over the gate to the sheriff’s house.”
“There,” said the man, as if that settled it.
“And what if this Robin Hood does not come to the fair today?” Cecily asked.
“He will,” said the woman.
The man shrugged and moved his acorn from under one cup, consideringly, to another. “If he does not, then the sheriff has won.”
“Won what?” said Cecily, half irritable and half apprehensive, to Little John, as they moved on.
Little John lifted his shoulders briefly. “I’m not sure; but part of why we’ve survived this long is because the foresters themselves half-believe this elemental stuff—and half want to, as it excuses them. Even ordinary outlaws, you know, when found, tend to sell their lives rather dearly to their captors.”
“But to risk your life for a golden arrow? What could any of us do with a golden arrow? It’s silly,” said Cecily.
Little John looked at her as he had the first time she’d tried to block with her staff and he’d knocked her down. “’Twas an arrow made Robin Hood an outlaw. Don’t forget. The sheriff hasn’t. These people have not.”
The archery ground was already filling up; the three-sided tent, with the dais beneath, was set up nearer the mark where the archers would stand than to the targets that would tell who won the prize—as if the sheriff were more eager to see who came than to determine who shot well. There were practise targets set up a little to one side, and a few folk were sighting along their bowstrings and smoothing their arrows. One bored-looking man in the sheriff’s livery was standing by the practise field, but when one of the archers shouted to him to move one of the marks farther down, to make the possibility of practice more like the coming contest, the man slouched over to the nearest straw target with infinite reluctance, dragged it a few feet only, and left. The archer who’d shouted and another man hauled the wooden frame back themselves.
Little John and Cecily drifted over to stand near some of the minstrels and acrobats who were wearing clothing similar to their own, so as to be a little less conspicuous. The proximity of the sheriff’s tent, even empty as it was at present, made them both uncomfortable. One of the wrestlers Little John had defeated came up to him and asked, as if idly, where he was going from Nottingham. Little John gave a vague answer; they’d earned enough today that they would perhaps lie a night or two at the inn here before they moved on.
“I hope you’re as good at wrestling fleas, then,” said the man. He had put a plain green shirt over his wrestler’s garb and looked almost ordinary, except, perhaps, for the easy, alert way he moved—as if he might leap into a back flip at any moment. He might make a good outlaw, thought Cecily. “I hoped perhaps I could interest you in joining us; I am more an acrobat than a wrestler—as you may have noticed—and I would be glad to give it up in your favour. We might,” he added, eyeing Little John with a certain wistfulness, “use you in the acrobatics as well; we had a strong man once, but he left us a year ago to marry a farm girl, and waste himself on ploughing.”
“I thank you for your offer,” said Little John, “but I think not. We—have not had good luck travelling in company.”
“Jealousy?” said the man in green. “I am not surprised. I can tell you we are not like that—we even played our old strong man’s wedding for free—but you may not believe me. Perhaps—” the man hesitated—“perhaps we’ll call on you at the inn tomorrow, after you’ve had a chance to think on it?”
“If we meet you at the inn,” said Little John gravely, “we would be happy to speak to you further.”
Silence began to make its way through the crowd, in a twisty, snake-like manner; Cecily turned to look where the others were looking and saw a man she could guess was the sheriff, from the size of both his girth and the gold chain around his neck, approaching the dais with a grandly dressed party of courtiers. The party included two ladies, whose long brilliant skirts belled out in the breeze. It was a pretty picture, but Cecily remembered what it felt like, and stamped one hose-clad leg in satisfaction.
“The wind will do the archers no good,” said the man in green.
Little John grunted. “I know little of archery; but I have thought before that it is a matter of luck as much as skill; as most contests of arms are.”
“Arms and legs,” said the man, smiling; “it was skill that defeated me, not ill luck. But I think I agree with you here. Arrows are malicious mites, with wills of their own.”
“Aye,” said Little John, and fell silent, frowning; he was looking toward the archers lining up for the first target. There was a goodly number of them; one or two wore the sheriff’s livery, but the most conspicuous group among them were the king’s foresters, who made up nearly half the number of the whole.
“God help any outlaw trying to pull the sheriff’s nose in that group,” said the green man.
“You have heard the rumours that Robin Hood will try?” said Cecily bluntly.
“Aye. Have not we all? And a fool he is, I say, if he falls for so foolish a lure.”
“You speak treason, or near to it,” said Little John gently; “for are we not to hope that the sheriff will succeed?”
“You’re no Norman,” said the green man, “or I would not be here talking to you; even their money smells bad. Why should I hope a Saxon who has found a way to elude the Normans’ hold will fall
back into it? And now if I’ve passed the test, will you think of joining our company?” Little John smiled. “I did not mean a test, exactly, but you are right that we are not Norman.”
“And have little cause to love them,” Cecily put in, and Little John turned to look at her quellingly.
The green man grinned. “I like your assistant, but you feed him too well; he would not talk to strangers so easily if he’d had your experience.”
“He has had his own experience,” said Little John; “but it is true that I think about tying his tongue in a knot at least daily.”
The first archers were taking their turns; the foresters all shot well enough to go to the second round; a number of other folk did as well, including at least one lady.
“The only child of Sir Waleran, and it had to be a daughter,” said the green man; “but he is doing what he can with her instead of giving up quietly—or siring a bastard on some woman who can conceive sons.”
Cecily had her mouth open when Little John’s foot descended on hers, and she hissed instead, and bit her tongue as her jaws snapped together. “Rmph,” she said, as the herald bellowed that the second round would begin at once.
About half the original number of archers stood up to shoot; including one ordinary-looking man with an extraordinarily long-handed bow, whose appearance at the mark caused Little John’s hand to drop to Cecily’s shoulder. She was still nursing her crushed foot, but she looked up. There was nothing about this man to draw attention: of medium height, curling brown hair visible under a rough hat—and an excellent shot: the arrow sank into the heart of the target almost before you saw him lift his bow. Something about the way he walked, though—and the long bow … It couldn’t be. Little John’s fingers tightened.
“If that’s Robin,” said the green man, “he could have the sense not to draw quite so well till it was necessary.”
It wasn’t Robin, of course, thought Cecily, because he doesn’t shoot that well. But there was still something—the way the man caught the eye for no reason; the same something that Robin had.
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