by Nicky Raven
“And why is that, Sir Guy?” asked Marian. “Do you have proof that he is dead?”
Gisburn snorted. “Proof?” he cried, his voice rising with the word. “What proof do you need, my lady? He has been missing for over two years, killed or taken captive by the heathens. What hope do you have that he will miraculously reappear?”
“Robin swore he would return,” said Marian, her voice quiet but tremulous with passion. “And he was always a man of his word.”
Tuck leaned closer to the door to hear better, for Marian’s voice lowered still further. But suddenly the door crashed inward, propelled by a body that flew past him with tremendous force and speed, and he stumbled into the room, arms flailing for balance. The man who had flung open the door so violently strode straight over to Marian, who stood by the fireside.
“He still is,” said the stranger, a tall, well-built man carrying a bow and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Tuck looked up in amazement; it was the same man who had knocked him into the water that morning.
“Who is this?” asked Gisburn, a note of contempt in his voice as he took in the stranger’s rough apparel and worn boots.
Marian stood for the briefest moment, dumbstruck and smiling. She recovered and fixed a look of the utmost happiness upon Gisburn. “My dear Sir Guy,” she said, “may I have the absolute pleasure of introducing you to the true owner of the castle you occupy—my lord, the Earl of Locksley.”
Locksley swept his hat from his head and gave Sir Guy a mock bow.
Sir Guy’s hand moved toward his sword, but Locksley noted the movement and motioned with his hand.
“The time will come for that, Gisburn,” he growled in that deep voice that Tuck cursed himself for failing to recognize earlier, “but not here and not now.”
Gisburn nodded curtly. “You are right. The time will come,” he agreed. He bowed quickly to Marian, “My lady,” he snapped and turned towards the door. As he was leaving he looked back and shot one last remark at the Earl. “Remember, Locksley, you are no longer a landowner, and your loyalty to King John is questionable.”
Locksley didn’t reply; he merely raised an eyebrow.
“I would suggest you leave the county,” continued Sir Guy, “lest you be declared an outlaw.”
Locksley chuckled as Gisburn stalked from the room. “A little ray of sunshine, our Gisburn,” he said, but the breath was quickly knocked from him as Marian hit him at full speed and enclosed him in the fiercest hug. Robin held her to him for a long moment, breathing in the smell of her hair, her skin, her perfume, reminding himself of how warm and alive she felt in his embrace. He pushed her out to arm’s length, brushed a stray lock of hair from her brow and, leaning forward, kissed her eyelids. Marian stroked the scar on his cheek; it had not been there when she saw him last.
“Still my little minx?” he asked.
“Always and forever,” she replied, tears blinding her eyes.
“Friar Tuck!” called Robin, still holding Marian and smiling at her. “Do get up off the floor.” He flashed a grin at the friar. “You seem a bit unsteady on your feet today—are you sure you’re eating enough?”
Tuck roared with laughter and then stopped abruptly.
“Good Lord, I almost forgot,” he cried. “Marian, we have Will outside, with a mighty deep sword cut. He’s beyond my help . . .”
“Bring him in, Friar Michael, as quick as you can,” replied Marian firmly, waking out of her lovestruck reverie at the news. Robin marvelled at the way she went from blushing maiden to efficient mistress of the house at the first sign of a crisis. He had always loved that combination of the romantic and the practical in her.
Tuck hurried away to fetch Will and the others, while Marian and Robin went to prepare a bed for the wounded outlaw.
Under Marian’s devoted care, Will made a swift recovery. Within a few days he was ready to leave for the forest again, sore and tired but whole again. When he rode back to Sherwood, wincing every time his horse took an uneven stride, Robin was by his side.
Gisburn, too, had been occupied in those few days, whispering poison into the ear of the sheriff. When the abbot reported the attack in the forest, Gisburn gleefully seized on the story of the “mystery bowman” and pointed the finger at Locksley, demanding he be outlawed and hunted down.
The sheriff disliked Gisburn and recognized him as a tyrannical and a liar, but he could not afford to offend his Norman allies. Hugo De Brassy had been one of the most powerful knights in the county, and had an influential cousin at court. So the sheriff issued a warrant for the capture or head of the “mystery bowman.” When Locksley refused to attend the sheriff’s court to explain his three-year absence and his whereabouts on the day of the attack, the sheriff was pressured into declaring him an outlaw, and offering a reward for his arrest.
Robin was not too concerned. The soft life of a landowner would be a bore after his time in the Holy Land, and he would still be able to visit Marian and her father. The old man had been surprised but pleased to see him back, and was happy for him to visit, on condition he never put Marian in danger.
The outlaws, many of whom had fought under Robin and knew him as a courageous and just man, accepted him instantly. John handed over leadership of the group graciously; in truth, he’d have been uncomfortable having command over a former nobleman. Under Robin’s leadership, the outlaws grew bolder and more successful, while the Norman barons grew ever more resentful.
*
Chapter Four
The Silver
Arrow
ife soon fell into a pattern. The outlaws lived deep in the forest, where there was little chance they would be discovered and attacked. The paths to their hideout were dark and narrow and strewn with traps, and the camp itself was so heavily camouflaged that it would be possible to walk right through the middle without knowing it was there. It wasn’t an easy life; there was rarely enough food, and rain made it an uncomfortable place to spend the night. Despite plenty of furs and skins for warmth, the damp got under covers and under clothes, leaving the outlaws feeling permanently cold.
Robin changed a few of their habits; he knew that eventually the sheriff would have to come looking for him, and he wanted to ensure that when that happened, his bowmen were ready. A series of signals and watch-points were established, and anyone who fell asleep or was found ducking watch duty went extra hungry that day.
He and Marian developed a code so they could exchange messages without endangering the carrier—usually Tuck. Sometimes they used Robin’s old hunting hound, Damson; Locksley had been delighted to discover the feisty mongrel still alive and well and living with Marian and her father. Damson knew the way between Marian’s home and the outlaw camp, and he enjoyed his missions. While he was at Marian’s he visited the children from the forest and they scratched his shoulders and fed him scraps; in the forest he could chase rabbits and deer, although his aging legs meant he rarely caught anything these days.
Life in Nottingham also had a pattern, not entirely dissimilar to that of the outlaws. Here, too, there was a shortage of food, unless you happened to be noble-born; even the troops stationed at the castle complained of meager rations. With each day that passed, the sheriff was reminded of his problem in Sherwood Forest. Either one of his Norman knights was complaining of having been robbed or he was overhearing the servants praising the kindness and bravery of “the good earl.”
The sheriff found it depressing; he tried his best to rule fairly, but it was an impossible task with the likes of the Abbot of Mansfield, Gisburn, and Sir William Martel of Ashby-de-la-Zouch sticking their greedy snouts in the trough and demanding more taxes, more land, more this, more that. There were times when the sheriff wished his great-great-grandfather had stayed in Normandy, instead of crossing the sea to England.
The sheriff was always stuck between the hell of his supposed allies and the high water of his presumed enemies. He seemed to be the only person in the county who just saw people, not Normans and Saxons, and an
yway, he disliked most of those people, Norman or Saxon.
It was coming up to the time of the late summer County Fair, which this year was to be held at Sir William Martel’s castle in Ashby. The knight, a hawk-nosed, arrogant man with a permanent sneer and oily hair, was plotting something with Gisburn. The sheriff hadn’t as yet been able to find out what, but he was suspicious about the fuss that both of his underlings were making about an archery contest—a contest with a very valuable silver arrow as its prize.
The sheriff wasn’t too happy about his staff plotting without his authority, but Martel and Gisburn were paying for the fair and balancing the books was one of the sheriff’s primary concerns, especially with all these extra taxes that were needed to pay for the release of King Richard from prison in the Holy Land. The sheriff wasn’t sure who he despised most—Richard, with his perpetual wars and “righteous Crusades,” or his penny-pinching one-handed brother, John, who was now ruling in his brother’s place. As far as the sheriff was concerned, the heathens could keep Jerusalem, Richard could rot in jail, and John could rot in hell.
Word of the contest had reached Sherwood Forest, and, despite all protestations, Robin was resolved to go and try to win the valuable prize. John argued vehemently that it was bound to be a trap, but Robin seemed not to care.
“So it’s a trap!” he laughed. “But if we know it’s a trap, John, then the trap hasn’t worked, has it?”
“What do you mean?” asked John, a puzzled expression on his honest face.
“A trap is only a trap if it has the element of surprise,” explained Robin, but he could see that his point wasn’t getting home. “If they have a trap for us, John,”—a nod from his friend—“then we’ll have one for them, too.”
Still the puzzled expression from the gigantic man.
“The Normans will be expecting me to enter the tournament,” continued Robin, patiently, “but they won’t be expecting Much to enter, or Will, and they certainly won’t be expecting forty or so armed outlaws to be hidden around the fairground.”
Finally a look of comprehension stole across John’s face.
“Now you’re talking,” he said with a grin, clapping his hands. “And if they try to arrest you when you win the contest, we’ll fill ’em so full of feathers they’ll be mistaken for the roast goose come suppertime.”
“Precisely,” smiled Robin. “But you’re getting ahead of yourself with this winning talk—there are plenty of good archers in Nottingham County.”
John merely shrugged, as if the possibility of Robin being beaten wasn’t even worth discussing.
The fair fell on a sultry summer’s day, which gave the outlaws a good excuse to keep their cloth hoods up, as if merely shading themselves from the hot sun. They filtered into the fairground in twos and threes, keeping a low profile and moving amongt the stalls and entertainments like any other customers might.
From her seat in the stand, Marian could pick out one or two of the men she knew. She recognized Robin, of course, even in disguise and without seeing his face. Sometimes she felt that, even blindfolded, she would be able to sense where Robin was, such was the magnetism of his presence. She knew John was already there, working on the blacksmith’s stall—the only place a man of his stature could hide in full view without attracting attention.
After the jugglers and acrobats came the jousting. Normally this would have been the highlight of the day, but the unusual prize at stake for the archery had brought the finest shots not just from Nottinghamshire but from farther afield as well. Much money had been exchanged in the betting stall on the contest, with Gisburn’s man, Montcuq, Lionel of York, and the ranger, Tom O’Vale, among the favorites. Marian had sent one of her father’s men with a small purse and backed her own personal favorite. She had watched him place her bet and been surprised to see Will Scarlet also laying down a few coins; the former soldier was a man of little personal wealth.
The tournament began quietly while the jousting was finishing. The qualifying rounds were shot at increasingly challenging targets to eliminate the hopefuls and leave only the genuine contenders. The field was down to a dozen by the time the prize for the jousting had been awarded to William Martel’s brother, Roland, who was far more attractive and courteous than Sir William. So politely had Roland asked for Marian’s favor that she had been almost sorry to decline him, but she had wished him well in the lists, and clapped when he handed the winner’s laurel to a blushing, fair-haired girl she knew to be the sheriff’s niece. Even the dour sheriff managed a smile and a brief smatter of applause. He was an odd man, this sheriff, but Marian had found no reason to despise or mistrust him.
The second round of the archery was played to packed galleries, with all the nobles taking their seats and the common folk standing ten deep around the targets. Marian thought some were recklessly close, but she supposed these archers were unlikely to miss their targets altogether, even now that they had been moved to a great distance.
First came Will, disguised as an old soldier, wearing his uniform from the Crusades in the Holy Land and a patch over one eye. His other eye was keen, and he won a close match against one of the local guardsmen.
Marian was concerned when Much came forward—his disguise was pathetic—but no one seemed to notice, and he was easily beaten by Montcuq. Marian took a dislike to the strutting Montcuq, who failed to acknowledge his opponent in the customary manner and walked away with a look of disdain on his thin face.
Another guard lost to the ranger, Tom O’Vale, before a tall tinker who had impressed some of the locals in the heats strode forward to face the abbot’s champion, a swarthy man with the look of a foreigner—a fact confirmed when he drew out a recurved bow such as the Saracens used. He was a superb shot, good enough to win most contests, but he met his match in the tinker, who exuded calm and showed steely nerves as he matched and then bettered the foreigner’s every arrow. At the end of the contest the swarthy man bowed deeply and respectfully to his opponent.
Marian was sure she saw the sheriff grinning when his sergeant-at-arms, Geoffrey, beat Martel’s best man in the fifth contest. Geoffrey was certainly grinning as he enjoyed the congratulations of his men, and Marian was forced to close her ears to the unseemly chants that Geoffrey’s soldiers aimed at the opposition. The final shoot of this round matched Lionel of York against a slim youth, nicknamed “Red Alan” by the crowd because of his red gloves and matching hat. Lionel was the official North of England champion, which obviously didn’t mean much, as he shot poorly and was easily eclipsed by the smooth skills of Red Alan, who favored a Saracen bow.
Marian had always loved contests and she was finding this one intensely exciting. Even her father, Sir Walter Kirwan, who was a scholarly, quiet man, was on the edge of his seat.
“Who do you favor?” he asked Marian, knowing she was a good judge.
“You mean in my head or in my heart, Father?” she replied with a smile.
Sir Walter laughed. “Oh, I know he’s out there,” he said. “But will he win? It will be close, I think.”
“Any of them could win, Father; they are all fine shots,” agreed Marian. “But I do not think the old soldier or the sheriff’s man are quite as good as the others.”
The next round would decide which three archers should go through to the final. The “old soldier” had done well to get this far, but now he faced Montcuq, who was far too good for him. Marian was suspicious that Montcuq had been given an easy passage to the final—Much and Will were decent archers, but not in the same class as these other contestants.
Tom O’Vale and the tinker, who gave his name as Piers of Lincoln, were next. They made a comic couple, both sporting identical wide-brimmed hats to shield their eyes from the sun. After two rounds Tom had put the tinker under pressure. The tinker now needed three centers to clinch the contest, but he was unhurried, calmly restringing his bow before releasing three effortless arrows into the heart of the target.
“It seems I owe you a drink, Maste
r Piers,” called the ranger good-naturedly.
“I’ll join you with pleasure,” replied the tinker. “But after the shoot. I don’t want the drink to ruin my arm!”
The crowd enjoyed the banter; the tinker had become a clear favorite—they would support anyone who they thought might beat Montcuq.
The contest for the last place in the final was between the sheriff’s sergeant, Geoffrey, and Red Alan. It was another close shoot, but Geoffrey just failed to get the three centers required and he bowed out of the tournament. The sergeant was a cheery, rather overweight man, and he was red in the cheeks when he left the shooting area. He was even redder when one of his men called over to him.
“’Ere, sarge,” came the cry. “Did my eyes deceive me or did you just get beat by a girl?”
The rest of the soldiers exploded with laughter at this, and even Geoffrey had to smile.
“Aye, lad” he shouted back. “And if her tongue’s as keen as her arrows, I’ll not be making closer acquaintance!”
More laughter, and the soldiers applauded their beaten comrade and offered him a beaker of ale, which he swallowed quickly and gratefully, thumping his glass for a refill.
There was a pause before the last round, and Marian looked around at her fellow spectators. Gisburn, who had seemed furtive and nervous all day, was deep in conversation with the revolting Martel. As they finished talking, Gisburn gestured to his man, Montcuq, and whispered something in his ear.
Marian frowned; she didn’t trust Gisburn, and knew he would do anything to get Robin out of the way. She noticed the sheriff watching the same conversation; he too frowned at the exchange. When the sheriff had first taken up office, many in the county had expected a wave of cruelty and summary justice and seizing of land, but it had never happened; he had shown respect for people’s way of life, and reserved his justice for genuine offenders. He had visited Marian’s father the previous week and treated the old man with the courtesy fitting of an equal—though most of the Norman nobles treated their Saxon counterparts as little more than servants. People were still hungry and miserable, but less so now, at least, than under the previous sheriff.
