Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) (10 page)

But as Robin neared the outlaw village, the sound of distressed voices filtering through the trees pushed all thoughts of hunger from her mind.

“There you are!” David cried, running over the instant she stepped into the clearing. Despite the frigid weather, he was sweating.

“What has happened?” Robin demanded, her mind awhirl with possibilities. “Soldiers?”

“What? No, ’tis the baby . . . ’tis coming!”

“Oh,” she replied, her posture sinking two inches in relief. “Well, surely the women have things in hand?”

“Noni is still sick, and last night, Tessa took ill, too. Edra went to the Blue Boar Inn to get some herbs for them—I sent someone after her, but it could be hours before they get back. I know not what else to do!”

Robin frowned, puzzled. “I do not understand. If the women are indisposed, and if you are here, then who is with Mara now?”

“No one,” he admitted.

“No one!”

“’Tis not right to have a man present,” David protested; he quelled under Robin’s scathing stare.

“Of all the idiotic,
stupid
notions—who do you think helped Mary give birth to our Lord? The cows?” she snapped, stalking toward his cabin.

“You there,” she directed, pointing to one of the burly fellows who were lurking nearby, looking abashedly useless. “Boil some water and get me a cloth to dip in it. And you—fetch me a firebrand so I can see what I am doing. Go!” The men scurried to do as she bade them.

“And you,” Robin barked to David as she stepped inside his hut. “Do something useful and hold your wife’s hand.” He hastened to obey her, grateful that someone was taking charge.

Robin blinked and allowed her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Outside it was still bright, but with the door shut for privacy, just enough daylight seeped through the hut’s walls to illuminate the woman lying on the floor. Mara’s face was taut with exertion, her eyes shut, and her breathing labored.

“All right,” Robin muttered to herself, trying to recall what the midwife had done when one of the kitchen maids had gone into labor. “First things first: see how close the baby is to being born.”

Nervously, she crouched down next to Mara and began to push back the woman’s skirts, forgetting for a moment how the others perceived her.

Without warning, harsh hands seized Robin and threw her against the wall. The whole shack shook and some dirt crumbled from the roof onto Robin’s head, but to her amazement and intense relief, the hut did not fall over.

“No man is going to see my wife there but me!” David thundered, hastily drawing back down his wife’s clothes.

“Do you want to catch the baby then?” Robin demanded, pushing herself to her feet and rubbing her shoulder where it had struck the wall. She understood David’s protectiveness, but now was not the time. Besides, if he knew Robin’s true gender, he would welcome her actions. But she was not ready to tell him the truth and give up her disguise, nor the freedom it permitted—certainly not over a baby!

At Robin’s suggestion, David blanched. “No, no,” he retracted, “you do it.”

This time when she went to check on Mara, he eyed her in warning, but said nothing.

Satisfied that the baby would not arrive for a while, Robin pulled the woman’s skirts back down and rocked back on her heels as she thought.

What was it Darah had said during the maid’s delivery—something about first births taking a long time? And herbs, herbs to help the pain.

“I brought water,” carpenter John Logan announced, opening the door to the hut. He glanced uncertainly at the laboring woman, and then away again, holding the bucket in front of him like a shield. Robin accepted the water from him, as well as the thin rag he held out.

“Thank you,” she said. “Send Edra in here the instant she gets back, and in the meantime, see if she has any birthwort or raspberry in that hut of hers. If she does, brew them into a tea and bring it to me as quick as you can.”

“Yes, Robin,” came John’s automatic reply; he practically fled out the door.

Time passed. Robin had David sponge his wife’s face and neck with the warm water, talking to her all the while in a low voice. She doubted that Mara, distracted and faint, understood what he was saying, but it was the comforting sound of her husband’s voice that was important, not the words.

When John Logan brought the herbal tea, Robin seized at it gratefully and tipped the liquid into Mara’s mouth, pouring slowly so the woman would not choke. It must have eased her a little, because some of the lines in her face relaxed, and her cries of pain became less shrill. She still did not open her eyes.

Day faded into night; someone brought a torch and placed it just inside the doorway. David had fallen asleep holding his wife’s hand, and Robin was nodding off as well when Mara gave a piercing scream that brought them both to their feet.

“Mary, Mother, help me,” Robin prayed, hastily pushing back the woman’s skirts. The baby was coming, oh, how it was coming!

“What do I do? What do I do?” David cried, barely audible as his wife gave another scream.

“I do not know!” Robin shouted back. Outside, she heard distant voices calling something, but she ignored them. All her focus was on the crowning head.

God above, do not let me drop it.

When Edra burst into the hut a few moments later, she saw David cradling a tiny infant in his arms, and Robin wiping bloody hands on her tunic, a vague expression on her face. Mara had fainted from exertion, but her chest rose and fell with ease.

Though momentarily taken aback by the scene, the healer quickly recovered her wits and strode over to the baby, taking the child in her arms to assess its condition. Robin, seeing that she was no longer needed, took the opportunity to step outside. It was a beautiful night, with thin wisps of pearl-colored clouds surrounding the moon and stars like gauze studded with diamonds. Against the darkness of the clearing, a bonfire crackled, its flames rising taller than a man and silhouetting the shapes of those sitting around it.

At the sound of the infant’s first howl, these outlaws had turned as one to face the cabin, and when Robin emerged, they greeted her with a relieved hail. One man whipped out a crude set of hand pipes and began to play a joyful tune in time to the baby’s wails. This, in addition to many broad smiles and ribald jokes, helped shatter the tension that had gripped the camp for the last few hours. David was well liked in the community, and his concern for his wife and child had become theirs; the birth of a baby who could bellow so heartily was definitely cause for celebration.

Rather than joining the nascent festivities, Robin stayed standing just outside David’s hut, looking at her hands in amazement. In the distant light of the fire, the blood on them gleamed black against her golden skin.

I should wash these
, she thought, but continued to stare at her palms, still stunned by what she had accomplished.

A heavy hand clasped her on the shoulder. It was David. His voice when he spoke was thick, and there were tears shining in his eyes.

“Thank you, Robin.”

She nodded, and the two of them stood that way for a while, listening in the dark to the healthy sound of a baby crying.

* * * * *

Winter eventually melted away, and the greenwood began to prosper once more. Flowers flared everywhere—pied daisies, red poppies, and cerulean bluebells—all vying to paint the landscape their particular brand of color. Baby rabbits flooded the undergrowth, sparrow couples took flight in their primordial dance of courtship, and sundry insects awoke from their winter sleep to repopulate the verdure.

One such insect—a mosquito, Robin noticed with dismay—was currently kissing her arm in itchy appetite.

“As if I had not problems enough,” she swore, dropping the bow she had been assessing onto her lap and tugging at her sleeves in an attempt to shield her arms.

This effort proved futile, since her sleeves were worn to shreds; for that matter, most of her outfit was worn to shreds. If she did not get something new to wear soon, she would be running around in threads—
which
, Robin thought wryly,
would definitely liven up the camp after a rather boring winter
. Of course, she was not the only person there in dire need of new clothes, but she had no doubt which of them would provide the greater spectacle.

It was hardly surprising that the camp’s attire was in such a sorry state. Deer that winter had proved infuriatingly elusive, and the pelts of those they had been fortunate enough to kill had been distributed among the outlaws as much-needed blankets; even the hides of rabbits and squirrels had been used for this purpose. None could be spared for new clothes.

Faced with this scarcity of warmth and meat, Robin knew the outlaws could have responded with the worst of human instincts. But years of near-starvation, combined with their expulsion from society, had merely increased their desire to aid those who shared their plight. So it was that they shared with each other the little they had, growing over the winter from a community into a family. By miracle of their altruism, no one had starved or frozen to death—not even the baby.

Robin glanced over at where Mara was sitting a few feet away, bouncing her baby lightly upon her lap and chatting cheerfully with Edra. Little Hannah gurgled happily in her mother’s arms and waved her plump pink fists ineffectually through the air. Outlaw life seemed to suit the babe, who flourished even while the adults grew thin. The entire camp adored the child, and the sleepy grumbles that resulted from her nighttime cries were tolerant and good-natured.

Less tolerant were the muddy feet that shuffled impatiently in front of Robin, and obediently she returned her attention to the bow in her lap. She peered down its shaft to make sure that there was no lateral curve to the wood. She ran her fingers over the shank to check for splits, and to make certain that the wood where the arrow would rest was smooth. Lastly, she checked the hemp bowstring for fraying—its coating left the faint smell of animal fat on her fingers, rather than beeswax, as the season was still too inhospitable for
that
particular insect to make itself known.

“Let me see you bend it,” Robin directed, returning the longbow to its owner. The young boy in front of her strung the bow, his face screwed up in concentration. Laboriously placing the tip by his instep, he drew the string back until his hand just touched his ear. The bow bent with a small creak, but not with the cracking, snapping sound that Robin was listening for.

“Very good,” she smiled with enthusiasm. “You have made a fine weapon. You should be proud.”

“Thanks, Robin!” the boy said, flashing her a grin that was missing two front teeth; he scampered off to where his friends were waiting to hear the verdict.

One more for the ranks
, Robin thought idly, reclining against the bole of the oak in what was her favorite spot. She was prepared to swear that the moss here was thicker and softer than anywhere else, but while a few of the other outlaws seemed to share her opinion, no one begrudged her the spot when she wanted to rest there, deferring the place to her out of respect.

It still surprised her, the people’s respect. She had not sought it, had not even noticed when it began to develop—first as simple admiration, and then altering slowly into a rare high regard.

It was clear to all in the camp that Robin was their best hunter—over the winter, she had brought in thrice the amount of game that anyone else had—and she had won the evening archery contests so often that she was eventually forbidden to compete. Those competitions had proved more effective than even Robin could have dreamed, and had affirmed to the others that her ideas were worth listening to.

It had begun simply, after yet another fight between men whose winter-worn tempers had snapped—this time resulting in a brawl so severe that two-thirds of the camp had been involved by its end. Robin had spent a sleepless night pondering how best to prevent another such squabble. The result was presented at the next camp convocation, where she had suggested holding a nightly competition, which would allow the people to display their prowess in archery, wrestling, or cudgeling, while at the same time releasing their pent-up energies.

“Why not?” had been the general consensus. “It is not like there is anything better to do.”

The resulting upswing in the camp’s mood had been as great as it was unexpected. After weeks of maddening monotony, the glade now rang in the evenings with laughter and cheers. Even better, now that the men had a valid outlet for their virility, they no longer felt the need to take their boredom out on each other. Tempers had improved, and to everyone’s pleasure, the number of unsanctioned fights plummeted to nearly zero.

Impressed by Robin’s ingenuity, the outlaws had begun coming to her for advice . . . much to her consternation and to David’s friendly amusement. Several even petitioned Robin to help them improve their archery, which she did gladly, showing them the tricks to smooth flight that she had discovered over the years. Soon even the worst of the archers found their aim beginning to steady, and as they started to triumph in the evenings against veteran bowmen, more and more people sought to join Robin’s lessons, until she found herself teaching half of the outlaws at once. Some of the men needed only a little refinement; some of them—contrary to the King’s law—had never even touched a bow before, let alone possessed one. For such men, her first lesson was simple: learn to make the weapon that could save an outlaw’s life. Only once their longbow had passed her examination did she permit them to enter group training.

The men’s regard for her archery skills was evident, but as anyone would have told her, archery was the least of the reasons they respected her. Without even knowing it, Robin had shown herself to be a leader that the people could esteem. During Mara’s crisis, she alone had kept her head when others felt helpless to act. When Thatch’s hut had caught on fire, her directives had kept the blaze from spreading, and when wolves had attacked Gary Ebbot, her composed commands had kept him from losing his life. And in spite of Robin’s initial misgivings about the people who now filled her once-private glade, the strong community they had formed gradually seduced her, until she could not imagine living without them. In community decisions, hers was a strong and influential voice, and whenever someone needed help, she did not balk at lending her aid.