Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) (11 page)

So the outlaws liked her and respected her, and called her Robin o’ the Hood, because no one had ever seen her without that particular couture.

Robin o’ the Hood. I rather like it
, she thought sleepily, settling more comfortably against the oak.
It sounds . . . mysterious
.

The warming sun and the friendly breeze succeeded in siphoning away her thoughts after that, and she had almost managed to doze off when a commotion at the edge of the camp roused her awake.

A small pack of young men—ones that Will Stutley had adopted as his own special friends, she noted—were making their way into camp like a band of triumphant heroes. They were laden with sacks whose contents spilled out as they set them on the ground: dried foods, oats, patched woolen blankets, and even a couple live chickens. Robin watched, aghast, as outlaws converged on the items, carrying them away until not even a grain of barley remained.

“Ye want any, Robin?” Will asked, heaving a small sack in her direction. He opened it to show her a wheel of cheese and some pasties.

“Where did you get this?” she asked, incredulous.

“Oh, some farm o’er in Mansfield,” he said, surprised that she did not know. “’Twas Johnny’s idea. ’E decided ne t’ try Nottingham again cuz they only gots rotten stuff there af’er the Sheriff gets done wi’ them, but we made a good ’aul this time.”

Realization made Robin dizzy. Over the last couple of weeks, she had noticed some new items appearing among the outlaws—a pot here, a different pair of shoes there. She had assumed that some of the outlaws had risked going into town and had bought or traded for these things. Now she knew the truth.

“And everyone . . . knew?” she asked, still trying to comprehend.

“O’ course,” he said. “I thought ye did, too, or I woulda told ye.” Robin’s attitude puzzled him—was she not glad that the outlaws were providing for themselves? He continued to hold out the small sack.

“Put that down,” she ordered, the cold fury in her voice stunning the boy. “Go gather those friends of yours and their families—better yet, gather all and sundry. We are going to have ourselves a little talk.”

* * * * *

Robin waited for the last puzzled stragglers to find a place to sit, putting off the moment when she would have to address the crowd. She knew in her heart that what Will and his friends were doing was wrong, but it was one thing to know it, and another thing to convince everyone else of that . . . especially when they profited from the purloinment. How could she keep them from dismissing her as a meddling fool? Somehow, she would have to find a way, or else the community they had formed would become a monstrosity—wolf heads in reality, preying on those too weak to stop them.

“My friends,” she began, her mind still unsettled, gesturing with her hands for them to quiet. “When Will and I welcomed you here, it was because you had nowhere else to go. You had been thrown off your lands because you could not pay your taxes, or been branded as outlaws for stealing the bread you needed to eat. Some of you defended your families against assault, and as a reward found your likeness adorning the Sheriff’s bill.

“Great wrong had been done to you, and so we allowed you to build a life with us,” Robin stated. “Then today, I learned that you have become the very wrongdoers that you detest. You have stolen from people who need our help and our protection, not our larceny. What right have you to take from those who have nothing spare to give?”

“The right to survive!” one man shouted. There were loud cries of agreement. “We need supplies—grains and new clothes! How else are we supposed to get them? We have as much right to maintain our lives as anyone!”

“Yes,” Robin argued, “but not by depriving others of that right! I have a plan,” she continued, working through a nascent idea, “to ensure that we all get a diversity of provisions. Let me help you, and I promise you that hunger and deprivation will soon be only a memory.”

“You are nothing but a lad!” Guy of Gisborne cried, rising to his feet. “A whippersnapper who cannot even grow a beard upon his chin. What gives you the
right
to make yourself our leader? If anyone is to be leader here, let it be me!”

He looked around the gathering for support, but no one met his eye. Gisborne was a strong man, both mentally and physically, a soldier outlawed for killing another in a brawl. His was the voice that most often opposed Robin’s in the gathered community; he was also a bully, and the people feared him. A few men shifted, but nobody stood.

Gisborne’s accusation took Robin aback. Leader? She did not want to be leader—at least, that had not been her intention. She just wanted to stop these people from hurting those who were already so oppressed. But Robin knew that if she allowed Gisborne to seize control of this moment—if she was seen to back down from his challenge—then he would sway the others to his selfish ways, and what began as juvenile pilfering would soon degenerate into utter mercenariness.

It would not be the first time Robin had taken charge, but when she had done so in the past, it had been because circumstances required it. It seemed they required it now, but was she the one these people needed? She was a girl, not a commander! But who better? Certainly not Gisborne! As for the rest, they were villeins, uneducated and simple, knowing only their own trade and their own affairs. Robin was of noble birth, and as such had grown up with tutors who fed her language, science, and strategy (much to Darah’s disapproval)! She could think in ways these men could not even begin to comprehend. Who better to lead them than her?

There is no one better,
Robin realized.
If I want to help these people, then I will have to take charge completely. It is up to me. I can do this.

Robin squared her shoulders, accepting the role that Gisborne had unwittingly assigned her. “If you want to continue living here, then you will have to accept my undisputed leadership,” she told the congregation slowly, her voice unconsciously taking on her father’s timbre of command. “There can be no more personal forays. Yes, we have a right to survive, and yes, we may need to steal to do that . . . but only for what we need to keep us fed and clothed; the rest we will give back to the populace to whom it rightfully belongs. Never again will we rob from the poor—only from the corrupt rich who have pilfered the people’s monies for far too long. We may be outlaws, but we will be outlaws with honor . . . a quality not many of the Sheriff’s soldiers can claim to possess!”

That assertion got a small chuckle.

“So we just have to rob from the rich instead of the poor? That does not sound so bad,” laughed Gavin o’ Dell.

“Honor is more than that,” Robin said firmly. “It is sharing what you have with those who have less. It is sheltering and caring for the widows, the orphans, and the sick. It is doing no woman harm,” she said, recalling the many bruised cheeks she had seen in her lifetime. Her gaze happened to alight at that moment on a pair of particularly randy twins, and on impulse, she added, “And that includes not spying on them when they bathe.”

Tessa, who was sitting on a log near the front of the assembly, gave a distressed cry at this insinuation. Several men chuckled—a knowing rumble that swept along the crowd. Out of the corner of her eye, Robin saw Will hang his head, smiling. Once again, she was glad that she bathed half a mile upstream, before anyone else was awake.

Robin waited until the laughter quieted down, her own expression serious. When she finally spoke, her words rang with an earnest conviction that seized the outlaws’ hearts. “If you feel you cannot live under my direction, than leave—no one will fault you. But if you stay, then you must swear to be more than a band of thieves: you must become a band with more integrity in your bows than all of the Sheriff’s servicemen, a band who will do more good for the people than any king. Choose to stay, and together we will create a legacy that your children’s children will acclaim.”

The crowd was silent for a moment, uncertain. Lives of honor? A legacy of integrity? No one had ever painted their lives in such noble hues before, nor even told them it was a possibility. A strange excitement began to stir within them—the desire to
be
that sort of man. They looked at Robin with shining eyes.

“
I
say,” Gisborne menaced from where he stood, breaking the silence, “that you are a fool, and that any man who listens to you is a fool as well. I say we just kill you and do what we want with no censure—we are outlaws after all!”

Robin’s breath caught in her throat—Johnny’s father looked quite capable of carrying out his threat. For the first time since she had run away, she felt afraid.

Suddenly, David was standing there beside her.

“If you want to kill Robin, you will have to get through me,” his low voice menaced, and he flexed his fingers with a wrestler’s readiness.

“And me!” Will avowed, racing to stand by her other side.

Everyone immediately quieted. This was truly serious, they realized. Gisborne’s threat, Robin’s proposal . . . what was happening here would forever change their lives in the greenwood, and they all sensed it. Heads turned to gaze from Robin, to David and Will, to Gisborne, and back to Robin again, their thoughts in a flurry. What should they do?

It was true that they admired and respected Robin, and they esteemed David, whose innate sense of honor had made him the unofficial judge in several camp disputes. Everyone liked Will, the ambassador who had brought them to their current haven, and many of the younger men considered him a personal friend. As for Gisborne . . . well, no one wanted to be under
his
dominion. But was Robin any better to issue such an ultimatum—to demand their loyalty or their expulsion?

Robin had Will and David’s support—certainly a strong point in his favor! Furthermore, he had sworn to improve their standard of living, and they knew from experience that his ideas were generally good ones; more importantly, he had never yet broken a promise to them. If anyone could guide their community well, it was he. All things considered, having Robin for a leader might be worth a try!

The murmurs of the crowd converged toward acceptance, causing Guy of Gisborne’s eyes to narrow in rage. “I will not follow a mere slip of a boy!” he snarled, meeting Robin’s gaze with one of unmerited hatred. His hand fell on the knife at his belt and he took a step forward; David immediately echoed his stance, followed an instant later by Will. Gisborne drew up short. “That milksop will be the death of you all!” he shouted. “Come, Johnny!” Gisborne dragged his son up from his seat by the arm; Johnny shot Will an anxious look, but allowed himself to be steered away. The crowd willingly parted to let them pass.

Robin took a deep breath, trying and failing to expel some of her tension. David and Will stepped back to her side, and she gave them both a small smile of gratitude, before turning back to address the gathering in a voice that quivered with passion:

“You all came here with nothing, outlawed from your rightful place in society. You have no one else. We must band together, look to one another, protect each other and those like us. You can be sure no one else will.

“I am Robin o’ the Hood,” she said, using their nickname for her. “Follow me, and I promise prosperity and merry times for every person here. Follow me, and together we will make the Sheriff rue the day he named us Outlaw!”

“I will follow Robin o’ the Hood!” Will cried impetuously, raising his fist into the air.

“As will I,” David nodded, giving her a smile.

“I will follow Robin o’ Hood,” another man swore, and then another, and another, until they were all standing and proclaiming their fealty.

“To Robin o’ Hood!”

“Yes, Robin o’ Hood!”

And one small boy with a newly made bow: “Huzzah for Robin Hood!”

CHAPTER 8

FIRST FORAY

“HOW MUCH LONGER do we have to sit here?”

“As long as it takes.”

“This is boring.”

“My leg is falling asleep.”

“
I
am falling asleep.”

Robin sighed, and bit back the urge to hush her men yet again. She really could not fault them for their restlessness; it had been a long afternoon. So far a palmer, two peasants, and a courier had passed them by. None had been, in Robin’s estimation, sufficiently unworthy of the cargo they carried to merit her taking it from them.

She had chosen the men for her ambush very carefully, picking them for their patience and marksmanship. There was Murray, the tanner; Lot of Lincoln, a butcher; Nicolas Sutter, ex-miller; and Glenneth and Shane, twin brothers who were, after her, probably the camp’s finest archers. And of course, Will Stutley, whom she doubted she could have left behind even if she had wanted to.

At first, it was with a jovial air that they had taken up their perches in the ash trees or crouched in the bushes that lined the High Road through Sherwood Forest. But as the hours waned by, the tedious wait began to tax even their patient fortitude.

One more hour,
Robin promised them silently.
One more hour, and then I will call this whole thing off as a dozy idea.

“Do you hear that?” Murray called softly from the tree next to hers.

Signaling the others to silence, Robin listened. In the distance, the muted jangle of bit harnesses, the shrill peal of bells, and the creaking of a wagon heralded the approach of a small caravan. It would reach the outlaws soon.

From her position in the tree, Robin strung her bow, seeing in her periphery her men do the same. She hoped that they would remember the instructions she had set them; she had been very firm.

“No killing,” she had emphasized that morning. “None of you has killed a man, but I have. It is a bitter thing, and I hope I never need do so again. Aim your arrows for a shoulder, or a foot; for most, your threat will be deterrent enough. But if something goes wrong and you must strike mortally, then strike hard and see that there is no need to strike again. I would rather have them dead than you.”