Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) (9 page)

“Now I ’ave a bow, too,” he announced proudly. “Now we can practice together.”

“It is a very nice . . . bow,” Robin said carefully. “Does it work?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Can we see?”

Robin obligingly rose and went to fetch her quiver from her cabin. On the lad’s first attempt to bend the bow, his string snapped and had to be repaired. On his second attempt, his bow snapped as well.

“Oh,” he said quietly, holding the broken pieces in his hands. He looked so forlorn that Robin felt a rush of compassion for the youth.

“Never mind,” she consoled. “You shall make yourself another, and this time I will help you.”

It took them the rest of the day, with Robin patiently explaining how to choose the right wood, how to trim the stave, how to shape the bow, and how to weave a string. She was gratified to find she remembered all the details, and the lad learned from her eagerly. Several times when he was about to err, she was tempted to simply finish the job herself, but each time she restrained the urge and merely pointed out what he needed to correct. The end result was a bow that was not very elegant, but was sturdy and bent well. The look of pride on the boy’s face when he shot the first of several off-target arrows shamed Robin for all her impatience and ill will toward him.

“What is your name?” she asked as they searched through the dusky night for the shafts.

“Will Stutley.” She could not see his face anymore, but from the sound of his voice, he was both surprised and pleased by her question. “What is yours?”

“Robin,” she said, clearing her throat gruffly as a wave of homesickness washed through her.
Why does his name have to be Will?

Brushing away her wistful longing, she continued on in what she hoped was an offhand tone: “Well, Will, you cannot spend your nights out in the rain catching cold. Since you seem intent on staying here, we shall have to build you a house of your own.”

Robin had to throw her arms out quickly then to keep the boy from bowling her over in thanks.

* * * * *

When it came to archery, Will was a fast learner, eagerly assimilating everything she taught him. Soon he was hitting his target tree every time.

He is not dumb
, Robin realized,
just ignorant . . . and goodness knows, there is a world of difference between the two!

Now that she was no longer trying to get rid of him, Robin found herself enjoying Will’s company. He was one of those rare people whose natures are innately simple and happy, and while his boundless good cheer sometimes grated on her nerves, more often than not she found her own mood brightening to match his.

Of course, Robin had to be more careful now that there was a boy around. She never went outside without her breast binding or hood, and she went to the stream to bathe only when she was certain that Will was asleep. When her monthly came, she worried that he would notice the girdle of river ferns and cloth strips she wore under her hose and tunic, or that her sharpened temper would trigger a realization. She need not have concerned herself. Will saw her as a man and accepted her as such, and as eccentric as she sometimes was, well, that was just Robin to him.

At first, Robin found Will’s own idiosyncrasies a little more difficult to deal with, especially his tendency to disappear without notice for hours—sometimes days—on end. When she would ask him where he had gone, he would just shrug. He always came back, though, and he usually brought some sort of gift when he did. These offerings ranged from pheasants to spiders to pinecones; needless to say, some were more pleasant than others.

One day, Will brought something back that Robin did not appreciate to start, but which like Will himself, ended up becoming one of her greatest blessings.

She had been sitting on a branch in the old pedunculate oak, reclining against its trunk and whittling herself some new arrows with her knife. Several times, she ruined a shaft when the cold wind made her shiver, even though she was sitting in the sunniest spot in the clearing.

Robin was not looking forward to a winter without sheepskin blankets and wool clothes to keep her warm. True, she had plenty of skins saved from the deer she had killed, but she was no tanner, and the blankets she had fashioned were crude at best. Still, they would have to suffice if she and Will were to survive the cold.

Robin sighed, and her breath came out as a steamy wisp of cloud.

“It is not winter
yet
,” she protested. “Give me a few more weeks of warmth at least!”

The wind just tickled her nose, as though in laughter. Robin shuddered and drew her liripipe closer around her throat.

“Ho, Robin!” a familiar voice called blithely from the trees.

With a smile, Robin slid out of the oak, only to stop short when she saw that Will was not alone.

He grinned at her broadly. “See who I brung?”

She certainly did. It was a young couple—just a few years older than she—but with faces haggard by disappointment and exhaustion. The man’s thick russet beard had not been trimmed for some time, and his clothes hung loosely on his frame. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it again at the displeasure in Robin’s face.

The woman next to him was pale and malnourished. Her lank brown hair was tied back with a sprig of hay, and dark shadows haunted her eyes. At Robin’s approach, she ducked behind her husband, but not before Robin saw that she was clearly with child.

I will get you for this, Will
, Robin vowed.
You had no right to bring them here.
With substantial effort, she forced away her scowl. “Good day.”

“Good day,” the man replied, still apprehensive of her displeasure. “Your brother kindly invited us to stay for a while. Normally, we would not impose on your hospitality, but circumstances being what they are . . . .” His voice trailed off uncertainly.

“Will is not my brother,” Robin informed him with a bluntness that was almost rude. “Why do you want to stay here? This seems the last place a woman in your wife’s . . . condition . . . should be dwelling.”

“Aye, we would not be here if we had anywhere else to go.”

“Explain.”

Shame made the man blush. “Last year, our harvest was poor. This year, no matter what we tried, we could not get our crops to grow. It was as if our land had been sown with salt. We could not pay our taxes, so the Sheriff took our land and all that we possessed. We had to beg our way here from Harworth Town: beg for a place to sleep, and for food to eat. For myself, I could not have done it, but my wife . . . . Even so, it was never enough. People do not have a lot of food to spare.”

“Harworth is very far away,” Robin said blandly, trying not to show how troubled she was by his story.

“Yes. My wife has relatives in Radford who we had hoped would take us in . . . but that turned out not to be the case.”

“I found ’em sitting by the verge,” Will chimed in. “Seemed a pity just t’ leave ’em there. There is plenty o’ room for ’em ’ere, and food enough, too.”

“Food?” the woman asked hopefully, speaking up for the first time.

Robin sighed. “Follow me.”

She seated the couple at the base of the oak, on the softest patch of moss. The addition of several logs to the fire turned the low embers into a shimmering blaze—Robin rarely let the fire go out completely, as she found it much more trouble to restart than to maintain. About to ask Will to fetch some meat, she turned to find him already skewering a shoulder of venison onto the spit.

The couple were blinking wearily where they sat—Robin wondered whether they would be able to stay awake long enough to eat the food they so clearly required. Taking advantage of their sleepy stupor, Robin seized Will firmly by the ear and drew him to the opposite side of the clearing.

“What were you thinking?” she hissed, ignoring his small yelps of pain. “Sherwood is no place for an expectant woman! Did you even think about
asking
me?”

“I did ne think I ’ad t’ ask,” he grumbled, rubbing at his ear. “Ye ’ave no title ’ere.”

A surge of panic shot through Robin before she realized that Will was not announcing he knew she was a noble, but was instead referring to the fact that she did not own the forest.

“Where are they supposed to sleep?” she demanded instead, still trying to recover from her scare.

“They can stay in me place,” Will offered. “I can make meself another.”

“It is not as easy as that!”

“Why ne?”

How could Robin explain the complications presented by a pregnant woman? Men were not privy to those mysteries—even Robin did not fully understand everything that Darah had told her. And winter was coming. What would they do when the child was born? It would almost certainly freeze to death in the forest.

Then, too, there were personal reasons why Robin was loath to share her refuge with more strangers—especially when one of them was a woman. While men might overlook each other’s caprices, a woman’s eyes were quicker to note discrepancies and ponder out their reason. How long would Robin’s secret be safe with a woman in the camp?

All these thoughts ran through Robin’s head, and she could give voice to none of them. In the end, she simply turned and walked away.

* * * * *

David of Doncaster (as Robin learned that he was called) and his wife Mara were not the last outcasts that Will would bring to her glade. Every other day seemed to find more people wandering into the camp, all led by the cheerful youth. Soon there were more huts in her clearing than in a small village.

A few of the arrivals were like David—small families thrown off their land for tax failure. Most of the newcomers were men who had poached the King’s deer to keep their families from starving, or who had stolen someone’s purse to afford their rents. When their deeds were discovered, these men had fled into outlawry, rather than risk maiming or hanging by the judgment of the courts. In the depths of the forest they found sanctuary, and in Robin’s camp they found something they had feared would never be theirs again—community.

“You do not know the first thing about these people,” Robin complained to Will one day, watching the industrious bustle in her once serene abode with dismay. “They could be murderers, or worse.”

“Do ye really think so?” Will asked in an excited tone.

Fortunately for all, it seemed that Will’s invitees were essentially decent folk, driven into outlawry by ill fortune, not by ill natures. Robin did not know what she would do if a truly bad man made his way into her camp.

After one of his countless excursions, Will brought back an item of particular interest to Robin—a warrant. As she took the piece of paper, Robin found that her hands were trembling. Though she had known she was an outlaw, it was one thing to know it, and another thing to hold the proof in her fingers. The likeness on the warrant was not very good—a hooded figure with a sharp nose and a pointed chin—but it was all there: £20 for her, dead or alive, for the murder of James Darniel. It even stated her name—Robin. She wondered how they knew what she was called, and then remembered John shouting it after her as she fled.

“I am now a Wolf’s Head,” Robin murmured softly. “Any man may kill me and be rewarded for it.” The realization was sobering. She rolled up the warrant and hid it in the corner of her hut.

As winter set in, the stream of immigrants slowed to a trickle, and eventually came to a halt—whether because Will had finally ceased bringing people to the clearing, or because the thought of living in a frosty Sherwood was too intimidating, Robin neither knew nor cared.

She was forced to allow that the influx of people did have one advantage—they possessed a variety of useful trades. At least two or three were tanners, and the blankets they produced from her deerskins put Robin’s tentative efforts to shame. A few men were carpenters, and they quickly set to work building shanties to withstand the winter winds. The vast majority had been farmers, but even they found something to do: couches of sweet rushes began to appear, sitting logs were brought in to encircle the fire, burn wood was stacked, and the spits were improved. Some men had brought their dogs, and even these were helpful, making short work of any leftover bones and entrails.

Yet Robin would not admit to being pleased with her improved circumstances, not one smidge. As a chorus of yawping mongrels woke her for the third night in a row, she silently avowed that she would rather have a wind-chilled house and her isolation than warm skins and a noisy village. Several times she even thought about leaving, but this place was hers—let the others leave; she, Robin, would stay. Besides, it was not like she had anywhere better to go.

CHAPTER 7

OUTLAWS

ROBIN CREPT through the shimmering Sherwood, trying to minimize the squelch of the snow beneath her boots. The deer she was stalking had already eluded her several times, leaping away from her bolts like a shadow leaps from light. It was a magnificent hart—a full eight-pointer—with a brown winter coat that made it nearly impossible to see against the ghostly trees.

Something shifted to her left. There it was!

Robin silently nocked an arrow and drew the shaft back to her cheek. A slight wind nipped at her fingers; she made the necessary adjustments.

She loosed! As if forewarned, the hart sprang away, although Robin knew she had made no sound.

“Very well,” she called to it in resignation, gazing after the retreating stag with unwilling admiration. “Leap and live another day. I shall have you yet!”

The stag’s flipped-up tail was its only response. With a sigh, Robin unstrung her bow and walked over to pick up her arrow, returning it to its quiver. All too often of late, she had returned to camp empty-handed from one of her hunts, although today marked the first time it had been due to a miss, rather than to the scarcity of game.

“I hope the others have had better luck,” she murmured to herself as she began the trek back to camp. “I do not know if I can endure another night of Edra’s root soup.”