All through April the sheriff and Sir Guy of Gisbourne worked on their plan. They would leave nothing to chance – bowmen on the city walls above the butts, horsemen mounted and ready for pursuit, hidden away in the back streets; and encircling the crowd, watching and waiting, three hundred men-at-arms. If Robin Hood did come, he would never leave alive.
All through April Marion begged Robin not to go, but this time Robin would not be persuaded. “Didn’t I listen once before?” he said. “And now the sheriff plays cat-and-mouse with me, and the world knows it. I have to go, I will go, and I will bring back the silver arrow for you and for Martin. Do not try to stop me.”
“Then at least let us come with you,” she pleaded with him.
“Don’t you see?” said Robin. “That is just what they expect, just what they hope for. No, I stand a better chance with just Much and Tuck and Little John. We’ll go alone and there’s an end of it.” And Marion knew then that there was no hope of stopping him.
The morning of the contest dawned misty, but by the time the sun came through, the meadow below the city walls was filled with the best bowmen from all over England. They came from as far north as Northumbria, as far west as Cornwall. By four o’clock that afternoon the crowd had swelled to several thousand, and there were only twenty bowmen left in the contest. From the ramparts above, the sheriff and Sir Guy scrutinised these last twenty, but with their hoods up to shield their eyes from the sun, they could not see their faces clearly. There was a friar in amongst them, and a great bear of a man with a russet beard. The sheriff thought he recognised both from his visit to Sherwood, but he could not be sure. What was certain was that neither was Robin Hood. The friar was too fat, and the bearded man too tall. They would bide their time. Robin Hood would be amongst the others, and like as not he would win. The sheriff was counting on it. And when the champion came up to the ramparts to collect the silver arrow, then they would spring the trap.
The bowmen stood further and further from their targets now, and the huge crowd hushed as each one of them drew his bow and shot. Wand after wand was split. Wand after wand was missed. They were down to the last three now, the friar, the bearded giant and a slight young man who the sheriff was now quite sure must be Robin Hood himself. “Take him now,” whispered Sir Guy, “while you can. Give the order.”
“No,” said the sheriff. “We’ll have a riot on our hands. Let’s keep to the plan. Let him come up for his prize and we shall have him.”
First the friar failed, at six hundred paces. Then the giant’s arrow hit the wand, but did not split it. The young man stepped coolly forward and raised his bow and fired his arrow. It split the wand clean in two. A great cheer went up, and despite all the sheriff’s men could do, the crowd surged forward and surrounded him. He was at once hoisted up and carried away shoulder high, away from the city walls, away from the sheriff. When Much the miller’s son (for that was who was carrying him) set Robin down on his feet again, the sheriff lost sight of him in the mêlée. He gripped the walls with fury as he realised what was happening. He saw the friar being swept along in the crowd, but of Robin Hood there was no sign at all. He was one of the crowd now, and indistinguishable from anyone else. The sheriff raged and stormed, but no one heard him, except Sir Guy of Gisbourne who had suddenly noticed two riders beyond the crowd, and galloping hard for the forest. There was still a chance to catch him. They raced down the steps, leapt on their horses and clattered out through the city gates, calling for their waiting horsemen to follow them.
Robin and Much would have made it back to Sherwood with ease but for the badger’s hole. As they neared the forest, their pursuers in sight but a safe distance behind, Robin’s horse shied at a rising buzzard, leapt a ditch and careered off into a field. Robin hung on, but when the horse trod in a badger’s hole and stumbled, Robin came off, twisting his leg under him as he landed. He heard the excited, triumphant yell of the sheriff’s men and saw Much riding to his help. He tried to stand and couldn’t. Then Much was beside him, his sword drawn, putting himself between Robin and the sheriff’s men. There was no time to mount March’s horse. They would have to stand and fight. “Help me up, Much!” he cried. “Let me loose off one arrow, one arrow for the sheriff.”
“Your horn, Robin!” shouted Much against the thunder of the oncoming hooves. “Blow your horn!” Robin put his horn to his lips and blew three times. But no one came and the horsemen were so close by now that they could see their eyes. Then, with a war yell that sent shivers down every spine, the Outlaws came pouring out of the forest. Like a rush of starlings overhead, the arrows flew over Much and Robin and into the charging horsemen. Most fell at that first volley. The rest were spread from their saddles, and once on the ground were finished off with the sword and the dagger. It was a brutal and terrible fight, but mercifully quickly over. Sir Guy of Gisbourne rode from the field with an arrow in his thigh; and the sheriff, still unscathed, went with him. Barely half a dozen of the hundred who rode out of Nottingham that day survived. But every victory has its price. For the first time, the Outlaws had lost men and women in battle. They carried their bodies home to the encampment that evening, and while all the talk was of how they had faced the sheriff’s men in open combat and beaten them, yet there was no rejoicing. Robin sat with Marion under his tree, little Martin on his good knee, and was glad to be alive. It had been a near thing. But his leg throbbed with pain, and with every minute that passed he was becoming more anxious. Neither Tuck nor Little John had come home from Nottingham and it was getting late.
As the shadows lengthened that evening, neither Robin nor anyone dared voice their fears, for they all knew well enough what would happen to Tuck and Little John had they been captured. At last Robin could not stand it any longer. “I can’t just sit here,” he said. “I have to go back and find out what’s happened to them.”
But Will Scarlett spoke up strongly. “We have six dead already, Robin. Is that not enough? Go back into Nottingham, and you won’t come back alive. If they are taken, then we need you here with us, not hanging alongside them on a rope.”
Not long afterwards, Robin was limping up and down, kicking at the embers and cursing himself, when Friar Tuck came sauntering out of the trees and into the light of the fire. “Well!” he cried. “Have you ever seen such long faces! Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a ghost just yet, by God’s good grace.” Robin hugged him as if he would never let go.
“Little John?” he asked. “Where’s Little John?”
“He’ll be along,” said Tuck. “He just stopped for a piddle. Too much ale. He can’t hold it, the old goat, not like I can, by God’s good grace. After we’d heard about the mauling you’d all given the sheriff and Sir Guy of Gisbourne, we went and had a little drink or two to celebrate.”
“Robin!” boomed a voice from behind him. It was Little John. “So you made it. I told Tuck you would, didn’t I, Tuck? They won’t get him, I said, they never do.”
“Where’ve you been?” Robin said. “You had me worried sick.”
“Here,” and Little John held out the arrow with its glinting silver arrowhead. “The sheriff left your prize behind when he went after you. So seeing as he didn’t seem to want it, we took it. Oh yes,” he went on, shaking a purse in Robin’s face, “and this too. The hundred pounds the sheriff owed you, your prize money. You won it, remember?”
“So I did,” said Robin, running his hands along the arrow. “Here’s one arrow I’ll never shoot in anger.” And with that he gave it to Marion just as he had promised he would. “For you and little Martin. Keep it always with you, Marion. It’ll be our talisman and a token of our love.”
They buried their dead the next day in the clearing beyond the encampment. As they were lowered into their graves, Friar Tuck blessed each one, and when it was all over, closed his eyes in prayer. “May the good Lord love them and keep them in His good grace. And may He deliver us from the beast of Nottingham, for the beast is only wounded and the wounds will heal.
Give us the strength, Lord, to finish what we have begun.” And everyone cried “Amen!” to that.
For some months afterwards there was an uneasy peace. Every day the Outlaws expected an attack, but none came, and in time they came to hope and then to believe that none would ever come. They began to feel safe again. Even Robin dared hope that they had done enough, that they had seen the last of the Sheriff of Nottingham. He was wrong. They were all wrong.
Back in the castle at Nottingham the sheriff sat day after day staring blankly into the fire, still so enraged that no one but Sir Guy of Gisbourne dared speak to him. Every scheme for revenge that Sir Guy came up with he dismissed out of hand, until one evening in late summer. Sir Guy, quite recovered from his wound, was sharpening his sword. Suddenly he stopped. “I have it,” he cried. “There is a way.” The sheriff, still sunk in his humiliation, said nothing. “Didn’t you tell me he has a son?”
“So?”
“What if somehow we were to spirit him away? Robin would be bound to come after him, wouldn’t he?”
The sheriff looked up. “You mean kidnap him?”
“Why not? We could bring the child back here. What father would not try to save his son? And we’d be waiting for him.”
The sheriff sprang to his feet. “Yes!” he cried. “Yes! But how? How do we do it?”
“Leave it to me, my Lord Sheriff,” said Sir Guy of Gisbourne, a weasel smile twisting his lip. “I shall ride tomorrow to your sister, to the Abbess of Kirkleigh. I have an idea she might be able to help us. It may take a while, my Lord Sheriff, but this time I will bring you Robin Hood, that much I promise you. Upon my life I promise it. Would you like his head on a plate like John the Baptist’s?”
“Alive,” the sheriff hissed through clenched jaws. “I want Robin Hood alive.”
There was only one road from London to the North, and it ran through Sherwood for twenty miles. So for twenty miles every traveller had to run the gauntlet of Robin Hood and his Outlaws. They never laid an ambush in the same place twice, and they picked their targets carefully too. The poor had nothing to fear. Indeed, it was not at all uncommon for a beggar to find himself invited for supper with Robin and his Outlaws, and then be sent on his way the next morning with a suit of warm clothes and enough money to live on for a year. But for the rich and powerful, the journey through Sherwood was always hazardous. They sought protection in numbers, passing through the great convoys of carts and carriages, armed escorts to the front and more bringing up the rear. It did them little good. As far as the Outlaws were concerned, the bigger the convoy the better. There was rarely much resistance and so little need for killing. They would block the road ahead of the convoy, and behind it, with fallen trees; and then simply drop on them out of nowhere. The rich too would be invited to share a meal of the king’s venison around the fire, but unlike the poor, Robin would invite them to pay for their dinner. The price was always the same, half of what they had. But if they ever lied about the amount of money or jewels or cloth they were carrying – and they often did – then Robin would take everything they owned before setting them on their way again, his last words ringing in their ears. “And do not worry, my friend, your money will be used wisely. The homeless will have homes again, the hungry will be fed, the have-nots will have. And tell the sheriff this, tell Prince John if you like, that we will soon have enough put by to pay the good King Richard’s ransom. The people will have their rightful king back home, and soon.”
Every time the sheriff heard this, it sent him into paroxysms of rage and fear, in about equal parts. He taunted Sir Guy of Gisbourne with his promise, but Sir Guy would not be baited. He told him to be patient, that for his plan to work Robin and his Outlaws must be lulled into a false sense of security, and that would take time. “Never fear, my Lord Sheriff, it won’t be long now,” he promised, again. But the weeks passed and the months, and still Robin Hood was at large, and every day more and more the people’s hero. Each new story of how he had robbed the rich to give to the poor, or of some small kindness, was turning the man into a living legend. Exasperated, the sheriff sent for help to Prince John again, but the Prince was busy with other rebellions and could not or would not spare the sheriff any more soldiers. The sheriff was at his wits’ end. If once King Richard’s ransom was paid, he knew it would be the end of him. Somehow Robin Hood had to be stopped. Somehow.
These were good times in Sherwood. More and more people flocked to Robin’s cause, happy enough to endure the hardships of living in the forest so long as they had the opportunity to fight the sheriff and Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Friar Tuck made Christians of them whether they liked it or not – and he was not a gentle persuader – so between him and Much and Robin, they made soldiers of them. Marion welcomed them all with open arms to their new home in Sherwood, she would turn no one away; but Will Scarlett and Robin’s father were not so pleased to see this new influx. They both knew how easy it would be to plant a spy in their camp. And they were right too, but Robin would not listen.
Amongst those who had recently joined was a cobbler from Nottingham, one Alan Wicken. His hand had been chopped off, he told them, by the sheriff himself, in punishment for a rent he could not pay. They had no reason to doubt him. What neither Robin nor anyone could know was that he had lost his hand in a drunken brawl in London, and that he was a spy in the pay of Guy of Gisbourne. Alan Wicken was to let him know when next Friar Tuck was away on pilgrimage, for the friar was the only one who knew the Abbess of Kirkleigh by sight and could betray her. He was also to make particular friends with Marion, and more importantly, much more importantly, to ingratiate himself with little Martin. It was not difficult, for Marion, even more than Robin, was the kind who always like to think the best of anyone. Alan would play for hours on end with little Martin. No one saw any harm in that.
Friar Tuck had gone away on pilgrimage to Canterbury, and Alan had got word of it as quickly as he could to Sir Guy. He was romping with little Martin when Little John and Much came into the encampment, escorting a poor abbess and a dozen or more ragged-looking nuns. Robin and Marion greeted each of them warmly and invited them to share their supper that evening. They ate ravenously as only poor people do. Like everyone, Robin could see from their patched and torn habits, and their bare, bleeding feet, that these were not amongst those many nuns and friars who lived so well off the backs of the poor and needy.
“Eat all you want,” he said, overcome with pity. “Stay as long as you like. Will Scarlett here will make you new habits. He has the cloth. He always has the cloth. He made all this green we stand up in, every stitch of it, didn’t you, Will? You shall have shoes on your feet. Alan Wicken will see to it for you. And then, with good food inside you, you will soon be strong enough again to do God’s work, which is so much needed in this benighted land of ours.”
“May God bless you, good Robin Hood,” said the abbess. “I see that all we have heard about you is true.” And with that she hung her head and began to sob uncontrollably. “Our dear abbey has been plundered. Sir Guy of Gisbourne deceived us, took all we had. It was our fault, but it was cruel, cruel. We needed money, so we mortgaged the abbey. We had to. The church roof was falling in. We had to save it. We had to try, didn’t we?”
“Of course,” said Marion, taking her hand to comfort her.
“Two bad harvests, and we could not pay Sir Guy back his money,” the abbess went on. “So he took it, took the abbey from us and put us out.”
“I wonder sometimes,” said Robin fiercely, “I wonder which of them Satan loves more, the sheriff or Sir Guy of Gisbourne.”
“You shall stay here with us,” Marion declared, “all of you. You can help teach the children to read and write.”
“Can we really stay?” cried the abbess, falling on her knees. “Oh, thank you, sweet Jesus, for your mercy. My sisters and I, we shall sing Mass for you. We can heal too, with the help of the sweet Lord Jesus. I know more of the herbs of this forest than anyone alive.”
“Ma
rion is our healer,” Little John spoke sharply. “And Friar Tuck says Mass for us. He’s away at the moment, on a pilgrimage to Canterbury; but he’ll be back.”
“Then we shall sing the services for you until he returns,” said the abbess, smiling sweetly. “Meanwhile, my sisters and I will teach the children, and only if Marion wishes it will we help her with the healing of the sick.”
“I need all the help I can get,” said Marion, wondering why Little John had a face like thunder.
So the abbess and the nuns stayed amongst the Outlaws, ministering to the sick, teaching the children and singing Mass in the cave chapel each day. And Will Scarlett and Alan Wicken worked all the daylight hours making them their new habits and new sandals. Amongst all the Outlaws only Little John did not welcome them. He confided his doubts to Robin. “They’re just too good to be true,” he said. “Not natural.” Robin brushed him aside.
“Nonsense,” he said. “You worry too much. The abbess has cured my father’s aching leg when Marion couldn’t. And when they sing Mass, even the birds listen. When Tuck does it you can’t see a bird or beast for half a mile all around.”
“I don’t like her. I don’t like any of them,” Little John insisted, but Robin paid him little attention.