6
July 16, 1193
Sherwood Forest, England
Jill rocked her right foot inside her boot to test the surface of the log—not slippery, but narrow. Fighting off a male assailant proved challenging on level ground. How could she expect to do so on a fallen tree trunk? One false move and she’d break her neck.
Keep your cool. Don’t look down.
But she did, of course, and the sight of the water flowing swiftly below reminded her of how much she hated heights. Several days ago when Joanna had leaned out over a cathedral balcony to take a picture, Jill had almost vomited while watching her.
But she didn’t have time to think about that now. Robin approached, swinging his staff. She blocked him several times but couldn’t get in a blow of her own. He focused more on force and less on precision. While she couldn’t hold him off forever, she wanted to keep the fight going long enough to assess his weakness.
She grimaced as she blocked another blow and pain shot through her wrists and elbows. He was playing with her—not taking her seriously—and that was his weakness.
He struck again, his blow a little harder this time. She caught the gleam in his eye and recognized that he was picking up the pace. Although it pained her to do so, she let him rap the knuckles of her left hand to make him think he was winning. He laughed when she backed up to shake off the pain.
Robin raised his staff to salute his men who laughed in response. While he was distracted, Jill swung, but she miscalculated the distance and missed him.
“You’re doing very well,” Robin teased. “That one almost hit me.”
“Want me to try again?”
“Please! I’d hate for you to feel like a failure.”
Jill swung again with greater force. To her dismay, Robin blocked her blow easily.
“Is that the best you can do?” he mocked.
He left his torso wide open. She swung the staff, hitting him in the chest with a crack that might have broken a rib.
The blow knocked Robin off balance. One of his feet slipped off the log. He leaned precariously, his arms waving to prevent a fall. But he regained control and brought his staff back for the swing Jill knew would send her plunging into the stream below.
She ducked and only a split-second later smashed her staff into the side of his knee. He yelped in pain and fell with a splash into the water.
A cheer mixed with laughter went up from the merry men. An overwhelming sense of power helped Jill ignore her smarting knuckles as she rested one hand on her hip. But her pose of triumph was short-lived. A glance at Robin sputtering below triggered her height-induced nausea. Clenching her teeth, Jill retreated to the bank.
Robin dragged himself, dripping wet, out of the water. She held out a hand to pull him up.
“Intolerable,” Robin sputtered, accepting her hand. “Absolutely intolerable.”
“You all right?”
“I’ve only hurt my pride. Besting me seems to be the new rite of passage for every upstart in England—and wherever it is you’re from.” He gave her a begrudging nod.
Reaching for her bag, Jill slung the strap over one shoulder. Robin’s eyes followed the movement, spending a few seconds longer than necessary on where the strap crossed her chest.
“Do you still want to join this pathetic gang?” Water dripping from his nose, he gestured with laughable dignity toward the men.
Jill nodded.
“Then welcome, Jill Mason, to our outlaw band.”
“Three cheers for Jill Mason!” Will called.
When the huzzahs had ended, Robin rubbed the back of his neck. “As I recall, I made a promise to help rescue your sister, and I plan to keep that promise. But let’s return to camp first. I can’t think clearly when I’m wet and cold.”
He picked up his gear, smiling at Jill out of one side of his mouth. “Follow me.”
Robin headed toward the tree line with the rest of the men, including the youth who led Jill’s horse. Jill caught sight of something glinting in the sunlight where Robin’s gear had lain. Parting the grass, she knelt to get a closer look. On a chain hung a medallion the size of her palm, the pendant round with green stones embedded around the outside. In the center, intricately cut pieces of semi-precious stone formed the crest, an open gate with a falcon flying through it. In its talons the falcon clutched a sword and bundle of arrows.
“I think you dropped something,” she called. “Robin?”
She could no longer see him and thought with alarm that if she didn’t hurry, she would be left alone. Although she possessed a good sense of direction, these trees would start to look the same very quickly. If she lost Robin now, she would never find him again. Stuffing the medallion into her purse pocket, she jogged after the last man as he slipped into the foliage. It took her a few moments of jogging and dodging low-hanging branches to reach Robin who walked in the middle of the group.
“You’ll have to keep up if you don’t want to get lost, Jill,” he chided. “I don’t expect you to remember your way to the camp at first, but you’ll have to pay attention.” He pointed toward a diagonal slash cut into the trunk of a nearby birch. “The signs are subtle. Soon, you won’t even have to watch for them. You’ll just know how to get back.”
She nodded but must not have looked convinced because he added, “It’s easier than you think.”
They walked a few more minutes, Robin pointing out the different landmarks Jill should watch for, until finally he parted the brush and they entered a clearing lined with shelters made of sticks, branches, and thatch. The ceilings of the shelters were low, the doors even lower, so short a person had to bend over to enter. Several of the makeshift huts only had two sides and a roof. At least one resembled a fox hole dug into the ground with a thatched canopy. The shelters reminded Jill of something soldiers might construct while on bivouac. In the center of the clearing a fire pit smoldered under a blanket of woven leaves. Stutely removed the covering and blew the fire back to life while the rest of the men pulled off their gear and stowed the implements in their lean-tos. Three fallen trees formed a loose triangle of seats around the fire. Another member of the gang Jill had not seen before brought out stakes for the spit while two more carried a haunch of venison skewered on a wooden pole. Stutely built up the fire and sat down to rotate the meat.
Time travel, implausible as it sounded, seemed the most likely explanation for where she found herself. She wasn’t sure what year she had landed in, but that was more a matter for curiosity than practicality. Several tunics hung on a clothes line, one of them white with a red cross—the sign of the Crusade.
“Did you serve with King Richard?” she asked Robin.
“I don’t have time for fighting in the Holy Land. I have too many of my own problems to solve. Friar Tuck was a warrior monk for a while—although he didn’t get much past Iberia.”
His confirmation that Richard was king put the date somewhere in the late twelfth century, she guessed. “Where’s Friar Tuck now?”
“He’s in York. Some sort of pilgrimage.”
“To a pub,” Will clarified. “He won’t be back for a week. He’s very devout, you know.”
“Devout and drunk,” Robin said. “Come with me, Jill. We need to find you more suitable clothing, and I need to change. Wet leather is highly unpleasant.”
Following him to a small hut on the far edge of the camp, she stayed outside while he went in. Within seconds he came out with a pair of boots and a pile of clothes the same color as the men’s.
“I’m fairly certain these will fit.” He pointed her to the hut next door. “That one’s unoccupied at present. You can make it yours. I’ll have Will see to your horse. We have a friend in the village who can care for it. After supper and a tankard of ale, I’ll decide on the rescue plan.”
Jill ducked into her hut and closed the twig door behind her, thankful for the modicum of privacy and shelter it provided. In winter the cold wind probably whipped through th
e cracks in the wall, but for now, the weather was warm and the temporary walls provided a place where she could be alone, even if she couldn’t stand up straight.
Once hidden inside, she allowed herself a frantic chuckle. This was all too good to be true. Sure, she worried about Joanna, but couldn’t Jill enjoy herself for a little while? A rescue plan was in the works, after all, and Jill couldn’t do anything to save Joanna by herself, especially now that she was in the Middle Ages.
Removing her twenty-first century clothes and folding them carefully, Jill stowed them in a corner of the hut. When she returned to the present, she’d need them again. She sorted the new costume into the order she thought she should put each item on and slid the leggings on first, marveling at how loose and baggy they felt compared to modern hosiery. Next was the white shirt. Fortunately the green bodice laced up the front. After she shifted the shirt to wrinkle in the most flattering places, she laced up the bodice only to discover that the woman these clothes had been designed for had a smaller bust. Jill fiddled with the shirt and bodice until she felt acceptable, but there wasn’t enough lacing to secure the top of the bodice with a bow. Instead, she knotted the ends of the leather so they wouldn’t slip through the grommets and cause the bodice to pop if she took a deep breath or bent over.
She slipped her bag over her shoulder, unwilling to leave it unattended. While she didn’t have much in it except her wallet, a credit card, and the keys to their hotel room in Nottingham, this bag was the one thing connecting her to the twenty-first century. If she found a way back, she didn’t want to leave this behind. Since the night was chilly, she pulled on the cloak, tying it loosely at her neck. Then, she slid her feet into the boots. They were a bit big but not uncomfortably so.
Wishing in vain for a mirror to check her appearance, she ran her fingers through her short hair and longed for a comb. Joanna had one. Jill could use a compact mirror and a little lipstick, too. Looking one’s best when with a legendary, handsome outlaw was important. But hygiene items might be hard to come by for a while, so she’d have to make do. Ignoring the feeling that she was perfectly dressed to go trick or treating or to attend a comic book convention, she stepped from the hut into the camp.
The men closest to her stopped what they were doing to stare silently. The silence caught on until every man in the camp gaped awkwardly in her direction. Her face felt hot. As she began to retreat into her shelter, Robin appeared. He waved at the men who slowly returned to their tasks, and the buzz of conversation resumed.
Jill swallowed. “Is there something wrong with the way I look?”
Robin rubbed the back of his neck. “Their problem, not yours. Let’s eat.”
Will, Stutely, and three others had already started the meal. Robin motioned for Jill to sit on a log close to the fire. As she did, he cut her a piece of venison and brought it to her on a slice of bread. She nodded her thanks.
“We’ll see about getting you some weapons,” Robin said between bites. “Can you draw a bow?”
Jill envisioned herself dressed in her current costume shooting arrows at the sheriff’s men. She was thankful for the archery classes she had taken at summer camp years ago. “Sort of.”
“Most of my men have been drawing bows since they were four or five.”
Alan, who sat strumming his lute on the bench opposite theirs, sniffed.
“Do you shoot as well, Alan?” Jill asked.
“I’m satisfied when my poetry and music hit their targets.”
Jill smirked but didn’t respond. Years of living with a twin who wrote poetry had taught her to be tolerant of such statements, even if they still amused her.
Robin leaned close to whisper, “He’s occasionally useful. At the very least, we enjoy ridiculing him.”
Alan sat up straight and cleared his throat three times before he appeared satisfied with the number of eyes staring at him. “Jill, I will honor you with one of my own compositions, a tale of the valiant lady who defeated Robin Hood and became a member of his band.”
Remembering the hours Joanna would spend on a single poem, Jill commented, “You wrote that pretty quickly.”
“That should tell you something of the quality,” Robin quipped.
Alan strummed three chords and hummed four or five different notes, searching for his key. Jill cringed in anticipation. Accompanying himself on the lute, Alan began to sing in a solid tenor voice:
While Robin Hood lived in the great forest green,
He met a young lady as fair as a queen.
Jill, she was called, of the guild mason’s clan,
Who fain would join Robin Hood’s famed outlaw band.
“I challenge thee, Robin, to cross o’er this tree,
High o’er the river that’s deep and chilly.
In a battle of staffs, the victor be I,
For you shall fall in while I shall stay dry.”
While the details differed from the actual circumstances of the fight, and the rhyming of tree and chilly was weak, Jill decided she came out looking pretty good.
“A woman!” quoth Robin, “’twill be no fair fight,
“I’ll best in battle and bed her to—”
Before Alan could finish the rhyme, Robin leaped from the log and snatched the lute from Alan’s hands.
“That’s enough!” Robin’s red face avoided eye contact with the group as he stashed the lute out of Alan’s reach.
“I am appalled you would sing something so bawdy with a woman present.” Robin smiled apologetically at Jill. “I should have prepared you that I’m the only gentleman in these parts.”
The men guffawed.
“At least let Alan finish the chorus,” Will cajoled. “That’s my favorite part.” Then, Will began to sing:
Oh, tra-la-la-lilly and la-di-da-dum!
The rest of the men, except for Robin, joined in:
The life of an outlaw is a lonely one.
But weep not, my laddies, our courage won’t fail.
We’ll drown all our sorrows in tankards of ale.
The men cheered at the end of the song, raised their tankards and all took a long drink.
“The chorus is always the same,” Robin explained. “Gives the men a good excuse to drink—as if they needed one.”
Someone handed Jill a tankard of her own. As the ale flowed, so did the stories, all of them revealing secrets Robin found increasingly embarrassing, judging by his body language. Many of the tales Jill had heard some form of before, such as Robin goading Friar Tuck into carrying him over the river only to have Tuck drop Robin in the water. As the storytelling continued, the evening digressed into a roast of Robin with the men piling on insults. Jill nursed a single tankard while most of the men went back for multiple cups, Robin included.
As the night wore on, noting Robin’s body language and morose face, Jill bumped him gently with her shoulder.
“They wouldn’t tease you if they didn’t like you.”
“Small comfort, but I appreciate the thought.” Robin stood and interrupted Will in the middle of a story about Robin and a nun from York.
“And now,” Robin announced, “we must discuss our rescue of Little John and Jill’s sister. I’ve decided we’ll use rescue plan 47. Will, you’re the executioner this time.”
“Me? But that’s always your part.”
“Jill requires my assistance to find her sister. I can’t be in two places at once.”
“Perhaps,” Will conceded, “but this does throw off the balance of things.”
“You worry for nothing. Everything will be fine. Now then, to bed. Morning comes early in the forest.”
“What’s attack plan 47?” Jill asked.
“We slip into the castle wearing our cloaks with the hoods pulled over our faces.”
“Won’t someone notice us?”
Robin’s eyebrows knit together. “They never have before.”
“But if the hood’s pulled over your face, how do you see?”
“Jill, rest easy. We’ve used this plan many times. I eliminate the executioner and take his place at the execution. When the moment arrives, instead of cutting off the prisoner’s head, I split his ropes—it requires deft handling of the axe. Will, mind Little John’s fingers. He needs all ten.”
Will raised his tankard to show he understood.
Robin continued. “Once the ropes are cut, the men cast off their cloaks and create a diversion while the prisoner—whoever he is—and I make our escape via the back gate. This time, while the charade distracts the sheriff, you and I enter the dungeon and rescue your sister.”
“What if she isn’t in the dungeon?” Jill asked.
“We know what we’re doing,” Will assured her. “In fact, last month when I was captured, this plan worked like a charm.”
“They even used it to free me in October,” Alan offered.
“No,” Robin said. “That was plan 19 where I posed as a suitor to the sheriff’s wife.”
Alan sighed and clasped his hands to his chest. “There’s a great deal of my poetry in that one.”
Robin rolled his eyes. “Once we’re out of the castle, I raise my sword in defiance before we vanish into the forest.”
“Don’t forget the bold statement of rebellion,” Will reminded. “If you can think of one this time.”
Alan-a-dale cleared his throat. “I’ve been working on a poetic line…”
“It has to be short, Alan,” Robin insisted. “When I’m running for my life, I don’t have time to recite a poem.”
“Forgive me for stating the obvious,” Jill interrupted, “but what about ‘Death to tyrants and long live King Richard’?”
Robin nodded. “I like it. While I’m not fond of our absent sovereign, he is superior to that incompetent younger brother of his. It makes our political stance clear but also reveals our inherent patriotism. Well done, Jill. Let’s get some sleep.”
“Aren’t you going to draw a layout of the castle in the dirt?” Jill asked.
“Why?”
She thought about all the movies she had seen where elaborate plans were illustrated with models, maps, and various avatars to represent all the players involved. “Visual aids can be really helpful in making sure everyone knows what to do.”
“Everyone does know what to do.”
“I don’t.”
“Stay close to me.”
“But how do you know the execution will be tomorrow? Maybe the sheriff shipped the prisoners off to York.”
“You worry too much.”
“All the same, I’d feel better if we sent a spy ahead.” Although Jill spoke to Robin, she glanced at the other men in hopes of gaining an ally in the argument. “I need to get the lay of the land.”
“We don’t need a spy.” Robin’s tone sounded patronizing. “Little John is there, and he’ll know exactly where your sister is. No one pulls anything on Little John.”
Confident the day’s plan was ready, the men headed to their beds, Robin included. Jill remained by the fire, anxious for a few quiet moments to think. She didn’t want to tell Robin how concerned she was about the lack of planning for the rescue tomorrow. Part of her wanted to trust that all would work out, but she had observed too many important moments go wrong due to half-baked efforts. She needed to think through the day’s events and collect her thoughts before trying to sleep.
Where was Joanna? Was she all right? Blessed with at least a little of that sixth sense those who have shared a womb often possess, Jill would know if something had happened. She had to believe Joanna was still alive.
How had this happened? Had the twins slipped through a wormhole or entered a portal? If so, how would they get back home? Jill did not allow herself to explore the possibility that they might never get back to 2009, although it stuck in the back of her mind as a persistent undercurrent to every direction in which she tried to steer her thoughts.
She had never been anywhere as quiet as this place. Even the campsites she had enjoyed as a child had not felt as remote as this little spot in the forest. From the corner of her eye, she saw Robin approach. He paused at the edge of the firelight, watching her, before he sat beside her. They watched the fire in silence for several minutes before Robin spoke.
“Is everything all right?”
Had she not been so tired, Jill might have lied. But given her level of fatigue, she only had the strength to be honest. “I’ve lost my sister. I may never see my parents again. I have no idea how I got here, and I don’t know how to get home. This isn’t the way I planned to spend my vacation.”
She considered the museums and sites she and Joanna had planned to visit after Nottingham and grinned out of one side of her mouth. Come to think of it, this is better than the vacation I planned—except for losing the family, of course.
“Life rarely happens as we plan.” Robin’s voice held a gravitas that made Jill wonder what was behind it. “Where’s your home, Jill?”
She wished she had Joanna’s way with words. “Where I come from, we tell stories about things like what happened to me today, but no one actually believes them.”
“A land of doubters?”
“I guess. No one back home would believe I beat you in a fair fight.”
“I’m glad to know my reputation remains intact somewhere.”
Robin shifted in his seat and when he spoke, his voice held a tentative tone. “I suppose some husband or suitor waits for your return?”
“No husband. No suitor.”
Jill might have imagined it, but Robin seemed relieved.
“What about you?” she countered, amazed at her own brazenness. “Wife or girlfriend?”
The clothes she was wearing belonged to someone. If he had someone, like Maid Marian, she wanted to know about it before she got her hopes up. But what was Jill thinking? She wasn’t capable of pursuing a relationship with a man from her own time period, much less a medieval hero.
“No.”
Jill heard an edge in his voice that confirmed a history behind his answer. She wanted to know more but lost her courage to press for information.
“Do you and your sister get on well?” Robin asked.
“Yes, we’re close. She can lose her head in stressful situations. It’s always been my job to get her out of trouble—although she’d probably argue that I’m the one who gets her into trouble in the first place.”
“Has she been in danger of losing her head before?”
Jill chuckled at his response to the idiom. “Depends how you look at it.”
“If you were about to lose your head, would she come for you?”
“Of course.”
Robin rested his arms on his knees and interlocked his fingers. “When I first saw you, I was overcome by how much you looked like someone.”
“What’s her name?”
“Marian.”
Darn. “Where is she?”
“She was killed two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
That was a lie. While Jill felt badly for Robin’s loss, she wasn’t sorry to have her main competition gone.
“Jill, are you certain you sister is worth rescuing?”
“You have to ask?”
“I have a brother—a half brother. I admired him, trusted him, loved him. My father was old when I was born and died when I was a boy. My brother is the one who taught me to shoot, to fight, who gave me my first sword. I admired him greatly. But then, he betrayed me. After my mother died, he stole my title and my land. The bond I thought we shared didn’t exist. Every happy family moment we shared was a lie to cover his greed and selfish ambition. But the loss of all I owned was nothing compared to when my brother stole Marian, the love of my life, from me. He framed me for a crime I didn’t commit, and when the sheriff pursued me and I hid in the forest, my brother wed Marian for her money and killed her.”
“Why did she marry him if she loved you?” Jill asked.
Robin shifted uncomfortably. “I thought she
loved me. I struggled to make my feelings known. In hindsight, I can see how I might have neglected to share my true intentions with her or ask her how she felt. My brother knew of my feelings, of course, as I confided in him, and he timed his destruction of my life so perfectly that I was an outlaw before I could declare my love for her. He stepped in and…well, women are weak creatures.”
“Not all of us.” Jill wanted to say that Marian sounded like a flake for falling for another man so quickly, but speaking ill of Robin’s lost love didn’t seem like the right choice if she hoped to gain his affection. “So these clothes I’m wearing belonged to Marian?”
“Yes, but she never wore them. When we were children, she made up stories of forest folk who wore green and brown and hid among the trees. I had this costume sewn as a present for her. When I became an outlaw, I took up the colors myself as a way to remember her—not to mention the fact that they provide excellent camouflage.”
“Yes, they do.”
“So, now you know everything and perhaps you can understand why I ask about your sister.”
“I’m very sorry that happened to you, but Joanna hasn’t done anything like that to me. Sure, she annoys me, but she deserves to be rescued, and I’m going after her, with your help or without. Preferably with.”
“I gave my word. I wouldn’t allow you to go into danger by yourself.”
Jill’s cheeks grew warm. Accustomed to taking care of herself (and Joanna when warranted), she hadn’t realized what a relief it was to have someone else to lean on.
Robin’s hand fluttered at his chest as though he was looking for something. He sighed. “All I had left of my vast inheritance was a medallion with our family crest. It was my most precious possession. But I lost it in the river today.”
His medallion! Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Reaching into the pocket of her bag, she pulled out the necklace. When she held the chain and let the medallion swing in the firelight, it twinkled and flashed. Robin sucked in his breath but didn’t speak. Reaching slowly for the medallion, he took it carefully from her hand, kissed the crest, and hung the chain around his neck. “Thank you.”
Jill nodded and rose. “I guess I should go to bed.”
Robin walked her back to her shelter. When she opened the door, she paused, wondering what she would do if he tried to kiss her. She might actually let him, and the idea of this so terrified her that she crossed her arms.
Robin moved back ever so slightly in response to her body language and smiled with closed lips. “Good night.”
Jill wanted to scream in irritation with herself. She was an absolute idiot. She gave all the wrong signals. Did this mean she wanted to give off the right signals? Once inside with her door closed, Jill lay on the lumpy earthen mattress, wrapped in her cloak as a blanket, and tried to visualize how the rescue plan should go so she wouldn’t think about that missed kiss. She should sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw Robin’s face. She couldn’t be falling for him. She didn’t believe in love at first sight. But no man had made her feel this way before. Jill didn’t want the infatuation to end.
Dad had predicted the twins would never want to stay in England. But he was wrong. Right now, Jill wasn’t sure she ever wanted to go home and leave this dashing outlaw behind.