Several of the outlaws doubled up; the friar, who had the use of all his limbs (not, as he thought to himself, that he knew how to bestow them usefully on horseback), had Much pillion behind him. Both Will and Little John rode with their injured legs across the saddle before them to ease the pressure; Cecily sat sideways behind Little John and gritted her teeth. She could feel every joint of the horse’s hind legs and quarters bending and unbending under her; at least it was a broad enough back that she was in little danger of sliding off inadvertently. Little John kept one hand on the reins and the other one over Cecily’s hand at his belt.
There was a mournful half-howl, half-whimper from behind them after they had gone a little on their way. Robin, who had no one up with him, looked around. Friar Tuck’s face had taken on a look of curious fixity.
“He is hurt in two legs,” said Tuck. “I did fear he might not be able to keep pace.”
“Mm,” said Robin, and turned his horse back. It did not wish to turn back while all its fellows were headed home, and Robin, an inexperienced horseman, had little patience for argument. He dismounted and handed the reins to Tuck. “You mustn’t risk—” began the friar, but Robin shook his head.
“Hold this unlovable animal,” he said, and plunged back along the trail. Tuck stopped and looked after him. “We could follow him,” said Much. Tuck’s horse was more cooperative, or perhaps it was because there were two of them now to keep each other company. They met Robin with a dismal and sheepish-looking dog in his arms: indeed there was so much dog it was hard to see much of Robin, who was, as Tuck noticed unhappily, limping badly. “Your foot—” he began.
“I’m glad to see you,” Robin panted; “yes, I had rather forgotten about my foot.” He thrust his other foot firmly into a stirrup for a brace and heaved the dog across his saddle. Brown-eyes, confused, began to struggle, but Tuck reached out and took hold of the dog’s ruff and pulled, and Brown-eyes decided that if his master was a part of this peculiar situation it must be all right, and permitted himself to be pulled. But the horses decided they did not like whatever was going on and began to sidle apart; Much reached out to grab Robin’s horse’s bridle, almost lost his seat, wrenched his wounded leg, and made a noise not unlike the one that had sent Robin in search of the dog in the first place. But Brown-eyes was stowed at last. Robin gingerly climbed up behind him, and he only looked up with the damp soulful gaze that had given him his name and thumped his tail once across the horse’s shoulder. The horse tried to shy but concluded that it wasn’t worth it; the path was too narrow and the trees too close. “I wasn’t at all certain he was going to let me pick him up,” said Robin, as they awkwardly turned again and set off in pursuit of the others; “which, after all that, would have been embarrassing.”
“Thank you,” said Tuck.
There were men and women herding sheep and cattle and chickens and geese (and children) through the gate into the outer bailey when they arrived; the riders had already noticed that—once again, thought Robin—the village where Sir Richard’s villeins lived was curiously empty. The horses were trying to be brisk as they saw home and hay looming nearer, and several of the outlaws gave up all pretence of using the reins, clung to the manes, and wished it to be over quickly.
The porter at the first gate said: “The sheriff’s been seen riding with a good many men toward Sherwood; and he looks angrier than a storm-cloud.”
“Already?” said Sir Richard. “He travels almost as fast as fear.”
“Or as outlaws,” said Will.
“Or as friends,” said Friar Tuck.
“Our luck,” said Robin, “is both much better and much worse than we could have hoped.”
“Let us concentrate on the better,” said Sir Richard.
“You are the better,” said Robin, “and we thank you again.”
“I recall, not long since, that you disliked being thanked overmuch,” said Sir Richard. “I begin to understand the feeling. And I think you might save a little of your gratitude for the young woman who brought the news to your good luck that he was needed.”
There was relief on all the faces in Sir Richard’s party—and on the faces of those that saw them enter—as the gate was lowered slowly closed behind the last horse, a few laggard chickens squawking out of the way of the hoofs. “Do you think it will come to a siege, then?” said Sir Richard to his seneschal, who appeared at the stable doors as he dismounted. There was nothing but a wistful curiosity in Sir Richard’s voice; as if he had asked if it might rain tomorrow when he had thought of going hawking.
The seneschal said, “None of us has much kindness for the sheriff, my lord; nor, I think, he for us. It is well to be prepared.”
Sir Richard said dryly, “It is well to be prepared. How prepared are we?”
“All our people are accounted for—and we can feed my lord’s guests for a goodly span of days,” said the seneschal.
“Goodly span enough to send to the king and receive his reply, I wonder?” murmured Sir Richard. “If we knew for sure where to send.”
Robin, who had helped his saddle-mate to earth again and then gratefully given the horse over to a stable-boy, heard this. “The king?” he said. “Do you buy the tale that the Lionheart loves an adventure so much that he would overlook the number of the king’s deer who have found their way into our cooking pots? I do not.”
“I wonder,” said Sir Richard again. “The Lionheart has some sympathy for boldness—did he not leave England because she was too tame for him, and seek adventure elsewhere?—and little sympathy, I think, for greed. It occurs to me that he might be more sympathetic still to tales of oppression after two years in a German dungeon. It might be worth a try.”
“I have a better idea,” said Robin. “If our good luck can spare us a sennight to lick our wounds, we will leave him again and look for another forest to get lost in. You once suggested that it would do me good to be thrown in your dungeon to cool off. Perhaps this is the time for it; me and those with me too recognisable. And then you can raise your gate politely and turn a smooth face to the sheriff, while we hide under the straw.”
“I would like to ask for clean straw,” said Will. “And I would prefer a bolt-hole reasonably free of rats, although that, in a dungeon, is perhaps too much to ask.”
“The gate stays closed,” said Sir Richard, “and there is no corner of Mapperley’s dungeons not extremely well provided with vermin, so I think you will all be happier staying above ground.”
“But—” began Robin.
“We can discuss to whom and where to send messages further,” interrupted Sir Richard. “But over food, perhaps? I am ready to eat these cobblestones.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Over the next few days the outlaws ate and rested and began to grow strong again, and to take some interest in their changed surroundings. Marian was out of danger—and as Little John had predicted to Cecily, her convalescence quickly began to chafe at her spirit. Marian and Cecily and Sibyl had been given an apartment together. Sibyl had little to say; she ate when food was placed before her, and spoke when she was addressed directly—when she noticed.
“You have a talent for playing the crabby invalid,” said Cecily to Marian, after a day or two. “Why don’t you demand that you teach her chess, as a way of passing your time?”
“Thank you,” said Marian; “I appreciate that you have our best interests at heart.”
Marjorie had come to them on the first day, after greeting her husband, demanding instructions for his care from Friar Tuck, and withstanding being thanked by Robin and Sir Richard, which she did not enjoy. Marian was settled on a low couch in the outer room while several house servants set up extra beds with feather mattresses enough for royalty in the inner chamber, which would serve as the sleeping room. Cecily sat by Marian, while Sibyl stared out the window. Marjorie’s eyes rested thoughtfully on Cecily, and she looked up.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m Cecily. I’m Will’s little sister.”
> “Yes?” said Marjorie. “That has come out at last, has it?”
“I rather thought you knew,” said Cecily.
“I did not know,” said Marjorie. “But I did wonder—and your eyes did beg me, when they saw me wondering, to give nothing away, so that I had to assume there was something to give.”
“Thank you,” said Cecily.
Marjorie looked surprised. “Of course,” she said, and turned to Marian. “I have had my first lesson in poultices from Friar Tuck,” she said. “I already know a good deal about bandages and about pillows, and about broth with wine in it to make you strong again. Can I do anything for you?”
Marian smiled weakly; the journey from Sherwood had felt like centuries to her. “How are you at being snapped at, and having the pillows you’ve just readjusted thrown at your head?”
“I can learn that too,” said Marjorie.
But as those that remained began to recover, their missing comrades loomed larger in their thoughts. Without Jocelin’s skills the Sherwood outlaws might never have slept dry; they might all have perished during their first winter, for all that the weather had been comparatively mild. Gilbert had known Simon all his life; their fathers had been friends; the strips they tilled in their lord’s fields lay adjacent; they had once courted the same woman, who had married a third man. Humphrey had been teaching Bartlemey to make arrows; Greentree invalids often learnt fletching to keep them quiet—and make them useful—while their injuries healed.
There was a grisly little circle in Robin’s mind where his thoughts walked. He should have sent Harald away with the others. He had known—hadn’t he?—that Harald had not the woodscraft he needed. Robin had permitted himself to be sentimental because Harald had wished to stay, because Harald had been among the first to come to Sherwood. And it was pleasant and convenient to have someone who could tan skins and work leather at Greentree. He should have sent Harald on; he had not, and it had cost Harald his life.
And Alan’s hand. Alan was a musician, and by Robin’s carelessness he had lost his music; better that Robin had sent them on with no more than the coins that his other folk were given, with no prospects at all. And yet how could he balance Alan’s hand with Much’s life—and Marjorie’s message to Sir Richard?
“I wish there was a way to tell Red where Simon—where we all went,” said Cecily.
Sibyl looked up from the chessboard. “Red will be all right. Foxes are scavengers anyway, and some handsome vixen will find him and teach him about robbing nests and farm-yards.”
Marjorie spoke little of Alan. “It is healing perfectly,” she said once; “the wound is almost closed. But he cannot move his fingers.” Alan said nothing at all, and his lute lay hidden in the deserted Greentree.
Everyone’s temper, from sorrow and worry and the itch of healing, grew a little sharp as the days passed. Robin was pacing (jerkily, because of his foot) by the second day; his whole body felt as sore as his slashed foot and arm. “Kindly captivity is still captivity,” he said to Little John on the sixth day.
Little John had his leg propped up in the crenellation he leaned on as Robin paced the wall walk, staring toward Nottingham, invisible beyond the spur of Sherwood at the edge of Sir Richard’s grazing lands. Little John grunted in agreement; but his own restlessness had more to do with not yet being able to pace—and to the strange shyness that had come over his sometime protege. Almost he could believe she had never said those words outside the earthwork.… He pulled his thoughts away from that unsatisfactory subject for the dozenth time that afternoon, concentrating on the trees and fields before him, idly rubbing at his leg, which was still hot and sore.
“He may not even come here,” snarled Robin.
“He’ll come,” said Little John.
“Then why has he not come before?” said Robin, unreasonably. “The longer Sir Richard’s gate stays closed—and I cannot believe this has gone unnoticed—the more obvious it is that he is hiding something. Or someone. We should not be placing him in this danger.…”
“That depends on what you want from the confrontation with our friend the sheriff,” said Much, who appeared through the doorway, red-faced from climbing stairs on crutches. “If you had in mind that any of us should survive it longer than the gaoling while they built the gallows to hold us all, then Sir Richard’s intervention in this matter may well be called timely.”
Robin was silent.
“Even Sherwood isn’t big enough any more,” said Much.
“I fear me that England is no longer big enough,” Robin burst out again; “and we have not even had any news.”
“That also depends on what you mean by news,” said Much. “There has not been time for an answer to any of our messages; they cannot be delivered in a straightforward manner, you know. And we have heard that the sheriff appears to be cutting down half of Sherwood with his sword; his temper has not cooled.”
“It’s really only me that puts us all in danger,” said Robin.
“There’s a price on my head too,” said Little John mildly. “And I am content to accept the kindly captivity, to keep price and head separate for a little longer.”
“You are right, of course,” said Robin; “and it is a curious sort of bragging I indulge in. But the sheriff—while he would no doubt like to hang all of you, it is me whom he lies awake nights strangling in his hopes. He would be satisfied with me: with the man whose name is cried in the streets of Nottingham as leader of the Sherwood outlaws.”
“See? Your name should have been Sheriff’s-bane,” said Much.
“The rest of you could go away—can go away as soon as we hear something from our other friends. Me he will track …”
“Are you on that old tune again?” said Will. “Quite an invalids’ gathering, aren’t we? Why is it those of us with wounded legs keep looking for stairs to climb?”
“It’s the challenge,” said Much. “Like that of knocking sense into the thick head of our leader.”
“One of the things you insist on leaving out of your calculations is that our absurd and uncomfortable life under Sherwood’s wide branches suits some of us,” said Will. “Say, Little John, if someone gave you a herd of cattle, would you go back to farming?”
“No,” said Little John immediately. “They’d get the pox, and I’d not have rent on quarter day, and soon I’d be an outlaw.”
“Nothing would drive me back to my father’s hall,” said Will; “not even a full pardon. Indeed, particularly not a full pardon, because then I’d be treated as the lord’s son again, and if you knew how boring it is, dressing up in frills and a clean shirt every day and praying that a guest will arrive some time soon with a few new jokes.… You can even get bored with hunting and hawking occasionally, without the savour of need. I know why the Lionheart went off to Palestine; he couldn’t stand it either. All those state dinners. I’d’ve followed him if I hadn’t heard about Sherwood. I wanted to stay in England.”
“But you can go home again from Palestine,” said Robin. “What you are leaving out of your calculations is that we are not going to be able to wait out the sheriff’s wrath and go quietly back to our old ways in Sherwood. We have come to our end.”
There was a little silence, and then Will said, “You can go home from Palestine if the Saracens don’t get you first, or the climate. And then it starts all over again—hunting and hawking and minstrels and feast days—and boredom. Particularly boredom.”
“We need a third choice,” said Robin. “And my eyes are blind to it.” Much said thoughtfully, “I had never gone hungry till I lived as an outlaw; but I never had a clean shirt every day either. That part sounds very nice. I do not think I would grow bored with it very soon.”
“Have Sir Richard’s servants been neglecting you?” said Will. “Tell him at once, and their tanned hides will be your new suit.”
“No; this is a new suit. You never saw this colour in Sherwood, did you?” said Much, holding out one blue arm. “It is the cleanness its
elf that itches, I think. It is not the same as fleas at all.” He scratched himself gently around the neck.
“You’ll be wanting a lace-trimmed shirt soon,” said Will. Little John said, “Hunger is the most boring of all, for it leaves no possibility of anything else.”
There was another little pause. “Why doesn’t the sheriff come?” said Will. “It has been nearly a sennight, and the closed gate screams for attention.”
Robin said dryly, “Sir Richard has had a rumour begun that we are threatening him—that he owes us a favour for our little job a few weeks back, but as a law-abiding citizen he does not wish to give succour to his country’s enemies.”
“I like it,” said Will. “But it won’t last.”
“I do not understand why we have been left untroubled this long,” said Robin. “It is not to the sheriff’s credit that he has even pretended to believe it.”
Again Will broke the silence: “We should perhaps shift this gloomy meeting to Marian’s chamber. She might have some better chance of convincing our blockhead leader of the wisdom of keeping his head from the block.”
Robin said dourly, “I fear that the most Marian has learnt this sennight is that the name of Robin Hood has nothing but fear and pain attached to it.”
“She has not,” said a new voice. Little John turned around as Cecily emerged into the sunlight.
Robin smiled for the first time.
“I dare you to repeat those words to her,” said Cecily.
“I dare not,” said Robin. “She might grow warm, and her fever is not long gone.”
“Look,” Will said quietly. There was that in his voice that made them all turn quickly around.
A little train of riders was cantering out of the forest on the road to Sir Richard’s castle.
“Shall we go down and see what may be happening?” said Much after a few minutes, while everyone’s eyes burned with the strain of trying to identify the riders. There was always the possibility that they had nothing to do with Nottingham or the sheriff, though no one believed this. From such a distance the riders were still mere spots, bouncing to the horses’ rhythm; but there was a purposefulness about the horses’ gait, and the party clung too close together to be friends coming for an idle visit.