A Hoboken Hipster In Sherwood Forest (14 page)

A deep part of me, the codependent, needs-a-twelve-step-program part, desperately wants to heal him somehow. I want to wrap my arms around him and somehow absorb the pain. Make him whole again. Make him happy and content. Specifically, happy and content with me.

But I know I can't. He has to heal on his own time schedule. And all I can do is be his friend. Be there for him. And let him feel comfortable talking about another
woman, even though each time her name is mentioned it cuts through me like a clichéd knife.

"So, uh, let's check out this castle of yours," I suggest, after swallowing back the lump in my throat.

"What about him?" Robin says, kicking the guard with his toe.

The guard grunts and rolls over. "What? Who?" he asks, shaking his head, trying to regain his senses.

Robin pulls a knife from his belt. "Do not move," he commands.

"Uh, Robin? What are you doing?" I ask, worried. He's not going to try to kill the guy, is he? I mean
, it's all fun and games until somebody loses a life.

"This man works for the sheriff, Christian," Robin says, not relinquishing his knife. "Do you know what the sheriffs men did to my fellows? I wish you could have seen the slaughter that day. Blood flowing in rivers down the streets. Brave men left to rot in gutters and be eaten by dogs."

Wow. So much anger and hate. So much thirst for revenge. Suddenly the words that gypsy spoke to me seem to float through my consciousness.

Thou alone can tame his unquenchable thirst for vengeance.

"Yes, I know," I say. "I can't even imagine how it must have felt to be there and see that. To lose your friends and your family. But Robin, killing this guy won't bring them back. It won’t make things right. You must get past your anger. Your hate. Otherwise you're as bad as the sheriff himself."

Robin looks torn. "But how can I spare this man's life when his kind took those of my dearest friends?"

"This guy probably wasn't even there. He's just on the sheriffs payroll. Guarding a castle—alone— making a wage to bring home to feed the wife and kids. I'm not saying it's the best occupation he could have chosen, but it doesn't mean he deserves to die for it."

I feel like young John Connor in Terminator 2, instructing Arnold not to kill. He may agree, but I'm not sure the reason is really sinking in.

"Christian, your soft heart will be the death of you," Robin says.

"Probably. But this guy isn't really in any shape to do the job, is he? Let's just tie him up or something."

"Please good sir, the lady is right," the guard begs. "I was just doin' what I was told to do here. Following our lord's orders and all."

"I am Robin of Locksley. This is my castle. There is only one person with the right to give orders here."

"Yes, sir. I did not know. Please forgive my ignorance and let me live."

Robin sighs deeply,
then motions to a length of rope tied to a collapsed stanchion lying nearby. I run over and grab it, and together we tie the guard's hands and feet.

"Thank you, good sir," the guard babbles. "You will not regret this day."

"I do already. Thank the boy, for I would not have been so kind should I have come here myself."

"The boy?"

Robin laughs, gesturing to me. "Ah, I forgot you were fooled into thinking him a woman. Perhaps without the apples in his bosom you may better glean the truth."

Argh. If I hear one more boob joke...

"Forsooth? She still looks a woman to me. Very beautiful, as well, I might add."

I could kiss that guard. I really could—bad breath, big nose and all. Now I'm doubly glad I saved his life.

Robin shakes his head in disbelief. "In any case, we will let you free when we are done. Shan't be long, I'd expect."

"Thank you, kind lord. I owe you a life someday, and I, Duncan of Carlisle, always repay me debts."

"Then you owe it to young Christian here, not to me," Robin growls. He clearly doesn't like being seen as kind. "For surely I would slash you down without a moment's regret were it not for his merciful heart."

The guard bows his head in my direction. "To Christian, then," he says.

"Um, thanks," I reply, smiling at him. "I appreciate that. Hope your head feels better." Wish I had some aspirin for the guy or something.

I look back at Robin, who's giving me an impatient stare. Once satisfied he has my attention, he turns to the castle gate and makes a sweeping gesture. "I welcome you, young Christian," he says, "to the Castle Locksley."

I step through the open door and into a low-ceilinged, dark stone hallway. Small slits in the walls offer just enough sunlight to see spiders wandering through their dusty webs.

"This way," Robin says, coming up behind me, his hot breath in my ear. He takes me by my shoulders and turns me so I'm headed down a side corridor. It's spooky.
Eerily silent. And weirdly intimate, too. I've really got to shake this feeling that we're on a date in Adventureland.

"You, um, don't think there are more guards around, do you?" I ask worriedly. The last thing we need is to be ambushed or something.

"Nay. Prince John is very stingy in all matters," Robin says. "He would not waste paying too many men to guard an outlaw's sacked castle. There is no benefit to it, and 'twould merely serve to drain his purse. Duncan there was likely just a scout."

"Such a shame to let the whole castle just go to pot," I say, stepping into a large open chamber. There's a blackened fire pit in the center of the room, and sunlight streams down from a skylight window. Grandly woven but now moth-eaten floor-to-ceiling tapestries hang from the walls, depicting brave knights on black chargers, flaxen-haired maidens, fire-breathing dragons and snow-white unicorns.

"This was our great hall," Robin explains, walking to the far end of the room and stepping up on a dais. "My mother and father's thrones sat here. Prince John must have deemed them valuable when he looted the place. Bastard." He reaches down and picks up an old discarded leather ball. He examines it, a wistful expression on his face, then tosses it up in the air and catches it.

"When I was young, I would play at my parents' feet while my father heard the petitions of the serfs and peasants." He smiles. "He used to kick me with his boot if I got unruly, and I'd run to hide in my mother's skirts."

I smile at his memory, completely able to picture a small boy's innocent play while the politics of the land were argued by chancellors and priests. I can imagine the hall as it must have once been, filled with courtiers and ladies-in-waiting. Court jesters juggling, bards strumming harps. Tables piled high with meats and fruits and cheeses. Knights swigging mead and laughing as the pretty maids batted their eyelashes at them, hoping to gain their favor. A court of the first class—swirling, glittering, noisy, alive.

Now it's just an aching echo of what it once was, painfully quiet, with each word resonating off the vast cobwebbed ceiling, the smell of death and decay replacing that of a fine feast or lady's perfume. The colorful sights are now but a dismal gray.

Robin sinks to the ground, head in his hands. He's reliving it all, overwhelmed by the past and swallowed up by the emptiness of present-day reality. I've got to snap him out of it before he gets lost in his despair.

"Did you have dances here?" I ask.

He looks up, swallowing hard before answering. "Aye," he says, forcing a smile to his lips. "Wonderful banquets with plates overflowing with food and goblets brimming with wine. My mother loved song, and we'd have the most famous minstrels of the land come to our castle to perform. And we'd dance 'til the sun peeked over the hillside."

"Sounds like fun," I say, examining a particularly cool tapestry of a maiden surrounded by unicorns. I think I've seen something similar in the Met gift shop. It's amazing someone could weave this with a loom or whatever it was they used, to reveal such an intricate picture one strand at a time. "I love to dance."

My second foster mother was a ballroom instructor, and she taught me ballet, jazz, tap, the waltz and the tango. You name it, I learned it from Jeanine. And I loved each one. The magic of the dance, the feeling inside when the music takes over your body and soul. Living in the moment and not worrying about the past or obsessing about the future....

"Forsooth? I did not know the church would permit you to dance."

My face heats. Damn, I forgot who I'm supposed to be again. I really need to focus. "Oh sure," I say carelessly. "My church was pretty modern. We danced all the time."

He nods. "Of which dances are you most fond?"

Okay, I've really got to stop opening my big mouth. I don't think saying I dug the Macarena (not that I did!) is going to work here, and I certainly don't know the names of any traditional medieval dances.

"Um, I never remember the names," I say with a shrug.

"Then show me. For I feel nostalgic in this ruined hall," Robin says, twirling around as if recalling its former beauty. "I want one more happy moment here."

"Um, okay."
Hm, what the hell am I going to show him? The Electric Slide is so not going to work. Nor is the Boot Scootin’ Boogie.

Then a brainstorm hits me. One day, a few years back, Danny had gone on a "finding himself" weekend trip to the Poconos. (Though thinking back, now I wonder if he managed to find himself some female company as well.) Anyway, I was stuck at home bored. I rented A Knight's Tale and fell in love with it. So much so, I taught myself the Dance of
Gelder that Heath Ledger invents to impress Lady Jocelyn. Silly and pointless, I know, but hey, I was really bored. And now it seems like the perfect option. A real fake medieval dance.

"Okay, then. Here's a traditional dance of my homeland of... Hoboken. First you... bow," I instruct, demonstrating as I go. "Then you throw your hands to your hips and step several times. Um, then you clap left and bow again."

Robin tries to follow my instructions. It's awkward, but then again it was an awkward made-up dance to begin with.

"Then you hop, hands out, palms up. No, no—like this!" I grab his hands to put them in position.

Robin laughs. "This dance is bloody terrible!" he cries.

I shake my head, dropping his hands. "Okay, fine. Give up then," I say in mock disapproval.

"No, no!" he insists. "I will get this! No mere dance can best the great Robin of Locksley."

Bow, step,
clap. Bow, step clap. Bow, step—

"Oh, this is silly!" I cry. "Let's just dance freestyle."

"Freestyle?" Robin cocks his head in question.

"Like, make up your own dance. Let the music take you where it will. Well, I guess we don't have any music. Maybe that's our problem." If only I had my iPhone with portable speakers. I could pull up David Bowie's "Golden Years" and we'd really be reliving A Knight's Tale.

Though, whipping out a device containing a magical melody of modern music might just possibly freak out the 12th-century outlaw a tad, I suppose. Guess I'll have to sing.

" 'Golden Years,
wup, wup, wup! Gold-en years!'" I croon, admittedly more than a bit out of tune. I twirl around the makeshift dance floor, grabbing Robin's hand and dragging him with me. " 'Don't let me hear you say ... life's taking you nowhere. Annngel!'"

"You're mad, Christian! Absolutely stark raving mad!"

"Boo! Don't be a sore sport! Just dance!"

And so he does. Together we whirl around the great hall, Robin's hand in mine,
his arm around my waist. It feels so good. So right. I start getting silly (okay, maybe "start" is the wrong word since I've been belting out Bowie for the last couple minutes) and exaggerate the dance steps. I dip myself backward, allowing him to catch me. He fumbles the catch, almost dropping me, and I manage to slam my foot down on his as I step backward to steady myself.

"Oops," I say, consumed by giggles at this point.

"If you step on my feet one more time..." Robin threatens with a laugh.

"You'll what?" I challenge, whirling to face him.

"I shall... sentence you to death," he says sternly. "As Lord of Locksley, 'tis perfectly within my rights."

"Death," I say coyly, batting my eyelashes at him. "My good sir, how do you plan to kill me? Poor, innocent, defenseless me."

"Defenseless? Ha! Those feet are a deadly weapon."

I stick out my foot and point my toes, then flex them. "These?" I ask, all innocent. "How could these..."—I pretend to slam my foot down on his once more—"hurt you?"

"That's it, now you're dead!" he cries.

Laughing, I turn tail and run across the Great Hall's floor. He pursues me, chasing me down the hall. I come to a set of stairs and scramble up, trying to outrun the footsteps that I hear closing in behind me. At the top, I push open a wooden door and find myself in a tower room. It's empty, save a bale of hay in one corner— probably a makeshift bed for prisoners. Problem is, because of that prisoner thing, there's no escape route.

Robin bursts into the room, his eyes lighting up as he sees I'm trapped. He grabs me by the shoulders and shoves me back into the hay, jumping on top of me and tickling me with relentless fingers.