Maid Marian (19 page)

“As much as I can and more, my love. I swear it, we will find a way.”

Chapter Sixteen

F
ROM THAT DAY FORWARD
we were in love, and no happiness of mind, no tinkling of bells or twitter of skylarks, could compare with my delight. For me the month was silver and gold, each day floating on gossamer wings, high above the dark fields of doubt. Robin met me each morning with a kiss and a smile, and I left him each night by caressing his face and promising nothing but sweet dreams for us both. We were as close as a pair of stock doves, cooing and loving from dawn to dusk.

Robin proved to have a romantic soul, for he never went anywhere throughout the wood without bringing me back a posy or a small wreath of honeysuckle. More often, in those months, we walked out together, turning our toes toward an old apple tree or gleaning nuts from the ancient hedgerows. For now that we’d reached our sublime understanding, Robin would permit no guard to follow him, no well-meaning man to watch his back. He was mine and mine alone to tease and caress, or mock-wrestle on the woodland slopes till we ended in kisses as soft as goose down. All was merry and joyous and gay—truly I had never known such a time.

In the slow evenings he might take me upon his knee and sing to me songs about our band, made-up tunes that resembled Allan’s about as much as a bear does a rabbit, but joking ones to make me laugh. He would sing of Annie or David of Doncaster, perhaps a song of how they would wrestle, and Annie would seize the title from David, long considered the best wrestler in the shire. Or he might sing about Friar Tuck and his solemn piety, the very piety that led him to drink and fight to excess and seek out all of the prettiest girls whenever he went to a market day.

We were happy, but a shroud of sadness was all around us. Little John had gone on his way, and he was sorrowfully missed, I knew, by not only Robin but by the whole band. Robin, at times, foresaw that the parting of Little John might signal the end of the outlaws of Sherwood, although he would never have said such a thing to any other but me. The rest of the men were muddling on, hunting and fishing as they ever had and ignoring the sense we all shared that something great had been lost forever.

Beyond that feeling of darkness and dread, the practical truths were equally grim. Our band was running low on silver. Robin had always retained one-third of the coin in any noble’s purse to keep his band in flour and wool, but his savings were shrinking, and we were too shy to find new donors. These summer months used to be our best, when careless travelers would take to the forest with the Lady Day taxes or the Easter hen money. But now we were hiding, doing no more than living, and each day our pennies grew fewer and fewer.

The politics of the realm reflected the turbulence of Sherwood, for John had achieved his long-sought chancellorship and now increased his band of soldiers at a frightening pace. Rumors had spread that he meant to sail for Paris to join forces with Philip Augustus, king of France, against his brother Richard. Robin and I discussed these matters every day, sharing our fears over what might happen.

“I’ve heard Queen Eleanor returns to London,” he said one day after sending Clym, unknown in Nottingham, to bring us the news. “They say she means to gather the nobles and convince them to restrain Prince John. Clym reports that she will offer a silver piece for each one of John’s mercenaries who is delivered, bound, to her guard. There’s a moneymaking scheme for us!”

He said this jokingly, but I saw nothing in his words to laugh at. “Are you mad, Robin? No deal with Queen Eleanor will end well for anyone but the queen herself, I promise you that. She’ll deal behind any ally’s back, make more promises than she can keep. The man who agrees to arrest John’s men will find himself swinging from London Tower.”

“I know how you feel about Eleanor, Marian, but it is an offer of sound money.”

“Please,” I said, covering my ears, “I cannot hear you speak such words. She’s a shrewd cat and if she returns to London it is to pursue her own interests, not yours or mine or even England’s. She wants John down—very well and good—but let her do the work herself. She’s soldiers enough of her own to do it.”

Robin sighed, nodding his head, for we often came to this same impasse. “In that case we’re back to our old stunts, and we’ll need to begin them soon. Perhaps when the queen’s soldiers come to Nottingham, they’ll bring a lightly guarded load of silver. What think you to that?”

“I think they won’t, and you’re better off with your old friend the bishop or the prior of Emmet.”

“Ah, true, but those friends seem at last to have learned our tricks. They never travel through the forest now without a host of guards about them. And I think more often they extend the trip and ride through Lincoln where the outlaws of Sherwood can never catch them. Nay, we must take a bold strike if we wish to fill our strongbox again. To trade with the queen, ’tis boldness itself.”

I was incredulous to hear him speak a second time of approaching the queen. “Have you gone daft, Robin, even to think of it? ’Twould be reckless and mad to deal with any noble now. You’re often called bold, Robin, but don’t you see that the opposite face of that same coin is foolhardiness?”

“And can you not see that for all your caution, your coin too has a second side?” His face was growing flushed with anger. “You paralyze yourself with fear, Marian. Life is to be lived, not shied from.”

I felt the sting of this well enough, but I would not hold my tongue. “There’s more than your own hide at stake in this matter. When I seek to protect myself I do no harm to others and nothing but good to myself—you cannot deride my caution, Robin. Can you not recall the peril I shall face if the queen guesses that I still live? Know you not how far the fame of Robin Hood spreads and how keen every reeve would be to take you, to collect his prize from the queen’s own hand?”

“Aye, peril waits on every side,” he cried, leaping to his feet. “But we must take some action—I won’t leave my men here to waste and starve.”

“Then think, dear Robin, sit and ponder until you’ve found a better way. For if once the queen is involved in our trials, a plague will creep across us all until nothing but barren bones remain.” I watched him turn his eyes away and thought a sickness had touched us already. “Do you not recall, my love, how you swore to me that you would find an honest life and take no risks until ’twas done? If you knew but one tenth of how I suffered when I feared you were lost to Guy of Gisborne’s sword, you would not speak of placing yourself in the way of danger. My heart cannot bear it, Robin, I swear.”

He came forward then and held me close, stroking my hair in his soft manner, touching my cheek with the flesh of his thumb.

So our conversations always turned. The prospects for our band were bleak, and between us we found no way to brighten them. But Robin, I found, did not tell me everything he had in his mind. No, indeed, he made plans I knew nothing about.

T
OWARD THE END OF
J
ULY,
Robin left us to take a trip abroad for more than a week. He would not tell me where he went, but as he and I had often discussed the notion of relocating the band, I thought he went to examine other forests for suitability. ’Twas Robin’s opinion that Prince John’s seizure of Nottingham Castle ruined things for an outlaw band living as close as we did, for the occupation of the castle drew in so many soldiers, the odds of escaping from every tight fix grew perilously slim.

Therefore, I did not question him about his trip. I did remember, however, that the last time he left for a long journey, he returned with me, so I joked with him that he went to free himself a new woman from her marriage bonds and bring her back to live among us.

“Tell me, what will you do with your bonny Alice or pretty Sue when I’m nearby?”

“Perhaps I’ll send you off each day to fetch me honey and apple tarts.”

“And when I return? At least you must promise to dismiss Alice as often as you send me off.”

Here he pulled me onto his knee and tickled my face with his chin whiskers until I laughed and had to bury my nose in his shoulder to escape.

“Ah, Marian, ’twill be but a week or a little more, but I shall miss you. Promise you’ll keep yourself safe till my return? No trips to Retford while I’m away?”

“Of course I promise,” I said, still laughing. “I’ve no wish to be caught and hung without you there to see it.”

He did not laugh at my grim joke but held me close and spoke no more.

T
IME PASSED SLOWLY
while he was away, and I’m ashamed to say I fell to moping about the camp. Annie was my one solace, and as she allowed me to speak of Robin as often as I chose, I entertained myself that way for most of my lonely days.

But when he had gone and I’d no Robin to make me laugh away my worry, I began to fear anew. I felt like a trapped wild thing, hissing and spitting, for here I was caught, wedged between Prince John’s mercenaries and Robin’s absence. I could go nowhere until his return. And so I began to stew and fret.

My childhood terrors reclaimed their prominent space in my thoughts, hounding me night by night until I had questioned my every last motive, wondered at my own decisions. Why did I stay here, my fears demanded, caught in the web of Robin’s love? If I feared for our lives, why did I not flee, make my way to greener fields where none but I could make decisions? Myself I could trust, the little voice echoed, but none other.

Images of escape, of fleeing the forest, swarmed my thoughts. I longed for Robin, ached for his soothing presence. But too I felt a hatred for him, for had I not loved, I would not have hesitated in this forest one day beyond Prince John’s arrival. I should have made myself scarce as a woodcock, sleeping tight in a bed of leaves. Raw anguish seemed to consume my soul, but I could do nothing other than wait for either Robin to arrive or the dreaded troops to come and string us up on the hangman’s noose.

I questioned Annie in those days, asking what would become of her if the band did move or break apart, for I feared for her safety as much as for my own. I heard her say what I’d always suspected, that if she were in any danger she would flee to Wodesley village and tell the steward that she’d been dismissed by her employer and wished to become a farm woman once more.

Robin was away two weeks in the end, but he sent Clym back with a message, bidding us to be patient. I did my best, but waiting has never been my strength. I grew more restless by the day, more agitated, more apprehensive. Then one night as I lay wrestling with my dread, I was visited by a dream. I call it a dream, for it must have been such, but its shapes and hues were so vivid, it seemed clearer than waking day.

I saw myself, bound and disheveled, standing in a dusty hall. To my right stood my favorites among the merry men, David of Doncaster, Lawrence Ganniel, Will Scarlet, and gentle Allan, and they too were bound and appeared as miserable as bull calves being led to the ax. Some were bleeding from running wounds; some vomited on the stone floor. But I turned my eyes away from them, for near a chaise decked with violet damask sat Queen Eleanor.