Maid Marian (32 page)

I rose and came closer to look once again, feeling less certain than he. “I wish they were gazing forward instead of the profile view as they are. But I suppose this way is more accurate. In life they only saw each other; they had little time for watching over me.”

Among my skirts Robin found my hand and squeezed it tight. It made me sad to speak those words, but I knew them to be true. These two had loosened a fledgling blackbird upon the world, but fate had eased their lives away before they’d had time to watch her soar.

I slipped my hand down to my own belly, where a new bird formed in its soft egg, and declared that I would not be that way—I would be here to teach this young dove and smile upon its downy head. I looked to Robin and caught his smile. Then we two turned and walked away to do what we could for the people of Denby.

Acknowledgments

T
HE WORLD OF
Maid Marian and Robin Hood is a misty one, passed to us from mouth to ear. Oral legends and ballads tell us all we know of this mysterious outlaw and his band, so it is to the remains of the ballads that we must look. Francis James Childs’ ten-volume collection of
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads
provides a great deal of grist for the mill; the University of Rochester’s online Robin Hood Project also includes a nice collection of historic Robin Hood ballads. For extended reading about the Middle Ages I recommend Friedrich Heer’s
The Medieval World, Europe 1100–1350,
and Bridget Ann Henisch’s books
The Medieval Calendar Year
and
Fast and Feast.
Amy Kelly and Alison Weir have both written fascinating biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

I would like to thank the Kitsap Regional Libraries, my parents and my brother, and my husband, Kol Medina, for his thoughtful feedback at every step. Anne-Marie McMahon, Erin Rand, and Katherine Keating have been encouraging throughout. Thanks especially to my editor, Rachel Beard Kahan, and my agent, Margret McBride, and her colleagues Donna DeGutis and Renée Vincent. If this book hadn’t caught Renée’s interest, it wouldn’t be in your hands today.

About the Author

E
LSA
W
ATSON
graduated from Carleton College with a degree in classical languages. She and her husband served with the Peace Corps in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, for two years, where she began writing this novel in longhand, by lamplight. She now lives in her native Washington state, near Seattle, with her husband and three cats.

Copyright © 2004 by Elsa Watson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by Crown Publishers, New York, New York.
Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc.
www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Watson, Elsa.

      Maid Marian / Elsa Watson.—1st ed.

      1. Maid Marian (Legendary character)—Fiction.   2. Great Britain—History—Richard I, 1189–1199—Fiction.   3. Robin Hood (Legendary character)—Fiction.   4. Sherwood Forest (England)—Fiction.   5. Women outlaws—Fiction.   6. Outlaws—Fiction.   I. Title.

      PS3623.A8697M35 2004

      813'.6—dc22 2003014671

eISBN: 978-1-4000-8078-6

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