Robin Hood (28 page)

T
he following morning, as the rest of Nottingham awoke to a too-bright sun, and the overly loud calls of overly zealous roosters, and the type of headaches that only Tuck's mead could induce, Robin began to delve deeper into his past and the legacy of his father's politics.

Upon waking and descending the stairs of Peper Harrow to the great hall, he found Sir Walter already awake and sitting at the long wooden table, which was laden with old scrolls. Walter waved him over, grinning and gesturing grandly at the mountain of parchment.

And so Robin was introduced to the extensive writings of Thomas Longstride.

It seemed that referring to his father as a mere stonemason was akin to calling Richard the Lionheart a mere soldier. Robin's father had written at length about politics, about opposing the king and rousing
the people of the realm from their torpor, and about his dreams for England. Some of what Robin read inspired him; some of it confused him, and these tracts he and Walter discussed until his father's words became clearer. Through it all, though, Robin's admiration for Thomas Longstride grew, and his understanding of his own life, of notions that over the years had struck him as if out of the blue, crystalized.

For so long he had thought of himself as rootless, a mercenary—an Englishman, to be sure, but one without any true ties to the land or its people. His father, though, had been so much more. And seeing this, reading the man's words, visualizing for himself the realm Thomas had tried to build, Robin realized that he wanted more for himself and for England. He had never been a man to indulge in regrets or self-doubt. He had chosen a soldier's life, and had lived it to its fullest. But after learning so much about his father, he could no longer be satisfied with the man he had been.

Walter seemed to understand this. At first he said little, save to answer Robin's questions and refer him first to one scroll and then to another. But as the morning wore on, Walter began to say more. He spoke of what he and William Marshal had done to help Thomas spread his teachings to others. He described the horror of watching Henry's men murder the stonemason, and of seeing Longstride's dreams, and those of the people who had followed him, die in the wake of that terrible day in Barnsdale. And at last, Walter told Robin of all he and Marshal had done to see Robin safely to France, so that one day Thomas Longstride's son might take up his cause.

Only a day or two before, Robin might have refused
to listen.
This isn't my legacy,
he might have said.
This isn't the life I want.
But not now. He listened, and he thought he could hear in the old man's words, an echo of his father's voice.

Between all that he had read and heard and thought about, Robin lost track of the time. But sometime around midday, he and Walter heard a commotion outside the house. Walter appeared alarmed, and Robin understood why. After all this talk of freedom and remaking the realm even in the face of opposition from the Throne, he couldn't help wondering for just a moment if King John's men had come for them.

As it turned out, this wasn't too far from the truth.

One of the house servants hurried into the great hall leading a messenger. The man looked exhausted; his clothes were ragged and travel stained. But he stood straight-backed before the two of them as he gave his message to Sir Walter.

“My lord,” he said, “Peterborough has been burned by the king's men. Darlington and York as well. Fitzrobert gathers an army to slay King John in London! He asks the barons to gather for council at Barnsdale.”

Walter turned from the messenger to Robin. The old man might have been blind, but his eyes seemed to burn deep into Robin's soul.

“Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” he said. “The time for pretense is over. Hug me like a father.”

Robin didn't flinch from his gaze. “Have you told me everything?”

“Your father, the mason Longstride, was the leader of our rebellion against Henry. That is why he was killed. Promise me you will avoid the same fate.” Walter pointed directly at the messenger, though his
eyes remained fixed on Robin. “Go with this man,” he said. “You will find what you are looking for.”

Robin gazed at the man and began to nod. At last his path was clear, his past made sense, his name had meaning. This was his father's cause; he was the man to lead it.

He gave Walter's arm a quick squeeze, stood, and followed the messenger out into the courtyard.

M
ARION STOOD ON
the bottom stair, her hand resting against the cold stone wall, her head tilted slightly, so that she might hear all that Robin and Walter said to each other. She shouldn't have been listening. But the matters Robin and Walter discussed had ramifications for all of them, and she wanted to understand fully the connections between the two men.

Mostly she wanted to know more about this man who had come into their lives so suddenly and with such profound consequences for them all. Since Robin's arrival, Nottingham had been transformed. The wild boys were beginning to emerge from the shadows of the wood, music and dance and laughter had returned to the fields surrounding Peper Harrow. And despite the dark tidings he carried with him from King Richard's army, Marion felt her own heart moving past grief to a new and unlikely love.

Now it seemed that there was even more to this man—and Walter—than she had imagined. Robin's father was the leader of a rebellion to which Walter had been party. Had her Robert been involved in this, too? From the sound of it, she didn't think so. But still she wondered.

The messenger, though, had spoken quite clearly. A new rebellion had come, and the other barons
looked to the house of Loxley for aid. She didn't know whether to be proud or outraged. And so she hid in the shadows, and she listened.

For several days now, they had acted at being husband and wife. But there could be no denying how powerfully they had been drawn to each other the previous night as they danced in the firelight. She had lost one love to the last crusade. Would she lose another to the barons' rebellion?

Walter turned in his chair and looked back toward the stairway.

“Marion?” he called.

She didn't want him to know that she had been listening, and she didn't trust herself to speak of Robin with anyone just now. Silently, she withdrew.

I
T HADN'T TAKEN
Robin long to find Will, Allan, and Little John. This was something else that had changed so quickly for him in recent days. Not long ago he had been ready to bid farewell to his friends and accept that the time had come for them to go their separate ways. But they resisted, and he was glad. He couldn't imagine undertaking this journey to Barnsdale without them.

They had followed him back to Peper Harrow and waited for him now as he saddled his horse and cinched his pack. As he readied his things, the house servant he had sent to find Marion appeared in the barn doorway. She was alone.

“Where is Marion?” he asked her as he retrieved his bow.

The girl curtsied deferentially. “I couldn't find her, sir.”

Robin frowned, wondering where Marion could be.
He didn't like the idea of leaving Nottingham without saying good-bye to her. By the same token, he knew that he couldn't afford to delay their departure. From what the rider had said, it seemed that Fitzrobert and the other barons were itching for a battle. Robin needed to reach Barnsdale as quickly as possible.

He thought about telling the girl to search the house for Marion again, but then thought better of it. There was too much to explain, too much he didn't yet understand—about himself, about what he was setting out to do, about what he and Marion had begun to share. In the end he merely nodded to the girl and led his friends from the barn and out of the Peper Harrow courtyard.

S
HE STOOD AT
her window, taking care to keep out of sight, and she watched them ride away. She wasn't sure why she had avoided the servant Robin sent for her, or why she didn't call to Robin now, to offer a word of farewell and a wish that he return to her. She recalled watching her husband ride off to Richard's war and wondered at the changes wrought by ten years of waiting. She hadn't been nearly as frightened when Robert left. She had been young and in love and convinced that he would return, that life couldn't deal her so cruel a blow as to take her husband. She knew better now, and so she prayed that fate would be gentler with her this time.

T
HEY HADN'T RIDDEN
far before Robin reined his mount to a halt, pausing on the road to look back at Nottingham. The town had not seemed like much when first he saw it, but it had changed in the few days he had spent there. The lanes seemed to hum
with activity; shops were busier, people looked happier, more at ease.

And even as he resolved to see his father's work through to its end, Robin also felt the tug of the place on his own emotions. For the first time in his memory, he had found a home in his native land, and someone with whom he could imagine spending the rest of his days.

He felt the others watching him. After a few moments, Will, who was closest to him, began to whistle softly the melody he sang the night before. Robin couldn't hear the tune without thinking of Marion; of the firelight on her face, of the way she had felt in his arms.

He turned his mount once more and led the men away from Nottingham and Peper Harrow, toward Barnsdale, where a rebellion was brewing.

T
hey were awake with the first faint glimmerings of daylight. Adhemar's legionnaires moved about the camp with their usual quiet efficiency, their blue cloaks and tabards blending with the pale gray smoke of cooking fires and the fine, cool mist that lingered in the wood, so that they looked like ghosts drifting among the trees.

As the men around him fed themselves and prepared to break camp, Godfrey bent over a crude washbasin, splashing cold water on his face and shaved head. They had miles to ride today, as they had the previous day and the one before that. Their campaign had taken on a rhythm of sorts, one that felt comfortable to him. Word of the barons' rebellion had reached him. He hoped it had reached London, as well. The king would see in the alliance between Baldwin and Fitzrobert a threat to his power. And without Marshal there to guide him, he would meet
the threat with the only tools he understood: bows and pikes and swords. By the time Philip Augustus crossed the channel, England would be neck-deep in civil war.

At the sound of his own name, Godfrey straightened and turned, drying his face with a towel that he then tossed aside. Belvedere had returned and approached him now with one of his toughs in tow. Belvedere looked travel weary, but he wore a self-satisfied smile.

“I found him, m'lord,” the man said.

“Where?” Godfrey asked, resisting an urge to raise a hand to the fading scar on his cheek.

Adhemar stood nearby, and Godfrey sensed that he was listening closely to their exchange.

Belvedere smiled, as if sharing some great joke. “In plain sight, living in Nottingham as Sir Walter's son.”