Robyn Hood: Fight For Freedom (17 page)

“Um, no. I was just disguised as a girl,” I simpered, trying to cover my tracks.

“You forget Robin… or Mary. I danced with you. I
know
you’re a girl,” Maxine said, shaking his head.

I groaned and stared up at the sky as Crafty fidgeted. “Will all of Britain know I’m
female before this century is over?”

“Qui
te possibly, but I doubt it,” Little John said.

“Who would want to admit they’ve been robbed by a girl?” Will Scarlet agreed.

“WILL, LITTLE JOHN! NOT HELPING!” I shouted.

“She’s like this a lot,” Little John whispered to Maxine.

“You better not tell the King. She’ll be so disappointed,” Will Scarlet added.

“YOU TWO!”

“Sorry!”

I glared at Scarlet, giving him the evil eye, before looking to Little John. He had a rueful smile on his lips, but he nodded.

It would take some time…but we were going to be fine.

True to his word, Maxine escorted a very torn Marian to Eleanor’s courts. (She was beyond ecstatic to be doing some of the actual outlaw work, but she was chagrined about returning to Eleanor’s ladies.)

Through out the months Friar Tuck kept us updated on the ransom status. Queen Eleanor did hawk some of the Crown Jewels and pawned many church treasures.

We outlaws continued to rob all through the rest of fall and into the winter when the ransom money was finally sent.
In the end only a little over 100,000 marks were sent to Henry IV of the Holy Roman Empire. He took the price and freed King Richard, even though it wasn’t the full ransom. King Richard was officially freed February 4, 1194

He returned to
England by March, and the second week into the month my Merry Men and I found a royal parade at our doorstop.

Chapter 9

Kindly Monks

“Does he really think we’re actually going to rob him?” I asked Maxine as I stood on the branch of a tree, watching King Richard and his men parade through Sherwood. Again.

“I think he’s hoping you’ll at least pop out so he can say hello,” Maxine groaned, clinging to the tree trunk with the death grip of a man not
used to such heights. (This was why I was usually the only one to climb high in the trees.)

“You think he would figure it out after we didn’t touch him those first few days,” I said, watching
King Richard ride underneath me on his beautiful white stallion. Again.

The first time the King
came through my men and I bowed at him from the shadows, unseen by the monarch and his company. The second time he came through we continued to watch in awe. Same with the third, forth, and fifth time.

It was now the eleventh
ride and I was starting to grow impatient.

With the King parading up and down the road through Sherwood
, greedy merchants and aristocrats would join with him since the news was spread far and wide that my men and I had not moved to rob him.

“Tell him we won’t reveal ourselves. Not ever!” I emphasized.

“I would, but then he would know I’m in contact with you and would
most likely order me to lead him to you,” Maxine said, glancing down at the glittering procession before squealing, “Do you always have to climb this high?”

“He can’t have come all of this way just to
see my Merry Men and me,” I scoffed. “Surely the King has more important things to be doing.”

“True. His original purpose in coming to
Nottingham was to force his brother to heel. It was a well known fact that Prince John’s been holed up in Nottingham for months. King Richard came to confront him.”

I snorted. “
Confront? Queen Eleanor, ever the mommy, made both King Richard and Prince John apologize to each other and said they were bad children.”

My usual awe and wonder at royalty was
wearing off.
Fast.
King Richard would cripple my outlaw practices at this rate. Besides, hearing Royal trumpets for eleven days straight was enough to make anyone testy.

“It didn’t quite happen like that. King Richard, thanks to Queen Eleanor’s gentle encouragement, kindly said his brother was mislead and improperly incite
d to rebel,” Maxine corrected, a thin sheen of sweat covering his forehead. “Can we climb down yet?”

“Go ahead. I’m going to signal my men to start laying pebbles down again. If we’re lucky a horse will get one wedged in its shoe and they’ll have to return,” I said, leaning off my branch.

There was a thump and the shivering of leaves. I straightened up and blinked once before smiling at Will Scarlet. A second peer off the branch confirmed my suspicions. Little John was at the base of the tree trunk, looking up at me.

They never liked leaving me alone with Maxine.
(Will Scarlet especially.)

“
Hello Will,” I said. “We were just about to come down. I need to tell Tom to begin spreading the pebbles,” I said before starting to slide down the tree. “Help Maxine down, please?

“Too late, I’m already following you,” Will said, hopping from branch to branch like a cat.

“Will, you can’t just leave Maxine up there. WILL!”

Once safely down the tree Maxine said his good byes.

“Please, somehow, tell King Richard. Or allude that Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men will never,
ever
,
ever
stop him on the road,” I instructed

“Right,” Maxine said, weakly throwing
an arm in the air before stomping off thru the forest.

“Little John, signal down the line that we need to throw the pebbles to hopefully make a horse temporarily lame. Tom should be in position,” I said, turning to my second in command.
“Scarlet and I will head back to camp.”

“Oh yes, Marian managed to sneak into Sherwood. She’s chatting with Ellen at the moment, but having King Richard around is making her angrier than a mad hornet. Her mother is positively
wild
with glee because of all the knights King Richard’s toting with him,” Will Scarlet laughed, slipping an arm around my shoulders.

“Oh
that’s fair fantastic,” I muttered, shrugging the arm off me. I was still avoiding the topic of love like a leper, and I had loosened both Much and Will Stutely on Will Scarlet, but he was still being a blockhead and refused to be dissuaded from me. (That still didn’t change the fact that he was a
lord’s son
!)

“Plus there’s a new recruit who needs to be christened and sworn in. We also have the requests from Nottinghamshire, apparently taxes are going up again, even with King Richard’s return. We need to decide how to
start spreading the money,” Will Scarlet continued as we started walking through the forest.

“And what of George? Has he been sending any more for
esters to poke around Sherwood? Those last two nearly made it past the scouts,” I said.

“He’s
been quiet. He’ll probably start moving against us again when King Richard grows bored with Sherwood and leaves,” Scarlet replied.

“One of our men in
Nottingham kitchens said George is still brooding about Robin Hood’s real identity. He might be on to you, Robyn,” Little John added, trotting after us, having made the signal.

“Wonderful. Well, if we can’t rob
, at least George can’t move to get us,” I concluded.

“Isn’t that the truth.”

“All the same, I’ll be looking forward to the day King Richard leaves.”

“Will! That’s a terrible thing to say! I’m ashamed to call you one of my best men!”

“I’m just saying what you’re thinking.”

“You
rude
,
inconsiderate
creature! I love my King!”

“Oh sure you do. Until his tru
mpets start ringing in your forest
forever
.”

“For the love of all that is
still pure in this unholy world, I hope not.”

The following morning
I was
sprinting
down the road that twisted through edges of Sherwood Forest.

Why, you ask, was I running?

Because Little John, Will Scarlet, Much, and Will Stutely were in hot pursuit. Apparently they found a rouge knight, a
rogue
knight
, passing through the forest early that morning, and they wanted me to fight him.
Me
, quite possibly the weakest member in our band.

I did not take to that idea kindly, so I
was forced to run away. Unfortunately my Merry, and insane, Men followed.

I managed to ditch
them some time between releasing Crafty upon them and jumping across the river.

“Head to Nott
inghamshire. It’s the safest place,” I told myself as I jogged along. “I’ll hide with Much’s parents. No one will look for me there,” I muttered as I booked it around a turn in the road.

I was moving so fast
and I wasn’t prepared to find another person on the road, so I smashed straight into a brown robed abbot. I bounced right off the fellow and landed on the ground with a smack.

In an instant I was up. “Sorry, sorry, so sorry. I didn’t hurt you did I? No? Good. So sorry, I must run,” I said, every particle of my being screamed that I had to get going
now
.

If my me
n were to see me with the abbot they might make me fight him just to satisfy their sick sense of honor.

As I righted myself I took notice that I had run into a variable
pack
of abbots. There was not one monk but
twelve
.

“Making a pilgrimage?” I politely asked, pausing.

“One could say that. Yes,” said the abbot I had rammed into, his hood pulled low over his face. His voice was melodic and surprisingly deep.

“Ah, good luck,” I said as the other monks twittered around the abbot, patting him off. “Good day,” I called before I was off like a shot.

Some distance down the road I stopped and turned around to observe the monks again.

They were churchmen. Men of
God
. And oddly none of them sported the sagging belly that Friar Tuck and his compatriots seemed to have.

“They’re going to get trampled by King Richard and his procession,” I grimly noted.

I groaned and shouted, “CURSES.”

That drew the attention of the twelve abbots.

“Sorry!” I chorused, quickly crossing myself before bolting back to the front of their group. “Dear men, are you not well? I cannot help but notice your lack of… of… girth,” I said making an imaginary pot belly with my arms to illustrate my point.

The head abbot tilted his head. “Excuse me?”

“You aren’t fat. Are you fasting? Or has your pilgrimage really been that difficult,” I inquired.

“We have come far,” one monk piped in.

“Not
that
far,” the head abbot corrected.

I weighed out my conscious
and sense of survival.

I try
to do good things for people whenever I can. At this point I was still a little terrified that I would be sent to hell for my pleasant life of banditry. This was the perfect time for me to do something good, especially for a man of God. (I imagine I hadn’t won any points with my mistreatment of the bishop at Alan-A-Dale’s wedding)

… B
ut when my Merry Men caught me back at camp I would
have
to fight that knight!

I mulled over it before deciding. “Men, how would you feel about dining w
ith me and my company?” I exhaled, yanking the invitation out of me.

“Who are you?” the abbot I had smashed into asked. Apparently he was their spokesperson.