Little John paused long enough to tie something around the calf of one leg and one forearm—pushing Tuck’s hands aside as he tried to look at the wounds first—and limped out again. Robin, who had been to see Marian, found him searching in the lengthening shadows of late afternoon for arrows. They collected half a dozen still usable ones of their own; they rejected Guy’s shorter, clumsy shafts, of which there were a great many more. When they returned to the very rough camp that was spreading out in front of Tuck’s cottage, they brought with them two squirrels and two rabbits, and were cheered like heroes.
By then Robin was limping too, and claimed to be surprised when Tuck discovered that one foot had been half cut off. Robin shook his head. “I don’t remember it,” he said.
“You’ll know as much about it as you’ll want to by tomorrow morning,” said Tuck.
Of those who lived, Marian’s was still the worst case, and Tuck had cause to be grateful for this gruesome favour. He used up his small store of candles that night, tending to the wounds of the ten outlaws that were left, while the sweat ran down his face and his eyes blurred with exhaustion. He had no sleep that night, but he did not think this was unfair, for he was the only one of them all who had lost no blood during the past day; and by morning all his patients were at least no worse. A few—Marian among them—looked to be healing.
Tuck was nonetheless luckier than many, for no one got much sleep the night after the battle. Cecily could neither lie still nor move; her shoulder pained her incessantly, and the earthwork’s small store of whisky and brandy, which most of the outlaws were happy to apply to, did her no service. She had never tasted the contents of the flask her brother had hung round her neck that day; she had told herself that she would in just another moment, when she could not bear it any longer. Then when that moment passed, she said the same to herself again, and so more moments passed; and then she had seen Guy and Robin in the clearing in front of her tree; and then she had made her way down out of that tree, with Rafe’s help, and had given her flask to Tuck. She’d finally tried a sip or two—which did burn distractingly and not unpleasantly on the way down—but then it began to make her queasy.
She drifted in and out of consciousness; her dreams were as dreadful as wakefulness, for she dreamed that someone was pulling her head back to cut her throat, only the pain of it somehow always concentrated in her shoulder. Or she dreamed that her staff was broken and a man with a sword was about to—she awoke with a gasp and a jerk, and the jerk set fire to her shoulder all over again. As the night wore on, she grew more and more tired.… She wondered how Marian bore it so patiently.
“Her time will come later,” said a familiar voice; “it is not so bad for her now because she is too ill to notice so much.”
Cecily’s eyes came open. Little John was sitting beside her, one of his knees drawn up and one arm around it; his other leg looked as long as a young tree, and there was a rusty-brown bandage, rough as bark, tied below the knee. She tried to sit up, and he slid his unbandaged arm under her with a dexterity that suggested he had dealt with other people’s injuries before: “Aye,” he said, “you do not suppose we outlaws win all our victories easily, do you?”
She smiled a little, and he picked up a cup that had stood hidden beside him. “I did not want to waken you if there was no need,” he said. “But this may help your sleep a little, if only a little, and it will ease the heat of the wound.” She drank obediently, though it had a bitter taste. “What is it?”
Little John made the low rumble that passed for his chuckle. “An old farmwife’s remedy. My father used it on sore oxen.… Our village thought him a great man for the remedy, for we had no oxen to spare.”
Cecily said, looking down into the cup, “It smells like what Tuck has been giving Marian.”
“It is,” said Little John. “It is also good for sore oxen. Tuck says he learnt it from a brother of his order who had learnt it from an alchemist in Constantinople, and I say that the alchemist’s mother was from Nottinghamshire.”
This did not roil in her stomach as the whisky did, and while it was not exactly true that the pain in her shoulder lessened, it was true that the pain around it lessened, and she could feel the tips of her fingers again, and most of that side of her body felt less hot. “Is your leg very bad?” she said drowsily.
“No,” said Little John. “But Tuck seems to think it won’t stop bleeding unless I sit down for a while, so I’m sitting down. I’m not wholly sorry for the excuse; I was forgetting the way of sitting down, these last days. Is the draught helping?”
“Yes.” She sagged a little more against him, almost contented to have her shoulder hurt, if he would stay by her. The pain still got in the way enough that it was hard to think about anything, but there was a comfort in the sound of his breathing as the throbbing in her ears began to ebb.…
She fell asleep, leaning on his chest, and he edged her a little off a particularly painful bruise, leaned his head back against the tree he had propped them up against, and closed his own eyes.
Rafe and Sibyl were the nearest to unhurt of any of the outlaws, and Tuck could not afford to let them rest, although he was pretty sure each of them fell asleep standing up as soon as either stopped moving. Robin and Little John helped as they could, hauling water, chopping wood, even changing poultices; but Little John was limping too hard to disguise and Tuck told him to get off his leg and, preferably, to get some sleep. And shortly after that Tuck put his hand by accident on a bloody axe-handle and snatched at Robin, who had turned indifferently away, pulling back his sleeve and exposing a long slash on his upper arm.
“I don’t remember this earlier,” said Tuck.
“No?” said Robin in a neutral voice, and Tuck was too busy to pursue it, but merely bound it up and told him it was time for him, too, to try to sleep. Robin never had to tell anyone of his meeting, weaponless and with an armful of dead branches to break up for firewood, with one of Guy’s men. The next day, when the burying began, no one questioned the body of another mercenary.
Robin went often to watch for a minute or two by Marian’s pallet. There were several folk in the little half-cavern now, but every time he appeared in the doorway her pale face turned toward him. Sometimes he went in to her; sometimes he did not.
“I plan to go on living a while yet,” she whispered once. “You might as well attend to other matters.”
Dawn came. Tuck and Rafe and Sibyl and Robin fell down where they were and slept.
It was not surprising that they heard nothing.
Something flopped heavily onto Tuck’s legs some time in the early morning. Tuck did not leap awake as perhaps he should have; he groaned and with deepest reluctance began to sit up, and to grope down toward the obstruction, whatever it was. It was when his fingers touched fur that his eyes snapped open. Brown-eyes lay there, profoundly asleep. The dog, in his turn, groaned in protest as the legs were withdrawn, but when Tuck buried his face in the filthy ruff the tail thumped the ground once or twice, and a very long tongue curled out to loop around an available wrist. The two of them fell asleep again immediately, Tuck snoring gently into Brown-eyes’ nearer ear.
Robin had collapsed beside Marian; she shifted toward the edge of her mattress and trailed a hand over his face; he seized it in one of his and tucked it under his chin. The sound of approaching hoofbeats disturbed neither of them.
Little John and Cecily were nearest the sound, and their guardian instincts shoved them awake, but too late.
Sir Richard flung himself off his horse and shouted despairingly into the air of the clearing, empty but for the bodies of several mercenaries and the five outlaws whose bodies their friends had retrieved. “Are any of you alive?”
Robin came to the entrance of the earthwork on his hands and knees before he found the strength to rise to his feet and stagger toward daylight. Brown-eyes gave one disconsolate howl; Tuck sat up and wondered if he could get up any farther. Little John, a brown and green lump in the underg
rowth to Sir Richard’s eyes, differentiated himself from his surroundings as he hauled himself up a tree; Cecily emerged from the undergrowth by hauling herself up Little John.
Sir Richard and a few of his men stood, stiff with shock, looking around them. Guy’s men and Guy himself lay where they had fallen, and the turf was hacked and bloodied in many places. Sir Richard saw Tuck first; the friar was the only one who had not automatically withdrawn a little way into the trees to sleep. Tuck blinked at the man before him, recognising a friend without being able to remember another thing about him. “What of Robin Hood?” said Sir Richard, his voice sharp with fear. “I heard the news only this morning—Alan-a-dale’s wife brought it to me before dawn, her feet and face bleeding from travelling in haste at night. Why did you not send to me?”
Robin’s voice seemed to echo from the ground by Sir Richard’s feet, and it was not only the horse that shied. “We were somewhat pressed for time, and for the use of every available pair of arms.”
“Good God, man,” said Sir Richard, peering down as Robin clambered out and stood before him, swaying—Sir Richard reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders. Robin winced, but Sir Richard did not drop his hands. “Did you even consider sending to me?” he said fiercely.
“No,” said Robin, after a pause. “Not, perhaps, for the reason you think, however.”
Sir Richard grunted, and turned to his men. “Don’t stand there gaping. You brought shovels, did you not? There are graves to be dug.”
“You came prepared,” said Robin.
“For almost everything,” said Sir Richard; his bow and his sword were slung across the front of his saddle. “Guy of Gisbourne! I did not think to see you standing before me again.”
Robin said, “It was a near thing enough.”
Rafe said, “Too near.”
Robin said, “For all of us.” He beckoned to Cecily. “Here is my saviour,” he said; “or Guy would have had me after all.” But Cecily shook her head and remained where she was. Sir Richard stared, and his brows snapped together, and he stalked over to her as he might toward a villein who had displeased him. Cecily could not square her shoulders, but she raised her head and glowered Cecil’s old familiar glower.
“Cecily of Norwell!” said Sir Richard. “You did no honourable thing running from your father’s house.”
“My father did no honourable thing in forcing me to accept a life I found hideous,” flared Cecily, though Sir Richard’s face swam through her vision like a trout in a sunlit stream.
“They all think you are dead,” said Sir Richard, no whit softened.
“I am dead,” said Cecily; “they killed me. I am now Cecil of Nowhere, one of Robin Hood’s outlaws.”
“I know your father,” said Sir Richard.
Will said mildly, “You know Marian’s father too, as you may recall; I don’t see there’s more than a farthing’s worth between ’em. Or do you wish to call me down too? Again?”
Sir Richard dragged his eyes from Cecily’s haggard face and fixed them on Will. “This does not go down well after our last meeting, does it?” A reluctant smile began to pull at the corners of his mouth. “And I stand here before the folk I wish to succour, arguing propriety.
“Forgive me,” he said to Cecily, and he bowed to her; and she inclined her upper body a fraction of an inch or so in return, as her shoulder would let her. “And now,” said Sir Richard forcefully, “you will all come back with me to Mapperley, where I can supply you with food and water and clothing—and beds—and even, perhaps, safety, at least for some little time to come.” He folded his arms and looked at Robin.
Robin smiled. “I am too tired to argue, my good friend, so I will merely thank you. I cannot think of anything to do with us, and food and water and clothing—and particularly beds—sound … miraculous. Later we can argue about the safety.”
“You are a sorry lot of ruffians,” said Sir Richard then; and they were, tattered and blood-stained, and not a one of them stood unsupported. The humour left his face and he added, “Is this all there is left of you?”
Robin glanced around. “Nearly. Most have been sent away in the last weeks, as I have expected … something. Not, I admit, something like Guy of Gisbourne, but I am glad my imagination failed me in this case.”
Sir Richard said softly, “For the rescue you made me the sheriff has sworn for your blood, whatever price it may cost him. You had done better to stay in Sherwood and go on rolling fat bishops off their ponies.”
Robin shrugged—gently; he possessed no bone or muscle that did not ache. “I am not sorry for the choice of adventure that gave you back what is yours; I do not know that I will even let you claim that battle as decisive. We would have rolled the wrong bishop sooner or later.” He looked around at his filthy, hollow-eyed companions, and added as if speaking to himself: “But the battle we have now won did perhaps lose us the war. I think that we cannot go back to Greentree, and be as we were.” He shrugged again—and winced; and brought his eyes back to Sir Richard. “And perhaps it is only the bruises which speak this way.”
There was a shout from across the little meadow: two of Sir Richard’s men were about to lift the body that in life had been Guy of Gisbourne. Sir Richard recognised the sword that one of the men brought him, and he looked again at Robin; the tale of Guy of Gisbourne was well-known most of the length and breadth of England, and the sword made the tale of Robin’s exhausted band suddenly real. Sir Richard took the sword and held it; he seemed also to be holding his breath.
“It was not so noble a fight as one might wish for the minstrel’s version,” said Robin.
“That depends on your point of view,” said Will. “I do suspect that ‘Cecily’ will prove an awkward rhyme.”
Robin did not answer; it was his own passion to face the man that had hurt Marian which he did not like to remember; but his private thoughts need not appear in the minstrel’s version either.
Three more men rode into the meadow; the outlaws looked wearily toward them, but they were only more of Sir Richard’s men. “Thank fate,” murmured Robin to no one in particular; “we could not get out of our own way just now.”
One said something to his master in a low voice. “We must get you out of here,” said Sir Richard. “Someone has already brought the tale of your day’s work to the sheriff; I had hoped this news might travel less fast. Although I expected it to travel less fast because I did not expect so conclusive an ending so quickly. The sheriff may not yet know that his champion is slain, but he knows that his followers have but put to something that looks much like rout—and this chapel, I fear, will be one of the first places he will look. Friar Tuck, I will ask you to come with us; I would not trust the sheriff’s temper now even to a priest and friar.”
“I would not either,” said Tuck sadly. “I thank you for the offer, and I am sorry to say that I accept.”
“Someone got away,” said Much. “I am sorry for that; it would have been better for us and for England—and for our minstrel—if we had made an end of them all.”
I wonder who it was? thought Cecily. And I wonder how he explained having got away?
“How many of you can ride?” said Sir Richard. Several grimaced, but none spoke; many eyes, however, went to the dark half-door that led beneath the knoll behind the chapel.
“Marian,” said Robin.
“Marian?” said Sir Richard quickly. “Is she here?”
Robin turned toward the dark opening. “Have you not heard that Guy of Gisbourne thought he had killed Robin Hood at the Nottingham Fair, two days past?”
“Killed?” said Sir Richard.
“She lives,” said Robin. “But—”
Tuck, leaning on his dog, said, “I do not like moving her.”
“Tell me,” said Sir Richard to Robin.
Robin answered, “It is Little John and Cecily’s story.”
After a pause Little John began reluctantly: “We went to the fair to listen to what the people met there would
be saying about the outlaws of Sherwood. And so we were at hand when the winner of the archery contest was struck by Guy of Gisbourne’s sword; Guy called out the name of Robin Hood, and the folk around heard. We knew it would not be he, but …”
“We brought away whoever it was,” said Cecily. “It was Marian.”
Sir Richard said, “If the Lionheart had an army made of folk like the outlaws of Sherwood, Saladin would not stand a chance.” He spoke in a low voice to the man who had brought him the latest news; the man remounted and left at a canter, ducking over the neck of his horse as it entered the trees. “We will have a litter and horses for the rest of you as soon as we may,” Sir Richard said aloud; “and, meanwhile, there are other tasks to attend to.”
Simon and Eva and Harald and Humphrey and Jocelin were buried in individual graves; Beauty and Sweetheart were buried together. The bodies of Guy and his men were heaved into one great common hole—dug by the fresh muscles of Sir Richard’s folk—and dirt smoothed over them as quickly as the earth could be shifted. Most of the outlaws made to help them, but they moved slowly and stopped often.
As the day wore on Sir Richard grew more anxious; his men caught his impatience and began to trip over each other and curse. Robin said mildly, “You might consider leaving us to our fate; if it overcomes us quickly enough we shall be too tired to notice or care.”
Sir Richard snorted. “I might almost be tempted, but I do not think our sheriff is in the mood to let you off with any swift fate. And there is Marian.”
When the litter finally arrived, it was a good one, hung on long poles between two horses, and piled with cushions and a feather mattress to ease the jolting as much as possible. It was a slow journey nonetheless. Most of the outlaws were unable to ride faster than a walking pace—most of them would have been unable to ride faster than a walking pace even were they unhurt—nor would Robin have let any of his folk ride on when Marian might need protection from whatever pursued them. And all ears strained toward the possibility of that pursuit.