Lady Marian

Chapter 33

It was evening before I arrived at Locksley village. Late winter twilight was settling over the meadow, casting peculiar shadows in its wake. The sky still held some of its bluish hue in the remains of the sun settling beneath the horizon. Gradually the blue shifted into shades of charcoal, a few early stars piercing through this cold veil. The sky and the grey snow beneath my feet seemed almost to be knit together, with a ribbon of Sherwood Forest between them.

I paused in the last remaining shadow of Sherwood trees to check for signs of the sheriff. The telltale marks of carriage tracks were still visible in the snow. A few male serfs moved through the village, casting slow shadows between the huts, with equally slow and bated conversation.

I took a deep breath and edged myself down the hill, ready to run through the next man who accosted me. Perhaps Robin routed the soldiers. Perhaps the guards were still hidden throughout the village. Perhaps I too was walking into a trap. Perhaps I would be strung up before daybreak, and that would be end of that.

Gripping the sword at my hip, with the practiced air of a Crusader, I entered the village. The men stopped their tense movements and stared at me. Women emerged from the huts, wiping their hands on rags and shooing children back inside as I marched to the village square. I stopped in the centre of the square, at a sickly-looking oak tree, and waited. A cluster of villagers gathered around me, their silence as cold as the frosty air. I took a deep breath of the frigid substance and began.

"I am looking for my husband Robin Hood and his men. They left in this direction naught but two hours ago."

The villagers looked at each other. A slight murmuring rippled through the ragged crowd.

"I know that they have been here." I studied the men's faces for bruises, the women's aprons for Scarlett stains. They were both blank, say for lines and wrinkles.

"Aye, Lady Marian," a man answered. "Your men were here."

"And now? Where shall I find them?" I asked exasperated.

Again, an uncomfortable silence. I wanted to grab a young man by the throat, shake him and demand why he was unscathed. Did he not fight back when Nottingham's soldiers entered the village to take my Robin? If I, a lady with child, could slay a guard in the wood with naught but a dagger, what was wrong with him?

A woman wormed her way to the front of the crowd. She spoke, "When we had returned from our labours Sir Guy's men came. They threatened our men by holding our children, aye, and us women at knifepoint. They held us hostage in our own homes, with naught to eat or drink, until Robin Hood came here and with his Merry Men, he did. Brave men they are too, for when they realized the trap they had walked in to, they held the sheriff's men off for some time. Naught did they fail to do to release us from the guards. Our own Little John, Will Scarlett, and Much the old miller's son killed three or four guards apiece—aye and our good priest as well. Robin Hood himself struck down at least fifteen men with his bow, and when he had no more arrows in his quiver, he showed himself as skilled with the sword as any of the king's men."

"Where are they now?" I struggled to keep my voice even.

"Nottingham Castle, I warrant thee, Lady Marian," the woman answered, dropping her eyes.

"And Sarah? My maid born in this very village?"

The crowd looked at me, at their rough and wet shoes, and again at me.

"Is a woman the only one brave enough among you to answer me?" I pushed my way through the crowd. "Who will come with me to release these men, for surely they belong to you as well as to me?"