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“Your instinct is typically your strongest quality, Little John,” Alan said as way of encouragement.
Tuck nodded from the stair of the carriage, the door open across the way. “You know we’re with you until the end. Alan, Will, and I want the girl just as badly as you do. Tell us what you’re thinking.”
I stared into Tuck’s friendly face. “I’m thinking I might know where Robin ran off to . . .”
Chapter 45
Robin
Iwas back where it all began.
I’d ridden Mercy hard to get here, and feared I’d irreparably damaged the poor beast. Breathing heavily, she practically limped across the final stone bridge leading to the quaint, hilly countryside village, swaddled in forest growth and greenery.
There were no black-cloaked men or scary guards waiting for me here. No one who knew of my presence.
As Mercy’s hooves clomped across the rough cobbles, I glanced out at the rocky banks, littered with weeds, and the stones in the water shaping the flow of the soft current. The peaceful river we crossed over shared the same name with the village itself.
Loxley. The place of my birth.
Robert and I weren’t born in Wilford. Moving to that upscale province of Nottingham had been part of the marriage agreement between Sir Thomas and Baroness Joan, after Father realized how much land, property, and commerce Mama was due to acquire from the death of her father and abdication of her brother.
Joan became a wealthy baroness. In turn, Thomas reaped the spoils as well. While my father went off fighting wars in King Henry II’s name, and battling political opponents and neighboring landowners to keep our Wilford estate established and respectable, Mama toiled to increase the recognition of her fine garments, ultimately becoming a master of the textile trade.
Mama operated numerous tailoring, weaving, and spinning shops. She dominated the merchant markets and trade bazaars. She expanded her business with a savvy export model. Word had it her dresses and lacework were seen in the court of King Henry himself, wrapped around the elegant bodies of the nobility.
Most of this had come before my time. I knew these things through third-hand accountings. Even when she wasn’t ill, Mama didn’t talk much of her trade. I learned to sew from a young age before I became more interested in the unladylike pursuits of archery and swordplay from Robert, much to Mama’s chagrin.
After King Henry’s death, the court and outlook of the country changed. Mother’s wares became less noticed. As a tiny whelp, I remembered my uncle whispering about the Great Revolt—an ugly, violent time when King Henry’s own sons rebelled against him, vying for power and land among the provinces.
Such is the case when you have five sons, I suppose.
Though the rebellion failed, it caused a fracture among the royal family. Pacifying the greedy youths was difficult. Prince Richard and his brothers John, Henry, William, and Geoffrey waited on the wings, salivating for Henry’s death.
Fifteen years after the revolt, when I had seen close to twenty summers, the sons got their wish. Henry died, Richard became king. Within a year of his coronation, Richard raised enough money to fund his great Crusade, levying the taxes on the rest of us. My mother’s business had been hit hard. With Richard gone to unknown lands, Prince John thrust himself into the figurehead position as England’s high ruler, and exacerbated those taxes and tariffs.
Now, people were destitute. My family would always be fine because people needed clothes, but I remembered a time when I was young when we lived in splendor and glory, with no less than ten maids on-hand. It was like a dream to me, now.
Others had sunk lower. People who had been on the cusp of respectable lives before fell by the wayside, forgotten. The poorest folk mired in outright poverty. Rebellion sprouted across the provinces all over again, aimed again at the aristocracy of this country.
Thus the Merry Men. Thus the multitudes of other secret gatherings of rebels and revolutionaries across England.
It was a solemn thought to have, thinking about the truncated history of my people while shuffling across that stone bridge.
Not everything had been bad. I’d still lived better than most, spoiled and entitled beyond my understanding as a child. Yet I recalled—from youth to adulthood—a gradual, consistent downward spiral to my quality of life.
My brother Robert dying in a nameless, pointless war broke the family. Mama became sick with grief—an ailment she’d yet to recover from. Father became angrier, sterner, and more prone to violent outbursts. Those outbursts were usually targeted at me because he had no other outlet. He couldn’t well maim or injure his servants and maids, because then they wouldn’t be able to perform their duties.
After being robbed and abducted by the Merry Men, I knew the worst of it all. And, surprisingly, against all expectations . . . I knew the best of it, too.
I missed those callous men. I missed my blood family. Especially my mother. I hoped to find something here to show me I was on the right path.
It had taken me nearly an entire day of traveling to get here, and I hoped for some kind of payoff for my efforts. If nothing else, I felt I was at least free of the cloying talons of Sir Guy of Gisborne. He had no reason to follow me here because it wasn’t on his map of locations. Most people had no clue the quaint village of Loxley was associated with my family—that my father owned a small plot of land here, far to the north of Nottingham in Yorkshire.
I imagined I was free, not understanding that I’d never been free, whether I was living as a prisoner in my own home or a prisoner to the Merry Men.
Loxley was a prison of its own—a soft mirage on a rolling river, framed by the charming landscape of a countryside shire as the bars of its jail cell.
Night had fallen. I was exhausted, yet I couldn’t sleep. I needed to discover if my hunch was correct. The yearning for knowledge drove me forward.
