Sherwood III 'Home At Last'

By W.Wm. Mee

Robin and Marian, along with Will, Much and Little John, have all made it safely back home to Locksley Hall from the Holy Land. King Richard however, has not. Captured and held for ransom by Duke Leopold of Austria, his mother Eleanor and his wife Berengaria must now raise a fortune in silver.
Prince John has used Richard’s misfortune as a stepping stone to the empty throne. Many of the barons however, reject John’s self-centered rule and rebel. A civil war erupts with John getting aid from another of Richard’s enemies, Philip II of France.
Sir Guy of Gisbourn and his cousin, the Sheriff of Nottingham, have given Marian and her followers till the end of September to vacate Locksley Hall --- or suffer the consequences.
At the end of Book II, Prince John, urged on by his beautiful witch-like mistress, Hawdwise of Chalus, was leading a combined English & French army north to fight the rebels under the command of someone known only as the ‘Hooded-Ghost of Sherwood’.
This ‘hooded ghost’ is really Marian’s brother, Sir Hugh Fitzwalter who, now, seriously wounded, can no longer lead his troops. Robin, Sir Hugh’s sometime lieutenant, steps in to take his place. The last thing we saw was Robin organizing a ‘special greeting’ for the Sheriff and his men when they come to evict Marian from Locksley Hall.
Meanwhile, Prince John is slowly leading his large force northward, planning eventually to lay siege to Sherwood itself if he has to in order to crush this ‘hooded ghost’!
Join us now for the third and final book of ‘SHERWOOD’ where Robin & Marian come ‘Home At Last’.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W.Wm. Mee
• Release date: Jun 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301358526

W.Wm. Mee

Wayne William Mee is a retired English teacher who enjoys hiking, sailing and walking his Beagle hound. He is also a 'living historian' or 'reenactor'. You can see Wayne's historical group on Facebook's 'McCaw's Privateers' 18th Century Naval Camp' page. Building & sailing wooden sailboats also takes up a chunk of Wayne's time, but along with his wife Maggie,son Jason and granddaughter Zoe, writing is his true love, the one he returns to let his imagination soar.Wayne would like you to 'look him up' on FACEBOOK and click the 'Friend' button or even zap him an e-mail.If you enjoyed any of his books, kindly leave a REVIEW here at Smashwords and/or say so on Facebook, Twitter, Tweeter or whatever other 'social network' you use.Thanks for stopping by ---and keep reading!!Drop him a line either there or at [e-mail]'ll be glad to hear from you!'Rest ye gentle --- sleep ye sound'

Book preview

Prologue

Green Branch Inn, Sherwood Forest

1225 A.D.

The Green Branch Inn

The edge of Sherwood

Just before Christmas

Tuck and me are still at it, though I’ll admit my tongue’s getting a might tired of flapping , just as I’m sure Tuck’s writing hand’s about to drop off! It snowed like a bastard all last night and was so cold I though my --- well, you know, that my ‘feet’ might fall off as well! But we’re back at it again this morning like a pair of priests trying to save a sinner!

We’ve finally gotten to the part where most of the minstrel stories begin --- the conflict between Robin and the Sheriff of Nottingham, and I’d like to get one thing cleared up right from the start --- most of the ballads and modern minstrel poems have Sir Guy of Gisbourn and the Sheriff as the ‘same bloody man’! I guess it makes the tale easier to tell, but like most of the shite they sing about, they’re wrong!

Another part they screw up something fierce is that Robin’s last name was ‘Hood’. It wasn’t, it was Bowman --- after his father, Thomas’s occupation as a forester and bowmaker for Locksley Hall. The ‘Hood’ part came because most of us wore dark, hooded cloaks to help hide in the forest, making it easier to suddenly appear and disappear like ‘hooded ghosts’. Stories soon sprang up about Sherwood being ‘haunted’ and the home of ‘fiendish outlaws’ led by a man in a hood!

The part that really angers me though is when they try to make Marian some sort of ‘ward’ of Prince John! She couldn’t stand the little bastard, let alone live under his roof!

But all that is neither here nor there! What’s important is that us two old farts get on with telling you what really happened. In a few places we had to sort of ‘make up’ conversations between people that neither of us heard. We’re getting pretty damned good at it too! Tuck especially! Gives the old fart a chance to use all his fancy high-brow words! We both know what the people were like and so making up what they’d say aint too hard. Tuck calls it going from the ‘First Person to the Third Person’, whatever the hell that means!

Oh, he just told me that the ‘third person’ is kind of like God, who ‘sees all and knows all’. Well, I don’t know shit about that, but it does make the story move along better; kind of like putting some mutton fat on your blade so it don’t stick in the scabbard. Fills in any holes in the tale and makes it easier to follow --- more interesting too if you ask me!

We got the witch’s diary right here with us too, so we know damned well what she was plotting! I don’t know much about her being no ‘wicca woman’ or tuning people into toads and what not --- but the Lady Hawdwise sure was one cold hearted bitch! Gives me the creeping bejeezers just to hold the damn thing, let alone reading her spidery writing!

Friar Tuck & Will Scarlet as old men in 1225 AD

But me and Tuck will get the job done --- even if it kills us! So sit back, Gentle Reader, find a soft chair and a stiff drink and let Tuck and me take you back nearly forty years to that blood drenched meeting between Robin, Marian and the Sheriff of Nottingham on that terrible day in late September of 1193.

***

PART ONE

1193-1194

SHERWOOD FOREST

Painting by NC Wyeth

Chapter 1: ‘A Day Of Reckoning’

1193

September 28th

Locksley Hall

Oh sweet Jesus but the blood! It was everywhere! They came at us from all sides! Even in boats from the blood washed shore of the lake! Not in the morning as we had thought, but like skulking murderers in the dead of night!

They killed the two sentries we had posted at the far end of the causeway; old Lester and his son Art. We found them later floating in the lake with their throats cut. Some sick bastard had cut off Lester’s finger to get his wedding ring. It was only brass but, since his wife’s passing several years before, Lester had kept it shining like gold.

The first wave must have then come on foot and waded the stream rather than use the causeway, for the men we had in the gatehouse had no time to sound the alarm before they too had their throats cut!

Once the gatehouse had been ‘secured’, the bastards must have poured down the causeway like a silent flood! This second wave would have been still on foot, for horses would have sounded on the stone bridge! Knives and crossbows only for this lot, as they split round the main hall, the left going into the courtyard proper while the right group crept over the green lawn to the barn and stables and the great stone keep beyond.

The back of the hall facing the lake was where their boats landed. Three or four large, rowed craft capable of carrying a dozen men each or more, all with readied blades and loaded crossbows, moving like silent shadows into the places that our men were to go at dawn.

And there they waited, as still as death, for the coming of the sun --- or the first tread of one of us.

***

Later, after all the killing and screaming and burning; after those of us still alive had bound up our wounds and done what little we could for the dead; after we had left the still smouldering hulk that had been Locksley Hall and found a quiet, cooling ‘sanctuary; in Sherwood, we attempted to piece together what had happened.

Either the sheriff or Sir Guy or some sick, twisted mind has planned this! Robin said, his voice a low growl .Like most of us, he was bleeding from several wounds and was blackened and soot covered from the flames that had blotted out the sun!

There wasn’t supposed to have been any killing! A None at all! Robin had it planned out perfectly! We were to let the sheriff and his men cross the causeway and trap them in the open courtyard! With over two dozen archers aiming down at them from prearranged positions, the sheriff would have no choice but to give up. We’d then hold him and his officers prisoner until some sort of justice was served and Sir Guy of Gisbourn was forced to accept our Royal Charter to Locksley Hall!

It was a good plan and it should have worked! It would have too if the crafty bastard of a sheriff hadn’t sent in over a hundred men ahead of him to kill us all as soon as it was light! And kill us they did, with crossbow bolts and sharp blades they slew over half of those that went early to their assigned posts --- supposedly ‘safe’ places from which to await the sheriff’s mid-morning arrival.

Robin and the some of us were eating a quick breakfast when were heard the shouting. Grabbing any weapons close at hand we rushed out to see what was amiss --- and came face to face with levelled lances and loaded crossbows!

It happened so fast that we were taken off guard. Both men and women were falling all around us: old toothless Oswald that ran the stables; short, round, red-faced Nan that ruled over the kitchen; Unfirth the one armed shepherd and burly Bjorn the blacksmith. And feisty, grey haired Harry Hunkin, who had survived the horrors of the Holy Land and come home to England seeking only peace. All cut down in the early morning light. People I had known for years lay dead and dying all around, their blood running down the walls and pooling in the courtyard!

But the greatest hurt of all came when I saw my Little Rose step in front of a bolt that was meant for me. It took her just below her heart and she sagged back into my arms. My Sweet William she said with a smile marred by a trickle of blood. They’ve killed me, love. Now you must go on --- alone. Bury me --- at our place --- down by the lake. She’d stiffened then, and let out one long last sigh --- and was gone.

I don’t remember anything after that --- except for sitting there crying with her in my arms. It was all noise, flames and smoke around me, but I marked it not. My Rosie was gone and with her had followed the best part of me. The part that remained, the dark, ‘other’ part, slowly laid her down and, after one last kiss, I covered her smiling face with a cloak. I then drew my knives and went looking for someone to kill. Apparently I found a good number of them, but it’s all still a blur. I’d taken several wounds, but I felt nothing till the next day --- when I woke back in Sir Hugh’s camp, aching, sore and dead inside.

For days, even weeks after, I felt like a man caught up in a waking dream, lost in a foggy, ghost haunted place between heaven and earth, wandering with a broken heart in an endless forest that was nothing like Sherwood.

***

Chapter 2: ‘A Twist of Fate’

‘Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.’

(Macbeth)

1193

Late Fall

Outlaw’s Camp

Sherwood Forest

My memories of those first few months are hazy --- not because they are now so long ago (which they are); or because I’m getting old, (which I am), but because I was drunk most of the time. Little Rose’s death had hit me hard and a large part of me wanted to die as well. I took the coward’s way out however and tried to drown myself in a bottle.

It was Marian that saved me. Not with any kind words or a tender touch --- but with a good tongue lashing followed by a swift kick in the ass!

I still recall her words as she smashed the latest bottle I had been sucking on. It was a lengthy speech, but every word of it is still burnt into my soul.

"If you bloody well want to kill yourself, Will Scarlet, then there are much more useful ways of doing it than crawling into a bloody bottle! Go kill the sheriff instead! Or better yet, that bastard Sir Guy! The world’s just full of cruel, heartless, buggers ripe for the killing, and yet here you sit in you sorrow and your filth and do nothing! Well, go do nothing some place else, for I’m sick to death of the sight of you!"

And then she said the one thing that did reach me. "And so is Little Rose! Do you think it makes her happy looking down from heaven to see her man carry on so? You should be ashamed of yourself! I know she is!"

THAT did it!

From that moment on I sobered up and stayed sober --- and went looking for the bastards that killed my Little Rose!

***

I didn’t have to look very far, for Prince John had for once kept his bloody promise and put Sherwood under siege! He probably would have kept his other one as well about burning the place down, but it had been a bastardly wet fall and it was hard to find enough dry wood for a small campfire, let along start a bloody forest fire!

And just how, you might ask, Gentle Reader, can one put an entire forest under siege; especially a very large one like Sherwood?

The answer of course is that you can’t --- unless you are a cunning little shit of a ‘prince’ who brings not only his own army but the one sent by Philip of France to do the job --- forcing or bribing the local barons to help him along the way!

Advised by his more experienced officers not to actually ‘enter’ the forest, but to ‘surround’ it, that fall of 1193 every road, trail and path leading in or out of Sherwood was watched; every stream, river and dry creek-bed had men posted on them and every town, hamlet, village or single farmhouse close by the edge of the great forest had a garrison of troops in it patrolling the forest’s edge. Prince John stretched a ‘human rope’ around Sherwood that fall while he himself sat back and feasted at either Sir Guy of Gisbourn’s castle or one of the several other nobles that backed his bid for the empty throne!

And what did we do during those long wet months and all through that cold, snowy winter? We fought back in any way that we could! We attacked guard posts, shot patrolling soldiers, ambushed supply trains and vanished back inside the forest like wraiths in the mist! ‘Robin and the hooded ghosts of Sherwood’ they started calling us, all helped along by the tunes Alan Adale would make up and sing at the local taverns --- for who could tell if a wandering minstrel (or anyone else for that matter), was one of the notorious ‘hooded ghosts’ or just an innocent man having a drink after a hard days work?

It didn’t really matter if Alan’s tales were true or not, (which, for the most part they were), as long as they spread the word of our ‘great and many victories over Prince John’s cruel hand of oppression’!

Of course Alan and anyone else caught ‘spreading’ these ‘treasonous tales’ would either have his tongue cut out or find himself at the end of a rope twisting in the wind --- but then there is a price to pay for everything, and as Much was wont to say: ‘Freedom is never free, but paid for in blood!’

One damp night in the early spring of 1194, several of us had gone to the Boar’s Head Tavern at the northern edge of Sherwood up by Barnsdale. John still had family there and Helga, who had caught a fever, was staying with them while she recovered --- for despite all the ‘romantic notions’ of living an idyllic life ‘wild and free in the greenwood’, a wet fall and a snowy winter in a forest huddled beneath a pine bow lean-to round a damp, smoking fire is not the healthiest places to be!

Like John, most of our band had family or friends that would shelter them in the worst months, for wars big and small seldom are fought in the winter, and those that are usually come to little more than the odd skirmish while both sides try to stay warm!

Prince John’s ‘siege of Sherwood’ was no different, and so, despite the ‘human rope’ that stretched around the great forest, many of us came and went as we pleased, disguised as poor farmers or tradesmen. As long as no weapons were carried openly, the guards had no way of knowing who was not what they claimed to be.

***

From the Personal Diary of

Hawdwise of Chalus

‘The Spinning of a Web’

1194

The Season of Wildflowers

A castle near Nottingham

I hate the north!

It’s wet, wild and cold and it reminds me of my home in Cymru and I can’t wait to leave the damnable place!

Ahhh, but now that Johnny has agreed to my plan, we’ll soon have this ‘Hooded Ghost’ and his followers either dangling from ropes, or better yet, left lying in their blood in Sherwood!

And what a cunning plan it is even if I do say so myself!

A plan within a plan, really --- using one greedy fool to catch another naive one!

Quite simple really, but then mother always said that ‘the simpler the plan the more easily believed’ --- and as usual the old bitch was right!

It went this:

We find two or three greedy fools that we know have some former connection or sympathy for the rebels.

We tell them of our plan to bring wagonloads of silver south through Sherwood and then have them constantly watched.

Johnny thinks that a mercenary named Bloom would be our best bet, but I’m not so sure. The handsome rogue is far too clever for his own good! I’ll have Johnny pick some penniless lord and idiot priest as well!

Regardless of ‘who’ we pick however, at least one of them will try and sell this information to the rebels

What makes this plan so delicious is that the fool will actually believe that he is telling them the truth, and so set the bait without even knowing it!

Of course there will be soldiers, not silver, in the wagons, and others will be following close behind to rush in and finish off the ‘would be thieves’!

Perhaps saving a few for public hanging might be wise as well?

Johnny will so enjoy parading this ‘Hooded Ghost’ in a cage from town to town, showing peasants and nobles alike the fate that awaits any who stand in his way!

The real silver shipment will travel south a day or two later, but not to that bitch Eleanor to buy back her butcher of a son, but into my Johnny’s coffers to help buy our way to the throne!

What a spineless little worm my Johnny is --- yet that only makes him all the easier to control!

But I don’t trust this Sir Guy of Gisbourn! He’s too bloody crafty by half!

If he was female he’d make a good ‘wicca’, but since he’s only a man he’s no better than a rutting dog sniffing out a bitch in heat --- only the scent that drives him mad is not a desire for women, but for power and wealth.

And, what makes him doubly dangerous is that he desires power far more than wealth!

Sir Guy will most certainly bare watching in the future!

Perhaps I should have Johnny have him killed?

Better yet, perhaps I will do it myself!

But that is a web best spun another time.

Now things are afoot to catch the ‘Ghost of Sherwood’!

***

Boar’s Head Inn on the River Tyne

Two days later:

The ‘Boar’s Head’ was a large, stone building on the northern edge of Sherwood that we sometimes frequented. It was out of the way on a lonely road that eventually led up to Hadrian’s Wall and on into the great stony hills of Scotland. Fairly well used in the warmer, dryer months, in the winter and early spring both the road and the inn saw few travelers till the rains had stopped and the mud had dried. Now and then some of Prince John’s soldiers stopped by on their patrol of the northern edges of Sherwood, but as the road was still a river of mud and the sun was almost down, we expected none that night.

We were all enjoying a meal served with an actual roof over our heads for the first time in a month! Alan had just finished one of his saucier tunes about Robin making a fool of a fat greedy bishop by capturing and stripping him not only of his money, gold chains and rings, but of his costly outer garments as well, leaving the pot-bellied pontiff red faced and standing in the road in his underwear!

Give us that other one, Alan! Stevie yelled out. Where Robin meets the sheriff and challenges him to a fight!

Since I had sworn off strong drink till I saw Little Rose’s killers all dead and in the ground, Stevie seemed to have felt it his duty to drink my share as well as his own.

Alan wet his own whistle, tuned a string on his battered old lute and began to sing in that clear, sweet voice of his.

***

‘Robin Meets the Sheriff’

by Alan Adale

A smile flashed quickly from deep in his hood,

As he saw the sheriff ride by.

He fitted a shaft to his bow of yew wood,

For he’d promised that the man would die.

But to kill him quickly was far too kind,

His fate should be much worse than that!

So Robin lowered his longbow,

And threw back his hood,

And boldly walked up to the rat!

‘Welcome to Sherwood,’ he clearly called out,

As he strode from shadow to light.

‘Your purse I’ll take for the poor, sir lout,

Unless you’d rather we fight?’

‘Fight a low born cur like you, sirah?!

I’d not dirty my blade on a knave!’

‘Bold words, brave sheriff,’ smiled Robin.

‘Words you can take to your grave!’

‘You’d not shoot a man in cold blood?’

The sheriff cried out in alarm.

‘Think you I’d not?" beamed back Robin,

‘Let’s see the strength of your arm!’

But the sheriff refused to draw his sword,

Though Robin gave him every chance.

Instead he set spurs to his mount’s scarred side,

(pause)

And rode off while wetting his pants!

We’d all just raised our mugs and roared out the last line of the song again --- ‘and rode off while wetting his pants!’, when the door banged open and in came a half dozen soldiers with blades drawn and blood in their eye.

Everyone sit right where they are! a burly sergeant barked out as he stalked into the room. He had his visor up and a naked broadsword in his hand and more men flowed about him like water. I noticed immediately that they were all wearing the surcoat of Sir Guy of Gisbourn, a gold dragon on a field of black --- how ‘very fitting’!

Any sudden move will be your last! the sergeant bellowed, then turned to the still open door --- and in strode Lancel Broom in all his well dressed spender! Sam, the large, quiet man Broom called ‘Bedavear’ came in behind him, guarding Lancel’s back as usual. Of the lad called Mordred there was no sign.

Broom stood there like Caesar must have when he first set foot on this blood drenched isle, his handsome face and too toothy smile moving arrogantly about the room. When he saw Stevie and me his bloody smile widened further. "Will! Stevie! So good to see you again! Is Robin here?"

Why? I asked, putting as much hatred and sarcasm in my voice as I could. Are you looking for another good beating?!

What I’m looking for, William, he replied softly, "is the ‘Hooded Ghost of Sherwood’."

I snorted out laughter at that. You and a thousand other fools like you! You’ll not catch Robin so easily!

Ahhh, Broom said, his grin going from ear to bloody ear. "Then Robin IS this Hooded Ghost! How kind of you to confirm that for me. I told Sir Guy that he was, but the tiresome man insisted that it was Marian’s brother, Sir Hugh."

Angry at myself for falling into one of Brooms bloody word games, I closed my mouth and glared as the smug bastard continued to look around the room.

I don’t see John or the hunchback either. They didn’t fall during that nasty business at Locksley Hall did they?

You should know, bastard! I spit out. You were there!

The smile vanished. "I most certainly was not! I told both the sheriff and Sir Guy that I would have nothing to do with harming Marian!"

I snorted out another laugh. "And you expect me to believe that?!"

The tall mercenary came towards me and sat at my table. Sam, the one he called ‘Bedavear’, came and stood behind him.

I know that you don’t like me, Will. You never have.

You got that right, sell-sword!

But, he continued, ignoring my insult, "I truly do care for Marian. Oh I know that I’ll never win her heart, for she’s clearly given that to Robin ---but I swear to you on all that’s holy that I will never do her any harm."

Again, why should I believe you? I asked, though some of my anger had already been replaced by doubt. Could this vain, self-centered mercenary truly care for Marian? Then it hit me! It wasn’t his faults I should look at, but her virtues! She won hearts wherever she went! We were all, the good, the bad, and those in-between, drawn to her like bees to a flower. Why not this arrogant fool as well?!"

I leaned in closer to him. "If what you say is true, if you swear that you would never do anything to hurt Marian --- then why work for the sheriff? Why wear Sir Guy’s colours?"

Suddenly the smile was back. "Why not fight for bold ‘Robin of the Hood’ and his beautiful lady love, Maid Marian? The answer, my dear Will, is quite simple ---money! A man cannot live on honour alone --- at least, a man like me can not. It is a dish that I find far too bland for my liking."

Stevie, who had been listening bleary eyed from the other side of the table, suddenly leaned over an gripped my arm. Yer not gunna believe that load o’ shite, are ye Will?! Why, the smilin’ bastard’s lying through his arsehole as usual!

And a hail and well met to you too, Steven! Broom said loudly, that toothy grin once again on his handsome face. He then turned to Alan. I heard the end of your song, Alan. Quite witty! I’m not too sure that the sheriff however will appreciate your talent.

"And will you be the one tellin’