stag’s legs collapsed under him. He rolled over on his side and lay still. Without thinking, Robin sprinted out of the trees and into the open. He had gone only a few paces when he was grabbed from behind and hurled to the ground. His father lay beside him breathing hard, his eyes blazing. “What’s the matter with you, Robin? Haven’t I told you? Run in the forest and you can be heard for miles. Do you want to bring the sheriff’s men down on us? Do you? And when you’ve killed, what have I always taught you?”
“Watch and wait,” Robin whispered, and his father’s grip slackened.
“You’ll be the death of me yet, Robin Hood,” he said ruffling his hair and then hauling him to his feet. “That was a fine shot. He died on his feet. By tonight, there’ll be a dozen or more people less hungry, and that’s something.” He took his knife from his belt and handed it to Robin, hilt first. “We’ll leave the head for the sheriff’s men as usual; but we have to be quick, it’s getting light already.”
They had just dropped to their knees beside the dead stag when they heard the snorting. It seemed to come from behind them. There was the sound of leather on leather, the jangle of harness and hushed urgent voices. After that it all happened so fast. One moment they were alone in the clearing with the stag, the next the ground shook with the thunder of hooves. The sheriff’s men were all around them, and his father was laying about him on all sides with his sword, and roaring in his rage.
“Go, Robin! Go while you can!”
Robin looked around him. They were coming out of the trees on every side, dozens of them, on horseback, on foot. His father was entirely surrounded. There was no reaching him, no helping him.
“Robin, in your mother’s name, will you go!”
He ran. He ran like a hare runs, as his father had taught him, weaving, dodging, swerving, and he was fast too, but not fast enough. He felt a horse pounding behind him, and another was charging directly towards him. He threw the knife because it was all he could think of. It took the rider coming at him in the throat. He swerved away, not even looking back to see him fall, and made for the trees. One glance back now, and Robin saw his father pinioned by his arms, spitting defiance in the face of his captors, the blood running down his face. Then two riders were coming after him, swords drawn. He had no more knives left to throw. There was nothing to do but run. He plunged into the forest where it was thickest, where he knew horse would have to slow to a walk. He scrambled up gullies, forded streams and found at long last the safety of a cave, one of the secret hideaways known only to his father and himself.
He lay back against the rock in the dark dank of the cave and tried to regain his breath and collect his thoughts. It was only now that he cried, for it was only now that he understood that he was an orphan and quite alone in the world. Worse, he had run away and abandoned his own father.
A voice spoke to him from the mouth of the cave. “They did not kill him.” It was a girl’s voice. She stood silhouetted against the light, a willowy figure, a bow in her hand, a quiver of arrows on her back. “They did not kill him,” she repeated. “We saw them. They took him away.”
Filled with sudden hope, Robin started to his feet. “Are you sure?” He came towards her, and then stopped dead.
“I am Marion.” She was a young woman and not a girl at all. “And I wish you would not stare at me like that.”
Her hair was white, not silver like an old person’s, not fair as his mother’s had been, but white, pure white. Her eyes seemed to glow red in the early morning sun. “You’re an Outlaw, aren’t you?” he breathed.
“We all are,” said Marion quietly, and she turned and ran off. Robin followed. As he emerged from the cold of the cave, he saw that the valley below him was filled with people, all of them gazing up at him and silent. Some had long white hair to their shoulders like the young woman. Some looked like children first, but they were not. They were dwarfs. Every one of them was dressed in the green of the forest. There were hunchbacks in amongst them, and it was one of these, the tallest, a hunting horn in one hand, that stepped forward and spoke up. “Your father was a good man. He fed the hungry. He fed the poor. We saw him. We watched him. We know everything and everyone that moves in the forest. We have to. Now he is gone and you are one of us. Like us, you are an Outlaw.”
The warning words of the village priest rang loud in Robin’s head. “With a wolf, you walk away slowly, and he’ll leave you alone. With a bear you look him in the eye and stay still. But pray you never ever see an Outlaw. If you do, then run for your life. Outlaws are child-eaters. Outlaws are blood-suckers.” There was nowhere to run to, and no time either. Robin was soon surrounded by half a dozen Outlaws who were plucking at his sleeve and grinning up at him. There was a wildness in their eyes that alarmed him at first, but then he saw that they were smiling eyes. These were no cut-throats. These were no child-eaters. They were reaching up and touching his hair, his ears. But their touches were gentle, inquisitive. Marion was there beside him. One or two of them were babbling incoherently.
“What are they saying?” Robin asked.
“They’re just happy you’re with us, can’t you tell?”
“Can’t they speak?”
“Course they can, but not like you or me. The sheriff caught them. He had their tongues out – for the sport of it.” Then the hunchback who had first spoken to him was limping towards him.
“I’m Will Scarlett,” he said, holding out his hand. “You’re welcome, Robin. Let’s get you home.”
And so Robin was led away into the forest by his escort of Outlaws. They went at a run, but silently. Not a twig cracked, not a leaf rustled. All around him the forest flitted with darting shadows. They were coming too, all of them. He looked everywhere for Marion, but could not see her. All day it seemed they travelled on, down deer tracks he never knew, and deeper into the forest than he had ever been in his life. It was evening before they came to a cliff face that rose sheer out of the forest. It didn’t stop them. They plunged suddenly into the darkness of what seemed to be a vast cave. Then they were running along a tunnel towards a pinprick of light the other end, out across a clearing, down a ravine and into thick forest again. When at long last they stopped, they stood still, breathing hard and listening.
Before Robin knew it, clamouring children were running towards him out of the trees. Many of those had Marion’s white hair and pink eyes, and one hobbled along behind the others on a crutch, his leg twisted inwards. There were lepers too, Robin saw, faces and fingers eaten away by the disease. He shied away, trying to fend them off, and was relieved to see Marion coming towards him. She took his hand and made off with him, shooing the children back.
They ate wild pig that night, all of them sitting in the shadows of a great crackling fire, but Robin had no stomach for it. It was not just that he felt their eyes watching him all the time, though that was part of it.
“You don’t speak and you don’t eat,” said Will Scarlett. “What’s the matter?”
“They’ll hang him, won’t they? My father, they’ll hang him. You were there, weren’t you? You saw it all. She said you did. Why didn’t you help?”
“How?” said Will Scarlett. “With what? Would you have us fight with our bare hands against armed soldiers? You hurled your dagger and you ran. If you hadn’t then you’d be in Nottingham tonight and tomorrow morning they’d be stretching your
