Chapter 20 | Little John
“You fought in the king’s army, like me,” Robert said as our horses trotted down the road leading up to Ravenshead.
We had mostly been quiet since setting off, so his words startled me a bit.
I was proud of Robin for being decisive and directing her Merry Men to do her bidding. She was learning to become a true leader—delegating, not trying to do everything her damned self.
I wondered why she chose me to ride with Robert on the western route, but it became apparent quickly enough. I had been the first of Robin’s mates that Robert met. I was the only one who had seen the Oak Boys camp. We had something of a rapport, even if we were little more than strangers at this point.
We both fought for the same thing, and aimed to protect the same person precious to us both: Robin Hood. One of us, brother, one of us, lover. Our goals were congruent.
“I did. Many years before you did.” My voice was little more than a grunt. My eyes scanned the fringes of the road and the trees we passed, looking for any sign of Templar activity—anything to give us a clue regarding that cryptic message from Sir Guy of Gisborne.
I can’t believe we’re trusting him. A man who hates us almost as much as he hates himself.
It was Robin’s decision, though, and I trusted her more than anyone. She was my world, and I’d follow her to the depths of despair if needed, even if it was an ill-advised trek.
We’d been out in the deep-thick woods for a while now, and had nearly traveled the entire road in one direction. Now we were giving our horses a break from galloping. The words were easier to hear without the wind rushing through my ears.
“You had honor before you joined—or created, rather—the Merry Men,” Robert said.
What is he getting at?
“If you want to call it that, Robert of Loxley.” I eyed him, riding abreast of me. “I’m surprised to hear you equating honor with the king’s army, after how you said they treated you.”
He chuckled. “Aye, true enough.” Scratching the back of his neck, he looked off toward the trees. He seemed embarrassed. Then he said, “I ask if you have honor because I need to know you’ll protect my sister when I’m gone.”
My brow arched, anger twitching my jaw. “You know I will, lad. That isn’t even a question. Where are you planning on going?”
“Oh, nowhere. Yet. I am a nomad by nature, though, Little John. I can’t bear the thought of bringing danger to the people I love from my own stupidity.”
I raised a single brow. “There’s that honor you’re speaking of. You’re a selfless man, Rob.”
He smiled at me. “I think we would have been friends in the army.”
“We can be friends now,” I said. “Best not to dwell on the past, I’ve learned, lad.” I was surprised I even said the part about being friends. I wasn’t a man who typically had many friends. Will, Tuck, and Alan were the only men I trusted with my life.
Could Robert fit in there somewhere, too?
He’s Robin’s brother, after all. She trusts him, so why shouldn’t I?
Alarm bells went off in my head at that thought.
I shouldn’t trust him because I’ve learned what happens when you trust strangers. Doesn’t matter if he’s Robin’s brother.
Every man is out for himself out here in Sherwood Forest.
It was a cynical worldview, but one that had kept me alive.
Robert cleared his throat. “I have a feeling danger will be chasing Robin wherever she goes, so long as she tries to destroy everyone who’s ever harmed her.”
“Aye. The list is long, and growing by the day. You might be right.”
“I mean, a bishop? That’s ambitious, even for my standards.”
I chuckled. Then my mood darkened as I remembered my stay as Sheriff George’s captive. Though it was months ago now, it seemed so recent when I thought of it. A terrible time—not just because of what George did to me, but because of the misery I felt being separated from Robin and my men.
I should have never doubted they would rescue me, with Robin charging front and center, running the entire operation.
“Like Friar Tuck,” I said lowly, “Bishop Sutton has only ever showed me kindness. When I was Sheriff George’s prisoner, he would come walk me through the yard—the only exercise I got a day. We would speak of penance and life. I can’t imagine he would be hiding such a dark secret.”
“The wickedest ones don’t advertise their vileness, Little John. My misnomer, Oliver? He was a childhood friend.” A dashing smile slashed across Robert’s face. “Robin would never admit it, but she fancied him when they were whelps.”
I scoffed.
Robert’s features darkened. He stared down at the ground in front of his steed’s hooves, flexing his jaw. “Me and a couple other soldiers caught Oliver raping a Saracen lass during one of our town raids, not far from Acre. As if the assault wasn’t bad enough, it was the idea of tainting his Christian blood that would have finished him.” Robert sighed and shook his head. “So Oliver concocted a plan with the other soldiers who caught him, and they placed the blame on me. Guess I had pissed one of them off at some point, and they were all for destroying my good name.”
My eyes widened. Christ Almighty.
“I was reprimanded and shunned by the army and my comrades. Only got let out from the garrison a month later, because we were running short on soldiers on the front lines. We did another raid, and that’s when Oliver met his end.”
I tilted my head. “No big remorse there, I’m sure.”
Robert flared his nostrils. “A childhood friend, John. Remember. Oliver hadn’t always been that way. Robin would remember him as the happiest lad. The military changed him awfully.”
“It changed all of us, Robert.”
He huffed and nodded. “Sure as hell did.”
He paused his grim tale, the thudding hooves of our horses filling our ears. Animals in the trees made little sounds in the late afternoon.
“I killed him, John. It wasn’t a Saracen’s blade that took Oliver’s life. It was me, when no one was watching. My rage blinded me.”
I blinked, and my whole body went rigid. Robert’s tone was flat as he said it. When I looked over, he still stared ahead, lost in the past.
“I killed my childhood friend. Not because of what he did to that Saracen woman, even. But because of what he did to me. Then I took his name, since he had tarnished mine, and deserted the military to come back here, tail between my legs.”
His tone became gruff and angry, and my hand instinctively moved toward the quarterstaff on the other side of me.
Then he glanced over at me with imploring eyes. “You see? I’m the villain of this story, Little John. We don’t advertise ourselves as such, else we’d never make any progress.”
More quiet.
Then I let out a loud scoff. “Don’t be a fucking fool, Robert of Loxley. And if you try to liken yourself to Sir Guy, Sheriff George, or even this man Oliver again, I’ll knock you off that damned horse.”
He lurched in his seat, baffled. “I—”
“You saw a man you trusted doing a horrid thing. Your conscience won out. Any good man’s would’ve. Then you saw an opportunity to exact revenge on the man who destroyed your life. You took it. Any valiant man would’ve. And that’s all that happened.
“You are certainly Robin’s brother, because you pity yourself just like she did when I first met her. But she grew. You must, too. What you’ve done to atone for your supposed sins, meanwhile, has improved the lives of every Oak Boy under your charge. Don’t squander that opportunity, and don’t you dare fucking pity yourself for extinguishing evil from this world. You understand me?”
My monologue came out harsher, louder, and more forcefully than I would’ve hoped, but I couldn’t stop it one the words began. The rage was instant—the frustration and annoyance.
Robert found himself nodding dumbly, incessantly. Flustered, he seemed to revert back to his soldiering days as he stammered, “A-Aye, I understand, sir.”
My eyes fixed on him, towering over him on my horse. Robert was a tall, handsome man. He still wasn’t nearly my size.
“Good men must do awful things at times, Robert,” I said, calmer this time. “Robin taught me that. It doesn’t mean you’re not a good man. And it doesn’t compare to what Bishop Sutton has allegedly been doing. That is pure greed and evil. Your situation was one of self-preservation.”
Robert nodded again. I watched his throat bob as he took a gulp. He said no more, staring ahead, though he looked smaller than he had a few minutes before.
I felt guilty for lashing out at the lad, but it needed to be done. I had to remember, for as much poise as he carried himself with, he was not many years older than Robin. In my eyes, he was still a young lad.
“You’ll be fine, Robert,” I muttered, softer. “But I will warn you one other thing.”
“What’s that?’
“If you abandon Robin again, she might never forgive you this time. Think on that before you decide on leaving our conjoined bands and retreating to your nomadic ways, hmm?”
Robert bit his lip.
A shadow caught my peripheral and my head whipped to the center of the road, leaving Robert with his mouth half-open.
My hand dragged my staff out in front of me, my teeth clamping shut. I stilled my horse with a yank of the rein.
A man stood twenty paces in front of us on the road. Dressed in threadbare garb, a kerchief wrapped around his head to help from the sun. I could practically smell him from here.
Clearly a bandit.
“Who goes there, man?” I called out.
Robert had his bow in his hands, arrow nocked. I appreciated that, since my staff wouldn’t be much use from this distance, and I’d seen “Oliver of Mickley” hit a goddamn hair off a witch’s tit during the archery tournament.
He was even better than Robin with a bow. Or at least he had been that day.
The man’s bushy mustache twitched.
I gripped my hand tighter on my staff. Robert pulled the string of his bow a little tauter.
Then the man raised his hands to the sky, in a sign of surrender. “Name’s Armison, sir. One o’ the Muddy Meddlers.”
I tilted my head. “Muddy Meddlers? Never heard of you.”
“Not many have. We’re called that because we’re always stickin’ our feet in pigshit.”
“Purposefully?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. That’s a nice story, Armison.”
Armison’s mustache twitched again, with a smile this time. He looked like a squirrelly fucker. “You might not know us, sir, but I reckon I know you.”
“Oh? Do enlighten me.”
“You’re Little John of the Merry Men.”
I glanced over at Robert. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug.
“Right you are, Armison of the Muddy Meddlers. What is it you want?”
“Wanna mingle our group with yours, sir.”
“Stop calling me ‘sir.’ I’m not your superior.”
“Wanna mingle our group with yours, m’lord.”
I rolled my eyes. “For fuck’s sake, man.”
He smiled wider.
“Afraid that’s not possible,” Robert called out, taking my position.
Armison’s smile vanished. I glared at Robert, quickly, for speaking out of turn. He wasn’t used to being second-in-command, and I supposed, technically, I was second-in-command here.
Armison’s arms, still hanging in the air, drooped a bit. “Haven’t even told you how many we number.”
“Exactly. We’re all out of space.” Robert loosened the hold on his bowstring, disarming himself.
Dropping his hands, Armison rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, fuck. You’re supposed to be the guiding light of us bandits.”
“We never asked to be that.”
“Robert . . .” I muttered, my lips barely moving.
“What? It’s true, John. We just finished with this argument back at camp. We have no room for stragglers.”
“What do you think your sister would do in this situation, hmm?”
Robert blinked. “She’s not here.”
“Don’t be an ass. Just because you might be my ‘superior’ here, doesn’t mean you’re right. And you know it.”
Robert’s shoulders slumped a bit. He was certainly taking some losses today, and I wondered if he regretted ever getting on a horse beside me.
“What you talkin’ about over there, huh?” Armison called out.
I turned away from Robert, to the ragtag bandit in front of us. “How many do the Muddy Meddlers number, Armison?”
“Seven.”
My head swiveled to Robert. “See? Not so bad.”
“And here I thought we were just coming to an agreement about trust,” Robert said.
“You all able-bodied? Or at least able to travel?” I asked aloud to Armison.
He nodded diligently. “Aye.”
“Gather your people and follow us back,” I called.
Armison’s body went rigid with excitement. He closed his hands into fists and punched the air. “Hoy! That’s what I’m talking about, big man!”
I smirked, but it quickly vanished. “I think we’ve gone up and down this road enough, Rob, don’t you? We aren’t finding a damn thing with daylight waning. Let’s get back to camp. I’m sure your sister’s worried sick about you.”
Robert scoffed, but smirked. “Ass. You sure it’s not her giant, cuddly bear she’s worried about?”
I couldn’t help but smirk also. Aye, this lad could be my friend after all, he keeps talking shit like that.
A few minutes passed in silence. Robert’s mood soured again, as I suspected he thought about his past, and about the things I’d said.
I wouldn’t apologize. In fact, I decided to leave him with one more pearl, because I could tell he didn’t like the idea of bringing these folk back with us.
“Your sister taught me something else important, Robert.”
He glanced over, brow raised curiously.
“Sometimes, you have to place your trust in complete strangers. You have to take a leap of faith. Robin did it, and it helped get me out of imprisonment in one piece.” I glanced down at my right hand, which only had four fingers these days. Wagging the fingers, I frowned. “Well. Mostly one piece.”
Slowly, Robert nodded his understanding and faced the road again, looking glum.
He may have nodded, but I wasn’t certain he actually understood what I meant about entrusting strangers. I wasn’t sure he realized I was talking about him more than these Muddy Meddler folk.