Post of the Month

~ December 2008 ~

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Will ~ Written by Annie. Posted on the HoS Yahoo group June 2007.

Will was on watch.

He sat on the log by the banked cook-fire, and surveyed the clearing around him.

A warm east wind caused the trees to gently sway and the leaves to rustle quietly, whispering a soothing lullaby of nature. The forest was dark and quiet. Through the canopy over most of the clearing, the full moon was partially visible, hovering in a sea of blackness like an island in the sky. Though the foliage was dense, some of the moonlight still managed to penetrate the trees and cast its beams to the clearing floor. The rays of moonlight flitted about in random patterns, offsetting the dark silhouettes of the trees. The forest was at peace, calm and content.

But Will felt anything but calm and content.

_Robert, where ARE you,_ he thought grimly.

He bent his head in thought and bit his lip. No trouble at Maybury. That was what Geoffrey had said. Robert had left shortly after dawn, hungover, but Bibby, Geoffrey's eldest girl had said Robert had crossed the Maybury stream and taken the deer track into the trees, and Will did not doubt Robert's capability to find his way. He did not believe Robert had become lost. Not after a year of traversing Sherwood; not in the way he used hearing, touch, even sense of smell, to orient himself in his surroundings and find his way, aided by memory and his guiding stick which sought out both obstacles and landmarks. What Scarlet had feared the most - that Robert had slipped and fallen into the stream swollen by the storm and perhaps had banged his head and drowned in the water - had come to nothing; he had searched up and down the stream for miles and no Robert. True, a man could drown in only a few inches of water, but swollen as the stream had been by the downpour of the previous evening, it was still a small stream and did not have sufficient power to wash a man's body along.

_Somethin's happened,_ Will thought now. He shook his head to himself.

The only explaination was that Herne had called Robert away for something, or sought him out. It happened sometimes. That was what they had been telling themselves all day - what he had been telling himself all day, especially since he had travelled back and forth along the stream, the same route as Robert had taken and found nothing - no sign of trouble, of attack, of any accident befalling Robert.

Will cast his gaze over the sleeping camp. John and Tuck snored quietly by the fire. Alan slept over by the cave. Nasir and Much too, slept. Rhiannon lay shrouded in blankets amid the roots of a large oak on the far side of the clearing. Will couldn't tell if she slept or was laying still and awake. Worried, like him. He didn't want to disturb her if she slept. Sleep at least freed the mind from worry for a while. And she had the baby to see to. She needed the energy for that.

He did not know how she would be in the eventuality that something bad had happened to Robert. He remembered when Robin had gone missing, lured from them by the witch Lillth. Marian had crumbled. He had taken charge, as best as he could.

_Maybe I have to do that again,_ Will thought uneasily.

It had been hard, that last time. Loxley had been so autocratic when he had been leader of the outlaws, Will had felt hard-pressed to breathe sometimes. There could only be one leader, true - but Loxley had never allowed for the possibility of who would keep the band running should he be absent, should something happen to him.

_No wonder we failed to keep together after he died,_ Will thought now. _Died that first time...._

Robert had always approached things differently. He had been undisputeably leader, but had sought their opinions, asked their advice, and thus had skillfully woven the band together as a team. Will had no longer felt subjudgated as he had sometimes done in Loxley's time. Robert, the younger man, had shown him respect, and in turn had gained Will's. Robert had had no visions of a free England, unlike Loxley - impossible dream tthat that was; Will scowled into the fire. Robert had been more concerned with the practical, helping to ensure that the people in this area did not starve. Will, practical himself, had identified better with Robert's simple aims than Loxley's grand visions.

_Robert could still turn up,_ thought Will. _If Herne's got him for some reason, he could still turn up. He's as blind as a bleedin' bat - dark of night is nuthin' to him. He can walk through Sherwood in the night an' know his way. He could be on his way here even now...._

He stared down into the fire.

_I'll give him till mornin'. Till daylight. An' if he ain't back by then, it's then we go searchin.'_