Post of the Month

~ February 2009 ~

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Merries ~ Written by Annie, Siiri, Gwyn, Rhys & Angela.  Posted on the HoS Yahoo group July 2007.

The morning sun hung lazily in the sky, spraying a gentle mist of sunlit fingers that pierced the forest floor.

From where he stood by the bank of the stream, John looked up as a hawk emerged from the top of one of the trees and with a haunting cry, soared up into the air. He was immediately alert - but the bird had no bell and was smaller than the hawks de Rainault, Gisbourne or any of the nobles around used.

Much followed John down to the bank of the stream. Several large gnarled elms grew on the bank, overhanging the small path. Much stood beside the tree nearest the waters edge, one of his hands resting against the bark. He gazed pensively out over the water, his eyes following the stream's passage with a steadiness that was almost meditative.

Rhiannon ducked under the shade of the trees too, Ellie asleep in the sling against her chest, arms and legs splayed in the heat, cheek against the curve of her breast.

"Robert would have passed this way," she said quietly, and looked around her, as if being here connected her to him. "Here, along this path, under the trees."

"Yes, look." Much pointed out the short stretch of damp bare earth between tree and grassy bank where there were several footsteps, and several strange sweeping faint lines in the earth - the marks Robert's guiding stick had made. "Easy enough to tell it was Robert."

John had already seen the marks. "So he got this far on his way back to us, then," he said quietly.

John looked over his shoulder into the trees of the forest behind and the shadows that the dense foliage threw. He crouched down on his heels, grimacing slightly as his healing wound protested. He stared down at Robert's tracks, and skimmed one hand idly over the grass patch beside them for a moment, allowing his thoughts to congeal and collect.

He felt lost with this, and he was afraid to say so. To admit it. Ever since Scarlet had returned the previous evening from Maybury with a grim look on his face and the news that Robert had left Maybury at first light that morning to come back to them...

He had paced the perimeter of the camp, and his thoughts had gone round and round in his mind. There had to be something he could do. But then again, would come the insistent thought that the one thing which he had to do was indeed the hardest, and couldn't be got over: he had to wait. Until the morning, until there was better light to see by and then Nasir could attempt to track where Robert might have gone.

Gradually, with a wearisome slowness, dark had descended on the outlaw camp. They had eaten a meal, and stoked the campfire. Much had drawn himself into his blanket early, as if wrapping himself in a security beyond the reach of untold dangers, his face troubled. John had remained on watch, sitting beside the fire, gazing into the flames, yet not seeing them, seeing only the image of Robert as he had left camp, confidently assuring Rhiannon of his return. They had woken at first light, and leaving Tuck at camp, they had headed out through Sherwood, taking the route to Maybury - the route which they knew Robert would have taken, following the stream.

Much stooped, plucked a small stone from the bank and flung it out furiously into the rushing waters of the stream which swallowed it easily.

"Lad," said John, "that isn't going to do any good."

Rhiannon smoothed her hands over her hips, brushing her skirts in a quick nervous gesture that was inconsistent with her normally smooth and calm body language. She looked down at Ellie's hot, crumpled sleeping face, stroked the wispy fair hair, and tried to stem the dread that kept rising up inside her like bile whenever she thought of her husband.

_Where IS he??_

She said it to herself, she did not like to say it aloud, but looking at the faces of John and Much, she knew they were saying it to themselves also.

A hand touched her arm, and brought out of her thoughts, she looked round startled into the face of Will, who had appeared at her shoulder.

"You allright?" was all he asked quietly, casually. She just nodded.

Will looked down at the sleeping child nestled against her, chewed on his lip and scowled to himself, then moved to stand beside where John sat on his heels, looking out over the stream.

"Where's Naz and Alan," John said out of the silence.

"Alan crossed the stream and is checkin' the opposite bank, a bit upstream from here," Will answered. "I was searchin' with him but we found nuthin'. Nuthin'!" He angrily aimed a kick at a tree root. "Naz went further into the trees to take a look."

John looked up and then down the stream for as far as he could see. The results of the storm were evident, here and there a tree was down; a large ash, a middling rowan - a whole host of sapling birches twisted and snapped over. "Bit of a mess along here, isn't it," he said.

Rhiannon looked up and down the stream also. "But it's nothing Robert couldn't have dealt with," she said quietly. "With the map in his mind, I mean."

"What about that?" Will nodded at the large ash that lay fallen downstream; it had tipped out of the opposite bank and fallen across the stream itself. A large part of its trunk and all of its branches blocked the path on this side of the stream. The tangled treetop had embedded itself in a high wall of thornbushes lining the stream bank. "What would he have made of that? Would he have made sense of all of that?" He tried to put himself in Robert's place, and couldn't.

"He not STUPID, Will...." Rhiannon protested from where she was.

"He's BLIND, Rhiannon," Will retaliated, "he don't - can't - see distance and what's bin changed ahead of him. Not til he comes up against it, encounters it."

Much tried to supply the answer. "He'd have worked it out. He'd have felt the tree in his way and tried to go round it. He'd have met with the thornbushes and followed them along to find a gap in them, or a way round them."

"Yeah?" Will said grimly. "Well them thornbushes stretch right back into the forest there - so if he followed THEIR line..."

"He would have kept the stream within earshot," Alan said, appearing around the stand of elms and overhearing the conversation.

John looked round. "Anything?"

"No," Alan said pensively, "no sign of any tracks on the opposite bank - human tracks, that is."

There came a low whistle, almost birdlike, through the trees, on the side of the stream where they stood, and Alan jerked his head round to the sound, immediately alert. "That's Naz! He's found something!"

As one, the outlaws turned and flooded up the bank and into the trees.

Rhiannon was last in the group, slowed because of Ellie sleeping soundly sgainst her in her sling. She supported the sleeping child as she hurried after the others, and found every part of her shook.

_Please, please, let him be safe....._

Much was thinking along the same lines. _It was a whistle to call us. If it wasn't....good, Naz would not have whistled to us, he'd have come to find us and told us before taking us there....for Rhiannon's sake...._ and he glanced over his shoulder at the woman who followed hastily behind, one arm protectively around her daughter.

Robert's daughter too. Much felt a flash of immense guilt. He'd not been on good terms with Robert this whole past year - what if-?

He had never stopped to think about that, and now he cursed himself for not thinking, and he even threw out a brief promise to God, to Herne, to any saints that might care to listen to him.

_If he's there, with Nasir, just got lost cause of the storm, then I promise you, I'll make things better between us, I will, I promise-_

As one, the outlaws broke out of the trees onto a small track some five hundred yards from the stream, and found Nasir. The Saracen was standing squarely on the small deer track, hands on hips.

As soon as he saw Nasir, John's heart sank; all was not well. Nasir was usually of grave countenance, but even so.....

"I have found where Robert was," Nasir said quietly as they all crowded onto the track to stand before him. "He was pursued. Look." He pointed down at the ground; at tracks and the distinctive mark of a stick sweeping back and forth. "Robert's tracks. They are overlaid by another man's tracks. Someone running along this track. Pursuing him. Robert was being followed."

"He's not....?" Alan managed to say.

"No," Nasir said hastily, and looked at Rhiannon's white and scared face. He met her eyes directly and spoke quietly. "Not as far as I know. But I have found the place where he was overpowered by his pursuers. I know from the tracks I have found a little of what has happened."

"Show us, Naz," Will said grimly. "Where'd Robert go from here, and where he faced whoever was followin' him."

The Saracen turned and moved quickly along the track, showing the way; as one, like a small shoal of fish they followed close behind, watching the tracks on the ground where Nasir indicated, and as he showed them, he told them.

"Robert came along here....followed this trail for a way. Wound his way around the trees, following the deer tracks until he came here." Nasir paused for a moment at a large oak and pointed down at the bare damp ground where a man's footprints could be seen, along with the distinctive faint curves and lines in the earth which had been caused by the explorative sweep of Robert's guiding stick.

"Robert stopped here...pressed close up against the tree."

"Hiding. Or perhaps he thought he was hiding," Rhiannon said soberly and tried to imagine the scene. Robert, blind since birth, had little understanding of how to hide from sighted eyes and almost no ability to understand when he could be seen or not.

Nasir raised an eyebrow. "Listening, too. And feeling over the ground around him with his stick, exploring his surroundings, the lay of the land." He pointed, and they could see the long sweeping marks of the guiding stick.

Much looked down at them and could not imagine how Robert must have felt, pressed up against this tree in an effort to hide, listening as his pursuers approached, not knowing who they were.

"Then he moved on - felt his way around the tree and followed the deer." They followed him onwards, casting anxious glances about them as they hurried after the Saracen.

Nasir took a sudden left turn away from the thin line of deer tracks in the earth and went through the trees; the rest of the outlaws followed close behind him, seeing a man's footprint in soft ground here and there. "He left the trail, or maybe he lost it, and he came across forest this way, and slithered down this slope-" Nasir slithered down it himself; they all followed, and then at the bottom of the slope at a stretch of grass by a clump of thorn bushes and swathe of brambles, Nasir halted and looked at the expectant faces around him as they stood there in the small clearing.

"It was here Robert turned to face his pursuers and fought them. They converged on him here from several different directions. One following straight on his heels, one coming in from the East, one from the West and one from the North-East. Four men came in from different directions, and it was here they cornered him."

There was silence for a moment, an odd, chill silence, broken only by a blackbird singing a snatch of song from a nearby tree.

Will looked around him at the stretch of grass and brambles at the bottom of the slope. The long grass had been trampled over by several pairs of hasty feet blundering around; some of it had sprung up into shape again after a day, but it was still sufficiently trampled to see there had been a scuffle or a fight of some proportion.

Pain squeezed at Will's heart. "Four bleedin' men closing in on Robert from different directions; he didn't have a chance. He'd have heard them from all sides comin' in on him, but unless you can SEE 'em, SEE ahead of yer and where to go..." he shook his head to himself, partly in admiration that Robert had managed to get this far.

"There's blood on the grass," John said softly, looking around him at the scene.

It was stating the obvious, he realised that as soon as the words left his mouth and looking at Rhiannon's face, wished he hadn't spoken.

Rhiannon, cradling the sleeping Ellie in her arms, looked around her at this small clearing at the bottom of the slope. The grass was flattened as though bodies had rolled around on it in combat, and there were several large bloodstains. Rain had fallen overnight and diluted them, washed the blood into the earth, but blood still clung to the long grass, the biggest pool of it near the thornbushes. As though someone had been mortally wounded there.

She could not think, she could not speak. She but slowly looked around her, her arms protectively around the warmth of her sleeping child, glad for the feel of Ellie against her, and she drew in a quiet deep breath.

"Here," said Nasir, and indicated the tangle of thorn bushes at the bottom of the slope; John immediately saw several small tufts of fair hair caught on the thorns.

"That's Robert's hair," John said. "Same colour, and it's at his head height."

"Like he was pushed up against those bushes...." Much murmured, staring at the strands of hair caught on the thorny twigs.

Nasir nodded. "Cornered, maybe. Caught. All the tracks converge in this place. This was where Robert's pursuers caught up with Robert and caught hold of him."

"Someone's bled out here," Will said, looking up and down the stretch of trampled grass by the thornbushes.

Rhiannon didn't understand. "Bled out?"

He looked across at her and spoke matter of factly but gently. "Their life-blood's bled out of them. Drained quickly out of their body and flooded the ground. Yeah, it rained overnight and washed a lot of the blood away, but I can still see, eh, Naz?"

Nasir nodded, looking down at the ground.

Rhiannon almost felt as though her legs might give way as she looked down at the rusty stains blotted around on the long grass. Ellie stirred; she cradled her daughter more closely to her.

"It might not be Robert's blood," Will said hastily. "Someone bled out here - but there was at least - what - four people, you said, Naz? Here?"

"Four, maybe five," Nasir said.

"We should take some logical facts from all this." Alan said.

John whirled round on him almost angrily. "LOGICAL?!"

"No body," said Alan. "If whoever it was killed him, would they have taken the trouble to take his body WITH them?"

"Unless it was Gisbourne - soldiers," Much said grimly. "They'd take his body back to Nottingham, they would, to display it-"

"Much-" John began quickly, seeing the look on Rhiannon's face.

"No, he's right," she cut in just as quickly, "he's right - Gisbourne wouldn't pass up on an opportunity to display Robert's body in the marketplace, for all to see and believe. It is the best way of crushing any rebellion."

"Well, we ain't heard of any news of his body bein' displayed, and it's bin a full day now," Will said grimly, and looked at the others. "SOMEone would've come into the forest an' told us. Edward of Wickham - or he'd have sent Matthew to try an' find us. Maybury know we're searchin' - Patrick would've sent someone into the forest to find us and tell us."

"Elsdon is one of the nearest villages to Nottingham; they'd have heard about it by now, sent someone to tell us," Alan murmured, briefly thinking of Jenet.

Will jabbed a stubby forefinger at the rusty stains on the grass. "Whoever bled out here, it was fast and it was quick. Like their throat had been slit." He looked grimly round at the others. "And we all know that's how Robert finishes off someone who attacks him. Who's to say the blood is Robert's? Might be off his victim. Cos I don't see Robert givin' himself up without a fight."

"There are no signs of horses nearby," Nasir said quietly. "And the tracks of Robert's pursuers are not the boots of soldiers, I feel. Soldiers blunder through the forest - these pursuers did not. Not as much. One in particular seemed to know how to move through the forest, judging by the path he took and the way he went gently through trees and bushes, not breaking or bending many twigs."

Will looked at him. "You think these men know their way around Sherwood a bit?"

Nasir shrugged. "I think one at least is familiar with moving around forest or woods. Whether it be Sherwood itself he is familiar with, I cannot tell."

John looked around him. "Well, they came here, so they must have left - obviously with Robert-" he did not like to add that they might have been carrying Robert's body "-so in which direction did they go, Naz?"

"That way." Nasir indicated North, and as one the outlaws gaze followed his pointing finger to the way between a stand of beeches, where the long grass was trampled and several stains of blood could still be seen, though half washed away by the overnight rain.

Much hurried over to the spot in an instant, examining the grass. "It's not been flattened as though something's been dragged along the ground," he said, looking up at the others as they came over and stood in a group by the stand of beeches. "Like a - a body," he faltered, seeing the look on Rhiannon's face.

"Would Gisbourne - or anyone - REALLY take the trouble to CARRY a body back to wherever they wanted?" Alan pressed again, wishing to remain positive.

"Aye," said John, "you don't kill someone and then carry the body. That doesn't make sense."

Nasir had already examined the area, but now he dropped to one knee and briefly inspected the nearest smear of blood again. "The grass has been trampled by several pairs of feet - but not flattened by a dragging body." He looked up at them. "The blood here - it has fallen - dripped onto the grass. From a height. It has not smeared onto the grass from a dragging body."

"It's the way to the Lincoln Road," Will said grimly, looking ahead of him through the trees. "A track that leads to the Lincoln Road is just up there. They made their way to the Lincoln Road." He emphasised the word "Lincoln", folded his arms where he stood and looked meaningfully at the others.

Nasir nodded, rose and moved on along through the trees, signalling silently the others to follow. They followed him onto the track that led to the Lincoln Road. The ground was damp, here and there in a bare patch of earth was the faint impression of a boot heel, but also evidence of fresh earth smeared over the tracks.

Much's keen eyes spotted something tossed into the bushes at the side of the track; he went over and fished out a newly snapped off branch, thickly bunched with leaves that bore traces of mud on them. He solemnly showed the branch to the others.

John let out his breath in a hiss as he followed Nasir along, constantly studying the ground. "The bastards rubbed out their tracks as they went along!"

"Not well enough," Nasir said quietly from beside him, and headed up the tree clustered slope that led to the verge of the Lincoln Road. "They went this way."

"You think they had a cart or horses or something? - track's too narrow for a cart here," Will said, following Nasir.

"Here." They had all reached the wide grassy verge of the Lincoln Road, and after hastily checking up and down it to ensure no-one was passing by, the outlaws all spilled out of the trees onto the verge and they looked down into the grass where Nasir indicated.

"A cart stopped here, and someone who was bleeding was taken onto it," Nasir said simply.

John scratched his head and looked down at the ground. The wheel ruts of a single cart were evident in the grass, and beside it, a few rain-washed rusty stains still lingered on the grass.

He followed the ruts. They turned onto the actual road itself - and then were swallowed up amongst the myriad of other cart ruts, hoof prints and footprints of all those who had travelled the Lincoln Road a day since.

Will was beside John as he moved onto the road itself, studying with dismay the churned up surface.

"Lost 'em," Will said simply, and looked grimly across at where Nasir stood on the side of the road.

Rhiannon had followed Will and John onto the road, and she looked down at the churned up surface of the road with foreboding, and then looked back at where Nasir stood. "Can't we try to find them...somehow?"

Nasir shrugged, spread his hands wide. "I have already tried....to follow the tracks. But it is a cart pulled by a single horse and there have been many of those which have travelled this road since this cart stood here. The ruts of this cart have long since been obliterated by the ruts of other carts pulled by horses which have travelled the road. In both directions."

John looked warily up and down the expanse of Lincoln Road as far as they could see, banked by the trees and grassy verge, and then looked back in dismay at Will beside him.

"We don't even know which way!" Will suddenly yelled in frustration, and threw his bow to the ground in a sudden fit of angry feeling. "We don't even know which way that cart went!"

Ellie, previously snuggled up in her sling where Rhiannon stood next to Scarlet, suddenly jerked awake at his bellow and screwed her face up and gave a wail; Rhiannon stroked the wispy fair head of the child and tried to shush her back to sleep.

Nasir shook his head in response, seeing Much had wandered up onto the side of the road, and now hung his head as the truth of Scarlet's words hit home. "It's impossible to tell which way the cart turned as it was taken back onto the road."

Will swore at the road beneath his feet, angrily snatched up his bow and marched off the Lincoln Road. "C'mon then, no good stayin' here."

John followed Will off the track. "We need to think what to do next-"

"-of COURSE we need to bleedin' think what we need to do next!" Will yelled aggrievedly at him. "What do you think my bleedin' head's doin' right now?!"

He marched over to the nearest tree and leant against it, scowling in thought to himself, turning his back on John and the others. John looked round at the others; Alan shrugged helplessly.

Much rubbed a grimy hand across his face and considered the options. "We should tell Tuck what's happened. And perhaps use the camp as a base for a wider search. A more organised one."

"We cannot do more here," Nasir agreed.

Rhiannon was reluctant to leave the roadside - the last known place Robert had perhaps been. Clutching a restive Ellie to her, she stared up the road and then turned and stared down it, bewilderedly, dazedly, unable to even guess in which direction Robert had been taken or even if he had been taken as a living person or as a corpse.

She felt a touch to her arm, and looked round into Alan's concerned eyes. "We can't stay near the road," he said gently. "We'll be seen."

"C'mon, Rhiannon," Will said across to her from where he stood just off the grassy verge. "Get off the road. Before someone comes along an' sees you - an' us."

He prayed she wouldn't fall to hysterics - he couldn't cope with a woman's hysterics. Not right now.

Rhiannon had never been the sort to fall to hysterics. Hysterics would solve nothing, and would only hold up the group more. Though she wanted to find a quiet place to curl up in and hold Ellie to her, and just give way to the dark fears currently flooding her mind, in order to be able to confront them, examine them properly and so try and face up to the possible fact that Robert was dead - she knew she could not give herself up to that luxury as yet.

Silently, with Alan beside her, she walked off the track.

She halted nearby to where Will still stood, leaning his shoulder against the tree, clearly struggling with his own demons, and she looked at him. "So we return to camp, then," she said quietly, battling with the waver in her voice.

Will merely nodded, not trusting himself to look at her standing there with Robert's child in her arms.

Rhiannon shook her head to herself in thought and turned back onto the track that led through the trees away from the Lincoln Road. She walked slowly, calmly, head held high, her arms wrapped around her baby. Ellie, thumb in mouth, regarded with sleepy eyes the green haze of the summer trees around her as Rhiannon walked, and clearly sensing her mother's mood, knew to be quiet.

John gave Alan and Much a worried look and caught up with Rhiannon. He did not say anything, did not touch her, but fell into step beside her and they walked on. Alan followed them, and after a moment's hesitation, Much filed along the track after him.

Nasir made to follow, but stopped at the tree where Will leant, and looked at him. Will sighed, and moved onto the track, following Alan. Nasir then followed Will.

No-one spoke as they took the track back through the trees, Rhiannon and John leading the way.

_What now?_ Will asked himself. _Herne, where ARE you when we need you?_ He peered through the trees, half hoping the forest god would appear, but he saw only trees. The trees themselves seemed uneasy; they rustled restlessly in the breeze as though murmuring in troubled conversation to each other.

Will frowned to himself, chewed his lip in thought, and dropped back to walk alongside Nasir, who brought up the rear of the slow and straggling line, continually surveying the trees around them.

He laid a hand on the Saracen's shoulder and leaned in slightly to speakquietly. "Naz," Will said softly, "I want you to have a further look around this area. From here to where Robert encountered whoever came after 'im. A good look. In streams, down gullys, under bushes - everywhere."

"You want me to look for a body," Nasir surmised quietly, meeting Will's grim eyes.

"I think we'd be smellin' a corpse by now if it was anywhere nearby," Will replied quietly, "but there's always the chance those bastards could have buried it, for whatever stupid reason in their bleedin' heads they got. After all, when the Sheriff got Loxley..." he had to collect himself before he was able to continue, "...when he got Loxley, killed 'im, they didn't take the body back to Nottingham to put on show, did they? They buried 'im - somewhere - and we never found where. If this WAS Gisbourne's doing...." he did not finish but looked meaningfully at the Saracen, and nodded to Rhiannon's back ahead of them as she stumbled dazedly along the track with John. "I don't want 'ER finding it," Will said quietly. "If you find a body lyin' under some bushes nearby and it IS Robert....best you come an' tell me about it first." He fixed Nasir with another direct meaningful look which spoke volumes.

Nasir merely nodded, and slipped off the track to the right.

Much, walking just in front, had overheard the quiet conversation behind him. As Nasir disappeared off the side of the track to melt into the trees, Much fell back to walk beside Will and flung him a horrified look that was full of dread and foreboding.

Will sighed, seeing that the youth had overheard, and laid a loose arm around Much's shoulders as they walked on together. "We dunno, Much, but it's best to find out, ain't it," he said quietly. "If there IS a body lyin' somewhere near, it's best to find out whose it is. If it's Robert, our search for him can end and we can start looking for his murderers so we can send 'em on to Hell. If it AIN'T Robert....well that might mean he's just been taken, not killed, and the body itself might give us a few clues." Will kept his eyes focused ahead of him on the others. "Whichever way, I ain't giving up on Robert yet."