Post of the Month

~ December 2007 ~

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Robert/Will/Nasir ~ Written by Siiri, Annie & Esther.  Posted on the HoS Yahoo group September 2006.

Will loped along the riverbank at an easy pace, heading upriver. There was nothing to hurry for.

He glanced behind him briefly at Nasir and Robert. They followed some distance behind, and their pace too was relaxed. They walked together, Robert had Nasir's arm in guidance. This little-worn path along the riverbank was currently wide enough for two men to walk abreast. Will had taken himself off a little ahead as self-appointed advance guard.

They were heading for the fish-traps up-river.

They had left the camp shortly after noon. Tuck had taken himself off to Benfield earlier that morning, to see if he could get bread, Alan and John had gone collecting firewood; John gingerly walking around on his injured leg but looking far better than he had done the day before; his fever fled him. And Rhiannon had been content to stay in the shade and remain at camp, for Ellie had been in a restless, fractious mood due to the heat. Her sleep-deprived wails had hammered into Will's ears, so he had not been surprised when Robert had said he would join he and Nasir on their foray to check the fishtraps.

_Haven't checked them for a few days,_ Will thought now. _The tench'll be spawning in the reeds. Let's hope we got some big fat tench._

The river was on his right, the shade of deep forest on his left. As he walked on along the path, his gaze swept the river ahead and across to the other bank. It was a tributary of the Leen, and at this point, though wide, was quite shallow and fast flowing. The reed-fringed banks were neither high nor steep, thus affording easy access to the river to set and recover fish-traps. The trees were set a little back from the bank on this side of the river, allowing bright afternoon sunshine to flood down and sparkle on the surface of the water. Where they walked along the path now, it was partially shaded by the overhead leafy branches, but lit every so often by a splash of bright sunlight across the grass, reinforcing how hot the day was.

Will had picked up a long stick during the leisurely walk upriver, and now he idly slashed it at sporadic clumps of tall nettles which grew at the side of the path to the left. His sword remained in its scabbard at his hip. He felt at ease. He knew better than to be lulled into a false sense of security by a peaceful summer's day but instinct told him there was no danger. There was no sign of anyone. This was the deepest part of Sherwood and there were no tracks or paths that crossed this area, leading to various settlements. This part of Sherwood was not navigable for a cart or wagon, and the path they travelled now was used by deer. The ruts of their tracks were baked hard into the ground. Always useful for Robert to feel and follow with his stick.

Will glanced back briefly over his shoulder at his two friends walking about ten yards behind, and sure enough, though he had Nasir's arm for guidance, Robert still wielded his stick, lightly and swiftly sweeping the ground with it from side to side ahead of him, exploring those hard baked ruts, waring himself of occasional tree roots that snaked across the path. He used the stick with effortless ease. His head was up and he appeared to be listening. His face went between flashes of blankness to flashes of expression directed at nothing as he reacted to all the stimuli around him. Will remembered how a year ago he had found Robert's behaviour very strange indeed - to the point of calling him mad.

Now, everything was everyday and normal. Will hardly thought about the "old" Robert who had seen with what had turned out to be false sight given him by the Powers of Light and Darkness at the moment of birth - and even when occasionally when Will remembered a past incident and a seeing Robert connected to that memory, he never thought about that seeing Robert with any sadness or regret. The man was in his proper place now, had back what had been denied him, and it was undeniable that with the restoration of Robert's blindness had come a certain strength and confidence that none of them had ever witnessed in him before. As well as a certain peace of inner self. Will had quickly picked up on all of that, and now he didn't care if Robert was sighted, blind or purple - the man could lead and that was all that mattered.

Will rubbed his sleeve across his sweating brow as he walked. Midsummer was approaching. The days were hot and long, and the sun had already burnt the grass brown in the meadows outside Sherwood and had dried some of the smaller streams until there was but bare cracked earth in places. The stifling air could turn the temper of man, woman and child, and to be sure there would be fever coming in the villages and in Nottingham, thought Will.

It had been a hot day in June like this that he had first met Jenet. Will's mind went back to briefly revisit the past. She had been fleeing Gisbourne and soldiers, and he and Much had been out hunting. They had seen off Gisbourne - too easily in retrospect - and he had taken Jenet back to camp.

She had been quiet, sad. It had both concerned and puzzled him. He didn't understand women. He hadn't understood Elena at times. Still, he'd watched Jenet that day at camp and had liked what he'd seen. Fair, small, fine-boned with pert breasts that he would have liked to fondle had he got the chance. He had liked the way her patched skirt had swished over the long grass, this way and that, as her hips had moved. He had liked the way she had looked at him as if he was good looking. Blue eyes, like Elena. Her fair hair had peeped out from under her coif, like Elena's had done. Long loose hair down to her waist, unbraided, like that of an unwed maiden.

_Only she weren't no unwed maiden,_ Will thought grimly. _An' now she's a widow. Well, she an' the minstrel are welcome to each other._

He wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve again and happily beheaded a tall nettle growing on the side of the track with the stick as he went past, as though he would like it to be both Alan and Jenet combined. His frustrations released, he continued along the path.

This day was proving to be as sweltering as the day before, but it was cooler by the fast flowing water of the river. Where he walked along the occasionally curving path beside Nasir, Robert constantly turned his head to catch all the sounds and movement of the forest around him. And they were moving within all that movement. Moving forwards.

He had Nasir's left arm for guidance, and so followed where Nasir led, but he still used his stick to sweep the ground from side to side before him to gain information about the route they travelled. For both enjoyment and curiosity's sake. He knew this route like the back of his hand and could easily find his way alone along it, using stick and ears, but taking Nasir's arm for guidance meant he could relax. He could think.

Not that he wanted to think too much. The unexpected encounter yesterday with his father he wanted to push to the back of his mind - it was over with, he had pushed away the pardon as firmly as his father had pushed away his curious hands when he had tried to feel David's face.

At the memory of that, the feel of David's hands gripping his wrists and firmly pushing his hands aside, Robert felt his face twitch strongly and he swung his head in restless unhappy response to the feelings coursing through him that the memory caused.

He had expected a lot of David's reaction - but he had not expected his hands to be pushed away. That had hurt more than David's words.

John's words of the previous evening came back to him now. _"Your father will see sense, I'm willing to wager upon it. Just give him time."_

_Perhaps,_ thought Robert now, and attempted to push away the memories of the previous day with another, this time more determined, swing of the head.

He refocused on what was around him, as his guiding stick swished easily from left to right over the ground before him, hitting the shapes of tall clumps of nettles on his left, on the edge of the track. His stick hit the occasional tree root and clump of weeds, and briefly explored their shapes, but mostly the path was grassy and clear, if rutted by deer tracks sunbaked into the earth. Every now and then, Nasir moved slightly to the left or to the right to avoid an obstacle and Robert was quick to mould himself to the guidance, at ease with it. Nasir was a good guide, and Robert suspected that was due to Nasir's early years spent with his blind brother. Nasir had only spoken of him once, and that more than a year ago. Robert had never pressed for further information, but had always remembered the fact.

He lifted his head a little higher to listen around him more attentively, to gather to him and disentangle the scents in the air. By this running water, the air was cooler, a breeze swept his hair back from his forehead and brought to him the cool clean scent of the freely running water and the silt by the reeds which he knew fringed these banks, the scent of hot foliage, the tang of bracken, the occasional perfumed note of a clump of flowers which he knew, from past exploration, grew by the side of the river. He smelt pollen, and hot skin but as yet he could not smell the approach of a storm. He intently scanned the scents around him with a vague fleeting frown of concentration, but could find no scent of coming rain in the air.

There was an air of peace about the forest on this lazy June afternoon. Sherwood - the very trees - seemed at ease, and so was he, gaining the sense from them that nothing was wrong. From above him in the trees a woodpigeon cooed seductively to a mate, and there came the flits of restless movements which he recognised as smaller birds of the forest flying from branch to branch. On his right, beyond Nasir, the river ran its course, chortling and laughing its way onwards, and Robert turned his head to focus more on the sound and smiled, soothed by its familiarity. The rivers and streams which criss-crossed Sherwood were the forest's lifes-blood; the pulse of it.

He turned his head a little further and tilted it a little to listen to Nasir's presence beside him as they walked together, trying to gauge his mood. The Saracen was quiet, as always, but seemed content. Always alert - but Robert gained the sense that Nasir, like he, knew that there nothing to trouble them for now in Sherwood. He walked on Nasir's left, his right hand lightly holding Nasir's left arm for guidance, and through the contact could feel the casual easy movements of the Saracen. Unhurried and relaxed.

Warmth suddenly splashed onto Robert's forehead, and immediately he lifted his head to receive the warmth full on his face. The warmth of the sun. He never failed to be fascinated how the warmth of what people said was light manifested itself. He swung his head in delighted excited response to the sensation, aware he smiled. The warmth remained for a few moments, then disappeared - then reappeared again, and this continued in an irregular, ragged type of pattern. Robert kept his face turned up to the pattern of sensation as he walked. The world was full of pleasurable patterns to explore, and the patterns that Nature unfolded to him were particularly glorious.

As Nasir walked beside Robert along the track, he scanned it carefully for signs that deer had used it recently. He spotted some scat, dried and crumbling in the heat, its musky scent still attracting flies, but no fresh hoof prints showed that deer had watered here in the last few days. To his right the bank sloped gently to the river’s edge, the water eddying around stones and obstructions as it tumbled its way down to the lake. A pair of thrushes squabbled overhead disturbing the canopy with the slapping of their wings as they argued.

From some way in front of them came the thwack of a stick. They rounded a slight curve in the track and as the way straightened, he caught sight of Will ahead of them. It felt good to be away from camp and from Ellie’s fretful cries that had begun to fill up his head until he had had trouble thinking. The splashing of the river and the coolness it gave to the air under the trees refreshed him and, although alert for any danger, he felt relaxed and at ease.

Robert’s hand was light against his elbow as they walked, his head turning from side to side as he listened to the sounds of the forest. His guiding stick swept the ground before them and Nasir knew that he could feel the changes in the terrain he was travelling over through it. The action reminded him of Hassan, who had not received a guiding stick until Mahmoud had retained a tutor for his sons.

Nasir had been nearly eight when the scholar Maliq Al-Binyal had come to Enfeh. A tall, gaunt man who wore his black beard oiled and scented in the latest fashion so that it rippled down his front in glossy ringlets. Chosen with care by Mahmoud, he had come from Aleppo, that great centre of learning far to the North, to teach Nasir and Ahmed – and later Salim as well when he grew old enough.

He had taught them many subjects, but his specialty was languages. Amongst others, Maliq had taught them Hebrew, Farsi and Frankish as well as the higher form of Arabic used in the Qur’an so that they could read prayers at the mosque.

Hassan had not been allowed to attend the lessons, but Nasir knew that Sayida often let him off his duties in the women’s quarters so that the younger lad could sneak his way to sit under the window outside the room Maliq had been given as a classroom. Sometimes, as he had sat reciting aloud the words Maliq had taught them, Nasir fancied he could hear Hassan repeating them from below the window beside him. Sometimes, the scent of oleander and myrtle drifted in more strongly than usual, as though the bushes had been disturbed as their hidden occupant sought a more comfortable position. And when the lessons were done for the day Hassan had always sought him out and demanded to know in detail what Nasir had learned.

One afternoon, two months after Maliq had come to Enfeh, they had found refuge from the rest of the household upon the roof. Sayida had come too, bringing trays of sweet pastries that she was preparing to take to the neighbourhood baker early the next morning. The boys had sat with her, helping to roll out the thin, layered pastry, sprinkling it with nuts and spices as Nasir repeated the Frankish phrases he had learned. He mixed up a sentence and Hassan had interrupted to correct him; and then they had heard the scrape of sandals on the roof nearby: It was Maliq.

Sayida had hastily pulled her thin, cotton chadour across her face so that only her downcast eyes and the fine arch of her brows were visible. At the age of eleven she was a woman already and for a man outside her family to see her face was forbidden – even being alone with Nasir, who had outgrown the world of women, could bring trouble if she was found unveiled. Maliq had not glanced at her, his gaze moving intently from one brother to the other.

He had stepped forwards and crouched before Hassan where the boy sat cross-legged before a tray of almond strewn pastry. Nasir had watched him study Hassan’s face realising suddenly how like their father his seven year old brother was. With his high cheekbones and wide brow, the straight dark hair that stuck upwards - to Sayida’s continual exasperation when she tried to smooth it flat - the hooked nose and narrow point of his chin, he looked much as Mahmoud must have when still a clean shaven youth.

Hassan had waited, an expression of curiosity crossing his face, his head turning this way and that to study the presence before him. Below thick, dark eyebrows, his left eye moved independently of the right, turning inward as the right rolled upwards. Maliq had leant forward and drawn one of Hassan’s flour dusted hands from the tray to hold in his own.

"You speak the Frankish tongue well," he had said. "Have you heard it spoken much?"

Hassan’s forehead had creased at the touch and Nasir could see that he was surprised. Strangers rarely approached Hassan in this way, preferring to stare in fascination from a distance at the oddly moving, almost black eyes of the blind son of Mahmoud the merchant.

"My father entertains foreign merchants and I hear it spoken at the dockside when a ship has come from the west, Daris," Hassan had answered deferentially, giving Maliq the title of scholar.

"You have an ear for the accent," said Maliq, a note of approval in his voice. "Perhaps your father can be persuaded for you to join us in lessons rather than eavesdrop from the oleander." The tutor had sent an amused glance at Nasir and after a moment’s pause Hassan, hearing the amused tone, had smiled at the man who held his hand.

"My father wants me to work with my sister," he said. "He says I will have no use for geography and philosophy."

"I shall speak with him," Maliq had answered firmly. He lowered Hassan’s hand back to the pastry he had been working on and with a nod at Nasir had left the roof area.

Nasir was never sure what passed between Maliq and Mahmoud but some days later Hassan had joined his brothers in the teaching room and soon began accompanying them on trips around Enfeh. It had been Maliq who had taken a long, finger thin branch of olive wood to Enfeh’s best carpenter to be shaped and smoothed and had presented it to Hassan. The boy’s face had twitched with awe as he held the gift in his hand, running fascinated fingers over the whorls in the wood, the smooth node at the top that fitted comfortable against his palm when he rested on it and, with Maliq’s guidance, he had learnt to use it as Robert did now.

Beside him on the track, Robert gave a sharp swing of his head. Nasir glanced at his friend’s face that had been registering pleasure and contentment at the peace of the forest around them. Something like distress crossed Robert’s face and Nasir wondered what thoughts had caused the sudden change, but then he swung his head again as though to shrug off whatever had bothered him. The light dappled the ground in patches through the leaves and Nasir watched Robert lift his head as the sunlight played over him, delight crossing his face at the warmth on his skin. Nasir smiled to himself, Robert’s pleasure in the day mirroring his own.

Further down the track two trees leant inwards from either side, their branches tangling overhead to form a green arch, their trunks narrowing the way. Nasir drew his arm up behind his back so that Robert could move behind him, careful not to break the contact between them as he did so which would leave Robert stranded in empty space. "Single file," he said softly to alert Robert to the change ahead; straightening his arm which grasped Nasir's guiding one, Robert immediately dropped back to walk behind his friend, yet keeping his light grasp on Nasir's arm. He moved his stick out to his left side, not wishing to clash it against Nasir's heels by sweeping it before him, and the stick hit a close tree trunk, and then he understood the need for single file. The path narrowed at this point for some yards.

"The path widens again," Nasir said as he passed through the narrowing gap, then drew his arm back down, so that Robert could walk alongside him once more.

Heeding Nasir's words and the gentle bringing of the Saracen's guiding arm to the side once more, Robert fell once more into step beside him, and as they walked on, automatically swept his stick from side to side over the track once more. There were more trees to his left here; more roots snaked across his path; more tall nettles as well, and then the path bent to the left along with the sounds of the river. Robert turned his head to his right to listen out over the space where the water rushed, recognising the change - before, its sounds had been soft and sussurous, now they became louder, more choppy as the waters became shallower and charged over a pebble bed, gurgling as they channelled around small rocks.

"We're almost there," Robert told, rather than remarked to Nasir beside him and Nasir smiled to himself, amused that Robert felt the need to tell him what he could already see; that they had almost reached the spot where the traps lay in the river.

Robert's stick on its sweep to the right, was suddenly brought short by it clashing with the dull vibration of wood against wood - and at the same time, a vertical line of hardness to his right appeared loomed into his perception amongst all the soft blurs of his surroundings. He halted, and turned his head from side to side, feeling that vertical pattern of hardness against his face, studying it, recognising it as a tree which grew partially on the bank's path.

Letting his stick dangle from its leather loop around his wrist, Robert put out his left hand to feel for the object, and his fingers met on rough, cracked bark. Not letting go of Nasir's guiding arm with his right hand, he moved round the tree a step, aware Nasir moved a step round with him, sweeping his fingertips around the curve of its narrow trunk in examination, until on the trunk facing the sound of the water, he found what he was searching for.

Long ago, storm damage had occurred to this narrow but sturdy ash, and a branch at head-height which had overhung the river had snapped off at the trunk; like a person who had had an arm taken off at the shoulder, there was no stump, just a round raised bump measuring about the span of a mans hand across.

Robert slowly trailed his fingers over that bump on the trunk, following its contours with interest. There was a large, circular, thick rim of bark around the bump, a rim which had slowly grown inwards over time around the damaged place where the branch had snapped off from the trunk, and a depression in the middle. There were often places like these on the trees, and always when he touched them, Robert felt like the tree had been wounded and these places was the scar where the wound had healed over, like a scab. He was minded more strongly than ever, when he touched places like these that trees were living beings and could be wounded too.

Robert laid the flat of his hand gently over the bump in understanding to the tree, silently greeting it as an old dependable friend he recognised, aware he smiled to it. It was not only a familiar friend, it was a valuable landmark to him amongst the maze of the forest - a landmark he had found and selected for himself a year ago when learning this route along the river, seeking a place where the fish traps they usually laid in it could be found by him without the need for sight. This distinctive tree, half blocking the path so his stick could not fail to miss it, and with its scarred bump pointing out over the river, marked the spot. As he stood there, he could hear with even more clarity the change in the river's flow at this particular point - the way the shallow fast waters channelled through a myriad of small rocks.

Nasir waited, watching Robert smile as his hand explored the trunk of the tree and found the place where a branch had snapped off, causing the tree to close itself over the wound. There had been trees around Enfeh, dry leaved cypress and great cedars, pomegranate and twisted olive. But he had visited places where no trees could exist. Arid deserts where only scrub survived, bent into torturous shapes by the winds that howled across the vast plains of sand. When he had first come to the Sherwood after the death of the Baron de Belleme, the forest had seemed a living, breathing entity to him, giving life and protection to the animals that sheltered within it. _As it protects and shelters us_, he thought.

He lifted Robert’s other hand from his elbow and placed it against the trunk of the ash - Robert had no need or want for a guide now - and turned around the tree. He walked on a couple of paces and seated himself on the grassy slope to draw off his boots and roll up the cuffs of his trousers. Encased in leather his feet had grown hot as they had walked and he gave a sigh of pleasure as he stretched them into the cool water.

Will had already divested himself of his boots - and more.

Reaching the tree minutes before, he had already left boots and shirt and swordbelt by it, and rolling up the legs of his breeches to the knee, had left the bank by the gap in the reeds and waded out into the shallows of the river, and then slowly up and down by the near bank, scowling in concentration into the shadows the reeds cast. A fat female tench slipped silently away from the reeds to dart across his path back downstream, and he nodded to himself.

"Yeah, they're here all right, spawnin' in the reeds," he announced across to Nasir and Robert.

He stood there, knee deep in the river outside the fringe of reeds which lined the bank, and arms folded, watched his two friends. Nasir made an incongruous sight, dabbling his bare feet in the water. _The heat's gettin' to even him,_ thought Will and glanced up at the cloudless sky above. No rain this day.

He watched Robert feel over the bump on the narrow ash in recognition, smiling at it. He would have looked odd to any outsider, but Will was used to it by now. Robert often smiled at peculiar things, and sometimes just at empty air if it was an inner thought he was responding to. But most of all, Robert smiled upon touching something - or being touched. Besides, Will knew why Robert smiled in this instance, and so it wasn't strange to him.

He wondered what David, Earl of Huntingdon, had thought upon seeing his son. Maybe he'd thought him mad, thought Will, thinking of the horror on the Earl's face - which had been reinforced at seeing Rhiannon with Ellie. Rhiannon was a bit of a shock to see for the first time, too, with the right side of her face from eye to jaw ravaged by scars and the ear missing. Will was so used to her, he had to remind himself why strangers gave her looks of horror. All he saw were a pair of clear dark eyes twinkling at him that reminded him of her half-brother Loxley and a lopsided smile. You didn't have to be blind to not notice Rhiannon's scars.

Will shook his head to himself in thought, where he faced downstream, staring out over the shimmering waters. They could have done without the Earl coming to camp yesterday - especially bringing that damn soldier with him, even though he'd been blindfolded. Will's lip curled in memory. Well, he'd had a wound - maybe it would grow infected and he'd perish before trying to work out where their camp was. Maybe the fever that had been on him yesterday by the looks of him would have blunted his mind. Will was sure Gisbourne would have done his best to get information from the man when he had returned to Nottingham with the Earl.

A dark shape darting past his feet in the shallows caught Will's peripheral vision and he glanced down, only to see another female tench slip out of the shadows of the reeds - even larger than the first.

Will's instinct was to pounce as the fish darted by. He suddenly bent and grabbed down into the water for it; for an instant he felt the fat wriggling slime-covered body between his fingers, and then with a twist of its body the tench wriggled free and darted past him; Will spun round where he bent, still groping in the water and made another grab, which missed, but the dark shape flitting through the water was still within reach. He lunged forwards in a final attempt, snatched through the water at the dark shape, missed the fish, overbalanced, and fell full length forwards into the water.

Robert turned from the tree at the splashing. "Scarlet?" he called out amusedly across to the sounds.

Will dragged himself up onto hands and knees in the river, spluttering and shaking his head, spitting out water, and his tone was brusque, if garbled. "What."

"What are you doing?"

Where he remained on hands and knees, facing downstream, Will glared at him, dripping water. "Fishing!"

Robert laughed. "Sounds more like swimming to me."

"Is that how you take your yearly bath, Scarlet?" Nasir called. He turned his head across to where Robert stood. "He tried for a fish, but it out swam him." A bubble of laughter rose up in his throat and he had to fight it to get the words out. "He’s on all fours in the middle of the river, with his hair plastered about his head, dripping like a man just in from a thunderstorm." Nasir rested his elbows against his knees and cradled his head against his arms as the laughter overwhelmed him.

Will lurched to his feet and glowered at them, then with an air of high dudgeon he bent his glare onto the reed bed, as though daring the next tench to give him the slip.

One hand still in contact with the ash's trunk, Robert propped his guiding stick against it and then stood first on one leg and then the other to remove his boots which he placed by the tree roots, and then he rolled his breeches up to his knees. He had been carrying a bundle of willow withies slung across his back, which Will had had the foresight to soak overnight to make them pliable enough to mend any of the fishtraps that needed mending; now he slid the damp bundle from his back and propped it against the tree also.

His hand went to the coil of thin but strong rope fastened to his belt, and he untied it. The ash's trunk was only a little thicker than Rhiannon's waist but was sturdily rooted in the ground; a good anchorage point. Robert knotted one end of the length of rope around the trunk and the other to his belt, keeping the coils of slack looped over his left arm. There would be no slack once he got out into the middle of the river. He could find his way to the fish traps by sound, but he needed a guideline back to the tree. Since his blindness had been restored more than a year ago, he had honed many methods for not only survival in the forest but a thriving existence; methods which he had learned looked strange to sighted people but which worked well for him.

He moved round the tree also, adroitly skirting Nasir's form which he found sitting there, and as he moved past the Saracen, he affectionately trailed the fingertips of one hand briefly across the round of the man's shoulder, finding it at hip height. "I'm not sure whether Scarlet thinks himself an otter," Robert remarked softly to Nasir as he moved past to the water's edge.

Nasir drew his head back up from his arms recovering himself a little. He leant forwards, cupping his hands together to throw water onto his face to wash off the sweat that had beaded his forehead as they’d walked, then pushed himself up off the bank, still grinning at Scarlet as the man righted himself.

He lifted the straps that held his swords across his back over his head, and threw the blades down beside his boots, then stripped off his outer clothes. The black garments, now much patched and repaired, had been his for many years. He had adopted them on arrival in the colder climes of Europe and they did him well in the winter, but he was glad to cast them aside today.

Clad in a loose shirt, he stepped gingerly through the reeds and into the water, feeling the sharp pebbles shift and slide beneath his weight. Here and there to his left, larger rocks and stones had become wedged in the riverbed. The river bubbled its way over and around them forming narrow alleyways of water and directly below, weighted beneath the water with a stone or two, the wide necked fish traps had been placed. He splashed on, heading almost to the furthest bank, then knelt to examine the first trap he found, nestling just down stream of two weed covered rocks.

Robert listened to Nasir move forwards and then splash his way out into the river. Will was still splashing around some yards upriver by the reed-bed. The sun beat down on Robert's head. He turned slightly to fully face the rushing sounds of the river before him, and the full force of the sun's heat hit the side of his head and his left temple. Then he walked carefully forwards towards the sound of the river, unlooping a section of the coiled rope around his arm as he went.

The long tangled grass was soft under his bare feet, and Robert relished the feel of it. He suddenly remembered childhood days at Huntingdon, when he had been no more than five or six, and how he had gone down to the brook on his father's land, had kicked off his shoes and had paddled and run around on the bank there, the sun hot in his face. They had been happy days and yet - he remembered how there had always been that vague discontented feeling in him back then, a sense of things not being quite right but not knowing what; even on the most peaceful and happiest of days such as those spent at the brook as a small child. He had not understood it until his blindness had been restored, and then he had understood that his vague, underlying childhood discontent had been because of the strange false sight the Powers of Light and Darkness had forced onto him at the moment of birth. He had not been allowed to be himself.

Now, however, it was vastly different and there was no vague underlying discontent in his heart.

Robert's right foot found the edge of the grassy bank, and he halted and explored the edge of the bank carefully with the toes of his right foot, feeling with them. From the edge here it was but a shallow step down into the light sounds of the lapping water. Robert stepped down into the river, and paused for a moment to re-orient himself, turning his head to listen around him. Ahead of him from across the shallow river came the splash of Nasir's wading around the fishtraps. Away to his left, Will seemed to be patrolling the line of reeds some distance upriver. Robert lifted his head to listen beyond the sound of his friends and caught nothing out of the ordinary, just the murmur of the trees, the swirl of the river, the buzz of flies and calls of birds.

Cool river water swirled around his ankles. Robert curled his toes into the smooth pebbles of the riverbed under his feet with delight. He reached out and felt before him and found the gap in the reeds with his hand, then he moved forwards, through the gap, feeling from side to side before him with his right hand outstretched to keep on course through the gap. The reeds were almost shoulder high and on either side they brushed gently against him. It seemed to Robert that they quivered under the breath of the breeze that swept the river. He loved feeling the movement.

The gently swirling water of the river rose steadily up his calves to his knees as he walked forwards through the gap in the reeds. Suddenly he felt something brush against the outside of his leg; another tench spawning in the reeds which had been disturbed and now darted away; he smiled at the sensation, for it had been like a caress against his leg.

The fringe of reeds was narrow; half a dozen small steps and Robert had left them behind. As he waded forwards, he paid out the rope he had tied to the ash - his guide-line back to the right place on the bank.

The pebbles of the river-bed clicked together under his bare feet. Robert felt his way carefully, step by step, out into the flow of the river, using his bare feet to guide him as well as his ears; to his right was a line of small smooth submerged rocks leading out to the middle of the river where the fishtraps were, and he kept his right foot in contact with them as he waded forwards. Sighted people didn't seem to realise that the blind could guide themselves by feeling with their feet as well as their hands.

Robert had explored this area of the river thoroughly and he knew from past experience that a number of small rocks and stones jutted above the surface of the river in its middle, causing fast flowing channels between them. The fishtraps were stationed behind these to catch the fish that were forced to swim between through the channels. Robert as he walked out into the middle of the river, listened for the change in sound that would tell him he was at the first of these channels, and then he heard it. He suddenly felt the flow of the river current change against his bare legs too, and that was his cue to bend and feel out to his right with his right hand. He dropped the last few coils of the rope that was tied to his belt, so he had both hands free, and felt to his right with both hands, and touched the first of the jutting up rocks, found the first deep channel of water gushing between two.

Plunging his hands down through the cold rushing channel of riverwater, he found the opening of the wicker woven fishtrap. He felt over its wide mouth and conical shape in recognition and grinned, for he already felt through the wicker framework smaller vibrations that were not caused by the river's flow but were the thrashes of creatures caught within.

Robert stepped over the small rocks into the channels of water, and felt briefly along the funnel-shaped trap, which got narrower at the end until it was blocked off. The fish were at this end; having swum into the trap they had got to the end of the funnel and had been unable to turn to swim back out again.

Pushing his fingers through the gaps in the wicker, Robert touched scales, wriggling bodies, flapping tails. "We've some here," he said across to Nasir above the rushing noise of the water, and lifting the wicker trap up above the surface of the water, he reached a long arm down into the dripping trap.

He felt oddly contented and happy, despite all that had happened yesterday with his father, despite the threat of the Lincoln outlaws. The sun beat down on his head, the cool water rushed and churned past his bare legs, the slimy fish wriggling under his exploring fingers - he felt life, was rooted in life to the earth and to the water, he touched life; there was nothing except the moment of feeling alive and feeling, hearing, smelling life all around him, and life was good.

Robert's fingers prised past the sharp sticks angled downwards halfway down the funnel which further created a barrier to the caught fish trying to escape, and explored the mass of wriggling shapes. Small fry were able to swim out, and the first fish he took hold of he recognised as a juvenile roach by its shape and he tossed it back in the river to live another day. Reaching further down to the blocked-off end of the trap, his fingers found bigger forms.

"Brown trout and roach," he said across to Nasir as he swiftly disentangled the wriggling fish from the end of the wicker trap one by one, felt over their shapes briefly to ascertain type, and dropped them into the open sack he had tied to his belt. "What have you got, Naz? - anything worth the eating?"

In the trap that lay by his feet, Nasir could see a solid wriggling shape about as long as his hand and as fat as a fist. The fish had swum straight to the narrow end of the trap, tried to back out when it had found itself at a dead end and hooked its gills on the sharpened wicker strips bent inwards for just such a purpose. He lifted the trap half out of the water to get a better view. A spiny fin ran the length of its back, dark stripes running down towards the belly.

"A perch," he announced. "A big one." The perch was wedged tight, flailing within the wicker work. Deftly, he reached up to the top of his shirt, pulling out the leather thong holding the neck closed and held it between his teeth. The trap was almost as long as he was tall and he wedged it between his knees at an angle as he sought to extricate the fish. As the fish flopped near the mouth of the trap, he pinned it down, threaded the thong through its gills with some difficulty and drew it out. It twisted its body around trying to escape and then was still. He replaced the trap back in the river, careful to reposition the wide mouth against the gap in the rocks.

Will had splashed his way over to the fishtraps, and now he stood on a flattish rock just above the water, bare toes curling into it to get a better grip, and he squinted down against the bright waters surface at the trap Nasir had replaced in the river. "That one ain't broken, then. Any of them that are, or did I soak those withies for nuthin'?"

"This one is," Robert replied, propping the trap he had extricated the fish from against the rock next to the one Will stood on. He felt his way along to where the next trap was situated, barely three steps away, and bent to feel inside it under the water. Nothing had been trapped in this one, and as Robert's hand travelled along the outside of the trap to its funnelled end, he understood why. The closed end of the funnel had broken to become open and any fish which had swum into this trap had undoubtably swum easily out again through its end.

Will stepped down from the rock into one of the deep channels, stubbed his toe, swore, and bent to examine the trap next to Robert's, briefly laying a hand against Robert's bent back to let Robert know he was there. Reaching down into the trap, Will's eyes gleamed; he reached down into the swirling waters with both hands until he was up to his armpits, there was a slight scuffle under the water, and then Will emerged, grasping triumphantly in both hands a large fat female tench which wriggled for all it was worth.

"Here, what about this, then?" Will gloated, his hands full, nudged Robert's arm with his elbow to get Robert's attention, and then leant and nudged the wriggling tench against Robert's left hand which was currently exploring around the next trap to Will's.

"Anyone would think you were its parent," Robert replied wryly to ruffle Scarlet, briefly diverting his hand from its exploration of the trap to give the tench a only casual feel-over where it wriggled in Scarlet's proffered hands.

"This trap is broken, also," Robert said, pulling the wicker trap out of the water and removing the stones that had weighted it down against the river-bed. "At least I don't have to carry those withies back to camp," he added wryly again. The heat of the sun against his head now became unwelcome and he longed to seek a patch of cool ground that told him it was shade. He gripped the large wicker trap he had just uprooted from the river, stepped through a channel to the other side of the rocks, and retraced his steps back to the bank, with his free hand coiling up the rope that was his guideline back to the ash.

He felt his way through the whispering reeds, and stepped up onto the bank. The heat of the sun vanished from where it had been beating against his head, and he felt relieved. Casting the wicker trap aside on the bank not far from the waters edge, Robert placed the knotted sack of fish beside it, and then followed the rope line back to the ash. He untied the rope from his belt and left it coiled under the tree, felt for his guiding stick propped against the trunk, and taking up the bundle of willow withies under his free arm, tapped his way back over to the trap.

He sat on the soft cool grass with a sigh, dumping the bundle of withies beside him, and sitting back, his arms braced behind him, he listened to Nasir and Will still out in the river. "There's fish here that need gutting, Scarlet," he called out amusedly across the rushing waters, and then sighed to himself again and rubbed his wet hand across his sweating face. He wondered how Tuck was getting on at Benfield and whether they would have bread to go with the fish this night.

Nasir had added two tench and a chub to the perch. The last basket he checked was empty; two of the willow supports snapped and bent outwards, suggesting that whatever it had caught had fought its own way to freedom. Dangling the fish on the leather thong from one hand, he lifted the trap with the other, glad that the willow made them light, and splashed back past Scarlet and over to the bank. He placed the trap on the grass, dropped his fish on top of Robert’s bag and wiped the sleeve of his shirt against his head.

"Another broken trap," he said as he crossed to the ash tree where he had left his belongings.

The shade came as a relief. It was not just the sun, but the closeness of the air. _It weighs down on you_ he thought _sucks the moisture from you and leaves you dry as a husk of wheat_. He pushed aside the pile of his clothes and found his waterskin, taking a long swallow of the weak brew of herbs it contained and swilled it around his mouth to kill the dryness before he swallowed.

"That makes three, then," Will said in answer to Nasir as he emerged from the river, trailing the trap Robert had upended on the rocks, and he dumped it with the others, then sat on the bank beside Robert and taking his knife, began to gut the fish.

Robert reached for the bundle of thin willow withies beside him, and untied them. Drawing close the fish trap he had carried out of the river, and propping it across his knees, he ran explorative hands along its length until he came to the funnelled end and explored it further there. It was completely open. It had been patched and mended before, Robert realised as his fingers felt over the remnants of the securing withies which had been pushed clumsily into place to weave the end of the trap shut.

"Bad workmanship on the part of the person who last mended this," Robert said aloud to no-one in general with a grin, feeling over the end of the trap, knowing perfectly well Will had been the last one to come this way to check the traps.

"Just as well we got a blind basketweaver then, ain't it?" Will was quick to counter.

Robert merely laughed, took his knife and cut away the few snapped withies at the end of the trap, and pulled them out and cast them aside. Feeling over the opened bundle of willow withies beside him, he selected one, tested its pliability, trimmed it and then began to deftly weave it through the stiffer radical spokes of the trap, bringing them together to close the end.

Carrying his waterskin and a knife with him, Nasir sat down beside the other two men. He drew one of the traps across his knees and began pulling apart the broken willow. The rhythmic scrapping of Will's knife blade accompanied his movements and every so often a shower of fish scales sprayed over the grass before him.

Will gutted the fish methodically, consigning each finished one back into Robert's sack.

"Wonder if they're doin' this," he said at last.

"Who?" Robert asked, puzzled by the question that had come out of the companiable silence as they all worked.

"Them Lincoln outlaws. If you can call 'em outlaws," Will scowled down in concentration at the fish he was gutting.

"Well if Gisbourne managed to round a good few of them up, according to Jenet, they can't be all that good at being elusive," Robert replied wryly, his fingers weaving the withie in and out of the radial spokes of the basket, bringing the end of the spokes together. "I wonder what else they're not good at. Their weaknesses. Maybe that's something we'll only find out in direct confrontation with them."

He sighed to himself, rubbed his sweating forehead on his sleeve. He found he didn't want to discuss the Lincoln outlaws. They had been the cause of much speculation around the peace of the night camp fire for several nights in a row now. His head ached, and interweaved with his inner worries and thoughts of the threat of these other outlaws were the memories of his recent meeting with his father. He didn't want to think about either, he found. Just for a few hours, he wanted to listen to the sway and rustle of the trees, and the rush of the river flowing past, employ his hands in practical work, and let himself be soothed by his surroundings.

Nasir drew some withies from the bundle on the ground and began weaving one wet strip of willow in and out of the basket he held. He and his brothers had sometimes gone down to the beach near Enfeh to watch the fishermen working there alongside the salt gatherers. The two trades had worked side by side and the sand had been covered with racks of tiny sardines and anchovies, salted and drying in the sun. The boys had played between the townsfolk, stopping at times to help repair traps, draw salt water from the sea or clean the fish. These traps, abandoned in another river, had been a lucky find for the outlaws, and they had bought them to the tributary to use as their own.

Another spray of fish scales from Will's direction made Nasir lift his head from his work. Scales decorated Will's legs, an iridescent shimmer on the cloth of his leggings, and he'd made neat work of gutting the fish. The repairs on the hole in the trap finished, Nasir lifted it, finding another broken spoke near the top. He turned it this way and that to get a clearer idea of the repairs needed, then attacked the old, broken willow with his knife.

His fish-gutting finished, Will secured the neck of the sack and rose. "Goin' up to the bridge," he said to no-one in particular, merely just to make Robert aware of where he was moving to, and cleaning his knife on the grass, slid it back in its scabbard and walked slowly on along the bank upriver.

The "bridge" was not a bridge as such - just a couple of long ash trunks stripped of all branches and laid together across the narrowest part of the river for several miles. It lay some thirty yards up from where Nasir and Robert sat still mending the traps, and so Will knew he would still keep them within his sight.

He reached the bridge and stepping up onto it, tested its security, but it was firmly wedged across the river as always and was stable. Barefoot, Will carefully walked along it, and then paused in the middle, and turning so his back was to upriver and the hot sun, squinted back downriver to where Nasir and Robert sat on the bank.

He looked down at his feet, curled into one of the logs to keep his balance. It had been they who had put the bridge here. The outlaws. In Loxley's time. As soon as they had discovered that there was a good place for a secluded camp near the lake, they had known they had needed a crossing-place across the river, for there was not one for miles. Yet they had needed this crossing-place far away enough from the camp so as not to arouse suspicion as to their whereabouts.

Here had been the perfect place, at one of the narrowest points of the river for miles, just after it flowed around a bend. A couple of ash tress had coveniantly fallen during a storm, and after stripping the branches for firewood, they had dragged the logs and wedged them together firmly across the banks.

Now, six years later, the bridge looked like it had been here for far longer.

_Not so long ago, though,_ Will thought now.

He turned and walked to the other end of the bank and then slowly paced his way back along the bridge, staring down into the water a few feet below, and was lost to thought.

Robert, where he sat on the bank, paused his fingers in mending the wicker trap that lay across his knees and turned his head to listen to Will moving away from them. The man was often restless, and even on a warm and peaceful day such as this, often couldn't seem to settle. It didn't indicate that anything was wrong....just Will being unable to settle.

A splash of warmth suddenly fell across Robert's face, and he turned his face fully up to the warmth, surprised but intruiged at the sensation, wondering where it had come from and why it had come. He had thought there was no sun in this spot on the bank and he frowned to himself, trying to work the puzzle out, for he felt the sun nowhere else on his body - then he smiled, for the feel of the sun on his face and only on his face was almost like some sort of secret caress from the sun, a gift from it that only he knew about.

The warmth of the sun, the soothing flow of the river... The nearby movements of friends, the noon meal still resting comfortably in his stomach, the thought of heading back to camp to his wife and daughter - all brought a deep contentment to him, washing away the thoughts of the Lincoln outlaws, his father and the pardon. Even the smell of the nearby gutted fish was pleasant in its familiarity; an indication all was safe and ordinary and well. The working of his fingers on mending the trap, weaving the withies in and out of the radial spokes further soothed.

"Everything about Sherwood seems...in its rightful place this afternoon, Naz." He finally quietly spoke aloud his contentment, aware he kept giving smiles to the space of the sky above, beyond the rustling of the tree canopy, keeping his face upturned to the splash of warmth across it whilst his fingers worked the last withie into place. "Like...a puzzle where all the pieces fit. Where they have all come together so effortlessly, to create something beautiful. Do you feel it?"

Nasir had paused in his own work, smiling to himself as he watched Robert work away with his hands, yet not facing down at what he was doing as a sighted person would. He had seen Hassan wield a meat cleaver with deft precision, cutting lamb into long strips for cooking, but with his face lifted up, not focused down on what he was doing. It had fascinated Nasir as a child to watch his brother do so, yet not cut himself, and to end up with a pile of evenly cut meat in front of him without looking at what he was doing. "Yes. I feel it," he answered, his hands stilled on the trap.

"We always feel we should be in control," Robert said softly, "and if we aren't, then we are not happy. That's the nature of Man for you. But it's Sherwood in control of this afternoon; we're just minions in the tapestry it weaves. And I'm happy." He gave another delighted smile up at the splash of warmth across his face. "I'm happy."

The sun had moved a little way across the sky since they had sat down. Sunlight now pierced a gap in the branches and played over Robert's face. Nasir watched the fleeting smiles that Robert gave at the warmth on his face, enjoying his friend's sense of wonderment as he had learnt, in time, to enjoy Hassan's. To learn that his brother explored the world in just as rich a way as he did with sight.

He reached across to Robert's shoulder, giving it an affectionate rub with his fingers for a moment, before returning it to his repairs. He felt the sense of contentment too; pleasure at the day and the labour of his hands, the sound and movement of the river running its course near their feet. Often, being with Robert reminded him to reach out with his other senses, to drink in all that Sherwood was, beyond what he could just see of it.

Robert smiled at the touch to his shoulder, understanding what the touch conveyed; that he and Nasir were of one mind, and turned his head slightly to scan in the Saracen's direction, listening. His mind fled back to a year ago, to what Nasir had divulged of his family in confidence; the dead sister whose dishonour against their family had led to Nasir's outcasting; the born-blind brother no-one else knew he had. Will was upriver; no-one else was around to overhear.

"Your brother...." Robert spoke softly, understanding the past was a delicate subject for the private man, and so tentative, but at the same time, suddenly curious. He knew no other blind person. No one like him, who had never seen colours or light. And so he was curious, wondering if they thought like he, felt like he. "Your brother who was born blind....was he happy?"

Robert's question, coming out of nowhere and echoing where his own thoughts had lingered all afternoon, caught Nasir by surprise. Out of all of the outlaws, he had chosen to share the story of his banishment only with him. And only with him had he shared the fact that he had a blind brother. Not because he did not choose to confide in Will, or Tuck or the others, but because the moment to tell, to share, had come only that once, as he and Robert had sat alone gutting fish a little way from their camp.

He thought for a moment, remembering that time when Robert had been newly restored to blindness; how he had taken Robert's hand and guided his knife to the fish and taught him how to clean it. Usually, he would have let Robert learn in his own way, but it had been important – so important – in those early days, that Robert adapt to his blindness if he was to survive in the forest as a blind man.

He finished with the trap and cast it aside, watching it bounce and roll to the water's edge where it bobbed in the reeds. Brushing the shaved ends of wood from his clothes, he drew his legs up to rest his elbows upon his knees, rolling the handle of his knife between his hands in thought.

"Like anyone, blind or sighted, he was happy at times and not so at others," he said. His gaze went to where Will paced the log bridge some distance away, appearing lost in thoughts of his own, but Robert's question pulled at him and he drew his gaze back from Will to study Robert's face, trying to divine the reason for something asked so casually and yet…He closed his eyes as memories of his brother surrounded him.

"When Hassan first began to realize that he was different from the other children, he was curious," Nasir said slowly.

_Always curious_ he corrected himself with a private smile. What an annoyance Hassan had been with his constant questions. Sometimes impossible questions. But many of the answers of sighted folk had never satisfied him completely. The arrival of Maliq had given Hassan someone who took the time to listen, to consider, but there had been no other blind person in Enfeh for him to talk with; to answer those questions from their own experience _And neither_ thought Nasir _has Robert ever known another blind person_He opened his eyes again wondering if he had rightly read the curiosity in Robert's tone.

"But, as he grew older, he came to be proud of those differences," he continued, his voice soft. "To know them as something uniquely his."

Robert had laid aside his finished trap, now he drew his knees up and wrapping his arms around them, hugged them to his chest, and he listened to Nasir's quiet voice, curious, trying to understand. _To know them as something uniquely his._ Yes, he understood that, all too well.

"It's the others around us that have trouble accepting those differences, as well as our content and pride in them," he murmoured in reflection, thinking of David.

Nasir thought back to the previous night in the cave when he and Robert had spoken alone. Now again, it seemed, Robert's thoughts had returned to his father's unexpected appearance at the camp. Nasir gave a soft sigh. David's tone of voice, his anger and dismay, had disturbed his own thoughts enough since.

"My father never understood how my brother could be happy…be proud… of who he was," he agreed in answer. "When my brother was discovered to be blind, my father thought only that he had lost an asset."

"Men set great store by their sons," Robert answered quietly. He thought upon Ellie and was glad he had a daughter. Ellie was of no account to David, and in a way, Robert was relieved, because that made her safe. Safe to grow up away from the powers that revolved around the Earldom that was lacking an heir. Unless Gisbourne-

Robert hastily shook off that thought with a distracted swing of the head and returned to contemplation of what Nasir had said.

"In my homeland, a man is measured by his sons," Nasir said. "It is the custom for a man to change his name when a son is born to him and on my birth, my father became Mahmoud Abu Nasir." He paused, then spoke again, slowly, as though testing the words on his tongue. "Mahmoud - Father of Nasir." It had been a long time since he had spoken his father's name aloud.

The story of his birth had been told him often as a child, as though a favoured family legend. How the whole family had gathered to celebrate the arrival of a son. How, if he had been another girl child, his father would have earned himself the insulting nickname of Abu Banat – a Father of Daughters – be laughed at behind his back. Nasir had been the much desired firstborn son and had remained always his father's favourite. Until the day he had come home to find his father standing over Sayida's body…

Robert listened, fascinated, to the tale that was slowly unfolding, linking it to the tale Nasir had unfolded in a like manner to him and him alone a year ago. He had been about to commence repair work on the last wicker trap which he had just pulled across his lap - but now his hands were stilled upon it, unmoving and solemn. He kept his head turned in Nasir's direction, listening, focusing his attention on the quiet presence, whilst the flow of the river and birdsong up in the trees faded into the background for him.

Nasir turned the knife in his hands, pressing the blade point against his finger as he thought on. "His name changed again when Hassan was born. But later, on the discovery of Hassan's blindness, he stripped _Abu Hassan_ from his title."

Robert realised the splash of warmth had gone from his face. He wondered vaguely where it had gone, then turned his face down to the weave of the withies his idle fingers were resting upon, aware his brow kept furrowing in frowns. Still he did not move his fingers to start work. To do so would somehow break the spell of this confidence.

"He was born blind like me?" It was more a soft repeat of what Robert remembered Nasir telling him a year ago rather than a question. "How...how did they know? When did your father find out?"

From the corner of his eye, Nasir had seen Robert pick up the trap and now he glanced at him, at the hands laying still and quiet against the brown willow. Robert's brow creased from time to time, furrowing with thought, and he paused a moment before answering the questions put to him, realizing that Robert was absorbing all that he shared and wanting to take his time with that sharing. He placed the knife to one side and pushed his feet against the moss on the bank, feeling the cool earth beneath.

There had been a year between his birth and Hassan's. He did not remember that time, or finding his little brother's ways odd. That had come later, when he'd been old enough to understand the words and reactions of the adults and older children. To notice that his brother's eyes moved oddly and that he needed help in ways other children did not.

Hassan had not understood that a whole world existed beyond the place he occupied within it at any one moment. Their mother had spent patient hours teaching him that a thing did not simply vanish because it had fallen from his hand. He had not learnt things the way most children learnt, by copying what they could see others doing around them.

"He was my mother's third child. I expect she knew quite quickly that he was different," he said. "I do not know when she realized - I was too young to remember, but I know that she kept Hassan close, gave him to Sayida – to my sister - to mind when she was busy. Perhaps she hid whatever differences she thought she saw that way." As he spoke, the words in his memory were Sayida's, spoken in his mind in her voice.

It was many years since he'd felt this close to her and the sound of her voice brought a sharp pain for a moment, from a wound that he'd long thought healed over.

Again he closed his eyes, letting the memories come. The scent of the oleander growing in the courtyard, the damp-earth pungency of coriander, the spit and crackle of the cooking fires as fat dripped onto them from the meat spitted above. The women's voices rising and falling as they worked and laughed and gossiped amongst themselves.

Sayida's voice sounded, low and musical, as though she sat beside him now on the bank, relating the tale to him as she had when they were children. How their visiting grandmother had insisted that Sayida let her cuddle her latest grandson and had taken Hassan to the magnolia tree in the centre of the courtyard to show him the pale pink blooms of the newly flowered buds.

"It was his eyes that gave him away," Nasir said simply. "Someone noticed that they did not follow things. Did not screw themselves up when he was carried from the shade and into the sunlight. That he did not reach out to grab at something, but kept his hand in a fist, like Ellie did when she was newborn. My mother must have hidden it well – he was seven months old when this was discovered."

Robert thought back to Ellie's birth. Throughout Rhiannon's pregnancy, they had never discussed the possibility of their child being born blind like he. There had simply been a mutual content between them about the approaching birth, and that sighted or blind, their child would be their child and would grow to be his or her own person. Truth to tell, Robert did not know whether his own blindness was a creation by Mother Nature which began and ended with him, or whether this trait could be passed on to his children, his descendents - though he suspected it was the former, for there were records of his ancestors stretching back to the times when they had come from Normandy to fight under William the Bastard against Harold Godwinson, and no mention had been made of any trait of blindness.

He remembered a few days after Ellie had been born, and she and Rhiannon had still been lodged with Meg at Sedgeley. And he had carried Ellie outside in his arms, and stood outside the cott, for he had been seized with a desire to show Ellie some of the world. Some of Sherwood. He had felt the faint warmth of February sunshine on his face, and had turned Ellie to it also, and traced his fingertips wonderingly over the little yawning face that he was still learning to know, finding her eyes were open.

He had heard Rhiannon come out of the cott and move to stand beside him, had felt her hand cover his one that was tracing over the contours of Ellie's face, full of silent joy and wonder like he, over the new life they had brought into being, and he had asked her softly whilst still tracing gentle fingertips over Ellie's eyes: _"Is she blind, do you think? Can you tell if she is - can you see if she is?"_

And Rhiannon's voice had answered softly back: _"No, she isn't blind. I can see that she isn't. She's blinking in the bright sunlight."_

Robert wondered if Nasir's mother had noticed the opposite about Hassan at the same early age.

"How did your father find out?" he asked softly. "Was the news brought to him?"

_As such news was brought to my own father,_ Robert thought suddenly.

"My father's mother took Hassan to him and showed him that his son was blind," Nasir said, then added with simple directness; "My father ordered that Hassan be taken to the mountains, to be outside to left to die."

Robert swung his head in immediate uneasy response, and his fingers resting relaxed on the woven framework of the wicker trap curled inwards to clench on it. He did not know what to say, for his gut reaction was tempered by the knowledge that Nasir's culture was a different one entirely, and he feared if he opened his mouth and spoke as instinct bid, he would somehow blaspheme Nasir's culture, and who was he to say what was right and what was wrong about a culture he had little knowledge of? And he did not know why he felt so shocked, for there was plenty a village girl in this land, in his culture, who had had an unwanted or deformed baby and had done away with it on the sly soon after birth; often by smothering it. No questions asked after the deed.

Maybe he was shocked because in Nasir's land, such a deed was done openly; even ordered. Maybe he was shocked because the child in this case was blind like he.

For the first time since the restoration of his blindness, Robert truly understood why the Powers of Light and Darkness had given him false sight at the moment of his birth. He had needed to survive.

He swallowed, distractedly running the clawed fingers of one tensed hand across the weave of the trap, finding in his agitation he could not keep his hands still, and he could not help but imagine what could have been the alternative scenario for him after his birth, had the Powers of Light and Darkness not intervened. He would have had no mother to protect him and hide his blindness, unlike Hassan. Would his father have taken Adela or the goodwife quietly aside and told them to lay a pillow over his sleeping face at an unwatched moment?

"But the - the order was not taken," Robert forced his mind back to Hassan's plight. "How did your brother escape what was decreed by your father?"

Nasir watched Robert's tense hands moving agitatedly across the willow framework of the trap. In some ways, there were vast gulfs between his culture and that of Robert's land, but he had traveled between the East and West often enough in the past to know that they were not dissimilar. He waited, giving Robert time to work through what he had told him.

He fixed his eyes on the river, still dappled with sunlight and shade, but his gaze turned inward as he pictured the scene Sayida had described to him. A low, ululating cry had risen from the women of the household at the news, but Zainab, their mother, had not joined in the death chant. She had sat in the shade and refused to work and had nursed her son at her breast.

"Allah has let him live for seven months," Zainab had said calmly, when any questioned her. "There is purpose in that."

Men of importance had filled the house and for days the matter was discussed and debated and at last decided, not by Mahmoud, but by the Imam, the Holy Man of the town: Hassan was too old to suffer the fate of a newborn. He had lived under Mahmoud's roof for seven months and Mahmoud had a duty to fulfil because of it.

Bringing his thoughts back from the past, Nasir said; "My father was overruled by the Imam of our town." He stopped for a moment puzzling over how to translate the word that had no true equivalent in the Christian church. "Like the Abbot Hugo, an Imam has the power of God on his side and my father would not have dared to cross that ruling. Hassan remained with our mother, but my father treated him as less than a servant."

Robert kept his head lowered, frowning slightly to himself in thought. Trying hard to draw paralells between he and Hassan. In some ways, it was easy - both born blind to a mother now dead and a stubborn father who seemed to believe that blindness was worse than death. In other ways, it was hard - for he and Hassan were a world apart, a culture apart, a religion apart.

Yet, despite the differences, he was still curious. He did not know what he hoped to take from whatever Nasir related to him about Hassan's story. Maybe just some hope itself.

"Did not your father's attitude change at least a little as Hassan grew to manhood?" Robert asked softly at last. "Was there never an occassion where Hassan gave even a little cause for pride and love to your father, rather than disdain and pity?"

"Hassan was seventeen years old when I was banished, so I cannot speak for what has happened since…" Nasir halted. Robert had asked him a direct question and he had only one answer to it. There should be no softening of the truth; not with Robert. "If my father felt love or pride for Hassan, he hid it too well for me to know," he said.

_Mahmoud had never unbent that far_, he thought to himself. It had all changed with the coming of Maliq, because he had opened up the world for Hassan, in much the way Nasir had helped Robert in those early, disorientating days when the Powers of Light and Darkness had restored the blindness to his eyes. Maliq had taught Hassan to know the world in his own way and not to be constrained by the rules of the sighted world. _And we learnt with Hassan_ Nasir thought _Sayida and I_. He pushed those memories aside for now and turned his mind back to Robert's question, his answer not yet complete.

"My brother had a talent for languages and my father was a merchant, mixing with men from many countries. We were both of use to our father because he knew his interests were ours. We were to be trusted," he said, remembering his father's reception rooms. They had sat, one son on each side of Mahmoud, facing out at the others in the room. Rugs were strewn across the floor, a cloth laid for food, servants hurried in and out with food. Glasses were topped up with mint chai and the business of the day would commence.

Nasir had joined his father at such meetings many times, translating back and forth between the western traders and the local business men gathered with them. It had been Maliq who had told Mahmoud of Hassan's keen ear and abilities.

"Hassan was better than I at translating. He was fast and soon learnt to translate whilst a man was talking rather than when he had finished. It was a skill our father came to rely on, once he had seen for himself how quickly business could be concluded with both of us sat at his side," Nasir continued, the rhythmn of his words slowing as the telling of the tale took over.

"He began to take us with him to the docks when the ships came in. We would wander along the harbour front and my father would make enquiries as to the cargoes. And all the while, my brother and I listened to the flow of voices – of languages - around us. To the talk of the sailors, dockworkers and other foreign merchants. What information I might miss, Hassan would catch."

The bustle and stink of Enfeh's port came to life suddenly in Nasir's mind. A new ship had sailed in almost every day, bearing cargoes from the far south as well as the west. Camel trains had crossed the blistering Ansirye desert, bringing spices and silks and other wares from the Far East to sell to the ships waiting at Enfeh for vast fortunes.

Hassan and Nasir - the latter guiding his brother, as they had found that the guiding stick drew too much attention to them - wandered and listened, and gleaned all that they could from the flow of foreign noise around them, to be reported to Mahmoud on their return home.

"It put him ahead of his rivals within the town, for my father knew everything he needed to know about what happened on those docks, with no need to pay bribes and risk being fed false information like many of the other merchants. It had seemed an enjoyable escape into the wider world to Hassan and I at the time, but it made my father one of the most powerful traders in Enfeh. So," he continued, turning his face toward Robert, "My brother found his own way into our father's life. And our father could hardly introduce me to his associates as his son, without including my brother in that relationship."

Robert listened, feelings of both curiosity and vague dismay stirring within him at Nasir's relating of Mahmoud's attitude towards Hassan. It seemed that some things did not alter for fathers and sons, even a world, a culture, a religion away.

"So your father found a....use for your brother." Robert's voice was low. He could think of no better way to phrase his observation.

"Yes," Nasir said. "But it was not all one sided. One day, I would inherit the main part of my father's wealth. Hassan did not think on it as helping my father - or as being used by him - but as helping me – my future. Our future." He saw Hassan's face, twisted in disdain as they had discussed the matter of their futures in quieter moments on the dock, his voice made harsh with determination. They had paused by a woollen ship from England, the guttural tones of the sailors passing – for once – unlistened to around them, as Hassan had shared his thoughts with him.

"If Hassan had remained in the women's quarters as my father wished, he felt he would become a burden on me as we grew older," Nasir continued, explaining what his brother had told to him that day by the English ship. "He wanted to be a part of the livelihood of our household, to understand where our money came from, to help that increase and grow. He could not do that by cleaning dishes in the women's quarters. For all that my father had once disowned him, Hassan was still proud to be a member of our family. And he knew that my father would not always be alive to hold him in one place."

Robert propped his elbow on the wicker trap resting across his knees and rubbed his hand across his face thoughtfully, and then rested his chin on his hand, absorbing the Saracen's tale, as he listened out across the flow of the river rushing by them.

"Hold him in one place," he murmoured, more to himself than to Nasir - and his mind drifted back to three years ago, when he had entered Sherwood. He could still hear his father's despairing, frustrated, angry voice as David had tried to remind him of his responsibilities to the family, had tried to bind him to Huntingdon.

He had heard that voice again only yesterday, at the lakeside...

Nasir held himself still a moment. Where had the telling of his tale had taken Robert who seemed now lost in thought. How much of Hassan's story had struck a chord with him? It was not a question he would ask. He sensed now that Robert had much to take in, to think on, and that he must do so in his own way, in his own time.

Finding his throat dry, he put a hand to his waterskin and drew it to his lips. The liquid had warmed in the heat of the day and he swilled it around his mouth to ease the dryness before swallowing it. He felt, for the first time since he had returned David and the soldier to the track the day before, a sense of peace with his own thoughts.

Somehow, in the telling of the story of his brother and father, the fraughtness of the memories had lessened. The memories, that had been an uncontrollable flood yesterday, had not yet stopped, but they were easing. But, unlike in the past, he found that he did not want to damn them completely.

Listening to Nasir's silence, his slight movement, the gulp of drinking, Robert fingered restlessly over the wicker trap laying across his knees, and then finally slid his hand in exploration along the length of it, seeking the hole that needed to be mended. He sensed Nasir had finished his tale and there was no more to be said. He certainly did not wish to pry. Neither did he wish to break the spell of closeness that had been woven over he and Nasir as the Saracen had shared his tale. For the moment, any idle chat would seem false.

His fingers found the hole in the wicker trap and explored its edges. Selecting several withies from the bundle beside him, he wove them into the gap, in and out of the radial spokes, his fingers moving deftly. He concentrated on the task and did not speak.

The hole was only small, and he worked quickly. Having finished the task, he slid his hands over and around the curving shape of the trap to find if there were any other signs of damage, and found none.

He placed the trap on the grassy bank to the side of him, and turned his head in the direction of Nasir, listening for a moment. The Saracen was still and silent. Robert listened beyond their immediate surroundings, but heard no sound or movement from the third member of their company.

"Where is Will?" Robert asked softly, not wishing to intrude too much on the Saracen's private thoughts. "Is he still on the bridge?"

Nasir glanced up at the question and saw Will, slowly pacing his way along the log bridge. "He is upon the bridge," he answered softly.

Robert felt for his stick lain on the soft long grass beside him, and taking it up, scrambled to his feet. He paused for a moment to orient himself in his surroundings, and then moved towards the sound of the river to find the edge of the bank with his stick. Nasir was in his way, and as he moved round the back of him, Robert trailed the fingertips of his free hand that was down by his side, along the back of Nasir's shoulders in an affectionate, understanding touch as he passed him by.

Nasir smiled at the touch, knowing that Robert could not see him smile, but understanding what that touch conveyed. He stretched back against the bank, propping himself up on his left elbow, absently watching as Robert moved away, and settled back to his own thoughts.

Finding the edge of the bank with his stick, Robert turned to face upriver, and using the bank edge as a guideline, walked forwards, swishing his stick over the long grass and connecting it with the bank edge upon every tap to the ground on his right. The river curved a little here, and he followed the curve carefully. He did not go up the gently sloping bank to find and follow the path, for he needed his stick to find the log bridge, and on the path, his stick would not reach far enough to connect with the bridge.

The heat of the sun came onto his face once again and and he turned his face up to it in enjoyment, but aware he did not smile. His head was full of thought over all Nasir had told him. A story that had afforded him glimpses of a father's grief at a son's blindness, great stubborness - and in a way, the story had frightened him. Mahmoud attitude had seemed to echo his own father's - both stubborn men, both men for whom the honour of the family was everything. There had been no happy ending Nasir had to tell - no tale of the father unbending, realising the son was a person first, and a blind person second. Hassan's skills had not been appreciated and admired as they would be in any sighted son - they had simply been used. Exploited for the gain of the father. And in turn, Hassan, out of necessitys sake had allowed himself to be used, waiting for a better future upon his father's death.

_If my father died,_ thought Robert, _what would happen to all he held?_

It would all go back to his uncle, the King of Scotland, he realised. There was no legitimate heir to inherit. Gisbourne waited in the wings and would surely be ready to fight, to squabble, for some sort of portion. Adela would lose her home at Huntingdon.

_No wonder my father brought that pardon to me yesterday,_ Robert thought. _No wonder he grew angry with me upon my refusal of it._

He felt unsettled. He had been curious about the life of another blind person, and Nasir had satisfied his curiosity by telling him about Hassan. But the curiosity had been replaced by unease, Robert realised. He had been told the tale of a born-blind son who had never been able to break past the barriers of a stubborn, blinkered father to be loved and respected as a worthy person in his own right.

And his path in life regarding his father appeared to be echoing Hassan's. That was what caused him unease. A sense of foreboding.

He halted, as his stick knocked against the long low shape of two logs laying together, their ends wedged into the earth of the bank. He turned his head, listening to the familiar sounds of Will away to his right - his breathing, the occassional rustle of clothing.

"Will?" Robert asked.

"Here," Will said quietly where he sat in the middle of the bridge, staring down into the riverwaters rushing below, his feet in the water.

Robert hesitated, then stepped up onto the log, and tapped his way along, feeling the way also with his bare feet. His stick came into contact with a shape ahead of him, and putting out his hand, he found Will's shoulder at hip height.

"What are you doing?" Robert asked.

Will's answer was simple. "Sittin' here."

Robert sat beside him on the bridge, finding his feet and ankles descended into the river water below. The hot sun now beat down against his back and shoulders. Beside him, Will smelt of damp clothes and river weed. Robert, trying to gauge Will's mood, sensed he was pensive, and decided not to pry. Instead, he listened out across the flowing river which ran under them, and they were given to silence.

"We made this bridge," Will said at last out of the silence. "Years ago."

"In Loxley's time?" Robert said.

"Yeah. We pulled the fallen trees here. Me an' John an' Loxley. An' Tuck and Much. An' James and Martin." Will looked down into the water. "James was dead two days later. Killed by some Templar knights."

"What happened to Martin?" Robert asked curiously.

"Dunno. When King Richard called Robin to Nottingham at the end of that summer, they all went except me." Will's voice was peculiarly proud. "Didn't trust 'im; the King. Then Naz got suspicious an' left Nottingham. John and Martin followed him. John said Martin came as far as the gates of Nottingham, then said to John he was going to visit his sister in Lincoln, but would come and find us in Sherwood in a few days. He never came. We never saw him again."

Robert scratched his chin. "Maybe he'd had enough of the outlaw life. You can't blame him. He'd been provided with an opportunity to slip back into obscurity - maybe he'd decided to take it."

"Opportunity of being a poor oppressed gutless bondsman again." Will spat into the water.

"We all have to make our own choices in life," Robert said. "Sometimes we have to make choices based on life or death. That's what Jenet, did, isn't it?"

Will merely gave a low grunt in response.

"I'll not have you and Alan brawling over this woman, Scarlet," Robert said sternly. "Not at this time."

"Should stop him from going to her at Elsdon, then," Will said.

"Do I stop you going to YOUR women, wherever you've got them?" Robert countered. "That's your business."

Will's voice was low but sharp. "Jenet ain't Alan's business alone, not if she brings danger to us. It becomes our business then."

"What is it with you and Jenet?" Robert asked.

Will hunched his shoulders and stared down into the flowing river below. "Nuthin'."

"Will, I need to know if she really is a danger to us by being Alan's woman. I've not met her, I cannot judge her," Robert's voice was low. "But I trust you to tell me."

Will glanced startled up at him. Robert's face was turned in his direction and was solemn. Only his eyes moved. But Will had long since learnt to ignore their random movement and read his leader's face instead, and right now his leader's face was seriously waiting for a truthful answer.

"She made a fool of me," Will muttered, looking back down at the river.

"Aye, I know. I've heard the story from all quarters. But she fought for her man's life in the only way she could; the only way that was open to her," Robert reminded Will gently. "She was, you must admit, placed in a grim situation. She did not know Loxley and all of you. It's easy to kill strangers."

"She's not-" Will struggled for a moment with his words, reluctant to admit them. "-she's not EVIL, if that's what you mean. Don't think she would do anything to us on purpose but - well, it's who might be watching her, innit?"

"Gisbourne," Robert murmoured thoughtfully, his mind going back to what Alan had told him - that Gisbourne had been in Elsdon only yesterday. On the matter of the dead soldiers, true - but who knew if he was also keeping an eye on Jenet, considering her history.

"Ain't saying that she IS trouble," Will said, "but that she could BRING trouble. Know what I mean?"

"Gisbourne will always connect her with us," Robert surmised. "And that in itself is dangerous."

"Well, we was lucky, that time." Will spat into the water again. "She made us insensible with some mix of herbs, but Marian wasn't there at the time. She came back to our camp to find us layin' there helpless and Jenet fled. She gave us the remedy, an' we recovered and lay in wait for Gisbourne. We still pretended to be insensible when he arrived. Lay like dead dogs till he came up to us - then we got him," Will could not help a smirk to himself.

Robert smiled. "The element of surprise is always useful in battle."

"Certainly surprised him. We killed his men an' caught him. Held him to ransom. Then while Loxley rode to Nottingham to put our terms to the Sheriff - Gisbourne in exchange for Thomas of Elsdon's life - well, we amused ourselves with Gisbourne. Best day I'd had in ages," Will gave a coarse chuckle at the memory. "Almost made up for Loxley not lettin' us kill him."

"What did you do to him?" Robert asked amused, drawing one knee up to his chest and listening.

Will's voice was smug. "We ducked him. Took 'im to the pool near Darkmere where we'd rigged up a ducking stool, and we ducked him good an' proper."

"Like this?" Robert asked innoccently, and neatly swung his hand round behind Will, clapping him so heavily on the back that Will, relaxed where he was sitting leaning forwards, fell into the river.

There was barely a yard to fall, and the water was only chest-high. Will surfaced, and thrashed around to stand upright in the river, spluttering and gasping, glaring at Robert whilst Robert sat laughing on the log bridge at him. "You BASTARD!" Will spluttered.

Robert merely laughed at the sounds of splashing and floundering. "And I didn't need a ducking-stool for you, either."

Will shook his wet hair out of his eyes, gave a final splutter, then with a gleam in his eye, lunged for Robert's legs and pulled on them. Robert felt the pull, suddenly felt himself falling, and before he knew it, he hit the water too with a surprised yell.

For a moment he went under and water filled his ears, then he surfaced, spluttering and disoriented only to hear Will laughing nearby. He launched himself full length through the water towards the sound and his body suddenly collided with Scarlets' - he grabbed the man around the waist and pulled him under.

For a few minutes they play-fought in the middle of the slow moving river, pushing each other under amid splutters and curses, twisting and rolling over in the water as their hands sought for and grabbed onto hair and arms and clothes for purchase in the bid to duck each other.

Finally they ended up breathless and laughing exhaustedly in an unspoken truce next to the log bridge again, each hanging on to it with a hand as the water flowed past them.

"C'mon," said Will, "let's go an' put those bleedin' traps back."

Robert stuck a long arm over the top of the bridge, felt around for his stick which he had left laying there, then grasping it by its shaft, took hold of Will's belt for guidance and followed where he led as Will waded downriver to the line of rocks, water dripping from them as the river grew shallower and ebbed to their knees.

Nasir crouched in the middle of the river, one hand holding a bobbing trap against the pull of the current, the other searching along the river bed. He pulled up a large, round stone with his fingers and slipped it into the trap mouth to weight it, before setting it in position between two rocks.

He looked up at Robert and Will as they headed downstream towards him, Robert holding onto Will's belt as a guide. Both men were soaked through, their hair plastered flat about the heads as they pushed their way through the river, still laughing and slightly out of breath.

He grinned at them.

"Want a hand?" Will asked with a smirk as they came up.

He halted by the line of rocks, knee-deep in water, and Robert halted too and moved to stand beside him, his hand moving to Will's shoulder to orient himself. "We were just coming," Robert offered mischeiviously also with a grin, tilting his head to listen to the sloshing of the water before him as the Saracen moved through it.

Nasir stood, shading his eyes in the sun. "There are two more traps on the bank," he said, for Robert's benefit. He nodded to himself, pleased that Robert's mood had lightened since they had sat upon the bank together. He turned and headed out of the water, fetching up the last two traps and held one out for Scarlet on his return.

"Here - do some bloody work for a change," Will took the trap and nudged it against Robert's arm; he grinned and felt out to take it, and using his stick to prod against the stony riverbed in exploration, found the line of rocks ahead, and then a deep channel between two large ones. He stepped carefully over the line and set the trap back down into the water, holding it down whilst Will scrabbled around on the riverbed and found several stones to weight it down into place. The warmth of the sun was once more against his face, the clean scent of the water was in his nostrils, the cool wetness churned past his hands and legs and slid through his fingers, and again he was aware of his content, the foreboding he had felt upon hearing Nasir's tale washing away.

Will's hand nudged his arm. "C'mon, let's get out of here - I want to dry off."

Robert straightened up, and grasping his stick by the shaft once more, reached out and found Will's shape beside him. He slid his free hand across Will's back to locate and grasp hold of his belt once more, then Will pulled forwards, and Robert followed.

They sloshed through the water and then through the reeds and scrambled up on the bank. "Here." Will pulled forwards again up the bank; still keeping hold of his belt, Robert followed where he was led, and then Will's square rough hand took his wrist and pressed his palm against a vertical surface of bark. Robert released Will's belt and felt briefly over the rounded shape of the ash trunk in recognition, orienting himself in his surroundings once more, and then travelled his hands down the trunk to find the shapes of his boots lying at its base.

He pulled them on, then untied the length of rope from the trunk and coiling it up once more, tied it to his belt.

Will had left shirt, boots and swordbelt under the tree. He pulled on shirt and boots, and buckling his swordbelt once more at his hip, looked across to where Nasir was.

The last trap weighted, Nasir waded through the weeds and up onto the bank.

"There is the old deer trail that runs from this one and takes us near to camp," he said meeting Will's gaze and nodding his head at the forest behind them. They would have to circle around the rock escarpment that the camp backed onto, but it was a shorter route than following the river back to the lake.

Robert rubbed his hand across his face, feeling the hot sun beat down on his head. The thought of being under the cool of the trees was an attractive pull. "Good idea," he said in reply to Nasir's reminder, "let's take that, then. Shorter walk back to camp."

Beside the tree lay his clothes and Nasir pulled them on, struggling a little with the leather against his wet skin. He shrugged on his jacket and slipped the straps of his swords over his head, so that they rested comfortably against his back, then drew on his boots. That done, he pulled a small sheet of sacking cloth from his jacket and tucked most of the edges into his belt to form a bag that hung loosely at his waist.

"Have you got the fish, Will?" Robert asked, moving round the tree, one hand still in contact with the trunk.

Will was stood by the tree, tightening his sword belt. "Nah, still on the bank where we was sittin.'"

Robert moved forwards, sweeping his stick from side to side across the grass, and it connected with not only the sack of fish but the withies. He went down on one knee and hastily tied them up into a bundle once more, then slung them across his back and collected up the sack to tie it to his belt.

He moved across to the sounds of Will, and finding his solid shape, took his arm for guidance. "Naz?" Robert queried, turning his head to listen in the direction of the Saracen's movements.

"Naz, you comin'?" Will asked, looking in the direction Robert's head was turned, glancing at the Saracen as he finished dressing.

"I will follow in a moment," Nasir replied.

Will nodded in answer, and he and Robert moved from the bank into the cool shade of the trees to take the old deer trail that led back through the forest to near the camp.

As Will and Robert moved away, Nasir returned to the bank. With the side of his boot, he scraped the pile of fish guts Will had left into the river, watching as they spread and sank in the water. Even this deep in Sherwood, he did not like to leave signs that the outlaws had visited an area – and especially not in places where they were likely to return.

He took up his waterskin and passed the strap over his head, then paused a moment by the scarred ash tree to give a final glance behind him. All was left as they had found it and he gave a satisfied nod. By his foot lay the stick Will had discarded when they had first arrived and he bent to pick it up, then set off into the trees, following Will and Robert along the trail.

He wandered as fancy took him, slipping off the track in places, then returning to it. Along the way, he used the stick to push aside the undergrowth and search within it. He found some herbs to flavour the fish, then searched for garlic. The tubular stalks were easy to find and he dug up the papery bulbs with the stick, slipping them in the makeshift bag at his belt.

Some way to his right, he could hear Will and Robert moving quietly along. There came the tap of Robert's guiding stick against a tree and Nasir turned to glance in the direction of the noise. He caught a glimpse of the two men wending their way through the trees to his right.

It had been he who had made Robert the stick, sometime after Robert had lost his sight – temporarily so they had thought at the time. In those early days of blindness, Robert had used a stout walking stick to find his way about the forest. Within days, his palms had blistered painfully from the thick, rough branch. Nasir had understood why Robert used the staff – it doubled as a weapon in his hands - but it had not been the tool that Robert needed.

So, he had taken a hazel branch to whittle and smooth and had crafted a leather strap to fix at the top so that Robert would not drop it if it slipped in his grasp. Will had been there with him, he remembered, and had demanded to know what Nasir thought he was doing.

"He ain't gonna like THAT," Will had said to him in answer to his explanation. "That's nuthin' but a feelin' stick for the blind. An' he's goin' to KNOW it is, as soon as he touches it."

Will had been right, and Robert had at first hesitated to accept the stick – until Nasir had begun to show him how to use it correctly and he had learned for himself the benefit of the narrow, sensitive hazel.

_I would not have known to teach him thus if it had not been for Maliq_ Nasir thought. _And like Robert, Hassan would never have gained his independence if not for that stick_.

He remembered back to that first day's practise with the olive wood stick: No one in Enfeh had heard of such a thing before. Many of the household had scoffed at the idea of using a stick to guide a blind child. Even Nasir – despite his growing admiration for his new tutor - had had his doubts. On trips outside the house, Hassan had been accompanied by another to guide him and Maliq had hinted that Hassan would be freed to make his own way about with no need to take a hand or arm for help once he had begun to master the use of the stick.

Accompanied by his cousin Khalid, Nasir had followed Maliq and Hassan out to the back of the house on the first day that Hassan was due to have a lesson in its use.

It had been a dry, hot afternoon. Nasir and Khalid had settled themselves in the shade of a large cypress tree, the needled branches clicking together in the warm breeze. They had grinned at each other as Maliq had begun his instruction, gently moving Hassan's small fingers along the shaft of the stick, until they rested level with his stomach. Hassan had held the stick, then tipped the far end of it out to wave over the ground before him. Again Maliq had corrected him and Nasir had watched lazily as Hassan ran the stick lightly along the ground in front of him.

Maliq had stood close beside Hassan, talking quietly, but Nasir had found himself too hot to draw nearer and hear what the scholar said. Khalid had smirked at him as Hassan had removed his free hand from the trunk of the tree and set off across the dried earth, arcing the stick from side to side in front of him. He had passed out into the sunlight and lifted his head and the stick had clicked against the wall of Zainab's garden. Hassan had stopped, drawn it against his body to allow himself to take a step nearer, and put out a hand to feel the obstruction in his path.

Running his hand along it, he had tilted his head up as though listening. "Mother's garden!" he had informed his audience after a moment.

Nasir had sat up, his interest piqued by Hassan's excited tone. Although familiar with the women's quarters and courtyard, Mahmoud had not encouraged Hassan to explore beyond the courtyard wall. Instead, he had been guided down the path and Nasir himself had done so many times, guiding his brother along, then placing his hand on the rough mud wall that surrounded the garden so that Hassan could find his way from there.

Yet, Hassan had just made his own way there, seemingly with only the stick to guide him. Nasir had watched the tutor with narrowed eyes as he followed alongside his brother, yet not touching him or steering him along.

Hassan had turned slightly and begun again, tapping the stick against the wall until he found the gateway and entered the garden. The plants, well watered by the servants, grew high and the stick had tangled in them. Hassan had stumbled slightly.

Khalid had let out a lazy shout of laughter and Hassan had turned, giving an irritated swing of his head in their direction. He had paused, then extended the stick, using it to tap along the border of the plants. He had reached a hand into the tangled stems and felt up along them, to the purple flowers that headed them, then nodded as though in recognition. Beside Nasir, Khalid had also sat up straighter, observing curiously as Hassan tapped the stick over the ground around him and turned himself back onto the trodden earth that formed the path.

Maliq, moving to Hassan's side, had spoken briefly, and the boy had tapped his way back towards the two boys, pausing as he crossed from full sunlight into the shade of the tree.

"Your turn," Maliq had said, taking the stick Hassan offered him. Hassan had settled himself at the scholar's feet, a mischevious grin on his face, as Maliq untied the agal that bound his kuffiyeh to his head. The black and white chequered cloth came away in his hand to reveal a white skull cap, resting on short, dark hair. He beckoned Nasir over to him.

Frowning a little and suddenly unsure of the man who stood before him, Nasir had stood as bidden and Maliq had tied the kuffiyeh about his face, so that he could not see. His breath had made it stuffy beneath the cotton and it smelt of the oil Maliq used to anoint his beard and hair. Nasir's hand had been lifted and the stick placed against his palm. He gripped at it tightly.

Despite the year between them, Hassan and Nasir were almost of a height and the stick reached to the top of his chest. It had felt light in his hand, fragile. He was not sure that he trusted it to help him find his way. Maliq had lifted Nasir's other hand and Nasir had felt the smooth bark of the cypress beneath his fingers.

"Now," Maliq's voice had said, from some way behind him. "Find your direction and follow in your brother's path ."

Experimentally, Nasir had put out the stick and drawn it across the ground, feeling it snag against the gritty earth. The heavy cloth of the folded kuffiyeh blocked the light effectively and he had tried to orientate himself with the garden's direction from memory, feeling suddenly lost in a place he knew should be familiar. He had lifted the stick and waved it from side to side, close to the ground as he had seen Hassan do, and met only with empty air. He shuffled forward, unsure of the direction he faced, tapping the stick up and down as he went for fear of tripping on something, feeling sharp vibrations running through it from contact with the ground.

He had heard a whisper behind him, an explosive, stifled giggle.

"Are you trying to dig with it?" came Hassan's voice, rich with laughter.

Nasir had paused, trying to remember what he'd seen Hassan doing. He loosened his grip and tried to relax and slowly moved the stick over the ground, copying the side to side swing he had seen Hassan make at Maliq's instruction. The ground was clear and he moved on. After a moment, the sunlight beat strongly down on his head and he knew that he had passed out of the shade of the tree. He had tried to picture the garden, count the paces to it in his head, but he had taken his sight for granted on previous trips – there had been no need to do such things.

Ignoring his brother's laughter he had tapped on cautiously. The breeze caught at the edge of the kuffiyeh, lifting the hem and passing beneath it. He had drawn in the fresh air gratefully, then paused to savour the scent it had bought him. Sage. The purple flowers that Hassan had touched! He must be close to the wall. _So that was why Hassan had lifted his head_ he thought – he had scented the plants in the garden and known that he was close before his stick had tapped against the wall.

A new appreciation of the way his brother found his way around had come to him – he had never thought to ask before how Hassan knew so easily to find things in the courtyard. He had been suspicious of Maliq and of the stick. To watch Hassan so easily make his own way to the wall had caused him to wonder if the stick was in some way magical. But there was more to Hassan's journey along the path than he had realised.

Nasir's wandering thoughts had caused him to miss a step and he had realised that the ground had begun to slope upwards towards the wall. He had taken another pace and the stick had come up against something solid. The contact caught him unawares and the node on the top of the stick dug hard against his breast bone.

"The wall, he's walked into the wall," came Khalid's voice in derision, followed by Hassan's laugh.

Intrigued by the information his other senses were providing him with, Nasir had ignored them and stepped carefully on further. The stick, pinging in contact with the mudbricks, had created a very different sensation than it had in contact with the ground.

Suddenly, the stick had met with empty air and he knew that he was at the gateway. The breeze moved the cloth aside again and he hadcaught a further waft of sage and heard the drone of the bees from the hives beyond. He had stepped forwards and the crunch of grit beneath his feet become soft earth – he reached the dark soil that the herbs grew upon.

The stick, waving about a pace in front of him, had caught in something and he had reached out to entangle his fingers with the narrow, soft leaves of the sage plants, that Zainab swore attracted the bees but repelled less friendly creatures. Rubbing them gently, he had then drawn his hand beneath the cloth to confirm his discovery. The sharp pungent scent of the herb had filled his nostrils.

Nasir had felt a hand on his shoulder and Maliq's voice came in his ear. "Your grip is wrong," he said, softly. "Hold the stick lower, as you would clasp the hand of a friend in greeting. Like so..." The tutor had guided his fingers so that they lay along the stick, the first finger and thumb pointed downwards. "Hold lightly, move from your wrist." Maliq's fingers had lifted the stick within Nasir's own grasp, swinging it from side to side in a smooth, sweeping movement.

Maliq had allowed Nasir to practice a moment more, before placing a hand on his shoulder. "I think that is enough for one day," he had said and slipped the kuffiyeh from Nasir's face. Nasir had taken a great gulp of fresh air, sure that the tutor had only just managed to hide the smile on his face, by turning to beckon Khalid over for a turn.

Beneath the trees of Sherwood, Nasir lifted the thin stick he was using to dig up pignuts, smiling at the memories. Maliq had encouraged everyone to try the things he was teaching Hassan. The olivewood stick had passed through many hands and become a familiar object to the other children, rather than an oddity to stare at. The mystery and suspicion that might have surrounded Hassan's use of it had been so easily diffused. There was no magic in the stick – no magic in the blind boy who used it – but there had been skill and Hassan's senses had been far more attuned to his surroundings than those of the sighted children.

_We all came to appreciate that skill_ Nasir thought. _And found our own ways to teach him, as I learned to teach him how to fight with a dagger_.

He had learnt much from his brother whilst teaching him such things. How to keep his bearings in a fast paced fight, when sight was blurred by speed. How to shut off sight and not rely on it, but on smell and sound and movement to guide him. As he in turn watched Robert adapt to using sound and smell and the movement of another to direct himself. Such skills had proved useful during his time with the Assassins and he had been much sought after by his comrades who had wanted to improve their own skills – their own chances of survival – when carrying out night missions…

He gave a sharp shrug, as though physically shaking away those memories. There were things in his past that did not belong in a sunlit day in Sherwood. The sense of peace that had entered him after speaking with Robert earlier in the day, was a fragile peace - he did not wish to disturb it yet.

He bent to take the pignuts he had uncovered into the palm of his hand, rolling them around with his fingers to loosen the earth that stuck to them. They would be useful to thicken up the stews that Tuck made, he thought to himself. He slipped them into the sackcloth bag and rose, tucking the loose ends into his belt so as not to spill any of the food within as he walked.

Robert and Will were out of sight and Nasir moved silently through the trees until he found the trail that they had followed, and set himself back on the path to the camp.