Post of the Month

~ March 2007 ~

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Robert/David ~ Written by Siiri & Nikke.  Posted on the HoS Yahoo group March 2006.

The forest was thick in this area. Pushing his way through the last of the bushes that surrounded the outlaws camp, David hastened to catch up with his son who walked ahead, through the tangle of trees that led to the lake.

"Robert, ware the trees-" David began, a split second before Robert's sweeping stick clicked against a slender tree trunk to his left and he moved to the right to avoid it without breaking pace.

"I'm all right," Robert replied calmly over his shoulder, unfazed, and David wondered at his reply - how could anyone who was blind be all right?

David followed close behind his son as they headed through the thick trees, watching Robert's straight back and shoulders, still in a dither of anxiety about Robert's progress through the forest but not able to bear the thought of touching him to offer aid. It was as if Robert had suddenly turned into a leper, and although David detested that thought, he could not help himself.

He continued to follow Robert and watch his son, not able to take his eyes off him in a strange mix of curiosity and horror. Robert walked confidently without falter, at normal pace, tapping his stick from side to side before him, wending his way through the close clustered trees, somehow keeping to the thin deer trail and David wondered how on earth he did it - then watching the stick, realised that Robert could feel the narrow line of tracks rutted into the dry earth with the stick and thus could follow the trail.

Maybe Robert had some sight, David tried to console himself with, to be able to move around so confidently - though God knew how much he could see through those pupils. They were not just cloudy, they were solid white. Maybe it was akin to looking through a thick piece of white linen and some shapes around him in the world could be seen.

"Your woman...." David began.

"My wife," Robert immediately corrected over his shoulder as he walked through the trees towards the lake. "Rhiannon, my wife. She has a name, you know."

David ignored the correction. "My God, one side of her face is as twisted as a gargoyles and aye, as ugly! What possessed you to have a woman like that? Because no-one else would let you have them because you're now blind?"

Robert frowned as he walked on. "What makes you think that Rhiannon is ugly? God's teeth, sighted people have strange views of beauty sometimes!"

He came out of the trees and his stick now hit soft tangled grass and soft earth. The rippling of the lake was directly before him. He headed towards the sound, straight forwards over first grass and then a slightly sloping stretch of gravel and earth, until his stick splashed into the shallows that lapped at the gravel and earth. There he immediately halted and turned his head to listen as David moved to stand beside him.

"It's beautiful, don't you think?" Robert said out of the silence between them.

David looked before him at the lake. It was a large stretch of water, fed by a series of small waterfalls that dribbled continually down into it from the higher ground on the far side. The forest fringed the lake on all sides, but the sun was overhead and shone on them now.

He looked at Robert. His face was turned out towards the lake and he was in profile to David. He appeared to be listening to all that was around him, but his face showed signs of tension.

"Is this a camp site you use often?" David asked.

"Once in a while," Robert replied. "It's well-hidden and very few know it exists. And we like to keep it that way. Which is why Nasir blindfolded Hubert."

"I'm surprised you didn't blindfold me as well," David was sarcastic.

Robert did not like the sarcasm he heard in David's voice. "You're my father, I trust you."

"So you're wanting to be well-hidden at the moment, hence the choice of camp," David observed. "Anything to do with the soldiers you encountered yesterday?"

"That and the fact that some outlaws from Lincoln are casting boasts around that they will drive us out from Sherwood. We aim to be ready for them should their boasts turn into action." Robert drew his guiding stick up to his chest, turning his head from side to side to scan over the large body of water before him, casting his hearing out like a net in all directions, but in particular focusing it on the quietly agitated presence of his father several feet to his right.

David's quiet agitation discomfited Robert. He sensed that agitation was only going to increase as David plied him with more questions and did not receive the answers he wanted to hear. Robert felt his face twitch in response to the discomfited feelings within him and wondered what he was displaying for David to see. He kept his face turned to the rippling sound of the lake spread before them and waited.

"About this woman of yours-" David began.

"-my wife-" Robert was quick to correct once again.

"Well I don't blame you taking a woman," David said awkwardly. "A man has needs - even a blind man, I suppose. If she's the only woman you could get, then at least she serves a purpose to satisfy you..."

Robert had had enough. He swung round to face David, gripping the shaft of his guiding stick in one hand. "She is my WIFE!" Robert said heatedly. "I did not seek her to be so purely for my sexual satisfaction! If I had wanted only that, I would have sought myself whores! She chose me and I chose her. Tuck married us last summer. She is my wife!"

David kept his voice calm, using the patronising tone he had used to use with Robert as a headstrong child. "I don't think so, Robert, considering Tuck's an outlaw. The marriage would not be considered valid or legal, as Tuck has been excommunicated."

The patronising calm tone took Robert with a nasty jolt back to a controlled childhood where ideas and confidences of a ten year old eager to share had often been dispassionately quashed by such a tone. David's lack of movement before him annoyed him also - what was he doing, how was he feeling? Irritated by the lack of movement and lack of reaction in David's voice, Robert frowned and swung his head restlessly, unable to read his father correctly, feeling confused and at a loss as to how to respond verbally to the reply.

Irritated and bewildered by Robert's odd physical response, David reached out and caught Robert's head between his hands, stilling its movement with a stern jerk - then he suddenly stopped short as he noticed the way the sunshine fell across Robert's face without so much as a reaction from him.

"Dear God...." David took Robert's head more gently between his hands and turned Robert's face up to receive the full flood of sunshine, and stared hard at his son. The sunshine hit Robert directly in the eyes, yet he did not blink or screw them shut against the brightness. Instead, they remained wide open. David stared into the blue eyes with something akin to disbelieving horror. The eyes were not still, did not focus on anything, not even on David's face, close as it was. David tried to follow their movement to look into the eyes more deeply to try and determine the cause of the blindness. But he could not look into his son's eyes, for the pupils were a blank white.

Robert remained still, his hands by his sides, frowning slightly in bewilderment as he felt his face raised and then turned slightly and then felt the warmth of the sun full on his forehead. He realised he was being scrutinised closely, but for the moment he tolerated his head being tilted between David's awkward hands, for the touch was no longer restraining. Robert suddenly realised that up to then his father had still been fostering some vague wild hope about his sight. He stood quietly, still puzzled, unsure as to whether something was being asked of him in the way of reaction, and not knowing how to respond.

David stared at his son with horrified fascination. "I heard the reports of....of this when I returned to England," David said at last. "I had hoped that those reports were falsehoods...."

"No falsehoods," Robert said gently.

"I had to find you," David said.

"I understand. You wanted to see for yourself. Sighted folk need the evidence their eyes give them before they can oft believe anything they find unbelievable by merely hearing about it," Robert said.

David stared at him, puzzled.

Robert was just as bewildered by the silence and the lack of movement from his father. He wondered what was going on. He gently gripped his father's wrists and took them away from his head, turning his face down from the full heat of the sun.

"How long have you been like this?" David demanded.

Robert wondered how on earth to answer that question. "My blindness was restored a year ago," he replied quietly. He turned away and walked on along the lake edge, sweeping his stick from side to side before him, just waiting for that statement to dawn on David.

David stared after his son, then followed him along his calm progress along the lake shore, not knowing whether to take his son's arm and give assistance, or just let him be. "Why didn't you send word to me, Robert?" he asked as he caught up with his son and walked alongside him, looking into his face with concern.

"You were in NAVARRE, for Christ's sake...I was going to wait till you returned to England and then pay you a visit at Huntingdon..." Robert said.

"...Wait a minute," Robert's previous statement suddenly registered with David, and he stopped short. "Your blindness was RESTORED to you a year ago? You said your blindness was restored?"

Robert halted as well and turned to face him, inwardly knowing to dread the solid wall of disbelief he knew would come. "Aye."

"What do you mean, your blindness was restored?" David demanded.

Robert drew his guiding stick up to his chest and leaned his hands on it. "Exactly that; it was restored. My sight wasn't taken from me, Father, because I have never had sight. I was born blind."

"Has your mind been turned?" David gaped at him.

"Would you bear an explanation?" Robert enquired.

"Pray do explain." David was sarcastic. He folded his arms, all the while staring at his son with some horror, wondering if living in the forest had finally addled Robert's mind. Or mayhap blindness had addled it...

Robert wondered how on earth to explain. He fully expected disbelief. The villagers hereabouts had disbelieved the explanation at first - and perhaps some still did. Yet their belief in Herne made them accept what Robert had told them. His father had no such belief in Herne - so Hecate alone knew how his father would take the explanation, Robert thought.

He searched for the words to explain as simply as he could. "What you....what everyone...even myself....thought was sight, was not. It was a guise, some strange veil of artificial sight given to me by
the Powers of Light and Darkness."

He paused, listened to his father's presence before him, but there was nothing but silence. And the murmur of the trees around them, and the distant trickling of the waterfall into the lake.

He attempted to explain further. "The Powers of Light and Darkness knew I would be born blind - they wanted a male child born blind, to grow to become Herne's Son and help them defeat an adversary which they knew would come along. They knew only a man born blind could defeat the powers of this adversary. So they searched and found me already blind in my mother's womb. They waited for my birth, and when I was born, they immediately guised my blindness with a strange artificial sight of their making. They guised my blindness even from myself..."

He paused, listened again, his father was breathing oddly, heavily, as though fighting sadness, disbelief - and maybe even some strange kind of mounting anger borne of that sadness and disbelief. Robert continued.

"That evil adversary came to Sherwood last summer. The time had come, and so the Powers of Light and Darkness removed the guise of artificial sight from me. They restored my blindness so I could defeat the powers of this evil adversary. He was defeated - and now...everything is as it should be. I have been restored to my natural state. So you see me now as what I have been all along, under the guise the Powers placed upon me."

"This is nonsense." David found he shook with a mixture of irritation at the explanation, anger at being unable to control the situation. "Sherwood - or this so-called God called Herne has addled your brain as well as damaged your eyes beyond repair..."

"Father-" Robert felt a knot of apprehension twist inside him; David's reaction was exactly what he had expected and dreaded.

David continued on his furious outpouring of disbelief. "You were not - you were NOT born blind! - I held you an hour after your birth, your eyes were NOT like that, you were NOT born blind-! Christ's teeth, what is this MADNESS that has taken you over, Robert?"

Robert sighed in irritation and swung away from the raging voice assaulting his ears, away from the anger and disbelief that felt like a bucket of cold water being flung over him. Feeling over the ground before him with his stick, he walked on again along the lake. He found he could not remain still and contend with the tumult of feelings within him at his father's reaction. It was best to walk.

David hurriedly followed him, still angry and disbelieving. "You must have had an accident...."

"No accident," Robert said brusquely. "Do you not think my eyes would be scarred or disfigured if I'd had an accident?"

"Then illness-" David groped wildly for reasons.

"No."

"Then it's witchcraft of some sort-" David began, horrified.

"No, my eyes are nothing but the hand of Mother Nature," Robert said steadily. "And that's nothing for you to fear. Mother Nature should be respected, aye - but not feared. She does things for a reason, a purpose, even if we don't understand."

His stick knocked against a solid object ahead; he put out his hand, felt before him and found the horizontal line of the fallen tree that had toppledover at the waters edge years ago in a storm and now lay stretching out into it. It was a good place to sit, and he was tired of walking along the shore with his father hovering anxiously around him, watching him and expecting him to trip or walk into something.

Robert perched himself on the log to sit, stick between his hands, and waited.

David moved to sit beside him, not touching him, and stared at him, hardly liking to look his son in the face, yet drawn to those strange eyes, whilst the horrid suspicion that his son's mind was indeed addled, rose up inside him like bile.

"My poor child-" David said quietly.

Robert felt his face twitch in response to his father's pitying tone. Dismay flooded over him at it, even though he had been expecting it, he had not bargained for just how strong his dismay would be.

"I have little taste for those words," he replied.

David frowned. "My only son goes blind and you don't expect me to care?"

"Not your only son," Robert said gently. "And I didn't GO blind. I've always been blind..."

David ignored the latter correction. "My only LEGITMATE son..."

Robert found a way to draw the conversation off the subject of the cause of his blindness, which was obviously a conversation which was going to get nowhere in David's present mood. "So you know, then. That Gisbourne..."

David looked down at the ground. "Gisbourne came to Huntingdon just after I returned from Navarre. Three weeks ago. He confronted me. Told me."

"What did he tell you?" Robert asked, both curious and uneasy, tilting his face slightly in the direction of his father's voice to listen, eager to pick up all the clues he could about how his father felt over Gisbourne.

David's voice was reluctant. "He told me he knew I was his son. He didn't tell me how he knew. He didn't tell me how he had found out."

"Did you know he was your son before that day?" Robert asked.

David shook his head, looking ahead of him into the cool green scenery of Sherwood; it was like a balm to his eyes in the bright sunshine, it soothed his thudding head and seemed to have a calming effect. "No. No, I didn't know he was my son until he came and told me he was." He paused. "I'd always held a vague dislike for Gisbourne, being in de Rainault's shadow as he was... Our paths have crossed in the past, of course, I knew he was Margaret's son...there were occasions I glimpsed him and saw Margaret in him. Made me think of her, sometimes." He shot a glance at Robert. "But I never saw myself in him...until I knew. But that's often the way, isn't it? You don't see things, make the connections, until you know that there are connections there to be made."

Robert lowered his head, unsure, only half-understanding. Seeing was a mystery to him.

"You acknowledged him," Robert said quietly. "I'd heard the news that you had acknowledged him as your bastard son."

"I felt I owed him that much. As he gave me the details, the date of his birth I realised without a doubt that he spoke the truth - I did father him." David looked at Robert. "You're not disputing this. I would have thought you would be telling me he was lying."

"No," Robert said wearily, "he's not lying. It's all true, I know it to be so. I've had the knowledge of my blood-tie with him for the past two years... I don't dispute it. At all. He is your son."

"How did you learn of this?" David asked.

"Margaret of Gisbourne herself. We met....we rescued her two years ago when she was attacked by outlaws as she travelled to Croxden Abbey on pilgrimage." In a few brief sentences, Robert told David of that time, and then there existed an uneasy silence between father and son once more.

"So you met her...." David murmured. He stared down at the ground. "I had not seen her for years. She was beautiful when I first knew her. Was she still when you met her?"

Robert gave a slight bemused laugh. "I know not what she looked like. I know not what anyone looks like. But I remember her voice was patient, her manner was calm, her movements were graceful, her touches to my arm were light. She possessed a good heart. Is that the beauty you seek or the beauty of the sighted, who look and judge by their eyes alone?"

David didn't answer; taken aback.

"Like I said," Robert said wryly, "you sighted have strange views of beauty."

David looked out across the lake and remembered how the candle-light had shone on Margaret's hair at the feast where they had first met.

"I heard she died at Croxden not long after," Robert said more gently, listening to his father's silence, trying to read him. "Her journey was over and she could rest."

David crossed himself. "Aye, I'd heard she died. God rest her soul. She was a good woman. As your mother was a good woman."

They both fell to awkward silence for a moment, whilst around them the trees moved slightly, whispering in the breeze, and the lake rippled. A bird called from a nearby tree, and another answered.

"Robert, we need to talk about what the future holds for you now you're blind and reliant upon others-" David began at last.

Robert immediately recognised the lead-in to an as yet unspoken topic and sought to nip it in the bud before a full scale argument erupted. "Father, don't start badgering me to go back to Huntingdon. I can't. This is my destiny. The choice has been made, and I have made it." He turned his head to face his father, scanning over him curiously. "I wouldn't change anything," Robert said softly. "I'm happy as I am, happy WHERE I am. Happy WHO I am."

David stared at him. "My God, you are truly mad if you believe all you have told me, if you are happy as you are...." David breathed in horror. "You're blind, for the love of Christ - how can you be happy with THAT?"

Robert gave an annoyed frown and swung his head frustratedly, annoyed that he could not get through to his father.

David interpreted the gesture as one of frustration clearly enough - but linked that frustration towards Robert deep down not being happy yet refusing to admit it.

"You've always been stubborn, Robert," David said. "I do understand that part of you. You inherited it from me. And now you're stubbornly refusing to admit that you cannot continue here in Sherwood. It can't be easy, being unable to do what you used to be able to do. You must be fighting to keep your men under your leadership. The fact that they have stayed with you says much for their loyalty."

Robert lowered his head, frowning down at the ground, and did not speak. David watched his profile curiously, trying to read Robert's face. He found he had substantial difficulty. There was something alien about Robert's face now he was blind. He kept pulling fleeting expressions at empty air. Perhaps because he had no sight to know where to direct those expressions, thought David. But he still found Robert's face strange and difficult to read. There was no eye contact and that to him was worst of all.

"But it's not going to be this way forever," David continued at last. "Don't you SEE that, Robert?" He stopped short for a moment, agonised as he realised what he had just said, then continued. "Your men will leave you eventually. Or you're going to get an arrow in the back from one of Gisbourne's men."

"They won't leave me," Robert replied with certainty. "And as for the arrow in the back, I'll take my chances."

David sighed.

"What is it?" Robert asked sharply, hearing the sigh and sensing there was much loaded behind it that David had not yet divulged. "There's more, isn't there."

David unlaced the neck of his jerkin and reached for the roll of parchment he had carried with him from Huntingdon. "I came into Sherwood to find you, aye, find out if what I heard was true. I have the proof before me. So I ask you to come back to Huntingdon with me today-"

"-No-" Robert interjected firmly.

David interrupted him in return. "-You wanted to know if there was more, so let me finish. There's more. I have this...."

He took from his jerkin the roll of parchment. Robert turned his head towards the movement, hearing a crackle of parchment and a slight shift of clothing, bewilderedly wondering what his father was doing now. He bewilderedly scanned over the presence beside him but could not tell. Then he felt his father's awkward hand take his wrist and move his hand forwards - and then his fingertips were pressed lightly to a roll of parchment held before him.

Robert put out his other hand and felt both over what was in front of him, finding it was his father's other hand holding that roll of parchment. He explored both hand and roll of parchment within it before taking hold of the roll. Lifting the roll of parchment to his face, Robert bent his head slightly and put his nose to the roll of parchment, then touched his lips briefly to it in exploration, gathering information. The ink smelt fresh and the parchment smelt and felt new - this was no old document. One end was weighted down with a row of ribbons with wax seals upon them.

Robert unrolled the parchment on his knee, and ran the fingertips of his right hand over it, keeping a section unrolled open with his other hand. David watched the fingers, glanced up at Robert's face uplifted from what he was feeling, and felt sorrow like a dagger-stab, for Robert's actions were truly those of a blind man. "What is this?" Robert asked bewilderedly, feeling over the surface of the parchment. "It's a letter? Who from?"

David looked at him. "It's your pardon. King John has given you a pardon."

Robert recoiled his fingers from feeling over the surface of the parchment as though it had burnt him.

"No..." he exclaimed in shock rather than denial, pausing his fingers on his knee aside from the parchment.

"You don't believe me? Here." With heavy heart, David took Robert's wrist and guided his fingers to the plethora of seals hanging from the ribbons at the bottom of the unscrolled parchment. "These are the Kings seals."

Each ribbon was stamped with two or three wax seals of varying sizes. With a delicate fingertip, Robert explored the surface of each wax seal, even the smallest ones, tracing the impressions in the wax.

"Do you want me to call Tuck to read the pardon to you, confirm what I have said is true?" David asked.

"No. I have felt the seals of the King before and I recognise them before me now." Robert's fingertips delicately explored each wax seal, one by one. David watched him and could only begin to imagine what his son's world of total darkness was like.

"Explain about this," Robert said finally, still fingering over the final ribbon of wax seals. His mind felt in a daze - this pardon was the last thing he had expected.

David watched Robert's face, seeing disbelief and shock there. He sought to speak calmly, putting all the truth into his voice for Robert to hear. "I travelled to London when I returned from Navarre and heard of your blindness, and once in London, I sought audience with the King. News of your blindness had reached him long ago. I begged him to pardon you, in view of your...your incapacitation, and he was merciful. That pardon you're holding cost me a pretty penny. Some prime lands."

"You should not have gone to this expense," Robert said bluntly.

David had expected this reaction but even so felt affronted. "You're my son. You're now blind and helpless, yet still living as an outlaw in Sherwood, unable to fend for yourself. What else could I do."

"Leave me to live the way I choose?" Robert suggested.

David grew irritable. "Don't be so ridiculous! You're blind."

"Does that make me incapable of choosing my path for myself?" Robert demanded.

David's answer was telling in its tone of finality. "I believe it does in these circumstances."

Robert moved his hand upwards from the ribbons and the seals and his fingers slowly traversed the surface of vellum parchment once again, wondering. How words appeared on parchment was a mystery to him. "Does this pardon also pardon my men?" he asked.

David's answer was definite. "No."

"Does it pardon my wife?"

"No."

"What about my daughter?" Robert asked.

"There is no mention of the child. The pardon is for you alone."

Robert rolled the parchment up and held it out in David's direction. "Did you really expect me to accept this, Father?" There was no answer, no movement from David to take back the parchment; Robert frowned and thrust the parchment against David's chest. "Take it! And dispose of it. I want it not."

David snatched back the roll of parchment, and sprang up from the fallen tree to angrily stride the handful of paces down to the edge of the lake where he halted, the parchment clenched in one thwarted fist. "You ungrateful wretch! After all I have done for you in this matter..."

Robert felt the flame of anger heaten his face, and he sprang up from the fallen tree and followed his father to stand beside him. "I never asked you to-"

"After all the COST I have put into obtaining this pardon for you-"

"-I never asked you to give up your lands and monies...."

"-You THROW it back in my face!" David swung round on him in despair and frustration. "What am I supposed to do, Robert? You're my son and I love you. How else do I show that love for you? How else are you to know?"

Robert suddenly turned to him, and put out both hands to find his father's shoulders. Finding them, he moved his hands upwards to find his father's face, longing above all else to feel his father's face, learn what he was like, read this man by feeling his facial expressions. Curiously, he spanned the fingertips of both hands out across the face before him to explore, tracing those fingertips across a lined forehead that kept puckering, eyelids that blinked and eyes that pulled narrowed for some reason as he touched them, heavy brows that knotted, and he moved one hand down to feel over the man's mouth to gain further clues and found it unsmiling, the jaw tensed.

This strange face before him which yet belonged to a familiar voice and set of movements was twitching and seething with movement as his fingers explored, and Robert moved his face in response, trying to copy with his own face the movements he felt, wondering if that was the way to communicate back to his father successfully. Sighted people oft spoke a bewildering silent language with the movement of their faces, and the nuances of it were a mystery to him, though he had learnt that trying to copy with his face back to his close friends the movements he felt on theirs sometimes seemed recognisable to them and yielded favourable results; they would laugh or smile and seem to understand his facial movement, and touch his cheek or hug him. In truth, Robert ached for that response now from David after all the brusque words that had been spoken between them.

David stared at his son, momentarily taken aback by Robert suddenly reaching out and feeling his face. The action was so strange, so alien; these seeking, searching, intrusive fingers exploring whilst the eyes were useless - he looked into Robert's face, looked into the eyes which roved past him as though he were invisible - and it made his stomach almost want to heave.

He immediately drew back, feeling discomfited, quickly catching Robert's wrists, and pushed Robert's hands sharply aside from his face.

The feel of his hands suddenly grabbed by the wrists and abruptly thrust aside was a shock for Robert; it was as though a pail of cold water had been thrown into his face - into his heart. He had been denied touch - denied information, denied expression, and there was no worse feeling in the world than to receive such physical rejection.

His own father had denied him.

Robert stood still for a moment, still facing his father, his hands by his sides, and then he clenched his fists and swung away from David in reaction, presenting his back to his father, to face out over the lake. He drew in a shuddering deep breath, struggling with the enormity of such rejection. Both angry and distraught, he felt his chest heaving and his shoulders shake as he drew those deep breaths, felt his jaw clench and his eyes screw up in emotion - and yet all the while, his ears fixed on the direction of his father's presence.

Unsure as how to react to his son, David stared at Robert's back. He felt shocked, sad beyond expression - and angry at being thwarted by his stubborn son who would not bend to his will, even now he was incapacitated.

Finally, without a word, David turned and walked several paces up the gravelly lake shore. Halfway up the slight slope, he halted and half turned back to look at Robert where he still stood facing out over the lake, his back turned to David.

"I can't do anything for you, can I." David's voice was full of hopelessness. "My wretched son whose heart denies his pitiful situation and whose mind has clearly been addled by that forest god of yours. I can't do anything for you, can I."

Robert, his back to him, faced out over the lake, struggled to fight down the sadness in himself, the wrenching of his innards.

"You could be my father and embrace who I AM; who I really am, the man who stands before you now - not the man you thought I was, the man you wanted me to be," he flung out over his shoulder at where David stood several yards away behind him.

David shook his head to himself. "You were perfect as a child - so perfect... All your senses. How CAN I embrace who you are now? How can I be happy about it? That's not something for a father to rejoice about. To be happy about. That's something for a father to grieve about."

Robert did not answer; just gulped in the warm summer air, screwing shut his eyes, aware that hot tears had flooded out of them and were running down his face, aware that this issue between he and his father was hopeless - his father had a fixed view of him now The pushing away of his hands when he had tried to feel his father's face had been a terrible rejection - rejection of him as a blind person.

"Do me one favour," David said at last out of the silence between them in the peaceful summer day. "Mention this pardon which you have thrown back at me to no-one. I would rather not be publicly mocked by my contemporaries - or your men for that matter - in view of all I have lost to gain it for you."

"You have my word," Robert replied quietly.

"I'll not trouble you here again," David said finally. "I'll take my man and go. Would that I had never come." He turned away.

Robert jerked his head slightly round at the sound of David's footsteps scrunching away up the gravel shore. "Father?" he asked.

David stopped once more and half turned back to look at his son. His reply was brusque. "What."

Robert gulped down the sick knot which seemed to be rising from his stomach to his throat. "Be wary of Gisbourne. I would hate you to be hurt."

"Gisbourne isn't the son who has caused me hurt." David's voice was cold.

He turned and walked away.

Robert listened to the footsteps recede and disappear once more into the trees, and where he stood, lowered his head and was silent, biting his lip.