Post of the Month

~ August 2005 ~

***********************************************************************************

John/Meg/Much ~ Written by Gwyn.  Posted on the HoS Yahoo group January 2005.

The girl was pretty. Much stared at her, fascinated.

She looked a little older than he and possessed a long mane of fair hair which she kept sweeping back from her shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed rosy with the warmth of the sun, her face tilted up to meet its light. She was sitting down the riverbank a way from him, dabbling her bare feet in the cool water, unaware that she was being watched from behind the screen of tall reeds where Much sat.

Much had been fishing near the village of Sedgeley until she had come along and had diverted his attention, and now, not even the tell-tale tugging of the line in his hands, telling him he had a bite, distracted his gaze from the girl on the opposite bank.

****

In a cottage in the village of Sedgeley, John laid the brace of plump pigeons on the cottage table.

"Are you sure I can do nothing else?" he asked awkwardly.

Where Meg stood by the centre hearth, warming her hands over it, despite the hot day, she silently shook her head.

"Thank you for the food," she managed with at last, glancing briefly red-rimmed eyes up in his direction.

"Well," said John, "eat it, lass, won't you. You need to eat." He nodded at the dented cookpot on the table which contained some congealed food that obviously had been from several days ago. "Clean that out and make a stew of the pigeons or something."

Meg just nodded again, staring back down into the fire.

John looked at her standing there wreathed in the smoke of the fire, looking like a miserable lost little girl. Eight months gone with child - and recently widowed.

He sighed to himself, went a few steps to the cottage door and looked out upon the vegetable garden which he had tidied only the other day. "Well look, you've got beans and peas growing here now, and some shallots. They're ready. Gather them and put them in the pot. And gather the eggs off the chickens, otherwise before you know it you'll have a brood of chicks running all over the place...." his voice trailed off awkwardly as he looked back at her and caught sight of her large belly. It was rather difficult to ignore.

Meg just nodded again. "I'll do that," she said.

"I'll keep you supplied with meat," John said, "you needn't worry about that. Though folk here have been good to you, haven't they?"

"Yes," Meg crossed her arms over her belly, still standing there by the fire, "yes, they have." She looked appealingly across at John. "But it's not the SAME.... Not the same as Adam being here. It's not the SAME, John...."

John scratched his head, embarrassed by the flow of female emotions, half afraid he would grow emotional himself. "I know, lass," was all he replied.

He had liked Adam. Adam of Sedgeley - a big strong man - perhaps not unlike himself - who had shown interest in Meg a year ago.

Seeing that interest, John had stepped back. It had been hard, but he had felt Adam could give Meg the life she deserved. A secure life, in a village, with children.

So they had wed, and Meg had gone to Adam's home at Sedgeley. It had been Meg and Adam who had taken in Rhiannon when the winter had proved too much for her. It had been in this very cottage that Ellie had been born. John remembered coming here after Ellie's birth and seeing how secure and happy Meg had looked here.

Now she was anything but. A bare month ago, Adam of Sedgeley had been loading grain onto a cart at the mill and the horse in the shafts had become frighted, had plunged, pulled the cart round - and Adam had been crushed to death between the cart and the wall of the mill. He had died almost instantly. Leaving Meg to bring their child into the world alone.

John hadn't know what to do, except do what he could. Ensure that Meg didn't starve. He kept going hunting and bringing her meat for her cookpot - but how much of it she ate in her misery of bereavement, he wasn't sure.

"Look, lass," John said at last, "we aren't going to forget about you here. You know that. Robert isn't going to forget about you - you and Adam gave Rhiannon shelter when she needed it, and you were on hand to tend to Rhiannon when she brought Ellie into the world. Robert and Rhiannon will never forget that."

"You may not be in the forest with us - but you're still ONE of us. And we'll look to you." John grew awkward. "I'LL look to you..."

He fidgeted with the brace of pigeons on the table. "Rhiannon's said she'll come in a week or so and see how you are. I'll come again in a day or so...bring you more food. Anything else you want?"

She just shook her head.

"Well, I'll come again in a day or two," John repeated awkwardly.

Meg looked round at him. "I am grateful, you know," she said.

John nodded. "Yes, I know," was all he said.

He paused for a moment longer, then left the cottage, whilst Meg of Sedgeley, formerly of Wickham, wandered over to the table, took up the pigeons, and going back over to the fireside, eased herself down onto her knees to rest by the hearth and began to half-heartedly pluck the birds.

Wandering chickens scattered from John's path as he walked away from the cottage, and he took the pile of firewood in his way with one bound, quarterstaff in hand.

He took the path along the riverbank, heading East, and soon left the village behind. As he walked, his eyes searched the riverbank ahead of him with its overhanging trees and clumps of tall reeds.

He reached the hollow oak which grew on the riverbank and put his hand inside the trunk for his hidden fishing rod; it was gone.

He turned to face the river, and across the slow-moving water, behind the mesh of reeds and trailing branches of the willows on the opposite bank, thought he saw a flash of red hair.

"Much? Much!"

The red head bobbed up above the height of the reeds to see who had called.

A natural line of boulders paved the way across the river at this point, and John swiftly crossed them. He stepped onto the opposite bank and trampled through the reeds. Thus he reached his friend.

Much was sitting behind the screen of reeds, seated on the decaying fallen tree that stretched to the deep still pool which the small waterfall trickled down into. It was a peaceful, private place, abundant with fish. Now as he reached Much, Much regretfully removed the fishing line from the water.

"You've scared the fish off," Much said.

"Come on," John said, "let's head back to camp."

Much glanced downriver, and John followed his glance. The fair-haired girl who had been sitting further along the bank had made herself scarce as John had hove into sight.

John merely chuckled. "Scared something else off too for you, didn't I." He clapped a hand on the youth's shoulder as Much rose with his pail of fish and walked along the riverbank with you. "Something you can do without, lad, take it from me. A woman in your life."

"Wouldn't mind," said Much.

"You'd be saying different once you got tangled up with one, believe me," John said meaningfully.

Much glanced up at him as they walked on. "How's Meg."

John's reply was simple. "The same."

Much fell to contemplation. "Shouldn't have had the horse and wagon so near the mill wall when he loaded on the grain," he said at last. "Adam of Sedgeley, I mean. Nearly happened to my father, once, that did - getting trapped between the wagon and the mill wall when the horse got startled."

He spoke of the past mildly, without bitterness. He found he could remember his father now without the memories being so clouded by that last horrific memory of seeing Gisbourne slay him.

Gisbourne....Robert's half-brother...

Much remembered how a year ago he had sent Robert spinning to the ground with one angry punch when he had learnt Robert had kept from them for a year and more the knowledge he had learnt - that Gisbourne was his half brother. "That's for my father!" Much remembered his voice ringing out in the clearing in the shocked silence after he had delivered that punch.

He had left the band briefly, only to realise that there was nowhere else to go. Only to realise that bonds there were harder to break than he had thought. And so he had returned

But his relationship with Robert at first had been awkward in the extreme.

"You're our leader." Much's words to Robert a year ago echoed in his memory. "Herne chose you. I believe in Herne, and so I believe in you. I know that I shouldn't hold you responsible for what Gisbourne did - what he still does. I know that. But you still should have told us, and you didn't. And because of Herne choosing you and believing in you...I believe in you as our leader. But because you didn't tell us about Gisbourne for over a year when you knew, I findI can't believe in you as a friend. Not right now."

Beleiving in Robert as Herne's Son, as their leader, had not been hard. Much had followed Robert's leadership as he had always done.

But believing in Robert as a friend once more had been much harder - and taken much longer. Even now after a year, the bonds of friendship which had originally bound them were not complete... Not as complete as they had been.

It was not Robert's fault that Gisbourne was his half-brother. Much knew that. "Accident of birth" as Will had once said meaningfully to Robert regarding his Norman heritage.

But Robert could have told them earlier about his kinship with Gisbourne when he had first learned of it. It was that which Much had originally held against Robert.

Still, Robert had admitted readily that he should not have kept such knowledge from them for so long, and there was only two choices when someone admitted they were wrong - you could either accept they were human and forgive them.....or you could go on hating....

It wasn't in Much's personality to sustain such hatred, such bitterness. And so slowly, little by little, he had begun to forgive. Nothing had been said between he and Robert as the thawing out process had begun and progressed, but everything felt.

Now, Much glanced across at John as they took the trail away from the river and into deep forest, still heading East. "Think Alan will be back this night?"

"Who knows," John replied.

"And Tuck?" Much persisted.

"That depends." John frowned in thought to himself as he wondered what news both men could bring upon their return.

He and Much walked on through the forest, towards the camp they had left this morning.