Post of the Month

~ November 2009 ~

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Much & Rhiannon ~ Written by Gwyn & Siiri. 

Posted on the HoS Yahoo group January 2008.

Rhiannon paused by the stream and stared.

The stream wended its way through a natural break in the trees here; a wide shallow stream that trickled and gurgled over gravel and pebbles. This area showed signs of the savage storm of two nights ago. One tree had been torn from its roots and lay diagonally across the stream; elsewhere up and down the stream were scattered broken branches and other debris.

"It's like a battleground," Rhiannon murmured in awe at Nature's force.

Much moved past her out of the line of trees on the bank. "Storms are like that. They just pick on a bit of Sherwood and attack it."

Ellie squirmed in the sling against her chest and Rhiannon looked down at her daughter. The infant was red-cheeked and dribbling. She felt the child's forehead. Hot, even though she had taken care to keep Ellie in the shade along the bank.

Much was watching her. "Tuck didn't want you to leave camp this morning. Wanted you to stay there."

"I know," Rhiannon sighed, "but how could I have done? Robert needs to be found, and if there is any bad news, I would have to know it sooner or later. I would rather know it sooner." She glanced sideways at Much. "And what would you all have thought of me if I had stayed at camp - a weak hysterical female?"

"Nay," Much said stoutly, "not that. Just a mother who needs to see to her child."

Rhiannon hesitated for a moment, looking down at Ellie, stroking the child's fair hair.

Still missing. Robert was still missing. Her initial dread and fear had by now solidified into a hard tight knot in the pit of her stomach. With Ellie to care for, she tried to appear calm and keep a grip on practicality, but it was proving hard.

Tuck had seen she was finding it hard to cope. She knew he had. This morning, when they had all been readying to leave to search up and down the streams in the area, he had almost pleaded with her to stay behind and mind camp - "in case Robert returns and finds no-one here," he had tried to tempt her with. Rhiannon had shaken her head and replied: "No. I am going to search with Much, as we arranged."

And she had seen that no-one, not even Scarlet, had dared argue with her.

So, a little after dawn this morning, they had all left camp and gone their separate ways. Nasir solo to Benfield to search the lower reaches of the stream there - Will and John to search its upper reaches, near the scene of the struggle. Alan and Tuck to follow Darkwater downstream to near Clipton. And she and Much following the stream near Denley.

She hesitated for a moment longer, then made for the stream's edge. "We've gone as far as we can go along here, Much. He isn't here." She referred to Robert. She didn't need to add that the stream had grown too shallow to be able to wash a body along.

She sat on the edge of the stream bank. She untied the sling and casting it aside, sat Ellie on her drawn up knees for a moment. Ellie, happier now she was freed, beamed, and grabbed at the folds of Rhiannon's sleeve. Rhiannon smiled back at her, suddenly seeing her child toddling around on plump legs by this time next year.

Rhiannon pulled Ellie's thin summer chemise from her, and sat her on the edge of the grassy bank between her knees. Ellie's small feet dangled into the shallow edge of the stream below; she gave a squeal of delight and kicked and splashed. Rhiannon cupped up some of the water in her hand and dribbled it over Ellie's head and chest and back, smoothing it over her and then wiping it off with the child's chemise.

"I'll cool her a bit, and then we'll retrace our steps to camp," she said to Much.

Much had come to sit beside Rhiannon on the bank and he smiled to see Ellie's delight at kicking her feet through the running waters of the stream.

"Did you have any younger siblings?" Rhiannon asked as she gently bathed Ellie's hot plump legs kicking in the water. She found she needed to talk. Talking helped - helped distract her from the gnawing worry inside her, the terrible sense of loss that was lurking there and she feared might start to eat her up if she relaxed her guard against it and gave way to her fears.

Much plucked a long grass stem and tickled Ellie's nose with it, making her giggle. "No, I was an only one. Well, till Robin came, of course and my parents fostered him."

Rhiannon wondered about those times; a time before she had been born, a time in which her father had lived, a man who had never known he had fathered a daughter by his one-time mistress Alice of Nottingham. "How old was Robin when Ailric died, Much?"

Much scratched his head. "About seven, I think."

Rhiannon was curious. "Do you remember anything of that time?"

Much frowned in thought. "Just that he come one night and Ailric brung him. This big man on a big horse. Not like a lord....like some warrior. Dark, wild hair. With a bow on his back and a sword girded to his side. He just bundled Robin at my parents without getting off his big horse and asked them to hide him, because Loxley village was being burnt to the ground. He said he'd be back for Robin by night."

Rhiannon gently wiped Ellie's arms and back dry with her chemise. "But Ailric never came."

"No. Robin hoped he would for days....weeks. Even when we heard about Ailric's death and Loxley being burned to the ground and everyone there killed - I don't think Robin really knew what death meant, at his age. Don't think I knew, at that age. Robin just got used to being at the mill and being tooken care of by my parents. The natural way of things, I reckon." Much grinned. "Me and Robin used to fight a lot at the beginning. I didn't like sharing my parents with him for a while."

He glanced across at Rhiannon. "You look like him, you know. Robin. Got the same eyes."

"They must be Ailric's eyes, then, if I and Robin were the same in that feature," Rhiannon said softly, staring down at Ellie who looked up at her with the bright blue of Robert's eyes. "You know, Much, I don't see hardly anything of myself in Ellie. She is mostly Robert."

"Maybe different when she gets a bit older," Much offered.

"Aye, maybe." Rhiannon garbed Ellie once more in her chemise.

"She has two very different grandfathers, doesn't she. Ailric - and the Earl of Huntingdon. Ailric was a good father to Robin, by all accounts. He'd have loved a grandaughter, don't you think," Much ventured.

Rhiannon held Ellie close to her. "Aye, Much, I'd like to think he would have. And been proud."

She needed to believe it, because David, Earl of Huntingdon, Ellie's other grandfather, did not seem to think Ellie's existence important at all.

Much fell silent and stared out across the stream, suddenly awkward. "Doesn't seem right," he said at length.

Rhiannon smoothed Ellie's hair back from her hot forehead. "What doesn't?"

"Sitting here, talking ordinary-like when Robert...." He trailed off and Rhiannon watched him sympathetically but said nothing. Finally, Much gathered his courage and looked straight at her. "He could be dead, you know," Much said at last. "Robert. He could be dead."

Rhiannon reached out and rubbed his arm in comfort. "Don't you think that I don't know that? Wonder about it..." She sighed and laid her cheek against Ellie's head, staring at the stream. "But I have a child to look to, so I have to keep going. Try and keep going. It's hard...." she shook her head to herself in thought. "I wish I knew if he was dead or alive. One way or the other. And if we don't find him or find his body....it's going to get harder. For me, for us all." She looked back at Much. "There is a great deal of anguish in not knowing what happened."

Much just nodded and rubbed his hands over his face where he still stared out across the stream. Finally he burst out with; "I feel bad. For holding such a grudge against him keeping the news about his blood-link with Gisbourne from us." He covered his face with his hands. "All this past year....things haven't....weren't the same between me and Robert. There was a distance between us."

"It was easy to see," Rhiannon replied gently.

Much drew his hands down from his face a way and looked over the tops of his fingers at her. "Did Robert feel that there was a distance?"

"Oh aye," Rhiannon answered honestly but softly, "he felt the distance you put between he and you."

Much shook his head to himself and buried his face in his hands once again, suddenly miserable with guilt. "I shouldn't've," he mumbled. "If he's dead, then he's gone to the saints believin' I hate him."

"Much." She reached out and rubbed his arm again. "Nothing you can do about that now. But plenty you can do if we find Robert safe and well. Things can be amended. Just think upon that and not upon the other. No point in saying if only."

He but nodded, keeping his hands over his face as he sat there with bowed head.

Rhiannon fixed a sleepy Ellie back into her sling, and rose to stand. She laid a hand on Much's shoulder. "Come on," she said quietly, calmly. "Let's make back for camp and see if the others have any news."

Much nodded again, rose, and in sober silence they began to walk back the way they had come along the stream bank.