The years followed and so did Robin’s fame, spreading wide from Nottingham and Barnsdale, throughout the county of Lincolnshire and to the King himself. There was no act too daring, or too dangerous, for Robin and his men. They had made a great sport of the Sheriff of Nottingham, frustrating his every attempt to bring them to the gallows. And always and without fail, Robin’s arrows with the grey-goose fletch found their mark in the Sheriff’s men.
Robin walked the greenwood as if it were his own estate, the deer his deer and the purses of the wealthy his own private tax. There was only one change in him, hardly discernible by the closest of his own men. He almost never walked the woods alone. Once it had been his pleasure, but now he avoided it. For it was in those private moments that Vivian would come to him. Every time he saw her, she would beg again for her release.
“Kill me, Robin, that I may return to my life.”
“Kill yourself,” he replied once cruelly, enraged by her persistence.
Her face stilled to a wooden mask, her eyes dulled like stone. “I cannot. My father bound me to you. Only you can release me. I will stand here before you. It will take no skill of the bow to free me.”
“Damn you!” Robin cursed, turning his back to her.
“You already have,” she answered bitterly.
It was summer when the word was cried through Nottingham’s markets that King Henry was dead and his son Richard the Lionhearted was crowned King. And before the summer was over, Richard himself had come to the greenwood, curious to see if the tales of Robin Hood were true.
They met in the greenwood and after a night of feasting on the King’s own deer, Richard was impressed enough in Robin’s skill as a leader to award Robin clemency and the return of his noble rank. To the men that had followed Robin loyally, Richard offered the positions of foresters. They accepted, since no other life but one in the forest held any interest to them.
Robin married Marion in a quiet ceremony, ringed by the trees of Kirkley Hall that had since been turned into a small abbey. He kissed her beneath the spreading oaks, and pledged his heart to her. He promised her a life of peace and happiness.
And they were happy, for a while. But the calm, sedate life of a lord bored Robin and he soon became restless. He missed the challenge of living in the greenwood, the hard ground for his bed and the openness of the night sky. And deep within his heart, there stirred another pain as the thorn pushed deeper and he knew he missed Vivian as well.
“The life of a lord does not suit you, my love,” Marion said to him on his return from seeing the King. He had ridden hard in the rain and his cloak was soaked and mud-spattered.
He smiled at her. “Is it that easy to see?”
She nodded, her hands on her hips, waiting for him to speak.
He placed his hands on her shoulders and gazed into her troubled eyes. “I have spoken to the King. I want to go to Palestine. To see more of the world.”
Her eyes sparkled with determination. “Then I will go with you.”
Robin clasped her tightly until Marion laughed, gaily protesting his wet cloak and dripping hair.
He left her to make the necessary arrangements and walked out into the night toward the greenwood. Out of habit, he slung his longbow over his shoulder and carried his quiver of arrows. The rain had abated and overhead only a few lingering clouds scudded across the clearing night sky. The half moon shone brightly.
In the shifting play of shadows, Robin saw Vivian, waiting for him in the garden beside a bush of drenched roses. White petals had scattered on the walk around her feet.
“You go to Palestine,” she said, her face downturned.
“Aye,” he answered.
She looked up at him and in the moonlight her eyes glowed green. “Robin, if you leave the greenwood I cannot serve you. I cannot protect you as in the past.”
He had been prepared to offer some words of kindness to her, perhaps even reconciliation. But the words she spoke now angered him.
“I have no need of your help,” he snapped.
“But I have need of yours,” she replied evenly. “If you should die without releasing me, I am doomed forever in this form. Forever. As you say, you do not need me anymore. Then kill me that I might go free at last.”
“I am Robin Hood,” he said, drawing his cloak tighter around his shoulders against the sudden chilly wind that blew between them. More petals scattered in the air like new snow. “I robbed from the rich to give to the poor and I never harmed a woman in the greenwood.”
Vivian raised her hands to her face and cried out one long piercing wail. She fled into the woods, her bare arms flickering in the moonlight like the wings of a moth.
Robin stared after her, pride warring with doubt. He clutched his longbow, his gaze following the ghostly white shadow of her form. He could kill her now, if he chose. But he hesitated and she disappeared into the darkened forest. When Marion’s voice called out to him, he turned slowly and left the garden to join her.
Five years later Robin returned from Palestine much aged. The world there had been hot, dry and full of dust. The color of the landscape a sun-faded brown mingled with the red blood of the dying. The battles had been too many and without reason. He had done well, though not any better than any other man. He had received a wound in the side that had taken months to heal. And even now he felt it throb with a cold ache. His hands trembled with fever and his mouth was always parched. But worst of all, Marion was dead. The fever that lingered in him had taken her quickly. He had buried her far from the cool green of Lincolnshire in a grave guarded by rocks and Cedar trees. There was nothing left of his life that gave him joy.
Robin had returned to the greenwood in order to recover something of the past, a purpose in his life that he could comprehend amidst his grief. But the greenwood
had changed in his absence as well. King John held the throne now and once again Robin found himself out of favor with the King’s court.
He had wandered the greenwood alone for two days, until he came to Kirkley Hall. He saw the grey stones of the old manor and something stirred in his heart. Robin nodded over his horse, feeling dizzy and faint. He slipped clumsily from the saddle and sat in the cool grass beneath the trees, his back to an oak.
A sharp pain in his side caused him to glance down. His white shirt was stained with fresh blood. The wound in his side had opened and begun to bleed. Robin tried to drag himself upright. At once, he felt a hand on his arm, pulling him, helping him to stand.
A nun in a brown habit tucked an arm around him and half supporting him, helped him into Kirkley Hall. Robin’s heels fairly dragged across the stone flagons as she led him toward a small cell where a single bed faced a window. She laid him down gently on the bed.
Robin sighed with relief, his tired body sinking into the softness of the bed.
“I am bleeding,” he said.
The nun straightened up and pulled back the cowl of her habit. Rust-colored hair spilled from the hood and framed her face. Vivian’s green eyes were wet with tears.
Robin gasped, startled at seeing her and reached his hand to touch her cheek. His hand returned to his chest and he smiled at the familiar woody scent on his fingers.
“You have returned,” she said.
“Just,” he answered with a weak smile. “I have a wound that has begun to bleed. Please help me.”
Vivian shook her head. “I cannot. There is nothing more I can do. The years you were gone have weakened my power. The wound you now have is the one my father gave you so long ago by his fallen oak. I can no longer stop its bleeding.”
Robin closed his eyes and turned his head toward the wall.
“Robin,” Vivian whispered and he knew what she wanted to say.
He shook his head, bitterness rising in his throat like gall.
“The pain you feel now is the same that I have lived with since our first meeting.” She spoke gently and without rancor.
He refused to look at her. Then he felt her stand, heard her bare feet begin to pace the floor.
“How I despise my life. How my limbs burn in this shape, the soles of my feet cut by the rocks. I long for the peace of the earth, for the sleep of winter, for the sweet silence of the new spring. Robin, do not let me remain thus.”
Her pleading stabbed at Robin’s heart. The thorn of doubt twisted, causing him to cry out. In desperation, he reached for the gold horn at his side and blew three shrill blasts on it.
“No,” Vivian sobbed and fled.
Alone in the room Robin stared hopelessly at the ceiling. If any of his men were near, they would come to him. He would not die alone, nor die tormented by Vivian’s pleading.
“Vivian” © Midori Snyder. This story may not be reproduced without the express and written permission of the author.