Throughout the Spring and into the long summer Robin and his men found a new life in the greenwood. The game that had once alluded them now scampered passed their waiting arrows. Friar Tuck had claimed to Robin that he had never in all his years of hunting the greenwood found so many wild morels and strawberries. The Elderberry trees were thick with wide heads of white blossoms and the good Friar watched them daily, waiting for the heads to turn and become studded with the small purple berries.
Robin’s spirits soared in the greenwood. The sunlight shone only for him, he thought, drowsing in a shady thicket with the soft buzzing of summer bees. He glanced up sleepily at the trees, their canopy of green leaves sheltering him. His face had filled out during the prosperous summer. His cheeks were squared and strong, his eyes bright with good humor. He had closed his eyes to sleep again when a blade of grass tickled his nose.
He woke with a snort and found Vivian sitting beside him. He smiled at her, startled as always by her strange beauty. The summer sun had lightened the crown of her hair from rust to light brown. Her eyes were a soft green and her skin the color of honey.
“Is it well with you Robin?” she asked.
“Aye, very well, Vivian,” he answered.
“They say the Sheriff of Nottingham rides the greenwood today, near the road to Kirkley Hall. I would bid you have a care.”
Robin grinned and sat up. “More than a care, I think. Perhaps a bit of sport.”
And before long, Robin with the sounding of his horn, had assembled his band together. He had grown accustomed to Vivian’s unexpected visits, and equally sudden disappearances. But acting on her advice, he led his men through the woods to Kirkley Hall. It was as she said. Robin saw the gloomy visage of the Sheriff of Nottingham, riding through the greenwood, his foresters dressed in bright livery beside him. Robin laughed quietly to note how close they passed him by without seeing him, despite the searching looks of the foresters.
That night Robin and his men feasted the Sheriff of Nottingham, after first depriving his foresters of their lives and then the Sheriff of his purse. They fed him a meal of venison from the King’s own deer and to add insult to the injury, they served him on the silver plates they had stolen from him earlier. At the next daylight, they tied the Sheriff’s hands and legs and hoisted him over the back of a horse. A farmer, making his way to Nottingham market, found the Sheriff cursing Robin’s name as he lay facedown tied to his horse, while the lazy creature cropped the grass growing by the side of the road. Before the end of market day, the word had scattered from one mouth to another of Robin’s daring attack on the Sheriff of Nottingham. And from that night on, in many cottages, the outlaws found a renewed welcome.
The winter came, but still the game followed the camp. The green Lincoln wool of their cloaks kept Robin and his men dry and in the worst of weather, there were many inns willing to hide them for a night or two. Robin often looked for Vivian in the woods when he rambled alone. Sometimes she appeared, wearing a green dress bordered with the seed down of milkweeds, and other times she wore cape of snow-white wool, owl feathers stitched about the hem. She stayed with him briefly, telling him news of the greenwood that would be of use to him and his men. She showed him where different animals wintered over, their dens covered by mounded snow. And even when she wasn’t there, Robin always felt her presence in the snapping of twigs underfoot, or the tired creak of the oaks, and he knew that had he need of her, she would be there.
When the spring came again, Vivian met him in the woods. She had gathered wild garlic in her apron and gave it to him.
“They say the Sheriff of Nottingham intends to have an archery contest,” she told him. “The prize is a golden arrow.”
Robin grinned at her. “Then I mean to go and win that arrow.”
“I thought you might.” She reached into the pocket of her apron and withdrew a small pot of brown cream. “It will stain your skin brown and give you a good disguise.”
Robin laughed and snatching up the pot tossed it lightly into the air. “I shall go as a poor wanderer. And I shall win beneath the very noses of the Sheriff and his men.”
“You will succeed, Robin, as always,” Vivian said quietly.
Despite the warnings of his men, Robin went to the archery contest. He had it in his mind to win the golden arrow and give it to Vivian. He smiled to himself, standing unrecognized amid the Sheriff’s men. Only one other contestant had given him cause to worry. A man with a patch over one eye whose shooting was confident and straight-arrowed. Robin’s palms sweat with anticipation. He would have to be better than the stranger.
His eyes glanced up at the stand where the Sheriff and his daughter awaited the outcome of the contest. Robin froze suddenly, recognizing the woman sitting farther back from the Sheriff’s daughter. It was Marion, returned at long last from France. Robin’s heart soared with delight to see her, her face changed from a coltish girl into an elegant young woman. But there was still a spark of mischief in her, for he saw in the blue eyes that stared back at him that she alone had penetrated his disguise. He tipped his hat to her as he took his place in line. She nodded back and then looked away, but not before he had seen her smile.
Robin raised his longbow for the final match. The stranger had shot well. Very well, and for a moment Robin doubted the worth of his own skill to beat the man. There was a fitful breeze. It fluttered the flags of the tents and worried the fletch of his arrow. It would be hard to shoot straight in such a wind. Robin tried to slow the rapid beating of his heart, and take careful aim. The target seemed so vague and distant.
In the corner of his eye he glimpsed a face peering at him from the crowds that eagerly lined the edges of the contest grounds. Rust-colored hair billowed in the breeze around a face with honey-colored skin. At once the wind calmed. The target that had seemed so distant became sharp and clear in Robin’s mind. He released his arrow and watched it soar, upward at first and then glide down unerringly to split the shaft of his opponent’s arrow as the head buried itself in the center of the target.
The roar of the crowd’s approval was not half as loud as Robin’s own joy.
He looked again to the crowd but the face he sought was not there.
Later, after his return and the celebration that followed in the camp, Robin walked out by himself through the greenwood. The moon shone brilliantly above
the trees, the silvery light dappling the bushes. He walked to Kirkley Hall and in the bright moonlight the stones of the old manor gleamed.
“Well met, Robin,” said Vivian stepping from the shadows of the trees to meet him. “And did you win today?”
“Aye,” he answered. “I did.” And then he bowed his head sheepishly. “I had meant to bring you the golden arrow as a gift. But in the heat of my victory, I forgot and gave it to another.”
Vivian laughed and Robin stared astonished, for he had never heard her laugh before. It was a bittersweet sound, without joy. “It were better given to Marion, Robin. I have no need for golden arrows.” As she approached him, Robin saw an expression of longing on her face. “I have served you faithfully for a year, Robin. There is no one in the greenwood who does not speak well of you. You are a man others will follow, will love. You no longer need me.”
Robin frowned at her words. They made him uncomfortable.
“I would ask one boon of you, Robin.”
“Name it.”
“It takes courage.”
“I am Robin Hood,” he answered, as if that were enough.
“I wish to be released from my service to you. I wish to return to my own life,” she said.
“You have always been free to go, Vivian.”
“To release me, you must kill me,” she said. She stepped back from him, her arms opened wide. “Shoot me, Robin, that I may be returned to my life.”
Robin’s hands chilled. His heart thudded in his chest. “I will not,” he stammered. “No Vivian, I will not. I rob the rich to give to the poor and I am protector of women in the greenwood. I can not go against my own word and kill you.”
“I am not a mortal woman. I beg of you, Robin, release me.”
Robin spun angrily on his heel and began to run. He didn’t want to be convinced into so shameful an act by the look of pleading on her face. “No,” he told himself as he ran, “I will not kill a woman,” reminding himself of his own vows as he tore through the woods, branches snapping underfoot. But beneath his resolve Robin felt the scratch of doubt. It festered in his heart like a thorn lodged too deep to be pulled free. Until then, he had not questioned his good fortune. Now he asked himself, How much of his skill did he owe to Vivian? How much of his name, of his success was her doing? Robin hacked at a bush with his sword seeing again the glimpse of her face at the archery contest. And he knew he battled the rising fear that in losing Vivian, he might lose his own future.
“No!” he shouted aloud. “I am my own man. No servant to any. I will not kill Vivian because on my word as a man, as Robin Hood, I will not harm any woman.”
As he neared the camp, he heard Allan-a-Dale singing. The smooth tenor voice eased away the sting of Robin’s doubt. Allan-a-Dale was singing of Robin’s victory at the archery contest. And when he entered the camp again, Robin smiled at the shouts of praise that greeted him. He belonged here. However it had happened, he had made a name for himself and nothing would change that.
“Vivian” © Midori Snyder. This story may not be reproduced without the express and written permission of the author. Art: Robin Hood, Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth