Page 53 of Rogue of the Greenwood
“Can you feel the energy in it? How it resists you?” Robert asked.
Henry struggled to hold the bow, pulling it tight. He was learning, though, and Robert was proud. The lad was bright and capable. Despite the hardships he had faced in his young life, he would go far.
“Can I shoot it now?” Henry asked, the arrow starting to quake as he held the bow high.
“Not yet. Breathe… calm yourself. Feel that arrow as part of you. Your eyes must lead it. Do you see your target?”
“Yes…”
“Then commit to it and when you are ready, let go.”
The target was one of the empty bags from Much’s supplies. Robert had filled it with dead leaves and brush he collected. Now the bag sat propped up on a stump some twenty yards away. It would be interesting to see if the boy could actually hit it.
Henry had found the old bow here at the lodge. He was very excited, as any boy would be over such a find. He begged Robert to help him restring it and at first Robert refused, but then he remembered how he had once felt with a bow. It was a shame he’d given it up after Grandfather’s disastrous failing; he’d actually been fairly good.
But then Grandfather’s mind slipped, the costume wearing began, and people all over Nottingham were laughing about the old man from Greenwood, prancing about, making a fool of himself. And then it got worse. Grandfather fancied himself the infamous rogue. He began taking what wasn’t his, making trouble for others.
It all ended when the elder St. John tried to stop him and Grandfather used his bow to defend himself. One of St. John’s men met the end of an arrow—notfatally, but near enough. Grandfather went to gaol; his shame affecting the whole Locksley family. The cruel magistrate took no mercy on Grandfather for his age or his ill health. Robert’s childhood was over that day, and he set archery aside.
The thwack of Henry’s bowstring startled him. The arrow sailed toward the bag, wobbling in the air but not making a bad show for itself. It did indeed strike the bag, embedding itself deeply and not too far from the center.
“I did it!” Henry danced around, waving the bow in triumph.
Robert smiled. “You most certainly did.”
“I’m almost like Robin Hood!”
“Well, perhaps you might not want to say that…”
“I know, he was the best archer ever and I’m not nearly as good, but I’m going to practice. Will you help me, Mr. Locksley? Every day we can work at it and soon I will be able to shoot rabbits and squirrels and all sorts of things so my family will never be hungry again. We can give all our money to the sheriff and he’ll leave us alone.”
It was sad that the boy had such simple hopes. Robert patted his shoulder.
“Of course, you will become a most expert archer. You want to learn? Very well. Now draw out another arrow.”
Henry eagerly did as instructed. Robert worked with him for the better part of the morning. Indeed, the boy had potential. He was not half bad, and he was working with an old, unyielding bow and warped, frayed arrows from ages ago. As soon as Robert could, he would see about getting the boy a decent bow.
“Now you do it!” Henry said, surprising him byshoving the bow into his hand.
“No, I’ve strung that for you,” he said quickly.
“But I want to see you! I’ll bet you are every bit as Robin Hood. Why, you are very much like him.”
“I’m nothing like Robin Hood,” Robert laughed, trying to ignore the panic that gripped at his chest to even suggest such a thing.
“But you are! You are helping so many people, you take from those who can spare it and help the rest of us who have nothing. You hide here in the forest, you avoid the scabby sheriff, and I think you’re even sweet on Maid Marianne.”
“She is Miss Maidland to you,” Robert reminded.
“She is awfully pretty. Don’t you like her? Alan said that you like her.”
“Are you going to nock another arrow, or are we done for the day?”
“Aw, come along, Mr. Locksley. Why do you hate Robin Hood so? The rest of us love him!”
The boy’s words gave him pause. Indeed, whydidhe hate Robin Hood so? As a boy he’d loved the old legend, loved that his family claimed him as an ancestor. More than simply the notoriety of it, he had loved what Robin Hood stood for. He was proud to be connected to a man who sacrificed for what he held dear, a man who boldly stood up to the ones who would profit from cruelty and hate.
When did he start despising those things? Never. He still believed that those with plenty ought to be kind, that those in power had a duty to show mercy, that those on the outside deserved to be let in. How silly of him, then, to reject what had once been so dear to him.
