Welcome to The Story Scrapbook, a fiction newsletter by E.B. Howard. If you’re new in town, check out my Fiction Directory for navigation.
In this post, we rejoin Robin Hood and his merry men as they prepare to save young Allan’s true love from an unwanted wedding…
Together through the greenwood, then, came Robin Hood in Lincoln scarlet, and Will Scarlet in Lincoln green; and Little John towering above them, and Much in the shadows below; and Allan at-Wood tangled up in their heels like a hound without a trail. And when Friar Tuck nodded up from his breviary to catch sight of the shining pate of Little John, he whistled to his own hounds to go and bid them welcome. “For,” said he to the beasts’ bristling tails, “Robin Hood alone meaneth feasting, and tales of adventure, and perhaps the working of one or two prayers in between; but when he bringeth that rogue Little John, it meaneth mischief.”
When the friar had ambled down the spring-grassy path from his hermitage to the streamside, perhaps taking more time about it than even his respectable heft required, he discovered with great mirth that the hounds had chased the entire company up onto a rocky bluff—excepting Little John, who had taken refuge in a chestnut tree. Though he allowed the other four down with hearty and earnest laughter, he left Little John where he was.
“Thou might have mercy on him, holy man, for he meaneth no harm,” said Much as he brushed the dirt from his hose.
Friar Tuck had to pause in wiping his eyes to chuckle again. “Speak’st thou of the same John Little who ever seeketh to entrap me in his drinking and gambling ways, who threateneth at every crossing to knock my head from my shoulders, and who cometh here doubtless to enlist me in some murderous scheme unbefitting a priest of Holy Church?”
“Perchance I come to be shriven,” said Little John boldly from his perch.
“Thou to be shriven, who know’st not a sin from a synod! Ha! Tell me, then, how many years have passed since thy last confessing?”
“Good father,” said Robin Hood, “thou may indeed shrive Little John upon the way; I will not stop thee! But, please God, we must away in haste. A grave sacrilege is shortly to be done in the church of St. Mary in Nottingham, and none but us may prevent it.”
Friar Tuck regarded Will Scarlet with a baffled eye. “A grave sacrilege, say’st he?”
“He mean’st that, as our forefathers were told, a wedding is a holy sacrament,” said Will. “Else we should not now have the banns, and the priest to witness, and all else. Is’t not so?”
“Aye, ’tis so.”
“And is it not, therefore, a grave sacrilege to press a maiden into it against her will?” asked Will.
“Ah! That manner of grave sacrilege,” said he. “’Tis a question of some complication, perhaps a little past a humble friar such as myself…”
“Art thou a man of the law, or of the cloth and altar? Good father, it is mine own true love who marrieth another!” cried Allan, his sweet voice choked.
“Say’st thou so? Young love doth ever run hot and cold,” said he, with wagging head. “Art thou certain she marrieth against her will?”
“I have heard it from her own lips but yesterday. Her uncle the Sheriff hath pressed her into marriage for his own worldly gain, and she is to be deprived of the only earthly consolation of an orphan maid, a husband at least whom she loveth.”
“The Sheriff!” cried Tuck in turn. “Faith, that is murderous mischief indeed. Robin Hood, what need’st thou of me in such dealings? ’Tis thy business already to rob him of his meat and cloth and silver; if thou seek’st merely to prevent this marriage, then rob him of his niece also and have done. I will be awaiting in the greenwood to bless the table.”
Little John twisted on his branch, his eyes ever on the glistening jaws of the hounds below. “What table mean’st thou, father?” said he, his air all innocence. “For I doubt not that such a wedding-feast is laid in Nottingham as we would be hard put to carry away, save in our bellies.”
“Aye,” said Much, “tonight will we sup in Nottingham upon every delicacy that may be snatched, every man grazing for himself. Truly ’twould be thy misfortune to miss it.”
“Good father,” said Robin Hood again, more firmly, “there shall be no robbing sheriffs of maids today, but of wives only. The lad is of our band, and from this day forth is as a son to me; and I shall see him lawfully wed in church as is his right, by the same chaplain who shall now have charge of his soul and his lady’s. Besides which, ’twould pain me full sore to force the hand of the Sheriff’s cleric at sword-point, upon what should be a joyous occasion.”
Little John smiled a long and mirthful smile, bright as the May sunshine. “What, master! Not even,” said he, “though that cleric be none but the infamous Bishop of Hereford?”
At this, all the jollity and ease left good Friar Tuck; and another spirit entirely overtook him, with an agitated motion towards rolling back the sleeves of his habit. Though the holy man without a doubt collected the wages of soft living, he had not lost the strength beneath. “Thou hast kept the good wine until now, saith the chief steward!” said he. “Stay thy sword, master bandit. I will spare thee the soreness, and thrash the man myself! Why, by Saint Dunstan, know’st thou not what I have borne at the hands of that rascal Bishop?”
“Indeed, father, for I was there,” said Robin, the laughter breaking out on his countenance; for had Tuck not yielded at the first blow, he would have given up the play himself ere much longer.
“‘Hedge-priest’, he called me, and ‘false friar’, and grave insult did he give to my full lawful and comfortable little cell,” the priest said to Allan in growling complaint. “Had we not both been imposing at the time upon the hospitality of Robin Hood—who hath, I know not why, some scruple against the striking of grasping, canting, mincing, bejeweled, puffed-up fat churchmen!—I should have laid him flat. Only wait thou here while I fetch my sword, and we shall go and save thy bride, and teach my lord so-called to shrink from any future doings with yon Sheriff.”
“Nay, as it be his pride which so offendeth thee, so it shall be his pride which thou chastisest,” said Robin with a merry smile. “Thou needest not thy sword today, good father. Get thee with Will Scarlet and the others to our meeting-place in the greenwood, while I betake me to the Church of Saint Mary ahead of you. Little John will arrange all.” So saying, he traded his fine long hood for the feathered cap which Much wore, and begged from Allan at-Wood the beautiful harp which he yet carried, before he went whistling tunelessly upon his way.
Little John looked again at the hounds drooling patiently beneath his dangling feet. “Now, father, verily thou must let me down,” said he.
“I suppose I must, for I never did meet a scoundrel with such a mind for battle-plans as thee,” said Friar Tuck. He called the dogs back with a whistle, and chuckled aloud as he watched their quarry descend, being hard put to maintain an ill humor at any time.
“’Tis no holy thing, I hear, to laugh at a man in peril,” said Little John, with an air of injured dignity which he had stolen some years ago from an affronted Prior, along with his gold, and kept ever since to be taken out on special occasions. “Perchance whilst thou hast thy vows on tenterhooks, thou wouldst bet me a penny or two on the day’s proceedings.”
“By the mass, for love of good Lady Poverty I have not a penny to my name,” Tuck swore. “I will bet thee in fine cold Rhenish water. A rundlet to drink to the happy couple with, shouldst the Bishop find cause to curse thee first; or a rundlet for my cellars, should the pleasure fall to me.”
Little John averred that nothing might please him better; and Allan went along in surprise to behold the two warring parties reconciled like brothers. For there never was much about Robin Hood and his companions which was as it seemed—as the Bishop of Hereford was shortly to be reminded.
’Twas a right merry harper indeed who strolled up to the great door of Saint Mary’s church in Nottingham, and merrier yet when he found it unlocked. He doffed his cap to heave it open on groaning wrought hinges, breathing deep of the cool thick air within, and with another heave he closed it soft behind his entry. On soft and solemn step drew he near to the screen that barred the quire, where the sacred ministers would sit facing each other across the patterned flagstones that led to the high altar. His eye traced the figures carved skilfully upon the tall wooden panels, richly painted illustrations of tales that had captured his heart from that boyhood so many years past. Looking past the rood screen to the altar beyond and the small gilded door beside it, he fell for a moment to one knee, and bowed his head of thinning hart-colored hair; then he adjourned to the Lady Chapel, where he knelt as a plaintiff before the stone visage of the Refuge of Sinners.
“Mother most mild,” prayed he beneath his breath, “thou know’st I am thy sword hand; grace my sword to fly as thou alone it will’st, not in vain rage, nor for lusting after the blood of men, but to strike in justice against any that offend thee, and in mercy for any whose offenses thou wish’st to see multiplied no longer. In so far as I have pleased thee, guard safe myself and mine from the snare, to return again soundly to the greenwood; but if I have displeased thee, Lady, then let me be struck down! But for the sake of thy name and thy Son’s, protect those who trust in me, as I trust in thee and thou in Him.”
No sooner had he pronounced his Amen than the Bishop himself, peeved by the intrusion, waddled frowning from the sacristy. “Here! What dost thou, knave?” demanded he. “Sir Robert de Verry is to be wed this day, and the church spoken for by thy betters. Don thy cap and get thee gone, for the people are soon to arrive.”
A smile returned to the stranger’s face, and he held forth his instrument. “Why, my lord Bishop, I am neither knave nor villain, but an honest harper come to ply his trade,” he said. “’Tis said I play the prettiest music in all the north country, and specially suited to lovers.”
The Bishop adjusted the weight of his chasuble and recomposed himself. “A harper from the north, thou sayest?” said he, smoothing the heavy, embroidered fabric with his gold-ringed fingers, as a lady might play with her skirt. “That is quite a different matter, for ’tis too long now since I have heard the pleasant strains of such songs. Nay, tarry. Thou must understand, the Sheriff—who bringeth the bride, for she is his ward—warned me specially against a certain outlaw who plagueth him up and down the country. Even myself, churchman though I be, hath not been spared of his thieving ways. But I see thy face now! ’Tis a good, honest face indeed, not his at all. I would know Robin Hood again anywhere. And, verily, never would I see such a rogue to kneel before Our Lady.”
The harper smiled a little more broadly at this, and inclined his head in humble forgiveness of his lord’s error.
The door of the church was pushed open, and the Bishop regarded there a certain thin-legged and knobble-kneed knight, with his retinue alongside him. Scars from the decades-past fall of the Holy Land stretched across age-spotted skin, now too loose to do them credit, and white hair twisted down from the crown of his head to rest upon stooping velvet-clad shoulders. This was Sir Robert de Verry, the venerable bridegroom, in his glory.
“Well, play, if thou wish’st the groom to pay thee well,” hissed the Bishop to the harper. “’Tis he thou seest there.”
“Nay, my lord, such is not my custom,” said he pleasantly in return. “I must first see the bride, and discern what manner of song be most appropriate to her beauty; for brides are as flowers, all beautiful, but each of its own kind.”
“Have it thine own way, silver-tongue,” said the Bishop sourly, even as he put on a beatific countenance for the onlookers’ benefit.
Chattering filled the nave of the church as the groom’s party traipsed in gaily, and redoubled upon itself as the bride’s party began to arrive as well. Monks and clerics bowed gravely to the Bishop as they filed past him into the quire. The harper looked with twinkling eye upon this and that well-known figure of Nottingham town, and askance upon the armed men who followed. A score or more of the Sheriff’s men joined Sir Robert’s personal guards in standing at the corners of the church, at the doors, and beneath each luminous stretch of stained glass, bristling with sword and longbow.
“Against Robin Hood and his miserable kind, as I told thee,” the Bishop muttered to him when asked, quite put out at being spoken to out-of-turn. The harper frowned silently, and bowed his head again. Though he had prayed to his Lady to guide his sword, as yet he was entirely unarmed.
At last all were within, save two. The Sheriff of Nottingham stood yet in the door, his hand firmly upon the arm of a lovely young lass. She was sweet and fair to behold, with golden braids peeking from beneath her fine starched wimple, but it was clear even from across the church that her countenance was red with weeping.
The door was closed again behind the unhappy pair, and the Bishop closed his beady eyes for a moment, awaiting the strains of the harp beside him—but none sounded. In a flash the eyes were open again, and angry. “Now wilt thou not play, rogue?” said he.
“Nay, I will not,” said the harper boldly, with voice raised. “Ye surprise me with your shamelessness, every man of you! Hath no one objected to this match? Believeth any of you verily that such a pretty maid cometh of her own free will to wed a man who might be her grandfather, or am I to be the only defender she hath?”
“How dar’st thou,” rasped the Knight.
“This is none of thy concern, thou impudent minstrel,” thundered the Bishop.
“A minstrel, he!” cried the Sheriff, in a terrible voice. “Soldiers, bar the door! Take him! ’Tis none other than that scoundrel Robin Hood!”
The final installment of “The Bride-Price” will follow in due time. While you wait, perhaps you’d like to peruse the Fiction Directory and see what catches your fancy?
As always, thank you for reading.
Your attention to detail with the language is so perfect! I’m loving this!
I'm glad that you have them speak in the manner which was befitting for them all in the typical time period of these stories. Somehow hearing them talk in any modern idiom doesn't seem quite right.