Chapter Text
“Ah, Will Scarlet,” sighed Nile.
Joe smiled at her. “Honestly, I expected you to interrupt the minute he appeared.”
"You should admire my self control."
"I’ll admire it if I can go on with my story," said Nicky.
Nile waved a hand in magnanimous approval. "By all means."
He inclined his head to her and continued.
Yusuf and Nicoló paid close attention to the hushed instructions they were given as they took up their places along the road. It was clear that Robin and his men knew every inch of the forest, knew where to hide and where to watch and all the routes their prey might take in flight. The men melted into the trees as if part of the forest themselves, becoming no more than the glint of eyes or a shape within the shadows.
They waited and listened. For an hour or more the sounds were those of any forest at night: the owl, the fox, the wind through the leaves. Slowly the moon rose and cast light upon the winding ribbon of road.
Nicoló had his sharp eyes trained on the farthest curve of the road, watching for any sign of the sheriff's party. The man one one side of him had one ear down on the ground, listening for reverberations in the ground to tell him they were getting close. Yusuf was on his other side, shoulder to shoulder with him as he preferred to be, unsheathed sword in his hand.
Yusuf leaned even closer to Nicoló, "Are you happy?" They'd long used happy to mean certain, in situations where it would have been inadvisable to express uncertainty.
Nicoló only nodded, eyes still on the road.
The signal they were all waiting for came in the hooting of another owl. But, if you knew the woods and what to listen for, this one was the call of an owl for its mate and not a hunting cry. Apparently, Robin liked the irony.
Then, came the distant sound of hoofbeats.
They'd been told to wait until the second man passed Nicoló's position or until they could see the cart with the chests. So, they let the group approach until they could have reached out and touched them, then all yelled at one. Their shouts rang among the trees and the sheriff's men pulled out their swords.
"Nicky doesn’t get murdered by the Sheriff of Nottingham."
"What?"
"I’m explaining," Joe said, "because you look nervous."
Nile unclenched her fists and deliberately leaned back in her chair. "I’m not nervous, I was just paying attention."
Nicky smiled at her fondly. "It was a thrilling moment."
She smiled back.
Andy snorted. "You should have just killed them and been done with it. All this hiding in forests," she rolled her eyes.
Nicky waved her comment away.
The sheriff's men swung their swords wildly as they looked around for the incoming attack. Among the trees, the bandits continued to shout, some banged their staffs against trees, and others sent arrows in arcs above the riders' heads. Even though Robin's men stayed hidden, the riding party was in chaos: horses pulled this way and that, men yelling and cursing, their eyes wide and frightened. Then, as planned, the sheriff yelled for them to ride on and they followed him at a gallop down the road. The cart bounced and jolted as the driver lashed his mule to keep up.
The bandit next to Nicoló stood up and motioned with his staff in the air. Above him, a man in a tall pine tree passed on the owl call to the men waiting further down the road.
When the echoes of even hoofbeats had died and the distant shouts redoubled, they slipped from their hiding places and out onto the road. further on, the fight had begun. Now, the rear guard, for so they were, began to close in on them and block their escape.
The men around them were relaxed walking toward the fight they'd sought out, cheerfully anticipating crossing their wooden staffs against steel swords, fighting mounted men with armor on foot and in ragged-edged tunics. As much as he admired their courage, Nicoló still didn't trust them and he kept close to Yusuf as they got closer to where the sounds of battle could be heard.
And then they were upon the fighting. In the splashes of moonlight, the road was filled with knots of dueling men. The fighting was too close now for arrows, but Robin was proving himself as good with a sword as he'd been with a bow. Nicoló could see how carefully the men fought on foot against their mounted opponents, avoiding injuring the horses even as they engaged their adversaries with heavy blows. Slowly, the bandits were separating the riders from the cart, surrounding it instead with their own men. The fighting spread out along the road and around the next bend. Soon, many of the sheriff's men could no longer even see the cart or the humped chests in it.
For the most part, Yusuf and Nicoló hung back, parrying extra blows and protecting the men around them, but staying out of the worst of the fighting so as not to draw too much attention to themselves.
When the first man spurred his horse and ran from the fighting, his sword having been twisted out of his hand by Will, it was like a signal to his fellows. Soon they were all galloping away, still cursing as they went, leaving the cart behind.
Robin's grin was brighter than the moonlight as he sheathed his sword and approached the cart. John was holding the mule and the driver was shaking on his seat in fear.
"Na, na," said Robin, "we mean you no harm. You can be on your way as soon as my men have lightened your cart for you."
The driver gulped, but remained sitting and looking straight ahead as bandits untied the chests and lifted them down into the road. Robin nodded to John and they both stepped back from the cart, each lifting a hand in courteous farewell.
The driver chirped to the mule and then the cart rattled away around the corner after its honor guard.
All around Nicoló and Yusuf the bandits were now busy with new tasks. Some were already carrying the chests into the woods and others were sweeping the road clean of tracks and traces of the fighting. When Robin approached them a few minutes later, there was nothing left to say that anything out of the ordinary had happened on this quiet stretch of forest road.
Nicoló had thought he would need to tell the bandit leader that they were not returning to the camp with him, but to his surprise Robin only held out his hand.
"This is farewell then, I suppose," he said. Both Yusuf and Nicoló nodded.
"Thank you. This was a thoroughly entertaining interlude," said Yusuf, shaking Robin’s hand.
Robin chuckled. "You were the most enjoyable guests. I only wish we had been able to finish our competition," he said, turning to Nicoló.
Nicoló agreed. “Perhaps we will come back someday, and then we can finish it.”
“You are welcome any time. If you enter the bounds of my forest I will know and will come to welcome you.”
They didn’t doubt it. Robin, for all his cheerful and careless swagger, seemed to know everything that happened in Sherwood.
“Until then, I will have to comfort myself with the knowledge that I beat you in our only completed bout. So I suppose that makes me the better archer,” he went on, grinning.
Yusuf grinned back, but Nicoló was frowning. “I had you beaten in the second round, and you know it.”
Robin shrugged. “As you didn’t shoot all your arrows, we’ll never know.”
Nicoló thought back and wondered if the boy’s timing in interrupting them had been as coincidental as it had seemed at the time. His frown deepened.
He would have said more-- how dare Robin, that cheater! -- but Yusuf was making their farewells and pulling him in the opposite direction from Robin.
By dawn, they were out of the forest.
“Though we came back to England many times over the years, we never ended up back in Sherwood again. And so, that is why I have a mark on my otherwise perfect competition record, thanks to that cheating bandit,” Nicky concluded.
Nile sighed happily. “I wish I had been with you back then. Had been able to meet them all.”
“No you don’t. They smelled horrible,” said Yusuf behind his hand, then fanned it under his nose.
They all laughed.
“Don’t worry, one day you can tell the newbies all of your exploits,” Andy said, throwing her arm around Nile’s shoulders, “like how you jumped through a London penthouse window after taking down a modern-day sheriff’s posse.”
Nicky raised his glass to her, “To robbing the rich and protecting the poor!”
“Here, here!”