Robyn and the Hoodettes (4 page)

“
Hey Robyn, look what I made the other day,” Marion said. He
took something down from the shelf behind him. “What do you
think?”

“
It’s beautiful.” Turning it over she saw something stamped
into the base.

“
That’s my new hallmark, two letter Ms, it stands for “Marion
Made”,’ he said with a satisfied grin as he took one of his sleeves
off.

To reveal his toned arm beneath.

Robyn felt heat spread over her face. It had to be from the
forge. Who knew he was developing so . . .
interestingly.

“
I know what letters they are,” she said, sounding far too
defensive. Because she had to say something to cover for the fact
she’d been staring at him. Time to change the topic. “But . . . The
base is so rounded, how can the bowl rest on the table?”

“
It’s not a bowl, you trout, it’s a helmet. I haven’t put the
ear protectors on yet. Here.” He took the helmet back and placed it
on his head. “See? Perfect for when I go to the
crusades.”

Robyn’s voice rose an octave. “You’re not joining the war!”
Why did the thought of him leaving upset her so? Was it because she
too wanted an adventure and didn’t want to be left behind? That
must be it.

“
Hush up!” Marion hissed as he wiped the perspiration off his
arm and put the sleeve back in place.

Darn. She’d been enjoying the view.

Then he got back to the forge, pumping the bellows to bring
the heat up, creating extra noise to drown them out. Robyn stepped
in closer. The heat of the forge roasted the side of her body. “You
are
not
going on the crusades. If you got hurt, Mother Mary would
kill you.”

“
Which is why you’re not going to tell her,” Marion shot
back.

Worries lurched in her belly. “But you can’t! You’re the only
one who knows how to use–” Robyn cast her hands out “–all
this!”

He pumped the bellows, “So it’s not that you’d miss me or
anything?”

“
What?”

Marion charged the bellows again. “See if the children are
finished ripping off the carriage.”

Feelings all in a muddle, Robyn ventured away from
Marion.

Outside by the carriage, the children were having too much
fun.

“
They’re so pretty, can we keep them?” Madge showed Robyn
the decorative badges they’d chiselled off the carriage doors. The
insides were looking bare as well, as the children stripped away
curtains and cushions.

“
No, we can’t keep any of it. Take every last scrap of metal
to Marion so he can melt it down. I’m sure he’ll make you new toys
if you ask nicely.” Actually, Robyn wasn’t sure at all, but she had
to say something encouraging to the children for their quick work.
“No Issie, don’t take the wheels off, we don’t have enough blocks
to chock underneath it.” A wheel-less carriage on blocks in the
middle of the village green? Not the kind of ornament the village’s
stern Grannymas would appreciate.

A familiar snuffling noise sounded behind her. Turning, Robyn
saw Shadow standing there. For a horse, she looked pretty
sheepish.

“
You’re not supposed to be here,” Robyn said. “How did you
get out anyway?” Through the flickering firelight, she saw the
half-door to her cottage wide open and a bewildered-looking Bella
the cow wondering if it were morning yet.

“
Come on Shadow, back to bed.”

Shadow nuzzled her arm.

The days’ events were catching up with Robyn. Tiredness
made the decision for her. “It’s time for sleep, come
on.”

The horse had the good sense to follow her home and Robyn
checked the latch was attached to the door. Still there, so it
wasn’t broken. Had she not clicked it shut properly last time, or
had the horse worked out how to open it?

The cow began lowing. “No Bella, back to sleep for you as
well.”

“
The village is so proud of you, sweetheart,” Eleanor said,
jogging up with Joan by her side. In the darkness, Joan looked so
tall, she could have been the parent and Eleanor the child. Her
mother added, “Joan’s bunking in with us tonight.”

“
Sure,” Robyn said as weariness made her yawn.

“
I was so worried. What happened to you out there?” Eleanor
asked as the three of them made their way into the cottage and
climbed the ladder into the shared straw bed.

“
It’s all a blur,” Robyn said as she relayed the story to her
mother. She got some events in the wrong order so Joan took over
narration duties.

“
What an adventure,” Eleanor said when they’d
finished.

Really? In the heat of the moment, Robyn hadn’t noticed. But
now that someone else had said it, she felt a thrill move through
her.

Adventure.

Kind of nice to think she’d had one. But all the same, it
wasn’t anything compared the kind of adventures her father would be
having.

“
So mother, is the Earl of Derby working for the Sheriff of
Nottingham?”

“
No dear, the Earl of Derby
is
the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

Robyn’s stomach curdled like milk left in the sun. Once the
Earl-Sheriff found out what she’d done, he’d send his anger down on
their village like a swarm of bees.

“
Get to sleep dear,” Eleanor said.

Robyn sighed. “I’m trying. But mother, what’s going to happen
next?”

“
I don’t know.” Now it was her mother’s turn to sigh. “But I do
know that not getting any sleep won’t make things any
better.”

Her mother’s advice made perfect sense, but it still didn’t
help. Today she’d made a powerful enemy. Would the Sheriff-Earl
send his men to punish Robyn, or the whole village?

***

To ensure the bags of grain couldn’t be taken from them
again, the villagers took to the fields the next morning and got
busy planting. If the Sheriff’s men wanted the wheat back, they’d
have to sift the soil to get it.

Joan was a marvel with the plough, being strong enough to
steer the device in a straight line. The grannymas were also out,
raking the soil to a fine tilth and covering the seeds. They’d
brought all the babbies with them and had sat them under a tree,
where they rolled about and played in the crunchy fallen
leaves.

Marion and Midge did something pretty clever. They had several
light planks of wood, which they attached together with straps of
leather to form a pen to keep the babbies in.

“
They look like piglets,” Joan said as she completed another
long, straight, plough line.

“
They look like they’re having fun,” Robyn said, at which
point, Midge’s little brother Tuppence toppled backwards into a
pile of leaves.

Everyone was so busy laughing at the delightful babbies’
antics, they didn’t realize how much work they were getting done.
By mid afternoon they were finished and the villagers offered Joan
and Robyn more food than they could possibly get through in a week
of dinners.

“
Come on you,” Mother Eleanor said as the afternoon wore on.
“We should get Joan back to Littleton before her parents worry
where she’s got to. A good walk will do you good.”

Joan managed a groaning few steps before she had to rest
against the side of the village well.

Eleanor gasped and cried,
“Don’t lean too hard, Joan, that well’s
not–”

“
Whoa!” The top stones came loose and Joan reeled
backwards.

“–
sturdy.” Eleanor made a pantomime sigh.

“
Take this with you.” Grannyma Miller shoved a sack of flour
into Robyn’s arms.

Umpfh
. Heavy stuff. Did she have to carry it the whole way? Her
arms would drop off at this rate.

With the villagers’ farewells carrying on the breeze,
Robyn, Joan and Eleanor turned their backs on Loxley and headed
towards Littleton. Shadow made a bee-line for Robyn and walked
beside her. A moment later, Robyn and Joan realized it was silly to
toil with the bags when they had horse right there, so they slung
their load on to Shadow’s back.

Only a short walk–an hour, tops–the cottages on the outskirts
of Littleton came into view.

“
Lord above,” Eleanor said. “I remember when all this was
fields.”

The bend in the road opened to reveal the main buildings in
the village. Feathers galore were blown like autumn leaves into
drifts. The Sheriff’s men sure had made a mess of
things.

Hardly big enough to be a village, Littleton boasted a few
small cottages with kitchen gardens at the front and fields behind.
But Littleton had something Loxley did not: A stone tower keep,
taller than the mighty oaks that reached bare arms towards the top
of it. It was completely out of place amongst all the thatched-roof
cottages. A single, square building with arched doorways below and
sawtooth battlements along the top of each wall. Too small for a
church (although the entire village could fit inside it), it looked
like somebody had started building a castle years ago, but their
ambitions had surpassed their abilities.

“
Come on, let’s put this away,” Joan said, taking the bags of
flour towards the tower.

Inside the stone walls they found a ladder leading upwards to
a trapdoor. The ladder creaked and groaned as Joan climbed up with
the sack over her shoulder. Robyn thought it best to wait until
Joan was all the way up on the next floor before climbing herself.
Who knew if the timber would hold both their weight?

The acrid stench of chicken poo and stale air assaulted her as
she stepped through. Time to breathe through the mouth.

“
If you don’t mind, I’ll stay down here with Shadow,” Mother
said.

Smart woman.

Joan climbed up yet another ladder, heading towards a trap
door in the opposite corner.

“
Can’t we leave the bags here?” Robyn asked.

“
This is where we put the chickens every night, so the foxes
can’t get them. If you put the food in here, the chickens will eat
it all.”

True. But the chickens would get fat and delicious, Robyn
thought. “Where are the chickens, by the way?”

“
Dunno. Probably scratching for worms down by the
river.”

Taking the next ladder up, balancing her own bag of flour,
Robyn came through to the third floor. No sun came in here at all.
The arched windows on each of the four walls had all been boarded
up to keep out the rain and the wind.

“
Over here,” Joan said, laying down her load.

Robyn did the same. “I can never get over how quiet it is
here.”

“
Yeah . . .” Joan said, then a strange look came over her
face–it was hard to tell in the darkness. “It is quiet, isn’t
it?”

Too quiet.

Joan climbed the last ladder and opened the final trapdoor to
the sky above. Light and fresh air streamed through. Blinking,
Robyn hauled herself up to the top deck, where she found herself
eye-level with the skeleton branches of the tree tops.

“
Where is everyone?” Joan said, looking out across all four
corners of the tower.

Fear sliced into Robyn as she too gazed over the empty fields,
shading her eyes from the late autumn sun. The villagers of
Littleton should be sowing their winter wheat as well. Or at the
very least, someone should be watching the chickens.

Even the chickens were quiet. No, they hadn’t gone quiet,
they’d simply gone. Along with everyone else in the
village.

“
Something’s happened,” Joan said, making for the trap door to
climb down again.

Robyn gulped. Her gaze took another lap of the battlements,
searching for signs of people. Looking back towards Loxley, she saw
movement on the mud road. Someone was running towards the town. A
male, with even strides, pumping arms and a chest broader than she
remembered.

It looked . . . like Marion.

And he had parchment in his hand as he ran towards
them.

Robyn scuttled to the bottom of the tower just as Marion
reached them.

“
The Sheriff’s men are back,”
he said, between huffs and puffs as he
tried to collect his breath. “They’re making us evacuate.” Huff,
puff, pant, wheeze. “They made up some story about the Shire Wood
being full of thieves so they’re moving us on to Sheffield for our
own protection.”

Panic flinched her muscles. They thought the woods were full
of thieves? But the thieves were only Robyn and Joan. And anyway,
they weren’t thieves; they were merely taking back what was theirs
in the first place.

“
Look,” Marion unrolled the parchment. It had tears in the
corners where he’d ripped it off the barn wall they’d nailed it to.
“See what it says?”

“
I can read!” Robyn ground out. “They’ve just written it in a
weird way, that’s all.”

Robyn sort of recognized the angry slash of the letters
written along the top of the paper, but the rest of the words swam
about on the page. If she concentrated, really concentrated . . .
she still couldn’t read it.