Marian

Marian

by Stephen Brooke

Yes, I knew Robin. A Robin, neither the first nor the last to name himself so. For a century and more, from Nottingham to Lincoln to York, they plied the robber’s trade. Some cast a longer shadow than others.

Some, they say, were gentlemen. Some claimed to be the confidantes of kings, be it Richard or Edward. Some were base in birth; some were base in spirit.

But my Robin? Ah, he was a gallant fellow, though a yeoman born. He knew the tales of chivalry and, mayhap, he took them over seriously. Why else might he choose to woo a young noblewoman? Many a night I could readily have laughed at his pretenses, his phrases more suited to the tongue of a minstrel than that of a fighting man—much less a bandit.

Indeed, they might have been invented for him by a minstrel. I remember a disreputable jongleur with whom he used to drink. Alan was he styled. Long has it been since I heard his ale-soaked songs. But that matters not; it was from Robin’s lips those words of love fell, and I knew they told what was in his heart, whatever their origin. Young women like to hear such words.

Some long to hear them. Not I. They were but a way to relieve the tedium of my life. Would that I could have been as Robin, roaming free in the woods! That was my heart’s desire, not to listen to his pretty pronouncements.

Of a summer’s night, when daylight lingered into the dusk, I would steal away from my father’s house and make tryst with my Robin. In the garb of my maid I would go. Yes, as a common serving girl I went and sat with him and his merry ruffians and the tavern-goers, and they would laugh and call me Maid Marian, and there was not one ‘my lady’ to be heard.

Save from Robin, ever courteous when we walked beneath the stars and the great oaks of his forest hideaways. Not so courteous in his love-making, though!

They hanged them all there one day, Robin and his men, from one of those great oaks. That among them was the infamous Robin, the sheriff’s men knew not nor did they most likely care. I knew.

Sir Guy told me of it when he rode home, home to me and my child with Robin’s eyes. He is a good man, my husband, good enough, and I can not fault him for doing his duty. Nay, not even if he held the rope in his own hands. Robin had become no more than a dream to me by then, fading before the dawn of new days.

Alan, I understand, made up a different ending for our story.

appears in Lands Far Away 2021