Chapter Text
In the days of the Lion spawned of the Devil's Brood
the Hooded Man shall come to the forest.
There he will meet Herne the Hunter, Lord of the Trees
to be his son and do his bidding.
The Powers of Light and Darkness shall be strong within him.
And the guilty shall tremble.
Prophecies of Gildas
A light breeze was whispering through the trees. The loamy forest floor was soft and damp, and a mist was rising. There had been rain. Despite the miserable weather, the mood of the outlaws of Sherwood forest was buoyant. Summer was coming, and they were still alive, still harrying the Sheriff and the local nobility... still fighting.
They had wondered. Their long war against oppression had not been without defeats. All of the outlaws remembered the death of Robin of Loxley, and the year of despair that followed. After that, when Herne had chosen a new son to leave them, they seemed to have fought the sorcerer Gulnar as often as the Sheriff. In the end, it seemed they had won that battle, but at a high price. Marion had left them, to become one of the sisters at Halstead Abbey. And Robin Hood, who had once been Robert of Huntingdon, and who had wanted to marry Marion, had been sunk into broken-hearted despair. Nevertheless, the winter was over, and Robin Hood was back.
Today, the first cart, laden with silver, would leave Nottingham for London. Robin would make sure it never got there. His plan was to take them outside Sherwood: they all agreed that the protection of the trees could be sacrificed to the element of surprise. According to their informant - a friend to the outlaws who worked in Nottingham Castle - the money was to be hidden in barrels of wine.
Will Scarlet had laughed when he heard that. "Well, that's perfect, ain't it? The villagers get the money, an" we can keep the wine!"
Even Nasir had smiled then. But that had been yesterday. Today, they had to find the cart.
They knew the route it would be taking. There were only two roads to London from Nottingham, and one of then went through the forest. Robin knew they would not take the Sherwood road - that would invite robbery. So, early in the morning, before it was fully light, the outlaws gathered their weapons and made their way to the roadside.
***
The approach of a lone horse made the waiting outlaws instantly alert. They watched as the swift horse rounded the bend. The horse was white, an Arabian breed - evidently the property of someone very wealthy. It's rider, however, wore simple clothing, black and brown, no weapons, though there was a bag slung over one shoulder.
As the rider neared the stretch of road the outlaws watched, the horse slowed a little, and something fell from the rider's gloved hand. Then the horse began to gallop once more. The watching outlaws hardly noticed. Their attention was focused on the cart slowly trundling toward them.
The cart was driven by a middle-aged man, dressed as a poor merchant. He was accompanied by two other men, both of whom carried weapons but wore no armour, for that would give them away as soldiers. This "poor merchant" deception would only work if they looked like a simple merchant caravan. In the cart were perhaps ten barrels of varying sizes. The largest of them loomed above the "merchant's" head, six feet high and very heavy.
The road was empty. It was still early morning and not yet the time of year for travelling. Late spring: the weather was still stormy and the roads could be treacherous. The carter drove without speaking, his mind clearly occupied.
Watching from the sparse cover beside the road, Robin raised his longbow and took careful aim.
The carter heard the arrow sail above his head and looked up. A cascade of wine poured into his face from the pierced barrel, blinding him momentarily. Acting on reflex, he signalled the horses to a halt. He heard the shouts of his two armed companions, but still couldn't see. He smelled the wine. A thud, a scream, and silence. The carter fumbled for something to wipe his eyes.
When finally, blinkingly he looked at the scene, real fear gripped his heart. "Robin Hood..." he managed to stammer.
The giant, bearded man standing over him grinned. "No, Little John," he said. Then he caught the carter by his shirt and lifted him from the wagon.
Which was precisely when the soldier - the only one of the two still conscious - decided to be a hero. John didn't see the dagger coming until he felt it slice into his arm. He roared, whirling to crack the disguised soldier on the side of his head with his quarterstaff. The same movement knocked the carter to the ground, giving John time to examine the wound briefly.
Much was standing up in the cart. His job was to watch for soldiers, but he was having trouble looking in all directions at once. He shuffled about, turning constantly, craning his neck to see further. It looked like an odd kind of dance.
Meanwhile the others - Robin, Tuck, Scarlet and Nasir were checking the barrels just to be sure this was the right cart. Scarlet whooped with delight when he prised open one barrel to find it full to the brim with coins.
"We got it, Robin! Look at this!"
Robin glanced a t the shining hoard, grinning along with the rest. He was about to speak when...
"Robin!" It was Much.
Robin straightened, brushing blond hair out of his eyes and turning to where Much pointed. He swore under his breath. Galloping toward them was a whole platoon of blue-liveried soldiers.
They were too close for the outlaws to do anything but run. Robin gave the order, helping Much to scramble down from his vantage point. They jumped down together. Robin was on his feet again at once; Much stumbled and fell on the muddy road. Robin dragged him to his feet - no time to be gentle - and they ran together.
Suddenly the soldiers were upon them.
Shoving Much toward the cover where their friends waited, Robin drew Albion, his sword. He turned to fight.
From the top of the embankment, Nasir strung his bow and took aim.
John, seeing this, touched Nasir's arm briefly. "Naz...?"
Nasir looked at John and nodded, once. He took aim again.
Robin saw Nasir's arrow fly on the edge of his vision. It buried itself in the shield of one of the soldiers. A warning.
Some of them pulled back. It gave Robin his chance. The man he fought was distracted for an instant. Robin thrust his sword through the man's armour and into his body. Then, yanking it back, he turned and ran for the embankment. A single arrow followed him. He ducked and it missed. Nasir shot again, holing another shield. None of the soldiers tried to follow.
They had escaped with their lives once more, but they had lost the loot.
***
In the quiet chapel of Halstead Abbey, a woman knelt before the altar. She wore the pale grey habit of a novititate nun, her red hair completely concealed by the severe wimple. Her name was Marion, and she had once been the wife of Robin Hood.
Early that morning, before the outlaws of Sherwood gathered their weapons and set out, the bells of the convent woke Marion, summoning her and the other nuns to prayer. Those bells had ruled her life for several months now, ever since the terrible day when, her heart broken for the second time, she had chosen to remain in the peace of Halstead.
To reach the chapel, Marion had to cross the courtyard, where a single tree was in blossom. She had looked up at the tiny white flowers, mixed emotions flooding her as she realised it was late spring.
In the Abbey, the seasons were governed, not by nature, but by the ecclesiastical calendar. All Saints, Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter... Marion had forgotten - or perhaps chosen not to remember - what that meant in the world she had left behind. It was late spring. Summer was coming. The Time of the Blessing.
That memory had kept Marion in the chapel after the morning prayers were over. When she first entered the abbey she had spoken at length to Father Anselm - her confessor - about the life she had led. About Herne.
Father Anselm had explained to her, kindly and patiently, for he was a good man, that there was only one God and that her life in Sherwood was in no way compatible with His service. He had told her that Herne the Hunter was a pagan god, and therefore of Satan, and any power she thought she had witnessed was a trick: sleight of hand or false wisdom to deceive the simple, or if not then it was the Devil's work. Marion had held her tongue, sensing that he would not understand if she tried to explain the difference between Herne and the true evils she had witnessed, at Castle Beleme and at Ravenscar and in the terrifying ghost-village of Crom Cruac.
She had been sure, then, that Fr. Anselm had been... not wrong, certainly, but mistaken. She knew Herne was a force for good, and not from the devil. Nonetheless, as the weeks passed, the old priest's words came to haunt her. Marion had chosen to leave that life behind and become a nun. The conflicting passions of life in Sherwood had become too much for her. She was no longer able to love, knowing that at any time she could lose everything again. She needed the grey and peaceful life of Halstead.
Deep in her heart, Marion knew the life wasn't for her. She could ignore her past, but she couldn't reject it. Even through the grief she could remember... joy. It was the thing she was in Halstead to escape.
"...dona nobis pacem," she whispered, gazing up at the silver cross on the altar. She was a Christian and she did believe. It was simply that she believed in Herne, too. How could she not?
As if the thought had summoned him, Herne's voice was in her mind. Nothing's Forgotten... There was a torrent of images, she didn't - couldn't - understand. Then she felt a sudden, sharp pain in her chest and gasped aloud.
It would be almost an hour later when Marion was found there, lying unconscious before the altar.
***
At exactly the time Marion collapsed, the same moment Robin killed and fled after a failed robbery, in a cave beside a lake an elderly man raised his head suddenly. For more than two years he had been waiting for this sign. For a full minute, he remained still, his intense eyes staring into the darkness, then slowly, he rose and moved deeper into the cave. He lifted the antlered head-dress of Herne and placed it with shaking hands upon his head. His movements gained surety as he continued to robe himself. When he was finished
it is a god who moved purposefully to the stone altar where the silver arrow lies. Its shaft thicker than a wooden arrow and secret writing etched there, the Horned One lifts the Arrow reverently.
The god needs no torch to guide him beyond the reach of the light in the cave. Far back in the deepest part of the cavern a hidden chamber awaits. At the jagged entrance, he pauses. Only the god may enter here. He goes in.
***
"I had no choice!" Robin repeated.
John shook his head in exasperation. "I know that, Robin. But that's not the point."
"What is your point, John?" asked Scarlet. The two men were beginning to get on his nerves. John and Robin had been arguing since they got back to the safety of Sherwood, at first quietly, now loud enough to be heard in Nottingham.
John opened his mouth to shout, then closed it again and, calmer, demanded, "Have you all forgotten? Don't you know what time it is?"
Much looked at the sky. "It's still morning," he said, confused.
John smiled suddenly. "That's not what I mean, Much."
Robin said, "It's the Time of the Blessing. And I killed today. That's what John means."
His statement was followed by silence from the outlaws. They all remembered the Blessing in another year, when Guy of Gisburne's mercenaries had terrorised the villagers. Robin Hood - a different Robin Hood - had refused to break Herne's law by shedding blood in the days before the Blessing. Will Scarlet remembered, perhaps better than the others, his frustrated rage at being prevented from acting.
"Well, so what?" Scarlet said irritably. "Robin's right - we all saw it. He didn't have a choice."
But it was Robin who shook his head. "No, Scarlet. John's right. I'd like to deny it, but... I'm Herne's Son. But, John, what's done is done. I can't change it."
Above their heads, a bird burst into song.
John caught Tuck's eye for a moment. "Robin," he said then, "you should go to Herne. Perhaps the damage won't be so bad."
***
"...I remember." It is a man's voice. "Are they safe?"
The god replies, "You won the battle for them. Now there is another."
"I don't understand."
"You will. Quietly now. She is coming."
***
Next Day
Marion lay awake in the dark. She had hardly slept. Something terrible had happened in Sherwood, she was sure of it. And the convent walls had stopped being a shelter and become a prison.
She rose from the bed and dressed quickly. Her clothes - her nun's habit - suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable. She left her room, glancing furtively around as she opened the door, and was soon outside the high, grey walls of Halstead.
There was a white mist rising from the ground. Marion shrugged and lifted her skirts as she walked - just enough to stop them dragging on the grass. She kept her head down as she walked, letting her feet carry her in whichever direction they chose. Except for one thing: she was determined not to enter Sherwood.
There came a time when she realised she was on the edge of the forest. It was full daylight by then and she had been walking for hours. She stopped, looked around for a landmark and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold when she realised where she was. She blinked back tears, unprepared for the sudden resurgence of an old grief. Well, she was here now, she thought, looking up to the rocky high ground.
Marion was being watched. The sixth sense she had developed in Sherwood would never truly leave her, and she could feel the eyes on her. Slowly, she turned, looking back into the trees. He wasn't there. She shrugged inwardly, realising she had expected to see the antlers of Herne.
Marion believed she was there for a reason. She pushed aside her memories as best she could and began to walk around, not up, the hill. She couldn't take her eyes off it. No matter how hard she tried, the memory of the last - and only - time she had been there replayed in her mind.
"I'm asking you to live... it's meant to be. Dying is easy..."
Then she froze. Silhouetted against the winter sky, the figure of a man stood among the rubble at the hill's summit. For a moment she thought she was imagining it. Then she wondered if she was seeing a ghost; with the thought she automatically raised a hand to make the sign of the cross. Then she saw the man move. He held a longbow in one hand. As Marion watched in growing confusion, he raised the bow, apparently with great effort, and loosed a single arrow over the trees.
Her tears were blinding. She wrenched the nun's wimple from her head to wipe her eyes, and when she could see again, she turned and fled from the memories, running deeper and deeper into the waiting forest.
***
The white ghostliness of the mist rising from Herne's lake had become a familiar sight to Robin, but he could never approach the never-still water without remembering the first time. When, as Robert of Huntingdon, an earl's son, he had been summoned by Herne, chosen in a way he still did not understand, to rescue the outlaws held captive in Wickham when Robin Hood died.
He had rejected Herne then, he remembered, too afraid to do what was asked of him. It had been for Marion he had returned... Robin's forehead creased with a familiar pain... and he had eventually earned the name of Robin Hood. Now he wondered if he was still worthy of that name. Although he had argued with John, he had known the moment the soldier died how wrong his act was. He was Herne's Son. And he had broken Herne's most sacred law.
Robin poled the raft across the lake to Herne's cave, briefly wondering how it got to the other side. He could see Herne waiting for him in the mouth of the cave. He stepped out onto the rock promontory and waited for the Horned figure to speak.
"Robin Hood," Herne intoned, his deep voice seeming to come from very far away. "There is little I can tell you. A time of trial is coming and there will be a great battle. The Champion must be without stain."
Robin's heart sank at the words. "Herne..." he tried.
"This death can be forgiven, Robin i' the Hood, but a price must be paid."
"What price?" Robin asked, dreading the answer.
The mist became even thicker and Herne's figure began to fade from Robin's sight.
"What price?" he repeated, more urgently.
"Tell me," the old man asked, "is Herne a man, or a god?"
Robin stared at him helplessly, unable to answer. To him, Herne had always seemed to be both, but the question didn't seem to permit that reply.
Herne waited, then continued cryptically, "Does the god become man, or the man become the god?" Anther pause, then, "and if one man, why not another?"
Robin shook his head in frustration. "I don't understand!"
"There will be fire," Robin heard through the cold. "The May Queen will flee to terror. The past has been released. There is darkness; you must..." But there was no more, and the antlered form of the Hunter was gone.