They are back, now, and the woods are as green as they were when he first left Sherwood and Nottingham and her, oh, so very long ago.
Robin Hood always saves Lady Marian.
Or so the songs all go.
They are singing of him, now, says Allan, who stopped in every third tavern coming home from the Holy Land to bring back a bit of food and a bit of English news. He came with bits of English songs as well, which he tried in tones of nervous cheer, to ease the ache of lost comrades and the quiet.
They all stopped Allan before he could break out into the chorus, but though he has never heard it the refrain is etched on Robin's heart.
Robin Hood always wins the day and saves his lady love.
And yet again he has left her behind, this time without a hope to clutch in his fist and fight for until it is true. This night is a far wander from the distant victorious days where suns set on a white horse galloping towards a happy ending.
He lets it go. It will not do, it will not do, to dwell on what was or may have been his and what is no longer, so he scratches his head and stares at the trees.
They will make camp deeper this time. No one coming from Nottingham will find them there, farther into the silence of the greenwoods where the sound of an arrow's feathers singeing the air sets fowl and furry beasts scattering for more than a mile. No one will find them this time.
He will make sure of it.
Sherwood is home, now. Someday or soon he will take back Locksley from Gisbourne, he feels it, as he feels the end he will bring to Gisbourne, but that home is lost to him. That man is lost to him.
Robin of Locksley is dead, and he knows it. He died in the Holy Land. Maybe he's been dying since his Crusades, maybe since he went crusading. But this time he left Locksley, all he had been and thought to be again, buried there with his wife.
Long live Hood.
He has Much and Allan and John. Not many men, anymore. The band has broken up.
But three are enough. Three good men. And there will be more. All know what is rotten in Nottingham.
Its people might not love him. He isn't sure he needs, or even wants, their love anymore. They have turned on him and mistrusted him before and will again, but he'll still save them all because it's right and she'd want it so. They are her people. And somewhere among them are more good men, greenwoods men, and good women too, he suspects. There are those who'll follow him and shoot straight and stand with Robin Hood.
He thought he couldn't shoot straight without her but he finds no waver in his arm; he finds the hesitation that has been seeping away is gone. He isn't sure yet about this new man, if he's a killer or not, but as he casts off the shawl of sorrow and tucks it away, for remembrance, he finds at last he may be who they all think or would like him to be. A man with nothing to lose or gain, stealing justice for England for love of the place and the thing. Robin will give them someone strong to stand by. He'll get it right, this time.
In his hands he holds his curved bow from that land of fever and sorrow he has left behind once and for all. He turns it over, mouth tight in thought.
He may be ready for another sort of bow. A long one, for the battle might be a long one and there is no hurry, no impatience anymore. No castle or manor or dark-haired children with Marian's eyes and a rumpled smile or an at last, at last that does not want to wait.
The air sings merrily in Sherwood tonight for the forest does not care who did not come back.
Locksley made his vows to a woman, a woman whose name he cannot breathe without drawing out of his lungs and heart and soul an image of cold flesh under heat-soaked sand and a marker of where love lies that Robin knows the winds will sweep away.
Hood makes his vows to the woods tonight. For once and ever after Robin will not only sleep in the forest bed but be one with the woods. Here he will abide and fight and someday die but there is singing to come first, yes, even Allan's singing, and many, many deeds to do to be worth singing of.
"Robin," says Much, at his shoulder. Here they stand, Robin Hood and Little John, Allan a Dale and Much the Miller's Son, adventure behind them and no clue how to bolster themselves for the next one. "What do we do now?"
Robin hefts his bow over both shoulders and looks ahead at Sherwood. He thinks he knows just the spot for a camp, a spot with room to spread and near enough the roads to harry this prince and his crooks like never before. And one day, the king will return to his throne and right wrongs, for at least a time, while he remembers his promises and the English maid who saved him. But Locksley learned how quick his friend was to forget, and so Hood knows to be wary of even the king he will pledge too. This righting wrongs game, it isn't only till Richard returns and Locksley is his again now. He owes Nottingham's watchman more than that. He owes the country she died for more than that.
"Now, Much," says Robin, "we get the band back together." They aren't sure what he means, he knows, he can tell by the way Allan's eyeing up the pigeon. The players may have changed but the band's the same. They're Robin Hood. And the Robin, the one who was Locksley once, cracks a crooked smile. "Allan? I'd like that song now."
Allan shifts and opens his mouth to tell them he was only trying to be funny with that singing business, but at Robin's expression, lets out a crackling note instead. John stifles his boom of a laugh, Much doesn't bother with stifling as he crows, and they stride forward together while Allan hustles through the tune.
The greenwoods rustle at the sound, and Robin's smile straightens as Sherwood stirs. The best of his past is here, in echoes of galloping horses and shouts and Marian's laughter. Here is his place. Here is his future. He feels as if a horn should be blowing to announce his return. Not a horn of triumph, or even of grief, but the horn of the hunt that is so very much on.
It is green tonight in Sherwood and Robin Hood is back, at last, for good.