..Penelope..

"Allan!" he hissed with alarmed eyes and a repulsed curl to his lips as he strided authoritatively towards the hunched figure, "Have you lost your senses?"

Lacing the thin leather strap through the worn eyelets and casually glancing around the vast heather moorland, Allan shrugged, "There's no one about," he reasoned nonchalantly, with a final triumphant tug to his breeches, "And I don't see a privy 'round 'ere."

"You were relieving yourself-" Much turned an perplexed shade of salmon, his friend grinning relaxedly at his frustration, " - Beside the cow shelter? You - Oh, Robin's waiting at Clun for the rest of the coins," he muttered hastily, nodding in the direction of the distant hum of scattered villagers, "Let's go."

"Woah," Allan's mouth fell open as he grabbed hold of the neck of an irritated Much's shirt, roughly jerking the material towards his chest until his companion choked.

Without unhooking himself from his friend's grip, the former manservant's eyes bulged in horror. "Oh, Good Lord," he whimpered, "She saw you -" quickly extracting himself from his friend's clutches and, almost falling flat into a steaming pile of cow manure, coughed loudly. "On behalf of my friend, I apologize for the disrespectful scene he has caused," he directed towards the blinking villager and then, out of pure guilt, nodded apologetically at her cow.

Allan grinned awkwardly at the flaxen flash of a tucked up maiden squeezed between the two wooden planks of the opposite fence, the bottom of her sandals waving into the air as her waist balanced on the sturdy fixture as if she were flying. Two slender, almost ghostly pale arms stretched out before her as she carefully plucked at the cow's udders, milking trickling down her wrists and into the wooden pail below. The blonde turned her head and blinked politely at Allan, "It's quite alright, sir," her silverly voice prompted, "Such actions are quite normal."

"Er – cheers," He scratched at the back of his neck, frowning slightly at the villager as his friend mumbled regretfully beside him. "Speakin' of normal, are you alright?"

"Quite, yes, thank you," The villager sang cheerily, turning back to her ministrations. Every so often, she would look up from her milk extraction and peer up into the gap between the cow's legs, staring expectantly into the distance.

Much teetered uncomfortably from foot to foot, glancing over the dense heather brush towards his master's worship group. "Perhaps we should be leaving, Allan."

"She's barkin' mad," Allan announced flatly, his friend growing quiet beside him. "But she sounds like a noble. Are you waitin' for someone – er – sorry, your name? -"

"They call me Penny. Yes, I am waiting."

"For wha' exactly?"

Much grabbed the leather pouch off his hip and threw it towards Penny, allowing the soft material to land beside the fence with a jangle of coins. The noise didn't seem to alert the maiden as she smiled wanly into her pail, "I don't require money, sir."

The outlaw grabbed his curious comrade by the shoulder, attempting to drag him off towards their duties, and puffed up his chest at the peasant, "Well, it's the least we can do. We are Robin Hood, so. Use it wisely."

"I hope to achieve more than coins."

Allan snorted in disgust, "'Bit greedy, aren't ya?"

"I hope to find a land of no poor, unbruised berries," Penny's voice shimmered over the gentle moo from the cow, drawing Allan's mouth into a small 'o'. "Honey, bread, unscathed children that a man can only dream of. You understand?" and with her final question, she abruptly paused her milking – gazing with anticipation into the heather landscape in her view, the cow's legs framing her line of sight. "There."

Much and Allan stared, mouths open, at the landscape that grew into light freckles into the distance; tall reeds swaying rhythmically as the young men focused in on a small body crouched on the edge of the cascading flowers. The brushed slate of the late storm cloud had cleared, leaving the laughing wisps of Summer residue – but the crooked hilltop of swarming lilac brush stood in a melancholic paste. The spectators' faces paled immediately as the figure ducked and rolled off the cliff, the heather swinging behind with the force of their fall.

"Oi!" Allan cried into the air, "Who was tha'?" he croaked, "He fell – how did you know he was -"

"He jumped," Much whispered knowingly.

"We should -"

"Tis a normal occurrence." Penny smiled as sweetly as before, returning to her extraction in unblemished silence. As if able to read Allan's mind, she added: "The fall is too long."

Days passed as Much and Allan regularly visited the cow maid, along with the less insane villagers of Clun, to donate her a small rattle of coins. Her resistance to accept the money only caused further distress; inducing Much's determination to feed and clothe the small woman who spoke of untouched dreams glazed with by her simple tone – hypnotizing the outlaw in a way that left him perched on the fence, silent to her stories.

"Waterlilies float o'er the creek and the cream is so thick that one must slice it using a knife," she continued one evening, her voice neither gushing nor casual – but barely grounded as always. Her luminous hair lapping over her back as she urged milk, "And small elves lace your boots in the mornings."

Much chuckled, folding his arms and managing a stern face, "You can't be serious," he remarked, "But a place like that sounds like Heaven, I have to say."

"It is."

One morning, wading through the after effects of England's flood, the outlaw's boots stopped trudging and the sack of coins fell into the fresh swamp, consumed by the oozing darkness. A cow bell rang with liberation through the muddy heather landscape and the dense clouds parted overhead, draping white strobes over the bare fence. There, along the freckled heather of the steepest Hill of Clun, a small peasant boy sat , hunched, binding a small cross from dry reeds.

After waving his own cross over his torso, Much continued his journey in a comforting chant: "A land of no poor, unbruised berries; honey, bread, unscathed children...Waterlilies float over the creek and the cream is so thick that you must cut it with a knife -"

'Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads' – Henry David Thoreau