Welcome to my first Robin Hood fanfiction. I hope you will read and enjoy, and I'd like to apolgise for any mistakes in speeling and so forth on this fiction before you read. I'd also like to put in a small disclaimer-I do not own Robin Hood or version of it.

This story is slightly expermental for me as I'm writing about a period I have little idea about other than basic readings, so I may have got historical details ect. wrong but I hope that won't impinge on your enjoyment of the fic. I'm not entirly happy with it either as it seems a little long winded and confusing and the structure isn't great, but there you go. Please read and review.

It's cold here. Well, it should be of course, this far north, away from the warm sun of my homeland. Neither the less I shiver, cold shivers trickling down my to dissolve somewhere near my legs. I've tried to keep warm, wrapping myself under the layers of fabric and fleece that they use here, far more layers than Robin claims are necessary but even so I still feel the cold. My own clothes are near useless, the silks and light fabrics that where so effective in the sands of the desert proving useless here-I may as well walk around naked for all the good they do.

So I sit here in my borrowed clothes and huddle next to the small fire we've built in this cave. The others have gone out to try and find food, but I refused. I feel ill, my nose is blocked and the unrelenting shivers keep coursing through my body. Outside the snow is slowly falling and gathering up in a great drifts, like cold sand against freezing rock, only being kept at bay by the meagre heat of my fire. I've never seen snow before and I still don't trust it. I don't like the way that it disappears when you touch it, something can't be right if it disappears as soon as you try to touch it. Its nowhere near tangible enough. I prefer sand-you can trust sand.

I pull the blankets higher and think back, to the drifts of sand of the Holy Land. It's funny how our destinies are decided by our births, decided by where we were born. Had I been born a couple of miles further south I wouldn't have been a Christian, had King Baldwin not had leprosy then we would never have lost the war, had a unknown Templar Sergeant not been seized by an uncharacteristic display of charity I would have died as a child. Our destinies are tied with those of others. Had Robin of Loxley not been seized by dreams of glory then I would probably had died in Acre to a friend's sword.

I was born in the Holy Land, though in what exact year I don't know. I don't remember much of my early childhood and I'm pretty sure that I don't want to. Like any city Jerusalem has its poverty stricken areas, and it was there that I was found by a Templar Sergeant, lying in the street, near dead from starvation. They took me in, raised me, and in return I took orders and became a squire to one of their knights when I was old enough. They taught me a lot did the Templers, though I feel that I've probably broken most of my vows by now, one way or another. I fought in the siege for Jerusalem, and was freed by Saladin in another display of benevolence. Fate again I guess.

I headed north to join with Phillips Crusade whose coming had been long rumoured in the city but I ended up stumbling into King Richards and decided ended up joining one of the bands of Men-at-arms that accompanied the crusade. I met Robin there for the first time-he saved my life in Acre-and when he left the Holy Land I stayed. I don't why I stayed, perhaps I was pursuing distant longing for a home in Jerusalem but as the fighting continued and merely got deeper and more brutal I slowly saw the truth about the war. The clemency and civility-as much as you can be civil in war- of the early days had gone, replaced by something more feral and nialistic. Far from merely aiming to retake Jerusalem some crusaders now declared there ambition to destroy all Arabs. Whereas Saladin had released prisoners now stories of massacres by both sides where reported every day. To think, we had been so close to peace just a year ago.

I wanted peace, which I realised was never going to be realised in the Holy Land. If we won then I was damned by being an Arab, if the Muslims won then I was damned by my religion. It was then that my mind went back to Robin and England. I remembered his tales of a lush and peaceful land, and his offers of a bed if I ever visited him there. He never mentioned the cold, or the snow. 

But I decided to take his offer and head to Loxley to try and put the war behind me. A year later I stepped off a boat into London and began to make my way even further north.

I never realised the effect that my ethnicity would have in England, but I soon found out as I slowly made my way towards Nottingham. Pastors refused me admittance to their Churches and some denied me mass, while I got odd looks in every village I passed through-I soon learnt to try and avoid them at all costs, preferring to sleep and worship in the countryside rather than take the looks that where afforded to me when I dared walk through a settlement. This was not, however, a reaction that I encountered when I finally reached Nottinghamshire. Here the doors where already barred and shut and the populace seemed terrified without my intervention. There was something decidedly odd about the way they behaved-particularly when I enquired about Robin.

Still, I pressed on towards Loxley and what I found there was worse. Far from being the benevolent land of milk and honey this was even worse than the Holy Land. Half the houses where deserted, while one or two were burnt to the ground. As I walked through the village I didn't see a single person, though I did hear a pair of shutters bang as I wandered down what passed for the main street.

There was a large house on the hill above the village, and I presumed that must be Robins house, like the Holy Land England was feudal, which meant that you could reasonably assume that the guy in the biggest house was the most important. I climbed the hill slowly, and finally entered through the large, iron wrought door. No one greeted me there, so I pressed on, climbing a stone staircase up towards 2nd floor of the house and pushing through the door I found at the head of the stairwell-it appeared there was only one upstairs room.

As the door creaked open I heard a start from a man inside and a slither of leather on steel. "Declare yourself!" A voice shouted, so i did so, stepping out from the doors shadow and into the light that flooded through a large open window. "Dja... No." The man said and let the sword move back into its scabbard.

He was, I suppose, a tall man though not notably so, but there was something dead about him, something that drew your mind to corpses and death. His hair was black, he wore black, there was little spark in his eyes to suggest any kind of life at all. I had seen men like him before, in the Holy Land. They where the man that committed the worst atrocities, that butchered men, women and children mercilessly just for their religion or race. I knew instantly that this man would have no qualms about killing me, or torturing me, and I found it hard to believe that Robin would associate with such men.

"Who are you?" He demanded, taking a step forward. My English was not good at all; beyond a few phrases I was unable to speak the language. In the Holy Land we had all spoken French, or Arabic, and thus I was left unable to decipher his words. However, I had assembled an introductory phrase to be used in case Robin hadn't been in, so I used it. "I'm here to see Robin of Loxley." I said as clearly as I could, before repeating it. He looked at me oddly, like a predator would when its prey was slowly stumbling towards it, blinded by the light.

"Your here to see Loxley then?" He asked, taking another step forward and signalling with his left hand to someone out of the window. "Are you one of his men?" Another step.

I took a step forward into the room and moved my own hand to my swords hilt. I was scanning frantically, looking for a way out-but I was evidently too high up to jump from the window and there appeared only two exits to the room-the stairwell and a door behind the man that looked suspiciously like it would lead to a bedroom. I tried to get him to understand my linguistic difficulties, "En francais?"

He looked at me with utter contempt, "I do not understand French, or that Heathen language you babble," he said, "I suppose your one of Robins Saracen friends," There was a clatter of metal on metal in the stairwell and I edged further away, my hand on my sword hilt. I could see his hand go to his own sword as he continued on his rambling monologue. I ignored him and concentrated on the sounds coming from the stairwell. I was well aware that I only had seconds before whoever the man had summoned burst into the room.

When they did there where 3 of them, accompanied by the clanging promise of more to come. They burst through the half closed door with suitable drama and gazed around the room fearfully for their target. These where evidently soldiers who were serving out of fear rather than out of loyalty for their master. They became more keen when they saw it was I, alone, that they were called to deal with. They glanced at their master for a moment of instruction and I took this as my chance to escape.

I bolted headlong for the door at the rear of the room, drawing my sword as I ran. It was, as I had guessed a bedroom with no other door but the one I had entered from. I sprinted to the window and peered down at the same time as a bellow of rage erupted from the adjoining room. "Get him!" There was no way to get down-but I tossed my pack down just in case I managed to escape-my bow and spare clothes landing in the hay below. Then I turned and prepared to fight.

A fight is never easy to do. No matter how skilful or powerful you are you can be undone by the smallest piece of luck or mistake and then...well its curtains for you. There's a reason why numbers are often so key-because in a pitched battle there's so little space to manoeuvre that it becomes a war of attriciation- each side fighting over the bodies of the fallen. Of course, this fight wasn't going to be like that, but the numbers the man had over me meant that it was basically hopeless. My only hope was to get round them and nip through the door to escape.

This hope was shattered when they burst through the door and I realised just how many of them there was. There had to be well over 5 or 6-and more waiting outside. All were well armed and armoured, and, though callow, I realised that they had a stomach for the fight. Whatever had scared them earlier was no longer having an effect. They charged.

I managed to hold them off for a while, blocking one wild thrust by the first man with my shield and fending another with my sword. But there were too many of them and gradually they overwhelmed me, forcing me further back towards the wall till I was boxed in. There was no escape. Rough hands grabbed my at my arms, braking my grip on my weapons and forcing me onto the floor. I struggled to resist, lashing out like a savage, using every weapon at my disposal until finally my resistance was broken by a fearsome blow to my temple.