You must understand that he wasn't a bad man. Robin did what he thought was right. He was young; he was impulsive; he was heedless, but he was a good man.
It was his very heedlessness that took his lands and his inheritance from him. He told me once what happened, and I swore never to speak of it. I never have. To this day I am the only man living who knows the truth, but I cannot take the secret to my grave. He has been maligned enough in life, and now in death, and he will not go down in history as a complete blackguard if I can prevent it.
They say that he killed a man; it is true. They say the man was his older brother, and so he was. They say also that the two men argued over their inheritance and that Robin shot his brother through the eye for the sake of a few coins or an acre or two of land, and that is not the truth at all. He told me once. We were sitting by the fire in the midst of the greenwood, and Robin told me the story.
I was in the village that day. I was overseeing the rebuilding of the mill. Daniel and I had been practicing sword play the day before and he bruised my shoulder. I came home early because it ached so badly. I found him at table. He had a letter beside him and was busy writing his reply. It never occurred to me that it might be a letter he would not like me to see. I saw that the seal was that of the sheriff. I was curious. I picked it up and read.
Daniel was so busy writing that he never noticed my presence until after I had seen the treason contained in that letter and bent down to see what his reply might be. Betrayal. Betrayal to King and country. My mind raged against the words he wrote. I am with you. My father and brothers can be brought around to your way of thinking. Give me time; I will convince them all.
He saw me then, and he leapt to his feet. "What are you doing, Robin?" he asked me casually, but the pretense was too late. I had seen the letter and I had seen the way he reached behind him for his sword which rested against the table. "Why are you home so early? The mill--"
"Why are you writing letters of treason to the sheriff?" I didn't know what I was saying and before I realized it I had punched him in the jaw as well.
"Do not speak of what you do not understand!" Daniel found his blade and raised it, blocking me from getting to him. "What is your loyalty? Blind obedience to a man who doesn't care if you die tomorrow. What does it matter to you whether Richard reigns or John? You know nothing of the goings on of this world!" He moved his sword as if to cut me down, but I backed out of his way. I stumbled over a chair and fell, and he was on top of me in an instant, madness in his eyes and bloodlust on his face.
"Father!" I screamed. I was fifteen. I was too young to be foolishly brave and I knew that he would help me. Daniel knew it too, and he was wiser than I. He left me and turned to the letters, crumpling them up and throwing them into the fire.
"What is it?" my father wheezed from the doorway, arriving too late to see what his son had done.
"I do not know!" Daniel exclaimed "Robin came in and attacked me. I pushed him back and he screamed for you. He's been acting strangely all this week. He told me last evening that he was unhappy with the way you have willed the estate…"
I stood up and challenged him. "That's a lie! I've never been displeased by that. You are a traitor, Daniel Locksley! Father, he's plotting treason with the sheriff!"
Father was shocked. He came into the room and tried to calm me down. "Robin, son, don't say such things."
"It's true! He threw the letters into the fire!" But the letters were already burned up, and there was no proof to back my words.
"Get him out of here," Daniel said, acting the part of the wounded innocent.
Father took me to the door and told me to spend some time in the woods until I had cooled down.
Fear gripped me then. Fear and anger. Daniel would kill me. He would kill me and then he would go to my father and our younger brother and somehow convince them to commit treason. My father's bow sat beside the door with a quiver of arrows. I didn't think. I was the best shot in Locksley, even then, and Daniel was dead before I realized that I'd even picked up the bow.
The rest you know, Will. You've heard the story. I stood trial and they said that I killed my brother because I wanted what was his. The sheriff pronounced judgment and they sentenced me to hang.
My father came to see the event. I remember the guards parading me down the castle steps. They had put a hood over my head but the weave was loose and I could see out. I remember stumbling along barefoot with the armored guards prodding me forward and looking out at the faces of the crowd. They were eager. It revolted me how thrilling they found it to watch my life be taken. I saw my father, and I looked for my younger brother, but he had not come. His name was Will, too. The hangman stood me on the box. He loosened the noose… and then he fell over with an arrow through his heart.
"Robin! Go!" I looked up and saw a hooded man standing on the castle wall. I recognized him, and I suppose my father did as well, but no one else knew that it was Will. He leapt over the side before the guards could catch him, and in the confusion while they chased after my savior, I leapt from the platform and made my escape out a side gate and into the woods.
That's the story. I killed my brother who would betray the King, and here am I, Robin Hood.