Chapter 1
The Introduction of Light
You think you know how this story goes but trust me you have no idea where it's going. The stories of men and women never go as we expect them to. They take their own paths; some in nice straight lines where boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy and girl marry, children come, children grow up and go, boy and girl grow old together until one is left alone again. Other lives twist and twine like the roots of a desert cypress looking for water; these are the lives of legend and of our hero.
Robin of Locksley had expected his path in life to be a straight one. In what seemed to be unremarkable circumstances he had been born into a family of the lesser nobility that dotted the landscape of southern England. His mother had passed away in childbirth with a babe that had not survived her. His father had died when he was in his teens, not quite fully a man but responsible enough to take over his place as Lord Locksley, Earl of Huntington. Robin had known Marion all of his life and had just assumed that one day they would get married; falling in love had never been the issue because they both just assumed that they were in love and that no falling was necessary. Robin assumed that one day, when both of them were old enough, they would marry; children would come and then grow up and leave home; and one day he would die quietly in his own bed, safe and warm with Marion to pine away for him for the rest of her days.
What Robin of Locksley had not expected was that his King - a man he had met only once when he had been very small – would decide to war in the Holy Lands on the request of a Pope that no one Robin knew had ever seen. So, just at the cusp of manhood, Robin of Locksley's life took its first turn; as an honorable young man – hell bent on the idea of excitement and glory - Robin and his manservant, Much, joined their King and went to war in the Holy Lands.
Like all people, once Robin had been bounced off the path of his life, the twists and turns became easier and soon he was seeing and doing things that he could never have imagined at home in Locksley. For in the Holy Lands Robin of Locksley saw war and found that once he got over the initial distaste he had for violence that he was quite good at it. Robin had been blessed with his skills as an archer and rarely had to draw his arms as a knight, being left instead to lead the archers.
Until Acre and there Robin of Locksley, Earl of Huntington and Defender of the King, saw the toll of war upon mankind. There he watched as men ate their horses and saw the hanging of several men for cannibalizing the bodies of the dead. He felt the bite of hunger and the pangs of despair as the double siege of Acre wore on. After the siege and its battles had ended Robin of Locksley hoped to forget the pain he had seen and felt but his life would be forever changed again the night that as part of King Richard's personal guard he helped slay 2700 women and children who were held against a ransom from Salahadin.
After the massacre Robin of Locksley never saw his life the same again. The boy who had left England believing that his life would take a straight path was gone and in its place was a man who had hardened from the twists that the roots of his life had taken.
This is the first part of a story you already know. Robin of Locksley, a hero, is forever changed by the senseless violence he sees in the holy lands and upon his return to England takes to the wood to fight the evils that he sees taking root in his beloved homeland and there once goodness prevails he lives happily ever after. At least you think that's what you know. Like all things in life the real story is what happens beneath and between the snippets that fall into legend.