ROBYN HOOD AND ZOMBIES

Robert Earl of huntington heard footsteps coming down the long hallway. He had foreseen this coming. He stood and awaited it.

The Footsteps drew nearer, and in through the door came the haggard face and chubby cheeks of Sir Guy of Gisbourne.

"Greetings, Sir Guy."

"Save your formalities. I am hear on official Business."

"Oh, giving up your usual habits then?"

"No, You have not paid the new Tax on Lands of those loyal to his Majesty, the King, or, in his absence, his Brother, the prince."

"You are right, 'tis the usual business. That is a shame that it has not been paid. I shall have my new undersecretary flogged at once."

"This is no time for Jokes, Robert."

"No, that is just the thing, My lord. It is the perfect time for Jokes."

"You swore allegiance to his majesty, and now you must answer to that allegiance with your loyalty."

"You mean, with my purse? To make rich men richer, while the people suffer in the streets."

"The people?" sir Guy said in dismay. His tired face stared out in disbelief. "How could you talk about the people at a time like this?"

"Nay, I shall talk about them as I please, and as I always have pleased. As I do with you."

"You are quick with your tongue, Robert. But someday you will have to eat your words, and then we'll see who is so quick to laugh."

"We will see," mouthed Robert, as Sir Guy passed through the door.

It was midday as Robert and his lovely Bride to be sat in the Garden of Huntington Castle. It was the Birthright of Robert, and the resting ground of his father's grave, above which was set the insignia of Robert's family crest. The tomb's door lay open now, cracked upon the ground, and Ivy grew up around it.

Robert looked to his bride to be, Lady marian Fitzwalter. It was a lovely summer's day. Birds sang overhead, and sun glinted down from the mail of the guard upon the eastern wall. Clouds loomed in the sky, but did not mar the sun, and calmed with coolness. Vegetables grew in rows before them, but the kitchen helpers were not working at them, and their tools lay idle beside. Minstrels, instead, played at their backs a tune of summer, and Robert and Marian sat comfortably side by side. Young lovers they were, content to stare into each others eyes, and nothing more, and thus they did in the long hours of the day.

"Oh Robert," Marian said presently. "I wish I would never have to leave you, ever again."

"Well," said robert. "Why don't we make it that you shan't have to, ever again"

"Oh, Robin!" Marian's face was pale.

"What?" Robert said with a smile, "Why Not?"

"Now, at this Time? Robert, we talked of this." Marian was distraught, and placed her hand to her head. "Oh, Robert, we can't. Not now. I wish things could go on as they have. I wish I could spend countless days with you, laying idly as we have done, here in the safety of your court. But we can't. Not at a time like this."

"Why? What time, but the present? What better thing, but to married at just such a time as this? Why should times of war and peace, plague and health, dictate the actions of man? What, do we not eat when we are hungry? Sleep when we are tired? Is it not natural, then, to marry, when we are in love? Marian," said Robert, drawing close, once more. "Let us get married, marian."

"When, Robert?"

"As soon as it can be arranged. This coming week."

"Oh, Robert. I, I—It seems so strange, but I am happy. Yes, it makes sense somehow. Oh, it makes such sense, and yet—and yet, I am happy, and that is all."

"Of course you are, marian. Laugh, and the world Laughs with you. Frown, and no man can keep from treading on you. Why, I will bow down to no man except the king, and no force of nature, lest it be God himself. May the people say what they will, Marian, but you shall be my bride. Marry we shall, and run the very devil out from the path before us! Reckless we shall be, for life is short, and there is much I wish to see before death greets me in bed or battlefield. Why we shall marry, and be merry, and that is all. Yes, Marian. We shall marry. Oh, Marian, how I love you!"

"And I you, Robert," and they clasped hands, and brushed their cheeks with a delicate, but proper affection befitting their rank. And atop the castle wall, the guards launched crossbow bolts to the grounds below, the sounds of their release rising amid muffled cries of terror that lasted a few moments before silence resumed, and the guards resumed their stance with it, before changing shifts with the ringing of the castle bell.

Marian and Robert's wedding became the talk of the peasants working and cleaning behind the closed gates of the castle grounds. They knew of their engagement, a blissful tiding heard first a year ago midsummer's day, and not expected to come to full realization so soon, and so suddenly. They would speak of it while awaiting to receive their portion of the castle grain, or their meager serving of vegetable pottage each day. But the peasants were not the only one's to hear of it, nor the only ones to tell tales of it. One the very day of the wedding, an event set to happen in the chapel, choice noblemen and women alone presiding, Sir Guy of Gisbourne arrived through the castle gates. He had guards before, and behind, and with him was a man dressed in rich cloth, with a cruel and ugly stare.

They stormed into the chapel unannounced, as the festivities were underway. Robert looked up from Marian to the fat cheeks of Guy, and the ugly face of the man with him, and said merrily and with a laugh,

"Ah, Sir Guy, what a pleasure. I see you've come to congratulate me on this happy occasion?"

"No, Robert, I have not. Quite the reverse actually."

"I see you have brought his excellency, the sheriff of nottingham with you, eh? You are no longer a stranger to my abode, sheriff, though it be, as yet, so close to your recent appointment which I heard was, quite a pricy affair."

"Never you mind," said the scarred face of the sheriff. "My business is with the king, or, in his absence, the Prince John, his brother."

"And what business,may I ask, " said marian politely, "is so pressing as to bring you here on this, my wedding day?"

"What?" said Sir Guy, eyes glinting above the bags that hung beneath them, "Marriage? What nonsense!"

"Surely you'd not marry a wolfshead?" said the Sherrif calmly.

Marian went pale. She put her hands to her face, and shook her head in disbelief. Robin only laughed.

"Wolfshead?" He said "An outlaw, eh? Ha-ha-ha-ha! What a fine Joke. An outlaw, what a thing to be, and yet, I cannot disagree."

"You think this is a laughing matter," said Guy. "We have a warrant for your arrest, Robert, former earl of huntington, for failure to pay the special Land tax, and disloyalty to the King and his residing."

"Oh Robert!" said Marian.

"Oh, never fear, Marian, it is deserved after all. I am every last one of those things you just mentioned, Sir Guy. An outlaw you make me out as, and an outlaw I shall be! And, that being the case, it would not be proper to go passively, wouldn't you say?" he drew his sword.

"Guards!" called Guy, and he and the sheriff drew their swords as well. Guards entered, and lowered their pikes. Robert grabbed his shield from the chapel wall, blazoned with the double stag of Robert's ancestry, and made battle with the guards.

They thrust their pikes at him, and he warded them off with his shield, and brought the sword down on the helm of the closest. It clove his skull, and he fell. The others parried his attacks with their spearheads, and Robert warded their return strikes with his shield. When the chance opened up, he thrust the sword rapidly under their arms where their mail stopped, and they fell. The way out was now cleared, and Robert made his escape, as Guy and the Sheriff hacked off the heads of the two stabbed guards. Once done, they called to the watchman, who sounded the alarm.

The castle bell was ringing as Robert ran down the stairs. He rounded the last corner along the wall, and found a mass of men at the base. They captured him before he could think, and bound him with cords. Guy came and stared hard at Robert.

"Reckless coward! Running like a chicken. You cannot escape your fate so easily." He looked at Robert, then spit in his face in disgust. "As I said, you will one day have to eat your words."

And so Robert, earl of Huntington was reduced to the status of criminal on his own land, and was brought to the front gates of the castle. "You are nothing, your lands and your bride to be have been robbed you, and are now the property of Sir Guy. What have you to say for yourself."

Robert laughed. "I am an outlaw, aren't I? What more fitting way to confirm my ignoble status?"

"Do you think I would not Kill you?!" said the Sheriff.

"No, I don't think it would change anything."

"You are a scoundrel, Robert."

The Sheriff looked to the guards, and they took Robert up under his hands, and, under the watch of archers, the gates were opened. Robert's form was thrown out, and the gates shut tight behind him. Robert felt them, with a wild grin on his face, then looked to the fields before him.

They were barren of movement, friend or enemy. "But I might not have the same enemies as before, outlaw that I am. I shall have to seek out other Outlaws such as I," and he made towards the woods on the horizon (for Huntington Castle was very near sherwood forest, and Robin owned the timber rights to quite a portion, though the rest was the King's). And Robert said "What had been my wedding day, has become my birth, here in this new social order." And before the sun had set on this day, he had found the greenwood, and entered therein.

Thus was Robert, earl of huntington forced out into the wilds and wastes, through the fields, and into the greenwood.

And as Robert passed beneath the safety of the trees, he said to himself "They have taken my name, so I shall don a new one. Hereafter shall they know me as Robyn Hude. There's a name the people will repeat!" And none in those days would come to know a man quite like Robin Hood.