Title: The Prodigal. Chapter 2, "The Prodigal Returns"

Author: DCWash

Characters: Robin, Little John, Marian, Will, Djaq, Allan.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

Rating: Hmmm. PG, maybe? A couple of iffy words here and there.

Spoilers: None, really.

Length: 4284

Summary: The next part of my Allan saga, of which "Ghost Town" was the first part, and which doesn't have an over-arching title yet. Vasey's out as sheriff and peace has returned to Nottingham…except, perhaps, for one particular wayward outlaw. How do you solve a problem like Allan?

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The problem with being the center of the universe is that, if anything does go wrong, it must be because of something you've done.

Robin kept telling himself that it couldn't be; even Winifred had said it, out loud, the last time he saw her: "Whatever is going on with that boy is not your fault!" But then she had added, "Not directly, at any rate." The two clauses kept battling it out in his mind. Allan got himself into this mess, and I am not to blame, he'd tell himself. And he'd believe it. Until the little voice would sneak up from behind and say, "Yes, you are."

The whispering in Locksley (as opposed to Robin's head) started maybe a couple of weeks after Robin handed Winifred the deed to her land. But "whispering" might not be the right word—what it was, was a vague feeling floating about Locksley that something exciting, or scandalous, had happened; that something big was going on. Robin tried to find out what it was, but didn't have any luck. Oh, well. The same thing had happened a few times in recent months, and no sustained drama seemed to come of it. Robin was getting used to the idea that, just because you're lord and master of a village, that doesn't mean you can control or even know everything that's going on. That didn't mean he liked it, but, hey, if his people wanted to have their little secrets from him, he couldn't stop them.

Looking back, he would realize that the start of it coincided with Will Scarlet's absence from the building site near Locksley Manor. Robin had commissioned him to build a rather grand house—"think of it as suitable for a village reeve," he had said—and one day Will just didn't show up. Robin noticed because Will was such a good worker, not only in the sense that he was skilled and talented but in the sense that he was conscientious about giving a day's work for a day's pay. Robin was sure Will had his reasons—maybe he was a little under the weather, or maybe it had to do with his land. But then he was absent the next day as well. Robin would have gotten concerned if it had gone on any longer, but by the third day, he spied Will hammering and sawing away and didn't think any more of it. Surely he had earned the right by now to a sick day every now and then.

Then, Winifred had missed her weekly rounds. She came to Locksley every Tuesday with her loaves, selling to women who calculated they would earn more money working at other things during the time they'd normally spend baking than they would spend on Winifred's bread. Yet nobody objected; it was like they had anticipated her absence. This time Robin was more concerned, because he worried about frail, elderly Winifred, all alone in Featherstone, more than he worried about hale and hearty young Will Scarlet, just out of general purposes. He'd ask John about it. He had business with John anyway.

John had finally come out of the forest, at least for a bit now that the weather had turned, and Robin found him in his cottage, which looked so small now that it was inhabited by such a large man. John, rather awkwardly, played host and they sat by the fire on the only two stools in the place, ignoring the unmade pallet on the floor in the corner, while Robin outlined his idea for John's future.

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"….and you can take the pot of money and deal with it however you want. If you want to do all the work yourself and keep it all, that's fine; if you want to hire a whole gang of men to do the work while you sit with your feet up, that's fine to. Or you might do something in between. And how you arrange it can change over time. All I care is that the work gets done. How it gets done is up to you."

John nodded. He rather liked this idea of Robin's. He had expected Robin to give him a small plot of land, perhaps the one he had farmed as a tenant before he had been outlawed. After all, that's what Robin did with Will: officially gave him his freedom, and, more recently, free title to the land Dan had worked as a serf while at the same time making his own money as a carpenter. But John hadn't exactly been looking forward to that—his old allotment was small, and poor, and he had never really enjoyed farming, and, after all, if he had been able to make a real living off of it, he wouldn't have been outlawed in the first place, would he? But this "under-forester" idea…that was more appealing. He'd still have to answer, ultimately, to Robin, of course, but on a day-to-day basis he'd be his own boss and maybe the boss of others. He'd get to spend his days in the woods that he loved. And he'd get a snazzy title and a nice, steady income for the rest of his days. Altogether, it sounded like a good deal.

"…now, there is what Winifred called, 'the law enforcement aspect' of it…."

John nodded. He could remember Winifred's father chasing him down the road when he was a youngster…and catching him. Both of them thought John had killed a deer. Both of them were wrong—he had missed. Harold gave John a tongue-lashing to end all tongue-lashings, and told his father, who had his own manner of dealing with things, but Harold hadn't taken it any further than that, which was fair of him and a lot more than other game keepers would have done. John wasn't sure in his own mind what he thought of poaching laws, in general, but did think there were worse examples to follow as a gamekeeper than Harold's.

He nodded again. Robin found this encouraging, knowing how little John Little would speak under the best of circumstances. A thoughtful nod like that meant he was taking the idea seriously.

"…the law, officially, says nobody but the king and his representatives—that would be me, and you if you take the job—can kill any game, of any size, at any time, within a royal forest, and the 'royal forest' can be anything he decides it to be. In Sherwood's case, that means not just the woodland, but Locksley, Feathersone, Clune, Nettleston—basically, this whole quarter of the county. The law also says farmers can't do anything that might interfere with the king's hunting pleasure, like hedge off their fields to keep the deer out. Now, I think that's outrageous and have lodged a protest, but I doubt if anything's going to come of it. In the mean time, I'm the magistrate and justice of the peace in the area, as well as the royal forester, which means I'm the one who interprets the king's law around here, and I say farmers have every right to defend their property from marauders. If those marauders happen to be deer and rabbits, well…." Robin shrugged. And John nodded.

"…which isn't to say we can let everybody run willy-nilly through the woods, shooting anything and everything they want. After all, if the king orders up a hundred saddles of venison for his Christmas court, there'd better be enough deer around here for us to give him a hundred saddles of venison. Maybe we can keep the deer off-limits to hunting but let people put up wattle fences that they can take down when the king says he's coming to hunt. Or let people put rabbit snares all around their gardens but not go further afield than that with them. At any rate, we can work something out. And if the king doesn't like it, I'll be the one to take the blame" Robin stopped. John nodded.

"Look, why don't we head over to Featherstone now that the rain's stopped? Winifred probably has…."

"No!"

That was startling. You'd think I'd proposed swimming back to Acre, Robin thought.

"John? Is something wrong? I noticed Winifred wasn't here yesterday. Maybe we should go check on her…."

"No, Winifred's fine. We just…shouldn't go, that's all." John looked uncomfortable. "We shouldn't bother her. With this."

Robin peered at John, trying to discern what was really going on. John looked even more uncomfortable. (He'd told them he wasn't good at lying! He wasn't even good and leaving out part of the truth.)

He squirmed, and blushed, and opened and closed his mouth, all while Robin fixed a steely gaze on him. Finally, he said—with an air of resignation that it had been forced out of him—"It's Allan. He's back. At Winifred's."

Now it was Robin's turn to nod.

"And why am I not to know this?"

"That's what he asked. But…" John shook his head." …it's not right. Not right at all."

Robin pondered this. It hurt that his friend didn't want to see him, but Allan was within his rights. It was curious, though.

Robin's silence encouraged John to talk. "He took a beating in Nottingham, apparently. A terrible beating. A milkman found him in a gutter just inside the walls and brought him to Winifred. Just about the only word's they got out of him was, 'Don't tell Robin. Please. Don't tell Robin.' Since then…." John just shook his head again.

"Did he say anything about what happened?"

"Not a word. Djaq reckons he doesn't remember. But even if he did, he hasn't been able to talk, at least not so's anybody can understand. Robin, it's bad." John sounded quite distressed. "I've never seen it this bad. That's why you ought to know, even if it goes against his wishes. In case…." A last shake of the head.

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Of course, Robin went straight home and told Marian. Who looked grave at the news but didn't seem too shocked.

"Did you know this?" he said, accusation in his voice.

"Know? No. But I suspected something was up. You know how it is—you overhear things here and there, and you try to piece it together. It makes sense now that you've told me."

"Well, I've got to find out who did this, and bring them to justice." Robin was pacing, not knowing what to do with himself. He was furious—at whoever beat Allan, at Allan himself, at the entire village for keeping it from him—but also scared, and worried, and hurt. Riding to Nottingham to hunt down the perpetrators would at least be taking some action.

"Robin, wait. Think. Maybe that's why he didn't want you to know—he was afraid you'd go off on some vigilante…quest…."

"It's not vigilantism if they did it!"

"But you can't do that any more!" Marian took a deep breath, trying to stay calm and not fly off the handle like Robin was doing. "You always used to say you were fighting to restore the rule of law. Well, you won. Vasey's gone, Robin. There's a new sheriff, and Nottingham has a new mayor. And from all accounts, Byron and Hugh are decent men who take their jobs seriously. You need to trust them to do this part of their job, as well. You can't go up there and start raging around and making demands, or meting out your own punishments. Nottingham is their town, Robin, not yours, and you have to work with them, and within normal channels. You're not an outlaw anymore."

Robin stopped his pacing and said, quietly, "Allan's my man, Marian. I have to look out for him. I have to…." I have to…what? he thought. We're not in a gang any more. "I have to…do something," he ended, miserably. "Who would I be if I didn't?"

Marian thought he looked lost. She put his arms around him. She was scared and worried too—after all, Allan was her friend as well as Robin's; in some ways, perhaps they were even closer. The thought of him dying, now, like this…. "Marian," Robin plaintively said into her hair, "Why doesn't he want me to help him?" For the same reason you wouldn't want him to--because it hurts too much to need like that, she wanted to say. Instead, she just squeezed him tighter.

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Robin did ride to Nottingham, but not until Marian had soothed him and petted him and made him see reason. He went to Byron of Newstead, the nobleman named sheriff in Vasey's place, and to Hugh de Raymond, the new mayor, and put the matter before them as he should—that one of his lieutenants, a hero of the siege of Nottingham that ousted Vasey, had been most cruelly attacked within the walls of their city, and the offenders were still at large. They seemed to take the matter seriously. That didn't keep him from pursuing his own inquiries, but that's all they were: inquiries. He asked around until he found where Allan had been that night, and then he asked more questions about who was there at the same time, and what had happened. He didn't find much in the way of answers. What he did find, though, was the same unsettled atmosphere he had felt earlier in Locksley. Something was going on; there was an undercurrent he didn't like and that seemed to be keeping people's mouths shut. But, as Marian had said, Nottingham wasn't his town. Robin ate at a tavern owned by a friend of Allan's who had helped them with intelligence before and during the siege, and apprised him of the situation. He then went upstairs to an unsettled sleep, unable to do any more.

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Robin didn't go straight home from Nottingham the next day. He knew Marian would be in Knighton by the time he got there, making her rounds, checking on her people, and he needed to talk. So Robin didn't stop at the manor house but instead proceeded to Will's building site. There wasn't any activity to speak of, but that didn't surprise him—it had been too wet over the past couple of days for daubing and mortar and plaster to dry, so there wasn't much point in putting any up. But he saw a curl of smoke coming from the shed behind the house. Will was there, working on furniture and burning the scraps to keep warm. There were dark circles under his eyes.

"How's it going?"

Will nodded. "I think we may have gone as far as we can with the house until spring." He squinted and ran a finger down the furniture leg he was working on…because looking perfect wasn't good enough; it had to feel perfect, too. "So I thought I'd get started on things to fill it."

"That going to be a bench?"

"Yeah. You said they lost 'everything,' right? These kinsmen of yours?" Will glanced at Robin to check he was headed in the right direction. "So I thought, table, benches: get started with the basics." He was addressing the wood again by this point.

"Will, I know about Allan."

That caught Will up short. "How?"

"I shook it out of John. Will," Robin sighed, "You should have told me! Why didn't you tell me?"

"He asked us not to—begged us. And at the time we thought it might be a dying man's last request."

"That's why you were gone last week, weren't you? You were helping Djaq with Allan. Sitting vigil, by his side. You, and John, and probably Much and even Marian for all I know! Didn't it occur to anybody that I might want to be there as well? I'm his friend too, Will!"

Will slammed down the wood. "No, you're not! You're not his friend! I don't know what you are, but you're not his friend."

"What?"

"You're his…captain. Or his master. Or even some…idol of some sort that he has to appease and live up to. But you're not his friend. Friends at least talk with each other. You don't even do that with Allan."

"I talk with him all the time!"

"Hah! Five years in the forest and I don't think you two have ever had a real conversation! You'd only give him orders! Still do, like he's one of 'your men'! Or advice he hasn't asked for. And then you nod when he's done what you've told him to do or yell at him when he messes up. Jesus Christ, and then you wonder why.... Do you even know where he's from?"

"Rochdale!"

"Hah!" Will tossed his head and picked up his wood again.

"Alright, where is he from, then?"

"Somewhere…south of Rochdale," Will muttered, turning back to the wood.

"'Somewhere south of Rochdale.' What, did he tell you that when you two had one of your heart-to-hearts? Where he sat you down and told you the life story of the life of poor Allan a Dale?

"No! I just…I listened to him. That's what you do with friends. When you're out picking gooseberries or something, and you're talking about…I dunno…girls or stuff, you listen to what they're really saying underneath it, as well as what they're saying on the surface."

"And you're saying I never did that with Allan?"

"I don't know, Robin! When could you? You never did things like pick gooseberries; you always ordered us to do it instead, while you worked on some big scheme!"

Will pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. He sighed, "I'm sorry, Robin. It's just…. I was up all night, holding him down while Djaq cut a hole in his skull."

Robin recoiled. "Trepanning. It's that bad?"

Will nodded. "I suppose so. Djaq said he might die if she did it, but that he would die if he didn't. Something about pressure on his brain."

They both fell into silence, staring at the floor.

"What happened?" Robin eventually asked.

"What, last night?"

"No, to begin with. How did he even get here, anyway?"

"A farmer was coming back from delivering milk to the castle, before dawn. He was trying to pick his way back to the gates through the dark and just about ran over him. He asked Allan for his name, or his kin, and Allan moaned something about Featherstone and Winifred. The man was going back that way anyway, so he loaded him onto the back of his wagon. Apparently, Allan was out again by the time they got there and he's been wavering in and out ever since. Winifred rode in and got me because…" Will shrugged, and smiled a bit. "…well, I don't know why they got me, really, except they wanted company. And in case they needed help manhandling him, I guess. But we haven't gotten anything out of him about what happened. Djaq says there's a good chance he won't remember, anyway."

Robin nodded. He had seen enough—and had had enough—traumatic injuries to know that was common.

"You said Winifred rode in to get you?" Will nodded.

"Galloped!"

"Well it must have been bad to have gotten her up on that horse of hers." Robin had said it to lighten the mood a bit. He saw a crinkle of a smile on Will's face.

"Can you imagine," Will replied. "You're some good Samaritan, taking this bleeding stranger cross country, praying he doesn't die on you…and you knock on this door, in the middle of nowhere, thinking some gray-haired old grandmother is going to open it….and there's Winifred and Djaq pointing their swords at you?" That image lightened things up even more, getting more than a crinkle of a smile from them both.

"So, Will. What did you learn about our friend Allan on those gooseberry hunts? Besides that he's from someplace south of Rochdale."

"Well, his father's a blacksmith. And he's none too fond of his father, I can tell you that. I don't know why, exactly, except that I got the feeling he didn't treat him well—he always seemed so surprised when I'd say good things about my dad. And it bothered him more than he let on when Tom died. You don't have a little brother, do you?" Robin shook his head. "So you don't know how you're always looking after 'em, even when you're not. It was like…like he kept worrying about Tom, even after Tom had hung; like he kept trying to come up with a way for it to have all turned out different. And I don't know if Allan's an orphan, or ran away, or what, but if he's done even half the things he he's talked about, then he's been on his own for a long time. He's not that old, you know? I don't see how he could have crammed it all in if he hadn't left home young."

Will looked thoughtful. "And he's lonely. And he's desperate for somebody to love him, and he desperately wants to matter, to be needed: he's like you that way. And he's terrified—absolutely terrified—of dying, more than anybody I've ever seen. Or he was. Until lately. Lately, he hasn't cared enough to be scared. Ever since the siege, he's been so…sad. Really sad, under the jokes and all."

Will paused while his brain worked to articulate a new idea. Then:

"You know how we used to lie there in the dark and talk about how good things used to be, before Vasey became sheriff, and Guy took over Locksley, and how we were going to make them like that again, or maybe make them better? Did you notice he never said anything? Maybe…maybe thing's weren't better for him before. Maybe things were as good as they ever had been, right there in the forest. And now that that's over…."

"You're talking about Allan as if he's dead!"

Will and Robin swung around, startled. They hadn't heard Djaq come in. But the sight of her scared them in another way. If she were here, and not at Allan's side….

"Don't worry; he's not. I just had to get out." She looked even more tired than Will. He put his arm around her shoulders and she nestled her head against his and closed her eyes, looking like she was trying to go to sleep standing up, using Will as a prop.

"Robin knows."

"Of course Robin knows. He's a smart man."

"I don't suppose there's any point of asking how he's doing?" Robin asked.

"Actually, he's doing better. Much better. His breathing's better and there haven't been any more convulsions. He opened his eyes for a little bit and seemed to recognize us."

"My God!" said Robin.

"Yes, Robin, it's that bad," she said. "A skull fracture, broken collar bone, internal injuries…I can't say what's going to happen with his right eye. He's a long way from out of the woods. There are still more things that can go wrong than right."

"I went to Nottingham yesterday to tell the sheriff. While I was there, I asked around a little. It seems Allan was at a tavern in the Norman quarter that night and didn't like the way a group of men were treating a barmaid. He stepped in; words were exchanged…."

"….and they beat the shit out of him," Will said, grimly.

"…and Allan was thrown out of the tavern," Robin corrected. "That was fairly early, and the men stayed on. Allan wasn't found until almost dawn. I suppose they could have caught up with him later, but that doesn't seem likely. If they're drinking and carrying on, wouldn't they have been more likely to have gone after him right then instead of holding a grudge and setting on him later?"

"It fits with the injuries, though," Djaq said. "He's one massive bruise, inside and out. One person couldn't have done all that. It looks like he was kicked, a lot, or beaten with a stick or something like John's quarterstaff. It's lots of small wounds, one on top of another. And if he was in Nottingham, particularly in the Norman quarter…." She shook her head.

"What to you mean?" Robin said.

"The long knives are out, Robin. I've seen this before. The old regime's out and the new one's settled in, so now people have caught their breath and it's time to settle scores. Allan's well known in Nottingham, both as your man and as Gisbourne's, so both sides have a grievance against him." Djaq sighed. "I wish the sheriff luck, but I doubt if anybody will tell him anything. 'Who? Allan a Dale? Never heard of him! I was tucked up in bed, saying my prayers that night. I didn't see a thing.'" She rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively.

Robin had learned all he could from Will and Djaq, and told them all he knew himself, but he doubted in Marian was home yet and he didn't want to leave the comfort of his friends. Djaq, leaning into Will, had closed her eyes again.

"So Will says Allan and I are alike," Robin said.

"Oh, please!" Djaq gave that wave again but didn't move otherwise, including to open her eyes. "Twins. You could be twins."

"Then would it be all right if I were to visit my twin on his sickbed?" Robin asked, carefully.

Djaq broke away from the comfort of Will's shoulder. She stood up straight and looked, piercingly, at Robin, as if she was giving a full evaluation of his qualities. Then she made a curt nod. "Yes. But wait a couple of days. Give him a little more time to heal. And to come to his senses."