Title: The Prodigal, Chapter 3, "Working Lad," part 1

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. (Maybe "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Allan?") Vasey's out as sheriff and peace has returned to Nottingham…except, perhaps, for one particular wayward outlaw. Who looks like he may need more help than Robin can give him.

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In days past, when Robin dreamed about life as the lord of Locksley, he dreamed of spending every moment of that life with Marian. And that's pretty much how things had turned out. They were partners in all things—Robin's trip to Nottingham and Marian's recent excursion to Knighton were unusual in that each of them went solo, unaccompanied by the other. There was a practical reason for this. Robin had a mighty respect for Marian's ability to manage an estate and trusted her far more than he would any steward. But to properly run things when Robin was absent, she had to know the details of what was what when Robin was there; it was easier to include her from the start than to try to backtrack to fill her in, especially since Robin relied so much on her judgment when final decisions had to be made. Recently, however, Robin had begun to chafe from so much togetherness. It made him uneasy to admit—If the bloom of love has faded so much after only six months, what would it be like in six years?—and he was made even more uneasy when Marian accepted with an unsettling alacrity the idea that he might, on occasion, go to Bonchurch to visit Much without her. Of course, it never occurred to Robin that spending most hours of most days together might make Marian chafe a bit, too.

At any rate, they had settled down into a routine that seemed to suit them all. About once a week, Robin would go to Bonchurch with no particular business in mind. He and Much would eat dinner and drink beer and reminisce and rehash, and if it got too late, Robin would sleep over. If Robin happened upon Will along the way, he often brought him along, and, as John made camp in a part of the forest closer to Bonchurch than Locksley, it was often convenient for him to join them as well. Much wouldn't trade Bonchurch Lodge for the world, but he did get rather lonely living as lord of the manor in such a large dwelling after living cheek-by-jowl with the other gang members so long, and he welcomed their visits, though he did sometimes wonder if, maybe, someone else might host these boys' nights out on occasion. As for Marian…well, Robin worried about how she got on without him on those nights, but recognized that she somehow managed.

Maybe it was because they were living more individual lives now than before, or maybe it was because owning Bonchurch had made Much downright wealthy and so more of Robin's social peer, but their relationship had, almost unnoticed, become much more equitable. It helped that Much was already proving a great success as a farmer. Robin had resolved from the beginning to not interfere with Much's plans for Bonchurch, and had managed to keep his tongue when Much took the radical step—too radical, even in Robin's eyes—of immediately freeing all his serfs as soon as he gained possession. But Much had negotiated rent and wage terms with all of those same serfs which seemed to be working out well. He had a good crop of winter wheat in the offing, had cash in hand, and was now thinking of adding a mill to the estate. Altogether, he was happy as a pig in slops, which, seeing as how they were standing right next to the Bonchurch sties, examining the inhabitants, Robin could tell meant Much was very happy indeed.

"The thing is, I could operate it myself. I wouldn't have to hire a miller. But it must cost a fortune to build! Do you have any idea?"

"None whatsoever," said Robin, who was wondering why Much's pigs were so much better natured than his own. My pigman walks with a permanent limp because of my brutes, and here's Much's snuffling out of his hand!

"You don't? Oh, I hoped you did. Getting the stones, dressing the stones…the building can't be just any slap-dash cottage, you know; you've got to get it framed up strong enough to support the millworks…" Much said as he scratched behind a pregnant sow's ear. He sighed, "I dunno. Maybe it won't be worth it."

"Oh, by the way, is it okay if I stay the night?" Marian had finally gotten Robin to start asking, instead of just assuming these sorts of things. "I have to go to Featherstone to look after Allan first thing in the morning, and it's a shorter ride there from here than it is from Locksley."

"Allan's back?"

"You haven't heard? I thought all of Locksley knew by now. He apparently got knocked around pretty badly up in Nottingham. He's at Winifred's. She and Djaq are looking after him."

"What happened?"

"Don't know. Maybe a fight over girl. Or maybe something else. Djaq says 'the long knives' are out in Nottingham, that people are settling accounts left over from Vasey's day. I suppose he might have gotten caught up in something like that."

Much nodded. "When I was up there Thursday evening, I saw a crowd marching a girl down the street, jeering at her. It looked like she had cut her hair. I asked around and people said they do that to girls now who had a been a little too friendly with Vasey and Gisbourne's people--hold them down and cut their hair to shame them." He shook his head. "It seemed all wrong. I wanted to do something, but…." He looked troubled. "…but what? I couldn't make her hair grow back. I was the only one it seemed to bother. I tried arguing with people about it, but…well, there was about fifty of them and only one of me." He ducked his eyes, a little ashamed, Robin thought, but Robin sympathized. What could Much have done?

"Thursday. That's probably when Allan got it. Did you hear anything?"

"Not a thing! I didn't even hear that he was there." Much appeared shocked, not just at the fact of Allan's condition, but at the thought that he was there when it happened and hadn't come to his aid.

Robin nodded. "Thursday. You know that moves you to the top of my list of suspects, don't you?"

Robin was obviously teasing, but after all these years, Much still hadn't figured out how to tease back.

"What?"

"Means: you're a big guy, taller than Allan, and Djaq says he was apparently off-his-ass drunk. Motive: you two have never gotten on. Opportunity…"

"I was in Nottingham to…to…to see a man about a horse!" Much blushed a little. "I'm there most Thursdays."

"You go to Nottingham most Thursdays to see a man about a horse," Robin said, but he thought, Aha, Much! I found you out, you old dog, you! That pretty young widow you met during the siege, right? "At night. Because that's the best time to…gauge horseflesh. Or…go for a ride." At that point Robin dissolved into sniggers.

Much's expression made his confession for him, but he wasn't going to give up. A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, he thought. And besides, my business is my own now. But he said, "Half of Locksley was in Nottingham that night!"

Which, upon later reflection, Robin found rather peculiar.

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Robin had arranged with Winifred to sit with Allan while she took her bread to the nearby settlements, and thought he had left impressively early the next day, but arrived to find her already packing loves into saddlebags. She seemed positively giddy to see him.

"La! I'm that glad to get away from here!"

"Has he been giving you trouble?" They were in one of the animal stalls off the main room of the house, speaking in low voices so as not to arouse Allan.

"Can't say that he's been awake enough to give any trouble. No, it'll just be nice to get out and feel the wind on my face again."

Allan made a little moan, causing both Winifred and Robin to look in his direction. He couldn't see much of Allan, who was tucked in Winifred's alcove bed, with a curtain drawn across it. Every now and then there was a movement, or another moan. He had been making these noises in his sleep since Robin had gotten there, and Robin found it rather disconcerting.

"He does that. I suppose it's normal." Winifred said. "The medicine's strong enough to make him sleep through the pain, but it's starting to wear off and the pain's starting to break through, so that's what you get. It means he's going to wake up shortly. Which is good—there's only so much rest he needs. In fact, if he doesn't wake up on his own pretty soon, you'll need to figure out a way to do it for him. But gently! And when he does wake up, no matter how gentle you are, he'll be a mess—all confused and panicky—though that goes away pretty quickly. Do your best not to let him thrash around—we don't want him ripping up stitches and separating bones now that Djaq's got them set. Watch his eye especially. He forgets he's got a bandage over it and he may wake up thinking he's gone blind."

She moved to lift the pack saddle onto the back of her horse, but Robin was able to get it ahead of her this time. "The main thing you need to do, though, is get some food in him. Just about all he's done has been to sleep, which is good in one way but bad in another, because he's sleeping so much he's not eating and not getting the nourishment he needs to heal right. I've got some beef broth keeping warm by the fire. If he takes that with one of those small loaves that should do. I doubt if he'll want to brave using a spoon, but if he does, don't let him—he has trouble with distances and getting the spoon to his mouth right, what with his eye and all, and I'd rather he didn't spill it all over the bedclothes. Have him drink it instead. Unless you want to spoon-feed him yourself." Robin emphatically shook his head. The last thing he wanted to do was to try to, literally, feed Allan.

"There's some carrots at the bottom of the pot. It would be even better if you could get him to eat those, but they might not be soft enough. Somehow, through the grace of God, he didn't lose any teeth in this thing," Winifred explained, "but chewing can rattle his bones enough that it still hurts. Let's see, what else?"

Winifred, hand on hip, looked around the room. "There's butter over there on the shelf, if he wants it on his bread….He'll probably need to make water when he wakes up, and you'll need to help him. He hates it when Djaq or I do that, but he may be better with you. The piss-pot is there in the corner….The window—when the sun's at the right height, it can shine right into his eyes there on the bed. It's fine for it to be open, in fact it may be better to get some fresh air in here and let the humors out, but be aware that you may need to adjust it….Keep a watch out for fever, just in case….Oh, and the medicine! You need to take a handful of the poppy seed and some of the elm bark, but not too much, and….oh, here, this will be easier…." And with that Winifred darted into the main room and started blending herbs in a pot.

Robin followed her, more slowly. Allan shifted again, and whimpered. Robin could now see his form behind the curtain, and a brown hand hanging down. Both he and Winifred cast a watchful eye Allan's way.

Winifred's gaze broke away first and returned to her work. Winifred shook her head, and looked doubtful. "He…sees things, when he's like that. Kind of like fever dreams, but not. What with that and the way he's so agitated and confused when he wakes up…." Winifred sighed. "…I half wonder if, when Djaq drilled that hole in his head to let the demons out, one got stuck behind and she's going to have to do it again to set it free. Now here's this, ready to go." Winifred handed Robin a small clay pot. "Fill it up to about here with boiling water and let it set for about ten minutes. Then strain it and have him drink it down. But mind! Not until after he's eaten! For one thing, it's kind of hard on his stomach and it'll help if he's got some food in it. For another, it'll knock him right back out again, and if you dose him when he wakes up he'll never stay awake long enough to eat. Djaq's a little worried about him getting too used to the medicine, so don't give it to him automatically—wait to see if he needs it. He will need it, and there's no point in making him suffer, but…." Winifred waved her hand at the ways of doctors and medicine, as if to say, "I do what Djaq says, but I'll be damned if I know why."

She looked around the room again, making a final check to be sure everything was in order, and then walked over to Allan. She drew the curtain aside and placed her fingers on his forehead. Robin thought at first that she was checking for fever, as she said, but then noticed her lips were moving and her eyes were closed. She was whispering some kind of prayer, or blessing, or maybe even a charm. That done, she turned, waved at Robin, and led off her laden horse.

Robin felt very alone. He had thought this little jaunt of his would be akin to babysitting, that he'd have a nice, friendly visit with Allan or maybe sit with him while he slept, but it was beginning to sound more like real nursing, and he wasn't sure if he was up to the task. He found himself afraid to look at Allan—the situation reminded him of one of the nightmares of his childhood where he knew there was something horrible behind a curtain and dreaded what he would find if he pulled it back, but still felt himself drawn to it. So Robin opened the window, and fiddled with it until the light entered the room just so, and poked the fire, and generally twittered about until he ran out of things to twitter with. He inspected the contents of the medicine pot Winifred had prepared—not that he knew much about it, but his own experience with opium in the Holy Land made him wonder if all those poppy seeds, rather than demons, might be the cause of Allan's dreams. Eventually he went to the alcove and pulled the curtain all the way back, reasoning that exposing Allan to more light would be the gentlest way to wake him up.

Though it wasn't quite the stuff of nightmares, Robin was appalled at what he saw. Only the right side of Allan's face was visible; the most of the rest, including his left eye, was under bandages. More bandages seemed to tie his skull together. Djaq had shaved Allan's head when she did the trepanning; at the same time, his face, usually so neatly barbered, was covered in reddish bristles. The blankets were drawn up to his neck so Robin couldn't see much below Allan's chin, but what he did see was bruised and swollen. His hand was dangling off the bed. Robin noticed a couple of the fingers were splinted, which he hoped meant Allan got in a couple of licks in self-defense when this thing went down. Not knowing what else to do, Robin lifted the twitching hand and placed it back on the bed.

That motion was apparently the straw that broke the camel of sleep's back, so to speak. Allan shuddered, and breathed hard, like he was being forced into something he didn't want to do, blinked a couple of times, and opened his eyes for real. But he obviously was bewildered as to where he was, and when his eyes lighted on Robin, his face filled with terror.

"God! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Allan scrabbled to sit up and bent his head and threw his arms up in front of his face, as if to protect it. Robin noticed bruises on his forearms. Allan was breathing hard, and it obviously hurt, but it was as if he was trying to back out through the alcove wall. "Robin, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" he wimpered.

This must be what Winifred had alluded to, but Robin was shocked and dismayed at how personal it was—that Allan was so afraid of him, specifically, and so abject. Robin had no idea how to approach it, but he knew he needed to get Allan calmed down.

He took him by the shoulders and felt him trembling. "Allan," he said, "It's all right. Shhh. Shhhh." Robin tried to sound both authoritative and soothing. "It's over now. Nobody's going to hurt you. Shhhh. That's it. Shhhhhh." Still gripping Allan's bare shoulders, Robin repeatedly stroked them with his thumbs. Petting him. Like when my horse gets spooked, Robin thought, with some black humor, to cover his own fear. But, just as it worked for the horse, it seemed to work for the man. Allan's breathing got easier and Robin felt the trembling fade, though not stop. After a few seconds he brought his arms down and looked at Robin again, this time more confused than afraid, though there was still a touch of wariness about his expression.

Robin let go and eased himself back. "Good God, man! What were you dreaming that brought that on?" he asked with a weak smile…and a great deal of relief.

Allan shook his head, obviously still foggy and confused, though maybe less so. "Dunno," he said. His voice was weak and his tongue was thick, and if he wasn't so sure about this speech thing. He looked around, slowly getting his bearings. He was breathing at a normal rate now, though it was still shallow. Robin reckoned that could be because of the broken ribs, though—he had had those before, and he knew how it made deep breaths painful.

But now that Allan was oriented, he seemed on the road to agitation again, looking around the room and the bed like something was missing.

"You okay? You need anything?"

"I…um…gotta pee." Yeah, THAT'S what this feeling is. Now what do I do about it? was the closest Allan was getting to coherent thought still.

"Here," Robin said. He tried to be gentle, but there's only so gentle you can be when you're trying to convey a grown man of your own size out of bed and across a room. They made it to the pisspot in the corner, after a few stumbles. Robin had no idea how to go about "helping him make water," as Winifred had said, and after a few missteps ("I can handle my own willy, thank you") settled on standing behind Allan and serving as a prop to hold him upright. Allan managed to complete his business before groaning and collapsing back into Robin's arms, but barely, and Robin half carried, half dragged him back to the bed.

Allan sweated, and gritted his teeth, and closed his eyes, and, though he seemed to try not to, emitted a few small moans as Robin got him settled in. Once he was covered up, with a bolster and pillow propping him up, he took a few breaths, then looked at Robin again.

"So, it didn't occur to you to bring the pot to me, instead of me to the pot?" he said, weakly, but wryly.

Robin was so relieved to hear Allan not only speak, but to speak in that familiar tone of voice, that he burst out laughing and continued, far louder and longer than Allan's little dig warranted. "Honestly? No, it didn't. I'm sorry," he chuckled.

And now what do I say? Robin thought. "So. How you doing?" he said. Not that, he thought.

"Well, I've been better." Allan was picking at the bandage over his eye. Robin pulled his hand down to make him stop, reminding himself of his nurse when he had chicken pox as a boy.

"Do you remember anything about what happened?" Allan shook his head, eyes closed again. Keeping the one eye open when the other was bandaged down was obviously difficult for him.

"We'll find who did this. I promise."

Allan snorted and listlessly shook his head. He didn't believe Robin, or didn't care whether the perpetrator was caught or not. Robin wasn't sure which was worse. He thought he'd try again.

"We missed you at Christmas. Did you go back home to Rochdale?"

"What?"

"To Rochdale. For Christmas."

"Why would I go to Rochdale?"

"That's where you're from, isn't it?"

"I don't know that I've ever even been to Rochdale."

"I distinctly remember, the first time we met, you said you were from Rochdale, and not Locksley. 'Allan a Dale—Rochdale,' you said." Robin hadn't thought, even then, that Allan was really from Rochdale—nobody from that part of the country spoke the way Allan did. But he wanted to see what happened when Allan was called on it.

"I said that? Blimey. No. Sussex. I'm from down there. 'Allan a Crawley,'" Allan said, thoughtfully, as if trying it on for size. "Doesn't really have the same ring to it, does it?"

"Is that your home town?"

"Um, yeah. Except that it's not a town, really. Not even a village. More like a bunch of houses stuck on a manor."

"Does your father farm?"

"Naw. He's a blacksmith."

"That's a good trade. Did he teach you any of it?"

"Not hardly!" Allan seemed to find the thought amusing. "Robin, what's with all these questions?"

"Just making conversation." Robin could tell from Allan's glare that he didn't believe him. "Alright. Will's been giving me a hard time about how I don't really know you. And Winifred said I had to make sure you stayed awake long enough to eat. So I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity to get you talking. Kill two birds with one stone, as it were."

"You mean pepper me with questions. Damn! Five years in the forest and you don't ask me whit, and now that I can't get away from you, you decide to make up for lost time!"

Allan didn't sound happy. Resigned, maybe, but not happy. Robin, on the other hand, had a bit of evil in his smile as he turned to ladle up some soup. Needling Allan like this, even if the questions were in earnest…it could be fun!

Allan grimaced as he repositioned himself to take the soup from Robin, and picked up where he left off. "He wasn't that kind of blacksmith, really. They make iron down there—dig it up, smelt it, turn it into rods, ship it out. You know how a blacksmith takes a rod of iron and bends it and shapes it? He made those rods. Take the iron out of the smelter and bang it around to get it into some kind of shape for somebody else to make something proper out of. Well, sometimes the master would get an order for, like, a ton of horseshoes for the army, and he'd work on those, and every now and then he'd get some if his own orders—got an armor commission once—but, mostly, just bang out rods, one after another."

"Wow." Robin imagined wielding a hammer over a hot forge, hour after hour, day after day, just to churn out the same basic shape, over and over again, with no real chance for craftsmanship. "That sounds…awful."

"I hadn't really thought about it. Maybe that's why he was such a son of a bitch." Allan noticed Robin's shocked expression. Maybe Robin could stand to learn more about life on the other side. If the truth got under Robin's skin…well, perhaps there was some pleasure to be had from this little interrogation after all.

"Look, Robin. We don't all have dads like Will's. He used to take me hunting, and the guys who hung around the forge in the winter taught me how to roll dice, but that was about it. He'd come home, and he'd light into my mother, or she'd light into him, and they'd wake up the dogs and everyone else with their yelling, and I'd try to divert their attention, and Tom would cry or join in on the fight, and then Dad would take a pop at whoever was closest to hand and storm out. Then Mum got sick and had to quit work and I had to start, but at least I got out of the house a bit and got some peace."

"Your mother worked, too?"

"Yeah, up at the manor house, a couple of days a week."

"And you took her place up there?"

"Nah. The master decided I'd be more useful with the charcoal makers." He noticed Robin looked puzzled. Jesus, don't they teach these northerners ANYTHING? "They use charcoal to run the smelters and the forges. Saves wood that way. In the winter they'd cut the trees in the forest, and in the summer, after it had dried, the charcoalers would have at it. They'd…" Allan tried to figure out how to explain it, making shapes with his hands, but gave up. "It's complicated. But part of it is, they'd make this huge mound out of logs, and they thought kids could climb over 'em better than adults on account of their size. So I did that for a while in the summers." Robin thought, That doesn't sound right. I believe him, but he must have been awfully young, and for the lord of a manor to put kids to work that way? It doesn't sound right. Allan must have noticed the look on his face. He shrugged, "Hey, like I said, it got me out of that house. I got to live outside in the woods while we did it, and hunt, so there was some adventure to it. There were other lads there, too." He shrugged again. "It could have been worse."

"And winters?"

"The rest of the year I was at home, same as regular."

"Why did you leave?"

Robin wasn't sure if it was from the food or from being given free rein to talk about himself, but it seemed to him that Allan was livelier than he had been. He shot Robin another glare as he dunked his bread into his soup—if he had to tell this story, he was going to do it his way, and he didn't want to be interrupted.

"Things got worse, didn't they? Mum got sicker. Dad used to go to the tavern when he'd leave after their rows, but then he started going there straight after work and Mum'd have to send me to get him. He'd be having a fine old time and wouldn't want to leave, and to tell the truth, I didn't want to go back so much either." Allan smiled at the memory. "He used to show me off to his mates, have me play them at draughts and act all proud at how I could beat 'em. Then he'd stand everybody drinks and spend all the money we'd won, and some more on top of it."

The smile faded. "Then he left altogether."

"Left? What do you mean?" Robin asked.

"Left. Ran away. Went off and didn't come back." Allan looked at Robin as if he was daft.

"With your mother sick? Surely something else happened! Maybe he met with an accident or something."

"No-o." Allan sounded dubious. "We thought that, maybe. We asked around, but nobody had heard anything. Then the master sent some men around to our house, hunting for him, like he was a runaway." Allan shrugged. "We figured that meant he really had run away. But we made up some story to keep him out of trouble, just in case." The smile was long gone.

"How did you get by after that? You and your mother and Tom?"

"Well, Tom and Mum were kind of taking care of each other by that point. She'd have these dizzy spells, and get all out of breath, and it got so she couldn't do much out of the house, so Tom did the gardening and the heavy work. Dad's wages always went straight through his fingers anyway, so there wasn't any great loss that way. We had a little land that he and Mum would work for wheat when they had time, and we lost it, but my charcoaling money paid the rent on the house well enough. And by then I was big enough to pull a bow proper, so I'd put meat on the table from poaching—we probably ate better than most of our neighbors because of that. And when Mum was asleep, sometimes we'd sneak out to the tavern. Tom needed the break from Mum and the house, but it'd gotten to where I could make some real money gaming, 'cause nobody would take a kid like me seriously. Sometimes somebody'd feel sorry for us and stand us supper, and sometimes Tom was able to lift back a bit when a punter's back was turned, but more often we'd sneak the scraps off somebody else's trencher before we gave up and went home. Or fell asleep under a table. Mum," Allan said, "Kind of turned her back to it. I think she thought she could use the coin."

He fell silent. Robin noticed his bowl was empty, and took it from him and refilled it with broth. Allan didn't seem to notice. He said, "Then she died."

Silence again, until Allan blinked back to the present and seemed to decide Robin needed more of an explanation. "I was….I dunno, out… setting snares, roving around, doing something. I came back, and there was Tom, all in hysterics. He had been out in the garden, and Mum was feeling poorly, and when he came back into the house she was dead. Just like that. Poor Tom didn't know what to do. He'd been sitting there with her for a couple of hours by the time I got home. He didn't want to leaver her alone to fetch a neighbor." He shrugged. "We got her buried the next day. In the churchyard, all proper. Maybe the most proper thing we'd ever done in Crawley."

Robin waited for more, but it didn't seem to be forthcoming. "Well?" he demanded.

"'Well' what?" Allan asked.

"Then what happened? Who'd you go live with? Somebody took you in, didn't they?"

Allan did a pretty good job at playing innocent to the question, but the truth was, he knew how to tell a story, and knew the best way to gin up interest from a listener was to pretend you were going to stop before the ending.

Allan put on the wiseguy look Robin had often seen before. "Huh. Not hardly. We weren't exactly the most popular family in those parts."

"You didn't have any other relatives?"

"Not there, at least. Dad was from France, I think. Mum used to talk about her brother in Yorkshire, but…that was Yorkshire. We weren't even sure where Yorkshire was, or how she got to Sussex. So we hung around on our own for a while. But Tom, he kept thinking he was seeing ghosts…and maybe he did, I dunno. I was more worried about what the master would do with us when he realized nobody in the house was working. I was getting big enough that I thought they'd put me to work full time in the furnaces, and…God, that was the last thing I wanted to do. And we'd heard stories about them putting boys to work hauling carts in the mines, and didn't want that for Tom. So we left."

"Just like that?

"Nothing else for it, really."

"Where did you go?"

"Well, Dad used to talk about how great London was, and Tom kept nagging at me to try to find him, so we thought we'd head that way."

"How old were you at that point?"

"Oh," Allan screwed up his face as he did the calculation. "About 13? 14? Probably closer to 14. Hey, don't give me that look! Lot's of boys leave home at that age."

Allan was right, but Robin was shocked nonetheless. Lots of boys did leave home at about that age--to start apprenticeships under tight supervision. Robin himself had left home at 14, to live with one of his father's vassals to train to be a knight. But Sir Godfrey was a good-hearted man who understood boys and who taught him well and who made sure he washed behind his ears and who sent Robin home to the loving arms of his parents on holidays. Besides, he had Much with him. There was a big difference between that and hitting the road to a huge city, friendless, alone except for the little brother you're looking after.