Robin pointed to the cloud of dust in the distance as he spoke to Much.
"Get ready, a wagon is coming."
They waited, hidden behind a bush by the roadside, until they saw that the carriage was near.
Robin smiled seeing that it wasn't escorted by armed men, and that it wasn't the wagon of some peasant.
Much and Robin went out into the open, aiming their bows at the coachman, and the carriage stopped. An elderly man opened the door to see what was happening, and Robin smiled at him.
"Give us a tenth of your money and we'll let you go. Consider it an offer to help the poor. If you try to resist, we will take it all."
"Who are you?"
"Robin Hood."
"I've heard of you, you do good to those who need help. I will give you what you want, but you'll have to come and get it: my legs aren't strong anymore like they used to be, and the coffer with the money is too heavy for me to be lifted without help."
Robin approached cautiously, while Much kept pointing the bow at the driver. Robin opened the door and looked inside the carriage: there was no box with the money, but on the seat opposite to the old man, he saw Guy of Gisborne, unconscious and tied.
Robin spun around to warn Much, but his friend had slumped to the ground, motionless. Robin felt a sting on his neck, then his senses dimmed and he fell on the floor of the carriage.
The old man stood up to take his weapons and he threw Robin's bow and sword out of the carriage door, then, after a moment's thought, he also threw Gisborne's weapons near the unconscious body of Much. Then he closed the door, and the carriage drove off.
The old man looked at the two men lying asleep in front of him, and he allowed himself a satisfied smile.
"Well, Robin of Locksley, you've saved me a trip."

Marian waited beside the wagon, annoyed.
She and Edward had finished their purchases and they have been waiting for a while. Guy and Allan should already have returned, but there was no sign of either of them.
Marian sighed, she was almost certain that Allan had dragged Guy at the tavern with him, and that idea made her nervous. She still remembered with anger and sorrow what happened there: she saw Guy coming down from the upper floor of the tavern with his clothes in disorder and tousled hair.
She was almost ready to throw away her pride and her dignity to go look for him in that unseemly place, when she saw Allan coming, breathless.
The young man pulled Gisborne's horse by the bridle, but Guy was not with him.
"Marian, where is Giz?"
The girl stared at him, worried.
"Wasn't he with you?"
"I haven't seen him all day. I looked at the blacksmith's this morning, but he was already gone, so I thought he would have joined me at the tavern for lunch, and I went there, but he didn't come. I thought that he was you, but, when I saw that his horse was still at the blacksmith, I got concerned. Giz wouldn't leave him there all day."
"Do you think something happened to him? Maybe the sheriff arrested him for some reason!" Marian said, anxiously.
"In that case we would have heard about it at the market: people wouldn't have missed the opportunity to gossip. In any case I know some of the castle guards, I'll try to ask them, although I doubt he's there."
They separated to look for Guy, but a few hours later they were forced to return to the wagon without finding him. Gisborne seemed to have vanished, and none of the people who they had asked for information had seemed the least bit interested in his fate. Only a young boy said he had seen Gisborne getting willingly on a mysterious carriage, but Allan didn't know if they could trust his words.
"What do we do?" Marian asked, so distressed that she was on the verge of tears.
Sir Edward put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her.
"Sir Guy is a strong person, he knows how to defend himself and we know that he that managed to survive even in desperate situations. Don't worry, he'll come back with no harm."
Allan thought that Guy had actually survived those desperate situations Guy, but that he also came out of them quite battered. He didn't express his thoughts to Marian because he knew that they'd make her worry even more than she already was.
"I'll go talk to Robin Hood. He and his men always know everything and they have contacts everywhere. Robin managed to find the sheriff before Nottingham was destroyed, he will be able to also track Giz. Go back to Locksley, perhaps he's already arrived home in some way."
Allan mounted Guy's horse and Marian took the reins of the wagon. They would make the first part of the road together, and then Allan would divert to Sherwood Forest.
Before they got to the point where their paths would separate, they saw a person who was staggering along the road and they recognized that it was Much.
"Hey, are you alright? You look terrible..." Allan said and Much shook his head, shocked.
"They got him! They have taken Robin!"
"Who? The sheriff's men?"
"No, no! It was a carriage without any insignia. We stopped to rob it, but they hit me with this," he showed the sharp dart he was holding. "When I woke up the carriage was gone and Robin was gone as well. On the ground there were only his weapons and another sword and a dagger that don't belong to Robin..."
"What weapons?" Marian asked, interrupting him.
Much took off from his shoulder the bag in which he had put the weapons and he opened it to show them its contents.
Marian dashed forward and picked up a sword, still into his black leather sheath.
"This is Guy's sword!"
"And that is his dagger." Allan added, taking the curved blade from the bag.
"Then that kid wasn't lying," Sir Edward said. "There really was a carriage."
"Much, did you see who was on it?"
"The driver was a boy, the passenger was an old man, but I had never seen them before."
"What do we do now? If they managed to take both Robin and Guy, they must be very dangerous people!" Marian said, disconsolate, and the other three looked at her without finding an answer.

Robin opened his eyes and rubbed his aching temples with a groan. His head throbbed and he felt dizzy. He looked around, alarmed, remembering what had happened.
He was in a room with stone walls, with simple but comfortable furniture, and he was lying on a soft, clean bed, covered with good quality sheets and a light blanket.
Another identical bed was next to his, and Robin saw that Guy was there, sound asleep.
Robin heard the sound of the door opening, and he closed his eyes, pretending to sleep.
A middle-aged woman came into the room and she stood for a moment beside his bed, then she turned her back and walked over to Guy's bed, sitting on its edge.
Robin opened his eyes a little to see what she was doing, but the woman just looked at Gisborne without saying anything.
After a while she reached out to stroke his hair, pushing the black locks from his forehead with a loving gesture, then she began to sing a lullaby, softly.
Robin could not make out the words of the song, but he had the impression that they were in French.
Guy didn't move and the woman stood up and tucked his covers, then she turned to look at Robin.
"There was a time when I did it every night," she said, with a sigh. "Sometimes he cried in his sleep, so I sang for him, to calm him down."
Robin opened his eyes, the woman was perfectly aware that he was awake, and he looked at her, trying to figure out who she was. She looked familiar, but he could not recognize her.
"Who are you? What do you want from us?"
Robin sat up on the bed and he noticed the long chain tied to his right wrist and attached to a ring in the wall.
The woman gave an affectionate look at Guy.
"I witnessed his birth. I was his wet nurse and yours too, Master Robin."
Robin looked better at her, but he still couldn't remember her face.
He raised his shackled wrist.
"If it is true, why this?"
"My father thought it was necessary. We searched him and Miss Isabella for years," the woman nodded to Guy "but they seemed to have vanished into thin air. When we finally managed to track him down, we heard so many rumors about him, about his work at the orders of the Sheriff of Nottingham... We had to be sure that he'd listen to us and you too, Sir Robin. You are an outlaw, we couldn't know if you'd listen to us, and how you would react. And what we have to tell you is too important."
"What's so important?"
The woman stood up, suddenly afraid she had said too much.
"We'll talk later, when my father will be here and when Sir Guy will be awake too. I left some food on the table, and in those bowls there is a remedy for headache. We will come back later and then we'll tell you everything."