Episode 12 - "Fight or Flight"

Previously on Robin Hood...
To sum up: Allan has paced the floor waiting for the baby's arrival like an expectant uncle, Much has had to run and fetch a midwife, Robin has (in a way) heard Marian's shouts as she gives birth. Little John's life hangs by a thread, and we have a new heir to Huntingdon.

With only two episodes left in the series, important characters are still separated by the English Channel, and more than one has been masquerading under an assumed name.

A very unpleasant gentleman from Salima's past has surfaced at Philip's castle, Gisborne is dead, and according to Queen Eleanor, the King is on the move.


Sherwood Forest - Outlaws' Camp - Not much later than when we last saw Robin and the gang. The Wadlowe midwife is still present, as she works to stop Little John's runaway bleeding so that he may be gradually brought out of Sir Clem's ingenious "snow sleep".

Clem has not returned to the Sherwood camp.

Robin has decided to have Alice Little and Little Little John sent for. (Not the most practical of ideas, to bring them to Sherwood in the winter, but he is reacting in the way he would like to be able to react for himself-that is, to bring Marian to be with him, so we forgive his momentary impracticality.)

Robin: [announces] We must bring John's family to him.

Much: [never one to wish his importance belittled (not really discounting Alice and Little Little John)] But we are his family.

Robin: [not entering into an argument nor justifying himself to Much, simply talking] If he dies, they must be here. They would wish to be here. If he lives, he will need them nearby to help heal. [with conviction, grown not only of Little John's situation] It is not right for a man to be separated from his family at such a time, nor his son from him.

Though the harsh tone of Robin's words were not directly aimed at him, Much's eyes grow slightly round as Robin speaks, and he is sufficiently chastened so that he speaks no more. But he knows his master well enough to have realized that Robin's mind is not only on his current separation from Marian, but also his past separation from the Earl, at the time of his death.

Nottingham - The Sheriff, who had been utterly unaware of Gisbornes whereabouts is shocked (he doesnt like to be surprised, much less shocked) and dismayed to learn that that morning Gisborne had arranged to attend Confession in the long-unused castle chapel. The Sheriff is not sure what it means, but feels certain it does not bode well, particularly when the stables report that Gisborne's mount has returned without its rider.

The outlaws (minus Robin) retrieve and tie Gisborne's dead body to a spare horse (for surely they wish nothing to do with him) and let it go at the edge of Locksley village, from whence Gisborne's men find it and return it to Nottingham, and the Sheriff.

Robin chances sneaking into a deserted Locksley Manor, Gisborne dead and his men off to Nottingham, and finds Thornton. Together they hatch a plan to send a young house servant with a cart to retrieve Alice Little and Little Little John, bringing them to Sherwood.

It is the perfect opportunity to do so. With Gisborne dead, Locksley is briefly without supervision (beyond Thornton), and if asked no one need be told the cart was not sent on their deceased master's business. It will return (the Littles disembarking in the Forest) laden with badly-needed winter provisions for the villagers that have returned to their homes (following the exodus of the Sheriff's mercenaries). Provisions which will be generously distributed long before the Sheriff can bring the estate to heel.

And so in this way Robin has a small, yet satisfying opportunity to play Earl to his people.


Once they have crossed and landed at Dover, Allan and Aislinn manage to buy horses to make their journey to Sherwood both faster and easier (just one of the perks from their stash of minstrel gold, courtesy the Angevin and French nobility). In their travels they also are well-able to purchase rooms nightly at whatever inn they are nearest.

But we are shown, in several shots, that, even from Dover (if not before) they are being closely followed. The mood of the shots is potentially sinister, and even on horseback our duo cannot shake this, their new shadow.

To keep innkeepers with scruples (though there are not many) happy, and grease the wheels of their journeying together, Aislinn has maintained her costume of a young boy. She has even (quite happily) performed more than a few nights at the inns they frequent, adding further coin to their pockets. Allan, however, has not returned to his instruments, or his songs.

Aislinn also travels with a new companion: a staff, the one Marian (as the Lady Matilda) instructed her on, from Marian's position on a couch at the end of her pregnancy. Allan is aware Ash has picked up some small skill with a staff while in France, but he has no idea under whose tutelage. (And of course, neither does Aislinn, only knowing Marian as the in-confinement Lady Matilda, possible mother to Richard's bastard as in #39, "Keeping Secrets".)


Nottingham - Salutation Inn - Allan and Aislinn arrive still in their Court clothes. His contemplative mood ended by the joy of being on his old stomping grounds again, Allan sweeps into the Inn (Aislinn in tow) like its favorite son back from war. His arms raised as though to say, 'no, really, no applause, but yes, really, applause'.

James, the Innkeeper: [chuffed] 'Tis a cold day in Nottingham to be sure, when I find myself saying, 'this one's on the house, lads!'

Allan: [grinning] But 'tis not every day your best customer and main attraction [pulls out a set of dice] returns to town.

Allan and Aislinn 'belly up to the bar'.

James: [conversationally] You have been away long. Is it not hard in the Forest this time o' year?

Allan: [accepting a cup] Wouldn't know. Been traveling.

James: Then will you know news of your late master?

Allan gives him a look to say, "Master? I have no master".

James: Locksley's Lord Gisborne. He has been brought to town, dead. Many stories circulate, but no one seems to have a handle on the truth of it.

Allan: [surprised into telling it like it is] I know nothing of it. Truth or rumor.

James: Who is this you travel with? [meaning Aislinn, still in drag]

Allan: [shrugs] A boy I picked up, help in the con. No one of consequence.

James: [a clever sort, and used to all manner of unsavory activity][drops his voice] And what ken you of your other guest?

Shot of the man following them huddled among the tavern's shadows.

Allan: Worry not for your chairs and bottles. I shall suss him out between The Bell and The Trip.

James looks hurt, or rather, irritated at the notion Allan will be patronizing his competition.

Allan: [trying to recover][heartily] That is to say, between them geographically speaking, as I have no intention whatsoever of dropping good coin on thin ale and stingy portions of stew.


Nottingham Town - Allan and Aislinn make their way to the next stop (it is Allan's plan to arrive at Camp with the full complement of Nottingham gossip and reconnaissance, as he does not imagine anyone else has been able to keep up with his workload in his absence). And he is, of course, curious to know more of this news about Guy being dead.

They are on horseback. The man is still following them.

Aislinn: Buy me a hair ribbon, Allan. [his name seeming strange to her tongue after all this time] I wish to put on my own clothes at the next inn, and I shall be wanting something to remind myself-and Luke-that I am still a girl. Despite my hair.

Allan: [tosses her a coin] Buy it yourself, Ash. The money's at least as much yours as it is mine. Probably more. [tosses her three or four more coins] Buy whatever you like. Once we are back in Sherwood, I do not doubt Robin will have all of it from us, and into the general fund it will go. [but he smiles when he says it, and it is obvious the notion of communal wealth and giving to the poor no longer vexes him as it once did]

Aislinn: Will you buy nothing for yourself?

Allan: [considers] Can't think of anything I need right now.

Aislinn: [conversationally] Or is it that you just like money?

Allan: Make no mistake, Ash. Money in a man's pocket is a good feeling. But no, there is nothing of which I need that money can buy.

Aislinn: [curiously, she has been wondering about this some time] Allan, how does a person know if you are telling the truth?

Allan: [too much himself to be annoyed or insulted by such a question] Well, Ash, and don't take this wrong...but they don't.

They ride on a time without conversation.

Aislinn: Maybe you should work at developing a tell.

Allan: [appalled at the notion] And why would I want to do that?

Aislinn: You know, just so people who care about you might know.

Allan: [his eyes expertly scanning the crowd, he is back in full-on outlaw mode] Well, I think the idea, Ash, is that people who care about me [the words seemed like unfamiliar cobwebs in his mouth] will know.


Nottingham - The Bell Inn - second stop in Allan's mini pub crawl. Aislinn has retreated to a room upstairs to de-man herself. Allan's reception in the taproom below is not dissimilar from that of the Salutation's.

Peter, the Innkeeper: What, ho, lads! Satisfaction has indeed brought him back, the cat we thought was killed! [observing Allan's rich style of dress] And Lady Luck has proven a kindly mistress, we see. [aside to others present][shouts, announcing what he assumes are Allan's immediate plans for his obviously full purse] Games of chance to begin momentarily in the back!

Allan: Whoa! [seeing the mass departure for the back room] Are so great a number here ready to take a chance on me? Have I left so very many of you paupers by my brief absence?

Peter: [suggestively] Nay, but you've left many a man's wife happier; her purse fuller and her honor sounder! [coarsely laughs][many join in]

Aislinn comes down, dressed again in her old clothes, the ribbon she bought in her hair. The men that did not notice her going up the stairs as a young boy, are certainly noticing her as she comes down them as a young woman, short haircut or no.

Allan: Easy now, fellows!

All turn to see what he will say to their catcalling and eager eyes.

Allan: My sis-ter [all groan] and I have yet business in the town.

Allan expertly sweeps Aislinn out of the tavern by the front door, where they come face-to-face with the hooded man that has been following them.

Quick as a wink, Aislinn has her staff out and brings the taller man to his knees.

Allan takes a pause as he recognizes, in her action, what he has encountered before only as one of Little John's 'signature moves' (a move that Little John created, perfected, and sets a great deal of stock in-and pride by).

"Howd'ye like that," Allan says to himself, "me, played for a fool by Little John, of all people! Passing off something Ash could learn at the French Court as of his own making!"

When they de-hood the chap following them, he is still smarting from the staff strike, but also demoralized by something more. It is a face familiar to both Allan and Aislinn.

Aislinn: Michel!

It is the man Michel, from Philip II's Court who, in #38 "Admirers All Around", Salima informs Allan is seriously crushing on Asher/Aislinn.

Michel: [taking in Aislinn's new-to-him look] Asher, you are not...

Allan: [going for ironic] Gelded? [no longer seeing the man as a threat][slapping him on the back in solidarity] Follow us but a bit further, to The Trip, man. You will be needing a strong drink.


Nottingham - Trip to Jerusalem Inn - Without giving away all that they are (or, in truth, who they really are), Allan and Aislinn attempt to explain the facts to Michel, who is rather undone by his discovery (and not entirely sure whether to believe it).

Michel: So, really, truly you are not...

Allan: [seeing things pragmatically, but not particularly sentimentally] Look, Michel, you shall have to take our word for it. You are not gonna to get a peek at that. Not going to be able to 'finger the cat', if you will, to establish her true sex...it is wot it is. And wot it is is wot we say it is.

Aislinn shoots Allan a disapproving look at his language in regards to her.

Allan: [giving attitude back] Well, you're not gonna flash the chap, are you? Nor lift your skirts just to sort things faster, hmm? [to Michel] Look, I don't know much about love, but even I can tell you people have to be on the same page for things to work out, there. Not only do you two both seem to like, er, the same sort of partner, [looking to Aislinn, expecting her approval, like 'am I doing this gently enough for you?'] to put it delicately, but you don't even live in the same country. That's no beginning, man. That's a dead-end.

Michel: [tipsy from the strong drink, but resolute] I go where Asher goes. I follow him. [shakes head to try and clear it] I follow her.

Aislinn steps in, finding her voice after her initial distress over Michel's having followed her under such mistaken pretenses.

Aislinn: Michel. You are my friend. I did not know. Well, in truth, perhaps I suspected...

Behind Michel, Allan raises up so that Ash may see him making the 'cut the throat' gesture, meaning, 'abort! don't cop to knowing of his feelings'.

Aislinn: [trying to be kind] In love, two people must find themselves in the same place. [looking at Allan, pointedly] Not necessarily geographically. But their hearts much each be ready for the adventure at the same time. When my heart was ready for that I found my husband.

Michel looks up, his final hope dashing before Ash's eyes.

Aislinn: [soldiering on] There will be someone ready for you, also.

Behind Michel, Allan again raises up so that Ash may see him and re-makes the 'cut the throat' gesture, meaning, 'don't give him that tired line! Wrap it up!'.

Allan: Never gonna happen, man. [jerks his chin to her] Tell him, Ash.

Aislinn: [not liking the ruthlessness of the expression, but agreeing to the need for it][gently shakes her head] Never gonna happen.

With little else able to be shared with Michel, and their own journey needing finishing, Allan and Aislinn take their leave of him, and The Trip. Allan, relieved to be well rid of the sorry chap, Aislinn feeling like dirt over having been the mostly unwitting cause of his injured feelings.

Allan: [at the reins of his horse] Do you really believe all that rot you told him in there? About love, and timing and whatnot?

Aislinn: Sure. I think life sometimes has to accomplish things within us before we're ready to love. The journey to that can prove longer for some than others. And then our hearts must find someone else in a similar place, and that itself is also yet another journey.

Allan: [hard exhale] You make it sound nothing short of a miracle that anyone ends up together.

Aislinn: [with belief] Well it is, isn't it?

Allan: [shrugging, non-committal] How should I know?

But in that instant she thought she saw it, Aislinn Scarlet did, the beginning of a tell in Allan-A-Dale. Or perhaps it was as he said; there was no tell, but someone caring about him would just know when he was spinning them a yarn.

Aislinn: [without ulterior motive] Borrow the dagger?

Allan: What's that?

Aislinn: The binding of my chest. [looking down] It's been on me so long it will not unroll easily, so I will simply cut it.

"It's gone," confessed Allan-A-Dale, and were it any other object he would have followed that statement with; 'gotta find me another.' But he did not.

For he felt very much the dagger was still his. Only, safely in the keeping of another.

What he found in that moment was that in thinking of that other, he tended to squint about the eyes, for he did not like the dark road his thoughts tried to travel down where the Lady Salima and the dagger he had given to her were concerned.

As was his usual way, he shook off the uncomfortable thoughts, trying not to notice they felt heavier every time he did so.

They had ridden just beyond the main gate of the walled Nottingham Town. He thought that he should remember to tell Ash of the time Much bull-headedly led a one-man assault to rescue Robin from within those very walls. To Allan, it seemed a lifetime ago, a time when he would have been hesitant (disinterested, even) to join in such a venture.

Allan: [with growing energy] Come, Ash, we are for Sherwood, and your husband. We are traveling players taking their ease no longer. Tonight, my girl, you cook for outlaws!

Both 'yah!', slapping the end of their reins to their horses' haunches, until they are racing at a gallop toward the Wood, and home.


Calais, France - Castle of Philip II - It took the Lady Salima longer than she would have expected to examine the blade given her by the now-departed minstrel Llanio. Allan, she corrected herself. If I am ever in a tavern in the East Midlands. But of course her knowledge of English geography was nonexistent, and this area known as the East Midlands might have been called Shangri-La for all she knew of it. She had taken the dagger from him instinctually, not noticing she held it until he was gone from the chapel, and then she had found herself only able to recall that she must arrive to the Queen without further delay. Her prior mood was somewhat dampened, whether by her meeting in the chapel or her lack of interest in seeing the Queen, she did not know.

Without thought, she had hidden the blade in the waist of the red sari, and gone dutifully to report to the Queen. By the time she had found a true moment to herself (long after her royal audience and her further tending of Marian and the baby), it was some days after Llanio the minstrel-no, she must stop thinking of him that way-after Allan, had kissed it. Which had been a strange gesture, she thought in hindsight, as though he were a priest blessing it, or conversely, a worshipper kissing the ring of cleric. At the time her mind had been so full of all that was going on; the birth, her sudden release of happiness, this strange meeting in the castle's chapel, that she had not realized how odd that entire encounter had proven to be.

In the end he had told her truths for the first time: he was not named Llanio; he was no mere jongleur; he served the King; and he was leaving.

And somehow, he knew of the threat to her posed by Sir Gautier. As a spy would, she told herself. But it was therein that he had acted most peculiarly. He had not, as other men in her life (even as Carter) had done: he had not fought for (or over) her. Rather, he had placed a weapon into her own hands, empowering her (though she did not fully understand what that might mean) placing the burden of action upon her. It rested in her hands like an unexplored possibility, a tool she had never before possessed. Something that could, perhaps (she secretly wondered, she feared), rend the Fate-woven fabric of her life, which threatened to smother her like a net without holes.

When she did screw her courage to a place that she might remove the weapon for the first time from its sheath, she nearly dropped it clattering to the floor, loud enough in its impact, surely, to awaken Marian and the child.

There, on the polished and well-kept blade of superior Damascus steel she found a word in Arabic letters. It was a ridiculous word, in its way, to put on a dagger. A word meaning (though inexactly, in English) any of several things: happy, mild, peaceful, calm, whole, to be safe. A word that was, in fact, her name: Salima, a version of her birth country's greeting: 'salaam alaikum'.

Shocked, confused, but questing to know, her hands shook as she worked to unwind the much-used leather thong that encased the handle. Shortly she could see gold shining like a secret beneath the unassuming covering. More frantic finger loosening later, and there they were (as she had expected, as she had feared), the dual divots meant to hold rubies. It was then she finally let it plummet to the floor as though it had burned her.

Her breath was uneven, her mind too stunned almost to process what she had found. It was the mate, beyond a doubt, the very twin of Carter's favorite dagger. For though it lacked the rubies in their settings, and though it bore an (unbelievable, unexpected, unexplainable) etching of her own name on the blade, there was no doubting its alikeness.

How had Llanio come to have this? Allan. How had Allan, who served Coeur-de-Lion, come to have this? And what, oh, what, did it mean? With still-trembling fingers she re-sheathed the blade hiding its timeworn inscription. Attempted, and failed, to re-lace the leather about the handle. Why disguise the grip of so fine a weapon?

Of Carter's dagger she had only known that it had been given to him as a gift from a friend back in England, in memory of his dead brother, Thomas, also a knight of Richard's. That he greatly treasured it. Its blade had been unadorned by etching or ornamentation. Its handle yet held its rubies, inlaid. And it lay with Carter, even now, under his Templar shield in the sands of his grave outside Acre, his body already buried before she had even yet seen him as a corpse.

How a matched set of Turk-crafted daggers came to be in possession of someone in England she did not know. How they then came to be separated, one, going to a Knight Templar returning to the Holy Land, the other, to a man masquerading at the French Court as a minstrel, was a conundrum she was well beyond solving. Had it but been a gift of the King, Carter would surely have told her, and then that part of the mystery solved: gifts of the King to those who served him. But it must have been someone else. What other Englishman could these two very different men in her life have in common, as they had her?

Then there was the riddle of her name imprinted as the timeworn inscription. Had Llan-Allan known that? Could he read and understand Arabic? She recalled when they first met him saying that he had been to the Holy Land.

She felt as though she were on the brink of unearthing something very important, sliding the last tumbler in place in a lock so that it might open. But she could not yet put her finger on the thing, nor decipher its central enigma.

Yet, without her consent, her heart latched on to a dim possibility, faint and improbable, and without her consent it grew there, within her, waiting for the moment in which she would choose to bring it into the light.

It was then, for the first time, that she began keeping secrets from Marian.

It would not be the only secret she kept.


SCENE: Outside the Lady Matilda's guarded chambers.

Salima is returning from somewhere, well in sight of the door (and the Queen's own guards) when Philip's knight Sir Gautier of Laurent-Thibault steps out to block her path.

He is a great hulk of a man. His clothes, though lavish and the height of style and sophistication, in fabrics soft as eiderdown, belie who the man wearing them truly is. His face and body are hardened by years of battle, and scarred as well. He is a tough man, a man who understands cruelty and is not above torture, should it prove both needed and a good time. He was an effective soldier when he served, and in his forced retirement has proven a favorite among royal circles who enjoy graphic stories from the wars and insatiable drinking companions. But there is still something thuggish about him, and in such circles the women he tends to attract are often ones used to mistreatment (or ones who must quickly become reconciled to it).

As he speaks, his tone is unexpectedly quiet, yet no less hostile or aggressive than their last encounter, witnessed by Allan in #39, "Keeping Secrets".

Salima is taken aback for a moment. She had forgotten how very light was the striking blue of his eyes.

Sir Gautier: You and I've unfinished business. [he shakes his amputated wrist in the air, to show where its hand would be]

Salima: [not wishing to speak to him at all][her tone hushed, her focus on the door] You should not blame me for the loss of it. For but the price of that hand you kept your life.

Gautier: And yet lost my position by Philip's side in battle, my honor [so he believes], the widowed marquise I was contracted to in marriage, her rich dowry, [his good hand flexes menacingly. Were it not for the guards he would have it wrapped vise-like around her arm] and...do not forget: you. For you were mine, Wench, until you bade the surgeon lame me so that I could not keep you.

Salima: [attempting a calm appeal to his sense of reason, her eyes subserviently averted to the floor] 'Twas because of your injury that Sir Lauric left you with your life that day, and Philip ordered you home.

Gautier: [done speaking of the past] I am no fool not to know that you are a particular favorite of Queen Eleanor. Though, it is said, not much of her Court's. I will forebear today, in the presence of her guards. But do not forget that I know you. For all that your current mistress the 'Lady' Matilda is the one among you who wears the badge of Richard's harlot, we know true, do we not, Salima, who the harlot really is? Though not the harlot of Coeur-de-Lion, even, nor any king. Nor under any king's true protection. [looks from side to side, shrugs] Nor any man's, as I can see. [stone-cold] I will have you as my payment for what I lost, Salima Fa'ataar, or I shall take it out of you in kind, as you well know that I can. [adds a curse in Arabic] Anta kalbee.

Seconds later and Salima is again alone in the passageway in front of the chamber door, the Guards, none the wiser, her only companions. Where it hides inside her garments, Allan's dagger burns like a heated poker lain against her skin.

...TBC...