He could hear that poxy beast periodically growl and even bark every now and again.
His sleep was unsteady, as it always had been on the ships to and from the Holy Land. He was not, like Robin, besieged solely by nightmares to mar his rest-the irregular (he never could quite normalize it to his liking) list and sway of the boat upon such vast water proved as much a challenge to him as fleeing thoughts of the horrors left behind.
This time, horrors of such a deeply personal nature-horrors that would follow them home, marring their return, perhaps breaking his master entirely.
No matter his eleventh-hour return, the betrayal of a friend, a comrade. Even, a sparring partner. And Lady Marian, left outside Acre along with so many other torturous images and lived-through experiences, her blood now forever mingled with those of Crusader and Saracen alike, her lifeless form-her incomprehensibly lifeless form-joining so many others beneath the desert sands.
Would Robin be able now, even, to think about it? Or would she-like those other hurtful, paralyzing memories-have to be buried deeply within him so that he might even carry on? Would she become yet another word they could never say between one another? Another necessary lode-bearing stone in the battlement of Robin's continued sanity?
He tried to shift, sleepily, uncomfortably, in his bunk, and nearly fell out of it.
It was likely near dawn when his hazy, wandering mind finally gave in to full sleep.
A cock crew somewhere in the distance, which his mind rendered as strange, as he seemed to recall-their sea journey nearly accomplished-they had eaten the sorry bugger at least two nights past.
He smelled dew on a meadow and a soggy English dawn, his eyes almost filling with tears as he passed through the stages of wakening. How he longed to be home. How he longed for the events he had so recently witnessed to be nothing more than shadows in a dream from which he needed rescue.
How his heart-his very soul-was the heavier for them.
He opened his eyes.
Before him was grass-good English turf-and dog-and Allan-A-Dale. Robin's own quiver and bow slung over his shoulder. He was crouching by said mongrel. No doubt the two worthless whelps understood one another.
"Who's a good boy, then, eh?" A-Dale asked the mongrel as he buried his hand in the scruff of its neck.
In slowly dissipating confusion, Much surveyed the others he had brought with him-his own, troublesome dreams receding as each moment passed. He looked at the outlaws' faces. 'It was only a dream,' he thought to reassure himself, 'and you were there,' he counted off A-Dale, 'and you, and you,' John, and Dan Scarlet's son Will. 'But not you,' he tallied the other three, their faces and bearings less familiar. Strangely, none of them had made an appearance in his terror-filled night.
The cold of the morning and the haste encouraged by his new forest acquaintances-the reminder that Robin was in need of a rescue-put his frightening night's sleep (if it could be called that) ever further into the past, harder to recall.
By the time he was poised to storm the dungeon it was so far distant it was unlikely he could have recounted his nocturnal experience at all correctly.
But it was all right, that. Forgetting was best. After all, he had learned long ago, dreams cannot truly hurt you. They come from nowhere and vanish like the mist. The only true terror was being trapped within them.
Surely this one would prove no different.