"Is everyone alright?" Robin asked, when he and Marian returned to the room holding his men. His eyes thankfully took in all of them, including Allan and Will, who had completed their searches before he'd completed his. So, it hadn't been any of them thrown from the castle battlements! Robin was thankful, yet continued to fervently pray it wasn't his king's body lying at the bottom of the gorge.
"Where's Friedrick?" Marian anxiously asked. A feeling of dread washed over her as she imagined her charming, witty friend pulled from the room to be hurled from the top of the castle.
"He's taking confession," Much explained, still dressed as a nun in Marian's wimple. "Which, I must say, ought to take awhile, with all the crimes these horrible people commit! And we thought Sheriff Vasey was bad! Well, he is, but-"
"Shut up!" Allan told him. "Robin, I found where they keep their treasure."
"Good work," Robin said, yanking the wimple off Much's head and handing it back to Marian. "Did you see who it was these monsters threw into the gorge?"
"I did," Will told him. "Some poor man we don't know."
"Not the king then," Robin said, relieved. "Did either of you find any trace of him?"
"Nothing," both men confirmed.
"He isn't in the dungeon," Marian told the others, not wanting to be left out.
"Tell me about the treasure," Robin invited Allan.
"It's in a chest too heavy for even me to lift, in the last room down the corridor."
"The room's unlocked?" Robin asked.
"Yeah. I thought that kinda suspicious, since this door locks."
"It's probably a trap," Robin decided. "Good thing you didn't take anything, or it might be you lying broken at the bottom of the gorge."
"Who says I didn't?" Allan asked. "Look at this!" With shining eyes, Allan pulled a jewel from beneath his robe.
Robin's eyes changed, and Much said, "I know that! The king used to wear it when he entertained important guests in his tent, in the Holy Land! Remember, Master? He used to wear it as a clasp on his cape. Unbelievable! What's it doing here?"
"He must be here," Robin said, thinking out loud. "We need to search again. All of us this time, in pairs."
Much knew that Robin would go with Marian, and he'd be stuck with Little John.
"Get the treasure," Robin told them. "Throw the chest out a window. We'll collect it on our way out."
"What if there isn't a way out?" Much wondered anxiously. "Other than, of course, being thrown down ourselves."
Used to his rantings, everyone ignored him.
"Where are we going?" Marian asked her husband.
"We'll search the turret. Seems a likely place to keep a royal prisoner."
"The highest place in the castle," Marian agreed.
Stealthily, they made their way up the circular stone staircase in the castle turret. Like everything else in Castle Aggstein, it was falling into decay. "Careful," Robin warned, as the step under his feet shifted. At last they reached the top.
King Richard was nowhere to be found, but the room at the top of the turret was filled with weapons.
"Rusty," Marian said, lifting a sword to test its weight and balance.
Robin was more interested in the bows and arrows.
"You can't shoot those," Marian mentioned. "The bowstrings have rotted."
"I might get one shot off this before it breaks," Robin realized, grabbing the only strung bow.
Marian watched as he tied one end of a rope to a wooden pillar and the other end to an arrow. "It never hurts to have a backup plan of escape," he told her.
"Robin, that rope will never reach the ground."
"It doesn't have to," he said, lifting the bow and firing off his shot.
The bowstring broke, but his arrow lodged exactly where he'd aimed it.
Looking out the window, Marian found the arrow stuck in the base of a sturdy tree halfway down the mountain.
It had only taken Robin a minute, but Marian felt it had been a waste of time. "We need to keep searching," she reminded her husband, "not showing off with a bow." She was instantly sorry she'd said it, seeing the hurt in his eyes. But there wasn't time to apologize. They had a king to find. At least now they were armed with swords.
Racing down the circular staircase, they were alarmed to be met by a man they guessed was the Baron and both his sons coming up. Odo must have awakened from his stupor and freed himself by rubbing his bonds against the tree where Robin had tied him. Robin took on the baron and Odo, leaving Marian to fight the one-eyed, twisted backed Siegfried. Although outnumbered and hampered by their costumes, they nonetheless gained the advantage, pushing the evil trio backward step by dangerous step. They had nearly reached the staircase's bottom, when the baron and his sons were joined by three of their soldiers.
Now they were being forced back up the stairs. Six against two were terrible odds, and even with Robin knocking Odo's sword from his hand and Marian's blade scratching Siegfried's arm, they knew they were beaten.
Marian wondered at Robin seeming to retreat, until she remembered the rope tied to the arrow. Along with him, she hurried back up the staircase.
Reaching the top of the turret, Robin threw his sword out the window, then picked up an unstrung bow and placed it over the rope. "Hold onto me," he told his wife, who dropped her sword and quickly obeyed.
Marian had watched Robin soar upon the wind's back at least twice before, his bow sliding down a rope as he gripped it, but she had never had the exhilarating experience of sharing the ride.
"Watch out," he warned her, steering the bow so as not to crash into the tree. All the same, they slid several more feet down the mountain before regaining their footing.
Marian hugged her husband tightly. "I'm sorry I said you were showing off," she apologized.
Their delight in one another was interrupted by a startled cry from above. Looking up, they saw Count Friederick being held by two soldiers on the castle battlements.
"Tell Ermy I am sorry!" the count cried, spying the couple below.
Marian's eyes filled with tears, expecting to see her friend hurled to his death. But Robin seized the sword he had thrown to the ground and threw it upward, to knock against the heads of the two soldiers. In their pain and surprise, they released the count and fell backwards.
It was the exact way Marian had seen Robin free Much, the day he had become an outlaw.
In very little time, the rest of Robin's gang as well as the count began streaming from the castle and racing down the mountain. Together and unharmed, they continued down the steep rocky path.
"They'll begin firing arrows at us soon," Much worried.
"Not with unstrung bows they won't, " Robin laughed.
"How you can laugh at a time like this is..." Out of breath and terrified, Much struggled to find the right word. "Well, it's just...it's... There is something wrong with you, you know."
They stopped when they reached the treasure chest, broken at the bottom of the mountain. Robin peeled his monk's robe off over his head. Marian had long since thrown off her wimple.
"Use your robes to carry as much treasure as you can," Robin instructed, holding his robe like a sack and filling it. "This will go a long way toward His Majesty's ransom."
"Do not be disappointed," Count Friederick told him. "I learned, doing confession, your king isn't here."
Robin looked gratefully at him. "Thank you," he said, breathing out a sigh.
"My thanks go to you," Count Friederick answered. "if it wasn't for your strong arm and perfect aim, it would be me spilled out here, instead of this treasure. I am eternally in your debt, Robin Hood. And eternally your friend."
Robin grinned. "And you, my friend, have more than earned your way into our gang. What do you say, lads?" Upon his men's agreement, Robin pulled a wooden tag from around his neck and handed it to the count.
Smiling, Marian kissed Count Friedrick on his cheek. "Welcome to our gang," she said.
"Perhaps another kiss, to make it official?" he asked hopefully.
"Don't push it," Robin warned, though he, like his wife, wore a smile.
"What can I say?" Count Friederick asked, "But, 'We are Robin Hood!' "
"We are Robin Hood," the gang repeated, in unison.
"On to Durnstein," Robin told them. "We still have a king to rescue."