The Successor by Jennifer Campbell

None of the characters belong to me, unfortunately. I'm just
having a little fun and will return them, no worse for wear,
when I'm done. This story takes place early in Series 1. No
beta, so blame the typos on me.

This is the third chapter of probably four or five. So if you
enjoy this part, please check back in a few days for the next
installment. And I would love to hear your feedback.

#

As Alison gathered their empty plates, young Matthew kept them
entertained with another of his impressions. He screwed his face
into a tense, tight-lipped expression, with one eye bulging
larger than the other. He couldn't hold it for long, though, and
soon broke into a wide grin.

"And that's the Sheriff," he explained. "I saw him do that once
when he came to collect the taxes, when he got _really_ angry."

Robert chuckled, finding the comparison funny even though he
had never met De Rainault. Robin and Edward, though, laughed
uproariously, and Robin even ruffled the boy's thick hair.
Thoroughly please with himself, Matthew giggled.

Edward's son couldn't have been older than six, and he reminded
Robert so much of the younger children in Huntingdon: Energetic,
playful and much too perceptive for his age. Robert liked him
immediately, as he liked Edward and his wife. They had treated
him with graciousness and hospitality, offering what little they
had to a complete stranger without hesitation. That he had come
to respect this small family in so short a time surprised him,
that he could have such an attitude toward Saxon peasants.

Then again, he had never really bothered to know any peasants
before. He had always been taught they were too far below his
station to warrant his attention.

"I'm sorry we don't have more to offer," Alison said as she
finished clearing the tiny, roughly carved table. "We would have
had even less, though, if Robin's men hadn't brought in all
those rabbits earlier today."

"So that's how they spent the afternoon," Robin mused. "I had
wondered."

"There's no need to apologize, Alison," Robert offered, rubbing
his satisfied stomach. "The food was delicious. Thank you for
such a feast."

Alison raised her eyebrows. "Such manners. Robin, you should
have this young man teach your men a thing or two about
courtesy."

"I might just do that," Robin answered, winking at Robert. He
stood and gestured to Edward. "And now, Alison, if you'll let me
borrow your husband for a moment?"

Alison nodded, and Robin and Edward stepped outside the small
house. For the first time all evening, Robert felt slightly
uncomfortable, being left alone with Alison and Matthew, two
people he hardly knew. Then Matthew tugged on his sleeve in an
easy familiarity, and the tension dissipated.

"Do you really live in Lincoln, Thomas?" Matthew asked
excitedly, using the name Robert had given them upon his arrival
in Wickham. "Father says you're from Lincoln."

He nodded, inwardly wincing at the lie.

"I've always wanted to go to Lincoln. It sounds so _big_ and
exciting," the boy said. "And London, too. Have you ever been
there?"

"A few times," Robert answered with a small smile.

"Will you tell me about it?"

Alison laid a hand on her son's shoulder and smiled
apologetically at Robert. "I'm sorry if he's bothering you,
Thomas. Ever since we took him on a trip to Nottingham, he's
been obsessed with seeing other places."

"It's all right," Robert assured her, then looked to Matthew.
"London is amazing. Probably the biggest city I've ever seen.
The streets are lined with shops, and there are people
everywhere."

"Boys like me?" Matthew interjected.

Robert nodded and answered with all the excitement of a
storyteller. "Yes, boys like you. And grownups. And even lords
and ladies, lots of them. When their carriages go by, all the
people clear out of the way to watch them pass."

Matthew's eager expression fell. "Oh," he said dejectedly. "I
don't think I'd like London."

"What do you mean?" Robert couldn't figure out what he had said
to upset the boy. He had been trying to make London sound as
fantastic and magical as possible.

With a sad pout, Matthew bowed his head and refused to answer.
Alison sighed as she pulled him into her arms, into the
comforting embrace only a mother can give. "He's afraid of
Normans," she explained, her voice hushed, as though not to
further upset her son.

"But why?"

Matthew sniffled. "They come here and hit Father all the time.
They're mean, and they take our food and our money for no
reason."

"The _Sheriff's_ men do this?" At Alison's solemn nod, Robert
huffed. "Then there must be a good reason. The Sheriff is sworn
to protect and serve. Why would he act thus toward the people of
his shire?"

From the doorway, Edward spoke. "Greed. Greed and power. The
Sheriff, and Gisburne, care nothing for those who are so far
below them. Just last month, they arrested a man from a village
not far from here for letting his goats graze in the forest."

"But they let him go ..." Robert prompted.

Edward shrugged as he sat by his wife. "If they did, we've
heard nothing of it. I suspect he's still in the Nottingham
prison."

Alison nodded, and said, "And just last week, two soldiers
chased a 10-year-old boy for a mile for picking berries. They
thought he was poaching, and they might have done something
horrible if the boy hadn't found a place to hide from them."

Robert could only gape in amazement at the stories. Such
improbable tales, and yet, these people had no reason to lie. So
what if it were true, and the Sheriff allowed these things, why
was it happening? How could De Rainault, a man sworn to uphold
the king's laws, abuse his power so shamelessly? To chase a boy
for a mile, just for gathering food ... well, that simply
wouldn't do.

"Someone should bring this to the king's attention," Robert
pronounced. "He'll have the Sheriff replaced."

"And will he also replace every other sheriff and lord in
England?" Robin asked. "De Rainault's tyranny is not unusual."

_My father isn't like that_, Robert wanted to say, but he bit
back the words. Here, he was Thomas of Lincoln, not the son of a
Norman lord. For the first time he could remember, he felt
ashamed of his noble upbringing, and of the ruthlessness of his
people.

"Something should be done," he muttered.

"Something is done." Edward clapped a hand against Robin's
shoulder. "At least here in Sherwood, we have Robin Hood and his
men. They bring us food and money, and they protect us from
bandits and from the Sheriff himself. If not for Robin, we would
not survive as well as we do."

"I -- I'm sorry." Robert looked at each of them in turn. He
suddenly felt the need to apologize for his entire class,
although he knew that was impossible. "I didn't know."

"Nothing to be sorry about, lad," Edward said. "There's nothing
any one man can do to curb the Normans' power. Unless, of
course, you're Herne's Son."

#

Robert sat in the half-firm mud outside Edward's house, hardly
noticing anymore the grime that further ruined his clothes.
Stars splashed across the clear sky, and a light breeze ruffled
his hair. Most of the village huts were dark now, indicating the
people had all gone to bed. Robert, though, could not sleep, not
with these troubled thoughts.

He wrapped his arms tight against himself, pulled his knees to
his chest and stared blankly at the stars. The night wasn't
cold, but he felt a chill in his soul.

Were all Saxons like Edward and his family, trying to scrape by
despite the brutal treatment of their lords? Living a life that
was no life at all? No, they couldn't all be like Edward. Only
an exceptional man would have welcomed a stranger into his home
with so little reservation, only on the word of an outlaw.
Still, no man, Saxon peasant or Norman lord, deserved worse
treatment than the castle livestock.

No _man_ deserved it. Robert half-smiled at the thought. What
was it Robin had said? _The people of Wickham are no higher or
lower than you. They are human. We all are._ Maybe so, yet it
defied everything Robert had been taught. It defied his very
upbringing, and the blood flowing in his veins.

The sound of a soft footstep drew his attention, and he glanced
around, only to see Robin, watching him with questioning eyes.
The outlaw squatted beside him, rubbed his hands together and
looked up to the stars.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" he said casually. "I see them every
night, and yet I never get tired of them. When I was boy, I
believed my father must be up there, watching over me."

"He's dead?"

Robin nodded. "He died when I was about Matthew's age. Killed
by the Sheriff and his men."

Robert lowered his eyes. Yet another travesty of his people,
yet another wrongdoing to weigh heavily on his heart. "I'm
sorry."

"Why? You were hardly learning to talk when it happened."

"Because ..." He hesitated, searching for the right words.
"Because it's my people doing these things. I would have never
believed it except that, somehow, I always knew. There are
things that happen behind closed doors, and everyone who could
stop it looks the other way. I guess, in a way, I've always been
afraid to face it."

"You can't carry the burden of every Norman who ever cuffed a
man for an impudent word." He laid a broad hand on Robert's
shoulder. "All you can atone for are your own mistakes."

"Then I'm sorry for all the times I didn't stop soldiers from
hurting the people who live on my father's land. I'm sorry for
not caring about their position. And I'm sorry that I intended
to kill you." He eyed Robin frankly. "I've been so selfish,
thinking only of my own misery and desire for _glory_." He all
but spat the last word. "All I knew about Robin Hood were
stories of an outlaw breaking the king's law. I didn't
understand why you did it."

"And now you do?"

"Not entirely. But I'm learning."

Robin nodded with a weary sigh. "Most Normans, they're blind.
They go through life without ever seeing what is really
happening right under their noses. Or maybe they don't want to
see because they couldn't live with the guilt."

"Well, here is one less Norman for you to worry about." Robert
spoke with all the sincerity of his tired heart. "My eyes opened
tonight to the truth, and I won't ignore it. Not anymore."

"Good man," Robin murmured, then rose to his feet. "Edward has
offered to let us sleep in the mill tonight, so I suggest we
turn in. It's been a long day, and we must be up early tomorrow."

Robert obediently stood, brushed what little dirt he could from
his pants, and followed Robin across the village square, toward
the mill. Today had been traumatic enough, with its unexpected
twists and revelations. What more could tomorrow bring?

#

For all his young life, Robert awoke to the rooster, crowing in
the castle courtyard at the dawn of another day. Yet in Wickham,
either the rooster neglected his duty or there was none at all,
and so Robert slept long past sunrise, curled up in the mill
loft and blissfully unaware of the teeming village around him.

Finally, two men entered the building to tend the wheel, loudly
discussing their plans for the day, and Robert slowly struggled
to consciousness. His stretched out on the hay and groaned,
every part of his body in agony. He was accustomed to hard
riding, but the previous day's long walk through Sherwood -- and
a night without his soft bed -- had strained underused muscles
past their endurance.

"Hello?" said a voice from below. "Is someone up there?"

Robert leaned over the loft edge, slowly, so as to not further
aggravate his body, and waved at them. "It's only me."

The men looked at each other in confusion, then back at Robert.
"And who are you?"

Oh, yeah, Robert thought. He had only met a handful of people
here, and obviously not these men. "I'm Thomas, of Lincoln, here
with--"

He stopped short at that and looked around the empty loft.
Robin had stayed with him last night, but now the outlaw had
abandoned him with no warning. Then again, Robin Hood probably
didn't make a habit of sleeping in villages. He'd be back,
though, seeing as Albion was still sheathed in the scabbard by
Robert's side.

"You're here with who?" one of the men prompted.

"Edward." Robert named the villager for lack of any better
plan. "I'm here at Edward's invitation. Do you know where I can
find him?"

The men visibly relaxed, and one said, "He's in the fields with
the others. It's planting day, you know."

"How do I find the fields?"

Soon, with Albion clutched in his hand, Robert was passing
through the square and heading out of the village, back toward
the footbridge he and Robin had crossed the previous day.
Sunshine beat down from a clear sky, infecting Robert with its
cheerfulness. He felt refreshed, and free of the confining walls
and rules of Huntingdon. Now, if only he could find the man who
brought him here, this morning would be close to perfect.

He soon found the villagers working in a vast expanse of loose
dirt, creating shallow ruts, dropping in the seeds and then
smoothing the dirt back into place. A few of the women were
singing an energetic tune as they toiled. Even children helped.
Robert spotted Matthew softly patting down dirt at his mother's
side.

Robert stood at the field's edge, careful not to tread on the
newly planted seeds, and waved to Edward. The man wiped his
sweaty forehead as he approached. He seemed exhausted from the
hard labor, yet he still smiled.

"Thomas, glad to see you're awake." He clasped Robert's arm in
greeting. "I trust you slept well?"

"Like a rock." He nodded toward the field. "Is Robin helping
you? I don't see him ..."

"Robin left before first light. Said he had some things to do
but that he'd be back before long. He also said you might be
willing to get your hands dirty, out in the field."

Normally, the prospect of stooping to peasants' work would have
made Robert cringe, but not this morning. Not ever again. He
grinned and stretched his arms wide in preparation for, well,
whatever the villagers would have him do.

"Why not. I need to work out a few kinks."

Edward chuckled. "That's not surprising. Keeping up with Robin
would test any man's endurance." He gestured toward a worker in
the field, who came over to join them. "Thomas, this is Ethan.
He'll help you get started."

Ethan stood several inches taller than Robert, with shoulders
like a bear. He looked down at Robert as though he weren't worth
crushing in one beefy fist, and he nodded back toward the field.

"You better be a quick study because I don't have time to
explain things," he said. "We have a lot to get done today."

With that, he returned to the field without waiting to see
whether Robert would follow. Robert carefully laid Albion in the
tall grasses surrounding the planting field, assured himself
that it was out of sight, and then tromped out among the rows of
seeds. He and Ethan started by pacing up and down, sprinkling
seeds into already made ruts. It was mindless work, not to
mention sweaty and thirsty, but Robert enjoyed it just the same.
It made him feel appreciated, useful.

More than that, it lifted a tiny portion of the guilt weighing
on his heart, and it helped him to feel free.

#

Robin reached camp not long after daybreak, but already his men
had gone. All they'd left were the ashes of their burned out
campfire, and tracks headed toward the stream. They were
following his day-old trail. Robin had no doubts of their
ability to track him anywhere.

Eventually, his path would lead to the road, where he had met
Robert, and then to Wickham. He had other concerns this morning
than catching up with his gang, so he would meet them in the
village later, and give them a lecture about taking off on their
own -- without orders and without him.

He jogged from the abandoned camp at a comfortable, ground-
eating pace. The sun had not yet reached its zenith when Herne's
lair came into view. Despite the bright day, a perpetual mist
hung low over the lake, as though the forest god were standing
apart from the daylight itself.

Robin polled a small boat across the lake, into fog so thick he
could see no more than a few feet ahead of him. Yet he had come
this way so many times, he could navigate it blindfolded. The
boat teetered each time he shifted his weight, threatening to
pitch him into the black waters; still, he managed to stay
upright. The mouth of Herne's cave soon yawned before him, and
he directed his unstable craft through the opening and docked.

Herne, who had shed his antlered costume, greeted him with a
scowl. Without the trappings, he seemed only an old man, but
Robin had learned to know better. Here in his lair, with or
without his ancient symbols, Herne's power grew stronger than
ever.

"I did not call you," Herne snapped as Robin stepped off the
boat. "Why have you come?"

Robin gulped nervously but refused to lower his eyes, the
universal admission of wrongdoing. "I need your advice, Herne.
On Robert of Huntingdon."

Herne's expression softened a bit. "What is it you wish to know?"

"I have shown him the plight of the people of Sherwood, and
he's understood what he has seen. What should I do now? Lead him
back to Huntingdon?"

"When this is finished," Herne answered, "the boy must return
to his home. But the lesson is not yet complete."

"What must I do, then?"

"You can do nothing. Now, the pupil and the teacher become one
and the same. You have shown young Robert the path, but only he
can decide whether to walk it."

Robin's brows furrowed in confusion. "I don't understand."

"Come, then." Herne beckoned for him to follow, to the stone
altar and flaming brazier at the cave's center. He lifted a full
cup from the altar and set it in Robin's hands. "Drink, and more
will be made clear."

Robin slowly, almost hesitantly, lifted the cup to his lips.
The bitter liquid slid down his throat, like both ice and molten
rock. He began to feel lightheaded the moment it hit his
stomach, and his vision began to blur. He felt Herne lift the
cup from his hands.

"Look into the flame," Herne directed, and Robin obeyed. "The
flame will tell all. You see, how it is changing ..."

And Robin did _see_. Two blades, Albion and the earl's jewel-
encrusted sword, drifted side by side, drawn together yet not
quite connecting ... Albion, held tight in Robert's white-
knuckled fist, as two Nottingham soldiers bore down on him on
horseback, their swords drawn. Robert stood alone, so very
alone, and poised for a fight, as the two war horses raced ever
closer, closer, closer ... Robin's own gang ran into battle, on
an open field. The enemy outnumbered them two-to-one, and yet
they ran in with abandon, weapons drawn ... sword clashed, as
the outlaws faced soldiers on horseback, Gisburne himself fought
them, an expression of grit and arrogance marring his face. One
man went down with an arrow in his shoulder, yet Robin could not
tell who ... the scene faded, returned to the two swords, yet
this time they touched at the tip and melted into one another
until only Albion remained, shining bright as the sun.

All went dark, and Robin's vision cleared to become the flame
once again.

"It is done," Herne pronounced. "The seeing is over."

"Robert, and my men. They're in danger," Robin murmured. Unlike
with previous visions, this one carried a terrible sense of
urgency. Whatever would happen, he had little time to prepare.

"No matter what, the boy _must_ live." Herne's expression grew
intently serious. "You are the hope of the present, but he is
the hope for the future. Without him, all is lost."

Robin nodded. "I understand."

"Go, now," Herne ordered, "and do what you must. My blessings
go with you."