The two highwaymen from earlier were hiding in the foliage on the side of the rode. One of them parted the bushes with a rustle and poked his head through.
"Look, other highwayman, there's one of Robin's men!" he whispered.
"Sigh," sighed the merry man, leaning on his longbow sadly. "Anne de Shiteleu... she's so beautiful... she is the perfect woman... oh, if only she could love me!"
"Anne de Shiteleu?" whispered the highwayman's companion, also thrusting his face out. "The world's greatest escort?"
"Who's there?" cried Robin's man.
The highwaymen drew back into the bush.
"Hurry!" whispered the first one to his companion. "Pretend to be birds!"
The highwaymen made tweeting sounds. Robin's man sloped his shoulders and relaxed.
"Thank goodness. It's just some men hiding in the bushes pretending to be birds. I was afraid of highwaymen. Well, I must go back to the tower and guard Anne de Shiteleu now!"
Once he was gone, the senior highwayman exploded out of the bush, bugged-eyed and clenching and unclenching his fists.
"Anne de Shiteleu! The King's whore! She's a Protestant or a Catholic, I'm pretty sure!"
"Yeah!" said his buddy. "And I'm a Catholic!"
"And I'm a Protestant, so we much team up to kill her."
"Good idea," was the reply. "But we'll need a few thousand more men."
"Thankfully we already had ten thousand other men with us in the bush. Let's go to the tower."
Meanwhile, Anne de Shiteleu was crying at Robin's feet in the highest room of the tower.
"Please, let me escort myself," she cried brokenly, medieval mascara running down her face. "I'm too epic and goddess-like for this treatment. My sordid smut stories have two one-star reviews on Amazon. I am famous."
"No can do," said Robin Hood, buffing his nails against his tunic. He held them out and examined them in the torchlight idly. He yawned. "You're staying right here. So long!"
Suddenly there was deafening explosion. The room shook and loose stones fell from the ceiling.
"What was that?" cried Robin.
Anne de Shiteleu ran to the window. She trembled and her knees knocked together.
Why?
Because there was an army of pro/anti-Catholic/Protestant mercenaries attempting to breach the tower.
ANNE DE SHITELEU WAS BESIEGED AND PREGNANT.
