What you really must understand is that the Baron was not a stupid man. After the news of the second robbery reached his ears, he realized that there was going to be a long term problem. And that started to make him scared; he was worried that not only would he lose all his tax money, but that he would be removed from his Barony by King Duncan. The Rangers' visit had instilled a deep paranoia in his heart, and he knew that once King Duncan returned he would be imprisoned... or worse.

He had originally been hoping that everything would go unnoticed in King Duncan's absence, and that no officials would ever show up at his doorstep, but they had – and worse, they had left his office angry. If they had left happy, then the reprimand he faced would be much smaller. But now, now he knew that upon King Duncan's return he would be taken into custody and he would be imprisoned or killed.

And so all of his fear hinged on King Duncan's return. Of course, the king would return every so often to make sure his kingdom's affairs were in order.

Unless...

Unless he was trapped away from his kingdom. If he was trapped by winter, he wouldn't return to the kingdom for months to come. And so there was just the matter of how to ensure that King Duncan stayed away for as long as possible; how could the Baron get the king to stay in the Steppes until he was snowed in?

Simple. Make it impossible for the king to travel until winter had already set in. Now, there were several ways to do this, but the easiest and cleanest way would be a direct blow to the king himself. An injury that would keep him from moving for a few weeks would suffice. He didn't dare do something that would cause the king's death; no, then he would surely face his own execution. He just needed a distraction.

And that was why he hired Sir Guy of Gisborne, the very best marksman in the surrounding baronies that wasn't affiliated with the Rangers. He paid Sir Guy handsomely with the promise that Sir Guy would give the king a serious injury with a shot that would leave him in the Steppes until spring thawed the mountains.

And the best part? Sir Guy would shoot the king with a Ranger's arrow, so that the Rangers would be to blame for the king's injury. That way, once the king returned, those awful Rangers would be blamed and no one would listen to them about the Baron's own actions.

Yes, it was perfect. He would make that awful man, Robin Hood, the one they blamed.

And Sir Guy was very good at his job. He found one of the spare arrow shafts that the Rangers had left after ambushing one of the tax carriages and changed out the tip for a sharp one rather than the dull ones the Rangers had used to prevent serious injury.

That is how it came to be that Sir Guy shot King Duncan in his right shoulder – not his left, for fear of hitting his heart on accident – with an arrow that was undoubtedly a Ranger's arrow. But the detail that they missed was that the king had handed off the letter already, which would tell Mauch, Robin, Will, Halt, and Gilan they needed to arrest the Baron in three weeks' time.

No, the Baron was not a stupid man. But he was a fearful man. He feared not only the king's return, but he also feared Robin Hood. He feared the Robin Hood who had orchestrated the ambush of not one, not two, but four of his tax carts; he feared the Robin Hood who had been in the area unnoticed for who knows how long; he feared the stories and rumors of Robin Hood spreading in the streets. But his fear clouded his thoughts... He never did ask why the Robin Hood of the Rangers that he encountered in his office was a girl, but the stories were of a man. He never assumed they were the same person, he always thought they were different. He was wrong, but I suppose he was also right.

Robin Hood the girl was a child; she was young, she was fiery, she was rebellious, she had a temper that could kill... but more than anything else, she was vulnerable.

Robin Hood the man was an adult; wise; passionate; willing to learn, and more than anything else, wanted to help.

It was strange what a little disguise could do to her.

And so the Baron decided that he needed help. He needed someone who would be bribed by his taxes, someone who would do all his dirty work, someone who had next to no morals but would be loyal... And when he met sir Guy of Gisborne, he knew he had found the perfect man.

Sir Guy was tall and well-built, with somewhat greasy hair that curled at the nape of his neck. He had this rugged look to him and never seemed clean-shaven but also never had a full beard, and he had a deep sadness in his dark eyes that made him vulnerable and easy to manipulate. He looked intimidating and always carried a cleaned and polished sword in his belt, and it was never in a scabbard. It simply showed and glittered, which the Baron liked because if there was any blood on the sword, it would show for all the world to see. A bared blade held a certain malice that a covered one didn't, which was perfect.

The most valuable thing about Sir Guy was his personality, though. He was a rough sort of man, who had become jaded over his 34 years of life, and he had come to expect the world to hurt him in every way. His parents had died without updating their will, leaving Sir Guy with nothing but his title and resulting in everything they owned going to his older brother. The love of his life whom he had planned on marrying after 5 years of courting had died tragically in a fire, and he had watched her burn to death through a window too small for him to climb through and rescue her. That kind of thing left a man broken, hollow, and searching.

And those things made him easy to manipulate, and made him loyal to anyone who promised to fill the hole in his chest. It would be wrong of you to think that Sir Guy was a bad man. No, he was a sad man, a broken man, a tired man... a man who bad things happened to. He was not strong enough to maintain the dignity that his younger self would have wanted him to have.

All that he had left was the promise of the Baron: the promise that if Sir Guy helped the Baron get rid of Robin Hood, the Baron would give Sir Guy one twentieth of the taxes for so long as the Baron collected them, which would be enough for Sir Guy to buy himself a plot of land and rebuild his life. And that promise meant everything to Sir Guy, and he was willing to do anything – anything – to preserve it.

Even shoot the king.

Sir Guy shot the king from very far away, so as to avoid being seen, and he disappeared easily between the tents in the chaos after the king fell. It took him a week to return to the barony, which was around the same time that the messenger arrived – the messenger who had Duncan's letter.

Unfortunately, the messenger didn't know anything of what had happened on that fief, and it was his ignorance that would lead to one of the greatest catastrophes Robin Hood and his/her merry band of Rangers would ever see.

You see, under normal circumstances, the messenger would report immediately to the Baron to seek the location of any Rangers visiting the fief. If it was a native Ranger, then he would go immediately to their address, but because Halt was not the Ranger of Nottingham, he did not have an address associated with the fief. He did not know that Halt was in Sherwood Forest a few miles away, so he decided to report to the Baron as protocol stated.

The messenger and Sir Guy met while stabling their horses by the castle. When the messenger mentioned he had a letter for the Ranger Halt from King Duncan to deliver to the Baron, Sir Guy's ears perked up.

"I can give it to the Baron if you'd like. That's where I'm headed right now, actually," Sir Guy offered, staring down his nose at the messenger.

"Well, you see, sir, it's actually protocol that I give it directly to the Baron or get a new address from the Baron to deliver it to. It has sensitive information, you see," the boy squeaked out, uncomfortable with saying no to a man with such a large sword sticking out of his belt.

Sir Guy offered the boy a smile but the smile scared the boy more than Sir Guy's previous face. Sir Guy's smile was a broken smile that didn't reach his eyes, as though it took effort for his face to move out of its stern frown. It was more just showing his teeth than a smile, and the boy was completely convinced that Sir Guy was about to eat him alive.

"I'll escort you to him then, so you can go to an inn and rest as soon as possible," Sir Guy offered, dropping his smile stonily. The boy nodded, too scared to talk, and Sir Guy spun on the heel of his boot and exited the little stable. He pushed through the main entrance and up the stairs, not bothering to check if the boy was still behind him, and walked confidently into the room in front of the Baron's office.

The entry room was simple enough; it had several chairs for those waiting to see the Baron, although the chairs were almost always empty now, and there was a large desk which was always manned by a servant who served as the Baron's secretary.

"If you would let the Baron know that we are here to see him," Sir Guy said, smiling at the Baron's servant.

"Certainly," the girl got to her feet quickly, bowed, and scampered to the door leading to the Baron's office. She poked her head through, and her voice carried back to Sir Guy, "My lord? Sir Guy of Gisborne would like to see you."

"Send him in," the Baron bellowed, and the girl flinched backwards away from the door. She turned to face Sir Guy.

"He will see you now," the girl said, offering Sir Guy a timid smile. He smiled back, but it was that same dead smile that made the girl feel cold inside. He walked past her, tall and proud, and brought the messenger boy with him.

"What is it that you want? Was it success-" the Baron's voice cut off as he saw the boy with Sir Guy.

"My Lord," Sir Guy said, bowing his head in the Baron's direction. "This is one of the King's messengers. He has a letter to be delivered to the Ranger Halt."

The Baron's eyes flashed at Sir Guy, not fully understanding what Sir Guy was saying. But the Baron knew that Sir Guy was smarter than he, and had faith that whatever Sir Guy was doing had a good reason.

"Ah ha, I see," the Baron said. "Well, if you hand me the letter I will ensure its delivery."

The boy nodded, scurried up to the Baron's desk, handed him the letter, and then retreated back to Sir Guy's side.

"Was that all?" the Baron asked. The boy nodded. "Then please, go rest. I recommend the McMillan inn in the village. The best cheap housing in the area."

"Thank you, sir," the boy said. "Should I return at a later date for a reply letter to the King?"

"No, no, you rest. If Halt needs to reply, then we will deal with that at the time."

The boy nodded again and walked backwards out the door and disappeared. In the few moments of silence that followed, Sir Guy took the opportunity to gently shut the door. He turned to look at the Baron and stood behind one of the chairs.

"So, what precisely was that all about?" the Baron asked, fixing Sir Guy with a stern eye.

"Now we have a private letter from King Duncan to Halt," Sir Guy said, excitement in his voice. "Basically, this is our ticket into doing anything we could possibly want. We now know what the King was planning with Halt, we know what Halt told the King, and most importantly... we can change the contents of this letter."