SECRETS REVEALED

"Look how tall you're getting! How old are you now, Richard?"

"Grandfather, you know how old I am! I'm nine!"

"Nine? I don't believe it. You can't be."

Richard laughed. "I am, and Rodger's twelve, and Ghislaine's four. But I don't know how old Mother and Father are."

"Let's not talk about that," said Meg, as she gave her father and his wife Jane a smile and a wink.

Richard was indisputably her father's favourite grandchild, and she could understand his appeal. Richard was her easy-going, sunny-natured child. He was tall and slim, all long arms and legs, brown-haired and brown-eyed, with a warm smile and infectious laugh. And he simply adored his grandfather.

"The little businessman", her father called him. No grandiose dreams of high adventure for Richard. He loved nothing better than to spend the day in Grandfather's shop, greeting the customers and fetching orders. He had all of Guy's charisma without his dark temper, which never failed to charm female shoppers of all ages.

Her father didn't warm up to Rodger as easily as he did to his younger brother. Perhaps, Meg thought, it was because Rodger looked so much like Guy, and had much of the same inscrutable disposition.

Her relationship with her father had been quite strained for a time after her marriage to Guy. He had been very displeased with his daughter's engagement to "the most notorious man in Nottinghamshire", as he rather ungraciously called Guy when he got the news, and the marriage finally had to take place without his full approval and consent.

Jane had proved a true ally and friend to her stepdaughter, however. She made much of Guy whenever he came to the house, and went out of her way to make him feel comfortable and welcome in their family.

The arrival of the first grandchild had eased the tension considerably, especially when her father saw how ecstatic Guy was over his firstborn son. When she gave birth to Richard, while Guy was in prison, her father and Jane had been at Gisborne Hall nearly every day to offer support.

Since those difficult days, Richard had remained her father's pet. He and his wife had no children of their own, and so Richard had taken the place of the son her father lost in death along with his first wife. They even shared the same name.

My brother Richard was about this same age, thought Meg, when he died of a fever. Our mother followed him only a few days later. I don't know how my father and I got through it, but somehow we did, though life was never the same afterward. It's only now, all these years later, that we are happy again as a family—he with Jane, me with Guy and our children.

At least it was easy for us to pick a name for our second-born son. I wanted to name him after my brother Richard, and Guy wanted to name a son after King Richard, in gratitude and respect for the memory of the king who spared his life and pardoned him.

We compromised on our daughter's name. Ghislaine, for Guy's mother, and her middle name Elisabeth, for my mother. I'm thankful he didn't insist on naming her Isabella.

Meg watched as Richard and Ghislaine unwrapped the new toys that Jane had bought for them, and smiled at their squeals of delight. Her stepmother had fallen very naturally into the role of grandmother, and delighted to spoil the children with gifts and special attention. She had a gift for Rodger, too, but he wasn't there to receive it.

"They should be back very soon," said Meg, to her father's concerned inquiries. She sat Ghislaine, clutching tight to her new doll, on her lap. "Rodger's looking forward to supper because you ordered his favourite meal. He wouldn't miss that for anything. Growing boys and their appetites, you know."

Guy's in town to pick up a coat, she thought, and Rodger went with him because he loves to be with his father. He wants to be just like him—to dress like him, walk like him, adopt his mannerisms. He's so thrilled over those new boots of his. He'll outgrow them in less than a year, very likely, but Guy wanted his boy to have them anyway.

I'm glad that Rodger is with him. It eases my fears when one of us accompanies him into town. There's less chance for trouble when he has his wife and children beside him. I know he carries a weapon. He probably thinks I don't know about it, but I do. I can't stop him from carrying one, I just hope he's never tempted to use it.

Why does he think he has to hide things from me? Silly man. I always find out anyway, he should know that by now. But I'm more concerned about the things he hides from Rodger.

I'm one to talk, though. I hide things from our children, too. I tell Rodger and Richard stories about my childhood, but not the truth of how it really was.

How can I tell them that my world fell apart when my mother and brother died? How can I explain to them that the grandfather they love wasn't there for me when I needed him, that he was too wrapped up in his own grief to comfort his surviving child? He left me to the care of my nurse and the housemaids. When I went to him, unable to understand why my mother and brother were gone, he pushed me away. I grew up believing that he wished I'd died instead of my brother. I know now it wasn't true. It was unfair to think such a terrible thing of him, but that's how I felt as a child.

I tried to fill my mother's shoes, but he didn't want a dutiful daughter to look after him, he wanted a wife. He made that promise to my dying mother not to marry again until I was married. He kept his promise for many years, but it angered him. He couldn't wait for me to be old enough so he could pawn me off on the first eligible bachelor who made his interest known.

I fought against his scheme tooth and nail. How I fought against him! I'm so glad of it now. I won. In the end, I married the man that I chose for myself, even though that man was one my father could not at first accept.

We've made our peace with each other now, my father and I, and he's accepted Guy as much as he can. He'll never be truly happy that Guy is my husband, but Guy knows that, and he's accepted it as well. He's made his own peace with it, as he has with many other things he can't change.

Guy can't change his past, the things he's done that he regrets, but he can't go on forever pretending those things never happened, either. Our son has to be told the truth sooner or later, or he'll hear it from other people. Better to learn the truth from his father than from a stranger.

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"Did you know your father's a murderer?"

Rodger was so shocked that he couldn't move or speak.

"He killed my grandfather. My father told me he did."

Rodger drew his breath in with a gasp, and found his voice. "I don't know what you're talking about! My father never killed anyone!"

"He did so," the boy continued. "Your father worked for the old Sheriff, Vaisey. Ever heard of him?"

Vaisey. Yes, he'd heard of him, many times. But what did this have to do with his father killing someone? Killing someone? Never! Impossible!

Rodger slowly nodded. "I've heard of him."

"He killed lots of people, and your father helped him do it. Ever heard of the Treeton Mine?"

Rodger nodded again. His father had taken him past that mine one day, and warned him to be careful of the pits in the ground that he could fall into. It was all closed up now, deserted, and had been for years, many years, long before he was born.

"My father took me there. He told me it collapsed, and no one works there anymore."

"It didn't collapse. Your father's a liar and a murderer both! Robin Hood and his men blew it up to keep any more miners from being killed!"

Rodger stared at him. Uncle Robin blew up the mine? With Allan, and Little John, and the others?

"My grandfather was a miner," the boy continued. "The mines weren't safe, and he told them so. A whole bunch of men got killed that day, so he told Sheriff Vaisey and your father that the miners were on strike. Vaisey told your father to kill my grandfather, so he did. Stuck a knife in him right in front of everyone. My father was there and saw it."

Rodger moved away from him. "You're—you're crazy! You've got the wrong person! I don't know what you're talking about, but my father never killed anyone!"

The boy stepped forward and pushed him in the chest. He was smaller than Rodger, but quite strong, and the blow was painful.

"He did so, sissy boy! Your father killed my grandfather!"

Rodger stumbled back. Father had told him not to fight with other boys, but what was he to do? This boy clearly wanted a fight. He grabbed hold of Rodger's tunic, and as Rodger twisted away from him, the cloth gave way and tore down the front.

What might have happened next, Rodger didn't know, but suddenly, to his relief, his father was there.

"What's this? What's going on?"

"He hit me!" cried the boy.

"No, I didn't!" answered Rodger. "Father, he—"

"Come on, let's go," said Father. He turned back to the boy. "Go on, get out of here! Go home!"

The boy fled, and Rodger and Guy mounted their horses. They were half-way to his grandfather's house before Rodger remembered that he'd never gotten a gift for his mother.

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"Goodness, what happened?" asked his mother when they got to Grandfather's house.

"It was nothing," Rodger muttered.

"Nothing? Your new tunic is all torn!"

"He got in a fight with a boy in the market," Father told her.

"I didn't fight him, Father! He shoved me and tore my shirt. It wasn't my fault. I didn't hit him."

"I know you didn't," his father answered. "I saw that much. But he was angry about something. What did he say to you?"

Rodger could not answer with the truth. He knew the accusation was false, he knew it! It had to be! Father never—

"It wasn't anything, Father. Just a little misunderstanding, that's all."

"That's all?"

"Yes. Please, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Meg laid her hand on Guy's arm when she saw that he was about to press the matter further.

"Let it drop, Guy. It's over with now, and no one got hurt. The tunic can be mended easily enough. It's just boys being boys."

Rodger sat silently through supper, and picked at his food. His parents and his siblings, and Grandfather Wallace and Grandmother Jane, laughed gaily and ate the delicious meal, but he had no appetite. He watched his father instead. He couldn't take his eyes off his father. His father, who was smiling and chatting amiably with Grandfather as if he hadn't a care in the world.

"Your father killed my grandfather."

No! No, there was some mistake! That Nottingham boy had his father mixed up with someone else. He'd heard some wild story about some other man who worked for Vaisey, and was passing it along just to be hateful. Why? He'd never seen the boy before. He hoped he'd never see him again.

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Later, when the family returned to Gisborne Hall, he went up to his room, without saying goodnight to his mother and father, and lay down on his bed.

This will be over and forgotten by morning, he told himself. It's nothing but a bad dream. That boy just wanted to be mean to me. Some people are like that, mean and spiteful for no reason. It's stupid and not worth thinking about. I'm going to forget all about it.

He slipped the torn tunic over his head, and pulled off his new boots, the ones that looked just like Father's. He blew out the bedside candle, and climbed under the covers of his bed. He shut his eyes tight, pulled the blanket over his head, and lay very still, willing himself to sleep.

It was no use. He rolled onto his back and stared up into the darkness, while the strange boy's face, and his words, played over and over in his mind.

"Your father killed my grandfather. He stuck a knife in him and killed him. He's a murderer, a murderer, a murderer…"

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Author's Note: Those of you familiar with the TV series ( I'll assume that's most, if not all, of you!) will undoubtedly recognize elements of one of the episodes in this scene. A hint? Think Season 1, episode 5, "Turk Flu". In the opening scene, there's been an accident at the Sheriff's Treeton Mine. One of the miners, urged on by his teenage son, threatens Gisborne with a strike. An argument ensues. When Sheriff Vaisey arrives, he taunts Guy with the remark "you're giving them choices, Gisborne?" Guy then kills the leader of the strike in front of his son and the other miners (not one of Guy's finer moments, obviously).

The young man from the previous chapter of this story, seen standing in a doorway in the marketplace with a boy beside him, and looking at Guy and Rodger with unfriendly eyes, is that miner's son, Rowan ( as an adult man now), and the unnamed boy that follows Rodger and confronts him here is his son.

Drama and angst, as promised. Stay tuned for more!