A DIFFERENT WAY OF SEEING

"He's not anywhere in the village, you say? Are you sure you searched everywhere, Robin? At every cottage?"

"He's not in Locksley, I'm telling you! He wouldn't have taken his pony if he meant to hide out close to home."

"That's true. Then where is he?"

"If I knew, I'd tell you, wouldn't I? Have you heard from Allan?"

"Yes. He just got back from Bonchurch. Rodger hasn't been seen there, either. And he's not at his grandfather's. My father-in-law offered to help us look, but I suggested that he stay there in case Rodger shows up at his house later."

Guy shook his head in frustration. "Where else haven't we looked?"

Robin shrugged. "You don't suppose he's somewhere else in Nottingham? Or Sherwood?"

"It's so cold tonight. If we don't find him soon—" Guy looked over at Robin. His eyes were haunted by fear. "If anything happens to him, I'll never forgive myself."

"Guy, we'll find him. Let's check back home once more. If he's not there, then I think we should ride to the orphanage, just in case Eleanor was right."

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"No, Guy, I'm not going to stay home and wait any longer, and don't you dare argue with me about it! I'm coming with you. Anna can look after the other children."

"If you're going with them, Meg, I am, too," added Marian, with a look at Robin that plainly said not to argue with her, either. "Eleanor, I want you to stay here for now, and wait for us."

"Why can't I come?"

"Because you can help us more by staying here. If Rodger comes back home, you can let Reggie know, so he can send us word."

Eleanor sighed with resignation, and sat back down. Rodger wasn't coming home on his own, at least not this night. If, by some miracle, he came to his senses and returned home, Anna could tell Reggie, couldn't she? They just didn't want her tagging along, that was it. They'd already wasted hours searching for him instead of going straight to the orphanage. They could have been there and back by now, with Rodger in tow, if they'd listened to her in the first place!

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Warm, sleepy, wrapped in a heavy blanket and with his stomach full of hot porridge, Rodger watched Little John stir up the fire and add a few more sticks of wood.

Some of the orphans were out of their beds and eating their breakfasts in the adjoining dining hall. The muffled clatter of cups and bowls, and the delicious smell of freshly baked bread, drifted through the door. He and John were the only occupants of the kitchen, however, and John had locked the door to keep out any unwanted interruptions.

"So, your father and Robin finally told you the story, did they? I knew they were plannin' to."

John glanced at him over his shoulder. "How much did they tell you?"

The question, though spoken softly, jolted Rodger out of the pleasant lassitude that had settled over him. Fully awake, he sat upright in the seat, and tried to recall the words his father had spoken moments before he'd run out of the house.

'I was not a good man. I did things I'm ashamed of.'

Father hadn't said much, when he thought about it. Uncle Robin had done most of the talking. Father hadn't openly confessed to anything, either, except that, long in the past, he had hated and tried to kill Uncle Robin. Robin had admitted he'd once felt the same hatred for Father, but neither Marian nor Robin appeared to hold a grudge against him. There was the miner, of course. No one had denied that Father killed the miner who led the strike. Was there more to the story, more behind Father's admission of shame and remorse?

"He—he didn't tell me very much," he said, as John hung the fireplace poker back up and sat beside him. "There was this boy, from Nottingham."

Rodger told John about the day in the marketplace when the strange boy had revealed Father's role in his grandfather's murder. John's face was grim as Rodger recounted the tale.

"I remember that day," John said after Rodger finished his story. "Robin and the other lads and myself made an end to the Sheriff's mine, but not before several men died."

"My father killed that boy's grandfather, didn't he?"

"Aye, he did."

Rodger bowed his head. "I was hoping it was a lie," he murmured.

"You have to understand, Rodger. Things were, well, they were different back then. Nottingham wasn't like it is now, or Locksley, either. Your father did as he was ordered. He was under the authority of Sheriff Vaisey. Under his control, you might say."

"Did he kill anyone besides the miner?"

"I'm sorry, lad, but yes, he did."

Rodger was silent as he stared into the fire, his arms wrapped tight around his body under the blanket. John felt the boy's pain as though he'd been struck in the face himself, but there was nothing he could do to soften the blow for Rodger. Neither he, nor anyone else, could change the past.

He thought back to the day when he'd traveled to Locksley to see Guy and Meg's firstborn. Guy's unconcealed delight, as he showed off his new son to John, was such that, for the first time in their relationship, he'd envied the man.

Now, twelve years later, it struck him all over again—the almost uncanny resemblance between the boy and his father. For a fleeting moment John had the strange, unsettling feeling that he had somehow gone back in time, and was seated beside, not Rodger, but Guy's younger self. Rodger was everything that Guy might have been once. Sheltered, trusting, largely innocent, before Sir Rodger went away to the Crusades, and young Guy of Gisborne's secure and happy world began to crumble and fall.

The same thing, it seemed, was about to happen to Rodger, and John grieved for him—for the wounded innocence, the disillusionment, the betrayal of trust he saw in his eyes. He put a comforting arm around the boy and pulled him close. Rodger, fighting back tears, rested his head against John's strong shoulder.

He traveled all night in the bitter cold to come to me, thought John. Not to Allan, or his grandparents, or one of the villagers, but to me. This heartbroken son of my former enemy needs to know the truth, good and bad, about his father, before his trust in the man is destroyed forever. I'll tell him, of course. Whatever I can, or should.

But what the lad really needs is to go back home. He must hear the whole truth from his father, not me.

"Why, Little John?" Rodger asked. "Why did he do those things?"

"I want to tell you something," said John. "We all have regrets. Your father made more than his share of mistakes, but Robin did, too. So did I. I left my wife and my son when I became an outlaw."

Rodger stared up at him. "You have a wife? And a son?"

"Her name was Alice. The best wife God ever gave a man, and I left her, and my son John. I left them and ran off to hide out in Sherwood. I didn't take care of them. I wasn't there to raise my son. They're with another man now, far from here. I'll never see them again."

Rodger's head began to spin as he adjusted his view of Little John. He'd never heard anything about his wife and son! Was there no end to the disturbing secrets to be revealed about his family and their friends?

"When I met Robin I was livin' in Sherwood, if you want to call it livin', with a few other men like myself. We were all outlaws hidin' from the Sheriff. You said your father told you he wasn't a good man. I wasn't a good man, either. I wasn't like Robin. I robbed poor people as well as rich, and I hurt people, Rodger. It was Robin who changed all that for me. He brought our gang together and gave us a work to do that we could be proud of."

"Why did you get outlawed?" Rodger asked.

"That's a long story, and not one I want to share with anyone. It's better left unsaid."

"Oh."

"We all have times in our lives we'd like to forget about. The older you get, the more you'll understand what I mean."

"Uncle Robin said that he and Father hated each other once. Did you hate my father, too?"

"We all did, me and the other lads and Robin, and half the people of Nottinghamshire, too."

"I know some people don't like my father. When we go into Nottingham, I see people look at him like they're angry. Is it because of the things he did?"

"Well, lad, you can't really blame them, can you? He worked for Sheriff Vaisey for years. I won't lie to you. He did some pretty rotten awful things when he worked for the Sheriff."

"What changed? Why is he your friend now?"

"What changed? Well, sometimes it's a question of walkin' a mile in someone else's shoes, or boots in our case."

"What do you mean?"

"It means you try to see the world through someone else's eyes. It's a different way of seein', you might say. You start to understand why they do the things they do. That's what happened with your father and us."

"I guess I really don't know much about my father. He never talks about his life before he married Mother and had my brother and sister and me. He changes the subject if I try to ask him questions."

"I'm not surprised. It's painful for him, for all of us who lived through those days."

"How did you and my father become friends?"

John chuckled. "It all started 'cause he saved my life."

"He did?"

"Aye, more than once. The first time was when we rescued your father, and your mother, from Sheriff Isabella."

"Who was she?"

John saw his bewildered expression, and smiled kindly at him.

"You haven't heard that story either, lad? I can see there's a lot they haven't told you yet."

'There's a lot they haven't told you.' Rodger suddenly realized that his father had been trying to tell him the story when he'd run out the door. For the first time that night, he began to have misgivings about his hasty exit from the family home.

"I had an aunt, Isabella, my father's sister, but he never talks about her. She died a long time ago."

"I'll let them tell you that part of it, then," John answered. "It's a long story, and best if it comes from them. But your father saved my life while we were escaping from Nottingham."

He told Rodger the story. "The guard would've killed me if not for your father."

"Did he kill the guard?"

"No, lad, he didn't. He knew the man, you see. Ralf DeBracy was his name."

"I know him!" cried Rodger. "He's Father's friend in Nottingham!"

"I like Ralf, too," said John. "I'm not holdin' a grudge against the lad for what he did. He was under orders, like your father. He was just doin' his job."

"Whenever I ask my mother about our family, she always says it's complicated. I think I'm starting to understand what she means now."

"Your mum's a smart lady. You'd best listen to her."

"You said Father saved your life more than once?"

"Aye. He saved most of the men of Nottingham at the siege. He held off Prince John's army while Robin got the men into the castle."

"All by himself?"

"All by himself, lad. He held the gates of Nottingham against the prince's soldiers. Hundreds of them, mind you. He got hit with arrows and cut with lances, but he stood his ground, Rodger. He saved all of us, and then he helped Robin kill the Sheriff. Your father was a bad man in many ways, but not that day. That day he was a hero."

"He was trying to explain things to me when I ran out the door, wasn't he?"

"It sounds like it to me."

"I guess I didn't give him much of a chance to explain." Rodger hung his head. "I didn't want to hear it," he whispered. "I didn't want to know about—"

He turned back to John. "What should I do?"

"You do what you feel is right, Rodger. I can't tell you what to do. You're not a little boy anymore. You're old enough to make up your own mind. What do you think you should do?"

Rodger pondered the question for a moment, before looking back at John with an earnest intensity so much like Guy's that John couldn't help but smile.

"I shouldn't have run away, John. I should have stayed and listened to him. I-I think maybe I should go back home."

"I'll tell you what I know to be true. Your father loves you. You're the most important thing in his life. You're the ones he lives for now, you and your mum and your brother and sister. He loves you, and he takes care of you the best way he knows how. That's more than I did for my son."

Rodger thought about all the things his father had done for him. He thought about his home, his warm and comfortable home, and the estate that would someday be his. He thought about his beautiful pony, and his new boots that looked just like Father's. His brother and sister. The generosity Father showed toward the villagers of Locksley. How kind and loving Father was to Mother. How proud his father was of the Gisborne name….

"Your father's a brave man, Rodger, but it was the hardest thing in the world for him to find the courage to tell you about the bad things he's done. I know. He talked it over with me not long ago. He was so afraid you'd be ashamed of him."

"Ashamed? No, I'd never be ashamed of him, John! I-I love my father, but, but he's—"

"He's not the man you thought?" John finished. "No, I expect not. But he's not the man I once thought, either. I hated him, Rodger, for years. But things changed. We got thrown together, your father and I. We had a common enemy in the Sheriff. We found ourselves working together, with Robin. That's when I really got to know him, and I saw that he had another side to him, a better side. Perhaps you need to give him another chance, too. Sit down with your father and let him explain things to you. Hear him out, let him talk. It'll be hard, for both of you, but you need to. You both need to. You just might find you like him all the better for it."

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"How much further, Robin?"

"It's about another five miles from here, more or less, if I remember. Cold, my love?"

"I'm okay. How about you, Meg?"

"I'm fine."

Meg smiled at the question. How could she possibly be cold when she was seated on the saddle in front of her husband, with a cloak, a shawl, and Guy's arms wrapped protectively around her? The only place she felt cold was in the pit of her stomach, and that was a chill nothing could warm until they found their son and he was safe.

"I just hope Rodger's there, with John. If he isn't, where else could he be?"

"We'll gather more men from the village in the morning," said Guy, "and widen the search."

"Wait, wait, stop!" cried Marian.

"What is it?"

"Someone's coming. I hear a horse."

"You've got better ears than me, Marian."

"Look, there's a light up ahead."

"I think you may be right."

"Don't be silly. Of course I am."

They halted, and waited for the rider to appear. A young man, mounted on a cart horse and carrying a lantern, came into view. He waved to them, and reined in his horse.

"I'm looking for Sir Guy and Lady Gisborne," he told them.

"I am Sir Guy, and this is my wife, and Robin of Locksley and Lady Marian. Who are you and what do you want with us?"

"John Little sent me from the orphanage to find you, Sir Guy. Your son Rodger is there with him."