LETTING GO
"John! Oh, we're so glad you found him!"
The four weary travelers gathered around Little John in the front hall of the orphanage.
"He found me, more like," John replied. He motioned them toward the dining hall. "Come in, now, and get yourselves warm! You must be hungry. Come sit down and we'll have a bite to eat."
"Is Rodger okay?"
"He was pretty cold when he showed up here."
John smiled reassuringly at the anxious faces of his friends.
"Now, don't you worry, Meg, or you either, Gisborne. The lad's thawing out by the fire in the kitchen, and he's eaten his breakfast. He'll be none the worse for wear after he's had a good long sleep in his own bed."
He paused before adding, "We've had a talk. He's feeling bad about runnin' off, and he's ready to listen now."
They entered the hall. A few children still lingered over their morning meal, but most were already busy with the day's chores.
"We'll wait here," said Robin. He and Marian sat down near the fire to eat and warm up. John took hold of Guy's arm as he and Meg headed toward the kitchen.
"Now, listen to me good, Gisborne. The boy's been through enough this night. He's scared to see you 'cause he thinks you'll punish him. I've told him you won't be angry and you won't punish him. I've promised him, so don't go and make a liar out of me."
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"Mother, please don't be angry with me. I shouldn't have run away. I'm sorry!"
Meg caught her son in a tender embrace.
"Rodger, darling, I'm not angry. We're just so glad you're safe! Something bad could have happened to you!"
"You're not angry?"
"Well, we're a bit upset, yes, but only because we were so worried! Your father and Robin and Allan have been all over Locksley and Nottingham, searching for you. It was Eleanor who guessed that you'd be here."
"Eleanor?"
"Yes, Eleanor. It would seem she knows you better than we do."
His father came quietly into the room behind them. Rodger saw him, and he cringed, but there was nothing else he could do but move away from his mother to stand before his father.
"Father, I'm sorry I ran away." Then, with a hard swallow, "Are you going to punish me?"
"No," replied his father, after a long and dreadful pause, during which Rodger was afraid to meet his eyes. "This was as much my fault as yours."
Guy stepped forward hesitantly, and put his arms around his son with an awkward attempt at gentleness, as though such a display of warm familial affection were foreign to his nature.
Oh, Guy! thought Meg. Is it so hard for you to show him how you feel? And Rodger. Our son still has no idea how much his father loves him. It's easier for Guy to take a belt to his son than to hug him, easier to drill him mercilessly for hours in swordsmanship than to laugh and joke with his child.
'Humanity is weakness'—that's what Vaisey pounded into him, for years. Guy never completely believed it. The good man he was meant to be never quite left him entirely. If Rodger can only look past his father's reticence, that tough outer shell he wraps himself in, and see the caring, loving man within.
Rodger, relieved to find he was not going to be subjected to a beating, hugged him back, momentarily forgetting how scared he'd been at seeing him. The embrace was brief, however, before his father pulled away and grasped him by the shoulders. Rodger knew from long experience what that gesture meant—his father would stand for no more disobedience.
"You need to listen to us, do you understand? Running away isn't the answer."
"I know, Father," Rodger replied contritely. "I'm ready to go home."
Meg gently touched Rodger's face, and Guy's. She smiled at both of them. "Let's have something to eat," she said, "and then I think the two of you need to sit down and talk."
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That morning, as Robin, Marian, and Meg rested and visited with Little John, Guy told his son the remainder of the tale that Robin had started the night before. Being Guy, and not possessing Robin's discretion and reserve, he related his story to Rodger in the only way he knew how—straightforward, blunt, and in far more gory detail than Robin or Meg would have approved.
"I was younger than you when my father left for the Crusades," Guy began.
He and Rodger sat alone in the kitchen near the fire, facing each other over a small work table.
"In my father's absence I had to look after my mother and my younger sister. Robin and I knew each other, of course, but we weren't exactly friends. He was younger than me, and a spoilt brat who liked to show off with his bow. At least that's how I saw him."
Rodger immediately thought of Eleanor, and almost smiled. But the smile faded away as he saw the seriousness in his father's face.
"When I was fifteen, we learned that my father had not returned from the Holy Land with his men. We believed he had died in the war."
Guy paused, and cleared his throat. "You're old enough, I think, to understand these things now. My mother thought my father was dead. She, she got lonely, Rodger, and she and Robin's father, they—"
He saw recognition slowly dawning on the boy's face. "Is this about Uncle Archer?" Rodger asked.
"Yes, your uncle. You know that he's my half-brother, and Robin's. Do you understand?"
"I think so."
"My mother and Malcolm planned to marry, but then something happened to change all of it."
He told Rodger the story of the night of the celebration, and the disastrous consequences.
"Robin let me take the blame for injuring the village priest. The bailiff wanted to hang me, but my father came home while I was locked up in the bailiff's house. I hadn't seen him in four years. He was a different man than when he left. He wasn't dead, but he might as well have been."
Rodger soon learned about his grandfather's leprosy, and his subsequent banishment from Locksley.
"I have to tell you what happened to your grandparents. It's not a pleasant story, and I wish I didn't have to, but you need to know. My mother—well, as you can imagine, when my father came home, it was a mess. My mother discovered she was with child, and the father was Malcolm, not my father. She had the baby in secret. But that wasn't the end of it. It got much worse."
Guy told his son of what happened after Malcolm found Ghislaine and Sir Rodger together in their house.
Rodger sat in silence, speechless with shock and dismay.
"Uncle Robin's father?" he said after a moment. "He killed your mother, my grandmother?"
"He didn't mean to, but yes, she died. My father stayed with her as the house burned down. My parents, your grandparents, both died, Rodger, in the fire that I set by accident. I was blamed for their deaths, and my sister and I were driven out of Locksley."
"But you didn't do anything wrong, Father!"
"No, but people don't always act in fairness. The villagers didn't like our family anyway. The fire was an excuse to throw us out."
"Where did you go?"
"We were able to stow away on a ship to France, where my mother's people were. They didn't accept us because of my father. It was a very bad time, a very desperate time. We had to work very hard to "earn our keep", as they put it. I had no way to care for my sister, so when she was fourteen I arranged for her to be married. The man she married paid me generously, and I took the money to pay for my training as a knight. I didn't know what sort of man he was then. Isabella and I didn't see each other again for many years. I went off to the Crusades. I won't tell you about those years. I'd rather forget them myself."
He looked down. "Rodger, I hope that you are never called upon to go to war, for any reason. Robin and Much will tell you the same thing. War, fighting, killing—it does things to a man. I came home to Locksley with a heart full of hate. It wasn't my parent's fault. They taught me good principles, as I've tried to teach you. But I let my bitterness against the people of Locksley, and against Robin, fester in me. I was angry, Rodger, angry at the world, and eager to unleash that anger. I wanted revenge against everyone I felt had wronged me. I should have contested my right to have my father's estate returned to me. Instead, I fell into company with a man named Vaisey."
"Do you mean Sheriff Vaisey? I've heard of him. I overheard some men talking once, about you and Vaisey, how you worked for him."
"Well, whatever they said was likely true. He wasn't the Sheriff then, but soon after we became acquainted he was appointed by Prince John. He forced out Marian's father, Sir Edward. I won't lie to you—I admired him for it. He was ruthless. He wanted power, and he had no scruples about getting it. I let Vaisey persuade me to work for him. He promised me that if I did his bidding, he'd make sure I had my estate again, and wealth and power. I listened to him, and believed him. I wasn't a good man, Rodger. I wanted power, too, and I didn't care who I hurt, who I trampled on to get it. And there was something else I wanted. Marian, as my wife."
"I thought you always loved Mother!"
"No, Rodger. I didn't even know your mother then. I managed Robin's estate in Locksley for about three years. We didn't expect Robin back, to tell you the truth. Vaisey said the estate would be mine soon. Then Robin returned, and I stood to lose all of it again. And Marian, she—she didn't love me, not that way. I tried to make her love me. I wasn't kind to her sometimes. I did things I regret."
Rodger soon learned what those regrets were—burning down Knighton Hall after the interrupted wedding, and putting her and her father under house arrest on Vaisey's order.
"Robin and I fought against each other, and fought over Marian, for years. Vaisey and I and other men throughout England were Black Knights. We pledged to put Prince John on the throne. Vaisey and I plotted with the prince to travel to Acre to try to kill King Richard. Marian learned of it, and tried to kill Vaisey. She didn't succeed. Vaisey kidnapped her and took her with us, but Robin and his men followed us."
Guy told him the story of what transpired once they got to Acre. "I was about to kill the king when Marian intervened. Vaisey came on the scene just then. She got between the king and Vaisey, and Vaisey stabbed her."
"The Sheriff stabbed Marian?" Rodger exclaimed. "What did you do?"
"What I should have done was to kill him right there. But Robin and his men were coming. Vaisey and I got on a ship and escaped back to England. I thought Marian was dead. I didn't know she survived. She and Robin and their gang came back to England, too, many months later after Marian recovered from her wound. Robin told you about the Sheriff's pact with Prince John. He couldn't touch Vaisey, so he went after me instead. We had a fight in Locksley. I almost killed Robin that day. I hit his head and threw him into the river, and went back to the Sheriff bragging that Robin was dead."
Rodger tried to imagine this, but it was almost impossible to picture. His father and Robin were the best of friends!
"How did Robin get away?"
"Tuck found him. He'd been sent by King Richard to help Robin."
He told Rodger the story. "Robin wanted to cut my throat that day, and he'd have been justified. But he didn't. He let me live. It should have ended there, but I thought Marian was dead, and I blamed Robin for getting her killed. I hated Vaisey just as much, but I thought I could still get what I wanted by working for him. Then I got in good with Prince John while I was with him in London. I came swaggering back to Nottingham, and set out to get Robin. It backfired on me, though."
He related to his son the events of the months that followed—his failure to catch Robin, the sudden arrival of his sister Isabella, his final falling-out with Vaisey, and their desperate battle in the castle that led to Vaisey's "death".
It was then that Rodger learned exactly who Sheriff Isabella had been—his own aunt!
"I thought I had it made then," said Guy. "Prince John promised to make me the new Sheriff if I captured Robin. But it didn't quite work out that way."
He told Rodger what unfolded next—how he caught Robin by trickery, and tried to drown him. He told him of Isabella's betrayal, and how it moved him and Robin to come to a shaky truce long enough to cooperate together to toss both Isabella and the prince down the well, before escaping from the castle to go their separate ways.
"I disappeared into Sherwood after that, to get away from the prince and my sister. But she betrayed me again."
'Betrayal is the worst crime a man can commit.' He'd heard his father say those words before. Now he understood why.
"I didn't know where to run," his father continued, "or who to trust after that. Then I did something really crazy. I tried to kill Prince John at Isabella's party."
"I was arrested and thrown into prison, the same prison I'd thrown so many others into. Isabella had me starved and tortured. She planned to kill me. I was there for a month. What I didn't know was that while I was in there, Robin saw his father. We all thought Malcolm perished in the fire, but he escaped, and found Robin after twenty years. He told Robin the truth of what happened that day, before he died, too. Robin and his men went to York to rescue Archer. Then they decided to help me, to get me out. But they ended up rescuing more than me. They saved your mother, too."
"Mother? Was she there?"
"There's more to tell you, Rodger. Yes, your mother was there in the prison, with me."
"Why?"
Guy told him. When he finished, Rodger looked at him with horror. "My aunt wanted to kill you, and Mother?"
"Don't hate her, Rodger. Her life was terrible, and some of it was my fault. At the end she went mad."
"Is that why you never talk about her?"
"Yes."
Guy told him about the rescue, and their flight from Nottingham. "Robin and his men saved my life, and your mother's. They took us back to their camp. It was there that I learned the truth about my parents, and Robin's, and I found out that Marian was alive."
"And that's when you and Robin became friends?"
"Well, sort of. We had to work things out between us, of course. Some of the gang weren't too happy that I was there with them. Not that I blame them. I'd been their sworn enemy for years."
"What about Mother? Did she stay at the camp, too?"
"Yes. After her falling-out with your grandfather, she stayed with us, at Matilda's cottage."
"But what happened to Sheriff Vaisey?"
"He went back to Prince John. Robin and I and the others took Nottingham from Isabella, but she escaped, and also went back to the prince. They plotted to take back Nottingham. The prince sent his army, and Vaisey led a siege against us."
He told his son of the storming of the city gates.
"Little John told me you held off his army, and saved the men of Nottingham!"
"I can't take all the credit. I did my part. Robin already told you that he and I and Archer fought Vaisey and Blamire and their guards in the castle."
"And you killed Vaisey."
"Yes. Both Robin and I."
"But what happened to my aunt, to Isabella?"
"She chose to side with Vaisey. All I know is what Archer told me, that I was fighting with Vaisey, and Isabella came behind me with a knife in her hand. She dropped it suddenly, and backed away from me. And then, Vaisey, he—"
"He killed her?"
"Yes, he killed her. Just like he tried to kill Marian."
Rodger was silent. "So that's why you never told me how she died."
"I couldn't tell you, Rodger. Not until you were old enough to understand."
"But the siege ended after that?"
"Not long after. King Richard came with his army, and drove off Prince John's soldiers. We won the battle, but it wasn't over for me. I turned myself in."
"You did? What did they do with you?"
"I went before the king. It was the longest day of my life. I confessed to my crimes and prepared myself to face the consequences. I was sure I would be executed."
"You turned yourself in, knowing that?"
"I had to, Rodger. It was the right thing to do, the only right thing. I didn't want to run away from what I'd done."
"How did you get off?"
Guy smiled. "Well, if it had been up to the king, I'd have been nothing more than a stone marker next to my parents and my sister right now. Robin and Marian, and Little John, and Archer and Tuck, and many others, spoke up for me. I'll be honest. King Richard granted me a pardon as a favour to Robin and Marian, not because I deserved one."
"And then you married Mother?"
"A few months later. I got my lands and title back from the king, and built our home. Then I married your mother, and a couple of years later you were born."
They stayed at the orphanage until after the midday meal, and then prepared to make the long, cold ride home to Locksley. Rodger hugged Little John as they parted.
"Just remember what I told you, lad. Your father loves you. No matter what he's done in the past, he's a good man now. Give him another chance."
"I know," said Rodger. "I will, I promise."
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The five travelers arrived at Gisborne Hall late in the evening, to be greeted by their family, friends, and household servants. All were too tired to do much more than eat a small meal and warm themselves, before they retired to their respective homes to sleep.
Meg went upstairs to Rodger's room while Guy stayed below to talk with Robin. She tucked him into bed, in a way she had not done since he was a little boy, and then she sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed his hair from his eyes.
"Darling," she said, "I know it's been difficult for you to hear the truth. And I know your father is strict with you and you think he's unfair sometimes. But there's a reason why. He doesn't want you to do the things he's done, to make the same mistakes and ruin your life the way he ruined his."
She cupped his face in her hands. "You're so much like him, Rodger. You're his second self. He's loved you since the day you were born. He held back from telling you the truth about his life because he didn't want to hurt you."
"I'm glad he finally told me, Mother," said Rodger. "I won't wonder anymore. It was harder not to know."
"I hope that both of you can be open with each other now."
She took hold of his hand. "Do you remember what I told you once, a long time ago? When you got Starlight, and you were afraid Prancer would be jealous? I said that sometimes you have to let something go to get something you want. This is one of those times."
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is, you may have to let go of the father you thought you had, before you can accept the man he is. I understand, Rodger, because I had to. I knew what he was when I married him, but I also knew the man he wanted to be, and I grew to love that man. If you give him that chance, I think you can learn to love the father you have, too."
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Guy came upstairs after Robin left. Meg kissed Rodger goodnight, and left them. Guy sat down on the edge of his son's bed, and looked upon his son. The face gazing back at him was his own; himself as he had been before his father left for the Crusades and the world he knew fell apart.
Outside, his son was the same boy who'd run from his home only the day before. He looked no different. But he was different. The trusting innocence, the unquestioning faith in his father's rightness, was gone from his eyes. The child Rodger, his child, was no more, and would never come back to him again. In those terrible hours of grief and pain and broken trust, Rodger had left childhood behind him forever.
I've committed murders, thought Guy, but this is the worst one of all. I've murdered my son's innocence, and I can't give it back.
He gathered the boy into his arms and held him, the boy who was a part of him and a part of his beloved Meg, and his heart ached with love and sorrow. He had never wanted to hurt this child, this firstborn son that he would give his life to protect, and now he had.
"Don't hate me," Guy whispered against his cheek. "I'm sorry, Rodger. I'm sorry I'm not the man you thought. I only wish I was."
Rodger drew back, and saw that his father's eyes were running with tears. He'd never seen his father cry. A sense of loss, and yet at the same time an overwhelming relief, washed over Rodger, and he realized in that moment that he didn't fear his father any more. His father was not invincible, not unreachably high. He was human, and vulnerable. They were equals now. A feeling he had no name for, but which he would later recognize as compassion, filled his heart.
"I don't hate you, Father. I could never hate you. I-I love you."
In response, his father said the words Rodger had waited all his young life to hear. "I love you, too, son."
Rodger hugged his father hard, and Guy was comforted. A huge, crushing load had been lifted from his shoulders. His son didn't hate him. He hadn't turned away from him in revulsion upon learning the truth. There was still a chance to gain back his trust and his respect, and as they smiled shyly at each other through their tears, Guy vowed to do so.
But, though neither one spoke it, they both knew that nothing would ever be quite the same between them again.