A FAMILY OF HEROES

Such a lot of fuss over nothing, sulked Eleanor, as she stood in the doorway of Locksley Manor and watched the men of the village, under the direction of her father and Uncle Guy, scramble to gather buckets and shovels.

Some dim-witted old dame set her apron on fire while taking bread out of her oven, and now the whole of Nottinghamshire is in an uproar over it.

And what a time for Allan to come in on her and Rodger! He'd caught them alone—Mama would be sure to hear of that, and think the worst—and just as Rodger was about to kiss her, too!

I'd like to wring Allan's neck. Rodger was going to ask me to marry him, and Allan had to spoil everything by barging in here blathering about a fire. Surely the town has men enough, and plenty to spare, to put it out. And why did Rodger have to rush off to join them, anyway? I need him here! Aren't I more important to him than some trifling fire? Papa did the same to Mama once. Left her to follow King Richard on some idealistic crusade. 'That's men for you,' I've heard her say to Aunt Meg. 'Always glory-seeking.'

Eleanor shut the door and sprawled grumpily in a chair. She had little time to pout over Rodger's abandonment, however, for the very next minute she was rousted from her mood, and the chair, by her mother, who burst through the door with nearly as much noise as Allan.

"Eleanor, what are you doing? Get up and help us!"

"Help with what?"

"We've got to take these supplies to Nottingham! There might be injured people."

"From one little fire? I should think the owners would have plenty of time to get of their house, Mama. It's the middle of the morning, not the middle of the night."

"It's more than one house, Eleanor. Several houses, maybe more. And the fire is spreading. Come on, girl, hurry up!"

Eleanor sighed, and extricated herself drearily, and rather slowly, from the chair. This is so pointless. By the time we get to Nottingham, the fire will be out and the clean-up begun.

A short time later, the residents of Locksley, lords and peasants alike, rode at a swift canter out of the village. Eleanor carried two heavy bags of supplies on the front of her saddle, placed there by her mother. The sacks bounced painfully against her legs, which irritated her even more. But her complaining stopped when they came out of the forest, and saw the cloud of dark smoke and the orange glow of flames rising over the town. They spurred their horses into a gallop across the fields, over the bridge, and through the main gate into Nottingham.

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The men of Locksley quickly went to work alongside the men of Nottingham to put out a fire in one of the shops on the main street. It was no sooner out than they started on the house next to it, flinging water and shovelfuls of sand onto the flames to stop the spread of the fire to the nearby houses.

Marian and Meg helped to get people in the path of danger out of their homes. Marian was a bit more forceful than Meg, at least at first. Meg, however, finally lost her patience with the wailing townswomen, who kept dashing back into their houses to gather up belongings. With many years of practice making Guy behave himself, she, under her gentle demeanor, possessed a firmness of character and stoutness of arm which, when called upon, was nearly equal to Marian's. She took hold of the women and unceremoniously dragged them out of the way of their husbands and sons.

Eleanor had no use for shrieking women and bawling children. She joined her father and the other men in the long line from the neighbourhood well to the fire. They handed off one bucket after another. Her arms and her hands and her back began to ache fiercely, and her dress was splashed from bodice to hem, but she gritted her teeth and kept on, determined not to risk a retort from one of the men for slowing up the line.

Rodger's jaw was set, too, but for a different reason. Rowan's house and shop were only a stone's throw away from them. Indeed, he could see Rowan among a group of men, also tossing buckets of water at a burning house as they were doing. Rodger turned back to the task at hand with a shake of his head. Let Rowan and his miserable family fight their own fire. It's not my concern.

After getting the last of the children out of the men's way, Meg went to Guy and tugged on his arm.

"My father!" she cried over the din of shouts and screams. "Is the fire near his house? Guy, has it spread that far?"

"I don't know," Guy replied. "Archer will know, but until he gets here—careful, Meg, stay back! Don't get too close." He took another bucket of water from Willie, the Locksley blacksmith, and threw it onto the flames. He did not see Meg as, a moment later, she turned and ran down the street in the direction of her father's house.

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Finally, the fire in the shop and the two attached houses was out. Robin and Guy and the other men dropped their buckets and shovels and stopped to catch their breaths. They had little time to rest, for soon shouts for help could be heard from both ends of the street.

"Guy, Allan, Rodger—come with me," said Robin. "The rest of you, go to the castle and find out where they need more men. Marian, find out if there are any injured people, and where they are being taken. Bring Eleanor with you."

"But Papa, I want—"

"No. Go with your mother."

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The four men hurried down the street toward the crowd gathered around yet another burning building.

"It's Rowan's house," muttered Guy grimly. He stopped. His soot-smeared face wore the same glower as Rodger's.

"Yes, it's Rowan's house, and Peter's," said Robin, "and we've got to help, regardless of how we feel about them. That's why we came, Guy, to help whoever needs us."

Guy scowled at Robin's speech, and might have turned back along with his son, but at that moment Rowan saw them. The distraught father rushed toward them and pointed at his house.

"My son! He's in there!"

"Can't he get out?" Robin asked him.

"He went in to get his sister," gasped Rowan. "We couldn't find her. She was with a neighbour. By the time we found her and came back here—what are we going to do? He'll die, Robin!"

Upon hearing her husband's words, Rowan's wife, clutching two of their children, slumped down on the street and sobbed inconsolably.

"Rowan, it's okay," said Robin. "Calm down, we'll get him out. Stay with your wife, I'll—"

A sheet of flame shot out from a bottom floor window. The townsmen threw water onto it, with little effect.

"There's no time to douse the fire," Robin decided. "We'll have to try something else."

"You got a plan, mate?" asked Allan. "'Cause I sure don't."

"I'll come up with something. Just give me a minute to think."

Guy knew there was no time to spare for thought, even if he had been one for making a plan. The roar of the fire was not enough to drown out the words inside his head that he would hear until his dying day—the heart-rending cries that had come from eleven-year-old Robin one terrible, tragic day in Locksley.

'Guy, my father's inside! Yours, too, and your mother! You've got to do something!'

He hadn't acted. Paralyzed by fear of the intense heat and the black, billowing smoke, he'd stood and watched helplessly as his family's manor burned to the ground, with his parents inside. He had learned many years later, through Robin, that it would have been too late to save his parents even if he had attempted a heroic dash into the inferno, for his mother was already dead and his father would not leave her side. The guilt had never left him just the same. He had lived with it every day of his life since then.

I should have saved them. I should have braved the flames….

But this house was Rowan's, and the one inside was Peter, the boy who'd called him a murderer, and cruelly beaten his son. Why should I help them? I owe them nothing.

"My son!" Rowan cried. "He wanted to save his sister, Robin, that's why he went in! And now we can't save him. Oh, God, it's too late!"

His sister….my sister Isabella….dead because of me….I should have saved her, too….

Guy looked over at Robin, and suddenly moved toward the little group of spectators, grabbed a woolen blanket from one of the women, and dropped it on the ground.

"Throw some water on this. Now!" Guy barked at the nearest man holding a bucket. When the man hesitated, Guy snatched the bucket from him and threw the water onto the blanket. He doused the blanket with two more full buckets, before pulling the heavy, sodden wool around his body and over his head, leaving only his face exposed.

Allan turned and saw him, and his brows went up. "Oi! Robin! You might wanna take a look at Giz. Something tells me he's about to do something really brave and really stupid."

Robin turned, saw Guy encased in the dripping blanket, and started to yell at him.

"Guy, are you crazy? You can't!" he cried, as flames began to lick the upper windows and the roof. "Rowan's right, it's too late!"

Robin reached out to stop him, as he had long ago when Guy had ordered him to lead the men of Nottingham to safety while he held the gates against Prince John's army, but Guy shook him off as he had then. Pushing Robin out of the way, he took a few deep breaths, and then plunged through the doorway and into the burning house.

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The smoke was so thick, so blinding, that for a moment Guy could see nothing. Blinking rapidly to clear the acrid smoke from his eyes, he dimly saw a line of shelves along the walls, stacked with crockery. He was in the kitchen. Several timbers cracked and crashed to the floor in the rooms beyond. Guy pushed on through the darkness with the blanket pulled like a shroud over his mouth and nose.

In the hot, red-tinged gloom of a back hallway, he saw the figure of a boy lying face-down on the floor. He rushed forward, knelt down, and shook the boy's shoulder. Peter turned, and stared up at Sir Guy of Gisborne in utter disbelief.

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"He's a dead man," said Allan. "And crazy. And brave, along with crazy."

"That's Guy for you!" said Robin angrily. "Always thinking with his heart instead of his head!"

"What heart?" replied Allan. "Not bein' funny, but he doesn't have a heart for that snotty little Peter brat, does he? Robin? Robin, where are you going?"

"What do you think, Allan? I'm going in after him! Here, soak this blanket down for me. Maybe Guy's trick will work."

"You're crazy, too. Marian would stop you if she was here."

No, she'd go right in there after Guy, thought Robin, but he wasn't about to say so to Allan.

"Shut up, Allan. Just get some water, will you?"

But the next moment Robin felt the blanket lifted from his shoulders. He turned around, to see Rodger's fearless blue eyes looking into his.

"I've got this one, Uncle Robin."

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Guy gazed into Peter's frightened face, and down at his legs, pinned under a heavy beam, and he no longer saw the sneering, scornful, delinquent son of the man whose father he had killed. He saw only a boy who had rushed into a burning house to save his young sister, and who was now hopelessly trapped, with the deadly fire closing in.

"Help me, please!" Peter choked out. "My sister, she's in here! I need to find her!"

"She's safe," Guy told him. "She's outside, with your parents. Hold on, I'll get this off you."

Guy tugged on the rafter, with much gasping and coughing, for his lungs were starved for air. At last he was able to move the heavy length of wood off Peter's legs.

"I don't think I can walk, Sir Guy," Peter said through clenched teeth. The Sir was spoken humbly and without hesitation.

"No, you can't," Guy acknowledged. "Your legs are broken. Here, I'll lift you. Put your arms around my neck."

Guy struggled to his feet, with Peter, groaning in agony, in his arms. With one hand Guy held the boy against his chest, and with the other he pulled the water-soaked blanket around them. He stepped over the smouldering beam and moved through the house toward the direction of the front door.

It was almost impossible to see through the suffocating smoke. Another rafter crashed down in front of them, so close that Guy barely managed to dodge out of its way before it broke into blackened splinters at his feet. They reached the kitchen, only to find that it was now completely engulfed in flames. Guy swallowed hard. He looked all around them, but there was no other door. The front entrance was the only way out of the house.

"What are we going to do? We're trapped!" exclaimed Peter.

"No, you're not," said a voice out of the darkness, and a strong hand reached through the smoke to take Guy's arm.

"Rodger!"

"This way, Father. Follow me!"

A moment later, father and son charged together through the burning kitchen and out the flame-wreathed doorway, carrying the boy who hated them both to life and safety and his parent's waiting arms.

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Robin sent Allan a Dale to find a physician for Peter. After entrusting Rowan and his family to the care of their neighbours, he went to Guy and Rodger and pulled them into an embrace, even as the roof and the outer walls of Rowan's house collapsed into fiery ruin behind them.

"You two bloody fools!" he berated them through tearful laughter. "You've robbed me of ten years of my life, I swear! I was about to come in there after you!"

"Sure you were," snickered Guy. "Anyway, we got him out, thanks to my son here. He saved both of us." Guy smiled at Rodger with justifiable pride.

"Looks like heroism runs in the family, my friend," was Robin's reply. And it was not merely the courage to face a blazing fire that Robin was speaking of.

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Allan returned a short while later, in company with the Sheriff's personal physician, to take Peter back to the castle to be cared for. Rowan thanked Robin, Allan, Marian, and all the rest who had tried to save his house. The house was gone, but thanks to their efforts, his carpentry shop had been spared. More importantly, his family was safe, and for this he was grateful.

As Guy lifted Peter onto the cart, Rowan swallowed his pride and approached Guy.

"Sir Guy, you saved my boy's life. I-I owe you my thanks—"

But Guy would not let him finish.

"Many years ago I killed your father, and it was an injustice I will always regret. What I did today is only what I should have done."

Guy turned on his heel to walk away, but before he did, he turned and, in a gruff voice, added, "You owe me nothing."

It was the closest Guy would ever come to telling Rowan that he was sorry. But for Rowan, it was enough.

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Meg returned with good news—her father's house was untouched by the fires. Her pent-up dread was in desperate need of an outlet, however, and she vented it on her husband after finding out what he had done.

"Guy, how could you! You might have been killed! And our son!"

She burst into tears in Guy's arms. As she had hoped, however, she found such ready solace in his embrace that even his gentle chiding was comforting.

"Now, Meg, don't carry on so," he told her between coughs and kisses. "Stop making a fuss, woman. I'm okay, and so is Rodger. There now, everything's all right."

It would take days for father and son to get the smoke out of their lungs, but with loved ones near, all sense of danger soon fled away, and only relief and joy remained. Archer, who had been at the castle with the Sheriff, found them in this jubilant state, and assured them that all the fires were out. Several homes and shops had been damaged or destroyed, but no lives had been lost.

Marian and Eleanor returned to find the menfolk reeking of smoke and bleary-eyed from exhaustion, but also happy and proud. Robin told his wife and daughter of Guy and Rodger's heroism. His tale had its desired effect upon his daughter.

Rodger's disappointment that his carefully planned, romantic proposal to Eleanor had been interrupted by the day's events was all but forgotten when she turned from her father to him. Eyes aglow, she ran to his waiting arms.

"Oh, Rodger! Rodger, I love you! I do, I love you!"

Rodger smiled through his grime-blackened face, swept Eleanor into his arms, and swung her around and around until they were both dizzy. It did not matter to him that Eleanor's dress was soaked with dirty water, and she didn't care one bit that Rodger's clothes and face and hair were black with damp soot. He kissed her, and she kissed him, and they kissed each other. When they parted, Eleanor's mouth was ringed with grey ash, to match the big patch of dirt on her cheek. But all they saw were each other's shining eyes. The long years of wondering and waiting, hoping and hesitating, were at an end.

"Marry me!"

"Yes!"

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Author's Note: Yay for "Gizzy the Fireman"! Okay, so maybe I really, really like Guy's better side. What's wrong with that? ;) I like to think that he (and Rodger) are both man enough to overcome their own antipathy toward Rowan and Peter in order to save a life. Let me know what you think of my side story wrap-up :)

Thank you for your reviews! Again, thank you to the anonymous reviewers as well. Especially MargaretThornton, for your encouraging comments on this story and on "A Friend Closer Than a Brother", since I wasn't able to send you a PM.

Next, the final chapter! Whew! Can't wait to be done. I'll have it up as soon as possible.