Reunited at Last

A Turning Point

Upon returning to camp, John helped Robin dismount with the injured woman in his arms. He then tended to the horse as Robin carried her to his tent, calling for Tuck to come examine her. The friar rushed over with Marian not far behind him and the two entered the tent right behind Robin, who laid the woman down on his bed. He took a step back and sucked in some air as the lantern in his tent illuminated her face, revealing her identity.

It was the Queen.

"Robin, what the hell happened?" Tuck asked, looking confused and concerned at once.

"I don't know, we just found her unconscious on the ground and her horse in distress," Robin replied, still reeling from the revelation of who he had saved. "It was too dark to recognize who she was."

Marian moved toward him as Tuck approached the bed. She wrapped her arm around him. "Do you think she finally crossed the wrong person?" she asked.

"Possibly," he replied. "Though if this person was able to take down the Queen, I'm glad that I didn't run into them."

"I suppose so. But if they did take down the Queen, doesn't it mean they're a hero?" she mused.

Robin shook his head. "Not necessarily. They could just be a stronger villain."

She shuddered. "I don't think I want to know who would be worse than her."

"So, do we know who we saved and how she is doing?" Little John asked, coming into the tent. He stopped short, the color draining from his face. "Bloody hell..."

Tuck straightened up, looking somber. "Marian, I need your help in removing her dress. I need to see how bad the wound on her side is."

Marian pressed her lips together before nodding. She stepped forward to help Tuck while John moved to stand next to Robin. Both men turned around to give the Queen some privacy, staring at the back of the tent. Robin knew it was probably more than she would afford them but it was still the right thing to do.

Robin pressed his hand to his mouth, still processing the fact that the broken woman on the forest floor had been the queen. He had rescued the woman whose Black Guards chased him and his men throughout the forest, though not with the same persistence as the Sheriff of Nottingham. But they were still a threat. And he had no doubt that the queen would issue the same punishment for them as the sheriff.

Death.

"Alright," Tuck said. "You two can turn around again."

Robin and Little John turned to face the bed again. Marian held the queen's dress and the royal was covered by a fur blanket. The candlelight revealed beads of sweat rolling down the Queen's pale face and Robin knew that wasn't a good sign. "How bad is she?" he asked.

"She's in a pretty bad way," Tuck replied. "Her left arm and right leg are broken and she has a nasty bump to the back of her head in addition to cuts there. But I'm mostly worried about the wound on her side. She appears to have been pierced by a sword and I worry infection may already be setting in."

"What do you recommend?" Robin asked.

"We need to set her broken bones immediately," Tuck said. "And there's a poultice I can make that should help fight the infection but the next few days will be critical for her."

Robin processed everything Tuck had said as John asked: "And if we do nothing?"

Tuck narrowed his eyes. "She might recover on her own but it's far more likely she would die."