The Fellowship of the Hood~A California Girl in Nottingham's Court

Chapter Five~Part Two

Part Two

 Chapter Five~Kidnapped!

 Archer~The Artful Dodger

Traveling from place to place had been my existence for as long as I could remember.  I never knew my parents, only that my mother had died in a fire and my father was, who knew where.

A family would take me in for a while, but only as a stable boy or to have me help with the farming.  A man took me on as apprentice when I was 10 or 12, in his blacksmith shop.  I had become quite good with forging steel.  At 14, I took off to find a ship that needed a cabin boy.  That’s where I learned the art of the con.

Relieving people of their money was great sport for me and I was an excellent pickpurse.
I became a traveling merchant of goods that no one else had.  I would-be show some of the goods, get the money and run.  Leaving without delivering the rest, I would live off that booty for a while until the next con.

At twenty years old (I think I was twenty because I didn’t know when my birthday was) I had quite an eye for beautiful, rich, unhappy married ladies and they fancied me as I was tall and strong and considered rather handsome.

My conning caught up with me back in England, having just returned from the Orient.  I conned the wrong man whose cousin was the sheriff of York and who had a beautiful, but dissatisfied wife.  The sheriff threw me in jail and while awaiting execution, the sheriff’s wife would have me brought to her for some fun and frolicking.

That was when I found I had, not one, but two brothers.  Robin Hood of Locksley and Sir Guy of Gisborne.  Thinking I had it made, I let them break me out of jail.  But as it turned out, Robin had given his fortune to the poor and became an outlaw to help them and Guy was an outlaw for trying to kill Prince John.  I chose not to go with them to Nottingham, but went on my own since Guy’s sister, also MY sister was sheriff there.  I thought I could deal with her and make some money so I could leave England for good.  But it was not to be.  I ended up fighting with Robin and Guy against the injustice my sister, Isabella, and Prince John waged on the people of Nottingham and the surrounding villages.

We had been on a mission to rescue Guy’s wife, Aylaina, a little spitfire of a woman, from the clutches of Prince John.  Aylaina’s instincts had been right;  the prince was up to no good.  He was holding his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, prisoner to try to get her to give the kingship to him in absence of his brother, King Richard.  Our mission was a success and now we were taking the queen mother back to France to barter with Leopold of Austria for King Richard’s release.

Aylaina and Guy had a son, but Guy only learned of him recently because Aylaina was sent away as a young girl to marry a man from another clan in Scotland.  When she returned to Locksley she told Guy about Elliot.  He and I met on the road to Portsmouth, the two of us had become fast friends.  We both had some resentment toward our parents for being untruthful.  Elliot felt that Guy had used his mother disgracefully, because the other alternative meant that she willingly gave herself to a man she was not married to.  As it turned out, she had.  The same was true for me as I discovered from Robin and Guy that Robin’s father and Guy’s mother fell in love and had an affair before finding out that Guy’s father was still alive.

Traveling to Portsmouth, we stayed the night in a tavern near the port.  We were ready to leave the tavern for the ship when I spotted two lovely young ladies smiling at Elliot and me from the doorway.

“Elliot,” I said, “See those two pretties over there?   Let’s go talk to them.”

“Ye don’t have to ask me twice!”  Elliot exclaimed.  As we walked out the doorway, we spotted them walking round the corner of the building,  Two large men grabbed us from behind and a third man socked us each on the jaw.