Robyn and the Hoodettes #JustWriteIt #FreshStart

Chapter 3

Robyn looked up into the face of a giant. Her knees buckled, not with fear but relief.

"Oh, it's you! I thought it was the Sheriff's man!" Robyn looked into the smiling face of her friend, Joan. Joan stood higher up the bank than Robyn, but even if they'd been on level ground the young woman would have towered over her.

Joan was a foundling, her hair the colour of freshly baled hay, while her parents' were as orange as fire. Couple with her parents' short stature, they'd never been able to pass off the statuesque Joan as their own.

Joan lived in Littleton, the next village downstream from Loxley. It was a tiny dot of a place, hence the name. In a booming voice she said, "I like your new horse."

"Not so loud! I don't want to be found!"

"Sorry!" Joan said in a whisper that frightened squirrels.

Despite Joan's scary size, the horse gave a snort of approval and snuggled in for a pat on the nose.

"She's not mine." Robyn said. "I can't be seen with her. We can't be seen with her."

"She sure acts like she's yours."

Robyn sighed. "I stole her. But I didn't mean to!" She added when Joan raised her brows. "We were out in the field doing all the jobs the men usually do, but they're not back yet, obviously, and then a carriage turned up and all these men got out and said we had to pay seventeen marks of wheat in taxes and –"

"Slow down." Joan held her spade-like palms up. "The men in the carriage. Did it have a coat of arms with a blue sash?"

"Yes, and three golden stags on it."

Robyn had taken an interest in heraldry, ever since her father had marched off under the King's red banner with its golden lions. She'd been keeping an eye out for its return ever since.

"Sounds like the same men who raided Littleton this morning. Took all the chickens they could carry. Left us with the old boilers. The place is so covered in feathers you'd think the sky was falling. Sounds like they hit us up and then moved on to you."

"They said they were acting on behalf of the Sheriff of Nottingham. We've had tax collectors before, but they were never that brutal." Robyn said.

"Maybe the crusade's going badly," Joan said. "Speaking of, any word from your Dad?"

Nostalgia pierced Robyn as she remembered the fun she and her father used to have. Her memories glossed over all the times they'd argued or she'd been in trouble. "Not even a carrier pigeon in six months. What about your cousin?"

"Nothing from him either," Joan said as she moved in to give the horse a good pat on the neck.

Robyn and Joan both shut up about the people they missed the most. They had a way of almost talking about the things and people they cared for, before they found a way to change the subject.

Joan looked longingly at the horse. "She sure is a beautiful thing."

"I told her to shoo, but she's harder to lose than a shadow."

"Hello Shadow, I'm Joan, lovely to meet you."

"Don't give her a name!" Robyn threw her hands out in desperation. "I'm trying to get rid of her! Oh come on, stop with the cuddles!"

"But she's beautiful. And she smells so nice."

"I know!" Robyn moved in for a smooch, inhaling the horse's scent. "But honestly, she's far too pretty. If anyone saw us, they'd know we'd stolen her."

"Then we have to make her look like she does belong," Joan said with a gleam in her eye. "Come on, let's give her an un-bath."

With a giggle of conspiracy, they lead Shadow into the stream and proceeded to splash water on her, then they mussed up her gleaming coat and mane by brushing her the wrong way. It had to be done. No peasant could possibly possess such a fine horse.

"Nagging her up. What a shame. Feels worse than when I spilt mead all over mother's tapestry," Joan said.

"What about the shoes?" Robyn asked as she smeared mud on Shadow's fetlock.

Joan winked. "We'll take her to your handsome blacksmith later, get them taken off. By the way, did you lose a boot or find one?"

"It . . . fell off," Robyn said, her brain catching on Joan's description of her handsome smith. "I hope those ratbags have left something for Marion to work with."

"He's a clever man, that one," Joan said. "He'll work something out."

"Do you fancy him or something?" Robyn said with a grin. "You do, don't you? You really fancy him!"

"Not half as much as you do!" Joan shot back.

"I do not!"

"Liar!"

They threw water and mud at each other. A fair amount landed on the horse, which helped make the three of them look miserably poor and dirty. Both her feet were soaked, so her soles were equally numb from the cold water.

All of which distracted Robyn from thinking too much about Marion. He'd always been a kid in Robyn's eyes, although he was barely a season younger than her. On the other hand, he was probably the oldest lad left in the village.

Did that automatically make him a man as Joan had called him?

Robyn and Joan stood back to admire their mudwork. Shadow looked like she'd been ridden hard and put away wet. But there was no disguising the fact she was a superior horse with regal standing, not some village nag.

"We could always say we found her, that we're trying to find her owners," Joan said.

Robyn nodded.

"D'you think the tax collectors are gone yet?" Joan asked.

"One way to find out," Robyn said. "Come on Shadow."

The horse and the two girls made their way towards Loxley. Darkness crept into the sky, so they keep close to the King's Road to avoid getting lost.

"What's that?" Joan said, grabbing Robyn's arm.

She heard it too. The sounds of hooves and people. Possibly a carriage or two judging from the creaky-wheely kinds of sounds.

Heading straight for them.

"Hide!" Robyn said.

They made a dash for the shrubs growing beside the road. They must have been young holly bushes, for they still had green leaves but they were spiky and bit her bare foot.

The Sheriff's horses, pulling two carriages behind them like a double trailer, came into view.

That's when Robyn cursed the horse afresh.

The dense beast stood on the road, in full view. Whisper-shouting, Robyn called out, "Get down here!"

Oh that horse, she's going to be the death of me.