I have often heard tales of Robin Hood. I’ve heard of his courage against evil, his generosity to the poor, and his legendary aim with a bow and arrow. However, I saw a very different man than the one portrayed in the stories. As for his good aim, I can attest to that, for I was there when he employed his bow. I was there for many of the events. Everyone views Robin Hood as a hero. I intend to reveal him for what he really is, and not what people see him as.

*          *          *          *          *

I leaped up and over the four steps to the door of the guardhouse and burst through the door without knocking. A single, hooded man sat in front of the fireplace, smoking a pipe, with his back turned towards me. He did not stir or even turn his head at my entrance.

“I know who robbed the Sheriff’s treasury,” I said.

He put down the stick and removed his pipe. “Come in and close the door,” he said.

I did so.

“We already know who robbed the treasury, don’t we, boys?” he said as he turned slightly, revealing a well-shaped nose and thin, beard-wreathed lips.

I looked to the corner he seemed to be speaking toward and that had been previously blocked from my view by the open door. I cried out in horror. Two men, bound and hanging from the ceiling by their feet, stared lifelessly back at me with dark, red faces. The hooded man stood up and walked towards me. The shadows still hid his eyes under his hood. I tried to reach for the door, but my eyes were riveted upon the approaching figure and my hand could not find the latch.

“Oh yes,” he said, “we know who it was.” He stopped an arm’s length from me. I was now frozen with fear. My hand had forsaken its search for the door latch. “It was Robin Hood,” he said, as he threw back his hood. Sir Boland glared at me. The firelight danced madly across half his face. He reached under his cloak and produced a shattered lance, sharply splintered. He drew it back, pointing the splintered end at my gut, ready to strike.

I couldn’t move.

He lunged.

The story that has been told for hundreds of years is told again, this time from a first-person perspective that reveals a facet of the timeless outlaw that has seldom been explored before. With the king gone to war and local rulers grappling for power, the narrator finds himself on the brink of a war within his own lands. He and his few allies vie for the lives of a delusional people; a people who believe that the same leaders trying to destroy them are their saviors, and Robin Hood is no exception among those leaders.

 

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