The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

Robin sighed with relief, his tired body sinking into the softness of the bed.

“I am bleeding,” he said.

The nun straightened up and pulled back the cowl of her habit. Rust-colored hair spilled from the hood and framed her face. Vivian’s green eyes were wet with tears.

Robin gasped, startled at seeing her and reached his hand to touch her cheek. His hand returned to his chest and he smiled at the familiar woody scent on his fingers.

"You have returned,” she said.

“Just,” he answered with a weak smile. “I have a wound that has begun to bleed. Please help me.”

Vivian shook her head. “I cannot. There is nothing more I can do. The years you were gone have weakened my power. The wound you now have is the one my father gave you so long ago by his fallen oak. I can no longer stop its bleeding. ”

Robin closed his eyes and turned his head toward the wall.

“Robin,” Vivian whispered and he knew what she wanted to say.

He shook his head, bitterness rising in his throat like gall.

“The pain you feel now is the same that I have lived with since our first meeting.” She spoke gently and without rancor.

He refused to look at her. Then he felt her stand, heard her bare feet begin to pace the floor.

“How I despise my life. How my limbs burn in this shape, the soles of my feet cut by the rocks. I long for the peace of the earth, for the sleep of winter, for the sweet silence of the new spring. Robin, do not let me remain thus.”

Her pleading stabbed at Robin’s heart. The thorn of doubt twisted, causing him to cry out. In desperation, he reached for the gold horn at his side and blew three shrill blasts on it.

“No,” Vivian sobbed and fled.

Alone in the room Robin stared hopelessly at the ceiling. If any of his men were near, they would come to him. He would not die alone, nor die tormented by Vivian’s pleading.

The steady beat of Robin’s heart slowed. The sheets were soaked with blood. On the ceiling of the quiet cell Robin thought he saw his life drawn in the faint etchings of its cracks and seams. He followed the patterns, seeing the tiny flecks of green that resembled Vivian at every turn of the lines.

If he had killed her and she was mortal flesh, he would have dishonored his own vow. He would have failed in his own eyes.

The pattern of the ceiling twisted around the line of a tree, its branches tipped with the buds of new leaves. And if he did kill her, and she was not mortal, but an Oakman’s daughter, a greenfairy, then he must accept that his accomplishments had been a lie. A lie shaped for the eyes of other men by Vivian’s hand.

Would that he had died that spring, he thought angrily, suddenly resentful of Vivian. At least he would have died his own man.

No, his mind retaliated, not your own man. But cursed to be the Oakman’s servant, just as Vivian was his servant now. And Robin knew remembering the look of hatred in those green eyes, that had he begged for mercy, pleaded for release from bondage, the Oakman would have served Robin no better than he now served Vivian.

He felt overcome with anguish, terrified to look into his heart and pluck out the thorn of doubt. Without the illusion of his deeds, what was he?

"God’s mercy, it is Robin!” boomed a voice from the door of his cell.

Robin turned his head slowly and saw Little John.

“I heard the horn. I knew it was you!” he cried and rushed to Robin’s side. “But you are wounded!”

“I am dying,” Robin answered softly.

“No,” Little John groaned and lifted Robin from the bed by the shoulders. He wept, big tears streaming down the sides of his face into his beard.

Robin stared at him, and an easiness settled over the wound in his heart. Love and loyalty. However false his deeds may have been, he had found truth in his companionships. He had loved them without duplicity and in that, he had gained strength. •

“Give me my bow and an arrow,” Robin said weakly.

Little John propped Robin up in the bed, and held the bow up for him.

Robin stared out the window and saw Vivian standing amid the trees. She was facing him, smiling, her arms opened wide to receive the arrow. His hand shook but he willed it steady. Sweat trickled down the side of his face. This shot must be his own; its aim true.

“Where the arrow lands,” he said to Little John, “bury me.”

Robin let loose the arrow, hearing its hard twang echo in his ear. The shaft buried itself cleanly in the center of Vivian’s chest.

As her arms flung skyward, she changed. The nun’s habit spiraled around her legs, darkening into the rough hue of bark. Her arms sprouted branches and then leaves. Her head of tousled hair rounded into a burl at the base of two lifting branches. Before Robin was lain back on the bed again, he had seen his arrow fall harmlessly from its target to rest at the base of a young sapling oak.

His breathing was shallow, death brushing the dust of his final thoughts. He closed his eyes wearily. He was aware of Little John holding him, but his mind turned elsewhere. He imagined Vivian, her long roots deep in the earth tangled around his skeleton, clinging protectively to his bones. His eyes snapped open in surprise as he smelled the sweet fragrance of fresh sap in the air. Then he smiled, and closing his eyes once more, relinquished himself to the mercy of the greenwood.