Matilda Fitzwalter was not in the habit of collecting debts simply. Until recently, her father’s estate had been loyally served by Mamesfield village. But, the flour was now almost a week late. Her father, as was his way, was willing to ignore the delay, believing that the miller and the farmer had their reasons. Matilda, taking after her mother, was unwilling to suffer fools, and was itching to tiller her new-found confidence and authority. Now she was a young woman, and the eldest of her all-girl siblings to boot, her father had given her the responsibility of estate manager, and she was determined to make it more than just a title.

Strolling calmly, even as the road-dirt caked her hemline like clay on a potter’s wheel, she approached the miller’s hut with her hands clasped at her hips.

The two, farmer and miller, were outside the hut arguing, and as they sensed her approach, both Master Scathelocke, the farmer, and Master Gilbert, the miller, took off their hats and palmed them against their chests.

With eyes downcast, they made their excuses, but Matilda was shocked to learn that neither blamed each other.

‘I took in a boy last; you see.’ said Master Scathelocke. ‘Our lads help us with the harvest and the threshing.’

‘Trouble is,’ continued Master Gilbert, ‘no work gets done because that pup of his distracts them at play in the Greenwood, m’lady. Tis not their fault, and neither is it Master Scathelocke’s. They took in the boy as was their Christian duty, but he has proved to be a lazy worker, and unruly. I’m afraid that his habits have worn off on our own pups.’

‘It sounds to me that what is needed is greater discipline,’ Matilda hoisted her nose again.

The men laughed, which startled Matilda.

‘M’lady, our boys are given the rod almost weekly. They are brought to heel, but always that orphan brat leads them back into the Greenwood. There have been many times that I have beaten him myself, and yet it is my arm that surrenders before he does.’

‘I see,’ Matilda said as she stared off in the direction of the forest, a forbidden place set aside in times past for her ancestors. A wild, dark place of mystery and mayhem where only the bravest souls dare tread. What kind of boy could tempt another to go gallivanting in those trees, let alone two? She huffed. When it came to bravery, there was no one who could match her. These were her estates, or would be one day, and if she could have her servants bring their workers to heel, it fell to her to pick up the slack. Cracking the whip to disruptive workers would be her trial by fire, and her father would beam with pride.

She asked the men the names of their sons, and they answered William or Will for Scathlocke’s boy, and Much for the miller.

‘I shall bring you boys back to you. Would you put them to work and have the flour at the manor before the coming Sunday?’

‘W-why, yes, m’lady!’ the Miller babbled. ‘But, they will not be persuaded out. Not until nightfall do they come home.’

‘Then I shall drag them out by their ears before midday,’ she said.

Before the Miller or Scathelocke could protest further, she picked up her hem a little higher, bid them a good day, and tracked the path towards the Greenwood.

Brave though she was, even she dared not go more than a hundred yards into the woods. At this time, the woods of Barnsdale and Sherwood, at the edge of which sat Mamesfield, were a lawless place of fairies, trolls, ogres, and robbers. She was older and less susceptible to the old tales of magic creatures haunting the forests, but bandits were very real to her. And three times as dangerous as any fae or woodland spirit.

Before she was close enough to feel the first roots underfoot, she crossed herself and passed into the realm of shadows where some force seemed to have drawn Will Scathelocke and Much the miller’s son. She told herself she had no reason to fear. Will and Much were simple folk. Matilda Fitzwalter was made of stronger stuff.

A fruitless search which occupied her most of the morning, and lost her a perfectly good cloak to brambles, and she was prepared to turn back when she heard a roar, then a shrill laugh which chilled her blood. Her mind turned over the faewild stories, and she fought to hold fast against this unseen force. The laughter continued, and another voice joined in, along with the sounds like a woodpecker with no rhythm.

She fought her way through the brambles and parted the ferns before she found a clearing amidst a circle of oaks. Two boys, both in peasant garb, one tall and the other short, were circling each other with swords in hand. Matilda gasped and crouched to hide from the villains as they brandished their weapons.

They charged at each other. As they collided, the smaller boy disappeared in a puff of white powder as the swords went clack clack. The larger boy in the cowl shoved coif against a tree, sword raised to his throat, they both giggled.

‘Now, thy saucy varlet; drop thy coin and perhaps I shall let thee keep thy head!’

‘Nay!’ cried the small boy, slipping from his grasp and aiming a blow at the cowl’s back. The swords clashed again, and again the boys resumed their positions circling each other like wolves. ‘Surrender, nave, or I shall split you from chin to-!’

Finally, Matilda had had enough. If she did nothing, they would slaughter each other.

‘Excuse me!’ she called as she sprung from the ferns.

The boys went white and dropped their weapons to their sides. ‘W-who are you?’

‘Who taught you manners?’ she said as she stepped into the circle. She was a little embarrassed to notice that their supposed “deadly weapons” were made of shoddily carved wood. She shook her head. ‘The question here is “who are you?”’

‘I am Will,’ said the tall boy.

‘And I am Much,’ said the small. ‘Now, who are you? And how did you find us?’

‘I…’ Matilda said with a hint of glee in the reveal, for she rarely met anyone who didn’t already know who she was on sight. ‘…am Lady Matilda Fitzwalter, daughter of Baron Hubert Fitzwalter of Mamesfield.’

She held her head high and waited for the inevitable grovelling, but when she lowered her eyes to allow them to rise, she found that neither of the boys had moved except to stare at each other blankly.

‘You do not bow to your lady?’ she asked, incredulous, almost incandescent.

‘Last I checked,’ said a voice from somewhere behind her, ‘we are not in Mamefield anymore. This is the Greenwood, and the Greenwood knows no lords or ladies.

The voice was strange. It had a homely twang, similar to the accent she had heard all her life, but it was somehow different; coarser, rough and rounded, in spite of its obvious immaturity. It was not a man’s voice, but it was that of a boy – the orphan brat the miller and farmer had spoke of. She gazed around but found only undulating ferns.

‘The forests are the domains of the King,’ she said, ‘My family are stewards here, and have authority over the land.’ She looked around frantically for any sign of movement, but she found none.

‘The forest was here long before the idea of Kings existed, and will be here long after. Therefore, it is not man that has authority over the forest, but the forest which rules man.’

Suddenly there came a noise like the felling of a tree as something dark and formless dropped from the canopy above her. Matilda yelped and pressed a hand to her lips before it broiled into a scream.

The boy before her chuckled, not a sinister chuckle, but one of a friendly jest, as if he expected her to join in the revelry. The creature before him was dressed in green, clothes much too fine for an ordinary villein to afford readily, though they were old and had been altered on numerous occasions. He pushed the hood back from his head, revealing a shock of blonde hair and a bright, smiling face beneath, his blue eyes glistening with delight and warmth, though Matilda could barely register his friendliness given the state of panic she had found herself in.

‘How dare you?!’ she gasped, the air suddenly robbed from her chest. ‘How can you sneak up on a lady so unashamedly?!’

‘Very easily, as it turns out,’ said the boy with a grin. His voice was just hoarse enough to pass for a man, well disguised by his strange accent.
Will and Much sniggered into their shirts behind him.

Matilda hoisted her nose up, in part to hide the blush that she could feel spreading across her fair cheeks. ‘That response alone is enough for me to have my father throw you in the stocks.’

The green boy pressed his shoulder against a tree and plucked the string of a bow he was carrying like a lute.
‘I see no fathers here, m’lady,’ said the boy with another wide grin. ‘There are no stocks either. I suppose you’ll have to fend for yourself out here. Respect is not a birthright in the Greenwood, it is earned.’

Matilda wished very much to wipe that grin from his face. As unlady-like as it was, she could feel the anger getting the better of her, but as the boy was keen to point out, there were apparently no ladies in the Greenwood. So, what was the point in acting like one? She had other skills after all.

‘What do you propose?’ she asked.

The boy weighed his bow in his palm as if he had only just found it on the forest floor. He then cocked an eyebrow, still wearing that irritating grin. ‘Are you good with the bow?’

‘I have some skill,’ she lied. This would be her chance to surprise him.
‘Very well,’ he said, offering the bow up to her. ‘Choose a target.’
Matilda seized it and before he could offer them, she snatched an arrow from the quiver at his belt. She barged past and knocked it to the string.
‘There is a knot yonder,’ she said, nodding to the circular knot on a beech tree about a hundred yards from where they stood. ‘The first to hit that target declares themselves the ruler of this forest and all in it, including its people.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that should I defeat you, I get to tell you three to do as I say. I shall be queen of the Greenwood.’
‘And if I win, would that mean I get to tell you what to do?’
Matilda’s face flushed. ‘Nobody tells Matilda Fitzwalter what to do.’
‘Then you’d better shoot true.’ The boy tilted his head and bowed in acceptance.
This time, it was Matilda’s turn to smirk. She could hit a hare’s eye at threescore yards. This contest was already as good as won. Drawing the string to her ear, she wrestled its weight unsteadily. A warbow’s strength was childsplay, but this bow was stronger yet. Her back yawned at its power. Nevertheless, she settled the line of the arrow and loosed the bolt. The air around the string tugging her braid over the front of her shoulder.

The arrow struck true right in the centre of the knot.

‘There!’ she declared triumphantly. ‘The matter is settled. Bow to your queen, nave!’

‘I’m impressed.’

She had expected to watch the grin disappear, but she was annoyed and then disconcerted to find that it was still there on his plain face. He approached her brazenly and put out his hand.

‘I’m yet to have my turn.’

‘You cannot possibly get closer than that. I would not allow you to embarrass yourself on my account. Therefore, the contest is won, and I am victorious. Kneel!’

He kept his hand out. She did not wait until her face flushed again, so she
handed over the bow.

The boy stepped up to the mark, knocked an arrow in less than a butterfly’s wing beat, and then, with a grace she had yet to observe in any other archer, drew the string back to his ear. The string touched his cheek for less than a breath before the arrow disappeared, and when it reappeared with a crack, it had split her arrow down the middle and lodged in the exact centre of the knot.
Will and Much cheered and began chanting. ‘Hail! Hail all! Hail to the King of the Greenwood!’ They laughed and tossed leaves into the air like rose petals around the boy.
Matilda looked up into his bright face to see that the grin had finally disappeared, settling instead into a humble smile.

‘Y-you just ruined one of your arrows,’ she stammered.

‘It’s worth it to watch such a shade of pink grow on your pretty face.’

Matilda choked and ducked her head, hiding her face out of embarrassment. But there was something else there too. Why did she care if her face was red? Embarrassment was natural after a defeat, as was anger. The prospect of being bossed around by such an oaf was positively insufferable. No wonder she was red. And yet, she did not want him to see her, because he had called her pretty. Pretty? And she was blushing!
She felt his curled finger touch her chin and guide her face up to his, which made her blush all the redder. His smile was still warm, not victorious or gloating, but kind, though his piercing eyes were still full of glee and mischief.

‘Don’t fret, Lady Matilda, for I am a benevolent king. It’s not my place to have a woman kneel to me, nor my comrades likewise, for if you would have it, I should have you be my comrade in the Greenwood, and we would have many adventures together anon.’

Her eyelids fluttered and her voice, for the first time in her living memory, refused to leave her throat.

‘For now, though, you must feast with us! And we shall sit about until nightfall and tell stories!’ he declared, leaping away like a spirit of joy as Will and Much set to building a fire and produced a leg of meat from a sack.

Matilda pushed off the birch, which she had only just realised she had come to rest against.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, for she could tell that this was not a mere villein. A free yeoman, maybe? A squire’s boy? Who else would be more bold?

The boy smiled at her, and she smiled back at him much to her dread, for she realised in that exchange that this would not be her last time in the Greenwood, and worse, she would go voluntarily.

‘My Christian name is Robert,’ he said, ‘but the friends I have sometimes call me Robin Hood.’