Secrets of the sherwood forest

7

The next morning I'm the last one to wake up. This isn't anything unusual, Edith always wakes up before I do, but Aminat on the other hand, woke up hours before her.

I found this out after I woke up to the sounds of someone walking outside. I look outside, as it might be an animal trying to steal our food. The sun is barely up yet and still, Aminat is up and dressed (I gave her my old dress to sleep in), walking away from our tents towards the other end of the camp, a rolled-up piece of cloth in her hand.

She turns to look at me and whispers me to go back to sleep, so that's what I do. The next time I wake up to Edith telling me breakfast is ready.

Today is the day we take the stuff Edith stole from Prince Jhon to Nottingham and for the people who need it.

Aminat insists on coming with us to the town, but Edith still doesn't trust her to not tell about us to the serif. That's why she makes Aminat leave the camp before us, so we can take the stuff from the 4th tent to our bags and hide them underneath our robes, so we don't get caught. 

We do this so quickly that Aminat has only gotten around 100 meters from the camp by the time we catch her.

Walking trough the forest we see the first grey clouds. "I think it's going to start raining soon" I tell the obvious to my two companions.

"Yeah, we should hurry up, so we don't get wet" Aminat tells us.

We stay quiet for the rest of the walk.

Until we see the first houses of Nottingham.

Most of the houses are made from grey stones or brown wood, with yellow hay or green grass on the roofs. The houses are small and packed right next to each other, with stone streets in between some of them.

Even though it's only around 10am and we're on the poorer, less populated part of the town, there are people everywhere. Children running around, the smell of fresh bread coming from the open bakery door, people walking to sell their products to the central marketplace. I hear the loud banging from the blacksmiths and the bells from the monastery down the road.

"Should we visit Alfred now that we're here?" I ask Edith as we walk towards the town.

"Rue, I love that idea and I'd really like to do it, but we're women, they're not going to let us in." she replies smiling.

We've slowed down now that we're so close to the town. We don't want anybody that would report us to the serif to see us. We keep our hoods up as we walk to the first house: The blacksmiths.

The entire room smells like melting metal and smoke as we step inside. I enter last and close the door behind me.

Me and Edith pull our hoods down as we greet the blacksmith.

"Well, hello there girls!" The huge man greets us. His entire body is covered in ash and dirt, and even tough he's still very muscular he has gotten noticeably smaller by the last time I saw him almost six months ago.

"You came in just on time, the serif is demanding I pay him by tonight." He says as he's turning around to see us.

He looks at me, then Edith and finally at Aminat. He looks a bit confused about the newest addition to our group.

"And who's this?" He asks, smiling politely but extremely confused.

I look at Aminat and she answers with "Hello sir, you can call me Aminat."

"Alright then" he answers her. "Anyway, you girls shouldn't stay in here for too long, I might get customers that don't like what we're doing." He changes the subject.

"Here you go, I really hope that's enough for now" I tell him as I give the man a small, brown pack.

He takes the pack and smiles "Thank you so much, I don't know what I'd do without you." He tells us.

I want to hug him, but I obviously won't. His reaction is the exact reason why I started doing this 'stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor' -thing.

We put our hoods back on and walk back outside where it has started raining. The streets have gotten far emptier in the five minutes we spent at the blacksmiths, but that's not going to stop us.

Next up: Ms Wilkerstone's house across the street.

Edith knocks the wooden door of a small house build from grey stones.

A child, around 8 years old, opens the door. She looks up at us and after recognising us she immediately turns her head and screams: "Mommy! They're here!"

A few seconds later an old lady comes to the door and tells the child to go play with her siblings.

Ms Wilkerstone also looks older, her blonde hair is now almost fully grey and the wrinkles on her face have gotten more obvious. Not to mention that she has gotten even smaller, which I thought would be impossible, but I guess not.

"Hi girls" she greets us and smiles. "Come on inside, I don't want you three to get sick in the rain" She continues, no questions asked about our new friend.

I've always loved Ms Wilkerstone's house. It might be the exact opposite of what I grew up in, but thinking about it, that might be the reason.

Her house is small, but cosy, unlike the huge, empty halls I lived in for 14 years.

We walk in and close the door. Edith and I pull our hoods down and immediately get greeted by eight children between the ages of five and 12.

"Hello everyone!" I greet them. I'm almost as happy to see them as they are to see us.

"We were just celebrating Paige's birthday" Ms Wilkerstone says behind us.

I look at the 3rd youngest child, dressed in a yellow dress, blonde hair on two braids. "Oh, I love birthdays!" I tell the smiling children.

"And how old are you turning today?" I ask Paige.

"I'm seven!" She tells me, proudly smiling.

"Seven already? That deserves a gift in my opinion." I tell her as I pull something out of the small bag I have on my belt.

"We really tried to get her a gift, but the serif, that vile man, took almost all the savings we had, and they weren't that big to start with." Ms Wilkerstone explains, angry at the man that took almost everything from her.

"That's why we're here to help you out." Edith joins the conversation, with the youngest child, five-year-old Oscar, playing with her black hair.

I take out a necklace. It has a small, silver bird on it. I got it as a gift on my 7th birthday from a maid of mine (not the one that got me into this situation, I've given out those within my first week in Nottingham.)

I hold it in front of Paige that now has gotten right in front of me, blue eyes bright and happy. "How about this one? Do you like it?" I ask this girl.

"YES! I love it! Thank you Rue!" She almost screams from joy, and I hand her the necklace. Edith on the other hand, has gotten her hair away from the toddler and hands a brown bag to Ms Wilkerstone.

"Thank you so much" she says, almost crying. Now I walk up to her and give this woman a hug. This opens the waterfalls and I have to fight tears from my eyes as well.

After this goes on for a few minutes and I finally let go, she demands we stay for lunch. The rain has only gotten worse outside, so we decide to stay.