A note on language. This story takes place in the late 12th century. If the dialogue were to be written in the English of that time, it would be incomprehensible. If it were to be written in the English of Shakespeare's time, the late 16th-early 17th century, to give it an "archaic" flavour, it would be comprehensible but anachronistic, being 400 years later than the time of the story. Therefore, I have chosen to write it in Modern English.

The wedding of Simon Short and Marian Heath had been a modest affair, held at the home of the bride's parents. A brief marriage sacrament had been conducted by the village priest joining the two in holy wedlock. The important social event would be the wedding feast.

Simon Short was nineteen years old, as yet beardless, and, surpisingly, given that the groom was uncommonly handsome, still a virgin. His bride was a comely, sweet-dispositioned, modest, domestic young virgin of sixteen. They were the perfect couple. The marriage would, of course, not be consummated until the wedding night, so, the happy pair were still virgins, though eager to end that status as soon as possible.

The wedding feast was held in a field enclosed in a palisade as protection against cattle thieves. The two families were the best of friends and , as a gesture of friendship, they had both come to the feast unarmed. There was no serious fear of intruders. Robin Locke and his beastly brigands had committed no outrages in the shire for some months, and most folk thought that they had left Shelbourne Forest.

Robin, a renegade nobleman of an impoverished, though still respected family, had assembled a band of followers from the dregs of society in the shire. They included, inter alia, a defrocked priest, a crimson-attired minstrel whose sweet voice served him more for seducing maidens than for song, and a slow-witted giant with a penchant for buggery. They robbed the rich and the well-to-do and gave to no one.

They let no one stop them, but Robin did not permit them to kill without need, though his definition of "need" was a rather loose one. They were urged, rather, to unman those men who stood in their way, an alternative in which most of them took great pleasure.

Robin had his spies: beggars, whores, homeless urchins and other such inconspicuous folk throughout the shire, keeping him aware of events at which there might be valuable presents and folk wearing their most expensive finery. He had been informed of the Short-Heath nuptials and wedding party. There would be valuable gifts; jewelry would be worn; there would be maidens, young wives, and pretty lads, all to be toss'd on the greensward and swived .

Above all, from Robin's point of view, there was the still virginal bride on whom, though he was not their liege lord, Robin intended to exercise the droite du seigneur,

the "right" of the first night. He flattered himself that, after having lain with him, she would find her husband a poor substitute.

The feast was not yet quite begun; the meats were still on the spits, when Robin Locke and his band of brigands arrived at the open gate in the palisade surrounding the field. The gate was guarded only by a sturdy lad with a quarter staff. A kick which flattened his codpiece and its precious contents laid him out on the ground writhing in agony, never to become a man.

Before they realised what had occurred, the brigands were among them, armed with broadswords, while the male guests reached in vain for their own weapons which they had left behind. Robin, accompanied by Sam Small, the giant pederast, and Wat, the smith, proceeded directly to the bridal couple. Sam held the groom from behind and Wat took up his station behind the bride ready to do the same if necessary.

Simon was appalled and disgusted to feel Sam's stiff pintel pressing into the crack of his rump. Robin addressed Marian boldly. "Come, my dear, it is time that you learned the way of a man with a maid."

"How dare you ! ?" shouted Simon. "She is my wife. We are legally married."

"Indeed ?" answered Robin. "Then I shall have to annul your marriage."

"How do you propose to do that ?" asked Simon naively.

"Like this." replied Robin, tearing away Simon's codpiece, seizing his ballocks, and, with one sweep of his dirk, slicing them from the young bridegroom's body.

"Your marriage has never been consummated and now it never can be. Therefore, it is null and void. Sam, you may have your way with it. There is no sin in this, for it is not a man."(Not that that would have mattered for a moment to Sam.)

Marian moved as if to run away and was immediately grasped from behind by Wat. Robin beckoned Wil Crimson, the minstrel to join them and told him and Wat to hold Marian down. "I have never enjoyed fucking while standing." he explained.

Robin did off his codpiece exposing his long well-formed pintel and his ballocks, as plump and full as plums. They were, in fact, bloated with unreleased seed, for Robin had not had a woman for three months. Sam had done off his codpiece also. revealing an even larger and thicker pintel which he pressed against the eunuch bridegroom's tight arse which he intended to pierce at the same time that Robin pierced the bride's maidenhead.

Both men thrusted at the same instant and the screams of the bride and groom were mingled as their bodies were invaded by the hot stiff flesh of the two lust-driven men.

In the art of love, Robin was no neophyte and no bungler. Having breached the seal on that dark and secret passage into the bride's body, Robin busied his fingers stroking the insides of her thighs, and especially that secret sensitive place so little known to men of his time at the upper juncture of the labia. So doing, he ignited a fire of unfamiliar passion in Marian. As his pintel slipped ever deeper into her body, Robin reached inside Marian's bodice and began gently stroking her breasts.

Well before Robin had sounded the depth of her passage, he had made Marian frantic. He kissed her as he felt his pintel approaching the cervix. As he brushed the acorn of his pintel lightly over her cervix, deeply kissing her the while, Marian wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling his stiff straining shaft down to its full length within her body.

Now, Robin withdrew his shaft nearly to the lips and then slid it back to the very bottom of her love-tunnel and began the slow rhythmic motion which inflamed both his and her lust. Robin's virile member took control of the situation. It was no longer an appendage, but his master. Robin could do no else than let his pintel have its way.

Robin would willingly have prolonged their pleasure as long as possible, but his bloated ballocks ached with a three months' accumulation of seed and would not long be denied their relief. He was at the bottom of his stroke with the acorn of his pintel pressed against the cervix of Marian's fallow womb, when his seed bursted forth in an uncontrollable torrent, as if a dam had bursted and a lake were being drained. The torrent gushed through Marian's cervix and flooded her heretofore

vacant virginal womb.

The capacity of her womb having been exceeded, Robin's seed began to mount up through the passage around his throbbing spurting pintel. Yet, there was still more and it welled up over the lips and poured out over Marian's thighs. Marian was incoherent in her ecstasy, but, mingled with the meaningless sounds of pleasure and passion were the words which he had often heard: "Robin, I love you."

This time, they did not sound trite to him. This time, they kindled a like emotion in his own breast. Robin removed his hunting horn and placed it in Marian's hand and said, softly "Come to me in Shelbourne Forest and there bear my son. Enter the forest until you cannot see out of it behind you. Then blow this horn. My watchers

will see you and will guide me to you. "

Sam Small, having breached Simon's arse at the same time as Robin had broken Marian's maidenhead, had forced his thick pintel into the screaming eunuch's entrails until he found that secret knob, hidden deep within a man's body not to be found except thus, by penetration through the arse.

Sam began to stroke the sensitive knob with the acorn of his pintel. To his horror, disgust, dismay, and chagrin, Simon found himself experiencing sensations both intensely pleasurable and voluptuous. He did not want to experience pleasure this way, submitting to sodomy. His body, however, took no account of his wishes. He could sense that something was about to happen. He had, at times, brought about a similar sensation by fondling his erect pintel and he could guess what was about to happen. AND HE DID NOT WANT IT TO .

It did. Despite the loss of his ballocks, thick lumpy jets of seed streaked with blood from the severed cords which had connected his ballocks to his body, leaped forth from his soft limp pintel and poured out onto the ground, wasting that of which he could never make any more. He watched this happen as he saw another man getting his bride with child.

Tears of impotent rage and shame poured from Simon's eyes. He had been cheated of his wedding night and made to feel intense unwelcome pleasure through being used as if he, himself, were a woman. Indeed, what was he now ? He was not a man for he could not beget offspring, nor a woman, for he could not bear them. Robin Locke had called him "it", and so he was, neuter, like a gelding, a steer, or a barrow.

Robin's brigands, having relieved the guests of their valuables, and the wedding party of the gifts, were now availing themselves of the feast, the maidens (not for long), the comely young wives, and the pretty lads. Of course, the husbands and fathers sought to hinder the rape of their children and wives. This was futile effort for unarmed men and only led to their ruin.

Robin had warned them "Slay none save in self-defence." The brigands, therefore, confined themselves, for the most part, to striking, kicking, and stamping upon the codpieces of the irate husbands and fathers, whose screams soon warned any others who might have thought to join with the protestors of the outrages perpetrated by the brigands to have second thoughts and keep silent.

Except for Wil Crimson and one or two others, the brigands were no such skilled lovers as Robin Locke. However, if they made any effort to be gentle, the inexperienced maidens and lads mostly enjoyed their first experience of amatory pleasure. There were many protestations of love and, if they had chosen to accompany the brigands back to Shelbourne Forest, their cowed ,unarmed, and, in some cases, unmanned fathers and brothers could hardly have restrained them.

Though none of the maidens or lads joined the brigands at this time, the seed was planted. The alluring prospect of a life of adventure, excitement and license, free of the restrictions of parental authority and the tedium of village life had been placed before them. It would not be forgotten.

Of course, other seeds had been planted as well. It was not long before some of the former maidens, including Marian Heath, were wearing their aprons high. There was some controversy as to whether the marriage should be annulled as unconsummated or left in effect so as to legitimise Marian's offspring.

She refused to live with an eunuch who had visibly experienced pleasure from being used as a woman. Therefore, having left his bed [which she had never occupied] and board, Marian had given Simon grounds to divorce her if the marriage were not annulled.

Under the circumstances, it would be so patently unjust to penalise the girls for submitting to rape by the brigands, that it was agreed that their offspring would be raised in the homes of the girls parents and treated as younger siblings. The rapes of

the young wives presented different problems. By common law, any child born to a married woman was legitimate , but their husbands were not at all certain that their wives submission to the brigands' demands was unwilling.

One of the wives was heard to shriek at her husband "What a pity that he did not take a fancy to your arse instead, so that I might have laughed to see him use you as a woman."

The three Llewellyn boys, Evan and Llwis, fraternal twins. 13 years old, and their older brother, Frangion, 14 had all been initiated into the wonders of sexual pleasure by being buggered by the brigands. Since the aborted wedding feast, they had often served each other in this way. Frangion buggered the twins and they buggered each other but were too small to give Frangion much pleasure in that way.

The severity of their upbringing by their stepfather , Hardman Sharp, had increased of late. The beatings were more severe for more trivial offenses. The verbal and physical abuse which they received from their stepfather, who had declared that he had no desire to bring up another man's children [so, why did he marry a woman with three sons ?] were becoming intolerable.

Although inured to it by experience, the boys did not relish the prospect of spending another winter huddling together for warmth in the cold loft of the barn whilst Hardman Sharp and their mother, Catherine, luxuriated on a feather bed in the house.

After discussing their grievances for many evenings, the boys decided that the time had come to join the brigands in Shelbourne Forest. And so, on a pleasant day of late summer in September, on the night of the full Moon, the boys, having gathered together food, clothing, and aught else that might be of use into three pokes , attached them to their staves, slipped out of the barn after dark, and strode

determinedly toward Shelbourne Forest.

As they crossed the fields, the moonlight made their way as clear as in day. The breezes were gentle and balmy and, had they not feared to awaken someone, they would have bursted into song. There was a distinct trail leading into Shelbourne Forest on which they had often walked in their steadily diminishing free time.

This trail they now sought out and followed it further into the forest than they had ever walked before, until they could no longer see the opening of it behind them. They had no idea where to find the brigands except that one of them had whispered to Frangion "Call out for Robin Locke and we will find ye and bring ye to him."

As the forest growth grew denser, less moonlight penetrated it and the way became harder to find. Finally they stopped, spread out their cloaks on the ground under a great oak tree and lay down to rest, two sleeping and the third standing guard. Whenever one of the sleepers awoke, he replaced the guard. The first guard was Frangion and when the twins went to sleep, he kissed each of them and wished them untroubled sleep.

Frangion paced back and forth guarding his twin brothers until Llwis awoke and took his place. And, so they passed the night, undisturbed. At the first light of dawn, they rose, answered the calls of nature and , finding a brooklet nearby, washed their hands and faces. They breakfasted lightly on the fruit, bread, and cheese which they had brought with them , re-packed the rest for their mid-day meal, and resumed their walk into the interior of the forest.

They saw fawns not far away and, deeper in the forest, a bear, but none came near them. Now, fearing none who might hear them, they broke into song, an old walking song "And Ho, for the open road" of which they knew five of its many strophes. By the time they had finished the song, they realised that they were well into the forest and guessed that it might well be time to call for Robin Locke.

"Robin, Robin Locke, we are come. Your men -ahem- "knew" us at the wedding feast, and bade us come when we would. And so, we are here. We will keep to this trail as long as we can. "

"That will not be long, lads." said a man's voice behind them. They turned to see Wil Crimson in his cherry-red tunic and hose. "We have been watching you since you entered the forest last night. Little happens in these woods that escapes our notice. Follow me."

They proceeded along the trail for about a furlong and then Wil Crimson turned right into a side trail which the boys would have missed. Little-used, it was but a vague track through the underbrush. This they followed farther and farther into the ever-thickening wood. The trail passed through thickets cut away to form a vertical sided slot, though in more open areas, the trail was all but invisible.

At length, Frangion called out, "May we stop and rest, Master Crimson ? We are unused to walking so far in the woods."

"Surely, lads; there is no need to hurry. Robin knows that you are coming." The boys wondered how he knew. Apparently, tidings travelled rapidly in Shelbourne Forest, but how ? Although they had sighted animals, Wil Crimson was the only man they had seen in the forest.

The boys made a light meal of the remaining bread, cheese, and fruit in their pokes. Frangion asked Wil Crimson "How does news travel so quickly in this forest ?"

"It is carried by messengers." replied Wil.

"But where are they ? You are the only man we have seen in the forest."

"I am the only man you have seen on the ground. Look up, into the crowns of the trees. What do you see ?"

At first, they could see nothing, but then, Frangion noticed something. "Ropes , one above the other, running from tree to tree where they nearly touch."

"Yes," replied Wil. "That is the Sky Walk. We hold onto the upper rope and walk or run on the lower one. Even when there are hunters or woodsmen or the Sheriff's men searching the trails we rush by over their heads, unseen and unnoticed. We could reach our camp much more swiftly that way, but none of you has the skill to use the Sky Walk yet."

So, they contiued their pedestrian progress towared the camp. The underbrush became thicker and the trees closer together as they entered the heart of Shelbourne Forest. Finally, their advance was checked by an impenetrable thicket. At first the boys did not recognise it for what it was, a high thick hedge. Here, Wil turned right and walked along the hedge. There appeared to be no break or opening in it. There did seem, though to be an offset in it.

The offset was actually formed by two overlapping portions of the hedge, between which there was a gap. This they entered. Although the gap continued for some distance before them,Wil soon turned right into an almost invisible opening in the hedge on that side into another gap between sections of the hedge which extended to both the left and right. Here he turned right again and after a dozen paces, left into a diagonal cut in the hedge which led them out of the maze and into the clearing behind the hedge.

There, before them, lay the camp, a number of mounds which, upon closer inspection proved to be long, low, log buildings overgrown with vines. One was shorter but higher than the rest. Wil approached this building and called out "Ho, Robin, our guests have arrived." Robin Locke emerged, clad in the green tunic and hosen which he had worn to the wedding feast.

Robin greeted them in a friendly fashion. "You are welcome, lads, though I have wished for a different guest. Can you tell me anything of Marian Heath ?"

Frangion, being the oldest, had appointed himself spokesman for the three. "Yes, sir, she is great with child and lives with her parents. She refuses to live with her useless husband who has become weak and fat as a pig. There are eight other women who were virgins before the wedding feast who now wear their aprons high. 'Tis said that they long for the fathers of the babes they will bear."

Robin replied sternly "There are no women in this camp. Only Marian, as the mother of my child, will be welcome here. But, now, why have you come here ?

Frangion answered for the three. "Life with our stepfather has become unbearable. He beats us for anything and nothing. We are ill-fed and our food is brought to us in the barn. There we must sleep. We cannot bear to shiver in the loft

through another winter with no heat but that from the bodies of the animals, clinging to each other for warmth, while our mother and stepfather rest on a warm feather bed.

But, there is another reason. Three of your men taught us the way of a man with a lad at the wedding feast, bringing into our wretched lives such joy as we had never known. We have come to offer ourselves to those men if they will have us, for we know no better way to thank them for the joy they gave us."

Robin smiled, touched by their words. "Do you know their names ?"

Frangion answered "I, at least, do. The man who bent me over was named Watkin. With him were two others who looked like brothers and it was they who gave delight to my brothers."

Robin spoke to Wil Crimson. "Fetch Watkin , the sadler and Alan and Ralph ["Rafe"] of the Mountain . Surely they are those of whom the lad speaks."

Wil Crimson went to one of the smaller buildings and entered it. Shortly thereafter he emerged with three men. Two were clearly brothers and the third was somewhat older and taller than they. When they saw the boys, they hastened up to them.

Watkin squatted down on his haunches before Frangion and asked. "Well, me lad, how have you fared since the wedding feast ?"

"Poorly, under the rod of our stepfather," answered Frangion, "but now we are happy to be with those whom we have longed for." Watkin enfolded Frangion in a warm embrace and kissed him.

"I, too have often remembered the wedding feast and longed for you, and now you are here in my arms and my heart could burst with sheer joy."

Alan, the minstrel, sang a few lines of a love song and picked up Ewan ["AYoowan"] , held him close to his breast, and kissed him, reaching up under his tunic and fondling his immature manly parts.

Llwis ["HlOOwis"] bent over and began to raise the back of his tunic. Ralph hastily said "What, lad, have you no decency ?"

"Had you at the wedding feast ?" asked Llwis.

Ralph laughed and admitted "That I did not, lad" He draped the front of his tunic over Llwis' back and slipped the boy's tunic up under his so that the joining of the parts could not be seen by outsiders and exercised his pleasure upon Llwis there and then.

What they could not conceal soon afterward was the thick white jet of seed which spurted out from under the front of Llwis' tunic.

The three men and their boys retreated to the privacy of the cabin from which the men had been summoned and what transpired there, none knows but they.

While the boys were adjusting to life in Robin's camp and learning the skills which they would need to be able to use to be members of his band, Robin fretted over the advance of Autumn. Would Marian come to the forest as he had bade her to ? If it were not soon, she would not be able to come until Spring, and, by then, his child would have been born, not in Shelbourne Forest as he wished, but in the village.

On a crisp Autumn day in October, a courier from the sentinels on the forest road entered Robin's camp from the Sky Walk and announced that a woman had blown a horn at a point perhaps a furlong into the forest. It appeared that she was being pursued by three men about a half mile behind her.

Robin quickly selected six archers to follow him and four litter-bearers to follow them on the trail and the road and, therefore, much more slowly than Robin and the archers who would use the Sky Walk.

Marian was about to blow Robin's horn for the fourth time when a man dropped out of the trees near her and spoke to her. "You have been heard, lady, and Robin is coming as fast as he may. "

"My husband and his father and brother are following me." said Marian nervously.

" They cannot arrive before Robin does, and, even if they did, we would not let them enter the forest."

Hardly had he spoken these words when another man dropped out of the trees and bent the knee before Marian. "Robin !" she cried. "You have nothing to fear, Marian. I know that you are being followed and by whom, but we will allow them to come only this far into the forest. Here I shall confront and challenge them. For safety, stand two paces behind me. You are being guarded by six archers, hidden in the trees."

In due course, the trio of pursuers arrived. "You have entered this far into the forest by my leave." announced Robin. "Now, state your business here."

Adam Short, acting as spokesman for the group replied, "We have come to retrieve my brother's wife."

"She does not wish to return with you. Your brother, Simon, having failed to consummate the marriage, has no claim on her. Furthermore, she has left your brother's bed and board which further invalidates the marriage. Marian Heath is not your brother's wife. You have no right to force her to return to his home with you nor will I permit you to do so."

"We are three to one." foolishly replied Adam Short. "You must yield her to us."

Robin raised his right hand and said "Show them that I am not alone." Bows twanged and six arrows thudded into the ground about the visitors' feet. "My men are all around you."

"You have stolen my brother's wife. I call you thief, rapist, and adulterer and I challenge you to mortal combat."

"You have no grievance with me. It is his place to challenge."

"He has made me his champion."

"Very well, then, HAVE AT !"

Adam Short was a respectable swordsman, but too given to wasted motion. Robin exercised great economy of motion. Even were there no other differences in their skill, Adam would tire sooner than Robin. Adam had the bad habit of parrying with the edge rather than the flat of his sword and it was quickly becoming dinted and blunted.

So skilled was Robin that Adam had not drawn blood yet, but Adam bore numerous nicks and cuts which irritated and distracted him. Neither of the men wore any armour which impeded more than it protected.

Robin cut Adam's forehead so that blood ran down into his eyes, greatly impairing his vision. Suddenly, Thomas Short, the father of the two younger men, his sword drawn, stepped before his son. This was a gross violation of the code duello. Angrily, Robin barked "Withdraw, or my archers will skewer you. How DARE you intervene ?"

The diversion which Thomas Short's intervention had caused did not help Adam much. Though he had wiped the blood from his eyes, there was always more. He was standing somewhat to Robin's right. As he saw where Robin was and began to turn in order to lunge at him, Robin brought the edge of his broadsword down onto Adam's right hand. Four fingers flew in various directions and the sword dropped from Adam's mangled hand.

Adam stood there, resigned to death, but Robin shook his head and said "No, you are no threat to me now. You cannot fight and I will, not slay an unarmed man."

With a cry of rage, Thomas Short rushed toward Robin, his sword held high over his head with both hands, a singularly foolish move which leaves the entire body unprotected. Robin slipped aside and stepped back and, as the old man passed him, drove his sword through Thomas Short's right armpit and into his chest, piercing his lungs.

"Enough !" shouted Robin. "You are defeated. Go now. As the eunuch and his one-handed brother cannot carry their father, I shall send men to carry him within sight of the village.

Hear what I say to you now. Marian Heath is MINE, as is this forest which I claim in my own name and that of my heirs. I am Lord of Sherbourne Forest and I shall surrender it to none save King Richard, should he ever return . While Richard lives, John Lackland is no king and I bow to none of his lackeys."

Two of Robin's watchers carried the body of Thomas Short and two others escorted his defeated sons out of the forest. Soon after they had departed, the litter with its four bearers arrived. It was sturdily constructed with curtained sides , a canopied top, and comfortable feather-stuffed cushions on which to recline.

"Come, Lady Marian" said Robin "Be so kind as to seat yourself in this litter which I have prepared for you and thus be borne to the hedge which surrounds my camp. There we must proceed afoot, for the way is too narrow for the litter. When you have rested, if you will, we shall be married by father Buck, and there, in my house, you shall bear our child. Will you, then, marry me, Lady Marian ?"

"Of course, Lord Robin." And then they kissed.