Robin shook his head, watching the group of children disperse, chasing at each other. “Food will be scarce soon, and fewer supplies are going to be sent through the Sherwood Road. You have no fields to sow, and your shelter is … wanting. The seasons are changing, the winter will freeze you out. There are children here. You’re a big man, you can bear it. The others can’t.”

There was concern in John’s face. He had a lovable fatherly quality to him, when he wasn’t bashing your ribs in with a tree. “People live off the land. They always have.”

“And they die that way.”

His face twisted. “People die everywhere. Nobody will take us.”

The answer was right there. There was exactly one man on earth who could find more pity than poison in this group.

And he was nearby.

CHARITY WAS EVER A recurring argument between Robin and his father. As a young man he’d believed in his father, too naïve to question otherwise. They’d once been riding from a town, Robin and Edmond and Father between them. Lord Walter had given a coin to a beggar.

“What did he do to deserve it, though?”

“It’s charity, Robin. The man has nothing, and needs help.”

“Why must Edmond and I work all day for you to give us our coin then?”

“So that you’ll appreciate what hard work is worth.”

“Why can’t the man do hard work like we do to earn the coin?”

“He’s likely done more hard work in his life than you’ll ever know, Robin.”

As the years progressed, and Robin grew more comfortable challenging his father’s stance, the conversation expanded.

“He offers us nothing, Father. He offers England nothing. Life is a difficult thing, and not everyone can be successful at it. He’s failed, and your coin won’t change that.”

“Are you so quick to judge the value of a man’s life, then? What is a man worth? Is it limited to that which he can do for England in his twilight years? Does a lifetime of hard work not earn him respect when he needs it most?”

“You’re only guessing that he’s worked hard. He could have been lazy his entire life, leeching off his family, until finally they kicked him out. If he’d earned respect his entire life, wouldn’t he have people to take care of him now?”

“Shall we go back and ask him? Would you have him explain every sorrow he’s been through so you can personally judge if he’s earned this one coin?”

That was when Robin was still young. But as a man, only weeks before leaving home, he was not so easily silenced.