Over their voices, Captain Cully screamed, “Fools, fools and children! It was a lie, like all magic! There is no such person as Robin Hood!” But the outlaws, wild with loss, went crashing into the woods after the shining archers, stumbling over logs, falling through thorn bushes, wailing hungrily as they ran.

Only Molly Grue stopped and looked back. Her face was burning white.

“Nay, Cully, you have it backward,” she called to him. “There’s no such a person as you, or me, or any of us. Robin and Marian are real, and we are the legend!” Then she ran on, crying, “Wait, wait!” like the others, leaving Captain Cully and Jack Jingly to stand in the trampled firelight and listen to the magician’s laughter.

Schmendrick hardly noticed when they sprang on him and seized his arms; nor did he flinch when Cully pricked his ribs with a dagger, hissing, “That was a dangerous diversion, Mr. Child, and rude as well. You could have said you didn’t want to hear the songs.” The dagger twitched deeper.

Far away, he heard Jack Jingly growl, “He’s na Child, Cully, nor is he any journeyman wizard, neither. I know him now. He’s Haggard’s son, the prince Lír, as foul as his father and doubtless handy with the black arts. Hold your hand, captain‌—‌he’s no good to us dead.”

Cully’s voice drooped. “Are you sure, Jack? He seemed such a pleasant fellow.”

“Pleasant fool, ye mean. Aye, Lír has that air, I’ve heard tell. He plays the gormless innocent, but he’s the devil for deception. The way he gave out to be this Child cove, just to get you off your guard.”

“I wasn’t off my guard, Jack,” Cully protested. “Not for a moment. I may have seemed to be, but I’m very deceptive myself.”

“And the way he called up Robin Hood to fill the lads with longing and turn them against you. Ah, but he gave himself away that time, and now he’ll bide with us though his father send the Red Bull to free him.” Cully caught his breath at that, but the giant snatched up the unresisting magician for the second time that night and bore him to a great tree, where he bound him with his face to the trunk and his arms stretched around it. Schmendrick giggled gently all through the operation, and made matters easier by hugging the tree as fondly as a new bride.

“There,” Jack Jingly said at last. “Do ye guard him the night, Cully, whiles I sleep, and in the morning it’s me to old Haggard to see what his boy’s worth to him. Happen we’ll all be gentlemen of leisure in a month’s time.”

“What of the men?” Cully asked worriedly. “Will they come back, do you think?”

The giant yawned and turned away. “They’ll be back by morning, sad and sneezing, and ye’ll have to be easy with them for a bit. They’ll be back, for they’m not the sort to trade something for nothing, and no more am I. Robin Hood might have stayed for us if we were. Good night to ye, captain.”