Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 110, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 673 & 674, September/October 1997

Shriving the Scarecrow by Clayton Emery

© 1997 by Clayton Emery

“Help! Murder! Oh, help!” The cry sailed across the marsh, helpless as a rat in the claws of a hawk.

“There!” Marian pointed through the slanting sunset. “There’s three of them!”

“No, two.” Robin Hood flicked a hand over his shoulder, nocked a cloth-yard arrow to the bow always in his left hand.

The outlaws could see for miles. Romney Marsh stretched along the gray English Channel, ditched and dyked by Roman engineers, dead level. Their destination, a lonely church, jutted above the marsh like a crown on a tabletop. The village of Romney was a mile inland, tucked against trees thumb-high.

Two men ran while one stood still. The first fled for the sanctuary of the church. A smaller man pursued, waving a knife that glistened gold. The third hung crucified on a tilting cross. Elongated shadows like giant spiders streamed from the feet of all three and converged.

Robin and Marian dashed down a dyke, vaulted a ditch, tore across a newly harvested field churned to mud by autumn rain. Shaggy white sheep bleated and scampered aside. Rye and barley stubble crunched under deer hide soles. Chaff stuck to their trouser legs.

But the outlaws were still half a mile off when the first man quit running for the church, staggered towards the third figure — not a man, but a ratty scarecrow. The man cowered in its pathetic shelter while the knife wielder slashed the air and ran straight on.

“You’ll have to shoot,” Marian panted.

Robin Hood nodded. Atop a dyke, he raised his great bow, drew a tight breath with the string, curled finger and thumb under his jaw...

The knife wielder chased his victim around the scarecrow, shoved it askew to stab...

“Rob...”

The mighty bow thrummed, the evening caught its breath, then a black shaft ripped through the scarecrow, slammed into the chest of the villain behind. He bowled over into the mud.

Again Robin and Marian ran, quartering dykes, threading packed sheep. Gulls and woodpigeons and skylarks, gleaning grain from the harvest, flapped away trilling and keening.

Treading on shadows, the outlaws circled the scarecrow. The rescued man sobbed on his knees. The stricken man lay on his back, Robin’s arrow above his heart, eyes focused on Heaven.

He raised a quivering hand towards the scarecrow. “It was him. Him done it. Not me. Him.”

Robin and Marian turned, confused.

The rescued man had gained his feet. “It’s the — scarecrow. He thinks — the scarecrow’s — killed him.”

“Shrive me,” whispered the dying man, “for God’s mercy.”

Marian bent, licked her finger, traced a cross on his forehead. “I absolve you of all sin. Rest in peace.”

“It was him done it...” The voice trailed off. The arm fell.

“You’ve saved me,” puffed the other. He was older, with a sparse salt-speckled beard and pouchy eyes. A merchant, by his red robe and ermine collar. “I can — pay. Bless you both. He’d have — killed me. I can pay...”

“Keep your money,” Robin snapped. “Pay me in truth. Who is he and why did he pursue?”

The merchant waved a hand. “He’s Rioch. A cutthroat — reprobate. Anyone — will tell you. My coin — is good...”

“I said, keep your money!”

Marian laid a hand on Robin’s arm. “But why did he pursue, good sir?”

“For my money, of course!” Sobbing for air, the man shook his head irritably. “I stepped outside to — see the sunset — and he jumped me. They’ll tell you.”

Robin looked black as he cut out the arrow with his large Irish knife. Marian frowned at the scarecrow. It was only a bag of burlap stuffed with straw, a worm-eaten purple-white turnip for a head, a tattered straw hat and rags too rotten to steal, though they had once been bright red brocade. The creature hung tilted on a rickety cross, head down as if witness to shameful secrets.

“Where the hell is everyone?” Robin squinted at the distant village. “You’d think a murder before their very eyes — There they come. But not many.”

Closer now, silhouetted against dusk, they saw that west of the village stood a manor house seemingly uprooted from town. It was stone with flanking towers of wood in imitation of a castle, stables and outbuildings behind, bounded by a wooden fence. Serving women watched from the front gate while a pair of men trudged across the marsh. Romney village was twenty cottages and an alehouse but no chapel. A nearby mill, once worked by the tides, slouched brokenly; bats flitted out holes in the roof. Villagers, sharing ale and talk after a thirsty day’s harvesting, gathered by sheep pens and stared, but only a man and boy plodded their way.

Marian crossed her arms as the channel wind hissed around them. Robin had wanted to show Marian this wondrous marsh, for he’d only seen it from the sea, and both wished to visit the nearby battlefield of Hastings, or Senelac as Saxons still named it. They were out for a lark before winter shut them in Sherwood Forest, but their holiday had come to an abrupt end. “Did you ever see anyplace so flat?”

“The deserts of Arabia. The open ocean. But not anyplace green.” Robin wiped his bloody arrow on salt grass. “Must be the flatness gets into their minds.”

Without a word, the red-robed merchant left them to the dead man and drooping scarecrow. He picked across the marsh towards the manor.

The oncoming villager wore a black robe to his ankles, a cowl edged with white, a skullcap. The priest was old and stooped, but strong in body and spirit, and plodded on doggedly. The lad trailing must have been an altar boy.

The priest peered at the strangers. In tattered Lincoln green, tunics and boots of deerhide, hung with knives and quivers and satchels and blankets, they might have been king’s foresters. Yet one was a woman with dark tumbling hair.

It being harvest time, beer was green, and the walk made the priest gurgle and erupt gas. He tried to be dignified, frowning at his smudged hems. “Pray forgive the blood. I’ve been butchering. I am Alaric DeFrier. So you’ve killed Rioch, eh? Just as well he’s gone to God. I had to lock the poor box once he could walk, and the reeve wore out switches trying to make him farm. But it was the high road for him, with club and knife. Come, fetch him to the — church.” He stifled a belch.

“Do you need help, Rob?”

“No.” Testy, the archer stooped and levered the bloodless corpse to his shoulder. Free hand and bow wide for balance, he tottered across the marsh. The altar boy picked up Rioch’s knife.

The church loomed large as a barn, built of brick and thick shingles, with a square tower for a steeple. Alaric explained, “A huge church for such a small village, yes. An archbishop fell into a ditch and prayed to Saint Thomas à Becket. He was rescued, and so built this magnificent church near where he fell. It’s not even on the road, and a long way to walk for morning Mass. Yet someday I fear it may stand out of sight of any living soul.”

Marian asked, “Why fear for the village’s future?”

Alaric opened the wooden door, but paused to wave at the endless marsh. “We can grow crops, but not well. The land holds salt and floods often. Sheep prosper but not men, and sheep little need a church. This is more a place to grow legends than food. They say Britain is divided into five parts: England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland — and Romney Marsh.”

The interior was dark. The floor was uneven stone, the only furniture a wooden altar and gilt cross. Alaric lit a rush and sent the boy into the nave to fetch a mat.

Robin eased the dead Rioch down. “How is it a merchant can be pursued across field and marsh and none run to his rescue?”

The priest accepted a bowl of seawater and a rag, knelt painfully to wash the corpse. Marian helped. “Vincent is not of this fief.”

The outlaw pointed out the window at the manor house. “He lives here!”

A shake of the head. “Not really. He’s from Rye.” The seaport eight miles west.

“Surely,” Robin objected, “he deserves succor from murdering villains with knives! Or does he?”

“‘He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,”’ quoted the priest vaguely. “You may pass the night here if you wish. We’ve plenty of room.”

Robin Hood took off his hat. “No, I think we’ll bed in the forest. Father, can you shrive me?”

“Eh?” The priest squinted up, returned to ministering the body. “Ah, I see no need for absolution nor penance. It was clear Rioch intended murder.”

“I feel guilty nonetheless.” The archer gazed out the window. The marsh drew a line flat as the stone windowsill. “I’ve killed men before, God knows, but I don’t feel right about this one.”

Alaric rolled the corpse with gnarled hands. “It’s tragic to lose any soul, but you are not culpable. I won’t presume you were God’s instrument, but... perhaps you’d best think it an accident and nothing more. You might pray for Rioch’s soul. Precious few will.” Robin Hood suddenly donned his hat, thanked the priest with a silver penny, and marched out the door. Marian trailed him.

As they strode along the dykes above the alien marsh, the wife asked, “Why so glum, Rob? Withal that merchant seems not a goodly man, but the other was clearly a felon.”

The outlaw shook his head. “I don’t know that, Marian. I may have shot the wrong man...”

“Did you know,” asked Marian, “to eat oysters on Saint James’s Day means you’ll never lack for money?”

“Not when I can steal it, no.” Robin Hood winkled open an oyster with his knife, nicked the muscle, plopped white meat in his mouth.

Feet dangling, the two shucked oysters on a rickety pier. Rye was hilly as Romney Marsh was flat. Twin ridges like a swallow’s tail projected into the sea. Each ridge was capped with sandstone and the sister towns of Rye and Winchelsea. Rye was notched into stone, girded by a city wall, and bound by three rivers: Rother, Brede, and Tillingham. All three carrying silt and sewage, they had choked Rye Bay into a long canal. Far out bobbed fat-bellied carracks and fishing boats, sails furled. The channel beyond darkened as the sun set.

Up at dawn, the outlaws had entered by the Postern Gate and spent the day in town. Now Marian reported, “I asked all up and down Mermaid Street. They say the locals are aloof, but I dropped coins and folks were glad to gossip about someone they hate. Yes, Vincent’s a burgher, a merchant.”

“Beholden only to God,” Robin muttered. Independent merchants were something new in England. Outside “God’s Sacred Triangle” of peasants, clergy, and noblemen, they were a whole separate class just feeling their oats.

“Vincent began as a velbrugger, a dealer in sheepskins. Then he found a demand for corn[1] in Bruges’ Grote Markt. Now, a viscount named Spencer is the feudal lord of Romney Marsh, but he’s always campaigning in France with King Richard, so he’s always strapped. So Spencer sells the entire wool and corn crop to Vincent for cash and it’s all exported to Holland!”

“That explains why the mill falls down,” Robin snuffed. “And why the priest fears the village will disappear.”

“The poor peasants shear and harvest, then truck it all here to be sold to foreigners. They get silver instead of a share, but they must buy back wool and corn at higher prices, or else it’s not available. And there’s more. By law, the peasants keep the dykes and ditches in good heart. Vincent gains but contributes nothing, pays almost nothing in taxes. And rather than attend muster-at-arms, he pays deputies to go in his stead.”

“A shield of gold.” Robin shucked and nodded. “He’s become virtual lord of the land, but with no oath of fealty between lord and peasant. No good will come of this mercantile class, I tell you.”

“Aye. God and custom fall by the wayside, and money covers their altar.”

Robin pitched oyster shells to fleabitten cats. Gulls flew off to peck at a skinned horse floating by. “I see why the peasants didn’t rush to his aid. They’ve love for neither Vincent nor Rioch. But he employs two hundred men, I found. He owns three of those car-racks to ship his grain, and the wharves to tie to, including this one we sit on.”

“No one loves him. These merchants are more a brotherhood than rivals, because they depend on each other’s honesty. But Vincent cuts too fine a bargain and won’t make up for errors. When his wife died a few years ago, he built that grand house at Romney and moved. Some say it’s to oversee harvests, but others say he evades taxes and guild restrictions, or else it’s because everyone in Rye hates him so. The only one’s ever profited by him is that scarecrow, who wears his cast-off clothing to protect his crops.”

“So much for the true worth of money. A wife dead, children estranged, no friends. Even his partner’s dead—”

“Aha!” beamed his wife.

Robin Hood hung on her pause. “Keep talking. He didn’t die in bed, did he?”

“No,” Marian trumpeted, “he was stabbed! In his counting house one night! The murderer was never found, nor the money recovered! Vincent inherited his half of the three ships!”

“Lucky Vincent,” mused Robin, “but then, he’s got seven letters in his name — get up!”

Heavy boots clomped fast along the pier. Out of the shadows ran two men, fishermen or sailors in pitch-smeared shirts and knit caps. Each carried a gaff, an oak club topped with a shark hook. The gaffs went up as one rumbled, “You’re to get out of town and stay out!”

Robin and Marian glided across the pier. Marian balanced her slim bow in one hand, drew her Irish knife with the other. Robin Hood only flexed his grip. The sailors paused as their intended victims, rather than cringe, took up fighting stances. But with roars to encourage themselves, they rushed.

Marian flashed her knife in a circle: a ruse. As the sailor’s eyes flicked to the blade, the Vixen of Sherwood lunged. The tip of her bow tagged the charging brute below the Adam’s apple. Gagging, he slammed to a stop. Marian tangled his legs with her bow and toppled him off the pier.

Robin Hood shouted, jabbed the bow at his opponent, snagged the fishhook instead, yanked the gaff to one side. Off balance, unwilling to let go, the sailor lurched. Robin’s knotty fist crashed alongside his head and almost snapped his neck. When he hit the pier with his face, the outlaw trod on both hands to cripple him.

Flushed, Marian peered at the water. “Mine might drown.”

“A fisherman to feed the fish, eh? That closes a neat circle.” Robin blew on his fist and grinned. “I like how your bosom heaves when you’re excited.”

Marian pointed her bow. “There’s more room in the bay, so curb your tongue.”

Smirking, Robin knelt on the sailor’s back to yell in his ear. “Hoy, can you hear? Don’t squirm or I’ll slice your ear off and shout into that! You’re lucky you assaulted me and not the iron maiden there! Talk! Who put you up to this? Or do I know already?”

Dizzy from the blow, a ringing skull, and daft dialogue, the sailor pretended not to understand.

“Ken this!” Robin waggled his Irish knife before one eye, a silver crown before the other. “Which will you have?”

The man’s eyes fixed on the coin. “It was the corn merchant, Vincent, told us to chivvy you out of town.”

Straightening, Robin dropped the coin on the wharf, watched the sailor grope for it. “It’ll wait. Fish out your friend first.” He kicked the sailor in the belly off the pier.

Marian pouted impishly. “ ‘Iron maiden’?”

Robin grinned. “Interesting that Vincent hires brigands for dirty deeds. Men work by habit: if he’s done it once, he’s done it before... Marian, did you ever hear the legend of Romney Marsh, how an offended scarecrow stalks the night for revenge?”

Marian puckered her dark brows. “Never.”

“You will.”

Vincent parted bed curtains of heavy silk from Baghdad called baldachin. Naked, hairy, and paunchy, he fumbled for a robe of green-blue samite. The room was dark except for chinks of light through heavy shutters.

He squinted, froze, thrust his thumbs between his first two fingers, the fig sign to ward off evil.

In a shaft of sunlight, a rat stood on two legs and wiggled its nose at him.

Vincent shouted for the cook, who was supposed to poison the rats in the galley, and for the farrier to kill the beast. But as he snatched up his robe, something dropped with a soft plop. Another rat.

His shouts choked off. The solar, his bedchamber, crawled with rats. Two dozen or more. Mostly they sniffed and scrabbled at the closed door to the stairwell, but others slunk under his bed or scurried along the windowsill.

Howling, the naked merchant yanked the door open, scattering a dozen gray creatures, and plunged through the doorway.

He slipped on something wet at the head of the stairs. Flailing, he grabbed for the bannister, but it too was slick. Sliding, he tumbled end-over-end down the stairs and crashed at the bottom.

The major-domo came running, the cook and skivvies from the kitchen, the farrier and stable boy from outside. All gasped and prayed, the boy crossing his fingers. No one helped Vincent rise.

Thrashing, swearing, bruised and battered, the merchant groped for purchase, but his hands were tacky. All of him was streaked red. With blood.

Rats spilled down the stairs and the women shrieked. Vincent bawled at the farrier to fetch a shovel—

— But again his cries choked off. The stable boy had left the front door open. Past the dying garden and low fence, Vincent saw endless marsh and fields stripped of his grain.

A quarter mile off stood the scarecrow in Vincent’s cast-off rags. Not near the distant church, as two days ago, but closer by most of a mile.

As if the crucified creation had stalked towards the house.

Back in the low forest, Robin Hood pinched salt over spitted rabbits. “Almost done.”

Marian returned from the edge of the woods. “I saw the farrier run into the house, thought I heard shouts. Vincent’s discovered our handiwork.”

“Not our handiwork,” Robin smacked his lips, “the scarecrow’s.”

“Whoever’s. I hope his household isn’t dismissed right away.”

“No. He’ll keep them on, else he’d have to work himself. And when they are chucked out, we’ll give ’em enough coin to start elsewhere.” Approached last evening, the cook had admitted the female servants hated Vincent’s parsimony and crude demands. Paid in silver, they’d gladly colluded. As the boys and girls of Rye had happily caught wharf rats for a ha’penny each.

“Will he know the blood is from rabbits, do you think?”

“If he tastes it.” Robin was especially proud of the rabbits, which he’d bowled over with headless arrows as they nibbled grain. “But I imagine Vincent’s appetite will be short this morn. Not like mine. Eat up! Rabbit flesh gives you speed, such as outlaws need.” He slid a roasted rabbit onto a slab of bark, dabbed on fresh-ground mustard seed. Marian wiped a knife on her trouser leg. “You know, we’re not certain he’s guilty of anything.”

“He’s guilty of siccing those sailors on us — on you. Assaulting the woman I love, he’s brought more trouble on himself than Satan can visit in an eternity.”

Marian smiled. “So what’s next, O limb of Satan?”

Robin scanned the red-orange oaks overhead. “How do you weave those loveknots girls make in springtime?”

Vincent had slept badly, but finally dozed off, when a sharp caw! woke him.

He didn’t throw the curtains aside, but only peeked. His head throbbed, for he’d drunk a goodly portion of brandy to nod off. Now he felt sick, for the bedchamber stank of guano, as if geese had paraded through.

Not geese, but crows. By cracks of daylight he saw two, four, a dozen sleek black shapes strut and flap and hop around his solar. One’s caw set the others to raucous chorus.

Vincent shoved out of bed. He didn’t fear crows. But his feet scrunched in something that pricked his soles. Straw covered the floor ankle deep. He stared. It was impossible.

Shooing crows, he scuffed to the door. He’d wedged the bar with a piece of cordwood, hammering it tight, and it was still stuck. He crossed to the front window, fumbled the shutter open, shouted, and flapped naked arms. The crows burst outside like a black snowstorm.

But Vincent stayed at the window, thunderstruck.

The scarecrow had traversed the marsh. It stood just at the fence, as if ready to mount into his yard.

Back in the treeline, Robin and Marian were invisible in faded green and deerhide. The King of Sherwood nodded as crows fluttered upwards.

“Do you think he’s worried?” Marian asked.

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“You’re devious. Worse than Will Scarlett once a scheme takes hold.”

“Will’s my cousin. Mayhaps what he channels to mischief I turn to justice.” Robin nodded again, smug. He’d given up weaving a net as taking too long. Instead he’d stolen a fisherman’s net, propped it on poles, and baited the trap with barley. Having caught crows, he’d mounted a ladder to Vincent’s window and winkled the shutter bar up with a knife point. He’d pitched in straw and then the crows, then hurried back to the woods.

Cradling her bow, Marian leaned against a tree. “What next?”

“Return the net, then watch Vincent. He’ll be calling on help soon, or I miss my guess.”

“Help from God or man?”

“Knowing him, probably both. But neither can help. That’s the beauty of it.”

Marian rolled her eyes. “I’m glad I’m not your enemy.”

Robin grinned and kissed her. “No one could be your enemy.”

Dressed in his finest robe and riding his best horse, Vincent sought the priest.

Alaric worked with others at slaughtering and salting. The priest had tucked up his black robe and donned a linen smock crusted with blood. He sliced the organs from a pig hung by the ankles. The pig was black and white and smeared with red, same as the priest.

Alaric handed his knife to a goodwife when Vincent asked to speak alone. The two moved to where the frightened squeals of corralled pigs covered their words.

“Father,” Vincent looked at the ground, “I would confess.”

“You should,” Alaric snapped. “I expected you long before this. As has God. But to confess, you must unburden yourself of everything. Everything.”

Muzzy from two nights’ broken sleep, Vincent shook his head. “I don’t understand. I can pay...”

“You cannot,” Alaric rapped. He wiped pig’s blood from a hairy ear. “You are crippled with sin, Vincent, but I see by your eyes you still would prevaricate. To celebrate reconciliation, you must tell all and leave nothing out. There are no half-measures with God.”

The merchant piffed. “If you’ll not shrive me, I’ll go to Rye! Saint Mary the Virgin’s is there—”

“Go to Rome if you wish,” Alaric spat. “A pilgrimage would do you good. Or build a cathedral. No matter what bargain you strike with men, God is the judge, who sees and knows all.”

“I will be shriven!” Vincent yelled, and the village heard the shrill of pigs. “I will have my way!”

“You’ll walk a lonely road. Until you confess, on your knees before the altar of God, you are barred from Mass, from Communion, from all absolution, here and in Rye, even if your sins rot your very core.” Alaric sniffed and returned to his butchery.

Raging, shaken, and haunted, Vincent kicked his horse towards his manor. He went inside only a moment, then returned outdoors with an ash shovel. Reaching across the fence with a long shaking arm, he tipped live coals into the scarecrow’s rags and straw. Fanned by the channel breeze, the scarecrow burned, the flames rippling like shallow water.

“You won’t get me,” Vincent croaked like a death rattle. “You won’t!”

Marian returned to their camp, which was wreathed in gold leaves above and below. “Burning a cross brings seven years’ bad luck.”

Robin Hood nodded where he rested against a rock. “He won’t last that long. But he might be visited by seven plagues, if I can think of a few more. I’ll hike to Rye. You visit the priest, discreetly, and see what Vincent had to say.”

“You’re having fun, aren’t you?”

“I’m not having fun. This is work.” But he grinned as he caught up his bow.

Vincent addressed eight hard-bitten souls in his grand hall. Sailors, they feared neither men nor God, only the wrath of the sea.

“There’s just us here now. I’ve thrown the servants out. I know they bargained with my enemies. Now listen close or you’ll not be paid. You’re to stay inside the house, one at each window and door, and not sleep, and wake me if anything untoward happens. Do you understand?” They did, and hefted clubs and knives to demonstrate.

Still, Vincent was uneasy as he climbed to his solar and double-checked the shutters and door wedges. He didn’t disrobe, but lay clothed on his curtained bed. He hugged a brandy crock tight, and only nodded off when it was drained dry.

A crash against shutters woke him.

Clambering up, holding his pounding skull, half-suffocated in the foul room, Vincent stumbled to the shutters. They were locked tight. Yet he jumped as again something rapped from outside. Opening a crack showed nothing, for it was black night.

Lighting a candle, he found his bedchamber untrammeled. The floor was bare. Only partly relieved, he listened at the door. And heard a peculiar grunting.

Snores, he thought. Those worthless sailors had nodded off. Cursing, he used a hammer to bang the wedges out, ripped open the door. He’d pitch them out too and pay nothing—

An eyewatering reek turned his stomach sour. The grunting was loud, inhuman.

Making sure the stairs were clear, Vincent tiptoed down in bare feet. No lights showed below: The tallow lamps were extinguished. He waved his feeble candle.

Pigs, spotted black and white, had invaded his house. At the strange light, they squealed and scampered, cloven feet skidding on wooden floors. Their blundering knocked rolling objects big as a man’s head. Squinting, Vincent found them to be purple-white turnips, dozens of them. Same as the scarecrow’s head.

From the foot of the stairs, candle aloft, Vincent tentatively called his sailors. None answered. Unsure if he were awake or in the throes of nightmare, Vincent picked through his mucky house. It was only him and the pigs. How...?

The scarecrow, he thought suddenly. Where was it? If the pigs got in, so could the scarecrow. It could be in here—

He had to get out. Panicking, dropping the candle, he jerked up the bar, flung open the double doors—

— and faced the scarecrow.

Etched against the night, Vincent saw straw jutting from rents, the blank burlap face looming, his own red rags twisting. Clutched in a crooked hand was a wicked scythe like that carried by Death himself.

“No! I burned you!” Vincent staggered back from the apparition, tripped on a turnip, fell sprawling. Scrambling up, he dashed for the back door, threw the bar aside, flung it open to—

— another scarecrow, with a pitchfork. God’s pity, how many were there?

The phantom raised a rag-hung finger. A voice harsh as a crow’s rasped, “Confess! It’s the only thing to save you! Confess!”

With a howl like a trapped animal, the merchant whirled again. But the first scarecrow stalked into the hall, the great curved scythe bobbing at each step. “Confess!” it shrilled.

Stunned, Vincent covered his face and collapsed. Turnips thumped against his knees and soles as the scarecrows closed in. “Confess, Vincent! Confess and end this nightmare! Confess!”

“All right, all right!” the beaten man blubbered. “I had Rioch kill my partner! I told him where, at the counting house! Gave him the key! Oh, help me, Lord!”

The taller scarecrow turned, called, “You heard?”

Alaric the priest came from the shadows of the barnyard. The village reeve and a few others followed. “Aye, we heard.”

The scarecrow grabbed at his head, pulled it off. The smaller one dropped the scythe, dragged off an itchy mask. Marian’s black hair was speckled with straw. “Are you smug now, Robin?”

The outlaw let go a sigh. “Not as smug as I reckoned to be. But justice is served, and the souls of two men will lie easy. That’s the best we can hope for.”

Come morning, Robin hefted the scarecrow disguises and a new cross and strode across the marsh. Marian followed with the priest. Robin talked as he replanted the cross.

“It was lucky we found these rags. I had to scour Rye to match the ones Vincent burned.” He impaled the burlap sack on the upright. “You know, the only clue I had was that Vincent sicced two sailors on us in Rye. That seemed greatly vindictive when all we’d done was ask questions. Left alone, Marian and I would have probably walked clear out of his life. But the guilty see where none pursueth, or some such.”

The outlaw stuffed straw into the body. “After that attack, I knew more about Vincent: that he’d hire brigands for criminal acts. (Same as he hired sailors to guard his house last night. Ha! For a handful of silver they opened the door and left, just as did Judas.) But it made sense. Vincent was a robber in his own way, cutting deals so fine he drew blood from rivals. And who else was a criminal? Rioch!”

“So, some guessing.” Robin speared a turnip on the cross with a sickening chuk! “Vincent is the richest man hereabouts, so a natural target for Rioch. What if one night Rioch came to rob Vincent, and instead was bribed to kill Vincent’s partner, to stab him to death in his counting house? That would be two thieves getting cozy, both profiting. Eventually, of course, the two thieves fell out, over money, no doubt. Rioch chased Vincent with a knife; I shot Rioch. In dying, his vision failed, so he pointed not at Vincent, but at the scarecrow in Vincent’s cast-off clothing, saying, ‘He did it.’ But we misunderstood, and with Rioch died their secret bond. And any way to prove Vincent’s crime unless he confessed.”

Robin fussed with red rags. “So I, working through others — the scarecrow, rats, pigs, crows — much like Vincent, set out to make him confess. If he were innocent, as Marian reminded me, he’d only suffer a scare, which would make us quits for the sailor attack. But if he were guilty — and he was, so that’s that.” He tipped a hat rakishly and nodded.

“But why take such interest?” asked Alaric. “Why all this trouble? What was Rioch or Vincent to you?”

“Oh, nothing.” Robin Hood stepped back to admire his work. “But I worried I’d shot the wrong man. I wanted to be shriven, as Rioch had been, by Marian’s hand. I was absolved by Vincent’s confession. That left only the scarecrow, for it had also been accused. Now it’s shriven too.”

“What?” The priest cocked his head as if his old ears betrayed him. “It’s what?”

With a fingertip, Robin tilted the cross straight. “Remember, to offend a scarecrow offends another, who also hung on a cross to guard over us...”