The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley

on you.”
    The man reached up and took the wallet, but then he bowed his head, and still he did not touch the food. “I do most humbly beg your pardon,” he said to the ground.
    Robin, putting on his boots and grimacing at the clammy feel of them, said, “Yes, as well you may, but don’t go on about it, if you please. I think we might as well go back to Greentree, where we—live. I can bring you in and get dry too.”
    The man broke the bread in half, and offered half back to Robin, who, after looking at the set of the stranger’s mouth, accepted it. The man thoughtfully ate his half, looking at the stream. “Would you wish me, for my first command, to fall off the bridge into the water?”
    â€œIt’s an idea,” said Robin. “But while I am considering it, you could tell me your name.”
    The man climbed slowly to his feet again, and Robin wondered how he could not have noticed before how very thin he was, and how worn his clothing. “For the size of our holding, my father was called Little; and so I became John Little after him, or Johnlittle , as it amused those who looked up a certain distance to see my face to call me.” He paused; his beard made it hard to read his expression. “But that was when I had a home and a holding, and friends to call me by name.”
    â€œWe shall baptise you again as you enter your new life,” said Robin, tipping his own head back to look up the certain distance. “I call you Little John, and so you shall be known from this day forward.”
    â€œSo then I shall,” said he, and, ignoring the bridge, waded into the stream, and crossed so to the other side. He was wet to the neck when he came up on the opposite shore.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Robin lost count of how many bowls of stew Little John ate that evening; it might have been six or seven. That was besides the half a pie and the ends of two almost-stale loaves (nothing edible in Greentree lasted long enough to get really stale) he’d eaten when they first arrived.
    When the two of them squelched back to camp, they headed at once for the fire. All the children were lingering significantly in its neighbourhood, where the big pot that was one of the Sherwood band’s dearest possessions sat on its short iron legs and steamed; its aroma said, vegetable soup, heavy on the turnips and too few marrow bones. The old woman who was tending the fire looked at Robin and then at his companion; and her face went abruptly blank, and her cheeks hollow, as if she were sucking in at the corners of her mouth. She turned and busied herself at the woodpile, and threw several good chunks on the fire, that it would blaze up better, to cook the soup faster or to cause wet clothes to steam dry more quickly.
    One of the children went up to Robin and grabbed a corner of his shirt. She squeezed it disbelievingly, and looked up into his face with an expression of deep disapproval. This was a child who had been thrashed by her mother the day before for playing in the pond, and getting her only whole suit of clothes wet.
    â€œ You’ll get no soup,” she said with profound certainty. Someone behind them chuckled, and there was a rustle, and utter silence fell.
    Robin said mildly, “There was a little trouble about a bridge that was too narrow. But all has ended well, and I wish to introduce you to our latest member: I give you John Little, henceforth to be known as Little John.”
    Much appeared from wherever he had been and said, “A little trouble, say you?” He lifted one of the staff-flayed strips of Robin’s tunic. “And with, we understand, a little man.” He gazed up at the newcomer looming over Robin’s shoulder. “Be it so; I would not cross your judgement.” He dropped his eyes to Little John’s staff—Robin had lost his green oak to the stream—and said, “I am sure you will be a very useful man to have around. With