Title: A Good End
Characters: Much
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "He wonders how their story will end."
Author's Notes: So, basically, this is how I killed time waiting for my download of this week's episode to finish.
He wonders how their story will end. Robin claims with victory, with the King's return, the ousting of the Sheriff and the restoration of all that is good and true and quintessentially English.
Much is not so sure.
Much knows that one man's victory is another man's defeat, a lesson he had seen too many times repeated not to know its value.
In Palestine, Much saw too much, far too much for one man to comprehend in a lifetime. And while Robin may have fought beside him, he experienced it all very differently. At night, Robin ate with the other noblemen, inside their lavish tents while outside their armies cleared the field, their ears echoing with the thousands of prayers spoken over the broken, bloodied corpses. When Robin was hurt, a physician was called. When a nobleman had an ailment, potions were available. They were tended too and healed. Yet Much saw hundreds of men, men like him, die from the same ailments, untreated. Robin preached grandly on the equality of men in the field of battle, but he didn't have to hold a dying man's fever ravaged body, listen to him cry out for his wife and children thousands of miles away.
So Much wonders, treasonously, if victory for the outlaws will truly come with King Richard's return. For Robin, doubtlessly it will. Robin is a nobleman, a friend of the King's, and such position gives him protection against the charges that he has so eagerly earned. But what of the rest of them? Murders, thieves, deceivers, the lot of them. Robin cries now that all will be fine, that the King will understand and forgive, but Much knows them both too well. Richard, like Robin, has the ability to charm with a simple smile, to make you forget your promises, your obligations, and to follow him, where ever he may lead. Oh yes, if there's one thing Much has learned it is that his King is like his Master. Beautiful and brave, clever and quick witted, but all too quick to anger. And all too slow to forgive.
So Much wonders if victory for Robin will mean defeat for the rest of them. Will he end his life warm in bed at Bonchurch or dangling from a hangman's noose?
But perhaps it will never come to that. In fact, some days he is sure it will not. Perhaps he will die here in the woods, surrounded by friends, by the trees he has known since boyhood, by all that he loves. And to Much, that seems a good death, for the memory of a slaughtered army, stinking and rotting beneath the desert sun, is still all too fresh. Anything, after that, seems a good end.