Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

Yet the villagers couldn’t quite believe Robin Hood the Outlaw had turned Robin the Miller. And when they drew close enough to hear the groaning, they froze. Some prayed, some feigned deafness, but no one lingered, and eventually none would pass the door. Robin missed Marian.

At supper, the new miller got his wife back. She was puffy and dusty but bursting with news.

“Remember that leper we passed the other day? I learned in the village he hobbles through here every fortnight!”

They braised pig’s heart and trotters over the fire, stuffed with fresh rye bread. “So? Any beggar must. Friar Tuck had a regular circuit. And a leper cadges coins quick, because no one wants him to dally?”

“No, no, no.” Marian waved a greasy hand. “Remember Sir Luther said Hosea, may he rest in peace, fetched his grain to market every fortnight? The village women told me he would leave Thursday forenoons, spend Friday at the market, then return Saturday to make Mass Sunday. The leper passed through midday Thursday, then left the valley Saturday in the forenoon. Do you see? Hosea leaves, the leper arrives, the leper goes, Hosea returns.”

“Every fortnight? That’s curious, I guess.”

“There’s more! I’ve been from the Poulter to the Ryton. A fox crossed my path so I knew I’d have good luck! I asked of the merchants, the bailiffs, and the midwives. No one in either town ever sees the leper! Only Long Valley Screed sees him!”

“Well...” Robin chewed slowly as his mind worked. “He could cut over the hills. Hard with rotten feet, though... Maybe they won’t admit the bugger to those towns, or threatened to kill him...”

“Mull it over,” said his wife. “Oh, and tomorrow you go roving. I need you to track something.”

Robin recoiled in mock horror. “Not I! My tracking days are done. I’m a miller now!” Marian shoved him, but he bobbed back up like a hedgehog. “Oh! I found something! Come see!”

He plucked up a firebrand and shivvied her inside, then down. By flickering light, Robin laid his wife’s hand on the thick shaft that connected the millwheel and gears. “Feel? Where’s it gone? Ah, here! See? More rope fibers! What does that tell you?”

“Little, I fear.” Marian shivered. “Engines are a mystery to me.”

“Then understand this!” He explained his idea.

Marian nodded, but still shivered. “Brilliant, Rob. Very clever. May we leave now?”

The firebrand popped a knot and extinguished. Smothered in gloom, the outlaw raced up the stairs.

“It was clever to find that rope trick. Mayhaps you can turn miller if outlawry becomes unwelcome.”

“Or illegal?” joked her husband. They were back in the forest, a half-mile along the road to Carberton. Brush tickled at their elbows. “Outlawry and milling have much in common. I — Hark! There’s your track!”

The outlaw squatted, moved a fresh oak leaf. “There’s a toe print. And see that line where the brush is swept back? No deer made that — it’s from a man’s shinbone.” Marian agreed, though she saw none of it.

Robin slid through bracken after the faint trail, halted at a forked oak. He plucked away a broken branch with withered leaves to expose a bundle in the tree’s crotch.

“Ha! Show this to Will Stutly, who claims I can’t track a bleeding bull through a king’s ball! And here...”

He stooped and uncovered a staff hidden under leaves. A clank made him turn, and he yelped. Marian had pulled down the filthy gray robe. A tin bell dropped out.

“By my faith, Marian! Don’t touch a leper’s robes!”

Marian batted the robe flat. “Fret not. If I’m right, this be all of the leper.” From her satchel she drew a redware crock and soaked the robe with a whitish liquid reeking of musk: tallow. She stashed the garment back in the tree, replaced the camouflaging branch, flicked back her tresses, and smiled. “Done.”

Gingerly, Robin plucked an ash leaf from her hair. “What about the leper?”

A smug smile. “If I’ve guessed right, there’s no need for the leper anymore. But if I’ve plotted aright, we shall see him anyway.”

“As you say, dear.” Robin pushed brush aside with his bow. “I needs get back anyway. Wheat’s to be winnowed this morn. And I needs rig a barrel trap to drown rats. And did I say I tested the weights? One was shinier than the others, heavier by half, what Hosea used to measure his share.”

“Next you’ll be curing chin-cough holding children over the hopper.” Marian laughed. “You’ll make a burgher yet.”

“And you an obedient goodwife?”

Marian laughed again.

Three days later, Marian called through the window. “Rob! Honey! Will you fetch more wood?”

Robin topped off the hopper, then crossed to the window. Marian didn’t want firewood. Any call was a signal to come watch. He chuckled. “Clever thing, my Marian.”

Shuffling on crippled feet, shrouded by a hood, down the muddy road into the valley came the leper, clinking his bell and uttering his lament. “Unclean! Unclean! ’Ware the leper!”

Close by the road, Marian tended a fire under a cauldron, pretended to stir washing. As the leper came abreast, she turned her back so as not to breathe contagion.