Forbidden Forest (16 page)

“The deputy sheriff Henry Ploughman is nearby, my lords,” said Nunna, speaking his best English. “He is filled with spleen this fine morning.”

“He's five bow shots off,” said a quick, toothless man. “Not close.”

Margaret had heard of Will Scathlock, who was rumored to act as scout for the outlaw band. She hoped to speak to this slight figure—the least violent-looking of the outlaws—when the shadow of the tallest outlaw fell over her, and the words died on her lips.

“Good day,” said the big outlaw, the one whose presence most disturbed—and thrilled—Margaret. Not “Good day, my lady.” His tone was kind, but direct. He had river-blue eyes—the color of my own, thought Margaret.

Still, she did not speak.

Bridgit was saying, “Get your hands on Henry Ploughman.”

The towering outlaw did not respond to Bridgit. Instead he asked Margaret, “Are you hurt?”

Margaret did not answer immediately even now. What, she wondered, is wrong with my good manners? Bridgit was confiding that she herself was indeed hurt, her shoulder and her back, everywhere there was a bone or a joint. “But nothing serious, by my faith.”

“I am Margaret Lea,” Margaret said at last. “And I am unhurt.” Spoken, she thought, like a lady raised on white bread. And she surprised herself again—by bending her knee with a show of castle courtesy.

Was there a trace of a smile—even of shyness—about this lofty outlaw? Until that moment Margaret had half believed this greenwood band would prove even more dangerous than the lawmen. There was no doubt in her mind that this was Little John of legend, and she felt words fail her again.

“Henry's coming,” said Will Scathlock.

Little John smiled at Margaret. The tender friendliness of such a dangerous man both thrilled her and froze every thought.

John handed Wynbald his sword. He motioned with his head, and Nunna and Wynbald scrambled, seized their horses' reins, and vanished into the trees.

Robin Hood stood at the edge of the clearing.

Athough no city dweller knew exactly what the outlaw leader looked like, Margaret did not have to be introduced. The way the others deferred to him, falling cheerfully silent in his presence, was indication enough. He leaned on his yew bow, and slipped the bowstring from its notch.

“We are pleased,” he said with a smile, “to welcome new guests to our castle.”

He sounded like no one Margaret had ever heard. His accent was not that of a nobleman, but neither was it like the matter-of-fact speech of most yeomen.

Margaret could not trust her voice to carry meaning, but she gave what she hoped was a courteous smile. She felt there was something uncanny about the man, his beard golden in the sunlight, his manner quiet. He did not wear a sword, his only weapons a hunting knife, a leather quiver of goose-feathered arrows, and the yew bow described in so many ballads.

“This is a blessed day for us, worthy Robin Hood,” said Bridgit, as though she and the outlaw had been neighbors for years. “And good Little John. They say you are always side by side, the two of you. Osric was right and proper to bring us here.” Bridgit added in a loud mock whisper, “If you circle out into the woods you can find Henry Piss-bag, the sheriff's man.”

Margaret could not believe her ears, appalled at the breezy, confiding tone Bridgit adopted with these outlaws. True, they had the bearing and manners of friendly folk. The spicer's daughter was grateful, and bold enough to feel heartened by the companionship of these green-clad men. But already she was wondering how she would get word to her father.

“Where is Osric?” asked Little John.

Bridgit could tell a good, long story—the sow and the serpent, the maiden and the monk, stories that sometimes made Margaret blush. But now she delivered the morning's tale quickly, looking from Robin Hood to Little John, as though eager to see what they would do.

“If I were an armed man I would nail Henry into a barrel,” Bridgit concluded, “and float him downriver.”

“If you were an armed woman, no knight would be safe,” said Robin Hood with a quiet laugh. His eyes met Little John's, and some unspoken word passed between the two men.

Little John was the outlaw whom boys herding ducks pretended to be, striking at the drakes with their sticks. The actual breathing figure was too impressive to allow Margaret to more than glance in his direction now—a tall, broad-shouldered young man with a horn-handled knife in his belt. From time to time he looked Margaret's way.

“Where will we shelter?” Margaret heard herself ask. She was shocked at her own poor manners. And yet it was a fair question.

“Wherever you please,” said Robin Hood.

Someone whispered, tugging her cloak, pulling her into the bushes. It was one of the outlaw women, her eyes alight with concern.

Horse's hooves crashed through the underbrush, bridle fittings jangling. Henry's voice could be heard ringing out, giving an angry command.

The outlaws melted into the woods, and Margaret and Bridgit hurried with them, dodging the outstretched branch, leaping the thornbush, ever deeper into the woods.

Little John took Margaret's arm, easing her over a monstrous, moss-mantled log.

Chapter 33

When Margaret stood in the middle of a camp, fresh firewood stacked in a ring of stones, she had a hopeful, weary feeling that this was the way she would end her days, in this shadowy hiding place.

Little John introduced her to a man in yellow silks and a well-tooled belt, fine leather, tanned so beautifully it was the color of butter. “I am Marco di Maggi, a knight-errant,” said the elegant man. He sketched his history briefly, indicating his pleasure at meeting two ladies of the city.

“And are you one of these—?” Margaret began.

“These frightening robbers? Yes,” said Sir Marco, with a smile. “I am one of these outlaws, as long as they will have me.”

“I think we are safe enough,” said Bridgit later, as she brought Margaret a cup of white wine. “But I think we will see no justice, my lady.”

“The Florentine knight says no army could seize these outlaws,” said Margaret, marveling at the words as she spoke them.
Army. Outlaws
. It was true that she was further reassured by the company of this obviously well-trained, reliable knight. Sir Marco reminded Margaret of the well-spoken travelers who had visited her father's spicery in the days when business was good. She tasted the wine, and it was the best green Rhenish she had sipped in a long time.

I am here, thought Margaret, beyond all protection of the law, among the king's enemies. And I am not afraid. She wondered at this.

“Knights are very skilled at admiring themselves,” said Bridgit. “And so, I begin to think, are outlaws. Not a true fighting man among them.”

Margaret found her eyes watching Little John as he passed around the camp, whispering encouragement to a man whose eye had been hurt, and to another who had somehow bruised his nose. John split wood, smiled at a kind word from one of his friends, but Margaret began to wonder that he did not spend just a little more time seeking her opinion on some matter, or asking after her health again, or inquiring how such a mild lady could possibly take her ease on a blanket surrounded by massive oak roots.

She found herself wondering if one of the women whetting arrowheads or tying a hare snare was Little John's wife. Margaret told herself she would not mind if he was married. She was curious, and nothing more.

Margaret stood, the empty wine cup in her hand. The camp had changed. It was more still now, more silent.

Robin Hood was no longer with them.

“Someday Robin will risk too much,” whispered Will Scathlock.

John shrugged, a man barely concealing what he really felt.

“Go after him,” urged Will.

John made a show of reluctance, pretending he was unworried. But as Margaret looked on she could read what was silently communicated between the two men, and Will's relief when John nodded in agreement.

The big outlaw knelt before Margaret. “You are safe here,” he said. “But stay near Lucy, Grimes's wife, if there is trouble, and Will Scathlock too.”

“Trouble,” echoed Margaret, feeling beyond all fear.

Why, she wondered, was she so sorry to see the towering outlaw leave?

Robin Hood's trail was impossible to trace.

Little John followed it anyway, guessing where his friend had passed.
Here
, a tangle of goat-willow bushes whispered.
This way
.

Hazelwood, guelder rose, and spindle trees—the bare whisper of a trail led through a margin of the woods, where hedge plants married with the forest. Sometimes John felt like taking his friend Robin by the arm and saying outright, “It is a miracle we have not all been killed.”

He had often wondered at Robin's faith in the hunting horn. Each of the band's far-flung sentries carried one at his hip, and the high, beautiful note drifting through the oak woodland carried meaning, depending on the pattern of the sounds. John had learned to force a croak from a horn, after hours of practice. It was no easy matter for an excited hunter who had just brought down a buck, or a startled sentry who had just spied a brace of heavily armed foresters, to wet his lips and force from the opening much more than a honk.

But this was Robin Hood's way, to depend on near-reckless cunning, and the nerve and strong lungs of his men. Little John had once hoped that Robin Hood would develop a more steady, fortified system of communication. But the outlaw leader had clapped John on the back and laughed at such suggestions.

Robin Hood loved disguise and secrecy. Even now he was off alone, without explanation, presumably searching for Osric. “You'll be my eyes in the city,” Robin had explained to the eager young juggler in recent weeks. “No harm can come.”

Robin Hood had never shared any fragment of his personal history, or recounted even to Little John why he had taken to the greenwood some years ago. Few men and women took much interest in stories of their own childhoods—personal memories were useful only if they improved a skill or taught one how to avoid misfortune.

For all the risks Robin Hood took with his own life, all the sudden flight and lightning rallies, Little John would be nowhere else under Heaven right then but there in the woods—looking for his friend.

Little John felt the first stirrings of real anxiety. Sometimes a green skeleton was found, moss-stained and scattered by wild pigs, a lone hunter who had wandered off the path many summers ago.

A black, stagnant stream reflected a water fly, the blurred wings descending to their own murky reflection.

Every outlaw knew the different degrees of mud, mire being the worst, along with slush, quaggy swamp, clayey muck, and all the other cousins of simple, knee-deep sludge. John crept from tree root to random stone, wondering how Robin could have skimmed over the surface of this mire. Osric's footprints were clear enough, and another faint trace of an instep faded nearby, nearly invisible, evidence that only a practiced eye could make out.

At last John reached a bog, a centuries-old firm, peaty carpet over buried, unsteady wet. Now the ghost of a trail led into the heart of the wood, where it was never day.

These woods were silent.

This was a part of the forest even deer avoided, a tangle of long-fallen trees, skeletal branches aged bone-white. No ax had ever touched this wood, no hunter ever penetrated this cathedral of half-fallen trees kept nearly erect by the crowd of dead companions.

John was grateful for the painful sight—a fly preening on a ruby drop of blood.

Chapter 34

“Osric knew he'd be safe in this deadwood,” said Robin Hood.

“And he is,” said John, with forced heartiness. “A meadow mouse couldn't trace his steps.”

Osric put out a hand, and John took it. It was cold, and clotted with dried blood.

“I knew you'd find me,” said the juggler, his voice faint and broken.

A flap of scalp hung down over his ear, and blood had soaked into his cloak, more blood than John had thought possible.

“A spear,” said Robin Hood.

“Thrown by a strong arm,” whispered Osric. One corner of his mouth hitched upward in an attempted smile.

“From behind,” said Little John.

“I am no fighting man,” laughed Osric weakly.

“And no coward,” said John.

Many seasons ago Robin Hood had shown Osric, son of a quarryman, how to let his natural nimbleness develop, how to hide farthings while showing off empty hands, and how to keep five blunt knives in the air at once. Osric's trick with a stuffed eel was John's favorite, the leathery eel rolling up tight under the juggler's arm and then leaping out to startle and delight both children and their parents.

“I have so much to tell you both,” said Osric.

Robin Hood gently, and very slowly, lifted the scarlet flap of scalp—and hesitated. “We hear nothing but stories, Little John and I,” he said. “We both tire of travelers' tales.” Robin's face was pale.

The outlaw leader gently pressed the flap of skin against the red skull wound. Osric shuddered and fainted, his hand falling to his breast.

“They say red wine fills a bled-out body with new blood,” offered Little John. “We have fat wineskins, both rowan wine and grape.”

Robin Hood stood. “I taught Osric to trust his hands.”

“And you taught him well.”

“I taught him
trust.
”

For an instant John recalled his own father, who had traveled to Whitby and bought green hides, so rank the new hides crawled with maggots. “Wash them in the sea,” his father had told John. In the cold salt waves.

“I know what to do,” said John.

He knelt and gathered the juggler into his arms. John could not stand upright in this low tangle of dead branches.

Osric murmured, “Of course you do.”