In a Dark Wood (20 page)

A bear. More brown than black, with black wax coating its chest. A black bone thrust itself from the beast, an arrow that had nearly killed it. The animal was halting. It fell on all fours, straddling Geoffrey, and like a man with days to contemplate what was happening, Geoffrey realized that the animal would kill him slowly because the beast was sick.

Again, the rip of wool, a fine, clean noise, like a knife into bread. The bear shook him like a long scrap of gristle, and with a sound more than with pain, the teeth found bone.

Geoffrey stabbed. It was difficult to stab while lying on his back, and the sword did not slide into the beast easily. The fur was thick on the animal's side, and Geoffrey forced the sword, his hand slippery with hot blood. The bear deafened him with a bellow. Geoffrey screamed, a long cry, all the words he had ever spoken, all the words he had ever read or thought, wadded into one throat-scalding yell, and then he rolled with a blow that sent him like a spent top across the pine needles, arms and legs in a tangle, until his face buried in a fern and the beast was on him with a rattle of fury.

Geoffrey made one spasm of effort to get up, but then it was midnight everywhere. A world pressed him into the ground, and the air went out of him in a silent cry.

He was certain he was dead. Fern fibers squashed by his nose made a thin keen, water squashed out of stems, but there was no other sound. Only weight, and a shuddering. He tried to take a breath. He could not. He tasted humus, a black, rich flavor, the grit of it on his teeth. He tried to cough but only groaned.

He pushed, and pain whipped across his vision. He went nowhere. This was death. The long wait for it to end. Time had opened to the last page, when the manuscript ends and the colors are left out, and the cover of the book itself exposes its underside, scarred with imperfections, the mottle-and-vein print of sheepskin.

And then a door opened, and there was light. He breathed, and spluttered. He was wet, and the wetness cooled him. He struggled to his knees. He stood, swaying, and an arm helped him to a place under a large pine, where pine needles had gathered themselves in a root crotch.

A bow fell across the brown earth, and a figure crouched beside him. “I watched your hunting party. I know you wish you had ferrets that would catch me.”

“I have caught you.” Geoffrey gripped a sleeve with the only hand he could move. “Fortune has delivered you to me.”

“I'll stuff some dried mallow in the wounds,” said Robin Hood. “It will stop the bleeding. Don't worry. Most of that is bear blood.”

Geoffrey felt amazingly calm. Everything made sense. The bear was a black mountain at his feet. A tick hurried across the peak like an ebony tear, and his own hands were clotted with red. “I've seen hunters die of less than this,” said Geoffrey. “The arm grows great and black.”

“Don't be anxious.”

“I'm not.” Geoffrey shivered. “You've left false camps, haven't you? In the middle of the forest. False camps for my men to find.”

“Yes. Will Scathlock does it well. Are your men tricked?”

“Yes.”

“You would not be.”

“You are safest here, at the edge of the greenwood.”

“I know. To hide, do not run.”

“You have saved my life,” sighed the sheriff.

“The bear would have died in a moment. Your stab was near the heart. My arrow simply matched it.”

“How can I kill you now that I am in your debt?”

Robin Hood laughed, delighted. “You see? A worthy man. You make it impossible for me to enjoy any triumph. You have ruined my sport. I am glad the bear did not kill you.”

Geoffrey believed him. It was a painful insight: Robin Hood admired him. He hated himself, for an instant, but then put his hand to the wound in his shoulder. It began to hurt, badly. “For my part, I wish you were more like other thieves.”

“More stupid?”

“More joyless.”

“I hope your men continue to be clumsy.”

“The falcon may miss, but it remembers the miss and next time draws blood.” Geoffrey eyed Robin. The outlaw was dressed in ragged green, with gray wool stockings and tough leather shoes. The man was the color of the forest, as a lie is the color of the truth.

“Meeting you has taken the joy out of our sport,” said Robin Hood. “We will soon stop playing, forever.”

“If I could believe you, I would be a very happy man.”

Geoffrey found his sword. The blade was smeared with blackening syrup that a fern leaf could not wipe. Geoffrey turned back once. Robin Hood was already invisible. “I hope I never see you again,” he said, not loudly but loudly enough.

He loved having the final word, but he sat down hard and felt like retching. The pain came and went, the beating of an iron heart. He stood with difficulty, and a voice behind him said, “You won't be able to make it by yourself.”

Geoffrey waved the voice away and, when he found the edge of the forest, stayed there for a moment, hidden where he knew they could not see him. A ferret was held by its hind legs and gathered into a net. A brace of bloody rabbits swung from the huntsman's fist. Lady Eleanor was pink-cheeked, breathless with the pleasure of it. And beyond, the field, already bleached by the early frosts, and near the city walls, a cottage cream white in the sunlight.

This was how the world would be without him when he was gone: spread under a sky, busy with its sport, recovered from mourning and continuing. Remaining like this, half hidden, he saw the world as the angels must see it, filled with color that night would blow away, as wind erases flour spilled in the courtyard. It was all brilliant, and temporary.

They saw immediately that something was wrong. Lady Eleanor blanched and put out a hand, afraid to touch him. The huntsman tossed down the brace of rabbits. “What happened?”

“I am not as badly hurt as I seem to be. This tart filling on me is mostly not my blood.”

“What happened?” gasped Lady Eleanor.

“My good woman, there is no need to be afraid,” said Geoffrey. He took his horse's reins and then lay down, against his will—his legs folded—and he looked at the sky.

“Stand back!” commanded the huntsman, and then the man looked down at Geoffrey, as though peering into a deep hole.

Geoffrey tried to laugh.

“What happened, my lord?” asked the huntsman.

“I,” said Geoffrey, “have killed a bear.”

The sheriff's horse cantered, eager to be within castle walls. Geoffrey tugged the rein with his good arm. Their pace slowed. Eleanor put a hand out to him to steady him in the saddle, and when the sheriff glanced her way, the look of pale concern could not be mistaken. The love of a wife is medicine, thought the sheriff.

In the courtyard Geoffrey swung himself down. Ralf had sent word of the sheriff's victory over the bear, and house servants gathered. Smiles showed on every face that met him. But something was wrong—some uneasiness troubled the house carls. Bess, Eleanor's personal servant, stood apart from the crowd.

He left the cheering throng and hurried into the castle, sending for the surgeon.

Ivo and the surgeon both hurried across the stone floor, their steps echoing. Geoffrey did not want to ask. He prayed, in nomine, like the most pious man, not the poor sinner that he was.
Let Hugh live
.

The physician clucked when he saw blood and made a hiss of compassion as he examined the wound in the light from the high windows. “But I'm afraid you've come home to troubling news, my lord,” said the physician.

“Is Hugh not recovered?” asked the sheriff in a hoarse whisper.

“He has run off, my lord,” said the surgeon.

“Taking a broadsword and a dagger,” said Ivo.

These tidings cheered the sheriff for an instant. So Hugh was alive and quite well. But then a new concern melted his smile. What did Hugh want with a dagger, a weapon of deceit—of murder? “Where has he gone?” demanded the sheriff.

“To win honor for you, my lord,” said Ivo, his eyes downcast.

Robin would not harm the sheriff's squire, Geoffrey was certain. But Robin's men might act hastily.

“Hugh is strong these recent weeks,” said Ivo. “Stroke, counterstroke, lunge, and feint. And he is proud.”

“But Robin Hood must be leagues away from here, my lord,” said the surgeon, fumbling in his sack.

“I explained that a fox most likely keeps the town in view,” said Ivo. “Leading Henry a merry chase,” said the swordsman, in a tone of regret. “Hugh is a brilliant student,” he added sadly.

“Robin Hood's men will cut his throat,” breathed the sheriff.

35

Hugh felt the burden of his deception, deceiving the surgeon, lying. Lying sinfully, letting a shiver and a weak voice mask his actual good health. Bess slipped into his chamber and swore that she would sleep uneasy until she heard that he was well. “I prayed for your return to health,” said Bess.

Hugh on his pallet of goose feathers and straw, recommended by the surgeon for its warmth and comfort, could only further his pretense by croaking, “I thank you, good Bess,” in a voice like that of a very weary, very old man. Had there been a tear in Bess's eye?

But it was in the full morning, the hunting party's horses just thumping their way from the castle, that Hugh fully admitted to himself what he was doing. He felt like a shadow trailing his own body, an honest spirit watching its thieving twin, as he crept into Ivo's workroom and filched the black dagger from the wall.

A knob of bread from the surgeon's supper was all he had to break his fast, but Hugh was not hungry. Perhaps pretending illness had caused him to have a touch of symptoms, as though to feel more honest than he was. He slipped down the corridor, past the chapel, and through the tumble of gray-blue stone, masons making their chisels ring with wooden mallets, a section of outer wall under repair. No one noticed the squire hurrying past like another castle wight on an errand.

But surely a guard would glimpse him, hurrying away from the castle walls. Perhaps Bess herself, shaking out her mistress's linen from a tower window, would see him and call out.

Hugh followed the hoofprints of the hunting party easily, recalling Ivo's comment that the band of thieves would most likely eye the castle from nearby. Hugh hoped so. The thought of a long search in the forest filled him with dread.

The dagger hidden in his wool blouse, the sword heavy at his side, Hugh followed a forester's path, the trail cut years past by honorable yeomen tending the king's wood. Hugh made his way parallel to the route the cheerful hunters had taken. His plan was dim, but real enough to give him hope. If Robin Hood was near the castle, then he would hear the hunters wagering, see them, count their rabbits—and maybe lift a few from the hunters' hands before the day was done.

And if the thieves were watching, they would not be aware of a new step in the forest, someone watching them. But as the oaks closed in over Hugh, and the twitting birds made his solitude all the more perfect, he began to doubt his plan. Was it, he wondered, too late to creep back to the fastness of the castle?

How strange it was to tuck in and out of branches, listening to distant sport, conversation, laughter, the quiet of anticipation. Hugh made a wide, uneven circuit, and as he clambered over the roots of grandfather oaks, he felt the foolishness of his plan. What did Ivo know about the habits of Robin Hood?

A sword is a poor companion through nettle and dock, the shrubbery along the paths. Hugh found the crotch of an oak and sat, finishing the last crumbs from his pocket. He had seen the huntsman ask for quiet at times like this, everything already still as stone. Perhaps there was something about silence that made a hunter want more. Hugh listened. Sometimes he heard the whisper of wind in leaves and turned, expecting to see an outlaw.

But there was no one. And even the sound of the hunt was too far away, too muted by the forest, to be anything but a hint. Less than a hint—and Hugh wondered if he would be able to find his way back.

Because he would have to return, that was clear. There are no thieves to be stumbled upon by someone as guileless as myself, Hugh thought. He brushed green peat from his clothes. And stood still.

What did a bear sound like?

Much like that throaty, shattering rumble, Hugh told himself. It was too far off to be sure of the direction. Hugh ran, stumbled, splashing through a brook. His deerskin leggings were wet through. Was that another bear roar, off to the north? Hugh could not be certain. And by the time he was sure he had hurried too far, the silence was all the more perfect. His heart was beating hard and fast.

But he was lost.

A
keep
—that was what some called a castle. Because a castle kept the living whole and safe. He was as good as naked here, in the ever-twilight of the greenwood. Hugh calmed himself. He had learned from the sheriff the importance of a steady outlook. Over there, he reminded himself. The sound of a dying beast came from far over there.

But there was no path. The oak trees had not been trimmed, the youthful branches harvested, in this little-traveled copse of wasteland. A lone songbird, black as a jet brooch, squeaked, toiled upwards, and broke into song, but its tune made the silence all the more complete.

A treeful of rooks celebrated the afternoon by the time Hugh found the blood, the flattened shrubs, the snapped branches. A fly tasted the drying gouts of blood. A late-season wasp hovered over the gleaming black-red blood, and shied away.

Hugh puzzled together what had happened. A man with a sole print like the sheriff's—very like—had encountered either a bear or a bull. A bear, to judge by the tuft of black hair on a maiden-berry bush and the distinct claw marks. Hugh put his hand out to a tree to support himself. The blood was in quantities here, beyond the sweep of branches. And surely some of this blackened gore was human.

The sheriff had been hurt!

But Hugh had learned from the sheriff how to weigh evidence, how to forestall judgment, taking care, always, to trust reason. Here was the way the hunting party had followed, trailing blood from a gigantic carcass. And here was another way, a footprint pressed into the fallen leaves, and another.