In a Dark Wood (23 page)

There was a clatter of horses, a great choir of snorting and clopping, and cries of “Here!” and “Ho!”

“It sounds,” said Geoffrey, “as though an army has ridden into the courtyard.”

A figure stumbled into the chamber. It was glistening with sweat, and forest mud starred its leather breastplate. “My lord!” it gasped.

“Henry?”

“I bring you a prize.”

“What sort of prize, good Henry?”

“A prize stolen from Robin Hood!”

Geoffrey went cold and felt for a bedpost, simply to have something solid in his grasp. When he could speak, he said, “What have you stolen?”

“One of his men!”

Geoffrey felt a small wave of relief but stiffened at once. “How did you manage—”

“Days and nights, my lord, we hounded them. Still-warm ashes, and game hanging from trees, and the stink of them. The smell of that band forever shut off from human comfort.”

Geoffrey splashed wine into a goblet. “Here, Henry, please. It will steady you.”

Henry slurped. “Thank you, my lord. It tastes better than anything in the world after nothing but moss water.”

Geoffrey made a gesture of welcome and of impatience.

“Camp after camp we followed them, always minutes behind. They must have been terrified of us, so deep in the forest, the sheriff's men, the dogs of the king, breathing hot on their napes!”

“I have no doubt. Please, continue.”

Henry wiped his lips with his fist. “Finally I sent the forester ahead and kept the rest of the men back, cutting wood and sneezing, making all the noise a band of hearty men could make. And this good man saw a figure, sprinting like a deer through the trees, and followed him on a parallel path through the forest. Robin Hood has his sly ways, but we have ours. Our good forester crept like a weasel and watched while this outlaw lay down under a tree; the forester stepped forth as easy as a man stepping up to table, I have no doubt, and pressed his good steel against the criminal's throat!”

“Who is it, then?”

“And then he dragged the wretch back to the rest of us, and we had by that time crept forwards ourselves, sly as stoats, if you'd only seen us! And when that felon looked upon the good men who had him, he fell to his knees for his soul.”

“Who is it?”

“I'll bring him in to you now, my lord, and you can see him for yourself. A miserable beast he is, I must say, befouled and besmeared, and a shameful thing to drag into your good presence.”

Success had made Henry eloquent. Geoffrey watched out the window, but he could see only a mill of sweaty horses and dismounted men, talking quietly in the usual after-hunt manner.

The door burst wide, and a heap of green rags was thrown to the stone floor.

40

“There he is, Lord Sheriff!” said Henry. “One of those filthy whelps who kept you prisoner!”

The heap stirred, and a head lifted and looked at Geoffrey. The man made a small smile of recognition, even of friendship. And of regret. Regret that his life was now forfeit, that a slow death at the hands of an expert was all the future he had.

Geoffrey walked to the trembling figure and knelt. He looked hard into the face of Will Scathlock. Will looked down and sighed. This was the end of his life. Like most men, he understood that he could not escape forever, but he had hoped to die much later, and in some pleasant place far from his enemies. His posture, even the wet prints his hands left on the stones, spoke of fear and also of acceptance.

Geoffrey stood and walked to the window. He controlled almost nothing in his life. His life controlled him. He was a spider fastened to his web. He had no more freedom than a peg driven into the leg of a chair. He was locked deep, and mallet-flattened, and all he could do was breathe and love or hate his life.

The horses were fewer, and the courtyard reflected sunlight. The blacksmith had begun to work again, and the clank of his hammer touched Geoffrey, a bell, miscast and unmusical, ringing across a far greater space than a courtyard.

He turned. “This is not one of Robin Hood's men.”

Henry's mouth fell open.

“I have never seen this man before.”

“But he was in the forest. He was running. He—” Henry opened a hand. He could not speak. “We found him.”

“You did find him, good Henry, and you have done very well. But this is not one of the band.”

“Perhaps he was a part of the band who was out hunting when you—”

“No, Henry. I think not. This is an innocent man.”

“Innocent!”

“What crime has he committed?”

Henry made a huge shrug.

“Although I grant you that no Christian spends his days in the forest. He meant some sort of minor harm. Poaching. Gathering the king's wood. Oh, I recognize this sort of man. Little better than a sheep tick. But we can scarcely rack him because he is worthless.”

Will looked up without a sign of complicity.

“I want never to see you again,” said Geoffrey, partly for effect, but partly in truth. “I want you to go far from here and never return. If you have companions, tell them this: I have returned your life, and I expect peace.”

“I thank you, gracious lordship,” said the toothless mouth.

“Leave me,” said Geoffrey, waving as at a fly.

Henry stepped forwards to haul the man away but stopped as the man stood and slipped to the door. Will looked back with one last glance of gratitude and also of promise.

“A wretch,” said Geoffrey.

“Yes,” said Henry in a dismal voice. “A great wretch.”

“Comfort yourself, Henry.” Geoffrey gripped him by the shoulders. “You have done well, and I am proud of you.”

“Yes?”

“Indeed. Prepare yourself for a feast.”

“But we have to set out again. Robin Hood is still out there, waiting.”

“Let him wait. Let him wait forever. He will mean nothing to us. We have better things to do than chasing shadows in the greenwood.”

“Yes,” said Henry, bewildered. “Better things.”

“Be happy, Henry! We've won.”

Henry nodded, a man pretending to understand.

41

Geese flapped their wings, sending white feathers into the bright sunlight. Two white-aproned egg sellers tried to outbid each other. New ale was sampled at one end of the market, where the men gathered. “By my faith this is good,” said a franklin, in his best market day tunic and belt. He gave Hugh and Bess a friendly nod as they passed.

The folk were pink-cheeked, baskets of apples and pitchers of cider from the south giving cheer to the clear, cold afternoon. A few of the sheriff's men, in their newly polished leather, joined in the swapping of tales beside a pie seller, squab pies the specialty. Bess was on Hugh's arm, and even though dray horses exhaled white vapor, Hugh did not feel cold. A pullet in a cage pecked at a boy's out-thrust fingers, and a dog wagged its tail, hoping for a scrap.

Ivo met Hugh's eye, the old swordsman sampling cheese from a huge wedge, nodding in agreement: excellent, and no doubt worth the price. But his attention was on Hugh, who walked with his new sword on one hip. The weapon did not feel strange. A gift from Ivo, it hung as if it belonged where it was. Ivo smiled.

Only one ugly sound marred the marketplace.

A voice was uttering indistinct words that Hugh began to understand only when he stopped and listened. “Let's go look at those baskets,” Bess said.

“Our bootmaker's son, spending an idle moment with the ladies,” Thurstin was saying.

“Pay him no attention,” whispered Bess.

Hugh walked a few steps, avoiding a splash of goose dirt, but he found himself turning, unable to ignore what Thurstin was saying.

“Good hound Hugh, the sheriff's brachet cur,” called Thurstin. Thurstin had a few companions, red-faced, broad-shouldered men, but the market swirled and parted round these individuals.

“He's a clever sheriff's man, but not so sly he can catch himself a purse fox,” said Thurstin. “Not so smart he can catch Robin Hood!”

Few joined in the laughter. Something about the sheriff's dignity and Hugh's new sword communicated itself to the people of the town. The townfolk felt protective towards the sheriff and Hugh, loyal to them. The two had failed to capture the famous outlaw, but the general belief was that Robin's continuing freedom was because of the outlaw's great good luck and did not reflect on the earnestness or courage of the sheriff or Hugh.

Hugh drew close to Thurstin. “The king's law is against riot and unlawful demeanor,” said Hugh quietly.

“Listen to this whelp mouth the law,” said Thurstin.

But now even the most unsteady of Thurstin's companions had backed off, leaving him alone.

“Let's see you silence me, squire,” said Thurstin.

Hugh said nothing.

“Let's see you put a fist in my mouth,” bawled Thurstin, spit spray and ale breath making Hugh step back.

“Let your friends take you home, Thurstin,” said Hugh.

Thurstin's companions closed in on their friend, leading him away. Thurstin struggled clumsily, but he made no progress against their collective strength.

“Do you know him?” asked Bess as they passed a table piled with baskets woven from yellow reeds.

Hugh could think of many things to say, because certainly even Bess knew of Thurstin. He's no one of any importance, he thought of saying. Or, in a flare of honesty, he might have said, He used to bully me. Instead he said, “He's not so ill-tempered when he's taken less ale. He draws a bow with a steady hand.”

“But not as steady as Robin Hood,” said Bess, leaning in to Hugh, her head against him. She smelled of rare spices, the stuff of legends, perfumes Hugh barely knew, cinnamon, nutmeg.

The doves gathered in the dovecot, gray and white birds tucking themselves into the half-moon-shaped openings. It was late afternoon, and Geoffrey walked through shadows as cold as pond water, and when sunlight broke over his shoulders, it was barely warm.

The chapel held its own warmth. The stone arches seemed radiant with it. The Mother of God waited in the perfect silence, a figure carved out of silence itself, as if there were quarries of the stuff in distant mountains.

“You see, my lord,” whispered the glassmaker. “You can't tell it was ever missing.”

The blue sections of sky above the angels were intact. The angels posed with their trumpets and staffs, their halos expanding round their heads, and the perfect blue was over all of them, the afternoon sun staining it a deeper shade, as if even in Heaven days grew short in the seasons of eternity.

“It was a simple matter,” said the glassmaker. The new leading was seamless, the black border between sections not only of sky, but the angels themselves, the entire window fitted together with a complex of black veins, a net that dragged the air and caught color.

“You have made it beautiful again,” breathed the sheriff.

The glassmaker bowed.

This glasswork had not been simple. It had taken care and the experience of years. It was all man-made, this glass, the statue, the dying Christ, the chapel itself, all the work of human patience. Even the image of Saint Peter in the corner, treading the shadowy ground. He carried the key to Heaven. The key was large, and it was heavy. More than anything, Peter seemed to want to put the key down, but he could not, as if the powers of Heaven were as bound as the powers of earth.

Geoffrey strode across the courtyard. The Fool walked on his hands to a place the sheriff could not avoid without altering his path. Geoffrey paused and gave the Fool's ankles a squeeze.

Then the sheriff hurried into the castle beneath a sound like hands clapping, steadily, calmly, the wings of another dove home before dark.

About the Author

Michael Cadnum is the author of thirty-five books for adults and young adults. His work—which includes thrillers, suspense novels, historical fiction, and books about myths and legends—has been nominated for the National Book Award (
The Book of the Lion
), the Edgar Award (
Calling Home
and
Breaking the Fall
), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (
In a Dark Wood
). A former National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is also the author of award-winning poetry.
Seize the Storm
(2012) is his most recent novel.

Michael Cadnum lives in Albany, California, with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1998 by Michael Cadnum

Cover design by Drew Padrutt

ISBN: 978-1-5040-1965-1

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com