Wild Boy

KILL HIM.

Rook paid Robin no heed. All his thoughts were for the Sheriff’s son. He felt the skinny, freckle-faced boy staring up at him from the ground, could almost hear him thinking the scornful thoughts of an aristocrat:
He’s filthy, he smells, keep him away from me
. Proud son of Nottingham. “Kill him,” Rook repeated, his voice as dark and clotted as the brambles in his heart.

“What, Rook, do you think we’d kill a child? To eat, perchance?” Robin recovered his grin. “Nay, there’ll be a feast in his honor tonight. Tell Rowan and the others, will you?”

Rook said nothing, only glared at the boy on the ground. The boy stared back at him, his narrow face white and hard. A child? Rook himself stood no taller, no older, no stronger, but he knew himself to be no child. He was an outlaw, and like a wolf he could be killed by anyone who cared to carry his severed head to Nottingham for a reward, and like a wolf he would kill. He would kill this freckled, snotty brat if he got a chance.

Wild Boy

T
HE
T
ALES OF
R
OWAN
H
OOD

by Nancy Springer

Rowan Hood, Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest

Lionclaw

Outlaw Princess of Sherwood

Wild Boy

Rowan Hood Returns

A T
ALE OF
R
OWAN
H
OOD

N
ANCY
S
PRINGER

PUFFIN BOOKS

Version_2

For Jaime

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F
lat on his belly on the riverbank, Rook slipped his hands silently into the eddying pool. Here at the curve of the river, fat brown trout would be hiding in the shadow of the overhang. Letting his hands dangle in the icy water, for a timeless time Rook waited, watching and listening. An outlaw in Sherwood Forest could never be heedless of danger. But Rook did not stiffen when he heard branches rattling, the thud of hooves on loam, the creak of saddle leather. He lay alert, yet at ease, waiting for the horseman to ride past. Rook knew that his bare, skinny body lay weather-browned and almost invisible in the bracken, his shaggy black hair at one with the shade of the shaggy willows. This was how he liked to be, like a wild animal of the forest, a hidden, solitary creature who didn’t have to care too much, or think, or remember.

His hands swayed with the river currents, seemingly of their own accord drifting deeper beneath the overhang, waiting for a trout to brush their fingers. In the bracken near Rook’s side lay half a dozen silver speckled fish. Rook wanted to go back to Rowan with enough fat trout to feed her and the others. But it was not that he cared about Rowan, Rook told himself, even though she was Rowan Hood, archer and healer, daughter of a woods witch and Robin Hood himself. Rook kept his distance from her and Beau and Lionel. He did his share, that was all. Rowan brought in small game and healing herbs; Lionel hunted deer. Even Beau, that laughing pest, gathered hazelnuts and such. And Rook caught fish to eat.

Deep in the green-dark pool beneath his fingers, shadows moved. Deep in the oak forest all around him moved shadows of a different sort. It was as if a breeze had stirred the greenshade, nothing more, or as if trout had slipped through deep water. But watching, Rook allowed his eyes to widen. Robin Hood’s outlaws were on the hunt for something. The
horseman? He had passed Rook by, but Rook could still hear the rustling of brush around his horse’s flanks.

Rook did not move, did not turn his head to look. Let Robin do what he wanted.

Ah
, Rook thought. Despite the icy water he felt a whisper of motion: trout fins fanning. Slowly, softly, Rook curled his hand, fingertips tickling the trout’s belly. To catch trout this way he had to act as if he loved them. Perhaps he did. Sweetly, sweetly he caressed the fish until it had entirely relaxed into the cup of his hand. Then he whipped it out of the water. A splash, a shining arc, and the trout flopped in the bracken, gills gasping. Rook placed it with the others, barely noticing how his hands had gone numb with cold. A stag or a wild boar or a wolf would not notice the cold. But even a wolf must beware of enemies, Rook knew. Had anyone heard him move, or seen him?

Snap
, a branch broke, not far away. Hooves stamped. Twigs rattled.

Flat in the bracken, Rook crawled behind the massive trunk of an ancient willow. Once in its sheltering shadow, he eased his head up, peering toward the commotion.

He saw the horse first, at a distance between oak boles, a great, rampaging black horse seemingly at war with the green clinging forest, kicking and plunging, whacking and hacking worse than a woodcutter with an ax. And the rider’s brass helmet and breastplate made a racket like a tinker mending pans. He wore livery that made Rook glower, in the colors of Nottingham, forsooth. It was one of the Sheriff’s men, and the fool had ridden his horse into ivy. When would these high-horse braggarts learn? There he struggled, his mighty steed caught in vines as strong as a hangman’s noose, and there he could stay.

No, it appeared that his situation would soon become even worse. Rook gave a low growl of pleasure, because now he saw the outlaws, their backs to him and their bows at the ready, waiting for Robin’s signal.

It came—a birdlike whistle, mocking and cheery. Within a heartbeat, a dozen outlaws broke cover to confront the rider from all points of the compass, longbows drawn, ringing the man with razor-sharp steel arrow points.

Rook stood and walked forward, silent as always on his bare feet.

Ambushed, the horseback rider startled like a deer. A stray branch caught at his helmet and knocked it off.

The outlaws started to laugh.

From atop the frothing horse, the rider glared around him, his gaze raking the outlaws. Rook saw dark eyes in a thin, pale face dotted with
freckles. Narrow shoulders. Arms like sticks, skinny hands trembling on the reins.

“By my troth, it’s a boy!” cried a voice Rook knew well. Robin Hood, the outlaw leader, stood with his bow lowered, his golden curls glinting in a shaft of sunlight and his blue eyes sparkling with fun.

Yes, the horseback rider was a boy. A stripling no bigger or older than Rook was.

“What are you doing on that horse, lad?” inquired the tallest outlaw, Little John.

“I know him,” said another outlaw. “It’s the Sheriff’s son.”

Rook felt a sudden thicket of emotion clot his chest, passions like thorns, like knives, fit to pierce him from within. His hands clenched into fists.

“The Sheriff’s son!” A chorus of mockery burst from the outlaws.

“It’s Little Lord Nottingham?”

“Ooooh! On Papa’s horse?”

“Watch out, sonny. Papa will spank.”

“Papa will be worried if you’re not home for supper.” Smiling as if he almost meant this, Robin stepped forward and started cutting the ivy away with his long hunting knife.

“Come on,” said Little John to the others. Several of them stepped forward to help. Little John, standing almost seven feet tall, reached up to lift vines away from the rider, but the youngster pulled back from him.