Rowan Hood Returns (14 page)

Bewildered, Rowan gawked at the wild man.

“Your touch stopped the bleeding,” Lionel said. “Your bolt had no more than pricked his shoulder. That was the worst shot I've ever seen you take.” Lionel's voice quivered with mirth or emotion. “The arrow fell out on our way here.” Holding it in his hand, he offered it to her—Rowan saw the elf-bolt extended toward her, yet seemed not able to move or comprehend or accept.

“You have already healed yon madman,” Ettarde told her.

And then an unexpected voice spoke. “In body and in mind,” said Jasper, and his was not the voice of a madman at all. “From my heart I thank you, daughter of Celandine.”

His eyes, gazing up at her, no longer glittered, but glowed warm with gratitude.

Vehemently Rowan shook her head. “But I tried to kill you! I don't deserve—”

“Sacre bleu,
Rowan, if we get what we deserve, we all get spanked and put to bed with no supper,” Beau interrupted happily. “That is what Plato—”

“There's no such thing in Plato!” Etty complained. “Beau, have you ever read Plato?”

“Me? I no read. I make things up. It work just as good.” Not pausing to enjoy the expression on Etty's face, Beau turned back to Rowan. “Ro,” she asked, all innocence, “tell me, how your legs feel now?”

Rowan gasped, gawked, then screamed and started to cry, but this time her tears were the warm rain of joy.

She felt arms go around her, and she leapt for gladness, jumping and jumping as everyone hugged her. She broke away and flung herself into a cartwheel across the velvety grass thick with yellow blossoms: celandine flowers. Up into the air whirled her legs, then back down to the ground, well and strong again. As strong as they had been before the man trap had broken them.

W
ell,” Rowan tried to joke, ”as no one has fetched water from the spring, I suppose I had better go get it myself.”

Really, she needed a few moments alone to embrace in her mind the wonder of—of everything. Everything that had happened, and everything that
was,
glowing in the sunset light, here in her mother's glade. Where she had left scorched, blackened ground, she now saw lush grass starred with myriad flowers. Where she had piled the ruins of the cottage into a cairn to cover her mother's body, now there grew more soft mantling green, more sweet flowers: celandine blossoms, Mother's namesake flower, rayed like daisies but with petals of glossy yellow, shining bright. Their fragrance filled the glade, the air, the golden sky. Never had Rowan seen so many celandine flowers together.

Jasper had said they bloomed there always, even in the winter's snow.

Perhaps Jasper was still crazed?

Or perhaps ...

Striding away from the others, heading toward the spring with her leathern flask in hand, Rowan considered another possibility, a perchance that swelled her heart with comfort.

“Thank you, Mother,” she whispered to the forest glade. “Thank you for everything.” For sunshine, for celandine flowers, for the wonder of being able to bound along on two sound legs—the same great goodness that had given her the gift of life itself now gave her these things. Rowan lifted her arms to embrace her mother's presence in the air, and her eyes prickled warm with happiness.

Ahead of her, at the far edge of the glade, she could see the water of Celandine's spring gleaming in its stone-lined hollow beneath a great tree, an oak almost as massive as the one in Robin Hood's dingle. In the canted late-day sun rays, the oak cast a sharp shadow, but the water in the spring caught the light and mirrored it back to the sky. Almost as green as one of Celandine's dresses, that sky, blue overwashed with gold. Almost as green as the grass so soft under Rowan's feet. She thought she had never seen anything so lovely as that sky, that color, that water.

Kneeling at the roots of the oak, Rowan placed her hand into the sweetwater spring tricking down amid ferns into its pool, letting its cool flow caress her fingers for a moment. “With utmost thanks,” she murmured, “and by your kind leave, spirit.” Then she leaned forward to fill her flask.

The pool tried to warn her.

Mirrored in the water's surface: an enemy form.

Black.

Lunging.

Just as Rowan glimpsed it, before she could move, before she could even shout to alert the others, a burly hand grasped her by her braided hair and yanked her to her feet. Screaming, Rowan twisted and struggled to her utmost, trying to draw her dagger—but she succeeded only in pulling her enemy a few paces into the open before he wrapped a hard grip around her from behind, lifting her nearly off her feet and pinning both of her arms to her sides. With his other hand he held before her eyes a deer-skinning knife. Ro froze, her gaze fixed on that hand gloved in black leather, that foot-long razor-sharp blade.

“You others,” the man roared across the clearing, “not a move out of you, or I'll slit her throat here and now.”

With an effort, Rowan shifted her gaze to her friends. Standing amid a mess of gear they had been unloading from Dove, taken as badly off guard as she had been, Lionel and Beau and Ettarde stood helpless. Among them, weak and shaking and white-faced, with a blanket wrapped around his thin shoulders now, Jasper lurched to his bare feet and staggered two steps forward. “Guy Longhead,” he cried in a kind of pleading surprise.

“Mad fool, be silent or I will kill you too.” Guy's tone dripped contempt.

Rowan felt a searing shock of recognition that burned away her fear for the moment. She spoke calmly. “Guy Longhead,” she said, “and Guy of Gisborn, one and the same. I should have known.”

The setting sun cast his long shadow on the grass, as black as the horsehide he wore, pricked ears rising from its head like the horns of a demon.

“Rosemary, bastard daughter of the woods witch,” he mocked her, “and Rowan, bastard daughter of a thieving outlaw, one and the same. I should have known.”

His harsh voice sounded from above and behind her head. She could not see him, but she could imagine the hatred in his eyes behind his black leather visor.

“It took me less than a day to remember where I had seen that face before,” he growled. “You'll befool me no more, wench.”

And he set the blade of his knife to her throat.

Rowan clenched her teeth.
I will not scream.
She could not help wincing, tucking her chin against the knife, but she forced herself to keep her eyes open and be silent.
He can kill me but he cannot make me beg or scream.

She drew one last breath—

“Stay your evil hand, Guy of many names,” spoke a low voice that made Rowan lift her head, wide-eyed, made her heart pound with awe that supplanted her terror—for that voice came from everywhere and nowhere, from oak tree and elm woods and greengold sundown sky and myriad celandine flowers that would stay open all night, that would never close, not even for winter's snow.

“My kinfolk,” she whispered.

And there in the glade they stood as plainly as she had ever seen them, translucent warrior forms advancing upon Guy of Gisborn, fierce men and proud women wearing helms and bearing shields and swords.

Through their silver moonglow bodies Rowan saw Jasper fall to his knees and hide his face. She saw Beau, swaying where she stood, grasp Etty's hand for support. But Lionel, who had met the aelfe before, stood tall, and Rowan knew he felt a surge of hope in his heart.

She knew because she felt such hope herself—for a moment. As the aelfe drew their swords, spectral silver crescent swords that blazed like cold fire—

But then she felt Guy's grip upon her tighten, with no tremor of fear in it.

“Scare-spooks,” he growled, “you may have frightened me once, but no longer. What can you do to me with your swords of air? Go away.”

And Rowan remembered how, two years ago, Guy of Gisborn had been the one man in Nottingham not ensorcelled by the beauty of Lionel's music. Such mysteries meant nothing to him. The aelfe meant nothing to him.

They did not go away. But they stood where they were, at a small distance from Rowan, and they spoke with a somber, gentle voice. “This is what we feared, Rowan, little one. The other three killers paid on their own for what they had done; such is the way of mortal life. Evil recoils upon the evildoer. There was no need for you to pursue them. But this one—he has paid with his soul, and against him we cannot help you.”

Swallowing hard, Rowan felt herself smiling, for she found herself looking into her mother's face. The foremost of the helmed women, Celandine gazed back at Rowan with all the sorrow and love and pride of the world in her fern-green eyes.

Rowan spoke strongly. “Go ahead and slay me, Guy of No Soul. A rowan tree will spring up from the earth upon which my blood falls, and I shall be with my mother again.”

And she felt the razor-sharp edge of the knife bite into her throat. She felt a trickle of blood run down her neck. She sensed more than saw Lionel crouch to leap, too late for her, yet he'd risk his own death—

“But wait,” Guy growled, and his blade paused where it pressed into the skin of her throat. “It is not just you whom I want. I shall have all you outlaws.”

No. No, were friends and comrades to die on her account? Rowan felt her strength turn to water and drain away from her like rain.

As if sensing her despair, Guy of Gisborn raised his triumphant voice. “I shall kill you all, one after another. You, minstrel oaf, if you wish your precious Rowan Hood to live another few moments, throw away your dagger.”

Slowly Lionel did so, his face moon white.

“And you others. Throw them over your shoulders.”

Etty tossed away her weapon, and so did Beau, neither of them quite able to look at Rowan. But she saw with a pang to her heart that Lionel kept his stricken gaze upon her, a lifetime of unsung songs in his eyes.

Guy of Gisborn commanded, “Now take three steps toward me.”

They obeyed.

Gleefully their captor roared, “Now
kneel
, outlaw vermin—”

And even before Rowan heard that meaty sound of impact, before she heard her enemy gasp and felt him let go of her, before she leapt away and spun around to see him topple on his face, even before she saw the gray-fletched arrow jutting from his black-horsehide back—she knew.

She knew, because once again she could sense in the wilderness a beloved presence.

“Father!” she cried. “Oh, Father,” as Robin Hood ran out of the woods, dropping his longbow to hug her tight against his chest.

M
other! Mother?”

Stepping back from Robin, Rowan explained, “She was just here,” and turned to scan Celandine's glade. But already the aelfe were melting away like mist, dissolving into air. Within an eyeblink they disappeared.

Shakily Jasper rose to his feet.

“Let me get this ugly thing out of here,” Lionel grumbled, bending to drag Guy of Gisborn's body into the woods.

Beau and Etty ran to the far end of the clearing to grab Dove's bridle, one on each side, hanging on as Dove burst into a flurry of bucking and kicking. Giving vent to pent-up emotions the equine way, Rowan surmised, but Tykell wasn't helping, dashing out of the woods to nip at the poor pony's heels—

“Ty!” Ro cried.

“Wuff!” At Dove. Ty had not yet finished harassing the pony. And Rowan did not call him again, for Rook stood before her. Rook, whom she had thought was long gone and far from here and maybe even a traitor.

Matter-of-fact as ever, offering her a rag of cloth, he told her, “Your neck is bleeding.”

But Rowan barely heard him. She did not lift a hand to accept the cloth, the same bandage she had torn from the hem of her tunic earlier. She could not move for smiling.

“Rook,” she told him with all her heart, “thank you. Thank you for going back to find Father.”

Flushing red, he ducked his head, turning away from emotion. “Somebody had to have some sense.”

“That was what you intended all along, wasn't it?”

“Bah. Bind your neck.” He thrust the cloth at her.

Accepting the bandage, Rowan felt her father's hands still resting on her shoulders. “I was going half insane looking for you,” Robin said gruffly.

Rook said, “I've never seen a man stride so far so fast, day and night without stopping.”

“You did the same,” Robin told him.

“I couldn't keep up. You got here first.”

Robin seemed not to want to talk about it. “Rowan, let me see that cut.”

“It's nothing. A scratch.” Rowan turned to hug him again, then sat down beside Celandine's spring to wash her wound.

From under the roots of the great oak, the spring trickled down through flowers and ferns before coming to rest in its stone-lined pool. Wetting her cloth in the stream of water, facing the pool, Rowan saw her own reflected face shining with happiness, radiant like the celandine flowers all around her, blossoms that seemingly shone with their own light in sunset's afterglow.

The face mirrored in the pool was her own, yet not hers alone. Alive in the water, it looked back at her with her mother's eyes.

Rowan felt that look cradle her like an embrace. “Father,” she whispered as Robin sat down beside her, “do you see her?”

Apparently not, for he merely took the wet cloth from her hand and started to dab at the blood on her neck.

Rowan blinked, and there was just her own familiar reflection in the pool again. But she knew; she understood. Now she looked into her father's face, noting that he looked very weary and too thin. “Father,” she told him tenderly, “I was a fool.”
Have they slain her truly?
the aelfe had asked her once, but she had not comprehended until she had seen the glade. “No one killed Mother. She's right here. She always will be. Here, and in me. That is why she had to stay. The only way she might die would be by leaving.”