Forbidden Forest (14 page)

The suddenly riderless horse rolled his eyes. He tossed his mane and gave a low, thundering neigh. But he did not flee. One of the green-clad men said through toothless gums, “Be still, my dear,” and stroked the horse to soothe him.

Little John waited until his companions had led their guest away. Then he walked to the edge of the clearing and gazed across the green-and-yellow gorse, the wide expanse of flat, breeze-stunted meadow.

He knelt along the trees that love the edge of clearings, the hawthorns and the holly. If a hunter had not already seen the tall man and did not know he was there, he would have been invisible.

A pheasant broke from cover at the edge of the green and flew in a low, urgent arc. Little John waited until the fowl reached the end of its flight, all the way across the clearing.

He put his hand on the ground.

And stayed for a long time, his head cocked, listening.

Chapter 28

The fire was bright, and the venison turned on its spit.

Such game was always best when hung from a tree to age for a few days, but the meat was succulent nonetheless. Slices of it were eaten with fingers, just as in any great house in town; and when anyone wanted more, it was there to be carved, sizzling over the flames.

The knight accepted another cup of wine. “The best I've had in England,” he said in his foreign accent.

“It is rare we have a Florentine knight beside our fire,” said Robin Hood. This was said in the tone of a lord to a noble guest. “We have had churchmen by the herd, and flocks of merchant adventurers.”

“And a lord mayor with a mermaid's tooth around his neck,” said Will Scathlock.

“You will have many other guests here soon, I think,” said the knight. “My father is Alesso di Maggi. He is a merchant, and trades in cedarwood and saffron from the east. His son Marco will not be lost forever with a band of outlaws. My friends will look for me.”

“They are welcome to find you,” said Robin. “If they arrive, we shall ask them to tell us a fine story too. That's all we ask, worthy knight. You'll pay for your wine with a tale.”

“A story?” said the foreigner with polite disbelief. “I am a man of sword and horse, and know nothing of childish things.”

Little John stepped before the fire and lifted an ax high.

The sight made Marco di Maggi fall silent. He kept very still until John struck with the ax and shivered a large block of oak. John fed the wood into the fire.

“I know about you, Robin Hood,” the knight said. “Men hunt you.”

“Men search,” corrected Robin. “Will Scathlock sees them coming.”

The toothless man laughed at the compliment. “I have the best eyes in the woods,” he said to the guest. “A gift from God.”

“Men-at-arms, traveling knights—we are warned of this famous outlaw.” Marco waggled his finger, the wine and the cordial company making him feel at home. “Some people say you are a short, quick man. Some say you are broad and slow. No one knows what you look like exactly. Are you yellow-haired or bald? Do you have a long beard?” He shrugged. “Everyone says you stand in Sherwood Forest with this giant of a man, this Little John.”

Little John sat on his haunches and studied the knight.

“What's wrong, John?” asked Robin Hood.

“This knight has too little coin in his purse,” said the big man after a silence.

The Florentine fingered the slack leather bag at his belt. “Times are not easy for a wandering knight. Even I, Marco di Maggi, have to go hungry.”

Robin Hood probed the fire with a stick. “Little John has been with me many round seasons now,” he said. “Will Scathlock sees with his eyes, and John sees with—” Robin looked over at his friend and smiled. “He sees.”

“I think it unfriendly, the way he looks at me,” Marco said, setting down his cup.

“We would not mistreat a guest,” said Robin Hood.

“Where are your companions, knight?” asked Little John.

The Florentine rose to his feet, knocking over his cup.

“I am alone,” he answered.

“Where are they hiding?” insisted Little John.

“My honor demands I ask your apology,” said Marco di Maggi, “if you call me a liar.”

None of the men and women sitting around the fire stirred. Will Scathlock poured another cup of wine and offered it up to their guest.

“I will fight you, sword to sword,” said the Florentine knight.

“Or match one of John's stories with one of your own,” countered Robin.

Marco di Maggi accepted the wine. He gazed around at the curious eyes, and then took his seat again. “It will not be a fair contest,” he said.

Two or three voices called out reassurance.

“So this is how you toy with a guest,” continued the Florentine, adjusting his belt and its empty scabbard. He looked off into the woods, then smiled, shrugging.

One of the sentries off in the dark gave a whisper, and the small crowd of listeners stirred, hands reaching for staves and longbows. The captive knight's hand paused halfway down his leg.

A burst of wings; whirring, high-pitched flight overhead; and the pale body of a grouse burst across the firelight.

Folk gave quiet, relieved laughs, and the Florentine joined them.

“Pray begin your story,” said Robin Hood.

“This story is from my hometown, far away,” said Marco di Maggi when silence had returned. “It is called ‘The story of the Woman with Two Mouths.' It is a story of a woman with a mouth in her belly.” He shrugged apologetically. “It is a story, and it is true, both. She lived in a fine house in Castellina, a town of liars and bandits.” He put his head down, and raised it again. “Bandits of no honor,” he corrected himself, “unlike this fine band.”

The fire flared, and light and shadow chased themselves around the ring of expectant faces.

“This woman was stabbed by accident, in a fight in a wine house,” said the knight. “She was so injured, the surgeon offered her soul to Heaven. But she did not die. She lived! But the wound in her belly, here—” He touched his side and paused, listening to the silence of the forest.

“It did not close up,” he continued, “and all her life I have been told her sisters and daughters could peer within. They could see the humors moving about, and the blood sinking from her brain to her belly, all scarlet and green. She was known all over the land, and Il Papa, the lord pope, said that someday he would like to see her in her home and bless her insides.”

The Florentine took a long drink of wine.

“One day a thief broke into her house, running from the captain of the guard. He carried a pearl in his hand that he stole from a
contessa
. The thief was mad with worry, and behind him were the guards, pounding at the shutters.”

The exertion of putting all this into English, or the anxiety that his story might not please, made the knight slump and make a gesture as if to say, It is the best I can do.

“Tell us what happened!” cried a voice.

Marco's eyes brightened, and he offered a polite bow. “The thief was in a panic like this—” The knight made his eyes bulge, and thrust out his tongue momentarily. “He saw the woman in her nightdress, this famous wife and mother. He said, ‘Excuse me, good woman, I pray you,' and he thrust the pearl into the side of the woman, all the way in beside her spleen. And his hand stuck! Inside her belly, his hand was sticking.”

The knight threw his whole heart into the part now, acting out with theatrical gestures a man with his hand stuck next to a spleen, terrified as the guard broke the shutters. The guard stormed into the room and, the Florentine said, the thief was arrested and taken to the
castello
with his hand still trapped in the woman's interior.

“The greatest surgeon in Firenze was called to assist, and two important doctors visiting from Bologna. They all pulled on a limb, each doctor holding a leg, the surgeon clinging on to the arm that was not stuck, all of them pulling, and pulling—”

The Florentine nodded to himself, as though imagining the scene to his own satisfaction, unable to put it into words.

“What happened?” asked Will Scathlock.

“They pulled.” The knight held up both hands. “And when they had the thief all the way pulled out—there was no pearl. The pearl was left in the woman, and there it is still, to this day, giving her good health and good fortune.”

Robin Hood laughed.

“That was a good story, knight,” he said at last.

Heads nodded, and a voice remarked that a pearl dissolved in wine was the most reliable medicine.

All eyes turned to the big man who sat leaning against a tree.

“It's your turn, John,” said Robin Hood.

Chapter 29

John stepped close to the fire, pausing before he spoke.

The entire band was alert, awaiting the signal.

The fire spat and whistled, dry pinewood rich with oils. Such a fire was often unwise, the scent of pine smoke alerting royal foresters. Oak wood burned cleanest, but pine was merry. And tonight the outlaws wanted to be found. Despite his misgivings, John saw the point of such fragrant, far-reaching smoke.

Let the hunters, he thought, close in on their quarry.

The wind eased through the branches overhead, and John heard all he needed to know about this knight from Florence:
great danger
.

Where was the knife secreted, John wondered, the one the wind warned him about? Somewhere in the knight's silk garments, or in the leather of his leggings. Will Scathlock and Alan Red, two of Robin Hood's most careful men, had disarmed this man-at-arms, but John knew that neither he nor Robin could turn their backs, even with all these capable hands to protect them both.

Somewhere out there a band of men were hiding, closing in. John was surprised: this time Red Roger had hired masters at their craft—they were almost silent.

Almost.

The seasons with Robin Hood had taught John to use a yew longbow, and while he had not mastered the weapon, he could bring down a hart at one hundred paces, a clean shot through the neck. He could hide his tracks almost as well as Grimes Black, and he could weave a rain shelter from dock leaves and alder as well as any of the others. Robin's band was a collection of poor folk, some driven from their lands by lords eager to turn the fields over to sheep, others fugitives from the sheriff's men—many missing a thumb or an eye, the result of a royal forester's cruelty or a lawman's ugly zeal.

Robin Hood's outlaws waited, cups in their hands, and the Florentine knight sat with his hands clasped.

John wished this life with Robin Hood could go on forever, the willow and the beech their lasting refuge. Robin Hood had taught him to love the very names of the trees, the black poplar and the silver birch, the wych elm and the lime.

“Once a noble lord looked out over green and forest,” began John. “And he wanted whatever he saw. Whenever sight flowed from his eyes, he wished sight could cling, and claim, and carry. A cart of minted coin, a wagon of rich fabric—nothing was safe from this nobleman. What hunger is to the harvester, greed was to this proud lord.”

Marco di Maggi flicked his hand and looked around: what a weak story this was going to be!

“This lord wanted people,” John continued, “as well as gold. When a strong young man came into his sight, the noble wanted that young man's endless loyalty. This lord was subtle, and he was silken in his voice. He could win killers to his art. And one day he sent the young man to the High Way to steal, and the young man's friend was killed, with a spear in his back.”

Marco shook his head and folded his arms. He looked at the gathering and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, This is nothing compared to a story about a woman with a door in her gut.

“Now this lord searches the kingdom for rich jewels and new-minted silver, but he hunts above all the young man who would not stay at his side. And he hunts another outlaw, a man who does not steal but gives, putting ale in the cups and venison on the trenchers of the poor. This lord would see the heads of Little John and Robin Hood on pikes. And he will not rest until he does.”

John fell silent.

“I win the game,” said the knight.

“Our guest wins the storytelling contest,” said Robin Hood. “And Little John wins the knife with the crimson handle, the one peeking through the seam in Marco's legging.”

“So you treat a guest as a sheriff does,” said the knight, tossing his wine into the fire. The red wine steamed as it struck the flames.

“You are among friends,” said Robin Hood.

“I challenge you to combat,” said the knight. “You, Little John. Steel or staff; it doesn't matter which.”

John put up a hand for quiet.

The night birds were hushed. A distant brook ran fast, then altered its course minutely, a footstep parting the water.

“You cannot stay here, Robin Hood,” said Marco abruptly. “Men are coming for you, to kill you, every one.”

“We know that,” said Robin Hood quietly.

“No, you do not understand,” said the Florentine, gesturing helplessly, as though English could not communicate the urgency. “You, Robin Hood, and you, Little John,” added the knight, in a tone of near sorrow, “are dead men!”

Robin Hood gave the signal then, a low whistle that was answered by a sentry off in the forest, and another farther off.

The hunters carried lances and swords but wore only leather armor—no chain mail. They crawled along the damp ground, hoisting their heavy bodies over tree roots as big around as oxen. Their leader gave a hiss, and pointed silently. Firelight snapped and flickered through the trees ahead—Robin Hood's camp.

Their leather had been oiled so it would not give off the usual creaks and grunts of bull-hide armor, but even so they could not be perfectly quiet. A hilt caught on a sapling, and a puddle gave an oozy, squelching whisper as a knee sank into it.