Forbidden Forest (19 page)

John guessed it before she spoke again.

Sister Barbara nodded. “Old Fred knocked a deputy down, and the man got to his feet and ran the breed-ram through with his sword.”

Little John sighed. “The kingdom has lost a brave warrior.”

“You look hungry, John.”

“Not a bit,” said John, a perfect lie. He wanted to blurt out,
Where is she? Where is Margaret?
But a surprising shyness kept the words from his lips.

“There's a great wheel of yellow cheese,” Sister Barbara said. “Enough to kill a man, if it rolled on him.”

“If we ate some,” John suggested, “it would be that much less dangerous.” He added, “And if we had help eating it, the work would go so much faster.”

Margaret heard John's voice, and stopped before a blemished span of metal in an olive-wood frame. She peered at the image of a young woman that looked out at her.

“A lady should never make haste,” cautioned Bridgit, “to meet a noble suitor.”

“Little John is neither suitor nor nobleman,” said Margaret.

But she did turn back to the hopeful vision in the priory's only mirror. What would the legendary outlaw see in her pale face and berry-blue eyes?

“If I did not know my lady better, by my faith,” said Bridgit, “I would think John a loving earl, at the very least.”

Margaret wanted to hear how Osric was faring, and Lucy, and all the others. John told her, and when he was done, Margaret wished he would start all over and tell her again. But John explained that he had to make speed.

“I need to borrow something,” he said. “Something that everyone in Nottingham would recognize as yours.”

Margaret considered and then, with a whisper of cloth and a moment's struggle with the pin, placed her mother's brooch in his hand, the rubies and sapphires glittering.

John parted his lips. This was too valuable.

But he took it nonethless.

The moon was rising as John entered the forest, leaving the village with its homely smell of brewing yeast and cattle behind. What did it mean, he wondered, to feel so refreshed, so suddenly strong again? No doubt Sister Barbara's five-day ale was stronger than he thought. He carried a leather satchel of provisions, the finest white bread and wedges of cheese. “Saint Michael defend you,” Margaret had said.
And come back soon
.

Moonlight seeped into the deep woods, making the shadows darker, illuminating the crook of a twig, the mossy knob of a stone. John traveled by memory, crouching and listening sometimes to sense the way. Owls coursed above the deer trails, and bats hunted, their wings leaving a wake of surprise and silence whenever they passed overhead. Was it John's confused imagination, still addled by rich cheese and strong ale, or did each flitting bat spell out a warning?

Chapter 40

The high, proud note of a horn rang out, and another nearby.

John had made a small camp in the shelter of a venerable oak that had long ago fallen and decayed into a protective hollow. A few sticks of dry wood and brown bracken fern flared up into a nearly smokeless fire.

Robin Hood bounded across a brook and hurried toward his tall friend.

“Henry Ploughman rides into the forest,” said Robin, “with four spearmen.”

Robin crouched in the hollow of the long-fallen oak, drinking from a skin of wine and water. Even though the outlaw leader had been tirelessly optimistic, his laugh always bright, a touch of weariness had begun to shade Robin's eyes in recent days. It made John feel all the more protective toward his friend.

“He comes in response to your message,” said Robin, both statement and question. John had not discussed his plan, but little escaped Robin's attention.

John turned to a cache of weapons nestled in the hollow oak. He strapped on a broadsword, a fine weapon with the names of the Apostles minutely inscribed on the hilt and pommel. The sword had been bestowed upon the outlaws by a knight from Lastingham. Grimes kept an edge on it with a file and whetstone, but the blade was rarely used by any of the band.

John practiced drawing the weapon. The sword felt satisfying in his grip, he had to admit, and it would feel much better with the blade biting into the neck of Henry or Red Roger. A pattern-welded blade, half steel, half heavy iron—John wished he could flourish the weapon like a knight. But the only blade he had ever handled skillfully was a dressing knife, a two-handled tool for scraping hides, in his father's tannery.

“John, be careful,” said Robin, climbing to his feet. The outlaw leader liked swordplay only in fun, as a sporting contest. “Whatever game you plan, Henry means harm.”

The blade whispered, slipping back into its sheath. John unbuckled the weapon, and returned it to the shelter of the ancient tree. For a moment Robin was relieved, but then he saw the look in John's eye.

“Wear a horn at your hip, John,” said Robin Hood. His eyes added,
If you will not change your mind
.

John took Grimes Black aside. He murmured instructions: what family of thatchers was kind along the High Way, which alewife was generous with her drink, where to find a good horse. And above all what message Grimes was to carry.

Henry was sweating in the sunlight, leaning forward in his saddle, wine sack swinging heavily at his side.

Four spearmen accompanied him, men with the thick necks and beefy shoulders of veteran castle guards. John stepped before the horsemen, directly in their path, but none of them saw John until the last moment.

They sawed at their reins, the horses snorting.

John leaned on his quarterstaff. “I have an understanding for you, Henry,” John said. “For your ears alone.”

Henry reached toward his belt, and John thought he was going to draw his sword. But he found his wine sack, lifted it, and drank without spilling a drop. His cheeks were fat with a mouthful, and he took a moment swilling the drink, considering. Then Henry urged the charger forward a few paces, and stopped.

John took the bridle in his hand.

“I know where the murderess is,” said John in a low voice, when he had led the horse to the shadowy margin of the clearing.

“The dead knight's wench?”

“His widow,” corrected John. He imagined how easy it would be to pluck this deputy from the saddle and slam him into the ground. But he kept his voice steady, maintaining his confiding tone. “I can take you to her.”

Henry did not smile, and for a moment John could see the other, more simple man—a peasant's son, eager, proud to be a lawman, and frightened now that it all might slip away.

“Think of the silver you can extort from her,” John added. “If she's in your grasp.”

“Indeed,” said Henry, his eyes alight with hope and caution. “Where is she?”

“Robin Hood knows nothing of this. He wants her treasure for himself. You understand how outlaws are.”

Henry grunted.

“But I am like you, Henry,” said Little John. “A simple man, but with my pride—weary of the devious ways of my master.”

“Maybe you are a right worthy outlaw, after all,” said Henry.

“I'll take you to her.”

Henry considered this. “Good Little John, how do I know you have the spicer's daughter?”

John withdrew the jeweled brooch from his tunic. A ruby winked. “She did not part with this easily.”

Henry ran his tongue over his lips. John could see it in his eyes—Henry saw a future again, winters of fat beef and sweet wine.

“How far away is she?” asked Henry.

“Far. And we must travel alone.”

Henry could not take his eyes off the jewels.

John said, “Leave these men behind.”

Henry laughed. “Pray tell me, why should I trust you?”

“If you agree, I'll give you this rich brooch.” John loathed the thought of the jewels falling into Henry's broad hand. “A token of the riches to come.”

“You do not love your master, Robin Hood,” said Henry, in a tone of awakening insight. “You chafe under him—”

“Like you,” said John, “I weary of a deputy's choice of table scraps and quartered pennies.”

Henry laughed bitterly—but with growing warmth. “It's hard to be second in command, Little John. You and I have tasted that vinegar too long.”

Little John knew then exactly how to win the trust of the lawman. “Robin Hood does not value my skill or my good name,” said the big outlaw. “But I have a plan that will win you Margaret Lea's silver and at the same time play a worthy jest on my master.”

Henry gave a low, thoughtful laugh. “A jest on Robin Hood! That would be a joy indeed.”

“Years from now,” said John, “there will be tales of how Henry the Cunning bested Robin Hood.”

Henry savored the thought.

“The songs will call you Henry le Sly,” John continued, “smarter than the wiliest thief who ever lived.”

Henry leaned down from the saddle, lowering his voice. “What have you in mind?”

John spun a plan of deception and safe travel, with Margaret in Henry's hands at the journey's end.

“By Jesu, we are two men who think alike,” said Henry.

“Very much alike,” said John, perfecting his recitation of lies.

“But before I trust you,” added Henry, “just as proof of your honor, I'll take that pretty brooch into my hand.”

John climbed onto one of the spearmen's mounts, a stoical, stout riding horse, neither the finest sort of cob, nor the worst. The horse gave a wheezing sneeze at John's weight, but made no further complaint.

John hated the sight, Henry's hand closing around Margaret's brooch.

Part Four

FORBIDDEN FOREST

Chapter 41

The two of them covered miles.

John knew nothing of horses, but the cob was accustomed to bulky riders, it would seem, and followed the lead of Henry's charger.

By late afternoon it had begun to rain. Henry was outfitted in dark leather armor, with a close-fitting helmet over his head, a bowl of leather and iron. John offered his great green cloak to Henry, and he accepted it gratefully. As the rain grew heavy, and the two horsemen leaned into the wind, Henry said, “This is the sort of storm I came to Nottingham to escape.”

“It doesn't rain within the city walls?”

Henry was hunched forward in his saddle, water dripping off the tip of his hood. “Not the way it rains down on a farmer and his brood, in a house made of mud and weeds. In winter there was frost on the cottage floor. And when the chickens pecked in and out of the doorway they scattered floor straw, and the straw caught fire from the hearth. My baby brother Arthur had a burn that turned blue and filled with pus. It killed him.”

It was a common problem, infants and children burning to death in house fires, usually from open coals in the middle of a room. No doubt Henry had not intended to tell such a personal story—this bitter memory silenced him for a while.

Eventually Henry stirred himself to ask, “Do you keep holy days in the greenwood?”

The feast days, he meant—Candlemas, Easter, Michaelmas, and the like.

“For outlaws,” said Little John, “every day is a feast.”

When they reached an inn situated beside a parish church, Henry said that priest-brewed ale was good enough on such a night. Some churches and abbeys ran taverns as a way of funding church repairs and furnishing almshouses, but pilgrims and merchants sometimes complained that the drink served by a vicar's servant was little better than malt soup.

The Mitre and Hart was a cordial alehouse. A large fire blazed in the middle of the room, the flames spitting and sizzling as rain fought with them. Ale was served in mazers, ample wooden drinking bowls. Sweet grass was strewn liberally around the floor, and it was fresh, fine yellow hay, smelling of the open fields.

“Two horsemen such as yourself will have no trouble,” said the innkeeper, a short, wiry man with a halo of yellow hair around a bald head.

“We'll have trouble if we want it,” said Henry. “We're outlaws.” Henry chuckled menacingly as he said this, but the innkeeper was neither startled nor amused. Traveling under this assumed identity, John believed, was the aspect of the journey that had most appealed to Henry.

“Oh, begging your pardon, sirs, I meant to remark to you how well made you were, two such stout men as yourselves. Noble outlaws indeed, I said to myself as you stepped right in here, didn't I? I was going to warn you that all the roads north are held by robbers, Red Roger and his men.”

“But I thought Red Roger's manor was well to the north,” said John.

“Well to the north or not, as it may be,” said the innkeeper. “But we hear Red Roger and his men are behind every tree, if it please you.”

Henry gave the man a gentle, almost affectionate cuff. “Give us another bowl of ale, and don't scoop it from the bottom where all the wort settles.”

“Outlaws are common as millers along the High Way, it seems,” said Little John as the innkeeper scurried off.

“And about as honest,” replied Henry.

The man returned with slabs of bread covered with hot, golden, bubbling cheese, fresh from the hearth. “No need to see a coin from either one of you, two fine men such as yourselves. Think of this as a gift from the parish of Saint Felix, and remember us if you feel the need.”

The need for what? John wondered.

“Look here, my man,” said Henry, sounding much like a man of the city. “We're not outlaws at all. See this fine black leather under my cloak, and this fine deputy of mine, big as three haywards.”

The innkeeper straightened, and showed his teeth in a cautious smile.

“We're sheriff's men!” said Henry, slapping the table.

The innkeeper retired into the flickering shadows, and returned with another pitcher of foaming ale.

“We're lawmen!” chortled Henry, looking around at the drinking men and women along the wall. “And we drink wine.”