Hawksmaid (11 page)

W
ITH THE RUMORS OF
Richard's impending return, Prince John began his final and most desperate efforts to rally his forces. He needed money for bribes, food for his soldiers, weaponry, horses, and all manner of equipment with which he was determined to defeat his brother. What was not given willingly he took by force. But another force had emerged that perhaps at first did not seem so significant. It was a band of outlaws. These were
outlaws like none had ever known, for they stole silver and gold from those few families who remained rich because of their allegiance to the prince and the sheriff and gave to the desperately poor. Throughout the countryside these outlaws who always robbed with good cheer were known, as Meg had mentioned the night Marian had returned from Nottingham, to be led by a certain Robin Hood. They were called Robin Hood and his Merry Men. No one suspected that one of the Merry Men—in fact, their chief strategist—was a girl.

 

Marian had completed her first real “molt” soon after she returned to her castle from Nottingham. She had cut her hair short and now wore leggings with a tunic that fell to mid thigh. On her head she wore a loose hood. She had sewn these garments herself of a green cloth that blended well with the forests.

Although she had planned to go to the blasted oak within days of her coming home from the sheriff's castle, her father's condition had worsened. She rarely left his bedside. She was not sure if he could hear her words, but she spoke to him as she held his hand. Sometimes he gave her fingers a slight squeeze, but
those times became fewer and farther apart. Then one cold and moonless night she felt his hand clasp hers firmly.

“Look, Matty!” he whispered hoarsely, his eyes opened wide. He nodded as if to direct her attention toward something outside. There, framed in the window against the midnight blue of the sky, a star shone fiercely. The Star of Jerusalem! She fastened her eyes on the milky streaks that stretched the star's rays of light into a perfect cross. A voice in her head whispered something from the day her mother had died:
Keep looking into this deep blue…we shall be safe. It will be the sky, and we will be little stars and float…float away…away.

She felt her father's grip slacken. “Father?” But she knew, though his eyes were still open, that he had gone.

She slid her fingertips over his eyelids to close them, for the star had quickly passed out of the window and taken her father with it. Her dear, dear father who had taught her the way of hawks, taught her to read and to write, to use a needle to mend a broken feather shaft. He had taught her all this in a time when no wellborn lady was supposed to know any such things. A time
when to dance a fine saltarello was considered vastly more important than reading. A time when to figure mathematical calculations was a suspect skill only for shrewish women of trade. A time when needles were used only to embroider. He had been both a father and mother to her.

Marian was alone now. The hawks and Hodge and Meg depended on her. The Fitzwalter castle, long plundered, was of no further interest to the sheriff's men, so at least they would be able to live out their remaining years there.

For days Marian remained in the castle. She did not cry. She felt it important to fight any such feminine weaknesses. She took care of her hawks and hunted with them daily. It was as if she were determined to exercise more than ever the skills her father had taught her. But each night when she went to bed she looked out the window, searching the sky for the star that had appeared right before her father had died.

One evening she went to her father's library where she had first learned to read and took down a volume of astronomy. She knew very little about the stars and how they passed through the heavens and wondered if she might find the one that had made its transit on that
night. She was not sure how long she had been reading when she was aware of a presence in the room. She turned around slowly on the stool where she sat.

“Robin!”

“I came as soon as I heard about your father. I was in the south and only heard when I got back.”

“Oh, Robin!” And now the tears that had been locked somewhere deep inside were undammed. Her face was wet as Robin pressed her head against his chest. She loved the coarseness of the tunic against her cheek and the forest fragrance of his skin beneath it.

“Cry, my maid, cry!”

Marian was not sure how long she cried, or how long he held her in his arms, but finally she pushed back. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and snorted loudly, then chuckled softly. “Fine lady I would make.”

“Lady enough,” Robin replied.

“And reading, too!” she added, making a wry expression and nodding at the book.

“And what are you reading?”

“Astronomy.”

“Astronomy? Why astronomy?”

“Looking for the Star of Jerusalem.”

“Well, there is one no farther than the Bishop of
Hereford's finger, I believe.”

“Yes indeed!” Marian replied, brightly now. “It is time I put my mind to that piece of business.”

“Then come with me back to Sherwood and the blasted oak. I'll have some of the younger boys bring food for Meg and Hodge and your birds—they'll be provided for. We miss you, Marian.” He paused. “I mean, I miss you!”

 

Marian had been back at the blasted oak for the better part of a week, but they had yet to come up with a plan that suited her for taking the Star of Jerusalem from the Bishop of Hereford's finger.

“When we do it, it must be done right!” Marian stood in the sputtering light of the small fire where they had just roasted some grouse. Marigold was perched on her shoulder, but Marian was thinking of Ulysses. She had learned many lessons from her hawks, but from Moss and Ulysses she had learned perhaps the most valuable ones for her new life as an outlaw: patience, discipline, and precision. For the boys, the robberies were adventures. They delighted in adding a flourishing touch in the form of a practical joke that deflated the self-importance of their victims. There was
a pompous parish priest who had been hoarding food supplied to him by the sheriff while his parishioners were starving. One Saturday night, the boys stole as much as they could from his larder. The next morning after the robbery, when parishioners found the pulpit empty, they went to the priest's house and found him trussed like a pig with an apple stuffed in his mouth. He was not harmed in the least, simply humiliated.

As their reputation grew so did their numbers. More and more young men, some still just boys, joined their ranks. And, indeed, the friar from Nottingham castle had become one of their most trusted confidants. Friar Tuck moved seamlessly between the outlaws and the innermost circles of Nottingham castle, the court of Prince John, and the church.

Only the original band lived in the great oak in Sherwood, but they had developed a wide system of communication. Tree hollows, empty wells, an abandoned shepherd's hut became the places where messages were left—not all written. Some messages were given through the seemingly innocent arrangements of objects. A row of three stones with a molted feather stuck under the first stone meant a baron would be traveling abroad on the third day of
the week on the high road out of Nottingham and an ambush was planned. Every village and town from Barnsdale to Nottingham, from Haworth to Porlock, now had its share of Merry Men who could contribute to such an ambush.

 

Now the five friends gathered in the spacious hollow of the blasted oak. Marian had added a homey touch, bringing with her an old carpet from her mother's chamber and even an embroidery to hang on the wall. Robin had of course objected, claiming she was turning it into a lady's chamber. “Precisely,” Marian had retorted, “a lady's chamber and not a robber's den.” A candle stuck in the neck of a jug cast a pool of light.

“Now what do you mean by
right
?” Little John asked.

“Maybe
right
is not the word, but stealing from a parish priest's larder is easy compared to taking a ring from a bishop's finger.”

“We could just take the finger with it!” Little John said, flashing his dagger.

“Not if we can help it,” Marian said. “Trussing a priest like a pig is one thing; chopping off fingers seems—seems a bit much.”

“And it's not funny,” Robin said. “You know we have a reputation to keep up. Merry Men, not monsters.”

They all laughed at this. But while they were joking Marian had a thought. To take a bishop required cunning and subtlety. She thought of Robin's explanation when he had first told her about the blasted oak: “A knight on the rim is dim.” This was indeed a chess game and now they were getting to the middle of the board. A bishop's moves compared to a knight's were very restricted. A knight was also the only piece that could jump other pieces. A rook, however, one of the most important pieces, plays a role usually when the middle game has been reached.
Now supposing,
Marian thought,
we are the knights, but when we get to the middle, the rooks come in, our rooks—my hawks!

“Here is my idea,” Marian said. “I heard in the marketplace the other day that the bishop comes every fortnight to dine with the abbess. He takes the north road. There is a huge oak at the big bend.”

“I know the one,” Robin said. “Go straight into the woods from that tree and you can get some of the best venison in all England. The two deer I brought down last week and gave away to those families up beyond Chillingham village came from there.”

“That's the idea!” Marian said.

“What's the idea?” Robin asked.

“We go and kill a fat deer. That's our opening move. But instead of dressing it in the forest, we drag it to the side of the road and dress it by that tree.”

“What, are you crazy?” Scarlet said. “He'll stop and arrest us.”

“Yes. You see, we are the lure.” She looked at Marigold perched on her shoulder and stroked her wings. A faraway look came into her eyes. She thought back to when she had first trained Marigold to fly to the lure by swinging those bloody lark wings. “We are first the lure and then
we
become the hawk and will fly to the fist, the fist of not a falconer but of the villain, the bishop, and I will take his ring.”

Robin looked at Marian. “She knows her business. We do as Marian says. And, mind, we will get her mother's jewel.”

Robin's words stirred her heart. It was a profound respect. Tears threatened her eyes. Robin was at last treating her as an equal.

JANUARY
1193

“
N
O
! N
O
! T
HAT'S NOT
how a shepherd wears his cloak, Scarlet,” Marian scolded gently. The five of them were gathered by the oak at the roadside. They were dressed in gray clothes of rough-woven fabrics. She adjusted the cloak around Scarlet's shoulders, then turned to help Robin. Her fingers had worked nimbly with Scarlet's cloak, but now she suddenly seemed all thumbs. She could see some dark reddish hairs curling from the neckline of his tunic.

“If you didn't have a mustache,” he whispered, “I might kiss you!”

Her hands began to tremble. She was trying to knot the ties of his cloak but made a mess of it. Did he notice? Was she blushing? To cover her acute discomfort she spoke testily. “Don't be a fool! It's not a time for jokes.”

“You mean that mustache is real?”

She gave up on attempting to fix the cloak and stood back and looked at him. Trying to sound as cold as possible but fighting a smile, she pointed at the shepherd's crook he held.

“Robin, don't carry your crook like a sword. It's for herding, not fighting—not yet at least. Now, where's the deer?”

“Off in that brush,” Robin said, nodding at a thicket of brambles.

Marian looked up at the pale January sun, peering through woolly clouds. “It must be close to noon. The bishop should be here soon. So bring the deer over and we can start to dress it.”

Snow flurries spun through the air, but their heads were protected by the deep hoods that not only offered a shield from the wind but also concealed their faces in
shadows. Marian had used tallow to stick a few wisps of her own hair above her lip in a fair approximation of a youth's first hint of a mustache. This robbery involved a very complicated strategy, and Marian had employed nearly every lesson she had ever learned in falconry. She was setting up a lure for the bishop—the lure of a forbidden deer protected in the prince's royal forest—but at the same time she herself would have to fly to the fist. The fist with the ring that held her mother's jewel. On this mission Marigold and Ulysses were flying lookout. If things got nasty, Marian would give them the sign to attack.

“They must be coming!” Marian said as she spotted her hawks melting out of the sky.

Little John crouched and put his ear to the road. “I hear hoofbeats. There be at least a dozen men on horses.”

And just five of us here!
Marian thought. But there were other boys hidden throughout the growth that bordered the forest. At the first blast of Robin's horn they would come forth and fight.

“Get busy,” Robin ordered. He unsheathed his blade and made a slit down the dead deer's skin. The pounding came closer, and the air was suddenly fogged
with the breath of horses ridden hard.

“What goes on here? Who killed the king's deer?” the Bishop of Hereford roared. The bishop's hands were gloved, but it was as if Marian could see through the leather to that twinkling sapphire. She gritted her teeth and more tightly gripped the knife with which she had just begun to dress the deer.

“Is it the king's deer or the prince's?” Robin answered cheekily.

“It is the king's,” the bishop replied with a smirk. Marian did not like the smirk. Was the bishop saying that Prince John was king somehow? That Richard had died?

But Robin continued, “As you can see we are shepherds, but today we decided to hunt a bit and kill a fat deer.”

“You're a brave fellow and the king shall know of your crime.”

“By all means. When the king returns from the Crusades, perhaps we should ask him, then, whose deer these are.”

“Oh, does he return?” The bishop sniggered. “We've just had word that Richard has been captured.”

“What?” they all gasped.

The bishop's men moved forward and began to close in on the five shepherds. The air split with two sounds one right after the other—a shrill whistle from Marian and a blast from Robin's horn.

She felt a great gust as Ulysses, his red eyes blazing, hurled himself down on the first of the bishop's men to draw a sword, striking him with such force that he fell from his horse. Marigold took on the rest of the bishop's men as if she were chasing larks, darting in and out and striking their heads, their sword arms, their horses' ears. Soon horses were rearing, and the bishop himself was thrown to the ground. Out from the brambles thirty men in green raced with swords raised. Marian herself had yet to draw a blade. She stood in the shadow of the oak and called to her hawks, “
Ki…ki…kuh…kuh griss chawap!”

By now, most of the bishop's men had fled. The bishop himself appeared stunned.

Little John now walked up to the bishop and stooped over him. “What do we do with this churchman?” he said, turning to Robin. “Off with his head?”

“Perhaps his finger,” Marian said, joining Little John.

“My finger?” The bishop looked up in a daze at the
slight lad with just a trace of a mustache.

“Well, you can save your finger if you gave me your ring.”

“My ring? You want my bishop's ring?”

“No, I want the Star of Jerusalem,” Marian's voice had turned deadly. “Do not delay or my hawks will have your finger
and
your eyes.”

The bishop tore off his glove. Marian watched as he took the ring from his finger. In the drear wintry day the star glimmered in its field of sapphire. Marian slipped the ring on her finger, then turned to Robin. “He has taken the lure. We have flown to the fist. And now it is time for his reward.”

Robin brought her a hunk of the meat he had just cut from the deer. Marian held the bloody piece in her hand and offered it to the bishop. He looked at it in bewilderment. “Take it. This is the justice of falconry.”

 

“Richard captured! I can't believe it!” Robin said. They had gathered in the blasted oak. Friar Tuck had been waiting for them. He had already heard the news from one of his most reliable sources—the chief steward's horse groom.

“Yes, they say that his ship was wrecked in the
Adriatic, near the town of Aquileia. Richard and his party were then forced to take a dangerous land route. He was trying to get to France, of course, to his mother's, Queen Eleanor's, territory.”

“Who captured him?” Marian asked.

“Allies of Prince John,” Friar Tuck said. “Duke Leopold of Austria. Although Richard was traveling in disguise, he was recognized.” Marian touched the remnant of her mustache lightly. Had she been recognized as a girl? Robin had said that she had been foolish to talk to the bishop, for although she might, in the shadows of the shepherd's hood, give the impression of a boy, her voice gave her away. “He's being held for ransom. A large ransom to the highest bidder. So large that Queen Eleanor herself cannot afford it.”

“What do we do now?” Rich asked.

“Get the gobbets,” Little John said.

Friar Tuck sighed deeply. A pained expression crossed his face. “I am not sure that even those rubies will be quite enough, precious as they are.”

Marian stepped forward and touched the friar's sleeve. “But the rubies and the Star of Jerusalem?” she whispered. She removed the ring from her finger.

“Yes, Marian, that would indeed ransom a king.”