Knight's Castle (11 page)

"Sort of," said Jack. "I'll send you a copy if it comes out. Gosh. Robin Hood. Could I shake your hand, sir?" And he held his own hand out. "My name's Jack."

"Well met, Jack!" said Robin Hood, gripping it manfully. "With thy quick eye and thy ready hand and wizardry besides, thou shouldst go far in the outlaw trade. Wouldst care to join my merry band?"

"Oh boy!" said Jack. "Wouldst I ever!"

Robin Hood blew a blast on his hunting horn, and outlaws appeared from behind every tree; Maid Marian in a green gown, and Will Scarlet in scarlet, and Allan-a-Dale with his lute, and a huge fellow who could only be Little John. And after that, Jack didn't care whether the magic were real or not. Whatever it was, it was super.

Then, just as Robin was taking Jack around and introducing him to his comrades, another bowman in green came running into the clearing and stood there, getting his breath back.

"What news, Will Stutely?" said Robin Hood.

"Travelers approaching, sir," said Will Stutely. "On horseback, and richly caparisoned, to judge by the jingling!"

"Oho!" said Robin Hood. "More rich booty to plunder and divide among the deserving poor! To your posts, gentlemen!"

There was a sort of flicker, and Jack rubbed his eyes. Except for Robin Hood and himself, not a soul was to be seen. Robin clapped him on the shoulder. "Thy first taste of outlawry, boy!" he said. "Keep by me." And he whisked Jack behind an elm, where they lay crouched together as the unsuspecting horsemen moved into the clearing, jingling as they came.

Only the jingling wasn't caused by rich caparisons, but by Wamba's jester's bells, and when Robin Hood saw who the horsemen were he laughed mightily (but silently) in Jack's ear.

"Marry, 'tis old friends," he breathed. "Nonetheless, we shall give them a scare, for old times' sake." And fitting a shaft to his bow, he sent it whirring past the travelers, and then sent its fellow deep into the heart of an oak tree directly in their path.

"Help!" cried Wamba, falling off his horse and then trying to hide under it.

"Indians!" cried Ann, who wasn't thinking.

"No, it isn't; it's..." began Roger. But at that moment Robin Hood jumped laughing out from behind his tree, and the other outlaws jumped laughing out from behind theirs, and Jack came grinning up to Ann and Eliza and Roger.

When Robin Hood heard of Ivanhoe's disappearance he swore a mighty oath, and when he heard that Roger himself had come again, to join in the search for the missing hero, he came up to Roger and bowed low before him.

"Sir," he said, "this is a great honor."

"Oh, that's all right," said Roger. "It's mutual."

"Thou art too kind," said Robin Hood. "We must have a feast to celebrate the occasion. Men, roast the deer!" And the hearts of the four children thrilled at these truly yeomanly words.

"Is there time, though?" said Roger. "Shouldn't we get searching?"

"Searchers require sustenance," said Robin Hood. "Tonight we feast. Tomorrow we join in the hunt."

"I crave thy pardon," said a tall figure in black armor who had appeared out of the shadows. "Didst say Wilfred of Ivanhoe was lost while on some deed of derring-do? Hath the moon-mad dreamer then recovered from his stargazing?"

"Don't blame him. That wasn't his fault," said Roger. He pointed at Ann. "This mighty sorceress here did that."

"Then death to her," said the Black Knight, putting his hand on his sword.

"Oh dear," said Ann.

"Nay!" said Roger, quickly. "She hath re-formed."

"She'd better!" muttered the Black Knight. But he took his hand off his sword. "And Wilfred is the old knightly Ivanhoe once more?"

"Well." Roger hesitated.

"Of course he's a little bit out of practice," said Ann.

"But the last time we saw him, he was rescuing a maiden," said Eliza.

"My, my, just like old times," beamed the Black Knight. "I feel like a new man. Richard is himself again!

"Sire," said Roger. "I've been wondering. Why don't you come back to your throne and drive Prince John and the Normans out and make everything good again:

"Marry, mayhap I will!" said Richard. "If the old age of chivalry returneth, who am I to be behindhand? Must find dear old Wilfred first, however. After that, who knoweth?"

So that night all was feasting, and if Ann and Roger and Eliza found the taste of roast venison disappointing (maybe because of the deer they had seen all alive and beautiful in the forest), at least they were too well brought up to say so. And dessert, which was wild strawberry junket and frumenty, was dandy.

After the feast, toasts were drunk and songs were sung, and they all lay back in the shade of the spreading greenwood tree and Jack wished this magic, if that's what it was, would go on forever.

And then the strange thing happened. A bird fluttered into the clearing and all around the company, almost brushing their faces with its wings, before it flounced to a perch on the limb of a nearby oak. And somehow all of them knew that this was no ordinary bird.

" 'Tis a falcon!" said Little John.

"With its jesses broken and trailing, the poor strayed thing!" said Maid Marian.

"And if I mistake not, with some paper or other tied unto them," said Robin Hood, striding from his place to look up at the bird. "Could it be 'tis a message for someone here present?"

And now everyone was clustering around the falcon in the tree, and making what everyone hoped were reassuring noises.

"There, there," said Maid Marian.

"Nice falcon," said Ann.

"Soo, boss," said Much the Miller, who was of a rustic background.

The falcon merely fixed them with its glittering eye.

"Wait," said Robin Hood. And he climbed the tree as one who knew no fear, and the falcon seemed to respect this, and allowed itself to be carried to earth with no struggles, or biting and tearing. Robin Hood untied the paper and glanced at it. Then he gave a cry, and read it aloud:

"To Whom It May Concern:
"We are all three of us prisoners
in the Giants' Lair. Help.
(Signed) Wilfred I.

Rebecca Y.
Brian de B. G."

Immediately the air was filled with a babble of excited talk.

"My son!" cried Cedric the Saxon.

"Giants! Ugh! Sooner them than me!" cried all the outlaws.

"Brian de Bois-Guilbert?" said the Black Knight with a snort. "Is Wilfred hobnobbing with
that
dastard?"

"It's not his fault," Roger told him. "They were fighting together the last time I saw them. They probably got taken prisoner together. He probably won't like being rescued by us any more than we'll like rescuing him. It's probably just a case of any port in a storm."

"Where's this Giants' Lair?" said Jack.

Robin Hood looked grave. "It lieth beyond the forest, at the world's end," he said. "Rumor hath it that the giants who dwell therein are ogres of the most deadly variety, though of course I have never seen them, myself. Few have, and lived to tell the tale. Indeed the legend runneth that no man may enter that grimly habitation of his own free will."

"How do we save them then?" asked Roger.

"The one creature for whom 'tis said the door standeth ever open," said Robin Hood, "is a little girl."

Eliza pushed forward eagerly. After all, this was supposed to be her adventure.

Robin Hood looked her over. "Thou mightst do," he said, "but little still would be better."

All eyes turned to Ann. Ann felt small. "You mean me?"

"To a mighty sorceress," said Robin Hood, "all things should be possible."

"Yes," said Ann dubiously, "I suppose they should."

"We of course," went on Robin, "would accompany you as far as possible, stand by to be of what aid we can, et cetera."

"What about me? Can't I go along?" asked Roger. Ann threw him a grateful look.

"Under certain circumstances," admitted Robin, " 'tis said that a small boy also may enter those hideous halls."

"Me too?" asked Jack.

Robin Hood looked at him, and there seemed to be a twinkle in his eye. "Thou art grown near to man's estate, boy," he said. "But while the legend runneth that the door standeth open only for a little girl, there is another legend that only a certain youth may conquer the dread monsters within. I should say that if the lady meaneth to undertake this journey, she would do very well to have thee along!"

"Good," said Jack. He grinned at Ann, and winked.

"Count me in," said Roger. "Me, too," said Eliza.

Everybody seemed to be waiting for Ann to say something. She looked round at them all, and swallowed. She thought of how much she liked Ivanhoe and Rebecca, and how, even though Brian de Bois-Guilbert might be wicked as wicked, he was still a knight and deserved a knightly death, not one at horrid giant hands (or teeth). And she hoped she sounded brave, because she didn't feel brave at all.

"All right," she said. "I'll try."

A cheer burst from the lips of Robin Hood and his men. Eliza threw her arms round Ann. Jack thumped her on the back.

Ann looked at Roger. Roger looked at Ann. "Pretty good," he said, "for a girl."

And that made Ann feel best of all.

Once the die was cast, Ann wanted to start for the Giants' Lair right away and get it over with, and so did Roger and Jack and Eliza. But Robin Hood shook his head.

"Ye must rest and store up your strength," he told them. "Who knoweth what ordeals ye may undergo before ye see old Sherwood again?" And Ann and Roger and Jack and Eliza had to agree that who knew, indeed?

But getting to sleep that night was not easy for any of them, particularly Ann, even though their couches were of fragrant bracken and their pillows scented with pine needles, and even though Maid Marian came and told them soothing stories of the sunnier side of outlaw life.

And when Ann finally did drop off, she had the most bloodcurdling dreams all night.

But the forest birds woke them cheerfully in the morning, and tomorrow was, as usual, another day, and all was swash and buckle as they made ready for the journey, and then all too soon they
were
ready, and the procession started off through the trees, in the opposite direction from Torquilstone Castle.

At first the going was easy, and foxgloves glowed like purple and white candles, and birds warbled their native woodnotes wild, and Allan-a-Dale sang tirra lirra, and Ann might almost have believed they were bound on a party of pleasure, instead of a deed of derring-do.

But as the day wore on things got different. No more flowers bloomed under the trees, which were mostly dead or blasted by lightning, anyway. And around their splintered trunks hung stringy, thorny briers that slapped the travelers scratchingly in the face and seemed to be trying to hold them back. The sun went behind a cloud. A thin cold wind blew down their necks. A carrion crow flew over.

"We're getting near," said Robin Hood.

And Ann and Eliza and Roger and Jack could see that the forest ended just ahead, not thinning out and trailing away gradually, like a respectable forest, but stopping suddenly, as though all life had been cut off at one fell swoop.

"The Giants' Lair!" said Robin, pointing.

Ann and Eliza and Roger and Jack knew what they expected to see—a grim, half-ruined castle like one of the drawings of Mr. Charles Addams in
The New Yorker
, with bats flying around and toads on the terrace and a wolf at the door, and maybe a horrible head glaring from a window.

They stopped at the edge of the forest.

"Hideous, isn't it?" said Robin Hood. "Like nothing ever built by human hands!"

Ann and Eliza and Roger and Jack looked. It wasn't like a Charles Addams drawing at all. Except that it was about a hundred times normal size, what they saw was a perfectly ordinary house, such as you might see in any perfectly ordinary suburb today, with white paint and green blinds and a neat lawn and flowerbeds.

Maid Marian averted her eyes. "How dreadful!" she shuddered. "Robin, can we leave these innocent children to go in there alone?"

"There's nothing wrong," said Jack. "It's just a house only it's too big."

"It's just like any old house back home," said Eliza, disappointed. "I think it's boring."

"There's no accounting for tastes," said Maid Marian.

Ann didn't say anything. There was something familiar about the house, but she couldn't think what it was.

"And now," said Robin Hood, "this is where you must leave us. We shall be waiting here if there be any little thing we can do."

"Good luck," said Marian, kissing Ann.

"Tell old Wilfred chin up from me," said the Black Knight.

"Save my son," said Cedric the Saxon.

"We'll try," said Roger.

He and Eliza and Ann and Jack got down from their horses.

"But stay," said Robin Hood. "I was forgetting. Thou bearest no arms."

"Do we have to?" said Ann. "I'd rather not."

"I wouldn't," said Eliza, swaggering.

Robin Hood looked at them. Again there seemed to be a twinkle in his eye. "Methinks," he said, "that Jack at least should bear some weapon."