Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy (6 page)

He turned his head, defying the staring crowd, until his eyes met Linnet’s. There alone did he see any measure of compassion. He straightened his spine.

“Come,” said Scarface to the other two. “We will discuss the terms of his exchange.” He tossed additional orders at the men who held Gareth. “Peg him there where everyone can get a gander at just how a Norman may be forced to crawl.”

The three moved off in the direction of one of the larger huts. Gareth found himself booted to the ground. He fell hard and his broken arm shrieked with pain. For an instant his surroundings—people, mist, and buildings—swam around him. Hard hands fastened a rope to his neck. The other end of the short line was fixed to a metal stake in the ground. His handlers, chuckling among themselves, moved away.

The onlookers, most of them, did not. They stood in a rough circle gaping at Gareth like the dolts they were, as if they had never before seen a man tied up like a hound.

Gareth struggled up, hampered by his broken arm. He could not move far, so short was his tether. He was barely able to sit upright without straining at it. A deep shudder seized him, and he tasted hate.

A few souls abandoned the crowd. A parcel of children, ragged and solemn eyed, pressed forward. One threw a stone that hit Gareth in the side of the head. A second tossed a half-bitten turnip. A third picked up a still larger stone.

“Away! Away out of this,” a soft voice scolded. A hand shooed the children and a face appeared in Gareth’s line of vision: oval, lovely, and troubled. Linnet.

“Here,” she said. She held a cup of water, which she raised to his lips. He drank greedily, though he hated being forced to accept charity before all those watching eyes, even from her. He shot one look into her face and turned away.

She knelt down in the dirt beside him, which partially shielded him from the gazes of the onlookers. “Have faith,” she whispered. “My parents will speak sense to Martin. You will be sent back to your uncle whole.”

“Your parents?” He realized she spoke of the couple wreathed in magic. Aye, for the tall woman had her sister’s fierce eyes.

“They have arrived unexpectedly to celebrate Midsummer with us. Just as well—they will argue it out, the three of them.” Earnestly she added, “There is great power in the number three.”

“Linnet!” A hard hand came down, seized her shoulder, and pulled her to her feet. “Leave him to his ordeal.” The wild-headed young man, son to Scarface, shot Gareth a look of pure loathing.

Linnet freed herself from his grip with alacrity. “He is under my care.”

“And you have provided that care. You will not coddle him here for all to see—better try to coddle a rabid hound. Do not be so soft.”

“And you, Falcon,” she glared into his eyes, “do not be so harsh. Where is your compassion?”

“For that?” Falcon flicked Gareth with another look. “It burned to death with Ma and Thrush. Or have you forgotten all his kind have done? Dead or sent to Nottingham, I care not. I only want him gone.”

Chapter Eight

“We have much for which to be thankful this Midsummer: no illness in the villages, a good crop in the fields, and firm weapons to our hands. We should, and will, celebrate.”

Linnet shot a look into her mother’s face and tried to gauge her mood. One could not always do so from her words. Wren Little—wife of Sparrow Little, son to Robin Hood’s companion, John Little, or Little John—lived her days surrounded by magic. No less might be expected of the guardian of Sherwood, keeper of its secrets and its strength.

From the time Linnet could remember, she had been taught that Sherwood was less a place than a living entity, a deeply magical being. Spirits dwelt there, ancient and powerful, including that of Linnet’s grandfather, Robin Hood. Her mother had met and spoken with him. She had even carried his spirit with her at times.

When Linnet and Lark were very young, they lived with their parents deep in the forest, raised on a curious blend of their father’s deep love, their mother’s practical wisdom, and the presence of Sherwood itself. Linnet recalled strange things from that time, companions who came and went and played with her, including a diminutive woman called Lil and a great bear of a man with a bristly beard who wished her to call him Grandpa.

Wren Little was a shaman and a priestess, purveyor of magic. She could speak to Linnet’s father without moving her lips, mind to mind. She taught her small daughters reverence for the forest and the healing arts. But by the time they reached the age of six years, she began to entertain the possibility that isolation made no fit life for them.

So they had left the forest hermitage for the village of Oakham. For a time they had all lived there together, and Linnet’s parents had striven to fit the life. But the forest and their roles as guardians called them too strongly. At last, after much discussion with the third member of the triad that guarded Sherwood—Martin Scarlet—and his wife, Sally, it had been decided the twin girls would reside with the Scarlets and Wren and Sparrow would once more retire to their hermitage.

At first Linnet and Lark had seen their parents often, either journeying into the forest or receiving them at Oakham. But as the years passed, those visits grew less frequent. The girls had a life in Oakham; their parents did not. Simple, Linnet thought, eyeing the well-loved faces, and so terribly complex.

They sat all together now in the home Linnet thought of as her own, sharing a meal prepared by her hands. Outside, night fell softly. A party bearing an ultimatum for the Sheriff of Nottingham had departed for the castle some time ago. The prisoner still remained pegged out like an animal—a sacrificial goat, perhaps—at the center of the village.

Linnet strove mightily not to think of him hurting, thirsty, hungry—but she failed.

“So,” said Lark, who invariably became voluble when in the presence of her parents, “why have you come? We did not expect you here for Midsummer. Indeed, I thought we should have to venture into the forest to see you.”

Wren and Sparrow exchanged glances. Linnet wondered if they were communicating between their minds. Sometimes, when younger, she could catch the echo of their thoughts, but never the words themselves.

“I was given warning,” Wren said, “that something was afoot.”

Lark’s golden eyes, so like her mother’s, glowed. “Was it a vision?” For time out of mind, Lark had been fascinated with the flashes of knowing and images that came to her mother. She often lamented that she could not, herself, see visions. “How am I to be a guardian of Sherwood someday,” she sometimes complained, “if I have not the Sight?”

Now Wren shook her head. “A message was delivered to me by your grandfather.”

“Which grandfather?” Lark asked eagerly. Both were dead.

Wren smiled. When she did, her normally grave face glowed and became beautiful. “My father, Robin.”

“Ah.” Lark propped her chin on her hand and gazed at her parents; she thrived on talk of magic and mystery. It sometimes made Linnet wonder if Lark were not the one, of the three of them, destined to live at Sherwood’s heart, channeling its magic into strength with which to fight.

Which would leave Linnet to wed Falcon. Her thoughts darted again to the man tied out in the center of the village, suffering. Barely understood longing pierced her heart.

Wren turned her head toward Linnet sharply, almost as if she could sense Linnet’s thoughts. “There is danger at hand,” Wren said, “wide and deep.”

“Danger?” Linnet repeated. “To whom?”

Again her parents exchanged glances. Her father, usually so calm and serene, looked uneasy. His eyes—nearly identical to Linnet’s—caressed her.

But it was her mother who spoke. “Death, and peril to the circle.”

Lark’s lips parted. She looked the way she had long ago when Pa told her tales of the old ones who dwelt in the forest.

“But,” Lark protested, “that cannot be. The triad stands strong; the magic of Sherwood is safer than ever. We have years yet before we three need worry about taking your places.”

“So we thought.” Wren shook her head. “Yet I cannot doubt the message, nor the messenger.”

Real fear stirred in Linnet’s heart. She could not bear the thought of losing any of them—not her father with his deep gentleness that was somehow also deep strength, not her mother with her quick-changing fierceness, and not Martin with his undefeatable will for justice. They meant the world to her and, like the power of Sherwood which she breathed, had made her the woman she was.

To be sure, Linnet had heard tales of the last two triads. The first had been comprised of Robin Hood himself, his wife, Marian—Wren’s parents—and the Green Man, spirit of Sherwood. When Robin fell, Marian succumbed to her grief and withdrew to a nunnery. Three others had stepped up to hold the triad and keep Sherwood strong: the healer, Lil, who had raised Wren after Marian abandoned her, Geofrey, then headman of Oakham, and the holy hermit, Alric, who had taken the Green Man’s part.

Aye, Linnet knew the tale, how Geofrey, Lil, and Alric had died one by one and been replaced by Martin Scarlet, Wren, and Sparrow Little who, bonded together, had gone to ground at Sherwood’s heart.

Someday Linnet, Lark, and Falcon would, in turn, take their places. Two of them would bond even as Linnet’s parents and grandparents, as Lil and Geofrey had. The other would in essence wed with the forest itself. Such was the tradition, though Wren had altered it some. Linnet knew her fate, but...

“Not yet,” she said aloud. “It is much too soon.”

“It is always too soon.” Wren spoke with her customary alacrity. “But the truth remains—two of us cannot stand without the third. We can try.” Her hand reached for that of her husband and clutched it tight. “We have seen it attempted in the past. We will fail. The power lies in three. It will take only one of us to fall.”

The blood drained from Linnet’s face. “Which—?”

“Which of us?” Wren, unsparing, took up the question Linnet could not bring herself to voice. “We have not been given that knowledge.”

Lark, stricken silent by dismay, looked at her sister.

And Linnet, spurred by sudden terror, said, “But you should not have come. You should have stayed safe in Sherwood, where nothing can touch you.”

“That is just it, Lin,” her father said in his deep voice, like the rumble of thunder through the trees. “When something touches one of us, it touches all, wherever we be. We cannot hide from this. And your mother thought it important to bring warning.”

Lark cursed and then asked, “Have you told Martin?”

“Of course.” Wren spoke evenly, though Linnet could now feel her agitation, like a ripple on water.

“Yet,” Linnet said softly, “he has gone off with the party to deliver the ransom demand in Nottingham.” Martin and Falcon both had gone, with a party of four other men.

“I could not dissuade him,” Wren said. “No one ever dissuaded Martin Scarlet from anything.”

“Does Fal know?” Lark asked.

Wren shook her head. “Martin refused to tell him.” Her expression grew troubled. “I cannot but think that a mistake. We never kept anything from you.”

Fiercely, Lark told her parents, “You should go at once back into Sherwood.”

“So,” Wren lifted a brow, “you would sacrifice Fal’s father, would you?”

Lark’s eyes burned fiercely. “Martin is like a second father to us. I would defend any of you with my life.” She said it so simply Linnet could not doubt its truth. “But the two of you, Ma and Pa, guard Sherwood’s heart.”

“So do we all,” said Sparrow gravely. “And the three of you must stand ready to take your places after us, however this thing comes to pass.” He fixed his daughters with his dark, compelling stare. “For whatever happens, Sherwood’s magic cannot be allowed to fail.”

Chapter Nine

“Here, quickly! Here, to me!”

The cry, sharp as the blade of a honed knife, broke the stillness of early morning. Even before Linnet opened her eyes, her heart leaped into her throat and began to pound like a crazed blacksmith.

Around her the other occupants of the cottage stirred. She had given her parents the pallets by the fire, a place of honor, and they slept twined together, nearly one. Lark, eternally on guard, had stationed herself near the door. Linnet saw her lift her head and then scramble up and reach for her bow in one movement.

Linnet followed; her parents rose as she passed them. In the doorway, which Lark had left open, she paused.

The air outside was still gray; dawn had barely come, but she had no need to see who had called out to identify him. Falcon, it was—and now she heard other voices raised, and a scream of anguish that closed her throat.

Someone roared like an animal in pain.

She hurried in Lark’s wake, stumbling over the hem of her sleeping gown. She saw figures at the center of the village not far from where the prisoner was tied, and still more gathering.

“Martin,” said her father, just behind her, and her mother pushed past. Sparrow took Linnet’s arm and they went forward also. By the time they reached the place, Wren was already on her knees at the side of a figure stretched hard on the ground. Falcon knelt across from her.

Another roar came from the fallen man: Martin Scarlet, indeed. He lived, then. Linnet’s breath came again. It was not so bad as it might be.

She paused at her mother’s shoulder. Fal looked up into her eyes and raised both hands, red with blood. “Save him. You must save him.”

Linnet did not move. Her mother possessed far greater ability as a healer than she. Linnet had skill, true, but Wren’s hands held magic.

“What is it?” Lark voiced the question in the mind of everyone gathered. “What has happened to him?”

“We met with a party of soldiers on our way to Nottingham,” Falcon said bitterly. “They gave us fight, and it went badly. We spent all night dodging them in the forest and never got the ransom demand to the castle.”

Martin roared again. Linnet had heard a hart make that kind of bellow in its death throes. The agony of it froze her where she stood.

“It is grave.” Already Wren’s hands were upon him, and stained red. “Be still, Martin. You do yourself no good.”