Wild Boy (5 page)

Perhaps he should have told Rowan he would be away for a while…. But no, foxes and deer did not need to seek anyone’s blessing or say-so. Wolves roamed at will. And so would he.

Slipping through the tangled shadows of Sherwood Forest, Rook expected to meet swarms of Nottingham’s men-at-arms in search of the Sheriff’s missing son. But in fact he saw only one bored patrol riding through a beech glade.

Other than that, he encountered the usual presences in the forest: frightened peasants poaching firewood or meat, nervous travelers, knights errant and wandering friars, the king’s foresters, bounty hunters, Robin Hood’s merry men, and other outlaws not nearly so merry or kind. Rook knew when any of these folk were near, but few if any of them were aware of the wild boy.

Rook ate what little he could find as he traveled, only enough to stay alive. Mushrooms. Bilberries. Little bony fish that tasted muddy: dace, chub, perch. Still, eating took time, sleeping took time, stalking and walking took time, days of sunshine then cloud again and rain and then more sun.

He found the wallows at last by the prints of many two-pointed hooves leading there. Rain had freshened the mud, and now a warm afternoon sun glowed down between trees busy growing roots and nuts and acorns for pigs to eat. It was a fine, fine day to be a wild hog. Standing behind a mighty oak with roots dug bare by pig snouts, Rook scanned the sows and shoats lying in the wallows with their long legs and their pointed heads
stretched out, mud crusting their dark bristles, many of them asleep. If Rook wanted to take a treat of meat back to Rowan, all he had to do was sneak up and grab a young pig. Getting covered with mud was a small price to pay for roast suckling pork.

But it wasn’t hunger for meat that had sent him here. It was a different hunger. An aching hunger the Sheriff’s son had put into him, making him burn and churn with hate and love, vengeance against Nottingham, longing for a … a dead swineherd.

Year after year Father had come here to capture the young wild pigs for fattening, taking the dog—Rook blinked in surprise at himself, that he had almost forgotten the brindle dog. It had been a companion, a playmate of sorts, and it had helped to keep the wild boars at bay in the spring and herd the shoats in the fall. But the king’s foresters had come and cut off some of its toes, laming it so that it couldn’t chase deer. One day the dog had not come home. Maybe they had killed it outright.

Maybe it had been caught in a man trap.

Like Father.

Remembering Father was thorny hard and hurtful, but looking at the sleeping pigs eased Rook’s tangled feelings somewhat. Just standing in this place gave him some small peace. He began to notice birdsong, felt liquid notes cleansing him, a rainbow shower amid sunshine. Breathing deeply of the moist mud-scented air, he seemed to take in something of his father’s spirit, something quiet, brown, accepting …

No. He would never accept.

Confound the Sheriff’s son. Hand of justice put him in the trap for me; why did I let him live? What is wrong with me? Am I a coward? Am I
—

“
Mes yeux
, Rook,” said a voice behind him, “why you run away?”

He jerked around. There stood Beau, her grin flashing white, her hair hanging like a black-and-yellow flag. He had been forgetting to listen for danger, he had not heard her approaching, and now—

Pigs screeched and scrambled up, startled by Beau’s voice. Mud flew as sows and shoats darted in all directions like a sudden ambush, all the king’s men shooting all the king’s arrows—but these were arrows bigger than Rook and Beau put together. And with a scream more like a roar, something massive and dark thundered toward Beau.

There was no time to think. Rook reacted, leaping to shield Beau, spear pointed toward the danger, even before he fully comprehended the charging boar, before he really saw the black bristles standing on the razor neck and back, the frothy flash of tusks that could tear him wide open, the crescent red raging eyes. The wild boar hit his spear tip at full speed, its hurtling weight staggering him back, back—but as Rook fell, somehow he
remembered to plant the butt of the spear in the earth, and he threw himself on it to keep it there, to keep a few feet of spear between him and death. Only the crossbar stopped the boar from charging right up the length of the spear to slash and trample him.

The boar roared, swerved, sidestepped, still trying to get at Rook even though there was a foot of sharpened wood inside him. The spear must not have pierced his heart, and its green wood couldn’t stand up to the boar’s strength for long; it would break. Rook’s pulse roared in his ears, the boar screamed like an evil spirit, everything was screaming, echoes between the trees, piglets, Rook’s muscles, his panting throat—and Beau, screaming as she leapt at the raging boar, dagger in hand. The boar swung its head to slash at her. She sprang aside just in time and leapt like a squirrel onto the boar’s back, where its tusks could not reach her. Gripping with her knees, she rode its bruising backbone as it plunged worse than a bucking pony. The dagger flashed in air—a bright steel knife with a filigree hand guard, a weapon worthy of the high king’s page boy. The dagger plunged, lifted, plunged again.

The boar did not seem to mind being stabbed at all, but the sudden weight on his back maddened him. He writhed, squalled, bent double trying to slash Beau, reared so that Rook caught a glimpse of his heaving hairy belly. But Rook leapt up with him, hanging on to the butt of the spear. His only chance was to keep hold of it. He saw Beau still on the boar with her knees clamped behind its shoulders and one hand clinging to an ear as she stretched forward with the other, trying to slash the beast’s throat.

“Eye!” Rook yelled, panting so that he could barely get the word out. “Stab—eye!” Beau’s dagger was not long enough to kill the boar unless she struck through its eye straight into its brain.

She heard him, and she tried. But it was like trying to stab a sixpence hung by a string in a high wind. Her dagger struck cheekbone, then air, then—

Then the spear snapped, and Rook fell, knowing it was over. A huge weight struck him. And then there was only blackness.

He awoke sputtering amid a wet, cold stream landing on his forehead. Blurrily he could see Beau’s narrow, elegant face looking down as she poured the contents of her water flask on him.

“Stop it,” he said.

“
Sacre bleu
, but someone must wash you once in the blue moon,” she said, turning the flask upright but scrubbing at his cheek with her other hand. “It was the luck most fortunate,
non
, that I came when I did?”

The idiot. If she hadn’t alarmed the swine with her noise, the boar wouldn’t have charged in the first place—but then Rook saw the black glint in her eyes. The rascal, she was teasing him. He scowled and tried to sit up, but felt a great weight lying on his belly and legs. Glancing down, he saw the wild boar, stone dead, lying atop him with Beau’s dagger jutting from its eye. Feeling sick, he quickly looked away.

“The
bete gross odieux
, it would have killed you were it not for
moi
,” Beau declared.

Equally true, the boar would have killed her if it were not for him. But Rook only growled, “What are you doing here?”

“
Mon foi
, looking for you! Rowan could not do it. She must nurse Tod—”

Tod, it was now. Not “the Sheriff’s son.” Tod, as if the snot brat were another member of the band.

“—and Lionel must hunt the meat, so it is for me to see where you so long go. Are your legs broken?” Beau added hopefully.

Rook didn’t think so. He heard a pained and panicky squealing noise, but although it matched his mood, it wasn’t coming from him. Also, he would have noticed by now if any part of him hurt enough to be broken. Giving Beau only a glare for reply, he said, “Get the brute off me.”

“
Mais certainement
. With my bare hands I will lift it instantly.” But already she had turned her pale Grecian profile and was jabbing the shaft of his broken spear under the hog, levering it up. Then she kicked a stone under it, found another stick to prop with, and levered it again. It took quite a bit of this before Rook was able to squirm out from under the wild boar’s heavy carcass. Beau offered him a hand to help him up, but he turned his back, scrambled to his feet and looked around. Something was still squealing like a frantic baby.

“Your head’s bleeding,” Beau said.

Rook could feel it. The back of his head seemed to be the only part of him that seriously hurt. It must have hit a rock as the boar slammed him to the ground. Unsteady on his feet, he trudged toward the wallows, now empty of all swine but one. A runty piglet still struggled in the mud. Not big and strong enough to get out by itself, left behind, it squalled for its mother, cried almost as if it knew Rook had just killed its father. Squealing, it thrashed its short legs in the mud, trying to flee, but Rook slogged over to it and picked it up, slippery little yammering thing. He had to cradle it against his chest with both arms to keep it from squirming away from him. Dizzy, hugging the piglet, he slopped back to Beau, mud dripping in globs off his arms and legs and chest.

“Lovely,” Beau declared, staring at him. “What we need that for?
Beaucoup
meat we have already.” With a languid gesture she indicated the boar’s hefty carcass.

Rook did not answer her. He said only, “Give me your tunic string.”

She stared at him, then at the long crimson lacing that closed her crimson tunic, then back at him again.

“I’m not going to look at you!” Rook restrained himself from reminding Beau that her chest was as flat as his own. “I need a string.”

She muttered, “
Sacre bleu
,” but untied the lacing, pulled it free of her tunic and handed it to him. Rook tied one end of the string around his piglet’s hind leg above the hock.

“You’re welcome,” Beau said.

Ignoring the hint for thanks, Rook set the piglet on the ground and secured the other end of the lacing to a sapling. The piglet strained against the tether and squealed, but Rook gentled its muddy head with his muddy hand. “Hush,” he told it. He pulled a packet of cold cooked perch from his belt and gave it to the piglet. The little animal gulped the fish, dock leaves and all.

“
Mon foi
,” said Beau.

“He’s a runkling,” Rook growled. “A runt. He’ll die if someone doesn’t take care of him.”

Not looking at Beau, he watched the piglet eat.

“My father used to call me Runkling,” he said.

A
baby
pig
?” exclaimed a boyish voice from the shadows of a hemlock grove.

“A
pet
pig, forsooth,” declared someone else in more manly tones.

“Walking on a leash, by my poor old eyes!”

Rook recognized the third, quizzical voice as Robin Hood’s. Robin always thought he knew everything, but Runkling wasn’t walking on a leash at all. Actually the shoat scurried ahead of Rook as he pretended to pull back on the string tied to its hind hock. The pig went where he wanted because it thought it was getting away from him. Such was the contrary nature of swine.

Rook wanted to tell Robin he was wrong, but he couldn’t seem to get his mouth open and say the words. Too tired. Too worn out to do anything except keep stumbling after Runkling and Beau. But why so weary? It had taken only two days for Beau to lead him to this new hideout of Robin’s, and there had been plenty of boar meat to eat. Why, Rook wondered hazily, did he feel so weak that he was staggering?

“Phew, it stinks,” said the first voice, the high-pitched one.

With an effort, Rook shifted his gaze from Beau’s back to look for the boyish speaker. Blurrily in the blue-green twilight beneath the trees he could see that yes, it was the Sheriff’s son, freckles and all. Tod. There he sat, at ease with his back against a hemlock trunk, his hurt leg wrapped in a splint, and a whole cooked partridge in his hands to gnaw upon.

Runkling grunted and tugged at his tether, trying to get at the partridge. A pig will eat almost anything.

Beau told Tod indignantly, “Stink?
Non, non
, the
petit
piggy, it smell better than you do.”

“Well, something stinks.”

“That would be Rook.” She flashed her lightning grin over her shoulder at him.

He did not smile back. What did they expect? A creature of the wild did not stand in the rain and scrub itself, or bathe itself in the river. Rook was a wild thing, and he smelled how he smelled.

“Rook,” said a soft voice.

Rowan, here, with Robin’s band? Rook raised his head to look for her. Yes, there she stood, a straight arrow of a girl in her green kirtle. Foggily Rook remembered things Beau had been telling him, Sheriff’s son this and Sheriff’s son that, Rowan tending the boy’s broken leg and Robin Hood’s whole band with her, on the lookout and on the move in case the Sheriff himself came charging into the forest with a hundred knights swinging battle-axes, trying to get his wretched Tod back.

Although so far nothing of the sort had happened. Which was odd.