Wild Boy (8 page)

Runkling ran to her with soft grunts, and she patted him absently, shifting her attention back to Rook. “And you’re just as bad,” she complained. “You won’t eat, you’re going to get sick again, and between you and Tod I’m out of feverfew, yarrow, knitbone, agrimony, everything.” With a decided gesture she stood up. “I’d better go to the meadows and see what I can find.” Walking away, she called back, “Rook, for the love of the Lady, eat something? Please?”

He didn’t. He lay in his cave, while Runkling snored beside him, and watched the angle of the sunlight move. He didn’t care whether he caught more fish to eat. He couldn’t think of anything he cared about, anything he wanted to do. The sun had passed overhead and slanted toward afternoon before an odd rhythmic sound roused him.

It was a kind of hitch-thump followed by a scraping sort of footfall, coming up the rocky slope toward his cave.

Rook sat up, his hands brushing his face from habit, although there was no shaggy mane of hair in his eyes now. He scowled as if something had hurt him, then crawled to the cave’s entrance to look.

It was Tod, on his crutch, heading up the tor all alone.

Laboring over the crags, Tod kept his eyes on the uneven ground. But when Rook slipped out of his cave and stood, Tod looked up at him.

“Hullo,” he said. “They told me I’d find you up here.”

Runkling trotted out of the cave and ran to Tod, his short tail wagging with excitement as he snorted a greeting. Rook just stared.

“Beau and Lionel told me,” Tod chattered on. “Rowan’s not there. She went to find herbs. I wanted to see her too.” He stood before Rook,
leaning on his crutch and panting, but his voice quieted as he mentioned Rowan, and a shadow darkened his bright eyes. “Will you tell her I said thank you? And good-bye?”

Rook felt his jaw drop.

Tod said, “I’m going back to Nottingham tomorrow.”

Rook felt his insides sloshing like a butter churn. Out of the splatter he forced a single word. “Why?”

Tod stared at him.

“To be beaten?” Rook grumped.

Tod looked at the ground, sighed and slumped down to sit. Runkling rubbed against him, and he gathered the piglet into his arms.

“I don’t know what else to do,” he told Rook.

Rook crouched to glare at him.

“My father will come to find me,” Tod said. “I mean, really. He will. Sometime. And … and I don’t want him to hurt …” Tod hesitated, swallowed hard, then said it. “I don’t want him to hurt Robin. Or anyone.”

Glaring was easy. Trying to think what to say was hard. Rook continued to glare.

“Robin made me this crutch,” Tod said.

Rook nodded.

“He and Little John will carry me to the Nottingham Way,” Tod said. “It’s not far from there. I can walk the rest of the way.” He hugged Runkling, ruffled the pig’s ears, then set him aside and struggled to his feet. He looked straight into Rook’s glowering eyes. “Rook, I came to thank you for not leaving me in that man trap. I know you really wanted to. Thank you for letting me live.”

A muddy brown flood of feelings made Rook look away. He heard Tod say, “Good-bye,” but he couldn’t reply. He couldn’t lift his glare from the ground. He heard Tod starting to crutch away—

A whistle as shrill as a hawk’s scream soared over Sherwood Forest.

Rook leapt to his feet, snatching at his dagger. Tod stood like a startled deer. Maybe he remembered hearing that signal before—for his own sake.

“Is it—is somebody caught in a man trap?” he gasped, his face fish-belly pale under the freckles.

Rook didn’t answer, because he didn’t know the answer. His mind squirreled, and he couldn’t think what he should do. He knew only that something was badly wrong, and he ran headlong down the crags toward the alarm signal. One of Robin Hood’s men, maybe, had been hurt or captured. Or, far worse, could it be Beau, or Lionel, or—

No. He was a wild thing. He wouldn’t think it, or care, or feel his heart bursting with dread of—

“Rook, wait!” cried Tod.

That cry might not have halted him, but his own dread did. He turned to bark something at Tod, and saw the boy trying to run after him, his crutch flailing. Then its tip caught, and Tod pitched forward, fell, and kept on falling, crashing against stones as he tumbled down the tor, clutching at brush and rocks that ripped out of his hands. Rook saw blood even before Tod thumped to a stop against a boulder.

The boy didn’t make a sound, and at first Rook thought he was dead. He ran toward him.

But as Rook reached Tod, the boy sat up, bruised and scraped, with his lips pressed together. Rook had forgotten: The Sheriff’s son was brave.

Heart thudding, Rook bent to help him up—but another hand reached down. Rook had not seen even a shadow, had not heard so much as the scrape of a footfall on stone or a pebble rattling, but there stood Robin Hood.

“Tod, lad. Come, hurry. On my back.” Robin hoisted Tod and strode off.

Rook grabbed up Tod’s crutch from the ground and trotted after them. “What has happened?” he growled at Robin.

Robin did not answer. And glancing at Robin’s face, seeing his hard jaw and his shadowed eyes, Rook did not dare to speak again.

Tod did, his voice small and scared. “Robin?”

“Tod, lad.” Robin spoke to him gently, as always, but his voice was as taut as a stretched leather shield. “There’s been a change in plans. I’m going to have to exchange you as a hostage, lad.”

Rook stared.

Tod blurted, “Why? Who …”

“Your father has captured Rowan.”

A
t the edge of the forest near Nottingham, Robin Hood’s outlaw band had gathered, their lips tight, their hands tight on their bows, not speaking as their leader joined them.

“Anything?” Robin asked. The high road to Nottingham curved near Sherwood at that point. As far as Rook could understand from what little Robin Hood had said, Rowan had been taken by a patrol on sortie to the north as she searched for herbs on the meadows at the forest’s edge. The patrol would pass here as they returned, triumphant, with their captive.

“Soon. I hope.” Little John’s voice sounded so level and quiet that Rook started to shake. “But nothing yet. Only what yon foreigner said.” He pointed with his bearded chin.

At first Rook thought he saw a slim, pale boy standing in the shadow—but no. It was Beau. He hadn’t recognized her without her smile.

“What I said was the truth.” Trembling, her voice betrayed the slight accent of a Wanderer, an outcast without a country. “The Sheriff’s men surrounded us. They knew who she was; they called her Rowan Hood. They taunted her that they would take her alive to make best use of her.”

A year ago Rowan would have passed as just another cowherd’s daughter or goose girl, but now … too much had happened. The man trap. Her legs, hurt so she couldn’t run and dodge as she used to. The bounty hunters, finding out who she was. And now, by the looks of things, somehow Nottingham had heard as well.

Rowan, captured … Rook shook his head, trying to shake his hurtful thoughts away. He felt he was to blame. Because she’d been gathering herbs on account of him. Because, on account of him and Runkling, Tykell had not been there to guard her or protect her.

Beau kept talking as if she could not help it, as if she had to keep telling and telling what had happened. “I—I couldn’t move, but Rowan got her bow strung. She sent elf-bolts into …” Beau swallowed hard at
the memory. “Into three of them. They fell, and she shouted at me to run. She … she commanded me.”

Robin Hood nodded, but his blue eyes looked faraway gray. He set Tod on his feet. On his one good foot, rather.

Beau whispered, “There was nothing else I could do.”

“I know, lass,” Robin said quietly. No one else answered her. Rook tried to give her a look and a nod, but he couldn’t. Terror for Rowan crouched like a hooded hawk in his belly, its knife-sharp claws gripping his innards.

Clutching at a tree for support, Tod gazed up at Robin, then turned to Rook with eyes like those of a hunted deer. After a moment Rook felt the crutch still in his grasp and handed it to the boy.

“Where’s Lionel?” asked Robin hoarsely. “Just when we need his strength the most …”

“Hsst,” breathed Little John. “Hearken. Look.”

Every outlaw froze, peering. Rook could see it too, a puff of dust in the distance, growing nearer. Then he heard the trampling of horses, and the harsh voices of the men-at-arms. And amid the dust he saw glints of bronze. Brazen helms. And the Sheriff’s ornate breastplate. On a heavy-headed charger, Nottingham rode in the fore.

Then Rook saw Rowan, and his stomach clenched like a fist. They rode horseback, but they made her go afoot, tethered by a rope long enough to put her behind their horses’ tails, in the thick of their dust. Trotting to keep up, she panted, coughing, sweat streaking the dirt on her face. Blood stained her mouth. They had struck her. Rook felt as if he had himself been struck. But what hurt his heart was the way she held her head high even as she struggled along. Chin up, defiant, she looked like a true outlaw. Like her father.

“Lady have mercy,” he breathed. Would they hang her? Tod might expect to be beaten when he returned home, but what would they do to Rowan?

“Lad?” Robin looked down at Tod.

Staring at Rowan, the boy swallowed hard, then nodded and crutched forward. Weaponless, Robin walked with him. Rook stood with the others, his dagger lifted in his trembling hand; it was his only weapon. He’d been too much a lone wolf to learn to shoot the bow like the others.

Tod stood in the middle of the road with Robin Hood by his side. They waited.

Nottingham rounded the curve—and saw them.

Hand on Tod’s shoulder, Robin called, “Sir Sheriff!”

It was the signal. The outlaws stepped forward, just out of their leafy cover, presenting a score of arrows nocked to fly. Nottingham yanked his charger to a halt, his armor jangling, and his patrol stopped behind him.

“An exchange of prisoners, Sir Sheriff, if you please,” said Robin Hood.

Staring at Tod, the Sheriff barely blinked.

“Your son,” said Robin.

“For your daughter?” At first the Sheriff’s meaty face creased; then he roared with raging laughter. “You think I want my wretched runt of a son? That horse thief? Do you think I care what you do to him?”

Rook heard a strange, choked sound he could not at first understand. Had it come from Tod? Yes. The Sheriff’s son, he who had not whimpered in the man trap—now he cried out in pain.

And his father seemed not to notice at all, his narrow glittering stare on Robin Hood. “No, there’s only one head I want for your daughter’s,” he said, one hard word at a time between grinning teeth. “Or along with it. Yours!” He lifted a gauntleted hand in sudden angry command. “Kill him! Slay the wolf’s head!”

Robin lunged for the forest, taking Tod with him, crutch and all, shielding the boy with his body as the men-at-arms drew their bows. But a volley of gray goose-fletched arrows from the outlaws flew first.

“Don’t hit Rowan!” Rook tried to shout. His voice came out more like a frog’s croak. But as he spoke, Rowan ran forward to shield herself amid the horses. Or—no, she was weaving between them, winding her tether around their hocks, setting them to bucking. A man-at-arms grabbed her from behind. She twisted out of his grasp and stepped right under his horse to pop up on the other side. With a rope slithering against its belly, the horse reared, dumping the rider. Even with her arms bound tight to her sides, Rowan was keeping her head.

Rook’s terror for her gave him strength to run forward, dagger drawn, with no thought except to cut that rope away from her.

But already he knew he would never reach her. He was too small amid dust and yells and the pounding of his own heart and hooves pounding toward him and someone’s great heavy sword swishing down on him. He would die—

With a roar like that of a maddened bull, something massive charged between him and the sword, knocking it skyward and him onto the ground as it hurtled toward Rowan.

“Lionel! It’s Lionel! Save her,” someone yelled like a lunatic—Rook barely recognized the voice as his own. Struggling up, he saw an arrow
thwok
into the back of Lionel’s shoulder. It appeared to only annoy Lionel.
His roar rose to a scream of rage. The mounted guardsman grasping Rowan’s tether confronted him with leveled spear, but Lionel brushed the weapon aside and ran the man down, attacking barehanded like a lion, a bear, a boar, knocking the horse off its feet as he wrenched the rope free. He didn’t give the flattened horse and rider another glance. Wasting no time, he picked up Rowan, rope and all, hugged her to his great chest and barreled off with her, leaping like an elk into Sherwood Forest.

Running in that wilderness, Lionel could outdistance any rider on horseback. Rowan was safe.

“Rook, come on!” Someone grabbed his elbow; it was Beau. “Run!” She yanked him toward the forest.

“Scatter!” Robin Hood shouted, and as if a covey of partridge had burst into flight, Sherwood Forest roiled with confusion. For a long time Rook ran alone and at random, panting, heartbeat pounding in his ears. Sore afraid, even though he knew the Sheriff’s men would not separate for fear of ambush, and could not pursue them all, and could not move amid the trees on horseback as quickly as a man on foot. As Rook ran, he could hear the Sheriff of Nottingham cursing—close behind him at first, then farther away. Rook dodged deep, deeper into the forest, running until he could run no farther, then pausing to pant as he looked around for someplace to hide.