Wild Boy Page 7

  He bit his lip as he struggled on.

  Twice more Robin Hood’s horn sounded its silver notes to guide him before at last he saw the campfire’s warm golden light and recognized the place—the hollow with Robin Hood’s giant oak spreading over it. Rook forgot to harden his face as he hurried the last few steps toward—Rowan, yes, Lady be thanked. It was Rowan turning toward him in the firelight, a strip of bandaging in her hands.

  Everything blurred, and for a moment he couldn’t see properly. But he heard many voices.

  “There’s Rook.” One of Robin Hood’s outlaws.

  “Rook!” Rowan called. “Are you all right?”

  “Mon foi, look, the poor Rook.” Beau had her accent faux back. “All blood and blunder.”

  “He’s done in,” said another outlaw.

  “Rook.” Rowan touched his arm; even in the bleary darkness he knew the gentle power of her hand. “Sit down, let me look at you.”

  He sat, and felt a wet cloth wipe his face, felt her touch strengthening him, and blinked away wetness until he could see her kneeling beside him.

  “I’m fine,” she told him even though he had not spoken a word of his fears for her. “I wish I could start the day over and change it, that’s all.” He had never seen her face so bruised with sorrow as well as with blows. “Men dead because of me—”

  “Do not say so, lass,” came Little John’s gruff voice somewhere behind him. “Only three badly wounded, and they might yet live. You have cared for them well.”

  Rowan pressed her trembling lips together and said nothing.

  “John,” complained a familiar voice, “she means Nottingham’s men too.” Leaning against the great oak, his shoulder bandaged and his arm in a sling, sat Lionel.

  “Aye?” Rook could hear the shrug in Little John’s voice. “Well, Lady be thanked, ours are all accounted for. And now Rook’s back.”

  “Rook,” said another voice, intense. Robin Hood crouched before him with—Lady have mercy, Robin was holding Runkling like a baby in his arms. “Rook, lad.” Worry grayed Robin’s eyes. “Have you seen aught of Tod?”

  Rook just stared.

  “Tod’s not here,” Robin Hood said. “No one saw where he went. Do you know where he is?”

  Thirteen

  It was nearly noon of the next day when Rook got up and walked away from Robin’s camp with Runkling trotting at his bare heels.

  “Are you running off again?” Rowan called after him. Harsh words, for her, but he accepted them without anger. She had been up all night tending to the wounded outlaws, Rook knew, and one of them had died. Robin and Little John were off in the forest somewhere, digging a grave. Some other outlaws were searching for Tod, but not many could be spared, not when their comrades were lying hurt. No one had much heart for the search. Tod could be anywhere, maybe even back in Nottingham. No one had seen Tykell either, so on top of everything else, Rowan missed her furry companion…. Turning to look at her, Rook saw sleepless nightmares of worry in her face.

  So, even though a wolf roams where he will, Rook answered Rowan, if only with a shake of the head. No, he was not running off again.

  Rowan frowned. “You should rest, and eat some more.” He had eaten only broth and bread for her. “Where are you going?” Rowan seldom showed such exasperation.

  Rook shrugged. He was only going to his father’s hut to get clothing and coverings. A jerkin for when the night air grew chill on his shoulders. Maybe some leggings, and sheepskins to sleep on. And he wanted the pigskin shoes his father had made for him. He was tired of banging his bare feet on stones.

  But he did not know how it was that he had started to feel the cold and the stones again, and he did not know how to say any of this to Rowan.

  “Oh, toads take you, go wherever you want.” Rowan turned her face away.

  Rook stood a moment longer, but could not think how to help her. Silently he went away, walking off between the hazel bushes that edged Robin’s clearing, striding uphill into oak forest.

  It should have been a fine day. Sunny, warm. Runkling trotted along cheerily, grunting with mindless good humor. Dogs, too, were like that, happy for no reason. That dog Father used to have, the one that helped herd the pigs, even after the foresters had cut its toes off, it still wagged its tail, happy just to be patted, fed, be with its family.

  Stupid.

  Or—maybe brave?

  Rook slipped like a breeze along the ravine where he had found Tod in the man trap. The stream still dashed along like black squirrels leaping, cold and swift, singing its wild song. Rook still thought there ought to be grayling in the riffles. But it all looked different to him somehow, and not just because the sun was shining today. Something had changed.

  “Come on, Runkling.” He spoke gently to the little pig as he led it through the thinning outskirts of the forest, trotting through straggling woods, then between groves amid stony meadowland growing thick with furze and wild mint and pignut and a hundred other plants—the sort of place where Rowan might go to hunt for herbs.

  Again, the meadows looked different somehow. Beautiful. Cowslips in bloom. And there, ahead, the hut, with the fallen blossoms of the crab-apple tree lying on its stones like a fragrant white blessing.

  “That’s the house my father built, Runkling,” he whispered to the little pig, and he stood just looking for a moment before he knelt and crawled down into the shelter his father had left behind, snug in wintertime, but dim and cool now in the summer heat.

  His hand touched something warm, solid and alive. Someone’s shoulder.

  Rook gasped. For just an eyeblink instant he thought it was his father lying there sleeping. Then the person awoke with a whimper and jerked upright, edging away from him.

  Peering in the dim light, Rook whispered, “Tod?”

  Tod turned his face toward the wall. “Go away.”

  Rook said, gently enough, “What, I am supposed to walk off and leave you in the man trap now?”

  Tod did not answer except by stiffening and shrinking against the wall.

  Rook stared, thinking of Rowan so shadowed today, and now Tod even worse, and he still didn’t know what to do to help.

  He heard quick movements nearby, and a snuffling sound. Runkling, rooting around inside the hut, exploring. Rook reached over, lifted the little pig and placed him in Tod’s lap. He did not let go until Tod responded. It took a moment, but at last Tod’s arms stirred, lifted Runkling and hugged him. Tod’s chest heaved. A sob, a sigh? Rook considered that he did not need to know. He started hunting along the walls of the hut for the things he had come to fetch.

  He found an old jerkin and slipped it on. It was a bit tight, but he could still wear it. Sitting on the dirt floor, he put on the sheepskin wrappings to protect his legs from thorns. And the shoes, stiff and dry now, neglected for almost two years, but he eased them on anyway. They would soften as he wore them.

  He gathered everything that was left: bedding, an old mantle, spare jerkins and leggings, flint and steel. He wrapped it all in a blanket and pushed it out of the entryway ahead of him. Then he looked over his shoulder at Tod and said, “Come on.”

  Tod did not move except to shake his head.

  “You can’t just stay here,” Rook said.

  “Why not?”

  “How will you live?”

  “I don’t want to live.”

  Rook turned to peer at him, crouching. After a while he said, “You can’t just give up.”

  “Why not?”

  “You can’t. You have to go on.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  Silence.

  Finally Rook said, “That’s what I’m doing now.”

  “So go ahead. Go away. Leave me alone.”

  Rook shook his head, reached for Tod’s hand and grasped it. “Come on.” He tugged. “Robin Hood is searching for you.”

  For a long moment the name hung like a woodland spirit, a power, in the cool shadowy air of the hut. Then Tod sighed and mo
ved. He put Runkling down and reached for his crutch. He crawled out of the hut after Rook. He stood and slowly followed Rook into the forest.

  It took Rook and Tod until twilight to find Robin. All afternoon Tod limped along with his crutch, and Rook plodded beside him, until at last they reached Robin Hood’s camp—and then Robin was not there. One of the outlaws, Will Scathelock, led them to him.

  He led them into a secret place such as Rook had never seen before, or even dreamed of. Made by the ancient green power of the Lady, it must have been, so perfect a ring of silver linden trees around an open space bigger than Fountain Dale, yet only velvety grass grew there. Protected by the aelfe, it must have been, so that no henchmen of king or lord would find it, no forest wanderers would stumble upon it, so that only those who grieved could go there.

  This was the place where they buried the dead. Near the center of the green circle rimmed by silver trees, a rectangle of raw earth showed where Robin Hood and Little John had laid the dead outlaw. They were just finishing their work there, mounding the grave.

  Will Scathelock signaled by giving the twitter of a wagtail bird as they entered, and Robin turned to see who it was.

  “Tod, lad!” Robin let his spade fall with a clatter, almost running to meet them. Tod gave an odd sort of choked sound and lurched toward Robin, dropping his crutch. Falling to his knees in the grass, Robin caught him and gathered him into his arms. Tod hugged Robin’s neck and wept.

  “Tod, my poor lad.” Robin stroked the boy’s heaving back as Tod cried like a baby on his shoulder. Rook heard Tod sobbing. He saw how Robin’s blue eyes had gone brighter than ever with tears. He heard his own breath coming in uncouth gasps and felt the salty wetness on his own face.

  He was crying.

  But Rook made no effort to stop his weeping or hide his tears or wipe them from his face. Even a wolf might cry sometimes. But, truth to tell, he wasn’t a wolf or a creature of the wild or a wild boy either. He was just Rook, the swineherd’s son, and he would cry when sorrow touched his heart.

  Fourteen

  See the stone? This is the place,” Robin Hood told Rook, passing his hand like a sailing hawk over a span of greensward near the center of the linden circle.

  Close beside Robin stood Rowan, and his other hand hugged her shoulders as if he still feared he might lose her, his daughter.

  Rowan seemed to be scanning the ring of silver-leafed trees. Now that a few days had passed and everyone was healing, so was she. Tykell had returned to her. She had slept. Her grave face was peaceful, visionary. “The aelfe,” she murmured, gazing. “They’re here. Do you see them, Rook?”

  He looked at her without bothering to shake his head. She knew he had never been able to see the aelfe.

  “Where?” Robin asked.

  “Between the lindens, faintly, like moonlight that has lingered in the daytime.”

  Robin nodded. Rook looked between the trees ringing the glade, and somehow this time he did see something, a shimmer, a stirring as if earth and forest were breathing. He couldn’t glimpse the wise, ancient faces of the aelfe, but it didn’t matter. He could sense their protection. Their presence would keep anyone of cowardly or evil heart out of this place.

  The king’s foresters, for instance. They or bounty hunters would never trouble these graves. Or the Sheriff of Nottingham.

  But the Sheriff’s son could enter here. Tod was neither cowardly nor evil of heart, and here he came now, limping into the glade, steadying himself with a staff instead of his crutch, stronger than he’d been a week before but still a bit slower than the others. He cast a wondering glance around him, but if he felt the presence of the spirits, he did not fear them.

  Rook gave him a nod of greeting.

  “Is that it?” Tod asked. “Is that the marker?” He pointed his chin toward it—just a flat forest stone much like any of the others that dotted the linden grove.

  Rook looked to Robin Hood. “This is where my father lies?”

  “Yes. That is Jack Woodsby’s stone. I promise you.”

  And where better could he lie than within the silver ring of this holy grove.

  Rook swallowed, nodded, and knelt, with Runkling snuffling and grunting by his side. Runkling did not root or slobber at the soft grass. Even the animals seemed to know this was a sacred place. Tykell sat like a wolf-dog statue at Rowan’s feet, as if he had forgotten for the time being how badly he wanted to eat Runkling.

  Kneeling, Rook clutched the bundle of flowers he had carried here, wild roses and day’s-eye and key-of-heaven flowers, the sweetest that earth had to offer. Rook felt very much his father’s son with a forest breeze ruffling his shorn hair, with his jerkin and leggings and the pigskin shoes, well oiled now, soft on his feet. One by one he scattered the flowers. For a moment he knelt amid their sweetness to remember his father’s gentle face and kind hands.

  Then he stood, drifting in the moment like a trout in a deep river pool, just being. Clouds stirred ever so slightly in the sky. The aelfe hovered like silver mist. Somewhere a robin rejoiced. Somewhere a dove mourned.

  Tod spoke. “Rook,” he asked in a voice much softer than his usual piping tones, “did your father beat you?”

  “No.” Jack Swineherd had seldom so much as raised his voice in anger. Remembering, Rook felt his voice go soft. “He wasn’t like that.”

  Tod nodded and turned his face upward to the tall man beside him. “Robin, did you have a father?”

  “Of course, Tod.” Robin’s tone crinkled with a glint of his usual merriment.

  “Did he beat you?”

  “No, lad.” No merriment now.

  “Was he—your father—did he—if you got lost, would he want you back?”

  “Yes, lad.” Rook had never heard Robin’s voice so gentle, so sad.

  Tod stood silent for a moment, then asked one last question. “Is he—Robin, is your father yet alive?”

  “No, he’s long dead, Tod.” Hugging Rowan even closer to his side, Robin put his other arm around the Sheriff’s son. Yet his blue-eyed gaze met Rook’s eyes as if he were speaking to Rook alone. “He’s dead and gone. But he lives on in my heart.”

  Holding Runkling, Rook rubbed noses with the piglet, then offered it with outstretched hands to Tod. “Take him with you.”

  On horseback, sheltered by the last great oak at the eastern edge of Sherwood Forest, Tod gazed out over open, rolling hills. But he shifted his gaze to gawk at Rook. “Take Runkling? But he’s yours!”

  “Take him.” Rook laid Runkling on the saddle in front of Tod.

  “I can’t!” Still, Tod couldn’t keep from clutching at the little pig, lifting Runkling into a one-armed hug. With his other hand he kept tight rein on the hot-blooded horse Robin’s merry men had stolen from Nottingham’s stables for him. It had been two full moons since Tod had hurt himself. He needed no splint on his leg anymore, and he could walk without a staff, but he could not have walked the journey that lay before him, a distance of many leagues. He had accepted the horse gladly.

  Even more gladly he held Runkling to his shoulder, although he told Rook, “You can’t give him to me.”

  “No? But methinks I can. Take him.”

  From the back of the tall charger, Tod gazed down at Rook. “You’re smiling,” he said, his tone soft with wonder. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before.”

  “I’m glad to be rid of you,” Rook lied, teasing.

  “Really? Well, then, I’ll be sure to come back someday. To annoy you.”

  “Do that,” Rook said.

  From the forest shadows another voice spoke. “You be sure you do come back, Tod, lad.” Robin Hood stepped into view and lifted his bow to Tod in a gesture that was half blessing, half an outlaw’s defiance of all that made life hard. “Our best thoughts go with you.”

  “Thank you,” Tod whispered, and Rook could see the tears glimmering in his eyes. “Thank you all.” Hugging Runkling, Tod wheeled his horse and sent it cantering away from the forest.<
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  From the shelter of the oak, Rook and Robin watched after him until he disappeared over a barley-covered hilltop.

  Then Robin studied Rook with a soft glance. “Now, why did you give him Runkling, for the love of the Lady?”

  Rook stood silent, gazing into blue distance.

  “You wish you could go with him,” Robin said.

  Rook nodded. “He ought to have someone with him,” he said, his voice gruff again. “But he thinks he can ride all that way by himself….”

  “He will be all right,” Robin said. “He’s well provisioned. And Tod is a proper young fox, remember?”

  Rook nodded, remembering how he had hated Tod the day Robin had first called the boy a young fox. But much had happened since. The sunshine looked more golden to Rook now, the streams clearer, the fish fairer, even the oaks more green. Something had changed.

  In me.

  “Look.” Rook pointed to where dust rose beyond the hilltop. Already Tod was well on his way.

  Robin nodded. “So far, so fine.”

  Tod was riding toward the holdings of his mother’s people, several days to the east. And if they tried to send him back to his father, he would ride on to the king’s court in London. Perhaps the king would give him refuge for the sake of the Nottingham name.

  “It’s what he has to do,” Robin said, maybe to still his own doubts and fears. “He can’t just stay here. He’s too young to be branded a wolf’s head.”

  “No younger than I,” Rook grumbled.

  Robin glanced at him with crinkling, twinkling blue eyes. “Rook, you will always be older than Tod. You’re nearly your father’s age already.”

  Let Robin tease all he liked. At the thought of his father, Rook smiled.

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