Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy

by Champion of Sherwood

  He thought he knew which way to run, should he get free from his infernal tether. The others, who shared their shelter while he lay pegged outside like the hound they likely thought him, had performed a pagan rite several days ago and spoken words of farewell to Falcon’s sire. They ignored Gareth most of the time, but Linnet still tended his wounds, and either she or her hoyden of a sister brought his food. Falcon had stayed away from him, except to glare his hate.

  He watched Linnet now, as he could not help but do whenever she was near him. She gave him a thoughtful look before she shifted her basket and sank gracefully to her knees.

  “Thirsty?” She offered the flask at her side.

  He accepted it thankfully. Water from this place tasted like none Gareth had ever had—cold, peaty, and refreshing. He had been living on it and on one of the King’s deer brought down by the big man—Sparrow—and Falcon, who seemed to enjoy equal prowess with the bow.

  No man ate the King’s deer, save nobles. That much had been beaten into Gareth’s head. But here it seemed right, natural, like the words the leaves whispered.

  “My parents will decide, soon, whether we will move on. Does the broken arm still pain you terribly?”

  Without waiting for his answer, she leaned forward and gently touched the limb, affording Gareth still another glimpse inside her bodice. He caught her scent, too—warm and beguiling.

  He managed one word. “Nay.” Despite the hardships he had experienced, he could feel his body mending and his strength returning. But he could not tell her that, not if he meant to attempt an escape. Ah, and if he needed proof of his recovery, surely it lay in his response to this woman’s nearness.

  “Good. And the face?” She ran a fingertip down his cheek and he quivered involuntarily. “It looks well. See, all this is new skin.” She hesitated. “How about the leg?”

  If by “leg” she meant the area of his thigh, it was currently in fine fettle, embarrassingly so.

  Her eyes dropped and then flew to his. Warm color flooded upward from the direction of those delectable breasts to fill her face.

  “It is well.” He dared not allow her slender hands to touch him there. He could not endure it.

  He wondered what it would be like to kiss her, to touch with his mouth those lips like berries, to taste the inside of her mouth and touch her tongue with his. He itched for it, by God. Nay, that was too mild a word—he ached for it the way a man in the throes of suffocation starved for air.

  She had gone breathless, and studied her hands intently with lowered eyes. Sheer impulse made him ask, “What is between you and Scarface’s son?” He jerked his head toward where Falcon stood even now watching them.

  Linnet sighed. Her dark eyes met his at last, and held. “It is commonly believed we are to wed.”

  It hit Gareth like a blow to the gut. Everything within him rejected the idea, and he was forced to swallow words he dared not speak. He wondered if Falcon had bedded her yet, cupped those breasts in his hands as Gareth longed to do.

  “He has spoken for you?”

  “Not yet. But he will. ’Tis a thing of need.”

  “How so?”

  “That is complicated. You would not understand.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “Why?” Again her eyes touched with his, tangible as a caress. “It matters not to you, does it?”

  It should not. Gareth found that it did, very much. “Please.”

  “Here, take and eat this, so they do not wonder why I linger so long.”

  Obedient, Gareth accepted the food she handed him. This time he let his fingers linger on hers.

  “The three of us—Falcon, Lark and I—have a duty we must assume. It has to do with the guardianship of Sherwood and the ability of our people to stand against oppression and continue our fight for justice, for all Englishmen.” She shrugged slightly. “The three of us must stand together; two of us will ultimately wed. ’Tis the way it has been, time out of mind.”

  Gareth stared. What madness was this? Talk of guardianships and duties—was not the Sheriff the King’s guardian of Sherwood? But he saw by the serious light in Linnet’s eyes she spoke in earnest, and he dared not scoff. She, at least, believed what she said. “Well, but can your sister not wed with him?” he asked with some desperation. “I should think she would wish it. I have seen the way she looks at him.”

  Linnet’s brows lifted. “Indeed? Aye, and she could wed with him. I believe he prefers me.”

  As what sane man would not? Gareth reflected upon it. The small fury did have something about her—no doubt that diminutive body housed a veritable arsenal of passion. But Linnet was grace walking.

  “Should the elder of you not wed with him?” It was how such things worked in his world. He added swiftly, “You are not the elder, are you?”

  “I am, but not by much. We are twins.”

  Again, he stared.

  She allowed herself a thin smile. “I know we do not look it, but ’tis true enough. Lark takes after Mother, I more after Pa.”

  Gareth tried to reconcile this slender creature with that mountain of a man—only their eyes were alike. He said nothing.

  “Have you family other than your uncle waiting for you in Nottingham?”

  He shook his head. “I have a brother who oversees my father’s lands, north of York, and a sister long wed and gone from home.” He thought once more of his mother, that beautiful child bride who had survived barely ten years of his life.

  Linnet asked, a bit too casually, “Have you, perhaps, a betrothed who awaits you?”

  Their eyes met. Gareth’s heart began to beat high and hard, which fairly well matched his condition below. Had things been different, he would have traded his life for one night in this woman’s bed. But things were not different. He shook his head again and changed the direction of their words.

  “How deep are we in the forest?”

  “This place lies, nearly, at its heart.”

  “But Nottingham lies south?” He turned his eyes that way.

  “Aye.” She laid her fingertips on his arm. “I pray you will not do anything foolish.” Could she tell what lay in his mind? He widened his eyes and strove to appear guileless.

  “Because,” she went on, “the forest, and this part of it in particular, is no place for you to be on your own. It is very ancient, and inhabited.”

  “By what? Other outlaws?”

  Her eyes met his once more. “By spirits. They live here among the trees and in the earth itself. The magic here is very deep.”

  “Magic?” He could not help but scoff. “That is pagan nonsense. With proper burial, are spirits not laid to rest?”

  “Proper burial under the auspices of your church, you mean? What is that to these spirits? They walked here long before Christ was born.”

  “So you may believe.” The girl knew only what she had been taught. Her ignorance was not her fault.

  She gathered up her supplies and rose. “So it is,” she told him implacably before she walked away.

  ****

  Carefully and deliberately, Gareth worked the hobble free of his right ankle and began work on his left—no mean feat, using but one hand, and in the near total dark. A thin moon rode high in the branches of the trees and cast what he deemed the perfect amount of light—enough to let him see his way, hopefully, but not enough for him to be easily followed. He must act now; he might not have another opportunity. Desperation swamped him, and he broke out all over in a sweat.

  His left ankle came free.

  He stretched his legs and tried to evaluate his position. His captors had become careless these last two days. And he felt as fit as he was likely to be. Now was the time for flight.

  He stood and glanced toward the shelter. Did they all sleep? He looked at the moon again, which had risen some time ago out of the east. He would travel with it on his left shoulder. Surely he could then find his way to Nottingham. After all, he was a proven champion and this was but a stretch of f
orest.

  He wished he had a weapon and could move as swiftly as his captors. He wished he might have kissed Linnet but once.

  On that thought he moved off out of the clearing, into the thick of the trees and the increased darkness. He went carefully, knowing he could not withstand a fall. The trees closed around him and the whispering, high among them, returned. Pure fancy, surely, but he almost thought he could catch a word here or there.

  Follow.

  Ours.

  Champion.

  Moonlight flickered about and above him. A wind came, stirring the leaves and making the pale radiance flicker. He began to sweat again, and confusion pricked his senses. No more than a hundred paces from the clearing, he was no longer sure of his direction.

  He felt someone behind him.

  So strong was the conviction, he whirled about and almost fell. He expected to see one of his captors—perhaps Linnet herself—but found only the trees closing in. He suddenly remembered how he had felt on the way into the forest, as if someone strode at his back.

  His skin pricked all over and he whirled again. The moon had risen high enough that he could no longer be sure of east from west, north from south.

  “Do not be a fool,” he told himself, and heard his father’s harsh voice in the words. “Are you a child? Will you weep for your mother still? Get hold of yourself or I will take the strap to you.”

  And so he had, many times. Gareth bore the stripes on his back and buttocks to prove it. The same cruelty that had killed his mother had failed to break Gareth. It had shaped him, perhaps, but...

  “Champion.”

  He spun once more. A man stood behind him, wreathed in white mist pure as the moonlight—a man Gareth did not recognize. Gareth reached for a weapon he no longer wore.

  “Peace,” the man said.

  “Who are you? How come you here?” And was he real? Gareth dared not ask that. He almost thought he could see through the man. A vision then, or a dream.

  His mother, daughter of Celts, had believed in visions. Gareth assured himself he did not.

  “I am the spirit of this place. Some call me the Green Man. Others call me Robin Hood.”

  “Robin Hood is long dead.” Gareth had heard the tales. Who had not?

  “Aye, long dead,” the man agreed, “as are many here. This is our bastion, our refuge, a place of faith and strength.”

  “You mean like heaven?” Gareth’s voice sounded hoarse to his own ears.

  The man smiled. His narrow, clever face changed and warmed into something intensely attractive. “Far better than any heaven.”

  “What do you want with me?” Surely and surely, he was back asleep on his tether and dreaming all this.

  “Nay, lad, you are not dreaming.”

  “Can you hear my thoughts?” What madness was this?

  “Not madness, either. Listen to me. We have not long—they will soon be coming.”

  No need to question who. Already Gareth thought he caught sounds of pursuit, raised voices and movement through the trees behind him.

  “Let me go,” he said, still hoarsely.

  The man lifted his hands, palms upward. “Do I hold you?”

  “I know not. Do you?” Gareth felt tethered as surely as back on his hobble.

  “I ask of you, young man, only one thing, one boon, one favor if you would survive this night.”

  “Of course I will survive. How not? This is but darkness, and trees, and moonlight.”

  The man waved one of his hands. A creature appeared beside him, a pure white wolf with its hackles raised. Another subtle movement and he was suddenly flanked on the other side by a great white hart, its sides streaming mist. The trees overhead tossed their branches and Gareth felt the power gather, sharp and vital, around this being who faced him.

  Fear such as he had never known—not even when awaiting the arrival of his father with the strap—engulfed him. “What do you seek of me? What boon, what bidding?”

  “I ask of you but one promise, that you should follow what is in your heart.” The man smiled again. “Does not a champion, a true champion, always follow his heart?”

  Gareth had no answer for that either. His father had insisted a champion strove for perfection, to be faultless in all things and above reproach.

  “My heart has been dead a long while.” He did not know why he said that—it felt drawn from him.

  “Nay, not dead,” the specter told him. “Merely closed tight.” Before Gareth’s eyes his form wavered like a reflection in water, as did those of the creatures on either side. As Gareth stared, they shimmered and blended together until all that faced him was a brown hart, head high and rack displayed.

  The spirit’s final words floated to him even as the hart bolted. “Now run, my son. Flee!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Halt, or I swear I shall spit you where you stand.”

  The words, shouted up ahead of Linnet, could only be directed at the fugitive. Falcon’s voice—it would have to be Fal...

  All around her, moonlight danced among the trees like mist. Somewhere nearby her parents must search, along with Lark. But for the moment it seemed she, Falcon, and Gareth were alone. She caught her breath and hurried forward.

  Not more than twenty paces on, Fal held Gareth de Vavasour at bay. De Vavasour had been caught with his back to a tree, and his chest rose and fell desperately, though his gaze held steady.

  Falcon, posed in the classic archer’s stance, had his longbow up and an arrow notched. Foolish to think Fal could not hit his mark in the uncanny light. Fal could hit almost any mark, always, and especially at such a paltry distance.

  All at once, Linnet felt sure she was about to see Gareth de Vavasour die. The arrow would fly, as it must, and take him through the heart.

  The heart that should belong to me.

  Ah, by all that was holy, why had that thought come to mind?

  She moved forward, and Gareth’s gaze flicked toward her once before returning to Fal.

  Falcon did not look at her—he did not need to; he could sense her most times even as she could sense him. At the moment she felt his anger running rampant, all the excuse he needed for loosing his shot.

  “Fal—” she said.

  “Go get your father.”

  “Do not spill his blood, Fal, not here. This is sacred ground.”

  “Then I shall make of him a holy sacrifice. The fool thought he could escape, but he only ran deeper into Sherwood.” Falcon smiled. His smiles, usually sunny, tended to light up his face, but this was reminiscent of his father and bespoke his desire for revenge.

  “What is this?” Lark broke through the trees and slid to a halt at Linnet’s side. She caught her breath, and Linnet felt her surge of satisfaction. “Ah, fine work, Fal! You have him now. End it. Slay the dog!”

  “Go find Pa,” Linnet told her. So far, Fal’s arrow point had not wavered. Despite the emotions raging through him, it remained steady as rock.

  Lark glared at her. “I will not. You go.”

  Linnet stayed where she stood, convinced the instant her eyes moved from the point of the arrow Fal would loose the shot. Instead, she raised her voice. “Pa! Here!”

  All around her, the trees rustled. Spirits gathered here, so near Sherwood’s magical heart. They came now to watch and listen. Awareness of them flowed over Linnet’s skin like the aftermath of summer lightning.

  Her parents could not be far; surely they would come. Meanwhile—

  She moved as if called, or driven, and took herself forward to stand between Gareth de Vavasour and the arrow, facing Falcon.

  “Linnet, what are you doing?” Falcon’s voice revealed his tension. “Get out of the way.”

  “No.”

  With a cry, Lark flew forward and struck Linnet in the chest with the impact of a boulder. They both went down. Linnet heard the twang of Fal’s bowstring and the arrow passed above her head.

  She wailed. The protest came from her heart, and with it c
ame strength that gave her the power to overthrow Lark for once in her life. She pushed her sister from her and reared up, desperate.

  Gareth de Vavasour lay at the base of the tree. Dead? It took Linnet an instant to realize Fal’s arrow quivered in the trunk of the tree and not in de Vavasour’s flesh.

  “Curse it, Lin, get out of the way!”

  Before she could blink, Fal notched another arrow. Linnet evaded her sister’s grasping hands and threw her body over Gareth’s.

  And, oh! She could feel him, alive and vital, just as it had been in her dream when his body covered hers. She could feel his blood rushing and sense his thoughts.

  “Ugh!” Her sister fell upon her and dragged her bodily from the Norman. Lark’s hands were not kind; they pulled Linnet’s hair and clawed at her arms.

  Lark crowed, “Now! Now, Fal—shoot!”

  For the first time, Fal’s arrow wavered. Linnet, peering up through her hair, saw that he shook where he stood.

  “Shoot!” Lark screeched again.

  “It is an act of cowardice to fire upon a fallen man.” Anguish filled Falcon’s voice.

  “That is no man. It is a Norman knight.” Lark and Gareth scrambled up at the same moment. Before they were on their feet, Lark snatched the bow and arrow from Fal’s hands.

  “He lies no more. What are you made of, Falcon Scarlet?” She notched the arrow and drew the bow. Fal’s bow should be too heavy for her small stature and weight, but anger let her accomplish the deed.

  Before she could loose the bolt, light flared. It came in a shiver of sparks white as the heart of flame, and erupted into brightness almost too intense to behold.

  When it faded, a hart stood between Lark and her target, its head high and its flanks steaming.

  Linnet felt Gareth’s hand seize hers, hard. She clutched at him and stared, knowing she witnessed pure magic.

  Lark lowered the bow. For one timeless instant the five of them stood unmoving. Then the hart leaped away into the forest.