Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy

by Champion of Sherwood

Linnet heard her parents approaching, and her mother call out, “Lark? Linnet? Falcon?”

  “Here, mother.” Linnet raised her eyes to Gareth’s face. “We are all here.”

  ****

  “Do not ever do that to me again,” Fal shouted at Lark, enraged.

  “What?” Lark snarled in return. “Show you how to act the man?”

  Linnet knew Lark had been shaken to her core by what had taken place among the trees, but it was Lark’s way to cover uncertainty with bluster.

  “Snatch my bow from my hands when I am set to make a shot!” Falcon bellowed at her. “I accept such use from no man,” he sneered at her, “nor lad, either.”

  Linnet felt that blow pierce Lark to the heart. She alone knew how her sister felt toward Fal. That he should call her a boy had to strike deep.

  For once, Lark remained silent. Falcon, dismissing her, stalked to where Gareth stood, still breathing hard and once more hobbled. “As for you—”

  The blow had all Fal’s anger behind it and knocked Gareth de Vavasour off his feet. Falcon stood over him, his hands fisted, visibly aching to strike again.

  Gareth, now sprawled on the ground, glared up at Fal with equal anger. “Courageous, Saxon, to strike a hobbled man. Someday I will be free to face you fairly, with a sword in my hand!”

  It sounded like a vowed challenge. And Falcon accepted it as such. He nodded his wild head at his promised opponent. “See you do.”

  “Here,” Linnet’s father intervened. “What happened out there?”

  For an instant, the four young people looked at one another, anger forgotten.

  “Naught,” said Falcon then.

  Linnet’s mother stepped forward. Her eyes glowed bright, and Linnet could feel the surge of her emotions. “Do not lie to me, Falcon Scarlet. I felt magic, powerful magic—that of the Green Man himself.”

  Angrily, Lark said, “Ask Lin. She defended that piece of offal. Fal blames me for spoiling his shot, but ’twas she got between the arrow and its mark.”

  “As did the hart.” Fal spoke in a low voice that trembled, and Wren’s head came round toward him.

  “You are mistaken,” Lark exploded. “You did not see what you thought you saw. You are a fool, Falcon Scarlet, who does not recognize what is before his eyes.”

  Fal raised a glowing gaze to hers. “If that is so, why did you fail to shoot?”

  “And risk hitting my sister?”

  “Sherwood wants him alive.” Linnet’s own words surprised her. “I do not know why.”

  Wren stepped to Gareth de Vavasour where he stood, having once more dragged himself up on his tether. “Are you all right?”

  He gave her a stiff nod. Linnet wondered what he thought he had seen out beneath the trees. She remembered the feel of him under her, a power that surged and called.

  “’Twas foolish of you to run,” Wren told Gareth. “There exist in this place safeguards you cannot hope to evade. You will never escape Sherwood on your own.”

  He nodded again.

  “As for you…” Wren switched her bright gaze to Linnet. “Come, Daughter. We need to speak together alone.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “He will have to be returned to Nottingham. You know he must.”

  Wren stated the words softly, yet they were unbending. She and Linnet sat apart from the others beside the stream, and all around them daylight strengthened. This endless night, Linnet thought, had at last flown.

  She made no reply to her mother and kept her gaze fixed on her hands.

  Wren spoke again. “It is understandable that you should find him desirable, I suppose. He is young and not ill-favored. And you have been tending him this while. It is a potent combination.”

  Linnet did look up then, startled. She saw a rueful light in her mother’s eyes.

  Wren shrugged. “Do you think I do not remember such feelings, nor comprehend the power of attraction? When you did not give yourself to any man, all this time, I thought you saved yourself for Falcon.”

  “You hoped I did.” Linnet’s voice sounded rusty to her own ears. “But Fal is like a brother to me.”

  “He loves you.”

  “As a brother should.”

  “Not like a brother, Lin. Do not act the fool, for you are not a stupid lass.”

  “Be that as it may, I do not want Falcon.”

  “Still, the triad is the triad, and cannot be gainsaid—more than ever, now. With Martin gone—”

  Her voice broke and Linnet wondered, not for the first time, what lay between her mother and Martin Scarlet. Wren had once needed to choose between Martin and Linnet’s father, Sparrow. The connections still ran deep. Linnet could feel, even now, the weight of Wren’s loss.

  “I say only”—Wren strove to sound calm—“you cannot let this young man come between you and what must be.”

  But, Linnet protested inwardly, what about that which Sherwood decreed? Sherwood was the unspoken fourth in the magical circle and it had, this night, come out in defense of Gareth de Vavasour. Why?

  “Let Lark have Falcon,” she said implacably. “For she wants him.”

  “Lark? Surely not. They fight like two cats in a sack.”

  “That is because he refuses to see her the way she desires.”

  “Aye, well, I will speak with her also. For now, I am concerned with you. Do not break your heart over him, Lin. It cannot be.”

  Linnet bowed her head, but her spirit was far from compliant. Why could it not be?

  As if her mother heard her thoughts, Wren said, “He is a world removed from you, from us, from our cause.”

  When Linnet failed to reply, Wren drew a breath and said, “I think it best if I tend him, henceforth.”

  That made Linnet’s gaze fly up. “You do not trust me? Not even for that?”

  “I am trying to do you a kindness.”

  “So,” Linnet mourned, “I am allowed to choose nothing. Not my role in life nor the man in my bed. I am merely to accept Falcon and a future as a guardian.”

  “I am sorry, Daughter.” Wren covered Linnet’s hand with her own. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made. The triad comes first. Sherwood must always come first.”

  ****

  “What happened out there?” Gareth de Vavasour posed the query as Linnet passed him, tied on his tether. She paused involuntarily and felt his good hand snag her wrist. Startled, she looked from his fingers that encircled her flesh, burning, to his wide, gray gaze.

  Behind her the others, caught in discussion, debated their immediate course of action. For an instant, their attention remained diverted, but Linnet knew it would not be long before someone recalled her from this forbidden patch of ground.

  Resentment flared inside her. Long had she been mistress of her own hearth, used to living apart from her parents. Was she to lose that independence now? Must she listen to the instructions of her family, or worse, Falcon?

  Nay, for Fal would never be husband to her.

  She sank to the ground beside Gareth de Vavasour. Only let them come and drag her away.

  He no longer looked the part of the fine young Norman first captured. His clothing torn, his glossy hair mussed, with the jagged cut down his cheek and with scratches and abrasions everywhere, he looked more the outlaw than she did.

  His fingers, warm and brown, still held her wrist, and his eyes refused to release hers. “I saw—that man turned into a hart.”

  “There was no man.” A flash of white light, the herald of powerful magic, and then the hart standing, making of itself a barrier protecting Gareth de Vavasour. Why?

  “I saw the man and I saw the hart twice.” Gareth sounded desperate.

  “Twice?”

  “Once whilst I fled. He spoke to me. He said he was—” Gareth’s throat closed and then worked mightily. “He said he was Robin Hood.”

  Everything around them became very still. Even the summer sunlight, drifting down through the trees, seemed to freeze and every leaf quieted, as did the brea
th in Linnet’s lungs.

  “Tell me it was a dream,” Gareth beseeched her, “or imagining.”

  “I cannot.”

  “But Robin Hood is long dead.”

  “He is, aye, and he is not. He lives here yet, in Sherwood. He is my grandfather. He is lord of this place.”

  Gareth’s eyes widened.

  “He,” Linnet told him softly, “was one of the foremost guardians of Sherwood, though there have been many over the centuries since people first came here and discovered the magic of this place.”

  “Centuries?”

  “He was the first of my blood to hold the magic, so far as I know. He established the first triad, the first circle meant to guard Sherwood’s power—he, together with my grandmother, called Marian, and the Spirit of this place. Others have served since, and kept the circle. Always three.”

  “That man with the scarred face?”

  “Martin Scarlet. He was one of the three who held it during my lifetime. Now, with his death, the circle is broken. Soon, three others will need to take the places of Martin, my mother, and my father.”

  “Aye, so you said before. It is to be you.” Quick as silver light, Gareth’s eyes leaped to Lark and Falcon. “And those two.”

  “Aye.”

  “But, what of that which the man—Robin Hood—said to me?”

  “What said he?”

  “He bade me follow what is in my heart.” Suddenly Gareth’s eyes glowed. He released Linnet’s wrist and raised his fingers to touch her cheek very gently, almost as if he feared she might shatter.

  “And,” Linnet barely whispered the words, “what is in your heart?”

  “I scarcely know, except—” He leaned toward her. For an instant, Linnet was so sure he would kiss her, her lips tingled. Her entire soul ached for his kiss and reached to bond with him, yearning wildly.

  He withdrew his fingers and Linnet felt the loss like the coming of winter cold.

  “It cannot be,” he whispered.

  “I do not believe in ‘cannot,’ ” Linnet told him, and felt startled to realize how strongly she meant it.

  “But you are part of this magical three, and I am destined for service at Nottingham.”

  “And yet my grandfather stood to defend you from harm. A very great mystery.”

  “Linnet!” Fal called from across the clearing.

  Gareth de Vavasour lifted his gaze. “He wants you.” Envy filled his voice. “Will you consider his suit?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Good, for I do not wish you to wed with him.”

  Impossible that he should care, and yet Linnet’s heart bounded. “I know.”

  “I ask you to keep from giving yourself to him, despite this preordained bond of which you speak.”

  Emotion rose to Linnet’s head, wild and staggering. She did not understand this powerful thing between them. She merely knew what she felt.

  “Lin!”

  Gareth’s eyes sought and held hers persistently. “Promise me you will not accept him.”

  “I cannot so promise.” Linnet struggled with her wild emotions and then gave him the only promise she could. “But I will wait as long as ever I can, as long as events allow.”

  Some of the tension went out of him. “It is well. Because, you see, you are meant to be mine.”

  Inexplicable as they were, the words sounded like a vow. Conviction blossomed with them, raw and bright, and took up residence in Linnet’s heart. Her eyes filled with tears, she who so rarely wept. She nodded once and got quickly to her feet, knowing she had to walk away from him now.

  But she would not be apart from him, not truly—never again.

  ****

  I must be mad, Gareth thought, stark raving, to make of her such a demand. Yet his words had been called forth from him by her beauty, by the expression in her eyes when she looked at him, more by the forest itself, the trees all around and the light that sifted down. They were called by the hunger of his flesh for her, a rampant thing all wrapped up in tenderness, breathless and waiting.

  And impossible, all of it. How could he ask of her any kind of promise when he remained a prisoner, and beyond that a Norman knight? And she, a part of this blood-sworn resistance against his kind and, beyond that, part of the very enchantment breathed by this place.

  “Follow your heart.” He heard again the words of the man with the narrow, clever face and the transformative smile—Robin Hood. Nay, but it must have been delusion, some aberration brought on by the desperation of flight, and the moonlight.

  And he had forged a vow on the strength of it. He had no doubt that was what his words to Linnet had been—a vow of intent.

  “De Vavasour.” The big man called Sparrow stood over him. “We must speak together of my daughter, Linnet.”

  Gareth struggled to his feet. He did not feel wary of this man, not as he did of Linnet’s mother with her sharp gaze and her tangible command of magic. Gareth suspected Sparrow possessed magic also; it virtually clothed him. Yet something about him spoke to and calmed Gareth.

  “Sit.” Sparrow waved him back down and took the place beside him.

  At some distance across the clearing, it appeared the others busied themselves packing up camp. “Are we leaving this place?” he asked.

  “Aye. Falcon, Lark, and Linnet go back to Oakham. Fal wishes to see his father buried, or at least mark his passing, as he is no doubt already in the ground.”

  “And I?”

  “You will stay here for the time, with myself and Wren. When it is safe for a ransom demand to be taken to Nottingham, Lark or Lin will send word and let us know.”

  “My uncle will never ransom me.”

  “Why not?” Sparrow studied him with eyes as dark and deep as Linnet’s. “You are his kin, his blood.”

  “Yet he barely knows me. I have seen him rarely since I was small.” And if Robert de Vavasour proved anything like his brother, Gareth’s father Maurice, he must be a hard man indeed, devoid of both sentiment and familial feeling. Had he not patronized the final part of Gareth’s training and demanded his service in return, Gareth would not be here now.

  “Still, I cannot see him leaving you in our hands.”

  Gareth shrugged and Sparrow gave a tight smile. “It remains to be seen. Until that time, you will stay with my wife and me, in Sherwood. Wren will see to your healing.”

  “And Linnet? You said you wished to speak of her.”

  Sparrow drew a breath that expanded his great chest. His eyes examined Gareth almost kindly. “You will not see her again.”

  Gareth turned his head sharply. His eyes found Linnet across the clearing where she bent gracefully over a bundle she assembled, her dark hair streaming down.

  “Life is long,” he told Sparrow. “You cannot make such a declaration. If she and I are meant to meet again, we shall so meet.”

  Sparrow’s expression turned wry. “Leave her alone, if you would do her any service. She has her place in this world as you have yours. You are a Norman knight. Linnet is even more vitally important.”

  Gareth did not speak, but everything inside him cried his resistance.

  Sparrow went on, still in his calm rumble. “You could do for her one thing else, if you will.”

  “What is that?”

  “Forget her. Forget, also, the location of her village and the names of those dear to her. Your uncle we know for a vengeful man, devoid of mercy. Protect her as you can.”

  Gareth gave a hard nod. That he could do. But see her go from him... It made a harder prospect.

  Sparrow met his gaze and gave a tight smile. “I do not know all of what happened in the forest last night. Like my wife, I sensed great magic. The wheel of our lives turns mightily just now. It does not go easily for me to trust a Norman. But it seems I must trust you to protect my daughter, Gareth de Vavasour.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Smell that—’tis the scent of burning on the wind.” Falcon’s head reared up like that of a wil
d creature sensing danger.

  Lark, coming up next to him, paused with her whole body aquiver.

  Linnet, who brought up the rear in their return to Oakham, struggled to gather her thoughts. Too much had happened back in the forest; she felt torn, as if the better part of her had been ripped away and left behind with Gareth de Vavasour.

  That it should be so terrified her. He was the very last man upon whom she should settle her heart: Norman knight, nephew to her mortal enemy, sworn opponent to all she held dear. She barely knew him, had not yet kissed him, for all her longing. Yet her heart had leaped to him without her leave. And now she carried a part of him with her, even as she had left a measure of her soul in his hands.

  “Come, hurry.” Lark, ever indefatigable, took off at a run. Falcon quickly followed. They were not far from Oakham—home—now, but the journey had been a long one, and Linnet felt a sudden weight of dread mingle with her weariness to hold her back. She suddenly knew she did not want to see. Yet she forced herself to follow her companions.

  The reek of burning intensified as they went. When they burst from the trees that sheltered the village, they dragged to a halt, one by one.

  Most of Oakham lay in a still-smoking heap, even though the disaster was clearly not new. Air heavy with ash hung beneath the sheltering boughs of the trees, along with a suffocating aura of oppression. Somewhere a dog barked and a child wailed, sounding tired and hungry.

  Linnet stared in disbelief, unable to make sense of what she saw. The west side of the village, where her own hut had stood, lay mostly ruined. On the east side, beyond the communal gardens, some buildings still stood.

  “Oh, God,” Falcon breathed: an invocation.

  Lark seized his arm with both hands. “Retaliation,” she seethed, “for the robbery and capture of that accursed Norman. It must be!”

  Gone, thought Linnet, stunned. All gone. Her wee hut and everything she owned inside it—precious little it might seem to some, but to her it meant independence. Herbs gathered and blended over weeks and months, her few treasures—the wooden stag her father had carved for her when she was ten, the silk charm bag Ma had passed down from the wise woman, Lil—irreplaceable keepsakes of her life.