The Stolen Crown

by Eva Howard

  He shrugged her off. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve been in battle, remember.”

  The men’s voices were closer now, and with them the sound of tramping feet. Ellie peered through the trees and thought she saw the flash of a cloak. “We don’t have time to brag,” she said. She pointed to a young oak. “Climb up. We might be able to catch them as they go under us.” She hoped that by surprising the men from above, they could disarm them without killing them.

  But it might come to killing, a tiny voice told her. It might come down to choosing between letting them live and saving everyone at camp.

  She swallowed down her dilemma. Carefully she lifted herself into the lowest branches, Stephen climbing up behind her. From there she saw them—a group of soldiers, swords out, swinging them like farmers scything grain. The steady whoosh and grunt was broken off by a soldier’s shout. A net shot up from the ground, closing around him like fingers making a fist. In an instant he was high up in the tree.

  Ellie clapped her hands over her mouth, stifling a laugh. Jacob had set a few net traps around camp in the hopes of catching game; the soldier was their first quarry. He squirmed against the ropes, his arms grabbing at empty air. The men on the ground startled back, cursing, then laughed too.

  “How’s the view from up there, Richard?” one of them called.

  The soldier responded with a stream of breathless profanity.

  “Patience!” one of his friends responded. “You enjoy your rest. We’ll cut you down once we’ve routed the outlaws . . . if we remember.”

  “You’ll cut me down now, or you won’t sleep another peaceful night in your lives,” the soldier named Richard growled.

  The rest of them laughed, one of the men already climbing the tree to rescue his comrade. When both were safely on the ground, they resumed their scything, disappearing into the trees.

  “There’s seven of them,” Ellie whispered. “Alice said three.”

  “Soldiers have a way of multiplying,” Stephen said. “There will be more coming.”

  “We can’t let them get as far as the camp. We have to lure them away!”

  “And how will we do that?”

  “Maybe . . . maybe I can get behind them and shoot at them from there.”

  Stephen gave her a scornful look. “And get yourself killed? Not too clever. Luckily for you, I have a better idea.” He swung his legs over the branch and dropped to the ground, landing in the tall grass below the tree.

  “Stephen!” Ellie hissed. “What are you playing at?”

  He put a finger to his lips, then ducked down into the undergrowth. Ellie growled with annoyance. If the men heard him, she’d have no choice but to fire at them. Why can’t he do as he’s told for once?

  She started as, below, stone struck metal. In the bushes came a sudden flare of light.

  Stephen stood grinning up at her. Nocked to his bow, poised to fly, was an arrow—and it was on fire.

  10

  “NO!” ELLIE’S VOICE WAS DANGEROUSLY loud. “Are you mad? We’re standing in a forest!”

  Stephen’s blue eyes flashed. Then he shrugged, and before she could do anything else, he sent the arrow flying toward the soldiers.

  Ellie dropped hard from the branches to the forest floor. “You fool,” she spat at him.

  The arrow arced through the branches, then disappeared from view. Alarmed cries went up from the baron’s men. Ellie pushed past Stephen and took off toward the arrow.

  “Ellie, stop! I’m warning you!”

  She kept running. Another arrow arced high over her head, a streak of fire. It landed with a storm of sparks. Then came another. The flames on the first went out, but the second one caught, the grass it was embedded in smoldering. A bush starred with white honeysuckle flowers whooshed up into flames.

  What am I doing? she thought. Did she think she could stamp the burning arrows out? Would the baron’s men shoot her before she got a chance to try?

  By now she could see the soldiers again. A third arrow landed so close to them that they startled back. A clump of fallen leaves exploded into flames. Sparks shot up, catching the end of a branch. Fire danced along its leaves, and in a frighteningly short space of time the whole tree was on fire. Ellie gaped at it in horror.

  She suddenly had a vision of the ancient Greenwood Tree crackling with flames. No! I’ve got to stop this!

  Running toward the fire would do no good. She needed water—and help.

  She turned and sprinted back toward Stephen, so filled with rage she could barely feel where her feet landed. He was nocking yet another burning arrow to his bow, his blue eyes dancing wildly as the flames reflected in them.

  “Look, they’re running away!” He laughed, pointing through the trees at the fleeing soldiers. “I was right, it worked!”

  Ellie snatched the bow from his hand. The arrow fell. She stamped it out, her boots smoking, then slammed the bow against a trunk. It snapped in two, the pieces hanging limply from the string.

  Stephen looked at her like she was mad. “What the—”

  “The whole forest could burn down because of you!” Ellie screamed. She jabbed a finger to where the flames were spreading, already covering a distance the length of the abbey’s garden. “You’ll kill us all!”

  She shoved past him and pelted back toward the camp. She ran like a rabbit with a fox on its heels, leaping over fallen logs, barely flinching when a branch whipped her cheek, ignoring the thin trickle of blood. She burst out of the trees and into the camp. The villagers, clutching their makeshift weapons, turned to stare in confusion as she charged across the clearing. “Ellie!” Alice called out. “What’s happening? Are they close?”

  “I sent them away!” It was Stephen, his voice ringing with victory. He must have followed her.

  “We’ll all be running away soon. There’s a fire, and it’s spreading!” Ellie reached the barrels of rainwater. “Everyone grab one of these and follow me!”

  The villagers dropped their weapons and ran for the barrels. Children peeked from the windows of the shelters, gaping at the smoke that now curled above the trees. A boy of five went running toward the flames; his mother followed fast behind, shrieking as she scooped him off his feet.

  “I don’t understand,” said Ralf, heaving up one of the barrels. “How on earth did a fire start?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” She shot a venomous look at Stephen. He looked genuinely bewildered by her reaction—which only made her angrier. She lifted a barrel and shoved it to his chest. “Go,” she said icily, then turned back to grab her own.

  The air filled with shouts as everyone worked together to fight back the blaze. The terror Ellie felt was as big and bright as the flames. When she was very small, she’d knocked a candle onto her parents’ big bed. The flame had knifed neatly through the coverlet, the orange flames turning the white to black char. Her father had put it out before it spread too far, but she’d never forgotten the welling terror, the helplessness of watching the straw doll she’d been playing with turn to ash. She knew flames were hard and hungry; they didn’t care about anything but their own appetite.

  It was far worse now, in the open air, miles of vulnerable forest stretching around them. She ran back and forth again and again, directing the barrels toward the places where the fire was worst. The water did its work; the damp ground helped with the rest. Finally she, Jacob, and Margery stamped out the last of it with their boots.

  All around them was an island of wet black ruin—but beyond it, the vast green stretch of Sherwood Forest. Safe. She clasped her hands.

  “Thank you, Saint Jude,” she murmured. “Our cause isn’t lost quite yet.”

  “Amen to that,” said Marian, walking toward them. The hem of her dress was filthy with ash, and her silver hair fell loose around her cheeks. “How did this happen, Ellie? Did the soldiers try to burn us out?”

  “Ask him.” Ellie jerked her chin toward where Stephen sat on an upturned barrel.

  “Yes, I start
ed it. And I’d do it again,” he said. “I got the baron’s men to leave, didn’t I?”

  Ralf swore under his breath. Marian gave Stephen a strange look, blame mixed with pity. She put a hand on Ellie’s scratched cheek. “Are you all right?”

  Ellie nodded. She was too angry to say any more.

  “We can’t stay at the camp, Ellie. The baron’s men will be back. Soon, I think.”

  The forest was still standing, but it was only a matter of time before the soldiers reported back and the baron had the area properly searched. And when they found the farm and the new houses, they would tear them down. Everything they’d built would be lost. Ellie rubbed her eyes. The disappointment was unbearable.

  “The villagers need somewhere safe to hide until this trouble blows over,” said Marian.

  Ellie nodded. She forced herself to put aside her own anger and frustration and instead focus on the problem at hand. The villagers needed to be protected, somewhere large enough and hidden enough to keep them safe from the baron’s men. . . .

  “I know the perfect place.”

  She strode back into the clearing, Marian, her friends, and Stephen following. All around her villagers milled about, speaking in low tones or clutching children to their chests. “Listen!” Ellie threw up her arms. A sea of anxious faces turned toward her. “We’ve worked hard to build this place. We thought we could stay here forever. But it isn’t safe anymore—the baron’s men have seen to that. Now we have to leave, and quickly, before they come back.”

  “Where are we supposed to go?” said a young mother, her voice edged with hysteria. “I’ve already left my village behind to take up with you in the woods. We’re already sleeping in a half-built home, with barely enough food. Now what are we supposed to do?”

  An uneasy murmur rose from the crowd. Ellie took a deep breath. “We’re going to the safest place in the whole of Sherwood Forest. The Greenwood Tree.”

  The villagers’ restlessness shifted to excitement. “The Greenwood Tree!” a man said to his daughter. “That’s where Robin Hood lived with his Merry Men.”

  Ellie caught eyes with Ralf, who stood next to Alice near the back of the crowd. His face was bright with surprise, but Alice’s arms were crossed warily over her chest.

  “Ralf,” she called, “Alice, Jacob, and Margery. Each of you take a group of villagers with you. Lead them around the traps, and keep everyone as quiet as you can.” She beckoned the nearest family to follow her. “Take anything you can carry, but not so much that you can’t run,” she told them. All around her the rest of the League were doing the same, Marian lending a hand too. Gripping her bow tightly, with a group of villagers at her back, Ellie set off for the Greenwood Tree.

  By long practice the League fanned out, so the baron’s men wouldn’t be able to catch all of them at once. But before they’d gone far, Stephen caught up with Ellie.

  “Didn’t have enough blindfolds?” His voice was sour with sarcasm.

  “What?”

  “Well, I seem to remember you making me wear a blindfold when you took me to the Greenwood Tree. You made a pretty big deal out of it. Now you’re leading everyone right there?”

  “What am I supposed to do?” she retorted, waving an arm at the straggle of villagers behind them, picking their way awkwardly through the trees. “How could I possibly lead twenty blindfolded people through Sherwood, let alone past the traps around the Greenwood Tree? Besides, it would take so long to blindfold them, your father would find us before we’d even finished tying the knots.”

  Stephen raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised you’re so sure. I just hope all this noise doesn’t lead my father’s men right to us. Still, as long as you think you’re doing the right thing . . .”

  “Of course I am.”

  But his words burned within Ellie’s gut, as hot as one of the embers that had been smoldering on the forest floor. She’d made the right decision—hadn’t she? It’s the only way to keep everyone safe, she told herself. But the flames of unease wouldn’t die down.

  She guided the villagers past the pit trap with its rows of jagged spears, and around another of Jacob’s nets that was suspended from a tree. Tom Woodville was with her group, his little face solemn as he clambered over a fallen log. With every step the villagers took, branches cracked and leaves rustled. Not one of them had learned to move like a wild thing through the trees, the way the League had. Ellie felt as ungainly as an animal with a broken leg. With the League, she moved swift and silent, and everybody kept up. With the villagers, she had to be aware not just of the traps but of fallen logs they might fall over, tendrils of deadly nightshade they might not recognize, divots in the ground where they might roll an ankle.

  It’s not their fault, she reminded herself, but she couldn’t help calling back to them: “We need to move faster—as fast as you can go. But whatever you do, stay behind me!”

  She ignored Stephen’s smug look.

  By the time they reached the Greenwood Tree, every creak and clatter sounded magnified in her ears. She led the villagers through the covering of greenery with relief. They gasped as they stepped into the clearing, staring up at the tree. A little girl, Ada Webb, fell to her knees and ran her hands over the grass. “It’s real,” she breathed.

  Ralf arrived in the clearing at the head of his party. He ran to the tree’s trunk and scaled it to the platform where they stored their extra weapons. He tossed down bows and clutches of arrows to the villagers waiting below and climbed back down with a clutch of knives stuck into his belt. Margery, Alice, and Jacob arrived with their groups. They distributed the remaining weapons, and everyone spread out around the edges of the clearing. Ellie nocked an arrow and aimed it into the rustling trees, waiting for the first appearance of a guard—the edge of a cloak, the crack of a step.

  Her heart slammed and her throat rasped dryly as she swallowed. If anyone came—if anyone had followed them—they would have to leave the Greenwood Tree. Robin Hood’s secret shelter would be lost to them forever, and they would have nowhere else to go.

  She kept watching the trees, questions crowding her head. Was it by chance that the baron’s men had spied Margery and Alice? Or were they out in the woods looking for them? This could be his revenge for what happened at the nunnery, she thought.

  The minutes passed. Ellie could hear the villagers growing restless, some of them dropping their weapons and retreating to the clearing. Still she aimed into the woods as her shoulders grew stiff and her head ached from straining to hear the guards’ approach.

  “No one’s coming,” Stephen was saying loudly to a group of villagers. “Like I said, I scared those guards away. You should have seen them, they ran like rabbits! They won’t be coming back after that.”

  “He’s right,” said Ralf, who was stationed next to Ellie. “Much as I hate to say it.”

  Slowly Ellie let her bow fall to her side. “The danger is passed!” she called out. “We can drop our weapons now.”

  Immediately the air in the clearing seemed to grow light. People were laughing, peering up into the Greenwood Tree’s branches, climbing around its roots, and wondering at the platforms and pulleys high over their heads. A woman named Helen snatched up a tin cup from beside their campfire and raised it high.

  “To Stephen—the boy who scared off the baron’s soldiers with nothing but a few arrows!” she cried.

  A cheer went up around the clearing. Jacob clapped Stephen on the back. “Our fights would end a lot faster if we always used flaming arrows,” he said. “Or flaming swords!” Stephen laughed and gave Jacob a mock punch on the shoulder.

  Master Galpin held out his hand to Stephen. “You fought back against your own father,” he said seriously. “I had the wrong end of things when I met you. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  Stephen shook his hand enthusiastically—and the other hands thrust out toward him. The attention made him preen like a cat, his blue eyes bright, his movements full of swagger. He whispered something to J
acob, who erupted with laughter.

  “He’s changed his tune,” said Ralf.

  Ellie felt her jaw go as hard as stone. “Unbelievable. Why can’t Jacob see through all that showing off?”

  Ralf jogged her with his elbow. “Stephen’s no leader, Ellie. That’ll always be you.”

  Ellie felt herself flush with annoyance. “You think that’s what I’m worried about? It’s not that, it’s the fire. Stephen could easily have burned down the forest. He could have killed us all.”

  “I know. Everything worked out in the end, though, didn’t it?”

  “Right. But what if the next time he does something stupid we’re not so lucky?”

  “Well, we’ll just have to stick together and keep an eye on him, won’t we?”

  Ellie gave Ralf an affectionate nudge with her shoulder. Thank the saints I’ve got you, she thought.

  They stood a moment longer, watching Stephen accept the gratitude of the villagers and the League. Even Alice looked impressed by what he’d done.

  Am I being too hard on him? Ellie wondered. Am I forgetting how far we have to go to keep ourselves safe?

  Maybe so. But she couldn’t keep a dark thought from preying on her. What if letting Stephen join the League had been a mistake after all?

  11

  ELLIE HAD GOTTEN USED TO waking up to the sound of the Greenwood Tree’s branches sighing in the wind. The murmur of Ralf talking, the bright shout of Margery’s laugh, the sound of metal on flint as Jacob made arrowheads. But since the villagers moved to the Greenwood Tree, things had changed. Now she woke up to the sounds of children—crying, playing, calling out to their parents for comfort or food. Men and women talking to one another, arguing, making plans. Cookware clanging, fires being set, branches crackling underfoot. She heard all the sounds of a village, but trapped within the confines of the Merry Men’s hideaway.

  Ellie, Margery, and Alice slept in the tiny shelter in the Greenwood Tree’s arms that used to belong to Robin and Marian. Ralf and Jacob each slept on their own platform, which they were transforming into proper shelters whenever they had a spare hour, and Stephen had claimed one of the tree’s topmost perches for his quarters—to show off, Ellie suspected. He liked to sit up there, long legs stretched out as he watched the sun go down.