She touched one of the tiny leaves and it crumbled like ash. The spot where it had been attached to the stem was black and oozed some sort of liquid. She’d never seen the like. She dug deeper in the earth, and, when she pulled out the roots, a stench of death and decay came out of the earth with them. It was so strong that her midday meal leapt to the back of her throat.
She looked into the hole left by the plant and saw more of the black ooze. Moving over a few inches she inspected a rosemary plant that was growing well. She carefully dug in the ground, exposing its roots. There was no stench and no black ooze, even though the two plants were close together.
Something was wrong.
The sound of horse’s hooves came from the narrow path out front and she rose, wondering who had come to call. There weren’t many who knew Adaryn, or where she lived, and that was how she liked it.
She moved around her small house and watched the path that led here. A rider came into view, a woman of fair hair and complexion riding a stallion that matched her. Both had a regal bearing, chests thrust high and necks straight as they came at a good clip. It took only a moment for them to draw close enough that she could recognize the rider.
Lady Longstride.
Adaryn frowned. She had not expected a visit at this time of year. The lady pulled her horse up and Adaryn reached out to hold the reins while the woman dismounted. She then led the horse to a patch of grass a short distance away and tied his reins to a stake driven into the ground for just such purpose.
She turned back. “What can I help you with today, milady? Are you looking to have another child?”
“No, I have my hands quite full enough with the ones I already have. Besides, my husband is away fighting in Richard’s Crusade.”
Adaryn blinked. News could be slow to reach her, but even she had heard about the Crusade.
“Then what may I do for you?”
“I have no sage. My crop failed this year and I need to dry some before winter comes.”
“Milady could have sent her servant to ask for it,” Adaryn observed.
“I would never trust a servant with an errand as important as mine,” the woman said haughtily.
Yet she had sent her servant, Lila, on numerous occasions. Adaryn suspected that the lady had come with another purpose as well.
“Did all your plantings fail?” she asked.
“No, just the sage. It rotted in the ground. None of it could be salvaged.”
Adaryn frowned. To have the same plant be destroyed in two completely different locations smacked of something unnatural. Could there be magic at work? If so, why the sage? There were many herbs that could be used for healing, some far more valuable.
“Why have you squished your face up in such an unattractive way?” Lady Longstride asked.
Adaryn smiled outwardly. Lady Longstride wasn’t a nice woman, despite what others might think. She was, though, an excellent client, and one well worth humoring.
“I was just concerned because I, too, have a lack of sage at the moment. I will, however, procure some for you, and deliver it within the fortnight.” She would approach some of the others who grew such herbs. It would also give her a chance to see if others were experiencing similar difficulties.
“Do not come to my home,” Lady Longstride said firmly. “I will send Lila for it.”
“Is there anything else with which I can help, milady?”
“Yes,” the noblewoman said. “I need you to teach me another spell.”
Adaryn had suspected as much. “What is it you wish to accomplish?”
“I want to increase the strength of the wards for a room.”
“To keep out one person, or to keep out all?”
“To keep out all, this time. All but myself, of course, and it must be subtle, so that a person simply doesn’t want to enter.”
“Of course,” Adaryn responded. “Why don’t you come inside while I prepare a few things for you.” As she turned to lead the way inside her home she wondered exactly what it was that the Lady Longstride wished to hide from the world.
They were a few steps from her front door when the horse screamed. Both women spun to look.
There, not ten feet away was a gray wolf twice the size of any Adaryn had ever seen, its yellow eyes fixed, its mouth dripping blood and foam as it circled the horse. The animal reared, trying to pull itself free from the stake to which its reins were tied. The predator lunged at it, jaws clacking together.
Adaryn ran to the woodpile and pulled her axe out of a stump. She ran toward the two animals that were now struggling together. Just as she reached them the horse kicked the wolf in the chest, sending it flying backward. Adaryn swung the axe at the beast’s belly. The metal head barely scraped the creature’s skin beneath its fur, but it landed on the ground and its belly burst open, spilling steaming hot intestines onto the ground.
Adaryn bit back a cry of shock.
The wolf thrashed on its back, rolling in its own offal. The ropes of innards crawled with squiggling white shapes, maggots that had been devouring the creature from the inside. She put a hand over her nose and mouth, dropped the axe and turned toward the Lady Longstride. Fear prickled at her scalp as she struggled to appear calm.
Lady Longstride’s eyes were wide, watching the wolf twitch, its body slowing into death as its strength spilled into the dirt.
“Wolves don’t come near people unless they’re starving,” she said, “or they have the sickness.”
“From the looks of this one, he definitely had some sort of sickness,” Adaryn said, though she was pretty certain it hadn’t been the kind that the lady was referencing. In truth, it had been dead before it staggered out of the forest.
* * *
“How should we proceed?”
Prince John looked startled where he sat. “You ask me?”
Thin lips twitched. “Of course. You are the king now.”
“Acting king.” John immediately regretted the thought, feeling as if he’d been led into it. He was still a prince.
The Sheriff stood by the window of John’s chambers with his back to the room. He stood in the thinnest beam of sunlight there was, a wafer of illumination that rendered him pure black, like living basalt except for that streak of widow white hair.
“Yes, acting king,” the armored man agreed. “A toothless position.”
“I’m still king,” John replied irritably.
“In name only.”
“Names have power, Nottingham.”
The Sheriff’s eyes locked with his. John hadn’t seen him turn.
“Names do have power, little prince. They belong to powerful things and… entities.” The Sheriff broke his gaze, walking around the room. Slender, pale fingers darted here and there, touching only the things John had brought with him.
A small jewelry box that had belonged to his mother.
A knife he’d had since childhood, given to him by his father.
A bronze cast of a bird skull, the first kill he’d made as a child.
A candelabra stolen from a chapel in Ireland.
A jar containing the finger bones of the thief he’d hired to steal the candelabra.
The Sheriff stopped and turned.
“Kingship is a tricky thing,” he said abstractly. “It is not held lightly, just because you possess a throne. This damned isle is a maze of relics and traditions and rituals.”
“Richard may die in the Crusade,” John offered.
“That may not change anything. You are not a direct heir.”
“I could make a claim.”
“I have no use in waiting for the whims of human agencies.” The Sheriff’s face twisted, his mouth and eyes feral as he spoke. Prince John flinched, and hated himself for doing so.
“Then what do you suggest? Regicide?”
“Feh! You royals breed like rats—you would never find all the hidden bastards and illegitimate bitches sired by your kin. No, if we are to proceed, we must find a way to secure you
as the lawful king.”
Prince John leaned forward in his chair. “If not the knife’s edge, then how do we clear my path?”
“There is a way.”
“Do tell.”
“In the heart of Sherwood there is a relic, a symbol of England’s Sovereignty, that can bestow upon whomever wears it the kingship of the land.”
“I have never heard of such a thing,” John said.
“You wouldn’t have,” the Sheriff replied. “It’s old. Older than your lineage, older than your people being on this island, but powerful.”
“Then we shall have it.”
“How cavalier you are,” the Sheriff said, his voice dripping venom. “Possessing the object will be no easy thing.”
“And why is that?”
“To begin with, I may not step foot in the cursed forest. It is protected. And even if I could, the way to find this object is steeped in ancient knowledge as recorded in another sacred relic, a grimoire of light. Indeed, the book contains much more, and in the wrong hands it might be used to reveal and destroy creatures of magic.”
John blinked. “Such an object would be dangerous… to some.” A wry smile played across his features. “I’m surprised you haven’t been clever enough to secure it already,” he said, with a hint of scorn.
The Sheriff didn’t reply. He drew his sword in a long, fluid motion, the blade edge chiming along the sheath’s metal throat. The sound sent shivers up John’s spine, and then his heart froze in his chest.
The man in black lifted the weapon so that it hung, poised between them. One step closer and it would be near enough to take John’s head. The prince’s mind scrambled desperately for the words that would halt the Sheriff in place, or cast him to another room, but it was like drowning in the center of the ocean. Frantic and desperate, knowing how to swim and still completely powerless.
The Sheriff stepped forward, drawing back the sword.
John shrunk, trying to crawl into himself.
The blade swiped out.
John fell to the floor.
The sword cut through the tapestry hanging behind the chair in which he’d sat. It was ancient, woven by nuns to depict the Virgin and the Child. It crumpled to the floor, leaving bare wall in its place. The Sheriff sheathed his sword. Wisps of smoke hung in the air.
“Clever has nothing to do with it,” he said. “I don’t know where it is. It may be in the hands of a practitioner, perhaps even tucked away in some trunk of heirlooms in a peasant’s hut. Most likely that damned monastery has it secured somewhere.” The Sheriff looked down at John, cowering on the floor. “Get up. You are still the one, little prince. I will not harm you.” He looked around. “However, you will redecorate this castle. I cannot think clearly with all of these… decorations to distract me.”
John pulled himself back up into the chair. “I’ll order it done.”
The Sheriff nodded sharply. “And we need to find that book.”
“Should I round up the people and demand that it be produced, under pain of death?”
“If it is hidden under protection, and you tip our hand, then you only assure that the book will be burned. They would sooner destroy it than allow it to fall into the wrong hands.”
“Why haven’t the protectors burned the book before? It seems only logical.”
The Sheriff shook his head. “The need for it outweighs their concern. Until the relic is claimed, then the book must remain the guide to it. Without a direct threat to the relic it would simply reappear elsewhere, somewhere out of their control. There is always a grimoire and a relic of Sovereignty. It has been so since Creation.”
“And you believe it can be found?”
“I am here for a reason.”
“Then a simple seeking spell…”
The Sheriff cut him off with a glare. “You don’t think I’ve tried such a spell? You are a fool. The power that created the relic has rendered such things utterly useless,” he spat angrily.
John pushed back into the chair, his body tightly wound, waiting for the Sheriff to lash out again at any second. His mind raced for a solution, something to appease the man in the black armor.
“I have an army,” he offered. “Well, part of an army.”
“You cannot lay siege to your own country. Not without arousing suspicions.”
John smiled. “Then we need a pretense.”
The Sheriff nodded.
“I have just the thing for it then.”
* * *
“It won’t work, Lord Longstride.”
Robin rammed his chest against the plow, pushing with his legs, shoving with his arms. An ache had settled deep into the base of his spine and fire lit the backs of his thighs. Still the plow’s tip bounced off the hard-packed dirt, driving the handles down to club across the bruise his shoulders had become.
He stumbled back with a curse, sweat dripping off his brow.
The ox harnessed to the plow passed gas, its dun colored tail flicking back toward him. The man standing at the fence chuckled.
“See, even the beast knows you’re doing it wrong.”
Robin looked up. The sun cut behind the man, casting a long shadow for an average-sized person. A stray beam caught the edge of fine steel mail that slipped from under his tunic sleeve as he chewed a piece of grass and watched with a milky eye.
Robin threw his hand at the plow and the unfurrowed field.
“This land hates me.”
The man shook his head. “I think it is the opposite, Lord Longstride.” A small blue wildflower he’d tucked into the band of his wheat straw hat bobbed in disapproval.
“Don’t call me that,” Robin spat. “I’m not my father.”
“No, you’re not,” the man agreed. “Your father wouldn’t be trying to plow.”
“It has to be done, and we are short-handed.” Robin braced himself to start again.
The man clucked his tongue, reaching over to push him away. Robin jerked back, hands clenched and up. The man looked down at the fists then back up to his eyes. His voice came, soft but firm.
“Calm yourself,” he said. “I’m just going to show how to do this easy, instead of hard, Lord… Robin.”
Anger poured from Robin’s body like water, spilling out onto the hard soil and soaking away. He stepped back and held his hands up.
“I’m sorry, Old Soldier,” he responded. “I’m not a farmer.”
“No, you’re not,” Old Soldier chuckled. “Neither was I when I came to your father’s service, so mayhap we can make you a suitable stand-in.” The elder man stepped between the plow’s handles. “Now watch.”
He bent his knees, hooked his elbows under the handles, then stood, lifting the back of the tool off the ground. One hand, a sandwich of rough calluses on the palm and slick scar on the back, held the single rein that ran to the ox’s bridle. He gave a loud whistle and jerked his hand. The leather rein cracked the air above the beast’s back. The ox lowed and began to move.
The tip of the plow sank into the dirt, splitting it and driving soil up into rounded mounds along a handspan-wide trough. After a few steps Old Soldier dropped his arms and used his hands to guide the plow and keep the furrow straight. He smiled at Robin.
“Let the beast do the work,” he said. “You’re here to keep order, is all.”
Robin watched as the truth of the advice rang in his ears.
* * *
He would have rather been with the king, heading now for the Holy Land, but he had been chosen, singled out for a particular mission. He had boarded a ship, true, and many had seen him do it. Only one had seen him shimmy down the far side of the ship and into the water, to make his way back to land.
Dark forces were gathering. The night before departing, King Richard had summoned him to his private chamber and told him the truth of what they were facing in Jerusalem. It had made him all the more eager to go, to fight, and all the more bitter that he needed to remain behind.
Then the king had told him why.
There was darkness gathering in Jerusalem, yes, but there was darkness gathering at home. With so many gone to fight, the king needed to know that some would stay behind to guard the kingdom. He was to be part watchdog and part spy.
The prince sat on the throne. He was an unknown quantity, and the king didn’t know how much he could trust him.
“Trust no one,” King Richard had told him. “No one except the Lady Marian.” He could never bring himself to involve her in this, though. She was barely more than a child, and a woman, as well, which meant she possessed limited influence, despite her many abilities.
He was on the path through Sherwood. He had never liked the mighty forest, finding the darkness within it to be unsettling. It seemed to go on forever, and once inside it was easy to become turned around, lost forever. Some said it was the work of creatures that dwelt there. He’d never believed in such things, but given what the king had told him, he might do well to start.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sweat trickled under his clothes, sticking fabric to skin. The cape and cassock hung heavily across his shoulders, draping on the rounded planes of his body. He moved his arms, watching the square beam of sunlight play over the purple cloth. When he passed it through the light it glistened and gleamed, as if each thread had been hammered from a precious metal.
The color—the brilliant, verdant purple—came from Phoenicia, harvested from small snails whose only purpose was to provide the chemical compound to create the Tyrian hue. Dozens, if not hundreds, had been slaughtered when he ordered his attire, dissected for the glands that held the precious dye.
The thought of all those tiny sacrifices, just so his robe of office could be the correct color, thrilled him somewhere deep inside.
He held a crozier, and, when he passed it through the river of light, motes of dust swirled and eddied. The sun, coming through the sole window in the antechamber, glimmered dully along the surface of the golden staff, rimming along the curl of precious metal at the head. There in the light, it looked like a rod of molten sunshine, the power of the universe formed to his shepherdic symbol of office and rank.
Mark of the Black Arrow Page 11