Lord of Sherwood

by Laura Strickland

  “Look, Curlew—look!”

  All three kneeling above Heron turned their faces to Anwyn. Lark’s eyes widened, and Anwyn heard Curlew draw a sudden breath.

  “By the Green Man’s horns!” someone at the door exclaimed.

  Anwyn looked down at herself and lifted her hands in amazement. In the dim light of the hut she could just see it—faint radiance outlining her body, a very pale reflection of that which emanated from Curlew. Only it was the wrong color to be a reflection, for it coursed in deep garnet red, nearly the same shade as blood.

  “What—?” she began, staring at her own hands.

  But Curlew gave her no time to complete the thought. Light flaring in his eyes, he reached one bloodied hand for her.

  “My lady, come.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Place your hands just here, beside the wound.” Curlew shot a look into Anwyn’s face. She appeared too shocked to obey him, yet she hesitated only an instant before pressing her palms into the welter of blood that flooded Heron’s throat and chest. By the Green Man’s horns, why did Heron not stop bleeding? And how deep did this dire wound penetrate?

  He closed his mind to the very idea of Heron dying, and to the faint trails of light he saw coursing about the girl who knelt facing him. At the moment, he had no way to reconcile either.

  “Think,” he bade her. “Concentrate on Heron’s healing. Picture the blood staunching and the wound closing up.”

  “Aye.” Her face had turned bone white and her freckles stood out even in the dim light. But her eyes clung to his, the look in them almost worshipful, and he knew—knew to his heart—she would do anything he asked.

  “Reach deep inside,” he said hoarsely. “Pull up the power.”

  “Power?” Her breath rasped in her throat. By contrast, he could not hear, or feel, Heron breathing. Had they lost him? No. He would not allow it.

  He wanted to close his eyes, the better to sense his own power, to haul it up by the roots if needed, but his gaze remained snared by Anwyn’s. He could no more look away from her than he could abandon Heron.

  He began to pray again, the words whispered almost beneath his breath—old words, sacred words.

  The power came.

  Hard as he had called on it before, when he knelt beside Heron alone, so easily did it now come flowing, surging and burgeoning up through him from the very dirt of the floor, from the roots and waters deeper still, twining and combining with the air of the hut, transforming into internal fire.

  His hands, pressed so tightly to Heron’s chest, began to glow—not as they had before but with an intensity that nearly blinded him. An instant later, Anwyn’s hands flared to light also, deep crimson, like a portentous rising sun.

  She gasped but, the Lady love her, did not waver or break her hold. Her eyes, still fast on Curlew’s, shone green, and the golden flecks that marked them glimmered.

  The power rose, staggering in its intensity. Swiftly, Curlew sought to grapple with and control it. Aye, and he had shared such healings and communions with Heron—most lately in the attempt to rescue his mother. But that had been two, not three.

  The realization hit him like a rock between the eyes—’twas what this meant, the ready flow of power, the three of them connected for the first time in flesh. He could almost see the circle forge, form bonds between them, and manifest.

  He still did not understand why it should be this lass, of all those born in Sherwood or elsewhere. He simply knew it to be so.

  The glow that surrounded Anwyn intensified; she shimmered before his eyes. Light streaked down the length of her hair, whispered over her skin, and ploughed into Heron. Curlew’s own power had risen to such a fevered brightness he could hear it, like the music of wind in leaves.

  Heron jerked beneath their hands. Lark exclaimed and Diera sobbed. Heron’s lips parted and emitted a strangled gurgle, along with a trickle of blood.

  Hold him, he told Anwyn in his mind. Staunch the blood in him. Imagine him well-knitted, inside.

  She nodded. Her face had now taken on the sickly shade of tallow and he hoped she would not swoon. Surely not, while yet this power possessed her. But he extended his own strength around her like a shield and saw her straighten and lift her head.

  Heron opened his eyes. They glowed liquid gold, two pools of pure spirit. He gasped for breath, and air filled his chest, one painful gasp after another.

  Curlew fought to control the vast magic that linked them and felt it begin to come into line. It took him a moment to realize that was because Heron, awake and aware, now participated. And Heron’s affinity with spirit was masterfully strong.

  Relief flooded him much as the power had. The unwieldy intensity of the magic steadied and subsided to a rhythmic throb.

  Lark, who knelt still, on her knees at Heron’s head, swore. Anwyn removed her gaze from Curlew’s for the first time and looked at Heron.

  He breathed steadily now, the light in his eyes half-veiled by his long, dark-gold lashes. Color had returned to his face and, blinking, Curlew saw that between his hands and Anwyn’s, the flow of light had burned most of the blood away. Beneath it the terrible wound had closed into an angry, red line.

  Reaction hit Curlew then, a staggering blow, for he saw that had the stroke been a hair higher, it might well have decapitated his cousin.

  They had nearly lost him. The triad had, Sherwood had, and he, Curlew, had.

  Now the sound of Heron’s breathing seemed to fill the hut. Diera began to weep. She reached out and touched Heron with careful hands. Curlew knew how she felt—his own emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

  Anwyn, it is enough. Again, unsteadily, he spoke to her in his mind. Again, she seemed to hear. Her eyes flew once more to his, and she jerked her palms away. Curlew followed suit, and the light began to subside gently, small tendrils of it still flowing down their hands and rippling across Heron’s skin.

  Heron smiled. The folk watching from the doorway began to whisper, and Lark’s hands came out to cradle her son’s head.

  Anwyn sat like one stunned, and stared at her own hands as if they belonged to a stranger.

  Easy, Curlew told her. It is well.

  She nodded and swallowed. Aye, he knew how she felt, punched by such power—both exhilarated and exhausted. And what of the implications? He could barely begin to comprehend them.

  Heron’s left hand reached up and seized Curlew’s. His right captured Anwyn’s, and for one blinding moment the circle glowed again, almost visible in the room—forged and nevermore to be broken.

  ****

  “You cannot send her away now. Surely, Ma, you must see that.”

  Heron spoke hoarsely, his voice roughened and no longer melodic. Well and lovingly bandaged by Diera, he sat in company with Lark and Curlew, weakened but very much alive.

  In the corner of the hut, Anwyn slept. She had barely spoken since helping Curlew haul Heron back from the edge of death. Shattered. Curlew knew her to be. Even though she slept, he could still feel the connection between them, could almost sense her emotions and the dreams that flickered through her mind.

  Lark wore her stubborn face. She sat rigid, with a mug of ale in her hand, and stark worry in her eyes. Both she and Diera had bid Heron rest, but they might as well try to tie him down. For Curlew could feel his emotions too—a bright mix of wonder and pure gladness.

  “And what of your father?” Lark asked predictably. For most of her life, she had loved Falcon Scarlet with a totality that bordered on the worshipful. They were bound not only by marriage but by ties similar to what Curlew had just felt forge into being. He could not imagine losing Anwyn now, no more than Heron.

  So this was what it meant to be a guardian of Sherwood, possessed and possessing. This was the terrible wonder that would rule his life.

  “We must get him back,” Heron soothed her, “and we will. So I do promise you.”

  “There is but one coin will purchase his freedom,” Lark spat. “She must g
o back.”

  Curlew’s heart protested wildly, but he spoke low, so as not to disturb Anwyn’s sleep. “You saw—and felt—what just happened.”

  Emotion flickered in Lark’s eyes. An honest woman, she could not deny the truth; neither would she pretend to like it. “She is not worthy,” she declared. “An outsider.”

  “No longer,” Heron spoke in his new rasp. “She could not belong more surely to us.”

  “She is a bridge,” Curlew said. His father always told him how Sherwood had chosen him, Gareth, to be just such a bridge between Saxon and Norman, rendering both English. Possibly, Sherwood had made another such choice.

  “A lot of blood has flowed into this soil,” Heron said. “Perhaps Sherwood no longer minds from whence it originates. ’Tis all about spirit.”

  And aye, Curlew thought, what a spirit dwelt within the woman now linked with them! He sensed so much about her—restlessness, longing, defiance, burgeoning strength, fragility, and a stark terror that lurked beneath it all. What did she fear so terribly?

  And for which of them was she meant, himself or Heron? Him, surely—it had been to him Sherwood led her, and with him she had coupled in the forest. He burned anew, just thinking of it. But this potent circle might change everything. Heron had such a deep link with the forest and, object of any woman’s desire, must be the obvious choice.

  All he, Curlew, could do was shoot an arrow very well. Why should Anwyn choose him? And, aye, he would now have to let her choose.

  She shifted slightly in her sleep as if she felt his thoughts tease at her. Softly, so as not to spoil her rest, he turned his attention away.

  “I wish Linnet were here.” The words startled Curlew to the heart. His Aunt Lark rarely displayed vulnerability, but how lost she must feel now, with two thirds of her circle torn away.

  Gently, he asked, “Can you still sense my mother in your mind?”

  Lark’s gaze flicked toward him. She shook her head. “Yet Sherwood holds her—it is my one comfort. I can sense Falcon, and speak with him in my mind—aye, that I can. He bids me be strong. He tells me there is no one who has more courage than I.” Sudden tears filled her eyes. “But I am lost entirely, without him.”

  “You are not without him, Ma, nor will you ever be.” Heron clasped her hand. “Sherwood assures that for all of us. We are the fortunate.”

  “We are the burdened!” Lark cried. “I pity the both of you.” She glanced into the corner. “I even pity her. Such gifts Sherwood gives. And such pain, also.”

  A sudden memory sprang to life once more in Curlew’s mind—Marian, her auburn hair streaming down, tears falling from her eyes, unbearable grief and terror filling her.

  “Have faith, Ma,” Heron bade. “Let your belief be as strong as your courage. All things always come back to us again.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “I must leave at once and go into the forest. We have but three days in which to rescue Falcon.”

  Anwyn watched little puffs of vapor appear from Curlew Champion’s lips. The morning was deadly chill, brisk and alive with color. She tried to understand why it felt as if Curlew’s words echoed inside her, and gave it up. She comprehended little enough of what had happened to her since she came to Sherwood.

  Only that Lark Scarlet wanted her sent back to Nottingham in exchange for Falcon. That somehow she and Curlew had commanded a staggering, great magic and saved Heron’s life. And that she could not bear to be parted from Curlew ever again.

  She ached to lie with him—oh, aye—but it was not just that. She ached also for his presence, could sense it when he did or did not remain near. In a curious way she seemed able to feel his moods as well, almost as if they touched upon her awareness.

  The two of them stood now just outside Diera’s hut. Not far away soared the great tree for which Oakham was named, its dying leaves stained the color of the light on Curlew’s hair.

  She said the only thing she could: “Let me come with you.”

  He studied her for an instant and she thought he must agree, but he shook his head. “Better not. I can move more swiftly alone.”

  “Master Champion—”

  “You had better call me ‘Curlew’ now, given what happened yesterday.”

  “What did happen yesterday?”

  Again he seemed to hesitate. The brightness in his eyes devoured her face, and she wondered what he saw. She had never been beautiful; now perished by the cold and worn by her emotions, she felt fragile beyond belief.

  But his expression softened, and his emotions fluttered in her mind before he said, “It seems Sherwood led you to us for a reason, a precious one.”

  Her heart protested it: Sherwood had not led her to them, so much as to him, through the sightless dark. Had he forgotten? She could never forget—each separate memory still had the power to possess her.

  “Curlew, please do not leave me. Heron’s mother does not want me here.”

  “She is grateful to you for saving Heron, and she knows you belong.”

  She belonged with him. But that explained nothing. She reached out and seized his arm. “But just how did I help you save Heron? What was that light?”

  Something grave and wonderful looked at her out of his eyes. “You, dear girl, are the one Heron and I have sought so long, the third of our number.”

  She almost fell down. “I?”

  A rueful smile curled his mouth. “Indeed, and I nearly failed to accept it, fought the very idea just like my aunt. But no one can deny what occurred when we called Heron back from death. You must have felt the bonds form and how strongly they now join the three of us.”

  “I do not know what I felt,” Anwyn confessed. Amazement and terror moved within her, and a thousand doubts. From the very beginning Curlew had impressed upon her that an inescapable duty lay before him. She was not a woman suited to duty. Indeed, she had spent most her life fleeing the chains of responsibility. But this duty, these ties, would bind her to Curlew. And she would give her present, her future, her very life to be tied to him.

  The uncertainty within her steadied as she gazed into his eyes. “Are you saying we belong together? You, me, and Heron? Forever?”

  “Forever.” He repeated it like a vow.

  She sucked in a breath. Dazzling, momentous miracle! She slid her fingers down his sleeve, which still she gripped, to his hand. She wanted him to feel what she felt, wanted him to know what lay in her heart. For her whole life had led her to this.

  “Well, then,” she said softly, her fingers curling into the warmth of his, “you can hardly leave me here, can you? Not if we are meant, always, to be together.”

  ****

  “Why do you go to see your parents?” Anwyn spoke in a hush inspired by the morning forest. Like something beautiful dying, it was—all the trees sentinel and silent, clad in their brown and yellow robes of mourning. The thought prompted another: perhaps he went to see whether his mother yet lived. Should she have asked?

  But he said calmly, “I need to tell my father—and my mother, if she can understand—what has come to pass.”

  “Explain it to me, first. What has come to pass? What is this triad, exactly?”

  He slanted a look at her. They walked side by side when possible through the trackless forest, heading ever deeper into the trees. Anwyn could not guess how he knew where he was going, unless he might be led even as she had been the night she came to him, by inner knowing.

  “It is a long and complicated tale.”

  “This guardianship of which you speak—it is some magical force that protects Sherwood?”

  His eyebrows twitched. Had he forgotten she hailed from the Welsh borders? Among her mother’s people magic was accepted, an everyday reality. And she could not deny magic existed here, among these trees.

  “You have heard of Robin Hood.”

  She smiled. “Who has not? He is like King Arthur, whom the Welsh claim as their own. A glorious hero who will never die.”

  “Yet he d
id die, pierced by nearly half a score of arrows. Those he left behind, who loved him so well, banded together to keep his legend alive. Three of them did so by taking up the circle of magic Robin had once held along with his wife, Marian, and the god of Sherwood, and keeping it balanced among them. So did they become guardians of Sherwood. When they died, the guardianship passed to three others: Robin’s daughter and the sons of Will Scarlet and John Little. That daughter, Wren, was my grandmother.”

  “You are descended from him, then—from Robin Hood.”

  “Aye. My aunt, uncle, and mother took up the guardianship in their turn, but with my mother so sorely stricken—well, it becomes our duty and privilege.”

  “Yours, and Heron’s.”

  He drew a breath and she felt his emotions stir. “And yours,” he said softly. “All our lives, Heron and I have known ourselves destined for this. And long did we search for the third of our number. We knew only she would be female.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Always there are three, all connected—two bound in marriage with each other, the third with Sherwood itself.”

  Anwyn’s mind struggled with it. “But you say your mother is a guardian? Lark and Scarlet are husband and wife, but your mother is also wed.”

  “My father is not part of the circle, even though Sherwood chose him as mate for my mother, just as Sherwood seems to have chosen you—either for me or Heron.”

  He spoke the last words carefully, yet Anwyn’s heart leaped when she heard them. Him, let it be him! She admired Heron, aye, and what woman would not consider him beautiful? She could sense his kindness, his warmth, and great wisdom.

  But to think she would ever lie with anyone but this man surpassed imagining. He answered every call she had ever heard, and stilled her fathomless longing.

  Again he glanced at her. This time his eyes remained fixed on hers. “That is what my aunt struggles to reconcile. It is a great honor and a great burden. Sherwood bred, she cannot understand why it did not fall to one of our own.”