Lord of Sherwood

by Laura Strickland

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “This is my fault, all of it,” Anwyn mourned. “The fires at Oakham, your aunt and uncle’s disappearance—I have brought trouble down on you once more.”

  She stirred in the dark, and a tiny shower of sparks erupted around her, bursting like small, reddish stars. So it had been since the three of them forged their bond to completeness at Heron’s bidding. Curlew’s mind struggled to accept all that had come: too much and far too quickly. Yet the miracle of it began to whisper inside him, even as the presence of the woman in his arms spoke to his heart.

  Rightness and staggering completeness: these things he felt for her and for Heron. It was as if the love he had felt his whole life long for Sherwood had been caught in the circle with them, all simmering power.

  Yet he felt Anwyn’s fear just as clearly, could almost taste it, just as he had felt Heron’s weariness and pain when he and Diera arrived. Anwyn sought her way in this new circle, aye, even as Curlew sought his certainty. Still, he knew she feared she would fail him somehow.

  “Not your fault,” he breathed, and ran his hands through her hair. A new shower of light shed from his skin in turn—deep green this was, like forest shadows.

  “But I am Havers’ true reason for coming to Sherwood. None of it would have happened, were I not here.”

  “Were you not here, we would have no circle and no way to defend Sherwood.”

  He felt the catch in her breath as she contemplated that. They lay naked and twined together with the singing night all around them. He had already loved her once, each movement, each caress summoning memories of what once had been, bright images in his mind: a lively, defiant girl with auburn hair and his aunt Lark’s golden eyes, pledges and loving, a marriage in the greenwood, a smile that delighted his heart, and tears, tears, tears.

  Why should he be brought to recall this now? Heron had said those who returned were not given to remember, because that way did madness lie. Yet Curlew could barely touch her without the past flooding upon him. Pieces of who she had been, and he also.

  It felt like putting on a tunic belonging to someone else, or removing his tunic to find another beneath—that of Robin Hood. Was he worthy of wearing that heavy mantle?

  Could he do otherwise?

  “I do not wish to cause you any sorrow, any pain,” she whispered.

  Aye, and he feared hurting her also. He never wanted to make her weep again. Now the hope and belief of so many rested upon him. Somehow, together, they must find a way to overcome the fear.

  Slowly, he said, “You know, I heard about him all my life—Robin Hood. He seemed like one of those stars up there in the sky that never burn out, bright and impossibly far away. I am but an ordinary man. How do I reconcile that?”

  “Curlew Champion, you are anything but ordinary.”

  “To you, perhaps. From whence did Robin get his strength? His certainty?”

  She moved against him again and wriggled more surely into his arms. “Perhaps he was not as certain as legend has made him. Perhaps he feared and doubted also, but he strode on through the doubt. I believe, my love, your strength comes from those around you—from Heron and your family and the folk you will now lead once again. From Sherwood itself, also, which you carry ever with you.”

  He had always known he would make any sacrifice for Sherwood, just as he had always believed every leaf and twig here belonged to him, in defiance of the King’s laws. Would he give his life over again?

  Aye, without hesitation.

  Would he give the life of this woman in his arms?

  A harder question. He saw, then, the terror she faced. He hoped that this time he would not have to face it in his turn.

  She must be able to feel his emotions rise up, even as he felt her fear and doubt. So it was, to be so surely linked in spirit. And that, too, he would lose if he lost her, far worse than losing an arm or a leg.

  She murmured, her breath brushing across his lips, “Can you forgive me?”

  He cradled her with his hands. “What is to forgive? That you loved too well? Without you, love, none of the rest of it would have followed. Who would have stood up, so fierce, to take the places of Robin and Marian, if not pushed to it by your grief?” My Mari-anwyn, he added silently, tenderly, all his remembering in the word.

  She trembled at the caress of his voice in her mind. “Back then, Curlew, you inspired love and loyalty, you called people to follow you. They follow you yet. Let me be the first to stand up now and vow to follow you bravely and without wavering, whatever may come.”

  He saw it then, the truth of why Sherwood had given them to remember—so they would be prepared to take the places for which they had been shaped in the past and were now reborn.

  “Aye,” he said gravely. “We will wear these cloaks however heavy. But first, Marianwyn, first I will love you and so try to keep the past at bay.”

  ****

  “Set the target farther off. I would try and see can I hit it still.”

  Curlew slanted a look at the woman who stood bathed head to toe in afternoon light, assessed her and almost unconsciously measured the changes. His Marianwyn no longer seemed the wayward lass she had been only three short days ago.

  Indeed, he wondered fleetingly if her father would recognize her now. A new determination and certainty possessed her. She had found what she had sought so long.

  In him.

  Without protest he moved the target, a small scrap of fabric, to a tree farther from where she stood. Since early morning she had worked with Lark’s bow, trying to accustom herself to its weight and length. Now Heron and Diera sat together and watched with interest.

  “You shoot very well,” Diera told her.

  Anwyn notched yet another arrow and sighted the target. “My father taught me, and he is very good, indeed. Plus, my mother’s people were all archers.” She narrowed green eyes and shot; the arrow sang through the air.

  Could she see the faint shimmer of magic that accompanied it? Could Heron? Curlew gave Heron a look of inquiry and saw only amusement in his eyes. “A fine shot, that,” Heron said.

  Anwyn lifted her chin. “Not good enough. I want it to come to me naturally as breathing.”

  “When the time comes—if it comes—so it will,” Heron assured her.

  Anwyn exchanged a look with him, and for the first time Curlew wondered about the connection between them. He, Curlew, had bonded with her, aye, and he had been always bonded with Heron. But he sensed now an alliance between these two.

  “Not good enough,” she said again. “When we go back I must be ready.”

  “As must we all,” Heron returned, and Curlew felt his frustration. Heron did not like being hampered by his wound. His customary serenity had been ruffled by his enforced immobility. Yet Diera sat beside him, a living assurance he would not overstep himself. Curlew wondered, also, about the relationship the two of them shared. Did it approach what his parents had known?

  “You shoot now, Curlew,” Anwyn interrupted his thoughts. “Show me how ’tis done.”

  He took up his bow without conscious thought, notched an arrow and sighted. Since first able to hold the small bow Aunt Lark had fashioned for him, he had done this, almost always without effort.

  He heard Lark’s voice again, in his ear. Aye, lad, you have a keen eye. Not much I need to teach you, is there? The ability just comes to you.

  Aye, the ability had always come to him. But now as he raised the bow and sighted, he felt power come as well, flowing like a river, sparking and leaping the way a fire or a stag would, burgeoning from the very soil of Sherwood to fill and uplift him. Knowing sighted for him and certainty drew the bow. The shot, when it came, arced in a trail of light and clove Anwyn’s last arrow clean.

  “Ah,” Heron breathed.

  And Anwyn sighed, “That is what I want. That is how I need to be able to shoot.”

  ****

  “I would have us say a prayer together before we return to Oakham,” Heron
said gravely. Night had settled over Sherwood like a cloak of stars. The air, cold enough to show their breath, danced all around them where they stood beside a small fire. In the morning they would walk out of the forest to face whatever awaited them.

  Aye, Curlew thought, best to carry Sherwood with them as surely as they could. For he felt a great wind coming—change, hard and fast. Looking into Heron’s eyes now, he saw his cousin felt that as well.

  And Anwyn? Curlew turned his gaze on her and caught his breath. She had, indeed, become a woman of will and intent. Each time he loved her she strengthened in his arms. And he had loved her repeatedly.

  Just thinking on that had his body quickening with longing. Even when he did not touch her, she whispered inside him.

  “Are you willing?” Heron asked.

  Curlew nodded.

  Anwyn lifted her head in that new way she had and said, “I will do whatever is needed, unsparing.”

  Heron wordlessly held out a hand to each of them. Anwyn slid her fingers into Curlew’s and a shower of sparks erupted all round.

  The power rose.

  It grew from the knowing in Heron’s heart and the determination in Curlew’s own; it arose from the element of sacrifice he now felt within Anwyn. All these emotions, he saw, came of love.

  The magic of Sherwood consisted of pure love.

  Love of place, of past, of identity, and one another, of those who were and would be again.

  He knew then, as the power rose to fill him, what it meant to lead, and to battle unstintingly. He understood who would win, in the end.

  Those who gave the most love.

  For those loved could never be lost; they remained eternally here in this place equally loved. The ties of the guardianship itself were forged of emotion. And he, who had never believed he could lead, now knew how he should—with compassion and kindness, with strength that inspired, and with understanding, all woven out of love.

  He could have laughed aloud with it, were he any less awed. For in this instant he saw with new eyes that which had set the very guardianship in motion and lay behind each sacrifice. He saw, again, himself lying in the greenwood, bleeding his life away, and Marian’s beautiful face above him, convulsed with fear.

  Weeping tears of love.

  Gratitude swamped him, because she had come to him again.

  It had all come again.

  When he stood filled with so much light he thought he must burst, when it ran in a current from one to the next of them and came round again, when the green light hummed through their blood, Heron lifted his head.

  “’Tis well,” he said. “Now let us go and claim the future for Sherwood.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “We have taken a prisoner, a right plum one. Now will old Asslicker sit up and take notice!”

  The man who spoke, named Marcus, wore a proud look and carried a hard gleam in his eye. A rough fellow and longtime resident of Oakham, his home had recently been burned to the ground. Now he, along with a band of other village men, met Curlew’s party on their way back from Sherwood and imparted the news even while his companions, fully six in number, muttered dangerously.

  Curlew felt Heron’s flash of alarm, even though his cousin’s expression did not change. Since they had strengthened their circle, he could sense his fellow guardians’ emotions all too easily. Heron burned steadily, but Anwyn balanced like a stone upon a knife’s blade.

  One of Marcus’s fellows, a man called Herald, spoke. “None but Asslicker’s new head forester, it is.”

  Anwyn stiffened. My father. Her voice made but a ripple in Curlew’s mind, yet sounded clear. So this was how it felt to speak without uttering a word.

  He reached out and touched her arm, willing caution. “How did this come to be?” he asked the men.

  Yet another, named Alfred, spoke up. Usually a quiet, steady man, he now had a hard set to his jaw, and a hoe resting on his shoulder. “We decided to fight back, that is all, Curlew. Another village burned last night, torched by that devil, Havers, and his men. Two children died. We will stand for no more of it. When Montfort came looking for his daughter with the Sheriff’s men at his back, we gave them battle instead of obedience.” He jiggled his hoe purposefully.

  “Aye.” Marcus took it up. “We will no longer roll over for those Norman bastards. Are we not Englishmen true born?”

  The longing for justice rang in his voice. Indeed, Curlew thought, and it was an idea his grandmother, Wren, had loosed long ago when she went to Nottingham Castle and demanded of King John the same justice for all his subjects that he granted the elite few. All Englishmen, she had asserted, should claim equal sovereignty. Since that day the notion had never quite gone back into the sack of Norman oppression.

  Nor, he acknowledged, should it. It was time, and past time, those born of this soil claimed ownership of their lives in this blessed land.

  That did not mean bands of angry men, like these, could be allowed to roam far and wide, claiming their own vengeance.

  He stepped forward. “Where is the prisoner now?”

  Marcus replied, still aggressively, “A new camp has formed just north from the ruins of Oakham. He is there.”

  “Injured?” Anwyn asked.

  “Injured, aye, but alive.” Marcus slid a look over Heron. “Is your father going to return?”

  “I do not know. But we—the three of us you see here—have formed a new triad and now hold the magic of Sherwood among us.”

  “Her?” Still another man spoke. “But she is one of them.”

  “As was my father,” Curlew asserted. He knew Anwyn to be of Welsh and Saxon blood, less Norman than he, but knew also what these men meant. To their knowledge, she had come from Nottingham and brought the enemy in her wake. They must somehow be persuaded to acknowledge that spirit mattered far more than mere flesh. “Would you question the loyalty of Gareth Champion?”

  “Peace, Curlew. Gareth was a fine man and a good friend to all of us.” Alfred spoke heavily. “But we deal not with the past. For too long have we lived under the heels of those who call themselves our betters. What right have they to burn our homes, to punish us for feeding our families on the bounty of this place where we were born?”

  “If they strike at us,” Marcus avowed, “we strike back. Six of the Sheriff’s men dead, and a prisoner who will surely make Asslicker heed us.”

  He switched his gaze to Heron. “With your pa gone, are you the new headman?”

  Heron shook his head. “I am no leader, but a holy man. Curlew is headman now.”

  They all turned their gazes to Curlew where he stood, and measured him openly. He met their stares and returned them with the new certainty he had acquired. He would lead, aye, but in a way not seen in four generations.

  “Can you accept me? Will you?” he challenged softly.

  One by one they nodded.

  “There is justice in you, Curlew,” Marcus grunted. His eyes swiveled to Anwyn. “But I still do not understand. How comes she to be one of the chosen three?”

  “She belongs to us, to me, and comes granted my wife by Sherwood itself. Will you question Sherwood’s choice?”

  Before the men could answer, Anwyn came alight in response to those words. Straight and tall she stood with Lark’s bow on her shoulder and looked at the men. “I fight with him, and thus with you, to the death if need be. But that man you hold prisoner is my father.”

  “Best take us to him,” Curlew bade.

  ****

  “Oh, Da,” Anwyn mourned, and nearly choked on her emotion. Battered and beaten, with bruises on his face and a livid cut across the top of his head, Mason Montfort crouched with his hands bound behind him, tied to a tree amidst the confusion of the new encampment. The whole place wore an air of grim defiance and pain. Everyone within sight watched as Anwyn dropped to her knees at her father’s side.

  Despite his obvious discomfort, Mason Montfort lifted his eyes to her face in gladness. “Daughter! You are not harm
ed? How come you here among these outlaws?” Without giving her a chance to reply he looked at Curlew who stood at her back. “You I know—the trickster met in the forest the day we arrived.”

  Curlew made no answer. Anwyn knew he meant to leave this to her, then. She stole a look at him over her shoulder where he stood, firm and sure, with the brown hair hanging on his shoulders like a mane and his eyes bright as two polished shields. Was she the only one who perceived the faint glow of power around him, felt how something inside him had bloomed and steadied? Her spirit rose inside her at what she saw, for she knew him for who he was—the man who ruled her heart, her mind, and thus her destiny. Thank the good god of this place she could trust him with all she was and rely upon his innate kindness.

  She turned back to her father and said, “He is my husband.”

  “Nay.” Distress invaded her Da’s eyes, and he shook his head. How many times had she brought such trouble to him? “You are wife to Roderick Havers. In the eyes of the Church—”

  Slowly and clearly, Anwyn returned, “I am not.” She seized her father’s shoulders. “Da, I care little for the Church; by all that is holy and sacred to me, I am wife to Curlew Champion and belong to him body and spirit.”

  Her father flinched. He directed a scathing look at Curlew, who yet stood silent. “What has he done to you? What, to turn your mind this way? Has he maltreated you, threatened—”

  “No, Da, not he. These bruises you see upon me came from Havers, the man you bade me wed. My mind has been always turned in this direction. Do you not remember my restlessness, my refusal to settle? I longed ever for what I could not name. Rejoice for me, Da, for now I can name it.”

  Her father gazed deep into her eyes and seemed to weigh what he saw there. Refusal warred with acknowledgement in his face.

  “So am I to surrender you to this? Living the life of an outlaw in the greenwood, enemy to all I am?”

  Anwyn told him, “You can never be enemy to me. Da, I know I have tried you sorely and tested any affection you once held for me.” Tears blurred his face before her eyes. “But tell me there is yet some love left between us.”