by Tim Hall
Is he leaving again, already? Was he only passing through, after all?
The main gates opened with a clanking of wood and a rattling of chains and the Chief Porter waved a litter out and away. A second litter followed, a little quicker, its wheels bouncing across the cobbles.
Yes, he’s leaving! They all are. But why now, straight into the teeth of the storm …?
And stranger still: It wasn’t only the lord’s traveling staff who were on the move. Here was Mistress Bawg, her great bulk shaking as she clambered onto a waiting carriage. And there, crossing the Great Ward: Igiotte Hutte, the Seneschal. Where were they all going?
Then Robin saw the strangest sight of all. Gerad Blunt was moving between the kitchens and the servants’ quarters. He was rolling a barrel and he kept tipping it so a black liquid pulsed out. It was bubbling hot, like pitch. The Castellan went to fetch a second barrel and continued dribbling the stuff onto the timber struts of buildings. As he worked he kept shaking his head.
Elsewhere there were sudden movements, and sounds of alarm, and from somewhere close a thump and perhaps a cry of pain. Thunder stirred through it all, masking the details. Robin listened hard. He stared into the storm-dark dawn, not yet ready to believe his own eyes …
Marian’s father came into view, unsteady on his feet. He was naked to the waist, and he held a flagon, spilling wine. In the other hand he was waving a flaming torch. He came swaying toward Gerad Blunt.
He can’t be, thought Robin. His own home …
The Castellan spread his black trail; Lord Delbosque staggered to meet him …
A flare of lightning, freezing the scene.
Robin strapped his father’s bow across his back. He hurried through the trapdoor.
“Marian, you need to see this. Something is happening out there. Your father, it looks like he’s—”
But Marian wasn’t there.
“Marian!”
He raced down the spiral staircase, shouting for her as he went. He saw something protruding into their tower, poking through the buttress. A ladder. He scrambled down it to the ground. He found Marian’s knapsack, lying open, spilling its contents.
“Marian!”
Robin running, through the abandoned lanes, into the main manor. Into a great rush of bodies and noise and panic. Already wafts of black smoke and the smell of burning pitch spreading through the manor. Servants and maids running for the main gates, being barged out of the way by men on horseback.
Robin racing toward the main house, plunging deeper into the chaos, people and animals rushing past on every side. Two bandogs, free from their chains, snapping at each other and at people as they raced to escape the flames. A clattering of wings from the dovecot—the birds spiraling into the storm. A child crying in her mother’s arms.
Robin weaving through it all, shouting for Marian, coughing and disoriented, colliding with someone rushing from a side door, stumbling, staggering onward.
Thunder tearing the sky, the vibration of it in the earth. A wall of rain sweeping in, hissing against the flames. Lightning flared, and through the glare and the thickening smoke—there—Marian’s father. The earl staggering aboard his carriage.
And then the briefest glimpse of a smaller, dark-haired figure … kicking and twisting … being dragged into the vehicle by two heavyset men …
“Marian!”
Robin ran for the carriage. Something hit him hard from behind and he went to the ground. Boots thumping by on both sides. He struggled to his feet, scrapped his way past two men carrying a strongbox between them. He ran, gasping for breath, across the Great Ward, past the manor house.
“Marian!”
Running and fighting and scrapping, blind now in the smoke. Groping and kicking and coughing, and finding himself at the main gates. Stumbling out.
There, at the foot of the walls, he slumped to his knees. Because below him, rattling down Lord’s Hill, still gaining speed, was Lord Delbosque’s coach, fading in and out of view through the columns of rain.
Around Robin the last of the servants were emerging, coughing, shouting names, gripping their few belongings. Flames were soaring above the curtain walls, reddening the storm. A yawning splintering sound, followed by a resounding crash, sparks rushing into the sky.
Robin was oblivious to it all. He stayed there on his knees, rainwater running down his neck, the inferno raging at his back, watching the carriage dwindle, thinking of Marian inside, and knowing for the second time in his life that he was now truly and utterly alone.
Robin stood, at dawn, amid the remains of the Delbosque manor. Here and there ash still blew, eddying around his feet.
He pulled his cloak close as he picked his way between crumpled stone and blackened timber. His eyes followed the faint tracks of a fox. He knelt to examine the hardened footprints of crows. The scavengers had come no doubt to look for corpses amid the ashes. Was that why Robin had resisted coming here himself, in the weeks since the fire, in case he found signs that Marian had not been stolen away, after all, but had died that day in the flames? He dared to look closely now and he found only a dog’s skull and tiny bird bones, nothing girl-sized.
He went to where their tower had stood. It was toppled, its timbers poking through masonry like splintered bones. With his foot he turned over an object left strangely intact. It was one of Marian’s mother’s books, its cover charred but its pages still gleaming with pictures of monsters and gods.
He closed his fingers around the amulet at his chest. He squeezed tighter, felt the jade cutting into his palm, and he kept squeezing. Why had he been left behind, twice over? Why had Marian’s father done this, and where had he taken her?
He looked up the valley. He knew where he could go to vent his anger. He went to the edge of the manor, where he had left the willow bough, hung with the hare he had shot in the warrens. He hoisted the yoke and settled it across his shoulders, then followed Packman’s Furrow, climbing toward the village.
* * *
“You’re not welcome here, turn around.”
“Crawl back to your den.”
They had appeared from behind the threshing barn and now stood above Robin on Marsh Ridge. It was Alwin Topcroft and Lagot Reeve who had spoken, but as usual it was Narris Felstone who stood as their leader. All three carried short heavy sticks.
Only three of you, Robin thought. Three is barely even a fair fight.
They looked thin and sallow, these older boys. In recent years scorching summers had been followed by autumn floods: Time and again the villagers’ crops had failed. Robin, in contrast, had grown tall and broad, his big hunting cloak no longer slumping from his shoulders.
“And you can leave that,” Narris said, pointing his stick at the hare. “We set snares. Our bait had gone but there was nothing there. Now here you are with our catch.”
Robin continued across Mill Bridge to the bank of the pond. He laid the hare on the ground. “Here it is,” he said. “Come and take it.”
Narris ran his tongue across his lips. He was gripping his stick so hard his knuckles had turned white. Lagot and Alwin were stepping back.
“Let him go, Narris,” Lagot said.
“We don’t want his food,” Alwin said. “We don’t want anything he’s touched.”
Narris scratched at his face with the stump of his left arm. “It’s not that easy. He’s a thief. Thieves have to pay. No matter what.” He raised his gaze, looking to the far side of the pond. Robin saw him nod.
So, there are more than three of you, after all.
He turned just in time to see Swet Woolward and Harmon Byeford rushing him from behind, thumping across Mill Bridge. And then they were coming at him from both sides, Narris yelling and leading the charge down Marsh Ridge and even Alwin and Lagot shouting and swinging their sticks now that they could see it was one against five.
Robin lashed out at his nearest assailant and he felt his fist connect with bone and in the next instant his world had shrunk to kicks and blows
and the taste of blood and the feeling of hard earth and finally a cold deep churning and gasping for breath as his world turned over and swirled red and black.
* * *
At least three of the others had ended up in Mill Pond with him. By the time Robin pulled himself to the bank they were helping each other out of the reeds and were dragging themselves up through the village. Narris was limping, and it sounded like Alwin Topcroft was sobbing.
Robin was bleeding freely from a cut on his forehead; one hand was numb but the fingers still flexed. Barely a scratch. They weren’t even trying.
But then he noticed something: his father’s shortbow was no longer strapped to his back. He looked for it and saw they must have taken that too, along with the hare.
Now Robin’s rage was rising.
He stalked up into Wodenhurst, looking for Narris, looking for his bow.
As he moved through the lanes, beneath the boughs of the Trystel Tree, he was met by silence, and by faces at windows, and children who came out to look before being dragged back inside. And finally, at the top of the village, he was met by a circle of armed men and women.
Pagan Topcroft was there, as nervous and ratlike as his son, gripping a mattock; and big Nute Highfielde, dumb as an ox, holding a threshing flail; and mean Agnes Poley, with her wildfowl net. There were eight or nine of them, and dizzy as Robin was he didn’t put up much of a fight before they had him in the net and were dragging him through the dirt.
“He could have crippled my son,” Pagan Topcroft was saying.
“I saw the whole thing,” Agnes Poley said. “He attacked them with a stick.”
“He tried to steal their meat,” another voice said. “Food that could feed the whole village and he wanted it for himself!”
“Put him in here, where an animal belongs.”
“Where’s my bow?” Robin shouted, thrashing within the net. “Give it back!”
They thrust him into an empty cowshed, slammed the door and bolted it and left him there in the dark, dripping wet and bleeding and cold.
* * *
Hours later, a voice at the door of the cowshed.
“Robin, it’s me. And Mabel. Just us. We’re coming in.”
The door opened. Warin and Mabel Felstone moved inside.
“I’ve brought you some of Narris’s clothes,” Mabel said. “They’ll be a bit small for you now, but you should get out of those wet things.”
Robin was shivering, but he didn’t reach for the clothes. He remained sitting against one wall, his hood raised. Warin came close and laid Robin’s shortbow on the ground.
“He shouldn’t have taken it,” Warin said. “I don’t know who threw the first stone, and I don’t care. I just need this stupid war to stop. Here, I brought you this too. I’ve been using it in the coppice. But I’ve been thinking, your father would have wanted you to have it.” He gave Robin a bone-handled knife in a buckskin sheath. It was his father’s old woodsman’s blade, serrated on one edge, slicing steel on the other.
“Why now?” Robin said, lowering his hood. “Why are you giving me this now?”
Warin removed his skullcap and gripped it in both hands. He and Mabel glanced at each other.
“We’ve … I’ve come to a decision,” Warin said. “You can’t come here, to Wodenhurst, anymore. And Summerswood isn’t far enough. Every time you fight with those boys it gets worse. The ferocity, when you get like that, it’s frightening. It will end with one of you being killed. Unless I end it now.”
“Warin is right,” Mabel said, shuffling her feet in the straw. “I wish there was another way, but you’re not a child anymore. There are scores of people in the city, of every sort, I’ve been there myself. You could find a place in the city, and build a life. You could—”
“I am leaving,” Robin said. “But not because you want me to. I’m leaving because I hate this place and everyone here. I’m going and you’ll never see me again.”
Warin exhaled heavily.
“Well … that’s … good,” he said. “It’s … for the best.”
He looked at Mabel. She shuffled her feet, didn’t meet his gaze.
“Well then, I suppose it’s now or never,” Warin said. “We’ve put this off too long. Robin, there’s … something we need to tell you. Before you leave. The people here, they … we … haven’t always told you the full truth. Out there, wherever you go, you will meet more fear, and more anger, of that I have no doubt. Wherever the road takes you, I want you to know—”
He was interrupted by sudden noises from somewhere down in the village. The barking of a dog, the jabbering of guard geese. The sounds grew louder. Children were running to look before being called away.
Warin left the cowshed. Robin followed, blinking into the sunlight.
As his eyes began to adjust he saw armed riders. A dozen square-shouldered men, swords and axes slung behind their saddles. The man in the lead was the most enormous person Robin had ever seen. He wore a bearskin that was as matted as his black-gray bush of a beard. The pommel of a broadsword protruded from a baldric at his back. His fingers were thick with rings. Warlord, Robin immediately thought of him, he looked so much like a Viking raider from one of Marian’s books.
“You should leave,” Warin said, turning to Robin. “Now is the time. Whatever this is, it’s our burden. You’ve no part in it.”
Robin kept watching. Stephen Younger was bustling his family back inside. Pagan Topcroft was calling for his daughter. Everywhere doors were closing and there were shuffling feet and whispers.
Most of the warriors had stopped near the mill, but the warlord and three of his thegns were continuing up Herne Hill, the hooves of their destriers slipping in the soft soil.
“Robin, go,” Warin said, sounding angry now. “This is for your own good, as well as for ours. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? If you ever come here again, I cannot be responsible.”
Still Robin didn’t move. He watched the warlord say something to Robert Wyser, and he saw Robert point an unsteady finger toward Warin Felstone, headman of the village. The riders continued up through the lanes, the breath of men and horses heavy in the sunlight. The warlord grew and grew until he was towering over Warin.
Warin went to one knee, twisting his cap. “My lord, we—”
The warlord lifted one hand; Warin fell quiet.
And it was then that Robin understood: The warlord had not come to stand over Warin Felstone.
He had come to look down upon Robin.
And when he spoke it was to say Robin’s name.
“Robin Loxley. I am Sir Bors. I have been searching for you for some time. I have come to offer you shelter, and guidance. You needn’t ask why. There will be a time for questions, and answers. For now it is enough you should understand this: You are being offered an extraordinary gift. Have the sense to accept it with good grace.”
Sir Bors. Robin’s mind was racing. He had heard that name before … Lord Delbosque and the Chamberlain had spoken that name, the night before the fire. What part did this man play in all that had happened?
“You will come to my house, to live as my ward,” Sir Bors continued. “You will be taught many skills and be shown the path to a useful and rewarding life. You are unlikely to see this valley or these people again. Say your good-byes. Gather any belongings you might have. We have some distance to travel before nightfall. It’s time to leave.”
Robin’s instincts were telling him to run. He knew this valley; these men on their lumbering mounts would never catch him. He could hide until this daunting man went away.
But then he looked around him at the villagers—these people who had treated him with fear and anger and suspicion ever since his parents disappeared, for reasons Robin barely began to understand. Then he looked up at Winter Forest, the wind whispering dark secrets at its edge.
Not yet. Too soon. He must suffer the wounds.
Suddenly he wanted desperately to be away from this place. Wherever this man Si
r Bors took him, anywhere would be better than here. And so, when one of the thegns reached down a huge hand, Robin found himself lifting an arm to meet it, and the man was hoisting him onto the rear of his horse. And before Robin had time to question his decision, or even think too closely about why any of this was happening, the horse was turning and he was being carried down through the village and across Mill Bridge.
He didn’t look back, but he felt the villagers watching him. With every beat of the hooves he was leaving them and Winter Forest farther behind, and with that idea came great relief. But there was also sorrow. Because he was heading into the unknown, the way he and Marian had always dreamed. But he was doing it alone. Without her. And it was this idea, as Robin was carried away from his childhood home, that pricked hotly behind his eyes and made him fight hard to keep the tears from his cheeks.
Three Years Later
Robin’s world turns over, black and green.
It spins again, more violently. A rushing roaring in his ears.
Something—someone—thuds into his chest and the last of his breath bursts from his lungs, the bubbles rushing for the surface. He kicks after them—this is his final chance, if he doesn’t reach the air now, he’ll drown—he comes up against a crush of bodies, thrashing limbs, and he is pushed even farther down, and he is gripped by panic.
I’m going to die. Right here in this moat.
He kicks and scraps and thrashes. His foot connects with something solid and he thrusts himself upward. His head breaks the surface—he can hear shouting and coughing.
Gasping for air, swallowing water, choking, he grabs at the bridging ladder. He gets a handhold. But then looming above him is an indistinct figure, ghostlike through sunlight and water. Something all too solid in the man’s hands—a quarterstaff—cracking down on Robin’s fingers, jabbing at his head, thrusting him away from the ladder.
Down again, and down farther. The world turning.