Shadow of the Wolf

by Tim Hall

  Robin wasn’t listening. He was scanning the spectator scaffold, looking for Marian. But the platform where she had stood was now empty and there was no sign of her anywhere else. She and the household knights had disappeared.

  “What are you doing here? You know this is out of bounds to squires.”

  James Wringfield, a household knight, was standing sentry at the foot of the guard tower. As he spoke he puffed out his chest bearing the emblem of the golden arrow.

  “We’re taking food to the prisoner,” Robin said, raising the packet he was holding. “Marian Delbosque.”

  “You’re doing what?” Wringfield said. “Where’s the usual … Ah, I see, you’ve heard about our captive and you’d like a look for yourselves. She’s an eyeful, it’s true. You’re not the first I’ve turned away.”

  “What’s it all about?” Bones said. “All those lectures the Old Boar gives about honor. And now he’s taking young ladies hostage?”

  James Wringfield shrugged. “He doesn’t tell us anything. He’s been acting odd of late. All I know is, no one goes in this tower, no one comes out, until I’m instructed otherwise.”

  “Listen, Wringfield,” Bones said. “You and I used to fight in the same company. Until you defected.”

  The knight looked at the ground. “An offer I couldn’t refuse. You would have done the same.”

  “My point being, we were friends,” Bones said. “I like to think we still are. I want you to do my other friend here a favor. He says he knows this young woman, and only wants a word.”

  “If the Old Boar caught you, we’d all be in the mire.”

  “He’s in the Great Hall, entertaining his guests,” Bones said. “You can hear him from here. Nobody will know. It won’t take long, and then we’ll disappear—right, Loxley?”

  Robin nodded. James Wringfield tapped his foot, looked around him. “As a matter of fact,” he said. “Maybe there’s something you can do for me. You know Leira Coot, don’t you? Well, I’ve been wondering …”

  “Yes, yes,” Bones said. “Maiden Coot is a very good friend of mine. I can certainly help you out there. Let us discuss it while Loxley wastes no more time …”

  He was pushing Robin into the guard tower. James Wringfield reached back and barred the way.

  “If I whistle, come running fast,” the knight said. “And if she asks anything of you, don’t listen. She could talk a river into running uphill. She persuaded Jonah and Richardson to take her to watch the squire’s tourney, would you believe, and afterward there was hell to pay. So when she opens those big eyes and whispers her words, block your ears, got it?”

  He moved his arm and Robin continued into the guard tower. The daylight was fading. He took a flaming pitch torch from the wall to light his way. He climbed the stone steps, feeling light-headed. He continued up and the dizziness grew worse; he told himself it was the blow to the head he had suffered, but he knew it wasn’t.

  On the first floor were two chambers. Robin peered into each and found them empty. They were comfortable places, luxurious even, full of carpets and tapestries. Only the heavy locks on the doors marked them as jails.

  On the second floor were two more chambers. From inside one candlelight flickered. He hesitated, battling a bizarre urge to turn and go back down the steps. Three years had passed. Thinking back, Robin barely recognized that boy who had lived with Marian in the tower. What would she think of him, now? And how about her—would she be the same person he remembered? He pushed these thoughts away. Here was Marian. He had no reason to be nervous. He had dreamed of this over and over, their reunion.

  He moved slowly to the oak door. At head height was an open guard hatch, crossed with iron bars. He put his face to this hatch and looked through.

  And there she was, kneeling, her back to him, her hair and her gown pooled on the floor. He didn’t make a noise, but Marian sat up straight. She put down an object she was holding. She stood and turned and came to the door. Their eyes met.

  Neither of them spoke. They just stood there, staring.

  Eventually Marian put two fingers to her lips and reached up and her hand came through the bars and her fingers came to rest on Robin’s forehead.

  “Found you,” she said softly.

  She pulled her hand inside and they went back to just staring. Long moments passed before she spoke again. “Don’t you have anything to say? Aren’t you going to say you’re happy to see me? How you missed me, at least, after all this time. I always did most of the talking, didn’t I, you were always the quiet one. But now you’re not saying a word. All you’re doing is staring. Don’t you talk at all anymore?”

  Robin was trying to speak but thinking too hard about which would be the right words, and all the things he had planned to say had been building up beneath his tongue, so he ended up saying nothing at all. From within her clothing Marian pulled her half-arrowhead amulet. She pushed it to her lips and went on looking at him.

  Eventually he managed to force words across his tongue. “Where …?” he said. “Why are you …? What are you doing here?”

  She tipped her head sideways. “I came to find you, of course, what else? I’m here to rescue you.”

  All the tension broke then and Robin laughed. “Rescue me? From what? And how, exactly? You’re … in there. Under lock and key.”

  Marian huffed. “I’ve got out of tighter cages than this. I’ve put up with this one so long as it served a purpose, but now you’re here, we can begin. Robin Loxley, it’s you, it’s really you, here you are in front of me, and I’ve got a thousand things I want to say and I can see you feel the same but all that will have to wait because we need to be quick. We can say it all on the way.”

  “On the way?”

  “We’re leaving. Tonight. I’m not safe here, and neither are you, no matter what he says. The Tree of Shields, near the display ground, I’ll meet you there. Midnight. I want you to bring—”

  “Wait, hold on, you’re not making any sense.”

  “Robin, are you being deliberately stupid, or did that sword knock out the last of your brains? We. Are. Leaving. The two of us. Tonight. We’ll have to go back there, first, we have no choice, but then we’ll be on our way to the coast and—”

  “Back …?” Robin said.

  “Yes, you know where. It can’t be helped. I need more answers. I need to find out … Listen … What’s that noise?”

  A whistling from the foot of the tower.

  “I have to go,” Robin said. “I’ll be back, just as soon as I can.”

  “What? No! Don’t come back here. I said, meet me—”

  “Marian, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. But you have to know I … I can’t go anywhere. We’re not allowed farther than …”

  He trailed off. Marian had moved away from the door but now she came storming back, her expression dark. The shadows from the bars striped her face. Her eyes narrowed to gray-green slits.

  “What did you say?”

  “I … I can’t leave the citadel,” Robin said. “Not yet. Not until—”

  Marian made a growling noise. “No, no, no! I found you, after all this time, and I came all that way and if you knew what I had to go through, and I’ve made plans and it’s all arranged but we can’t wait, we have to go tonight and you made a promise and now you’re saying you can’t go even though what you mean is you won’t go, how can you be so …!”

  She growled again as she moved away to kneel once more on the carpet. Robin saw now what she had been holding: It was a mortar, full of small red things, perhaps berries. She started crushing them with a pestle. She crumbled something else, like bread, and added that to the mixture.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Helping myself,” she said, the pestle cracking down hard. “The way I’ve always had to help myself because everyone else is too scared, even you, even the one who promised to always fight for me, the one who would stand up to anybody. And now after all this time apart I was stupid enough
to think—”

  The thunder of boots on the stairs.

  “Loxley!” Bones hissed. “Loxley? Come on! Didn’t you hear the whistle? The Old Boar, he’s here! Wringfield is running a distraction, but we have to—”

  He had reached Robin and was tugging at his arm, but as he did so he looked into the prison chamber and Marian looked up and Bones stopped and stared. Marian went back to her work and Robin heard her say: “I can’t wait for you, I can’t. He’s coming and it’s not safe, not even here, especially not here, all of them together. You’ll have to follow, I know you will, you don’t have a choice, our fates are tied, we’ve always known that …”

  And then her words were becoming faint because Bones was hauling Robin away and hissing at him “Come on!” and Robin was calling over his shoulder, “I’ll be back. Soon.” And then he and Bones were running down through the guard tower and slipping away to safety, everything Marian had said twisting in his mind.

  * * *

  He passed a fitful night, turning and kicking. At some point he must have slept because he woke to sudden sounds drifting down the dormitory steps.

  He crept up and lurked in the courtyard, listening. He heard Sir Bors shouting, and the clatter of boots and the thumping of doors and horses being led out of the stables, and Sir Bors shouting even louder, and the east gates cranking open.

  Robin headed toward the Inner Court. He saw Turnstall Smith and Duncan d’Orris, two household knights. They were talking quietly together and laughing.

  “What happened?” Robin said.

  Turnstall Smith glanced over his shoulder. “You heard about the hostage? Well, she’s a hostage no more. She escaped.”

  “The funny part …,” Duncan d’Orris said. “She told Wringfield she was sick. Mixed up some paste and stuck fake pustules on her face. And he bought the whole thing! He took her to the apothecary, and while she was there she slipped away.”

  “The Old Boar is not pleased,” Turnstall said. “Wringfield better get used to the smell of latrines. What’s wrong with you, Loxley? You’ve turned gray.”

  Robin left the knights and he paced back and forth in the drizzling dawn. What should he have done? He should have taken her seriously when she said she would escape. Then what? Gone with her, as she wanted? Told Sir Bors what she was planning? Pleaded with her to stay?

  You had a chance, he told himself. Now she’s lost to you, and you may never see her again.

  Something occurred to him and he went to the Inner Court. This time there was no sentry at the guard tower. He went in and climbed to the second floor. The door to Marian’s jail stood open. He went inside. Her absence hung heavy in the air and the idea that she had been here so briefly and was gone was torment. He searched the chamber and when his eyes adjusted to the low light he saw something gleaming in a corner. He knelt and peered closely. Here were words, scrawled in berry juice. He traced the shapes with his finger and eventually he managed to read: Follow the Path of Angels.

  Marian had left this for him to see. She had given him another chance.

  Below her message were more scribbles, but these words had run into one another and were impossible to read. So then, that was all there was: Follow the Path of Angels.

  It was a cypher. And for now Robin had no idea what this meant. But he remembered what Marian had said—we’ll have to go back there—and he knew where she was headed.

  And he knew he was supposed to follow. Back to the dark places of his past.

  It was another sunny day and almost everyone was outside, watching knights practice and spectators arrive. The babble of excitement reached Robin only faintly as he made his way along the deserted hallways.

  He found Sir Bors in the Chancery. It was stuffy in this wood-paneled room, hung with tapestries, and the overlord looked uncomfortable in his robes of office, wedged behind an oakwood desk. The Cofferer and the Chief Clerk fussed around him while a notary chased the end of a pipe roll that snaked across the carpet.

  Robin approached and stood waiting. At last Sir Bors raised his huge head, and just for an instant Robin imagined he saw something flicker in his eyes—something like resignation—as if Sir Bors had been expecting this moment and dreading it. But as quickly as it came the expression passed and when Sir Bors spoke he was as gruff and imperious as ever.

  “Well, boy, what is it? You squires. This estate administers six market towns, twelve hundred oxgang of plowing land, fifty fighting knights, plus twenty-four boys with blunt swords who think the entire place revolves around them. Well, boy? Spit it out.”

  “I need permission to travel—”

  “No. Was that all? Right, get out.” Sir Bors lowered his head and searched across the desk and snatched up two parchments and held them over his shoulder for the Chief Clerk. “This one and this one,” he said. “Closed seal. And make sure they’re copied first.”

  Robin stood there. The overlord raised first his eyes, then his head, very slowly.

  “I need to go home,” Robin said. “My … old home. To Wodenhurst. I hope to be back in a few days. A week at most.”

  The Chief Clerk was gathering up documents and inkwells and moving away from the table. The Cofferer had already edged out of the rear door. But Sir Bors only looked at Robin, studying him with those hard gray eyes.

  “Have I ever been unclear about my rules?” he said. “Have you ever doubted that primary rule, in particular? You will pass the boundary to these lands twice in your life: once an undisciplined boy; the second time a man prepared. All or nothing. There is no other way. We have had boys staying with us when their fathers have died, and do you think they were permitted to attend the grave? I’m asking you a question, boy. Did they visit the grave?”

  Robin shook his head.

  “Right. So. Get out. Now.”

  “I made a promise.”

  This time two huge fists came down and the desk jumped and everything went flying to the floor. “Get out of my sight!”

  Robin left.

  * * *

  Only later did he remember he was also going to ask—to demand—that Sir Bors tell him the full truth of all this. Why had Marian been here? Why had Robin and Bones and the other low-born squires been brought here in the first place? Why would Sir Bors make Robin a ward, alongside lordlings like Joscelin Tarcel?

  You will be told all, the day you step up to the Household Guard. That was what the overlord had told Robin, when he had first arrived. But it wasn’t good enough. Seeing Marian had brought all this to the surface. Robin had spent his entire life being pushed around. Never told the whole truth. Sir Bors was as bad as anyone. Worse. Why should Robin go on blindly doing as he said? Wasn’t it time he took control of his own life?

  * * *

  “Bones, do you ever think about leaving?”

  Bones hooked his gardbrace back on its stand. He glanced over his shoulder at Geoff Pike, the Armorer, to check his back was turned.

  “Leaving?” Bones said. “This place? Of course I don’t. Some days are tougher than others, we all know that. But why would I want to leave?”

  “I’m not talking about wanting,” Robin whispered. “I’m talking about … family. And home.”

  “We don’t have families, except each other. This is our home, until this is over.”

  “You’re just repeating what they tell us. But it’s not true, is it? You must have somewhere. Someone. Waiting.”

  Bones looked at Robin and twisted fingers through his chin-beard. “Don’t tell me, this is about angel eyes, isn’t it? That princess in the tower. She really is something to you then, you’re not just dreaming it? Well, you can forget her. She’s not worth it, not even that one. At the very least she’ll have to wait.”

  Robin took a cuisse plate from his stand, began rubbing nut oil into the joints.

  “I said she’ll have to wait, won’t she? Loxley, look at me. You can’t be thinking … you cannot actually even be starting to think—”

  “Keep your voice do
wn,” Robin whispered, glancing over his shoulder.

  Bones leaned in; his voice became a hiss. “But seriously, listen, look at all this stuff. Look what you’ve won. And think where you came from, and one day it’ll be Sir Robin, greatest knight in the realm. That’s your future. It’s golden. How could you even start to think … how could you possibly ever want—”

  “I told you, I’m not talking about wanting! I should have known you wouldn’t understand.”

  Squires were turning to look at Robin.

  “Quiet, down there,” Geoff Pike said. “Robin Loxley, don’t make me hand out penalty points. The last thing your company needs.”

  Robin filled a bowl with water and lemon juice. He began polishing his hauberk, one chain link at a time, concentrating on that, letting his anger subside.

  “I know you can’t mean it,” Bones whispered. “We all have tough days. A shock to see your childhood girl again, I’m sure. But you need to focus. We’re not out of the running yet. The gauntlet this afternoon, then archery tomorrow. Win both of those and all will be forgiven. And I’ve been talking to Irish about Tarcel. We’ve thought of the perfect revenge, just listen to this …”

  * * *

  That night Robin lay awake in the dormitory, trying to weigh one thing against another. But his every thought returned to her. His skin shivered with the memory of having been close to her once more. His head thumped with the idea of her being out there in the dark, all alone. In the end it didn’t feel like making a decision at all. A path had opened ahead of him, and he could already see his footprints upon the soil.

  Around him all waking sounds were fading. Bones had stopped whispering strategies; Rowly was snoring; Irish silent. Farther off was the muffled click of dice rolling on straw, but soon this too ceased. Robin sat up and reached under his bed for his hunting pack. He put inside some dried meat and oatcakes he had stolen earlier from the dining hall. He packed his father’s woodsman’s knife and some tallow candles and a drawstring pouch containing almost a pound in silver coins. Last of all he reached into his hiding place near the wall and took out his jade amulet. He tied the cord around his neck.