As soon as Ronia saw the last horse’s rump disappear through the Wolf’s Neck, she followed at a run. She, too, was singing and whistling as she waded in the cold water of the brook. Then she was running, running, until she reached the lake.
And there was Birk, as he had promised. He was stretched out on a flat rock in the sunshine. Ronia did not know if he was asleep or awake, so she picked up a stone and tossed it into the water to see if he heard the splash. He did, and he sprang up and came toward her.
“I’ve been waiting a long time,” he said, and once again she felt that little spurt of joy because she had a brother who waited and wanted her to come.
And here she was now, diving headfirst into spring. It was so magnificent everywhere around her, it filled her, big as she was, and she screeched like a bird, high and shrill.
“I have to scream a spring scream or I’ll burst,” she explained to Birk. “Listen! You can hear spring, can’t you?”
They stood silently, listening to the twittering and rushing and buzzing and singing and murmuring in their woods. There was life in every tree and watercourse and every green thicket; the bright, wild song of spring rang out everywhere.
“I’m standing here feeling the winter run out of me,” said Ronia. “Soon I’ll be so light I can fly.”
Birk gave her a nudge. “Fly then! There are sure to be some wild harpies flying around—you can join their flock.”
Ronia laughed. “Yes, I’ll have to see how I get on.”
But then she heard the horses. Somewhere down by the river they were coming at a full gallop, and she began to hurry.
“Come on! I’d like to catch a wild horse!”
And they ran until they saw them, hundreds of horses charging through the forest until the ground rang under their hooves.
“A bear or wolf must have scared them,” said Birk. “Otherwise why would they be so frightened?”
Ronia shook her head. “They’re not frightened—they’re just running winter out of their bodies. But when they’re tired of that and begin to graze, I’m going to catch one and take it home to Matt’s Fort. I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”
“To Matt’s Fort—what do you want a horse there for? Riding is for the woods. We might as well catch two and ride them right away.”
Ronia thought it over. Then she said, “Even the Borka clan can have brains in their heads, I see. We’ll do it! Come on, let’s try!”
She took off her leather rope. Birk had gotten a similar one for
Ronia, The Robber’s Daughter himself, and with their snares ready they hid behind a boulder at the entrance to the glade where all the wild horses liked to graze.
They did not mind waiting at all.
“I’m enjoying just sitting here in the midst of spring,” Birk said.
Ronia stole a look at him and muttered under her breath, “I like you for that, Birk Borkason!”
For a long time they sat there silently. They heard blackbirds and cuckoos singing and calling till the sound filled the sky. Newborn fox cubs scampered about outside their den a stone’s throw from Ronia and Birk. Squirrels dashed to and fro in the treetops, and they saw hares come skipping over the moss, then disappear in the bushes. A snake which was soon going to have young lay peacefully in the sun quite close to them. They did not disturb her and she did not disturb them. Spring was for everyone.
“You’re right, Birk,” said Ronia. “Why should I take a horse away from the woods where he belongs? But I do want to ride, and now it’s time.”
The glade was suddenly filled with grazing horses, moving calmly about, nibbling at the fresh grass.
Birk pointed to a pair of fine young chestnut horses which were grazing together, a little removed from the herd. “What do you say to those two?”
Ronia nodded. With their ropes ready, they approached the two horses, coming up behind them softly and soundlessly, slowly, nearer and nearer. Then a little twig snapped under Ronia’s foot, and at once the whole herd was alert, ready to flee. But when no danger appeared, no bears or wolves, no lynx or other enemy, they settled down again and began to graze.
The two young horses which Birk and Ronia had chosen settled down too. Now they were within touching distance. Birk and Ronia nodded to each other, the two lassos flew out at once, and the next moment all that could be heard was the wild neighing of two captured horses and the thunder of hooves as the rest of the herd fled through the forest.
They had caught two foals, two wild young stallions which kicked and reared and bit and struggled frantically to free themselves as Birk and Ronia tried to tie each of them to a tree.
They succeeded in tethering them at last, then jumped out of reach of the flying hooves. Ronia and Birk stood panting, watching the horses kick and lunge until they were dripping with foam.
“We were going to ride,” said Ronia. “These two are not going to let us ride them the first time we try.”
Birk had realized that too. “First we’ll have to make them understand that we wish them no harm.”
“I’ve already tried that,” Ronia said, “with a bit of bread. And if I hadn’t pulled my hand away as fast as I did, I’d have gone home with a couple of bitten-off fingers dangling from my belt. That wouldn’t have made Matt particularly happy and cheerful!”
Birk turned pale. “Do you mean that villain snapped at you when you were giving him bread? And really wanted to bite you?”
“Ask him,” Ronia said briefly.
She cast a dejected look at the fierce stallion as he continued to fume and rage. “Villain—that’s a good name,” she said. “I’ll call him that.”
Birk laughed. “Then you’ll have to give mine a name in exchange.”
“Yes, he’s just as crazy, ” said Ronia. “You can call him Savage. “
“Do you hear that, wild horses? ” Birk shouted. “We’ve given you names. You’re Villain and Savage, and you belong to us now, whether you like it or not! “
Villain and Savage did not like it; that was obvious. They continued to tear and bite at the leather thongs, and sweat ran down their sides, but they went on kicking, and their wild whinnying terrified the animals and birds for miles around.
But as the day advanced toward evening, they gradually quieted down. At last the horses were standing still, heads hanging, giving only an occasional subdued and mournful whinny.
“They must be thirsty, ” said Birk. “We must take them to water. “
And they released their now well-behaved horses, led them to the lake, removed the leather ropes, and let them drink.
They drank for a long time. Afterward they stood still and content, gazing dreamily at Birk and Ronia.
“We’ve tamed them at last, ” Birk said delightedly.
Ronia patted her horse, looked deep into his eyes, and explained, “When 1 say I’m going to ride, I’m going to ride. Understand? “
Then she took a firm grip on Villain’s mane and swung herself onto his back.
“Now then, Villain, ” she said. And then she was flying in a wide arc, headfirst into the lake. She popped up again just in time to see Villain and Savage disappear between the trees at a full gallop.
Birk gave her his hand and pulled her out. He did it silently and without looking at her. Ronia climbed out of the water, equally silent. She shook herself, drops of water flying about her, and then with a peal of laughter she said, “I won’t be riding any more today! “
Birk gave a hoot of laughter too. “I won’t either!”
Evening came, the sun sank, dusk fell, the dusk of a spring evening that was no more than a strange dimness between the trees and never turned into darkness and night. The woods fell silent. There was no more sound of blackbird and cuckoo. All the fox cubs crept into their lairs, all the baby squirrels and hares to their nests, the adder under her stone. All that could be heard was the owl’s far-off melancholy hooting, and in a little while that too died away.
The whole wood had seemed to be s
leeping. But now it awakened slowly to its twilight life. All the twilight creatures which lived there began to stir. There was a rustling and creeping and stealing among the moss. The rumphobs snuffled among the trees, shaggy murktrolls crept behind the boulders, and gray dwarfs came crawling out of their hiding places in large troops, hissing to frighten everyone as they came out. And down from the mountains hovered the wild harpies, the crudest and fiercest of all the forest’s twilight creatures, black against the pale spring sky. Ronia saw them, and she did not like them.
“‘There are more goblins around here than we need! And I want to go home now, black and blue and soaked right through as I am.”
“Black and blue and soaked right through you are,” said Birk. “But then, you have also spent a whole day in the midst of spring.”
Ronia knew she had stayed in the woods too long, and when she left Birk she tried to think how she could get around Matt and make him understand why she had had to stay out in spring until late at night.
But neither Matt nor anyone else noticed or bothered about her when she walked into the stone hall. They had other worries.
On a skin in front of the fire lay Bumper, his face pale, his eyes closed. And Lovis was kneeling beside him to bandage a wound in his neck. All the other robbers stood around gloomily, looking on. Only Matt was pacing like an angry bear, shouting and cursing.
“Oh, those dirty devils of Borka’s clan and their dirty devils of robbers! Oh, those bandits! Oh, I’ll crack them one by one until none of them ever stirs hand or foot again in this life! Oh, oh!”
Then he ran out of words and simply bawled without ceasing, until Lovis pointed sternly at Bumper. At last Matt realized that too much noise would not do the poor fellow any good, and he fell into unwilling silence.
Ronia knew that Matt was not the right person to talk to just now. It would be better to ask Noddle-Pete what had happened.
“People like Borka should be hanged,” said Noddle-Pete. And he told her why.
Matt and his brave boys had been lying in ambush on Robbers’ Walk, Noddle-Pete recounted, when by good fortune a whole mass of travelers passed: merchants with provisions and skins and a whole pile of money too. They had no way of defending themselves, set they lost all they had.
“Well, but weren’t they annoyed?” Ronia asked uneasily.
“What do you think! You should have heard how they swore and carried on! And they were in a great hurry to get away. They were going to go off and complain to the sheriff, I’m sure.”
Noddle-Pete chuckled, but Ronia could not find anything to chuckle about.
“And then, what do you think?” Noddle-Pete went on. “When we had just loaded everything on our horses’ backs and were turning toward home, Borka and his hangers-on came up and wanted, to share in the booty. And they were shooting, the brutes! So Bumper got an arrow right in the throat. And then we shot too, of course— oh, yes, there must have been two or three of them who got the same medicine as Bumper.”
Matt came up just in time to hear this. He ground his teeth. “Just wait—this is only the beginning,” he said. “I’ll crack each one of them in turn. Up to now I’ve held my peace, but now there’ll be an end to all Borka robbers.”
Ronia felt rage mounting within her. “But what if there’s an end to all Matt’s robbers too? You haven’t thought of that, have you?”
“I don’t intend to think of that,” Matt said. “It’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t know anything about it,” said Ronia.
Then she went and sat down beside Bumper. She laid her hand on his forehead and felt how feverish he was. He opened his eyes and looked at her and gave a little smile.
“They can’t finish me off the first time around,” he said, but it came out rather faintly.
Ronia took his hand and held it in her own. “No, Bumper, they can’t finish you off the first time around.”
She sat there for a long time, holding his hand. She shed no tears, but in her heart she was weeping grievously.
Nine
Bumper was feverish for three days, he was very sick and lay inert, but Lovis had many medical skills and cared for him like a mother with her herbs and compresses. To everyone’s surprise he got up on the fourth day, weak in the legs but otherwise quite spry. The arrow had struck a neck tendon, and as the tendon healed, it contracted more and more. This made Bumper’s head tip to one side, which gave him a rather melancholy appearance, although he was just as bold and merry as ever. All the robbers were glad he had survived, and they were only joking when they sometimes shouted “Skewhead!” when they wanted him for something. And Bumper was not at all distressed.
The only one who was distressed was Ronia. The hatred between
Matt and Borka made life hard for her. She had believed that their hostility would gradually die away, but instead it had flared up and grown dangerous. Every morning when Matt rode out through the Wolfs Neck with his robbers, she wondered how many of them would come back unscathed. She was not content until they were all gathered around the long table again at night. But next morning the anxiety was there again.
One day she asked her father, “Why do you and Borka have to be out for each other’s blood?”
“Ask Borka,” said Matt. “He shot the first arrow. Bumper can tell you that.”
But Lovis too finally spoke up. “The child has more sense than you have, Matt! This can only end in bloodshed and misery, and what good will that do?”
Matt was enraged to find both Ronia and Lovis against him. “What good would it do?” he shouted. “What good would it do? It would get Borka out of Matt’s Wood at last. Can’t you understand that, you goose!”
“And does it have to be done by bloodshed, so that everyone is dead before you give in?” Ronia asked. “Is there no other way?”
Matt glowered at her. It was all very well to squabble with Lovis about it, but to have Ronia disagree with him was more than he could stand.
“You find another way then, since you’re so clever! You get Borka out of Matt’s Fort! Then he can settle down as peaceful as fox muck in the forest, and all his thieving hounds with him. I won’t lay a hand on them.”
He stopped and thought for a little, then muttered, “But if I’m not allowed to kill Borka, at least, I’ll be known as a knave among robbers!”
Ronia went on meeting Birk in the woods every day. That was her consolation. But now she was no longer able to enjoy the spring carelessly, and neither was Birk.
“Even spring has been ruined for us,” said Birk. “By a couple of bad-tempered old robber chieftains with no sense.”
Ronia thought it was sad that Matt had turned into a bad-tempered old robber chieftain with no sense. Her Matt, her forest pine, her strength—why did it feel to her now as if Birk were the one she should turn to when there was trouble?
“If I didn’t have you as a brother,” she said, “I don’t know..
They were sitting by the lake, and all the splendor of spring was around them, but they scarcely noticed it.
Ronia was thinking. “But if I didn’t have you for a brother, I might not mind that Matt wants to do away with Borka.” She looked at Birk and laughed. “So it’s your fault that I have so many worries!”
“I don’t want you to have worries,” said Birk. “But it’s hard for me too.”
They sat for a long time, with their troubles, but they were together, and that was a comfort.
“It’s upsetting, not knowing who is alive and who is dead when evening comes,” said Ronia.
“No one has died yet, though,” said Birk. “But that’s only because the sheriff’s men have started swarming through the woods again. Matt and Borka simply don’t have the chance to kill each other. They have their hands full keeping away from the soldiers.”
“Yes, that’s true, and it’s a lucky thing,” said Ronia.
Birk laughed. “Imagine the sheriff’s men being useful—who would have thought it?”
&nbs
p; “All the same, it’s something to worry about,” Ronia said. “And I think you and I are going to have to be worried all our lives.”
They went and watched the wild horses grazing. Villain and Savage were with the herd, and Birk whistled to them. They lifted their heads and looked rather thoughtful for a moment; then they went on grazing. They obviously did not consider him worth bothering about.
“You are beasts,” said Birk, “no matter how good-natured you may look at the moment.”
Ronia wanted to go home. Thanks to a couple of bad-tempered old robber chieftains, it was no fun staying in the woods any more.
That day, like all other days, she and Birk separated long before the Wolf’s Neck and far from all robber tracks. They knew where Matt usually came riding home and where Borka’s paths ran, yet they were always worried that someone might see them together.
Ronia let Birk go ahead.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, and off he ran.
Ronia delayed for a time, watching the fox cubs jumping and playing. They were a joy to see, but Ronia felt no joy, and she wondered glumly if things could ever be as they had been before. Perhaps she would never again rejoice in the forest as she once had.
Then she turned toward home. When she reached the Wolf’s Neck, she found Jep and Little-Snip on guard. They seemed merrier than usual.
“Hurry home and see what’s happened,” Jep said.
Ronia was curious. “It must be something pleasant—I can tell from your faces.”
“Oh, yes, you’re right there,” said Little-Snip with a grin. “Go and see for yourself.”
Ronia began to run. She could certainly do with something pleasant.
Soon she was outside the closed door of the stone hall and could hear Matt laughing inside, a great ringing laugh that warmed her and took away all her worry. And now she wanted to find out what made him laugh so.
She ran eagerly into the stone hall. As soon as Matt caught sight of her, he rushed forward and threw his arms around her. He lifted her high in the air and swung her around, quite carried away.
Ronia, The Robber's Daughter Page 7