Once he considered the boys out of earshot, he whistled the call of a common night bird.
“You don’t need to shout,” Little John growled in his ear. The big man emerged from the depths of the tree where Tuck paused.
“I need to reach the Convent of Our Lady of Sorrows before those boys. May I ask your assistance?”
“Of course.” Little John bent and scooped up Tuck’s much shorter and frailer body and settled him on a shoulder.
“They need to arrive and return safely. I’m no match for wild animals and wilder men.”
Little John mumbled agreement. “Watch your head.” They ducked beneath a thick branch and he started off with the long strides of one used to traversing vast distances within the space of a few hours.
Tuck clutched the big man’s mossy hair tightly, feeling like a child again, carried by his father.
* * *
Hilde lay in her cot silently, listening to her friends breathe. The older girls had carried the youngest ones back to bed after Matins. They all slept now.
She watched the moon rise through the narrow slit of a window that looked east over the kitchen garden.
Soon, she told herself. Dom would be here soon. Maybe tonight he’d figure out a way to release her.
She flopped over onto her side, restless, but knowing safety lay in feigning sleep until Sister Marie Josef gave up waiting for her to slip from her bed. The tall, gaunt woman rarely slept.
At last, the quiet flap of sandals on the flagstone flooring ceased. The moon rose higher. An hour had passed since Hilde had returned to her bed. Sleep tugged her eyes closed. She drifted asleep—then woke with a start at the sound of a step on the gravel path that circled the walls of the convent.
Dom! Hilde’s heart rejoiced that her twin had come at last, as he always came on the night of the waxing half-moon.
The flagstones burned her bare feet with cold. She gritted her teeth and endured the discomfort. No worse than Sister Marie Josef’s rod across her knuckles or her backside. Sandals made noise.
At the door to the girls’ dormitory she paused, listening. No sound, not even Sister Marie Josef’s measured breathing. A quick look confirmed that the nun was not lying in wait for Hilde to break the rules.
She tiptoed to the back stairwell and descended blindly to the postern gate. Her feet found the dip in the stone stairs made by hundreds of feet over the years. Her hand glided along the perpetually damp wall. She paused again at the tiny landing and listened. Still no reaction to her movements.
Taking a deep breath, she lifted the stout crossbar and set it aside. The door swung outward freely. Then she ran across the open space between the building and the wall with the postern gate.
“Dom? Dom? Are you there?”
“Yes, Hilde. It’s me.”
“Oh, Dom, I am so happy to see you.” She gripped the bars of the window to the outside world.
“I brought my friend Nick,” Dom said. “I told you about him.”
“Yes, Nick. He’s the one who finds hiding places and hidden doors.”
“Hello, Hilde,” came a strange voice that cracked between words. “I don’t see any locks on this door. What’s on the other side?”
“No latch or lock here either,” Hilde moaned.
“Why have a door if no one can open it?” Dom asked. He shook the window bars.
Nothing moved or rattled.
“I don’t know,” Nick said. He sounded thoughtful, almost as if he’d drifted away. But he couldn’t move without crunching on some gravel. “This place is built like a fortress. The only way in is by the front gate. No overhanging trees to climb, no other way out unless . . . Are there any tunnels?”
“Where would I find a tunnel?” Hilde whispered, hope lighting blossoms inside her heart.
“You’ll have to explore crypts and storerooms,” Nick replied.
“I’m afraid.” She turned her face away from the grille. “If only Da hadn’t died, Mum would have kept us all together.” The last words came out as a sigh.
Dom’s fingers encircled hers where she gripped the iron bars across the viewing window. “Da was deaf. He knew how to get along with people when they took the time to face him directly and speak slowly. He could understand what they said. But the sheriff didn’t know that.”
“The sheriff didn’t care!” Hilde’s voice rose in volume. She’d relived that horrible day in her mind too often to find forgiveness. “He and his huntsmen ran Da down with their mighty horses as if he were no more than a squirrel. Da couldn’t get out of the way because he didn’t hear them coming!”
“We can’t change that, Hilde,” Dom said. “We have to make the best of our lives now. Mum found a new husband who was willing to take on the three little ones because they are young enough to apprentice with him as a cobbler. Mum had no choice but to send us to the abbey and the convent where we have food and shelter, and maybe a vocation.”
“Mum doesn’t know about the beatings and the missing meals for disobedience.” Hilde couldn’t help the hot bile in the back of her throat. Dom’s life was easy compared to having Sister Marie Josef always looming over her with her stick. The nun took pleasure in wielding the stout oak branch indiscriminately.
“Hilde, close your eyes and feel along the door where you think a lock might be,” Nick instructed her, breaking the flow of her regret and anger.
Reluctantly, she released Dom’s warm fingers and slid her hands down the stout planks of the portal on each side. Something felt . . . odd. She tried again. “There, on my right, your left. There’s an imperfection flush with the wood but . . . different from the wood.”
“Is it metal?” Dom asked, excitement making his voice rise to match her own girlish tones.
“I can’t tell. It’s warm like the wood but smooth like metal.”
“I feel it, too,” Nick said. “But we can’t see it. That means it’s hidden by sorcery. Someone inside your convent really doesn’t want anyone to enter or leave by this door.”
Hilde’s stomach clenched. “I think I know who.” The back of her neck itched. She looked around for any shadow in the moonlight that might reveal a watcher.
“It’s getting late,” Nick said. “I think I know some scrolls I can consult. We’ll be back next month and maybe then we can get you out.”
“Promise?” Hilde asked, not liking the way her voice shook.
“Promise,” Dom affirmed. He touched her fingers on the iron bars one more time, then backed away.
She waited until she no longer heard their footsteps, then waited a few heartbeats longer in case they turned back to say one more thing.
They didn’t come back, so she trudged up to bed, not daring to hope that Nick would figure a way out of this . . . this prison.
Three
“Has Elena chosen a new companion?” Little John asked Tuck. They crept toward the postern gate at Sorrows as soon as they knew Nick and Dom were out of sight and out of earshot. “Time grows short before the moon aligns with Faery and we can rescue my Jane.” His heart ached that his lady love must endure slavery at the hands of the faeries.
“Elena has not told me if she has,” Tuck replied. “I thought she’d choose Nick. He is of mixed-blood, and he is bright and adventuresome.”
“So were you. Fifty years ago,” Little John taunted. He ran his fingers along the stout wooden panels of the door in the wall. Good workmanship by a smith who knew his trade. Possibly one of his own sons who had chosen a life among humans rather than the Forest Folk. He concentrated his search on the left side where the children had looked for a lock.
“I do not like this talk of locks hidden by sorcery,” Tuck mumbled, ignoring Little John’s statement. He used his own, more sensitive fingers to look for evidence of a lock.
Little John found it first. His senses were more attuned to the disrupti
ons in the wood grain from the presence of a metal fixture. “It is here. A simple mechanism if you have a key and know how to find the lock.”
“But, without a key, one would need sorcery to open it.” Tuck crossed his arms and clamped his hands into his armpits, as if protecting them or applying pressure to ease an ache or a burn.
“Who would do such a thing? I thought sorcery was forbidden by your Church.” Little John stepped back to inspect the entire wall surrounding the gate. Even he was not tall enough to climb the wall without assistance. No trees grew nearby to hang a branch over the top to aid someone in leaving or entering the convent. There were no chinks in the mortar either. The place looked impregnable. He could not help but harken back to the Faery Mound. It, too, had an unbreachable entrance protected by magic that only the goddess Elena could open.
“Sorcery is forbidden. But if someone merely willed the lock invisible without knowing what she was doing, then the act could be forgiven under the seal of confession.”
“I ask again: Who?”
“I think I know, but I no longer have the influence or authority I once had. I cannot present myself and ask questions.”
“Not as the Abbot Mæson in exile, no. But as Father Tuck the wandering priest ministering to those in need?” Little John looked at his friend. Tonight, he wore the long shirt and breeks of a common peasant. The long skirts of his heavy woolen robe, while giving warmth, would hinder his steps during a long trek through the forest at night.
“That is what I must try if I can get past the good sisters who are very wary of strangers, as they should be during these troubled times. I anxiously await the end of the war between King John and the Holy Father, Innocent, the third of that name.”
“But that war has halted the influence of the Church on the daily lives of most people, noble and common. Without being told that the Forest Folk cannot exist, people can see us now, work with us. We can help each other through the long winters and protect each other when King John’s mercenaries roam and pillage freely.” Little John sighed. He had longed for a time when this could happen. In his father’s lifetime, the old gods and goddesses and the Forest Folk had been free to roam and interact with mortals. Then the Church had become powerful enough to banish them to the darkest shadows of the forest—there, still alive, but unseen and ignored.
“The moon sets. We should return home and prepare for May Day. I will come back here during daylight, when the sisters are more likely to open their doors to me. Nick and Dom will not return here for another moon cycle to rescue the girl. I hope by then to be able to open that door, with or without Elena’s magic.”
* * *
“I heard that Father Blaine isn’t going to let us go to the village tomorrow for May Day,” Dom whispered to Nick as the novitiate reading the daily lessons raised his voice to emphasize, but not shout, dire warnings of the punishments in purgatory for errant boys.
Nick did not raise his head from his feigned meditation of his sins while he slurped thin gruel for breakfast. “Abbot Mæson always gave us a free day for May Day,” Nick whispered. His voice rose high into childish tones on the last words. He swallowed deeply to relieve the dryness in his throat. Thankfully, his friends didn’t notice.
“But the abbot isn’t here. He fled to Rome when King John . . .” Henry said a bit too loudly.
“I heard Brother Theo arguing with Father Blaine about May Day,” Dom continued. “Father Blaine said that since Abbot Mæson left without instructions, we need to follow the Rule of our Order. Isolation and prayer are our only approved activities. Then Brother Theo countered that we need to continue as if Abbot Mæson is still here until King John makes peace with the Holy Father and he’s able to return to us.”
“Brother Theo, of course. Sometimes I think he’s the only one who understands what it means to be a boy,” Henry said.
“Brother Theo isn’t afraid of Father Blaine,” Dom said. “He’s only afraid of you, Nick.” Dom jostled them with his elbow.
“Brother Theo isn’t afraid of anyone,” Nick scoffed. Though, he knew, ghosts and the faces of Wild Folk frightened the tall scholar, as thin as the rod he carried. He pointed out errors in copying and translation and occasionally rapped knuckles for inattention.
“He doesn’t like you because you are too curious, always reading scrolls he thinks are dangerous or you are too young to understand. Why do you want to read all that stuff anyway?” Henry asked.
“I’d rather dig turnips or tend sheep than read,” Dom admitted.
“We know the way out of the abbey,” Nick said quietly. “We could go to the May Day celebrations on our own.”
“And, of course, you know how to evade watchful eyes.” Henry said, rolling his own eyes.
“How do you think I found the exit when I visit my sister? I followed you over the wall.” He jabbed Nick with his elbow.
“But if we’re caught?” Henry gasped.
“What can Father Blaine do to us that he hasn’t already?”
His friends didn’t look convinced.
* * *
“Are we agreed?” Little John bellowed to all the Forest Folk gathered around him—including three of his sons, by three different dryads, who seemed interested in learning how to rule the forest. They did not need to see how short his temper grew. He needed more time in his tree to relearn patience.
The ancient standing stones surrounding them showed the patience of the ages. Little John didn’t feel up to bonding with them or learning anything from their long silence. Stones didn’t whisper into his dreams as trees did.
“Yes, m’lord,” Herne the Huntsman replied, glaring defiantly at Ardenia, the water sprite.
“Agreed,” Ardenia said, not willing to grant authority or dominance to anyone, even though the Green Man had always ruled the forest. Verne, the youngest of the three sons, straightened his shoulders and peered closely at the faces of the disputants, looking for signs of deceit. Good boy.
“Agreed to what?” Little John demanded. He had no sympathy for these two. They fought as often as they loved, and his son had pointed him toward ways these two might try to twist out of the agreement.
A pang in his heart reminded him that he’d had no lover to fight with for nigh on fifty years. Dryads tended to mate and drift away, never committing, rarely returning. Every time he thought to make the time pass more swiftly by drowsing in his tree, these two, and all the others forced him to wake up and deal with their petty issues. Even the stones did not invite him to rest among them. They had their own agenda that had little in sympathy for the short lives of those who considered this ground sacred.
“I agree that I will not hunt the creatures of the wood who come to Ardenia’s spring to drink. That is a sacred place, a healing place, sanctuary to all, second only in sanctity to these stones. Even the humans come to the spring to pray, while the stones remain secret from all who do not dwell within their shadow. Ardenia, your pond is the center of the world, an extension of these stones,” Herne said formally and bowed to both his lady love and Little John. His twelve-point antlers brushed Ardenia’s flowing gown, almost tearing the shimmering fabric that looked more waterfall than cloth.
“And I agree not to drown this disrespectful beast when he hunts along the creek that flows from my sacred pool.”
“Then you shall kiss and be at peace,” Little John blessed their treaty. “The stones observe. As long as they stand, your treaty must last or forever live beyond their peace.”
Herne tilted his head as Ardenia closed the distance between them. They kept their hands clenched at their sides as they brushed lips on each other’s cheeks. Right and left. Then they formally bowed their heads to each other and to Little John.
This was the proper time to settle disputes. May Day, a time of bonding. Midsummer’s Eve approached, as did the alignment of Little John’s moon with the one that shone withi
n the Faery Mound.
If only the ancients had granted him dominion over the faeries as well as the Wild Folk! The Faery Mound lay within the bounds of his forest, but outside his authority.
The faeries were a law unto themselves, ignoring the rest of the worlds within and without. Law to them was whatever they wanted that instant. Traditions and treaties meant nothing to them.
But soon. Soon he’d be able to rescue poor Jane, free her from enslavement to the faeries, and love her for an eternity.
“This be May Day,” Father Tuck announced. “This be a time of joy, of courtship, and of bonding. Herne, kiss your lady as if you mean it!” he thundered.
Ardenia threw back her head, laughing and sounding much like the chuckle of a stream running free over a tumble of rocks. When she righted herself, Herne wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest. He paused a moment, contemplating just how best to kiss her.
She took the decision away from him, placing his face between her palms and initiating a deep kiss that spoke of long familiarity. And they kissed and kissed, holding their embrace long past the time one of them must breathe.
“And so I bless this union once again.” Tuck made the sign of the cross—crossroads coming together rather than the Roman instrument of torture the humans revered—in the air above them, then held up both hands, two fingers on each hand stood up straight above the two outer curled digits, and thumb tucked close against the palm in the universal sign of peace and blessing.
Little John noted, not for the first time, that the old man could not completely close his fist. The joint disease twisted his knuckles painfully. And he walked more hesitantly, favoring both knees. He had indeed aged as any human would. His horn buds had retreated when he took Church vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, though they were still visible as dark spots on his skull to those who knew what to look for. He had not enough of the Huntsman’s blood in him to fight off the inevitable aging and death. He’d already lived longer and disease-free than most of his human kin.
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