Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy

by Champion of Sherwood

  Who is there? She spoke with her mind rather than her lips, for she knew this was no living person. Better anything, though, than the aloneness, and stunted senses.

  A fox appeared from the trees and looked at her with Lark’s keen, golden eyes. Linnet blinked at it and it blinked back, and awareness nibbled at the edge of her mind.

  Deep magic, as her mother might have said. Sudden longing to hear her mother’s voice again convulsed her heart.

  “Do not weep, child.” The voice sounded in the air, and not in Linnet’s mind. She blinked in an effort to clear the tears and saw a woman standing before her where the fox had been.

  She had the coloring of the fox, coppery red, and the very same eyes, like Linnet’s mother’s, like Lark’s. She was someone Linnet had never before encountered in Sherwood. Nevertheless, Linnet believed she could guess her identity.

  She drew a breath and began to scramble up, but the woman held out a slender hand.

  “Peace, Daughter. You need not stir yourself.” She smiled, and Linnet gazed at her in wonder. Beautiful she was, her hair half braided and trailing down, her smile as sweet as sunrise. Clad all in green wool and brown leather, she appeared scarcely older than Linnet. But her smile was Lark’s, quick and mischievous, and confirmed her identity in Linnet’s mind.

  “Grandmother.” She breathed the word like a prayer. “If you come to me, I must be dying.”

  “Your grandfather sent me.” She smiled again and beauty flashed in her face, as if it flared with the mention of the man. “Robin Hood.”

  “You are Marian.” Stories of her were legion, how she had abandoned her comfortable existence to live with the outlaw Robin in Sherwood, and lived henceforth for him most truly. How she had crumbled upon his death and abandoned his child new born—Linnet’s mother, Wren—and later died languishing for love of him in a nunnery, a broken woman.

  She looked whole now, and serene. Linnet’s heartbeat steadied. “If you are here,” she whispered, “does that mean the two of you are together once more?”

  “Together most surely. So long as Sherwood remains free, we cannot truly die.”

  “You held a place in the triad, the first triad,” Linnet said.

  “Not the first. There were many before us, but we took ours out into the open, where Robin made of it a means to fight. He has sent me to you now, child, because I once stood where you stand.” Her lovely face clouded. “I, too, carried the future.”

  Linnet pressed her scratched and bruised hands against her belly in an age-old gesture of protection. “My child.”

  “He will be strong and very gifted, and the most important person ever born in Sherwood.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know because he is destined. He was meant to be conceived here at this time. He is the future. He is the past, come again.”

  Linnet swallowed hard. “Lark thinks I have destroyed the future. She thinks I betrayed Falcon. She hates me.”

  “Lark battles hard. She feels her emotions keenly, especially love. She loves Falcon beyond all reason…” Marian’s expression saddened. “Even as I loved your grandfather. Unreasoning that was, almost like a sickness. I would have done anything, sacrificed anything, to be with him. I saw, too late, the one thing he would have asked of me was the thing I failed to do.”

  “What was that?”

  “Carry on. Keep strong and fight, for our daughter’s sake. But when he left me, I believed all the light in the world went with him.”

  “I understand.” Linnet thought of Gareth. Would she ever see him again? Ever hold him, watch the quick thoughts move in his eyes, feel his gentle kindness? Or had he moved forever beyond her reach?

  “Here, child, your face is beginning to swell.” A stream appeared as if by magic at Marian’s side. She bent to the water, and her hands produced a soft cloth. She wetted it and approached Linnet quietly, as the fox might.

  She means to touch me, Linnet thought. But she is a spirit.

  She was not. Marian knelt down beside Linnet and pressed the cold cloth to her face with infinite gentleness.

  Once more, Linnet’s eyes filled with tears. “Grandmother, what am I to do?”

  “That is easy, Linnet, as well as very, very hard. You must do as I did not. Gather your courage and all your strength. Go back and take up your place in the triad.”

  “Lark—”

  “Lark will need to master her feelings also, for the sake of the greater good.”

  “She despises me.” The pain of that bit deep.

  “She needs you, though, and Lark is capable of most any sacrifice. What is it your father always says?”

  “Sherwood gives, and Sherwood also demands.”

  “Aye.” Marian’s gaze became kind. “Sacrifice is demanded of us who are given much. It is a lesson I failed to learn. I was given the most wonderful gift any woman ever received, and I loved.” Her voice whispered. “How I loved! But when the time for giving came, I forgot the most important truth.”

  “That we must give back?”

  “No, child—that none of us can ever actually lose another, no matter the lies presented to our eyes. I came here to give you the benefit of that. If you love this man, you cannot ever truly be apart from him.”

  “Even if I never see him again?”

  “But you will, Daughter.” Joy filled Marian’s face. “He belongs now to Sherwood and will endure with the rest of us, so long as Sherwood remains.”

  Linnet drew a breath that contained both wonder and pain. “I do not know if I am strong enough.”

  “You are. You have your mother’s strength.” Another smile trembled across Marian’s face. “And Robin’s. You will do as you must to protect the future.” She placed both slim hands on Linnet’s belly. “It lies here. You quicken!”

  Strength, Linnet thought, and sacrifice. But her grandmother promised she would find beauty and reward at the end of it.

  “And magic,” Marian whispered. “Do not forget the magic.” She leaned forward and kissed Linnet’s brow. A shower of amber sparks erupted, lending a rush of warmth, before she transformed back into a fox. It winked at Linnet once and then slipped back into the cover of the trees.

  “Aye, Grandmother,” Linnet vowed. “I will not forget.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “A fine prize,” Robert de Vavasour gloated. “I believe, Nephew, you have seized a ringleader of those outlaws who have been making such difficulty for us in Sherwood. One of the same men I was forced to trade away before, is he not? He shall not escape us again. You have done well, Gareth. Very well.”

  High praise, indeed, from a man who gave it far less than he dealt blows from his hand. Gareth, seated at the high table in the great hall at Nottingham with a goblet of congratulatory wine in his hand, did not look up to meet his uncle’s eyes. All night long, ever since Falcon’s capture, his thoughts had raced, seeking the best way he could help Linnet, even if that meant helping Scarlet, the man who hated him.

  He wondered again why he had lost touch with Linnet in his mind. True, their bonds were sometimes fragile with him in Nottingham and her in Sherwood. But usually he could catch a whisper of her thoughts. Now it felt as if a portcullis had crashed down and severed everything.

  Sudden terror twisted his gut. Had something terrible happened to her? Could this silence mean she was dead?

  “I will admit,” Robert continued grudgingly, “I had my doubts of you when first you came and brought so much trouble with you. But you have done well enough with training the young men and conceiving this contest for champion. And I am gratified you located this wolfshead. Tell me, Gareth, how did you come to encounter him?”

  “’Twas chance—or more precisely, whim, my lord. When I did not succeed in meeting the guard whom I rode out seeking, I remembered that clearing, where I met the headman, was close by and is frequented by those in the forest, a kind of pilgrimage place.”

  Robert crooked an eyebrow. “Aye, and how did you know
that?”

  “Something I overheard while held in the outlaw camp. Since I was so near, I thought ’twould be as well to take a look.”

  “That is not chance, Gareth, but good instinct, which has long been an attribute shared by those of de Vavasour blood. Perhaps you prove your father’s son at long last. And it seems your time spent in captivity, humiliating as it might have been, was not wasted.”

  “Uncle”—it nearly choked Gareth to call this man by that name, but he was not thinking of himself, not now—“allow me to go into the forest again. I believe I begin to anticipate the ways of these vermin. I am certain I can snag one or two more of them.”

  “If you know something of value, talk to Monteith. He will organize a proper pursuit.”

  Gareth lifted his eyes. “With all due respect, Uncle, a single man can go unseen where a troop of soldiers cannot. I learned much about how these rascals move, whilst they dragged me about with them. Allow me to track them first on my own.”

  De Vavasour debated it; Gareth saw the doubt in his eyes. “And should you get yourself captured again?”

  “I will not.”

  “I do not wish to have to trade this prize we have just taken for your ransom.”

  “I promise you, my lord, I will return.”

  “See that you do. I have just received word that King Henry will be in attendance for our tournament. I want you to put on a fine show. And if you can reclaim his tax money for him—the large coffer that was taken, or the smaller—so much the better.” Robert rubbed his chin. “Meanwhile, we will give thought to questioning this wolfshead we have in the dungeons. Perhaps he can direct us to Henry’s treasure.”

  ****

  Leaving Nottingham Castle later that same morning, Gareth’s eyes raised to the motto carved over the gate: Vivit Post-Funera Virtus. He had enough Latin to know what that meant: Virtue Outlives Death.

  Ah, but he must have seen that message a score of times since arriving at Nottingham, yet never before had it struck him. An apt sentiment, indeed, though more for those who inhabited Sherwood than his own kind, who set themselves above them.

  Death, it seemed, swallowed all things. It had engulfed his young, beautiful mother and robbed from him the only love he had ever known. That love, or the desire for it, seemed to have lain dormant inside him until Linnet entered his life. Then it had surged and blossomed and become a vital growth that encircled his heart.

  The walls of Nottingham would have him believe virtue survived death. And love with it? Something surely survived in Sherwood, the spirits of folk long dead. Had he not seen and conversed with one of them?

  And what if Linnet lay dead even now, somewhere in Sherwood’s arms, beneath the green boughs? What if that made the reason he could no longer hear her in his mind? Would her love for him live on? Aye, so it must—for he knew his, for her, would never die.

  Sherwood welcomed him with open arms as he slipped into the trees and the green-lit morning closed around him. He stood for a moment inhaling the scents that made him think of Linnet and the warmth, feel, and taste of her in his arms. Overhead, birds flickered like the light. He heard a lark call at a distance, an aching sound.

  And what else could he hear? Silence, save for the rustle of leaves, the drone of insects. Sweat gathered and trickled down his back.

  He called to her, Linnet, my love!

  A hare appeared from the underbrush. It winked at him before it turned and disappeared again. No fool, he followed.

  A merry chase the hare led him, deeper and deeper into Sherwood. At times he lost sight of the animal completely; always it came back for him. He prayed as he went, not to some far-off entity, a God he had never seen and who dwelt in cold, stone buildings, but to the Being who brought the light to the leaves, who made the stag run and sent the current of life flowing. That same power dwelt here; he could no longer doubt it. And he was more than willing to sacrifice himself to it for Linnet’s sake.

  Let me find her. Let me know she lives. Let me touch her one more time, and I swear I will ask nothing more all my life long. A dangerous bargain to make, for he knew that men were created for wanting. And he knew he would never stop wanting Linnet.

  Champion. The sound spun him around. The man he had met here before, the one called Robin Hood, stood full in the green haze of light, looking as substantial as Gareth himself.

  Gareth lost no time in wonder. “Where is she?”

  Robin did not answer. He tipped his head, though, as if listening. The light slid over the length of his hair, pricking reddish lights from the brown. Just so, Gareth knew, did sunlight warm the hair of his Linnet. Air invaded his lungs in a rush. This man was her grandfather. And alive or dead no longer seemed such a vital distinction.

  Robin smiled. “Virtue survives death,” he said. “Never doubt it, Champion.”

  “And love?”

  Robin lifted his hands. “Need you ask?”

  Gareth shook his head. Hushed, he asked, “What is this place? What makes its magic?”

  “Sherwood is, and always has been, a repository of belief. Think of it as echoes, my son, the echoes of faith, intent, and longing. They die away but never cease, no more than I. The source of all things has been worshipped, here, for time out of mind. To those who believe, Sherwood gives back again, and gives much.”

  “The source of all things?”

  “Love. Life. In the purest way, they are one. First, my son, there came a thought and then belief in the thought. Belief is all.”

  “Is Linnet here?”

  “She is here forever and always, so long as Sherwood endures.”

  “And if Sherwood does not endure?”

  Robin hesitated. His deep blue gaze moved over Gareth with curiosity and regret. “If faith dies, Sherwood dies and all with it. Why do you think I fought so hard? Should our enemies steal our hope, our faith will soon follow. Should they cut down the trees and root up the stones, naught will endure.”

  “I will not allow that to happen.” Gareth said it hoarsely.

  One of Robin’s brows quirked up. “And who are you?”

  “A champion. You have said so.”

  “A Norman champion? Or one for Sherwood?”

  “For Sherwood.” Gareth’s heart thudded within his chest. “For Linnet. Return her to me.”

  “Do I hold her?”

  “You hold all things. I pray you, my lord—I know I am your enemy—”

  “You are no enemy to me.” Again Robin smiled. “You are a bridge, a branch, a sprig of green willow. You are proof, walking, that all men born of English soil may someday be one, living equal. That is my dream.”

  Gareth returned gravely, “And now mine, also.”

  “Go to her, then.”

  “How can I find her?”

  “Listen.”

  “I can no longer hear her voice in my mind.”

  “That is because you have let fear block your senses. Did I not tell you to follow your heart?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then listen to it now.”

  The sun shifted and the branches swayed, allowing brightness to blind Gareth’s eyes. When he blinked through it, Robin was gone, leaving behind only a faint shimmer of power. A bird lit out from one of the branches overhead and flew away to Gareth’s right. He turned to follow and spoke at the bidding of his heart.

  Await me, Linnet, my love. I come.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Linnet, my dearest love.

  The voice sounded inside Linnet’s head like the chime of a bell, an instant before a hand touched her hair. Gareth. She would know him anywhere, even blinded and bound.

  She roused from the bosom of Sherwood, where she had fallen at the end of her flight. In the newly-descended dark beneath the trees, he looked no more than a dim shadow on his knees beside her.

  Gareth?

  Linnet, darling.

  He gathered her into his arms, and his strength wrapped around her. The agony inside her eased—she did not
know how he came here, but his presence answered her every need, and she burrowed into him as she might into the heart of Sherwood itself.

  “How did you find me?” Did she speak aloud or in her mind? She no longer knew.

  His lips slid across her brow and down her cheek. He gave a gusty, wondering laugh. “I followed a bird, and after that a glint of water, and then a shaft of moonlight. They led me, all, to you.”

  His hands caressed her gently, as if they embraced glass. “What happened to you? ’Twas as if you fell away from my mind.” He drew an unsteady breath. “I was not sure I could endure it, did not think I would be able to go on without you.”

  “I argued with Lark and she thrashed me soundly. She blames me for Falcon’s capture, thinks I betrayed him to you. She will never forgive me.” All at once she wept, she who so seldom gave in to tears, as all the pain flowed out of her heart and into his. She felt his great gentleness rise to meet her pain and absorb the hurt with a fathomless depth of patience.

  “Let me see.” Very carefully, he tipped her face up to the moonlight. Linnet could feel how the tender flesh that surrounded one eye had swelled, and the bruises on her cheekbones. More bruises covered her arms, and her hands were torn. “Fierce little thing, is she not? You look as if you have been in the wars. No broken bones? No pain anywhere inside?”

  “My ribs ache. That is naught, though, to the ache in my heart. Gareth, I cannot go home. Lark will have told everyone I betrayed the triad. I will be outcast.”

  “No. Your folk all know you. You have spent your life taking care of them. They will never believe such a thing of you.”

  “Gareth, I saw my grandmother.” Linnet sought his eyes in the dim light. “I spoke with her, she who is dead.”

  Gareth made no reply, but his hands, on her shoulders, tensed.

  “She told me sacrifices must sometimes be made, and I have always known Sherwood demands them. I thought—” Her voice caught, but she forced herself to go on. “I feared I might be required to give you up. But Lark, also? And Falcon?”