The Fool’s homunculus hung straight down, a hammer at rest. The look in the Fool’s eyes became clear to Geoffrey. The sheriff glanced away.
It was the look of compassion.
“You aren’t like us,” said Geoffrey. “You have already escaped and left yourself naked.” He put his hand on the Fool’s shoulder, but heavily, so that the Fool would see that Geoffrey was not merely gentle. “Be assured, Fool, that I will do you no harm. And be welcome to your silence. Leave now, before I begin to hate you again.”
The Fool balanced the head stick on his forehead and spread his arms. The toy head smiled at Geoffrey.
“Very good.” He sighed, feeling ridiculous, as if he had to console the wooden head as well as the human one.
33
Ralf, the chief huntsman, checked the knot on a rabbit snare. The rabbit inside the net kicked and flattened its ears. “Easy now,” said the huntsman, “easy, at your rest.”
The white rabbit was still at the sound of the huntsman’s voice. The man could calm as easily as he killed. The burly huntsman was beyond both cruelty and passion, just as a dog is beyond such feeling and will kill or save with the same eagerness. “The rabbits are ready, my lord. My best beaters are ready. And it’s a beautiful day for a rabbit hunt, if I may say so.”
This was a long speech from Ralf, who usually kept to short sentences and, when he was hunting, shouts like “There now!” and “Hoy!”
A dove pecked seed scattered on the stones of the courtyard. The laundry wench shielded her eyes to see Geoffrey on his horse, and Geoffrey looked away, quickly.
Lady Eleanor joined them, at last. Geoffrey had promised her that they could go rabbit hunting but did not look forward to it. It was only fair that if she could not go falconing, she could go hunting in some other way. But Hugh was sick with an ague he must have breathed in on the cemetery air two nights before. The doctor had given him a tincture of vervain, but the youth was not well enough to ride.
“You look well this morning, Lady Eleanor,” said Geoffrey.
Still no word from Henry. And now, with Hugh taken ill, the sheriff felt himself surrounded by cares. Perhaps the meteor had foretold the loss of Hugh! But the surgeon had been reassuring, promising that the fever would pass in such a vigorous youth. Geoffrey wished he could believe it. Sometimes the sheriff woke at night and heard the laugh of Robin Hood.
Some of the netlike snares held other creatures, animals as lithe as the rabbits were soft, arm’s-length beasts with short forelegs no longer than fingers. These shapes whipped and surged in their nets, and bright teeth sparkled in the sunlight. They had been still until now, asleep, surrendering to the boredom of courtyards and horses.
But now they saw the fields, and smelled the rabbits, and they would not be stilled by the huntsman’s low voice. The brown, snaking shapes assumed the forms of all the letters of evil magic as they struggled in the hands of the huntsman’s beaters. The huntsman looked to Geoffrey, and Geoffrey nodded to his wife, indicating that her pleasure was to be served.
“Yes!” said Lady Eleanor. “Let the rabbits go!”
Rabbits were everywhere, kicking across the grass. Each rabbit stopped, dazed, for a moment, by freedom. The beaters took their places at the edge of the field and drove an errant rabbit back. The rabbits stood upright, working their noses, and then wandered, feeding.
The snake creatures with the brilliant teeth were insane, lashing their nets from the inside. Even the horses quickened at the sight of the frenzy and shied, wide-eyed.
“Look how excited they are,” called Eleanor. “Let the rabbits spread out, and let some go into the nettles over there, where they’ll be more difficult to catch.”
Geoffrey tugged his gloves on more tightly and chewed his lip. He fiddled with the shortsword he wore and scuffed the ground.
“Now!” cried Lady Eleanor.
Nets were shaken open, and the ferrets were in the field. Rabbits streaked and bounded across the grass, but the ferrets were invisible, dark arrows that seemed to speed nearly underground. A rabbit kicked, its white fur suddenly pink. Another screamed, and the beaters struck the nettles, as everywhere in the field rabbits struggled and went nowhere.
Lady Eleanor clapped her hands. “It’s wonderful!” she cried.
“We’ll be eating rabbit tonight,” Geoffrey noted dryly. “They certainly make quick work of it.”
A rabbit’s scream was so unlike the cry of an animal—an undiluted cry of terror. The beaters worked the nettles with their bush sticks, flat, club-shaped paddles. The men called to each other, pointed, and laughed. The huntsman, who had seen this a thousand times, jumped up and down, pointing and cheering.
Geoffrey smiled wearily at all of it. He loved Eleanor in her pleasure, but he could not share it. “Will you please excuse me from this frolic?” said Geoffrey. “I will walk in the woods for a moment.”
“Of course,” said Lady Eleanor, not bothering to glance at Geoffrey and declining to note the tone of his voice. Geoffrey, like most men of reason, did not enjoy walks in the woods. Only his contempt for such a hunt could drive him away.
Immediately the other world had him again. The shouts of the beaters were silenced, and the laughter of his wife dimmed and went out like a candle consuming the last spoonful of its wax. Sun filtered through the branches, and he was in emerald air, trapped in it and yet wanting it, believing that in this amazing beauty he, too, could be beautiful.
He slipped into the darkness under a tree and held his breath.
He was not alone.
He loosened his shortsword in its scabbard. He had seen a figure, an indistinct presence. He crouched, to make himself smaller and to listen closer to ground level for the crush of pine needles and the snap of twigs.
Another fly moaned through the air, slowly, because it was late in the year for flies. The sound of its passage was lost in the whisper of wind high above. Geoffrey did not move. He should, he reasoned, call out. He was armed, although not heavily. It was probably a forester or even a poacher. A poacher would be terrified of the sheriff, Geoffrey told himself.
He kept his silence.
A step, there, behind the trees directly before him. The dry syllable of weight taken off pine needles, a single, definite sound. Someone was waiting for him.
The day had fallen away, like a cloth stripped from a bed to expose a naked thing. The morning existed only here, his hand on his sword. He had been brought here, by God or by the other unseen powers of the universe, for this meeting. He knew that.
But he did not know what to do. He wanted to speak, but he did not know what to say. And anyone who would hide, cowering behind trees, was not worth addressing.
He drew his sword. The shaft of steel left the scabbard with a sound that itself would be a warning. The sword reflected the forest dimly, a gray, blurred reflection, a tear in reality itself through which he could see another, duller reality. He strode round the stand of pines and cleared his throat to speak.
A shape uncoiled and threw itself high over Geoffrey, towering, and a roar like the crashing of a great tree froze him. A limb fell down upon Geoffrey, crushing every thought.
34
He could still see. He could not move his arms or legs, but he could look upwards with open eyes and fail to comprehend what was happening. A hellish monster rose high over Geoffrey, a shaggy thing, a chunk torn out of midnight. The thing fell down over him. Small eyes, red-black, like silver tarnish. Twin spouts of hot breath, and the sour stink of an old dog, decay and saliva. The huge thing eclipsed the day, and Geoffrey saw only black fur, and the heat of the thing was everywhere.
The thing grunted, and teeth tore the wool of his tunic. The beast chewed wool for a moment, struggling to reach blood, and Geoffrey squeezed the hilt of his sword. The thing shook him, and Geoffrey’s legs flailed, his joints creaking. The animal rose high again, towering on its hind legs, and Geoffrey saw what would destroy him.
A bear. More brown than black, with b
lack wax coating its chest. A black bone thrust itself from the beast, an arrow that had nearly killed it. The animal was halting. It fell on all fours, straddling Geoffrey, and like a man with days to contemplate what was happening, Geoffrey realized that the animal would kill him slowly because the beast was sick.
Again, the rip of wool, a fine, clean noise, like a knife into bread. The bear shook him like a long scrap of gristle, and with a sound more than with pain, the teeth found bone.
Geoffrey stabbed. It was difficult to stab while lying on his back, and the sword did not slide into the beast easily. The fur was thick on the animal’s side, and Geoffrey forced the sword, his hand slippery with hot blood. The bear deafened him with a bellow. Geoffrey screamed, a long cry, all the words he had ever spoken, all the words he had ever read or thought, wadded into one throat-scalding yell, and then he rolled with a blow that sent him like a spent top across the pine needles, arms and legs in a tangle, until his face buried in a fern and the beast was on him with a rattle of fury.
Geoffrey made one spasm of effort to get up, but then it was midnight everywhere. A world pressed him into the ground, and the air went out of him in a silent cry.
He was certain he was dead. Fern fibers squashed by his nose made a thin keen, water squashed out of stems, but there was no other sound. Only weight, and a shuddering. He tried to take a breath. He could not. He tasted humus, a black, rich flavor, the grit of it on his teeth. He tried to cough but only groaned.
He pushed, and pain whipped across his vision. He went nowhere. This was death. The long wait for it to end. Time had opened to the last page, when the manuscript ends and the colors are left out, and the cover of the book itself exposes its underside, scarred with imperfections, the mottle-and-vein print of sheepskin.
And then a door opened, and there was light. He breathed, and spluttered. He was wet, and the wetness cooled him. He struggled to his knees. He stood, swaying, and an arm helped him to a place under a large pine, where pine needles had gathered themselves in a root crotch.
A bow fell across the brown earth, and a figure crouched beside him. “I watched your hunting party. I know you wish you had ferrets that would catch me.”
“I have caught you.” Geoffrey gripped a sleeve with the only hand he could move. “Fortune has delivered you to me.”
“I’ll stuff some dried mallow in the wounds,” said Robin Hood. “It will stop the bleeding. Don’t worry. Most of that is bear blood.”
Geoffrey felt amazingly calm. Everything made sense. The bear was a black mountain at his feet. A tick hurried across the peak like an ebony tear, and his own hands were clotted with red. “I’ve seen hunters die of less than this,” said Geoffrey. “The arm grows great and black.”
“Don’t be anxious.”
“I’m not.” Geoffrey shivered. “You’ve left false camps, haven’t you? In the middle of the forest. False camps for my men to find.”
“Yes. Will Scathlock does it well. Are your men tricked?”
“Yes.”
“You would not be.”
“You are safest here, at the edge of the greenwood.”
“I know. To hide, do not run.”
“You have saved my life,” sighed the sheriff.
“The bear would have died in a moment. Your stab was near the heart. My arrow simply matched it.”
“How can I kill you now that I am in your debt?”
Robin Hood laughed, delighted. “You see? A worthy man. You make it impossible for me to enjoy any triumph. You have ruined my sport. I am glad the bear did not kill you.”
Geoffrey believed him. It was a painful insight: Robin Hood admired him. He hated himself, for an instant, but then put his hand to the wound in his shoulder. It began to hurt, badly. “For my part, I wish you were more like other thieves.”
“More stupid?”
“More joyless.”
“I hope your men continue to be clumsy.”
“The falcon may miss, but it remembers the miss and next time draws blood.” Geoffrey eyed Robin. The outlaw was dressed in ragged green, with gray wool stockings and tough leather shoes. The man was the color of the forest, as a lie is the color of the truth.
“Meeting you has taken the joy out of our sport,” said Robin Hood. “We will soon stop playing, forever.”
“If I could believe you, I would be a very happy man.”
Geoffrey found his sword. The blade was smeared with blackening syrup that a fern leaf could not wipe. Geoffrey turned back once. Robin Hood was already invisible. “I hope I never see you again,” he said, not loudly but loudly enough.
He loved having the final word, but he sat down hard and felt like retching. The pain came and went, the beating of an iron heart. He stood with difficulty, and a voice behind him said, “You won’t be able to make it by yourself.”
Geoffrey waved the voice away and, when he found the edge of the forest, stayed there for a moment, hidden where he knew they could not see him. A ferret was held by its hind legs and gathered into a net. A brace of bloody rabbits swung from the huntsman’s fist. Lady Eleanor was pink-cheeked, breathless with the pleasure of it. And beyond, the field, already bleached by the early frosts, and near the city walls, a cottage cream white in the sunlight.
This was how the world would be without him when he was gone: spread under a sky, busy with its sport, recovered from mourning and continuing. Remaining like this, half hidden, he saw the world as the angels must see it, filled with color that night would blow away, as wind erases flour spilled in the courtyard. It was all brilliant, and temporary.
They saw immediately that something was wrong. Lady Eleanor blanched and put out a hand, afraid to touch him. The huntsman tossed down the brace of rabbits. “What happened?”
“I am not as badly hurt as I seem to be. This tart filling on me is mostly not my blood.”
“What happened?” gasped Lady Eleanor.
“My good woman, there is no need to be afraid,” said Geoffrey. He took his horse’s reins and then lay down, against his will—his legs folded—and he looked at the sky.
“Stand back!” commanded the huntsman, and then the man looked down at Geoffrey, as though peering into a deep hole.
Geoffrey tried to laugh.
“What happened, my lord?” asked the huntsman.
“I,” said Geoffrey, “have killed a bear.”
The sheriff’s horse cantered, eager to be within castle walls. Geoffrey tugged the rein with his good arm. Their pace slowed. Eleanor put a hand out to him to steady him in the saddle, and when the sheriff glanced her way, the look of pale concern could not be mistaken. The love of a wife is medicine, thought the sheriff.
In the courtyard Geoffrey swung himself down. Ralf had sent word of the sheriff’s victory over the bear, and house servants gathered. Smiles showed on every face that met him. But something was wrong—some uneasiness troubled the house carls. Bess, Eleanor’s personal servant, stood apart from the crowd.
He left the cheering throng and hurried into the castle, sending for the surgeon.
Ivo and the surgeon both hurried across the stone floor, their steps echoing. Geoffrey did not want to ask. He prayed, in nomine, like the most pious man, not the poor sinner that he was. Let Hugh live.
The physician clucked when he saw blood and made a hiss of compassion as he examined the wound in the light from the high windows. “But I’m afraid you’ve come home to troubling news, my lord,” said the physician.
“Is Hugh not recovered?” asked the sheriff in a hoarse whisper.
“He has run off, my lord,” said the surgeon.
“Taking a broadsword and a dagger,” said Ivo.
These tidings cheered the sheriff for an instant. So Hugh was alive and quite well. But then a new concern melted his smile. What did Hugh want with a dagger, a weapon of deceit—of murder? “Where has he gone?” demanded the sheriff.
“To win honor for you, my lord,” said Ivo, his eyes downcast.
Robin
would not harm the sheriff’s squire, Geoffrey was certain. But Robin’s men might act hastily.
“Hugh is strong these recent weeks,” said Ivo. “Stroke, counterstroke, lunge, and feint. And he is proud.”
“But Robin Hood must be leagues away from here, my lord,” said the surgeon, fumbling in his sack.
“I explained that a fox most likely keeps the town in view,” said Ivo. “Leading Henry a merry chase,” said the swordsman, in a tone of regret. “Hugh is a brilliant student,” he added sadly.
“Robin Hood’s men will cut his throat,” breathed the sheriff.
35
Hugh felt the burden of his deception, deceiving the surgeon, lying. Lying sinfully, letting a shiver and a weak voice mask his actual good health. Bess slipped into his chamber and swore that she would sleep uneasy until she heard that he was well. “I prayed for your return to health,” said Bess.
Hugh on his pallet of goose feathers and straw, recommended by the surgeon for its warmth and comfort, could only further his pretense by croaking, “I thank you, good Bess,” in a voice like that of a very weary, very old man. Had there been a tear in Bess’s eye?
But it was in the full morning, the hunting party’s horses just thumping their way from the castle, that Hugh fully admitted to himself what he was doing. He felt like a shadow trailing his own body, an honest spirit watching its thieving twin, as he crept into Ivo’s workroom and filched the black dagger from the wall.
A knob of bread from the surgeon’s supper was all he had to break his fast, but Hugh was not hungry. Perhaps pretending illness had caused him to have a touch of symptoms, as though to feel more honest than he was. He slipped down the corridor, past the chapel, and through the tumble of gray-blue stone, masons making their chisels ring with wooden mallets, a section of outer wall under repair. No one noticed the squire hurrying past like another castle wight on an errand.
But surely a guard would glimpse him, hurrying away from the castle walls. Perhaps Bess herself, shaking out her mistress’s linen from a tower window, would see him and call out.
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