Hooded

by H. J. Mountain

  “Yes, yes, and you, Myrtle.” He produces an awkward half-curtsey. “There must be a good story here! May I ask, what a fine girl like you is doing in the company of a scarred rogue like William Scathelock?”

  “Perhaps I enjoy the company of a scarred rogue?” I manage to say this with a straight face.

  “Perhaps, indeed.” Prendergast perches against his desk. “And perhaps you have much to learn, my dear.”

  “Thanks for the kind words, Prendergast,” Will says. He finally lets go of my hand and steps forward with the pouch of loot. “Sadly, Myrtle’s family is fallen on hard times, like so many in the land. She has asked for my aid. This all belongs to her and her kin. So you’ll need to pay up a fair price this time.”

  Prendergast lips press together like a kiss. His gloved fingers caress the cross around his neck. I cannot tell if he believes Will. But the signs are promising. He moves to a drawer, returning with a pair of gloves for each of us.

  “I do not care for dirty paws,” he explains.

  We don the gloves and follow him to his desk. Will loosens the pouch and pours out the contents. There is Lady Ariel’s silver bracelet, Beatrice’s golden necklace with the amulet of the sun, a pair of their bejewelled rings, one of my own. As they clunk heavily on the wood, I catch sight of something in the corner of my eye: Prendergast giving a nod to the manservant, who slips from the doorway. And then…do I imagine it? Or are there whispers from the next room?

  I glance at Will. He is too focused on the desk – on the goods. Prendergast is slow about his work. Deliberate. He turns each item over in his short, gloved fingers as if they were delicate flowers. After a while, he looks up to examine me instead.

  “Tell me. What is your family name, Myrtle?”

  I hesitate. Then a name springs into my head. “Locksley.”

  “Locksley? Never heard of it.” Prendergast frowns. He brings to the desk a fine parchment map. “Direct me to your home, my lovely.”

  Inside I cringe at his creeping way, but I look over the map as he asks. Nottingham is in the middle. Forests and rivers, villages and castles, spread outwards on the parchment. I must be careful. He will surely know this land. So he will know my lie. “We are from the south and west,” I say, gesturing to beyond the edges of the map.

  “Then, indeed, you are far from home, child.” A glint lights his undersized eyes. “Tell me, how did you meet William?”

  “At a fair,” I say. Lying, I discover, comes quicker with practice.

  “What did you think of him, when you first saw him?” Prendergast inquires. “I am sure I can guess what he thought when he first saw you.”

  Will is watching me closely. I am reluctant to pay him any kind of compliment but I will play my part, for now. “He caught my eye.”

  “As she did mine,” Will says. “Now what of the jewellery, Prendergast? Are they not the finest pieces?”

  “All in time, William,” he sighs. “Always in such haste! It must come from being a soldier, all that running for your life…”

  I glance at Will, forgetting myself. “A soldier?”

  Prendergast seems to enjoy this very much. “Ah, so he has not told you of his storied past?”

  I nod but uncertain.

  “I recruited young William myself in fact. That was an earlier occupation of mine, you see. Alas, as it turned out, he did not have much the stomach for it.”

  Will’s jaw tightens. “True. I never had a gut to match yours, Prendergast. Enough memories. Let me have your offer.”

  Prendergast, fortunately, seems to ignore the comment about his belly. He is much too interested in me. “But I am very sorry to hear of your family’s troubles. Tell me, Myrtle, would you swear to me that these pieces are all of your family?”

  I stand straight and look the man square in the eye. There is, of all unexpected things, a kind of thrill in it. “I would.”

  Prendergast crosses his arms. He paces once, back and forth, and then stops: a peacock on display. “However, I do not quite believe either of you.”

  “It is true!” Will says.

  “We both of us know that you and the truth are uncommon bed-fellows, William,” Prendergast says.

  Will begins to argue. I spy through the window a shape. A very short man, much like Prendergast, only younger and with a head full of tawny hair. He looks aside and we see each other through the glass. He flinches and then scuttles away down the passageway. Moving in a great hurry. As though, I think, he bears some important news…

  “Will,” I say, with a sudden sense that we are being trapped. “Perhaps we ought to go.”

  “Soon,” he says, dismissively.

  Prendergast strokes the wood of the desk. “William, do you always allow your woman to conduct your business? If, that is, she even is your woman?”

  “Do you need more proof?” I say. Annoyed at Prendergast calling me your woman, and more eager than ever to be gone from here. Before I can stop myself, I step to Will and plant a single kiss on his lips. For a moment, he looks as surprised as I must. Then he pulls me back into him. Kisses me harder. His cheeks are rough on mine, like a pillow of straw. His lips are softer. Full. He tastes of wood-smoke. I am drunk with it, and then we are apart again, and the room takes a few breaths to still again.

  “My,” Prendergast says, lifting his chin. “Young love indeed!”

  Will tries to make light of it. He turns to our host. “If you don’t make a fair offer, I’ll just take these elsewhere.”

  Prendergast’s clasps his small hands over his large belly. “Only I’m not sure you will, William. The word is out on you. And not only you.”

  His narrow eyes flicker at me. Will steps toward the desk, to the jewellery. Prendergast sighs heavily, as if tiring of a game. He raps hard on the desk. Twice. The huge manservant bounds in through the back doorway.

  “Alec,” our host calls to him. “Our guests are becoming restless.”

  The manservant, Alec, moves with a swiftness that belies his size and age. A giant, white-knuckled hand seizes Will by the shoulder and pulls him back. Will struggles. But Alec is too strong, pinning him. Will finds my gaze. It is the faintest nod. But I understand. Nobody is watching me. I slip forward and grab as much of the Gisbourne jewellery as I can.

  Perhaps for the first time since I met him, Prendergast appears flustered. Caught off guard. But it is a fleeting glimpse. He spins into action. One of his gloved hands seizes my wrist. The other takes my left arm, bringing it around my back. The wrong angle of it makes me cry out.

  “I should put that back down, lovely,” he whispers close to me.

  “Let me go!” I shout, hoping that Little John will hear. “These are my family’s own and I demand you release us at once!”

  “Only…you have lied brazenly in my house and place of business, have you not?” Prendergast strains a shade of pink from the effort of holding me. But his voice is eerily calm. “Your name is not Myrtle Locksley, is it, child?”

  I want to argue but he seems beyond certain. How can he know this?

  Then he says, “Men are looking for you, Brya of Gisbourne. And they should pay a very fine price indeed to have you returned to your own!”

  My face reddens in anger. That he should hold me captive! That he will have me returned – like I am some stray lamb and he, the shepherd! I lift my right leg and stamp my foot down on one of his long yellow shoes. He yelps. He no longer has my arm behind my back. I come around and my knee jerks forward. It strikes Prendergast between his stubby legs. His thin lips break apart in a wordless moan. His grip on my wrist falters. I clutch the pieces of jewellery. An instinct also tells me to grab the parchment map. Then it tells me to run.

  Struggle sounds at my back. I do not stop. At the door I push at the bolt. It sticks. Footsteps behind me. I reach for my flint-blade, but it is not there. Will still has it. There is no time for the bow-and-arrow. I turn: fearing the giant manservant pounding the stones. But it is not he! I know not how he did it, but it
is Will coming towards me. With of all things a wild grin on his face.

  I get the bolt up and pull the heavy door back. We spring into the courtyard. Wolf hovers at my side, tail wagging at all the excitement. Little John has the horses readied. Without a word we jump onto our rides and take to the passageway. Riding fast. I am breathless. Hot blood pumps through my body. We follow the alley downhill, taking one turn and then another. I am soon lost. But it does not matter. Will seems confident of the way. We come to a wide road. Busy with townsfolk and stalls. A cobbled square is up ahead. There, we dismount. We pull our hoods up. Even though it is hard to truly disappear when one of us is a giant among men.

  He breaks our silence. A murmur, as we near the town square: “So, that went well then?”

  **

  The tavern nestles in a shadowed corner of the square. Clusters of men stand outside. Two of these – older boys more than men – pull away to meet us as we approach with the horses. I glance over but Will appears untroubled. In fact he smiles. He clasps a fist with the first one – whose long fair hair pokes out from the sides of his dark orange hood – and then the second fellow, who is stocky with blue-grey eyes under thick brown brows. They share the same greeting with Little John. Then both stare at me.

  “Murphy, Tucker,” Will says, “Princess.”

  “Brya,” I say, flashing a glare in his direction. “After what just happened you owe me that.”

  “Ai, but they don’t just send out search parties for any old body, do they girl?” Will smiles. I stare at him and he rolls his eyes and then gives me a look that is as close to an apology as I imagine he ever gives. “Fair enough. Brya...”

  Murphy, the longhaired one, says, “Where’d you find this one?”

  “Nosing round the old lair.”

  In my head I add up the numbers from the party that robbed us on the Sherwood road. To Murphy and Tucker, I say, “I believe we have already met.”

  Tucker blanches at this, his eyebrows coming together in a shy frown. He tilts forward in an awkward gesture. Murphy laughs with recognition. He winks at me.

  “How’d you fare with the smithy?” Little John asks them.

  Murphy taps a satchel crossed over his back. “All in hand. Didn’t expect you so soon.”

  “Prendergast’s,” Little John says.

  Will and I exchange a glance. I wonder if he is thinking of our kiss. It was a performance. I know that. Yet, I cannot help feeling that it was a pretty convincing performance too.

  “Turns out,” Will tells the boys, “although he’s gone respectable, Prendergast still doesn’t mind a spot of highway robbery, as long as he’s doing it himself. Talking of which, can I have those bangles back, Brya?”

  I sigh but hand them over. They are not my concern for now.

  The quiet one, Tucker, volunteers to watch the horses, so it is Will, Little John, Murphy and I that head to the tavern. Wolf, too. It seems like a good idea. I have never been in a tavern before but I have heard plenty of stories from Old Carter and Guy: the leering drunkards and the fights and the rest of it. Having a dog at your side cannot hurt.

  This tavern has an emblem over the door. The sign shows a fox surrounded by three red hounds. Their teeth shine brightly. The fox looks done for. At first sight it makes me think of Prendergast’s. How I felt trapped when I saw that man slipping away from the house. But then it strikes a deeper chord. Somewhere buried between my ribs.

  In the bloodlust of the hounds I see the shadow of the master. The Burnt Man. The red flicker of his hood. For a moment thereafter, as the others push through the tavern’s doors, I am chained to the floor. Stuck inside a cage of fear. The fox as the bloodhounds close in.

  11.

  The tavern is long and low and windowless. The air: beer-soaked and dense with shadows. It would be dark as a cave but for a fireplace ahead. Well stocked with logs, it casts strays of amber over the tables of men – and they appear almost all to be men – although almost full darkness wins out in the far corners and alcoves of the house. Will and I make for one of these, while Little John and Murphy head towards the busy bar. Wolf slips under our table; I slide onto the pew across from Will. He scans the room.

  “Do you see him?”

  His eyes dart this way and that. “You’ll know.”

  I do not like having the room at my back: it makes me feel vulnerable. The murmur of drinkers that fills the air does not help. Slips of voices I cannot make out. Every now and then a stray man drifts by our booth. I feel their eyes pass over me, even in the cover of my hood. One or two linger. At least until Will’s head turns a fraction up and then they drift on. Another strange discovery of this strangest day: I feel safer with him. This morning, even an hour ago, that would have seemed impossible.

  Of course I would never have imagining kissing him either.

  “Thank you for bringing me here, finally.”

  “We haven’t found him yet.”

  “You have given me a chance, that is all I could ask.”

  Will turns to me. His hood is half off. His face cut sharply by the firelight and the shadows. He looks both fearsome and handsome.

  “You are a difficult one.”

  I frown. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Yesterday, I took you for another princess, pretty as a flower and just as wise. One who knows well her pretty things, and not much besides.”

  His words disarm and frustrate me in equal measure. They betray again his harsh view of me. Yet there is a compliment lurking within. “And now?”

  He shrugs. “Like I said. You surprised me.”

  He says no more. I think of what Prendergast told me. “Is it true you were a soldier?”

  His jawbone flickers. “Once upon a merry life.”

  “Did you fight?”

  “That’s what soldiers usually do.”

  “How old were you?”

  He taps distractedly on the table. “Twelve. Thirteen. Perhaps. I couldn’t rightly tell you.”

  “What happened?” I think of how he drags his left leg. Wonder what other damages he might bear. His maroon eyes hold a glimmer of distant flame from the fireplace.

  “I fought in the king’s wars to the north: John and me both. It was…” The words die. “Reckon I don’t need stories about screams.”

  I wish I knew what to say. Comfort. But I stumble over the thought of him serving in battle so young. A child. I cannot quite reckon with it. At twelve years old, Guy and Beatrice and I were playing games of hide-and-seek in the gardens. Inventing stories of Sherwood Forest. Laughing till we cried.

  I had known violence; it is true. Visions of our visitor knocking at the door came back to me in the dark. But in day, in morning’s light, I kept them at bay: a dream I could leave to the night. Contained in the safety and the plenty of my life in the Gisbourne house and family. Until, that is, young Mutch ran out of the greenwood and tore at the fabric between light and dark, between present and past.

  I wonder suddenly how he is. Does he sleep? Does he dream? If he is broken, as I became. As I am…

  “I am sorry.”

  “So we left,” he says. “And that, you may know, is against the King’s Law. Like most things worth doing. So we took to the wood.”

  Part of me feels like I am seeing him anew. Less a rogue villain of the greenwood than a young man scarred in ways I can only begin to sense.

  “You know, you are a difficult one as well, Will Scarlett.”

  “Scarlett.” His thin smile. “You’re sticking with that one, princess?”

  I sigh. “I told you I do not like that title.”

  “Ai, you did. Myrtle then?”

  I don’t let myself smile. “Who is Myrtle, then? One of the girls who came looking for romantic adventure with you?”

  He shrugs. “Well, she was no princess, that’s for sure.”

  “If you knew me, of my early years, you would not call me that.”

  I expect him to ask why but he does not. Instead he says, “
Why did your father name you after a thorn bush?”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t my father who did.”

  “Perhaps they knew you’d go wandering off about the greenwood.”

  I frown, a memory taking form, the soft cadence of her voice as we walked hand-in-hand, once, between the tall trees near our small home. “My mother told me that the briar is where the fox hides till it is safe to run again.”

  Will reaches across the table. My body tenses, a flutter at the base of my belly. Does he mean to touch my face? Why would he? But he takes the hood of my jacket. It has fallen back. He lifts it over me.

  “Better wear this high. Word is there be folk searching for you, Brya of the Hood.”

  At this name I cannot help but laugh. Something about it brightens me. At the least, it is a great improvement on princess.

  All our talk of fighting and of hoods makes me think of the chamber room. For the first time I dare to speak of its mysteries. “Can I ask you of something…strange?”

  “If it is about that kiss,” he says and holds up his palms.

  “It is not!” And then: “Was that so strange?”

  He feigns indifference. “You tell me.”

  I almost give up there and then. But this is too important. “Have you ever heard of a thrown knife that stops in the air and turns back on in its path?”

  Will leans back on his pew. “As in a high wind?”

  “No.” I search for a way to explain. “More, as if it were thrown up rather than flat. So it reaches a moment of…stillness. And then comes back to earth. But to me.”

  “To you?” His eyes narrow in. “Why?”

  I gather in a breath. “Because this happened to me. Last night. It was the men who have taken Sara and the man who killed my mother years ago. Somehow, I believe I did it. I made the knife turn.”

  Will blinks twice. He sees that I am serious. Then his face crumples into that mocking look he wears too well. “Ah, so you can move flying knives now. This I would love to see.”

  “It is true!” My voice comes out high. Whiny. I am angered at myself for confiding in him, for being foolish enough to trust him with such a confession. “I should have known you would never understand.”