Rowan Hood Returns

by Nancy Springer

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  THE TALES OF ROWAN HOOD

  By Nancy Springer

  ROWAN HOOD, OUTLAW GIRL OF SHERWOOD FOREST

  LIONCLAW

  OUTLAW PRINCESS OF SHERWOOD

  WILD BOY

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  Published by The Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England.

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India.

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa.

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England.

  Copyright © 2005 by Nancy Springer.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Springer, Nancy. Rowan Hood returns : the final chapter / Nancy Springer.

  p. cm. Sequel to: Wild boy, a tale of Rowan Hood.

  Summary: When she finds out who murdered her mother, Celandine,

  Rowan Hood returns to her former home to seek revenge.

  [1. Revenge—Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Elves—Fiction. 4. Robin Hood

  (Legendary character)—Fiction. 5. Great Britain- -History -Richard I, 1189-1199—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S76846Rr 2005 [FIC]—de22 2004020319

  eISBN : 978-1-101-12779-7

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Jaime

  One

  On a stony slope above the Nottingham Way, Rowan gathered coltsfoot with her dagger, harvesting the hardy flower roots and all. Nearby, her bow lay at the ready, strung, with short flint-tipped arrows close at hand. Her wolf-dog, Tykell, lay nearby also, basking in the first warm sunshine of spring.

  But not at ease. With his head lifted, he tested the messages in the air as Rowan worked. And she also kept watch. As she dropped each plant, yellow sunburst blossom and hoof-shaped leaves and root, into her sack, she scanned the heathery wasteland, careful never to stray too far from the edge of Sherwood Forest. The sheriff’s men had caught her out here in the open once, but they would not catch her again—

  “Tag. You’re It,” said a man’s soft voice close to her ear, directly behind her.

  Rowan barely kept from screaming out loud as she leapt up and away, turning in midair, landing in a fighter’s crouch to face—

  A tall man in stagskin boots, brown woolen leggings and a green jerkin. A handsome, grinning man with blond curls out of control beneath his cap, his sky-blue eyes twinkling bright with fun.

  “Father,” Rowan gasped, straightening, panting to regain the breath he had startled out of her. “Toads take it, you scared me inside out.”

  Tykell, who knew Robin Hood well, yawned and wagged his tail.

  “Shame on you,” Rowan told the wolf-dog, “in cahoots with this scoundrel.” To her father she complained, “Must you practice your stalking on me?”

  Chuckling, Robin Hood hugged his daughter and kissed her on the side of her head, on her smooth brown hair drawn back into a braid. “Just keeping you sharp and wary,” he told her. “Must you venture out here?”

  “It’s where the coltsfoot grows.” The open, stony upland ran along the forest like a yellow river, furze and coltsfoot both in bloom, while the budding oaks of Sherwood Forest towered above, kingly trees crowned with mistletoe. Rowan turned her head to scan the Nottingham Way, which curved outside the forest at this point, downslope from where she stood. Seeing no one there, she breathed out.

  “Well, it’s not much safer in the forest,” Robin admitted, standing back from her and scanning for danger in his turn. “I came looking for you, lass, to tell you that the merry men and I will be on the move for a while.”

  Rowan nodded, knowing this was the most dangerous time of the year for Robin and his comrades. With the warmer weather of early spring, the ground had softened to provide good tracking for outlaw hunters, but the trees were not yet in leaf to provide concealment for the outlaws. The king’s foresters and other bounty hunters were swarming Sherwood Forest in pursuit of human prey.

  But last year Robin hadn’t gone on the run. Rowan asked, “Is it worse than usual this spring?”

  “Yes, because the winter was harsh.” Beyond being the most dangerous time of year, this was also the hungriest season—for all common folk, not just for outlaws. Peasants gathered lamb’s lettuce and other greens at the edge of the forest, but it was no use trying to trade them meat for bread or cheese; they had none. They had used up all their stores of grain over the winter. Their starving cows had not yet freshened to give milk. Sometimes desperate peasants ventured into the forest, trying to hunt game for meat. And they were clumsy about it, getting themselves caught by the foresters and frightening the deer, making the outlaws’ lot even harder.

  “We still have stores of dried fish,” Rowan offered, “and walnuts and such.”

  “You’re marvels, you youngsters. But keep your fish. And keep yourselves safe.” Robin hugged Rowan again, this time in farewell, then held her at arm’s length by the shoulders to look at her. “Will you be all right?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “You’ll be able to find me if you need me?”

  The aelfin blood in Rowan gave her certain powers: to comfort and heal with the touch of a hand, to sense the presence of hidden sweetwater, and lately, to similarly sense where in Sherwood was Robin Hood.

  “Of course,” Rowan repeated. “Be more mindful of yourself, Father, to come to no harm.”

  “I will, with the blessing of the Lady. Until we meet again, then.” Robin Hood bent to kiss her once more, this time on the forehead. Then, turning quickly, he strode into the forest.

  Rowan blinked, sighed, looked all around her for any sign of danger, then bent to her task again, gathering coltsfoot.

  The first flower of spring, coltsfoot. A goodly plant, the dried blossom good for tinder to start a cooking fire, the whole green plant or the dried leaves good for boiling into a tea that would clear the head of phlegm.

  Rowan’s eyes did not clear. They filled with tears.

  Remembering: a day in early springtime when she had gathered coltsfoot, then returned home only to scatter the golden blossoms on her mother’s burned, dead body.

  “Toads take it, what’s the matter with me?” Rowan grumbled at herself in a whisper. “That was two years ago.”

  It didn’t matter. Even the sunny air felt dark with the memory of that day. And now with new grief, her father’s going away—though of course she had put a brave face to that. In a sense, Rowan realized, she had lied to Robin. In truth, she did not feel as if she was going to be all right “of course.” All day she had been feel
ing an inner darkening, a chill in her bones, an inkling of—what? Some new peril?

  Not peril exactly, but ... foreboding.

  Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, Rowan straightened to look around again, at the hazel, elder and blackthorn bushes edging Sherwood Forest, then the uplands, prickly with furze, then the stony meandering of the Nottingham Way—she saw no one on that road, not even a tinker in his donkey cart or a black-robed Wanderer plodding, though she traced its course almost to the horizon. There in the distance, soft hills billowed the color of a rock dove. Rowan heard jays confabulating in the oaks, saw plovers flying in the blue sky—the day could not have seemed more peaceful. Yet within herself she felt a storm building, and she didn’t know why.

  That morning, as she had left her rowan grove, the slender trees had whispered and sighed to her: Good-bye, good-bye. As if she might never return. As if she might die.

  Something was going to happen.

  Rowan felt a trembling urge to flee into the forest, hide somewhere, or better yet, find Father and go with him.... But she shook her head at herself and bent once more to gather coltsfoot. “No use running from it, whatever it is,” she remarked to Tykell.

  Panting a white-fanged grin at her, the wolf-dog waved his plumy tail amid dried stems of last year’s thistles, rattling their sere heads.

  Behind the rustling of the thistles, Rowan heard another sound, a kind of tapping or clattering. Something with hooves moving on stones. Tykell lay calmly panting, so it could not be anything dangerous. Deer, perhaps, venturing out of the forest to feed on scant new grass. Two summers ago, when first she had found her way to Sherwood Forest, Rowan would have stalked the deer, shot one and shared the meat with the other members of her band. But now her injured legs would not let her hunt deer. She remained bent over her work, eyes on the stony ground, as the clattering sound grew nearer.

  It wasn’t deer. Something larger.

  Galloping toward her!

  Jerking her head up, Rowan gasped and snatched for her bow and arrows. A horseman! Or not a man, but a young squire on a white pony—bad enough. Some lord’s henchman in the making. Half-helm shadowing his face, quilted tabard armoring his chest, shield riding like a full copper moon on his arm, short sword lashed to his left leg. In a moment he would draw the weapon and, if she let him near her, he would lop off her head and tie it by the hair to his saddle, then ride to Nottingham to collect his hundred pounds of gold, or whatever bounty was to be got for a dead outlaw these days.

  In one quick movement Rowan nocked her arrow and leaned her weight into the horns of her bow, bending it almost double. There was nothing she, a healer, hated worse than killing, but she’d done it before, to survive. Or to help a comrade survive. On that day they’d captured her, she had killed three men so that Beau could get away. Then Nottingham’s men had overpowered Rowan and roped her arms to her sides, but perforce they had let her weapon lie; the bow and short flint-tipped arrows, gifts of the aelfe, had burned their fingers like fire, and they could not touch them.

  Now, facing the approaching rider with her bowstring drawn back so far that the feathers of her elf-bolt touched her ear, Rowan spoke no threat. She didn’t have to. The bow and arrow spoke for her. And Tykell—

  But what was wrong with Tykell? He had not growled a warning, and now, when he should have been bristling and snarling and roaring at the stranger, instead he trotted forward with his furry tail sweeping a smile in the air.

  And the rider did not even draw rein. “Rowan, it’s just me,” he called.

  She, rather.

  Rowan’s hands opened and flew up in the air, heedless of bow and arrow dropping to the ground. “Etty!” she cried.

  Two

  Hugging Rowan around the neck, Etty teased, “If you didn’t know me, you might at least recognize Dove.”

  The pony grazing close at hand, Etty meant. Just a white pony in an ordinary brown leather bridle and saddle, with none of the fancy plumes and trappings once worn by the mount of the king’s page boy; how was Rowan supposed to know Dove from any other white pony? Confound that teasing Etty, she knew very well that all horses looked alike to Rowan, with a front end that bit and a hind end that kicked and a stinky middle to fall off of.

  But Rowan couldn’t retort properly. She was crying.

  Ettarde let her go and looked her up and down, still teasing, although her perfect symmetrical face under the visorless helm looked as sober as an egg. “You have bosoms, Ro. Finally!”

  Ro still couldn’t respond, although she tried to smile.

  The mischief blinked out of Etty’s gray-green eyes. “Ro, is something wrong?”

  Rowan found her voice. “I don’t know. Not with you.” Knuckling the tears out of her eyes so that she could see Etty properly, Rowan thought that her friend looked well. Not happy, necessarily, and not unchanged, but strong. Perhaps it had been necessary for Ettarde to grow even stronger than before, surviving as an outsider in her uncle’s castle.

  Etty demanded, “Are your legs still hurting you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Tykell growled.

  Both girls stiffened, scanning and listening. They saw nothing yet, but in a moment they heard the approaching danger: hooves, many hooves, drumming in the distance. Horseback riders on the Nottingham Way.

  “Take cover.” Grabbing her bow and arrows, Rowan fled toward the forest, trying to run. But up the wasteland’s rocky slope, the best she could manage was a limping trot.

  “Get on Dove,” Etty urged, trotting alongside Rowan with Ro’s bag of coltsfoot in one hand, Dove’s reins in the other.

  “That would take me even longer.”

  “But ...” Etty did not complete the thought, only flung the reins over Dove’s head so that they lay on the pony’s neck, then whacked Dove with the bag of coltsfoot. Startled, Dove sprang away and galloped off, saddle and bridle and baggage and all, into the forest. As always when anything ran away, Tykell let out a joyous “Wuff!” and bounded after. In a moment both pony and wolf-dog had disappeared between the trees.

  What in the Lady’s name—but there was no time for Rowan to yell at Tykell to stop, demand of Etty whether she had gone moon mad, or do anything except totter onward, her legs aching and shaking. Somehow she had to make it to the bushes and hide before the men on horseback rounded the curve in the Nottingham Way and saw her. It might already be too late.

  Etty seemed to judge that it was. “Down!” she commanded in a whisper, pushing Rowan to the ground. Finding herself suddenly flat on her belly, Rowan let bad enough alone, kept her head close to the ground and stayed still. Inches from her, Etty also sprawled on heather and stones, snatching off her shiny helm; her long dark hair coiled out from under it. She slid the helm under Rowan’s brown mantle. Hidden only by the bare dun stems of last year’s furze, both girls froze like rabbits, watching as the horsemen rode into sight.

  Led by two knights in full chain-mail armor, lances in the air, a cavalcade of eight men-at-arms advanced, the soldiers’ russet tabards cross-girded with black to form an X across their chests. They raised no dust at this moist time of year; Rowan could see them clearly. The same device, a black X, was blazoned on the knights’ shields and the pennons that fluttered like small pointed flags from their lance shafts.

  “The mark of Marcus,” said Etty, for there was no fear of being overheard by the men trotting along in a cloud not of dust, but of their own noise: hooves on stone, saddles creaking, weapons and armor jingling, voices. “Those are my uncle’s men.” Etty’s serene voice sounded as surprised as Rowan had ever heard it. “I hadn’t thought they could be so close behind me.”

  Any man of Marcus who gave a glance upward might see Rowan and Etty only half hidden by the crest of the slope, two outlaw girls pretending to be brown boulders amid rocks, gorse bushes and coltsfoot.

  Barely moving her lips, and not moving any other part of her at all, Rowan asked Etty, “You ran away?”

  “Of course.”


  “Why of course? They mistreated you?”

  “No, not at all. It is just that my uncle cannot conceive of a girl or woman free to come and go.”

  “Then your mother—”

  “He still thinks of her as his little sister. To be protected.”

  “So she has no freedom.”

  “No. But she never did, except those few days...”

  During the brief time spent with her daughter in Sherwood Forest, Ettarde’s mother—queen of the kingdom of Auberon—had relished freedom, Rowan knew.

  “She doesn’t miss it?”

  “I don’t know. She would never say so.”

  “Is she happy?”

  “She is... brave. Mother was always determined to be content with her lot. And proud. She refuses to wear black.”

  Black?

  The black gown and veil of a widow?

  Eyes on the soldiers on horseback trotting toward Nottingham, careful not to move, Rowan kept silence a moment to control her reaction. Then she whispered, “Your father?”

  “Dead.”

  “I—I’m sorry.”

  Etty did not speak. Rowan sensed that she could not speak, or not with safety, not without making some movement that might betray them. They lay silent, motionless.

  Rowan let several moments go by before she murmured, “Does your mother know where you are?”

  “Yes, in a general way. But not precisely.”

  This answer baffled Rowan. She tried again. “You told her where you were going?”

  “I asked her whether she wanted to come along. She chose to stay behind, and she didn’t want to have to lie to Uncle Marcus, so she wanted to know nothing more. I slipped away with her blessing.”

  “Oh.” Rowan lay puzzling over the ways of noble families, wondering whether lovely Queen Elsinor was fond of her brother Marcus and whether Lord Marcus felt affection for her. And how Queen Elsinor could love Etty the way Rowan knew she did, yet could let her ride away. Finally Ro murmured, “You told her good-bye.”