But danger, when it came, beset Rowan from behind.
When least expected. Dove ambled along a deer trail atop a ridge, her head bobbing and her ears at a placid angle. And Rowan rocked along with the pony’s soft walk, her face safe within the cloak’s hood, her head down, starting to nod, almost asleep—
Far to the south she heard a feral cry, something between a growl and a howl. A wolf? Or Tykell? Ro’s head snapped up, and so did Dove’s; Rowan felt the pony’s muscles bunch to leap in fright. Just in time Beau caught Dove by the bridle, as Rowan twisted in the saddle to look.
From the ridge she could see far between the trees, for bushes and thickets were just budding, not yet in leaf. And amid the bare trunks of distant oaks she saw something moving, something massive and black.
Turning toward her.
A huge black warhorse that seemed to have two heads.
Ro went rigid. “Lady help us,” she whispered. She knew that monster, her mortal enemy, a bounty hunter who rode in armor of black horsehide atop his black horse. The one who had half a dozen times tried to kill her, Robin, Lionel.
It appeared that he had seen her already. But perhaps he had not yet seen Beau behind the pony.
Rowan ordered Beau, “Hide!”
“What? I—”
There was no time to explain. Rowan lifted her foot and booted Beau in the chest, sending her sprawling into a patch of bracken. “Stay down!” she hissed. At the same time she swung her other foot, stirrup and all, over the front of the saddle so that she rode sideward, lady-style, and her bow and arrows slid off her lap to land in the bracken with Beau. Rowan turned Dove away from Beau and urged the pony forward, off the deer trail, down the slope. But not too fast. She did not want to appear to be fleeing. With one hand on the reins she held Dove to a rapid walk. With the other she rubbed ashes from Dove’s mane onto her own face and hair, just in case they were not sufficiently smeared already. Then she felt for her dagger, drawing it from its sheath at her belt, keeping it hidden under her cloak.
Scarcely a furlong from where she had left Beau, she heard the hoofbeats of the warhorse closing in at a ramping trot from behind her.
She turned Dove to face her enemy as he rode up to her on his black steed. To face him, and also to place him with his back toward where Beau lay not too well hidden. If he had ridden past the bracken a few paces closer or slower, he would have seen the girl huddled there.
He yanked his steed to a halt with a burly hand gloved in black. All armored in black leather he rode, in the hide of a black horse, and what had been the skin of the horse’s head—forelock, ears, mane and all—served as his helm, hiding his face. Glaring through the narrow openings where the dead horse’s eyes had been, he towered over Rowan. His war steed towered over Dove.
“Sir Guy of Gisborn.” From within the concealment of her cloak’s hood, Rowan greeted him in a high, wispy voice as much unlike her own as she could manage. “Well met.”
He barked, “You know me, damsel?”
“All who dread outlaws know Sir Guy of Gisborn.” Although he was a common, mercenary bounty hunter, she flattered him by titling him a knight. ”Look, riding this lonely forest way, I tremble in fear.” Indeed Rowan’s hand shook on Dove’s reins, and her voice wavered most pathetically.
But he did not soften his voice. “Who are you? Let me see you.
Twice before, Rowan had faced Guy of Gisborn, but that had been two years ago, when she had been a skinny short-haired boy-Rowan, chin up, eyes defiant. Once since, Guy of Gisborn had seen her as a girl lying captured and unconscious at the edge of two kings-men’s camp—but it had been nighttime then, and she hoped the firelight had not shown her clearly. And that also had been a goodly time ago. She had grown since, and not just bosoms, as Etty had teased.
Reaching up to pull back the hood of her cloak, Rowan kept her eyes downcast, her chin tucked to her collarbone, and she puffed her cheeks just enough to change the shape of her face, to make her look babyish and stupid. She drew back the cowl to the blackened front of her hair for barely a moment, acting the part of a timid damsel, careful not to look at Guy of Gisborn.
During that moment there was terrible silence. Far away in the hush Rowan heard a pattering sound, soft at first, then drawing nearer like myriad tiny swarming dooms. Rain coming.
She tugged the cowl forward again and hunched her shoulders to make herself small, cowering.
Guy of Gisborn asked, “Why are there ashes on your face?”
Rowan breathed out. He had not recognized her.
“I go in penance,” she said, keeping her voice high, wispy and tremulous, “all by myself in ashes and penance to beg my husband, my lord, my master to take me back.”
“So you’re a runaway bride.” Not the least bit surprised that such a young girl might be married, Guy of Gisborn now sounded more insolent than harsh. With foaming mouth his war steed fought against the curb bit, but Guy of Gisborn held the horse still, lolling in the saddle. “Do you know anything of another one, a wench named Ettarde, on a white pony?”
Rowan felt Dove trembling beneath her, poised to run for fear of the great black steed. She felt her own hand, the one hidden beneath her cloak, clench her dagger hilt. Stroking Dove’s shoulder with her other hand, trying to calm the pony, Rowan shook her hooded head.
“Blast and damn, how many girls on ponies wander this wilderness? I trailed you all this way, thinking you were her.”
“Good Sir Guy,” Rowan appealed to change the subject, “have you seen aught of outlaws?”
“Only the common sort. Naught of that villain Robin Hood.”
Rowan felt the first large raindrops of the shower strike her cloak. She saw one land on Dove’s shoulder.
Plop.
And there shone a bright white spot, cleaned of ashes, on Dove’s hide.
Lady help me!
Hastily Rowan stroked Dove’s mane over the spot, but the raindrops kept coming down, harder.
“Days spent to no avail,” Guy of Gisborn was complaining, sounding a bit like Lionel.
Indeed. And would he think the same when he saw the gray pony turn into a white one?
“And now it’s raining,” he grumbled.
“Yes. I must seek shelter.” Rowan pulled the reins, and Dove backed away, as eager as Ro to begone.
But Guy of Gisborn slackened rein, allowing his steed to follow her. “We both seek shelter, and safety from outlaws,” he declared. “I will ride with you.”
Nine
Rowan felt her mind freeze like a partridge hiding in a thicket. How was she to get away? Already the rain had turned Dove’s neck dapple gray.
Far off in the forest she saw something else gray. A shadow. A movement.
But even at that distance she recognized that fleeting form: Tykell. It had indeed been Tykell who had sounded that wolfish cry of warning.
And now Ty had ventured nearer.
Behind Guy of Gisborn.
Just in time.
Staring past her enemy, Rowan opened her eyes wide, gasped, and shrieked like a dying rabbit, screaming as loud as she could.
As she had hoped, Guy of Gisborn swung his horse around to look for danger.
Instantly Rowan wheeled Dove in the opposite direction, up the slope of the ridge, and kicked. More than ready to run, Dove lunged into a gallop.
Never before had Ro ridden Dove faster than a jog trot, let alone sidesaddle. There was no time to swing her leg back over the saddle so that she could grip with her knees. Crouching over Dove’s neck, head down, ducking branches, Rowan let go of the reins to grasp the pony’s mane, hanging on.
Behind her she heard Guy of Gisborn roaring. “What ails you, wench? Outlaws? Wolves? A wolf!” It sounded as if he had caught sight of Tykell, and perhaps set off in pursuit. The noise of his shouting faded behind Rowan.
But she did not dare stop. Guy of Gisborn had tracked Dove before. If he wanted to, he would track her again.
Allowed to choose her own d
irection, Dove sped along the deer trail atop the ridge. It had been possible, if not easy, for Rowan to keep her seat when the pony was going uphill, for the saddle’s high cantle braced her. But now, bouncing somewhere between cantle and pommel, she lost her one functional stirrup, and willy-nilly she dropped her dagger so that she could hang on to Dove’s mane with both hands. Every time Dove gathered and leapt, galloping, Rowan felt more air intrude between her and the saddle.
Following the contours of the top of the ridge, the deer trail started downhill. Dove galloped headlong, gathering speed as her hooves slid on the rain-slicked slope. Lurching to one side of Dove’s neck, Rowan felt herself part company with the pony, and she curled up like a hedgehog, clutching the cloak around her.
“Ooof!”
Landing on her back, she rolled off the path. Dizzily through the pouring rain she caught a glimpse of a rather streaky, partly white pony galloping away. And then she found herself tumbling like a gray stone down a bumpy slope.
“Oooff!”
This time Rowan hit against some very hard obstacle that halted her about halfway down the hill. The hood of Etty’s cloak had twisted around her head and covered her face. Rowan couldn’t see. But she made herself lie still as if she were indeed a stone. With her head down, waiting, she listened.
She heard only her own heart pounding, her own breathing and the drumming of the rain.
Cautiously she lifted her head, pushed her hood back and looked around.
She lay against a boulder in the pouring rain. Her body ached from the impact. Why couldn’t it have been a bilberry bush or a tangle of grapevine that she had rolled into? The forest hated her.
Trying not to groan aloud, she lay thinking. If Guy of Gisborn had set off in pursuit of Tykell, hoping to kill the supposed wolf for bounty, then all might yet be well. Ro had no worries for Ty, who could run through the forest faster than any horse. And she had no worries for Rook, or Etty, or Lionel, none of whom should be anywhere nearby.
But what about Beau? Galloping after Tykell, Gisborn might have ridden right over Beau’s hiding place.... A cold serpent of fear rippled down Rowan’s spine, and she could lie still no longer. As quietly as possible she clambered to her feet, pausing to look and listen for danger—but all she heard was rain, and all she saw was wet wilderness. Silently she turned back toward where she had left Beau, slipping through the forest step by step, quiet, alert, like a deer.
At first. But within moments her legs ached so much that she began to stumble.
“Toads,” Rowan muttered. “Toads take my stupid legs. No. Toads take all man traps.” Especially the one that had broken both her legs. She had no staff to lean on. Instead, she clung to the trees. Reaching up, hanging on to low boughs, she hauled her faltering body onward. Rain drenched her upraised arms and face. Her wet hands slipped, and she fell.
“Filthy toads!”
Sitting on the sodden loam, remembering how she used to be able to run and hunt from one end of Sherwood Forest to the other, Rowan felt hot tears trying to burn their way out of her eyes. But tears would do Beau no good. Blinking, Ro staggered to her feet again, looked all around, listened, then took a deep breath and trilled like a wren. Although no real wren would ever sing so blithely in the rain.
Then she stumbled on.
But within a few minutes she heard a considerable brush-rattling commotion approaching her at some speed. Guy of Gisborn again? And she, Rowan, outlaw, on foot, with no weapon, not even her dagger?
Lady help me.
But then Ro sighed, blinked and smiled as she saw Beau burst out of a thicket, running toward her.
Like a small black-haired spirit of stormwind, Beau flew downslope, scattering twigs, deadwood, stones and assorted gear. Dropping everything she carried, she whirled into Rowan and embraced her.
Rowan returned the hug, her face against Beau’s sopping wet hair. “Sorry,” she murmured.
“Sorry? What for?” No Frankish pose now. Emotional, Beau could not suppress her own true accent, that of a Wanderer. “You save my life!”
“I fell off Dove and she ran away.”
“So, we find her. Good sense, to get far from that black-horse man. Brrrr!” Beau shivered eloquently.
Rowan slipped the cloak off herself and wrapped it around the other girl.
“I not cold!”
“You will be. You’re drenched to the skin.” The rain was slackening, finally, and the cloak had kept Rowan mostly dry, for good thick wool repels water. Besides, she saw her bow and her sheaf of arrows lying where Beau had dropped them, and she badly wanted them back on her shoulders. Limping to them, she bent over—
“Wuff!”
As wet as the rain but far warmer, a large tongue engulfed her face.
“Tykell!” Dropping to her knees, Rowan hugged the wolf-dog around the thick ruff of his neck. Her chilled hands found the dry, warm fur next to his skin. “Ty.”
“You’re all right, then,” came a gruff voice from behind her.
“Rook!” Letting go of Tykell, Rowan struggled to her feet, turning to face the dark-eyed boy. “Where’s—”
“Right here.” Etty’s voice, and there she was, scooting down the wet slope on her heels. “Who screamed? What happened?”
“The Gisborn Guy!” Beau, who had heard every word that had passed between the bounty hunter and the wispy-voiced runaway bride in the gray cloak, told the tale. Eagerly. In detail. With Frankish flourishes.
“... then the black-horse man, he ride back the way he come, saying things not nice. La, he cross-eyed with the bad humors. Almost over the top of me he ride where I hide in the bracken, but he not see me.”
Gathering up her bow and arrows from the ground where Beau had dropped them, Rowan ran her hands over them—yew bow with ram’s-horn tips, flint-tipped elf-bolts in their leather quiver—the gifts of the aelfe seemed to have once more survived intact. Slinging the weapons of an outlaw over her shoulders again, Rowan started limping upslope.
Running after her, Etty called, “Rowan, where are you going?”
“I dropped my dagger.”
“Where?”
“When I grabbed Dove’s mane.”
“But where?”
Rowan could not see what more explanation was necessary: She meant to return to the deer trail atop the ridge, locate Dove’s hoofprints, then backtrack, searching for the dagger.
Rook understood. “Sit down,” he told Rowan. “I’ll find it.”
“I go find Dove,” said Beau.
This made sense in one way, for the pony was more likely to let Beau approach her than anyone else. But it lacked sense in another way, for there was danger in the forest, and while Beau had a bow, she had not yet mastered it; her arrows missed more often than they hit, so how was she to defend herself? Etty declared, “No, I’ll go.”
Beau’s black eyes flashed. My pony. “I go.”
It was a serious matter, that of the missing pony, and not only because Beau loved Dove. Loose in Sherwood Forest with saddle and bridle, Dove could be taken by any stray peasant or outlaw or thief who could catch her. Or, even worse, her reins might catch on a tree, any part of her harness might become tangled so that she could not move, and she might starve if she were not found.
“We’ll both go,” Etty offered.
“And leave Rowan alone?”
“For the love of toads,” Rowan said, “I can be left alone.”
Rook told her, “Sit down.”
“Wait. Sit on this.” Beau twirled the cloak off her shoulders and tossed it to Rowan. “I go find Dove.”
Etty said, “No, Beau, listen. You—”
“I go now.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, stay with Rowan!” Voices were heightening.
“We’re back where we started,” said Rowan, still standing, holding the heavy, wet cloak, her legs aching.
Rook said, “Rowan, sit down. Etty, Beau, you stay with her. I’ll go for Dove.”
�
��You crazy?” Beau cried. “You go search the dagger.”
Rowan said, “I can find my own nitwit dagger.” With Tykell at her side, she started limping off again. Stumbling, she put a hand on Ty’s back for support.
Three voices cried after her.
“Rowan!”
“Rowan, wait!”
“Rowan, you—”
“What’s going on?” called a fourth, plaintive voice.
Rowan turned. They all turned.
There stood Lionel, all seven feet of him, blinking and bewildered, leading Dove like a big dog at his side.
With nightfall, the rain started again. A hemlock grove provided shelter of a sort, but with no dry wood to be found, the Rowan Hood band lit no fire. Huddled with the others, soaking wet, Rowan shivered. Yet this night her heart felt warm. Her belly ached, empty, for there had been nothing but greens to eat, but for tonight her heart felt full.
“Dove,” Lionel was telling the pony, “despite appearances, this grass is my supper, not yours.”
“It isn’t grass,” Etty told him. “It’s cresses.”
“Dove,” said Lionel, and even in the dark Rowan knew his eyes had gone owlish round, “as you can’t graze, you are supposed to browse on the hemlock boughs. By morning I may be doing likewise.”
“Sacre bleu, that I like to see,” said Beau amid muffled laughter. “Lionel, he browse twice as high as Dove.”
They joked in defiance of hunger, cold, rain. The way they always did when things got hard, Lady bless them. As they went on with their laughing talk, Rowan grew aware of a small silver embrace on the third finger of her left hand. Although she could no longer feel the presence of spirits in earth and trees and sweetwater, still, she could feel the presence of the remaining two strands of Celandine’s ring.
Six rings in one, finely wrought to fit together like a puzzle, Mother’s gimmal ring had survived the deadly cottage fire unharmed. A thing of aelfin power, that ring, and the aelfe had spoken through Rowan the day she had made that silver band of many strands the emblem of her outlaw band.
Rowan Hood Returns Page 5
