“Martin?”
The spell, fast-woven, broke when someone spoke his name. Rennie looked round to see a young woman approaching with a smile in her eyes.
A lovely, slender thing she looked, with rosy cheeks and fair hair all tucked up into her cap, save a few strands. Dimples flashed when she smiled at Martin. “I am to attend Geofrey’s burial with you. Father says I might.”
Martin nodded woodenly. “’Tis well, Sally. This is Lil’s girl—Wren—come to join us, from Nottingham.”
“Welcome, Wren! ’Twill be a fine thing having another lass about to help me deal as fit with these lads.”
“Aye.” So, this was the young woman said to have given Martin her heart. But how did he feel for her? Impossible to tell now; his expression had closed like an oaken door.
“You live in Oakham?” she asked, striving for politeness.
“Aye, just my Da and myself, since Mother died.” For an instant her expression, transparent as clear water, clouded.
Martin spoke. “Sal’s mother was cut down by Sir Guy’s men last winter.” His anger surged once more. Rennie felt it clearly, even though they no longer touched.
“I am sorry,” Rennie murmured.
Martin shrugged stiffly. “The flaming Sheriff thinks it his right to destroy the homes—and the lives—of those who sympathize with us.” He gazed at Sally for a moment. “Take comfort, Sal, in the fact that Sir Guy met his just end, as will Lambert, after him. So have I promised Wren.”
Sally’s gaze clung to his worshipfully.
Martin strove for a lighter tone. “Now, Sally, perhaps you can help Wren into her lad’s disguise.”
He went off quickly, and Sally turned her eyes on Wren. “Why has he promised to kill Sir Lambert, do you know?”
“Aye, you will hear it soon enough. I faced off with Lambert in the kitchen yard, and am now banished to Sherwood, in hiding.”
“Faced off with him? How is that?”
“He thought he could take what I was not willing to give.”
“Oh!” Compassion filled Sally’s eyes. She stole a look after Martin, making it more than clear where her desire lay. “It is an evil thing, indeed, when a woman’s most prized possession is not hers to bestow as she will.”
Chapter Eight
“As light always follows darkness, as the new leaf replaces the sere, as summer always comes to us when the wheel of the year turns again, so will our brother one day return to gladden this world we know.”
Alric’s quiet words seemed to float upon the glittering afternoon air, the way the sunlight danced in ladders through the branches of the giant oak for which Oakham was named. Sparrow tipped back his head, his eyes following that light, and felt sorrow tangle inside him with a sense of renewed purpose. Aye, Alric was right—all things that died came again. Yet some bonds reached beyond the grave, and some spirits remained ever-present.
Like Robin’s, and that of Sparrow’s father and, no doubt, Geofrey himself.
All Sparrow’s life, Geofrey had been there, a force of wisdom and strength, someone upon whom Sparrow’s world relied. Even though they had now laid Geofrey, with all due dignity, beneath the loam of Sherwood and the sheltering branches of the tree, Sparrow could not conceive of his absence. Surely his spirit rode those motes of light; his wise eyes yet watched the folk for whom he had cared so long.
Seldom had Oakham seemed so quiet, its inhabitants gathered with those come from the forest to remember, and grieve. All around Sparrow, folks wept openly. And at his side—
He stole a look at the woman who stood so silent beside him. Not a sound had escaped her this long while, not a hint of reaction. She held herself tight, the leather hood she wore raised to shield her face. Her borrowed clothing suited her well. Tall for a woman, she was slender enough to play a lad, indeed, and the boots laced about her calves fit as if molded to them.
Sparrow turned his eyes on Lil, who stood at the grave’s edge with Alric and Martin. Grief ravaged the woman’s face and added years to her appearance; no need to ask what she felt. Sparrow wondered at the love she and Geofrey had shared. He had rarely seen them do more than touch hands, yet she looked, now, like a woman whose heart had been torn from her.
Magic shivered in the air; if Sparrow narrowed his eyes he could virtually see it, a shimmer of pure green that surrounded Lil, a haze of violet-silver around Alric, even radiant crimson dusting Martin’s outline. He could see the grief also, gray as smoke, linking soul to soul.
And those others, the many who had lived and died in Sherwood—did they come as well, to take their leave of the honored dead? Robin, with his fierce kindness and vision, Scarlet, with his heedless courage and headstrong anger...Sparrow’s own Da, with his great laugh and even greater heart? All the others who had chosen freedom over safety and been willing to pay the required price for it, for an England they could call their own, this blessed ground—did they hover here also, like the light?
“Know,” Alric said, “he is not gone from us, nor can ever be.”
Suddenly, Lil’s head came up. Her nostrils flared even as Sparrow’s own senses unfurled.
“Danger! Children!”
Sparrow never knew who spoke the words. It might have been Lil, or Alric, or Sparrow himself. The warning came mere moments before horses crashed into the gathered crowd, and the peace shattered into chaos.
Sparrow thought first of the woman at his side. Even as his eyes noted the dull glint of armor and the blazons that declared these were the Sheriff’s men, he realized her particular danger. She could not be caught. As screams and hollering erupted all around them, he seized her and thrust her to his back. It was the first time he had touched her, and his fingers tingled. A horde of sensations rushed upon him: terror, distress, and overwhelming anger. He could not think about that now. Her safety must be his one purpose.
“Down!”
The oak, standing more than a hundred feet high and with a spread of branches nearly as wide, created its own clearing. Now the Sheriff’s mounted guard seemed to fill it, swords flashing, hooves crushing everything in their path. Sparrow caught one glimpse of Lambert, on his coal-black steed, at their head. The man’s eyes were everywhere, and Sparrow hurried to move Wren to the edge of the open space.
A stream ran just here, cloaked with sedges and bullrushes. He shoved Wren down its bank. Still she had not said a word nor cried out. He knew cover meant safety, and they must reach the trees at any cost.
With a great splash, a horse came through the stream, and its rider filled Sparrow’s vision. His fingers reached for the bow on his shoulder without conscious thought. An arrow came to his hand just as swiftly.
“Behind me,” he told Wren again.
Sparrow wore a sword, but the bow would always be his first choice. He saw horseflesh, sword and shield all coming at him in a surge of power. He whispered a prayer and let his arrow fly.
The soldier fell with a grunt nearly at Wren’s feet, and the horse shied away. Sparrow heard Wren gasp even as he seized her wrist, intent on pulling her on, but past the stream their way was blocked once more. Soldiers seemed to materialize out of the forest—how had they approached so quietly?—to surround the gathered mourners. Sparrow notched his second arrow.
Behind him he heard screaming—high squeals of women and children, bellows from the throats of villagers and soldiers alike, someone shrieking in pain. Where was Martin? Could he defend Lil and Alric on his own? What was Lambert after? What did he know?
Three horsemen converged upon him and Wren. An arrow to the throat felled the first, but the second came at Sparrow with a sweeping sword blow that nearly took off his head. The third tried to separate him from Wren, the way a sheepdog peels away a ewe, and terror touched him, raw and pure.
You must protect her. She belongs to you.
He drew his sword. A man on foot had no advantage facing one on horseback, but he could not choose. From the corner of his eye he saw that Wren, bless her, stood firm; refusing
to be chased, she ducked back and forward, keeping out of the third man’s reach. Sparrow shook the hair from his eyes and lunged with his blade, getting in a blow to his opponent’s leg.
He would never be the swordsman Martin was. Martin’s father, a rogue soldier himself, had taught his son well. Sparrow’s own father was a shepherd and woodsman before turning wolfshead, but desperation now made up for any lack of skill. Sparrow parried two crushing blows before using his strength to good advantage, seizing the soldier’s bleeding leg and pulling him from his mount to the ground, where Sparrow’s sword took him in a welter of blood.
He spun toward Wren. She had doubled back through the stream, her hood fallen loose upon her shoulders, and her eyes burned toward the man chasing her. Never had she looked more the wild thing, trapped. Sparrow heard a loud cry and cast a look at the thick of the fighting, where he saw Lambert, eyes fixed on Wren’s face, trying to force his mount through the intervening combatants.
Terror stung him, and he leaped to haul the third soldier from his horse. Escaping his grasp, the man immediately engaged Sparrow’s sword.
“Wren!” Sparrow barked over his shoulder. “Run!”
Her eyes, held fast by Lambert’s approach, did not waver—neither did she obey.
“Curse it—Wren!”
Brought to his senses by a blow from his opponent that laid open his sleeve, and the flesh beneath, Sparrow experienced a surge of rage worthy of Martin himself. He thrust with his blade, following the impetus of his emotion, and ducked the soldier’s shield. He felt his blade scrape bone as the man fell.
“Come!” He caught Wren’s hand, and they ran until the breath seared his lungs and Wren at last stumbled. He tried to catch her as she fell, and they both went down and landed in the soft loam, Sparrow’s heart pounding so loud in his ears he could not listen for sounds of pursuit.
“Be still.”
Bless her, she did not move. She lay on her side with her back to him, as if they spooned in a bed. Her breath came in big, deep gulps she fought to quiet. His lips were at her ear.
Silence now made their best cover. Trees arched above them, restless in a breeze that stilled even as he held his breath. The very forest listened.
Time crept by. Sparrow’s hand lay on Wren’s breast, and he felt it when her heartbeat began to calm. His own limbs eased, and he raised his head.
Far off he still heard faint sounds of the continuing battle. How far were he and Wren from Oakham? He heard no sound of pursuit, but under his hands and pressed to the front of his body he could feel Wren, both her body and her spirit. He sensed the life moving in her, the rampant curiosity, the simmering terror, all overlying courage like bedrock. His heart rose in response, and in wonder that he could feel her this way.
“Are you hurt?” he breathed, stirring her dark hair.
“I am all right. But your arm—”
He sat up, and she came with him as if they were attached to one another, as perhaps they were. She turned her head and they looked into one another’s eyes. He saw—
Wild places, rushing water, the rising and setting of the sun. He saw every peril of the future and all the beauty he could ever hope to know.
He could do nothing, then, but capture her lips with his. The desire came to him like the need for water after a long run, or winter’s-end hunger. Her mouth felt unexpectedly soft beneath his, and she tasted like the sweetest honey wine. He could not tell where his lips ended and hers began.
Her spirit rose to meet his, rushing. All that she was bounded upon him, mingled delectably with what he was, tangled, and came apart again. In that instant he knew her every fear, every weakness, and every strength, and saw she knew him as well.
As a child he had once stuck his hand in the fire on a dare—from Martin, of course. It felt like that, and like the sunlight after a storm, and the longing he experienced when he gazed at the stars at night. It pulled at the roots of his soul.
She raised her hand, and he thought she might strike him, as she would any man who dared take such liberty. Instead she caressed his cheek, touching him as if she feared he might disappear under her fingers.
A raging desire arose in him. Ah, but he could not take her here on the floor of the forest. He wanted to. Yet they fled pursuit, and his first duty was to protect her, always.
The breath left him as he eased away from her, and she sighed in response. Her fingers fell from his cheek.
“Come,” he told her, “we must away.”
“But your wound—” She groped for the torn fabric of his sleeve, revealing an injury which bled copiously.
“’Tis naught.”
“Let me tie it up, or you will leave a trail.”
Sparrow nodded. Without hesitation she tore what was left of his sleeve, folded it deftly, and pressed it to the long wound.
“You have skill in those hands.”
“Lil taught me.” She glanced into his eyes and stole his breath again. “Just as well I can make myself useful, eh?”
Now it was he who lifted his hand and touched her hair. “Aye, and you will learn the ways of Sherwood,” he heard himself say. “Because you are meant to stay here always, with me.”
Chapter Nine
“It will be dark soon. How much farther must we go?” Rennie had no idea where they were. The forest seemed endless, and they had tramped what felt like a circuitous route. She knew herself to be utterly dependent on Sparrow’s sense of direction.
At least her terrible trembling had ceased. Maybe Sparrow had charmed it from her, for they walked with their hands linked and emotions flowed easily between them. She could feel how badly his injured arm pained him, how he craved water and rest. She knew how he craved her.
Ever since that kiss—but, it had been no mere kiss. A power lurked in it, and a terrifying current of desire, maybe even belonging. But Rennie could not be sure about that. She had never belonged anywhere, save the scullery, and to no one but Lil.
She stole another look at Sparrow. In the soft light of encroaching evening he appeared mysterious, a mere shadow moving at her side, with the brown hair lying sleek against his shoulders and his eyes veiled. He had a fine profile, a strong nose, and those lips... Remembering the feel of them, desire stirred deep in her belly, and he turned his head to look at her again.
His gaze was that of a hart, dark and secretive, holding wisdom deep enough to inspire awe in her heart. Mating with him, she thought, would be like mating with the forest itself.
She spoke, in an effort to deny what she felt. “I would not like to stay out here all night.”
“Here, or back at camp, it is all the same. The forest looks out for us. But we are not far from camp. What I am wondering is whether camp will still be safe, or if soldiers have already discovered it.”
“How many of our folk died, do you think?”
“Ours? Villagers and forest folk, all? I saw at least four go down.”
Her fingers spasmed in his. “Lil—”
“I did not see what befell her, but I thought I saw Sally’s father, Edgar, fall.”
“No.”
“And old John. Two others of the villagers—”
“Why would Lambert’s men attack at a burial? You do not suppose they were looking for me?”
Sparrow shook his head. “I much doubt it. Lambert had no way of knowing you were there.”
“I think he saw me, though.” Remembering, Rennie shivered. “He looked right at me. What if he saw Lil, also? Will she be able to return to Nottingham?”
“Lil can look after herself.”
“By using magic, you mean?” Rennie stopped walking and dragged at Sparrow’s hand.
He looked at her. “If need be. Now come and let us see if camp is where we left it.”
It was. Night just kissed the tops of the trees as Sparrow and Rennie entered the clearing to find a cold fire, and folk gathered in grim silence.
The first to catch sight of them was Martin. He leaped up and rushed over,
anger and relief both in his eyes.
“About time you showed yourself, Sparrow. We thought her dead!” His gaze dropped to their hands, still linked, and his jaw grew tight. “What do you think you are about?”
“We were followed and had to take the long way round. I waited for things to grow quiet.”
“I will just wager you did.” Martin’s eyes turned wild. He planted the flat of his hand on Sparrow’s chest and pushed. “Get away from her.”
Sparrow stumbled back and then stood his ground. It would take more muscle than that, Rennie knew, to shift him.
She released his fingers and glared into Martin’s face. “Why are you so angry?”
“He is a fool, worrying us, when he should know how dear you are to us all!”
“This is no time for your mad accusations.” The authority in Rennie’s voice surprised her. “Where is Lil? Is she all right?”
“Bruised from being knocked about a bit. She and Alric made off; she means to return to Nottingham.” Martin tossed the words at Rennie and then, still aggressive, stepped up to Sparrow. “I do not know why Lil gave you leave to guard Wren, anyway. She should have been left in my charge.”
Sparrow’s head came up. “So you could protect her as you did Sally’s father?”
Martin flared like a torch igniting. Before Rennie could draw breath he flew at Sparrow, and all at once the two of them grappled together, muscle against muscle, straining mightily before they went down, thrashing.
Everyone else in the clearing came to his or her feet as the two men rolled, grunting wordless snarls, a flurry of blows landing so fast and hard Rennie could not tell who got the worst of it.
She ran to Madlyn, who stood with her arm around Sally. “Stop them!”
Madlyn shook her head. “No stopping it now.”
“But he is your son. He will listen to you.”
“If that is what you think, you do not know him.”
“But Sparrow is sore injured—”
“As is Martin. Do you think he faced those soldiers and came out of it unscathed?”
“Then I say to you again, stop him. Sally—” Rennie looked into the girl’s eyes. They were red and swollen from weeping, and she did not react to what Rennie said.
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