Juliana Garnett (6 page)

Her palm slid along the sleek length of the bow, idly testing. Five feet of Spanish yew, carved from the heart of a seasoned log and fashioned without joints; horn nocks clamped in place with a thin length of twisted flax permeated with beeswax, a resilient bowstring for arrows made of ash and fletched with goose feathers. Lovely, lethal, cherished as much for the giver as the gift; a trick of nature had lent her the talent to use it well.

The redolence of wet, chewed earth filled the air. Her breathing was soft, a faint haze in front of her face to dissipate in the mist. It was densely wooded beyond this track, quiet oblivion amidst tangled vines and creepers. The leafy, thick crown of the Cockpen Oak was barely visible; it presided over a small clearing near the Edwinstowe Road.

The fluty trill of a plover rent the air and propelled her forward. When she neared the massive girth of the Cockpen Oak, Fiskin grinned out at her from the deep cavity scoured by time and nature. She smiled.

“ ’Tis a little late in the year for a plover. A jackdaw is the proper signal.” Her criticism was no more dampening than the rain that failed to penetrate the lush bower of leaves that spread almost to the ground.

“Oh.” Fiskin emerged from the oak. He brushed clinging leaves from his rough woolen jerkin. “But not so late this year, milady. Winter forage was scarce in the fields.”

“Forage was scarce all over England.” She gestured to the road with her longbow. “Do the others wait?”

“Yea, milady, in the verge along the Birklands road. The bracken there is high as a man’s head already, for the trees are thinner and let in the light.”

Tension tightened the muscles in her shoulders and down her back, knotted in her belly and knees. She bent a glance down the indicated track. Nothing moved, save shuddering leaves struck by rain.

Fiskin gazed wistfully at the bow she held; his eyes were dark blue, hair the color and texture of straw thatch, his frame slender as a sapling.

“I could shoot it, milady.” He gestured to the bow. “If a gentlewoman can bend the yew …”

“No.”

He let the eager hand drop to one side and tugged at his forelock in belated servitude. It was a gesture Jane disliked; a frown pleated her brow.

“There is no need for that, Fiskin. I merely meant that you could not draw it without tutoring. Today is not the time.” She glanced down the empty road again. “Nor the place.”

“Do they come, milady?”

“It is hoped they do. Now go. See to Will and the others, then return to Ravenshed.”

He was swift, a fleet hare bolting down the road, heedless of the slick mud that turned ruts into mires. She was alone again, with only her thoughts for company.

Her footfalls were muffled on the grassy verge as she picked a path free of mud; the tree loomed in majesty, low branches stretching out twenty feet from the trunk on each side. A squirrel frisked along a branch as thick as a man’s chest, its protest accompanied by a twitch of red tail.

She braced a hand on the fissured bark; it was cool and damp under her palm. A furring of powdery green residue grew where the trunk was wet. Peering inside the shadowed cavity that had so recently hidden Fiskin, she saw with pleasure that it was as large as it had seemed when she was a child.

Inside, she felt it close around her, a musty shroud of ancient patience, mocking the fleeting lives of men. She had come here with her uncle. So long ago now, the time and the man gone the way of all; a vision lost, a legend faded. There were still times she thought it but a dream.

Then she would remember—a scrap of conversation, a shaft of sunlight through dappled leaves, the winding of the horn—and she would know it had been true.

She knelt on one knee, her hands around the longbow, so cool beneath her palms. He had given it to her. The gift angered her mother; she had heard them later, when they thought she was asleep, their voices raised, one in protest and the other in defense. In the end, she had been allowed to keep
the longbow, though she did not know what had been said to arrange such a miracle.

Braced with arms on her bent leg, she gazed out from the oak and waited. It was so hushed and still that she knew the moment he came; she heard the heavy step, and smiled.
I knew he would not fail me.

Abrupt shadow obliterated the light from without. From the dark came a familiar voice: “Be ye in there, my lady?”

“Yea, John Lyttle, I am here. What of you?”

Soft laughter preceded the immense form that stooped, peered into the cocoon of bark and decay, then put a huge foot inside. The rest of him followed, agile for so large a man. Set into a face bearded with red-gold and marked by years were bright blue eyes and a wide grin.

“I never thought to see ye again in the belly of an oak.”

She smiled, foolishly pleased to see him again, greatly relieved he had come. “It has been a long time.”

“Aye. Too long. My bones ache with age.” He shifted; legs encased in cross-gartered hosen and boots bent beneath him to lend more room inside the hollow. One hand scratched along his bearded jaw in the speculative habit she had forgotten. “Is this a fool’s dream we ply?”

“No.” She drew in a deep breath that smelled of damp wood. “It can be done.”

Thick fingers stroked the beard that had sprinkles of gray amidst the red-gold. “Aye,” he said at last, pensive and heavy, “if Robin were still with us. He is not.”

“Will came. And Alan of the Dales. They brought others who weary of empty bellies and purses.”

“I saw them.” He grunted, boots shifting on the thick cushion of moss and deadfall inside the tree. He smelled of wet wool. “ ’Tis dangerous, my lady.”

“Yea, so it is. When did Little John begin to mewl an old man’s complaints?”

“When I became one.” He paused. “Or thought I would live long enough to see the prince become king.”

“We are still here.”

“Not all of us.”

He did not have to say the name again; she knew it well, had
heard it since infancy, loved it since she was old enough to follow the laughing woodsman who was uncle, earl—and the outlawed Robin Hood.

“No. Not all of us.” She curled her hands more tightly around the sleek yew of her bow. “But enough of us. Here. Today. With the means at hand to thwart the sheriff.”

“My lady—”

“Tax men come along the Birklands road. Four of them. Only four. There are ten of us.”

“Nine.” Resignation clenched his jaw. “If I stay, ye must go.”

“You need my skill.” She waggled the bow. “I will stay safely in here, but my arrows will fly. Even soldiers cannot endure a swift arrow through mail—and these are garbed as monks.”

“Monks? Not soldiers?” John’s brows knitted. “The new sheriff is either bold or witless.”

“He thinks to disguise them, but Tuck sent word that these monks wear leather hauberks beneath their robes.”

“And they travel through Sherwood.” John shook his head doubtfully. “I had not thought Devaux foolish. Ruthless in seizing monies and men for the king’s service, but not so foolish to send only four men through Sherwood laden with silver.”

“You have been talking to Will.”

“Aye, that I have. He said nothing about monks. He said soldiers.
Normans
. The sheriff’s men and thus the king’s as well. We would hang if caught.”

“If caught.” She put a hand on his arm. Taut muscle flexed beneath her fingers. “Children go hungry because the outlaws take what little the king leaves. If we take the sheriff’s monies, he will pursue those outlaws at last.”

“What will this serve? Killing the sheriff’s men will only bring more Norman wrath upon the land.”

“There will be no deaths. Not even Normans will defy the threat of a cloth-yard arrow. The tax monies will be yielded. When the sheriff returns from Canterbury, he will be reminded that the justice he speaks of can be a two-edged sword.”

A brief image spun before her, of green eyes in a hard face, a competent hand upon her arm; she shivered.

“Desperation.” Her voice sounded strange to her, as hollow
as the tree. She looked at John, saw comprehension in his gaze. “Will came to me in desperation and hope. I could not think what to do. This”—she curved a hand toward the road—“was all that made sense. The sheriff is absent from Nottingham to present the king with a muster of who has obeyed royal summons and who has not. Only a small garrison remains behind, too few to guard the tax men.”

“I fear ye have allowed Will Scarlett to endanger more than empty fields with his notions of bravery. He ignores obvious perils, and prates of yesteryear.” John heaved a great sigh; broad hands splayed on his bent knees, fingers curling into wool hosen. “I brought my bow. And my staff. But I will not use them until ye are gone from here.”

“Am I not to meddle in men’s business?” Her tone was taut as a bowstring, bitter with the memory of the sheriff’s taunt. “Robin taught me well. I am capable.”

“Aye, yet—hark now!”

Jane rose to stand in the high cavity of the oak. She was unprepared for the hissing
s-swwooosh
and solid
thunnnk
as an arrow found its mark in the ridged bark of the oak. John leaned out, a big hand closing on the vibrating shaft. Peacock feathers fanned from the slotted vane, wound fast with red twine.

“The time to flee is gone. They come.” His glance was probing. “Be ware. Even four Normans can be deadly.”

“I know.” Her gaze shifted to the greenwood beyond the oak. “Will has planned carefully.”

“I have suffered Will Scarlett’s botched plans before, milady. Look to thy safety, and I will be at thy back.”

He left her, ducking to leave the hollow, shoulders as wide as a bull’s draped in Lincoln green. Stooping to lift his bow from where he’d propped it against a birch, he trotted across the clearing to a gloomy bower of shadows that swallowed him in a single step.

Jane settled into the hollow; she took up the bow and leaned into the yew to seat the bowstring. Fingers plucked it like a lute. It hummed softly. She extracted an arrow from her quiver and held it loosely.

Save for a fine mist, the rain had ceased. No wind stirred
leaves or fern or damp, heavy air. Beyond the oak, a faint shimmer of leaves betrayed waiting men armed with weapons her coin had purchased. The sound of hooves on mud drew closer. She slid the tip of her tongue along the ticklish feather fletching, then nocked the arrow and waited.

Expectation made her hands tremble; the blue steel of the bodkin arrowhead quivered.

Loose it easy, steady and yet sharp. Do not wink with one eye and look with the other. Stand as straight and firm as the oak.… Nay, draw not with the strength of the arm, but of the body, little Jaie
.…

Robin was with her still, his remembered advice a familiar echo.

She smiled, reassured, and saw the first rider emerge from the leaves curtaining the Birklands road. A deep breath, reflexes directing her, she gripped the bow with her left hand, the arrow still loosely nocked and held with the first three fingers of her right hand.

Do not draw too soon, Jaie, or the arrow will not cast as it should.

Three more horsemen trailed the first; false monks with hoods pulled up passed beneath the dripping trees. Abruptly, a white-fletched arrow hummed in warning, digging into the mud in front of the first courser. The animal neighed, reared, plunged to one side.

Lay the body to the bow, Jaie—draw from thigh and hip as much as from the arm.

Jane brought up the bow, stood with left foot a bit ahead of her body’s curve and the bow held vertically, while her right hand drew back the string and arrow until knuckles and goose-feathers grazed the angle of her jaw. An instant’s pause before her fingers snapped free, then arrow left string in a sizzling hiss. It was a smooth motion with an imperceptible pause—tension released the moment the arrow was free. Five more followed swiftly, a shower of deadly ash to join the cloth-yard arrows being fired so quickly that there was scarce a pause in the loud humming until the monks were ringed by a prickly barrier.

“Leave the coffers and go in peace,” came the demand from dense foliage—Will’s voice, harsh and determined. “No harm will come to you.”

Shadowed faces, skittish horses, and a flurry of brown-robed Normans milled in the newly barricaded road. Low debate was quickly followed by the unfastening of straps that held the coffer atop one of the horses; the sound of the chest landing in the middle of the rutted track was brittle and weighted.

“It is all we have.” The voice was muffled by his cowl. “Do you steal from the church?”

Laughter, then: “Why not? Even the king steals from the church. And I have no patience with fat and gluttonous monks when my own belly gripes.” Another arrow flew, singing into the grassy verge along the road. “Be on your way. The tithe has been paid for this day, Brother Monk.”

Lowering the longbow, Jane expelled breath from her lungs in a disbelieving gust. The tax men turned their mounts in haste, spurring toward Edwinstowe. It had been far easier than she had dreamed. No fierce Norman resistance, and now the coffer lay abandoned. A veritable fortune, if Will was right; taxes from Welbeck Abbey and villages along the way to Nottingham, wrung from citizens already bled dry. Their return would be welcome.

She leaned against the misshapen arch of oak hollow and observed the road, empty of all save bristling arrows and Norman silver. In the silence a raven beat heavy wings and settled atop the stark horn of an oak that had been blasted by lightning. A shadow separated from the density and became distinct as Will Scarlett moved from the trees onto the road.

Caution marked his step, the bow held loosely in front of him, an arrow nocked for swift use. Nothing stirred, not even echoes from fleeing Normans. Will knelt beside the coffer. A heavy lock dangled from an iron clasp, clunking against wood and studded leather. He rattled it, cursed, and called for Little John.

“Lend thy great strength, ere we spend all day here.”

“Bring it with us,” Little John said, emerging from the wood to stand beside Will. “It can be opened later.”

Will shot him a frown. “It is too clumsy and heavy to carry with us, and will be too obvious. We brought hemp sacks to bear the coin more easily. Can you not open this accurst strongbox?”