Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy (7 page)

He groaned and then quieted.

Wren’s head snapped round to Linnet. “Run get supplies—all you can carry.”

“What—?”

“It is a sword thrust. I think it touched his heart.”

Dismay drove all the breath from Linnet again.

Lark barked at her, “Go!”

She ran. Not until she reached her own hearthside did she realize her father had come with her.

“Tell me what,” he said, “and I will carry.”

“Naught can mend a strike to the heart.”

“Do not say that. Your mother can do remarkable things. I have seen her bring men back to life.”

“But the warning—”

“It brought her here, where she is needed.”

“You think that is all?” Desperate, Linnet reached for any reassurance. Martin Scarlet had been there all her life. And, the next triad was not ready to take this one’s place. She was not ready.

She thrust items into her father’s hands and caught up more herself. When they returned outside, the dawn had strengthened enough that she could see...

Martin lay sprawled on the ground like a man already slain, but she knew his heart still beat. For one thing, his eyes were wide open, too wide. For another, the blood pumped out of him, making a black pool of his chest.

Linnet went to her knees beside her mother with a sob.

“Steady, lass,” Wren said. She—or perhaps Fal—had already cut Martin’s tunic away, exposing the terrible wound. Wren’s hands, like Fal’s, were now red past the wrists.

Folk stood silent and still as the trees. Only a child whimpered somewhere in the distance.

“Bandaging, a thick pad of it,” Wren requested. Linnet placed it in her mother’s slimy hand. Her stomach heaved.

“More.”

They all watched as Wren packed the wound in an attempt to stanch the bleeding. The blood welled up around the cloth, persistent as the life still in Martin Scarlet’s eyes.

Beneath her breath, Wren muttered a prayer, or more likely an invocation.

Linnet felt the power come.

It rose up out of the soil at her mother’s bidding, materialized from the air of the dawning, streamed down from the trees, and poured through Wren the way water pours through a funnel, into her hands and into Martin.

He groaned again. He gritted his teeth as against pain of great intensity. Light flickered around Wren’s hands, pinpricks of shed gold. Martin’s body arched and his head strained back. Wren continued to speak under her breath, low and steady.

On his father’s other side Falcon still knelt, anguish in his eyes. His hands covered his father’s and gripped tight.

Wren cast a look at Sparrow. “Help me. I cannot hold him.”

Sparrow placed his hands on her shoulders. The gold fire streaming from her fingers grew stronger and then, a moment later, streamed green.

The color of fresh grass, the color of leaves at the height of summer, of the Green Man’s holy eyes...

Linnet felt the backlash of that power in the pit of her stomach. She trembled and thought that, for an instant, the whole world paused.

Or perhaps that was Sherwood.

Wren gasped. Her head drooped abruptly, like that of a woman who has heard an answer.

To Fal she said, “I am sorry, Falcon, lad, I cannot hold him.”

Fal’s face crumpled like that of a child.

Wren laid both her red-stained hands on Martin’s forehead and gazed into his eyes. “You know I love you.”

“Wren—” He gasped.

“Go to your Sally now. She waits for you. We shall see you anon.”

“No!” The word came not from Martin, but his son. Falcon’s face was now devoid of color, and his eyes burned dark. All the compassion inside Linnet reached out to him.

But it was Lark who provided comfort. She wrapped both her arms about his shoulders from behind and held on.

“Son,” Martin gasped, “do your part well.”

They proved his last words. His body eased as his spirit left it, and the green fire lessened under Wren’s hands, then faded away.

For one long moment, trembling silence held. Then someone wailed. A child cried in response. A woman keened. Those gathered round the man who had led them a score of years mourned him fully, as a mother mourns a dearly loved son.

Wren raised both bloodstained hands and buried her face in them. Grief tore through Linnet, another backlash of what her parents and Falcon felt.

“I failed him,” Wren mourned.

“No, I failed him,” Falcon cried. “I was there when the fight came upon us. I should have defended him.”

“No one ever defended Martin Scarlet,” Sparrow said, in grief. “He fought always for himself.” He drew a breath and asked Fal intently, “Will they be coming, lad?”

“Who?”

“The soldiers who engaged you. Will they follow here?”

Falcon lifted his shattered face. Linnet could feel him struggle to think. “Aye. Perhaps. We lost them for a time in the forest, but they will come searching.”

“You cannot stay here. If you are found in this place, the village will pay.” He glanced toward the tethered prisoner. “He cannot be found here, either.”

Falcon leaped to his feet. The folk gathered round parted for him as he whirled and flew at the prisoner in a fury. “This is your fault, you and your accursed kind.” His first blow took Gareth de Vavasour in the head; the second knocked him sideways to the ground and was followed by a boot to the ribs. A number of village men converged upon Fal. Sparrow reached him first.

“Nay, lad,” he said, and wrapped Falcon in his arms. “Do not.”

Falcon twisted in Sparrow’s grip and stared into Gareth de Vavasour’s face. “You will pay,” he spat. “I promise! You and all your kind will pay.”

Chapter Ten

“Get up.”

The words, spoken by the big man in the sheepskin cloak, roused Gareth from his day-long stupor. He looked up into the dark eyes of the speaker and wondered whether he could obey.

He hurt all over and his head swam. No one had been near him since whatever happened earlier had happened and the wild-haired young man called Falcon flew at him. From all the shouting, wailing, and cries of mourning, Gareth suspected there had been a death, but he had been unable to see much with so many backs in the way. After the Saxon knocked him down, he thought someone had been borne away. He had not so much as glimpsed the healer, Linnet—daughter, so he recalled, of this man now standing over him.

They had the same dark eyes, steady and sane. This did not look an angry man like the other, Falcon’s sire. Gareth’s mind struggled with it; could it be Falcon’s sire, Scarface, who had died?

“Up with you,” the man said again. “I have cut your tether.”

Gareth scrambled up, unable to suppress a grimace of agony. “What has happened?” he asked. Clearly, if Scarface was dead, his son blamed Gareth. Was he now to be slain in retaliation?

But Linnet’s father merely said, “You cannot stay here. Come with me.”

To Gareth’s humiliation, he staggered, almost too weak to walk. He could not remember the last time food had passed his lips. The day had been a warm one, and he had been afforded no water. His tongue felt swollen, and his mouth full of grit.

Yet he straightened his spine. He was a Norman knight, a champion. Could he let these Saxon dogs see him falter?

The big man led him toward one of the village huts, the same from which Gareth had seen Linnet emerge when she tended him.

Before they entered, Gareth heard a voice from within. “I will not! I travel nowhere in his company. Slit his accursed throat and send his corpse back to his uncle, I say.” Raw grief and rage colored the words.

A woman’s voice, not quite calm, replied, “You cannot stay here, Fal. I know you hurt. Do you think I do not hurt also? I have had a third of my life torn away this day. But we must think what is best for the future. You, Lark, and Linnet are now doubly precious, and must be kept safe.”

The big man—Sparrow—planted his hand between Gareth’s shoulder blades and shoved him through the doorway.

Everyone inside the hut turned and stared. So small was the space, it seemed crowded with the four inside—the woman with the fierce, golden eyes who had just spoken, her daughters, Linnet and Lark, and Scarface’s son.

The latter looked distraught with grief, and that answered Gareth’s wondering. Aye, Scarface must be dead. He felt a surge of satisfaction at that; the man had been a brutal savage. Yet his death undoubtedly changed the game, and not for the better, so far as Gareth was concerned.

“Do not bring that varmint in here.” Scarface’s son leaped to his feet. “I will not breathe the same air as he.”

“Steady,” said Sparrow. “None of us will be here long. Linnet, have you packed up all you need? Lark, you have your weapons?”

“I always have my weapons.” The small fury leaped to her feet, a knife appearing in her hand as if by magic. Before Gareth could draw breath she was upon him and had the blade at his throat. “Fal, would you have me end it now—blood for blood?”

The big man at Gareth’s shoulder spoke in a rumble. “He is too valuable for that. Come now, I want to be away into the forest by nightfall.”

The forest? Surely they did not mean to drag Gareth away with them into Sherwood? To be sure, he knew that was where outlaws and peasants alike disappeared when they did not want to face justice—the Sheriff’s or the King’s. But would they take a Norman captive with them?

Apparently so, for the girl withdrew her knife with a scowl, they gathered up their packs, and Scarface’s son spoke, his face twisted by grief.

“Aye, Norman swine, we shall take you to Sherwood, and maybe abandon you there—see how the forest deals with you then.”

****

“Come along.”

Yet another yank on the rope around Gareth’s neck, and he stumbled forward into the darkness. He could not guess how these people could see where they were going. All around was blackness, whispering tree boughs and shadows, and silence that steadily deepened.

But the silence was not truly silent—it rustled with the movement of small animals, fluttered with the stirring of leaves, and bristled with a sensation that felt like someone touching Gareth’s bare skin.

His companions moved with barely a sound. The woman—Wren—led the way faultlessly and without pause. The smaller of her daughters, Lark, followed her, with Fal behind, then Linnet and, keeping Gareth on a short rein, her father. Gareth could not see them but knew they were there.

The curious thing was it felt as if someone came behind him, as well. So real was the conviction, Gareth turned his head a few times, but glimpsed only more darkness.

“Sit,” the man Sparrow told him, and pushed him down where he stood. Gareth tried to feel offended at being treated like a trained hound, but all his indignation had disappeared into exhaustion. His broken arm ached incessantly, and the wounds at shoulder and thigh burned like fire.

Light flared suddenly in a shower of golden sparks, and a torch was lit. A face swam above Gareth—Sparrow again. “We will stay here the night. I will hobble you, but should you get free, ’twould be foolish to hare away into the trees. Do you understand?”

Gareth gave a nod, his only possible response. The others began talking softly among themselves while Sparrow fashioned a line between Gareth’s ankles and two trees.

Above him the wind rose; he could hear the swaying of branches. It sounded like other voices whispering.

He closed his eyes and tried to pray for strength. He struggled to remember the prayers his mother had taught him. That had been so long ago, so far away. He remembered only her smile, and the softness of her eyes.

Light flickered against his closed eyelids. He opened his eyes and looked up.

Linnet stood there, a torch in one hand, a flask in the other. “Here.” She sank to her knees beside him. “Water.”

Thank God
. He reached his good hand for it. His fingers brushed hers and she looked away.

He drank greedily, drained half the flask’s contents, and then made as if to hand it back to her.

“Drink all you wish. There is a stream close by.” She hesitated. “You must be hungry.”

He shook his head. He ached too much for hunger. He had not hurt so since he first began training, the butt of all the older lads’ cruelty.

“There will be something to eat soon.” She arose and left him, never once having looked him in the eyes.

Gareth tried not to feel a sense of loss. She meant nothing to him. A Saxon peasant. He could allow her to mean nothing. And the sense of connection he thought he had felt between them had been sheer fancy. A beautiful woman touching him, tending him, should stir his interest and his manhood. That was only to be expected.

He closed his eyes again and wondered if he would ever be sent to his uncle. He wondered if he wanted to be. Aye, anything was better than this situation in which he now found himself.

He must have fallen into a pain-wracked doze, for the next thing he knew he roused to a touch on his arm. Linnet knelt beside him once more, with her mother, straight and tall, standing over her.

“Tend his hurts,” Wren said, “and then get away from him.” In the harsh torch light, Wren’s face bore the signs of grief. Gareth wondered just what Scarface had meant to her—something dear, plainly, for she had aged in a day.

She added to her daughter, “Do you need my help?”

“Nay, Mother.” Linnet gazed up at the woman. Gareth tried not to notice the graceful line of her neck or the beauty of her bosom. “You must be sorely depleted after…after—” Linnet’s voice broke. “You go rest.”

Wren ran a disparaging look over Gareth. “You, whelp—do not give me reason to end your miserable life. Do not lay a finger on my daughter.” To Linnet she added, “I suppose you had better feed him when you are done.”

Throw a scrap or two to the hound,
Gareth could not help but think, and struggled to straighten his spine again. The woman stepped away, not far, and Gareth turned his eyes on the healer. He could not be sure what had taken place back in the village. But Linnet’s face showed the marks of tears, and her emotions pulled at him unaccountably, almost as if he could sense all she felt.

She busied herself with her salves and bandages, her eyes upon her hands and not on him.