Mark of the Black Arrow (4 page)

The armed man stuck the end of his halberd into the dirt at his feet.

“You must be slow-witted to travel Locksley’s road without paying the toll.”

Much kept his head down. “This is the king’s road,” he said. “Open for all.”

“Thieves and bandits hide in these woods. Locksley provides us to the people for protection. Thus it is Locksley’s road, and a toll is levied.”

There were no thieves or bandits in Sherwood—everyone knew it to be true. Ghosts and ghouls and spooks, but no thieves, not for many, many years. Not since the old stories of the Hood, but Much didn’t say this. His mind desperately reached about, looking for something,
anything
, that would extract him from the situation.

“I have no coin.”

Locksley’s man laughed, head back, teeth out to the open air.

“I can see that!” His fingers plucked at Much’s tunic, sewn by his mum from sackcloth. It was durable and, at a mill, plentiful. With the butt of his weapon the guard bumped the basket on Much’s left side. “But you do have a bundle of sweets.”

The other two guards moved toward them, standing to either side of him and closing Much in a circle of menace. Anger sparked. He didn’t want to give up any of the fruit. He’d already made plans for it.

And yet…

“How much will the toll be?” he asked.

“Let’s see.” The guard shoved his hand into the basket, pawing at the fruit and nearly knocking the pole from Much’s shoulders. He looked at the guard to his left, the one with a patchy beard being used to cover jowls and a double chin. “You like damsons, dontcha Bartleby?”

Bartleby grunted. “They’s me favorites.”

“And Quentin—” he looked at the guard on Much’s left, the one with a drunkard’s swollen nose “—just
has
to like quince.”

Quentin smiled. “I like it just fine.”

The guard straightened, pulling a handful of small dark berries from the basket. Leaning back, he dropped them into his mouth. It was a sloppy move and most of them spilled off his chin and down his chest to lie in the dirt of the road.

“And me, I love a ripe currant!” He laughed, and the sound of it pounded nails into Much’s head. “Leave the entire thing and we’ll let you pass.”

Much stood straighter, the heavy baskets driving the stout pole deep into the muscles of his shoulders.

Three men.

Three
armed
men.

A basket of fruit.

Slowly Much lowered the baskets to the ground, turning his shoulders to unhook the pole from the rope slings. The guards moved in.

The bushels of wheat his father and mother had ground to flour and carefully bagged.

The miles between the mill and the Donal farm.

The taste of blackcurrant brandy.

Much swung the pole with all his strength before he realized what was happening. It clanged across the top of the birthmarked guard’s helmet, bouncing off the curved steel. The impact vibrated the pole, jarring Much all the way to his teeth.

The guard didn’t fall down.

As one, the three men turned toward him.

The guard’s face was purple behind a deep scowl, birthmark glaring out over his eye like a hot coal. Lifting his halberd in a smooth motion he struck Much in the side of the head with the flat of the wide blade.

Much’s head spiked with pain, and black washed across his vision as if someone had thrown ink into his eyes. The metal blade drove him to the ground, hard steel as unforgiving as a hammer to a nail. He lay there, unable to hear, unable to see, held in place by the weighty throb of his rattled brain inside his skull. He blinked and blinked, trying to clear his vision. Slowly the black faded to red, and the world began to come back.

The three guards loomed over him.

The marked guard had pulled off his helmet, sweat-damp hair in a mess. He had one hand pressed against his ear, and his face was still purple.

“Why did you go and do that, you imbecile?”

Much dug his hands in the dirt and pushed, trying to scramble away.

“Pin him down!”

Both of the other guards stepped forward, driving down the butts of their halberds. Bartleby of the patchy beard punched him in the shoulder. The big guard leaned into it, pressing the circle of hardwood into Much’s joint, making pain blossom from his elbow, across his chest, and up into his neck. Quentin’s halberd end drove into Much’s thigh, twisting the muscle before slipping off and pinning his trousers to the ground.

He lay there, unable to move or crawl away.

The marked guard stepped over him.

“You shouldn’t have done that, boy,” he said. “Now you
really
have to pay the price.” He raised the halberd shaft over his head, then drove it down with all his strength.

The butt of the weapon smashed into Much’s stomach in an explosion of pain. The air was yanked viciously from his lungs, making them feel as if they’d been turned inside out and pulled from his throat. He folded into himself, muscles jerking him into a knot around his injured midriff, pulling him free from the shafts that pinned him. All he could do was suck air, trying to force oxygen back into his lungs through a throat that had closed like a fist.

From the corner of a watery eye he saw the marked guard raise his halberd again.

Much closed his eyes, and waited.

“
C
ome, sit child, here beside me.”

Lenore put her sling and stone in the pocket of her tunic and moved to her father’s side. He was leaning back against the side of their house, legs stretched out. She hopped up and scooted back on the worn log that acted as a bench. Her father smelled of sweat and dirt, the product of work on Longstride land. He bit into an apple, taking a big chunk between his teeth before handing it to her. She took a bite herself, much smaller than his. Her mouth puckered at the sourness.

“I have a bit of time before going back to work. Would you like a story?”

She sat up straighter. “Yes, Da.” She took another bite. “Please, one of the Hood.”

“How about the time the Hood saved the monastery from a band of sea wolves?”

Her eyes widened. “He left the forest?”

Her father chuckled. “Yes. He did it, but rarely.”

Her brow furrowed in thought. “He saved the monastery? This was recent?”

“No, child, this was long, long ago. The monastery was little more than a burned-out hill fort that some industrious monks were living in. This is when the light of Christ was new here. A time when the Northmen would raid the shores in their dragon-headed ships and come a-viking ashore, killing everyone they met and taking anything of value.” He shook his head. “Are you going to take all my time with questions, or would you like to hear the story?”

Her face grew solemn. “One more question, Da.”

“Come out with it.”

“Does he use magic to win this time?”

“No, dear, he uses strength, and cunning.”

Her face fell.

Her father winked. “And maybe just a
little
magic.”

*  *  *

A tiny glimmer of candlelight spilling through a cracked shutter was the only thing that marked the small chapel from the deep gloom of the woods around it. It crouched in the green shroud of Sherwood as if playing a hiding game. Midday, and yet this deep in Sherwood it was near dark, everything shadowed by the boughs of the trees above.

It lent the very air a sense of otherworldliness, as if the forest had always existed and always would, locked outside of time itself. The footpath to the small circular building had become overgrown to the point that any visitor had to pay close attention to his step, or be tripped by root or bramble.

The low light gleamed off the lithe man’s clothing, picking out the brighter threads of his tunic, trousers, and cloak. In the forest he felt connected to the world of the ancient Celt, the epitome of every bard that ever strode beneath the boughs of holy trees and crossed the mythical ground. Here it was still Avalon, still the Isle of the Mighty, a giant sacred grove that once housed the druids and the bards of old.

It made him tingle down to his bones.

His hand moved to his shoulder, to the ancient yew harp that rode there, strapped securely in place. The instrument faced out in its harness, laying in the curve of his chest and arm, ready always to play, able to be protected by him while also letting the harp absorb the world around him, adding to her magic. Slender fingers brushed the strings, calloused tips raising humming notes from the gold, the silver, and the brass. It wasn’t a song, just a snatch of sound, a tiny run of notes that spilled out of the instrument that he’d been handed down. The sound danced in the space around him.

The harp itself hailed back to the time of the druid, long before Christ came to England. A bard of his line had carved it from a yew tree born in this very forest. Now it was his to carry, his to use in the tradition of all who came before.

Storyteller.

Minstrel.

History keeper.

Lawgiver.

Myth spinner.

Bard.

There were other storytellers who roamed the land, but none of them had his connection to the ancients, none of them could wield the magic of song as he could. It weighed heavily on him sometimes that, unless he sired children or took an apprentice, when he was gone it would all be lost.

His mind began weaving a song as he walked closer to the chapel. As he stepped on the tiny flatstone threshold, the door opened. The man who stood there was short, thick, and covered in the brown wool of a monk’s robe—he looked like a tree shorn of limb and left to only trunk.

A smile cracked the monk’s round face. “My dear friend,” he said, motioning the bard inside.

Stepping through the door frame, Alan-a-Dale turned to see the monk lean outside and look left, then right before coming back in, shutting the plank door, and throwing a thick iron bolt to lock them in. He turned and opened his arms.

“It’s so very good to see you,” he said as Alan grasped his forearms in a brotherly greeting. “I trust you did not encounter any of the fey folk on your way here?”

Alan wasn’t certain if the monk was in earnest or jesting. Sherwood Forest was rumored to be home to fey: goblins, ghosts, and other such creatures in which some believed strongly, while others scoffed.

Well, scoffed at the fey at any rate
.

He had yet to meet a person who didn’t think the forest was haunted, even if they didn’t believe in faeries.

“None chose to make themselves known to me on this day,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I should have been glad of the company, though. It was a long walk to find you.”

The monk returned the grip and pulled, drawing the bard into an embrace of friendship too long apart, clapping him soundly on the shoulders to make sure he was hale and hearty. Alan returned the gesture in like fashion, finding the friar as solid as ever and even more stout than the last time they had met.

“I would not have asked if it were not necessary, my friend,” Friar Tuck said, releasing his hold and moving apart. “Of that you can be sure.”

“Is there a need to be so secretive?”

“There is a need to be cautious.”

Alan raised his eyebrows. “Trouble at the monastery?”

The priest waved his hands. “No, brother, nothing of the sort.”

“Is it the new bishop?” Alan pressed. “Has he done something?”

Friar Tuck moved over to one of the rough plank pews that lined the small chapel, motioning for Alan to join him. As they both sat, the priest removed a wineskin from a sack on the bench and passed it over. Alan took a long pull, thirsty from his hike through Sherwood. Inside the skin was a rich mead that coated his tongue with the taste of honey and clover.

Then Tuck began pulling other things from the sack. A loaf of hard, brown bread, a waxy chunk of cheese, and small cooked sausages pinched together in a chain of short links. Alan’s mouth began to water as he realized how hungry he had become. A knife appeared in the priest’s hands and he began talking as he prepared the food.

“It’s not that Bishop Montoya has proven himself untrustworthy,” he said. “It’s that he is too new to know.”

“You monks and your secrets,” Alan replied. “You are like ravens, gathering around a corpse and driving off the magpies. You’re all blackbirds, but not all equals.” He took some bread, sausage, and cheese from the priest, pressing them together in slender fingers.

“That’s a colorful way of putting it,” Friar Tuck smirked. “Yet I would expect no less from a bard.”

“You know I speak the truth.”

“You tell stories.”

“As do you, my friend,” Alan countered. “Does that make them any less the truth?”

Friar Tuck nodded his assent. “The fact stands that bishops come and go, but we monks remain. If things need be guarded, then they need be kept secret.”

Alan took a mouthful of food. The bread was a day old and the cheese sharp as a knife, but the sausage was freshly made. The spices of it struck tiny fires of flavor across his mouth. He smiled. His long-time friend knew his palate, after many long meals shared in close companionship. He chased the fire away with another drink from the wineskin and tilted his head toward the door of the chapel.

“I’ve never seen a prayer house with a bolt on the door.”

“Again, some things require the utmost secrecy.”

The bard leaned in. “This thing I carry—is it that important?”

“If it is real, then yes, it is.” The priest’s eyes glittered in the candlelight.

Alan nodded and took the last bite of his food. Wiping his hands he reached to the small pouch on the back of his belt, hidden under his cloak. With one hand he deftly untied the knot that kept it closed, then fished out an object wrapped in waxed leather. He drew it out and handed it over.

“Take it then,” he said, “and I hope it is all you want it to be.” Friar Tuck accepted the package, staring at the twine-wrapped leather. After a long moment, he tucked it inside the sleeve of his robe, making it disappear. When he looked up again, there was concern in his expression.

“Did you have any trouble along the way?” he asked. “Were there any inquiries as to what you carried?”