Shadow of the Wolf (4 page)

T
his time with Marian – this grand adventure – lasted far longer than Robin expected. For weeks they roamed the valley and explored the manor, scurrying across the roofs, crawling by candlelight through the crypts and the cellars, emerging with whatever treasures they could find.

But then came the night Robin woke with a twisting emptiness in his stomach, and he knew all this had come to an end. He sat up in the dark den, listening to the moaning of the wind, knowing he was alone in the tower. All that remained of Marian was a single glass flower, lying on a pillow. He told himself he knew this would happen – he knew sooner or later she would return to that grand manor house, and to her servants and maids and cooks – yet the twisting in his stomach only grew worse.

He crawled out of the den and pulled on his boots, preparing to go back to Summerswood. But then he noticed the trap door was open, wind fussing around it, making it rattle. And there were other sounds, faint in the distance: shrieks and whistles and bangs; people shouting and clapping their hands.

He climbed into the crown of the tower. Night had fallen, the sky was thick with cloud, yet it was so bright out here it could
almost be noon, a giant hunter’s moon gilding everything in its reddish hue.

Marian was there, at the edge of the parapet. ‘Lazybones,’ she said. ‘Thought you were going to sleep till Doomsday. What’s funny? Why are you smiling?’

Robin said nothing, only stood alongside her and looked out. From up here, on such a bright night, Winter Forest appeared to stretch away for ever, lost on the very edges of sight. It was a great storm of colours: evergreens and browns and reds. Streaks of smoke and bone and old blood and rust. Even where the branches were bare it was black in its depths. It was like the ocean – the way it was described in Marian’s mother’s books – churning and roaring in the wind, throwing up a spray of leaves. Above it boiled a sea of cloud: its dark reflection.

Robin looked towards Wodenhurst. At its northern boundary – where village ended and wildwood began – three huge balefires burned, as they did at every full moon. The light from the fires danced across the spirit fence: a row of stakes topped with animal skulls. Along this perimeter the villagers patrolled, ringing hand bells, beating sticks against pans, blowing reed whistles, entreating the Wargwolf and all the other gods of the forest to stay in their domain.

‘Summerswood and Winter Forest were joined once, did you know that?’ Marian said. ‘And Bearwold too, in the next valley, and every other coppice and copse, all across the land – they were all part of Sherwood. My mother told me. Now Winter Forest is the only true wildwood left. Sometimes it spreads overnight, trying to reclaim what it lost, and it swallows villages whole. One day Sherwood will circle the whole world, the way it once did. What do you think of that?’

Robin didn’t answer. Movement deep in the wildwood had caught his eye. Movement that seemed to have nothing to do with the wind …

It was a rippling line, distant at first, but zigzagging closer. Robin watched the tips of the trees shudder. Hot needles were stabbing at the back of his neck. His heart raced. The dread wave was heading for the forest edge, snaking ever closer to Wodenhurst …

Thankfully the clouds were spreading thicker and were beginning to defeat the moonlight, the valley fading to black. Robin lost track of the movement through the trees.

He became aware that Marian was watching him intently.

‘What happened to your parents?’ she said. ‘Are they dead?’

He shook his head.

‘Where are they then?’

He didn’t answer. He stared at the phantom flickering of the balefires.

‘Are they coming back?’ Marian said.

He nodded.

Marian pinched her lower lip. ‘And when they do …’ she said, ‘what will happen then? Where will you live?’

He looked at her. ‘With them, of course. With my parents and Thane and Hal. In our house, at the top of Herne Hill.’

Marian turned her back and went further along the parapet. In Summerswood two owls
hoo-hooed
back and forth.

After a while, Robin said: ‘You can come too. Come and live with us, in our house.’

Marian turned and glowered. ‘To grub in the dirt with the swineherds? I’d rather be dead. I’ll stay right here and I’ll be glad, a castle of my own, and if you ever try to come back you’ll get rocks on your head, and if you’re going why don’t you go now then, leave and never come back, I’ll be fine on my own.’

She fell quiet, and she was scowling, and Robin found himself growing angry.

‘Anyway, why do you care?’ he said. ‘Soon you’ll go running to Mistress Bawg, and your servants and cooks.’

‘I won’t!’

‘That’s what you said before. You said you wouldn’t go back, but you did.’

‘That was different. A duchess – which is practically a princess – cannot very well live in the woods, with the toads. Now we have a home of our own. Mother hated that house and everyone in it and so do I and I’m never going back there, no matter what, even if …’ She fell silent and looked up, blinking. She held out both palms. ‘Robin, I think … yes, look, it’s snowing!’

She came back to him. She opened one side of his cloak and burrowed inside. The snow drifted, then swirled, then pelted them in great gusting waves. Marian squealed and darted for shelter, and the pair of them scrambled through the trap door, pulling it closed.

Robin stoked the fire and they sat near it, wrapped in blankets. Marian’s scowl had disappeared and she was grinning as they listened to the snowstorm howl outside. Very faintly now they could hear the villagers, still a-ganging at the forest edge.

‘It won’t make any difference, will it?’ Marian said. ‘They’ll keep at it, until first light?’

Robin nodded.

‘I wouldn’t like to be them,’ Marian said.

Robin fed the fire and the flames crackled. The timbers of the tower creaked and groaned, stretching themselves between the stones, the way they always did when it was cold outside and warm within.

Marian sat up straight and turned to him. ‘If you don’t go back to the village,’ she said, ‘I won’t go back to the house. Agreed?’

Robin looked at her and nodded.

‘That means,’ she said, ‘if I never leave you, you’ll never leave me. Promise?’

He nodded again. And what happened next came as a shock to them both. Before he realized he was doing it, without even really meaning to, Robin found he was leaning across and quickly kissing Marian on the cheek.

She shrieked and twisted away. ‘No, no, no! You must
never
touch another person with your lips. It brings down the worst of all possible luck. My mother told me that. You have to kiss properly, like this.’ She put two fingers to her lips, then placed the same fingers to Robin’s forehead, between his eyes. ‘Now you … Robin, I said “now you”.’

Robin’s face was burning and he couldn’t meet her gaze. He put two fingers to his lips and hurriedly brushed them across her brow.

‘Better,’ Marian said, before going to the window and looking out. ‘It’s getting even thicker! It’s going to settle ten feet deep. I remember once, when Mother was alive, nobody could leave the grounds for weeks, and everyone was out in the gardens, even Father, and we built lords and ladies and made snow angels and we skated on the ponds and … you’ll see … just as soon as this wind stops we’ll begin …’

For two whole days the blizzard raged. They were confined to the tower, playing endless games of Nine Man Morris, Marian hopping around, seething with impatience.

Finally the wind eased. The third night lay still and crisp. They tumbled from the tower and clomped about the Lost Lands. Beneath cold clear stars they built a knight out of snow. A birch branch served as his lance. His great helm was a cooking pot.

‘Follow me,’ Marian said. ‘We’ll look in the old forge for armour, and then we’ll—’

She shrieked. Robin saw the night move, and he heard the
crump-crump
of boots, and he heard Marian shout ‘Robin!’ and he began to run, but two huge shapes shifted in the starlight and descended on him from either side, clamping him tight around the chest and throat.

Robin kicked and twisted in the grip. A heavy gloved fist hit him on the back of the head. Robin kicked more furiously. The man thumped him again, harder, and Robin felt dizzy.

‘Plenty more where that came from,’ said the man on his right-hand side. ‘I should be indoors, with a mug of spiced wine and something to warm my bed. Instead, I’m out here in the snow. Here, have one for free.’ He hit Robin a third time and the world blurred, water welling in his eyes.

The guards dragged him into a courtyard. There were more men-at-arms there, standing beneath a hanging lamp, and two of them had hold of Marian, a hand clamped across her mouth.

‘Midwinter always makes me think of Daneland,’ a
grey-haired
guard was saying. ‘Remember that, Hawkman? Five years ago, was it, six? A blizzard so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.’

‘And more barbarians than there were snowflakes,’ another man said, scratching at his bulbous stomach. ‘I’ll never know how we made it home from that one.’

‘And now look, here we are, chasing after children. What happened to us?’

‘You got old, and I got fat. Just be glad we’re still good for something.’

The guards fell quiet. Another figure was approaching. He had difficulty dragging his lame leg through the snow, but even so this newcomer seemed more fearsome to Robin than all the other men-at-arms put together. When he pushed back his hood his face in the lamplight was lined and hard, his big
square jaw criss-crossed with scars. Here was Gerad Blunt, the Castellan.

‘What now?’ said the one who had hit Robin. ‘Do we really dangle this one down the well?’

‘I’m going to presume she was joking,’ said the Castellan. ‘She’ll let us know. She’s on her way over.’

Soon Mistress Bawg came into sight, ploughing through the snow, her lantern jerking from side to side. She came close to Marian, reached down, pinched her arm, then her stomach, then her leg, while Marian writhed and made muffled noises beneath the guard’s hand.

‘There never was enough flesh on your bones,’ Mistress Bawg said, pinching again, and twisting. ‘But you’re not starving, and there’s colour in your cheeks, that’s something. I swore to anyone who would listen this weather would drive you home – we only need wait once winter came. Should have known better, of course, once you get an idea in your head. But you’re keeping warm, I’ve seen the woodsmoke from that tower, and yes, I suppose you look healthy enough. Very well then, thank you Harold, Cuth, you can let her go.’

The men-at-arms released their grip and Marian sprang free and began shouting. ‘That house is
not
my home, and you are
not
my mother no matter how much you want to be – my mother was young and beautiful and you’re …’

She fell quiet, looking around her at the men-at-arms. She pouted. ‘What do you mean, “let her go”?’

‘What were you expecting?’ Mistress Bawg said. ‘Should I drag you back to the house, kicking and screaming, force you into a hot bath and clean clothes, bring a feast to your room while you insult me and call me names? Should we carry on that way until next you manage to escape, then start all over again? Well, no thank you, I’ve had enough of that. I won’t spend my life chasing after you, and these men have better
things to do. So go on, get on your way, you’re free. I’ll bring you a basket from time to time, but that’s all. Until your father gets back, you’re on your own.’

Marian stood there, scowling. She narrowed her eyes. She pointed at Robin. ‘What about him?’

Mistress Bawg crossed her arms. ‘Yes, what to do about this one … what to do with Robin Loxley? Don’t look so surprised, child, of course I know who you are. That village isn’t so far away. Lucky for you I don’t believe the half of what I hear or else … well, suffice it to say we’re civilized people this side of the river.’ She moved close to Robin, dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘But you had best listen to me closely, Master Loxley, for the sake of your own hide. We each of us in this world, have a part to play, and a path to tread. All too soon, before we know it—’

‘Whatever she’s saying, it’s all lies,’ Marian said. ‘Don’t trust a word.’ She was circling closer, trying to get within earshot while maintaining a safe distance.

‘When Marian’s father returns …’ Mistress Bawg continued whispering to Robin, ‘whether that be in a month, or a year, or five, she will embark on a path where you cannot possibly follow. The wisest thing you can do is get over that wall, this instant, leave this place and … I see, I’m too late, aren’t I? You’re not even looking at me, you’re looking at her. I’m wasting my breath.’

She rubbed at her face with her knuckles. ‘Well, in any case, at least it’s been said, and now you can’t say you weren’t warned. So then, Master Loxley, since you’re here and you’re clearly staying, you can make yourself useful. I mean what I say: I’m finished playing her games. But it’s more than our lives are worth if she doesn’t stay safe and well. And like it or not she’s my responsibility.’

She glanced again at Marian creeping closer, before turning
once more to Robin. ‘So here’s what we’ll do: I’m going to pass that responsibility to you. That’s quite a thing to ask of a boy. I know plenty of grown men who wouldn’t be up to it. But I think you’re older than you look, in a manner of speaking, and I sleep better at night, in fact, knowing you’re by her side. So I want you to be brave, and guard her from harm. That means saving her from herself, more than anything – she can be her own worst enemy. Do you think you can do that for her? Can you promise to be Marian’s champion?’

Robin looked at Marian. He nodded.

‘Fine. Go on then, the pair of you, disappear. Keep out of mischief, as much as you can manage, and stay this side of the river, I don’t want you getting mixed up with …’ Her words were becoming difficult to hear because the guards had loosened their grip and Robin and Marian were already bounding away through the snow.