Forbidden Forest (18 page)

The ram bounded over the stone wall and rushed down toward them, lowering his head. The attack was so direct and without warning that it would have been comical if it had not been so fast. The armored head of this woolly projectile was directed right at Bridgit.

The attendant set her staff firmly in the ground, moving like a woman of wide experience, and the ram ran into it with a great
thwack
. He bounced back, but did not fall. At once Bridgit brandished her staff, driving the animal to one side and sending the scrambling, determined creature in a wide circle, right at Margaret.

Margaret's staff struck the ram a ringing blow exactly between the horns. The sound of the impact was startling and buckled the beast's forelegs. But the ram knocked Margaret down, driving much of the air from her body. His unthinking eyes looked through Margaret, beyond her, intent on colliding with anything on earth that challenged him.

John drove his staff into the ram's side, and the animal tumbled, rolling across an expanse of cow manure and sloppy mud. No livestock were in sight, but manure was wetly slathered all over the path, halfway up the stone wall. The ram came on again, and John used an economical, even gentle check against this new attack, driving the beast back, and back again, without hitting the animal anywhere but on his armored head.

At last Old Fred set his feet. He lowered his horns, but did not try again.

John offered Margaret his hand, and she took it, climbing to her feet. Laughingly, she reassured her two companions that she was quite well.

She thanked John.

It was a simple statement, her blue eyes on his. “I thank you, John.”

But he would repeat the words in his mind over the days to come, giving them special weight.

Chapter 37

The priory of Saint Agnes boasted only one nun, a red-cheeked, briskly cordial prioress. She bid them all good day and set fresh ale and a large, round loaf of warm, cream-white bread on the table before them. If there were any servants, Margaret did not see them.

“Did that old ram bother you?” asked Sister Barbara.

“Some of us more than others,” sniffed Bridgit, breaking off a piece of bread and eyeing it carefully.

John had left them and, in Margaret's eyes, without his presence the rooms were both empty and colorless. Before he left, Sister Barbara had given him a palfrey, a mild, cream-pale horse. “I ride a horse worse than any fisher's wife,” said John with a laugh.

“Robin Hood will find use for a mount like this,” said the prioress. The name of the outlaw was uttered almost soundlessly, an incantation it was unwise to overuse.

A lime wash had been used to cover every inch of every wall, and fresh, amber-bright rushes covered the earthen floor. This was as clean and pleasant as a room could be, and without a single old bone or bread crust visible on the floor, as was usual even in holy dwellings. But Margaret found herself wishing that John was sitting there at the table, smiling patiently at Bridgit's tart “One of us let the old ram attack two women before he stirred his stick.”

“Old Fred should work for the sheriff,” said Margaret.

“That sheep is much too smart to be a deputy, my lady,” said Bridgit.

The stone buildings of this holy place were set well away from the village of Blackwell. From the kitchen where they sat, it had a good view of anyone who walked the paths that crisscrossed the village green. Flowers beside the cottages were bright, yellow daisies and flowering herbs, lavender and thyme. Margaret envied the families: children laughing as the clouds broke up, boys pole-vaulting over a ditch in the distance.

A very large dog—as large as a small horse—was running as hard as it could, and the ram gave chase.

“He never tries to knock me down anymore,” said Sister Barbara, as though an honor had passed her by. Margaret noticed that the nun did not refer to the ram by name—names were often considered sacred, and to give a Christian name like Fred to a beast was thought not entirely proper.

Some priories were busy places, filled with happy intrigue and industry, local merchants always arriving with carts of food and drink. Travelers often spent the night or at least a long meal enjoying good cheese and simple ale. This was a quiet refuge, made even more agreeable by the brazier of warm coals set beside them as they ate and the lilting, prayerful tune Sister Barbara hummed as she poured herself a cup of ale. Coals were rare in Margaret's experience—only the best houses had them. Silver cups gleamed on a shelf, and fine yellow candles stood in a row on a side table.

“We have a generous benefactor,” said Sister Barbara, as though sifting Margaret's thoughts. “Our priory is dedicated to travelers in need, and we heal the soul of everyone who stays here.”

“Margaret needs healing herself, having mated with that ram,” said Bridgit. Nuns and priests brought out a coarse side of the lady's maid—Margaret had never understood why.

“This is not, I pray, a home for lazars,” added Bridgit, with badly disguised distress. Lazars were decrepit folk, afflicted with skin diseases. Although the actual incidence of such skin ailments was rare, no one wanted to have contact with any knife or trencher that had been used by such pitiable souls.

Sister Barbara smiled. “Many summers ago, it used to be. The gifts of our generous patron have allowed us to cure a different sort of ill, with this ale from a brewer across the green and fresh fish from the streams.”

“You are blessed to have such a protector,” said Margaret.

The sister smiled and patted Margaret's hand. “And so are you. This is a refuge for people who have reason to be away from the daylight,” she said with a meaningful glance. “The villagers will assume that you need God's peace.”

Margaret did not know how to ask. “Is this a village of fierce farm animals?”

“And tremendous men, and terrifying women,” said Sister Barbara. “Why do you ask?”

Margaret told the tale of the pig, as politely as possible, and added, “Folk across the land think Blackwell an ill, dangerous place; forgive me.”

“We are pleased to keep our happiness a secret,” said Sister Barbara. “All our pigs are fit and fat—and tame. Men saddle and ride them for sport.”

Margaret closed her eyes and offered a heartfelt prayer for her father's safety, and for Robin Hood. And for Little John.

“We all come to holy poverty in the end,” said Bridgit with a sigh as she examined the room they were to stay in for what John had called “a good handful of nights.” A whitebeam-wood shelf supported a candle of pure white wax, and beige wool coverlets were folded on their sleeping pallets. The window shutter was open to the sunset. “They put us in a box and fold our hands, and we all lie as quiet as nuns.”

“This is not poverty,” said Margaret.

“No, but it is not a city dwelling, with a watchman and strong-armed neighbors.”

“The ale was clear and pleasing,” said Margaret, with more than a little irritation in her voice.

“You must forgive me, my lady, by my faith,” said Bridgit at last, in an unfamiliar, almost humble tone.

Margaret had to ask with her eyes: Forgive you for what?

“For wanting everything done now, skinned and spitted,” said Bridgit, reading her expression. It was an old formula, meaning over and done. “I wish us both safe in your father's house again, but I am learning patience from you.”

Bridgit would have said more, but hooves sounded.

Margaret pressed against the door. Leather armor creaked, and the horses made the heavy, deep-lunged exhalations of steeds that had been ridden hard. A familiar male voice asked if any travelers had entered the priory that day.

“Today?” asked Sister Barbara in a suddenly quavering voice, as though she were frail beyond the power of speech. The priory was a traditional site of sanctuary, and Margaret and Bridgit would safe there—if the sheriff's men remained respectful of the law.

“This day, in the king's name,” said the voice. Margaret recognized Nunna, trying to sound formal and sure of his own judgment.

“Today I took in a prayerful sick woman with lazar's lesions,” she said, “running with liquor like pink milk from every joint of her body.”

“May the saints be merciful,” said Nunna, sounding genuinely respectful toward the suffering poor, but discouraged, too, as though he had looked forward to searching the priory, sword in hand.

“I told you,” said Wynbald, “that royal forester was mistaken. No forester has eyes in his head.”

The bridle fittings chimed, hooves striking small pieces of gravel, the horses turning, sneezing, complaining as the men worked their mounts away from the disease-ridden priory.

When he had put some distance between himself and the priory, Nunna called out, “There wasn't a certain tall man in Lincoln green?”

“Man?” queried Sister Barbara.

But then the horses snorted and whinnied, Nunna swore, and Margaret could only guess what was happening: Old Fred protecting Blackwell from outsiders.

Margaret lay in the darkness. She was dressed in a linen gown, the cloth soft from summers of being laundered in the local streams.

Again she saw her husband's eyes, shining like agate stones, and as lifeless. She saw the broad oak stairway, and could picture clearly the tangle of drunken bodies, Henry the sheriff's man stirring, waking up as they passed.

“Do you remember—” Margaret began, reluctantly sharing a question with Bridgit. Margaret was unwilling to score the memory futher into her mind. “Do you remember one of the snoring bodies with a bloody sleeve?”

“I don't want to put such pictures into my sleep, my lady,” said Bridgit from her pallet across the darkened room.

“Lying there drunk on the floor—”

“I remember the lot of them,” sighed Bridgit. “An entire room of wine-slaughtered men, too horrible to look at.”

“Think, Bridgit. Was it Hal or Lionel with blood up to his elbow?”

“Oh, it was bearded Lionel, my lady, his mouth looking like a gash in a blanket.”

“Did Lionel take my husband's life?”

“All but certainly, my lady, but what does it matter? We can prove nothing, and Henry does not care a turnip's worth who really killed our poor, dear Sir Gilbert.”

Margaret sat up in the darkness, her hand to her throat. “If we believe Lionel is guilty, then so must Henry.”

“Of course, my poor dear lady,” said Bridgit.

“You should have mentioned this, Bridgit, long before now.”

“Henry doesn't care for the truth of the matter, my lady. He'll roast you over a fire just to get your father's silver, and your poor dead husband's, too.”

Chapter 38

John captured a hare in his hand one dawn.

He did not reach out for it at once, but stayed still, watching the creature. John was hungry, and a roast hare would have been sweet that morning. He sat at the edge of a meadow, a clearing of thick grass going blond as the summer wore on. Nine coneys and two great hares partook of the green, nibbling and looking up with their dark eyes. Now and then a sound froze them.

There had never been such danger for Robin Hood and his men. The forest was thronged with man hunters, driven on by Henry. Rumored promises of rewards, and threats of punishment, had brought an especially skilled sort of tracker into the woods, armed with axes and hunting hounds. Henry was eager for more than the capture of the outlaws—he wanted Margaret Lea.

Now John crouched, alone except for the browsing rabbits and hares. The outlaws were scattered throughout the forest, and the silence told him that all was well. John breathed quietly, listening for the footsteps of deputies and the crash of their axes, cutting their way through deadfall and living thickets. But for the first morning in days, the woods were still.

A buck hare hobbled in that awkward-seeming way of the long-eared creatures. And the big man stretched out his hand and closed it around its ears.

The animal kicked and struggled, a blur, hind legs clawing at the air. John held the fighting buck hare well away from his body and waited until the creature ceased struggling, some instinct in the old hare making it still itself. Perhaps, John thought, such animals have a prayer they say, in their blood and in their bone, to the Lord in Heaven just before they die.

“Friend hare,” said John solemnly. “Tell any power of these woods, whether divine or elven, that Robin Hood and his men are in hiding, and pray that the powers of the greenwood stand at their side.”

Released, the hare scampered, zigzagged, and then leaped high over a log, his ears white in the sunlight.

John gathered Edwy and Carl Taw together and gave them a message to carry into the city.

Tell Henry Ploughman that I have something that belongs to the deputy
.

Tell him I promise safe passage into the woods
.

Chapter 39

That evening John stole through the trees, snaking under low branches, making his way across the bog where there was no track. When he stood at the edge of the village of Blackwell, he breathed the perfume of cooking fires and roast duck. Even the lowing of a cow made him feel an unaccountable peacefulness.

Old Fred was nowhere to be seen.

As soon as he entered the priory, John felt an unusual excitement.

Sister Barbara told him that the sheriff's men had visited Blackwell once again. “And this time they lanced the manure heaps, looking for you.”

“Not a bad place to hide,” said John with a smile, his eyes searching the candlelit corners as he wondered, Where is she?

“And a deputy used a long, sharp pole to probe the cesspit,” said Sister Barbara. “They found the skeleton of a little dog.”

“But no sign of Robin Hood,” said John.

“Not that they could discover. But the sheriff's men did something they should not have done.”