Forbidden Forest (6 page)

Lord Roger's steps whispered through the wet grass, and he seized John's arm.

The youth spun and picked Red Roger up off the ground, holding him high. And threw him down, hard, into the mud.

John found the rutted, hoof-scarred High Way, stretching south toward Nottingham.

It might have been a forest murmur, or John's own imagination—but something like Lord Roger's voice on the wind said,
I'll never forgive you, John
.

I'll run you down
.

Chapter 10

John reached the edge of Sherwood Forest.

The High Way ahead coursed through the overhanging oaks. John stopped beside the road, where a field lay half-plowed, under the shadow of the forest growth. A plowman sat in the shade of a hedge. His yoked oxen stared into the distance, chewing in unison. In the distance crows wheeled and quarreled, and John looked long enough to make out the square timbers of a gibbet through the trees, and what he took to be the tar-dark remains of a very old corpse.

He was aware that lawmen might still be seeking a very tall, sandy-haired youth for the death of a knight, and that, between the wrath of Red Roger and the stubbornness of the law, he had no friend under Heaven.

“It's a man who robbed a miller,” said the plowman, in response to John's query.

Millers were reputed to be cheaters and, like bakers, had ample ways to skim flour from their customers. In many villages the miller was the richest and least-admired neighbor, but even a notorious miller enjoyed the protection of the law.

“Robbers find the punishment they have earned,” said John.

“That's right,” said the plowman, without much interest in the matter. He offered John a piece of bread and green cheese, and John accepted gratefully. Perhaps the miller had not recovered from the shock of the crime—the bread was filled with grit, and one piece of gravel the size of a tooth.

John had spent the nights beside ricks of hay and peat, and during one long sunny day he had helped a thatcher comb stones out of a pile of roofing stuff. When offered a night's lodging by the cheerful craftsman, John accepted a new quarterstaff and a slice of cheese instead, and kept moving south, long into dark, away from Red Roger. One day he scythed a path clear of weeds for a farthing. On another he earned an innkeeper's gratitude, and as much thick ale as he could drink, for chopping the hardest and knottiest load of firewood he had ever set ax into, one that had defeated all the local brawn.

Many times he woke to hear hooves on the road, the chink of mail or the sound a hunting lance makes as it spanks the flank of a horse. Night riders were rare because the footing was dangerous, and whenever John asked, he was told the same story: a nobleman was searching for a servant who had won his trust and then fled with the household silver.

When he asked after outlaws along the route, he heard tales—colorful stories and fireside lore—that carried no weight with him. Men did not speak much of Red Roger. They spoke of Robin Hood, as though the outlaw were real. One carter said that John need fear no robber near Nottingham, and the youth could only shake his head, knowing that if he encountered an outlaw—any outlaw—he would beat the man into the earth with his staff.

The plowman let him take a long swallow of ale from a blue earthware jug, and John wiped his mouth on his sleeve and asked, as if the question had no weight, “How far is it to Nottingham?”

“Start walking now, and by midnight you'd see the walls,” said the plowman, in a clipped, emphatic speech John found easy enough to follow. “If you stick to the main road.”

“Between here and the town is all forest,” suggested John.

“Yes, all forest,” said the plowman, and added, “but no man leaves the High Way and goes into the woods unless he wants to hang at the end of a rope. It's all king's land here, all the forest, and the harts and the roebuck and the big fallow deer are all his, too.”

“I'll stay on the road,” said John.

“Only foresters and poachers take the deer paths,” said the plowman, pausing meaningfully. “But they are the shortest way.”

John did not glance in the direction of the gibbet as he passed it, carrion birds flapping and calling, John, John.

The oaks were church-tall and higher, trees that had never felt the touch of an ax. John could sense the refuge they offered. He kept to the deep-rutted road, though, and when he passed a wagonload of wool cloth, bolts of undyed fabric, he gave the driver a cordial nod and received one in return. The day was sweet.

Until he heard them.

Dogs, baying. Brachet hounds, the sort that cannot wag a tail or lift a leg without giving voice.

John slipped off the High Way and peered back. He could make out three men in new leather armor and a dogman, an expert handler, with two hunting hounds on leads. They stopped the wagonload of cloth, and one of the carters pointed, his brown hand catching the sunlight filtered through the trees.

He pointed in the direction John had taken. The young giant crouched, still gazing, holding his breath. A rider well behind them, his body shrouded in a long, gray cloak, took a long look into each forest shadow he passed. Even at this distance John could see Red Roger lift his hand to his hood, the far-off scarlet silk sleeve the only brilliance in the greenwood.

John bounded over moss-cloaked fallen trees, half-stumbled over fallen branches, and when he found the long, straight deer path he did not hesitate. He ran hard, deep into the oak wood, unable to hear any sound but the thunder of his own breath.

When he stopped it took a long moment to decide that the dogs were baying still, but far away. John hurried, using the staff to flick a branch out of the way and to keep his balance on this long, winding deer trail. The smell around him was spice and age, years of leaf meal, ancient golden moss.

Tan-brown creatures stirred just beyond the trees. A sapling trembled as a creature wheeled, looking in John's direction. He took a stance, gritting his teeth, ready to swing the staff at whatever crashed through the undergrowth.

Fallow deer jostled one another, heads held high. They were bigger than most deer, fat and slow, the hunter's favorite. Their dark eyes and large ears sought the source of John's voice as he gave a low laugh.

“Sorry to disturb your sleep,” he said with a grateful whisper.

One doe lowered her head, and then another. The deer would not be so peaceful, John reasoned, if dogs were anywhere close.

He thanked the deer for helping him, and passed on.

He stopped to listen many times as the golden afternoon light sifted down through the branches. The forest was a place of perfect soundlessness, and yet when a bird broke into song, its music echoed. John tried to convince himself that he was not uneasy about following this wandering path, but he was aware that he was as far from any human dwelling as he had ever been.

“They are the shortest way,” the plowman had said. On the way to where? John wondered with a little humor.

Each tree had a different number of branches, a distinctive way of spreading its life toward sun. Each bird made a slightly different cry, and if circumstances forced him to, John felt that he could retrace his steps back to the road.

But there was safety in continuing forward, and so John did—until he heard the music of running water, and stepped into a clearing.

He retreated at once behind a huge oak.

A brook was purling around green stones, too broad to be forded without soaking shoes and leggings. A makeshift bridge stretched across the water—a log with bark worn by weather and crossing footsteps.

John was pleased to see this rude bridge, but it was the first sign of human intent that he had seen in hours and he took a moment before he entered the sunlight. How many years and how many crossings, he wondered, had it taken to tread this log so smooth? What humans lived in this forest, making their homes in this wood?

The afternoon was calm, except for the bickering of birds and the muttering of the water. John made his way into the sunlight, and then he froze, and ducked back toward shelter.

On the far side of the brook, a man in green parted from the trees.

He was dressed like a forester, one of the freemen who tend the king's woods, culling deer and arresting poachers. This man in green surveyed the meadow and the brook, taking a long moment to see who shared this place with him. He smiled, and John took in a long low breath.

The man in green strode easily toward the log bridge. He continued to smile at the sight of John hulking behind the oak. Something about this smile made John step forward and begin to hurry toward the brook.

The stranger wore a buckskin belt and leggings, and he carried a longbow along his back at an angle, a quiver of goose-feather arrows at his hip. John did not like to guess what a weapon like that could do. Even a fighting squire's modest bow could drive a shaft through a man's neck.

On the other hip the stranger wore a horn, the kind hunters used to alert distant companions. The man timed his stride to reach the opposite end of the bridge just as John set one foot on it. John did not like the way this stranger's cap and leggings were too exactly the shade of the greenwood, as though the woodsman had good reason to hide.

The man in green put his hands on his hips and said, “In this forest we make a game of crossing bridges.”

John took in the stranger's bright eye, the set of his cap, the sun on his beard, and his smile. “I have no great love of games,” said John.

“Then it will be my pleasure to teach you,” said the man in green, with what sounded like real zest.

He had the straightforward, friendly tone of a yeoman. Foresters were solitary, hardworking servants to the king, and did not have a reputation for high spirits. This stranger was radiant.

John felt his grip tighten around his staff. “What manner of man are you?” asked John.

“Does it matter to you,” the woodsman asked cheerfully in turn, “how men judge my trade?”

John had seen many a market-day encounter turn to fists or even knives. A carefree word, a challenge, and soon someone was beaten senseless. “If you are an outlaw,” asserted John deliberately, “it will cost you blood.”

John half expected the stranger to protest, or to apologize. But the man in green proceeded farther, and planted both feet midway across the bridge. He tested it with his weight. He was tall enough, and well built enough, to shift the bridge slightly, but no match, John knew, for someone his own size.

“You can call me what you like,” said the stranger with a smile. “But I'll be a poor host if I don't make you pay a toll.”

John set his staff across his body, holding the weapon well balanced. Before he could advance, the man drew the bow from behind his shoulder.

Then he hesitated. “What sort of game would that be,” the stranger asked, “a yew longbow against a span of wood?”

“Cut yourself a staff,” said John Little.

Chapter 11

As John watched from the opposite bank, the woodsman selected a long, stout length of green oak and pared it artfully. He cut off leaf and twig, and quickly shaved the rough bark with his knife's edge. The stranger sighted along the length of the new wood at last, and said, like a man at a craftsman's stall offering a compliment, “This is a lusty staff.”

John measured with his eye the strides across the bridge, the stature of his opponent, and felt his mouth go dry. This far from the humblest cottage, no rule of fair combat could be enforced, no witness would protest. A flick of the skinning knife, a quick bend of the longbow the stranger was setting down so carefully on the bank of the brook, and John's life would be lost.

“And tough,” added the woodsman, giving his staff a swing. It hummed through the air, a blow that would have killed, thought John, if it had connected with a skull. “Although too green.”

John felt all speech evaporate. Why couldn't he have remained with haymakers and learned a simple trade, like carting or herding sheep? He took a stand, midway on the bridge.

“Now,” said the stranger with a smile, “we can play.”

John knew what was going to happen, but something in him locked his limbs into place as the man in green crossed the bridge at a leisurely pace. He struck John's staff so hard that the bones of John's arms rang.

John feinted, and followed with another false lunge. The man smiled at this, and made an exaggerated feint of his own. John warded off another sharp blow. And then he forced the stranger back, all the way across the bridge, with the cross-body flourish his father had taught him, explaining that even a tanner had to know how to drive away robbers.
Bish-bash-bosh
, it was called, this heavy attack, and John ended the maneuver with a blow to his opponent's head.

The stranger was down, but sprang up again at once, blood starting from under his cap. He drove the butt of his freshly cut staff into John's belly, and the counterattack that followed locked the two, face to face, staff against staff, in the middle of the bridge. John was off-balance as the woodsman stepped back only to strike John again, from above, from below, the wood ringing sharply, echoing from the surrounding oaks.

One blow caught John on the knuckles, weakening his grip. Another drove the air from his body. The stranger's staff dodged and parried. John felt the strength leave his shoulders just as the color left his vision, and all memory of being in any other place fled his soul.

John nearly toppled, but kept his balance. And at that moment, sure that the power of his arms was spent, he struck the woodsman a blow that rang loudly over the chuckling of the water, resounding from the shadows of the woods. The man wheeled, spun his arms, danced for a moment on one leg.

And fell hard, into the brook.

John leaned on his quarterstaff. He felt that he would never, as long as he lived, catch his breath again.

The stranger was laughing. John gaped in disbelief as the vanquished man in green smiled up at him.