Forbidden Forest (8 page)

John's feet dangled down into the cold welling up from the dark. And little by little he found a toehold in the slick moss, and another farther down, his feet seeking fissures in the stone.

“You'll never make it down here and back,” said Will, his voice a sob.

It was too far.

John knew this now, halfway between the increasingly blue oblong of sky and the quaking water below. His fingers were raw from seeking purchase in the cold-greased stones, and his feet slipped and slipped again as he sought the few sure cracks that could support his weight. If he fell into the water he would drown without any doubt, and he might knock Will from his grip on the mossy side, killing both of them.

His breath shuddered, and the sound reverberated in the darkness. Will was quiet now, and when John glanced down he saw the dim figure of the woodsman clinging to the side of the well with one hand, sinking, his fingers fighting, trying to win another grip in the moss. And losing the struggle.

But then John was close enough and was turning, reaching down, one hand gripping a loose root that snaked out of the side of the well, the other reaching down, all the way to the grazing fingertips of the outlaw.

Almost.

John reached down farther, and a cold and shivering grip met his.

Inching upward, the two groped their way toward morning. And at the last, when John could not move his limbs, when his grip on Will was numb, he felt a touch on his hand, a grip on his arm, and Robin Hood was there, helping John and Will into the sunlight.

“Do you risk your life easily, John?” asked Robin Hood with a smile.

John did not know how to put his response into words.

“For my friends,” he said at last.

In the weeks and months that followed, the story was told, and each time the well was deeper and Will closer to death. Wine was shared, and the king's venison relished, and Robin Hood laughed the loudest as Will did an exaggeration of his own terror, clinging to the mossy side of a hole.

But more often than not, when one of Robin's men was late returning from a hunt, John was the one to find him, choosing his fellow searchers. When Robin Hood traveled far from the company of his band, he asked John to keep an ear and an eye on the forest.

If a heavy step snapped a branch in the dark in Robin's absence, it became John the men looked to. As seasons passed it was often John who offered reassurance when Robin was off on yet another adventure. John woke often during the dark forest nights, listening, trying to decide if the sheriff's men finally had found them, closing in around the outlaws with drawn swords.

One evening an ivory merchant was captured and led into the heart of the woods. The prisoner laughed with relief when he discovered he was the captive of Robin Hood.

“And you,” the thankful merchant said, turning to the giant woodsman, “you must be the other outlaw everyone is talking about. I have even heard of you in songs, unless I'm mistaken.”

John had not left the woods for a town or city for so long that he had forgotten all about market-day rumors and minstrel ballads.

“What sort of song?” asked Robin Hood.

“I have no voice for singing,” said the merchant, accepting a cup of red wine. “But the verses tell of Robin Hood and Little John.”

“And what else do they say?” asked Robin with a knowing cheerfulness.

The ivory merchant's face fell. “If you'll forgive me,” he said.

“Please go on,” said Robin Hood, his face bright in the firelight.

“The songs say,” offered the merchant in a tone of regret, “that the king's men seek to put your heads on the castle wall.”

Part Two

THE WHEEL OF HEAVEN

Chapter 14

It was market day in Nottingham, and the parish was thronged with dairymaids and wagoners, the smell of salt cheese and yeast in the late morning sun.

A pie man had set up his stall in Saint Giles's Lane, and his cry of “
Hotte pyes, hotte
” was drawing a crowd of farmers and their wives, in town for the events of the following day. A dyer's apprentice who had raped a child was to be wheeled the next afternoon—his body broken up by the town's executioner, using the city's venerable wheel.

Farthings tinkled, changing hands.

Margaret Lea turned to her attendant and said, “Buy a fine fish pie for Father.”

“None of these pie men roll a decent crust, my lady,” said Bridgit. “They use brown flour and rancid lard, or I'm a heathen.”

“It would please him very much.”

“Your poor, dear father,” said Bridgit, “deserves better pies than the leather and whiting-head slabs these men serve up.”

In church that morning Margaret had followed the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, the prayers Father Joseph had recommended for a bride-to-be. She had added her own prayers for her betrothed, Sir Gilbert, asking Heaven that the distinguished knight might be made kind and merciful. And now, as usual, Margaret and her servant were enjoying a stroll through the busy market.

“I know you'll wring a good pie out of him, Bridgit,” said Margaret.

“It will be a challenge, my lady,” said Bridgit, “but I'll undertake it to please you.”

Bridgit told Ralf the pie man that his pies had forever contained more scales than meat, and she would see the sheriff have him pilloried as a cheat. Sometimes a dishonest hawker of wares was sentenced to a day in the public stocks, if his infractions were extremely minor. Out-and-out thieves were hanged.

“There's not a bone as big as a fly's hair in any of these pies,” Ralf protested loudly, so the gathering folk could hear.

“Didn't I choke just a fortnight past,” retorted Bridgit, “on a spiny backbone that caught in my throat?” Bridgit was both serious and good-humored. The truth was, Margaret had seen Bridgit crunching up fish heads, fins, and tails when she was hungry.

Ralf stood on his tiptoes and readied a counter to this last assertion, necessary with so many alert faces alive to the entertaining possibilities of a street squabble. “It would take a bone as wide as me,” said Ralf, “to choke a good woman like yourself.”

A man at Bridgit's elbow made the mistake of laughing. She turned to the grinning laborer. His yellow cap marked him as a hayward—they had to be seen across miles of cropland.

“Is it funny,” she said tartly, “the rig-bone of a fish choking me to death?” Bridgit was a squarely built woman with three silver strands in her otherwise red hair. She had been Margaret's nurse in years past, a guardian of her wardrobe and well-being. She performed similar tasks now that her charge was no longer a girl. Although Margaret treasured Bridgit's companionship, and often fell asleep to the sound of Bridgit singing some enchanting ballad, sometimes her tread was a bit heavy, her speaking voice not as lovely as her songs.

The hayward made an open-handed gesture of apology, careful not to make a sound. Such street bargaining was a form of public sport, along with dogfights, dice play, and the occasional fight between ale-flushed drivers, but something about Bridgit intimidated even the most hale of men.

“Please, good pie man,” said Margaret, addressing him first by his trade, which was proper. “Good Ralf, if you please.” She used her highest speech. A young woman betrothed to a man like Sir Gilbert was expected to speak well. “We'll take one of your largest pies,” she said. “Or maybe two.”

“My lady,” beamed Ralf. “This pie is the best I've baked in a month, good white flesh, and no fins or scales.”

“But more bones than a grave,” said Bridgit.

“Ralf is not the pie man who sold us the fish bones,” said Margaret, walking slowly so that Bridgit could keep pace as she trudged along with the heavy market basket. They both skirted a dunghill, one of several seeping brown liquid toward the center of the street.

“I know, but it doesn't matter. They are all cheaters, my lady,” said Bridgit happily. “Every man who breathes, except your father. And my father, God rest him. And now you've two big pies your father can't afford.”

A street pig hurried away from the din of a scuffle, nearly colliding with Bridgit. The big brown-and-white animal made almost-human grunts of apology. The sound of angry voices brought boys skipping down the lane, merchants breaking off conversation to stroll in the direction of a commanding voice shouting, “Hold him, by Jesus, and I'll break him in two.”

Margaret knew this voice. She crossed her hands over her breast, as the prioress of Saint Mary's had taught her, to ward off evil.

“When men aren't busy cheating,” said Bridgit, “they soil our ears.”

Margaret knew what she was about to see—and she did not want to look.

Chapter 15

Just before Goose Gate, with its pretty tower, Sir Gilbert Fortescue had gotten his hands on Osric the juggler and was twisting his arm. The knight's squire and a shield bearer, bald Hal and bearded Lionel, were laughing and cheering as their master put a knee in the juggler's back and forced him down into the street. Sir Gilbert was a broad, ruddy-faced man, who always wore a broadsword with a silver pommel. He pronounced his name
Zheel-bear
, in the manner of the nobility.

Jugglers did more than dazzle the eye with colored wooden balls tossed into the air. They could also make small objects vanish, and sometimes Christian folk did not like the shadow of a juggler to cross their path. But young Osric was admired by many because he was rumored to be a friend of the mysterious Robin Hood of the forest beyond the city, and of Robin's right-hand man, Little John.

Widows and goose girls alike knew all the songs about the outlaws, but no one ever set eyes on them. Margaret believed the two were men of charming legend and nothing more, but sometimes she dreamed of encountering such a forest figure. Were such men dangerous, she wondered, or were they as kind-hearted as market folk believed?

Hal Whitehead and Lionel Ogbert were joining Sir Gilbert in kicking the juggler, and Osric was hurt too badly to protest. Lionel was a ham-fisted, hard-faced man, noted for his tavern brawls and his habit, when he'd drunk enough ale, of settling disputes with a knife.

Margaret would happily have gone deaf rather than hear Osric gasping, unable to beg for his life.

Bridgit strode up to Lionel and seized his ear. The crowd laughed, but a grip like Bridgit's was fierce, and the loud snap of cartilage giving way was accompanied by the bearded shield bearer's grunt as he gritted his teeth to keep from making an unmanly yelp. A few onlookers laughed as Lionel begged, “Leave me an ear, good woman, I pray you.”

Sir Gilbert stopped punishing the juggler. He was bleeding and holding his body doubled up on the ground. Gilbert gazed at the young woman he was going to marry in three days, and Margaret looked right back.

“You should be ashamed,” said Bridgit. “All of you! And our dear betrothed Margaret on her way home from prayers.”

Sir Gilbert was a worthy man, and as a young man had fought in tournaments in London before King Henry and Queen Eleanor. If he decided to punish a juggler for some slight, his betrothed was no one to judge him. She should mouth, “Good day, my lord,” and lower her eyes. But she gave him a disapproving look, the sort of gaze the prioress gave a peasant when his pig urinated in the priory garden.

And half the city was watching—thatchers and cord-wainers, bakers and fullers, a crowd of faces. The knight frowned, peeved at having his sport interrupted. He gave the shuddering juggler one more great kick and asked Bridgit when she would be done torturing his shield man. Then Sir Gilbert doffed his cap and made a sweeping gesture with it, doing honor to Margaret before everyone in the street.

The young woman bent her knees and made a show of ladylike obedience that the prioress would have admired. “In gentleness is the lady meek,” taught the nun, “and in her meekness beautiful.”

“My lord plays a rough game,” Margaret said, her eyes downcast, her voice soft.

The juggler was a brown-eyed, bearded man, his close-fitting hood knocked awry. He was breathing hard, and bleeding from his nose.

“An honest game, my lady,” said Sir Gilbert. “This juggler's a dirty creature, and should not blemish your sight.”

“He made some coin of my lord's vanish?” asked Margaret. Her voice continued to be meek, but her words made the knight keep silent for a long moment.

Sir Gilbert drew close to her and took in a breath. Perhaps, thought Margaret, he would use such speech as he had put into his loving letter, the only written communication she had ever received from anyone in her life.

“My lady will forgive me—” he began. For a moment his eyes were full of gentle feeling. “I pray.”

“Kick him again!” called a rough, drunken voice.

Sir Gilbert turned away, self-conscious.

He had a reputation for roughness to maintain. He laughed, easing his belt so that he could give full voice to his good humor. He walked away with his stiff-legged stride and made a mocking yelp, imitating the juggler's pleas. As his squire and shield man chortled, the knight turned and made a handsome bow, smiling at Margaret. The crowd began to disperse, some of the women looking back at the young woman, walking on, and looking back again.

“My gratitude, my lady, for your great mercy,” the juggler was saying.

Margaret liked the juggler's bright eyes and ready smile as he climbed to his feet, but she had the positive belief that Osric could steal the words out of her mouth.

“You are covered with mud, Osric,” said Bridgit, “and look exactly like the bottom of a shoe.”

The juggler made a flourish with one hand, wincing, and a halved silver penny appeared in his palm.

“Good Osric,” said Margaret, “you may keep Sir Gilbert's silver.” As much as Margaret liked the juggler's smile, she did not trust the art that made solid metal hide up his sleeve, or in some fleshy cranny—who knew where?