The Greenwood Shadow (9 page)

"He'll see us that way," she hissed as loud as she dared. "Out the back."

Only moments after they dashed out, the man entered his lean-to, grabbed some kind of tool, and left again.

Evey let out a long sigh of relief. "You'll have to work on your speed."

She gave Isaiah a playful jab.

He took her by the shoulders. "Marion, thank you. This is the best day of my life. I feel... I feel..."

"Like you could walk on the clouds and not break through?"

"Yes, exactly. Do you do this all the time?" he asked.

"For seven years."

"Seven!!" His hands fell and his jaw dropped open. "Robin Hood's got nothing on you."

As they delivered the silver throughout nearby villages, they talked and laughed. It was never hard to keep up the conversation. The job took all day, but neither of them minded. When the sun set, they went back to the oak, tired and happy.

Isaiah leaned against the tree and propped his feet on a fallen branch. "I could stay like this forever."

"Me too."

"Well... we could."

She dropped her head. "I wish."

"Why couldn't we?"

"Talk about something else."

"No. Why couldn't we?"

The firmness in his voice surprised her, but she waved him off. Rage and despair boiled together in her stomach, leaving her sick and miserable.

"I don't want to talk about it."

He leaned forward. "Something's bothering you. Tell me."

"No!" With that, she walked away through the trees.

Before she could disappear, Isaiah darted after her. He grabbed her wrist and turned her around. "Please?"

She pulled free. "Don't look at me with those sad puppy eyes."

"I just want to help. You don't have to do everything alone, you know."

She groaned. "Being stubborn is really hard with you around."

"Come on." He smiled and led her back.

She slouched against a tree. Isaiah sat close and stared at her until she spoke.

"I'm getting married."

Obviously, that wasn't the answer he had been expecting. He sat back and just said, "Oh."

She folded her arms. "It's not like I want to. I don't have a choice. Well... not really."

"Neither do I," he mumbled.

"About what?"

He lifted his eyebrows.

"Oh," she said. A moment later her eyes went wide. "OH!"

"Uh huh."

She sat down next to him. "You too, huh? It's so unfair."

"Yeah, but there are worse things, right?"

"Not many." She chucked a pebble at a low tree branch.

Isaiah adopted a look of sincere concern. "Is it really that bad?"

She frowned. "You obviously have no idea what it's like to be a girl."

Now he looked thoroughly confused. "No?"

"Look," she said. "How would you feel if your only purpose in life was to get married off? In the real world, I'm nobody. I'm useless."

He furrowed his brow. "You're not useless."

"Isaiah, you're a really nice guy, but you're still a guy. Getting married won't change anything for you. You'll still fight wars and run castles and maybe even advise the king. You have a future. I don't."

"But you can-"

"Oh, think about it!" She stood again and started pacing. "I don't see any girls getting knighted. No one has a woman for a steward or a chamberlain. I can't even inherit my father's property because I was a daughter, not a son. I'm free out here, but the moment I'm married, this ends. No more forest. No more tax carts. I'm done."

Isaiah's mouth hung open. Evey couldn't tell if he was shocked at her ferocity or just trying to digest what he'd heard.

Her hands itched for something to do. Even the pacing didn't help. Almost unconsciously she reached for her bow and fired at a nearby tree. Five well-grouped shots later she said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you. It isn't your fault."

Isaiah waved his hand vaguely. "It's okay."

"I just really, really don't want to get married. Not like this anyway."

"Clearly. So why are you doing it? You're good enough at all this. You could live out here. They'd never find you."

She fired three more shots. "My future isn't the only one involved. It's good for everyone. My uncle won't have to scrape out a living from day to day. Our village will get more trade. Socially and materially I'll have things I've never had before."

Isaiah vaguely rubbed at the stubble on his chin for a while. Even shot three arrows while he sat there.

"What about your betrothed?" he finally asked. "Is he a good man?"

"He's insufferable!" Two more arrows hit the tree. "He couldn't even stand being at our home. Probably not enough servants and finery for him. His father treats me like a prize horse to be bought and sold. And they're obsessed with gold."

Isaiah's face hardened. "That's horrible."

"Yeah, but I can't do anything about it." She emptied her quiver into the target tree.

Isaiah walked with her to retrieve the arrows. "I've never seen anyone shoot like that."

Evey didn't reply.

"Is he good looking?"

Well, that was out of the blue. She spun on him.

"Why does that matter?"

He threw his hands up defensively. "It doesn't much. But even if everything else is terrible, it helps if he's nice to look at."

Evey deflated a little. "He's not, really. Sort of greasy. And he hasn't grown into his arms."

"Hopefully he will." Isaiah forced a chuckle.

Evey pulled out the last of her arrows and turned back toward camp. "What about your wife-to-be? Is she pretty?"

Isaiah laughed, but obviously not in disgust. It almost sounded like desperation.

"Beautiful," he said. "Gorgeous! I only ever saw her that once for just a few minutes, but she took my breath away. She's graceful and confidant. She has incredible skin that practically glows when the sunset hits it. She's a goddess."

As he spoke, Evey felt an irrational jealously bite through her. She imagined a tall, slender princess with waves of blonde hair cascading perfectly over her shoulders while the sun caught on her fair skin. Evey was nothing like that. Dark haired. Sun-tanned, and a little freckly. Usually covered in mud. No one would ever call her a goddess.

"Sounds like she's really something," Evey replied, trying to hide the bitterness in her tone.

The desperation returned to Isaiah's voice. "Yeah."

"But?"

"But she hates me. I want her to like me, but I don't know how. I'm just not the sort of guy that ladies like."

"Oh, come on. How could anyone hate you?"

He shrugged. "She's a lady. A lot of them are very proud."

"Maybe she doesn't know how to tell you what she thinks,"

"No. That's definitely not it." He started playing with the laces on his jerkin.

"How do you know?"

"The one time I saw her, she was yelling at her dad about me. She has no problem with making herself very clear." He sighed. "I'm not afraid to get married. I just wish I knew what to do to make her give me a fair chance."

Evey kicked at a twig near her foot. "You're making me feel guilty for being so judgmental. Maybe there's a brain behind all that stringy black hair. Though, I still don't want to marry him."

The sun was nearly gone. Golden rays hit the lower limbs of the oak, drawing out long shadows. The two of them sat there in silence, watching the patterns that the light made on the ground.

"Sorry I talked for so long."

Isaiah smiled and shrugged. "I'm not in any hurry. Besides, it's a lot more interesting than being at home. Business deals and escape plans. That's it. Boring as dust."

"Escape plans?"

"To look for Robin Hood," he explained. "My dad isn't nearly as understanding as your uncle about my disappearances. He sends people to track me down, and they always catch me. At least, they did until last time, when I met you."

"He seriously hunts you down?"

Her fingers itched for her bowstring as she asked. She barely knew Isaiah, and yet she would come to his defense without a moment's hesitation.

"I guess I can understand it," he said. "I mean, if your kid was missing, you'd want to find them, right?"

"Yeah," Evey grudgingly admitted. She knew without having to think that she'd be the sort of mother who'd take on whole armies just to protect her child. And woe betide those armies.

Isaiah sighed. "It's just that he knows by now that I haven't been kidnapped or killed or anything. He finds me so that he can "direct my future into a proper course", even if it's not what I want. I've tried to talk to him, and he just doesn't listen."

"I know a few people like that," Evey muttered.

"He's a good man, my dad. I know that. But he's also painfully frustrating. I wish I could do something to make him see."

Evey's hand had closed around her bow. She picked it up and said, "Maybe you can."

Isaiah wrinkled his forehead. "I'm not going to shoot him."

She dropped her bow in shock. "What? No! No. That's not... I would never..."

"I'm sorry!" he said, just as awkwardly. "I know you wouldn't. Just the way you were holding the bow, and everything. Please, forgive me for thinking that of you."

Evey waved the apology away. "What I meant was that there is a way to make sure he doesn't keep catching you. I am something of a specialist, after all."

Isaiah grinned widely.

"Know anything about shooting?" she asked.

"The basics. We all have to learn them. But beyond that, knights don't go in for archery much."

She grinned back. "Then we've got a lot of work to do. Can you find your way back to this tree?"

Isaiah looked around as if trying to memorize the place. "I think so, now you've helped me a few times."

"Good. We'll meet here in one week, around noon."

"I'll be here."

He surprised Evey by clasping her wrist. Not only had he just made a deal with a girl, but they'd closed it as equals. This young man was definitely something beyond the average.

CHAPTER TEN

For weeks they taught each other. Evey showed Isaiah everything she knew about shooting a bow and making arrows. She taught him several hunting, navigating, and silent movement skills. In return, Isaiah helped Evey with basic sword-fighting.

In those weeks, he became a fair shot. Never as fast or accurate as Evey, which would take years longer. But he could pull off a halfway decent shot, in a pinch. He was a good hunter, an alright navigator, and got to be exceptionally skilled at slipping silently though the landscape. What a change. He went from a lumbering elephant to a whisper through the trees.

Evey didn't pick up the sword skills quite so well. She had never even held a sword before. Though they practiced with sticks, she was so clumsy that she gave Isaiah a number of heavy bruises. It took eight weeks before she could defend herself properly, and twelve before she could put up any sort of decent attack routine.

That was just as well. She preferred the comfort of her bow. When she used it, she felt like she was one with the weapon. It responded to her like nothing else.

Together, they raided the tax men with abandon. Cart after cart fell prey to their teamwork. After the tax season ended, they turned to the king's personal convoys. The king had never lost so much gold and silver. As a result, the Robin Hood stories flared into infamy. They couldn't go anywhere, in any village, without hearing whispers of Robin's most recent exploits.

Isaiah was an intelligent guy, but Evey wondered at the fact that he had never connected their raids with the stories. It was so obvious. But then again, she had heard the very first Robin story. Puzzles always looked simpler after one found the answer.

Toward the end of July, Evey and Isaiah delivered a last bit of silver to an old man who lived alone in a shack by the river. As they left, she debated with herself, for about the fiftieth time, whether or not to tell Isaiah the rest of the truth about Robin Hood. At times it didn't seem to matter much, and at others she felt intense guilt at keeping secrets from him.

But keeping the secret was for his protection. He'd be safer this way.

"Look here!" Isaiah stood beside a large tree.

There was a piece of parchment nailed to the trunk.

Wanted: The outlaw known as Robin Hood

Reward: 500 gold, dead or alive

Seven feet tall.

Carries a long bow and black shafted arrows

Normally dressed as a common woodsman in shades of green.

Very Dangerous.

She couldn't believe her own eyes. "500 gold! I could feed my village for a year on that."