Daughter of Sherwood (3 page)

A shadow stirred at the corner of her vision as she stood, witless, with the bucket in her hands. Only those as unfortunate as she tended to move about so early, so she failed to take heed in time. She missed her chance to duck back into the kitchen before he approached, moving like one of Lil’s roosters, and with the same purpose.

Lambert. Rennie did not know his given name, though surely he must have one. He was just Sir Lambert, captain of the Sheriff’s guard, newly come since Sir Guy, who had served the Sheriff long, had been killed last winter. A young man, this, and dangerous. Stories had soon circulated about how he liked to spread his seed among the castle’s serving women. Four were rumored, even now, to carry his child.

Lately he had come into the kitchen yard more and more often at times like this, when it was quiet. He had approached Rennie more than once, with increasing persistence.

He displayed his Norman breeding clearly, but she found him ugly for all that, or maybe because of it. Tall and fair-haired, with a touch of ginger in his beard, he had the eyes of an adder, sly and cruel. Thin lips curled downward beneath a nose that must once have been broken, and his face bore marks of the pox.

The very sight of him now made Rennie recoil. She clutched her bucket and, even though it was only half full, turned back for the door of the kitchen.

“Stay where you are.” The voice of command shivered round the yard and froze everyone there—Rennie and two lads hauling a sack of cabbages. Lambert moved quickly for a man his size. Before Rennie could blink, he was at her side. “I want to speak to you.”

Even Rennie, unversed in the ways of men, knew he did not truly wish to speak. He stood far too close, and the cruel eyes were all over her. Much like the young visitor’s eyes, last night, they touched her hair, her throat, her bosom. But Lambert avoided her eyes.

“You are the lass from the scullery. What is your name?”

“Rennie, sir.”
Wren.

“You will perform for me a service.”

“Sir, I am needed in the kitchen.”

“It will not take long. Besides, my needs supersede those of that witch who runs the place. You are a pretty enough thing, in your odd way.”

Rennie, frozen like a rabbit before the fox, said nothing, but her anger turned her stomach.

“On your knees.”

“I am needed—”

“Silence! I can put those lips of yours to better use.” He reached for the front of his breeches and Rennie’s stomach heaved still more violently. She had heard stories of this, when the maids whispered in the kitchen. But if this beast put any part of his vile body near her mouth, she would vomit.

“On your knees, wench!” He seized her hair, which hung loose down her back, and wrenched hard, causing Rennie to fall. The pain was astounding and her landing on the cobbles less than gentle.

He let go her hair and thrust his hand down her bodice until he encountered a breast and squeezed hard. Rennie’s anger flared into something blinding.

Any good servant, as she knew—any who wanted to survive—would meekly comply with a Norman overlord’s demands. Rennie, hidden so long in the scullery, had not encountered her masters often, and now discovered herself not suited to obedience.

Even as Lambert reached again for the front of his breeches, she surged to her feet with a cry of rage. She had one glimpse of the two lads’ shocked faces before she swung the wooden bucket with both hands, scribing a wide circle that ended with a crash at the side of Lambert’s head.

Whatever the burdens of scullery life—heavy pots and platters, endless tubs of water—they lent a woman strength. Rennie heard Lambert’s skull crack before he fell, soundless, onto the cobbles.

“Gaw!” one of the lads cried. “Get out of here before he wakes up!”

Rennie ran back into the kitchen, instinctively seeking Lil, whom she found engaged in discussion with one of the many undercooks. Both women and half those around them turned to stare.

Lil’s eyes widened. “What is it, child? You are pale as death.”

Rennie whooped; the rage had stolen her breath. “I—”

The lads ran in from the yard. “She has just killed the Sheriff’s captain. Lambert—is that his name?”

Lil straightened and her eyes flashed green. “Is this true?” she asked Rennie.

“He wanted me to—to—” Rennie pointed to the floor, and then to her own crotch. Not a woman there needed further explanation. “I hit him with the bucket. I doubt he is dead.”

Lil gave her a look such as she had never seen and went out to the yard, accompanied by half the kitchen staff. Rennie stayed where she was, trembling yet defiant. Those left in the kitchen shrank from her as if she carried plague.

Lil returned in an instant, her eyes blazing green fire. “He is not dead, but when he awakens his temper will be far from sweet. Come, Rennie.”

“Where?”

Lil seized her arm in a bruising grip. “This decides things, I fear. You can stay here no longer.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You must away to Sherwood.”

Chapter Four

“I do not wish to go to Sherwood.” Rennie repeated the words for the third or fourth time. In truth, she had lost count. Her litany had begun in the kitchen, continued as she and Lil stepped from the castle proper and again when they entered the gloom that was the eternal forest.

Sherwood—long had it haunted Rennie’s dreams and the imaginations of everyone who dwelt in Nottingham. Was there a tale told these many years that did not concern it somehow, peopled by wolfsheads—their head price the same as that of a slain wolf—Sheriff’s men, and the ever-elusive Robin Hood?

Strange to say, for all that, Rennie had never before set foot here, had never gone much of anywhere, despite how her heart yearned for freedom. She had lived her life by the instinctive knowing that came to her, by her connection to a nameless “something” that lurked just beyond her ken, a clearer, purer feeling than the anger that always simmered.

Now she and Lil actually trod the magical soil of the wood, the great boles of trees soaring above their heads into a green roof of leaves. Morning grew stronger around them as they went, and the light sifted down, green and golden, secretive and sublime.

Lil, who led the way puffing and hurrying, sounded impatient when she said, “By the god’s blood, girl, you have never stopped complaining about your life in the scullery. I should think you would be glad to escape it.”

“Aye.” Lil had a point. The scullery made a prison that rendered Rennie a slave, but this—

Ahead of her, Lil stopped abruptly and bent over, struggling to catch her breath. Alarm flared in Rennie’s heart.

“Lil, are you all right?”

“I am not as young as I once was. Give me but a moment.”

Rennie stepped up and placed her hand on Lil’s back. The contact let her feel what Lil felt, that acuity Rennie intermittently possessed. Sometimes she could hear what others thought, as well, were the thoughts strong enough.

Now she felt the rush of Lil’s emotions—urgency, distress, determination...and pain.

“What hurts you, Mother?”

Lil straightened slowly and looked into Rennie’s face, her eyes as green as that mysterious radiance streaming through the trees.

“Naught, child.”

Rennie knew Lil lied, and that made her frown. “Are you ill?”

“’Tis but the need to hurry. Come.”

They had not gone much farther before someone stepped out to bar their way. Rennie started violently, but Lil behaved as if she had expected this.

At first Rennie thought it the young man who had come to the kitchen; he wore the same kind of hood, made of dun-colored deer hide, and he moved just as silently. But a different feel came off him, and Rennie could see this man was more lightly built, and not so tall.

“Mother Lil?” His voice revealed his youth. “What has happened?”

“The tide has turned on us, Simon. I must see Martin and Sparrow. And Alric, if possible.”

“Alric is here already. Come.”

They went on still more swiftly, and Rennie feared for the breath rasping in Lil’s lungs. They were deep in the forest when a second man appeared.

This one had no secrecy about him, and his aura preceded him the way a wind precedes a storm. Indeed, his impact reared Rennie back on her heels and made her stare.

Broad in the shoulders and tall, he scorned the hood cast back from his face to reveal a straw-colored mane and a tracery of beard. Iron-blue eyes raked Rennie the way Lil sometimes raked the kitchen fire, and stirred her the way the embers always stirred in response to the raking. She sensed in this man great energy and an anger almost as intense as her own.

“You have brought her!” he crowed. “It is well.”

“It is anything but well, Martin. We need to speak.”

“But this is the answer to prayers.”

Did he pray? He did not look a man willing to rely on anyone but himself.

“I have come to confer with you and Sparrow and Alric.”

“Fine, then. Alric is here.”

He stepped to Rennie’s side as they moved off once more, the younger man in the lead. His presence assaulted Rennie’s senses and contained a thread of what she always felt from Lambert. Lust? But why should this stranger desire her?

“So, you are Wren.”

She glared at him. “I know not who I am.” All too true, at the moment. “Leave me be.”

To her astonishment, he grinned. It changed him as had the smile Sparrow gave her in the kitchen, but in a far different way. Rennie felt something flare, within.

“No meek miss, this,” he murmured, but he did not move from her side.

Rennie’s nose caught the faint scent of wood smoke before they reached the camp. A small fire breathed a trickle of gray into the leaf-green enclosure, and a quick eye might catch signs of habitation—a wooden cup here, a pack tossed there, an ashwood bow leaned against a tree. Rennie’s group halted and people began to appear as if by magic. One of them, a very old man with white hair, came forward leaning on a staff and clasped Lil’s hand.

“How are you, Lillith? It has been far too long.”

She leaned forward and embraced him. For an instant, light seemed to shimmer around their joined forms. Overhead, the leaves whispered.

Martin stepped forward from Rennie’s side. “Alric, it is Wren—she is come!”

Alric released Lil and enfolded Rennie with his gaze. She had never seen the like of his eyes, serene as a bottomless pool and warm as pease pudding. A sense of peace poured off him, underlain by a current of worry. “Wren, my child.” He reached for her hands. “Long have I imagined seeing you again.”

“You have seen me before?”

“Aye, soon after you were born—here, in Sherwood.” He shot Lil a look. “You have told her?”

Lil nodded. “Events have moved beyond us, and made it necessary.”

Alric nodded also and gazed again into Rennie’s eyes, so deep she felt he might see her soul. Rennie flinched, for she knew her soul contained dire imperfections.

“Ah, well,” he said. “Let us sit and decide what is to be done.”

****

The man called Martin stuck to Rennie’s side the way treacle pudding sticks to the bottom of a pot, and Rennie continued to feel the eagerness flowing off him—eagerness and confidence. Martin did not lack for confidence! So strong was his aura Rennie scarcely noticed Sparrow had also joined them until she caught sight of him sitting on the far side of the fire.

Other folk came and went, moving about like spirits. Curious faces swam just beyond the reach of Rennie’s acuity—men mostly, and young rather than old, and one woman with a kind expression. Mostly Rennie was taken with those who made up their circle—Lil and Alric who sat side by side, the lad who had brought them in, Sparrow, Martin, and Rennie herself.

Rennie’s senses, overwhelmed, struggled to keep up. The place itself sang to her; her heart beat fast, and the emotions coming off everyone pulled at her.

In a soft voice, Lil informed them what had happened at Nottingham Castle, which prompted still more emotions. Anger flared in Martin, along with fierce protectiveness. Alric felt mild distress. Sparrow had his emotions wrapped tight, but he watched Rennie steadily with those eyes so dark and wild.

“So,” Lil concluded, “she will need take refuge here, else her life will not be worth the crook of Lambert’s finger.”

“Just as well,” Martin voiced before Alric could speak. “She needs to be here with us anyway, given what’s passed.”

“’Tis terrible sudden,” Lil objected. “I would have had her better prepared.”

“Why not ask the woman herself what she thinks?” Sparrow suggested.

Everyone looked at Rennie. She shrugged uncomfortably and lifted her hands. “I scarcely know. All this—it is far too fanciful. Lil would have me believe my father—” She could not speak the words.

Alric’s expression softened. “I assure you, lass, all Lil has told you is true. Your mother was great with child when your father died. She near went mad with the loss of him. We feared for her mind. ’Twas a difficult time for all. You see, when your father lay sore wounded, we realized we could not let the outside world learn of his death. His presence in Sherwood meant too much to those of our world, lit their hope and salved their hearts. So long as Robin lived, their will to fight their oppressors lived also.”

Lil took up the tale. “After Robin’s death, we put out word that he had recovered, and those close to him took up the fight—Sparrow’s father, John Little, Martin’s father, Will Scarlet, the bard Adale, the rogue friar Tuck—all those who came to Sherwood with missing limbs or stripes on their backs, who had fled Norman tyranny. The three of us—Alric, Geofrey of Oakham, and myself—wove a threefold spell to keep Sherwood protected and preserve your father’s magic.”

“Magic?” Rennie could not help but repeat the word.

“Oh, aye, he had magic,” Alric said softly. “How could a mere serf’s son accomplish all he did, without? Some say his forefathers carried the blood of the Green Man himself, that one of the maids of Loxley, from whence he hailed, had once lain with the horned god. Who knows if ’tis true?”

Rennie’s head spun in slow, sickening circles. “So you pretended he had not died, but he had?”