Outlaw Princess of Sherwood

Table of Contents

 

ALSO BY NANCY SPRINGER

I AM MORDRED
A Tale from Camelot

 

I AM MORGAN LE FAY
A Tale from Camelot

 

ROWAN HOOD
Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest

 

LIONCLAW
A Tale of Rowan Hood

 

RIBBITING TALES

Copyright © 2003 by Nancy Springer.

eISBN : 978-1-101-52401-5

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Springer, Nancy. Outlaw princess of Sherwood, a tale of Rowan Hood / Nancy Springer.
p. cm. Sequel to: Lionclaw, a tale of Rowan Hood.

Summary: King Solon the Red attempts to capture his runaway daughter Ettarde and force her into marriage with a rival king who has been threatening his reign.

[1. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 2. Princesses—Fiction. 3. Fathers and daughters—
Fiction. 4. Robin Hood (Legendary character)—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.S76846Ot 2003

 

 

First Impression

D
anger!
Etty thought, or sensed, stiffening. She listened one instant longer, and yes, that muffled sound was the clop of hooves on forest loam.
Horsemen!

She ran. Gathering her apron full of cresses, she sprinted toward the tall oaks of Sherwood Forest. Lady have mercy, forest stood everywhere, yet there she was, caught in the middle of Fountain Dale, in the open, and it sounded like many hooves, many riders, very near. The spring rains had soaked the Nottingham Way, and the softened ground had not given her much warning.

Nor would the forest offer much safety, for only birches and alders were yet in leaf. But the hazel bushes edging the meadow grew thick enough to hide behind.

Darting for cover, Etty gave the hissing call of the wryneck bird to signal Rowan in the quietest way she could. But Rowan already knew. Out of the corner of one eye Etty saw Rowan, daughter of Robin Hood, lifting her green kirtle, her brown braid lashing like a wildcat's tail as she tried to run. Rowan's broken legs had healed over the winter, but were not yet strong.

She fell.

With a gasp, Etty saw Rowan sprawl headlong on the spring-green meadow. From just beyond the first bend of the Nottingham Way came the sounds of harness jingling and creaking, the rough voices of laughing men.

Letting go of her apron, letting cresses strew the grass, Etty dashed toward Rowan, bad memories flashing through her mind, as always when something went wrong.
The man trap.
As if it were happening right now Etty could hear the horrible jaws clashing shut on Rowan's legs, could hear her scream, could hear the snap of her breaking bones . . . And when the foresters had come, like an idiot Etty had cried out Rowan's name, then run away.

Lionel, Rook, Robin Hood, Rowan herself, they had all said Etty had just showed good sense, running away, for what could she have done against two armed men? But Etty knew better. She knew she had lost her head.

She knew herself to be a coward.

Even now, running toward Rowan, she felt the panic again and knew herself unworthy to wear the silver ring, emblem of the Rowan Hood band, the single strand that shone on her right hand.

Rowan was struggling to heave herself up from the ground, as if she'd had the breath knocked out of her. She had only clambered to her hands and knees when Etty reached her, grabbed her under the shoulders and lifted her, almost carrying her. With all her strength Etty heaved Rowan through a gap in the hazel bushes. Behind the thick, sheltering roots they collapsed together.

“Thank you,” Rowan gasped, still panting for breath.

“Shhh.” Etty wanted no thanks.

Rowan panted, “Toads take it . . . I wasn't expecting . . . a cavalcade. . . .”

“Hush.”

Flat on the ground behind the bushes, huddled into dead weeds and keeping their heads down, they both hushed as the horsemen clattered into the meadow.

“Halt!” roared a man's voice less than ten paces away, and there was sudden silence, broken only by the snorting and pawing of horses and the scolding of the jaybirds in the oaks.

In that silence Etty could hear her own heart thumping in her ears, its pounding beat seeming to say No— no—no. No, it could not be. It was just her craven heart making her imagine that she knew that voice.

“What say you, sirrah?” the same voice demanded. “You deem this is the place?”

Another man's tame tones replied, “Yes, Your Highness.”

Etty bit her lip to keep from crying out. She felt Rowan's hand close over hers, warm, steadying. One careless move and all would be over.

“Are you certain?” barked the harsh voice of Solon the Red, petty king of Auberon. Etty's father.

“Yes, Your Highness. It was here. There is the fountain and all.”

“Hah. Assuming the wench is still hereabouts, then, we'll have her at our mercy.”

Wench. He meant her, his daughter, Ettarde.

He had come to reclaim her.

Etty started to tremble. She had not yet dared a look at her father, but just at the sound of his voice she felt herself once again Ettarde of Auberon, runaway princess, damsel in distress. For that moment she forgot that she was now Etty, member of an outlaw band. She shook like a frightened deer. All her muscles bunched, and against all reason she felt sure that her angry father could see her; right through the hazel bushes and her brown mantle with its hood shadowing her face he could still see her. She knew that she must be motionless, still and silent like a big-eared mouse in its bed of leaves, or else she would be seen and captured—yet her heart raced, urging her to leap up and run, fly, flee, run away, run away.

“To your stations!” King Solon roared. “Pitch camp!”

The shock of his shout made Etty startle all over. If it were not for men leaping from their horses, someone might have heard the brush rattle. Rowan's warm hand slipped up to Etty's wrist, gripping her.

It was not only her own life that depended on silence. It was Rowan's also.

Yet in the back of her mind panic babbled,
Run! Go ahead, be a coward. Run away!

Running had worked to her advantage once before. Almost a year ago. An evening in early summer, here, at this very spot, when she had still been a sorrowing princess dressed in white satin and lace, with her father's men escorting her to be married to Lord Basil against her will. All had been the noise and confusion of men making camp, just as it was now. With her head nestled at the base of the hazel bush Ettarde could hear them yelling orders at each other, quarreling, leading horses here and there. At just such a time last summer she had taken her chance and had run into the shadows of the forest.

But they would have caught her at once if Rowan had not been there to help her. And Lionel, great oaf of a minstrel who would tremble at the sight of a spider—yet he had faced an armored knight to save her.

Head down behind the hazel bush, Etty listened to the commotion in Fountain Dale and watched Rowan's grave, dark-eyed face. She signaled Rowan with lifted eyebrows and a pleading gaze:
Now? Please?

By way of answer, Rowan increased the warm pressure of her grip on Etty's wrist:
Wait.
But at the same time, Rowan lifted her head softly, ever so slowly—Rowan had her father's knack of moving as silently as a spirit in the woods. Etty watched as Rowan edged over and peeked between the hazels. She saw Rowan's face go stark.

Only the sight of evil gave Rowan that look.

Something evil.

But no immediate danger. Rowan had not moved. With her heart pounding painfully, Etty eased her own head up until she could catch a glimpse of her father's encampment through the bushes.

At first she could make little sense of the bits and pieces she saw between hazel stems. Lances with their butts set into the ground, their pennons bearing her father's device: a white rose on a red ground. Horses, bay and dapple gray. Men-at-arms in plumed helmets and red quilted tabards with the white rose riding like a breastplate on their chests. A wagon decked in white and red—the very wagon that had carried her, an unwilling bride under guard, to this spot. Hazily Etty wondered why they had brought the wagon along; perhaps it was meant to carry her onward to Lord Basil now? How arrogant of her father to assume he would capture her. There he towered, King Solon of Auberon, still on his blood-bay steed as if on a tall, living throne, his red beard waxed into a precise point like a logic problem, his hard-nailed finger pointing as he directed his men. Even in her hiding place, Etty seemed to feel that finger stab her like a spear to the heart, seemed to feel the glare of his flinty eyes under brows waxed into red wings. Feeling as weak as if she were kneeling at his feet, it took her a moment to realize what project he was overseeing, what evil thing his men were erecting.

Lady have mercy.

A cage.

It stood in the very center of Fountain Dale, at the heart of the meadow, halfway between the forest and the spring that gave the place its name. Ten feet tall, it looked like a toy mistakenly left there by a giant. At Auberon there had been linnets and nightingales kept in cages in the solarium, pretty cages with golden bars aspiring from a circular base to meet gracefully at the top. This cage was like those, graceful and golden, but meant for some far larger songbird.