The World Above (16 page)

Think, Gen. Think!
I told myself.
Don’t just use your head. Use your heart
.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To the Boundary Oak. It’s not far. I thought you might like to see it, and I find . . .” Robin frowned. “I find I’ve suddenly discovered a superstitious streak in my nature. The Boundary Oak is a testament to the way things ought to be. I would like to see it again myself.”

One last time
, I thought, hearing in my head the words he did not speak aloud.
But it won’t be. I won’t let it
.

“Gen,” Robin suddenly said. He stopped and turned me toward him with his hand on my arm. “If things go wrong tomorrow—”

“No,” I said fiercely. I reached up to cover his hand with mine. We were standing face-to-face. One more step and we would have been in each other’s arms.

“I don’t want to hear it, Robin. Call it my own superstitious nature, if you will. I don’t want to talk about what will happen if we fail. I want to think of a way for us to beat the odds.”

“They’re stacked pretty high against us,” he said.

“What difference does that make?” I answered stubbornly. “We just have to try harder. I keep thinking there must be a way out, or at least around.”

“I hope you’re right,” Robin said.

“You listen to me, Robin de Trabant,” I said. “I am not going to lose you now. Not you and not Jack, not both at once.”

“You would be sorry, then, if I never came back?” Robin asked softly.

“Don’t be an idiot,” I said, and suddenly we were both smiling.

“Gen des Jardins,” he murmured. “Always full of surprises.”

“Show me this tree,” I said. “Perhaps it will inspire me.”

“It’s not much farther now,” Robin said. He continued walking. But he kept my hand in his, our fingers linked tightly. “There,” he said, a few moments later.

We stood at the base of a small rise. At the summit was a clearing, still bright with fading sunlight. Whether it had been created naturally, or by those who had planted the tree long ago, I did not know. In the clearing’s center stood an enormous oak. The trunk was broad, its thick limbs outstretched. A scattering of acorns lay on the ground. As we made our approach, a breeze came up, causing thick clusters of brown leaves to tumble to the ground.

Something is not right here
, I thought.

“Robin,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper. “I fear this tree is dying.”

Now that I knew what to look for, I could see that it was so. The great trunk was rent by a deep divide. Though autumn had begun to come on, the leaves should still be green. Instead they were dry and brittle, prematurely brown. Even I, who have never been fanciful, could almost feel the effort the oak was making simply to stay alive. It was a battle the tree was losing, day by day.

“This is my father’s doing. I know it,” Robin said in a ravaged voice. “It is the sickness his rule brings on the land. It is wrong; it is false, and even this tree knows it.”

I let go of his hand and moved to place my palms against the great trunk. It seemed to me that I could feel the oak’s heart, all the possibilities for the future, striving against the blight that Guy de Trabant brought to both the lands the tree had been planted to honor.

“This tree is like you,” I said. “It has not given up.”

“Then tell me how I can prevail!” Robin cried. “It seems to me that my father holds all the cards. The only thing I’ve ever successfully accomplished is running away. I don’t even truly fight him. All I do is deprive fat merchants of their wares.”

“You’ve done something your father never has,” I said. “You’ve won the people’s love.”

“And I am grateful for it,” Robin replied, his voice more calm. “It’s the only reason no one’s ever claimed the bounty on my head.”

“What does your father offer?” I asked, suddenly curious as to the price Guy de Trabant had set on the life of his only son.

“The most precious thing he has to offer,” Robin answered bitterly. “Duke Roland’s harp. In exchange for turning me in, my betrayer may use the lyre just as my father does.”

“You mean they get to ask questions?” I said sharply. “And the harp will say whether the answers received are true or not?”

“Three questions,” Robin said. “Just like three wishes.”

“And they may be posed of anyone?”

“Anyone.” Robin nodded, a faint frown between his brows. “And the person chosen will be compelled to answer. My father has sworn it.”

The harp
, I thought, and I felt my thoughts begin to tumble and whirl like the fall of leaves around me.
The lyre that could sing with its own voice and could never tell a lie
.

What if the wizard had bestowed a gift even greater than he himself knew? What if he had provided the means to save us all?

“You have an idea,” Robin said. “Tell me what it is.”

I took my hands from the tree and pressed them against the sides of my head, as if to help organize my thoughts.

“Tell me something first,” I said.

“Anything.”

“Why did you run away from home?”

“What difference does that make?” Robin asked.

“Please,” I said.

“All right,” Robin said. “It isn’t very honorable, I’m afraid. I left because I simply couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand to see the man my father had become. I couldn’t bear the thought that I might grow to be just like him.”

“And what is that?”

“Broken,” Robin answered shortly. “Bitter and frightened when he might have been honorable. But I think what I hated most were the times I caught glimpses of the man my father might have been, if not for what he’d done to Duke Roland.”

Robin paused, as if struggling with his remembrances. His hands clenched at his sides.

“It’s true what they say about me, you know,” he continued. “I did run wild. But I was never wild for the pleasure of it and nothing more. I ran wild so that my father and I would both know that I was different, that I would never grow to be the kind of man that he was. The kind who would betray a trust.

“In the end, it made no difference at all. My father betrayed trust for me. He sent his soldiers into the city. He snatched families from their homes. That was the night I knew I had to leave for good. That was the night that I stopped loving him.”

“I’m not so sure you did,” I said. “If you had, he couldn’t hurt you nearly so much. And if he’d stopped loving you, he wouldn’t try so hard to get you back.”

“It’s not for love,” Robin denied swiftly. “It’s policy. I’m a pawn to be played and nothing more.”

“Are you absolutely certain of that?” I asked. I went to him then and seized him by the shoulders. “Are you sure there’s nothing more? Are you willing to stake your life on it?”

“Tell me what is in your mind,” Robin said. “Tell me what your eyes see that mine do not.”

I took a breath, and shared my thoughts.

But it was only after he had listened carefully and agreed to my proposal, only after we met up with Sean and Shannon and I had explained what must be done, only after the four of us were hastening toward our fates, that I realized I had left something out.

I had told Robin the secrets I thought his father’s heart might hold, but I had failed to share the secrets of my own.

And so the final stage of my journey began.
I am on an adventure now in earnest
, I thought. For surely part of the definition of true adventure is the inability to see its outcome. I knew what I hoped, and I had convinced the others to believe in that hope with me. But whether or not our hopes would prevail and all would come out happily in the end . . . The answers to those questions would still have to wait.

Duke Guy’s harvest festival looked much like those that Jack, Mama, and I had attended every year in the World Below. The houses in the town were decorated with cornstalks bound together with brightly colored ribbon, sheaves of grain, and vivid orange pumpkins.

The people were dressed in their holiday finery. But in spite of all this, with the exception of the very young children playing tag through the streets, the mood in the town did not seem joyful. Instead it seemed watchful.

Guy de Trabant’s people have not been fooled
, I thought. They knew that something dire was coming. I only hoped we could use this to our advantage. These people loved Robin. If need be, would they defy his father for him?

“We should head for the field,” Shannon said in a low voice. “It’s almost time for the archery contest.”

In the two days since the announcement of the archery contest, Duke Guy’s servants had been busy readying the field. A raised platform had been constructed halfway along one side. At its back, a series of banners snapped in the breeze. In its center stood Duke Guy’s great chair. I wondered if it was the same one he had carried into the court of assizes.

Several other chairs sat alongside, though none was as grand as the duke’s. On either side of the platform were sets of bleachers for Duke Guy’s court. Beyond that was a place for the common people to stand, though many had already taken up places on the far side of the field, facing Duke Guy and his entourage.

And throughout, in every place where people gathered, Duke Guy’s soldiers were also present. Shannon and I had seen the soldiers during the day, strolling through the streets as if they were on holiday. They weren’t, though. Every man we saw had his breastplate freshly polished, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. I wondered if any mingled with the crowds dressed as commoners. There was simply no way to tell.

In the center of the field stood a series of targets, side by side. Duke Guy’s champion archer would shoot at one set, the challengers at the other.

“Look, there’s Mad Tom,” Shannon said, pointing to a familiar figure. He had secured a place at the very front of the crowd. As we’d strolled the streets of the town throughout the morning, Shannon and I had caught sight of others of Robin’s people. We had acknowledged one another with a quick nod, but nothing more.

All Robin’s people had been warned that something unusual might take place, and that they were not to interfere until Robin asked for their help himself. But of Robin or Steel themselves, Shannon and I had seen no sign. Robin’s absence, I knew, was by design. After some discussion, we had decided it would be best to let Guy de Trabant wonder whether or not his son would take the bait. But concern over Steel’s whereabouts was like the buzz of an angry bee in the back of my mind.

Had he been captured somehow? It hardly seemed likely. By his own admission, he was not known in Duke Guy’s lands. No one could know that Steel belonged to Robin. We could have simply missed him in the crowd, of course. It was a large one. Still, the fact that we hadn’t seen him at all bothered me.

A call of trumpets rang out.

Duke Guy must be arriving
, I thought. Shannon and I elbowed our way through the crowd, on our way to Mad Tom. All too soon now we would know whose strategy would succeed, Duke Guy’s or mine.

The duke’s bodyguards came first, marching smartly in his colors of green and gold. Then came several men I had no way to identify.
Chief nobles, or court functionaries
, I thought. The most elaborately dressed carried a bundle in his arms.

S
urely that must be the harp
, I thought.

The functionary moved to stand in front of a chair on the far side of Duke Guy’s, though he did not sit down. The others of the duke’s retinue now arranged themselves behind the row of chairs. There was a second fanfare of trumpets, and finally I saw Guy de Trabant himself.

He was tall, his bearing straight and proud, as if his very posture was a dare to all those who would defy him. He was dressed in fine garments of deep forest green. From his shoulders hung a bloodred cloak lined in cloth of gold.

But it was his face that caught my attention and held it. This man was not much older than my mother. Unlike her, he had led a rich and comfortable life. But above his fine clothes, Duke Guy’s face bore the unmistakable marks of time. His hair was a shock of ashy gray. His eyes were sunk deep into their sockets. Grooves outlined the sides of his mouth. It seemed to me that this was the face of a man who knew no peace.

What might he do to find it?
I wondered.

“Gen, look,” Shannon’s voice suddenly spoke at my side. Her grip on my arm was tight enough to cut off circulation.

Following Guy de Trabant, guarded by a second group of soldiers, walked a familiar form. I felt my heart begin to thunder in my chest.
Jack!
I thought.
Oh, please
, I prayed silently.
Let him not have been harmed
.

But as far as I could see, Jack seemed fine. He carried himself erect. His face was unmarked. In honor of the occasion, he’d been given a set of nobleman’s clothes. But these could not disguise the fact that he was a prisoner. His hands were bound in front of him. The soldiers escorting him positioned themselves in a curve behind his chair and alongside it, as if to ensure that Jack could not dash down the steps at the end of the platform and make a run for it.