Forbidden Forest Read online

  Each tree had a different number of branches, a distinctive way of spreading its life toward sun. Each bird made a slightly different cry, and if circumstances forced him to, John felt that he could retrace his steps back to the road.

  But there was safety in continuing forward, and so John did—until he heard the music of running water, and stepped into a clearing.

  He retreated at once behind a huge oak.

  A brook was purling around green stones, too broad to be forded without soaking shoes and leggings. A makeshift bridge stretched across the water—a log with bark worn by weather and crossing footsteps.

  John was pleased to see this rude bridge, but it was the first sign of human intent that he had seen in hours and he took a moment before he entered the sunlight. How many years and how many crossings, he wondered, had it taken to tread this log so smooth? What humans lived in this forest, making their homes in this wood?

  The afternoon was calm, except for the bickering of birds and the muttering of the water. John made his way into the sunlight, and then he froze, and ducked back toward shelter.

  On the far side of the brook, a man in green parted from the trees.

  He was dressed like a forester, one of the freemen who tend the king’s woods, culling deer and arresting poachers. This man in green surveyed the meadow and the brook, taking a long moment to see who shared this place with him. He smiled, and John took in a long low breath.

  The man in green strode easily toward the log bridge. He continued to smile at the sight of John hulking behind the oak. Something about this smile made John step forward and begin to hurry toward the brook.

  The stranger wore a buckskin belt and leggings, and he carried a longbow along his back at an angle, a quiver of goose-feather arrows at his hip. John did not like to guess what a weapon like that could do. Even a fighting squire’s modest bow could drive a shaft through a man’s neck.

  On the other hip the stranger wore a horn, the kind hunters used to alert distant companions. The man timed his stride to reach the opposite end of the bridge just as John set one foot on it. John did not like the way this stranger’s cap and leggings were too exactly the shade of the greenwood, as though the woodsman had good reason to hide.

  The man in green put his hands on his hips and said, “In this forest we make a game of crossing bridges.”

  John took in the stranger’s bright eye, the set of his cap, the sun on his beard, and his smile. “I have no great love of games,” said John.

  “Then it will be my pleasure to teach you,” said the man in green, with what sounded like real zest.

  He had the straightforward, friendly tone of a yeoman. Foresters were solitary, hardworking servants to the king, and did not have a reputation for high spirits. This stranger was radiant.

  John felt his grip tighten around his staff. “What manner of man are you?” asked John.

  “Does it matter to you,” the woodsman asked cheerfully in turn, “how men judge my trade?”

  John had seen many a market-day encounter turn to fists or even knives. A carefree word, a challenge, and soon someone was beaten senseless. “If you are an outlaw,” asserted John deliberately, “it will cost you blood.”

  John half expected the stranger to protest, or to apologize. But the man in green proceeded farther, and planted both feet midway across the bridge. He tested it with his weight. He was tall enough, and well built enough, to shift the bridge slightly, but no match, John knew, for someone his own size.

  “You can call me what you like,” said the stranger with a smile. “But I’ll be a poor host if I don’t make you pay a toll.”

  John set his staff across his body, holding the weapon well balanced. Before he could advance, the man drew the bow from behind his shoulder.

  Then he hesitated. “What sort of game would that be,” the stranger asked, “a yew longbow against a span of wood?”

  “Cut yourself a staff,” said John Little.

  Chapter 11

  As John watched from the opposite bank, the woodsman selected a long, stout length of green oak and pared it artfully. He cut off leaf and twig, and quickly shaved the rough bark with his knife’s edge. The stranger sighted along the length of the new wood at last, and said, like a man at a craftsman’s stall offering a compliment, “This is a lusty staff.”

  John measured with his eye the strides across the bridge, the stature of his opponent, and felt his mouth go dry. This far from the humblest cottage, no rule of fair combat could be enforced, no witness would protest. A flick of the skinning knife, a quick bend of the longbow the stranger was setting down so carefully on the bank of the brook, and John’s life would be lost.

  “And tough,” added the woodsman, giving his staff a swing. It hummed through the air, a blow that would have killed, thought John, if it had connected with a skull. “Although too green.”

  John felt all speech evaporate. Why couldn’t he have remained with haymakers and learned a simple trade, like carting or herding sheep? He took a stand, midway on the bridge.

  “Now,” said the stranger with a smile, “we can play.”

  John knew what was going to happen, but something in him locked his limbs into place as the man in green crossed the bridge at a leisurely pace. He struck John’s staff so hard that the bones of John’s arms rang.

  John feinted, and followed with another false lunge. The man smiled at this, and made an exaggerated feint of his own. John warded off another sharp blow. And then he forced the stranger back, all the way across the bridge, with the cross-body flourish his father had taught him, explaining that even a tanner had to know how to drive away robbers. Bish-bash-bosh, it was called, this heavy attack, and John ended the maneuver with a blow to his opponent’s head.

  The stranger was down, but sprang up again at once, blood starting from under his cap. He drove the butt of his freshly cut staff into John’s belly, and the counterattack that followed locked the two, face to face, staff against staff, in the middle of the bridge. John was off-balance as the woodsman stepped back only to strike John again, from above, from below, the wood ringing sharply, echoing from the surrounding oaks.

  One blow caught John on the knuckles, weakening his grip. Another drove the air from his body. The stranger’s staff dodged and parried. John felt the strength leave his shoulders just as the color left his vision, and all memory of being in any other place fled his soul.

  John nearly toppled, but kept his balance. And at that moment, sure that the power of his arms was spent, he struck the woodsman a blow that rang loudly over the chuckling of the water, resounding from the shadows of the woods. The man wheeled, spun his arms, danced for a moment on one leg.

  And fell hard, into the brook.

  John leaned on his quarterstaff. He felt that he would never, as long as he lived, catch his breath again.

  The stranger was laughing. John gaped in disbelief as the vanquished man in green smiled up at him.

  “Where are you now?” asked John rhetorically, hoping to gauge his opponent’s determination. If there was going to be more fighting on this day, John would have to consider his tactics.

  “I am in the flood,” said the stranger, “floating along with the tide.”

  He drifted on his back, beaming up at John. This was not self-mockery, not an ironic, bitter jeer at his own defeat. It was not a laugh that threatened worse violence to come. It was lively, careless pleasure in what had just passed, as though the brook, and the bush he seized to pull himself onto the bank, were all, indeed, part of a game.

  John kept his staff before him, ready to parry or to strike.

  Dripping water on the ground, the man in green unfastened the horn from his belt. He made a point of letting water drain from it. Then he put the horn to his lips and it gave one airy sparrow chirp. He laughed. The second note was fine, a long, sky-reaching sound that echoed from across the brook and from the vaults of the woods.

  And then the echoes were not echoes at all, but the ac
tual far-off notes of other horns, answering calls.

  John sighed, and in his sweaty weariness knew that when the other outlaws closed in on this bridge they would take his life. He would bruise as many felons as he could, but his days were over.

  The stranger asked John what men called him.

  “John Little,” he said, resigned, but feeling the first stirrings of his returning anger. He would make these outlaws bleed!

  The woodsman repeated this name with a thoughtful frown.

  “And who have I had the pleasure of fighting this sunny day?” asked John, trying to match his opponent’s fine humor, although he had already guessed the stranger’s name. When they delve my grave out of the forest floor, John swore in silence, they will not remember me as surly or cursing. I can wear a fine smile too.

  “Folk along the High Way,” said the man in green, “call me Robin Hood.”

  John wondered if to die at the hands of a famous outlaw was a better death than to expire in bed under a priest’s prayers. John remembered courtesy then, and in the manner of a knight, or a squire well advanced in training, he gave a fighting man’s bow.

  “I think your name does not suit you,” said Robin Hood.

  John was about to give a sharp answer, but two men detached from the trees and hurried to Robin Hood’s side. From behind, John sensed a soft whisper, a crushed leaf. He turned, and saw a third outlaw standing in the deer path, stringing his bow. Each man was dressed in rough-spun green, with worn leather and use-tarnished buckles. “Who is this?” asked a short, dark outlaw. The young man’s words were slightly slurred.

  “A man with a strong arm,” replied Robin Hood.

  “Strong enough,” said the outlaw, smiling with toothless gums. “He’s cracked your crown.”

  Robin Hood nodded, laughing silently. Something in his manner began to capture John right then. John took in the way the men looked to Robin Hood for direction—not as servants, but as friends. Curiosity and the bare beginnings of hope kept John from trying to flee these green-clad strangers.

  “Shall we give him a drink of water?” asked the young outlaw meaningfully.

  Robin Hood smiled and shook his head. “Little John,” he said, “is our guest tonight.”

  Chapter 12

  Toothless Will Scathlock brought a cup of sweet wine to where John sat. John had kept his calm, marching with these men through the woods as dark gathered. He wanted to learn more about these robbers of song and tale. Now that the fire was stirred and logs split and burning, a fine example of the king’s venison sizzled on a massive spit.

  This meat was delicious, and John ate his fill, and still there was plenty more. John knew the stories, how Robin Hood would not dine unless he had some rich wayfarer held against his will as a guest. Each victim had to tell a story, or sing a song, and even wealthy Exchequer’s men, employed to monitor the royal treasury, were released without a bruise, their purses only somewhat lighter.

  John did not believe such tales entirely, and had a lingering suspicion that this evening’s entertainment would be the hanging of a tall young man from the north country, his belly full of poached deer.

  But among the outlaws was a burgess with an emerald ring and mare-skin leggings. Aware that John was observing him, the man gave a laugh. “I was waylaid yesterday,” said the city man, his eyes lit by the campfire. “Robbed and held against my desire,” he added with a smile.

  “Drink deep,” said Will, speaking carefully to make his words clear. “We have several skins of good grape wine, and you know it turns to vinegar in a fortnight.”

  “What wine merchant’s throat did you cut to win this drink?” asked John after a long silence. The wine was warming and sweet, but he did not want to take too much pleasure in it. If he was going to be hanged, he would make his feelings known, and die sober.

  Will put a hand to his own throat and gave a cough. “Are folk quick to cut a man’s wind where you come from, John?”

  “No quicker than in any other town,” said John, sorry at the alarm his question seemed to cause Will Scathlock. “But this is not a band of honest men, unless I am mistaken.”

  “Honest men!” laughed the burgess. “Oh, no, and the saints be thanked. These are outlaws, and the best hosts a traveling merchant could ask.”

  “These outlaws robbed you,” said John. “And yet you celebrate by filling your belly with red wine.”

  “I have never met a finer band, in castle or in court. I was a tired and hungry man before I met these green-clad men.” The merchant struggled to his feet, helped by one of the woodsmen. “But if I don’t hurry back to Nottingham this night, the sheriff’s men will come hunting.”

  “Grimes Black, one of my most surefooted men,” said Robin Hood, “will lead you to the High Way.”

  “Did these outlaws leave your purse as big around as ever?” asked John.

  The merchant laughed. “No, they took many a fat coin, and I’ve never spent gold so happily.”

  The merchant was led away, talking merrily with his outlaw guide.

  John considered what he had learned. Were the traveling burgesses of this shire moonstruck, or simple to the point of idiocy?

  “Oh, we’re wealthy enough, to a man,” said Will Scathlock, smiling into the firelight. “The sheriff does not keep such warm company.”

  “Is this your usual hiding place?” asked John.

  “We have no usual place,” said Will. “If one corner of the forest does not please us, we seek another.”

  The fire spat and the meat sizzled. John knew his words were ungrateful, and possibly unwise, but he continued, “Can even a subtle outlaw escape the law forever?”

  “I’d not cut a throat to take a swallow of wine with my meat,” said Will with passion. “One of the sheriff of Nottingham’s men would cut a head off at a stroke, but never me.”

  John parted his lips to apologize for troubling the young man.

  “This mouth of mine was full of teeth,” said Will, with strong feeling. “And as fine and white a set of ivory as any archbishop might have in his smile.”

  To his surprise, John felt protective toward Will, and put a hand reassuringly on the man’s arm.

  “And what happens to my bite?” Will continued. “In Nottingham, a brace of sheriff’s men find me watching a lute player. A merry lute man, who can play ‘My Lady Hides Her Treasure’ with his eyes closed.” Will gazed around at his friends. “A worthy man, by my faith. But I’m interrupted in my pleasure and dragged behind the goat stall, and sheriff’s men sit on me, chest and arms, and pincer my teeth out of my head, each one. They had no fair reason, but for the love of their own spite. That right hand to the lord sheriff, a man called Henry, did the deed. He says he’ll have the tooth out of every outlaw’s head.”

  “It pains me to hear it,” said John earnestly. “I’ll beat the heads of the men who did this with my two—” John raised his fists, but then fell silent.

  “Tell us a story, John,” said Will.

  “I have no tales,” said John.

  “Every traveler tells of ways and folk no other traveler knows,” said Will. “It is the price of meat and wine here,” he added.

  “I have a gift for keeping silent when I should speak,” said John, “and speaking when I should close my mouth.”

  “Sing us a song,” said Will, “or tell us a dream, or—”

  “I do not dream,” said John abruptly. He recalled his dream of the tree woman all too well.

  He stared at the men around the fire. Hang me, he thought.

  And be done with it.

  Robin Hood raised a hand, and one of the men slipped away from the fire. John had heard it, too, a deep, earthbound sound, soft but beyond mistaking—something was out there in the darkness.

  Each man put his hand on his bow, and even John put his hand on his staff where it lay across his feet.

  A guard out in the woods conferred softly with the messenger, and when the man returned he said, “A wild pig hu
ngry, digging up roots.”

  “A wild sow could tell a story, if we fed her and put a cup in her hand,” opined Will, and the men around the fire laughed.

  John recognized a rebuke when he heard it.

  “Tell us a story,” said Robin Hood.

  Give me a tale, John breathed to whatever powers listened. A story equal to this warm fire and these welcoming faces.

  “There was a woman in the woods,” he began, and then he looked away from the fire.

  Where did these words come from? What power gave him this speech? John did not trust his tongue. He would not say another word.

  He spoke.

  “She was driven away by the gossip of her neighbors, and hurt by the lies of men and women both,” John continued, without intending to. The men leaned closer to the fire, eyes bright. “She fled into the woods, which had always frightened her.”

  John told the story of a woman harried by hound and cutthroat, hunter and miller, every hand against her as she fled. He told the tale of a woman feeling her feet spread, green and rooted, and her arms uplifted, forking, her body breaking into leaf. “To this day a man seeking refuge in the woods could climb her unaware, and sleep safely in her arms.”

  When he was done, John sat in silence.

  “Such good company deserves a better story,” John said at last, his eyes downcast. A strange feeling warmed him. In some way John could not understand, his companions had drawn this story forth from him. John had never experienced this power to tell a tale so keenly before.

  “A finer story I’ve never heard!” said Will.

  “Nor I,” said Robin Hood.

  That night John woke with a start to the sound of a guard murmuring, Robin Hood whispering, a sound of concern.

  John reached and found his staff. These outlaws could not post enough wood-wise guards, John feared. Surely the sheriff, or Lord Roger and his hired swords, had followed him here.

  Surely trouble was closing in through the forest.

  John rose, staff in hand, and found Robin Hood far from the lingering glow of the embers.