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- Herausgeber: David Fickling Books
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
ROBIN HOOD IS TRANSFORMED.Blinded by the Sheriff, he takes refuge in the ancient heart of Sherwood Forest, where primal powers and forgotten magicks reach out to him. But the wildwood itself is under threat, and the old gods face extinction. Only the blind bowman, Robin Hood, together with his soulmate, Marian, can stand against the forces of darkness . . .
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Praise for Shadow of the Wolf
‘It’s dark and violent, a gory fantasy mashup with Game of Thrones and X-Men in its DNA’ Guardian
‘Astonishingly good. ★★★★★’ Sun
‘Tim Hall has produced an original, savage, powerful and incredibly moving story. He captures the harshness and darkness of the ancient woodland so vividly; it is like the author himself has slid back in time. Robin and Marian are like you have never seen, and I am sure this novel will grip anyone who reads it, as it thoroughly gripped me’
Jilly Cooper, Mail on Sunday
‘A bold interpretation that’s weird, wild andwonderful … Game of Thrones-style’
SFX Magazine
‘Magic. If you love Alan Garner, Mythico Wood, wild gods and wild places then read Shadow of the Wolf. Reading this book takes me back to that place in my teens where a book carried me away from all the worries of the world and the chaos in my head to another place. Breathless. Haunting. Wild. Magic’
Jackie Morris, co-creator of The Lost Words and The Lost Spellsii
‘One of the debuts of the year’ Books for Keeps
‘Mesmerising, don’t miss it!’ The Bookseller
‘My favourite book of the year. Beautiful writing, astunning mix of action and mystical folklore.A brilliant story’
Sally Green, author of Half Bad
‘This is the darkest, strangest, and possibly coolest versionof Robin Hood I’ve ever seen. Highly Recommended’
YA Yeah Yeah
‘It is incredibly rich in detail, wonderfully written and sounique that this truly is a Robin Hood tale unlike anythingyou could ever have dreamt of’ A Dream of Books
‘I truly cannot rave about this book enough. I’ve always loved the Robin Hood legend and have read quite a few books based around it but none of them clicked with me until Shadow of the Wolf. It is undoubtedly the most interesting, gripping take on the legend I’ve come across’ Reveries of a Bookworm
‘I absolutely loved it, I’m going to spend the time waitingfor the second book trying to persuade as many people as Ican to read this one. Strongly recommended!’
Juniper’s Jungle
iii
ivv
For Lizzievi
1First, forget everything you’ve heard.
Robin Hood was no prince, and he was no dispossessed lord.
He didn’t fight in the Crusades. He never gave a penny to the poor.
In fact, of all those Sherwood legends, only one holds true: Robinwas blind.
No, even that’s not right. Truer to say: Robin Hood didn’t see with his eyes. Perhaps, after all, he was the only one who saw clearly in this place of illusion and lies.
Forget, too, all you know of Marian.
She was never a nun, or an abbess. Much less a damsel in distress.
She was the Destroying Angel. The most desperate and deadly of them all.
Look around you. And listen. A wasted world now, shrunken andburned. A howling winter and a silent spring.
But it’s all still here, lurking amid the mist.
A world of gods and monsters, rolling their final dice.
A time of heroes and demons, and the horror that shadows both.
The world of Robin Hood …2
Contents
Prologue
Robin Loxley placed more wood on the fire. He breathed into the heart of the flames and they crackled fully to life. He used his knife to scrape away embers for cooking.
A twig cracked. He looked up. His father was coming back across the clearing, carrying more strips of flesh. He came to Robin’s side and laid the meat across the cooking stones.
‘Just wait till Hal sees,’ Robin said. ‘And Thane. They’ve never made a kill this big, have they?’
His father looked for a moment into the trees before turning back to the fire. ‘It was a fine hunt,’ he said. ‘A superb kill. Here, eat some more, you earned it.’
Using the flat of his knife he lifted a strip of cooked meat. Robin took it carefully and sat back and ate.
His father went back to the carcass, a hulking shape at the edge of the glade. He began working at it again with his knife, and Robin felt a fresh swelling of pride. It was a superb kill: a large male with eight tines to its antlers – perhaps not a fully mature hart but certainly an older buck. It would provide 4meat for months – for the whole village – as well as the farm tools they would make from its antlers, the strong rope from its sinews, and all the other useful pieces.
He put more wood on the fire. He listened to the forest, loud on all sides: the skittering of clawed feet, sudden wing beats and distant killing shrieks. He realized he had no idea what hour it was. All day the sun had sulked behind dense cloud, the light little more than a grey wash. And now, as the mist began to thicken, it was growing so dark it could almost be dusk. But it couldn’t possibly be that late. Nobody would stay in Sherwood Forest after nightfall. Not even Robin’s father.
He looked to the edge of the clearing. Through the mist, in his bosky hunting cloak, his father could almost be a piece of the forest, man-shaped. Like Robin his clothing was stuffed with grasses and his skin was rubbed with mud and moss to mask his scent.
Now his father was cleaning his knife on the grass. And when he stood, and turned, he was holding the buck’s bloody, steaming heart, still impaled with Robin’s arrow. He carried it back to the fire.
‘Are we going to eat it now?’ Robin said. ‘The heart is the hunter’s part, you always said. Or is it an offering? Are we going to bury it beneath the Trystel Tree?’
His father didn’t answer. He was sawing away the shaft of the arrow and then stuffing the heart into a hemp sack. He put the sack to one side, blood beginning to patch through the weave.
Movement nearby. Something darting through the undergrowth. Robin’s eyes went after it. He thought it was a stoat, or a pine marten, but it was difficult to tell – all shapes were beginning to merge. Something else flicked past on dark wings.
Dusk was drawing in, wasn’t it? 5
‘Robin, don’t be nervous,’ his father said. ‘There’s nothing here for you to fear. That’s what my father used to say, when he taught me my wildwood skills. He said I would never have to be afraid of the cold, or hunger, or rely on another man to offer me shelter. I could move freely in the world and survive anywhere, even here. That’s why I’ve been teaching you the same skills. And you’re a better apprentice than I ever was. You’re in your element. Don’t fear it.’
As he spoke he lifted his prized hunting bow. And now, to Robin’s disbelief, he was pushing the bow into Robin’s hands.
‘I want you to have it,’ his father said. ‘Take it, it’s yours.’
‘How can I? You need it.’
‘I’ll cut another. This one is too good for me. It always was.’
Robin had been trying his best to resist, but his father’s arms were thick as tree trunks, his hands tough as roots, and he kept gently but firmly insisting and finally Robin had no choice but to take the gift.
He turned the shortbow in his hands. It had been polished over and over with hazelnut oil to such a fine finish he could see his reflection in the heartwood. The grip was antler bone wrapped in soft worn leather.
‘This gift means something, Robin. It means I’m proud of you. Proud to call you my son.’ Something caught in his father’s voice and made Robin look up. He was staring at Robin intently and his eyes, dark as oakwood, were glistening in the firelight.
‘What is it?’ Robin said. ‘What’s wrong?’
His father looked away. He cleared his throat. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. Smoke in my eyes, that’s all. And I’m tired – even if you’re not. That was a long hunt. We’ll rest before heading home.’
He stood and moved Robin’s hunting pack so it could serve 6as a pillow. Robin hesitated at first, but then he lay out flat and rested his head. They must be closer to the forest edge than he imagined. There must be plenty of daylight left. No harm in a short rest.
His father sat at his side and started to stroke Robin’s hair. At the same time he began to murmur some words, his voice enfolding Robin like a blanket.
‘… Don’t be afraid … in your element … fought them all, but fear of the unknown … what more could we have done … so sorry … forest-born …’
It was hard to hear what the words were, and anyway they were muddled and strange – like one of the nonsense rhymes his mother sometimes sang at his bedside. But whatever his father was saying, the sound of his voice was reassuring.
‘… everything in our power … so sorry … find you I promise …’
And as he spoke he continued to stroke Robin’s hair, in a way that never failed to lull him to sleep. And it was warm here near the fire and the aspen leaves were making a hushing sound and Robin was tired and fully fed.
And his father was still murmuring those words.
He was still stroking Robin’s hair …
And Robin’s eyes were closing …
They opened again a heartbeat later.
Robin blinked. He kept blinking, trying to clear the blackness from his eyes.
The world had disappeared. There was no edge to the clearing; no branches or leaves above. There was only this: a single speck of light, hanging in the void.
He realized it was the remnants of their fire, burned down to embers.
They must have fallen asleep. Both of them. 7
‘Wake up!’ Robin hissed. ‘Please, quickly, wake up!’
Nobody stirred. A silence at his side. An emptiness.
He sat up slowly, a sickly feeling spreading from his groin. The wind blew and he shivered.
He whispered: ‘Where are you?’
In reply came the distant hooting of an owl. A branch cracked and fell, somewhere close.
Robin crawled, on hands and knees, around the firepit, searching with his fingers for his father’s things. His hunting pack, his knife, even the sack containing the animal’s heart. All of it gone.
‘Where are you?’ he shouted. ‘I’m here! Come back, please!’
He stood and shouted again and he listened to his voice dying in the mist. He sat and hugged his knees, gripping his father’s bow to his chest. He’ll come for me. I was asleep and he heard a noise and he went to investigate, but he’ll be back. He’ll be back.
A sound like a distant scream – Robin forced himself to think of an owl, hunting. Another noise like something being dragged through the wet leaves – Robin’s heart hammering, harder and faster.
He stared again into the blackness. He began to pick out shapes. Something nodded its head and he told himself it was a sapling. He watched a yew tree, its outline rippling in the wind. To Robin the movement looked like rising and falling. Like breath. The needles looked like fur.
It’s here, it’s watching me, I know it is.
A gust of wind and the mist swirled and moonlight found the forest floor. From the corner of his eye he saw something else. More movement.
There was somebody there. Kneeling at the body of the buck.
His father. 8
Of course. He’s caching the meat. To return for later. He’s been here all along, of course he has!
Robin got shakily to his feet. He groped his way in the dark, edging towards his father.
‘Why didn’t you answer?’
No reply. A twig snapping loudly underfoot. The boughs groaning high above.
‘Why are you doing that alone?’
Robin moved closer, almost close enough to touch. The wind making the leaves skitter.
Still his father hadn’t turned or said a word. He was just crouching there, working at the carcass with his knife.
Except, was he using his knife? It looked like—
The mist swirled once more and moonlight spilled through the trees. Robin saw the kneeling figure more clearly.
He saw this was not his father.
This was an even bigger, broader man, with hulking shoulders. A man wrapped in some kind of animal pelt.
And when he half turned, still crouching over the carcass, the man’s eyes were amber and his mouth and teeth were glistening with blood …
Robin ran. He lurched away from those amber eyes and he ran, blindly into the darkness and the mist, gripping the shortbow in both hands and holding it out before him, stumbling over roots, falling, picking himself up and running again, breathless with the fear of it.
Running harder. The branches bare bones, snapping; the forest screeching, clawing at him with thorns.
From somewhere shockingly close came a human noise – a woman’s laugh. Followed by words, whispered on the wind: Not yet. Too soon.
And then a face looming from the darkness – a small child, grinning, her eyes flashing golden, like a hawk, or a vixen. 9
Robin didn’t dare look back, but he knew the Wargwolf was there too, its lower jaw hanging slack, its breath mixing with the mist, its lantern eyes burning.
Robin running and falling and running, trying to shout for his father but fear blocking his throat.
Around him the wind swirled and seemed to form those words: Not yet. Too soon. He must suffer the wounds.
Another cackle of laughter.
Stumbling and falling and getting to his feet and staggering on. Running now so long and so far that the night began to lift and sunlight started to sift through the trees …
Still Robin ran and he kept running until the last of his strength left his body and he fell to the wet earth, senseless with fear and exhaustion, blackness closing its fingers around him and blocking at last the laughter snaking through the mist.10
Part One
12Forest-born
I. Lone Wolf
Robin crouched in the long grass, gripping his hunting pack, his father’s shortbow strapped across his back. He kept his hood raised. He had smeared his face grey-green with a mixture of ash and dyer’s weed.
He peered into Wodenhurst. The village was waking, shutters opening, spilling voices still hushed from sleep. Nearby a baby was crying, and further off came the creaking of the waterwheel and the barking of a dog. It was a cold, bright dawn, woodsmoke hanging hazy above the roofs.
He looked towards his old home, standing square and solid at the top of Herne Hill. From this distance it looked exactly as it always had, and just for a moment he imagined he could walk into that house and there his family would be sat: his brothers with their boots pulled off, their feet stretched out near the fire; his mother, at the window, softly singing of a journey home; his father leaning close, listening intently.
The next moment the illusion was shattered: Warin Felstone ducked out of the house. He pushed back his shoulders, arching his spine, before walking down into the village. Next emerged his wife, Mabel, and then their children, Narris, Richard and Ida, the two younger ones pinching one another and squabbling. 14
So, the path was clear. The frosted grass crunched as Robin left his hiding place. He darted through High Field, running low to the ground. He looped around the orchard and the croft and he came to the front of his old home. He went inside and hurried through the silent, gloomy house.
He went to the sleeping chamber he once shared with his brothers. It was cold and dark. He opened the shutters – a gust of wind whipped in, scattering the floor rushes. He went to a far corner and knelt on the packed earth. He took out his hunting knife and he began to dig.
The hole widened and deepened. He was so intent on his work that at first he didn’t notice someone had come to stand in the doorway. The figure moved to the window and his shadow fell across Robin.
Warin Felstone was holding an adze in one hand, an axe in the other. He propped the tools against a wall and crossed his arms. ‘Narris thought he saw you lurking,’ he said. ‘How long is this going to continue, Robin? What if your father could see you now, the way you’re living? Look at me when I’m talking to you. And you can start by telling me what in Woden’s name you’re doing.’
Robin continued digging. Mabel Felstone came bustling into the room, short of breath. ‘Mother’s mercy, Robin, it’s true,’ she said. ‘How long since we’ve set eyes on you? I was beginning to think you’d caught your death, it’s grown so cold. Or worse, the Bailiff had got his hands on you. Hold still, let me get a proper look – check you’re not wasting away. What’s all this on your face? So long spent in those woods you’re turning green.’
She licked a thumb and reached through the curtain of Robin’s long, mud-matted hair. She rubbed at his cheek. Robin pushed her hand away.
‘We’ve been patient,’ Warin said, coming away from the 15window. ‘But it’s time to start putting this behind us. This stupid feud with Narris and the rest, I’ve told them it has to stop, but I can’t do it alone. You have to start showing them you belong. The first step is to get you pulling your weight. We need every pair of hands. On top of everything else the storm damaged the spirit fence, and the Walking will come around, soon as we know it.’
Mabel clasped one of Robin’s hands in both of hers. ‘We miss them too, Robin, you know that, don’t you? It’s been hard for every one of us since … since they left. But sooner or later life has to carry on. Please say you’ll come back, live here with us. This is still your home, as much as it is ours.’
Robin pulled back his hand. He took from the ground a small pinewood casket – his woodsman’s cache. Inside was a fresh bowstring; two boar-tusk bodkins; a spare flint for his strike-a-light; a whetstone to sharpen his knife. When he had buried these things, the previous spring, it had been only to keep them hidden from his brothers. But now, with winter approaching, these objects could prove vital. He put each one in his hunting pack. He stood and raised his hood.
‘This isn’t my home,’ he said. ‘And you’re not my parents.’
As he spoke he was already moving towards the wall, and before Warin could stop him, quick as a squirrel, Robin leaped into the window and squeezed through and jumped down to the ground. He moved swiftly around the house, scattering the magpies that were in the orchard, squabbling over fallen fruit. He headed down into the village, following the twisting lanes between the homes.
People were emerging and setting about their work. Pagan Topcroft and Stephen Younger and the rest of their oxgang were armed with sickles and were heading for Far Field. William Tanglefoot was hobbling around with the ducks, casting feed. Agnes Poley and Matheu Plowless were going 16to help repair the spirit fence, walking up toward Woden’s Ride carrying sharpened stakes and the sun-bleached skulls of sheep. A few of these people looked at Robin as he passed. One or two shook their heads, or turned away as if he wasn’t there. Robin didn’t care; he kept his hood raised and went on his way.
He walked beneath the granary and the hayloft, standing on their struts. He passed between the smokehouse and the slaughter-shed. And all the time he was passing beneath the great arching boughs of the Trystel Tree. The ancient oak, covered in burns and lightning wounds, wrapped in vines thick as rope, rose from the centre of the village. It spread its limbs so low and so far and so heavy through the lanes that many of the villagers had used them as top-beams for their barns or the rear walls of their homes.
Joylessly, through habit only, Robin leaped onto a low branch and walked along it, toe-to-heel, his arms outstretched for balance, the way he had done so many times with his brothers – Mogon’s Well and Cooper’s Corner passing beneath his feet. The branch came to rest and he jumped off. He crossed the creaking bridge that ran across Mill Pond.
He was passing the boundary stone, leaving the village, when raised voices stopped him. He looked back and saw Swet Woolward and Alwin Topcroft, heading his way. At their head was Narris Felstone, gripping in his solitary hand a fencing post, scratching at his ear with the stump of his left arm.
Robin didn’t feel like tangling with Narris and the others today. He turned and broke into a run. Ahead of him Silver River glistened as it wound into the valley. He followed its course, two otters barking at him before diving out of sight, herons taking flight, a fox watching him from the far bank.
At Bel’s Bridge he stopped and looked back. Narris and the others had followed no further than the boundary stone, 17content to strut there back and forth, still watching Robin, laughing among themselves.
Work had begun now at the spirit fence – the whump-whump of hammers drew Robin’s eyes up to his old home, and up further, to Woden’s Ride, where the villagers were working at the forest edge. He couldn’t help looking higher still, to the shadowy movements stirring above. There, looming over Wodenhurst, dwarfing even the Trystel Tree, was the black-green mass of Sherwood Forest, stretching up and away with the hills, its highest reaches lost in low cloud.
The wind was picking up, making the wildwood churn. He listened to its whooshing roaring noise, and he stared, transfixed …
Almost six months had passed since he was lost in the wildwood. He remembered little of the ordeal – scattered impressions only – the half-glimpsed face of a young girl; an uncanny laugh.
But he did remember, all too distinctly, finding at last the path he had followed with his father, stumbling along it and finally breaking free of the forest.
And then staggering down into Wodenhurst, and drawing close to his home …
Finding it dark and deserted.
His family vanished.
‘They were heartbroken,’ Mabel told him tearfully, in the days that followed. ‘Your father came back alone, silent with grief, near madness. Those who get lost in Sherwood are never found, you know that – never until now. They thought you were gone for ever. Your father blamed himself, and it was more than he could stand. They left that same day, taking a few things, barely saying a word to any of us. They left to start afresh – is all I can think – to try to forget.’
None of this made much sense to Robin. He couldn’t begin 18to understand why his family would leave without him, or how his father had let it happen. He told himself he didn’t care how or why. His family were no longer here; he didn’t know how to find them. Nothing else mattered.
He managed to turn away from Sherwood Forest. He stepped onto Bel’s Bridge and balanced across the frosted, moss-covered log. He entered Summerswood, following the man-made hunting paths and crossing the open rides.
His stomach was growling. He went to his shelter, and his smoking frame, where he had left strips of cured rabbit meat. He reached inside the frame eagerly. But the meat was gone.
He checked the soil for the claw marks of a badger; he looked for signs of a clever crow. But no, as he had suspected, this had been a human thief. Nearby he found proof: footprints, child-sized. Who had been here? Who was it, kept stealing his food?
He foraged for hazelnuts and blackberries and butterball mushrooms. He returned to his shelter and sat outside it and ate his meagre meal. He took the whetstone from his pack and sharpened his knife. In the distance the sound of hammers had stopped: the villagers must have gathered at the foot of the Trystel Tree, sharing bread and ale. There was a clink of metal, and a cheer: Narris Felstone and the others, throwing horseshoes on the common ground.
I hate them all. I wish they were dead. It was a terrible thing to think, but sometimes he couldn’t help it. She was a liar, Mabel Felstone. She didn’t miss Robin’s family. None of them did. Listen to them now, as if nothing had ever happened, and nobody had a care.
Robin was vaguely aware that today was his birthday. Today he turned eight years old. It wasn’t important. A cold wind was blowing through Summerswood; leaves were falling like rain. He needed to cut twine and collect pine branches to build his 19shelter warmer. He needed to start stockpiling food. One day his father would return, of that he had no doubt. And when he did he would see Robin had needed nobody’s help, and he would be proud.
Robin finished his meal. He tested the keen edge on his hunting knife, then he took the blade and set about his work.
II. Stranger in the Woods
Robin woke knowing someone was creeping close to his shelter.
He sat up, very slowly, and crouched on the balls of his feet. He tried to peer through the weave of the walls. He saw little in the dim dawn light. But he knew who this was outside: Narris and Swet and the rest.
He closed his eyes and listened. How many of them had come? What did they carry with them this time?
Twice in recent months Robin had woken to the smell of something foul dripping through the roof of his shelter, and the sound of Narris and the others running away, laughing. After each attack Robin had retreated deeper into Summerswood. He had coated this new shelter in brambles, so from afar it looked like any other blackberry bush.
But he had not been careful enough. The boys from the village had found him. They were being very quiet – barely a leaf cracking – a single twig snapped – it was more of a feeling Robin had that they were skulking, very close.
He sensed them drawing nearer, nearer—
He burst from his shelter, throwing himself on the nearest intruder, grappling their legs, Robin’s head colliding with their stomach – a winded cry of surprise and alarm – the two 21of them sprawling together to the earth, Robin scrapping wildly and silently and whoever it was fighting back, scratching and biting and hissing at him through bared teeth and then screeching a high-pitched wail and finally spitting out words, furious and garbled.
‘Gedoff lemeego stoppit leggo gedoff leggoff!’
Robin understood several things at once: the intruder was alone; it was not Narris Felstone or anyone else from the village. It was a stranger. It was a girl.
He eased his grip. The girl slipped out of his grasp and sprang away and crouched there, her back arched, poised on bare feet and fingertips, fixing Robin with a dark, fierce glare.
‘You hit me!’ she shouted. ‘How dare you – who are you – what are you doing in my woods I’ll have you thrown in gaol and you’ll stay there living on bread and water for the rest of your life which in any case won’t be very long because I’ll have my father’s knights chop off your head and stick it on a spike so everyone can see what happens to a filthy stinking wretch who dares put his hands on a duchess – which is practically a princess – how dare you, you hit me, you’ve drawn blood!’
This went on for a long time, the girl ranting and raging, barely taking a breath, until she sounded ready to choke.
And then, abruptly, like a summer storm parting, she fell quiet. She stood upright. Her tongue appeared to lick blood from her lip.
‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘Where did you come from? I’d think you were a woodwisp, appearing out of thin air, but you can’t be, because wisps can’t be touched.’ She came forward and prodded Robin in the chest. ‘What are you, then? A wildling, raised with the fawns? Yes, that’s it. You can’t talk – you know the language of the birds but no human words. So, this is where you were hiding. You’ve even got a bed, sort of – what’s it made of, ferns?’ 22
The girl had moved past Robin and was peering into his shelter. She was wearing an elegant dress made of some fine material, but it was scuffed with dirt and torn on thorns. Her tawny-brown skin was heavily scratched. Her hair, dark as a forest hawk, was tied in two ragged plaits and fell almost to her bare feet. She turned and looked at Robin and he saw her hazel eyes were mismatched: one flecked grey and one flecked green.
‘You’re the thief,’ Robin said: ‘You’re the one who steals my food.’
‘So, you can talk, after all. Did you lurk near homes at night, piecing together what you heard? Yes, that’s it. I know all about wildlings. My mother used to read me a story about … wait, what do you mean, steal? I didn’t steal anything. These are my woods, and anything in them belongs to me. Including you, now I come to think of it. And anyway, I—’
The girl froze and fell silent. She was scowling. Robin heard voices in the distance. The clattering wings of a wood pigeon. Two men, on horseback, were heading in their direction. They were moving down one of the wide rides that sliced through Summerswood.
The girl turned and ran. Robin found himself following. She darted through a coppice of lime trees. She went to hands and knees and crawled through a hole in a deer fence and into the timber enclosure beyond. She fled across this open ground, between pine saplings sprouting in uniform rows.
Robin caught up with her at an old standard oak. She was scurrying into its branches. Robin climbed. He found the girl at the top, in the tree’s flattened crown.
‘This is Oldcastle Oak,’ she whispered between breaths. ‘Yesterday I defeated its garrison and claimed it as my own. You can stay only if you promise to be quiet, and if you help me defend, if we come under siege. Now, shush.’ 23
The horsemen drew closer. A voice became clear. ‘Come on out, Lady Marian, he’s not angry, not yet. He sent us with this. Look what we’ve got. Your favourite, Mistress Bawg had it made especial. Capon, foxwhelp. Honey and spice. You’d better hurry, or I’ll eat it myself.’
Robin could see the riders clearly now. They wore blue tabards embroidered with the image of twin crows, their wings outstretched. They moved closer – close enough to smell the pie one of the men was holding. The girl’s stomach rumbled. She glared at Robin, as if he was the one making the noise.
‘Lady Marian, that’s enough,’ one of the men called. ‘Your father goes back to Aragon any day now, had you forgotten. How displeased will he be if he doesn’t see you before he leaves?’
Between their shouting, Robin heard the men muttering among themselves.
‘… as if we need this, again, and now of all times …’
‘… bigger things to worry about …’
‘… playing wet nurse to that precious little …’
But their words were becoming harder to hear, their shouting growing faint once more as they passed Oldcastle Oak and kept going, following a hunting trail west through the wood.
Robin raised himself to his knees. From this height he could see the entire length of the valley. To the north, Wodenhurst, huddled on its hillside. And on the southern slopes the Delbosque manor, its whitewashed towers shining pink in the morning sun.
‘Is that where you come from?’ he whispered, pointing. ‘Do you live there?’
‘I did, once, but not any more. I’m never going back.’
‘Never?’ 24
‘No, never. Never ever never.’
She fell quiet. More horsemen were entering Summerswood. From somewhere unseen came the barking of bloodhounds. Robin told himself he should leave this tree immediately and find his own hiding place. One of his earliest memories was of the day the lord’s Bailiff had come to Wodenhurst, and with him were three of these men-at-arms, with the twin crows on their tabards. They came dragging Narris Felstone by the hair. The Bailiff said Narris had been caught trapping squirrels in Summerswood and he made all the villagers watch while he punished Narris with the loss of a hand.
Today these dangerous men were out in force – all of them searching for this girl at his side. Being anywhere near her was lunacy. But Robin looked at Marian and he didn’t move.
He watched yet more riders entering the wood.
He said: ‘I know a better place to hide. Somewhere they’ll never find us.’
Without waiting for a reply, he scampered down the tree. He heard Marian following, close behind. He headed out of the greenwood and then led the way, toe-to-heel, across Bel’s Bridge. A wet wind blew in their faces as they ran up the valley and squelched through the marshy land to the south of the village. They arrived at Hob’s Hollow. Robin pushed inside and Marian followed.
Hob’s Hollow was a low, damp place, full of moss and rotting logs. Tucked between two hillocks, it was permanently cast in deep shade. Even in summer, when it was hot outside, to enter this place made your skin prickle with chill. In autumn the mist never burned away.
‘Perfect,’ Marian said, rubbing her arms, squelching around in the grotto. ‘The perfect hiding place. I bet there are haunts and spectres – children who wandered in and were never found. I felt one! It passed straight through me! Turn 25around, touch the ground, something borrowed, something found …’
Robin shushed her. ‘We have to be quiet.’ He waded deeper into the bog, pushing through spear grass and lance thistle taller than he was. He hauled himself up onto a slimy boulder. This raised stand made a good place to watch from, and to listen. The valley was loud now with the sound of people calling for Marian. Not just men’s voices, but women and children too.
‘There are dozens of them,’ Marian said. ‘They’re all out looking. Servants and labourers and everyone!’
‘We have to be quiet,’ Robin hissed. ‘Rub mud on your arms, it will help hide your scent from the dogs.’
Marian made a disgusted face as she scooped mud from the edge of a green-gunk pool. But she did as Robin said, spreading the mud on her arms and legs.
The sounds from outside were coming through dull and heavy. People calling, and the barking of bloodhounds. Two buzzards mewing high above.
They hid there, wrapped in that cloak of mist. They waited.
It was a long wait. The search went on all day. Calling on his hunter’s patience, Robin sat still and quiet, ignoring the hunger twisting in his stomach.
Marian found it more difficult to wait. She whispered constantly, telling Robin the names of the people she heard searching, and which of them were her sworn enemies and who were allies. She poked around in the grotto, finding a lizard and bringing it for Robin to see but dropping it and not being able to find it again between the roots and the rocks.
Only once did she stop talking and the silence made Robin look back. Marian had plucked a mushroom from the base of a tree and she was chewing. 26
‘No, stop!’ Robin hissed, springing from his rock. ‘Spit it out, spit it out.’
Marian coughed in surprise and she kept coughing and she spluttered the mushroom onto the ground.
‘Spit it all out, every bit,’ Robin said. ‘Look at the gills and the cap. That’s a destroying angel. Eat that and you’d be dead by morning. Don’t you know anything?’
Marian was silent, looking at Robin, wide-eyed. She scraped the last of the deadly fungus from her tongue. She went and sat on a moss-quilted log, hugging her arms.
After a while, she said: ‘I know more than you. I know what penumbra means, and chthonic, and I know how to spell metamorphosis in Latin, French and Spanish, and I know how many ducats you get in exchange for a pound. I bet you don’t know any of that. All you know is stupid woods stuff. Anyway, I knew that was a destroy angel, I just forgot.’
Robin wasn’t looking at her. He had gone back to sit on his boulder.
The day drew on. Marian sulked and fidgeted, and began again to explore Hob’s Hollow. Her stomach rumbled. They waited.
‘Look, they’ve gone,’ Marian said. ‘Every one of them. We’ve won.’
The day was coming to a close, a damp gloaming seeping into the hills. The raucous call of rooks and crows, squabbling over the best roosts.
They left Hob’s Hollow cautiously. Marian was right: the final horseman was a dot in the distance, heading back to the manor house. Marian was moving in the same direction. She broke into a run.
‘Where are you going?’ Robin said.
‘Home.’ 27
Robin stopped. ‘What do you mean … home? But … we hid. All day. And now … they’ll catch you.’
‘Can’t be helped,’ she called back. ‘I need a bath or I’ll start to smell like you. And I’m famished. Supper time. They didn’t catch us, that’s what counts. We won!’
Her words had become faint. She kept running. Robin watched her become small in the distance, joining Packman’s Furrow, then starting up Lord’s Hill, and he watched her dwindle further until finally she faded into the gloaming and was gone.
III. The Tower
‘Come on come and look quick I’ve got something to show you just wait till you see!’
Robin was prowling the valley with his bow, shooting at crows. Three days had passed since Marian had blazed through his life, and he hadn’t caught a glimpse of her since. But now here she was near Bel’s Bridge, springing from a copse of ash trees.
‘Come on, quick,’ she said again. ‘You won’t believe it – it’s perfect and it’s all ours. Somewhere they’ll never catch us ever ever ever.’
He knew where she wanted him to go. He looked at the Delbosque manor, lurking there on the hillside. His memory showed him images of men-at-arms and what they had done to Narris Felstone.
Marian came closer, padding along the riverbank, barefoot. She gleamed in the sunlight: her tunic and cote were embroidered with gold moons and stars; glass flowers clipped in her hair.
‘Look, I brought you this,’ she said. ‘You proved yourself gallant and brave. This is your reward.’ In her outstretched palm was an object wrapped in an oiled cloth. Robin took it and unwrapped it and inside was an arrowhead, made 29of jade, patterns swirling through the black-green rock.
‘Jade protects a person from fire,’ Marian said. ‘And from drowning, did you know that? This gift seals our friendship, now and for ever. Now follow me, we’re going to explore – a place even I haven’t been – it’s probably full of treasure.’
She could wait no longer. She turned and ran towards the Delbosque manor.
Robin unstrung his bow and strapped it across his back. He caught up with her.
‘Why do you live in the woods?’ she said, as they ran. ‘Don’t you have a family?’
Robin thought about his answer; everything he rehearsed in his head sounded wrong. Finally he said simply: ‘They’re gone.’
‘I thought so,’ Marian said. ‘You and I are the same. My mother died. Father cares more about his stupid lands in Spain than he cares about me. He left again this morning, good riddance, and he took most of my enemies with him. But there are still sentries to avoid, and bandogs big as this, taller than I can jump – watch – and Mistress Bawg is always on the prowl so we have to be quick and silent, like shadows.’
They climbed Lord’s Hill, the manor walls looming above their heads. And nearer still – close enough to hear the flutter-snap of flags flying on the towers. Marian darted off the main path and headed east, circling the manor. They came to a section of wall that had partially collapsed. An elm tree, growing close, had reached its branches into the gap.
Marian went to the tree and began to climb. Robin told himself not to follow – this was far enough – turn around now and go back to Summerswood. But it was no good. Marian whispered for him to hurry, and then hissed, ‘Come on, slow goat, keep up!’ and Robin found himself raising his hood and going to the tree and clambering up. Marian was waiting atop 30the wall, her head moving side to side, watchful as a wildcat. ‘This is our only way in or out,’ she whispered. ‘But it’s near the sacristy, and the coffers, so there are always guards here, no matter when. Look out for the Castellan most of all, Gerad Blunt, you’ll know him from his limp, he’s tough and mean.’
She slipped over the side, using cracks between the stones and creeping vines to lower herself to the ground. Robin scrambled down after. He tried to concentrate on following Marian and watching for men-at-arms, but he found it difficult not to stare at his surroundings. Within its walls the manor was the size of five villages, or ten, maybe. There were ponds and lawns and walled gardens. There were evergreen bushes clipped into the shape of strange birds. He couldn’t make sense of everything he saw. Standing in a courtyard was a machine, built of wood and iron, which looked like a giant catapult snare.
Marian must have seen him staring. ‘This is nothing, what you can see up here’ she said. ‘Below ground it’s ten times as big. There are tunnels and dungeons and a labyrinth. Together we’ll explore it all, and learn its secrets.’
For all its size and grandeur, the manor was far quieter than the village. So far Robin had seen only two people: a man with a long-cart, heading for the main gate; a boy raking something from a path in the distance. Neither of them appeared to notice Robin and Marian as they darted through a covered bower, across a lawn.
And then the manor became even quieter. They crossed into an area that looked completely deserted. Buildings here stood shuttered and dark. Cobbles gave way to cracked tracks, sprouting grass. The only life here was a jackdaw digging for worms in an old flowerbed.
‘The Lost Lands,’ Marian said. ‘These buildings were full 31of people, once, when my mother was alive. She had her own maids and servants, and jongleurs and acrobats. When she died they all left. Nobody comes here now – they say it’s haunted. And it is. I’ve seen shades and spectres myself. Now, here we are, what do you think of this?’
They had arrived at a tower. It had been abandoned, rubble dumped across the entranceway. Timber struts had been wedged against one wall, and it appeared to lean slightly. It looked something like a face: two arrowslits for eyes, a curved buttress for a nose.
‘Look there, see,’ Marian said. ‘A murder hole, where you throw rocks and pour oil on attackers. But now it’s our way in.’ She was standing atop the rubble and pointing to the underside of the buttress, where there was an opening.
Robin went and joined her. He crouched and she clambered onto his shoulders. After several attempts, and a few falls, she managed to haul herself up into the buttress.
‘We did it, it worked!’ her voice echoed down to Robin. ‘And it’s not a murder hole at all, it’s for bringing in provisions without opening the door. There’s a basket and a winch, wait, here it comes.’
With a rusted cranking sound, an iron basket descended from the tower. Robin climbed up the chain, hand over hand, his feet against the wall. He pulled himself through the gap.
Marian was grinning, her grey-green eyes bright in the gloom. ‘A castle of our own!’ she said ‘They’ll never find us here, and if they do they’ll get rocks on their heads. Come on, let’s explore.’
The further they ventured through the tower, the fiercer Marian’s excitement burned. The chamber on the first floor – where they had come in – had once been a storeroom, it seemed, and was full of crates and boxes and bottles. Through 32a barred window sunlight glittered across cobwebs and sparkled on dust.
A wooden staircase wound down into the dark. Robin took two tallow candles from his hunting pack and lit them using his strike-a-light. He handed one to Marian and her flame bobbed down into the gloom, the steps creaking beneath her weight.
At ground level they found a kitchen, of sorts. There was a sink and a hearth, and a big brass bath. There was a stack of seasoned firewood.
‘From the outside it looks like a fortress, for soldiers,’ Marian said. ‘But inside it’s more like a house, for normal people. Look, there’s a cauldron for cooking, and knives and spoons. Why would they leave all this behind?’
They climbed the spiral staircase back up, and up further, to the top storey. Here was a sleeping chamber. At its centre stood an open-frame bed, stacked with quilts and furs. There was a second hearth, lined with mosaic tiles.
The walls were plastered white and painted with fabulous scenes. One mural showed a figure, half-man half-stag, being torn asunder by a pack of hounds. Another was of a boy-bird, flying towards the sun, feathers falling from his wings.
‘Icarus,’ Marian said. ‘And Perseus with his winged sandals, see, and that’s the gorgon’s head and Theseus there with the Minotaur and Diana and Actaeon …’ She went from one mural to the other, pulling away cobwebs thick as wool, telling Robin what story was depicted in each. Above one of the paintings were words. When Marian saw these she fell silent, frowning.
Finally she read: ‘“Flamenca’s Tower.” Why does it say that? Flamenca was my mother. But she lived in the main house, with me. What does that mean? And look, these are her books, I recognize these.’ 33
She had entered a curved antechamber that connected with the main solar. Here was a writing desk beneath another barred window. And there were caskets containing clothes and trinkets and several large manuscripts, bound in wood and leather. Marian went back into the solar carrying one of the books. It was almost as big as she was. She thumped it down and heaved it open. Its gold-leaf letters shone.
As she turned the pages she grinned. ‘Pyramus and Thisbe. My favourite! And Orpheus and Eurydice, my favourite favourite!’
In her excitement she went to the bed and stripped off its quilts to reveal the leather straps beneath. She climbed onto this springy mesh and she began to jump, sending up clouds of dust.
‘A castle,’ she was saying as she bounced. ‘A castle of our own and a fiefdom to rule and books full of stories! Come on, see if you can reach the ceiling – bet you can’t.’
Robin watched her and he thought: I bet I could. And he was climbing onto the bed and he was bouncing too, his fingers almost, almost touching the ceiling, the two of them jumping and stretching and Marian saying: ‘I saw that, you smiled, so you can smile, after all!’
From the solar a ladder and trap door led into the crown of the tower. Robin and Marian stood up there, looking out. Night had long since fallen. Elsewhere in the manor candles were being extinguished. A lone sentry stood with his lamp above the main gates. A few final prayers were being said and then silence.
They went back into the tower and crawled into their den. It had been agreed, without it being spoken, that the bed was for bouncing. They made camp instead on the floor, laying out the feather mattress and the furs. Over the top Robin 34had hung blankets to create a tent, not unlike his shelter in Summerswood. They lay inside on their stomachs, being careful with a storm-lamp they had found in the basement, and in that cocoon of flickering light Marian opened one of her mother’s books.
‘First, Heracles and his labours. No, no, even better – Theseus and the Labyrinth, this is my absolute favourite favourite, ready …?’
Marian read of Theseus and Ariadne and the Minotaur, while Robin listened, enraptured. Next she read of Jupiter and Ares and all the gods of Olympus and of the heroes forced to endure their games. Until this moment Robin had little idea what wonders existed beyond this valley, and now here those wonders were, unfolding, worlds within worlds. As he listened, he felt he was soaring above it all, looking down upon glittering golden cities and mystical mountains and magical desert realms.
Marian read deep into the night, until she was tripping over the words and her head began to make forward nods. She closed the book and extinguished the lamp. But it would be hours yet before they slept. Instead they lay on their backs and whispered in the dark, taking turns to yawn, and they were still whispering when the birds began calling in Summerswood, announcing the arrival of dawn.
IV. Running Free
‘Look what I found,’ Marian said. ‘Just the thing for you.’
They were in the storeroom, searching through the chests and the boxes. Scattered around Marian were myriad objects: a candelabra; a brass speaking-horn; a chequered game-board of some kind.
Now she was holding up a hunting cloak. It was made of Turkish cloth, thick woven against the cold and the damp of the woods. It was the deep grey colour of dusk. Robin shrugged out of his own ragged cloak and pulled on the new one. It slumped off his shoulders and fell further than his feet, pooling a little on the ground.
‘Perfect,’ Marian said. ‘Robin, look at all this treasure, and it’s all ours!’
He opened a cedar chest. Inside were mantels and kerchiefs and capes, and buried at the bottom was a book – this one small and unadorned. As soon as he lifted it out Marian was at his side, taking it from his hands. She laid it open and lifted her candle. Her mouth fell open.
‘What is it?’ Robin said. ‘More stories?’
She turned the stiff, browning leaves. Here and there Robin saw drawings: horned men; feathered women; scaled beasts. 36
Marian licked her lips. ‘It’s … potions,’ she said. ‘Spells and charms and … poisons! This must have been my mother’s too, she knew all about these things. Robin, listen to this: “Curse of the Pharaohs. A hedge-witch conjuring, possessed by the ancients. May he who is cursed suffer chill and itch and sores and mental fits, may he lose his wits, his home, his possessions, may he not walk the ground lest his feet become fire, may his humours boil and his vapours congeal. Our enemies beware!’
She continued studying the grimoire, her breath misting in the candlelight. They had slept clean through the daylight hours and now the sun had set and the air was growing cold.
Robin went to the basement to collect firewood and carried it to the main chamber.
A squeaking noise caught his attention. He went to the window. A lumbering figure was approaching the tower.
‘Someone’s coming!’ he hissed.
Marian darted up the stairs and came quickly to his side. ‘It’s Bawg,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t make a sound.’
Mistress Bawg was an enormous woman, her breasts and stomach wobbling as she walked. Her lantern squeaked on its chain. In the other hand swung a wicker basket.
‘Lady Marian,’ she called. ‘I know you’re in there, you may as well show yourself. No reason we shouldn’t be civil. A girl like you, the way you were raised, and no more manners than a scullion. No? Very well then, if you’re still intent on your little game. But be warned, Father Titus is on the warpath, it’s been so long since he’s seen you – I hope for your sake all that Latin hasn’t seeped out of that pretty little head. And understand this, once I’m sleeping there’ll be no second chance – you’ll get no hot bath or warm bed. Very well then, don’t say I didn’t try. I’ll leave this here, though it’s more than you 37deserve. There’s enough for your new friend, should you feel like sharing. And now I’m going, goodbye, I’m not standing out here all night in the cold …’ She waddled away, leaving the basket sitting on the ground.
‘Leave it,’ Marian said. ‘It’s a trap, trying to lure us out.’
They went back into the sleeping chamber. Robin charred the end of a stick in the fire and they used it to draw games of Nine Man Morris on a bare patch of floor. They turned to other games and distractions, trying to ignore the parcel. But it was impossible. Their curiosity burned. Finally Marian went to the window to keep watch while Robin crept down and retrieved the basket. Inside was a loaf of rye bread and two tubs of jam and a pot of honeyed figs. They sat by the fire and shared this night-time breakfast.
‘Bawg is still our enemy, never forget,’ Marian said, between mouthfuls. ‘No matter what bribes she brings. Anyway, we don’t need her help. I know a secret way into the pantry and the kitchens. We’ll feast like a king and queen, you’ll see.’
‘And we can go to Summerswood,’ Robin said. ‘Set traps and hunt. I can show you how, if you want.’
Marian wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing jam across her cheek. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what we’ll do. I want you to show me which plants are good to eat, and how to read claw prints, and all the rest of it.’ She sat up straight and adopted a serious expression. ‘You and I are the same, Robin Loxley, I knew that the moment we met. No one else cares about us, even if they pretend they do. We will survive, and prosper, but we must be quick and brave and clever.’
She turned her attention once more to the grimoire. She pointed at a page. ‘Here’s an unction called “night owl”. The perfect thing for us. It helps you see in the dark. We need hart’s tongue fern, do you know where that grows?’ 38
Robin nodded.
‘And devil’s berries. What are they?’
‘The fruit of deadly nightshade. There are hundreds in Hob’s Hollow.’
‘Let’s go now,’ she said, jumping up. ‘There’s a traveller’s moon to see by, look, and there are no prying eyes. Prowling time for the hobgoblins!’
She scampered from the tower and slipped out of the manor, Robin close behind. He took her to Hob’s Hollow, and then to Summerswood, collecting all the ingredients for her concoction.
They looked around for what to do next. Robin pointed towards Wodenhurst and they went back up the valley and crept into the darkened village.
Robin led the way to the orchards. In the moonlight the apples shone like silver coins. They went from tree to tree, plucking the fruit. They jumped at every rustling of a branch, but the villagers went on sleeping, and Marian went on grinning, and they slipped away unseen, their clothes bulging with apples and pears.
‘After dark the whole world belongs to us,’ Marian whispered. ‘We will go where we like, take what we need. Now follow me, and stick close, we are going on a long and perilous quest.’
They left the village far behind and travelled deep into the valley, following the moonlit course of Silver River – two explorers charting unknown lands, stopping now and then to crunch on fruit and to race sticks in the eddies.
The next night passed in a similar way, and the next, and many nights after that, the pair of them roaming the fields and the woods, discovering ancient barrows and firefly grottos and even a forgotten lake, claiming them all as their own. Adventuring too through the manor and its grounds, while 39
