Chapter Two

“I do not know when I have been caught so fairly,” Curlew said ruefully to his cousin and friend, Heron Scarlet. “To be nabbed red-handed by Asslicker’s new man—I should be struck down for the sheer stupidity of it.”

“Aye,” Heron replied. “You were fortunate to get clean away. But then you always do have the Green Man’s own luck in the forest.”

“Luck, and a crooked tongue.” Curlew eyed the hart he had just laid down near the center of the village. A holy sacrifice it was, like everything he took from Sherwood. Part of him, deep inside, hated to kill, even though he knew he must. Gratitude balanced the scales for him; between the bow and the hoof there existed a constant dance of life and sacrifice.

Heron swept him with a glance, as if he sensed and measured Curlew’s stirred emotions. Almost of an age, and with mothers born twin sisters, the bond between them went deep.

Curlew relied upon Heron for the benefit of his intelligence, wisdom, and sound instincts. Heron possessed an almost other-worldly ability to see beyond the apparent. A born shaman, most folk said he was, and sometimes gifted with the Sight.

Now Curlew searched Heron’s face for signs of distress. He feared the encounter in the forest, just past, held some particular significance. Should Heron sense that as well... But Heron demonstrated only his customary mild alarm at his cousin’s behavior. Curlew knew Heron had long ago given up denouncing him for incaution.

“You will get yourself killed for Sherwood,” he had said many a time.

And Curlew invariably replied, “Not until my work is done, and not before we find the third of our number.” He had always felt he was meant to accomplish some unnamed task left half done. His birth, as everyone assured him, had been destined. His mother Linnet, her sister Lark, and Lark’s husband Falcon Scarlet—those last two Heron’s parents—were guardians of Sherwood, members of the triad that held and defended the forest’s ancient magic. Four generations, now, had members of their families held those places. The legendary Robin Hood had been great-grandfather to both Curlew and Heron, and they knew themselves destined for a future of guardianship.

Yet the third member of their triad proved elusive. Their families teemed with offspring—Curlew had two younger siblings and Heron had four. Yet none had proved to carry the threads of magic needed to weave the last third of the spell.

It made no great difficulty now. The triad in place stood strong, yet despite appearances Curlew’s mother and Heron’s parents aged. Life in Sherwood often proved hard and dangerous, and disaster lay only a battle or an illness away.

It would take but one member of the present triad to fall in order for the magic to waver and eventually fail. Curlew had lived all his life in the knowledge of that. But wishing for the third of their number to appear had not made it so.

He looked now into his cousin’s face, which he knew better than his own. Heron had inherited his mother’s golden eyes—those of a hawk—and the yellow mane of his father, Falcon. He carried almost visibly his knowledge of the other world, a potent combination that made the lasses of Oakham and many other Saxon villages follow him like helpless thralls.

The truly maddening thing was Heron neither invited nor welcomed such attention. It merely trailed him like radiance.

Curlew knew himself to be dull and ordinary compared with Heron’s brilliance. Aye, he had caught glimpses of his own reflection in pools and in the village pond—he had even seen himself, quite startlingly, in the fire once whilst Heron sat in a trance. A blend of both his parents, he had his father’s height and gray eyes and his mother’s deep brown hair. Folk said he had her grace as well, but what was that worth? He cared far more that he had inherited both his Grandfather Sparrow’s and his great-grandfather Robin’s skill with the bow. Aye, that was a talent to have, and he rarely missed a target.

But something in the Norman maid’s bold gaze as she passed had dubbed him attractive enough. Ah, he had to stop thinking of her. It made a futile occupation, and a distraction he did not need.

Curlew knew very well how the triad worked: three held the magic; two bonded together as man and wife. Wherever the missing woman was, she would need to wed with either Curlew or Heron.

On the chance it would be he, Heron turned a shoulder to the bevy of winsome lasses who pursued him, and kept himself always for the unnamed woman. But by the age of four-and-twenty, Curlew felt the strain, as Heron must also. Not that Curlew had saved himself completely—far from it. But Heron had, and he quested like a walking arrow for their missing third.

“Do you think this new man, Montfort, will be a problem?” Curlew asked Heron now.

Heron narrowed his eyes. Curlew knew that expression: it meant Heron looked beyond the apparent, a thing he could do almost effortlessly.

His brow wrinkled. “I cannot tell, Lew. There is something—a quickening.”

“Change,” Curlew supplied. He had felt it too, from the party in the forest. “Maybe for good, maybe not.”

“Not, I fear,” Heron decided. “’Tis always so when something new is thrown into our lives, even a new forester.”

“The last thing we need is someone nosing his way into what occurs in Sherwood.” Since their parents’ time there had existed what amounted to a running war between the outlaws and peasantry of Sherwood and their Norman overlords. Thanks in part to the skill of the present triad who balanced duty and magic, things had lately been peaceful. But Curlew would be a fool, indeed, if he believed such a state would last.

Heron nodded. “True.” He gestured to the hart stretched at their feet. “If the good de Asselacton finds out just what we are taking from Sherwood, there will be a heavy price to pay.”

Curlew’s head came up like that of a pony scenting water. “Sherwood is ours,” he declared. “It sticks in my craw that anyone else should tell us how to manage it.” He gave a crooked smile. “I told Montfort I was one of his lord’s foresters.”

“Eh? What daft thing is this?”

Curlew’s grin widened and mischief flooded his eyes. “When he stumbled upon me, it just came out—that I was one of the men who would be working under him and thus had a perfect right to be in Sherwood.” He sobered suddenly. “As I have. Who better at liberty here, Heron, than you and I, whose blood is the same as flows through this earth?”

“Aye, but it is a dangerous game, that.”

“’Tis a dangerous way of life,” Curlew agreed.

“What did you think of the man? You are usually good at measuring people.”

“Aye.” Curlew could not deny he had a talent for it, as for shooting an arrow. “A clever man and not unkind, so I think. But he says he is a personal friend of Asslicker’s. So I do not doubt he will seek to do his duty completely and well.”

“We had better learn all we can of him. Will you go to Nottingham? Ask Diera to go with you—’twill look less suspicious that way. And tomorrow is market day. Search out Ronast or Abery and discover what you might.” They had more than a few contacts in Nottingham proper. And Diera, Curlew’s friend, would be willing to go. In truth, she had been more than friend to him on several occasions, but she knew all too well the situation and the ties that held Curlew fast.

He protested, “And what if Montfort should see me? ’Twill be all too obvious I am no underling of his.”

“You will spin some lie—you always do.”

Curlew grunted, half an acknowledgement. “Why do you not go instead, and give the wenches of Nottingham a treat?”

Heron gave Curlew a cool stare. “Because I am preparing for a pilgrimage into Sherwood.”

“Oh, aye?”

“I think it time.” Heron’s expression turned serious. “I mean to sue the Lady’s favor, and ask her for the answer to the puzzle that beleaguers our days—just where we are to find our third, our missing guardian.”