Chapter Thirty-Three

“This is my fault, all of it,” Anwyn mourned. “The fires at Oakham, your aunt and uncle’s disappearance—I have brought trouble down on you once more.”

She stirred in the dark, and a tiny shower of sparks erupted around her, bursting like small, reddish stars. So it had been since the three of them forged their bond to completeness at Heron’s bidding. Curlew’s mind struggled to accept all that had come: too much and far too quickly. Yet the miracle of it began to whisper inside him, even as the presence of the woman in his arms spoke to his heart.

Rightness and staggering completeness: these things he felt for her and for Heron. It was as if the love he had felt his whole life long for Sherwood had been caught in the circle with them, all simmering power.

Yet he felt Anwyn’s fear just as clearly, could almost taste it, just as he had felt Heron’s weariness and pain when he and Diera arrived. Anwyn sought her way in this new circle, aye, even as Curlew sought his certainty. Still, he knew she feared she would fail him somehow.

“Not your fault,” he breathed, and ran his hands through her hair. A new shower of light shed from his skin in turn—deep green this was, like forest shadows.

“But I am Havers’ true reason for coming to Sherwood. None of it would have happened, were I not here.”

“Were you not here, we would have no circle and no way to defend Sherwood.”

He felt the catch in her breath as she contemplated that. They lay naked and twined together with the singing night all around them. He had already loved her once, each movement, each caress summoning memories of what once had been, bright images in his mind: a lively, defiant girl with auburn hair and his aunt Lark’s golden eyes, pledges and loving, a marriage in the greenwood, a smile that delighted his heart, and tears, tears, tears.

Why should he be brought to recall this now? Heron had said those who returned were not given to remember, because that way did madness lie. Yet Curlew could barely touch her without the past flooding upon him. Pieces of who she had been, and he also.

It felt like putting on a tunic belonging to someone else, or removing his tunic to find another beneath—that of Robin Hood. Was he worthy of wearing that heavy mantle?

Could he do otherwise?

“I do not wish to cause you any sorrow, any pain,” she whispered.

Aye, and he feared hurting her also. He never wanted to make her weep again. Now the hope and belief of so many rested upon him. Somehow, together, they must find a way to overcome the fear.

Slowly, he said, “You know, I heard about him all my life—Robin Hood. He seemed like one of those stars up there in the sky that never burn out, bright and impossibly far away. I am but an ordinary man. How do I reconcile that?”

“Curlew Champion, you are anything but ordinary.”

“To you, perhaps. From whence did Robin get his strength? His certainty?”

She moved against him again and wriggled more surely into his arms. “Perhaps he was not as certain as legend has made him. Perhaps he feared and doubted also, but he strode on through the doubt. I believe, my love, your strength comes from those around you—from Heron and your family and the folk you will now lead once again. From Sherwood itself, also, which you carry ever with you.”

He had always known he would make any sacrifice for Sherwood, just as he had always believed every leaf and twig here belonged to him, in defiance of the King’s laws. Would he give his life over again?

Aye, without hesitation.

Would he give the life of this woman in his arms?

A harder question. He saw, then, the terror she faced. He hoped that this time he would not have to face it in his turn.

She must be able to feel his emotions rise up, even as he felt her fear and doubt. So it was, to be so surely linked in spirit. And that, too, he would lose if he lost her, far worse than losing an arm or a leg.

She murmured, her breath brushing across his lips, “Can you forgive me?”

He cradled her with his hands. “What is to forgive? That you loved too well? Without you, love, none of the rest of it would have followed. Who would have stood up, so fierce, to take the places of Robin and Marian, if not pushed to it by your grief?” My Mari-anwyn, he added silently, tenderly, all his remembering in the word.

She trembled at the caress of his voice in her mind. “Back then, Curlew, you inspired love and loyalty, you called people to follow you. They follow you yet. Let me be the first to stand up now and vow to follow you bravely and without wavering, whatever may come.”

He saw it then, the truth of why Sherwood had given them to remember—so they would be prepared to take the places for which they had been shaped in the past and were now reborn.

“Aye,” he said gravely. “We will wear these cloaks however heavy. But first, Marianwyn, first I will love you and so try to keep the past at bay.”

****

“Set the target farther off. I would try and see can I hit it still.”

Curlew slanted a look at the woman who stood bathed head to toe in afternoon light, assessed her and almost unconsciously measured the changes. His Marianwyn no longer seemed the wayward lass she had been only three short days ago.

Indeed, he wondered fleetingly if her father would recognize her now. A new determination and certainty possessed her. She had found what she had sought so long.

In him.

Without protest he moved the target, a small scrap of fabric, to a tree farther from where she stood. Since early morning she had worked with Lark’s bow, trying to accustom herself to its weight and length. Now Heron and Diera sat together and watched with interest.

“You shoot very well,” Diera told her.

Anwyn notched yet another arrow and sighted the target. “My father taught me, and he is very good, indeed. Plus, my mother’s people were all archers.” She narrowed green eyes and shot; the arrow sang through the air.

Could she see the faint shimmer of magic that accompanied it? Could Heron? Curlew gave Heron a look of inquiry and saw only amusement in his eyes. “A fine shot, that,” Heron said.

Anwyn lifted her chin. “Not good enough. I want it to come to me naturally as breathing.”

“When the time comes—if it comes—so it will,” Heron assured her.

Anwyn exchanged a look with him, and for the first time Curlew wondered about the connection between them. He, Curlew, had bonded with her, aye, and he had been always bonded with Heron. But he sensed now an alliance between these two.

“Not good enough,” she said again. “When we go back I must be ready.”

“As must we all,” Heron returned, and Curlew felt his frustration. Heron did not like being hampered by his wound. His customary serenity had been ruffled by his enforced immobility. Yet Diera sat beside him, a living assurance he would not overstep himself. Curlew wondered, also, about the relationship the two of them shared. Did it approach what his parents had known?

“You shoot now, Curlew,” Anwyn interrupted his thoughts. “Show me how ’tis done.”

He took up his bow without conscious thought, notched an arrow and sighted. Since first able to hold the small bow Aunt Lark had fashioned for him, he had done this, almost always without effort.

He heard Lark’s voice again, in his ear. Aye, lad, you have a keen eye. Not much I need to teach you, is there? The ability just comes to you.

Aye, the ability had always come to him. But now as he raised the bow and sighted, he felt power come as well, flowing like a river, sparking and leaping the way a fire or a stag would, burgeoning from the very soil of Sherwood to fill and uplift him. Knowing sighted for him and certainty drew the bow. The shot, when it came, arced in a trail of light and clove Anwyn’s last arrow clean.

“Ah,” Heron breathed.

And Anwyn sighed, “That is what I want. That is how I need to be able to shoot.”

****

“I would have us say a prayer together before we return to Oakham,” Heron said gravely. Night had settled over Sherwood like a cloak of stars. The air, cold enough to show their breath, danced all around them where they stood beside a small fire. In the morning they would walk out of the forest to face whatever awaited them.

Aye, Curlew thought, best to carry Sherwood with them as surely as they could. For he felt a great wind coming—change, hard and fast. Looking into Heron’s eyes now, he saw his cousin felt that as well.

And Anwyn? Curlew turned his gaze on her and caught his breath. She had, indeed, become a woman of will and intent. Each time he loved her she strengthened in his arms. And he had loved her repeatedly.

Just thinking on that had his body quickening with longing. Even when he did not touch her, she whispered inside him.

“Are you willing?” Heron asked.

Curlew nodded.

Anwyn lifted her head in that new way she had and said, “I will do whatever is needed, unsparing.”

Heron wordlessly held out a hand to each of them. Anwyn slid her fingers into Curlew’s and a shower of sparks erupted all round.

The power rose.

It grew from the knowing in Heron’s heart and the determination in Curlew’s own; it arose from the element of sacrifice he now felt within Anwyn. All these emotions, he saw, came of love.

The magic of Sherwood consisted of pure love.

Love of place, of past, of identity, and one another, of those who were and would be again.

He knew then, as the power rose to fill him, what it meant to lead, and to battle unstintingly. He understood who would win, in the end.

Those who gave the most love.

For those loved could never be lost; they remained eternally here in this place equally loved. The ties of the guardianship itself were forged of emotion. And he, who had never believed he could lead, now knew how he should—with compassion and kindness, with strength that inspired, and with understanding, all woven out of love.

He could have laughed aloud with it, were he any less awed. For in this instant he saw with new eyes that which had set the very guardianship in motion and lay behind each sacrifice. He saw, again, himself lying in the greenwood, bleeding his life away, and Marian’s beautiful face above him, convulsed with fear.

Weeping tears of love.

Gratitude swamped him, because she had come to him again.

It had all come again.

When he stood filled with so much light he thought he must burst, when it ran in a current from one to the next of them and came round again, when the green light hummed through their blood, Heron lifted his head.

“’Tis well,” he said. “Now let us go and claim the future for Sherwood.”