Chapter Thirty-Four

“We have taken a prisoner, a right plum one. Now will old Asslicker sit up and take notice!”

The man who spoke, named Marcus, wore a proud look and carried a hard gleam in his eye. A rough fellow and longtime resident of Oakham, his home had recently been burned to the ground. Now he, along with a band of other village men, met Curlew’s party on their way back from Sherwood and imparted the news even while his companions, fully six in number, muttered dangerously.

Curlew felt Heron’s flash of alarm, even though his cousin’s expression did not change. Since they had strengthened their circle, he could sense his fellow guardians’ emotions all too easily. Heron burned steadily, but Anwyn balanced like a stone upon a knife’s blade.

One of Marcus’s fellows, a man called Herald, spoke. “None but Asslicker’s new head forester, it is.”

Anwyn stiffened. My father. Her voice made but a ripple in Curlew’s mind, yet sounded clear. So this was how it felt to speak without uttering a word.

He reached out and touched her arm, willing caution. “How did this come to be?” he asked the men.

Yet another, named Alfred, spoke up. Usually a quiet, steady man, he now had a hard set to his jaw, and a hoe resting on his shoulder. “We decided to fight back, that is all, Curlew. Another village burned last night, torched by that devil, Havers, and his men. Two children died. We will stand for no more of it. When Montfort came looking for his daughter with the Sheriff’s men at his back, we gave them battle instead of obedience.” He jiggled his hoe purposefully.

“Aye.” Marcus took it up. “We will no longer roll over for those Norman bastards. Are we not Englishmen true born?”

The longing for justice rang in his voice. Indeed, Curlew thought, and it was an idea his grandmother, Wren, had loosed long ago when she went to Nottingham Castle and demanded of King John the same justice for all his subjects that he granted the elite few. All Englishmen, she had asserted, should claim equal sovereignty. Since that day the notion had never quite gone back into the sack of Norman oppression.

Nor, he acknowledged, should it. It was time, and past time, those born of this soil claimed ownership of their lives in this blessed land.

That did not mean bands of angry men, like these, could be allowed to roam far and wide, claiming their own vengeance.

He stepped forward. “Where is the prisoner now?”

Marcus replied, still aggressively, “A new camp has formed just north from the ruins of Oakham. He is there.”

“Injured?” Anwyn asked.

“Injured, aye, but alive.” Marcus slid a look over Heron. “Is your father going to return?”

“I do not know. But we—the three of us you see here—have formed a new triad and now hold the magic of Sherwood among us.”

“Her?” Still another man spoke. “But she is one of them.”

“As was my father,” Curlew asserted. He knew Anwyn to be of Welsh and Saxon blood, less Norman than he, but knew also what these men meant. To their knowledge, she had come from Nottingham and brought the enemy in her wake. They must somehow be persuaded to acknowledge that spirit mattered far more than mere flesh. “Would you question the loyalty of Gareth Champion?”

“Peace, Curlew. Gareth was a fine man and a good friend to all of us.” Alfred spoke heavily. “But we deal not with the past. For too long have we lived under the heels of those who call themselves our betters. What right have they to burn our homes, to punish us for feeding our families on the bounty of this place where we were born?”

“If they strike at us,” Marcus avowed, “we strike back. Six of the Sheriff’s men dead, and a prisoner who will surely make Asslicker heed us.”

He switched his gaze to Heron. “With your pa gone, are you the new headman?”

Heron shook his head. “I am no leader, but a holy man. Curlew is headman now.”

They all turned their gazes to Curlew where he stood, and measured him openly. He met their stares and returned them with the new certainty he had acquired. He would lead, aye, but in a way not seen in four generations.

“Can you accept me? Will you?” he challenged softly.

One by one they nodded.

“There is justice in you, Curlew,” Marcus grunted. His eyes swiveled to Anwyn. “But I still do not understand. How comes she to be one of the chosen three?”

“She belongs to us, to me, and comes granted my wife by Sherwood itself. Will you question Sherwood’s choice?”

Before the men could answer, Anwyn came alight in response to those words. Straight and tall she stood with Lark’s bow on her shoulder and looked at the men. “I fight with him, and thus with you, to the death if need be. But that man you hold prisoner is my father.”

“Best take us to him,” Curlew bade.

****

“Oh, Da,” Anwyn mourned, and nearly choked on her emotion. Battered and beaten, with bruises on his face and a livid cut across the top of his head, Mason Montfort crouched with his hands bound behind him, tied to a tree amidst the confusion of the new encampment. The whole place wore an air of grim defiance and pain. Everyone within sight watched as Anwyn dropped to her knees at her father’s side.

Despite his obvious discomfort, Mason Montfort lifted his eyes to her face in gladness. “Daughter! You are not harmed? How come you here among these outlaws?” Without giving her a chance to reply he looked at Curlew who stood at her back. “You I know—the trickster met in the forest the day we arrived.”

Curlew made no answer. Anwyn knew he meant to leave this to her, then. She stole a look at him over her shoulder where he stood, firm and sure, with the brown hair hanging on his shoulders like a mane and his eyes bright as two polished shields. Was she the only one who perceived the faint glow of power around him, felt how something inside him had bloomed and steadied? Her spirit rose inside her at what she saw, for she knew him for who he was—the man who ruled her heart, her mind, and thus her destiny. Thank the good god of this place she could trust him with all she was and rely upon his innate kindness.

She turned back to her father and said, “He is my husband.”

“Nay.” Distress invaded her Da’s eyes, and he shook his head. How many times had she brought such trouble to him? “You are wife to Roderick Havers. In the eyes of the Church—”

Slowly and clearly, Anwyn returned, “I am not.” She seized her father’s shoulders. “Da, I care little for the Church; by all that is holy and sacred to me, I am wife to Curlew Champion and belong to him body and spirit.”

Her father flinched. He directed a scathing look at Curlew, who yet stood silent. “What has he done to you? What, to turn your mind this way? Has he maltreated you, threatened—”

“No, Da, not he. These bruises you see upon me came from Havers, the man you bade me wed. My mind has been always turned in this direction. Do you not remember my restlessness, my refusal to settle? I longed ever for what I could not name. Rejoice for me, Da, for now I can name it.”

Her father gazed deep into her eyes and seemed to weigh what he saw there. Refusal warred with acknowledgement in his face.

“So am I to surrender you to this? Living the life of an outlaw in the greenwood, enemy to all I am?”

Anwyn told him, “You can never be enemy to me. Da, I know I have tried you sorely and tested any affection you once held for me.” Tears blurred his face before her eyes. “But tell me there is yet some love left between us.”

Her father’s expression softened slightly. “Of course there is, Daughter. Do you think I do not blame myself for your waywardness? I was not strong enough after your mother died, nor stern enough in her absence. I did not guide you well. Lord Simon convinced me of that and convinced me also ’tis like sending a son away to be fostered at arms—others can often provide the needed discipline. That is why I thought Roderick might succeed where I failed.”

“With cruelty? By employing the strap?”

“Only look where my kindness led you!” He shot another resentful look at Curlew.

Softly Anwyn said, “Nay, look where my destiny has led me. Da, I was born to stand at his side. There is no turning from it now.”

Grief, objection, and a measure of acceptance filled Montfort’s eyes. “And what of Roderick? Whatever you say, he believes himself your husband. He scours the forest for you, and he has the law on his side.”

Curlew spoke for the first time. “He shall have to accept that she is lost to him. She has a far greater place to fill here, in Sherwood.”

“How can this be?”

“Da, all the things you gave me in my youth were meant to be mine: the love of the land, the ability to read the seasons and the weather, the knowledge of how to shoot a bow.” Her voice became husky. “More, the ability to love so deeply it endures anything.”

Mason Montfort bowed his head. “You carry a new wisdom, Daughter. If this is truly your choice, I will grant you leave of it. But this places us on opposite sides of a bitter conflict. Those men who seized me speak of ransoming me to Lord Simon in return for Saxon prisoners who have committed crimes against their King. They speak also of demanding rights and a measure of sovereignty for Sherwood.”

Gravely, Curlew replied, “’Tis the only way this can end, Master Montfort. The seizures have to stop, and the butchery and the burned villages. Would you not stand against men who burned down your home?”

Montfort looked at him. “There has been much provocation, Master Outlaw—years of it, by Lord Simon’s accounting. You and your kind have grown far too bold.”

“My kind?” Curlew repeated bitterly. “And what kind is that? A peasant, beneath notice? I think not, for we are of this land, and the land grants its own leave. Who better to hold sovereignty over a place than those born of it? My ancestors’ blood has soaked this earth.” Aye, Anwyn thought, and his own. “’Tis I will stand in defense of it now.”

“Then you will fight and fail,” Montfort said almost regretfully.

“But I will fight, nevertheless, for some things are greater than fear.”

Montfort’s gaze returned to Anwyn’s face. “You have chosen a man, I will give you that. And I would do what I could to help you. But lass, for the life of me I cannot see a good end to this.”

“Help us find one,” she beseeched impulsively. “Let us work together for the sake of all that lies between us, and help me as you have so often in the past.”

“I would, but what can I do?” He shook his head. Ruefully, he wiggled his wrists, bound behind him. “Quite truly, Daughter, my hands are tied.”