IT WAS AN early evening in late September, with a cool wind blowing through the yew trees, when Marian heard the wailing once more.
The clearing was quiet, for Philippa had gone to take Sarah back to the coal-digger’s hut, saying she’d stay with Alice for the night. They had found the old woman wandering, lost in the forest again. Poor Sarah had been quite distressed.
‘The trees are crying,’ she insisted. ‘They lose their leaves and they moan and weep.’
The others had smiled kindly, but Marian had set to wondering, remembering the wailing that Tom and little Nan had heard.
Agnes and Emma were busy in the new lean-to, crumbling dried herbs into pots to keep for winter use, when Marian thought that she could hear crying herself. She said nothing, but wandered out into the clearing, holding up her licked fingertip as Emma did. The wind could carry sounds a long way, she’d learnt that much.
She wandered towards her favourite tree, the great yew. She stood for a moment beneath its sweeping branches, fingering the small pink fruit and breathing in the clean scent of resin.
It was only as she turned to go, glancing down to where a bramble caught her foot, that she saw it. Her stomach leapt – a hand, sticking out from beneath the curling bracken. The skin was the same gingery brown as the dried bracken fronds, making it hard to see. Her heart thumped and her throat went tight as she bent down and carefully pulled away the leaves. Close by the yew, well hidden amongst the undergrowth, a man lay fast asleep.
He was young and thin-cheeked, with a dark growth of beard. He was dressed in a grey hog-skin jerkin, worn silver in patches like the yew tree’s bark, and dark ginger leggings that blended with the colour of his hand and the drying bracken. His cloak was a deep foresty green, like her own. Marian stared down at him, then up into the branches of the yew, her mind drifting into a dream of the green lady and her forest lover. It seemed he was part of the woodland itself; grown from the trees, the bracken and the rich dark earth. He was a very beautiful young man.
Suddenly he groaned in his sleep and muttered, twitching restlessly. She bent close, wrinkling her nose at the rank smell of sweat and sickness, and saw that his face was bruised. His cloak was good homespun, but ragged and torn. How stupid she’d been. This was no fairy lover. He was not asleep, but ill. The skin on his cheeks was white beneath smudged dirt and glistened with moisture. He was real enough – he stank – and he was somehow familiar. Yes . . . her hands shook at the thought. She knew him; she had seen him once before, though only from a distance, when he’d stayed with Maud and Harry at the mill. He was Agnes’s nephew, Robert, the fierce wolfshead, the wicked one.
He cried out, a low, growling sound like a wounded boar.
‘Mother,’ he seemed to cry, then he rolled to the side. His hand and stomach were caked in dried blood.
Marian turned and ran, shouting for Agnes.
‘Why, what is it, lass?’ Agnes came to the doorway, a bunch of lavender in her hand.
‘Agnes. He is here beneath the great tree. It is Robert. He is hurt, and he cries out for . . . his mother?’
‘Show me,’ Agnes dropped the flowers and ran.
She bent down beneath the branches, then fell to her knees beside the lad. She touched his head, and caught hold of his hand.
‘Mother,’ the beastlike growl came again.
Agnes looked up into Marian’s puzzled face. ‘He has found his mother,’ she said. ‘For Robert is not my nephew, he is my son.’
Marian stared open-mouthed, but Robert groaned again and Agnes turned quickly back to him.
‘No time to stand there gaping, girl. Take up his legs, while I lift him round the shoulders. Ah, he’s no weight! What has the lad been doing these months?’
They carried him carefully into the cottage and settled him on the bedding. Emma came forward to help, supposing him just another unfortunate lad who’d come seeking the Forestwife.
There was dark dried blood on his hand and shirt. Agnes pulled open his jerkin, clicking her tongue at all the clotting blood. Then she turned his head to the side, tenderly feeling at the temples. He had a black eye and yellow and grey bruising above.
Agnes clicked her tongue again.
‘Clout on the head, and a sword cut. Marian! Fetch water! Quick, lass!’
Marian picked up the bucket and ran.
She dipped the bucket into the clean warm water as quickly as she could, though her hands would not stop shaking. Then she set to frowning as Agnes’s words sank in.
‘What has he been doing, these months?’ As far as she knew, Agnes had not seen Robert for a year at least, and what had she called him? Her son?
Marian shook her head, she could not understand at all, but there was not time to stop and think.
When she returned, Agnes and Emma knelt over Robert, their heads bent together, carefully cutting away the shreds of bloodsoaked homespun from his shirt that had dried around the wound. Emma glanced anxiously across at Agnes, then down at Robert. Something had been said between them . . . Emma knew.
Without waiting to be told, Marian squeezed out a cloth in clean warm water and began the job of washing him. Robert still muttered and rolled his head, the words making no sense, his mind still far away. She bent over him, gently cleaning the dust and mud from his face. There was broken skin beneath his matted hair. She wrinkled her nostrils as she wiped dried vomit from his cheek. What a fool she had been! How ever could she have thought him so beautiful . . . the magical green man?
Despite the offers of help that came, Agnes insisted on sitting up all night with the wounded lad, and in the morning her devotion was rewarded. Robert was calm and quiet, smiling up at his mother with recognition. Marian carried in a bowl of bread soaked in fresh warm goat’s milk. She knelt at his side. He smiled at her and whispered his thanks, then turned to his mother.
‘Where is the fancy m’lady then?’
Marian froze, and Agnes pressed her lips tight together.
Robert looked from one to the other, his mouth falling open.
‘She is not the one?’ He laughed low and winced. ‘My lady of Holt, with a freckled nose and dirty face?’
‘I would clout thee good and hard,’ said Agnes, ‘if someone had not already done it for me.’
Marian’s hands started to shake, so that the milk looked like to spill. ‘I am Marian,’ she said. ‘I am Mary de Holt no longer.’
Robert said nothing, he would not look at her, but smirked down at his feet. Marian was clearly beneath his contempt, though she could not see why.
‘Give me the bowl,’ said Agnes, taking it from her. ‘Take no notice, my lovey, he knows nowt, and believe me, when this head of his is mended he will think a different way.’
She spoke sharply over Robert’s head, trying to catch Marian’s eye, and make her smile.
But Marian could not. She knelt there for a moment, staring down at the trodden earth floor, her fists clenched, fighting to hold back tears. Then suddenly she leapt to her feet and ran outside into the cold clean air. She hated this sick man, with his sneering mouth, hated the very smell of him. And besides all this, was he not a murderer?
She strode across the clearing, taking her usual path to the great yew, but as she lifted her hands to its soft, sweeping branches she stopped, remembering how she had found him there. She turned away, her anger stronger than ever. He had somehow defiled the beautiful tree. She could never turn to it again without thinking of him.
Then, as she shifted, she caught another movement from the corner of her eye. She whipped her head round quickly, catching only the sense of a dark shadow slipping away, and the faint crackle of dry leaves. Branches of the further, smaller yew trembled, but when she caught hold of them, there was nothing there. They were thick, sturdy boughs, and the wind had dropped.
Agnes came from the cottage, calling her name. Marian did not move. She thought of hiding, punishing her.
Her old nurse saw her standing amongst the yews and called again. Marian still would not turn towards her, but she waited, her face turned away. She stood there while Agnes came to take her hand.
‘Tha must let me explain it all to thee, lovey. You owe me that. I left him with my brother when he were less than two years old. I left him when I went to be your nurse.’
‘Aye.’ Marian sighed. ‘I suppose I can but hear thee out.’
Agnes led her back to the hut, but turned her away from the old room where Robert lay. They went and sat together in the new lean-to. Marian paused at the door, glancing quickly round the clearing.
‘I thought I saw someone just now out there, hiding amongst the trees. I thought I heard a voice.’
Agnes joined her, but there was no sound or movement.
‘Maybe you did see something,’ she whispered. ‘There’s others, and they’ll come for him.’
Agnes settled herself in the corner, by the pots of herbs. Instinctively she took up the work she’d dropped in haste the night before, crumbling dried comfrey leaves into pots. Marian picked a bunch of crisp, dark-golden tansy flowers, and joined her in the task.
‘His father,’ she began, nodding her head towards the old room, ‘his father, my husband, was Adam Fitzooth, a yeoman farmer and a freeman. We had a bit of land over Wakefield way, that we rented from the Lord of Oldcotes, for payment and fieldwork at ploughing and harvest.’
‘What?’ said Marian, staring in surprise. ‘I cannot see thee as a married woman.’
Agnes laughed. ‘Well I was, and for many a year. I was happy with him too, though we wished for children, and they never came.’
‘But?’
‘Don’t rush me, girl, I must tell it my way. We had a good life together . . . but then it all went wrong. It was the year of the great rebellion. The northern lords cut themselves off from King Henry, and there was a great call to arms. Adam was the best bowman in the county, he went to fight for the King. The Lord of Oldcotes sent him in his place, and promised us gold and gifts. But Adam didn’t go for what he’d earn, he went to fight for the King – the fool.’
‘You didn’t want him to go?’
‘No. King Henry cared naught for England, and his son is even worse. ’Twas yet another stupid quarrel, amongst those you’d think had power enough. I could not care who won or lost. But Adam would not listen to me, and well . . . he went . . . and there’s not a lot more to tell. He was killed, and when we got the news the Lord of Oldcotes turned me from our land. I was with child you see, and not young. It was clear I couldn’t do the work that was owed. I’d had my wish for a child come true, but it came too late.’
Marian dropped the herbs, and took Agnes’s hands in her own. ‘All these years, I’ve known so little. What became of you?’
‘I found Selina, that’s what became of me. I wandered miserable, hungry and sick for days, no . . . for weeks, but at last I walked into this clearing. I’d heard wild tales of the Forestwife, but I was desperate, much like poor Emma. Selina took me in.’
Marian sat silently, listening with growing sadness.
Agnes smiled, though she blinked back tears.
‘I was luckier than Emma, for my babe was born alive and strong. We lived here with Selina for more than a year. Perhaps we should have stayed, but . . . perhaps what happened was meant to be.’ She squeezed Marian’s arm.
‘My brother lived in Loxley valley, and worked a small piece of land. I was strong again and wished to show him my son; so I went to find him. He made us both welcome, and begged us to stay. It was when we were there that we heard from Maud and Harry of tha mother’s death, and how the lord of Holt needed a wet nurse for his sister’s child. I thought to offer myself.
‘But what of Robert?’
‘He was almost two years old and he was strong, and ready to be weaned. A wet nurse earns as good a wage as any woman can hope for. I only meant to stay with thee for a year or so. I told them that my child had died. That’s what they wanted to hear. They wouldn’t want a nurse as might have put her own bairn first. My brother loved Robert and swore that he’d care for him as though he were his own. He kept his word, right to the end. I left them together, as well set up as any father and son. I thought I could save a bit of money and then go back to them.’
‘Well? What happened? Why did tha stay so long?’
Agnes shrugged her shoulders and sighed. ‘I could not leave thee, when the time came.’
Marian smiled. ‘Was I such a sweet child then?’
‘Nay. Tha were a poor, thin, grumpy little thing. ’Twas only I that loved thee. I could not leave thee to Dame Marjorie’s tender care.’
‘Huh.’ Marian twisted a lock of her hair between her fingers, then tugged at it. ‘So . . . he is angry that you stayed with me?’
Agnes frowned. ‘Yes, he is, though he knows well enough that I loved him. How often did I go walking over the hills to be with him. I took him food and clothing, the best Holt Manor had. And when my brother was killed and Robert blamed, he came to hide in Beauchief Woods.’
‘But . . . ?’
‘No. He did not kill my brother, though there’s many a wild and stupid thing he has done. They were truly like father and son, and they had been quarrelling. Their neighbours knew it, and it looked bad for Robert. But he loved my brother, and could not have killed him.’
‘No. He could not,’ Agnes snapped. ‘So he hid in the woods, and Maud’s and Harry’s son brought me messages. Where do you think I wandered off to all those times? I knew they all thought my wits were fading, up at Holt Manor. I let them think it. Meanwhile I took him food and clothes and all he needed.’
Marian’s mouth dropped open. ‘So when I ran away, and you followed me, he was left alone?’
‘Nay, nay. He’d been gone a while then. He had heard that the Sheriff was arming Nottingham Castle, and not too fussy who he took so long as they could draw a bow and not run from a fight. He’s a fine archer, Robert, just like his father, and ripe with anger. He craved a fight, so off he went, taking Harry’s and Maud’s son with him.’
‘Do you mean Muchlyn, the small one?’
‘Aye. He were always daft with Robert. Would do aught he told him. Maud and Harry were wild with worry, and I was vexed with him, but neither lad would listen, and they went.’
‘How is he hurt then?’
Agnes shook her head. ‘I’ve not got it quite clear yet, but there has been trouble amongst the men-at-arms. He’s like his father, is Robert, in his passionate support for the King, and naught I can say will make him see sense. He found out that the Sheriff was really arming the castle for Count John, against the return of Richard. It’s ended in a quarrel, and they had to fight their way out and run . . . right through Sherwood Forest he’s come.’
They sat in silence for a moment, Marian finding it hard to take in all she had heard.
Agnes sighed. ‘So that is what he is like, my lovey. Do not take what he says to heart. Though he’s my son, he is a wild and reckless lad. I fear for him.’