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Mischief of a Faerie

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Arthur laid the brace of hares on the work board beside the carrots his ma chopped.

She startled then dropped her knife and whirled. “Arthur! You’re back!” She grabbed his much-higher shoulders and tiptoed to brush a kiss at his reddish beard. “You’ve avoided us for over a fortnight! How long will you stay?”

“Just for a bit this afternoon.”

He didn’t explain his absence. No need for Ma to know about the sprain that laid him up for days.

She grazed a hand over the hare, ruffing up the soft fur. “You brought us supper!”

“Anyone asks,” he reminded, “be sure to tell them these are conies, not hares. I don’t want the forest rangers looking for me.”

In the dim light of the hearth fire, he studied her face. She had hollows in her cheeks and dark shadows under her eyes. Her neck looked narrow and long. Not even that tatty shawl hid her thin frame. She needed fattening up, his ma did. The winter was half over, and she looked thinner than last month. She would be bones by May Day. Like as not, she gave most of her food to his sister or his granda, claiming they needed it more than she did. He needed to bring them meat more often.

Gil Whitehand had provided meat for their table while Arthur tended an ankle swollen thicker than his boot. He had cursed the mischance that rolled his foot over a thick root and fretted about his ma and granda and sister. Four mouths to feed when he included his own.

His family needed a steady man to provide. They shouldn’t depend solely on him, not when accident or arrest could so easily remove him.

“You must stay to supper.”

Arthur lifted his head, but he didn’t hear anyone else in the hut. He had watched outside before he came in. The moon was early rising today. The sun would soon track to the horizon. He had a few hours of daylight left. Tonight, if he left late, the full moon would guide his way. He could stay a little while.

Lingering was an indulgence. No telling when a nosy guard would come by. Their posts were in the town, not outside the walls, but that didn’t stop them wandering around. And rangers used the same trails that Arthur did when prowling through the forest.

“Can’t stay that long, Ma. Where is Granda?”

“He went into Nottingham for the market. He carved a few things and hoped to sell them.”

“You think he’ll get anything for them?”

“He may.”

For once, she didn’t sound doubtful. A dozen things, though, could interfere with Granda coming home with any coins at all.

His ma sniffled. “Your granda will be proud to know you’re hunting in the king’s forest.”

He hunched a shoulder. “Don’t shout it to the world, Ma. I’m poaching, and you know it. I don’t want to lose a hand.”

At the Autumn festival, a stray word about poaching had tossed Arthur out of his home and into the forest, barely ahead of the town guards. He’d lived rough all winter, avoiding the sheriff’s rangers and rarely creeping into town.

He lived off what he caught, snared hares or stone-pelted squirrels, with the extra brought to his family. Hazelnuts stretched out his food. He craved green growing things, yet winter still had its talons dug into the land.

“You got enough wood? I can chop some.”

She flushed. “You don’t need to. After that last storm, we pulled plenty of dead wood out of the forest. Do stay for supper, Arthur. I want my son at my table again. Two hares will be enough for all of us. We have these carrots. And I found some old apples. We’ll have a savory stew.”

“Found them, did you?” His ma flushed again. Even as he wondered at that darkened color in her pale face, he shook his head. “No, can’t stay that long. Besides, these are for you three.”

“Four now. Clannis had her baby. You have to see the little one. They’re sleeping now, but they will wake soon. These hares will help her recover her strength faster.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Boy. With the biggest feet and longest little toes. He’ll be a tall one. And a shock of black hair when every one of us is red.”

A flash of temper rushed over Arthur. He struggled to keep Ma and Granda and Clannis in meat. A baby created more problems.

“Did Clannis name the da yet?”

“Not her. She claims that he promised to come before Spring. Until then, she’ll keep him secret.”

“A pa should know about his son. He shouldn’t just abandon her and the babe.”

“Clannis never said he abandoned her.”

“She cried enough, though, when she figured out she was having a baby.”

His sister had told them very little about the man who must be the father. She hadn’t stepped out with many men, ignoring the youths who loitered around their mud-daubed wattle hut. Pa’s death two winters before had left them in straits. Without Pa and Arthur, with Granda weakened by a withered leg and not likely to regain strength, Ma had struggled to hold the little family together.

Then Clannis fell into her trouble. Last spring she hied off at every chance and came back smiling. By Midsummer, though, she shut her mouth and wouldn’t talk. By September, the family knew she was expecting. Not once in her pregnancy had she said anything about the man responsible.

Now the babe was here.

If Clannis didn’t eat hearty food, the precious little one would feed of her while she wasted away. Arthur barely met their needs now. How can I continue to do all for them? Honest, he couldn’t do more. Which meant someone else had to step up. That someone was the babe’s pa.

Arthur did have two clues about the man: a black-haired babe that showed signs of future height. Two clues, though, weren’t enough to locate the da and force him to shoulder some responsibility for Clannis and the baby.

A thin wail sounded from the loft. A rustling came. His sister cooed at her babe. Then the wailing stopped.

“She’ll be nursing him,” his ma hissed, as if Arthur didn’t understand the way of newborns.

He climbed to the loft where Clannis had her pallet.

His sister rested, half-leaning on the wall behind her, a tacked-up cloth between her and the wattle. The baby snuffled at her breast. When she saw him at the top of the ladder, a smile brightened her dull face, changing her from a drab to the bright sister he knew. “Arty! I didn’t know you were here.”

“Came by with some hares. Ma said you birthed the little one. Can I see him?”

“Come up. Sit with me, then I’ll let you hold him.”

He climbed the last rungs. Bending over to keep his head out of the thatch, he shuffled to her pallet then dropped down. “Don’t know nothing about holding babies. What if I drop him?”

“You won’t.”

The baby snorted and slurped. Clannis brushed a finger against his flabby cheek.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” She quickly looked up. “Ma says it will get better soon. How are you? Living in that forest can’t be easy.”

“I’m hale and hearty.” He spread his arms, as if to say see? He watched the baby until his sister lifted him to her shoulder and patted his back. “What you going to call him?”

“John, after his da.”

“John,” he repeated heavily. Here was a third clue to find the father. “And where is this John? He should be here, Clannis, taking care of you and the babe.”

“He will be here, when it’s time.”

“And what time is that?” When she didn’t answer, Arthur’s eyes burned. “Is he in town?”

“Not exactly. I met him here, but he doesn’t live in Nottingham. He works on a farm.”

“Is he married?”

She snorted. “Not he.”

“He should be here,” he repeated. “He’s got a duty to you. To both of you.”

The little one gave a mighty burp. His sister removed him from her shoulder, wiped his mouth on a scrap of cloth, then lifted him toward Arthur. “Here, take him.”

His hands flashed up and away. “Not me.”

“I want John to have a good relationship with his uncle. He’ll likely see you much more than he sees his father.”

He didn’t argue any further. He didn’t point out that another man bringing food to the family would help them all. He let her persuade him to hold the infant.

Staring into that sleeping face, he burned with the need to force the da to step up. He needed to know where this man was. But Clannis wouldn’t speak until she was ready. She was that stubborn that she would stove up and say nary a word.

When his mother called that his granda had come, Clannis wrapped the snoozing baby against her breast then followed Arthur down the ladder. Granda had stale bread and dried fruit pasties that he’d gotten from the bread-baker Ellen Best. His ma brewed a weak herbal tea, and they shared the unexpected bounty.

He stayed longer than he had intended. While the sun had dropped toward the horizon, it still cast bright light over this winter day. The moon, waning from full, had risen high. Tattered clouds blew across the blue heavens, heralding a change of weather for the next day.

He picked up his stave as he left. It was the one good weapon he had, with metal tips at both ends.

Once there had been an ax-blade. That had disappeared long before his da started teaching him how to fight with a quarterstaff. His da had learned his skill in King Richard’s army. He’d contracted a wasting sickness in that far land where he’d used the halberd. He brought stave and sickness home. When he died, all Arthur had wanted of his da was the stave.

The wind blew his hair and beard as he trudged to the abandoned hovel he’d been using over the winter. That shelter saved him when he’d laid up hurt, unable to do more than hobble. Soon, though, he must move. The broken-down hut was a known refuge along the forest verge. With the melting of snow and the warming of Spring, the rangers would start greater patrols. He would need to return to his first shelter, a ledge deeper in the forest.

He conceived a plan to find the babe’s da.

Neither Ma nor Granda would ever pester Clannis for the location of the babe’s father. Maybe, over the long months since September, they’d given up that question. Clannis always outlasted questions she didn’t want to answer. She had more patience than Arthur, older and hastier.

Stubborn girl.

He thumped the stave with each fall of his left foot. If he could find the father of little Jonno—.

The name struck him. He knew a John. He knew a Little John, one of Robin Hood’s men. Was he the father of Clannis’ son?

Arthur considered the clues: the name John, a shock of black hair, and the promise of future height.

Little John had long black hair and a silky black beard. He was a giant of a man.

Clannis had said she met her John in Nottingham and that he didn’t live in the town. He was unmarried, and he would come to see her at an appropriate time.

She had also said that Arthur would see the baby more than his father would see him. Which meant the father couldn’t come easily to visit her.

With each visit Arthur risked arrest. That accounted for the scarcity of his visits. The babe’s da must be a hunted outlaw to come so rarely to visit Clannis.

Little John, a known outlaw, was easily identifiable by his height and dark beard. Would he risk arrest to visit Clannis? After the daring theft at Throckmorten Abbey at Candlemas, the guards were on active look-out for any member of Robin Hood’s band.

He whipped the stave around and thwacked a bush, breaking winter-dead twiggy branches and scattered clinging black leaves. He thwacked another and another, a fourth and a fifth. By then he was deep on the Sherwood path, and frustration with his sister had ebbed. It piled high against the absent father.

He whacked another bush.

“Poor bush,” came a voice, filled with strange harmonies. “Whatever did it do to you?”

Arthur stopped and peered around him. The voice surrounded him. In the winter-stripped forest, he should have seen someone.

Towering trees enclosed him. Snow had broken down the tangles, creating unsightly humps with a dusting of snow. He saw no flitting birds or animals scurrying away. Ahead of him, the path wound up a hill. Behind him, the forest had closed in, hiding the buildings that surrounded Nottingham’s tall walls.

“Show yourself,” he called.

No one answered.

He waited longer, but no one appeared, nothing moved, only the fog of his breath.

After a bit, he walked on.

A tree branch crashed down ahead of him. Arthur jumped back ... as another branch landed behind him.

“Look out,” the voice called. A third branch started a crashing passage through leaves.

Arthur leaped ahead, over the first branch. The third one landed where he had stood.

Laughter pealed. When it ended, the person called, “You are quick.”

He couldn’t tell if they were man or woman. He couldn’t figure out how they sent branches crashing down from three different trees.

And he still couldn’t see them.

He ran up the winding path. He crested the top and started along the brow of the hill.

A shove at his shoulder sent him stumbling forward.

He whipped around, stave ready, but no one stood on the path.

“For the first bush” shouted the voice, from behind him.

He jerked around—but the path remained empty. “Show yourself.”

Laughter came again.

“Will you shove me for each bush?”

“That would be fair.”

Another shove, on his left arm. He staggered. His right foot slid down the hill. When he caught his balance, he looked up.

The path remained empty.

He hadn’t imagined those shoves.

The third hit him square in the back and thrust him forward. He fell into the hill, rolled and sprang up, holding the stave in the iron door guard, ready to block whoever came at him.

Yet his foe was not there. Again.

“Where are you?”

“All around.” And the proof came with a buffet of his head.

He fell sideways.

The stave kept him from rolling down the hill. It tangled in a bush and stopped the impetus of his body. He landed on a knee and jumped up. Looking around madly, he jerked at the stave, but the bush with its twining woodbine had grasped both ends of the stave and refused to release it.

The wind of a second buffet swiped past his head. Arthur released the stave and leaped around. He brought his hands up, ready to deflect the next blow.

He caught a flash of quicksilver. Seeing that light, the flash of it brighter than the wintry sun, he shivered. He knew his opponent.

No one ever won a bout against a Faerie.

He dropped to one knee. “My apologies to the bushes,” he called. “My apologies to you, Faer lord.” He waited, breath fogging in the chill air.

No one answered.

He waited longer, but he saw no flash, caught no blow, escaped another shove. He stood and waited again. Eventually, he turned to the tangle and retrieved his stave. Then he climbed to the path along the hill crest. “Are you still here?”

No answer. No movement. No flash of Faerie light.

The path branched at the far end of the hill. The main path dropped down and found the King’s Road through the forest. The left-side path continued along the hill, its descent gradual and slow before it branched a second time. Arthur took the left branch. He remained cautious, but the Faerie didn’t return.

He took the next left branch as well. He didn’t know where this path led. Right-side eventually came upon the abandoned hut he’d used for shelter.

If he was hunting Little John, he needed to follow the byways he never took.

He had a vague idea about the camp used by the outlaws. He had crossed Much and Gil a few times, heading back to Nottingham, and fallen in with them to have company for a couple of hours. Arthur had a good sense of direction. Tracking the direction they had come from would be a matter of finding the right paths, the paths not well-trodden by the sheriff’s rangers.

“Wrong way to Nottingham,” the Faerie called.

“I’m not going to Nottingham.”

“You will become lost in our bright wood.”

Arthur snorted.

After he’d walked a bit, the voice asked, “Do you search for someone?”

He debated whether to answer or no. Eventually, he offered, “I have a couple of friends who camp in the forest.”

“These friends live in our bright forest? Are they our friends?”

The voice came from above. He stopped and looked up.

A slender youth perched above him. He wore leathers of a curious blue. A white-wood bow flashed silver at the tips and the hand-rest. A braid of silver hair draped over one shoulder.

“Are Robin Hood and his men friends to Faeries?” he asked.

The youth smiled. “You recognize me as Faerie?”

“With those leathers, aye, I do.”

He leaped from the tree. Arthur winced, thinking of that drop, for his perch among the branches looked to be three times his height.

Yet the Faerie landed lightly, crouching on springy knees before he straightened. “Who are your friends?”

“Much the Miller’s son,” he said promptly, knowing that slight man was well known as one of Robin’s outlaws.

The Faerie tilted his head. “Know you the others of Robin’s merry band?”

Arthur shook his head. He would not risk another name. Gil lived in Nottingham, working the bar at the Tinker’s Wife tavern; he didn’t really belong with Robin’s men. Jack Greenleaf was a drinking buddy at the tavern. He reckoned he could claim Jack in a pinch, but the pinch hadn’t yet closed in.

“Not to call them friends,” he admitted. “Much is a friend. We used to run the streets of Nottingham, when we were imps. Young boys,” he clarified, for at the word imp, the Faerie’s angled eyebrows shot to his hairline.

“Much is a Faerie friend. I have seen him often this winter. What name have you?”

“Arthur.”

“The king’s name. Well met, Arthur,” and the Faerie bowed.

An odd shiver wracked him at that bow, as if he’d earned respect that he didn’t deserve. “I am not with Robin Hood or his men,” he hastened to say.

“Not yet. I have seen you before.” The Faerie laid a long finger beside his slanted eyes. “Snaring hares.” He shook his head. His curious up-turned mouth turned upside down. “I will no longer interfere with your snares. You are Faerie friend.”

This Faerie was the one who had destroyed his snares. Then he scrambled to protest that last comment. “I am not a Faerie friend.”

He touched the quiver of arrows and drew up one. “You are an enemy to us?”

“No, no. Just—not a friend. You’re the first Faerie I’ve ever met.”

The arrow dropped back into the quiver. The Faerie approached, hand outstretched. “I am Iofrin.”

He stared at that hand with its moon-pale flesh then looked up, into angled moss-green eyes above sharp cheekbones. The Faerie’s mouth was once more up-turned, the sharp V deepened above the pointed chin.

The Faerie’s hand dropped. “You do not wish to be my friend?”

“Um, I didn’t—No offense, my lord. I will gladly be friend to a Faerie. I wasn’t expecting it, though.”

“Nor did I expect this occurrence. You travel to Robin’s camp, to meet your friend Much? I will travel with you.”

Definitely unexpected. Arthur didn’t know if Much would even be at Robin’s camp. His old friend had shared, earlier in the month, that he had to travel to Barnsdale. That was before the last snowfall and before Arthur damaged his ankle. Much could have returned.

Say he arrived at the camp with this Iofrin and Much wasn’t there. Jack might speak for him, but what if Jack wasn’t there? The outlaws would be hostile. How would Iofrin react to that?

Rejecting Iofrin’s offer, though, didn’t seem wise.

Arthur merely grunted and headed on his way. Iofrin fell in beside him. He whistled a lilting tune that Arthur didn’t recognize.

At the next forking path, he hesitated. The Faerie chose the way. “I think you do not come this way very often.”

“I usually meet Much in town, at the Tinker’s Wife.”

“Ah, this is a tavern, no? Jack Greenleaf has spoken of it. The host is a fine archer.”

“Gil?”

“Gilbert Whitehand, aye. He comes into the forest to practice with the longbow. You do not know this, Arthur of the king’s name?”

He didn’t know which king the Faerie was talking about. “I know he used to be in King Richard’s army. I see Gil when I go to the tavern. He’s—he helped my family when my ankle was messed up.”

Iofrin increased his walking pace, pushing Arthur to stretch his legs to stay even with him. He shifted his stave to his left hand, a barrier between him and the Faerie.

The trail wound among the trees. The wind rustled the leaves overhead, still clinging to branches. The forest stayed very quiet. Only Arthur’s footsteps sounded.

At another fork Iofrin reached a hand forward, to the left. “Come, this way. I will show you a path to Faerie. You may take it on the Full Moon only. Call my name when you arrive.”

Arthur misliked the Faerie’s smile, but he followed. He shifted the stave so that it angled across his body and rested on his shoulder.

They passed a curious three-trunked tree. Then they came upon a circle of stones inside a circle of trees. Iofrin stopped. “Know you what this place is, Arthur of the king’s name?”

“Look, I do not know of a king with my name.”

“Know you not Arthur of Camelot?”

That naming rang a bell in his head, but it sounded like an alarum bell for a fire, not a bell of memory.

He dropped the stave from his shoulder to cross over his breast, catching the iron-tipped end in his right hand. He nodded at the circle of stones. “This looks like a Faerie Ring.”

Iofrin jumped onto one of the encircling rocks. “We shall travel to Underhill and then to the protected grove where Robin Hood makes his camp.”

Arthur scrambled for words that wouldn’t offend the Faerie. “If I’m to learn the location of the camp, I need to use the upper ways. Then I can come and go at will.”

“Perchance Robin Hood and his men would not want you to know the upper ways. Come with me. You may learn the upper way when you leave the camp. Or perchance this Robin would have you learn the Low Road.”

The Low Road was no path for the living. He backed up. “Let’s keep to the forest path.”

The Faerie’s brow creased. In a man, Arthur would have called that expression a frown. He didn’t know how to judge it on a face of all angles and sharp bones.

Then Iofrin flashed away, the quicksilver light nearly blinding.

He caught a flash behind him, then a kick struck his backside. Arthur stumbled forward, nearly into the Faerie ring. He planted the butt end of the stave inside the rocks and shoved backwards. He felt a jerk on the stave as he fell backward, but it stayed in his hands.

He clambered to his feet and looked around for the Faerie. Gone. Memory of the earlier pranks kept him tense. He whipped around and backed away from the Faerie ring, backing until bushes on the other side of the path embraced him.

Iofrin didn’t return.

He waited longer, but the Faerie was gone.

And the sun had left the sky.

The wind gusted through the trees, ripping away leaves. The dried things swirled down, around and around, falling and falling.

Arthur started walking. Yet when he passed the three-trunked tree, laughter pealed, drowning the rushing wind.

“You are no Faerie friend, Arthur of the king’s name. Nor are you friend of Robin’s men.”

He stopped, not sure whether an advancing step was a trap or if remaining near the Faerie ring was the trap. “I’m a friend of Much,” he protested. “I know Jack Greenleaf. I am not your enemy, Iofrin.”

“You no longer have permission to use my name, Arthur, liar.”

“I told no lies.”

The Faerie appeared on the trail before him. A silver light brighter than day blinded him.

Arthur shielded his eyes. “I told no lies,” he insisted. “I am not your enemy.”

“Why do you seek Robin’s camp?”

He hesitated.

And human laughter sounded behind him.

He whirled around, his stave ready.

Two men stood outside the Faerie ring, one tall and black-haired. Arthur could barely drag his gaze to the other, who had hair as red as a fox. His whole focus was on the giant. On Little John.

The Faerie appeared beside them, still wearing his scowl. “Should we let him pass, Scarlet Will?”

“I don’t know him,” the red-haired man answered. “I’m glad you fetched us. He could be a spy for the sheriff.”

“I’m not a spy!” Arthur defended hotly. “I don’t work for the sheriff. He’d as soon hang me as anything else.”

“You’re an outlaw?”

“Poacher,” he admitted. The men’s tension didn’t ease. Will Scarlet had a hand clapped to his sword hilt. Little John planted his stave and leaned on it.

Iofrin tilted his head, looking like a perching hawk spotting prey. “This Arthur claimed to know Much the Miller’s son.”

The red-haired man shook his head. “Much is still in Barnsdale. He can’t confirm that.”

“I know Jack, too. Jack Greenleaf.”

“You are headed to our camp,” Little John rumbled. “Why?”

“To challenge you,” Arthur retorted.

Will Scarlet laughed and slapped his leg. “Challenge? Oh ho, we have a fool, not an enemy. His head doesn’t come near your shoulders, John.”

“Why?” Little John asked.

“I want a boon.” His plan suddenly seemed very weak, but Arthur persisted with it. “And when I win, you have to grant me that boon.”

“You expect to win, boy? You’re half John’s size.”

“I’m not a boy! I’m seven and ten! He’s an old man.”

Little John chuffed a laugh. “Twice your age. Twice your height. Twice your experience.”

He ignored that. “We’ll use staves.” He hoisted his. “I’ll soon plant you on the ground.”

“What’s the boon?”

“John, you’re not seriously accepting this challenge.”

“I’ll tell you when I defeat you,” Arthur said quickly, not wanting the giant to back out of the fight.

Seconds later, they had the rules set: three points, gained one by one with a blow anywhere to body or legs. All three points could be won through loss of stave, by landing on the ground, or by staggering from a blow to the head. Arthur shrugged off his pack and cloak, leaving them at the base of the three-trunked tree. Iofrin perched on a rock. Will Scarlet stood beside him.

Little John stood like a mountain, stave braced in both hands. Arthur regretted his wild idea to challenge the outlaw, but he was in the bout now. He wouldn’t back out.

“You first, boy.”

He didn’t argue. He jumped forward as he struck down diagonally. The outlaw deflected with the expected high guard. After testing strength, Arthur backed off. Little John was definitely stronger. He had to defeat the man with quickness, with unexpected thrusts.

He would need all the skill his da had taught him.

John disengaged then darted forward with a blow aimed for his leg. Arthur parried. Then he struck quickly, a dart at the shoulder. The thrust jarred him to his teeth, but he had scored the first point.

The strikes of staves filled the forest. John landed a blow, then Arthur did, quickly behind, an unexpected strike from the sky that hit the bigger man’s shoulder. “Unicorn,” Iofrin shouted and clapped.

But the outlaw doubled his strikes, removing any opportunity for another blow. His fight became all guard, defending against swift darts and strong hews. Will shouted each time John came in with a strong thrust or swing. Gradually, he and the Faerie fell silent. Dusk came, but Iofrin’s silver light blazed.

Arthur dodged a sweeping blow to the head. While he was off-balance, John thumped him in the ribs. He lost his breath. He didn’t think the blow broke a bone, but his breath came shallower.

Two points apiece. Whoever landed the next blow would win.

He doubted he had a chance to win. With all his skill, he barely held his own.

Little John had backed up, giving room while Arthur recovered. “We don’t have to end this,” he offered.

“I won’t get my boon,” he retorted.

“You won’t get your boon anyway. You’re not going to win, boy.”

“Stop calling me boy.”

John bowed his head. “You’re right. You’re not a boy. What is this boon?”

But Arthur shook his head stubbornly. He set a low guard. “Come on.”

They traded darts and thrusts, guards and parries. John’s breathing hadn’t changed while Arthur’s heaved. He knew he was flagging. He hadn’t had a practice bout with the stave since autumn, before Much left to join the outlaws, before his ma let loose in the marketplace with her recipe for hare, illegal for commoners to eat, and the guards ran him out of the town, shouting “poacher” for all to hear.

Remembering his escape to the forest, just ahead of the town guards intent on his arrest, Arthur stumbled and barely avoided the wrath hew that John had thrown to counter his own overhew.

Swearing, he forced his mind to stay in this bout. He was tired, regretting his anger at Clannis, wishing he’d never decided to challenge Little John. He protected his body against a vertical swing. That exposed his upper body but protected his hip. He whacked the man’s returning blow and jumped back, stumbling as he landed.

John came in with a squinting hew. The blow glanced off Arthur’s ox-held guard, forcing the end down in the diagonal hew. He let the momentum whip the stave’s butt-end around then down, a diagonal swipe.

The wrath hew shouldn’t have worked. He had wielded the shortened end of the stave. The blow shouldn’t have landed, but it struck John’s brow. The glancing blow scraped skin but had no force to strike the skull.

Will shouted.

The Faerie flickered before Arthur. “Hold,” he said, “hold,” and Arthur realized that he’d landed his third blow.

He dropped the stave. His knees gave out, and he collapsed.

In the next painful breath, Little John had grabbed his arm and towed him to his feet. “Good fight.”

Will clapped his back. Arthur staggered forward and would have fallen save for John’s tight grip.

“I was lucky.”

“Luck’s part of it,” the big man rumbled. “Got your breath yet?”

“Not quite.”

He was steered to a rock. A flask was thrust before his eyes. Whiskey burned his throat and took his breath. He coughed and was thumped again.

“Who taught you this fighting with the stave?” Iofrin asked.

“My da.” He struggled upright. “The boon. You have to grant it to me.”

“Aye, there’s that. What would you ask?”

A strange reluctance swarmed through him. He cleared his throat. “That you claim what’s rightfully yours.”

“And what is rightfully mine?”

“My sister’s son. A newborn. He deserves to know his da. He deserves to have a da to help provide for him, to raise him and teach him the stave. Even if his da can’t be there all the time, he deserves to know.”

“A babe?”

“Aye.” At John’s perplexed expression, doubt flooded in, mixing with the reluctance. “Don’t look like you don’t know,” he accused. “Clannis named you.”

“I don’t know a Clannis.”

“Now this is a curiosity.” Iofrin tilted his head, birdlike again but without a raptor’s intensity. “Truth comes from both of you.”

“Newborn, you say?” Will counted on his fingers. “That means last June. John, where were you last June?”

“In London, freeing Will Stutely from the hangman’s noose. Me and Robin, Much, and a couple of others. We left here in early May and didn’t return until August.”

“Truth again,” the Faerie judged. Those depthless dark eyes turned on Arthur. “What say you, poacher?”

“But Clannis said—.”

“You need to re-think what your sister said.” Will slung an arm over his shoulder. “Come on to the camp and meet Robin. Everyone will want to meet a poacher who held his own against our giant. You are welcome to join us.”

“He didn’t just hold his own,” Little John said, rubbing a sore spot on his arm. “He won, fair and square. We would like to have your stave numbered with ours.”

“`Strooth. Join us tonight. We’ll drink to your victory. Tomorrow you can sort out this confusion with your sister.”

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

After a night of celebrating his victory, Arthur slept deeply, safe in the knowledge that he was surrounded by new friends.

At dawn he woke to Iofrin crouched beside him.

“Give me your hand, Arthur of the king’s name. I will return you to Nottingham,” the Faerie offered. “Once truth is clear, you can return to Robin’s camp.”

As soon as he touched Iofrin’s cool flesh, the world whipped away. Wind rushed past him. Silver light flashed and flickered. Ice broke over his flesh, then heat, then ice again.

Then he was tumbling to the frozen ground, darkness all round him.

And Iofrin had disappeared.

He was still in the forest, trees all around. These slender trunks were new growth, not the ancient giants of Sherwood’s heart. Beyond the trees were flickering yellow lights. Torches, he realized, still burning at the guard towers cornering the parapet around Nottingham.

The Faerie had left him on a narrow path, one used to collect fallen wood for fires.

Arthur heaved himself off the ground. The pack on his back shifted. He thrust down a hand to regain his balance and grasped his stave.

He curled his fingers around the shaft then straightened. Orienting himself, he started around the town, keeping to the protection of the forest verge. By the greying light of dawn rather than the torchlight, he worked his way to the ramshackle huts that straggled outside of the town walls. From thence he trudged to the hut on the forest verge, where his family lived.

He leaned against the hut’s wall to eavesdrop. Ma was talking. Clannis cooed to her babe. Granda’s voice quavered as he repeated gossip that he’d heard. Then Ma said, “I’ll do a fry up with the eggs you brought.” And a stranger agreed.

Arthur slipped inside.

Clannis sat on the bench at table, her babe in her arms. She leaned against a black-haired man. She spotted her brother first. “You’re here! Where did you go off to last evening?”

The man stood and extended his hand. “You’ll be Clannis’ brother.”

“This is my John,” his sister inserted. “John of Barnsdale.”

Arthur looked him over. He was tall but lean with it, lacking the stolid muscle of the giant outlaw. He had merry blue eyes and an easy smile. As Clannis spilled their plans to move to Barnsdale, this John looked at her with an indulgent smile. “And Ma and Granda will come, too,” his sister added.

“When will you move?” he asked, not quite sure what else to say. His sister was leaving? The whole family was leaving? He couldn’t quite take all these changes in. The resolution to the problem of providing for his family was easier than he had anticipated. If he hadn’t let his temper rule him, he wouldn’t have challenged Little John.

Yet the challenge had won for him a spot with Robin Hood’s men. A better future than poaching loomed before him.

“As soon as Little Jonno can travel.”

“You’re welcome, too, Arty. In Barnsdale no one knows the charge against you.” The stranger used his sister’s name for him and spoke of his poaching, double-proof that Clannis and this John had shared much more than a bed. “I’ve earned enough to lease a farm there, with an option to buy it in good time. Room enough for one more. Did Clannis tell you that’s where I’ve been? Earning coins to set up our home?”

A second offer to escape poaching? Arthur felt spoiled for choice. He sat heavily on the bench beside his granda. “You should have told me” was all he could say.

. ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ .