The Ghosts of Sherwood Page 6
“Robin.”
“What? Marian, my God, how can you be so calm?”
“Robin. Look up.”
He and Will did, saw the children perched in the branches, gazing back calmly. Will laughed, and Robin bowed his head and aged a dozen years before her eyes.
As if they had come to the woods for a lark, Mary called, “We need help getting Eleanor down, please.”
viii
THEIR FATHER CLAMBERED EASILY into the tree, though it must have been years since he’d done anything like it. Between them, Mary and John coaxed their sister to the next branch down to meet him. Keeping tight hold of her hand, Mary lowered her to their father’s arms. Eleanor clung to him.
“Darling girl,” he murmured against her head. “Were you very frightened?” She nodded solemnly, and Robin held her for a long, consoling moment. He in turn lowered her to Will and Marian, who gasped a little when she finally had the girl in her arms.
John was next, and he mostly made the climb himself but wasn’t too proud to grab his father’s arms when they came in reach.
“I was only a little frightened,” John announced. “I knew you would come for us.”
Robin laughed and cupped his son’s face. “Good lad. Off you go to your mother, now.”
Then came Mary. She sat on the branch just above her father’s reach, waiting until Robin saw John safely down. Thinking of what she would say when he looked back up at her. She might scream at him, as if this was all his fault. She might burst into tears like a child. She might do neither. Her face must have looked frightful. She saw that in his troubled gaze, however much false brightness his smile held.
“And what about you, Mary? Did you know I would come for you?”
“I knew you would try.”
His expression fell, and she had a brief glimpse of an old man, full of care. “Oh, my sweet girl, I am so sorry.”
She made her way to the next branch, putting herself on a level with him. “I was frightened for John and Eleanor. If they got hurt . . . I couldn’t let them get hurt. But I didn’t know if I could stop it. That was what frightened me.”
“That is a fear I know well.” He reached out and brushed tears from her face. They had slipped silently, and her cold and aching cheeks stung with them. “There is no shame in fear. It’s what keeps you and yours alive.”
“Have you ever been afraid, really?” she said.
“This night, I was terrified.”
Mary decided to be a child then, just for a moment, and she put her arms around her father’s neck and cried while he held her.
They all arrived on the ground, and Marian came to her, closing her arms around her, crying silently. “I’m all right, Mother. We’re all right,” Mary repeated, but found herself clinging. For as long as the night felt, the end of it had happened so quickly that part of her was still praying that their captors would leave Eleanor alone, and thinking of what to say next to the big bearded man to distract him from her siblings.
Even Will had to touch their shoulders and ruffle their hair, and Mary repeated that they were all safe. Eleanor wouldn’t let go of Marian’s arm, which was all right because Marian wouldn’t let go of hers. Robin studied their wounds. In the dark of the oak, he hadn’t seen their faces clearly, but in the firelight, the blood and bruises shone plain. John’s eye was swelling shut, though he insisted it didn’t hurt a whit. He was lying, of course. Then her father acknowledged the blood on Mary’s face and tipped her chin up to see her neck. She wished she could see what he saw, then she didn’t.
“Does it hurt?” he asked. He brushed the skin with a thumb and the bruises lit with pain. She winced and hissed. Robin had never looked so angry. “I can see the marks of a man’s fingers there. Which one of them did this to you?”
“Him.” She nodded at the one with the ruddy hair. He lay on his back, the arrow sticking straight up from his neck. His eyes had frozen wide. The firelight made the pool of blood under him shine. He’d been facing his death straight on and not seen it coming. Well, she’d warned him, hadn’t she?
Marian had turned to block Eleanor’s view of the dead men, though the girl kept trying to stare. “Don’t look at them, sweetling,” Marian murmured, and Eleanor pressed her face to her mother’s arm. Mary couldn’t not look. Same with John. They had seen the dead before, but this was different. The violence of it blasted like a lightning strike. Edmund still seemed about to shout at them. Mary wondered if she would have nightmares about this and felt a sudden need to practice her archery more diligently.
Robin glanced at Marian. “Can we bring him back to life and kill him over again? Slower this time.”
“No, love. We will go back home, sit by the hearth and get warm, and tell Little John that all is well.”
“Little John?” the younger John said. “What do you mean? He’s real?”
Will glanced away and laughed, and Robin—well, the look on her father’s face defied understanding.
“The Ghost of Sherwood,” Mary said. “Didn’t you ever see the hooded figure hiding in the trees?”
Her brother’s brow furrowed. “Yes. But, well . . . I always thought I imagined it. He looked like something from the old stories.”
Mary turned to her mother. “He’s alive? We saw him shot, and he fell—”
“He’ll be a long time healing. But yes, he’s well, and will be relieved to see you all home safe.”
Mary started crying again and quickly brushed the tears away.
“This is quite the mess,” Robin said, regarding the three bodies. Will went to one, started to put his foot on it to yank out the arrow, when Robin held up a hand. “Leave them. We’ll load them on a cart and send them to the Earl of Pembroke’s son with Robin Hood’s arrows sticking out of them. Let him make of it what he will.”
Will gave a curt laugh. “That’ll start a row.”
“I’m not starting this one, am I? I never started anything, but by God, I will finish—”
Marian took Robin’s arm, standing firmly between both him and Eleanor. “Robin, you have nothing to justify.”
“Oh, no, it’s just . . . I thought I could stop fighting.” He touched Eleanor’s cheek and kissed Marian.
Much and his troop arrived with horses to load the bodies on, and, by torch and lantern light, they started back for home. The younger of Edmund’s men was some distance down the path—he had fled, screaming, and now he was tied up, and still screaming. Robin hauled him to his feet and wrapped his hands in the man’s collar.
“No, please! I beg you, have mercy, have mercy!”
“Mary, did this one lay a hand on any of you?” her father asked. The man wept harder.
“No, he didn’t,” she said, though the curiosity of what her father would do if she said yes tempted her to lie. The power of holding this man’s life in her hands was shockingly enticing.
“Well then. You are spared.”
“Oh, thank you, God bless you, God bless—”
“You will take your fellows back to your master and tell him what happened here. Do you understand?” Sobbing, nothing more. Disgusted, Robin dropped him and let the others load him up with the dead bodies, which did nothing to settle the man’s wailing.
Robin looked at his children. “What in God’s name did you do to these men?”
Mary started to speak, then closed her mouth because she didn’t know where to start. Didn’t know how to tell what had happened without making it sound fanciful.
John answered him. “Mary told them that Sherwood is full of ghosts and looks after its own, and she was right.”
The father regarded them, nonplussed. “Is that so?” John nodded, so sure.
“Those old stories are good for something after all,” Marian said evenly. “Come along. I think dawn is nigh.”
Indeed it was, and when they arrived back at the manor, the sun was up. Mary was first in the hall, rushing in to see the ghost for herself: asleep, wrapped in blankets and furs, his naked shoulder
bandaged. Entirely mortal, and this was a relief.
“He’s asleep?” she whispered to Joan, who was seated nearby, with her spindle. The matron beamed at her, at them all when they came into the hall after her.
“Yes, my lady. He’s had a long night but he’s doing well. And you’re safe? Everyone’s safe?” All was well, all was safe.
The man, Little John, stirred. He squinted, focused on Mary, then sank back.
“God be praised,” he murmured.
“Is he here?” the younger John called, running up next to Mary, and Eleanor was right behind him, until they were all lined up and staring at the Ghost of Sherwood.
“You’re all here,” Little John said wonderingly.
Mary sat on a bench nearby. “Why did you hide? Why not come out of the woods, even to visit?”
“Right at the moment, I can’t think why. But I’m glad I was out there last night.”
“Me as well. Thank you.”
“The company of Robin of Locksley watches out for each other.” He looked up to see Robin and Marian arrive, and chuckled.
They stayed in the hall while Joan fetched food and wine, and they told the story of all that had passed. John—Young John, as they had begun to call him—told it best, though he stretched the truth almost to the point of breaking, going on about how he wanted to fight them all and steal their bows and put arrows in all their throats but Mary stopped him because she said the bows were too big for Eleanor to draw, and, and . . .
“You could have given Eleanor one of the swords,” Robin said.
“Well, yes, that’s true, but there were plenty of knives to be had, and that would perhaps be better.”
“Oh, certainly.”
“Dearest, don’t encourage him,” Marian said.
“Who, me? I never.” Robin winked.
Mary decided then that she believed all the stories about her parents, every single one of them.
John continued. “Then the brute made Mary shoot a bow, to see if she could shoot like you.”
“How did she do?” Robin asked, eyeing Mary across the hearth.
“The shot was impossible, but she did it. I don’t think you could have done it, Father, but she did.”
Robin laughed. “Well done, Mary.”
“John, you’re exaggerating,” Mary said.
“I think we’ve earned some exaggeration, after this night,” the boy said. “We spread this story, no one will ever bother us again.”
“He isn’t wrong,” Will Scarlet said.
“Indeed,” Robin said, and seemed pleased.
Then Robin and Will went out to prepare the cart and bodies to send to the Earl of Pembroke and his son; Little John fell asleep, and so did Young John and Eleanor. Eleanor slept with her head in Marian’s lap, Marian’s arm resting over her like a shield. John had wrapped himself in a blanket and settled on a bench. He shifted, restless.
Mary couldn’t sleep. She’d watched Edmund and the others die and still couldn’t entirely believe they were gone. She wasn’t sure what she thought of her father’s plan to send the bodies to the Earl of Pembroke—Mary had heard of William Marshal, and she wondered if he would send men back to Locksley, to attack in retribution for the deaths. Or if this would all be laid on the younger William Marshal and forgotten. It would never end. And Robin believed he could keep them safe.
“Mary?”
“Hm?”
“Just seeing if you’re awake. You know, dear one, you don’t have to marry William de Ros or anyone else if you don’t want to.”
She hadn’t been thinking of marriage plans at all. Or maybe she had, without realizing it. Would marriage keep her safe? She looked at her mother’s overtired face, the way her hand clenched protectively on Eleanor’s arm and her gaze kept falling on John, the large man with the arrow wound who had been prepared to die for them, and Mary believed that no, it couldn’t. But having good friends around you could.
“I think I would like to meet him first, before I decide.”
“That would be wise.”
“What do you suppose he’ll make of a girl who can shoot better than he can?”
“I think in your case, he will expect nothing less.”
Mary shifted seats, came to sit on the bench by her mother, being careful not to disturb Eleanor, and put her head on Marian’s shoulder to try to sleep a little.
About the Author
Photograph by Helen Sittig
CARRIE VAUGHN’S work includes the Philip K. Dick Award–winning novel Bannerless, the New York Times bestselling Kitty Norville urban fantasy series, and more than twenty novels and upward of one hundred short stories, two of which have been finalists for the Hugo Award. Her most recent work includes a Kitty spin-off collection, The Immortal Conquistador. She’s a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared-world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin and a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at www.carrievaughn.com.
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Also by Carrie Vaughn
Bannerless
The Wild Dead
Discord’s Apple
After the Golden Age
Dreams of the Golden Age
Voices of Dragons
Martians Abroad
Steel
Amaryllis and Other Stories (short stories)
Straying from the Path (short stories)
THE KITTY NORVILLE SERIES
Kitty and the Midnight Hour
Kitty Goes to Washington
Kitty Takes a Holiday
Kitty and the Silver Bullet
Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand
Kitty Raises Hell
Kitty’s House of Horrors
Kitty Goes to War
Kitty’s Big Trouble
Kitty Steals the Show
Kitty Rocks the House
Kitty in the Underworld
Low Midnight
Kitty Saves the World
Kitty’s Greatest Hits (short stories)
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
i
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
viii
About the Author
Also by Carrie Vaughn
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE GHOSTS OF SHERWOOD
Copyright © 2020 by Carrie Vaughn
All rights reserved.
Cover art and design by Elizabeth Dresner
Edited by Lee Harris
A Tor.com Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10271
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Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
ISBN 978-1-250-75210-9 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-250-75211-6 (trade paperback)
First Edition: June 2020
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