The Forest Queen Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Autumn

  Chasing the Hart

  The Hunt Ball

  Little Jane

  First Night

  Little Jane Kills the Boar

  A New Home

  Mae Tuck

  Scarlet and Much

  Tree Houses

  Band of Rogues

  The Robbing of Loughsley

  Winter

  Interlude

  Anna Robin

  Spring

  Merriment

  Dancing in the May

  Alana and Ghazia

  Steal from the Rich, Give to the Poor

  In Ruins

  Oubliette

  The Forest Queen

  Summer

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Sample Chapter from MECHANICA

  Buy the Book

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Clarion Books

  3 Park Avenue

  New York, New York 10016

  Copyright © 2018 by Betsy Cornwell

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  hmhco.com

  Interior art copyright © 2018 by Sarah J. Coleman

  Cover photo-illustration © 2018 by David Field & José Márquez/caterpillarmedia.com

  Cover illustration of leaf pattern © 2018 by Thinkstock/Getty Images

  Cover design by Jessica Handelman

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Cornwell, Betsy, author.

  Title: The Forest Queen / Betsy Cornwell.

  Description: Boston ; New York : Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2018] | Summary: A retelling of Robin Hood in which Lady Silviana of Loughsley joins her childhood friend Bird, Little Jane, Mae Tuck, and others to become an outlaw fighting for social justice against her brother John, the Sheriff.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017036566 | ISBN 9780544888197 (hardback : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Robbers and outlaws—Fiction. | Nobility—Fiction. | Sex role—Fiction. | Middle Ages—Fiction. | Love—Fiction. | Sherwood Forest (England)—Fiction. | Great Britain—History—John, 1199–1216—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.C816457 For 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017036566

  eISBN 978-1-328-47676-0

  v1.0718

  For D.S.E.L.,

  whose middle name is Sherwood

  Thus ev’ry kind their pleasure find,

  The savage and the tender;

  Some social join, and leagues combine,

  Some solitary wander:

  Avaunt, away! The cruel sway,

  Tyrannic man’s dominion;

  The sportsman’s joy, the murd’ring cry,

  The flutt’ring, gory pinion!

  —​“Song Composed in August”

  Robert Burns, 1783

  Prologue

  High in the trees of Woodshire Forest on a sunny day, the light doesn’t seem to come from above you at all. Light springs out of the leaves there, a round robin of tree and sky: it streams off every twig, drips into the edges of each ebbing shadow until the whole canopy floods with gold, until the air itself smells like light, bittersweet and fresh. You can drown in green sunshine up there.

  Bird and I used to swim in it every day. We’d climb the trees right up to the very top, or at least, as close as we could get. As we grew older, the young branches on the treetops started snapping under our weight. By the time we were ten we couldn’t quite get above the canopy anymore.

  I was bigger than Bird then, and I always told him he should still go up without me. But he never did.

  “Why climb a tree at all if you won’t go as high as you can?” I asked him the first few times. He just grinned at me.

  Eventually I stopped asking. In truth, I’d have missed him if he’d climbed higher than I could follow; he was always my favorite company, and I his. Like trees and sunshine, Bird and me, although I couldn’t tell you who was which.

  I think that’s what bothered John first—​long before he took over the estate, before he became sheriff or tried to marry me off or anything else that happened. Just that I preferred Bird to him.

  John never climbed the trees with us. But sometimes he would wait on the ground as we climbed, and I could feel his gaze on the backs of my legs, watching.

  ONE

  Chasing the Hart

  The huntswoman sounded her horn, and hounds rushed like water around our horses’ feet.

  I leaned forward over my mare’s neck and let out a steady breath as we jumped the stream. She landed lightly, our speed barely breaking, and we plunged ahead with the rest of the party.

  I heard a falcon’s cry and looked back just in time to see the great raptor spread her wings and push off from Bird’s leather-gloved hand. Seraph flashed into the green ocean above us and my friend grinned, tucking the falcon’s hood into his sleeve.

  I felt the huge muscles under me tighten and I looked ahead to see the fallen tree my horse was about to jump. This time I wasn’t ready, and I had my breath knocked from me on her landing as punishment. One of her ears flicked back in reassurance or annoyance, and I felt a reminding tug on the reins I always kept as loose as I could. Pay attention, she was saying. You’re not sitting in any rocking chair, here.

  Bowstrings sliced across my chest as I leaned forward again. I pressed my legs more firmly against the mare’s side and slid my hands into her mane. She felt my focus and began to run flat out.

  Soon all I could see were flashing, flickering streaks of green and orange, the forest colors around us flaming toward autumn. The day was crisp, September-cool, but inside my wool riding habit I was beginning to sweat.

  Scenthounds bayed just ahead of us. The riders gave out joyful whoops and warrior cries. Close behind me on his red-roan gelding, Bird was silent, but I could feel him, focused and determined, listening for the falcon that rode the wind above us, far beyond the shifting, murmuring canopy.

  Then, with a shock like plunging into cold water, we left the forest shadows and entered a sunny clearing, an expanse of tall grass and daisies with a sheer cliff on the other side. There, trapped against the rockface, stood the hart we chased.

  His antlers betrayed his age: no young buck he, but a great elder king of the forest, his horns twisting into a crown that nearly doubled his considerable height. He stomped and thrust those antlers bravely forward, menacing us, but he knew well that he was trapped.

  He’d have to be old to be caught, I knew. Young and healthy quarry, whether hart or hare, fox or boar, almost always outran the hounds. I’d been on countless hunts, and only a handful of times had our day of riding and jumping and following the graceful calls of hound and horn yielded any actual meat for the Loughsley table.

  But this day, it would. I sent up a heartfelt prayer for this animal’s quick, clean death, now that at last we had it cornered.

  “Hold!”

  The hounds hung back, corralled in an instant by the huntswoman’s calls. In the wild, the pack would have overwhelmed this beast in an instant, but a formal hunt is different.

  I tugged my mare’s reins, even though she was already coming to a stop. Shifting the balance of my waist
and hips in the sidesaddle, I straightened my spine as I pulled the bow from my back.

  Prince Rioch moved for his crossbow. As the highest-ranking hunter, the prince had the honor of the first shot, but all of us would be ready to dispatch the animal quickly if his aim faltered. Any good hunter spares their prey needless pain.

  He raised his arms and squared his shoulders, settling the heft of the crossbow in his hands. He squinted through the precisely carved notch at its center.

  Beside him my brother, John, watched and nodded his encouragement. This was our young royal’s first time hunting without the king: he’d never had first shot before.

  The prince’s arrow flew across the clearing.

  I felt a familiar shadow pass over me, and without looking up I knew that Bird’s falcon circled us, and that she watched the arrow, too.

  It pierced the hart’s hind leg.

  He gave a guttural, frothy scream that turned into a panicked groan as he tried to run and found that he could not.

  Hobbled, the great stag began a struggling limp toward the forest.

  I raised my bow, taking in the long breath that would allow me, on the exhale, to shoot clean and true. Around me two dozen hunters did the same. All of us watched the huntswoman from the corners of our eyes; she would give the signal that would let us end the beast’s suffering, and she would not wait long to do it.

  The huntswoman raised her horn.

  “Wait!” John called.

  I stared at my brother in horror.

  “It is the prince’s first quarry,” he said. “Let him try again.”

  I looked back at the huntswoman. I was certain she wouldn’t let this stand; she was a clean and rigorous hunter, and I knew the worth she saw in each life her hunting parties took. She was Bird’s mother, for goodness’ sake!

  But she moved the curved horn away from her tight-set lips and nodded.

  Behind me I heard Bird’s strangled breath. Both he and the huntswoman were servants of Loughsley, and they could not contradict its young master; and even though I was its lady, as the younger sibling, I had no more authority to speak over my brother than they did. Besides, our visiting monarch had just named John sheriff; John had even more power now.

  The prince took out another arrow. He fumbled at his crossbow with unpracticed hands.

  After a long minute, John took the bow and reloaded for him. He handed the crossbow back to our prince with a dutiful nod.

  “Thank you, Loughsley,” Rioch muttered, his color rising.

  Don’t bother with thanks, I thought. Just kill the poor thing.

  The prince’s second shot hit the stag in the neck. Too high to break his windpipe or open an artery, too low to pierce the spine and cease his pain.

  The sound he made this time wasn’t panicked or even loud. It was mewling. Low. He leaned to one side, giving slow, panting, bubbling breaths. His tongue began to loll even while his eyes stayed open.

  His punctured leg buckled, and with a faint snap, he fell.

  Still the huntswoman watched my brother.

  “Once more, Your Highness,” John said.

  The prince’s face was red. “I’ll reload myself,” he muttered.

  In time ticked out by the wheezing clock of the hart’s wounded breaths, he did so.

  A lean, brindled sighthound at the front of our party whined at the scent of blood. I heard the soft clashing of feathers behind me: the falcon came to rest on Bird’s arm again. The twenty or so humans all stayed as still as the animals, our hands cautious on bows, or tight on bridles or saddle horns.

  None of them would speak against my brother, let alone the prince.

  And the beast at the edge of the cliff lay trapped. Killed already, or as good as, but not yet dead, the animal panic in him not enough to numb his pain or mend his bones or carry him to safety.

  I raised my bow again and shot him through the heart.

  TWO

  The Hunt Ball

  One person at the ball was speaking to me at least.

  “Honestly, Silvie, I don’t know how you can bear it,” murmured Lady Clara Halving, smoothing her yellow skirts with one hand and reaching into her long bell sleeve with the other. She produced her nonsensically tiny dog, Titan, and stroked him under the chin. “Hurting innocent animals like that.” She held Titan up to her face and cooed.

  The dog blinked lazily and came halfway out of his drugged stupor. He gave a yawn and displayed a curling pink tongue the size of a fingernail.

  I had to admit, he was adorable.

  Still. “Honestly, Clara, I don’t know how you can bear it,” I replied coolly, “keeping Titan so tranced on opiates he’s more a stuffed toy than a dog. It’s animal cruelty.”

  She huffed and drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t much; her lovely eyes flashed. “I’d never hurt a fly, let alone my sweet puppy,” she informed me, stuffing Titan back up her sleeve. “I give him the drops for his anxiety, poor dear!” She stalked away in the direction of the buffet table.

  “Off for more venison?” I called after her, annoyed—​but at myself, really, not her. Clara had been kind to talk with me. She’d clearly heard the story of my killing the hart, and had known well that it would do her no favors to be seen speaking with me. Like so many young noblewomen, she still cherished a hope of attracting Prince Rioch . . . whom I had flagrantly embarrassed mere hours earlier.

  Lord, it had been romantic suicide for her to speak to me at all. And even though we had some differing opinions, that was hardly reason for me to intentionally push away such selflessness—​especially when almost all the courtiers kept their pets drugged, to stop them from biting or yipping or generally causing a fuss the way animals do. Even the prince kept his dog, a squat and bleary-eyed hound, on the drops. Rioch scratched the dog’s head absent-mindedly as yet another nobleman approached him to tell pretty lies about his hunting prowess, his bravery, his wisdom in appointing my brother as sheriff. There could be no greater lie than calling it wise to give John power.

  I rushed after Clara and touched her shoulder. When she turned, still haughty, I dropped a quick curtsey and then looked her straight in the eye.

  “I’m sorry, Clara, truly,” I said. “Please, I know you were being kind.”

  “Was I?” A muscle in her neck twitched. “And I thought someone just told me I was cruel.” But then she sighed. “Never mind. You were right about the venison, at least. I can’t resist it, and where do I think it comes from?”

  I had to keep myself from embracing her. “I was trying to end the hart’s suffering. The prince couldn’t . . .” I trailed off, not wanting to offend her again by speaking ill of Rioch.

  “That fool? If he can’t aim for the plum target right in front of him at court”—​she tapped her bosom and gave me a too-innocent look—​“one can’t expect his arrows to hit the side of a castle, never mind some little old deer.”

  I giggled, grateful for the change of subject. “You’ve given up all hope, then?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve developed a taste for the palace guards,” she said with a mischievous smile. “They’ve bigger muscles than the noblemen, except of course for new sheriffs who spend their days beating people up—” We both realized she meant my brother in the same moment, and Clara colored and quickly moved on. “Rioch’s never looked twice at even the foreign royals who get shipped in to woo him—​like that Su princess, Ghazia, who’s here now—​let alone any Estinger. If you ask me, he doesn’t believe there’s a girl on the three continents who’s good enough for him. I think his upcoming voyage is just to get away from us.” She threw up her hands dramatically.

  A drunken yip came from her sleeve. “Ooh, sorry, Titan!” Clara petted and fretted over the dog. When he’d settled himself to sleep again, she looked me up and down. “I do love your gown, Silvie, and you’re doing it justice. You’d be quite the success if you ever bothered to come to court, you know, and there are others besides our head-in-the-clouds prince wh
o are well worth attracting. Lord Danton, for one.” She winked again.

  I winced, as if on cue. Five years ago, the last time Loughsley Abbey had hosted a Hunt Ball, I had admired Lord Danton quite ardently—​and I’d blathered about my crush to every other young girl there. Knowing nothing of palace gossip or fashion or tiny lap dogs, I was just grateful to have something to talk about with them.

  Of course, the result was that every soul at the party knew about my infatuation within the hour—​Lord Danton included. He’d indulgently asked me for a waltz, but when I’d seen his knowing smile I had run away, mortified, and hidden myself in the garden for the rest of the night.

  Clara had brought it all back with humiliating clarity. It was almost as hard to forgive her that harmless teasing as her comments about the hunt.

  But I gritted my teeth; unlike five years ago, I was determined not to mind what anyone thought of me. “I wish I could, Clara. And thank you. You look beautiful, too.”

  I smoothed my skirts, managing a little smile. My dress was pale green with a white silk bodice panel and a delicate gold lattice crossed over the full skirt. “Your cage gown,” the seamstress had called it with a laugh quickly followed by a stricken look, wondering if she’d caused offense. But the idea had appealed to me: after all, it wasn’t entirely untrue. I had lived my whole life at Loughsley Abbey in just such a beautiful green-and-gold cage.

  I’d been born in the room I still slept in now. Tutors and governesses had been imported all the way from Esting City, had made the long trek around the wilds of the forest to come here and teach me to dance and ride sidesaddle and hold my forks correctly. My father had taught both John and me to read and write. John had gone to the palace when he was twelve, but I never had. When he was preparing to leave and my father asked me, at age nine, if I would like to go, too, I had been overcome with an attack of shyness so severe that I could hardly breathe, let alone speak. I only shook my head no. John had told me all about the courtiers’ children, and how bullying and mean they were, and warned me that I should stay away for my own safety.