The Forest Queen Page 16

  And yet I saw Will Stutely first, the vivid blue of his eyes over his veil, his powerful shoulders—​and his arm around Little Jane, and hers around him. They were laughing together as they walked away from the dancing, in exactly the manner of friends, yet the admiration in Stutely’s eyes as he looked at Little Jane was not simply that of friendship.

  It was something I’d seen in him, I realized, since his first morning in the forest, but I hadn’t put a name to it.

  “So what happens next?” I asked as they joined me.

  “The king is coming in,” said Stutely. “He’ll bless the Marian.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “The king comes to this?”

  “Of course. The prince would be here, too, if he weren’t away on that inane mission of his.”

  My father had told me that none of the nobility participated in these ancient seasonal festivals. I thought of how sure I’d been, over the course of the autumn and winter, that part of the problem with this country was how disconnected the nobles had become from such things. But I’d known, too, that my genteel, urbane father had a personal dislike for anything remotely connected to the dirt and cold and wet and . . . asymmetry of the natural world.

  He’d lied to me, and that was the fact of it. The king came to bless the Marian, and if the prince were here he would have danced in the May with the rest of us. I could hardly believe it.

  Trumpets sounded, a much more formal and regal sound than the joyous rough strings and singing that had accompanied the dancing. A procession of nobles walked up onto the covered platform at one end of the square and took their seats along a row of plushly cushioned chairs. They were smiling, laughing, brightly clothed, and I recognized more than a few of them. There was Clara, even, with her drugged little dog . . .

  John wasn’t among them, king’s sheriff or no. I realized I’d been waiting to see him, dreading to see him, ever since we’d left the forest. My relief swept through me so strongly that I began to tremble.

  I reached out for Bird at my side, simply by instinct. But he hadn’t come back after the dance; he wasn’t there. I didn’t know where he was.

  I stepped closer to Little Jane and Stutely but still felt cold.

  The king came last of all, of course, and accompanied by the greatest fanfare yet.

  He raised a hand, and the music stopped.

  He began a rote speech about the greatness of Esting and its culture, but I ignored his words, scanning the crowd for Bird. He wasn’t there, but still I didn’t want to listen to the king, didn’t want to hear the hypocrisy of his praise for a kingdom that starved its populace so that he and his nobles could wear riches like they wore that day, so that his spoiled son could decide no woman deserved him and launch himself off on a cripplingly expensive romantic adventure.

  That is, I couldn’t bear to listen until Clara began to speak. She stepped forward with several other court ladies whom I vaguely recognized. They wore fine, gauzy spring dresses, and each had a spray of almond blossoms pinned over her heart.

  “Thank you for letting us speak, Your Majesty,” Clara said. She and her friends curtsied in perfect unison. She turned to face the crowd. “We wear these flowers to show our sympathy with the poor and destitute of Esting. We have begun a Ladies’ Fund in the royal court, and we are raising money to give to the Brethren’s efforts to aid the less fortunate. Our women-in-waiting will be selling corsages like these today for five crowns, and the dresses that Lady Julia, Lady Constance, and I are wearing will be auctioned at the end of the festival.” She and her friends turned to each side, showing off the beautiful, expensive clothes that, auction or no, they would never deign to wear a second time.

  “Thank you for your attention.” They curtsied again and retreated to stand behind the king once more.

  “Five crowns!” I whispered.

  Mae Tuck shook her head in amazement.

  I found that I was nearly shaking with anger. I had no doubt of Clara’s good intentions, but who exactly did she think was going to buy little bouquets of exotic imported flowers at such an exorbitant price? We’d left three crowns at each house in Woodshire Village after our caper with the Brethren carriage, knowing that the sum would see them through the winter. None of the commoners here could afford such a price, and few of the nobles would want to.

  “You know just what the court’s Brethren will do with that money, too,” Mae Tuck murmured, “and it isn’t feed the hungry, I can tell you that.”

  “And who do they think will bid on the dresses? No one in the crowd can afford them, and no noblewoman would be caught dead in a dress another lady has already worn . . .”

  The Mae nodded. “The king let her speak because it makes him look charitable. The ladies get to show off their kind hearts, to believe they’re doing good, without making any real change to the way things are. He’d never let them speak if they posed any serious threat.” She raised her eyebrows and shot me a smile. “True change requires radical action—​like ours in the forest. Like yours, Silvie. You made a real change, took real risks, to help your people. You’re not just play-acting at charity.”

  I shook my head. My anger at Clara’s naivety was starting to leave me, and in its place was a sickly kind of self-loathing. I’d abandoned my comfortable life at Loughsley, but I had never known, could never know, the hardships that most of the people in Esting faced.

  Clara and her ladies were smiling at each other smugly behind the king, certain of their own goodness. Was I really so different from those preening, posing nobles?

  I saw Princess Ghazia—​the Su princess who’d been at the Hunt Ball, brought in to woo Rioch—​watching Clara, and there was doubt clearly written in her eyes above her veil. I wondered what she and her attendants thought of this farce.

  I froze with sudden shock. Someone else had moved forward to stand near the king. At his side, tall and fierce, surveying the crowd with barely restrained violence and contempt in his eyes, was the sheriff.

  John.

  FIFTEEN

  Alana and Ghazia

  I stepped in front of Little Jane before I let myself think about anything else. Above all John must not see Little Jane with a baby, must not see Anna. That he mustn’t see me, either, hardly mattered in comparison.

  Behind me, I could feel Little Jane’s energy drain away as she noticed my brother, too. Stutely was at my side at once, lending his broad frame to the shield I was trying to make.

  “Crouch down a little, if you can,” I muttered, not daring to turn around. “Once you’re far enough away from the square, go to the forest. We’ll join you there soon. Mae Tuck, go with her.”

  Little Jane and the Mae vanished, and the spaces they left in the crowd were filled at once. Finally I felt as if I could breathe.

  But John wasn’t even looking at the crowd anymore. After the applause for the king died down—​how could they clap for a man who’d taken so much of their lifeblood?—​he conferred briefly with the monarch, then walked around the dais and toward the Maypole in the center of the square. Alana Dale didn’t move, even when it became clear that she was blocking the path he wanted to take. He glared at her, stared her down with the malevolent gaze I’d seen him direct, over the course of my life, toward almost everyone but me; it had never proven ineffective.

  Yet the troubadour held his gaze, smirking. She started down into the bow she’d given the Marian, then turned it into a mocking little pirouette. She took her lute and prodded its neck into John’s chest, just as if it were a knife. “A tune for you, Sheriff?” she asked, sarcastically deferent.

  Around me the whole crowd laughed: another story to tell of the lady troubadour, playing out before their eyes. But the last thing I felt able to do was to laugh with them.

  “One for you, my dear,” said John, in tones that were anything but endearing. “Here’s a story for you, friends”—​addressing the crowd—​“this minstrel is the Forest Queen.”

  He seized the neck of Alana’s lute and
wrenched it from her with one hand. With the other, he grabbed the girl herself, then casually dropped the fine instrument; it fell to the cobblestones, and in the sudden silence of the crowd I could hear the ping of strings breaking.

  “The Forest Queen?” I murmured blankly to Stutely.

  He frowned down at me. “How can you not know . . . ?”

  I remembered what one of the rogues had said, the night they had joined our band. “To follow the forest’s queen . . .” I shivered.

  “The criminal who has raided your coffers all winter,” John said, nodding toward the dais, to the king and all the nobles, “has been laughing at you all this time. And you’ve been laughing with her! Applauding her! No more. Today the Forest Queen becomes queen of the dungeon—​or of the noose.” He turned, wrenching Alana so that she was forced to turn with him, and he nodded deferentially to the king. “As you decree, Your Majesty.”

  The king beckoned, and a black-robed priest approached from the shadows and leaned over his throne. The king murmured a question, or a series of questions, judging by how long he took to speak. Whatever the priest’s reply, it was very short. A word or two and he receded into the shadows at the back of the dais again.

  “Any traitor must take the noose,” the king said.

  John nodded. “Then we shall add a public hanging to the May festivities,” he said.

  I felt a kind of horror I’d never known when another cheer went up. Not a hearty one, and not from everyone in the crowd, but it was there.

  Alana Dale kept that bold smile on her face, that charm. And as John began to lead her away, she started to sing.

  Slack your rope, hangman; slack it for a while.

  I think I see my mother coming, riding many a mile . . .

  It was the first few bars of an old folk ballad; I’d heard several of the rogues singing it in the forest over the winter, and even Bird would whistle it once in a while.

  Alana’s voice broke, but she laughed as it failed her.

  The Forest Queen. I knew that John, in his way, was protecting me by claiming that the title belonged to someone else. That he would protect me by killing this charming songbird, and that it would be nothing to him to do so.

  “Stutely,” I said, “how long will it take to gather the rogues?”

  He chuckled, low and harsh. Then he gave a whistle that pierced the air, and I saw a dozen pairs of eyes, two dozen, more, turn toward us, and more than two dozen bodies begin to move through the crowd. “Done,” he said. “We’re ready at your word, my queen.” There was none of the teasing I wanted to hear in his voice when he gave me that title.

  I didn’t have time to worry about why I was the one leading them, or why they were following my orders. I knew what the Forest Queen had to do.

  “Keep them spread around the square. We’ll take her as soon as we can; you’ll know the moment.”

  Stutely nodded, and I stepped forward, out of the crowd. I prayed Little Jane and Mae Tuck were well clear of this place by now.

  “Let Alana go,” I said. “She’s innocent. She’s not the Forest Queen.” I threw my hat to the ground with what I hoped was a suitably dramatic gesture. I needed this story to spread, too, or John would just choose another victim. I needed everyone in Esting City to see that I was the Forest Queen.

  John had stopped walking, but he hadn’t turned back to look at me. I could see the angry movement of his shoulders as he breathed. I could see the firm grip he had on Alana Dale’s arms as he wrenched them up against her back.

  Slowly he turned around. When I finally saw his face, it was indescribably sad. “You were gone, Silvie,” he whispered. “You would have been safe after this. You could have come back . . .” The sadness in his face was draining away. Rage was taking its place, frosty and hard. “A fool at every turn. So stubborn. When I only wanted—”

  What my brother wanted was just what I had always been running from.

  “Now!” I told Stutely.

  He tackled John, and the band of rogues rushed forward. For a moment it looked as though all the women in the square were closing in on the sheriff. It was a beautiful thing to witness, but I couldn’t watch. I only had time to wrench Alana Dale’s arms from his grasp and tell her to run.

  * * *

  I tugged her along as we pushed through the crowd. I’d come to be able to run very fast in the forest, and I could hardly expect a city-dwelling troubadour to keep up, but I sensed it was something else that kept her following more slowly, almost clumsily.

  I couldn’t ask her, couldn’t even stop to look at her. “Do you want to hang?” I asked, still running as the city gave way to village houses, and then to a country highway, and at last the graceful, shifting green world of Woodshire Forest wrapped its arms around the two of us.

  I didn’t stop running until we were well within the treeline, and even then, I only looked for a sufficiently low-branched tree before hoisting myself up and then reaching down to help Alana after me. I was sure I could hear footsteps—​soldiers’ footsteps, John’s . . .

  Don’t think about it. Just think about getting away.

  We were up in a white pine, high enough that we couldn’t be seen even if they were still following us, even if they could somehow read our footsteps on a cobblestone road, could tell just where we’d left the road for the forest.

  They can’t, I told myself over and over. He can’t.

  I finally let myself rest and look at Alana. She was doubled over on the branch next to me, panting, I thought in pain . . . but no.

  She was laughing.

  I began to feel sick with dread.

  “Did you—​Oh, Lady and Lord,” I said. “You were part of it, weren’t you? He wanted me to rescue you, to lead him back here—” I started to shake, so hard I was in danger of falling out of the tree.

  Alana’s laughter stopped abruptly.

  She narrowed her eyes at me: they were an unremarkable shade of light brown, but just as intense in their expression as I remembered Stutely describing in his story. “Who, the sheriff ? Not at all. Wouldn’t do that bully’s bidding for a kingdom—​or please him to avoid a noose, as you saw yourself. It’s just . . .” She laughed again. “I’ve never been the damsel in distress in one of my own adventures before. I quite enjoyed it, with such a lovely rescuer!”

  I found myself smiling at her.

  “And I’ve been meaning to do a song about the Forest Queen. You’ve given me a great gift, my dear.” She winked at me, and heat rose in my cheeks. Chagrined, I turned away and waved for her to follow me. It was only about two hours’ walk through the canopy until we’d reach the haven again, although it would likely take longer with a companion unused to walking on branches—​even if the light-footed Alana already seemed surprisingly adept.

  “What gift was that?” I asked.

  She began to whistle a tune I recognized as a jauntier version of “The Maid Freed from the Gallows,” which she’d sung in the square.

  “Why, inspiration,” she said, laughing again.

  * * *

  Our supper in the forest that night was the most raucous yet. Stutely and Arthur cavorted in front of the fire, reenacting the “distraction” they’d provided at the festival.

  “Woe is me: a maiden at the May festival without a lover!” Stutely pitched his voice high and clasped his hands over his heart.

  Arthur leapt up next to him. “And I! But perhaps we can comfort each other?”

  They moved in for an embrace, and Arthur swooned back in Stutely’s arms. “What big, strong hands you have, dear lady,” he said.

  “All the better to—” Stutely hefted Arthur upright and spun around, swinging a fist through the air. “And—​there! The first guard never knew what hit him.”

  “None of them did,” Arthur said. “And except for the sheriff and a few of his men, most of them were right hesitant to fight back against women, too. It was easy as walking to flatten the lot of them.”

  Alana grinned. �
�Now that deserves a song, my lads! I’ll have to see what I can do.” She toasted them and took a long drink. We’d opened more of Mae Tuck’s bramble wine, to celebrate both the May and our victory, and the rogues were carousing—​and well deserving of it, too.

  Little Jane sat close by the fire, nursing Anna Robin, Mae Tuck at her side. Part of me wanted to join them, but I found myself keeping apart from the group, scanning the trees for a certain figure, or the patches of night sky for the dark blot of a falcon’s wings. But Bird still hadn’t come back. I hadn’t seen him since our dance.

  Scarlet stayed close to me, even though most nights lately she’d been following Much on hunting expeditions, fruitlessly trying to learn to catch her own dinner. She kept pecking at the hem of my cloak, fidgeting with my sleeves, but she wouldn’t take any of the bits of food I offered her.

  Bird wasn’t around to admonish me for feeding Scarlet as if she were still an owlet, for not letting her get hungry enough to need to learn to hunt effectively. I took a little extra-frustrated pleasure in trying to feed my owl, knowing that the vanished Bird would disapprove.

  She wasn’t eating, but she wouldn’t stop worrying my hems, glaring at me with those huge yellow eyes.

  I heard a frustrated hoot near the fire and looked up to see Much fluttering around Little Jane’s head. He wouldn’t go close enough to risk scratching or pecking the baby, but he was trying to kick up what fuss he could. Little Jane flicked him away halfheartedly, her eyes nearly closing in exhaustion. Even with the milk from Eric’s goats, of which there was enough for his grandmother to make cheese with as well as to feed Anna at night, and even with all of our band’s help, motherhood was exhausting for her.

  I stood up to go offer to hold the baby for a while.

  As soon as I stood, Scarlet let out a shriek and flew for the edge of the clearing. When I didn’t follow, she circled back to me and landed on my shoulder, digging in her talons more fiercely than she’d ever done. She and Much were both staring out at the forest.