Read Online Forbidden Forest by Michael Cadnum - Free Book Online Page A

it, too, a deep, earthbound sound, soft but beyond mistaking—something was out there in the darkness.
    Each man put his hand on his bow, and even John put his hand on his staff where it lay across his feet.
    A guard out in the woods conferred softly with the messenger, and when the man returned he said, “A wild pig hungry, digging up roots.”
    â€œA wild sow could tell a story, if we fed her and put a cup in her hand,” opined Will, and the men around the fire laughed.
    John recognized a rebuke when he heard it.
    â€œTell us a story,” said Robin Hood.
    Give me a tale, John breathed to whatever powers listened. A story equal to this warm fire and these welcoming faces.
    â€œThere was a woman in the woods,” he began, and then he looked away from the fire.
    Where did these words come from? What power gave him this speech? John did not trust his tongue. He would not say another word.
    He spoke.
    â€œShe was driven away by the gossip of her neighbors, and hurt by the lies of men and women both,” John continued, without intending to. The men leaned closer to the fire, eyes bright. “She fled into the woods, which had always frightened her.”
    John told the story of a woman harried by hound and cutthroat, hunter and miller, every hand against her as she fled. He told the tale of a woman feeling her feet spread, green and rooted, and her arms uplifted, forking, her body breaking into leaf. “To this day a man seeking refuge in the woods could climb her unaware, and sleep safely in her arms.”
    When he was done, John sat in silence.
    â€œSuch good company deserves a better story,” John said at last, his eyes downcast. A strange feeling warmed him. In some way John could not understand, his companions had drawn this story forth from him. John had never experienced this power to tell a tale so keenly before.
    â€œA finer story I’ve never heard!” said Will.
    â€œNor I,” said Robin Hood.
    That night John woke with a start to the sound of a guard murmuring, Robin Hood whispering, a sound of concern.
    John reached and found his staff. These outlaws could not post enough wood-wise guards, John feared. Surely the sheriff, or Lord Roger and his hired swords, had followed him here.
    Surely trouble was closing in through the forest.
    John rose, staff in hand, and found Robin Hood far from the lingering glow of the embers.
    â€œWill Scathlock went out when the moon rose,” said Robin. “To see if he could find us eggs from a rich man’s henhouse.”
    John listened to the night stillness of the forest.
    Robin added, “He has been gone too long.”

Chapter 13
    Grimes Black led the way, and John followed.
    The big man had asked for the privilege of repaying Robin Hood’s hospitality by helping Grimes find Will, and Robin had agreed. Grimes followed the all-but-invisible traces Will had left on the forest floor: the scant smudge of wet footprint, the subtlest scent of crushed leaf. When the ground was muddy, the surefooted Grimes bounded from the roots of trees, scurrying over logs and fallen branches.
    John stayed right behind the woodsman, unable to see more than a shadowy figure ahead. From time to time Grimes looked back, his face pale in the crosshatched moonlight from above, and John whispered reassurance: “I’m still here!”
    They knelt at the edge of the woods. A stone wall ran across the pasture, the rocks shining in the light of the moon. The night was lifting and a wind stirred the oaks behind them. The stars to the east were dim, and the first birdsong of the day began somewhere off over a clump of thick-walled houses, the sort of dwellings that might have armed retainers, even a knight and aging squires, men with hungry swords.
    A water-well lay before them, a ragged oval half-hidden by nettles. Many farms had old wells, abandoned and forgotten, newer wells closer to home having been dug. While some landowners