Rowan Hood Returns by Nancy Springer

Ettarde raised a cairn of stones over the corpses, to keep the carrion birds from pecking out their eyes. It was long, hard, somber work. Rowan labored with the others until her legs would no longer support her, then sat on the heather, whispering the blessing of the Lady over the dead. By the time stones covered the bodies, the sun was setting, casting a red glow on the end of the day as Lionel marked the place with the knights’ two swords, their bloodstained blades plunged into the earth.
    Rowan and the others spent the night in Hurst’s pavilion, on the other side of the river within the poplar grove, all of them silent and subdued despite the great wealth they found under its canvas roof: gold and jewels, but more to their purpose, food, drink, salves, blankets, clothing—all manner of luxury, including soap.
    Traveling onward rather late the next day, freshly washed in the river, Rowan and her companions had horses to ride, and plenty to eat: the knights’ saddlebags carried dried apples, bread, cheese and smoked pork. Ro, Beau and Etty each wore one of Hurst’s flowing tunics draped and girded to serve as a gown. Even Lionel had found among the loose-fitting garments a bright yellow jerkin only a little too small for him, sky blue leggings and a rose-red hat and sash. Decked in his favorite colors, with mismatched colorful trappings on his gray steed, he appeared every inch the carefree traveling minstrel.
    But he had little to say. None of them did. Rowan rode silently behind Etty on the other warhorse, the bay, and Beau just as silently rode Dove, across open, windy moorland where plovers cried.
    Finally, around midafternoon, Lionel turned his head to ask Rowan, “Why did you try to help them?”
    He spoke gently enough, but Rowan clenched her teeth, for she considered that it had been weakness, mollycoddle folly, that had made her forget her vow of vengeance, jump off of Dove, kneel in the mud by the two dying knights and try to bind their wounds.
    Yet Lionel did not sound as if he were teasing.
    She gave him a hard look. “Why do you ask?”
    â€œI have my reasons.” Reining in his horse to ride closer to her, Lionel asked again, “Why did you?”
    Rowan sighed and turned her eyes forward. “I don’t know. Stupidity.” Hurst Orricson and his brother Holt had died within moments of her arrival. Even if they had not already lost so much blood, they would have died. Each of them bore more than one fatal wound.
    As if in cahoots with Lionel, Etty asked, “Would you have saved their lives if you could have?”
    From her seat behind the saddle, Rowan could not see Etty’s face. But Etty did not sound as if she were teasing either.
    Still, Rowan gave no answer. She did not know the answer.
    â€œLa, Rowan, I think it is because of what Petrarch say.” This from Beau, riding Dove at a trot to keep up with the larger horses. She had removed the deerskin wrappings from Dove’s hooves, for what was the purpose ? A blind tracker could have followed the hoofprints they were leaving now.
    Etty raised her brows. “Petrarch?”
    â€œHe say, ‘What the brain forget, yet the heart remember. ’”
    â€œI don’t recall that in Petrarch.”
    Rowan burst out, “I think it is because I have the brain of a mudhen.”
    â€œThink you so?” asked Lionel owlishly.
    â€œ Yes. I am a lackwit nincompoop to be doing a favor for my enemieis.”
    â€œIndeed.”
    â€œYes. But it doesn’t matter. We would have needed to go to Borea regardless.”
    â€œWe would?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œwhy?”
    â€œTo find the other two: ”
    Jasper of the Sinister Hand. Guy Longhead.
    Knights of Lord Orric of Borea.
    Two years ago, fleeing to Sherwood Forest, Rowan had done so in part to escape becoming a peasant in Lord Orric’s village or a wench in his fortress.
    Hard old Orric of Borea was perhaps the last