Rowan Hood Returns by Nancy Springer Page A

man on earth whom she would wish to visit.
    Yet by some unaccountable perversity of the Lady, Hurst Orricson, dying in Rowan’s arms, had begged her, “Warrior damsel, prithee, tell our father where we lie.” And looking upon his beaten face, she had thought, This is one of them, one of those who set his torch to the thatch and killed my mother —but the thought had seemed meaningless at that moment, as death rattled in his throat and he had whispered, “Promise me. ” Willy-nilly she had nodded. Unshed tears stinging her eyes, unable to speak for pity, she had watched her enemy die.
    As her other enemy lay already dead.
    It was as if the Lady had blessed Ro’s quest for vengeance with the deaths of those two plus the great good fortune of food, clothing and captured horses. Yet in no way could Rowan put the name of blessing to the cold and tangled winds blowing in her heart, the frigid battle raging there.

Fourteen
    H orses travel far fast,” Rowan whispered in awe as they halted at the northern edge of Barnesdale Forest. Spring had advanced only a little; elms put forth pale green shoots now, and sticky chestnut buds hinted at clusters of leaf to come. Only a few days had passed, and Rowan did not feel ready to be where she was: sitting in a tall steed’s saddle, looking across Lord Orric’s demesne. Before her lay pastureland, then freshly plowed land where beets and barley would grow, then a huddle of huts, and then, towering over the village that surrounded it, the walls of the lord’s stronghold.
    And beyond the stronghold, more strips of cropland where peasants ploughed with oxen, and more wasteland where boys herded sheep and goats, and in the blue distance, a soft mound almost like a low-growing violet-colored flower.
    â€œSee yonder forest?” Rowan pointed it out to the others, trying without quite succeeding to keep her voice from faltering. “That’s Celandine’s Wood.”
    Her home.
    â€œWould that we were going there,” said Lionel.
    â€œWe are.”
    â€œIf we live.”
    Etty ordered, “Lionel, hush. Seven feet tall and you whine more than the rest of us put together. ”
    â€œBecause I know what’s ahead! No wind blows more fickle than a lord. If we just stroll into Orric’s hall and tell him—”
    Rowan said, “We won’t.”
    All eyes turned to her eagerly. Beau exclaimed, “Mon foi, you have changed your mind?”
    â€œNo. I must keep my promise. But there is more than one way to beard a lord.”
    She explained her plan.
    It took only a few minutes to get down off the horses and prepare. Everything that marked them as outlaws—bows, arrows, even belts or shoes made of deerskin—had to be hidden out of sight. Etty still had the cowhide boots she had worn from Celydon, and Lionel wore a pair he had taken from one of the dead knights, but Beau and Rowan slipped off their boots and went barefoot. Weapons, supplies, all clothing of Lincoln green and brown, Etty’s cloak, everything they wished to keep in their possession they wrapped in blankets and strapped onto Dove. The pony’s mane and tail had grown unkempt, and her brown dye had come off in patches, making her skewbald; to anyone who did not study her aristocratic head and neck, she looked like a humble pack animal. Leading Dove by a makeshift rope put together of reins and harness, Beau got up on the gray steed behind Lionel. Rowan and Etty shared the bay steed, but this time with Rowan in front, at the reins, for she knew the way.
    All four of them looked at one another and found no words to say.
    Then they rode out of Barnesdale Forest and across the grazing lands toward Borea.
    Strangers did not often come to this far northern place. Never had Rowan felt so many eyes upon her, upon all of them, as when they rode up to the edge of the village. Men shouted to one another, ploughman to smithy to miller to carpenter;