Lionclaw: A Tale of Rowan Hood - Hardcover

Ms. Springer lives in East Berlin, Pennsylvania.

Chapter 1

Trudging through Sherwood Forest, with his harp nestled like a turtledove in one big hand, Lionel did not even try to be quiet. It was no use. His feet, the size of pony heads in their curly-tipped shoes, would never learn not to scrape and shuffle. His great lumbering body would never learn not to rustle brush and bracken. And his poor muddled head, seven feet above the ground, would never learn not to conk itself on tree limbs. He made a poor excuse for an outlaw, forsooth.

According to his father, he made a poor excuse for a son altogether.

Lionel slowed, gazing up at tall oaks with acorns fattening on their branches, their autumn leaves hanging muted purple, like old royal velvet, in the twilight. Somewhere high in the darkening sky wild geese bayed like hounds, but Lionel barely heard. Instead, he heard in memory his father’s voice: "You disgrace my name. My heir, a sissy, a harp plucker? You are no son of mine. Go. If I see you again, I will kill you."

The words echoed in Lionel’s mind. Yes, kill. His father had really said that.

And meant it. Lionel remembered his father’s eyes narrowed to slits above his beard, remembered the lion growl in his father’s voice. A great lord can, and will, kill whomever he pleases.

My father.

Two years ago he had threatened Lionel with death. On my birthday. Thirteenth. Unlucky number.

Lionel sighed, lowered his gaze from the storm-purple oaks, and trudged on. In the months since another powerful man, the Sheriff of Nottingham, had put a bounty on his head, he had become accustomed to the threat of death. But remembering his father saying You are no son of mine. He had not yet become accustomed to the heartache.

Or the fear. He often quivered with nerves—oversized, sniveling ninny that he knew himself to be—but he had seldom felt such bone-deep terror as now.

But . . . I have to try.

He slogged on, under the oaks, along a ridge, then into thickets of hemlock and holly, their shadows deepening as night fell. Then down into a rocky dell, where ferns brushed his legs, their fronds dry and yellow at this time of year. Lacework leaves as yellow as primroses, as yellow as Lionel’s jerkin; yellow was his favorite color. The butter-bright ferns seemed to glow in the twilight. Gazing at them, Lionel stubbed his toe, stumbled into a boulder, and almost dropped his harp. A blackthorn branch raked his shoulder. His hand, flung out to grab something solid, found only a patch of nettles. "Owww!" he complained.

"Lady have mercy, harper," said a quiet voice in the nightfall. "A deaf man could hear you coming."

Peering into the shadows, Lionel could just make out the gleam of a polished longbow, then behind it the form of a man in green. Uphill from Lionel, motionless and almost invisible amid wild quince and ivy, one of Robin Hood’s men was standing guard duty.

Lionel cringed. "Don’t shoot me!" he squeaked.

In the dusk he could not see the outlaw’s good-humored contempt, but he depended on it, knowing it was there. "Maybe not this time," the man said. "Are you on your way to join the feast?"

Standing still, with the ferns no longer rustling around his shins, Lionel could hear the talk and laughter of the outlaws in their hideout on the other side of the rise.

Seeming to take his silence for ignorance, the guard said, "Robin has brought in a rich lord today, and a dozen of his retainers." To show those whom he robbed that he was no common cutthroat, Robin Hood spared their lives but required them to spend a night with him and his band. "We are giving them our best Sherwood Forest hospitality." Illegal venison, in other words, sauced with humiliation. "But the lord seems not to like it."

Lionel nodded and whispered, "Lord Roderick Lionclaw."

"Aye! Who told you?"

"Will Scathelock." All the outlaws were Lionel’s friends, amused by his vast size and timid disposition. "He said Lionclaw fought hard."

"Harder than most, but no match for Robin Hood and his merry men."

Small wonder. Anyone who wanted to join Robin’s band had to take on Robin in single combat. One of the many ironies of Lionel’s life, he considered, was that he had become an outlaw by helping to save Robin Hood’s life, yet he knew himself unworthy to join Robin’s band.

No matter. He gave all his fealty to Rowan: Rowan Hood, daughter of Robin Hood. Without looking, Lionel could feel his strand of the band, the silver gimmal ring, hanging inside his jerkin, over his heart.

"I’m here on an errand," he told the guard.

His own errand. Still, he badly wanted not to disgrace Rowan. Or the others.

The guard nodded. Lionel blundered on.

It was almost dark now. It seemed to Lionel that he tripped over every root and stick and stone in Sherwood Forest getting to the top of the rise. But at last he reached a vantage, a crag, where he could see.

There. Robin’s hollow.

Under the spreading branches of a giant oak, firelight glinted on two score grinning outlaws decked with the loot from the lord’s coffers: fine swords, rich velvets, gold chains. Hoisting flagons of ale, Robin’s men sat one-handedly tossing sacks of gold around the circle, roaring with laughter when they dropped the booty. Their captives, the lord’s men-at-arms, sat among them, huddled like scared rabbits. Lionel could guess their thoughts: They had been defeated in battle. Their hands had been tied; they had been blindfolded and made to ride backward on their own horses, brought to this place against their will. They were not being hurt now, except for their pride, but once Robin released them, would their lord have them flogged? He had been bound and blindfolded and made to ride backward too. They did not dare to look at him.

From the safety of the trees, Lionel looked.

There. Seated in the place of mocking honor, a throne of piled deerskins near the fire, Lord Roderick Lionclaw.

Father . . .

Lionel felt his heart pounding. Had anything changed in two years? Outwardly, no. Tawny in the firelight, his father’s stony face glared out over his jutting beard—the same. His broad-shouldered body, almost as tall as Lionel’s, looked as powerful as ever. His hands, battered in many combats, curled as hard as claws, just the way Lionel remembered them. On his men’s tabards and his own tunic gleamed Lord Roderick’s device, the rampaging golden lion wielding the clawed mace that had made him famous. All the same.

Then Lionel’s gaze shifted as a tall outlaw stood up, his curly cap of golden hair glinting in the firelight, his handsome, weather-tanned face alight with firelight and fun. He wore no looted gold, only his customary Lincoln green, his jaunty cap with a tuft of feathers. "Merry men, a toast!" he cried.

The others quieted, looking up to their leader, Robin Hood.

With solemn drollery Robin turned toward Lord Roderick Lionclaw, raising his flagon. "To the continued very excellent health of our honored guest."

"Hear! Hear!" the outlaws cried as Lionclaw gave Robin a glare like a blaze of dragon flame.

Robin seemed not to notice Lionclaw’s fiery stare at all. "My good lord," he said in tender tones, "you have not touched your dinner. Are you not feeling well?"

Lionclaw told him, "Go to hell."

The outlaws hooted. Looking on, Lionel felt his gut tighten into a Gordian knot of mixed emotions. He knew what it was to suffer taunts. Yet as often as not, it had been his father who had taunted him.

Robin’s mouth pulled down in clownish distress. "My lord is not merry? But...