Wild Boy by Nancy Springer Page A

Leave me alone.”
    Rook shook his head, reached for Tod’s hand and grasped it. “Come on.” He tugged. “Robin Hood is searching for you.”
    For a long moment the name hung like a woodland spirit, a power, in the cool shadowy air of the hut. Then Tod sighed and moved. He put Runkling down and reached for his crutch. He crawled out of the hut after Rook. He stood and slowly followed Rook into the forest.
    It took Rook and Tod until twilight to find Robin. All afternoon Tod limped along with his crutch, and Rook plodded beside him, until at last they reached Robin Hood’s camp—and then Robin was not there. One of the outlaws, Will Scathelock, led them to him.
    He led them into a secret place such as Rook had never seen before, or even dreamed of. Made by the ancient green power of the Lady, it must have been, so perfect a ring of silver linden trees around an open space bigger than Fountain Dale, yet only velvety grass grew there. Protected by the
aelfe
, it must have been, so that no henchmen of king or lord would find it, no forest wanderers would stumble upon it, so that only those who grieved could go there.
    This was the place where they buried the dead. Near the center of the green circle rimmed by silver trees, a rectangle of raw earth showed where Robin Hood and Little John had laid the dead outlaw. They were just finishing their work there, mounding the grave.
    Will Scathelock signaled by giving the twitter of a wagtail bird as they entered, and Robin turned to see who it was.
    “Tod, lad!” Robin let his spade fall with a clatter, almost running to meet them. Tod gave an odd sort of choked sound and lurched toward Robin, dropping his crutch. Falling to his knees in the grass, Robin caught him and gathered him into his arms. Tod hugged Robin’s neck and wept.
    “Tod, my poor lad.” Robin stroked the boy’s heaving back as Tod cried like a baby on his shoulder. Rook heard Tod sobbing. He saw how Robin’s blue eyes had gone brighter than ever with tears. He heard his own breath coming in uncouth gasps and felt the salty wetness on his own face.
    He was crying.
    But Rook made no effort to stop his weeping or hide his tears or wipe them from his face. Even a wolf might cry sometimes. But, truth to tell, he wasn’t a wolf or a creature of the wild or a wild boy either. He was just Rook, the swineherd’s son, and he would cry when sorrow touched his heart.

Fourteen

    S ee the stone? This is the place,” Robin Hood told Rook, passing his hand like a sailing hawk over a span of greensward near the center of the linden circle.
    Close beside Robin stood Rowan, and his other hand hugged her shoulders as if he still feared he might lose her, his daughter.
    Rowan seemed to be scanning the ring of silver-leafed trees. Now that a few days had passed and everyone was healing, so was she. Tykell had returned to her. She had slept. Her grave face was peaceful, visionary. “The
aelfe
,” she murmured, gazing. “They’re here. Do you see them, Rook?”
    He looked at her without bothering to shake his head. She knew he had never been able to see the
aelfe
.
    “Where?” Robin asked.
    “Between the lindens, faintly, like moonlight that has lingered in the daytime.”
    Robin nodded. Rook looked between the trees ringing the glade, and somehow this time he did see something, a shimmer, a stirring as if earth and forest were breathing. He couldn’t glimpse the wise, ancient faces of the
aelfe
, but it didn’t matter. He could sense their protection. Their presence would keep anyone of cowardly or evil heart out of this place.
    The king’s foresters, for instance. They or bounty hunters would never trouble these graves. Or the Sheriff of Nottingham.
    But the Sheriff’s son could enter here. Tod was neither cowardly nor evil of heart, and here he came now, limping into the glade, steadying himself with a staff instead of his crutch, stronger than he’d been a week before but still a bit slower than the others. He