Nearby, her bow lay at the ready, strung, with short flint-tipped arrows close at hand. Her wolf-dog, Tykell, lay nearby also, basking in the first warm sunshine of spring. But not at ease. With his head lifted, he tested the messages in the air as Rowan worked. And she also kept watch. As she dropped each plant, yellow sunburst blossom and hoof-shaped leaves and root, into her sack, she scanned the heathery wasteland, careful never to stray too far from the edge of Sherwood Forest. The sheriff’s men had caught her out here in the open once, but they would not catch her again— “Tag. You’re It,” said a man’s soft voice close to her ear, directly behind her. Rowan barely kept from screaming out loud as she leapt up and away, turning in midair, landing in a fighter’s crouch to face— A tall man in stagskin boots, brown woolen leggings and a green jerkin. A handsome, grinning man with blond curls out of control beneath his cap, his sky-blue eyes twinkling bright with fun. “Father,”
