III: Much Passes Through
Woodgate occupied a geographic and symbolic interstice, belonging neither fully to the city of Nottingham nor to the forest of Sherwood. It stood as an architectural hinge — a transitional space wherein opposing worlds converged: the bureaucratic rigidity of urban governance to the west, and the mythic autonomy of the ancient woodland to the east. To say that it belonged to both would be misleading; it was claimed by neither, and thus served as a domain apart, defined by its threshold.
To the west, Nottingham sprawled outward with red-tiled roofs, tolling bells, and an ever-spiraling architecture of law and commerce. Its walls, constructed in part from quarried stone once laid by Roman hands, had long forgotten their imperial origin. Within, nobles and tradesmen traversed the same lanes but lived in entirely different realities. Governance flourished there, entangled in ledgers, tithes, proclamations, and a burgeoning appetite for uniformity.
To the east stretched Sherwood Forest — not as a garden or pastoral idyll, but as an animate entity with memory and resistance. Its trees whispered in the mist, their branches bearing the weight of forgotten rituals and blood that had long since soaked into the roots. Paths disappeared there; names and maps were of no use. The forest abided by older laws, and transgressors rarely emerged with their bearings intact.
The road that connected them — if it could be called such — was no noble’s avenue. It wound through woodland and briar, a well-worn track used by commoners, pilgrims, and traders with neither the coin nor the patience for city gates. Nobility avoided it altogether. It was uneven, unguarded, and unimportant in the official records of the realm. Yet to those who walked it, the road was essential — a path of necessity and tradition.
Woodgate itself had once served as a royal barracks in the days when King Henry commissioned forest patrols. It had since diminished in stature and function. Its crooked tower sagged with disrepair; its stable hosted a goat in place of a garrison. The old watchpost was unmanned, and the chapel adjoining the gate bore more moss than mortar. And yet, it remained occupied — by a Warden, a boy, and a system older than either.
Local lore attributed the chapel with conditional efficacy: prayers uttered in solitude and silence, especially at dusk, might receive an answer. Offerings appeared on its threshold with regularity — sprigs of rosemary, carved tokens, and silver pennies deformed by punched holes. Whether the chapel answered or merely listened remained a matter of belief.
The gate's functional role, however, was entirely practical. A mark from the Warden granted safe passage into the city. With it, a traveler could bypass Nottingham’s taxed entry points unchallenged. The detour to Woodgate was longer, but many judged it worthwhile. Yet Halward, the Warden, was not easily rushed. Known for his fairness, he was also known for his precision. Each mark was deliberate, and time was his currency. Those who approached in haste often waited the longest.
To some, he was merely meticulous; to others, he was a judge cloaked in iron patience. Rumors held that he could read a man’s character by the way he approached the gate. Few lied to Halward twice. Fewer lied to him once.
The structure had not been designed for ceremonial grandeur or strategic defense. It had been built — and remained — to observe. Halward took this duty as vocation. He watched the living and the dead, the just and the desperate. He watched what entered and what left. But most of all, he watched what paused — what stood between.
And that is what Halward did.
***
The Candlemaker’s Apprentice
The girl arrived just past dawn with a donkey cart that looked held together by beeswax and willpower. Her boots were too large for her feet, and her apron was the kind that had never once been clean, no matter how often it was washed. She smelled of ash and sweet resin, and her hands were nicked from work, not worry.
Halward saw her coming before she crossed the threshold and met her halfway, boots thudding softly on the frost-laced stones.
“Coming from Northwell?” he asked.
She nodded and pushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Aye. With candles for the Lady of St. Peter’s. I’ve been walking since matins.”
“And your master?”
“Follows behind. He’s slow, and sour.”
She glanced at the gate, then at Wilmot, who stood beside the ledger holding the quill too tightly. Her hand moved to her belt, where a small pouch jangled. “How much?”
“A silver penny,” Halward said.
She hesitated, thumb flicking the edge of the pouch.
“I heard it’s three at the city gates.”
“It is,” Halward said.
“Why’s yours less?”
“Because I remember the price of wax when the harvest is bad.”
She smiled, tired but genuine, and handed over the penny.
“Much traffic?” she asked, voice lowered.
Halward nodded. “The roads are full.”
The girl leaned in, almost conspiratorially. “They say the greenwood’s wrong. My cousin swears something watched her on the Wellow road. A knight, she said, or not a knight. No face. Just pointed.”
Halward’s face didn’t move.
“She said her oxen turned ‘round on their own. Broke their yoke and trotted off like cats from fire.”
“And she saw no face?” he asked.
“She said she saw nothing, but felt something, like being looked at through stone.”
Halward nodded once, slowly. “Men can be made to look like monsters.”
The girl looked unconvinced. “All I know is her candles shattered. All but one.”
“Which?”
“Saint Agnes. The one for lost children.”
Wilmot blinked.
Halward reached into his own pouch and drew out another coin. “Two Saint Agnes, if you have them.”
She blinked, surprised. “Three pennies, if you want the good wax.”
Halward smiled thinly. “A penny and a half, if you expect me to believe that wasn’t last winter’s batch with new wrapping.”
“Two,” she said. “And I’ll tie them myself.”
Halward considered. “A penny and a half, and you tell the priest at St. Peter’s that the gate still blesses the roads.”
She held his gaze, then nodded once. “Deal.”
She rummaged through the cart and returned with two squat, well-formed candles wrapped in linen. Halward handed over a silver penny and a clipped half, then tucked the candles into the folds of his coat.
“One for the chapel,” he murmured. “And one for the gate.”
The girl climbed back onto her cart and flicked the reins. The donkey snorted, resentful.
She passed through without another word. As the wheels creaked away, Wilmot leaned toward Halward.
“You could’ve paid her full.”
“Aye,” Halward said. “But then she wouldn’t have remembered me.”
“Do you believe her?”
Halward kept his eyes on the road. “No. But I believe she’s afraid.”
***
The Blind Bard
He came just before the sun reached its apex, leaning on a crooked staff of hollywood, with a weathered harp slung over one shoulder like a weight he’d long since stopped noticing. His cloak, stitched from mismatched cloth, bore the dull hue of leaves decayed and trampled. His boots made no sound. His beard, grey and wiry, tangled as bramble. The scent of elderflower clung to him faintly. And though his eyes were milky and unfocused, he made his way to the gate with unsettling precision.
Wilmot was the first to notice him. The boy, idle between entries in the ledger, had been sketching crude figures into the dust with the back of his quill. He stood up straight. "He’s blind," he whispered.
Halward did not glance up. "Then show him courtesy. Not commentary."
Wilmot stepped forward, brushing dust from his tunic and speaking in a voice pitched somewhere between formality and caution. "Name, sir?"
The man grinned beneath the shadow of his beard. "Ah, boy. I’ve had names fit to line every chapel from here to York. But if you need one, call me what they called me last in Lincoln: Harrow Jack."
Wilmot looked back toward Halward, uncertain. The Warden gave the smallest of nods.
"A silver penny for passage," the boy recited.
The harpist raised his hand and gently tapped the frame of his instrument. "No coin today, gatekeeper. But I carry something older than silver. A memory in the shape of a song. Will that suffice?"
Halward looked up at last, studying the man in full. He said nothing, but did not object.
With the slow deliberation of ceremony, the old man knelt just shy of the gate’s threshold. He set the harp in his lap, brushed a bit of straw from its strings, and plucked a series of notes that shimmered into the morning like ripples in still water.
"This road remembers more than your ink and parchment ever will," he said, almost to himself. "But your gate—your gate listens. Even when the city forgets."
He played, and then sang:
The first was swift, with arrow keen,
He vanished where the moss grows green.
He stole no gold, but claimed a name,
And left behind a trail of flame.The second came on market day,
He bowed, he laughed, he slipped away.
His song was heard, his face was not,
His tale was told, his name forgot.The third stood where the crossroads meet,
No mask, no fame, no known deceit.
He loosed no shaft, he spoke no vow,
Yet three men followed him somehow.So count the arrows, one, two, three—
And ask which one was truly he?
A bow, a hood, a whispered name—
But none could say from whence it came.
The final chord lingered in the air like incense, and for a moment the forest fell silent. Even the goat, ever restless, stood unmoving. The gate creaked softly, unbidden by hand or wind.
Halward said nothing. He did not move. His gaze remained on the man, or perhaps beyond him.
Wilmot found his voice first. "That was beautiful," he said. "I didn’t understand all of it, but it felt like it meant something."
The harpist rose slowly. "That tune’s worth more than a penny, boy. It’s one of the few that still remembers the forest’s breath."
Halward stepped forward and marked the ledger—not a name, not a date. Only a sign known to him alone.
"Pass."
"Gratitude," said Harrow Jack. He tapped the stone underfoot thrice with the end of his staff. "Mind the wind tonight, Warden. The forest sings when it remembers."
As he departed, the sunlight shimmered strangely along the edges of his form. For the briefest moment, Wilmot thought he saw a different man beneath the glamour—taller, younger, with eyes like twilight and a bow slung instead of a harp. But then the illusion reasserted itself, and Harrow Jack walked steadily on, every step unerring.
He was gone before Wilmot could speak again.
Wilmot watched until the bend in the path swallowed the figure whole. Then he turned to Halward, eyes still wide.
"Was that song truly about Robin Hood?"
Halward did not answer. He looked east, toward the trees.
The ledger snapped shut in his hands. That was all.
***
The Woodsman and the Raven
He arrived on foot, as woodsmen often do, with mud encrusting his boots and the scent of pine embedded in the worn fabric of his cloak. Stray twigs clung to his hood, and burrs trailed the hem like forgotten burdens. He moved with the silent assurance of one who belonged to the land—not as an intruder, but as a man intimately acquainted with its paths, moods, and silences. His gait bore the weight of familiarity rather than urgency, and his presence seemed less an interruption than an echo returned.
A shifting breeze carried the mingled scents of smoke and damp moss ahead of him, alerting Halward, who looked up from his ledger before the man reached the gate.
"You’ve not passed this way in some time," Halward observed.
The woodsman inclined his head. "Didn’t need to. Not until now. But the greenwood feels wrong."
Wilmot, already at his post with quill in hand, stepped forward, eager yet careful. "Name, if you please?"
The man gave a faint smile, devoid of amusement. "I don’t keep one in the forest. Names don’t mean the same thing under the trees."
Halward made no comment. He had encountered truths stranger than that.
"And your business at the gate?"
The woodsman unslung a bundle from his shoulder, wrapped in flax cloth, and opened it with care. Within lay a raven—jet black, with one wing twisted at an unnatural angle. Despite the injury, the bird remained alert, its eye fixed and intelligent.
"Found him caught in bramble near the southern ridge," the man said. "Same place I laid traps last week. All were sprung. None held game. But none were empty either."
From a pouch at his belt, he drew a coin and flipped it toward Halward, who caught it with practiced ease.
"Eight traps. Eight silver pennies. Clean. Newly struck, as if untouched by any hand but the smith’s."
Wilmot furrowed his brow. "Someone paid you for what they took?"
The woodsman looked down the road, then back toward the woods. "Maybe. Or maybe they want me out of the forest. I'm not sure which is worse."
Halward examined the coin, noting its unblemished face and ordinary stamp—yet something about it felt displaced, as if it did not belong to any proper purse.
"So you take it as a warning?"
The woodsman exhaled slowly. "The forest is silent, but not at peace. The quiet feels... rehearsed. Like it’s waiting for something. I saw a doe bolt from still air—no predator, no sound. The birds go quiet too early, and the wind spirals like it can’t find its way."
He hesitated. "There was a tree near the ridge. Looked like something had gouged it, but no blade I know cuts like that. The sap bled thick. Red as blood."
Halward gestured toward the raven. "And him?"
"Could be an omen. Could be accident. Maybe he flew too near something he shouldn’t have. Maybe the forest clipped his wings. Either way, I can’t keep him. He needs someone who knows the borderlands."
Halward considered the bird for a long moment. "What price do you ask?"
"No coin," the woodsman replied. "Only your word. If he survives, teach him. If he heals, let him fly. If not, bury him near a tree that won’t forget."
Halward gave a single nod. "Done."
Carefully, the man transferred the bundle. The raven croaked, its voice low and rasping, as if announcing its own passage. It turned one eye toward Halward, then blinked.
The woodsman slung his empty satchel and took a step back. "There’s more traffic on this road than I’ve seen in five winters. They’re coming from the west. They walk like men who've left something behind that still follows."
Halward nodded. "I’ve seen them."
"And you’ll see more. The city grows loud. The forest grows weary. I think the woods remember things the city would rather forget."
With a final glance to the trees and a half-nod to Wilmot, he turned and was gone—swallowed by the undergrowth like a breath drawn into the earth.
Halward held the bundle a moment longer before extending it silently to Wilmot.
"Me?" Wilmot asked, uncertain.
Halward said nothing.
Wilmot took the cloth-wrapped bird with both hands. The raven stirred but did not resist. Its gaze met the boy’s and lingered.
He thought again of the song sung by the harpist, the verses still echoing at the edge of his memory.
"I’ll call him Arrow," he murmured. "If he doesn’t mind."
The raven gave a soft, broken rasp—neither consent nor refusal, but something in between.
Wilmot sat beside him a while longer, humming half-forgotten notes. The tune, he suspected, was older than any name he'd ever heard.
Halward returned to the gate.
And he watched the trees.
***
The candle had burned low, casting an elliptical halo of gold across the uneven surface of Halward’s desk. He sat alone in his quarters, not out of caution but out of habit, as though solitude had become a form of discipline. The wooden door remained barred—not against danger, but against interruption. Beyond the stone walls, the night exhaled in long, measured breaths. The mingled scents of pine resin, tallow, and aging parchment lent the room the solemn air of a forgotten chapel.
There was no moon—only stars. Clear and brittle, suspended like frost over an unseen field.
Arrow, the raven, perched on the edge of the desk, his shape diminished by the bandaged wing that rested awkwardly against his side. His plumage, even dulled by injury, caught the flickering candlelight with hints of blue and steel. One black eye, alert and unblinking, regarded Halward with something resembling scrutiny—or perhaps memory.
Halward separated a strip of dried venison into careful pieces, setting each before the bird with quiet deliberation.
“You’ve been granted reprieve,” he said, his voice scarcely louder than the candle’s hiss. “Someone out there wanted you to live. That’s more mercy than most ever see.”
Arrow tilted his head slightly, as if listening not to the words, but to the weight beneath them.
“They say your kind remembers,” Halward went on. “Not just places, but people. Songs. Faces.” He paused. “You remember Harrow Jack’s tune? I do. More than I’d like.”
The candle crackled. Neither man nor bird moved.
At length, Halward extended a calloused hand toward the raven’s wing. Arrow gave a dry, uncertain croak, but held still.
Halward turned the limb with the practiced ease of one long acquainted with wounds. His fingertips traced the line of fracture with muted precision. It was clean—painful, but honest. The sort of injury that might heal if given time and shelter.
“Wounds seldom follow rules,” he said softly. “Some run deep and never show. Some knit wrong and ache forever. And some—” he reached for the splint and linen, “—some carry on regardless.”
He wrapped the wing with calm efficiency, each motion exact, the act itself a kind of ritual. When he was done, he offered another scrap of meat. Arrow blinked and took it.
Halward leaned back, exhaling through his nose. The stars watched through the slit in the stone wall, distant and silent.
“Do you think you’ll fly again?” he murmured. “I wonder. You’re not the first arrow I’ve seen broken.”
The silence that followed was complete—not empty, but contemplative. Into that silence, Halward hummed. The tune was old, nearly formless, the echo of something half-remembered. It rose gently into the rafters and hung there like incense.
The candle guttered once. The flame bent, bowed, and then returned, steady.
Halward looked again at the bird.
“I’ll keep watch,” he whispered. “One of us ought to.”
He closed his eyes, his breath evening out, his body still.
And in the hush between forest and city, between memory and myth, the candle burned on.