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brow.
    ‘Better,’ Marian said, before going to the window and looking out. ‘It’s getting even thicker! It’s going to settle ten feet deep. I remember once, when Mother was alive, nobody could leave the grounds for weeks, and everyone was out in the gardens, even Father, and we built lords and ladies and made snow angels and we skated on the ponds and … you’ll see … just as soon as this wind stops we’ll begin …’
     
    For two whole days the blizzard raged. They were confined to the tower, playing endless games of Nine Man Morris, Marian hopping around, seething with impatience.
    Finally the wind eased. The third night lay still and crisp. They tumbled from the tower and clomped about the Lost Lands. Beneath cold clear stars they built a knight out of snow. A birch branch served as his lance. His great helm was a cooking pot.
    ‘Follow me,’ Marian said. ‘We’ll look in the old forge for armour, and then we’ll—’
    She shrieked. Robin saw the night move, and he heard the
crump-crump
of boots, and he heard Marian shout ‘Robin!’ and he began to run, but two huge shapes shifted in the starlight and descended on him from either side, clamping him tight around the chest and throat.
    Robin kicked and twisted in the grip. A heavy gloved fist hit him on the back of the head. Robin kicked more furiously. The man thumped him again, harder, and Robin felt dizzy.
    ‘Plenty more where that came from,’ said the man on his right-hand side. ‘I should be indoors, with a mug of spiced wine and something to warm my bed. Instead, I’m out here in the snow. Here, have one for free.’ He hit Robin a third time and the world blurred, water welling in his eyes.
    The guards dragged him into a courtyard. There were more men-at-arms there, standing beneath a hanging lamp, and two of them had hold of Marian, a hand clamped across her mouth.
    ‘Midwinter always makes me think of Daneland,’ a grey-haired guard was saying. ‘Remember that, Hawkman? Five years ago, was it, six? A blizzard so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.’
    ‘And more barbarians than there were snowflakes,’ another man said, scratching at his bulbous stomach. ‘I’ll never know how we made it home from that one.’
    ‘And now look, here we are, chasing after children. What happened to us?’
    ‘You got old, and I got fat. Just be glad we’re still good for something.’
    The guards fell quiet. Another figure was approaching. He had difficulty dragging his lame leg through the snow, but even so this newcomer seemed more fearsome to Robin than all the other men-at-arms put together. When he pushed back his hood his face in the lamplight was lined and hard, his bigsquare jaw criss-crossed with scars. Here was Gerad Blunt, the Castellan.
    ‘What now?’ said the one who had hit Robin. ‘Do we really dangle this one down the well?’
    ‘I’m going to presume she was joking,’ said the Castellan. ‘She’ll let us know. She’s on her way over.’
    Soon Mistress Bawg came into sight, ploughing through the snow, her lantern jerking from side to side. She came close to Marian, reached down, pinched her arm, then her stomach, then her leg, while Marian writhed and made muffled noises beneath the guard’s hand.
    ‘There never was enough flesh on your bones,’ Mistress Bawg said, pinching again, and twisting. ‘But you’re not starving, and there’s colour in your cheeks, that’s something. I swore to anyone who would listen this weather would drive you home – we only need wait once winter came. Should have known better, of course, once you get an idea in your head. But you’re keeping warm, I’ve seen the woodsmoke from that tower, and yes, I suppose you look healthy enough. Very well then, thank you Harold, Cuth, you can let her go.’
    The men-at-arms released their grip and Marian sprang free and began shouting. ‘That house is
not
my home, and you are
not
my mother no matter how much you want to be –