Men of Sherwood (A Rogue's Tale Book 1)

by Sarah Luddington

  “A wise choice,” Robin said.

  The cleric undid the saddlebags from his saddle, moaning about the sins of robbing the Church, and I took the bags over my shoulder. I stepped away.

  “Go back to your sheriff and tell him, Robin Hood took his taxes and the Church’s tithes. Tell him Robin Hood will continue to do so until he leaves Nottingham or dies – whichever I can arrange first.” Robin spoke with the authority of a man used to leading men into battle and I wondered how far from the king’s grace he fell during the Crusade. I had the feeling he was a warrior of some renown.

  The man smirked. “Oh, you’ll be the one dying, outlaw. I’ll see to it myself. You’ll hang only after I’ve gutted you.”

  Robin loosed his arrow and it thunked into the saddle of the horse, making the beast start and dance sideways. “The next one goes into your head,” Robin said another nocked in a blur of speed and control.

  I watched the man’s eyes widen at the skill necessary to perform such a shot. He turned his horse towards Nottingham, called his remaining men and they rode off, the cleric complaining about their lack of courage. I wondered if he’d make it back to Nottingham, or perhaps the cleric would end up in a ditch and we’d take the blame.

  Three other men couldn’t follow, two of whom watched with eyes full of hate and fear.

  “You have two choices,” Robin said in the Norman tongue. “Get your horses and ride after your captain, or flee Nottingham and find somewhere you can live in peace.”

  One man rose and held his shoulder where the arrow bounced as he moved. “I’ll leave,” he ground out. “Don’t kill me.”

  I opted to help. I held his horse and gave him a leg up into the saddle. He galloped back towards the village. The other guard scowled at us. “I wish to leave,” he said. “I hate this fucking country.”

  “You are from the lowlands,” Robin said. “I recognise your accent.”

  “I came hoping for lands and found myself a fucking guard for fat churchmen. I’ll take your deal but I want someone to remove this damned arrow first.”

  Robin and I glanced at Tuck. “Fine,” he muttered.

  It took some time and a fair amount of noise but the man rode off free of the arrow. He lost a lot of blood in the process, and I doubted he’d live, but it was hard to feel pity. He’d come to England to seek his fortune through the misery of others and I wasn’t feeling sympathetic. The third man I’d killed with the kick to his head.

  “Shit,” I muttered. “I didn’t want to kill him.”

  “He chose his work,” Robin said, removing his belongings. “He’d have killed you if he could.”

  I grunted. It didn’t make me feel any better knowing the truth of Robin’s words. “Are we going to take this money back now?” I asked the others.

  Tuck peered down the road. “If we do it now it will create problems for the village, we will have to rely on them to lie for us when the sheriff’s men come asking questions. I think we leave it a week. We don’t know the people here enough to trust them with our lives. We are likely to be worth more as a reward than the taxes they were collecting. We’ll return the money later.”

  I nodded and Robin agreed. We collected our horses and rode back towards our home.

  16

  THE NEXT FEW WEEKS slipped into a pattern. Robin and I would spend our nights curled up together on our bed, we would rise early in the morning and go to the river to enjoy our quiet time before seeing to the day’s duties. I learned how to give him pleasure with my hands and mouth and I learned how to accept his desire to pleasure me. Not once did he push me to more than that and my confidence in him remaining at my side continued to grow. We talked of our plans for a new home and began building a sturdy shelter near the cave’s entrance as the days grew shorter and the weather worsened.

  On the days of the market I rode into Nottingham with Robin, his face hidden by his hood, and we met with Marion. I’d found us a new place to meet, a small section of the oldest graveyard in the city, and I watched as brother and sister began to become friends. That’s not to say they didn’t have their arguments. Some of them so loud I had to hush them with parental scolding until they promised to behave. Occasionally Tuck felt brave enough to leave the forest, or perhaps he couldn’t be left alone again for extended periods, and he’d sit with Marion instead.

  I liked Tuck coming with us because it gave me some private time with Robin and with the weather turning damp and bitterly cold we were struggling to find the time we wanted for each other. Our raids continued as did our delivery of the money to the communities. The sheriff grew increasingly enraged and we soon found ourselves out manned on many occasions, unable to take the tithes and taxes without a fool’s risk to our lives. I had hoped the collections would ease between the quarter days that rents were due but no such luck, these taxes were taken regardless of the traditions of the calendar. When we knew we faced odds that were insurmountable we had to leave well enough alone but Robin chafed at this and I had the feeling things were going to change, I just didn’t anticipate the plan when it arrived.

  “We need more people,” Robin said. We were two weeks from Christmas and the following day we’d be going to Nottingham again.

  “What?” Tuck asked.

  “We need to find others like us and join up. The sheriff is getting desperate and I for one don’t want to be fighting him without more swords at our backs,” Robin said, while he sucked on a boar’s rib bone. Robin being with us meant we could catch and keep larger game. I approved wholeheartedly.

  “Where do you think you’ll find more people to help?” Tuck asked.

  Robin sat back and wiped his fingers clean on a spare cloth he kept for such duties. His time in the desert had made him aware that the necessities of life weren’t just food, clothing and shelter, they also included cleanliness – a habit I embraced with zeal. He tugged at me until I consented to sit between his knees on the cushion. He liked to be casually intimate at all times, regardless of Tuck’s scowls.

  “In Shirebrook I heard them speak of a group of men and women who had been driven out of Langwith, forced to survive in the forest. We could find them, join up with them, organise them.”

  “Make an army for you to lead?” Tuck said. Robin settled his hand over my heart and pulled me back to his chest. I put an elbow on his thigh and watched Tuck. Although he clearly resented Robin’s experience and knowledge, fighting the Crusader at every turn, he always capitulated to Robin’s endless and patient logic.

  “Less of an army, more to ensure your safety in their numbers. My priority will always be the safety of my sister and you two, that is my first thought, but numbers will now help me do that more efficiently because I can send other people into the field.” Robin’s pragmatism hit me hard.

  “You’d send others into the fight to prevent Tuck and I facing the sheriff’s men?” I asked, twisting and looking up into his firm gaze.

  “Yes. I’m also looking for Alan Dale, the cleric she’s using in the keep, to come to us directly so she’s not involved. I can ruin Philip Marc, but I don’t want my sister involved.” He stroked my cheek, not helping my concentration.

  “No,” Tuck said for me.

  Robin’s eyes rose from mine with reluctance. “Yes,” he countered.

  I sighed. I’d have to think of a middle path. God, this was exhausting. “Why don’t we talk to Marion about her role in this enterprise and let her argue Robin into doing things her way, because she’ll do it far more quickly than you will, Tuck. But having more people to care for makes us both stronger and more vulnerable. I agree with Robin that we need more bodies to fight the sheriff’s soldiers, but I don’t agree to him using them to protect us, so we won’t be doing that. The downside of more people is the necessity of protecting, feeding and housing a community. The upside is obvious, strength in numbers. Another downside, those very numbers will get us noticed. The sheriff will appeal to the king at some point and John will send knights not just soldiers,
especially considering the withdrawal of his armies in France.”

  This news had reached Nottingham’s taverns. The youngest of old King Henry’s sons had lost France to Philip and the empire was shattered. Many of the knights who’d owned lands and property in Aquitaine, Normandy, Brittany and other places, were either swearing loyalty to Philip and losing their lands in England, or remaining loyal to John and forfeiting their lands on the mainland. Robin said it depended on the amount of land they held in either place, that controlled the noble’s intentions, not loyalty to the king. The old man, William Marshal, who had led more than one king to his destiny, had not fared well under John and had retreated to his lands in Pembroke. England had no leaders strong enough to fight the king’s foolishness.

  Taverns were great places to pick up the gossip of the nobility, between that source and Marion we were able to surmise England would be squeezed until she screamed to provide more money for the armies John would raise to return to France.

  Politics made my head hurt. “Can we just forget about all this and get quietly drunk instead? We did well this week. We’re working hard and I for one would like just one night where we aren’t fighting.”

  “Can you sing for us?” Robin asked.

  “I can always sing for you,” I said, looking up at him. Those blue eyes sparkled and he kissed me on the mouth, making me smile. Tuck growled.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY WE set off for Shirebrook and Langwith, Robin winning against all of Tuck’s protests. Robin promised Tuck would be able to preach to any who would listen and give confession to those who wanted it, but Robin would never accept a blessing from my brother. He spoke to me in private about the confusion of his faith when he learned of Islam from Ghaalib, but I couldn’t help because neither of us knew what to believe or if we believed in anything. Sometimes I thought I’d be going to Hell regardless because I’d murdered my father, but then other times I thought God would forgive a son such an act considering the degrading and painful ‘lessons’ I learned at his hand. When I saw the fate of criminals in Nottingham, some of them only stealing to feed their families, left to rot in cages, hung from gibbets off the castle walls, or maimed and blinded, only able to beg in the filth on the streets, I didn’t see God’s hand anywhere.

  With snow now on the roads and the mud of previous weeks frozen solid, our horses worked hard to get us around the vast forest and heathland. It took most of the day to reach the small hamlet of Shirebrook.

  When we arrived, we found nothing but ashes and burned timber.

  “What the ever loving fucking hell happened here?” I whispered, my horse trying to fight me so she could run off from the stink of death hovering over the small community.

  Robin dismounted and while never removing his eyes from our surroundings, took the oilskin off his bow and fixed the string, making that beautiful and deadly arch. The quiver sat at his hip and his left hand rested there, but the relaxed stance didn’t have me fooled for a moment. The man could pierce the eye of a stoat at twenty yards.

  “I think it might be wise for us to move on,” Robin said, his eyes still scanning.

  “We need to bury the dead,” Tuck said.

  “We need to get out of here, monk. It stinks of a trap.” The warrior and the monk locked horns yet again.

  “It certainly stinks,” I muttered, covering my mouth and ignoring the pair of them. I rode forwards, through the narrow single street, the forest dwellers’ homes on either side, burned out husks.

  “Will, don’t go far, you’re an easy target,” Robin called out.

  I turned in my saddle to look at him. “Oh, please, we returned their taxes to them only ten days ago I don’t think –”

  My scream made the horse skit sideways and I slid off the horse, knocking the arrow out of my leg when I hit the ground. The fall made my head bounce and my vision blurred and bile rushed up my throat making me gag. I heard Tuck scream my name, Robin bellowed and through it all a man’s voice boomed, “I will have silence.”

  “I will have your liver for my supper,” Robin snarled, bow drawn.

  “You release that, my lord,” the man spoke with utter disdain, “and I will have your boy down there full of holes before you can kill me.” He tapped his chest and I heard the chink of mail armour under his clothing.

  I clutched my bleeding thigh. “It’s fine, Robin, it’s just a scratch. They meant to distract you, not kill me.”

  “Clever, minstrel,” the man said, approaching me and ignoring Robin.

  “I have my moments,” I gasped. It might not be quite the scratch I claimed but I could see at least twelve bows drawn and aimed at Robin’s back and I really didn’t need to see him full of the promised holes. “Do you think you could let my brother come down here and help me out of the snow?”

  “I think we’ll keep you all separate for the moment,” the man said. He carried an enormous oak stave. The pale wood sucked in the late afternoon light and seemed to glow in return. Quarterstaffs were possibly the most lethal weapon I’d ever seen used, they could smash a blade with little effort when used correctly. The man himself stood taller than Robin and his great barrel chest and broad shoulders would dwarf even my lover’s. We were royally and totally, fucked.

  “Eva,” he called out. “I need you here.”

  A girl, with cropped short brown hair and boy’s clothing, raced from the tree line. She looked up at the big man. “See to the lad,” he growled at her, his tone and eyes soft. I watched her approach, the brown hair matched by brown eyes, but her skin bore the terrible marks of small pox – long healed but never forgotten. She’d be pretty without the deep fissures.

  “I can help, I have some healing arts,” she said and she smiled. A transformation overcame her face, the dimples and sparkle in her eyes detracting from the scarring. Nature was a cruel mistress to burden such a pretty girl with such an awful mark.

  She whipped out a cloth from a pouch at her belt and a tub of something smelling like honey and lavender, which she then smeared on to the still bleeding wound, before wrapping it tight. I grunted but managed not to scream as I could see Robin’s tension and didn’t want to give him an excuse to lose his temper.

  “Thank you,” I said with great effort, my attention returning to the big man.

  His red beard and long red hair shone with streaks of silver, the paws holding the stave and now my horse, had coarse hair covering the backs and his eyes were needle sharp blue, but small and set back in his broad face. The man looked like a red bear, maybe past his prime but not to be underestimated at any cost.

  “Good, now, put down the bow, my lord, and we’ll see to getting everything straightened out,” the man said.

  “I don’t think so,” Robin snarled and I watched his fingers relax just a little on the string.

  “Don’t.” I struggled off the ground, putting myself between Robin and the man. “Don’t.”

  “Will…”

  “Don’t, Robin. Let’s find a peaceful way out of this. We don’t need the fight. There are three of us and we came here to find help, maybe this is the help we need.” I still clutched my leg but the other hand was out towards Robin.

  “They hurt you, Will.” I could hear the possessive growl in his voice and I also heard the fear of losing me.

  “It’s just a scratch,” which happened to be bleeding copiously at the moment, “I’m fine, so please put down the bow and let’s parley.”

  “I don’t like talking to people who hold weapons at my back,” Robin snapped, his eyes hard and unpleasant. He was not going to forget or forgive this with ease.

  I turned to the big man behind me. “If I can promise for his behaviour will you lower your weapons? You’ll want to hear what we have to say.”

  “We don’t need to hear it, this place is destroyed because of you, Will Scarlett.”

  At that I turned and stared at the big man. “What are you talking about?”

  “You arrogant little fuck,” he muttered. “Did you really t
hink your actions wouldn’t have consequences? Did you really think the only neck in the noose would be yours?”

  “What do you mean?” Tuck repeated from my right.

  “What I mean, monk, is the sheriff gave his men new orders. They don’t just take taxes now. If they are robbed leaving the place they just levied, they are given permission to raise the place to ground. Until you and every other outlaw in Sherwood are dead, the villagers suffer.”

  The consequences of the giant’s words on me were terrible but not a drop in the ocean of grief these people had suffered. My arse hit the ground as my good leg folded under the weight of guilt that settled on my shoulders and the world turned even as my stomach twisted in the opposite direction. A terrible sickening chill raced up my spine and I passed out.

  17

  “ROBIN, PLEASE, STOP FUSSING. He’ll be fine. It’ll take more than a little blood loss and a bang on the head to finish off my brother.” Tuck’s voice floated towards me, skating along on the waves of nausea.

  “You’re not an expert on head wounds. I’ve seen less kill a man.” Robin’s distress shot through me in shades of red.

  “And you don’t know my brother like I do,” Tuck snapped.

  Someone poked my leg, changing a deep throb to a sharp stab. I yelped and struggled away. “Stop, stop,” I gasped. “Please, I just need… I need a little time.”

  “I’m here, Will. I’m here.” A broad hand stroked my brow and I relaxed, able to open my eyes at last.

  “Robin, what happened?” I sounded as if a rusty saw had ripped into my throat. “I need a drink.”

  That large hand lifted my head off something soft and brought a wooden cup to my lips. I smelt wine. “Water?” I asked.

  “Don’t trust it,” Robin said. The storm in his eyes disturbed me and I chose to drink rather than see the clouds burst.