by Anna Burke
“The widow he gave the purse to wished to give him a gift. When she could not find him, she left it with the fletcher’s guild.”
Marian’s heart pounded in her throat.
“Did the archer tell you where he hailed from?”
She shook her head.
“A pity. I have a nice quiver of arrows for him.” He reached into his desk and pulled out an arrow, placing it between them. “Does this look like one of the arrows he used?”
She stared at the shaft. Something had discolored the wood near the arrowhead, but the fletching remained intact. “I don’t know,” she answered, thinking of the broken arrow she kept at the bottom of her chest of clothes. “The feathers are different colors, I think.”
Her father sighed. “Well, thank you for looking. I shouldn’t expect you to know a fletcher’s business.”
“Does the widow not know him?” She couldn’t help asking the question. She had not been able to bring herself to ask Gwyneth how she knew Robyn whilst she was at the priory, and the jealousy that had been eating at her ever since craved answers.
“If she does, she did not see fit to tell me.”
Something in her father’s voice made her blood slow in her veins. She looked more closely at his face, trying to guess the reason for the wrath beneath the surface, but he merely smiled back at her.
“No matter,” he continued. “I’ll be hosting a dinner party tomorrow night. Look your best. If you haven’t anything else to wear, I’ll have something brought for you.”
Marian allowed her eyes to close just a second longer than a blink allowed. “Who will be there?”
“The viscount, of course, and a few friends.”
She offered him her best curtsy and kept her eyes downcast. He gave her what she thought he’d intended as a reassuring smile, but all she saw was avarice as her flinching gaze fell on the chest sitting on a lower shelf of a cabinet. Inside, she knew, lay part of her dowry. He’d shown it to her once: silver and silks and jewels that had belonged to her mother, as well as a healthy sum of coin. The documents that would pass her father’s estate on to her in the event of his death would be drawn up later. If only I could inherit without marriage, she thought, but the sheriff would never allow it.
She made her way to her room after he’d dismissed her. Not much had changed in her absence. Someone had put down fresh rushes mixed with lavender, and the curtains around the bed were tied back for the summer, a breeze from the open window stirring them. She leaned against the sill. Nottingham. Their house looked out over the wealthy quarter, home to the townhouses of the nobility, a few of the lesser gentry, and the merchant class, and the air from the top of the hill was free from the stench of the lower part of the town. She could even see the curve of Nottingham castle from here, a single turret rising into her view.
The crier announced the hour in the street below. Three hours until her father would expect her to dine with him. Three hours of sitting in the townhouse with idle hands, her mind full of arrows and archers and beautiful widows who had everything Marian currently wanted.
I should have gone with Willa and Alanna, she thought as she glared at the cold hearth. Let the viscount try to marry me then.
All the reasons this was impossible came back to her. It wasn’t that simple. One missing noblewoman was a tragedy. Two could be a coincidence, but she knew her father. He would leave no stone unturned as long as his scent hounds lived, and they hadn’t missed their quarry yet.
Richard may still return in time, she thought, but that wouldn’t save her from dinner tonight.
And if he doesn’t? Will you run then?
Chapter Twenty-Three
The merchant caravan creaked down the forest road, the wheels straining at their bearings as they jolted over roots and ruts. Two riders in light armor flanked it, and the driver carried a loaded crossbow.
“What do you think?” Robyn asked John.
John considered the caravan. “I think we just got lucky.”
Will and Alanna clustered behind them. Robyn could feel the anticipation in the way they breathed. Her own lungs didn’t seem capable of taking in enough air, but her blood hummed at the prospect of the coming action.
“Ready?”
“Always,” said John, gripping her arm.
Robyn pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked it, glancing over her shoulder. This was their first robbery with the new members of the band. The added numbers brought simultaneous comfort and uncertainty, as well as responsibility. John nodded in her direction, signaling for her to take the lead, and she glared at him. He’d been doing that more often of late.
“On my mark,” Robyn said, meeting each of their gazes. “Remember. No one dies.”
“No one dies,” they repeated back to her.
She turned back to the road with her eyes on the guards. “Now.”
As rehearsed, Robyn and John stepped out in front of the caravan, Robyn with her bow, John with his staff, while Willa and Alanna took the rear. Willa put her hand on the hilt of her sword and Alanna kept her throwing knives balanced in her hands.
“Good afternoon,” Robyn said to the startled driver. The horses stopped, uninterested in the humans surrounding them, and promptly attempted to browse on the nearby foliage. The driver hefted the crossbow and aimed at first Robyn, then John, clearly unsure which was the bigger threat. The guards reined up sharply.
“There’s more in the rear,” the one with the black beard said. He pulled a short sword from his scabbard and brandished it as he wheeled his horse around.
“Full wagon you’ve got there,” said John, patting the nearest draft horse on the nose.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be getting out of our way?” the driver asked. He propped the crossbow on his knee and glared at Robyn. If he was afraid, he didn’t show it.
“We will,” said Robyn. “Just as soon as we help you lighten your load.”
“Look,” said the driver. “You steal from me, I have to answer to my boss.”
“Who said anything about stealing?” Robyn asked. “Although these woods are dangerous. We just want to make sure you pass through safely.”
“And that’s why you’ve an arrow pointing at my chest?”
“You’ve got one pointing at mine,” she said.
“Tell you what. You stand down, and my friends won’t cut you down.”
“Fair enough. Except that you’ll still be dead before they reach us.”
He scowled and flicked his eyes around him. The motion revealed his uncertainty. “Then what do you want?”
“A gesture of good faith.”
“And why should I have faith in you?” he asked.
“A fair question. Have you heard about King Richard?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“Then you know they’re raising money to free him.”
“Aye.”
“We’re raising money to help the good folks who have to pay that tax.” The driver seemed confused, and so Robyn continued. “You serve a guildsman or a merchant, right? Or perhaps you owe fealty to a lord. He pays the tax, but where do you think he gets that money from? His coffers? No. Your pockets, your work, your blood and sweat.”
“And how is that any different from what you’re about to do?” said a guard.
“We’ll pay you for your trouble.”
The men stared at her.
“What we mean,” said John, “is that we’ll be taking your horses and your wagon, but we’ll pay you for the time and trouble it will take you to walk back to your master and explain how you were overrun by bandits. If you choose to give that coin back to your employer, that’s your decision.”
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” said Robyn.
“Or,” said John when the men still stared at them blankly, “we could kill you all and take it anyway. Your pick.”
“God’s blood,” said the driver as he lowered his crossbow and dropped it to the ground at the exact same time as the mounted guards spran
g into action. John blocked a swinging short sword with his staff. Robyn’s arrow took the other rider in his sword hand. They’d agreed to try to spare the lives of their quarry if they could; she’d had her fill of murder. Still, she flinched. Even a shallow wound could kill if it went bad.
John’s attacker circled again and raised his sword. Robyn nocked another arrow. John could hold his own against a swordsman, but a mounted opponent offered significantly more risks. The horse bore down on John. He squared his stance, keeping his knees loose and at the ready, but the thought of watching him get cut down was too much.
“Mother Mary have mercy,” she said under her breath as she shot the rider in the shoulder. He tumbled from the saddle in a cloud of dust. Alanna was there to grab the horse’s reins, and Robyn’s first mark was still shrieking in agony as he clung to his damaged hand.
“Let’s get him off his horse,” she said to John, pointing at the remaining rider.
The man, however, was faster. He attempted to kick his horse into a gallop, only to find John’s staff unseating him with a brutal blow to his stomach. To his credit, he managed to roll into the fall, and he lunged for his sword the moment he regained his balance. His horse shied between him and Robyn, but she heard the clash of steel on steel as Will met his left-handed attack.
“John, keep an eye on the driver,” Robyn shouted as she darted around the horse.
Will wore a smile as she circled the bleeding guard. Her sword snaked past his blade and slid harmlessly off his armor, but the ease with which she pierced his defenses left Robyn in no doubt of who would win.
“Disarm him,” she told her. “Don’t kill him.”
Will engaged him in a few more parries and then shot Robyn a look that implied Robyn had ruined her fun before meeting him hilt to hilt and twisting the sword out of his hand. Disarmed, and with an arrow in his good hand, the man at last surrendered.
The second guard still lay in the dirt. Robyn noted the blood pooling beneath him with concern. “You,” she said to the white-faced driver. “Can you stop the bleeding?”
He nodded, but John shook his head. “I’ll be quicker.”
John knelt beside the wounded man and rolled him on his side. The guard didn’t protest and breathed shallowly as John probed the wound. “This will hurt,” he told him, and then he sliced the fletched end off the shaft and pulled the arrow through the wound. The man bellowed.
“Cloth,” John ordered. “You. Take off your shirt.” The driver obeyed with alacrity. John ripped the tunic into strips and padded the wound. “You’ll want to get this cleaned. Boiled wine if you can get to a tavern. Keep it clean and you might live.”
“What about this one?” Robyn nodded at the other man. He backed away, only to be halted by Will’s sword.
“Don’t be an idiot. Let us take the arrow out and bind your wound.”
Shocked, perhaps by the idea of his attackers helping him more than anything, he allowed them to remove the arrow and wrap his hand in more strips of tunic.
“Speaking of wine, see here,” said Alanna as she peered into the wagon. “Wine and good leather, and I think there’s some decent cloth, too.”
“Leave them some wine. They’ll need it for their wounds,” said Robyn. “We’ll take the rest.”
“I thought you said you were going to pay us?” said the driver.
“That was before your friends came at us,” said John.
“Anything in there we can’t sell?” Robyn asked Alanna.
“Not really.”
“Pity. Well, here you go.” She tossed a small purse at their feet. They stared up at her in astonishment. “As I said. For your trouble.”
“I still don’t understand why we paid them,” Will said a few minutes later. John drove the wagon, Robyn at his side, and Will and Alanna rode beside them on their stolen horses.
“Because if word gets around that it’s more profitable to surrender than to fight, we’re more likely to survive. A mounted man takes a foot soldier nine times out of ten,” said John. “And we’ll be earning it back soon enough.”
He turned the willing team of horses down the road that led to the nearest market town. Nottingham would have offered them more opportunities, but they still ran the chance that someone had discovered the injured men they’d left behind, and John knew a man from his time with Siward who paid good coin for dubious wares. Besides, they had need of decent leather and cloth themselves, and a cask of wine would go down smoothly with the rabbits they’d left hanging at their camp.
The magnitude of what they’d just done did not hit Robyn until the cheerful innkeeper deposited a sack of silver into John’s hands later that evening. As the four of them returned to the forest, loaded down with leather, cloth, and several skins of wine, a burst of laughter erupted from Robyn’s lips.
“You all right?” John asked her as the shadows of the trees closed, familiar, around them.
“Yes,” said Robyn. “Yes, I think I am.” It took her another burst of laughter to realize what it was she felt: hope.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The housekeeper arranged Marian’s hair in the current fashion, brushed smooth and bound with ribbons. Marian avoided her own eyes in the bronze mirror that the woman held up for her. She knew how she looked. Soft. Weak. Agreeable. The kind of daughter her father wanted her to be. She contained the rage that threatened to undo her and shoved it down into the place she shoved everything else that had to do with her betrothal. The dark moved, accommodating the new arrival.
“There. You look radiant.” The housekeeper stepped back to examine her handiwork. Marian allowed her to gloat and kept her eyes downcast to hide her emotions, then raised her chin to allow Eliza to dab her neck with scented oil. The smell of roses momentarily wiped the cloistered feel of the city from her mind. Emmeline grew roses in her courtyard: leggy wild-looking things with heavy heads. Henri liked to shove his face into them and bring his mother handfuls of petals.
Harcourt isn’t your home, she reminded herself. Thinking about it wouldn’t get her through this dinner, either. She brushed off the housekeeper’s attempt to rouge her lips and made her way downstairs to where her father waited.
“Turn,” he ordered, looking her up and down.
She gave a half-hearted twirl.
“Good. Charm them.” He didn’t have time to issue further instructions, as the sound of horses in the stable yard signaled the arrival of his guests. She recognized a few: Lord François and his wife, Lady Adeline, baronets from Nottingham’s outskirts. Baron Jacot and Baroness Cecire followed shortly behind, and her father bowed deeply to his last guest, an older man with stiff shoulders, thin lips, and gray hair. Lord Linley greeted her father and then turned to her.
No. She recoiled from the oily way his eyes stroked her body, but hid it in a curtsy.
“My lord,” she said. “Be welcome.”
“Anywhere you are, my dear, is a welcome place.”
“You are too kind.”
He took her hand and pressed his lips to it. It hardly felt like a kiss, and she withdrew her hand as soon as was polite and led the guests to the sitting room.
The conversation started off with the usual comments about the weather, the roads, and the price of grain. She listened with half her mind elsewhere, engaging when necessary, offering a witty comment when appropriate, and tried to pretend that she was riding beneath the cool branches of the forest.
“. . . shipment coming soon. The caravans had some trouble with all the rain we’ve had, but now that the roads are dry, there isn’t any reason for further delay.”
“I certainly hope not,” said Lord Jacot, giving his wife an affectionate pat. “I’m paying the guards enough to keep it safe as it is.”
“The roads are getting worse,” the viscount agreed. “I nearly lost a shipment this spring to a group of outlaws outside Kent. It seems, however, that Sherwood isn’t giving you much trouble.”
“Not yet, not yet. I expect we will get th
e usual desperadoes once the ransom is collected, but my boys are used to hunting.” Marian’s father smiled to himself, and Marian bit the inside of her lip.
“Ah, yes. Good King Richard,” said Lord François. “One almost feels like he’s avoiding spending time on English soil at all costs.”
“All costs indeed. 150,000 marks. Have you ever heard of such a thing?” Lady Adeline shook her head.
“I suppose it’s no less than he’s worth,” said the sheriff. “Or at least no less than his mother feels he’s worth.”
“Pity they didn’t ask his lordship,” said Lord Jacot.
“John might have paid them half that price again to hold on to Richard indefinitely.”
Marian’s thoughts drifted once more. This would be her life soon. Endless discussions about tariffs, the cost of goods, and the petty squabbles of the nobility. The room tilted at the corners of her vision, and she gripped the seat of her chair.
Get hold of yourself. The viscount watched her from across the table. Marian didn’t want to show even a moment’s weakness in front of him. His eyes were as hooded as Emmeline’s hawks, and he watched her hungrily.
Why him? she wanted to ask her father. Why not some harmless older man who would be satisfied if she shared his bed once a week and bore him children, leaving her to her own devices the rest of the time instead of pawing at her like she’d seen the viscount do to his previous bride? She could grow to love a man like that, or at least the lifestyle it afforded her—like Emmeline, secure in her place, with a few hounds at her heels and a small estate for her children.
A pair of hazel eyes framed by dark hair flashed across her mind.
“Excuse me for a moment,” she said, rising from the table. Her father waved her away with a hand, and after a curtsy she walked carefully out of the room, down the hall, and into the darkness of the larder. The cook took one look at her face and left her alone.
Settling down on a barrel of ale, Marian rested her head in her hands. Mother Mary, have mercy on me, she prayed to the darkness in her palms. Even if her father had selected a kindly old man, or a handsome, gentle youth her age, she knew she could never be content—not now, not in a world where Robyn had said, “I would like to know you better, Marian.”