by Anna Burke
“Lisbet,” said John, looking back up at the wall. “Do you think you could scale that?”
“Yes.” Lisbet didn’t bother looking up and went right on cutting rushes, her dark head bent to the task.
“Maybe we can get a rope up there. It’s not much, but if we’re cornered it would be nice to know there was another way out.”
“Unless they have archers,” Robyn pointed out.
“Ever the optimist.”
“We’ll need to establish a secondary rallying point. Somewhere we can all find that isn’t here. The old camp will do for now, but ideally someplace else. And a new watch rotation. Should we post watches from the cleft, or farther down?”
“Farther down, I think. And we already have a rallying point. The priory.” John helped lift the kettle and together they began the ascent back up the hill, Lisbet following behind.
Thanks to the coals they’d carried from the previous camp, Will and Tom had a good blaze going by the time Robyn, John, and Lisbet returned.
“We’ll need to keep an eye on the smoke,” Robyn said as she set up a spit over their new hearth. “But first, let’s eat.”
Lisbet added the wild onion and dandelion greens she’d found to the pot, and Robyn emptied the crumbled store of mushrooms from her belt before she began plucking the pheasant. She’d roast the bird, she decided, then add the bones and leftover meat to the pot to thicken their meager stew. Her stomach rumbled. One pheasant would not go far split six ways.
“I wish we had some porridge,” Lisbet said.
“We’ll have to make do without porridge for a bit. Or bread.” Robyn’s stomach grumbled in disagreement.
“What are we going to do?” Tom asked. He twirled his hammer idly.
“Well,” said Robyn, shooting John a glance, “about that . . .”
As she lay awake in their new home hours later, however, her mind traveled over river and hill to Harcourt. She’s the sheriff’s daughter. Repeating that fact didn’t lessen the yearning that pierced her lungs. If anything, it made it worse. Marian had risked her father’s wrath to save Will, and each time she spoke with Robyn, Marian committed treason. As if she would speak to me now.
What would Marian think if she knew Robyn had plotted to kill her father? Blood always won out in the end. She would not choose Robyn. She hardly knew Robyn. A few words meant nothing.
She trusted me with her friends’ lives, and I’ve trusted her with mine.
Surely, that was worth more than a few words. The memory of Marian’s lips brushing the corner of her mouth came back to her, and once again she watched Marian wading into the stream as she returned to Harcourt. Marian had asked her to name her reward; she had spoken truth when she answered, but not the whole truth. “I would like to know you better,” she had said. She had meant, “I would like to call you mine.”
The knowledge came to Robyn as a crescent moon waned over the slice of sky visible from the cleft. She would have to walk away from Marian, but first she needed to see her one last time.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Hounds milled about their horses’ hooves. Their tails wagged as the kennel master struggled to maintain order above the din of the enthusiastic pack. Emmeline, striking in dark green chased with gold embroidery, gave him the signal, and he set off with his tangle of leashes toward the forest. Emmeline didn’t have a gift of chase beyond her own lands, but she did have right of warren, which meant she could hunt fox and hare and pheasant in the king’s wood even if she couldn’t hunt deer or boar. Marian didn’t care what they hunted; the promise of a day’s ride and the feast to follow offered a break from the monotony of emotional turmoil that had defined her life both within and without the walls of Harcourt since she’d helped Willa and Alanna escape.
She could see the huntsman ahead, running alongside his hounds as they dispersed into the trees in search of game. Emmeline’s hawk flapped her wings. Gregor carried bow and spear behind his saddle, and Marian herself had a lady’s light hunting bow. Perhaps I’ll take a few squirrels, she thought, idly watching the little brown bodies scrounging through the leaves.
It took the better part of the morning for the hounds to pick up the scent of a fox. The huntsman released them with a loud cry that sent Marian’s heart racing, and her mare leapt to keep up with the other riders.
This time, I will not run into a hornets’ nest, she vowed, leaning low over her horse’s neck. The woods here remained open, grazed by pigs and sheep and deer, and she wasn’t overly worried about her horse pulling up lame or tripping on a root. Burrows, on the other hand, posed a greater risk.
“Hole,” one of the riders called out ahead. She reined away from the rabbit warren, wishing they’d scared a rabbit out of the brush but grateful for the warning.
“Hole,” she shouted over her shoulder, only to discover that she’d ended up at the rear of the hunting party and no one remained to heed her warning. She slowed her mare, not enough to lose sight of the rest of the party, but enough to buy herself a little more space.
Her horse didn’t seem to mind. She trotted along, then broke into a walk, pausing to browse each time she felt Marian’s attention slipping. The woods closed in around them. Marian could hear the hounds, still within a short canter’s distance, but the birds had resumed their song and she felt the solitude like a kiss. When, she wondered, was the last time she had been alone? Really alone? Dappled sunlight flowed over her skin. She held a hand up to the light and caught the shadows in her open palm.
The snap of a twig caught her attention. Off to her right, lit by the same dappled sunlight, stood a fallow deer. The dapples on his hide moved with the light, and his antlers, fresh with the first hints of velvet, lent gravity to the slow movements of his head. Marian sat frozen on her horse. The deer paused to crop at the lower branches of a coppiced elm, then pricked his ears forward.
I’m downwind of him, she realized. He’d see her soon enough, or hear the heavy, even breathing of her horse, but for now she watched him pick his way through the woods.
“Marian.”
The voice caught her by surprise and her horse spooked beneath her as she jolted upright. The deer fled with a launch of powerful haunches, his antlers vanishing into the trees while Marian struggled to calm her horse. When she finally succeeded, two people stood before her, for all that she could have sworn she was alone.
“Willa?” she asked the one nearest her. The redhead smiled, looking entirely at her ease, and placed a reassuring hand on Marian’s reins. The horse snorted once, then settled. Marian remained in the saddle for a moment longer as she studied the noblewoman. Willa’s loose, short red hair framed a face tanned by weather and sun and smudged with dirt, and in her brother’s clothes she looked every inch the rogue. It suited her. Marian swallowed her envy and dismounted to embrace her, laughing in relief.
“I didn’t hear you coming,” she said, turning from Willa to Robyn. Her heart thudded uncomfortably at the sight of the outlaw, the momentary relief that came with seeing Willa dispelled by the memory of their last encounter.
“We made something of an effort,” said Willa.
Robyn didn’t say anything, and Marian couldn’t read the expression on her face. Her dark hair was tangled here and there with twigs. Marian wanted to wrap her hands in it, and she also wanted to shake Robyn’s shoulders and shout at her for ruining everything. If you’d stayed out of my father’s way we might have had something. Now, any time spent in Marian’s company put Robyn further at risk, and Marian couldn’t think about her without also remembering the arrow pointed at her father’s heart.
“It isn’t safe for you here,” she said to Robyn.
“It isn’t safe for us anywhere.”
She still couldn’t read the other woman’s expression. The frustration she’d been trying to keep at bay snarled. “And whose fault is that?” she said, leaving Willa with her reins as she advanced on Robyn. “He’ll never stop looking for you. He doesn’t forgive things like that.
” Robyn didn’t back down, and Marian was forced to halt a few inches from her face. She glared up at Robyn. “You should have just shot him.”
The words burned her throat as they poured out of her. I don’t mean it, she thought, but that wasn’t entirely true, and she hated herself for even considering the possibility.
“I couldn’t.” Robyn smelled like leaves and crushed mint, a sweet, wild, heady scent that made it hard to understand her words. “I couldn’t do that to you.”
She seemed so solid, standing there, her clothes the greens and browns of summer, the leather of her jerkin smooth and the oiled wood of her bow golden over her shoulder.
Willa cleared her throat. Marian took a hasty step back from Robyn. She didn’t like the knowing look in Willa’s eyes.
“We have an idea to get your father off our backs, and to rid Sherwood of dangerous outlaws.” Robyn’s voice flowed over her skin much like the sunlight had a few moments earlier, carrying the same heat.
“I assume you are not these ‘dangerous outlaws?’”
“No.” Robyn’s lips curved in the barest hint of a smile. “There is a group of brigands south of here. They’re brutal, and more of a threat than we are. John used to run with them. If we can make the sheriff think I’m with them, we can set him on their trail. That should keep everyone occupied and give us time to feed our families and get ready for winter.”
“And you want my help.”
“No. I don’t want you involved at all.” Robyn dropped her eyes. “But you deserve to know, and I wanted . . . I wanted to apologize. For scaring you.”
“I could help you.”
“I can’t let you—”
“Why not? It’s not like I’m good for anything else, besides breeding, of course, which will happen soon enough if my father has his way.”
Robyn flinched. Marian turned on Willa.
“And you. Do you have any idea what it’s been like? Lying to Emmeline? She suspects something, I think, with Alanna gone, but that trick you pulled with your dress was cruel. I hear your brother is trying to drink himself into the grave, too.”
“Doesn’t matter. The less they know, the safer they’ll be.” Her flippant tone was undermined by the tremor in her lower lip.
Easy enough for her to talk about safety, Marian thought, unable to swallow back the envy that nearly knocked her off her feet. Out here Willa didn’t have to lie to Emmeline’s face. She didn’t spend her days waiting for a summons from her father, aware that each evening brought her closer to a marriage she loathed. Willa was free. So what if she was caught or killed? At that moment, Marian would have given her own life gladly for the chance to trade places.
“And what about me?” At Willa’s blank expression, Marian pressed on. “Has it occurred to you that I am risking everything, too? And for what? So that I can lie to my friend? What do you think she will do when she finds out I’ve been keeping this from her? I will lose my place, which may not seem like much to you, but Emmeline is the only thing between me and my father.”
“Marian—”
“Emmeline would do anything for you. You should trust her,” she finished. Willa looked to Robyn, and Marian let out a derisive laugh. “Do you let her speak for you now, Willa of Maunnesfeld? Have you taken her to husband instead of Alanna?” The insult, so close to what she herself desired, felt good leaving her lips. She watched it slap the other women in their faces as she settled back on her heels, and the frustration of the past few weeks left her body. A languid heat took its place. She would never have dared speak to Willa like that in her previous life, but out here Willa’s birth carried little weight.
“I speak for myself,” said Willa, but her voice wavered.
“Leave us, Will,” said Robyn.
“What?”
“Keep a lookout and let me know if anyone comes within earshot.”
Willa frowned, but obeyed, handing the reins back to Marian. Her easy acquiescence surprised Marian. She had seen Willa exhibit that sort of deference only to Emmeline, and Robyn was only a commoner.
“I didn’t know you were the sheriff’s daughter,” Robyn said when Willa was out of earshot.
“How could you not?”
“I’ve had other things on my mind. Besides, you might have told me.”
“And you might have held me for ransom if I had, the first time we met. Or worse. Would you still have rescued me if you’d known who I was?”
Robyn didn’t answer.
“What do I have to gain by turning you in? There will be no reward for me. My father will consider it his due, and besides, he will ask how I came by the knowledge, and that will discredit him in the eyes of his employers. If he can’t keep his own household in line, how can he keep a city? And turning you in would expose Willa and Alanna. I owe you my life, and I want you free and alive just as much as you do. More perhaps, though it may damn me.”
She felt out of breath at the end of her speech, uncertain of its effect and painfully aware of just how much of her heart she had laid bare.
“And your father? What do you think he will do when he discovers you have befriended an outlaw?”
“Is that all I am to you? A friend?”
Robyn took half a stride toward her, then stopped herself. “Marian, I would have killed him the other day if you weren’t with him. I should have killed him.”
“I know.” Her throat closed up. “I know what he is, Robyn, but he is still my father. If I promise to help you in any way that I can, will you promise me that you will not kill him?”
Robyn stared at her for the space of ten slow heartbeats before she spoke. “Even if I did, I cannot make that promise for my companions.”
“Then make it for yourself,” Marian pleaded, taking Robyn’s hands in hers.
“Why?”
“Because he is my father.”
“Why does it matter to you that I am not the one to kill him?”
Her father would see Robyn hanged if he had his way, Willa and Alanna with her. She’d known this since that day on the road. When, and not if, he cornered them, she knew who she wanted to walk away, for all that her soul threatened to split with the knowledge.
“Do you really not know?” she asked Robyn.
A shout echoed down the hills. The baying of a hound followed. Robyn made no move to leave or to answer, but flecks of green shifted in her eyes.
“Swear to me that you will not kill my father, and I will meet you at the priory in three days’ time,” she said, her voice strange to her own ears. “I will tell you then if you cannot guess.”
“Marian.”
She felt Robyn’s hand on her face, warm and rough, cupping her jaw as her thumb brushed Marian’s cheek. Marian leaned into her touch, aware of the distant sound of hooves. They didn’t matter. Willa didn’t matter either, for all that she might be watching.
Robyn’s lips brushed hers. There was no hesitation this time, or any possibility of accident. She tasted Robyn: sunlight on skin, the lingering tartness of summer berries, and another taste that had no name but that she savored, craving more, until Willa’s warning whistle broke them apart.
“Robyn, we need to go, now.”
The outlaw released her with reluctance evident in her every move. Marian felt her own legs might not hold her weight.
“I swear to you, Marian, that I will not be the one to kill him.”
“Will you still meet me at the priory?”
“I would meet you anywhere.”
“Then I will see you in three days,” said Marian. Her lips felt foreign and alive to the rush of her breath and the warm summer air.
“Three days,” Robyn repeated, and she gave Marian one last look before she turned to follow Willa back into the forest.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It took less time than Robyn had anticipated to set up the new camp. John and Tom had rafters felled and wedged by the end of the first day, and Lisbet climbed up the rock face like a squirrel to lay the beginnings o
f thatch with Alanna, who was almost as nimble. The thatch itself wasn’t much to brag about: evergreens instead of straw, but it would do for now to keep the rain off. Meanwhile, Will and Robyn hauled stones for the hearth and cut willow withies to size for the wickets that would shield the opening of the cave from the wind and the firelight from watching eyes.
“I’m worried about the smoke,” Robyn confessed as she laid the last of the hearthstones in place. “We’ll have to be careful not to burn green wood, and no fires on clear days if we can help it. We should do most of our cooking after dark.”
“Banking the coals will help. The hearthstones should keep us warm enough, or at least that’s what my nurse used to tell us.” Will eyed the stones with a dubious expression.
“Have you ever been cold? Truly cold?”
“We got caught in the open in a storm once coming back from Nottingham. The wood was too wet to catch when we tried to stop, and we were soaked through before the rain turned to snow. It was awful.”
But have you known the kind of cold that lasts for days, never leaving your bones? The cold that only comes when the wood runs low and the snow lies too heavy to travel far beyond the town gates? She didn’t give voice to these thoughts. Will would learn soon enough, for there was only so much they could do to fortify their shelter for the winter months. The damp would creep in, and with it cold and fever and chilblains and all the other curses that accompanied winter. At least the sheriff would not waste energy chasing them during the bitterest months, but that would not be much of a comfort. Any strange outlaws who stumbled on their camp would try to wrest their shelter and stores from them, and desperation would lend the strangers strength.
“We’ll need to get warmer clothes before then. Fur would be best, or sheepskin.”
“And mutton?” Will asked hopefully.
“I’d rather not steal from my neighbor’s flocks.”
“What about Maunnesfeld’s flocks?”