by Anna Burke
“You would steal from your own people?”
“They’re hardly my people now.”
“Will.” Robyn took a steadying breath. “Your father won’t suffer for a missing sheep. The shepherd, however, will. Do you follow me?”
Will groaned. “Yes, Robyn, I follow you. I’m too much the noblewoman, and my entitlement makes you ill.”
“Precisely.”
“Speaking of noblewomen.”
Robyn tensed. Will had been silent thus far about what had transpired in the forest, but something about the glint in her green eyes made Robyn suspect that restraint was coming to an end. “Yes?”
“What you feel for Marian, and I’m not casting judgment,” she added quickly as Robyn opened her mouth to protest, “I just wanted to tell you that that’s part of the reason I had to run.”
Robyn’s suspicions had not been unfounded, then. “Alanna?”
Will nodded.
“She’s a hard one not to love.”
“I know. She’s composed a few songs about you, by the way.”
“What?” Robyn asked, confused.
“Well, us. You. This.” Will gestured to the forest. “The one about you and John fighting on the bridge is my favorite.”
“I hope she omitted the part where I fell into the water.”
“Ask her to play it for you.”
“Midge was involved in this somehow, wasn’t she?”
Will shrugged. “She may have contributed a few verses.”
“Why am I not surprised.”
Will looked up at Robyn shyly. “I wanted to thank you again,” she said. “For helping us.”
“It’s nothing.” Robyn met Will’s gaze. “You’ve grown on me, for all that you’re a noblewoman.”
“Marian’s part of the gentry, too.”
“Marian is . . . Christ, you won’t mention what you saw, will you?”
“Not likely. Ladies sometimes get overfond of their handmaids, but kissing the sheriff’s daughter is another thing entirely.”
“Thank you for that reminder.”
“Does . . . does anyone else know?” Will asked.
“John,” said Robyn.
“Not your cousin?”
“Not about Marian. She and Gwyneth know I don’t want to marry, but—”
“Robyn,” John called from the far end of the cleft.
“What?”
“There is something you need to see.”
Dread poured down the back of her throat. She grabbed her bow and sprinted toward him with Will on her heels. He stopped her at the entrance.
“Down there.”
Robyn strained her eyes. A small figure stood at the base of the cliff, its hands on its hips and its head tilted up toward them.
“Can he see us?” Robyn asked John.
“I don’t think so. Nor do I think he’s a he.”
“What do you mean?” But even as she spoke, she knew. Something about the way the person stood, radiating fury, struck a familiar chord. “Midge.”
“The one and only.”
“How did she find us?”
“She must have been watching us. We left no trace, of that I’m sure.” He watched Midge with a hint of a smile. “What would you like to do about it?”
“Do you think she knows where we are?”
“Do you really want to let her corner you when she gets up here? We haven’t rigged an escape yet.”
“Damn it. I just wanted to keep her safe.”
“I know you did. I think, however, that you should be more worried about your own safety. I’ve never seen someone so small so full of hellfire.”
“It isn’t funny, John.”
“No, it’s not.” He sighed, a deep echoing bellows of air that vibrated through his body into hers. “But she’s here, and I don’t think you should try to send her away again.”
“She’s still a child.”
“She’s not. She’s old enough to starve, and she’s old enough to marry. She’s no more a child than you are.”
For the first time she thought about how she would have felt if it had been Michael in the woods, telling her to stay home while he risked his life to care for their family.
“Damn it,” she said, and set off down the slope.
Midge greeted her with balled fists and a punch to the shoulder, followed by a wordless scream that hissed out between her clenched teeth. Robyn covered her head with her arms and let her cousin vent her fury, surprised, as ever, by her strength.
“Welcome back,” she said when Midge had spent the worst of her ire.
Midge pointed a trembling finger at Robyn, and her lips worked soundlessly as she struggled to find words to express the depths of her outrage. Eventually she gave up and settled for a glower.
“You know I was just trying to protect you.”
Midge’s glare deepened.
“I’m sorry, cos.”
“Send me away again and I’ll stab you in your sleep.”
“Fair enough.”
“Did you know Siward raided Papplewick?”
“What?”
“Shot one of Eric’s sons. He might live. They stole some of our grain, too. What were you saying about keeping me safe?”
“I—”
“My father sends his greetings.”
“Does he know where you are?”
“Sent me here actually. Thinks I’m safer with you, not that you care. What’s this place?”
“New camp.”
“Is John here?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She pushed past Robyn, her pack absurdly large on her small frame, and made her way up to the cleft. Robyn watched her climb while her mind reeled. She settled on the only thing she could process without a drink. Regardless of the sheriff, Siward had to go.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Marian delayed until the rest of the household had gone to bed before approaching Emmeline.
“My lady,” she said, hesitating as she folded Emmeline’s gown. “There is something I need to tell you.”
Emmeline looked up from the piece of embroidery she’d been staring at for the better part of the evening without working on. “Yes?”
“It’s about Willa. Well, more than Willa.” She’d waited half of the summer to get these lies off her chest, but now that the moment had arrived, she couldn’t find the words.
“Has there been some news?”
“Not exactly.” Marian took a deep breath. “The outlaw that I told you about, Robyn, is a woman.” Emmeline frowned, but Marian pushed on. “I sent Willa and Alanna to her.”
Emmeline’s embroidery clattered to the floor. “Willa’s alive?”
“She ordered me not to tell you where she was. I swear to you, my lady, that we wanted to, but Willa did not wish to put you in a position where you had to choose between her and the crown.” Rarely had Marian seen Emmeline angry, and fear curdled on her tongue. She dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead into Emmeline’s empty hands. “Please don’t dismiss me.”
“Dismiss you?”
“I cannot go back to my father.”
“It is not you I am angry with, though you should have told me.”
Marian didn’t dare raise her head.
Emmeline stood, forcing Marian to edge out of her way, and paced the room. “I should have anticipated this. She always did like to play at being her brother. But it’s folly, running off to Sherwood. What will she do in the winter? And she doesn’t have the training to stand against a real opponent.”
“I told her we’d meet them in three days’ time at the priory—”
“My sister, my closest friend, and my handmaid,” said Emmeline, shaking her head. “I don’t suppose you’ve had word from my husband? Has he taken a new wife and turned from me as well?”
“Emmeline—”
“Very well. We’ll go to the priory. You I shall forgive, for I don’t see what other choice you could have made, but my sister is another matter
.”
“Forgive me, my lady, but Willa invoked sanctuary.”
“Which ended when she left the church. Tuck does what she wants and damns the consequences. She always has. Have I not been made to worry enough? The Lord knows I have a husband at war and tithes to pay before the winter, which is trial enough for any woman.”
“I am so sorry.”
“Not as sorry as my sister shall be.”
Marian lay down to sleep some time later, replaying the evening in her mind. Emmeline now knew all the truth save for the one Marian held close to her chest in the darkness: the kiss she’d given Robyn beneath the trees. It did not matter if Willa had seen. Willa was equally guilty of this sin, and unlikely to reveal it so long as she depended on Marian to keep her own secret. Lady Emmeline, however, might draw the line at this last aberration.
That did not stop her body from aching for the outlaw’s touch.
Robyn was not the first person she’d kissed. There had been boys before that, and a few girls. She and her cousins had taken turns playing at husband before Sara’s marriage, and Chelsea, the cook’s girl, had taken a liking to her one summer before she’d died giving birth to twins. There had been no harm in kissing girls as a child, for nothing could come of it, and besides, everyone knew that women needed stimulation to prevent suffocation of the womb. Unmarried women could seek out a midwife to do the job for them until they could find a husband. If she mentioned her feelings to Emmeline, that would be her suggestion. Find a midwife, get the lust out of her system, and return to her senses.
The real sin was not the kiss in itself, though that was a sin of the flesh once a girl flowered. No—the sin she’d be called to penance for came from desiring a woman more than she desired a man. She’d be shamed, publicly and privately, and she did not want to think about what kind of man her father would find to take her if the depth of her depravity was known.
But nothing about Robyn felt depraved. Marian smiled into her pillow, glad for the summer heat that prevented her from sharing Emmeline’s bed. She remembered how Robyn’s lips had felt beneath her own. She deepened the kiss in her recollection, burying imaginary hands in Robyn’s hair and wondering what it would be like to lie beside Robyn, not as she lay beside Emmeline each night, but as a lover might, their bodies and fingers intertwined and Robyn’s heart beating in time with hers.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The priory walls loomed through the morning mist. John and Robyn paused at the tree line, Midge, Alanna, and Will on their heels. Robyn had managed to convince Tom and Lisbet to stay behind and keep an eye on the camp, but Midge had flat-out refused to follow a single order since her arrival unless it came from John.
“This is as good a place as any to wait,” he said, looking at Robyn for confirmation. “We’ve a clear shot of the road, we’re close to the priory, and the trees offer good cover.”
Robyn nodded and reflected, not for the first time that morning, on how easily Marian had swayed her away from her decision to bid her farewell. One kiss. That was the price of her resolve.
They’d chosen a stand of oak. She began to climb the nearest one, her boots scuffing against the bark. She paused at the second split and settled into the crotch to check the forest floor below for visibility. Most people didn’t look up, but it only took one aberration.
Leaves obscured most of the view. Someone standing right at the trunk might glimpse her, but farther out the view was blocked by leaves and clusters of green acorns, save for an opening that looked out over the priory wall into a garden. Candles burned in some of the windows. Robyn watched the flames until the bell tolled for morning prayer.
Waiting in trees had little to recommend it. Her back stiffened over the course of the next few hours, and the occupants of the priory did little save weed between the cabbages. She had almost given up on Marian when the distant sound of hoofbeats floated through the still midsummer air. She could hear the voices of the riders as they dismounted.
“Lady Emmeline.”
“I’ve come to see my sister.”
“Sister Tuck is brewing, but I can fetch her.”
“Thank you, Magdalena. We’ll see to the horses ourselves.”
“Very good, my lady.”
Robyn rubbed the blood back into her legs and waited for the sound of the gate opening and shutting before edging further down the tree. They had agreed that only one of them would approach the nuns at first, in case Marian had brought unwanted company. Of the five of them, Robyn was the least recognizable, save for Midge, but Robyn had drawn the line at her cousin’s participation in this part of the plan. The sheriff only wanted Robyn, and they needed Midge to remain undetected for as long as possible in case they needed to get a message to someone in Nottingham.
She landed on thick loam. Generations of leaves had fallen and moldered around the roots, aerated by the foraging noses of swine and squirrels. The soil absorbed the impact and muffled the sound. None of the distant peasants looked up from their toil, and Robyn walked across the narrow strip of green to the small side gate in the priory wall.
An older nun answered her knock.
“May I help you?” She looked down a long and somewhat pointed red nose at Robyn.
“I’m here to see the prioress.”
“I am afraid the Reverend Mother is receiving visitors at the moment.”
“Will you let Marian know that her friend is here to speak with her, then? She is expecting me.”
“This is a convent. Not a place for trysts, young man.”
“My business is entirely platonic.” Robyn decided that the sister must be nearsighted, for she squinted at Robyn with watery eyes.
“We’ll see about that. Wait here.” She shut the door in Robyn’s face, leaving her alone with the same goat that had greeted her and John on their last visit.
“Where did you come from?” she asked the animal as she scratched it between its horns. It belched appreciatively and leaned into her.
Standing in the open, even with the shade of the wall shielding her from sight, made Robyn’s skin crawl. The dirt around the gate had been packed down by visitors, and she resisted the urge to look over her shoulder every few seconds in case more visitors showed up—visitors whose eyes were not as weak as the sister who had greeted her and who might recognize the fletcher from Nottingham. Her fingers itched for an arrow.
The door swung open. “Well met, my young friend,” said Tuck. Robyn braced herself against the almost palpable sense of well-being that radiated from the nun.
“Reverend Mother.”
“Did you come alone? My sister is most anxious to speak with the Lady Willa.”
“Did the Lady Emmeline come alone?”
“Her man-at-arms is in the stable, but Marian is within, pretending she didn’t just hear my beloved sister damn me to the seven hells.”
“Then it is a good thing you have already pledged yourself to the Lord.”
“Indeed. Call your friends. They will come to no harm here. You have my word, and I know Gwyneth is anxious to see you.”
“And I her.”
Robyn whistled. Will was the first to drop from her tree, followed by John, Alanna, and Midge.
“My good friend blacksmith,” Tuck said as she clapped John on the shoulder. “Good to have you back. And who is this?” She surveyed Midge.
“An introduction I would be happy to make inside if it pleases you,” said Robyn.
Tuck stepped back to make way for the group. Robyn ducked past the larger woman and let out a breath when the door shut behind them. Inside, the buzz of bees in the kitchen garden droned out the shouts from distant laborers, and Robyn inhaled the scent of fresh herbs.
“I’m Midge,” said Midge.
“Reverend Mother. Tuck, if you will. Come this way. And John, I’ve a bit of mending that needs seeing to before you go.”
“Reverend Mother,” he said, offering her a slight bow.
“She’s like a bear,” Midge whispered to
Robyn, momentarily forgetting her anger. “Her thigh is as big around as I am.”
“She’s a man-crusher,” Robyn agreed. “I think you’ll be safe, though.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Will leaned in so that only Robyn could hear her. “I overheard some queer things about the sister while I was here.”
“Like what?”
“Things.” Will smirked.
Robyn contemplated pressing the issue, but decided against it as Tuck led them along the cloisters. Their footsteps echoed faintly in the covered walkway surrounding the courtyard. A few vines climbed up the pillars, bobbing in the morning breeze. John ran his hand along the stone as they walked.
“Solid work,” he said.
“We could use a mason.”
“That, alas, I am not.”
Tuck shrugged and led them onward. A nun on her knees pulling weeds looked up curiously as they passed her. A scar marred her face, mottling the skin and lifting the edge of her mouth. A burn, perhaps, most likely from hot oil. Robyn gave her a slight nod. The girl had probably been deemed unmarriageable and her dowry gifted to the convent in exchange for taking her off her family’s hands. In place of motherhood, she’d learn how to read and write and would probably live a significantly longer life than her married peers. Robyn wondered if she considered herself lucky. If only Marian had ended up in a place like this. The fantasy flitted briefly through her head. Out here things were possible. She could scale the convent wall and visit Marian in the garden or meet her as she harvested mushrooms on the forest paths. No husband would demand her attention and her time and her body.
She hardly noticed the interior of the priory as they passed through it. Stone walls and stone floors, filled with the low murmur of women’s voices. She might have found it soothing in another frame of mind.
“And here we are,” said Tuck, waving them through another doorway and into the priory parlor. “Allow me to introduce you to my sister, the Lady Emmeline of Harcourt.”
A tall blond woman rose to her feet and wrapped Will in a tight embrace. Robyn moved out of her way just in time and came to a halt beside Marian.
“Consider yourself lucky that you missed our initial welcome,” Marian whispered. “My lady nearly flayed her sister with her tongue.”