An Earl for an Archeress

by E. Elizabeth Watson

  She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and yawned, when the latch to her door began to lift. She bolted through the curtains to her feet, her hair mussed from sleep fraying loose from her braid. Her night shift billowed down to her ankles just as the door cracked open.

  “Elmer?” Robert whispered, peeking inside.

  She clenched the gown shut at her throat.

  “Pardon me—”

  “Hush.” Robert held up a hand to silence her. “You didn’t answer my knocking.”

  He slid in through the door, pushing it closed, but not before she noticed Jonathan in the corridor, taking in the image of her in the thin fabric of her sleeping gown.

  “You said you wanted to see firsthand that I’m not a fraud,” he said, moving to her wardrobe and swinging open the door. It was empty. “Where is your clothing?”

  She frowned at him. He was decked in his typical coat with his dark green cloak thrown around his neck, his sword belt slouched upon his waist, and completely booted to head out the gates. He turned to look at her now and paused. She felt redness creep up her neck at being so exposed before him, and from his silence, he was taking notice of her, too.

  His eyes, frozen upon her face, now dipped to her breasts pushing her garment outward, then roved over her hips and legs that she knew he couldn’t actually see, thanks to the folds of fabric. They stopped at her bare feet. His perusal roved back up her body, lingering at her hands still clenching the loose fabric at her throat.

  “I apologize,” he said, as if just now realizing his rude intrusion. “I oft rouse my men when we must leave before dawn. I wasn’t thinking.”

  She swallowed. Unabashed interest rested in his gaze, and whatever haste had caused him to enter so briskly had dissipated.

  “Over there,” she swallowed, pointing to a chair.

  He severed his gaze and walked to her chair, picking up her wadded trousers, tunic, and coat, bringing them to her. She took them, her nightshift now slackening down around her neck and exposing her stretch of skin from her neck to the valley between her breasts. His eyes dipped to the pulse at her throat and then to her cleavage, but he returned to her chair and collected her boots and stockings.

  He paused again. She watched him rub his thumbs over her threadbare stockings. Heat burned her face. After a moment, he looked up at her, his expression blank, and brought her footwear to her as well.

  “Ready yourself and meet us in the corridor,” he said, handing over her boots, his hazel eyes holding hers as he also passed along her stockings. “Bring your weapons and your packs. We ride, and will break our fast as we go.”

  He strode to the door and exited, sweeping back into the hall. The embarrassment never left her cheeks as she pulled on the tattered stockings that Robert had now seen. Dragging them up to her waist, she pulled her night shift over her head and draped it across the foot of the bed. She found her infernal corset given to her by Huntington’s maids still resting upon her chair. Robert had to have seen it and elected not to pick it up. Heat flushed her face again as she wrapped it around herself and cinched the lacing up the front, hugging her breasts together. She donned the rest of her clothing quickly, slipping her feet into her boots and propping each foot on the bed to pull the laces tight. She moved to the chair, her weapons lying beside it, and belted her quiver around her hip, slung her bow over her shoulder, and snagged up her saddle packs.

  John was waiting for her in the dark corridor. Only one torch for the wee hours of night was lit at the end, making shadows consume much of the passageway. He didn’t say a word, only tipped his head to nod that they should walk. He led her down the corridor, down the stairs, into the darkened great hall. A dog, curled by the hearth still glowing with cinders from the night before, lifted its head to gaze at them, then yawned and went back to sleep.

  They exited into the bailey, the heavens still black and littered with millions of stars. The eastern sky was barely dimming with dark blue. Everything rested silent. Mariel looked around. The offices of the castle were still shuttered, and no fire had been lit in the smithies’ yard yet. No clinks or carts creaking or servants bustling intruded on the quietude. It was indeed so early it was still nighttime.

  Robert was coming back through the stable door, leading Goliath and Mariel’s horse, both saddled for an outing.

  “Where are we going?” Mariel questioned.

  “Hunting.” Robert smiled. “Wild boars like to root about by one of my forest streams, and I thought ’twill be a great day for a hunt. The weather should be fair, crisp, and the sky, as you can see, is clear.”

  “Boar hunting?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow. Robert’s mouth lifted up as he glanced at her. He was speaking in code, Mariel deduced. “Such creatures are rare in England. You can’t simply go hunt one. Don’t you have a better excuse?” A glimmer lit his eyes and a smirk teased the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t answer as he ensured his stirrups were adjusted. Not to mention that he had done the work of the stable groom, who by the look of it through the partially opened stable door, was lying abed on his stack of straw, sleeping.

  “Surely your lad would have done this task, no?”

  Robert shrugged. “He offered, yes, but he’s a lad still. He’ll be busy all the day. No sense making him rise earlier than expected just on my account. It’s not as if my hands are broken, now, are they?”

  In spite of the confusing morning and Mariel’s bleary eyes, she smiled. Most lords cared not if their servants were children or adults. If they required service, their staff was expected to hop to attention.

  “So you wish me to hunt wild boar with you?” She folded her arms.

  John and Robert shared a knowing chuckle.

  “Indeed,” John remarked as Will now exited the stable, leading two more saddled horses, one of which was John’s. He took the reins. “The kind with nice pouches of fat at their flanks. They’re ugly to look at, but they’re the tastiest kind with the most abundance to share.”

  Will joined in the chuckling as Alan and David emerged from the stable, too. Robert sent a glance around the group. Mariel watched him survey their persons. All were armed, though curiously, John wasn’t carrying his quarterstaff. Tethered to their saddles were several coiled ropes for lashing a boar’s feet, and hunting daggers sheathed at their hips.

  The men hoisted themselves into their saddles, though Robert lingered on the ground and eyed Mariel. He hesitated, then he reached to help her mount, but she looked away and checked the girth strap, ensuring her saddle was appropriately fastened. She put a boot in the stirrup and pulled herself up. So far she hadn’t required he coddle her like a lady, and if he thought her good enough to join his men, she certainly shouldn’t expect him to coddle her now.

  They trotted the horses to the inner gate, waited for a guardsman to open them, then trotted into the outer yards and continued on toward the main portcullis.

  “Good luck on your hunt, my lord,” called down a guardsman manning the barbican, and the cranking of chains ground as the heavy grate was winched up.

  “We’ll bring back a fattened beast for all to share at board,” Robert replied.

  “We’re looking forward to the treat,” the man replied, to affirmative utterances from the others inside the barbican.

  Mariel pondered the exchange. The guard seemed none the wiser to the purpose of their outing, as if they really ventured out to hunt, and yet, mayhap he, too, was speaking in code and his entire estate knew the sort of activity their lord engaged in. Confusion furrowed her brow.

  They rode through the massive curtain wall into the rolling fields surrounding the castle walls. The village in the distance was dotted with faint activity as peasants and crofters began to rouse. Robert nodded at everyone he passed, bidding them good morn, as if he had nothing to hide.

  “Good day, my lord!” called the woman crofter who had taken Mariel in two nights
before.

  “Good day!” Robert called back, raising his hand in greeting. “And a better day still when we return with a fresh boar for the table! All will be welcome to eat heartily!”

  The woman grinned. “Indeed, best of luck!”

  Once beyond the village as they neared the trees, Mariel loped up beside Robert.

  “I assume this is William de Wendenal we pursue? How do you know where to find him? I thought at our meeting yesterday, you said he wasn’t planning his next move for a couple of days.”

  Robert nodded. “Indeed. Sometimes, when hunting, an opportunity arises unexpectedly, and only a successful hunter will take advantage of it.”

  “I know you didn’t really plan a boar hunt.”

  “How do you know?” he countered.

  “Why wake me for a hunting excursion?”

  Robert shrugged. “The guardsman who arrested you said he saw you arrow-shoot a running hare in the dark before going to alert the others on patrol. ’Tis admirable marksmanship that I am going to need today. As you know, hunting requires precision.”

  He glanced sidelong at her, his ever-present smile curling his lips up.

  “Do your guardsmen also know you do not really hunt? Are they in on your secret scheme?”

  “But I do plan a hunt,” Robert replied, flashing a grin.

  “Will you stop jesting? Aren’t you worried that your people will figure it out?”

  “Figure what out?” Robert shrugged. “When they’re eating greasy, plump smoked pork at board tonight, I assume they’ll figure we had a successful hunt.”

  “Do you know how to say anything without your nauseating witticisms?” She huffed.

  “What? No roll of the eyes with your complaint?” Robert goaded her.

  “Apparently you do not,” she said, ignoring him.

  “When he’s angered, he’s a right cruel bastard,” Will said. “Otherwise, no. The obnoxious jesting comes part and parcel with his annoyingly affable personality.”

  Mariel sighed, resigning herself to travel along and watch what unfolded. It was clear he had a plot up his sleeve and was determined to keep her guessing. They veered northward on the main trail, heading toward Nottingham Castle in Lincolnshire. Robert passed around cheese and dried meat, and they ate in silence, listening to forest critters and birds begin to fill the air with scuttling and song. Hours passed, until the sky was bright with morning sun blinking through the tree canopy, low on the horizon.

  Robert finally eased his horse off the path, into a thick patch of brambles. The horses negotiated the way slowly, carefully. The tree trunks were dense, and more than once Mariel felt her knees scrape against bark. At long last, they arrived at a natural clearing. The ground was covered in thick underbrush. Fallen trees were soft and decayed with moss and fungi consuming them. Robert dismounted, as did the others. Mariel took their lead and followed suit, landing upon the spongey ground.

  “We’ll leave the horses here,” Robert said.

  “You would boar hunt without your mount?” Mariel smirked, crossing her arms with satisfaction. “And don’t talk in circles around me. I know we search for William de Wendenal.”

  Robert cracked another smile. “Am I to suspect that you actually believed we came hunting?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, giving him the eye roll he seemed to want.

  The men chuckled.

  “Elmer,” Robert said, the mood sobering. “You’re inexperienced at what we plan to do. And so, I want you to stand aside from the main action. I want to see how you react and instead, be a marksman for me.”

  “I don’t wish to shoot anyone,” she said.

  “And you won’t. We don’t aim to injure anything but William de Wendenal’s pride. I know he is en route to Nottingham, and when a complaint arrived at my gates last night, it was a prime opportunity to ambush him, one I couldn’t pass up.”

  “How would you know?”

  Robert looked at the others, a knowing look that indicated they had already been briefed. “Last night, as I readied for bed, Jonathan alerted me to a couple of beggars at the main gates. ’Twas a man seeking refuge for his wife who’s with child. He stated that Nottingham had happened upon his cottage yesterday evening and demanded quartering. He and his wife were relegated out of doors to their cowshed so that Nottingham and his party could sleep within. They were on a return journey to Nottingham Castle to meet with an important lord, I assume, the Sheriff of Ayr, who just departed northward yesterday morn. But when he went back to his cottage to beg some food for his wife, Nottingham’s men had already depleted a sennight’s worth of meat and watered ale, and demanded that he bring his woman to them for entertainment instead.”

  Mariel inhaled as Robert’s face turned to chiseled stone. “A woman with child? A married woman?” Her eyes widened. What a horror.

  Robert nodded once. “They fled instead, and the man feels certain they weren’t followed, for they said Nottingham was already in his cups, thanks to the flask at his hip. They’ll be rousing now and readying to depart, if they haven’t done so already.”

  “Why did the peasants think to come to you for aid?”

  Robert’s jaw was pumping just speaking of them. “These are my forests, not Nottingham’s, and those who live here swear fealty to me as their lord. They know my benevolence and know I would never turn them out to fend off the wild animals roaming the trees, if they come to me for help. Unfortunately, I have no authority to tell King Richard’s sheriff to vacate my land. But these are my people he has wronged. And if they can no longer feel safe in their home because of our good sheriff, William de Wendenal will answer for it.”

  “To think, she walked all the way to your castle yestereve carrying a bairn, no less,” Mariel said, looking down. “What sort of man does that to a woman, no matter her station?” My faither would.

  Robert lifted her chin with his fingertip and looked into her eyes. The humor ever-present on his face was replaced with steel. “It pleases me to see you so impassioned, Elmer. Come. I’ll show you where to stand and what to do.”

  …

  The men bundled their cloaks to their saddle packs and left their horses in the clearing. Robert led the way onto an overgrown deer path, back into the inky thickness of the towering trees. He continued to glance back. His men were light of foot on the twigs and underbrush, and more than once he couldn’t sense Mariel’s added presence. She was always there.

  He shook his head. Like a phantom indeed. When he had met with the peasant and his wife the night before, his blood had boiled. He should be used to the desperate folk and their desperate stories by now. They shouldn’t affect him as deeply anymore. But they always caught him off guard. As if it wasn’t already selfish enough for the sheriff to evict them from their home for the night and consume all their food, even if it was his right to expect quartering when he needed it, it was another level of depravity entirely for the sheriff to demand a husband hand over his pregnant wife for his and his men’s pleasure.

  He had noticed the shock on Mariel’s face when he’d told her. Good. So often, men and women were numb to the ways of the world. But Mariel was visibly distressed by it.

  At long last, he held up a hand to halt.

  “The cottage is just over yonder, over this incline,” he whispered.

  “They’re still here,” Will said. “I can smell the fire smoke.”

  John was already creeping to a tree growing out of an outcropping of rock covered in soft green lichen. He pulled up a mesh woven from twigs and leaves. Mariel’s eyes widened just as they had when Robert had motioned her to hide beneath a similar one. John pulled out hoods of dark green and tossed them to each man, then looked to Mariel and tossed her one as well. She snagged it out of the air.

  “Your hair will show,” Robert said, lifting Mariel’s messy braid from being roused awake
. “Can you fix it?”

  “I should simply cut it,” Mariel said.

  “No,” Robert said, toying with the end of it. “Never cut such a glorious gift.”

  She blushed and looked away. He watched as she untied the golden tresses and expertly pulled loose the braid. She folded her hair into a thick nub, the way she had worn it at the archery tourney. Their eyes met again and he felt the urge to ease her mind as he had done all morning with his teasing about a boar hunt. Trepidation pooled in her eyes. She didn’t know what to expect, and he had intentionally kept his plan vague. If she knew that as always, there was a realistic possibility that any number of them could be injured, including Wendenal himself, or that they could be captured and discovered, he didn’t yet know how she might react. Sure, she often spoke with bluster, but the last thing he needed was for her to capitulate to her fear and flee.

  “Now put your hood over your head, like so,” Robert said, unfolding his and draping it over his head so that it obstructed his face and yoked around his shoulders.

  His eyes dropped to her chest. She might be wearing a tunic and coat, but he had cut her stomach bindings, leaving her with nothing to flatten her obvious attributes. It was clear that she wore undergarments that enhanced her shape. No matter. He reached out to adjust her hood for her. She’ll remain in the trees where no one can see her, for Wendenal might consider it a boon to catch a forest thief and discover her to be a beautiful female.

  “The men know the routine,” Robert said. “But you do not, Elmer. Can you remember the way we came from the horses?”

  She glanced back along the deer path on which they had just arrived. “I’m fairly certain.”

  Robert nodded. “Up there, you see that tree beside the hidden supplies?” She glanced to it. “Look up. To the first branch.”

  She obeyed and furrowed her brow. Then she looked at him. “I don’t understand.”

  He pointed to give her a hint. “Those vines?”