GREENWOOD

by Sue Wilson

  Thea's hand flew to his shoulder to restrain him. "Gratitude is unnecessary, but you will at least heed my counsel. You're going nowhere, my lord. You are injured, and seriously so."

  The Sheriff stopped in mid-motion, regarding Thea mildly. "That may be, woman, but I'm not so near death's door that I am incapable of relieving myself outside. Now if you would kindly direct me to the proper place."

  Thea crossed her arms in front of her and shook her head, bemused. Only a Norman would be so crude, and only the Sheriff so adamant. He was behaving like any invalid who had recovered sufficiently to chafe at being restricted, although it had been only hours since his surgery. She had seen children deal with confinement with more patience, but no one with greater recuperative power.

  "If you insist, since you seem to lack even a trace of good judgment." She indicated the door with a tilt of her head. "Just beyond the garden, in back. There's a willow screen for privacy."

  "Why this rare caution, woman?" he quipped. "Could it be the fool who pierced me yesterday is lying in wait for me now, even as we speak?"

  "It's doubtful he would be so lucky twice." Thea clamped her mouth shut. Was it fear or anger that had loosed this veritable barrage of disrespect, or merely that the man's dry jests demanded an equally acerbic reply?

  He placed his hand under her chin and lifted her face, making it impossible to avoid his dark, penetrating eyes. "You are a quick and witty wench. But I could have your tongue for it."

  She stared back with equal resolve. If the truth were told, she enjoyed the role she had assumed as verbal combatant. It kept her from tearing him limb from limb.

  "Mm." He grunted as if reaching some inner decision, and released her. "Out back, you say?"

  She stood and offered her hand, but he was on his feet without help, pulling himself together in small ways-a scratch to his unruly black hair and a stroke to his dark beard-and headed out the door. He did not ask about his shirt, but met the early morning air impervious to its chill.

  She saw then the crosshatch of scarring across the Sheriff's bared back and shoulders, and bit into her lip to keep from gasping. Feeling the poorly healed skin with her own fingers had not prepared her for the sight. The welts-for surely that was what they were-were faded and smoothed with age, the remnant of harm inflicted upon him long ago, brutal enough to leave a lasting imprint.

  Even after he'd rounded the corner and was out of view, she was unable to move, the after-image of what she'd seen burning her eyes. He was a Norman, she told herself, and to have attained his position, he was most likely a soldier, as well. And surely soldiers were scarred...

  But to imagine that Englishmen had done that, or even the Welsh, whom everyone knew were savage...

  She shuddered and hugged her thin shift to her.

  From appearances, the Sheriff considered himself well enough to be up and about, although the injury he had sustained would require several days' rest and close attention to keep the wound healing properly. Already Thea was learning that he would offer her no compliance during his confinement-if confinement were anything one could force upon him to begin with. He would walk to the latrine and back-that much she would allow him, if only for modesty's sake-but she would have to take a staunch position against his moving about for any other reason. She had nearly fortified herself with the stubbornness she was sure this task would require when Nottingham strode by her on his return.

  "Breakfast," he ordered as he walked past, not bothering to slow his pace in the least. He acknowledged her with only a dismissive gesture toward the shift she wore, still stained from surgery. "And change that thing before you serve me."

  Irritation roiled within her again, devouring the brief sympathy she had felt. The man was impossible! Obviously, it never occurred to the Sheriff that having barged in on her in demand of her services, he was not also entitled to demand hospitality and a comely wench to sate his appetite. She had saved the bastard's life. Was that not enough?

  She turned around to protest and was met by a shift flung full in her face.

  "This one," he ordered, as he rummaged through the contents of a shelf where she stored her few pieces of clothing.

  "Those are my things," she said with level coolness.

  "Yes. I can see that." He held out a second nubby-textured shift.

  She snatched the garment from him, folded it brusquely, and returned it to the shelf. Rude, arrogant...impossible! And he obviously knew nothing about women's clothing. She grabbed a kirtle and tunic and clutched them together with the shift he'd tossed at her.

  "Your things are over there." She nodded toward the back of the chair where his freshly laundered shirt hung, the leather sword belt and scabbard slung across it. She prayed he would dress himself and leave her some small amount of privacy to do the same. Thea turned her back to him and tried her best to wriggle into her clothes without baring too much of herself to him.

  "Your modesty is quite unnecessary. I've seen a woman's body before."

  "Undoubtedly," she said, "but spare me the numerous accounts. I'm not one of your wenches."

  "Saints be praised."

  Thea glanced over her shoulder, intending to burn him with a smoldering glare, but the Sheriff merely held up the remnant of shirt he had slipped into. "Your blade is quite lethal," he said, indicating the tear that sliced it from neck to hem.

  She jerked the ties of her kirtle tight and pulled the loose tunic over her head, her cheeks foolishly burning. "If you expect it mended-"

  "Just breakfast," he said, affable enough.

  She pushed past him to the fire, portioned out a serving of porridge into a crockery bowl, and set the bowl on the table. "Your breakfast, my lord," she said, the look on her face forbidding him to complain.

  The Sheriff met and held her gaze. "I suppose conversation is out of the question."

  Thea glared at him, then turned silently to add wood to the fire, which had burned down to a bed of hot coals during the night.

  "Then have I your permission to return to Nottingham, woman?"

  "My name is Thea," she replied, "and somehow I did not gather you were interested in my...permission." She stoked the fire with a hearty, well-aimed thrust on the last word, then straightened and turned to face him.

  "Thea," he said deliberately, lingering over the sound of the word. "Yes, of course." He took another spoonful of broth. "Somehow, Thea-" he put delicate emphasis on her name, "I sense I have overstayed my welcome." He held up his hand to prevent her from objecting-an objection she had not considered uttering. "Now, don't feel the need to be kind. I'm accustomed to it."

  "You are not well, my lord," she offered with a trifle more benevolence. "As much as it grieves me, you must remain here two or three days more-"

  "Two or three days? Have you lost your mind? Do you know who I am?"

  Thea sighed. He was, indeed, going to be difficult.

  "The arrowhead is out, is it not?" he continued.

  "Yes, but-"

  "And I'm trussed up sufficiently to ride?"

  Mentally, Thea considered the effort his return to the castle would entail. If he managed to mount his horse, could he ride the miles to Nottingham without damage to his wound? Try as she might, she could not imagine the man riding at anything less than breakneck speed. "I'm not certain of that, my lord-"

  "Well, you did bandage me," he said, as if daring her to make a poor evaluation of the job she'd done.

  "The wound is open and needs to drain before it is stitched," she explained patiently. "It must be bathed frequently and an astringent poultice applied. And you must be in bed, as still as possible, not dashing across the hills. Two or three more days," she repeated with all the firmness she could muster.

  "That is your recommendation," the Sheriff said.

  "It is."

  "And it is so noted. Your concern is touching. Your recommendation, however, is quite impossible." He was suddenly very serious, and looked past her, lost in thought for a moment. "I can
ill afford to be away now."

  "My lord-" Thea stopped suddenly. He had not even heard her. She remembered the arrowhead she had saved, wondering if it would give him pause to reconsider or only make him more determined to leave. "Then I think there is something you need to see."

  Nottingham pushed his chair back from the table and stood, looking around the cottage, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. "Yes, what is it?"

  Thea fished the arrow's tip out of the pocket of her discarded tunic and held it in her palm. The Sheriff stopped his distracted search and focused on the barbed point. He looked down at Thea for a long moment before picking up the piece and turning it over between his fingers.

  "How did you say you came to be wounded?" Thea ventured, knowing full well he had not said and certainly did not need to divulge such details to her.

  "An ambush...in the forest," he replied absently. He did not take his gaze off the arrowhead.

  "But that is not a woodsman's arrow," she said with muted certainty. "It bears the mark of the castle forge."

  Nottingham turned the metal tip over in his palm a few more times, then closed his fist over the offending shrapnel. His lip curled up in a strange half-smile. "So it is. You are most observant...for a woman who observed on another occasion that there were no woodsmen in Sherwood."

  Thea's breath froze in her throat, and a quick stab of fear shot through her. So he knew, had known all along. Gisborne's tales had reached the Sheriff's ears, and whether he believed them or not, her innocence was now in question. She waited, expecting something-a direct accusation, arrest, maybe a swift end to her life if the Sheriff decided to rid himself of her impertinence as well as whatever threat he imagined she presented. She didn't expect him to do nothing.

  "My cloak?" he asked, as his eyes searched the peg on her wall where her threadbare cape hung. He spied his own mantle lying crumpled on the pallet they had shared, and simultaneously they bent to pick it up. He grimaced and hissed with the effort.

  Without speaking, Thea gathered up the mantle and shook the bits of straw from the luxurious fur. She placed the cloak over him and brought its heavy folds around his arms to make the brooch closure more accessible to him. Seeing no need to bring further attention to his helplessness, she did not offer to clasp it. It was doubtful her fingers would have stopped trembling long enough anyway. Her cheeks burned, and she knew their heat was not caused by the fire any more than it was caused by her treacherous secrets.

  "With luck then, Nottingham by dusk," he was saying.

  "My lord, I must protest. It's unwise to leave now. I strongly advise bed rest, here where I can tend you."

  "You'd like that, wouldn't you, Thea?" His voice was low and full of suggestion.

  "Such a journey is fraught with danger," she said, ignoring his seductive intent. "It would be foolhardy to undertake it alone, and-" She stopped and tried to gather her wits about her, unable to understand why she was trying so hard to persuade him to stay. "You will have to return by Sherwood, as you know, and I would guess you are quite unable to defend yourself."

  "And you think that would be necessary?"

  A certain trap. She decided to sidestep it altogether. "What is more, you said yourself, you aren't sure your surgeon survived the ambush."

  "True," the Sheriff said, brows drawn together, "but irrelevant. If he did, he'll find himself in irons for leaving me there to die-"

  "Then who will see to your wound?" she asked, surprised she had conjured such a reasonable argument for a thing she was not at all certain she wanted.

  "My scribe is literate. I suppose he could consult with the surgeon's medical texts. And there's a wench or two whose hands-"

  Could the man do naught but jest, even about a matter as serious as this? "Then go," she said, infuriated. "Please. Leave here."

  "You seem genuinely concerned-"

  "Concerned that I have saved your life only to have you fall prey to someone else's questionable expertise. Concerned that you will send your dogs after me should your healing go poorly."

  "Ah, I see. Altruism at its most noble."

  The cocksure smile he flashed in her direction unsettled her far more than the thought of the Sheriff riding off to do himself further injury.

  "And altruism should be rewarded." With a swift, decisive flash, he grabbed her hand.

  "No!" she cried, instinctively jerking her hand back, but he held her tightly, strong fingers imprisoning hers. A fiery, fathomless light burned in his eyes. Suddenly, she knew she had crossed the line of his tolerance. He had used her-no, worse, she had made herself available to him-and now she was quite expendable.

  He brought her hand to his lips. "You are unaware of the most sensible solution," he whispered.

  "Unaware...of..." she stammered, thinking how wrong he was, because she was intensely aware of many, many things: the tickle of his beard on her fingers; the warm sigh of his breath; the full softness of his lips on her skin, in odd contrast to the hard, unyielding grip with which he held her hand. She was even aware of her tattered sleeve hem draped across her wrist, in blatant contrast with the rich, ebony silk he wore. She would have withdrawn her hand had he not just at that moment released it. Her heart hammered at an unforgiving pace.

  "You shall come with me."

  She stood mute, not even certain he'd spoken, although he'd moved on, taken up his sword belt, and was making a circle of it about his waist.

  "Did you hear me, woman? Collect your things-a minimum of your things. My horse is not a pack animal, and as it is, he will have to carry two riders."

  "What?"

  "Well, it does seem to be the only way to satisfy your need to nursemaid me through my injury."

  "My need-"

  "And what better guide through Sherwood than a wench so loyal to Hood she would not lead me within two days of his camp?"

  "You're mistaken, my lord-" She wanted to tell him in exactly how many ways, but he rushed through her protests as if they were nonexistent.

  "Come now, woman. Don't dawdle. I'm still in relatively good spirits for a man you think too feeble to make it back to his own castle."

  The Sheriff punctuated his warning with a raised brow, then opened the door, and stepped outside.

  Thea stood rooted to the same spot in her cottage, unable to move even though her mind was racing. What had happened to the argument she thought she had constructed with such convincing sanity? Nottingham Castle was easily the last place she wanted to be. Surely he didn't expect her to accompany him simply because he had a flash of ill-born inspiration.

  "My horse?" she heard him call from outside.

  But of course, he expected it, she realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach that obliterated the last shred of anything pleasant she had felt with his kiss. And one did not stand around like a fool, trying to second-guess how seriously the Sheriff of Nottingham meant his orders to be taken.

  "You are coming, aren't you, woman?"

  Thea's body filled with tension, every instinct clamoring to resist him. Her mind offered no way out, short of consoling herself that the Sheriff was a healthy man, bristling with far more stamina than was required for recuperation and an attitude which would not allow for anything less than a full and speedy recovery.

  A few days at the most, she comforted herself. A few days of being very careful and keeping her wits about her. Surely she could manage that.

  She glanced around the cottage, considering and eliminating items she would need to bring. Nottingham's surgeon would have bandages, most certainly a mortar and pestle, a number of the more common herbs. She quickly took a scarf and filled it with a variety of barks, leaves, roots, and mosses, and tied the ends of the cloth together.

  "Thea, isn't it? For Christ's sake, woman, what is taking you?"

  It would serve him right if she did come, the pompous brute! She would ply him with the most noxious nostrums she could concoct; a purgative for his arrogant ill temper came quickly to mind.

  She pause
d, full of innumerable misgivings, then closed the cottage door firmly behind her and hoisted her knotted kerchief over one shoulder.

  "My lord."

  The Sheriff had already mounted his horse, how she could never guess. She was glad she had stayed in the cottage long enough to spare him her audience. If the action pained him, his face bore no evidence of it. He sat atop the bay stallion with regal bearing, indulging the animal as it pranced and pawed at the ground, but reining it in the minute he saw Thea's step falter.

  She considered the huge beast, and the equally beastly figure who rode him, with due skepticism.

  She thought she saw him smile.

  "Yes, well, get on with it," he said, reaching down for her.

  She clasped his forearm and let him lift her up. She struggled with her skirts, her unwieldy package of herbs, and her own lack of knowledge of riding, and straddled the horse in front of the Sheriff. It felt unseemly, her woolen kirtle pulled up about her thighs, her bare feet dangling without stirrups. Belatedly, she realized she should have seated herself behind him or sideways, as a noble lady would have done. She pulled one leg up slightly, hoping to change her position without calling much attention to her blunder, but the Sheriff stroked her thigh with infuriating familiarity.

  "You're quite all right as you are," he said.

  She brushed his hand away and tugged at her skirt, trying to ignore his deep rumble of laughter as his arm snaked around her midsection and he accommodated himself to her presence in front of him. He readjusted the reins in his hands, holding them close-unnecessarily close-to her midriff.

  "I am not coming along for your private amusement."

  "Of course not."

  Thea quieted immediately at the careless, teasing tone of his voice, suspecting he lied. The man was undoubtedly going to ride back to Nottingham for the better part of the day, worsen his injury, and philander his way through it all. She pushed his hands away from their too intimate position beneath her breasts and vowed silently that, though the Sheriff be laid open by an archer's arrow and her own surgery, he would find an elbow in his rib if he used this occasion for more liberties.