by Sue Wilson
"Yes, Thea," he whispered against the crook of her neck. "So would I."
He ducked beneath the halter, missing the jab of her elbow directed at his ribs, and came up to the horse, dropping his gloves in the hay as he went. He stroked the stallion's muzzle and met him forehead to forehead. "Chimera, you old ghost. I thought you were lost to me."
The black returned the affection. Nottingham reveled in the warm moisture of the horse's breath against his bearded cheek.
"Where on God's earth have you been? Were you taken, you miserable beast? Or did you run off because the arrows were flying a little too thick for your blood?" He stopped, and his brow wrinkled as he looked over to Thea. "I was certain he was cut from beneath me during the ambush."
"He was injured, my lord. Here." Her hand slid from the stallion's withers to his flank where a furrow through the horse's pelt had healed. "Do you remember this?"
The Sheriff's hand smoothed over the thick scarring. "Before I was struck, I thought I saw him take an arrow, but in all the mayhem...." There was so much he hadn't seen, so much he still did not know about that day. Far easier to blame the outlaws-with castle weaponry-than to live without answers as he had these past weeks.
His fingertips brushed Thea's; the warmth and texture of her touch suffused him in a fire flash of remembered sensation. The disaster in Sherwood seemed very far away.
"It appears the arrow but grazed him, my lord," she said.
Nottingham noted with satisfaction that she did not move her hand. She glanced at him, dark lashes veiling her eyes, her expression deep and unreadable.
"Fortune smiled on Chimera."
The two started at the young boy's voice. Thea snatched her hand away, fist balled in the protective folds of her skirt.
"Simeon." Nottingham straightened and cleared his throat, forcing away his private reverie with a slap to Chimera's rump. A cloud of dust powdered his hand. "He wants a thorough grooming, wouldn't you say? See to it, lad, and the bay is yours." He passed the halter to the boy.
"The warhorse you rode in on, my lord?"
"The same." The Sheriff grinned at the stable boy's stark disbelief. He could almost see the happiness that sprang up within the child, bubbling from the same well of excitement that lit his eyes. On impulse, Nottingham ruffled the child's raven hair and closed his hand over the boy's small shoulder. "And you must tell me all you know about Chimera's return. About your decision to fetch Mistress Aelredson. And what exactly she did to soothe the beast."
Simeon needed no further prompting. He drew a deep breath and began. "Well, we thought it was elves at first, because Sherwood is full of them and on account of Chimera being gone so long. And there was an evil moon whilst he was out there. But Mistress Aelredson-I'm not sure, my lord, but it doesn't seem she's much belief in elves, or much knowledge of them, or maybe she's afraid of them as much as she is of horses...."
Nottingham let the boy's babble drone in the background as his concentration drifted across the lad's dark, scraggly locks to Thea. She watched the child, a gentle smile tugging at her lips. Half hidden in the silvery blue of her skirts, her fingertips rubbed against each other where they had touched his.
~*~
Guy of Gisborne stifled a groan, rolled his eyes heavenward, and prayed silently for deliverance. He had spent an interminable evening cosseting that visiting clod of a baron, pouring ale down his bottomless gullet to placate him, only to have Monteforte pontificate more loudly on the Sheriff's inexcusable tardiness with each hardy belch.
Throughout dinner, Gisborne had granted the baron far more deference than he was generally wont to bestow, nodding and shrugging with diplomacy he had dredged up from some unknown source. Impatience roiled first at his cousin's delay, then, as the night wore on and the Sheriff did not appear, at the audacity of his cousin's absence.
Where was the bastard? Or did the High Sheriff, as Gisborne was beginning to suspect, intend to foist Monteforte and his tedious complaints off on his lieutenant?
Damn, Monteforte was a whining boor, but his pockets were deep and thickly lined with silver, and Wythestead was an estate of no small reckoning. Only Huntingdon eclipsed it in wealth and the strength of its fortification, but Huntingdon's earl was solidly given to the imprisoned Richard. Nottingham could ill afford to lose Monteforte's support through negligence and a preference for solitude.
Gisborne waited until Monteforte's demands were thick with the slurred speech of drink and his own skin itched with the need to be gone. Voice camouflaged by the discordant strains of a lute, he managed a terse aside to Aelwynn to see to Monteforte and his endless string of requests. Turning a blandly smiling face to the baron with an unctuous apology, he begged leave to see what matter of urgency detained the Sheriff.
Monteforte opened his mouth to protest, but Gisborne placed Aelwynn's narrow hand in the baron's bejeweled paw and closed his sausage-like fingers around hers with a meaningful smile, laden with silent permission. For the first time that evening, a grin crossed Monteforte's beefy face. Ignoring Aelwynn's glare, Gisborne bowed low to the baron and retreated toward the hallway, rage returning, steaming through his controlled demeanor, until his angry stride ate up the length of the passage to his cousin's solar.
"Let me pass!" he demanded of the guard posted at the entrance to the Sheriff's quarters, and shoved the sentry aside before he had the chance to obey. The heavy iron-banded door to his cousin's chamber banged inward with a furious racket.
Inside the room, the Sheriff glanced up from the manservant who was displaying a choice of several tunics for Nottingham's consideration.
"Guy," he acknowledged, one slightly lifted brow conveying more displeasure than surprise at the intrusion. "Could your report not wait?"
"It has waited," Guy snarled, although already the strength of his anger was evaporating, his confidence mysteriously draining toward depletion. "I've come to-to make complaint," he faltered to a finish.
Nottingham slid his hand across the luxurious silk of an ebony tunic whose sleeves and deeply slashed throat were edged in purple embroidery. "This one." He flicked his fingers against the chosen garment and held out his arms while the servant draped it over him.
How did Nottingham do it? Gisborne wondered. What was the power of the man that the Sheriff could strip him of all potency with only the dismissive ennui in his voice? Accord him no more importance than the selection of evening wear? Maybe less.
"Ah, Monteforte is it?" A small grin of sympathy played about the Sheriff's bearded lips.
"The least of it, although, true, the jackass has brayed his offense at your tardiness with more regularity than the chapel chimes the hour for prayer."
"A thoroughly dependable creature, is he not?" Nottingham lifted his arms away from his body as the servant circled his waist with a belt and knotted the finely tooled black leather with a slight cant low on the Sheriff's left hip.
"I left him in Aelwynn's charge."
"Interesting." Nottingham waved the servant away and threaded his dagger through his belt. "At least she can fend for herself," he said, inclining his head in Gisborne's direction.
Gisborne saw the line of the Sheriff's stare, then his hand flew to his cheek and the forgotten parallel streaks that matched the angle of his sharp jawline. A sick feeling swam in his gut, a cross between nausea and the cold need to strike out. All the nights spent with Aelwynn between his furs, savoring the private knowledge of their illicit sharing, and it was never a secret at all. The Sheriff knew. Maybe had known all along.
Gisborne searched his cousin's face for traces of anger he thought should be there, not knowing fully what to expect. Surely not the indifference smoothed over his features like a cool death mask.
"This?" he asked nervously, picking at the half-healed scratches. "Not from Aelwynn, Cousin. That I swear."
"Hmmph," Nottingham grunted, stomping into black, polished boots.
"The other. That ill-spirited little witch you insist on keeping about. Lock
sley's whore. Who, by the way, was testing the latch of her cage while you were away. I caught her wandering about the castle as if she were entitled. Taking possession of the leech's garden-"
Gisborne's speech ground to a halt. Every hint of rage missing from his cousin's face before was gathered there now: brows pushed into a single, stern ledge over eyes that bored past his words and into his uneasy gut, leaving him churning with guilt and dread. He had said the wrong thing, or far too much, and defense sprang to his lips before he could think. "Damn it, Cousin. She was-"
"What did you do to earn those stripes?" Nottingham demanded.
"Nothing. God's blood, she was out, and your orders-your express orders were to-"
"Did you harm her?"
"Satan take her!" Gisborne swore. "She's a foul-tempered vixen with treachery on her mind!"
"Did you harm her?"
"She's a woman-a serf!"
Nottingham drew a long, even breath, and Gisborne shuddered as the icy control he knew so well slipped across the Sheriff's face. Tension strained in the corded sinews of Nottingham's neck, his eyes narrowed to sword point slits, and his voice dropped to a whisper like sharp-edged steel. "No serf, Cousin," he said. "Though her holding is small, it is more than you or I can claim."
"She is your serf," Gisborne spat out.
"She is mine."
The blatant possessiveness in the Sheriff's statement and the cold surety of his voice stammered Gisborne's rebuttal to silence.
This was different. Nottingham was different. No longer the comrade of Gisborne's youth with whom he'd shared a long line of serving wenches on the deGisborne estate and, later, tales of comparison and boasts of prowess, stretched tall as their youthful pride. Not even the man he thought the youth had become, who sought women for what they could give him and nothing more, who indulged his carnal appetite fully and frequently and without the entanglement of feeling, who would never allow a mere woman to undermine the precision with which he'd plotted his ascension to power.
Gisborne looked at his cousin as if the man before him were suddenly a stranger, a changeling who gentle sentiment had put in place of the true Sheriff. Then he swore, succinctly, violently.
"You are more than taken with her," Gisborne charged, anger distorting his full-lipped mouth into a predatory leer. Even so, it seemed a surfeit of words.
Nottingham said nothing, but returned his stare with eyes like burning pitch, incriminating in their silent intensity.
"Do you not see the trouble here?" Gisborne persisted.
"I see, Cousin, what I think you prefer I did not-that you harbor your own ill-seeded fascination with her. It will cease." The Sheriff's words were meted out with the same slow gravity with which Gisborne had heard him pass sentence in his courts.
"Cousin, it is not as you think."
"It is exactly as I think."
Gisborne hissed in a breath and held it, groping for some conciliatory response that eluded him. Nothing came, not apology or resignation or plea for pardon. He expelled the breath sharply. "Very well," he said in a tone that was neither admission nor denial.
"You will leave this one...to me."
"As you wish." Gisborne drew a taut smile over lips whitened with rage and turned to pour a goblet of much-needed drink. "Too vicious for my blood anyway." He shrugged, turned, and extended a second cup to the Sheriff with a broken cough of laughter. "Mind your back, Cousin, for by my word, her intentions are traitorous."
"And yours, Guy?"
Gisborne swallowed hard, the wine hitting the back of his throat with an acrid jolt.
"Mine are as base and self-serving as ever," he replied. "To do your bidding. To report what I see and know to be truth. To help you replace that piddling Crusader king who cannot take Jerusalem or make it back to England safely without landing in a foreign dungeon. To be at your side when Prince John is crowned king and summons you to court for your just reward." Gisborne's mouth wavered, then turned up in an oily imitation of a smile. "That is the way of it, Cousin, is it not? Nothing has changed?"
The Sheriff swirled the wine in his cup before drinking deeply. "No, Guy," he answered as he put down his cup. "Nothing has changed."
Gisborne nodded, uncertainty creeping up from his vitals despite his cousin's reassurance. Something he'd felt in the silence of the Sheriff's pause spoke louder than words. Something had changed. Perhaps everything. And if it had, there was only one reason.
She had done it. Damn the wench and her witching ways! He had suspected her wrongly, certain she was sent to spy, to ferret out details of the Sheriff's covert alliance with the king's brother. And well she may have done that, in between her liaisons with the Sheriff.
But that was just the half of it. As a spy, she posed little danger. A spy Gisborne could catch, accuse-and hang. What could he do with a woman who stole into the Sheriff's heart and sapped his will and purpose? What could he do when Nottingham himself did not suspect how thoroughly she led him astray?
"She is a sly one," Gisborne ventured, not altogether sure it was wise to criticize his cousin's latest distraction. "Comely enough, it is true, but heed where her lies have led you. She may stiffen your manhood, but she softens your resolve." He braved Nottingham's glance of censure, forced himself not to flinch beneath the condemning scrutiny in the Sheriff's granite eyes. "Monteforte awaits," he added mildly, head tilted toward the door.
Nottingham's fingers toyed with the hilt of his dagger, his stare grown weighty, dangerous.
"Do not presume to reproach me, Cousin," the Sheriff said. "I am not fooled for a moment into thinking you are loyal to me out of principle. You care nothing for England's rule, for this shire, I daresay, nothing for me, but that your loyalty earns you something. Position or title or riches...or merely my cast-off woman to whore for you. I have kept you only because you are useful-"
"You have kept me because I know. Because I alone know what Sherwood is to you. Because I know your need for vengeance, and your reason. Because, Cousin, I know you."
"You know me not at all." The words shot out without warning, striking Gisborne with the impact of a well-aimed lance.
"Does she?" he retaliated.
He thought he saw the Sheriff wince, thought a slight shadow of defeat darkened his face and clouded his eyes with remembered pain. And then it was gone. Quickly. As if there had never been more to his expression than coal black eyes burning out of an ice-carved face. It was how Nottingham had looked then, that wintry January day when Sherwood had bested him, when the forest had robbed him of all save hatred.
Gisborne swallowed hard, suddenly afraid, for he knew how easily the hatred transformed itself into vengeful purpose. He had no wish to find Nottingham's merciless wrath turned on him, surely not on account of a forest peasant with nothing but artless lies to commend her. The Sheriff would tire of her. He always did. Or the little fool would make a false step and trap herself in her own web of deceit. It would happen. It must.
~*~
"It's difficult to believe he let you go so easily." Monteforte gave the hem of his disheveled tunic a jerk and realigned the buckle of his belt with a deft pat. "But then Nottingham is a man of rather indiscriminate loyalties, wouldn't you say?"
He paused long enough for the barely veiled suspicion to settle upon Aelwynn with the same sickening discomfort as his clammy hand upon her shoulder. Then he hastened, "I meant, of course, where his women are concerned."
Aelwynn fixed him with a sour stare. True though his statement was, it was not what Monteforte meant, and she bristled. Bad enough that Nottingham had not come to her bed since bringing that peasant herb girl to the castle, now she felt forced to defend the man. After all, she had not proposed this hurried, indiscreet coupling with Monteforte for any reason but appeasement: to assure him that the Sheriff still maintained his alliance with the shire barons in rebellion against the king, and that he meant no disrespect by his prolonged absence.
She pulled her woolen hosen snug against her le
g and let her skirts drift to the floor in a silken hiss. "The Sheriff's loyalty is given to his office," she said with regal hauteur, "to this shire, to creating order where none exists-"
"And not to himself?"
Aelwynn's gaze slid over the baron's stout body and came to rest on his perspiring face, still red from the efforts of their mating. "The Sheriff would only prove his diligence and hope his earnest attempts to oversee the shire would be recognized, perhaps rewarded with greater responsibility."
"By whom, dear? Our captured king?"
Aelwynn's voice turned to a liquid purr. "I think we both know otherwise, Baron."
"Do we now?" Monteforte caught her chin between two stubby fingers and peered at her with cold scrutiny.
"I may be but a whore to you, my lord, but I have seen you and de Stradley and the earl of Gamston gathered here late of an eve, speaking in hushed whispers. I am no witless thing, blind and deaf to the schemes being planned. The lot of you would see John Lackland king, would aid him in his attempt to usurp his brother's throne."
"Why, my dear, that is treason!"
"Aye," Aelwynn replied with cool indifference. "So it is."
"You must think us fools." The baron leaned closer, the rancid heat of his breath issuing from the pair of pulpy lips.
"Men often take calculated risks. Loyalty given to Richard in a German prison is-" she shrugged eloquently, "-wasted. Whereas loyalty given to John..." Her voice trailed off suggestively. "If power is to be gained, alliance to the prince seems a wiser wager."
"The Sheriff would have more power?"
"Wouldn't you? Is that not your purpose as well?"
The baron released her chin and shifted his stance uncomfortably. "And where does your loyalty lie, Aelwynn, if you have it to give?"
"I care naught for who sits upon the throne-"
"Or who wears the chain of office for this shire?"
Aelwynn's brows drew together. "I fear I don't understand, my lord."
"Oh, no, of course not," Monteforte replied. "Perhaps that was unfair. After all, the man has done so much for you. Rescued you from common servitude and laid you among the furs of his bed. Made of you-what? His concubine?" He smiled, flicking a mote of dust from his velvety sleeve. "To be sure, his interest appears lagging. Why else would you be with Gisborne, or me for that matter, if he truly cared?"