by Sue Wilson
"Enough torches for a conflagration," he muttered. "You'd think they came to roast me alive, not welcome me home. Sorry to see me return, I'd wager, every last one of them."
"Not so, my lord. There. Look."
Thea, riding pillion behind him, slipped one arm from around his waist and pointed to a parting in the sea of curiosity-seekers.
Simeon darted through the crowd, babbling excitedly with each barefooted step. Grabbing Chimera's reins, he turned up a stable-stained face clearly etched with relief at the sight of his master.
"There you be, my lord, at last, and thanks be to Mary, for I prayed to her, I did, many times, on my knees, both day and night, wondering what came of you when you rode-"
"Out of my way, whelp!" Mildthryth barreled through the large, noisy throng, silver brows laced together low over her eyes. "And the rest of you gaggle of geese and ganders, be gone with you! Standing around clucking and squawking, your eyes bulging out and your jaws on the ground like you never saw your Sheriff returning to Nottingham Castle-be gone, I say!"
She flapped her arms at everyone within reach, apron and long sleeves scattering the hapless bystanders.
"Now you," she said when only Simeon remained, holding Chimera steady as the Sheriff dismounted, "'tis you I have grievance with, Sheriff, and grievance to spare for such an old woman. You'll be hearing me out, you will, unless you've no reason left in the piddling lot God gave you. Riding out of here like a madman, without so much as a by-your-leave or a word to a single soul, and no guard at your side or on your worthless tail. 'Tis a fool's head you've got on your shoulders, you and your hot-headed ways that spare not a whit of caution. And while 'tis all the same to me if you find a dozen arrows in your miserable hide, you'll not be reckless with the likes of my lamb-"
Nottingham held out his arms as Thea dismounted, catching her gently when she landed on weary, blistered feet. He thought he imagined it, the way she pressed briefly against him, her slender hands and cheek lingering against his chest. Tendrils of hair coiled like ivy about her face, and he longed to bury his fingers in the curls that spilled down her back, to smooth his hands along her wool-clad back, test the substance of her and reassure himself she was not some sylvan sprite Sherwood had sent home with him.
"You see," he whispered in her ear, drinking in her fragrant warmth, "you were wrong. You should have stayed. I should have stayed. Good saints, if we are quick about it, we may yet flee this place."
Thea's laughter rang like soft music, and she lifted her face to him, full lips curving, tempting him sorely to make good his suggestion. They could ride to the sanctuary of some dark, private wood-
Except the wood was no sanctuary. And her smile? More mystery there than truth. God in His heaven knew why she'd come back with him.
"Flee Nottingham, my lord?" Thea whispered back. "Perhaps. Mildthryth? Not a chance, I fear. See how she's set on poor Simeon?"
"Now, boy, you be gone as well," the old Saxon woman was chiding, "for a child has not ears for the sort of scolding this fool-man deserves. And you-"
Mildthryth whirled on the Sheriff like an angel of wrath, swelled with bluster and concern.
"Ah, Millie," the Sheriff's voice boomed over the maidservant's indignant upbraiding, "save your chastisement for the morrow, or better still, save it altogether, for I'm fated to get the same verbal scourging from Gisborne the moment he rouses from cup, or bed, or wherever he finds himself of late. Come, instead see to your lady's welfare. The ride has been long, and she is in want of a bath and a bed."
"Bah!" Mildthryth snorted as she took Thea in her arms and wedged herself between the Sheriff and her charge. "By the looks of you both, there's been bedding enough. By the soul of my dear departed Warrin, have you lost your wits to the sun and wind, man?"
"I have kept my wits, Millie," he protested. "No, by faith, I swear it! I have kept my wits and developed such an abundance of patience and integrity you would scarce recognize me."
"Aye, I recognize you all right. You're the same high-speaking Norman no-count that dashed out of here nigh three days gone by, come back now with a tankard too much in your belly."
"And you, Millie, with three days to do naught but sharpen your tongue? Not ale, dear woman, but a draught of forest air and a crude bed beneath my pampered backside."
"Ah, 'tis true, then. A bedding it was."
"A bedding it was not. And that will be the word you spread when next you go bustling about kitchen and hall, bursting with your usual indiscreet chatter."
He glanced at Thea across the top of Mildthryth's gray head. She deftly tucked away a smile and hid the amusement in her eyes beneath a sweep of dark lashes. Only the heightened color on her cheeks hinted that she remembered otherwise.
A half-bedding, then, he conceded, with ecstasy and fulfillment held, as always, a half step out of reach. The recollection of sweet agony jagged through his belly.
"Not a soul will believe you," Mildthryth claimed.
Nottingham cleared his throat, stanching his thoughts and the hidden wellspring of desire that spilled through him each time he thought of Thea.
"Then you shall make them believe," he said. "You might also let it be known that my surgeon lacks work, and I have failing tolerance for the ills of this castle. My scribe moans incessantly of an aching head, half my troops whine of sore feet, and I'd relish a meal served in my hall without the usual attendant sniffling and sneezing."
Mildthryth hugged her lamb closer to her bosom and dropped a kiss on Thea's mahogany curls. "The pair of you," she said, clucking her tongue in mild reproach. "Stubborn to a fault. Both of you. 'Tis a bedding you're needing. And badly. Aye, Sheriff, and you'd best wipe that saintly display of shock from your face. Such false piety, 'tis wasted on me, and you haven't fooled your sweet surgeon since the day she first laid eyes on you. Oh, she can work, to be sure. She should work, for she needs it as much as your scribe or your flat-footed soldiers. But 'tis something more you're both needing. Saints, were there ever two people whose longing for each other be writ so plain on their faces? And you can do naught but deny it with your every breath. Aye, a bedding, Sheriff. Though for the life of me, if you cannot accomplish it alone in the wilds of the wood-"
"Millie," he warned, "a bath, a hot meal, and rest-not an endless monologue on my amorous shortcomings. Is it possible?"
Thea smothered a laugh behind her hand. Of course, his surgeon was giddy with fatigue. There simply was no other reason for merriment when his homecoming was met with a nagging Saxon she-bear and a decided lack of ale.
"Hrrmph," Mildthryth replied, but she bobbed a graceless curtsy nonetheless. "I'll go well enough, for my lady's sake. But mark my words." She steered Thea away toward the castle, pausing at the arched entrance to the great hall to call out over her shoulder. "A bedding, Sheriff. You think on that."
The words hung clear and sharp on the night air, ringing through the deserted bailey like a haunting reminder his frustration-torn body would let him forget.
~*~
"A bedding indeed!" Gisborne kicked at the cobblestone and skulked around the cover of the column, out of view of the bailey. "She'd hold them together like two reluctant hounds if that's what it took."
"And well it may," Aelwynn said smoothly. "You heard what he said. Three days and two nights in Sherwood and she's still untouched? Rest assured. The man's not a saint. Perhaps there is no desire between them?"
"Perhaps you'd do well to stop believing my cousin's lies. Lust has only made him kind." Gisborne spat the word through gritted teeth and slumped against the stone column. "I tell you, Aelwynn, he is losing his will to that witch, and we are losing him. And without him-"
"The royal court seems very far away," she said.
Gisborne glanced up at her. Darkness obscured all but a pair of uptilted eyes, whose greedy black irises ate at the outer rings of golden color. "It is far away," he said, meeting the woman's hypnotic, heavy-lidded stare. "Rotting away with Richard in the bowels of a German dungeon, unless P
rince John has his way."
"And why should he not?" Aelwynn shrugged a supple shoulder. "The barons are tired of being taxed to fund Richard's luckless wars, more tired still of seeing taxes raised to pay for his ransom. They're ready for new rule, even if most haven't the gall to admit it. Even the king of Frances sides with Lackland. Of course, if Richard is ransomed in time-"
"Exactly. And don't think the Lionheart won't see our vitals aflame for the price of a failed mission. Christ!" Gisborne swore, striking the column with his spurred heel. "My cousin sits on a wealth of silver and an armory stock-piled with weapons, and still he moves at a snail's pace."
Aelwynn smiled, soot-stained lids closing slowly over hungry eyes. "Many things take time, lieutenant," she purred, running a languorous hand over the smooth white column of her throat. "The intricacies of a coup do not unfold overnight. Besides, it is his way: slow, careful attention to every detail. He only appears idle, like a snake warming himself on a sunny rock-"
"More likely in the wench's bed."
"-Uncoiling so slowly, with such grace, that his movements are hardly detectable. Until he strikes!" Aelwynn hissed, clawing the air in front of his eyes with a red-taloned hand.
Gisborne flinched despite himself, and the sound of her deep-throated laugh grated like sand on raw nerves.
"Fear not, he woos the barons, lieutenant," she continued, wetting her painted lips with the tip of her tongue. "Courts them with such delicate thoroughness they scarcely know when they've emptied their pockets or lent the advantage of their castles and fortifications. And with the others who are not so easily duped? Why Nottingham knows every one of their secrets, and I assure you, he is unequaled in the use of blackmail."
"You tell me nothing I don't know already." Gisborne raked his fingers against his scalp, loosening the long hair gathered at the nape of his neck. Frustrated, he massaged the ropes of corded muscle in the back of his neck, digging deep to drive the tension away. "But what of the changes that woman has wrought in him? Surgeon? What has she done but slice the balls from him and dull his appetite for conquest?"
"You could do as well as your cousin, I suppose?"
Gisborne froze. He was neither deaf nor half-witted that he did not recognize a taunt when he heard one. Slowly he brought his narrowed gaze to bear on Aelwynn, flitting over her slightly parted lips to her amber eyes.
"Do you think I could not?" he growled.
"I merely asked."
Nothing about her expression changed. Same assessment in the sulfuric eyes. Same rubied lips curling into a sultry half-smile. Same viper's tongue snaking over the painted red flesh, beckoning him.
His voice came in a harsh, rasping whisper. "I could do better."
~*~
The measured taper burned away by half, and still sleep would not come. Thea paced the workroom floor, stopping with every other pass to glance at the sleeping form curled near the warmth of the brazier. Mildthryth's snores rumbled from the lumpy tangle of arms and legs and sheepskin, the sleep of one well pleased with the day's events.
And well she should be, Thea thought.
The woman's discourse had not ended in the bailey, merely shifted to a stalwart proclamation of the Sheriff's good attributes once they reached the seclusion of Thea's chamber. Thea marveled that the man possessed enough virtue to fuel Mildthryth's chatter for three minutes, much less three hours, but the sainted woman was as inventive as she was long-winded, and the Sheriff lacked for nothing in her sight. She loved him. It was as simple and strange as that.
Thea said little to contradict Mildthryth's praise, possibly because she was too busy savoring the rich, egg-thickened frumenty and slice of venison brought for her dinner. Or possibly because she enjoyed hearing an unblighted account of the Sheriff's life, spiced with the insights and intimacies only the old woman could provide.
Perhaps the fond anecdotes were intended to relax her, like the herb-strewn bath Mildthryth prepared or the softly scented lavender oil she rubbed over Thea's bruised-sore body. Little did the maidservant know that any mention of the Sheriff's name had just the opposite effect.
They had been parted only a few hours. It seemed far too long.
Thea wondered where he was, if he indeed clashed words with Gisborne, if he were at this very moment dispensing orders to an assembly of his household staff and administrators, reasserting and tightening his control. Perhaps he slept, spread recklessly through the silks and furs of his bed, surrendered to an exhausted dreamlessness.
Thea started toward her bedroom door, then turned away again, knowing how futile it would be to attempt sleep now. She wanted him, wanted to lie beneath the disarray of fine sheets and soft fur pelts with him. How easy it was to envision herself there, to splice together the remembered heat of his body and the imagined feel of their skin touching, for once, without the encumbrance of clothes.
Throughout the evening, she had carved the image painstakingly in her mind's eye and tormented her flesh with the phantom press of his body against hers, and now she could dispel neither. If only Mildthryth knew how needless her persuasion was!
Every sensation her body had ever felt at his touch rose up within her-the burn of his breath as his mouth neared her shoulder; the silken scrape of his beard against the swell of her breast, the warm, unhurried tracery of his tongue-
Thea hugged her arms tightly around her body, trying to contain the fervor rising within her. This was madness! What contagion had he planted in her that she should want him so?
In her entire life she had not known such a relentless tide of passion as this.
Its mighty current sucked her under, drowned her in the strong, rhythmic pull of desire. Then, as quickly as it had come, it abandoned her, leaving her weak and trembling, wanting only that the next wave would crash upon her with the same sure force.
He did this, damn him! Filled her mind and body with a rage of unfamiliar responses, promised her more, and left her with a roiling sea battering away at her senses.
She could stand here all night, contemplating sleep and her empty bed, and her body would only rebel against his absence with a deluge of sensual memories. She grabbed a rose wool tunic and pulled it over the gauzy linen shift she wore. She did not bother with slippers or with braiding her freshly washed hair, but bolted for the door, wondering where in Nottingham Castle she could escape this unappeased torrent of longing.
~*~
Aelwynn drew in a breath and flattened her back against the wall, trying to make herself invisible in the shadows. The Sheriff's surgeon? Called on some late night errand of mercy?
Her lips curved into a sinuous smile. Or was it as innocent as that? Perhaps the herb witch had only burst from her room in a fit of ill-contained longing to be at her lover's side.
Aelwynn remembered that longing with a rise of bitter bile in the back of her throat. Less than three seasons had passed since the Lord High Sheriff had spied her in the great hall on the lap of Eduard de Geoffrey, and beckoned her to his table with a mere crook of his finger.
That eve, filled with wine and brooding melancholy, he had summoned her to his bed. There she had stayed for a sennight while Nottingham slaked his seemingly unquenchable thirst for her body.
The separation of day and night had blurred in that week. She woke when he needed her, slept only in snatches between furious, demon-driven couplings. Sometime in the fragmented passing of dark and light, he learned her every whim, memorized her every weakness. With his lean tiger's prowess, he staked her sore, strained body to the bed and lavished her with the skill of a consummate lover, until she begged for release and promised to do his every bidding.
And when he had enslaved her completely, he sent her away.
Ah, yes, she remembered those nights when she ached for the mastery of his touch, longed to know the power that surged through her when his precious control at last slipped away. They were solitary nights, ruled by despair and carnal hunger, when no man who lay between her legs could break the spe
ll with which the Sheriff bound her.
In the end, she had fled her chamber and shamelessly come to him, employing every wile and expertise she knew to slide beneath his sheets again. In a few weeks' time, Aelwynn had seen Nottingham's fascination transform into mere tolerance; shortly thereafter, the tolerance wilted into disgust.
And now this poor, pitiful creature, this simple, unsophisticated thing of the forest was in his snare. Aelwynn spared her no sympathy.
There was only one way to cast off the shackles of the Sheriff's possession, and that was to find a source of superior strength.
And she had. The one man Nottingham could never best.
Or rather he had found her. And bought her with the indisputable sovereignty of silver coin.
Aelwynn let the drift of rose wool and lavender scent disappear down a darkened stretch of hallway, then the smile dropped from her lips.
Gisborne was wrong.
Thea Aelredson was just the distraction they needed.
~*~
Thea bent down and covered Simeon with a threadbare blanket. The boy stirred, burying his sleepy head deeper into a pillow of hay. With a gentle smile, she smoothed the stray locks of ebony hair off his forehead and brushed his cheek with the backs of her fingers.
How was it possible that in just a few days' time, he had acquired enough dirt to obscure the faint sprinkle of freckles across his nose? Honestly, the child took better care of his prized bay stallion than he did of himself!
Thea drew in a deep breath, determined to confront Simeon in the morning about his coating of grime.
She sighed as she stood up and looked fondly at the huddled knot he had made of himself in the hay. There were so many people like him here-men whose backs were bent by years of hard labor; women with thin, drawn faces and not enough milk for their babes; children who went to bed each night with hollow stomachs-plentiful work for a castle healer if she could only win their trust. And if the Sheriff would stay out of her way.
At the thought of Nottingham, she glanced down the stable passage to Chimera's stall. A pale, golden light spilled over the tops of the wooden walls and out the open door. Someone worked late on the stallion, feeding and watering him after his journey or-