GREENWOOD

by Sue Wilson

  He cast one wary eye on the horizon, watchful of the sun's imminent rising, then glanced again down the secret tunnel exit at the bottom of the castle bedrock. Scathlocke and Thea should have arrived already; indeed, he had counted on the outlaw to aid the others in loading the wagon. The horses neighed and moved restlessly, as impatient, as nervous as he, and he held their bridles more tightly, whispering to them in the darkness.

  "There, there. Almost ready."

  John Little's lumbering shadow approached him. "That's the last of it. Couldn't fit another farthing in her if we tried."

  Nottingham nodded. "Then go. All of you. While it's still dark."

  "I don't like it, Sheriff. You driving and all. What's to say ye won't turn around and have yer men unload the wagon soon as our backs are turned?"

  "I'm letting you go."

  "Aye, empty-handed as it were."

  "Better than dangling by your necks. If I wanted to save my own skin, I'd have arrested you hours ago."

  "Aye, as soon as you could stand up," the giant man reminded him.

  Nottingham winced at the reminder.

  "You're quick with yer head, if not with yer fists, I'll give ye that, but God help me, if you're using Thea to lead you to our camp, if ye more'n think of using her to redeem yourself with Lackland and his cronies, if I hear so much as a single Norman footstep in Sherwood, I'll spend the rest of my life hunting you down, ye good for nothing Norman bastard!"

  "I don't doubt you would."

  "Aye, well trust in that. And where in bloody hell are Thea and Will?"

  "I was wondering the same thing," Nottingham said, more than a little anxious. "I should go back. Something may have happened."

  "Then I'll go with ye."

  "No, I don't want you-"

  Robin of Locksley appeared at John Little's side, surrounded by his men.

  "Locksley, be gone with you," the Sheriff said. "Now. And tell your pet cocker to follow."

  "But Thea's not here!" Little protested. "Nor Will. I won't be for leaving this place till-"

  "John." Locksley's voice came through the dark, his single utterance firm, imbued with gentle understanding. "He'll bring her."

  Little turned to his leader, and in the gloaming, Nottingham saw Locksley nod in silent reassurance.

  In the next moment, the Sheriff heard the staccato of footsteps in the tunnel and relief fell over him like a warm blanket. He stood aside as Locksley clapped Will on his back and Little dragged Thea into a hug that swept her off her feet. There were muffled congratulations and clasping of hands, and then Thea broke through them, ran to Nottingham, pressed her body close to him.

  If he had ever harbored any second thoughts about the madness of his plan, they dissolved in that moment. Her slender hands reached around his waist beneath his cloak, slid up his back, and she pressed her lips against his. Nothing else mattered.

  He could have stayed there forever, drinking in the heat of her mouth, the wonder of her presence, the myriad feelings she caused to course through his veins, all strong, all certain, dispelling every doubt, shoring up his resolve with her love. But he was all too aware that haste was of the essence, and he did not need the clearing of Locksley's throat or the scowl on Little's face to remind him they could not tarry.

  With her arms still wrapped about him, Thea glanced over her shoulder to the woodsmen. "Go. Quickly. I will see you all in camp."

  "Thea, are ye certain you know the man?" Little asked, doubt still riddling his voice. "He could betray us all."

  Thea looked up at the Sheriff, and Nottingham saw the certainty on her face, even before she spoke. "I trust him."

  They did not look away from each other, even as Locksley and the others said their farewells and hurried off into the darkness.

  "There is much to say," the Sheriff began, as the hush of the night surrounded them.

  "There is nothing to say," she whispered back.

  "Thea-"

  Her soft fingertips caressed his temple, his bruised cheek and lip. "Likely there is a tale to go along with all this."

  He nodded.

  "Tell me along the way."

  ~*~

  Sherwood Forest breathed mist like a wintry dragon. From atop the treasury wagon, everywhere he looked, bare-branched trees rose up around them, limbs sheathed in ice. Even the color of the sky seemed to blend with the white of the snow, blurring their surroundings into some magical fairy world. When the sun rose, it glinted off the trail before them as if the path were strewn with diamonds.

  So different now, Nottingham thought. He remembered his first trip through these woods, Twelfthtide, his first encounter with outlaws, Alyce. He had been quite certain he would go to his death in this frozen hell, and perhaps he had. Somewhere in the length of time he had hung by his wrists in the oak, lashed, bleeding, feeling numbness steal over his body, whatever man he had been had died and was born again to something that only hate had kept alive. For years afterward, he had dwelt in that self-made purgatory, blind to everything but his own hatred, his own need for revenge.

  Odd, it had taken Thea to show him the beauty of this place. The magnificent, awesome, breathtaking splendor of it.

  "Are you remembering?" Thea asked, bringing her hands from inside the warmth of his cloak to cover his frozen, rein-filled fingers.

  "Yes," he said quietly.

  She leaned her head against his shoulder in solemn companionship. "It's over now."

  His breath met the frosty air in a puff of cloudy vapor. "I know." And this time, he truly believed it.

  "What will you do when you go back?"

  He smiled ruefully. "I daresay I've sealed my fate with Lackland. He'll remove me from office. Probably lock me away until he can come up with an end gruesome enough for the one he thinks I deserve."

  Thea shivered beside him. "Don't even say that."

  "If he appoints Gisborne sheriff in my stead, and I believe he will, Guy will think of a way to delay an execution." Nottingham laughed softly. "He's always managed to save my hapless arse before. And with all this tax money going to bring Richard home, with any luck I'll be out of my dungeon before I'm terribly gray and feeble."

  "I don't want you to leave," she said, snuggling closer to him. Her hands on his pulled sharply at the reins, causing the horses to halt along the snow-covered trail. "Why go back at all? Why?"

  The Sheriff turned to her, tipped her chin up, and stared into the intense deep blue of her eyes. "Because. Because this is the first noble thing I have done since coming here. Because, as unfamiliar as the feeling is to me, there's a rightness in this of which I am certain, and I will not skulk away like some cowardly criminal. Because Lackland will know, by my own admission, what an abominable creature he is; because I want the chance to stand tall among the barons and speak the truth and be unashamed of what I've done. Because I would not have you love a less than honorable man."

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  "Don't, Thea," he said firmly. "Don't start. You have been strong for me when I could not be strong for myself. Don't abandon me now."

  "But-"

  "You gave it all to me. Hope. A true sense of who I am, or what I could be. You let me embrace the past and release it and gave me every reason to believe I could create some better future. This is not the end, sweet. Do you not see that? It is only the beginning."

  "But to be parted from you-"

  "I will think of you every moment in every day. In my mind, I will see you, imagine the sun on your face, Sherwood's wind in your hair. I will know you are safe from any harm, that you are going about your work of healing the ill, comforting the infirm, bring new life into this world. Not a day will go by that I will not remember how you believed in me, trusted in me, and draw solace from that. And in time-"

  He hesitated. So much uncertainty lay ahead, but he needed to promise her, not just to allay her fears, but to bind himself to his oath and find purpose in it. "I will come for you," he said, and his voice sounded stro
ng with conviction.

  He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her slowly, savoring the heat of her mouth as she opened to him, as their tongues touched, entwined, drew apart again. He smiled as they broke the kiss. "If only to keep that overgrown Little fellow from stealing you away."

  "John?"

  "He's quite in love with you."

  "Hmm," Thea replied noncommittally.

  "Which is understandable, and perhaps even for the better, as I'm sure he'll look after you."

  "John is nothing but an old mother hen."

  "But then you did not meet with the end of his quarterstaff." The Sheriff slapped the reins lightly on the back of the horses and urged them forward again. "I can think of only one way to make certain he doesn't sweep you off your feet and claim you as his wife."

  "I would never-"

  "And that is to marry you myself."

  Thea's lips parted wordlessly, her eyes widening in surprise.

  Nottingham glanced askance at her and smiled. "I do believe you have a priest among you? A Benedictine? Friar Tuck?"

  ~*~

  The revelry had all but died. The flames of lingering campfires striped the wattle and daub of their makeshift shelter with gold, burnishing the darkness, and the emptying of the last jug of mead had all but silenced the chatter outside, save for an occasional muffled laugh.

  Nottingham gazed down at Thea, her hair a mahogany tumble on the makeshift straw bed, her skin an intriguing portrait of shadow and light. He placed a kiss in the darkened valley between her breasts, then took her hardened nipple in his mouth. She gasped in response, her back arching, hips moving against his as he drove deeply inside her again.

  Her hands clenched his back as she rose to meet him, as their rhythm waxed and waned and waxed again. God, how he wanted to prolong this, make it last forever. Or take her and take her again. Anything to stave off the dawn, to keep her next to him.

  He was long past words, long past being able to tell her again and again how he loved her, but his body spoke for him, and her soft answering cries were a reply all their own. Too soon, he felt the mounting pressure inside him, the tension as his shaft grew harder. Unable to stop himself, he thrust into her with a desperate abandon, sliding fluidly into her heat, withdrawing, plunging into her again and again, until her body tightened around him, and the strong pulsing pull of her climax drew his seed from him.

  They lay together, unmoving, their heartbeats racing in tandem, their breath heating the air around them. Then she was pulling him closer, her hands sliding over his sweat-slicked back to his buttocks, using her inner muscles to caress him into hardness again.

  "There they go again," came a drunken voice from outside, and an answering chorus of laughter.

  "You'd think they'd sleep, wouldn't you?"

  "I don't know about that, Will. Would you sleep through your wedding night?"

  "I don't think the bastard knows how to sleep." Nottingham recognized John Little's voice.

  "Making baby Sheriffs is all," a younger voice piped.

  A tumult of groans rose up from the campfire.

  "Give me that jug of mead, Rob."

  "It's empty, John."

  "Aye, well, Much needs a crack over the head for that one."

  Nottingham felt Thea's laugh along his belly and chest, and chuckled with her. "And I'm leaving you alone with this bunch of rabble? I must be insane."

  She kissed him, teasing his lower lip with her tongue. "You can always stay."

  He moved within her, renewing their lovemaking with a languorous tempo, and silenced her with a kiss.

  ~*~

  He watched her as she slept, huddled amid the sheepskin and coarse woolen blankets, her arm outstretched, fingers curling gently inward toward her palm. She looked so peaceful, so perfectly wrought with dawn's pink fingers reaching through the wattle and daub to rosy her cheeks and set off the fiery streaks in her hair. Did she know how much risk still lay ahead of them? Or did she dream, oblivious to all but the smells and sounds of the forest that welcomed her home?

  Watching her draw deep, even breaths through slightly parted lips, he wondered where he would find the strength to leave her when his plans were so uncertain and the outcome of the day too mysterious for even the wisest sage to predict. He leaned over her, touched his lips to hers, and waited, the small pulses of heat from her mouth drugging him more surely every minute he lingered.

  He drew in a sharp hiss of breath, as if he could inhale her very essence and carry it with him, then rose quickly and ducked through the hide flap over the doorway without looking back.

  "You're leaving then, are ye?"

  The Sheriff straightened, squinting slightly at the figure who stood backlit by the early morning light. John Little stood braced against his quarterstaff, powerful hands fisted around the tall length of wood, leather-wrapped feet planted amid the scramble of frosted leaves and twigs on the forest floor-a giant oak of a man.

  "I must," Nottingham replied softly, and brushed past the outlaw, somehow unable to meet his eyes. He had underestimated the one they called Little John, given poor credit to the man's resolve and devotion. He would not do so again. "Lackland will be in an uproar no amount of ale or whoring will calm, and I-I had best be about the business of saving my arse."

  He heard the woodsman chuckle under his breath, then the guttural bark of a Saxon curse, wrapped in deep laughter. "God's blood, man, if there be slime as slick as you, I've not found it yet. Why, ye be every much an outlaw as the rest of us. More so, as ye hatched the plan yourself with that low-weasel mind of yours."

  "Indeed." The corners of the Sheriff's lips curved upward, despite his best attempts at sternness. "As if I needed reminding."

  "Returning to Nottingham, 'twould be like going back to hell with that Lucifer Lackland breathing fire down your neck. 'Twill mean the fanciest bit of conniving your twisted mind has ever conjured, and no one-not a soul in that castle-to take your side of it. They'll call ye inept, at best. Have ye in irons before day's end. Lackland will lay blame for his failure right at your feet."

  "Where it rightly belongs," Nottingham said.

  "They'll be for hanging ye straight away, or gaoling ye and hanging ye only when the ravens have naught to feed upon."

  "And would that matter?" The Sheriff looked up and saw the deep cast of the forest reflected in the outlaw's eyes.

  John Little's jaw clenched; his lips thinned to narrow bloodless strips amidst the gingered beard. "'Twould matter enough to her," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the lean-to.

  Nottingham glanced back over his shoulder, unable for a moment to trust himself with more than a gruff nod. "I intend to make things right, no matter the cost."

  "And that will keep ye safe?"

  "Perhaps. If my wit and good fortune have not deserted me completely. If you and the others spare no time in seeing that tax money to King Richard's aid."

  The woodsman scratched his woolly head, scuffed at a tuft of hoar-covered moss at his feet, clearly bewildered at the icy words that passed for humor.

  "You would do better to ask who will keep Thea safe," the Sheriff said.

  John Little looked up at the quiet prompting. "Aye, man, that I would, since you're set on abandoning her-"

  "You will," the Sheriff interrupted.

  There was much left unsaid in the moment that followed. Nottingham saw the giant's ruddy face trade confusion for gradual understanding, saw the momentary flash of acknowledgment that, without words, a pact lay between them, as solid as any blood oath. Useless to promise success in Nottingham, or that he would live long enough to ask for the pardon he would very much like bestowed upon these men. More futile still to spill his feelings for Thea into words this outlaw did not share, or feel himself, thrice over.

  "Remind her, when she wakes, that I will come for her...again...soon."

  If it were a lie or an impossible vow to keep, still the outlaw said nothing. John swallowed hard and nodded, tucking his wh
iskered chin to his chest where no emotion could betray him.

  The Sheriff looked toward the narrow path that led away from the camp, days-weeks-months of memories rushing through his mind with the speed of the January wind whistling through the canopy of bare limbs above.

  January...and the demons of the forest were gone. Shriveled to nothing, carried away like the fragile wisps of ash borne skyward from the outlaws' campfires. His gaze followed the spirals of smoke, reaching at last the muted white of the heavens. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, drawing in the sharp cold and the wild smell of the forest, feeling suddenly, inexplicably free.

  With a wry smile, he let his eyes drift open again, let his gaze turn to the man to whom he had entrusted so much.

  John Little extended his hand, a callused paw torn by work and weather. "Aye, man. I'll tell her."

  Nottingham grasped the man's hand in his own, held it firmly, measuring the strength and certainty there. It was all he needed to know. More than he could ask of the Fates that controlled his destiny. Thea would be safe. Watched over.

  He turned and started down the trail that led out of Sherwood Forest.

  ~*~

  He was gone when she awoke, and for a moment Thea could do no more than curl into the indentation his body had made in the straw beside her, imagining the warmth that had long since departed. She had never expected him to stay, to be sure. Despite the appealing image of the Sheriff of Nottingham dressed in hunter's leggings, his shock of raven hair disguised by a woolen hood of Lincoln green, he no more belonged in Sherwood Forest than John and his ruffian friends belonged in Nottingham Castle.

  Thea smiled wistfully. He belonged to the life she had witnessed firsthand: standing among royalty and titled men, his bearing regal and proud and cool with a mystical undercurrent of power no one could miss; conversing easily, persuasively; listening intently; delicately maneuvering through the hazardous waters of politics and the Crown.