Scarlet sounded dubious. “What if ’tis something you can do nothing about?”
“Then I’ll find another way. But at least I shall be inside the castle.” She snatched the blanket aside, striding back into the camp where she asked Alan for arrows. “Not many,” she said. “Four.”
“Arrows?”
“Arrows.”
He handed four to her. She hiked up her skirts, ignoring various expressions of male startlement, and tucked the shafts inside her right boot. The broadheads rubbed her ankle, but she believed the hosen would provide some protection. With a thong borrowed from her bundle, Marian tied the arrows to her thigh beneath the fletchings. She could not bend her knee, but she did not need to. “Tuck?”
Silently, he handed her the coiled bowstring. He understood. Marian cast him a grateful glance and tucked the bowstring inside her other boot. Then she turned to her horse.
Scarlet did not understand. “You can’t even walk, can you?”
She could stand well enough on the arrow-splinted leg. She slid her left boot toe into the stirrup, then smiled as she felt Little John’s hands spanning her waist. He boosted her, and she swung the stiffened right leg with no little awkwardness across the horse’s rump. She could not use that stirrup; she let the leg hang, canting herself slightly to the right.
Tuck was there to hand up the bow. He had wrapped it carefully in a bit of sacking, rope, and leather, altering its silhouette.
“Come into Nottingham one at a time,” she said. “Steal that wagon. Be ready. And pray to God that I can get him out of the castle.”
“That,” Tuck said, “is what I am best at. Praying.”
Marian nodded at them, absently noting frowns of concern, but she had no more time. She smacked her horse with the “walking stick” and headed back toward the Nottingham road.
Robin had no idea when he might be fed, or even if he might. Certainly nothing had been brought the night before, and nothing yet this morning. His belly was audibly displeased.
He had been awake for some time, having not slept well, and was aware of a sense of general dullness and vague soreness. It was truly amazing, he reflected, how the body grew accustomed to specific bedding. He had spent several nights in Sherwood and now a night in the dungeon, and his body made it known it preferred the bed in Ravenskeep.
Of course, that bed included Marian. This bed included rats.
He had paced out the pit earlier and knew its shape and size. Walking had reacquainted him with the ache behind his knees, so he walked steadily; a body grew stiff otherwise. But when he heard the sound of a door creaking open in the distance and men’s voices, he stopped moving altogether. He stood in the faint patch of cross-hatched torchlight and stared up at the grate, listening closely.
Three men, he judged, sorting through the descending footsteps and voices. One was Gisbourne. Another he did not know. The third man was—Mercardier? But why?
He heard the clank of keys. Hope surged; did they mean to bring him out of the pit? But though the voices grew close, close enough he knew they were not far from the iron grille, no one approached. Voices receded somewhat. Gisbourne was complaining about something, though Robin could not distinguish the topic. The light above was better, albeit jumped and danced. The third man must be a guard carrying a torch.
And then Mercardier’s raised voice carried clearly into the pit. “Indeed, I insist; it remains my duty to see that the taxes are safe.”
Gisbourne’s tone, though the words were unclear, suggested ridicule.
Mercardier’s answer was distinct and typically emotionless. “Until the king himself relieves me of this duty, it is mine. Open the door.”
Robin heard the sound of keys again, and a bolt shot back. More conversation, though no words he could distinguish. Eventually he heard the cell door swing closed, the bolt, and the clank of a lock relocked. Keys chimed. Footsteps approached.
“Exactly as I left it,” Mercardier said in a strange kind of satisfaction. “Now, where is Locksley?”
“There.” Gisbourne must have pointed at the pit.
“Down there?—ah, oui.” Someone stopped beside the grate. As before, Robin could not make out identities, only shapes, color, and movement. But he knew it was Mercardier. He peered upward, squinting. “The torch,” Mercardier said. Light flared, spilled down through the cross-hatched iron. Robin saw silhouettes. And then Mercardier squatted to get a closer look. “Ah, I see him now. Oh, indeed. Most fitting.” His tone, usually so emotionless, took on a trace of contempt. “Do you know what you have cost me? Do you know you have given the sheriff opportunity to complain of my abilities?” The mercenary shifted slightly. “No one has ever had that chance.”
That, Robin knew. Mercardier had been highly respected for his competence, though he was not known as a man of great wit. But his military prowess was legendary. He and King Richard had made a formidable pair.
“I will be dismissed,” he went on, “and sent home in disgrace. I, Mercardier. Coeur de Lion’s captain of mercenaries!”
Robin considered saying someone else would surely hire him. But he forebore; the mercenary was clearly angry. He had never seen him angry. Mercardier was a man of immense self-control.
But not just now. He rose. He stood atop the grate. There was movement. “You are a piss-poor excuse for a knight and Crusader,” the captain said harshly in his ruined voice, “and so I piss on you.”
The stream of urine rained down. Robin, realizing what it was a moment before it arrived, cursed and leaped awkwardly out of its path, chains ringing.
“Rot in hell,” Mercardier said as Gisbourne laughed.
Robin turned his back. He stared hard at the wall, trembling with anger. With humiliation.
Eventually they left, and the light left with them.
DeLacey, frowning over parchment, glanced up in surprise as he recognized the voice echoing in the hall. He had not expected this, but it brought him great pleasure.
He pushed aside the pile of parchments—writs for this, complaints of that—set down the goosefeather quill, and made himself comfortable in the massive chair. “Marian! How do you fare?” And then he marked the walking stick she clung to, the pronounced hitch in her gait. “Not well, I take it. What happened?”
She waved away a servant who offered assistance. The chemise was a clear, brilliant blue that brought out the hue of her eyes, which were fixed on him with wintry determination. The stick was as tall as she was, slightly curved, knobby and wrapped with leather to guard her delicate hands. But he was startled to see that her waist had thickened somewhat; was she breeding? No wonder she is here to plead for her lover.
“My horse fell,” she replied curtly. “She broke her leg, and very nearly broke mine.”
“So sorry,” he murmured, seeing the stain of embarrassment in her face. “Perhaps you should have remained at home and sent a messenger.”
“This I wish to address in person.” She limped the length of the hall. “And I suspect you know very well what I’ve come for.”
He felt a curl of pleasure deep in his belly. “Do apprise me.”
She halted before the dais. “Robin.”
He smiled with delight. “Indeed.”
Marian said abruptly, “You and my father were friends.”
“So we were.”
“You watched me grow up.”
“I watched you grow from childhood into beauty.” He arched his brows. “But what has this to do with Robin Hood?”
“I would ask that you recall the days you and my father were friends, and how we hosted you at Ravenskeep. My mother, my brother. Even I was told to give you good welcome.”
“Which you did most prettily,” he agreed, “when your lady mother could convince you to stand still long enough to finish a sentence.” He smiled. “You were always more interested in boys’ things, then. I recall it was a struggle even to keep you in skirts. Though you have learned to wear them with surpassing grace.” He shifted in the c
hair. “And now that you have reminded me that I have known your family since before you were born and thus should feel some softness for you, say what you’ve come to say. Plead his case, Marian.”
Color rose in her face. “He did not steal the taxes. None of them did.”
“Mercardier said they did.”
“Mercardier is wrong.”
“My castellan said they did.”
“Your castellan is wrong.”
“And the other men guarding the shipment?”
“If those men say Robin did it, those men, too, are wrong. He did not. They did not.”
“But they have sworn they saw him.”
“Others,” she said coolly, “will swear Robin was elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?” He sat upright.
“Robin and the others were in Sherwood—”
“This occurred in Sherwood, along the Nottingham road.”
“—robbing others,” she finished. “Mercardier and your castellan undoubtedly saw what they expected to see: outlaws. But there are other outlaws in Sherwood. Robin did not rob this shipment.”
She seemed quite certain. DeLacey contemplated that, chewing idly on a hangnail. “Have you witnesses?”
“Not here.”
“Peasants?” He allowed a trace of contempt to underscore the word; peasants he could contend with. Peasants could disappear.
“Lords,” she replied. “The earls of Alnwick, Hereford, and Essex.”
His belly clenched. Those earls had indeed been at Huntington. He had seen them himself. But he managed a smile. “You are telling me these men were robbed by Locksley? And did not come to me to report this?”
She hitched a shoulder. “If they had, you would know very well Robin is innocent.”
DeLacey glared. This was growing more complicated by the moment. He needed time.
And he had it. With a negligent shrug he settled again in the chair. “We have opposing witnesses, it seems. Most confusing. But nothing may be done until the king is informed.”
“Something may be done. You may release him.”
“Preposterous! Release the man who stole the taxes five years ago—”
“And was pardoned.”
“—and stole two horses—”
“And returned them both.”
“—delayed a royal messenger—”
“But the messenger got through.”
“—and stole a known and sentenced cutpurse from just punishment?”
“Much is a boy,” she said, “and he is simple. I agree cutting purses should not be tolerated, but Much is not like other boys. He doesn’t understand. Anyone who knows him realizes that.” She drew herself up, then winced as if it jarred her leg. “I would be willing to assume responsibility for him. Should he steal again, I would make good the loss.”
This was highly amusing. “With what? You haven’t the coin to pay your taxes!”
Now she was angry. “I paid them. You know I paid them.”
He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Again, we have evidence that suggests otherwise.”
Marian gripped the stick with both hands. “My lord sheriff,” she said, “the king may well wish not to antagonize the Earl of Huntington by keeping his son imprisoned.”
He displayed teeth in a grin. “The Earl of Huntington disinherited that son.”
“And if he reinherits him?”
“Difficult,” deLacey observed, “for a dead man.”
Clearly she had hoped he did not know. The color fled her face.
“A nice attempt,” he said kindly. “I do admire your courage and creativity. And I freely admit there is a chance the king will grant him mercy—he was after all a holy Crusader and a compatriot of his brother the late king—but until the current king’s will is known, I cannot release the prisoner.”
“And if I brought forward the earls to swear he was with them?”
Calmly he said, “It is for the king to decide.”
Tears glistened in her eyes, but did not spill over. “Why,” she began, “do you hate him so?”
DeLacey laughed. “He makes it easy.” He sat upright then, grasping a folded parchment. With great attention he unfolded it, smoothed it against the tabletop, and offered it. “I intended to send this to you. But as you are here . . .” He waved it. “Take it, Marian.”
“What is it?”
“Notification that the earl has acquired Ravenskeep, and that you are to leave.”
She clutched her stick more tightly. “The earl is dead.”
“Then his title and estates pass to the Crown, as he has no heir.” He waved the sheet again. “Perhaps you should go to London and beg John for your manor back. If you are very good to him—in bed, of course—he may even grant it.”
Unfortunately he was unable to see her reaction; one of his clerks arrived with three parchment sheets filled with crabbed writing. “My lord, the report you requested. For the king.”
“Ah!” DeLacey put down the eviction notice and accepted the fresh sheets, looked through them briefly. “All seems in order. Yes, I shall give this to Mercardier.” He nodded dismissal, and set the parchments on the table. He favored Marian with a distracted smile. “I’m sorry—have we further business? If not, you may go.”
“No,” she said tightly. “We have no further business.”
Bemusedly, he watched her turn and begin the slow, limping journey back down the hall. Then he took up the clerk’s report again and began to read through it, relishing the portions that underscored Mercardier’s incompetence and Locksley’s outlawry.
DeLacey grinned. He did not believe the king would grant anything other than execution to Robert of Locksley.
Forty-Five
Once out of the hall proper—and out of the sheriff’s sight—Marian grabbed the first male servant she saw. With a hand pressed rigidly against her abdomen, she adopted an expression of supreme distress. “Garderobe! Please—”
The servant, helpless in the face of potential female problems, immediately took her to the nearest garderobe. Marian thanked him hastily, jerked open the door and, emitting a piteous groan, stepped inside. Then she listened at the closed door even as she continued to make soft noises of distress, and was rewarded to hear steps receding quickly.
The garderobe was a tiny, noisome closet with a hole carved through the stone bench, leading below to the castle sewer. Quickly Marian leaned the wrapped bow against the door, untied her girdle and dropped it down the hole, then began working the chemise and shift off over her head. Those, too, went down the hole, though not without a wince of regret. Then she unwrapped the rolled tunic and hooded capelet and tugged both on, belting tunic and hosen into place. From the left boot she took the coiled bowstring and unrolled it, making sure there were neither knots nor twists. She put it between her teeth and began unwrapping the bow, discarding leather and sacking down the garderobe hole. When the bow was unencumbered once again she bent and strung it, smacking an elbow against the door. The belly of the bow scraped the wall.
She drew a deep breath, closing her eyes a moment. Her heart pounded. There was so little time, and so much yet to do.
Marian released the breath noisily, bleeding tension away, and reached down to untie the thong around her thigh. She pulled the arrows from her boot and thrust three of them through the back of her belt. The fourth one she nocked, but did not draw the bow. A finger hooked over the shaft at the grip and a little tension kept the arrow in place, though it would require adjustment when she drew the string back.
Now. Time to pray that she could reach the dungeon without being stopped; and additional prayer that one of the guards in the dungeon would have the keys to the cell.
She pressed an ear against the door. She heard nothing. Marian stuffed the braid down the back of her tunic underneath the capelet and drew the hood up. Softly she murmured, “Time to do this thing.”
DeLacey was carefully folding the three-page report to the king when Mercardier, h
eeding a summons, appeared. The sheriff continued to fold the parchment, then with all deliberation took up a green taper and dripped wax upon the outer sheet. He pressed the signet ring of Nottinghamshire into the emerald globule, allowed it to cool, tied a ribbon around the packet, then extended it to Mercardier.
“There,” he said. “You may now depart. I trust you will see to it this reaches the king with all speed.” Naturally there was a copy; naturally a second messenger would be sent.
Mercardier inclined his head slightly, took one stride to the dais and accepted the packet. “As my duty to the king requires, Lord Sheriff.”
“I do hope he shan’t be too hard on you,” deLacey said kindly. “The king can be—unpredictable.”
The pocked face was implacable. “I failed in my duty.”
“With no small thanks to Robin Hood.” DeLacey smiled broadly. “Though I understand from Gisbourne, you paid appropriate tribute to that worthy earlier.”
The mercenary said nothing.
DeLacey studied him. He had never known any man so self-controlled. “You are a difficult man to read, Mercardier. But I daresay in this I am right: you do not much admire Robert of Locksley.”
A muscle jumped in the shadowed jaw. “What has he done that is admirable? It is true he was a sound fighter—and for it he was knighted—but he was disarmed and captured by the enemy.” Clearly that was a supreme sin to the captain of mercenaries. Better a man die than give up his arms or person. “He did not ransom himself,” Mercardier continued; and now deLacey heard the contempt. “Nor did he ask his father the earl to do so, but expected it of Coeur de Lion; and it is not for a king to do, to ransom a mere knight!” A second very great sin; the harsh voice now was laden with emotion. At last deLacey had found the key. “Then he returns to England and steals the taxes. Twice.”
The sheriff smothered laughter. “Indeed!”
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