Lady Thief

by A. C. Gaughen

  The healer rolled him over and started checking him, and I sat by, kneeling on the frozen ground as more people clustered round. The crowds parted for Lady Thoresby, and I stood to meet her.

  She were looking at her husband. “It’s done, Scarlet,” she whispered to me. “He can’t fight with his arm like that.” She glanced at me, her blue eyes full of water. “And I won’t ask him to.”

  A cold, empty chill snaked round my spine to pool in my belly. I gripped her hand. “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

  She gripped back. “Find some other way, Scarlet. You always do.”

  Her hand fell from mine, and she went forward with her husband. The crowd shifted and moved as my chest went tighter. Gisbourne would be sheriff, and all these people … all these people would suffer for it.

  There wouldn’t never be no relief, for none of them. Certain not for me.

  “Scar?” John said low, catching my arm. “You all right?” He pulled me over to the side, and I went, leaning on the fence as the people started to clear from the field and Thoresby were carried off it.

  “He’s done,” I told them. “We’re done.”

  “You’ll find another way, Scar,” Much said.

  My hands trembled with the damned desperate need to push him till he lost his feet. “Me,” I growled, but I were dangerous close to wanting to cry. “It can’t always be me. I can’t figure it out.”

  “Scar—” Much said soft, touching my arm.

  “Scar,” John grunted, raising his chin. I looked past Much and frowned.

  “I don’t think Gisbourne would appreciate his wife mixing with the common element,” de Clare said, walking close, his armor clattering and making me jump, though it looked fair foolish on him. “It doesn’t look good for a man of his, well, uncertain stature.” De Clare were inches away, and with my back against the fence the space felt oversmall.

  I slid my sore hand behind me, keeping it from him, but even though every muscled bit of me were screaming to step away from him, I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t never run from a bully.

  “His wife’s fair common herself,” I said. “And between the two of us, you’re the only one looking foolish.”

  De Clare’s lip curled. “You brazen little animal—” he started, but John laughed. John were leaning on the fence with me and Much, looking easy enough, but his jaw were bunched with muscle and his neck looked like a sailor’s rig with all the lines running to and fro. “Something amuses you?” de Clare asked John.

  “Begging your pardon, my lord,” John said with a dash of his head. “By all means, keep talking. I would dearly love to see your face when you see how I—and all these menfolk behind me—take to you insulting her.”

  De Clare smiled at John. “Yes, I’m sure you’re quite interesting to tangle with.” He sneered. “Quite the brawler. Don’t worry, you lowborn churl, she may be safe out here with your kind of rabble. But I can find her in the castle, alone, vulnerable. I can do whatever I want to her, and you won’t—”

  He stopped yapping, most because there were John’s fist crashing into his mug—the one bit of him that weren’t covered in shiny metal. And, like a toy, he spun a mite bit and fell back, dropping onto the ground.

  “John, go,” I told him as everyone began to look over. “Well put, but go.”

  He smiled and grabbed Much, and the townfolk stood and covered them as they went. The nobles were all looking over and staring at me.

  “Marian?” someone said, and it took a breath to realize it were meant for me. I turned and Gisbourne were there, in only a bright chestplate, his black hair wild and wet. He reached over the fence and pulled me to him, and even with a giant beam between us, it were surprisingly close in a way I didn’t much like. “Did he touch you again?” he snarled.

  “Why, he threatened her life!” someone said. “Her life and all her future progeny! Awful!”

  I turned to the voice and saw Allan there, looking overbright in a red cape. I frowned at him.

  “And one of the townsfolk stood up for her, he did. The beloved jewel of Nottinghamshire. Never fear, my lord Leaford, for no true harm would come to her while these good people can prevent it.”

  Gisbourne glowered at him. “You sound Irish, minstrel.”

  He gave an elaborate bow. “Well spotted, my lord Leaford.”

  “Then how have you any idea what these people will do?”

  Allan sprang up, unruffled. “Tis clear, my lord. Your wife—and for certain yourself, by your nearness to her—is adored by these people.” He bowed again.

  Gisbourne grunted an oath under his breath. Other men were helping de Clare up, and he were muttering without making much sense. Gisbourne shook his head and ducked under the fencing.

  “What are you doing?” I breathed, stepping back from him.

  Muscles in his jaw rolled like wagon wheels, and he stepped forward, taking my arm. “Come, Marian. I’ll see you back to the dais.”

  “Gisbourne,” Winchester called, coming from the noble’s side. “You’re up in the lists. I’ll escort your wife, if you wish.”

  Gisbourne swept down his head so beads of sweat flew off. “Your Grace.”

  Winchester ducked under the fence. He had no armor on, and his arm were warm as it held mine. “Not tilting today, your Grace?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I have all the favor, money, and glory I require. I don’t see the point in it. Besides, then how could I rescue young ladies?”

  I looked back at de Clare, who had just bare found his feet. “Who or what were you rescuing me from?”

  “A treacherous walk back to the dais, clearly. And myself, from boredom. I did so enjoy seeing de Clare flat on his back. Your friend has excellent aim.”

  “You have no idea,” I told him. “It is fair strange that I’ve found myself unable to do my own defending.”

  “You have a broken hand,” he told me. “And yet I’m sure, without so many men eager to prove themselves around you, that knife you have along the small of your back would have been marvelously well employed. Your seat, my lady.”

  We had reached the dais and my empty chair. He held my hand until I were settled into it, and I stared up at him, fair shocked.

  He bowed over my hand. “My lady. Your Highness,” he said, and I turned.

  Eleanor inclined her regal head to him. “Winchester.”

  Winchester left, and I drew a breath. I didn’t much know what to say to a queen.

  “You have many friends,” she noted. “It seems they are a more common equivalent of my loyal knights.”

  Looking at Isabel’s seat, I sighed. “I reckon I have more enemies than would-be knights.”

  “You know,” the queen said, her voice thoughtful and quiet. I went fair still, listening. “When I was made Louis’ wife and queen of France at fifteen, my husband’s court thought me … wild,” she said slow. “I spoke my mind, and I loved to dance more than they thought entirely appropriate. They called me such names.” Her cool, austere face curved with a regal smile. “I won them over, in time. They shouted my name and threw roses at my feet.”

  I stared at her. “I always heard you were unhappy in France.”

  She nodded, not looking at me. “Yes. Well, becoming an English queen after being a French one does call for some revision in history, doesn’t it? And in the end, Louis’ betrayal was perhaps the worst I have suffered.” She lifted her shoulder. “But it led me here, to England, to my children.” She chuckled. “Louis and I never fought quite so viciously as Henry and I did, though. Marriage is complicated.”

  I looked out over the field at Gisbourne’s black-clad form. “Quite.” I looked at her. “Is it true you fought in the first Crusade?”

  She laughed and stared out over the field with a glow like a moonbeam. “A queen cannot reveal all her secrets, my dear.” She tapped her lip with her finger, then continued to watch the jousts without saying another word.

  My husband tilted in that round and won after a series of
broken lances. His next contest were against de Clare, and he rode again, slamming a blow to the middle of de Clare’s chest and unseating him with the first ride. When de Clare’s helmet rolled loose, Gisbourne scooped it up with his lance and brought it to me on the platform like a trophy.

  I took it. I stared at it, wondering if, without Thoresby in the race, Gisbourne had just won the whole of Nottinghamshire and didn’t much know it yet.

  Chapter Twelve

  I stayed out on the grounds till all the other ladies had long gone to fires, and my bones were ice even ’neath the furs and the softness. Gisbourne did well, but my eyes weren’t for him. I’d seen John and Much, Godfrey and even Tuck, but never once Rob.

  I wanted to see him, to touch him again, to tell him my heart were near to bursting for him having slept a night. Even if it had to be without me, I wanted him well. A thousand times I started, seeing his height or his shape or his sand-fair hair, but it weren’t never him, and by the end of the day my heartstrings were plucked as raw as the rest of me stood cold.

  Even making my slow way back to the keep, I waited for the crunch of snow, the flash of dark against the white. He weren’t there. He weren’t with me. And hoping for it each moment were fair awful.

  Though it weren’t nothing close to hot, inside the walls of the castle were warm and heavy, like the truth of things cast about my shoulders thicker than a cloak. Outside, it were a glimmer of hope to see Rob, but I wouldn’t never catch him inside the walls. Least, not without him being in trouble.

  Sneaking about weren’t as easy in noble’s things, but I still managed, hanging about enough servants’ quarters to hear them speak of Lord Thoresby, his arm broken three times over. He wouldn’t never hold a sword again, and never ever could he fight for the role of sheriff.

  I wanted to go to Lady Thoresby, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t face her.

  I went back to the chambers slow, dragging my slippered toes along the stone. I’d wanted boots, but all the ladies wore the flimsy things, made sillier still by the servants dropping carpets over the snow to keep the ladies’ toes dry. I’d muddied mine up a bit and the things were ruined, the whole of my feet ice-cold.

  The chambers were empty, until my being there signaled my lady’s maid to come in. I waved her off, dragging one of the furs from the bed to the fire, sitting on the hot stone by the hearth. I pulled my soaked, foolish stockings off and pressed my feet to the brick as close to the fire as I dared. I leaned against the stone, half inside the fireplace itself, trying to curl tight into the fire.

  My eyes shut, and a vision of last Christmas, spent huddled in Tuck’s with his girls and my boys and a roaring fire. There’d been dancing—I never danced, even when John asked me, even when Rob stood and looked at me for a long breath. It had burned me then, thinking he looked at me and saw me and wouldn’t choose me, but I knew better now. I knew he hadn’t asked me for the same reason I hadn’t asked him.

  The door opened—in the chambers, in the castle, though for a breath I didn’t know where I were—and my eyes dragged opened with it. Gisbourne walked in with his chamberlain clucking behind him, and he looked at me and I looked at him. His shirt were off, and his skin were red and raw like it were holding all the cold in Nottinghamshire. There were patches of darker red too, and I wondered, for the first time, if he’d been hurt during the joust.

  “The snow prevents swelling,” he said, and his eyes broke from mine.

  I lifted a shoulder, looking back into the fire. “Cold is fair good for you, I reckon.”

  He grunted. I weren’t sure if that were meant to be an agreement or not, but I didn’t look over to decide. I shut my eyes, wishing for the dream again, but it didn’t rise in the dark of my eyelids.

  “Come along, Marian,” he said after a while. “Supper is soon.”

  Supper weren’t the torture it had been the night before. Men were tired and quiet. Isabel led much of the talk and didn’t steer none of it toward me. For once I didn’t raise my husband’s ire, and when the meal ended, he offered his arm and led me out of the hall civil-like.

  When we changed for bed and his shirt came off, I saw his body had taken hits; there were dark bruises on his shoulder and chest. For a joust, though, he had taken impressive little punishment. His eyes caught mine, his face dark and closed like a door.

  I looked to the fire. “You’ll do well tomorrow,” I told him. “Might even win the joust.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The archery is the only thing that matters.”

  “And bruising your competition, it seems.”

  His teeth bared. “Battering them, if I can.”

  I pulled a fur blanket around the loose dress for bed and climbed into the chair, curling tight.

  There were a knock on the door, and my lady’s maid went to answer it. She spoke in hushed tones and then shut the door, coming back into the room.

  “My lady, the princess requests you attend her on a purview of the market in the morning.”

  “What does she need my attention for?” I grumbled.

  “You know very well that a princess cannot be waited upon by commoners,” Gisbourne said. “It is an honor to be asked.”

  “A backhanded honor,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell her no.” The order were for Mary, but I were looking to Gisbourne.

  “The princess did not wait for a response, my lady,” Mary said.

  “You can’t tell her no; that’s why she didn’t wait. Mary, Eadric, you’re dismissed,” Gisbourne said.

  The servants left with the milords and miladies and such, and then I couldn’t hear naught but the fire crackling before me.

  “It’s cold,” he said, looking at me.

  That were as close as he’d ever come to asking for my wellness, and I looked away. “I like the cold.”

  “It wasn’t always so,” he said, and I heard him creak into the bed. “I was hard pressed to get you out of the sun in the summer gardens when we first met.”

  My chest went tight and my pipes stopped up as I thought of that, chasing Joanna’s streaming blond hair through the garden, watching as it caught the light and glittered. I thought maybe if I could just catch her, I could become her, all blond hair and light and happiness. But it weren’t never to be; the summer ended and Joanna died, and I were left in the dark-haired winter that I were born for. “Things changed.”

  He grunted. “Quite.”

  “Why did you bring me here?” I asked. “You knew they would hate me. You knew you’d be ridiculed for me. Why do it to yourself?”

  “You are my wife.”

  “But it don’t help you none.”

  “You are the only reason I have a claim here. It doesn’t matter if I speak like a lord, they’ll always treat me like a dog until I have the lands and titles for their damned respect. You were born a lady and these adventures of yours are nothing but a passing fancy. You should know that by now—you can run from it, but you can never unmake your birth, and they know that. For both of us.”

  “But—” I started.

  “Besides,” he continued, routing me off. “Prince John demands, and I answer.”

  “He wanted to see us as man and wife?”

  “He doesn’t like people subverting his control. Did you think your follies would go unnoticed?”

  I frowned. “Well, it ain’t like it were all my fault.”

  “You are more dangerous than a few peasants and a fallen earl, Marian.”

  “Why? Just because I’m a noble?”

  “Good night, Marian.”

  “Gisbourne—”

  “Please let one night pass where I don’t need to be furious with you.”

  It weren’t my fault he had the temper of a bear. It weren’t my fault that he made me come here, made me stay in this god-awful place. None of it were my fault.

  Still, I stayed quiet.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The morning dawned cold and clear, and my husband w
ere up as early as me, dressing for the second day of the joust. Mary fussed over me to make me ready to walk beside the princess, and I ain’t never felt so foolish.

  “Here,” Gisbourne said as I were done. He tossed a purse of coin my way and I snatched it. “The princess will expect you to spend.”

  I peeked inside. “You won’t see any of this back, you know.”

  His lip curled up like a dog. “So be it. You’ve already been stealing from me anyway, haven’t you?”

  Tying the purse inside my skirts, I didn’t cop to it none.

  “Marian,” he said.

  “Fine, I nicked the coins,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You married a thief, you should hide things better.”

  “Marian,” he said, and I looked up. “Impress her.”

  I wanted to ask why, but I knew he were sweet on Isabel. Or I reckoned I knew—but that would be part and parcel with my husband having sweetness, or even a heart, which I weren’t sure were so.

  “I’ll try to be less your wild wife,” I told him. He nodded like it were some solemn thing I promised, and then he left.

  Mary heaped me with a furry cloak and fancy gloves and ladylike boots that were fair useless, little more than fur-lined fabric in the shape of a boot with nothing to make it sturdy or stalwart in any measure. If I were to so much as run to the gates, they’d be naught but a heap of fur-lined shreds.

  But for walking slow and making pretty, they were just fine.

  I were shown to the princess’s chambers and made to wait outside until she were ready, with the higher-ranking ladies flocked about her. When she emerged, the few others standing there dropped to curtsies, and it took me a breath to remember I were meant to do it too.

  “Come along,” she said, and we all stood and followed her out.

  It were a messy business, so many puffed-up ladies walking down a single hallway, but the overly layered parade made it to the courtyard intact. It seemed we were meant to follow along behind the princess in a half circle, which one lady—who hadn’t introduced herself to me—waved her hands and swatted at me to make sure I’d do.