Lady Thief

by A. C. Gaughen

  The lady who served us wine the night before handed her what looked like folded velvet. Eleanor nodded her thanks and slowly peeled back the layers of velvet.

  It were the largest moonstone I’d ever seen, surrounded by small emeralds, strung on a long silver chain. It stole my breath. “There’s quite a bit more green in it than your eyes, but I think the comparison stands,” she said. She lifted the chain and slid it easily over my head, and the jewel sank down to sit between my breasts.

  I picked it up, marveling. My mouth were dry. “E-Eleanor,” I stuttered.

  She lifted my chin with her knuckles. “Not a word, my dear. It’s quite unbecoming to challenge a gift from a queen.”

  Water pricked at my eyes, and I nodded. “Thank you,” I whispered, terrified of crying in front of her.

  “You’re welcome. An early Christmas gift.”

  I couldn’t care about jewels and finery, but it were her careless generosity what squeezed round my heart. She thought of me. Something reminded her of my eyes. I flung my arms around her, not minding the pain in my hand to do it. “Stay,” I said to her ear. “Please. Stay here.”

  “Oh,” she said in my ear, and the noise sounded twisted and caught. “Oh, my girl, I wish I could. I will return. Very soon, as soon as I can. Things in London are … tense. John’s going and I cannot leave him … well, unattended.” She pulled back and pressed my face in her hands. “But you will be welcomed as soon as I convince you to come to London. And we will see each other soon.”

  I nodded, gulping fast to keep from pouring out water like a spout. “I will come to London. Soon. I fear I may need your help with something.”

  She smiled. “You shall have it.”

  She took my hand and I gripped hers in return.

  “Come,” she said. “Walk me to my carriage.”

  Nodding again, I took her arm, and the servants made way for us to move.

  Eleanor’s ladies were flapping orders, their arms flying like bird wings as they said this should go there, that there. Eleanor ignored it all as we walked together to the open carriage door. “You will write to me, of course?”

  “If you wish.”

  “I do. I like a healthy correspondence.”

  We crossed the open courtyard, and I laughed to see Much and John stumbling from the Great Hall, long-eyed with sleep. They must not have made it to the barn at all.

  “Your friends?” she asked.

  I nodded. “As close as I’ve ever had to brothers.”

  Much tripped and John caught him, and Eleanor chuckled. “It seems we are leaving Nottingham in very good hands.”

  We were at the coach, and she embraced me once more. “I hope so,” I told her.

  “I cannot say I regret your discovery, my dear, but I do wish it had happened in less dramatic fashion.”

  I frowned. “Do you? You had plenty of opportunity to tell me, and you never said a word.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Well. I do wish you never found out at all. The secret matters less now that Richard is king, and married, but secrets are often better for staying such.” She smiled. “But now you know. And I’m not upset.”

  “Neither am I,” I told her.

  “Good. Good-bye, Lady Marian,” she said, her voice tripping a bit. “We shall speak soon.”

  She swallowed and gave me a weak, fond smile, and she took her footman’s hand to climb into the carriage.

  I crossed my arms around myself, trying to work out how to say good-bye to her, when a scream rang out.

  My head jerked, then whipped back to John and Much. They were still in the courtyard, unharmed, looking toward the gauntlet to the lower bailey.

  Everyone were. “Protect the queen!” I yelled at her guards. They flung open the carriage door to take her inside and I took off running, skating over the wet, heavy snow with a pounding heart to see what had happened. People were blocking the door to the gauntlet, but I wedged between them even before John started heaving people aside.

  I broke through and slipped, slamming into the ground on the walkway of the gauntlet, soaking my dress in snow. My vision swam, and I rolled to look up as I tried to suck in a breath.

  His feet were first. The boots that I knew too well, too still and limp, a cloak licking around them like the tongue of a hell hound. The snap of the fabric were the only sound I could hear. His arms were heavy and straight, his body fully kitted up in black. A rope, wrapped tight to the wall of the guard’s walkway above the gauntlet, were wrapped tight around his neck, causing the skin around it to be purple and thick.

  Gisbourne’s whole face looked swollen and dark, his eyes overwide, glaring at me, accusing me.

  I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t move, still in the snow, numb and unaware. I didn’t hear a sound. I didn’t see a soul. Just him, hanging there, looking at me.

  You were mine, Marian, long before you even knew he existed. Your unassailable loyalty and unshakeable belief should have been for me.

  The wind twisted the body a bit, and I saw his hands bound behind him. He twisted back, and his eyes were on me still.

  Sudden and desperate I moved, rolling onto my hands and knees to retch. Nothing came, but I kept heaving, my body in deep revolt, trying to purge it all from me.

  Arms caught me up, pulling me off the ground, and it were Rob, and the world suddenly lurched back into reality. John and Much seemed to be guarding me, keeping people away, and Rob hugged me tight to him, shouting orders to get Gisbourne down, call for the guards who had been on watch, call for the girl who had seen him first.

  “Scarlet,” he said to me. “Scarlet, speak to me.”

  I sucked in a breath, and my insides didn’t try to heave it back out. I nodded. “Rob,” I said. “Who did this?”

  “I don’t—” he started, and then a roar could be heard over the crowd.

  “Everyone back,” Rob ordered, pulling me up through the door to the upper bailey. “I don’t want anyone going in there,” he said.

  “It was her!” yelled a voice. The crowd parted, and Rob shifted me behind him as the prince strode forward, throwing a finger at me. John and Much flanked Rob, defending me.

  “My lord prince,” Rob said, bowing to him. “With deference to your Highness, there is no possible way it was Lady Leaford. He was thrown over the wall, and Lady Leaford likely couldn’t have lifted his weight in any situation, but her hand has been severely injured. One-handed, it’s impossible that she could have overpowered him in any way. It wasn’t her.”

  Winchester, de Clare, and the other nobles were filling the courtyard. “What’s happened?” Winchester asked.

  “Lord Leaford has been killed,” Rob said.

  Winchester’s face folded, angry and confused. “And you accuse Lady Leaford?” Winchester asked the prince.

  The prince strode forward. “Yes.”

  “Your Highness, there’s no proof—” Rob continued, stepping forward like he meant to keep the prince from me.

  “I saw her.”

  Rob’s throat worked, and my heart dropped. He was a sworn servant of the Crown now; he couldn’t refute Prince John’s word without revoking his new-promised oath. Without giving up the office of sheriff.

  “You have the word of a prince of England,” Prince John continued. “I command you to hang her as guilty of murder. The murder of her husband, no less, a most heinous crime.”

  Rob rocked back, and my heart broke. I knew Eleanor would never let John kill me, but Rob wouldn’t trust that. Kill me, or give up being sheriff. Hand the position over to someone the prince would appoint, undo all we’d done. Or kill me.

  “Your Highness—” Rob started, his voice rough.

  “Do it!” the prince screamed.

  I cast about the crowd for Eleanor. She were the only one who could intercede now, and I couldn’t find her. Damn—the guards probably still had her inside. She would never let him do this. I just needed time before Rob were forced to decide.

  “Do it, or I will st
rip you forthwith of your office,” Prince John growled. “And you will be punished as a traitor to the Crown.”

  Death.

  Gisbourne’s voice floated over the aether to me from the bailey. He will make you pay for this, Marian.

  This were Prince John’s plan—not to kill me, but to take the position back from Rob. He never planned to let us escape from this, never planned to let Rob stay sheriff. And he killed Gisbourne to make it happen.

  But I wouldn’t let him haunt Rob again. I wouldn’t make Rob choose between his life and mine.

  I knew he wouldn’t hesitate. Given the chance, he would kill Rob. There were only one person here he wouldn’t kill. No matter how much he wanted to, no matter what people saw or thought, Eleanor would never forgive him my death, and losing her love were something he wouldn’t risk. I were sure of it.

  I slid the knife from my back, stepped to the side of Rob, and lunged.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I knew I weren’t nearly close enough to actually hurt him, but it weren’t the true point anyway. As I lunged at the prince, he stepped back and his guards dove forward, grabbing me and tearing the knife from my hand.

  Then the melee started in truth as the tethers of the crowd snapped. I saw Prince John draw his sword and lunge at Rob, who jumped back, unarmed. Another strike, another jump, and I lost him behind people. Much drew his kattari—he must have concealed it better than I knew he could—and started swiping, trying to make it to Robin.

  John hammered a guard with his fist and easily stole his sword. The wave of people cleared again and I saw Winchester and John both battling to get to Rob, Prince John ahead of them both.

  Winchester turned and met the sword of de Clare, and a vengeful part of me hoped Winchester at least left him something to remember, if not killed him whole.

  John got close enough to Robin, catching Rob’s eye while tossing his sword to him. I watched the flash of the steel in the sky, and Rob reached out and caught it.

  My heart leapt, and then I saw Rob’s horror-filled, fallen face. I looked back.

  I turned my head just as Prince John pulled his sword from John’s stretched-wide middle. Blood flung out with the sword, and for a moment, John were still. His arms were still up, like he were still throwing the sword to Rob. Then they dropped, and his knees buckled. Like someone took a stick to his legs they fell from under him, and he crashed into the snow.

  His face rolled to me. His arm were out, toward me, and he coughed, meeting my eyes. I knew I were screaming; I knew only because my chest hurt like I were screaming, like I were screaming so hard I couldn’t bear to breathe. His cough made blood spatter his mouth, and the snow, and his cheek. His lips moved. Bess.

  I shattered. My legs couldn’t hold me, my chest ached for screaming, my eyes poured so much water I were sure at some point it had to turn to blood. The guards held me up by my waist, and that were it, that were all that were real.

  The fighting stopped at some point, and I waited for the guards to let me go, let me go to John, but they didn’t. Rob and Much knelt by his side, but John were still, the second set of dead eyes to fix me in their gaze that morning.

  Much stared at me, wide eyed and wild, saying something, but I couldn’t hear it. They put irons on me and made me kneel in the snow, and I fought, desperate, trying to get to John, to Much, to Rob, to my family that had just been broken.

  A knight pressed his sword to my throat, and it scraped along my chin before I felt it, before I stopped moving.

  Prince John stood before me, but I were senseless. He waved the sword away, but if he were speaking, I couldn’t hear it.

  His hand cracked across my face. “Mark me!” he growled.

  My neck felt boneless, but I looked up at him, trying to hear what he were saying.

  “As a traitor, I will bring you to London,” he ordered. “You will confess to your motives for trying to assassinate a prince of England, and when I’m satisfied with your confession, you will meet your death.”

  He were lying. He didn’t dare kill me. Rob he would have killed here in the snow, just like he’d done John, but me Eleanor would never forgive. Me he couldn’t afford to kill.

  Yet at the moment, watching John die on the ground because of me, I wished for death.

  “Let me see him,” I said, my voice raw and strange, and water started in my eyes fresh. “Let me go to him!”

  “Your Highness,” Winchester said, coming beside Prince John. “What’s the harm in it? She’s in chains.”

  Prince John’s eyes never left me. “You can never trust a thief, Winchester. Or a traitor.”

  “Sheriff,” said a soft voice.

  Everyone turned to look, and I saw Eleanor standing there, her pale face mottled with pink, her eyes wide. “Yes, your Highness,” Rob said.

  “There should be a carriage in the lowest bailey that is suitable for securing a prisoner,” she said, gravel in her voice. “Perhaps you can see her down to it.”

  “Not yet,” the prince said, and he grabbed my arm, dragging me back to the door to the gauntlet. I let him—I didn’t have a bone in my body to stop him, my eyes fixed on John’s body in the snow, watching as my soaked skirts skidded over the snow, edging close to his blood. A corner of it caught his blood and spread an ever-lightening red streak in the white snow. Fresh sobs burst through my chest.

  He pushed me through the door, grabbing my head and forcing me to look at Gisbourne’s body. “Admit it,” he growled. “Admit you killed him!”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “Admit it!” he bellowed.

  “You know I didn’t,” I said, sniffing back more tears. “You alone know how he died.”

  He let me drop so he could raise his hand to me again, but it never came down.

  “Stop this immediately,” Winchester hissed, the only other soul who dared cross the threshold. “There are many things I will watch you do, but strike a woman in chains is not one of them. The sheriff and I will see her to the carriage, but this is finished. Your Highness.”

  Winchester did not even wait for Prince John’s response. He knelt to me and took my hand and waist, helping me up gentle.

  “Step aside, Winchester!” the prince snapped.

  Winchester did not turn, did not move. “You would do well to remember, my prince, that you are not the king, your nephew is the heir to your brother’s throne, and that you are not so much higher than an earl. You are by no means untouchable to me.”

  Rob came down the gauntlet, and he stood beside me but didn’t touch me. His eyes met mine, heavy and dark and blank. His hand reached up, open, to guide me down the gauntlet, and my body jerked. His hands were covered in John’s blood.

  By the time we reached the second bailey, the world had changed. We made it through the door, and Winchester shut it, and I stared at Rob. “I’m sorry,” I said fast. The tears rushed again. “I didn’t mean for him to be hurt, Rob, I didn’t—how could he—it’s my—it’s my—”

  I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t stop crying. John were dead. Happy John, finally contented John. And Bess knew nothing of it. Bess were alone, and with child, and the sword that run her husband through may as well have been in my hand.

  My knees hit the snow-slick stone and Rob were before me. His hands were wet and freezing with snow, but they were clean of blood. They clasped my face. “This is not your fault, Scar.” Tears shot out from his eyes. “This is not my fault.” His head pressed mine and I knew he felt it like I did, our awful gift to take on pain like greedy children.

  “John—Bess—” I cried.

  “I will take care of her. Of them both.”

  “Don’t come after me, Rob.”

  He pulled back, looking at me. “Scar, I will have you out within a week.”

  “No. Not at the expense of Nottinghamshire, of being sheriff. Eleanor will protect me as best she can. You know she will. He won’t kill me.”

  “Scarlet,” he said, and his voice rough runn
ing over my skin. “I can’t leave you there.”

  “Yes, you can. Until I find a way.”

  “Until we both find a way,” he told me, staring into my eyes. “And if he harms you, I will deal with the devil himself to get you out of there.” He looked up, at Winchester. “Swear to me, Quincy. Swear that you’ll watch over her. Keep me informed. Swear.”

  “I swear.”

  Robin pulled me forward and kissed me. He tugged me up, holding me still, kissing me again and again, quick desperate things. He held me close and we began walking. We crossed the second bailey and went down to the lowest one. The carriage were already brought forward, which didn’t much surprise—word traveled faster amongst the servants than by any other way. There were guards there too, and knights, and I didn’t want to find out who were on my side, and who not. I didn’t dare cause another soul to be hurt.

  Winchester threaded the chains through the bolt in the floor. He helped me into the seat, and he locked the chains to the bolt with a sorry look to me.

  Rob stepped inside the carriage and kissed me, hard and fierce till the tears on our faces touched. Our lips broke but he stayed there still, breathing into me.

  I nudged my nose to his cheek. “Last night, Rob—I know we’re not meant for much happiness in this awful world, but I will tell myself that last night were the night I married you, and I’ll be happy every time I think of it.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Rob said. “I will marry you. And I will count the sunsets until I do.”

  I shut my eyes and cried. I nodded, but I couldn’t say another word.

  When Rob left, Winchester shut the door and I couldn’t mark the time. We started to move sometime after, and the tiny slit of a window showed me snow, and forest, and dark.

  I hated it. And I cried. My marriage were over, and the rich shine of being free of Gisbourne were tarnished by everything else I had lost along with it. My home. My love. My friend.