Things had changed since old Henry had died. Richard the Lionheart, had handed out knighthoods like a hengirl throwing grain. The rank once attainable only through feats of skill no longer meant quite so much. The sheriff of Nottingham, requiring an able steward, had further sealed Gisbourne’s fate by buying him out of battle; therefore his only claim to knighthood was a feat of passing the purse.
He bit into his lip. Sir Guy; no less. But no more, either. He sincerely doubted serving William deLacey would ever result in anything more than what he had, with no land in the offing.
Sir Guy of Gisbourne.
He gritted teeth. He wasn’t like the sheriff. He didn’t want or need nobility. He merely desired land of his own, a manor, a name—and a woman to bear him sons.
Locksley’s manner was proprietary, intent, and more than a trifle selfish. He did not ask, he told. But then, Marian decided in fairness, he is the son of an earl.
Through the throng he took her, very nearly dragging her, but the throng made way for him, noting who he was, then noting who she was. In wry amusement she reflected, The sheriff will be dismayed.
But it faded quickly, overruled by an acknowledgment that what she did—rather, what he did to her—was the sort of thing others would note, consider, remark upon, within the context of their natures. Even now, eyebrows arched. Skirts were pulled aside. Mouths murmured comments into attentive ears.
Her face flamed and her breasts prickled. She did not think again of the sheriff or of his unmarried daughter. She thought instead of herself, and of the man who led her so unerringly through the hall to an adjoining antechamber. They passed even the minstrel, watching over his lute. Blue eyes were brightly knowing; his smile was meant for her.
Inside the chamber Locksley boomed shut the door behind her. Marian looked past him, noting chairs, candle racks, tapestried walls. At least, she thought wryly, it does not have a bed. That much he will spare me.
He swung back, stopped short, and nearly tripped her as she moved from the door. His tone was laced with bitter defensiveness. “Do you know what it is like coming home a stranger, and finding everything changed?”
She was not certain he wanted an answer. He was not looking at her.
And then, as abruptly, he was. “Do you?”
She folded hands into kirtle skirts, seeking the proper demeanor, the words he might want to hear. “When I have been away, I have a ritual. I reacquaint myself, to see if things have altered. Room by room. Hall by hall.” She shrugged defensively, unsettled by the unrelenting stare. “Perhaps you might do the same.”
“A ritual,” he echoed. “Such as a knight riding into battle, seeking victory, honor, and glory ... and the approval of a king?”
It was not meant for her, she knew. Perhaps for himself. “I don’t know, my lord. I have never gone to war.”
Her forthright tone and words startled him out of whatever privacy he might have wished to retain. She saw it plainly: the sharpening of his gaze, the hardening of his mouth. “No. They do not send women to war.”
She did not hesitate. “Only into marriage.”
Beneath pale hair, brows arched. She could see only their movement, not their color, though she remembered it. “Is that why you came?” he asked. “To cast the lure for the lost falcon at last returned to its mews?”
The bitter vehemence startled her. She had come for no such thing, not even contemplating it in a brief, fleeting daydream. She had been consumed with her father, determined to learn what she could, and only that. She did not blame Locksley for his assumption. Not one bit. It struck the mark cleanly. But she was not the arrow, loosed to catch a man. She was not Eleanor deLacey.
Marian smiled. Her teeth were good; she showed them. “Better to ask the sheriff. Better to ask the others, trailing chains of bright-clad daughters.”
The flesh by his eyes creased. She thought at first it might be amusement, but the mouth did not smile. “What of you, then?”
“What of me?” she countered. “You brought me here.”
He sighed and turned away, scrubbing one hand through his mane of blond hair. She saw how the breadth of his shoulders stretched the fabric of his samite tunic, checkered green-and-gold. The belt clasping lean hips shone with worked gold and the meat-knife at his right hip.
He swung back. “I brought you here,” he agreed. And then, yet again, he frowned. “We have met before.”
Marian managed to nod. “At Ravenskeep, my lord. One Christmas Eve”—it was harder than she’d expected—“you and your lord father rode home from London, but a storm brought you up short. You came instead to my father’s manor and spent the night with us.” Perhaps that will content him. Perhaps he recalls nothing more.
“Ravenskeep ...” The eyes were unrelenting. “You dragged me under the mistletoe and claimed the forfeit of me.”
He does remember. Heat washed through her face, leaving color in its wake. It took all her courage to meet his gaze, to smile; to hide with great effort the self-consciousness his intensity engendered. She was not so certain of men’s regard that she knew how to conduct the conversational conflict so many other women relished. “I was very young, as you were,” she began, relying on the truth no matter how embarrassing, “and I had kissed everyone else. You were the only one left.”
She thought he might laugh, but he didn’t. She thought he might at least smile. But all he did was dismiss the recollection with an autocratic gesture reminiscent of his father. “I sent a letter,” he told her flatly. “After your father died, I wrote.”
The wave of heat and color faded. Self-conscious amusement died. Locksley’s manner, relegating her own feelings and responses to those meant merely to answer his questions, annoyed her intensely.
In her own way, Marian fought back. “Why you, my lord? Surely there was someone else. Someone of lesser rank—”
He heard the quiet derision in her tone. For the moment his eyes were bright, but with anger rather than humor. “Rank had nothing to do with it,” he answered curtly. “When a man saves another man’s life on the battlefield, such things no longer matter.”
Tightly, she reminded him, “The Lionheart made you a knight.”
“I said, it does not matter.” He gritted his teeth, flexing muscle in his jaws. Color stood in his face. He was so fair, it showed easily—and then she saw the scar.
It was thin, jagged, ugly, tracing its way from his right earlobe along the line of his jaw to curve upward, only briefly, at the point of his chin. There it ended as abruptly as it began. It was almost nonexistent: a seam of uneven stitching. Someone had cut him badly. Someone had sewn him up. It was not a new scar, but one she did not recall. He has been gone two years ... war remakes us all. “It does not matter,” she told him, tearing her eyes from the scar.
His color faded. The scar disappeared, unless she looked for it. “Forgive me,” he said roughly. “I have not been with women of decency for too long ... I have forgotten all the words.” The jaw muscles flexed again.
It was hard for him to say that. Marian smiled faintly. “They will come back to you. Now, as for the letter ... ?”
“I wrote it, because he asked it ... and because I wanted to tell you myself. I felt it only just, that the man who saved my life was well worth my own labor.” His helpless gesture was awkward. “It was all I could do for him.”
Grief renewed itself. “I was told he died in battle.”
“He died at Richard’s feet.”
Richard. Not the king. Not the Lionheart. Not even “my lord. ” Marian wanted to cry again but refused to do it here, where Locksley would see. Her mouth felt slow and stiff. “If it pleases a man to die, he must have known great pride. He thought very highly of his king.”
“So do we all.” But the tone held an odd undercurrent. “He died at Richard’s feet because I was not in my place.”
She stared blankly, wanting not to comprehend; afraid she did all too well. “I don’t understand.”
The gaze
did not waver, nor did the bitterness. But he did not mean it for her. “You understand it very well; I can see it in your eyes.” The line of his mouth grew taut. “But you are too well reared—you would rather not say it for the sake of courtesy.”
It was true, but irrelevant. Marian swallowed heavily, making herself go slowly. Maintaining precarious control. “Are you saying, then, he died because of you?”
“No.” The pale eyes, oddly, were black. “Not because of me, but because of what happened to me.” The voice was exceedingly harsh. “He died because he took my place at Richard’s side.”
“Your place,” she said. Then, with quiet directness, because she could not help herself, “Why were you not in it?”
Self-contempt was unmistakable. “Because a Saracen warlord had already captured me.”
She saw it clearly, paraded before her mind’s eye. “And so my father took your place. To protect his king. To keep the Lionheart safe.” Grief briefly spasmed in her face; she suppressed it with effort, knowing instinctively this man would despise helplessness, or what he perceived as a woman’s weakness. “And did he not do so, my lord? Did he not protect his king? The Lionheart yet lives.”
“In prison,” he said grimly. “In Henry’s German fortress.”
Anger blazed forth. “At least he lives! My father is dead a year!”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He offered her no answer.
Marian drew breath, trying to steady her voice. She had expected something other than anger, the quiet but powerful anger: this was an earl’s son. No doubt he had expected something else also, accustomed to deference. But she was already begun. “If he died at Richard’s feet, with you already captured, how did you know to write?”
“He had asked me that morning. We shared a cup of wine.” The scar writhed briefly. “Whether he knew, I cannot say. It is thought some men know the hour of their death ... all I can tell you is he asked me, on my honor, to write you should he die.”
The old pain was new again, exquisite in resoluteness. She could not help but murmur, “This is the worst yet.”
“No,” he answered tightly. “I saw him die. In my place, he died ... while Saladin made me watch.”
“Saladin.” She stared. “The Saracen himself?”
“Salah al-Din. Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub.” The name, abruptly, was foreign, more foreign, with a different pronunciation; an alien phraseology she realized was, to him, proper and correct, and all too familiar. Not slurred and run together, as English tongues said it. As she herself had, not knowing any better.
Salah al-Din. Saladin himself, the Lionheart’s devoted foe.
The jaw muscle twitched again, as if Locksley himself heard the difference echoing in a chamber very far from the Holy Land. He raked a hand through his hair. “Helmless, I am not easily missed. Richard kept me by his side—” He cut himself off, then continued. “The Saracens learned very quickly to look for me if they wanted Richard. Richard was the target. Richard was the goal. Once we knew it, I protested”—again the scar writhed—“but Richard would not hear of it. I was his banner ...” Locksley’s tone was ugly. “They took me, then killed your father as he tried to fill the hole.”
It occurred to her somewhat laggardly that men in the throes of great guilt often lie about their actions. She did not doubt her father died as Locksley told her. She did not even doubt the truth of his explanation. What she doubted was that no matter what he said, the son of an earl would hardly take the time to write to a knight’s daughter. Particularly if, as he said, he was taken prisoner.
Marian cleared her throat, purposefully smoothing heavy skirt folds to hide the trembling of anger in her fingers. “If you were captured just prior to my father’s death, how were you able to write?”
Eyes narrowed. “I did not write at once. It had to wait, as did my ransom ... I wrote when I was free.”
“How long ago?”
He shrugged. “Eight months, perhaps nine.”
“Eight months! You have been free that long, yet only now come home?”
The jagged scar whitened. “I went to the Holy Land on Crusade. I swore oaths, Lady Marian.... Regardless of the circumstances, I do not easily forswear myself. I stayed as long as Richard needed me—” Abruptly, he altered the sentence. “When my service was completed, I set sail for England.”
She drew breath, seeking strength and self-control, and recaptured courtesy. “So,” she said quietly, “now your task is done. Your letter went astray, but the messenger has not.”
The scar burned whiter still. “The messenger has,” he said. “Very much astray, and cannot find his way back.”
She stared openly, startled out of her personal reverie by the nuances of his tone, by the intensity of his emotion. And was equally surprised he would show it so plainly to her. “My lord—”
“There is one more thing,” he told her. “I wrote it in the letter, but the letter has gone astray. And so I will say it myself.” He looked past her to the door, shut for privacy. Then the gaze returned to her. “Your father said to tell you he can think of no better man. He wanted you to marry the Sheriff of Nottingham.”
Four
The knock on the door was loud. Marian did not move. He wouldn’t ... my father? Would he?
Locksley, turning from her, lifted the latch, then stepped aside as the door was pushed open with uncompromising force. The earl himself came through, clearly irritated. His expression was black until he saw Marian. He transformed it instantly into a bland, urbane mask. She was nothing at all to him, merely a nameless woman, but peers of the realm divulged nothing to those of lesser rank.
In view of the news from Locksley, the presumption made her angry. But she said nothing at all. Behind the earl stood the sheriff. She would keep her emotions in check, even as Huntington did.
“Robert,” the earl said mildly, “there are guests who wish to see you.”
Locksley’s face, too, was masked. “They saw me.”
The earl’s frown was fleeting. He glanced briefly at Marian, assessed her judgment of Locksley’s answer, then smiled paternally at his son to make light of the matter. “I understand what it must be like to share the company of an Englishwoman again ... but you must recall our purpose here, Robert. You can hardly hide yourself away when so many have come in your honor.”
Marian looked more closely at the earl. Nothing in his face belied the intent of his words or the cordiality of his tone, but she was struck nonetheless by his lack of comprehension. Clearly he thought only of himself and his own plans for the feast, not of the guest of honor.
She glanced back at Locksley, marking the subtle tautness of jaw, the guardedness of his eyes. Surely the earl could see it. Surely the earl realized this was not what Locksley wanted; that he desired to be elsewhere, in different circumstances.
Plainly, the earl saw nothing of the kind. Merely his son alone with a woman, and not one to whom Huntington aspired to link his heir.
He is blind, Marian thought in shock. He looks at his son and sees nothing, only the boy who went away. He does not know what he faces ... he does not know whom he faces.
“Marian.” Now the sheriff spoke. “Marian, surely you cannot deny me the pleasure of another dance.”
Inconsequentially, it amused her. Surely I cannot deny your daughter the chance to catch Locksley. Marian smiled politely. “No more dancing, I pray. Sir Robert brought me news of my father and thought it best divulged in private; he is a most discerning man, well cognizant of my grief. Now, if you will excuse me—?” There, she thought, smiling privately, let them chew on that.
But her satisfaction faded. Even as she attempted to slip out the door, commotion beyond raged. She heard shouting, some form of declaration—or was it a presentation?—and then the crowds within the great hall were falling back, bumping into one another; or standing in place, bowing and curtseying.
“What now?” the earl demanded irritably as the sheriff moved aside. “By God, what is all th
is noise—?” And then he halted abruptly, bowing. “Prince John!”
He had her, the minstrel knew. Or could have her, if he wanted her; if he so much as suggested. He had grown adept over the years at judging the moment—and the woman’s willingness. This one was his.
But did he want her? Perhaps. If none better were forthcoming. That better existed, he knew; he had seen several already, but a rare few had entered the game, playing the proper parts. It left him now with this one.
“Fair Eleanor,” he murmured, and saw the answering color blooming in her face, the glint in dark brown eyes. Lips broke, then parted. Her slight overbite intrigued him. “Fair Eleanor, my sweet—I shall make a song just for you.”
So easy, she was. Like so many other women. Lowborn or highborn, women were all the same. Give them a smile, a song; the bedding soon would follow.
Fair Eleanor—who wasn’t—met him look for look. “Alain,” she murmured back, with a throaty Norman inflection learned from her father.
Alain, in Norman French; in English, unadorned Alan. One and the same, to him. He didn’t care what they called him, any of them: Norman, Saxon, French. So long as the women filled his bed, and the men filled his purse.
He plucked a single note upon his English lute. “Fairest Eleanor,” he murmured, letting her languish on his look. Smiling, he sang.
The earl of Huntington put one hand on Marian’s arm and pushed her bodily aside, making room for the newest arrival: Prince John, Count of Mortain, brother to the king. She stumbled, but the sheriff caught her neatly and pulled her out of the way.
John, called Softsword or Lackland when not cursed roundly, came unsteadily into the room aclatter with a heavy chain of office and jeweled ornaments. He was dark-eyed, dark-haired, small, narrow of shoulder and in the space between his eyes. His color was very high and his breath stank of wine. The voice was thick and slurred. “Are you having a feast without inviting me?”
Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] Page 4