Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01]

by Lady of the Forest

Tom Fletcher grunted. “Not so bad a first shot.”

  But not good enough. Locksley put out his hand for the second arrow. He loosed as the others loosed. This one pierced the heart. None of the others did.

  A cheer went up. Tom Fletcher slapped his back. “Done, then! And half of the winnings mine.”

  “Not yet,” Locksley said. “Three more arrows yet.”

  “But you’ve won! You’ve beaten the others, Robin. What more is left to do?”

  Find out if I can still do it. But he said it to himself.

  “Target!” someone called. “Back ten more paces; d’ye think you can manage that?”

  Locksley nocked the arrow. When he loosed it, the heart boasted a second shaft.

  “Target!” was shouted. Another ten paces added.

  Tom Fletcher swore. “Boy, you’ll not do it. Take your winnings and go.”

  Locksley’s eyes glinted. “After dividing them?”

  The fletcher spat. “Hit that heart but twice more, my lad, and you’ll have my half as well.”

  Twice more Locksley shot. Twice more the heart was pierced. But when the watching crowd threatened to bruise him with celebration, the former Robert of Locksley, companion to the king, merely gave the bow back to Tom Fletcher, accepted the purse with murmured thanks, and disappeared into the throng.

  Alan of the Dales finished the chord with a flourish and bent over in a cramped bow. The listeners around him applauded. Coins landed in his hat. He saw the glint of silver marks and looked up with a grin of thanks. “My lord—” But he let the false flattery die out when he saw the title was applicable. Instead he rose to his feet, dangling the lute at his side.

  He was all-over brown, Alan saw: plain brown tunic and hosen, with a plain brown leather belt, and plain brown leather boots. He was unremarkable save for his stature and the set of his shoulders, for the shape of facial bones, the wide-set hazel eyes, and the near-white hair that tumbled across wide shoulders.

  The tone was cool. It might have been mocking, save there was no emotion at all. What little he knew of Robert of Locksley convinced Alan the earl’s son was sparing with his feelings. “I told you to go to the alehouse.”

  Resentment goaded him into challenge. “It burned down last year—or did you forget, my lord?”

  For only a moment surprise replaced the cool implacability. Then it faded, replaced by a grim bleakness. “Last year I was on Crusade.”

  It was answer enough. Alan was briefly ashamed of his rudeness, but could not restrain the impulse to use the knife again. “I wasn’t sure you meant it.” Nobles made promises frequently. Rarely were they kept. That the earl’s son had actually come surprised Alan more than a little, certainly no less so than when Locksley had opened the trapdoor to the cell and lowered the ladder.

  Locksley tossed more silver into the forgotten hat. “I suggest you take your earnings and go while you still have the chance to do so.” He paused. “Or do you value your tongue so little as to risk it to William deLacey?”

  Alan hooked the lute over one shoulder, sliding it into place across his spine. “My lord—why? You bribed the guards, set me free . . . and now you give me silver. How may I repay you?”

  “I have some acquaintanceship with captivity.” Still Locksley didn’t smile. “As to repayment—choose your partners more carefully, and the chambers to which you take them.”

  Alan’s vision, caught by a splash of crimson color, focused beyond Robert of Locksley. “Oh God—it’s she. The sheriff was sniffing around her skirts—she’ll likely tell him—” Hastily Alan bent and scooped up the coin-splattered hat and tucked it inside his tunic. With a muttered word of thanks, he shouldered his way through the crowd and disappeared into an alley.

  Marian pulled up the hem of Eleanor’s mantle as she walked, dragging the fabric out of the dirt. She blessed it for its length, for it gave her an excuse to keep her hands busy and free of deLacey’s intimacies, subtle though they were.

  She had become increasingly aware of an undercurrent growing between them. There was tension in his body she had never seen before. Even his voice reflected it, in tone if not in words; as always he was eloquent, most fluent in flattery, but the compliments, though polished, had a quality about them that spoke to her of something she could not comprehend.

  He was solicitous and generous, buying her cider, buying her sweetmeats, buying her anything she so much as happened to glance at, ignoring her protestations. His purse appeared bottomless, or his credit honored by all, and Marian took to staring groundward so as not to encourage his generosity. If he thinks he can simply buy me ... The words were ash in her mind. If he knew what her father wanted, he need buy her nothing at all.

  “A moment.” He paused to turn away, to examine something she could not see at the nearest stall.

  Not something else . . . Marian edged away from him, clutching the mantle more closely, wishing she might disappear into the crowd. It was possible. It would hardly be difficult to become separated, but such rudeness was inexcusable. Her mother, and later her father, had taught her better manners.

  She caught the sound of a lute, the flourish of a final chord. Through the crowd she glimpsed him, in brief scattered slits between moving people, bowing over the instrument as his listeners applauded. Then a man stepped in front of the minstrel, blocking her view of him, and tumbled silver coins into the crimson hat.

  Locksley? It was. The fall of pale hair, the set of wide shoulders, the posture of his body. Unmistakable. She knew him instantly. And knew, without knowing why, that she would always know him.

  Locksley. With a minstrel.

  Marian moved slightly sideways, peering through the crowd, trying to see around Locksley. Yes, it was the minstrel, the selfsame minstrel, Eleanor’s jongleur. Alan of the Dales.

  And Locksley with him. Putting coin into his hat. Marian twisted her head to look across her shoulder at the Sheriff of Nottingham. It wasn’t deLacey after all—it was Huntington’s son who freed him. Comprehension surged up. He will have him taken—

  Without thinking of the consequences, Marian snugged the brilliant cloak around her body and darted through passersby, cutting diagonally across the street to the upended bucket to Locksley himself, brushing by his arm. When she arrived the minstrel was gone. “Oh good,” she said on a breath of relief. “The sheriff is over there—just over there—do you see?” She glanced back at Locksley. “Why did he come here? Why was he such a fool?”

  His expression, as always, was masked. “I told him to come.”

  “Here?” She nearly gaped, hiding nothing of her feelings. “Are you a fool, then, to send a man into danger? The sheriff would have him in a moment—no doubt he’d call up the guard and have his tongue cut out right here!”

  He weighed her distress, though she did not know the result. Coolly he said, “I have no doubt of that.” Before she could speak again Locksley glanced back toward the sheriff. “The minstrel saw you looking at us. He thought you would give him away.”

  It was astonishing. “Why?”

  Locksley’s gaze returned to her face. “He said, somewhat inelegantly, that William deLacey had been sniffing around your skirts.”

  The heat of humilation took possession of her face. Marian knew of no words that could adequately express the embarrassment she felt. A strangled “No” was all she managed.

  His examination of her was intense, lacking in pretension. She had told him the truth, but clearly he was unconvinced, relying instead on his own measurement of such things as honesty and honor. For that, she admired him, but wished his target were someone other than herself.

  “No?”

  “No.” Marian hated herself for being so unworldly. A woman like Eleanor would handle this so much better. She wanted to tell him she knew precisely what he did, measuring her against a private inner criteria, but held her tongue. If she protested too much he would count her false. “You did it, then. Not the sheriff.”

  “DeLacey!” It startled him
. “Why would a man so publicly humiliated free the man who ruined all of his plans?”

  Explanations filled her head. None of them now seemed adequate for Robert of Locksley, who undoubtedly found her lacking in wit and conversation. He will think I am a fool. Well, perhaps she was. “I thought it was possible that he would quietly release a man he knew to be innocent.”

  One eyebrow arched minutely. “And did he know such a thing?”

  Marian nodded mutely, refusing to incriminate Eleanor any further.

  For the first time since she’d seen him standing on the dais, Robert of Locksley smiled. It was a true, unfeigned smile, unhindered by self-restraint, dazzling in its power. “It does seem as though everyone in these parts is aware of Eleanor deLacey’s indiscretions. Perhaps I should be grateful to the minstrel for divulging them to me. ” The tone was exquisitely dry, inviting a reaction other than diplomatic obscurity, or overmuch discretion. At last, he was human.

  Emboldened, Marian laughed at him. “The sheriff was very plain, my lord—he wanted to match his daughter with the Earl of Huntington’s son.”

  “And so I am yet free of encumbrances such as a wanton wife.”

  The smile was gone, but a glint of humor remained. Do it now . . . there will be no better chance. Marian drew breath. “My lord Robert—”

  “Just Robert,” he said. “Or—Robin.”

  “Robin?” It was incongruous. It did not fit a fully grown man, a former Crusader, freshly home from the king’s war. Robin was a boy, and he clearly not.

  “My father named me Robert. To my mother, I was Robin.”

  Marian stared at him. Such intimacy she had never anticipated, not from him. The tension she had seen and heard on the dais, in the chamber, was banished. Even the mask was gone. There was, in tone, in expression, an odd hesitancy. A kind of need, she realized, for acceptance on a level other than that offered by other people, yet wholly bestowed by his father.

  Yet she had no time to pursue it, nor the courage to proceed. What she asked now was for herself, because that she understood. That she could control. “My lord—” She broke it off, seeing his eyes: fragile withdrawal. “Robin.” She swallowed tautly. “There is a bargain we should make.”

  “Oh?”

  She lifted her chin, refusing to show him the nervousness she felt. “There was a message sent from my father. The one you brought me the night before last.”

  Tension returned fourfold, enveloping his body. So swift it was that she nearly gasped, astonished by his sudden stillness. The mask was back in place. The eyes, once amused, assumed a clouded darkness. Even the mouth was taut, and the scar along his jaw. My God—what have I done?

  “I recall the message.” Crisp, cold words, yielding no emotion.

  This was a mistake. But it was too late to withdraw. She had opened the subject. Now she must close it. “A bargain, my lord.” Formality was called for in the face of such austerity, such iron-willed self-control. “You say nothing to the sheriff of my father’s message, and I for my part say nothing to the sheriff of Alan’s whereabouts.”

  The words were clipped. “You no longer know Alan’s whereabouts.”

  That was true, but she had no other weapon. “He shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  “He should be impossible to find, if I took pains to make it so.”

  She stared at him, bargain forgotten in the face of compelling conviction. “Would you do that?”

  “Yes.” It was distinct.

  “Good,” she declared forthrightly, surprising even herself.

  A hint of warmth intruded into frigidity. His eyes were speculative. “A bad bargain.”

  Chagrined, she sighed. “But the only one I could think of.”

  “Need you think of any?”

  “I believe so, my lord.”

  “To keep me from telling the sheriff a private and personal message your father intended solely for you.”

  “Yes, my lord.” She did not hesitate, even though she understood how such a suggestion imputed dishonor to him. She did not know the man. She did not know of what he was capable, and she was beginning to learn that no man was incapable of doing things she found abhorrent.

  Locksley looked beyond her, toward the stall where she had slipped away from her escort. “And you have no wish to marry William deLacey.”

  “No, my lord.” With explicit emphasis.

  Robert of Locksley looked back into her face. His eyes were unreadable. “Then perhaps you should tell him so.”

  “I can’t.”

  Brows arched. “Why not?”

  “Not until he’s asked.”

  “Will he?”

  “Probably not. Most likely he will tell.”

  The edge of his mouth loosened. “Yet you are here with him.”

  The implication stung, as no doubt he meant it to. Marian glared at him. “You are not a woman. You have no comprehension of what a woman must be, in the face of a spoiled, powerful man who knows what he wants, and who is convinced he is the only one who knows what is best for the woman.”

  “No,” he agreed, after a long moment of solemn silence.

  “Nor ever can,” she reminded.

  “No,” he said again.

  She gazed up at him. He was considerably taller. “I will not marry a man who believes in cutting out the tongues of innocent men.” There. It was said. Clearly and forthrightly, begging no part of the question, leaving no portion unsaid or weakened by the courtesy that was all too often a crutch. If I can say it like that when the sheriff raises the subject . . . But courage spilled away. He was a spoiled man. He was a powerful man. And she merely a woman; what chance did she have?

  “The sheriff,” Locksley said.

  Marian stared at him.

  “The sheriff,” he repeated.

  This time she understood. This time she turned and looked, and saw deLacey approaching. His eyes, dark as death, were fixed on Robert of Locksley.

  Eighteen

  DeLacey turned at last from the stall to Marian and found her gone. At first he thought little of it, assuming she waited nearby, perhaps at an adjacent stall, but a cursory search did not discover her.

  Difficult to miss, in crimson—ah, there she is. A splash of the brilliant color betrayed her location but several paces away, on the other side of the street. Speaking with someone. Who is she—? Locksley! He did not know precisely why, but the discovery disturbed him. And not knowing why disturbed him even more. Why? Then, with a flicker of irritation, No time, just now . . . He let it go with effort, thinking instead of Marian herself and the recapture of her company. He wanted her with him, not wandering off to speak with others.

  For the first time he had her to himself, separated from childhood, father, and maidservant. And he needed her to himself, as he had needed nor wanted no woman before this woman, not even the wives he’d married. I am become a proprietary man. But he knew that of himself. He also knew how to use it, to gain and to keep the things he most desired.

  “Locksley,” he murmured intently. It was a habit of his to speak such names aloud, as if in the declaration he marked out the enemy. Locksley was Huntington’s son. One day, when the earl was dead, he would inherit all. Title, wealth, power. But Robert of Locksley was not an enemy.

  Unless he insists upon it. DeLacey arranged his face in a suitably pleasant expression and crossed the street to them.

  Very smooth, Locksley thought. Without excess exertion, without too much insistence, William deLacey grasped Marian’s arm, forced her hand from beneath the mantle, and locked it into his elbow.

  “Here you are,” he said. “I thought I had lost you.” Then, before she could speak, he smiled warmly at Locksley. “Robert! Had I known you intended to come to the fair, I would have invited you to join us.”

  “Indeed.” It was as much answer as Locksley could offer. His attention was diverted by Marian’s face, marking the bloom of annoyance, the tautness of her jaw, the glitter in her eyes. A certain tension in her
forearm told him she attempted to free her hand, but deLacey merely folded his own over hers and crooked his elbow more tightly.

  “Join us now, Marian said, in an odd undertone of dictatorial desperation.

  In it, unexpectedly, he heard the echo of her father, begging Locksley to carry a message if death were his fate that day. Tell her, he had said. Tell her he will tend to her personal welfare, and the welfare of Ravenskeep. Tell her also I miss her. And please to tell her, I pray you, how very much I love her.

  He had not done the latter. Or the one before that. He had told her merely that she was to marry the sheriff, who stood before Locksley now daring him to intrude upon the thing deLacey had marked for himself.

  Tell her, FitzWalter had said.

  But as Locksley gazed at the dead knight’s daughter, he found he could not do it.

  Dismayed, Marian watched Robert of Locksley—Robin, he had said so—turn on his heel and walk away into the crowd. He had murmured something, something she did not hear, and simply disappeared, as if he could not bear to remain in her company. Does he think me a hypocrite? Does he think I want this man?

  “Marian.” DeLacey’s hand tightened on her own. “Marian—come. Forget his discourtesy . . . there are other things for your attention.”

  He’s glad Robert’s gone. Annoyance captured her tongue. “Then let me decide them myself.” With effort, she yanked her hand from his imprisoning elbow. Tell him. Just—tell him! “My lord, I think there is something you should know.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Indeed?”

  Impulsive courage wilted beneath the level gaze. How do I say it, now that I’ve begun it? Marian wet her dry lips, knowing she needed an inflexibility equal to his own; knowing also it was difficult to turn it back on him. He was, as she had said, a spoiled, powerful man. “I dislike assumptions,” was the best she could manage. No spine. No spine at all.

  “As do I.” He smiled crookedly. “I admit it: I am jealous.”

  So swiftly the topic was changed. Or was it the same topic, merely turned upside down? “Jealous of Robert?” Robin was hers; she would not share it with him.