“Of Robert of Locksley, the Earl of Huntington’s son.” DeLacey gestured in self-deprecation. “What am I, after all, but a man in someone’s employ? He is a peer of the realm.”
“And you meant him for Eleanor.” It was a desperate ploy, designed to interject yet another person.
“But Eleanor is discounted.” His eyes were oddly avid. “Marian—”
“No.” She said it with every ounce of will she could muster. “I think—” But what she meant to say was forgotten utterly as she saw the boy next to the sheriff, a slight, slender boy with deft hands on deLacey’s purse. “Much!” she cried, astonished. And then, “Don’t hurt him!” as the sheriff shut a powerful hand around one bony wrist.
Now he had coin. Locksley went immediately to a wine-seller and bought a cup, which he drained at once. And another. It was heavy, powerful stuff, uncut by water, thickening in his belly even as it arrived.
More? No, he was not a drunkard, nor, for that matter, a drinker. He despised the weakness, the cowardice, that had driven him to it at all.
Marian FitzWalter.
He turned away abruptly from the wine stall, striding into one of the narrow, twisty alleys hedged with close-built dwellings. There he paused as abruptly, hugging himself, and fetched up against a wall, banging shoulder blade and ribs.
Set to the task, he had believed it unnecessary. They all did, Richard’s men; no one envisioned defeat in the midst of Crusaders’ fever. When Hugh FitzWalter, assailed by premonition—or no more than the simple fear that wracked all of them, though none admitted it—had bade him speak to his daughter, Robert of Locksley accepted the duty casually, dismissive of its intent. He had, in truth, been annoyed by the request, not because of its content, but that FitzWalter had spoken of an ending, when so many of them preferred to think only of the beginning.
Richard made it so easy. He shut his eyes and saw the woman before him. Fitz Walter never said his daughter was beautiful.
It was inconsequential. What did it matter? A woman was a woman, a daughter a daughter.
He had not bedded a woman for nearly two years.
A shiver wracked Locksley’s body. He opened his eyes and stared, transfixed, seeing nothing but the face of a man foretelling his future, in the midst of creating yet another for his only child. Tell her to marry the Sheriff of Nottingham. That, he had told her. The rest, he had not. I gave her the message the wrong way round. Now, she is trapped . . . what grieving daughter will go against a dead father’s wishes?
She had declared her intentions: not to marry the man. But he had seen her eyes. He had heard her voice. He, as much as she, understood realities.
As much as her father had, on the day of his death.
A boy, nothing more. Swift, slender, agile. And very deft of fingers. He was skillful, like other pickpockets and cutpurses. But deLacey, this once, had caught him in the act.
The wrist was thin, bony, fragile, stripped of flesh and strength. But deLacey paid that no mind, shutting his own powerful fingers ever more tightly to insure the boy remained caught. He saw the warped mouth, twisting in pain, the brown eyes stretched wide in shock, the pallor of a face reflecting patent astonishment.
Surprises I caught him at it—and what is?—ah! DeLacey caught the other hand, stripped the knife from it, then dragged the captured arm up so high it made the boy stand on his toes. “Cutting purses, are we?” And as the brown eyes flickered, “How many would mine have made?”
“Don’t hurt him!” Marian cried, reaching out to catch deLacey’s sleeve. “My lord—you’ll break his arm!”
“I’ll do more than that,” he promised, glaring at the boy. “By God, you little worm, did you think you’d never be caught? Did you think yourself immune to the lord high sheriffs justice?”
The boy hung there, shivering, rigid fingers extending clawlike beyond deLacey’s hand. The patched sacking tunic had pulled free of one shoulder, baring a knobby joint.
“Answer me!” The sheriff squeezed the slender wrist, grinding bone against bone. “Did you spit behind my back, swearing you’d never be taken?”
“My lord!” Marian again, closing hands around his arm. “My lord, I beg you—”
Tender-hearted, she was. He expected nothing else. But just at this moment he found it irritating. “By God, Marian—am I to ignore this? His hand was on my purse! I am the lord high sheriff. Need I more proof? Need I the testimony of anyone else?”
Marian’s face was nearly as pale as the boy’s. “You’re hurting him,” she said.
With effort, deLacey gave her courtesy. “Perhaps it would be best you returned to the castle. This is unattractive duty.”
Clearly she was alarmed. “Why? What do you mean to do?”
His patience waned. He had no time for this. First there was the minstrel, conjured out of a dungeon after destroying Eleanor’s chances; then Robert of Locksley, winning Marian’s attention; and now this boy, a common peasant cutpurse who dared to put lowborn hands upon the sheriff’s own purse.
“What do I mean to do? Why, treat him as he deserves to be treated! Boys who put hands where hands do not belong lose those hands.”
“No!” she cried. “My lord, I beg you—don’t do this! He’s a boy—”
“He’s a thief, nothing more. He’ll be treated as one.” Her protests were drawing attention. Even now passersby paused, gathering near to murmur among themselves. Someone said the Watch was on its way, saving him the trouble of bellowing for aid. “Marian—” He altered his tone with effort, striving for calm. “Go back to the castle, I pray you.”
“No.” Her hand was on the bared shoulder. “I know this boy, Sheriff. This is Much, the miller’s son. We’ve bought flour from Wat for as long as I can recall—and I daresay you have, too!”
“I daresay.” It was ground out between set teeth. Obviously she would not be easily dissuaded, but he had no intention of giving in; he had lost too much already. The boy was the final straw atop a bundle of resentments. “It makes no difference ...” He glanced quickly around the gathering throng. “By God, Marian, have a care for what you say. Do you question my authority before all of Nottingham?”
It struck home, he saw. She too realized the crowd increased with each moment. She, too, saw the avid eyes and moving mouths. Now she will realize the magnitude of what she does.
Blue eyes were very bright as she looked once more at him. “No,” she said quietly. “I cannot let you do this.”
The Watch arrived: Norman soldiers in Norman dress, the livery of deLacey’s service. He handed the boy over at once, glad to be quit of physical contact, but gestured for him to be held where he was rather than dragged off in front of so many people. He wanted nothing more than to lop off the hand himself, here and now, insisting on public punishment as was his right, but to do so in front of Marian, who had made her opinion clear before an ever-increasing crowd, would likely destroy forever any regard she might hold for him. And that regard he wanted. Force was not to his taste. When Marian came to his bed, she would of course show maidenly modesty and a natural hesitation becoming to her rank, but he refused to entertain an angry or indifferent bed-partner. He had wasted himself on two cold women; he would not do so again.
But the cost . . . What was the cost? Loss of face before the people? Eleanor’s wantonness with the minstrel had already lost him too much. That story would get out no matter what he did to suppress it, and soon enough he would be the laughingstock of a peasantry who hated any man responsible for administering the law. He could not afford to be lenient with the boy, or they would construe it as weakness.
He glared at the boy. Weakness was dangerous. Weakness would destroy him.
Much stared at Marian. It was she. She hadn’t gone away after all.
Same blue eyes. Same husky voice. Same slenderness, wrapped in a woolen mantle.
But something wasn’t the same: something had frightened her. Something made her scared.
In the tangled skein of his mind
, that his mother said was simple, Much recognized fear. Much understood fear.
Marian? he asked, though never once had he spoken the name.
“It’s Much,” Marian said. “Wat the miller’s son. You know Much, my lord . . . you know what they call him.”
Simpleton and lackwit. Much had heard the words. He recognized such things as pity, contempt, disgust.
The sheriffs mouth grew taut. “And now thief, as well.”
Marian? Much asked. But Marian didn’t hear. None of them ever heard.
Locksley bought a meat pasty at a stall, ate it on the spot to assuage a dull hunger, then drifted aimlessly with the flow of the crowd moving out of the street and back into Market Square. Vaguely he thought of going home, but lacked the will to leave. It was simply easier to let himself be guided by the others. Habit, if nothing else; for too long the Saracens had ordered his life, while his mandate was merely to serve.
“Insh’Allah,” he murmured reflexively, in the tongue they had made him learn, in the words they had made him speak, lest they remove the tongue from his mouth.
Absently he marked someone behind him shouting above the din—“Make way for the Watch”—but he was unconcerned with the warning. It wasn’t until a pike was thrust against one shoulder, knocking him roughly aside, that he realized the Watch was indeed coming through, no matter who stood in its way. The crowd, parting raggedly, muttered of high-handed Norman justice meted out all too rapidly when poor Englishmen were involved.
Someone steadied and set him on his feet again, patting him on the back and murmuring something unrepeatable about Norman tyrants. He watched the pike-wielders go, broad-backed Norman soldiers in the sheriff’s blue livery, and for the first time wondered what England had become while he fought in the Holy Land. Two years without a king could bring about much change. He had left a different realm.
Or come home a different man. That, too, was a new thought: that he, not England, had changed so markedly. That he had been changed, regardless of his desires. Richard would not be so blind to the needs of his people.
But Richard was not in England. Nor likely to be in England, were his ransom not paid in full.
Locksley clutched impotently at the pouch of coin he had won as his archery prize. Little now was left. But it didn’t matter, he knew. Even a purseful of silver marks would not go very far against the hundreds of thousands required.
And the people who needed Richard the most could ill afford to pay so much as a silver penny.
“It’s Much,” someone muttered. And another, murmuring: “—boy’s simple, can’t the sheriff see?” And “Only a boy,” said a third.
Then the most telling of all: “Better the sheriff’s purse than a peasant’s empty one.”
Marian heard them all. She knew the sheriff did. But looking into his eyes, at the expression of conviction, she knew nothing more could be used to change his mind.
But I have to try, regardless. “Let me have him,” she said. “I’ll take him back to the mill.”
“So he can run off again?” DeLacey shook his head. “Marian, I honor your compassion—but this boy is a thief.”
Desperation made her angry. “And did you steal nothing when you were a boy?”
“Eggs from a hen,” he retorted. “Never a man’s purse, and it still on his belt!”
The crowd’s tongue grew louder. The mood was clearly sullen, fraught with increasing tension. Marian realized she had, by her intransigence, placed the sheriff in a highly precarious position. Better she had tried another tack, but now it was too late. He was angry enough to act. And I am angry enough to stop him, if I can find the means. “My lord—”
“Sheriff.” A thick, deep voice. “Sheriff, let him go. He’s naught but a boy. You’ve scared him roundly enough—near broke his arm, I think— now let him be. Let him think on his good fortune. I’ll wager ’tis the last time he sets fingers to a purse.”
Marian turned, as they all did. Thrusting his way through the crowd was the largest man she had ever seen. Her father in armor was huge; this man was bigger yet.
He was red of hair and bare of chest, wet with glistening sweat. Even his features were oversized, in accordance with his frame. He had pale, prominent blue eyes; a crooked, imposing nose; and a wide slash of mouth partially hidden by a ruddy beard. The loose woolen hosen he wore were knotted at his hips and cross-gartered nearly to the knees. Enough fabric, Marian reflected, to clothe two women her size.
“Wager what?” William deLacey was clearly contemptuous, she saw, and as clearly impatient. He wanted the boy taken off away from the crowd, where his sentence would not be questioned. “Will you put up your hand as stakes?”
The freckled giant grinned. “I doubt your swords are sharp enough to hack through one of these!” The wrist he thrust into the air was sheathed in knotted muscle. The thickness of bone was enough to silence the crowd, contemplating the picture he had painted before them all.
“An ax,” the sheriff retorted. “An ax would do very well.”
The giant shook his head, flinging damp hair back from his face. “I’m made of iron, my lord—I’d blunt the steel of the ax!”
It brought a laugh from the crowd. Marian, staring up at the huge man, felt the tension fade. The giant had altered the confrontation from promised violence into anticipation of what the next moment might bring.
“Who are you?” DeLacey demanded.
“John Naylor, my lord. Of Hathersage. Shepherd by trade. Wrestler at the fairs.”
Marian stared at him. He must be the largest man in the whole of England.
“Wrestler,” the sheriff muttered, as if the occupation were the lowest on the earth.
“Called Little John, my lord.” The giant grinned, undeterred by the contempt. “ ’Tis a jest, I’m told.”
DeLacey was amused. “Indeed,” he replied. “Little or large, it makes no difference to me. The boy is a thief—”
“He’s a boy,” the giant declared stolidly. “Lock him up a night or two, to let him think about it, but don’t cut off a hand, my lord. He may be bound to lose it, if he learns naught of this, but let him lose it a man, when he understands it better.”
DeLacey’s tone was cold. “And will you stand proxy for him?”
Transfixed, Marian decided she was wrong. He wasn’t the largest man in the whole of England. More like in the whole world. His thighs, in sagging hosen, were the size of young tree trunks.
The good-natured raillery faded from the giant’s face. “Aye,” he snapped, “I’ll stand proxy. But not the way you’d like. My hand is my own—unless a man can win it from me.” John Naylor grinned. “Have a man out, my lord. Any man; I care naught who it be. I’ll give you three men, even . . . if any of them beat me, the hand is yours to hack off.”
“Why?” DeLacey asked. “What is this boy to you?”
The giant shook his head. “Naught to me, my lord . . . but a lamb caught by a wolf.”
Marian studied his hands, then his face. His conviction awed her. He could do it . . . he could win. He could save Much’s hand. “Do it,” she murmured quietly. “My lord, accept his wager.”
She could see the sharpness of deLacey’s glance from the corner of her eye. “Will you not argue that it is a travesty? That the loss of a hand, regardless of whose hand, renders me barbaric?”
Marian met his gaze. Now is my chance. I can’t let him win this time. Steadily she said, “Much stands no chance. He is a lamb, my lord—and you, I daresay, the wolf.”
She saw it in his eyes: comprehension, and recoil. It mattered to him, she realized, what she thought of his actions.
The realization blossomed slowly within her mind. At last, I have a weapon.
Nineteen
Much remembered Marian. She had been a part of his life for as long as he could recall. Where she came from he didn’t know, merely that she was there, one day, at the mill, all wet and slimy with weeds. Young, then; younger than now. Younger than he was, now. His f
ather had brought her home, once he’d pulled her out of the millpond.
Images, no more. Fleeting recollections. A soaked, soggy girl undeterred by her state, speaking compellingly of the nixies who lived in the water.
Dimly, Much recalled, his mother had muttered a prayer against bewitched children, but not against him this time. This time, against her. It bonded them in that moment, though she could not see it; what he saw, between them, he did not recognize.
Much remembered her well. Marian, she’d said. And his father knew who she was. His father had sent his brother off to find her father.
Now she stood beside him, one proprietary hand upon his bony shoulder even as a soldier held his arms, while a bearded, red-haired giant and the Sheriff of Nottingham made a pact between them.
She was no longer a girl. He was no longer a child.
How had it come about?
Marian? he asked. But Marian didn’t hear.
DeLacey weighed the crowd and knew it better than it knew itself. He had been sheriff too long to blind himself to hatred; to deafen himself to insults no matter how quietly muttered. No man, in his office, would be popular. It was exacting service, meting out discipline against miscreants, thieves, and poachers, but he had not bought the office to become popular with peasants. They would not be content no matter who held his office, nor what the man did in his stead.
No one could question the boy’s crime. He had been caught in the act, caught gripping the knife with which he sliced purse thongs. Punishment was required. But the boy was one of theirs; Marian had, by protesting so vocally, given them leave to do the same, if less vehemently. Had deLacey simply dragged the boy off to the stocks and lopped off his hand on the spot, no one would have dared question him. It was well known that thieves and poachers lost offending extremities.
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