Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01]

by Lady of the Forest

  Shrouded by foliage, Much knelt in silence. He watched and listened. It was done. It was right. His world was a world again, with the princess free of danger. The bad man was overcome, the giant penitent, and the heroic prince had shown himself at last.

  The prince’s name was Robin.

  Much nodded mutely; his part in the work was done. He turned quietly, intending to go, and felt again the stiff bundle of leather tucked into his hosen. He pulled it free of his tunic, turning it over in his hands.

  Shoes.

  She still lacked shoes.

  Troubled, Much rubbed at his face. She had to have shoes.

  He turned back, squatting again, to peer through the shielding leaves. If she were there—But she wasn’t. The prince had taken the princess with him, leaving the giant behind with the bad man.

  Scowling, Much chewed a lip. She had to have shoes.

  His work wasn’t done after all.

  Robin was, Marian saw, wetter even than she. She wanted to ask him how that had come to be, but forbore. Something about him, a tight-wound privacy, kept her from it. That he was hurt, she knew, though not how badly, because he took care to carry himself as normally as possible. His throat was abraded and beginning to discolor, and his face bore the marks of fisticuffs and fingernails, along with other affronts. Men, she reflected, thinking of her father, put pride before pain too often.

  He led her through the forest, bending aside limbs and greenery so she could pass unmolested. She found it vaguely amusing in view of the circumstances: her clothing was muddy, wet, and torn; her hair was disheveled; and, from the sting of scratches and welts, her face little better. She was altogether a mess, yet he treated her as if she wore the finest of imported silk.

  “Hurry,” he said curtly.

  It rankled. Does he think I mean to delay us? Scowling, she dragged up her kirtle, baring bruised, filthy ankles. She wanted to protest aloud, if with more decorum than her thoughts expressed; to suggest they go more slowly merely so she could catch her breath, but something about his urgent intensity kept her from it.

  Brambles caught at her kirtle, snagging the damp cloth. Roots tangled her feet, bruising her toes. Trailing creepers and branches insinuated themselves into her hair. Her right knee twinged with every step she took. Exertion was a flame in her chest. She needed to sit down somewhere and rest, to be still of her own volition, with hands unbound and mouth ungagged; just to sit and be quiet, savoring freedom—

  “Hurry,” he said again, three paces ahead.

  Self-control snapped. “I am hurry—” But it was cut off as she tripped awkwardly, landing hard on her hands and knees. Her hair straggled in the dirt as she inhaled raggedly, tasting blood in her mouth. If he will just give me a moment—

  “Here.” He reached down and caught an arm. “There is no time.” He hauled her up like a butchered hog, steadied her impatiently, then released her. Marian, disgruntled, scraped the hair back from her face determinedly and tried not to show how exhausted she was. “You said the horses were close.”

  “Horse,” he said precisely.

  Then she understood. “One horse?”

  “One.”

  Suspicion bloomed. “And? Is there something else?”

  Guilt flickered briefly. “As to closeness ...”

  “Yes?”

  “I—lied.”

  She nearly gaped like a lackwit. “Lied?” It was incomprehensible.

  He was grim, almost rude, evoking the man she had met on the dais of Huntington Castle. “We have a single horse, not two ... and at some distance from here.”

  “But ...” She knew even as she spoke there was no sense in protesting, or questioning his methods. The look in his eye forbade it. “Well,” she said finally, resolving with effort to hold her peace no matter what the cost, “we should not tarry here.”

  The faintest trace of a smile softened his mouth a moment, then faded instantly. “No. But there is some question as to your ability.”

  “Is there?” She arched both brows. “As much to mine as there is to yours? We both of us battled Will Scarlet.”

  The smile returned briefly. Something kindled in his eyes, burning unexpectedly bright. “FitzWalter blood,” he murmured.

  It took her breath away, the intensity of his gaze. She had seen it before, just prior to their departure. It sowed confusion and reaped a strange restlessness. But she would not let him see it. “Indeed,” she managed ironically, lifting a hand to touch her face. “But I assure you, it washes off.”

  It stilled him. “I didn’t mean ...” But he let it go, as if to finish what he’d begun would divulge too much. “We have to go on.”

  “I know,” she agreed, “but it’s nearly dark now. How far is it to the horse?”

  He glanced into the shadows. “Too far,” he said grimly. “We risk losing the track—”

  The answer was obvious, but Marian knew he wouldn’t propose it. He wouldn’t speak of it at all, or even imply what she knew to be the issue. Such things lay within the purview of women, and within the wardship of the men reared up to protect them. So, it falls to me. It was not insignificant. But she saw no other resolution. “Then we had best stay here.”

  He turned back to her sharply. “What?”

  She held her tone steady. “We had best stay here.”

  A damp lock of hair fell beside an eyebrow. “Through the night.” Not so much a question as tactful disbelief.

  “Till dawn,” Marian said. “When there is light to see by, we’ll find the track, and the horse.”

  His face was battered as her own, though with new bruises in place of welts, but she saw past the transitory mask to the more permanent one he had constructed himself. The edges of it were fraying like brittle, decaying parchment. “I can’t let you—”

  “You can, and you will,” she said firmly. “My behavior and decisions are no more governed by you than by the sheriff.”

  The mask remained impenetrable. Then it slipped minutely, displaying perhaps more than he wished to, even as eyes glinted in faint amusement. Dryly he suggested, “William deLacey will be somewhat discomfited to hear of your reasoning.”

  She dared it finally, in the context of the issue, because it gave her the chance to address the other issue, the thing she felt beginning. “Are you?”

  “I am—surprised.” He side-stepped it entirely, circumventing the dance. “A woman is so careful of proprieties.”

  “I think such things are not as important as the preservation of our lives.”

  He was quietly skeptical. “Few women would agree.”

  Eleanor deLacey might. “Few women have been hauled off into the depths of Sherwood Forest by a condemned murderer,” she retorted. “It gives me some measure of perspective.”

  His frown was nearly imperceptible as he evaluated her conviction. “I think perhaps you underestimate the repercussions—”

  “I underestimate nothing.” The light of sunset dimmed, casting wan amber light across one scraped cheekbone stained dark by the Holy Land’s sun. He was aging gold and tarnished silver in the day’s fading luminescence. “What you so gallantly refuse to speak of, relying on assumption, is the state of my reputation.”

  Above the scraped cheek, a tiny muscle twitched.

  I am become like Eleanor, though not by my design. Marian drew in a breath. “I thank you for your concern, but I believe there is no place left, now, in my life for such things as reputation. They will think what they like to think. They will believe as they wish to believe. It is what people do. ” She shrugged, aware of regret even as she condemned those who would condemn her. “Nothing I say will change it.”

  His tone was rusty. “There is no need to bury yourself just yet.”

  It was a bone, which she accepted because to ignore it or dismiss it was discourteous. He meant only to help, to offer a shred of decency, though all now was banished. “Of course not. You will take me back to Ravenskeep—”

  He interrupted. “I meant
to take you to Nottingham.”

  It was completely unexpected. “To the sheriff? After what I told you?” She didn’t know why, but it hurt. “I beg you, take me instead to Ravenskeep.”

  A drop of water from still-wet hair trickled down his temple. “He will expect me to bring you to him.”

  Marian’s teeth clenched. “He may expect whatever he likes. I am neither his wife, nor his ward, nor his daughter.” She swallowed heavily, aware of newborn pain where she had expected none. “That misconception has already cost me dearly ... would you have me pay more yet?”

  His face was white and taut, donning the favored mask. For a moment only the eyes were alive, burning in the angles and hollows of a face thrown into relief by the play of light and shadow. She thought he would withdraw, saying nothing, making no effort at all. But she was wrong.

  He reached out his hand. In disbelief she saw the fingers tremble, if minutely, and then still. He waited.

  She thought of her father’s hand, so often outstretched to her. But he is not my father.

  “This way,” he said, as her fingers touched his own. “The track is not much farther, if I recall it right. We will go at least that far—”

  “There is no need.” She offered escape because she knew without knowing why that she needed it herself. “I told you, it doesn’t matter—”

  The grip on her hand tightened, banishing retreat as much as misunderstanding. “There is need,” he declared harshly, fervent as a zealot.

  It struck her dumb. She stared at him, marking the starkness in expression; the bleakness in his hazel eyes. Comprehension was abrupt. It isn’t for me he does this. He does this for—himself?

  “This way,” he said.

  Marian let him lead her.

  Thirty

  Little John squatted beside Will Scarlet’s unconscious body. Fading daylight no longer was softly suggestive. Sherwood Forest assumed the lurid guise of a full-blown seductress promising darkness soon, thick and damp and impenetrable, with no taste for subtlety. The warmth of a spring day was usurped by evening’s chill.

  He felt poor in spirit and sick at heart. Only a matter of hours before he had stood in the wrestling ring at Nottingham Fair taking on all comers, luring would-be opponents, jesting with passers-by, simply going about the business of upholding his reputation as the undefeated Hathersage Giant. Once the fair was over he’d intended, as always, to return to his sheep, leaving behind the encumbrances of less satisfying toil.

  “Doesn’t have to be different,” he murmured, digging thick fingers into his ruddy beard to tame an annoying itch. “If Robin goes to the sheriff and speaks for me—”

  But Will Scarlet’s words came back, shaped in the fires of hatred, saying Little John was an outlaw now, a man with no future. He owned only his name, if Scarlet were right, and he was fair game for any who caught him for the price upon his head. That there was as yet no price upon that head did not matter; it would take but a moment for the sheriff to learn the red-haired giant had aided Will Scarlet, and to declare his capture worth the same as a wolf’s bounty: he would become, summarily, another Saxon “wolf’s-head,” a proscribed man without recourse to the protection of English—or Norman—laws.

  He looked harshly on Will Scarlet. The man lay slackly against the ground, ankles tipped outward. His feet were partially bare, wrapped in leather scraps and woolen bindings. He was altogether filthy, stinking of the dungeon, with ropes of sinew corroding the skin in place of well-fed flesh. His face was the worst of all, forming sinkholes at cheeks and eye-sockets, with a crusted coverlet of blood, stubble, and grime.

  “Wolf’s-head,” Little John muttered. “What becomes of you now?”

  The voice came from nearby foliage. “Depending on disposition, he may be joining us.”

  Startled half out of his head, Little John reached to snatch up the quarterstaff Marian had let fall and lurched upright hastily, dropping into readiness. “Come out!” he roared, using sheer volume to compensate for the regrettable fright to which he would rather not admit. “I’ll not be fighting shadows when there’s a man behind it all.”

  Silence. Then, “Peace,” the voice urged, sounding amused. “You’ll be fighting no one. I’ve archers with me—can you ward off an arrow with naught but a quarterstaff”

  Little John could not, but did not relax his vigilance. “Come out of there and prove it.”

  Again, silence. Then three men stepped out of the shadows. Two of them indeed held bows at the ready, cloth-yard arrows nocked. They wore dark, unremarkable clothing fit for a proper peasant: tunics bound with leather belts, hosen upon their legs, crude leather boots. Entirely unremarkable in attire as well as expression, lowborn Englishmen very far from a proper village, and therefore tending to business likely other than lawful.

  The man who wore a meat-knife at his belt also had a longbow hooked over his back, and a quiver. He crossed wool-clad arms nonchalantly and grinned at Little John. “What brings you into our home?”

  Little John adjusted grip and stance, wary of a rearguard attack. “Your home?”

  “Sherwood Forest. ’Twasn’t our first choice—we had true homes, once, till the Normans hounded us from them—but it serves us well enough now.” He glanced briefly at Will Scarlet. “You called him a wolf’s-head. Why?”

  “ ’Tis what he is.” Little John tried in vain to hear if anyone approached from behind without leaving his front vulnerable. “Meant to hang at the sheriffs word.”

  The expression on the man’s face did not alter. “Then why didn’t he?”

  I need a diversion. Little John wet his lips. “A long story,” he declared. “Worth telling over ale.”

  “Ah, but we have none here.” The unarmed man was dark as a Welshman, slight, and quietly alert. His light brown eyes and quick movements put Little John in mind of a fox. “What we have here is ourselves, and a yearning to know the truth. You’ve come to our home... why have you left yours?”

  Maybe later, not now... Little John sighed. He told them as much as he knew of himself; as little of Will Scarlet, whom he knew not at all save by reputation.

  It was enough for the others. The dark man nodded. “Not so different a story from others we’ve heard.” He made a slight gesture and bow strings were slackened. “My two friends are Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudisley. My name is Adam Bell.”

  Little John started. “Adam Bell—? But—I’ve heard of you. You’re outlaws. Wanted men.”

  The archers traded glances. “Wolf’s-heads,” Adam Bell said lightly. “Once we were naught but peasants. Now we’re kings in Sherwood Forest, feasting on the Lionheart’s deer.”

  Little John looked at the other two: sandy-haired Clym of the Clough, with a squint in one blue eye and a small finger missing; and dark-maned William of Cloudisley, much younger than the others, smiling sweetly as a girl.

  From the ground Will Scarlet stirred, coughing and spitting. “Kings, are you?” he rasped. “I see no jewels or coin.”

  Two bows rose, two arrows were nocked. Adam Bell merely shrugged. “We’re not fools, are we, to weigh ourselves down while hunting?”

  “Hunting what?” Scarlet asked. “Me for the price on my head?”

  Adam Bell grinned. “You but newly outlawed? Don’t flatter yourself. I’m a sight older than you, and worth more than that. Oh, I don’t say we haven’t sold men before, but only if they prove unwilling.”

  It made Little John wary. “Unwilling?”

  “Aye.” Bell hitched a shoulder. “It costs to cross our land.”

  Little John nodded once, understanding all too well. “And if we have no coin?”

  “Better men than you have tried that gambit.” Bell glanced briefly at his companions. “We don’t ask much. Pittance, no more. Enough to buy Cloudisley’s wife a pretty trinket.”

  Sweet-smiling William of Cloudisley nodded. “I’m bound for Carlisle in two days. A ribbon’ll do her fine.”

  Scarlet sat up slowly, gingerly
feeling his nose. “I’ve naught,” he said flatly. “I had naught before the sheriff; d’ye think he gave me a penny for guesting in his dungeon?”

  Adam Bell merely shrugged. “Then you’ll be stealing it.”

  Marian stood in the clearing, head tipped back onto sore shoulders as she watched the moon climb above treetops. Better than half a moon, but not yet full. Its light glowed silver-gilt, painting trunks and branches and leaves, creeping steadily lower to trespass across the ground. I wish—But she broke it off, refusing to speak it even in her mind.

  Marian hugged herself hard, hands clasping elbows, aware of a brittle, unwanted fragility usurping the resolution she had relied on throughout the day. She had not, in her time with Will Scarlet, foreseen what might happen, nor had she allowed herself even to contemplate it, to waste her will on too-vivid imaginings that had plagued her since childhood. She had been wholly consumed by the acknowledgment of captivity and the need for escape. She had forbidden her thoughts to go further.

  Now she stood beneath a moon-washed sky, duly rescued from crazed Will Scarlet, whose wife had been raped to death, and thought instead of the moment in which she lived and of the night that lay before her.

  A single night, no more, and yet it reeked of one hundred endings, in spirit if not in life; in the future, if not the present. One night only—spent unattended by a woman while in the company of a man—would forever destroy her chance for a normal, circumspect life ignorant of disasters such as Scarlet’s impetuous act.

  This must be what it was to William deLacey, knowing his careful plans for Eleanor utterly destroyed in but a moment’s feckless pleasure ... I could not see it, could not begin to understand it. She did not condone his methods; they had nearly maimed a man innocent of the crime. But now she could comprehend.

  Marian bit into her bottom lip. I would rather not comprehend. But it was done, and she did. All too well. Innocence was banished, vanquished by the new reality Will Scarlet had created.

  She had no choice, of course. To go farther was to risk getting lost or worse, falling prey to the human beasts who stalked others in Sherwood’s shadows. They halted now because they had to.