Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01]

by Lady of the Forest

  The giant’s face drained. It left him wan and sickly, splotched with copper freckles.

  Will Scarlet grunted. “Warned you, didn’t I?”

  “The news,” Adam Bell said. “What have you learned of the sheriff?”

  “He’s set his Watch on the pretty lad what raped his daughter”—Wat flashed a grin at Alan—“and wants the Hathersage Giant as well as the man called Scarlet. Has to do with a woman—another woman—”

  “Sheriffs leman,” Scarlet scoffed.

  “No.” One-handed Wat shook his head. “No, she’s the daughter of a knight. Marian FitzWalter. She’s nothing to do with the sheriff.”

  “You see?” Little John’s tone was aggrieved. “Not a Norman at all, nor the sheriffs woman—”

  Cloudisley nodded thoughtfully. “ ’Tis why the Normans are out, then.”

  “Boy,” Clym growled at recalcitrant Much, “d’ye want an arrow between your eyes instead of between your feet?”

  “Anyway, she’s safe now,” Little John said. “Halfway home by now.”

  Alan put out his hand to Wat. “May I have my lute?”

  “Your money first,” Cloudisley said, putting out his hand.

  “Marian,” Much whispered. Then his eyes grew large. “Horse,” he expelled.

  “Aye, horse,” Clym agreed, striding forward at last to grab the reins from Much.

  Much didn’t seem to notice. “Robin’s.”

  “Mine now, boy.”

  “No!” Much shrieked it. “Robin’s—” And he jerked the reins away, sending the horse lunging sideways.

  Cloudisley’s bow jammed Little John’s belly. “Hold,” he said softly.

  “He’s a boy—”

  “My lute?” Alan repeated, looking back at Wat.

  The one-handed man glanced at Adam Bell. “I did say he could fetch it.”

  “He can buy it,” Bell answered. And then, tersely, “Riders—hear?”

  Cloudisley swung at the muted drumming of hooves. “Normans?—aye, what else—?”

  “Clym!” It was Bell, twisting to look back at the other outlaw. “Clym—leave the boy—”

  Wat was gone, disappearing into the foliage with Alan’s lute. Cloudisley and Clym fell in beside one another at the center of the track, nocking arrows and raising bows even as Bell stepped to the side. Sunlight flashed on steel.

  “Normans—?” But Alan didn’t wait to see, he simply leaped for the trees.

  Little John grabbed for Much. “Let him go—let the horse go—”

  “Mine,” Much declared.

  “Normans, boy—leave them to chase the horse!”

  “Away!” Adam Bell hissed.

  William of Cloudisley and Clym of the Clough loosed two arrows as the riders broke into sight: six blue-cloaked Nottingham men in conical Norman helms. Two fell instantly, plucked off their mounts by arrows.

  “All of them,” Bell said curtly. “Let none of them live.”

  Much tried to mount the bay, but its fright sent it scrabbling sideways. Little John clung to the boy’s arm, pulling him away. “Let him go—”

  “A miss!” Cloudisley shouted, twisting aside as he reached for another arrow. “One coming through—Clym—”

  Norman sword was unsheathed, scything through the air in a flash of steel. It drove both archers aside, breaking their opportunity. Both men dropped, rolled, and came up, scrabbling for new arrows.

  Little John squeezed the boy’s thin wrist, breaking the grip on the reins. Freed, the horse retreated; Little John swung the boy around, ducked as the blade whistled by, then shoved Much toward the trees. “Run, boy—” He swung back, doubled a fist, brought it up swiftly to chop the Norman rider’s horse in the nose.

  Alan, sprawled face down in bracken, gaped as the blow sent the horse staggering backward, tossing its head violently, so that the rider, caught off-guard, had to put his mind to horsemanship instead of to killing outlaws.

  “Two more!” Adam Bell shouted. “And another coming through!”

  Cloudisley and Clym, falling in behind the Normans, loosed two more arrows.

  Will Scarlet dodged a horse and a crossbow bolt, then leaped up to catch rein. He hung on leather, letting the horse take his weight as its rider attempted futilely to control his mount while loading another bolt. The bolt fell free, and then the crossbow itself, as the Norman reached for his sword.

  “Scarlet!” Cloudisley shouted, and let fly with another arrow.

  “One more!” Bell shouted. “By God, giant—take care!”

  Little John threw himself to the track as the sword whistled down again in a glittering, deadly arc. He swore as a hoof struck his leg, rolled away, scrambled up and lurched for the trees.

  “Clym,” Bell said intently.

  “Mine,” the archer agreed, but the arrow did not fly true. It lodged itself high in the Norman’s back, near his left shoulder. Clym swore.

  The Norman wheeled his horse heavily, looking back at the outlaws. An older man, they saw, a coldly furious veteran whom they could not afford to let live.

  “Cloudisley!” Bell shouted.

  But the Norman jammed spurs into his mount, swung the horse again, and sent him down the track toward Nottingham. Robin’s bay, free of impediment, followed at a gallop.

  “No!” Scarlet shouted. “By God—not the horse—”

  Alan rose cautiously as Little John broke through bracken. “Well done—” he began.

  The giant clamped his shoulder tightly to hold him in place. The other hand grasped at and caught the purse tied beneath the tunic, now exposed by a rent in the cloth. “Had I a choice,” the giant said hoarsely, “I’d leave your coin to you.” He tore the purse free of belt. “But I haven’t got a choice.”

  “Wait—” Alan cried. And then, as Wat reappeared, “Give me back my lute!”

  Little John turned and flung Alan’s purse at Adam Bell. “There! My fee. Now am I free to go?”

  Bell caught the purse, hefted it and nodded satisfaction. But the look he sent to the giant was one of an odd compassion. “Why go?” he asked. “What’s left to you now, but to live in Sherwood?”

  “I’ve paid your fee!” Little John snarled. “I’ve robbed an innocent man, and I’ve given the purse to you.”

  Bell’s gaze was level. “And you aided well-known outlaws in full view of a Norman soldier, who lived to tell about it.”

  Horrified, Little John stared.

  Cloudisley hooked an arm through his bow, settling it across his back. “You are not a man another man forgets, especially a Norman soldier undone by peasantry.”

  The giant lowered his gaze from Adam Bell to the bodies sprawled on the track: five Norman soldiers in the sheriff of Nottingham’s livery.

  Will Scarlet laughed. “Go home to your sheep,” he jeered. “Go home to Hathersage, so they can hang you there!”

  One-handed Wat slapped the belly of the lute into Alan’s grasp. “And you,” he said cheerfully, “are already wanted.”

  Much came onto the track, wiping a wrist across his nose. He said nothing, staring sulkily at them all.

  Scarlet laughed again, filling the trees with sound. “Wolf’s-heads, all of us—to a boy and a pretty minstrel!”

  “No,” Alan said, even as Little John did.

  One-handed Wat grinned. “Welcome to Sherwood Forest, where the king’s law fails and our law prevails!”

  Marian pulled aside foliage. “There,” she said. “The road.” It lay just ahead of them through the last fringes of forest, a rutted stretch of road leading west to Nottingham, east to Ravenskeep. She cast him a relieved smile. “Not so far, now.”

  “Do you—” But he stopped, turning even as she did toward the forest track but paces away from them, to the sound of galloping horses. “Charlemagne!”

  She saw the riderless horse as it rounded a curve in the track. With it came another, bearing a blue-liveried man bent low in the saddle. The shaft of an arrow protruded from one shoulder. “Robin—”
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  “I see,” he said tersely, moving hastily toward the track. “He’s Norman—Wait ... Charlemagne—”

  But the wounded soldier rode on, as if he dared not stop, and the bay ran with him.

  Marian watched him go. Then she sat down and methodically began to untie the laces binding the shoes to her ankles.

  Locksley, deeply disappointed, turned back to her. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking them off.”

  He glanced down the road again, muttering under his breath. “He was trained better, once ... but I’ve been gone too long.”

  “At least he’s free of outlaws.” Marian stripped off one shoe and began on the other. “Surely the sheriff will see to it he’s sent home.”

  There was a curious note in his voice. “Why are you—”

  “Blisters,” she supplied crisply. “If we’re to walk to Ravenskeep, I’ll have to do it barefoot.” She got up, bundling the shoes together. “I just won’t tell Much.”

  Thirty-Seven

  The mews at Nottingham Castle were filled with perches of differing sizes as well as differing heights, servicing a variety of hawks and falcons: the long-winged gyrfalcons, peregrines, sakers, and the lanners, as well as the smaller merlins, for use in unobstructed hunting; and the short-winged goshawks and sparrow hawks, for hunting in wooded country. The building, built specifically for the tending and training of fine hunting birds, was purposely kept dim, illuminated only by a single window. Its door was just wide enough to allow a man carrying hawk or falcon on his wrist to pass through.

  William deLacey was justly proud of his mews, for he had spent much time and money on hiring expert falconers. He deeply enjoyed the communion with fierce raptors, deriving great satisfaction from the taking of eyases—nestlings, from tree or cliff—and the juvenile branchers, carefully caught in nets or socks.

  When the soldier came with undue haste into the mews, knocking a shoulder against the narrow door, deLacey was furious. But to speak loudly and sharply in the presence of the birds would upset them unduly and do great harm to their training. He took the soldier by one arm and firmly ushered him out again.

  DeLacey swung the door shut. A swift glance told him there were no falcons tied for weathering on the outdoor blocks. “Never come to me here. You will wait outside until such a time as I exit the mews. Do you understand?”

  The soldier nodded hastily. He was young, russet-haired, clearly worried. “It’s the castellan, my lord. He’s come back wounded. We’ve put him in the guardhouse and called for the surgeon ... a horse came with him. There—the bay.”

  DeLacey looked where the soldier indicated as they crossed the bailey toward the guardhouse. The bay was a fine animal, but one he did not recognize. “See to it the horse is tended. We’ll have its presence cried later in the market.” He moved past the soldier to the guardhouse door, shouldering aside the group of men gathering there. Archaumbault was popular.

  He found the older man stretched out on a pallet, breathing heavily. He lay belly-down, his head turned to the side. Already they had stripped him of cloak and surcoat, but the mail hauberk remained. An arrow shaft stood up from his shoulder.

  “By God,” deLacey said tightly, “have the shaft cut. Then take the mail off.”

  Archaumbault’s tone was harsh. “I said no. I sent for you first.”

  DeLacey knelt. Archaumbault’s color was bad and he sweated, but nothing indicated that it was a fatal wound. “What of the others with you?”

  “Dead.” Archaumbault coughed, and swore. “Outlaws—with longbows—”

  Contempt flickered. “Your men had crossbows.”

  The castellan coughed again, grinding his teeth. “All of them, my lord ... the boy, the giant—Will Scarlet—”

  He found it astonishing. “They were there?”

  “Yes.” Gloved fingers twitched. “Adam Bell, and others—but the red-haired giant was with them, and the boy—”

  Grimly, “—and Scarlet—”

  “—and the lute-player.” Archaumbault held his breath. “There’s more—”

  “More than that?”

  “On the road—on the way ... I did not dare stop—it was the woman, my lord ... the Fitz Walter girl ...”

  Marian—He was poised as a fox to bolt, no longer concerned with Archaumbault, who would live. “With the others?”

  “No. Not there. The road to Ravenskeep—”

  “Ah.” Relief was overwhelming, combined with jubilation. “Free of Scarlet, then—”

  “With another man.”

  “Another ... who?”

  A man came into the guardhouse. He was tall, very thin, gray-haired. He carried a leather bag. “My lord Sheriff, if I may—”

  The surgeon. DeLacey barely spared him a glance, fixing his attention on the castellan. “Who was the man, Archaumbault?”

  The surgeon was diffidently insistent. “My lord—if you please—”

  DeLacey waved a silencing hand. “Who?”

  Archaumbault breathed tightly. “Tall—very fair ... hair nearly white—”

  DeLacey’s blood chilled. “Robert of Locksley.” What has he to do with this?

  “My lord—” Archaumbault gritted. “May I have water?”

  DeLacey gestured imperatively to the surgeon. “Get about your business. I have other concerns.” As the surgeon bent to his work the sheriff pushed his way back through the men and out into the bailey. He went directly to the stables, where he ordered the bay horse brought to him. When it was, he studied it closely.

  “My lord?” A boy came forward, bearing a bundle of cloth. “My lord—’twas hooked on the saddle.”

  DeLacey took it, shaking out folds. A man’s mantle, no more, of good weight and weave, but no elaboration.

  Something fell into straw. The boy bent, retrieved it, handed it over.

  DeLacey held it in his palm. A plain silver cloak-brooch, a simple heraldic device.

  He shut his hand over it. “Huntington,” he murmured. He stared blindly at his fist. “Robert of Locksley.” Naming the enemy.

  “My lord?”

  The sheriff glared at the boy, thrusting the bay’s reins back into small hands. “Here. Take it. Put it with the others. Then have my horse readied and brought out into the bailey.” He nearly cuffed the boy for slowness. “Immediately!”

  The morning mist dispersed and the sky was clear of cloudiness, leaving the day bright with promise. But Locksley was in no mood to appreciate the weather. He wanted to stop, to sit down, to lie down, so long as it meant he could shut his eyes and rest, ridding himself of weakness, aches, and chills, and the vague disorientation that accompanied the fever that had wracked Richard’s army. Some men had died of it, but they had been weak to begin with, deprived of proper food and rest, cooked in their mail by the unblinking eye of a harsher sun, stripped of dignity and strength by the illness that ravaged their bowels. When the fever found them, too, there was little hope for survival.

  Locksley had survived. He had survived worse than that. He would survive this.

  Meanwhile, he walked with increasing stiffness next to FitzWalter’s daughter, who had in undimmed cheerfulness hiked up her kirtle and shift, tucked the folds beneath her girdle, and strode on barefoot.

  “Not so far,” Marian said, avoiding a puddle of urine.

  He shivered, wondering if she could hear his bones rattle. He offered her no answer; what she had said did not require one.

  “What is he like?” She strode along the road with no pretense to maidenly distaste. She did, in fact, appear to relish the freedom; he began to wonder if, as a child, she had proved difficult to discipline out of hoydenish ways.

  But the question was a proper question, with an answer expected. Instead, he countered it with a question of his own. “Who?”

  “The king,” Marian said.

  Of course. They all asked. Even those who considered the question unimportant, because its answer might divulge the sort of information they required to
make decisions. Or those who asked it with a sly wink, or a smirk, or a blatant vulgarity.

  None of them knew Richard. They only thought they did, basing their conclusions on rumor and innuendo. Those who did know Richard knew better than to ask.

  Marian had asked the question. Her reason was innocent: what was the man like whom her father had died serving?

  “Worth dying for,” he answered.

  She paused only an instant, a hare before it bolts, then strode on again. He knew then his answer hadn’t been the one for which she had fished. But now that it was said, she contemplated it closely.

  “He would have to be, wouldn’t he?” Her tone was odd, a bit hurried, a trifle strained, with a hint of diffidence. “Kings who lead men in war ought to be worth dying for, since so many men do it.”

  Yes. Kings ought to be. Few of them were. He believed Richard was.

  “My father said he was a brilliant campaigner. That a man would be a fool to place his trust in someone else.”

  The sun, for England, was bright, unfettered with cloud or haze. Everything sounded unnaturally loud. “Yes,” he said. “That was one of the things Leopold despised.”

  “Leopold of Austria?”

  “And Philip of France.” It helped a little, to talk. “Philip was a weak man in all respects, save his opinion of himself. It was natural that men would revere Richard more—he is every inch a warrior-king, best equipped to inspire and lead men into battle. Philip was best equipped to stay at home and connive, which he eventually decided to do. Richard begged him to stay, but Philip was adamant. He packed up and left.”

  “And Leopold? What did the king do to him to make him go home?”

  Locksley smiled wryly, recalling the harsh words traded by the angry men. “Leopold was not a weak man. He believed himself as good or better a soldier and leader as the famous Lionheart, with some grounds for such a belief. But no one else believed it—Richard has a way of dominating anything, be it conversation, games, or brute physical tests—and Leopold was insulted. He also packed up and went home.”