Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01]

by Lady of the Forest

  “Marian—” he rasped. “Oh God—Marian—”

  “I am not—” She swallowed heavily. “I am not who I need to be, for you ... I am not what you need—”

  It hurt his throat. “No one is. No one can be ... not even—Richard—” Robin shut his eyes.

  “I would—like to be—” she said jerkily. “But—I don’t know how.”

  One of the candles died, its wick spent at last. His soul felt as barren, as wasted. He was ashamed of what he had done, of what he had said, because no one not a soldier could begin to understand, and even then he might ridicule him for thinking so much about it, for permitting it to rule him; for allowing dreams to shape his life when there was duty to do it for him. Just as my father said before he ordered me beaten.

  Robin gazed down into Marian’s face, recalling where he was; better yet, where he wasn’t: not in Acre, Arsuf, or Jaffa, nor in Huntington Hall. With effort, he took his hands from her. “You’d better go.”

  “Robin—”

  He moved aside because he had to. He turned his back on her. “This is a chapel?—no.” He answered his own question as he glanced around. “An oratory ... good. I am in need of prayer ... and more than that, I think ...” He turned to her after all, risking it, risking himself, watching the play of light on her pale bruised flesh. Desperation engulfed him. “Marian—go.”

  Her chin rose. “Will you? Run away again?”

  It hurt more deeply than anticipated. He shook his head. “No.”

  “Then—I leave you to God.” She turned away and unlatched the door. He saw the shine of tears in her eyes, but she was gone before he could speak.

  Tuck knelt before the altar in Nottingham Castle’s tiny chapel. He was filled with an awful certainty that whatever he did now—confession, penance, prayer—would never be enough.

  He sweated in the alcove, clenching trembling hands. He had not been able to eat and his belly protested noisily, but his spirit was hungry for something much more substantial than food. He required understanding. He needed sincere compassion. He desired a measure of acknowledgment from the God who ruled his life.

  “In nomine Patris, et Fili, et Spiritus Sancti,” he murmured. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—”

  But he could not. He was wracked with doubt and guilt. He was not worthy even of prayer, to pay his addresses to God, who knew very well what he’d done.

  He rocked there on fleshy knees: a child in need of comfort. A son in need of his Father.

  “Forgive me,” he murmured wretchedly. Tuck squeezed his eyes shut. “Make me strong,” he whispered. “Father—make me strong.”

  In the bailey outside the keep the wolf-wind howled an answer.

  Much hunched in the dark. He was shielded from the worst of the wind by burrowing into a hollow dug by an animal between the exposed roots of a giant oak not far from Ravenskeep’s gate.

  He had left the other outlaws because he tasted storm. It filled his head with ringing and a vague stuffiness, setting his ears to aching. He knew what it promised, but he saw no sense in telling the others; they were men, all of them, considerably older than he. Surely they knew by the taste and the smell and the sound that the storm would be worse than most.

  His world was threatened, and the woman he called his princess.

  Much rubbed at his nose. Pressure was in his head, nagging mercilessly; the storm would grow worse before it blew itself out. He recalled it had happened before when he was just a boy: a fierce, angry windstorm had driven ships out of the North Sea into the Wash at Kings Lynn, where later they had sunk. It ravaged villages, blowing down daub-and-wattle; it shattered his father’s millwheel; it flattened the stable at Ravenskeep—driving out all the horses—and tore down every shutter. People had died in the storm, crushed by falling trees, or flattened beneath collapsed dwellings.

  Much didn’t want Ravenskeep to blow down. It was the princess’s castle.

  He hunkered closer to ground, squinting against flying debris. He would stay the night if he had to, to make sure the princess was safe.

  Marian went out into the storm and latched the oratory door behind her with hands that shook very badly. She stared at them fixedly, then shut them into fists and pressed them against her breasts. She was hot and cold at once, all bound up in emotions so raw she ached with it. There was grief and anguish and pain, that Robin could be so tortured; shock and denial and sickness, that war could be so brutal; lastly, an understanding, a harrowing comprehension of what had been done to him, or what he had done to himself, or what Richard had caused to be done by the insanity of—desire.

  He had said: “—not ease the needs of his body—”

  Nor even of his own.

  Marian shut her eyes. She knew now what it was, the vague disquieting tension; the unacknowledged hunger; the appetite for his touch. She was as much a victim as the king, or Eleanor deLacey, who had told her what it was and that a woman could need it also, promising pleasure of it.

  She had lied to him: “I am not what you need,” she had said, meaning not good enough, too innocent, not able to ease his needs. But she was wrong. She was what he needed; a woman to ease his pain, ease his needs, give him back what he had lost. She knew it instinctively.

  A wave of panic swamped her. I can’t—Will Scarlet’s face hung before her, its near-black eyes staring into her own; his mouth telling her ugly truths of what the Normans had done to his wife, and his desire to do it to her.

  But it was Robin inside. Not Will Scarlet.

  Panic surged again. I can’t—But she was no more immune to the needs of a body than he was, or the king.

  That is Robin inside, not Will Scarlet ... and Robin needs me.

  Wind twisted the tree limb and bent it nearly in two, scouring Little John’s face with damp leaves and prickly twigs. He swore, bent almost double to avoid branches clambering for flesh and clothing. The others fared better because they were not so tall; his face burned with welts and scratches.

  Just ahead, Will Scarlet’s hunched form was a blob against the greenish darkness. His question was shouted to reach above the wind. “Where?” Scarlet shouted. “Where are we going?”

  Little John swore again. I should be home with my sheep. But that life seemed banished, now. The sheriff wanted him. He had been seen in the company of outlaws who had killed Norman soldiers.

  “Where?” Scarlet shouted again, pitching his voice to carry to the men ahead of him.

  One of them swung back. Little John saw Cloudisley’s pretty face twisted against the storm. His dark hair ran wet with rain, tangling at his mouth. “A cave!” Cloudisley shouted; Little John mostly read his lips. “Not far—it will provide some cover!”

  “Sheep,” Little John muttered, “and good fleece for warmth—”

  But that was in his past. His present was his future.

  Marian swung around and snatched open the oratory door, blowing in on a gust of wind. The other candle blew out. Only the lamp was left, casting eerie illumination into the hardness of Robin’s face. He sat there rigidly in the rope-bound, ancient throne: Arthur before his knights as they accused the queen of adultery, all bleak and wasted and angry, afraid to hear the truth because it destroyed the childhood dream.

  “Lies,” she said roughly, “all the dreams are lies. We make whatever we are ... the magic isn’t in dreams, but in what we take for ourselves.”

  He was used up, bruised and battered. He said only, “Let it be.”

  “No.” Marian closed the door, shutting out wolves and bean sidhe.

  He knew why she had come and what she meant to do. His eyes were black in the shadows. “I have no chivalry. Let it be the truth, then: what I would do to you should be done to no maid. It has been—too long.”

  She did not know enough of men to fully understand, but her experience with Will Scarlet—and snatches of stories she had heard—persuaded her the communion between men and women could be violent. Obviously Robin knew, if he fe
ared to harm her.

  But she had gone too far. Fear was secondary. Now she meant to provoke, to lift the pain from him. “Will Scarlet took me.”

  His face spasmed. “Don’t lie.”

  She could think of nothing but him. “Then let it be you. Let it be Robin of Locksley.”

  His expression was a travesty as he shook his head. “Too much of him is dead. Too much blood was spilled—too much flesh was stilled—”

  No longer content to soothe, Marian cut him off. “You are alive,” she said. “My father is the dead man.”

  He recoiled, as she intended, for she wanted to shatter the wall for good. “Is this my penance?” he cried. “Will you grant me absolution?”

  Now she stood before him. She put out a hand and touched him: fingertips that trembled on the rigid line of his mouth. I am not afraid of him.

  He came up from the chair, leaving Arthur’s throne behind. He was Paris to her Helen, stripping away the useless courtesies of gentleness and compassion, cracking the veneers, shattering the facades. He was Acre to her Richard: the mask of his own construction, the wall he had labored to build, was undone by the human trebuchet who hurled the stone at his soul.

  He wound his hands in her hair, drawing her hard against his body. “I want—” But he couldn’t finish.

  “I know,” Marian whispered.

  Forty-Eight

  Marian awoke with a start and realized the wind had died, driving away the wolf and silencing the bean sidhe. All was perfectly still, save for the sound of Robin’s breathing.

  A simple yet complex noise: in- and exhalation, a steady continuation that stirred in her a response of which she had believed herself incapable, not knowing what it was to desire a man, not knowing what it was to give of her deepest self, receiving his in return.

  Her own breath ran ragged a moment, then renewed itself. She lay on her side on the woven mat with two cloaks thrown over her, one corner tangled amidst their legs. He lay heavily against her spine, soundly asleep; she had given him that, at least.

  The absence of wind was eerie, the air thick and sodden. It was cool in the oratory, hoary with traceries of morning mist that crept through the window notches. The oil lamp burned low, fretting at its shutters; it washed the fieldstone chamber in oyster and ivory and gold.

  She was sore, stiff, and weary from a night on the floor. She lay quietly on the mat so as not to disturb Robin, and considered the look of the world that according to the coy rumors she had heard all her life, was supposed to look very different the morning after a night like the one she’d just experienced.

  He had said it plainly: What I would do to you should be done to no maid. And she supposed it should not be, but it had been; it was finished. Maidenhood was fleeting, surrendered easily in the brief painful instant between virginity and carnal knowledge; she was now a woman, and if he was too rough and overhasty she could blame it, if she chose, on the brutalities of war, on the horrors of captivity, not on the man himself.

  She knew him better than that. Marian did choose. And later, a little later, he had shown her a different side; he had shown her a different man, this one able to rouse her as she had roused him, proving haste was not required, nor roughness, nor possession, but the avid tenderness and slow consummation of bodies but newly awakened: hers for the first time, his after nearly two years.

  His nearness was comforting. She found it also daunting, fraught with new adversities she had not fully considered in the peril of the storm and the clamor of her body. Reality intruded: she had bedded a man in the oratory and still lay with him there, absent from her chamber where Joan would go to rouse her; too obviously used by the look of hair and kirtle.

  He stirred briefly, murmuring into her hair, then fell once again into silence. Emotion overwhelmed her, flushing her with a hunger not at all of belly or spirit. She wanted—needed—to turn over, to look into his face, to reach out and touch him so he would awaken and touch her. She wanted badly to linger and dismiss the dawn entirely, and the day to follow; to invite yet again—or initiate herself—the incredibly complex intimacy that made two people one.

  But there were chores to be tended, servants to be faced, a front gate to have mended, and God only knew how many animals to be nursed, found, or butchered.

  Life doesn’t stop, she thought. Not for pain—or for pleasure.

  The perils of yesterday were as present today: the sheriff of Nottingham had asked her to marry him. No—he had told her.

  Marian frowned, listening. The cock had not yet crowed, which meant it wasn’t quite dawn—or the rooster was dead.

  It felt like dawn.

  Her mother had had a saying: Linger, and you may lose; hasten, and you may win all.

  It was time to make sure she won.

  Marian sat up carefully, edging away from the mat so as not to disturb Robin. She cocooned him in swathing wool, leaving only face and boots uncovered, and a single curled hand.

  She hoped the rooster was dead, so Robin could sleep a while.

  The pounding on his door awakened William deLacey, with no word of explanation called out by a nervous servant. The sheriff hovered a moment between fury and astonishment; Prince John had departed, which meant there was no further need for such thoughtlessness.

  He yanked back the linens and coverlet, thrust himself out of bed—his own once again, while Eleanor had hers—threw a robe haphazardly over his bliaut, and strode stiff-legged across the cool stone floor to the door, which he unlatched and jerked open. “What is—” He stopped in midspate. “Brother Tuck?”

  The monks’ eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. “My lord, forgive me. I must speak with you.”

  It was a declaration no less preposterous than unexpected. DeLacey was in no mood for discussion aired by a gluttonous monk who had yet to prove himself capable of a single independent thought. It was a trait deLacey found useful often enough, but his preferences for willing, dullard servants did not in any way convince him to welcome Tuck at such an hour. He opened his mouth to say so, but the monk cut him off.

  “My lord. I can’t do it.” Tuck’s color was bad, as was his breathing. He filled up the doorway with voluminous cassock and heavy shoulders. His face was filmed with perspiration, and he smelled of a nervous, powerful sanctity.

  “Can’t do what?” the sheriff inquired, hard-pressed not to slam the heavy door shut just to make a point. “Brother Tuck, I believe there may be a more opportune time for this—”

  But Tuck was not dissuaded; in fact, he seemed quite determined to block the only escape route so that deLacey had to listen—that, or go back to bed and pull the covers over his head, which he had learned as a child solved absolutely nothing. “My lord, I did not sleep last night. I prayed all night long. My spirit is in turmoil ...” He took a deep breath. “My lord, I can’t pretend to be a priest.”

  DeLacey reached out and settled a rigid hand on Tuck’s shoulder, dug into black wool, then dragged the monk inside. It would not do to raise the topic where servants might hear. He shut the door decisively. “We discussed this yesterday—”

  “Yes, my lord—and I agreed.” Tuck showed no signs of surrendering the battle despite his nervousness. “That young woman is indeed in need of comfort, but to imperil my soul—and hers!—by commiting a sin such as this is unthinkable.” The double chin was amazingly firm. “My lord, I beg you, there must be another way.”

  DeLacey wondered what it would feel like to sink a fist into the mound of Tuck’s belly. “We discussed this in detail yesterday. For the Lady Marian’s sake—”

  “For her soul’s sake, I dare not do it.” Tuck squared his shoulders. “I understand you may well dismiss me, my lord, but I am convinced there is another way. You see—”

  “What I see,” deLacey began dangerously, “is a man in danger of being dismissed not only from my service, but from his abbey as well.” The time for prevarication was done. Tuck obviously needed to be reminded of whom he served, in what capacity, and ju
st how exacting the duties were. DeLacey therefore resorted to blunt brevity. “You misled that old woman into believing you were a priest, did you not? And you prepared an execution order for the wrong man. Knowingly prepared it.”

  Tuck’s wheezing increased. “My lord, I beg you—”

  “What do you think Abbot Martin would say?” The sheriff leaned closer, lowering his voice. “What do you think Abbot Martin would do?”

  Tuck’s folded hands trembled. The determination slipped, as deLacey intended. The aberration was minor, then; Tuck was salvageable. “My lord ... there would be punishment, of course—”

  “Punishment!” DeLacey allowed the word to crack through the chamber. “My God, man—forgive me, Brother—but I know perfectly well what Abbot Martin will do. There is no secret of his vice—”

  Tuck’s wide jaw dropped. “Vice!”

  “Indeed.” DeLacey now was coolly urbane, intimidating easily with a casual negligence. “The Church harbors many men whose appetites are—unique—Brother Tuck ... often such appetites may be used for training other men to celebrate the glory of God in many alternative ways. You are young, I know, and innocent”—his tone hardened—“but there is no substitute for truth. Abbot Martin will see to it the skin is removed from your back ... the question remains whether he will do it himself, or bid you to do it.”

  It shocked him utterly. “Oh—my lord—”

  DeLacey offered compassion. “Brother, I do know this without question ... one of your brethren served here for years. He died but months ago. He told me all about it just before he expired.”

  Tuck was agonized. “He is the abbot—”

  Silkily, he explained, “Appetite is not governed by closeness to God, Brother Tuck—if anything, wielding authority is a fillip to the taste.” DeLacey smiled kindly. “Now, Brother Tuck, what say you to the wedding?”