Will’s grin widened, and with a short bow, he gestured for them to follow.
* * * * *
The passageways that wended from the bowels of the castle up to the main level were completely deserted; even the servants were gone, released from their obligations these twelve days of Christmas to be with their families. No one was around to see the trio sneak their way through the large tower that formed the castle keep.
At first, Robin was grateful for the complete absence of people, but soon the lack began to worry her. They should have run into someone by now. What if the guards had only pretended to accept the bribe, and she and her friends were walking into a trap?
To her surprise, when Robin ventured this concern to her companions, they both began to snicker.
“The Sheriff called a castle-wide feast to celebrate your capture,” Little John explained. “Last we saw, he and everyone else were dead asleep in the Great Hall, clutching empty tankards in their palms.”
Will gave a snort. “’ow I wish I could ’ear ’im rage when ’e wakes up t’ find ye gone!”
“Believe me, you are better off not having that wish come true. His rage is a pretty terrible thing,” Robin said softly.
Will reached out then and opened an exit in the side of the keep, exposing the yard of the surrounding bailey. Sunlight blazed in through the open doorway, its brilliance magnified by the reflective snow. Robin tilted her face up toward the sky, rejoicing in the blinding glow she had thought to face only from the other side of Heaven. For the first time, Little John and Will Stutley got a good look at their companion.
“Dear God!” Little John exclaimed, halting abruptly and reaching a hand towards her face. “What did he do to you?”
Robin blushed under his scrutiny, conscious of what he must see. Based on the way her face ached, the left side was bruised a solid purple sheen from when the Sheriff had struck her, and her lip was swollen and split down the middle from her fall. Her clothes were covered with muck and decay, and there was clearly something wrong with her arm—she was holding it against her body at an odd angle, and her shoulder was unnaturally square.
“I am fine,” Robin declared firmly, stepping away from Little John’s touch. “We should be going.”
“What is wrong with your shoulder?” Little John persisted.
“It is only out of joint,” Robin informed him, glancing self-consciously behind them down the corridor. “Really, people are going to start waking up, and we had better not be here when they do.”
“If I get my hands on that Sheriff—” Little John fumed.
“Would ye like me t’ fix it?” Will Stutley interrupted.
Robin looked at her friend in amazement. “You can do that?”
Will smiled wryly. “I ’ave ’ad some experience.”
Robin glanced nervously once more back down the corridor. As much as she wanted the pain to abate, they could not afford to linger. “Not right now—I would rather have a disjointed shoulder than the disjointed neck we will receive if we get caught.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned and plodded down the steps of the keep, forcing her friends to follow her across the bailey yard. She ignored the worried looks that Little John cast in her direction as they walked, all her senses on the alert for a witness to their presence or a foe . . . but the bailey was as empty as the castle had been, and they reached the gatehouse without incident. The stone building was dark; Little John squinted around for the porter.
“He said he would be here,” Little John murmured anxiously. “Twenty pounds he took, and twenty more to let us back out again . . . .”
“Money cannot help a man who is dead,” a cold voice suddenly cut in.
It was Gisborne, standing in front of a corpse in the corner, a bloody sword blade in his hand.
“Beautiful craftsmanship, this sword.” Gisborne gloated, angling the blade so that Robin could see the familiar line of etchings underneath the red sheen. “It was wasted in your hands, but it will serve me well in my new capacity as the Sheriff of Nottingham.”
“You are mad,” Robin snapped. She felt Little John step behind her, using her body to shield his motions as he loosened his sword from his waist.
“Am I?” Gisborne asked carelessly. “The King already feels that Darniel is losing his grip after letting you roam the countryside free for so long. Just imagine what he will say when he finds out that the Sheriff caught you at last, only to let you escape! He will need a new sheriff, and who better than the man who slew Robin Hood and two of his Merry Men?”
“But I am defenseless,” Robin said, spreading her arms in an open gesture to further shield the movements of Will and John. “You would be committing cold-blooded murder.”
“It would not be the first time,” he remarked with a wicked smile. “Even my son will forgive me my killing his friend—” he indicated Will with a nod of his chin “—when he reaps the rewards that will follow.”
“Then ye know little about friendship,” Will retorted hotly.
“Friends are for the weak,” Gisborne snapped. “Power—and what one is willing to do to get it—is the strength of true import. I will rise after this night in power and glory both, whereas the lot of you will descend into nothingness.”
“Mighty imaginings,” Little John snarled, speaking up for the first time. His naked blade shimmered in his hand as he stepped in front of Robin. “But even a dastard like yourself should be able to count high enough to grasp that there are three of us, and only one of you. Your so-called strength will not avail you.”
Guy of Gisborne laughed. “The archer is unarmed and injured; Will Stutley I could beat blindfolded, and you—you do not even know the proper way to hold the sword you brandish.”
Robin winced. Her cousin had only just begun to teach Little John how to use a broadsword. Clearly, he was not as quick to master that weapon as he had been to master the bow. She saw Little John hastily readjust his grip, his face flushing at his error.
Gisborne saw it, too. His bloodthirsty grin widened. “Brave as well as stupid. This should be fun.”
Without another word, Gisborne swung his sword in a cutting arc and lunged into attack.
Robin backed away, pressing herself against the gatehouse wall as Little John and Guy of Gisborne hewed at each other. Will attempted to join the fight, but Gisborne’s back was to the opposite wall and Little John was standing between them, so all Will could do was dance around behind his friend, too afraid of striking Little John to risk attacking Gisborne himself.
“Get away from there!” Robin hissed. “You are just getting in his way!”
Hastily, Will backed away and joined Robin against the wall. “They are going t’ kill each other!” he cried.
Memory flashed unbidden through Robin’s mind, of the time she had revealed to Little John the deep depression that had overtaken her after killing the Sheriff’s nephew. “Life is our most precious gift,” Little John had told her, gazing into the distance with the expression of a man who has given the subject much thought. “Only as a last recourse should we ever consider taking a life, and then only to preserve another. I am glad that you preserved mine, Robin, but gladder still that you grieved for the one you took. The day we can kill without sorrow is the day we cease to be human.”
“John will not kill him—not if he can help it,” Robin told her friend without tearing her eyes from the battle. She felt utterly, maddeningly helpless. Nothing in her existence had prepared Robin to stand idly by and watch the man she loved fighting for his life!
There was no question in Robin’s mind as to who was the better swordsman. Only Little John’s swift reflexes and brute strength saved him time and again as Gisborne lashed out at him. Little John’s hasty blocks and frantic attacks left large openings in his guard—openings that Guy of Gisborne intentionally ignored.
He is toying with him, Robin realized. She began to grow angry.
“Give me that,” she said, snatching the two-handed broadsword out
of Will’s grasp. She almost dropped it—it was thrice as heavy as her own lighter sword, and she could not use her injured arm to help hold it aloft; her shoulder was already screaming at the strain.
“Robin, no!” Will gasped. He snatched at her, his fingers just missing her tunic as she managed to hoist the weapon with one hand and dashed forward.
Rather than joining the fight, Robin hovered just out of reach of the whipping blades. As Gisborne sneaked in a cunning blow that Little John only half-managed to block, leaving the collar of his tunic rife with blood, Robin seized her chance. With all of her might, she heaved the heavy sword past Little John and into Gisborne’s legs, causing him to stumble and careen into Little John. The two opponents tumbled together to the ground.
Gisborne struggled to get up, but Little John rolled over on top of him, his long form pinning Gisborne’s to the floor. Robin kicked her sword out of Gisborne’s hand and picked it up, leveling it at his throat. Will snatched up the brand she had hurled at Gisborne and did the same. Guy held very still as Little John clambered to his feet.
“That was a dirty trick,” Gisborne glared.
Robin shrugged. “I cannot say that I am bothered. Get the key from the porter,” she commanded Will, who reluctantly lowered his sword and began to search the slain man for the key.
Gisborne laughed, the contemptuous motion of his throat making the tip of Robin’s sword jostle slightly against his skin. “There is nowhere for you to go. I ordered my soldiers placed all around the outside of the castle to keep the crowd from making a scene at your execution. You will be caught before you can get ten paces down the road.”
“Is this true?” Robin asked Little John.
His brow creased with concern. “We slipped up here when they were changing the watch. There were only a couple of men then, but they could have brought out more.”
Gisborne let out a low, vicious laugh. “You are all dead.”
“There is another way out,” Will spoke up suddenly. Robin, Little John, and Gisborne all turned to look at him. He flushed at their attention. “Nella—the Sheriff’s daughter—she told me about it. There is a ’idden tunnel in one o’ the guardhouses. It lets out into the caves at the base o’ the castle.”
“Why did you not tell me this before?” Little John demanded.
Will shrugged. “’Tis always locked. Only the Sheriff ’as the key.”
“Then it is useless to us,” Little John said bitterly.
Robin rubbed the bridge of her nose with her forefinger, thinking hard. “Give me your clothes,” she commanded Gisborne abruptly.
Gisborne stared at her. “What?”
“Your clothes,” she snapped. “Your tunic, your hose—give them to me now.”
When Gisborne did not move, Little John let out a low growl, “Either doff them yourself, or I will do it for you.”
With a malicious glare, Gisborne began to pull off his horse-skin hose.
Will stepped in to guard him again as Robin handed her sword to Little John and took the garments from Gisborne. The clothes reeked of horsehide and sweat, although she supposed they were pleasant odors when compared to the noxious stench of the pit that clung to her still.
Guy of Gisborne was much of a height to Robin, but broader, which meant that she could draw his clothes right over her own. Even so, she almost fell as she tried to pull on the loose hose with one hand, fire lancing through her shoulder.
“Um, a little help?” she gasped at Little John, trying and failing not to blush.
With an expression like stone, he helped her dress; the revolting tunic with the horse-ear hood was the last piece they went to pull on.
“My arm is stuck,” she murmured after a moment, her tone one of apology. “It hurts too much to lift through.”
The muscle in Little John’s jaw tensed, but he bent to examine the problem, and as he did, Robin heard rather than saw Gisborne drive his fist into the back of Will’s knee, sending the boy sprawling. With one swift motion, Gisborne seized Will’s sword and leapt at Robin, who—entangled in the tunic—could do nothing to stop him.
The next instant, Robin was flying through the air as Little John’s hand slammed into her, pushing her out of the way with enough force to smash her into the opposing wall. She heard something crack and the agony in her shoulder flared into white-hot fire, choking her so that she could not even scream. A moment later, it subsided to nothing more than a sharp ache; the force of the blow had rammed her joint back into place.
With a grateful sob, Robin rolled to her feet and yanked down the tunic that was blinding her, only to find herself staring into the gaping eyes of Guy of Gisborne. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and spilled from his chest where the hilt of her sword was protruding.
Holding on to the hilt was Little John, who had jammed the blade through Gisborne’s chest with enough force to splinter through his breastbone and out his back. Realization of what he had done seized John, and he let go of the sword as if it had seared him.
In the background, Will was picking himself up off the floor, apologizing over and over again for letting down his guard. Tentatively, Robin placed one hand on Little John’s muscled shoulder; he turned his head away.
Robin turned to stare at Gisborne’s body. Regret welled up inside her; as much as she had loathed the man, she would have preferred to have avoided his death. More than anything, she would have preferred for the stain of that death to be on her soul, not Little John’s.
Reluctantly, Robin went to pull her blade from Gisborne’s body. It was stuck. Doing her best not to shift the corpse, she attempted to shake the sword free. It would not budge.
A large, callused hand wrapped itself over hers, making her shiver. With a single tug, Little John pulled the sword free from Gisborne’s body; he immediately let go her hand.
“We should leave,” Robin murmured into the silence.
The journey back through the sunlit courtyard and up the stairs leading to the castle keep seemed to take forever. The encounter with Gisborne and its deadly result had shattered what little nerve Robin had left after her ordeal; only the presence of her friends gave her the strength to throw her chin high and strut across the greensward as Gisborne would have done—with the arrogant confidence of a man accustomed to getting his way without qualm over how. She needed that air of confidence about her if she was to succeed in getting into the Great Hall and stealing the Sheriff’s key without being stopped. No one who might see her could suspect her of being anyone but Gisborne, or all would be lost.
Such was her focus that she reached the keep door and had her hand stretched out toward its handle before she registered that it had already begun to move; just as her fingers grazed the metal ring, the door swung open of its own accord, and the Sheriff stumbled out.
* * * * *
“Gisssborne?”
The Sheriff blinked at Robin, trying to make out her features as his eyes adjusted to the light. He held one hand to his head to soothe the ache that came from a night of drinking; his tunic was soiled with the stains of wine and meat.
His presence, so utterly unexpected, evoked in Robin a terrible panic. Their last encounter was still fresh in her mind, and her cheek stung with the pain of recall. Behind her, she sensed Will Stutley and Little John tense.
“My lord,” she began in a hoarse tone, struggling to regain her poise. Her tongue stumbled as her mind frantically sought to weave some story. “I was just on my way to find you. I have something terrible to report—”
“Father, that is not the stairwell,” a feminine voice interrupted, her words growing more audible as she caught up with Darniel.
The Sheriff turned to look at her, and in doing so revealed the maiden behind him, but Robin did not need Will’s indrawn breath to confirm her identity.
It was Nella.
The girl’s mouth curled in revulsion as she observed the person standing before her father. Her eyes took in Gisborne’s horse-eared hood and did not look t
o the face beneath it, sliding instead to the men behind Robin, and widening as they fixed on Will Stutley’s face. Nella’s hands flew to her mouth, but she did not say anything. Her eyes darted from Will, back to Robin—clearly not Captain Gisborne! she saw now—to her father, and back to Will again.
The Sheriff, still befuddled from too much drink, did not notice his daughter’s reaction. He frowned at Robin.
“Whassat?”
Robin licked her lips; her mouth had gone dry. She swallowed hard and continued to speak, trying not to think of what she would have to do if Nella sounded the alarm. “I discovered that the gatehouse guard has been stealing from your treasury, sir. When I confronted him, he tried to run, so I slew him.”
“Waz a f–far better deathh than he dessserved,” the Sheriff slurred.
“Just so, my lord. With your permission, I will take your keys and return what he pilfered to its rightful place, and re-secure the treasury.”
Darniel’s brows knit together. There was something not quite right about this request, but wine had made his mind slow and he could not process what it was.
“My keeyss?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Sheriff unhooked the key ring from his belt. Robin reached for it, but the Sheriff did not let them go. He peered at her closely, his bleary gaze struggling to focus on Robin’s face beneath the horsehide hood.
“Gisssborne?” he questioned again.
“Father!” Nella spoke up sharply. Robin tightened her grip on her sword. “Father, come. You must rest and refresh before the execution. Nottingham must see what a powerful Sheriff it has.”
“Yess, yes, it musst see . . . .”
The Sheriff let go of the key ring and turned away, staggering back into the keep. Nella stared at the trio for a moment longer, her gaze locking with Will’s; she gave him a small smile and closed the door.
Robin exhaled in a whoosh of relief.
“She loves me after all,” Will stammered. “She really loves me!”
“Or else she did not want you murdering her father,” Little John pointed out.
Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) Page 29