Daughter of Sherwood

by Laura Strickland

  “He does not love me. He no longer even wants me—he still wants her.”

  “A babe might change all that.”

  “No. When Martin’s heart is set, it is set.” Sally’s eyes met Sparrow’s. “I hold you to your promise. You will not betray me?”

  “It is not a matter of betrayal. Soon Madlyn will ask why you appear unwell, and she is no fool, even if Martin is. Better the truth comes from your lips to Martin’s ear.”

  “Lies can be told,” Sally said stubbornly. “You just keep your promise to me, Sparrow Little.”

  Unhappy, Sparrow looked up again to see Martin watching him and Sally with an expression that boded well for no one.

  ****

  Not until much later in the day, when the patrol had gone out chasing soldiers and returned again with the swords of no less than three, did Martin approach Sparrow. He came at a swagger, the gore of the fight still upon him.

  Sparrow felt Martin’s aggression break over him in a bold wave, even before he spoke. “So—one woman is not enough for you, is that it? You are not satisfied with winning what I wanted once but must do it again.”

  Sparrow, interrupted splitting kindling for the fire, straightened with the axe in his hands. “What are you on about?”

  “I saw you earlier—you and Sal all cozy together, whispering. What do you want with her, when you already have Wren?”

  Sparrow drew a breath. He had hoped Martin might have left his jealousy behind him, but it seemed Sally was right—Martin would be Martin. “Do not be a fool.”

  Predictably, Martin bristled. “Is that what you call me?”

  “That is what you are. Have you no eyes in your head?”

  “To see what?” Martin’s gaze narrowed. If Martin guessed Sally’s secret, so Sparrow told himself, that did not count as betrayal on his part. “Sally is my friend, only. And she is troubled,” he said.

  “Troubled? How so?”

  “Is it truly so impossible for you to fathom? Her father has been killed, she has lost her home and is forced to take refuge in the forest, and the man upon whom she should be able to rely has forgotten to care for her.”

  Martin flushed with ire. “So she turns to you for comfort? Have you bedded her, as well as Wren?”

  Sparrow laughed incredulously. “If you can suppose I want anyone but Wren, you are a greater fool than I thought.” In truth, he burned for Wren, but had not lain with her since she took her injury. The stubborn wound refused to heal cleanly, and Wren insisted on doing too much. He nearly had to tie her down to make her rest.

  Martin’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you not want Sal? She is beautiful enough.”

  “She is. And she loves you with her whole heart, if you could but see it.” That made no betrayal, being a fact everyone knew—save Martin. “Look at her. Truly look at her, man!”

  Martin turned hard eyes across the clearing to where Sally stood speaking with Madlyn. The late afternoon sun caressed her form and outlined her increased shape. Martin’s eyes widened. He turned to Sparrow with dread. “She is—” Words seemed to escape him. He stared at Sparrow accusingly. “Yours?”

  “Of course not mine, you pillock.”

  “Who—?”

  “You will need to ask her that. But talk to her, for the love of God.”

  With no further question, Martin crossed the clearing and joined Sally where she stood. He laid a hand on her arm, and they stepped away and then sat together.

  Sparrow did his best not to watch; he went back to work splitting kindling, but dangerously, with one eye on the couple across the way. Soon Sally put her face in her hands and began to weep. Martin put an arm around her.

  At last, Sparrow thought victoriously. He swung his axe and smiled to himself.

  “You nearly removed your own fingers, there.” Wren stood beside him. She looked weary and spent, yet her presence brought him a rush of gladness.

  My love, he said, his mind to hers, and then, aloud, “How do you feel?”

  “I keep telling everyone I am fine.” She, too, looked across the clearing. “What goes on there?”

  “I believe Sally confesses a secret, and high time.”

  “What secret?”

  “’Twould not be one if I told you, would it?”

  He felt her shrug before she leaned close. “I shall tell you a secret of my own, shall I?” Her breath tickled his ear and sent a shiver down his spine.

  He gazed into her wild-hawk eyes. “Pray do.”

  “Sparrow Little, I cannot live without you one night more. I have been watching you ply that axe this long while and fairly burnt myself to cinders in the doing.” She leaned still nearer and brushed her lips across his. The axe fell from his suddenly numb fingers and landed harmlessly on the ground. “Why do you not come to me where I lie?”

  “You are hurting, and need to heal.”

  “Are you sure that is all?” She withdrew from him, and sudden doubt invaded her eyes. “It is not because my wound makes me ugly?”

  “Ugly?” Sparrow could not conceive of the word in relation to her.

  “Aye, Madlyn tells me there will be a scar, a great, hideous one. All these days of inflammation, and the flesh refusing to close, do not help. You know, the wound cuts clear across my chest, and onto my breasts. You called them beautiful, once.”

  “As I do still.”

  “You have not seen—”

  But he had seen, when Madlyn changed her bandaging, back at Alric’s hermitage. “Wren, you took that wound for me, unhesitating, to save my life. How could it be anything but beautiful?”

  “I wish I could believe you.”

  He caught her face between his hands. “Listen to me, Wren—I love you, and will until the day I die. Surely you can feel that. You can hear my thoughts; do you hear any lies?”

  “No. But there is a difference between being compelled to love me, by magic, and finding me desirable, as once you did.”

  He laughed unsteadily. “You think that is why I love you, because Sherwood ordains it?”

  “Is it not?”

  “No, Wren. I told you, I loved you from the first moment I saw you in Lil’s kitchen, when you came stumbling out of the scullery with your hair all loose about you and questions in your eyes.”

  “That is not desire.”

  “I never leave off desiring you.”

  A faint light entered her eyes. “I may need call upon you to prove that.”

  “Feel this?” He drew her close against him so she could not miss the burgeoning bulge trapped inside his leggings. “Woman, I scarce need the axe. I could split wood with—”

  A cry echoed across the clearing and interrupted their affectionate exchange. Hand in hand, they spun to face Martin and Sally, just in time to see Martin explode in rage.

  With a roar, he leaped up from Sally’s side. She came to her feet also and stood with her arms wrapped about herself, her face white as bone.

  “What has happened?” Wren asked.

  Sparrow shook his head. Even Martin would not react so to what Sally must have told him. Yet Martin, flushed with anger, now charged across the camp, calling to men as he came.

  “You—Gerald, Micah, and Dennis—go find your brother.” He called on the best of his men. “We leave at once.” He virtually skidded to a halt in front of Sparrow. “I need you, also. Bring your bow and as many arrows as you can carry.”

  “Why?” Sparrow shot a look at Sally, who stood wearing a dreadful, shuttered expression. Their eyes met. “What goes on?”

  “We go after Lambert, and I will not rest until that bastard lies dead.”

  “Calm down, Martin, I do not understand.” Wren laid a hand on his arm. “Explain!”

  “Sally just confessed the truth to me at last,” Martin raged. “That villain’s attacked and had his way with her. She is with child. His child!” Martin struggled to gain control of himself and failed entirely. “I tell you, he needs to die.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

>   “Martin has gone mad, I am convinced of it.” Rennie breathed out a sigh of pure exhaustion and threw herself down on her back beside Sparrow, who lay sprawled with his eyes closed. With her hand, she caressed his bare arm and then clasped his fingers. She ached from head to foot, yet still she wanted Sparrow and needed to touch him. “Have you ever seen him like this?”

  “No,” Sparrow grunted. “He will kill us all.”

  It was Rennie’s fear also. She bit her lip, twined her fingers more closely with his, and frowned at the green leaves dancing overhead. For how much of this did she carry the blame? No sooner had she conveyed upon Martin the title of headman than he had taken on this intention to see Lambert dead. And now they engaged in nothing less than war.

  For the past seven days there had been a series of running battles. The troop of outlaws Martin favored had gone out to find, intercept, and battle Lambert’s soldiers whenever possible. The fierce ploy had the advantage of driving the soldiers from Sherwood, but they plagued the towns about its perimeter still. Lambert seemed particularly determined to take out his revenge upon Oakham and its surviving denizens.

  And it had cost the outlaws dear. Already they had lost two men and had a score of injured.

  “I do not deny we need to fight Lambert,” Rennie murmured now, her eyes narrowed. “He is a hard-hearted blackguard and must be stopped from using other women as cruelly as he has poor Sally.”

  Sparrow’s fingers twitched violently in hers, and she turned her head to look at him. “What is it?”

  There was an advantage in virtually being able to hear her lover’s thoughts. Rennie knew how Sparrow felt nearly all the time, even when they were apart. But she also knew when he kept something from her.

  He closed his eyes, displaying his sinfully long, black lashes. Like everyone else, he looked tired beyond measure, yet she loved every line of his face—the proud nose, broad forehead, well-defined chin. She might gaze at him forever, would life only slow down and give her the chance.

  “What are you holding from me, Sparrow? Surely Martin is justified in his campaign against Lambert. Did not Lambert very nearly do the same to me as he did to Sally? Poor lass, she never leaves off weeping.”

  Sparrow lifted his lashes and looked at her. His eyes—liquid, dark, and wise as a hart’s—reached into her soul. “I am not at leave to say what I would, Wren.”

  “Why not?

  “When I give a promise, I keep it.”

  “Oh. Then do not speak as you should not. Whisper it, from your mind to mine.”

  “Do you not think I wish to? That would still be a betrayal.”

  “Do you believe so?”

  “I do. By any road, once you know, you will fly off into anger, and then Sally will know I have revealed what I swore I would not.”

  Rennie lowered her voice. “This secret concerns Sally, then?”

  Sparrow blinked once.

  Well, Rennie thought, the gods love Sparrow and his honorable heart. But he should at least tell her, since they in essence shared one mind. Plumbing the depths of that connection now, she picked up a few tendrils of information. Sally had lied about something, but what?

  No lie that the lass was with child. She now seemed to increase by the day—a big strong child it was, no doubt. Rennie had spoken to her, or attempted to, thinking Sally might wish to confide in another woman her age. All Sally would say was that Lambert had caught her one day in the forest near Oakham and attacked her most vilely. The rape had occurred before Sally’s father died, but she had not told him, nor anyone, until now.

  Rennie frowned in thought, her gaze still holding Sparrow’s. “It must have something to do with Martin.”

  An answering spark. “Because she is in love with him and she confided in him. Or did she confide in you first?”

  Sparrow said dryly, “Words confided may not all be truth.”

  “Ah, so she lied to one of you. Yourself?”

  The slightest shake of Sparrow’s head.

  “Ah, to Martin? You mean, the child she carries may not be Lambert’s?”

  “Keep your voice down. And, you did not learn that from me.”

  “I did not.” Rennie raised Sparrow’s fingers to her lips and brushed them with a kiss. “It seems I need to speak to Sally again.”

  “Or to Martin. As it is, he will not rest until Lambert lies cold and dead. I have no quarrel with that, but I suspect it may prove costly to achieve, more so than we can stand. Have you heard his latest scheme?”

  “I have not.”

  “Best speak with him about it, for it has even our most hardened men quaking with dread.”

  Reluctantly, Rennie released Sparrow’s hand and scrambled to her feet, her few stolen moments of bliss flown. “There is, as Lil used to say, no time like the present.”

  ****

  Martin looked like a wild man. Rennie acknowledged that as she approached him where he stood giving orders to a scouting party. The men—a group of five—looked at Rennie imploringly and then scattered, their bows upon their shoulders.

  “Wren.” Martin favored her with a nod before turning back to an outline he had scratched into a patch of cleared earth. She saw it was a map of Sherwood, with various points marked with Xs.

  Her brows lifted. “That is a fine piece of work. What is its purpose?”

  “It tells the men where to search and where to lie in ambush.” Martin’s voice sounded fierce and his eyes blazed—a man with a cause. So close to him as this, Rennie could clearly feel the emotions raging inside him, burning bright with violence.

  “A useful tool,” she acknowledged cautiously.

  “We shall catch him out where he least expects, see if we do not.”

  “We will,” Rennie agreed, “if the god’s hand is in it.”

  Martin promptly exploded. “With the god or without. Where was the god when Sally was attacked and plundered?”

  Rennie drew a breath against the power of his emotions. “Peace, Martin. When is the last time you ate a meal? Or took rest?”

  He snarled, “I will not rest until Lambert feels the full weight of my sword.”

  “And do you care how many lives that costs?”

  “Eh?” He stared at her, his blue-gray eyes aflame.

  “These attacks you launch are costing us men.”

  He bristled. “Wren, do you question my place as captain? It is the one you, yourself, granted me.”

  “I merely question the present campaign. Open warfare is not our way. We have not the weapons nor the men.”

  Martin’s expression turned ugly. He sneered, “You chose this, Wren. You chose him. You want your place of peace with him, hidden away as Alric was. You must then live with the consequences.”

  Rennie’s ire flared in response to his. “You know I never meant to hand over to you all the power.”

  “You should be more careful, then. But you would rather lie with Sparrow than fight for justice. And I supposed you a worthy daughter of Robin Hood.”

  “So I do strive to be!”

  “Well, I think you had better strive harder. And it comes to me you possess less of Robin’s courageous heart than your mother’s—she who gave up in the face of pain.”

  “I will not second guess my mother’s choices.” Rennie could not imagine how she, herself, would survive if she lost Sparrow. Just the thought of it stole her breath and threatened to still her heart. Could she fight on? Or would she, too, wish to retreat from the world? Marian had abandoned Rennie to Lil—her own child, Robin’s child. That argued unbearable pain.

  She struggled to keep her head, and her temper. “I think you should consult with Sparrow and me before planning these excursions.” She gestured to the map in the dirt. “That is all.”

  “So the two of you, together, can vote me down? I think not. This is no time to hesitate. Lambert needs to be hunted and killed before the Sheriff dies, else he will acquire still more power. He thinks he can use folk however he will, that a lass like Sa
lly does not matter. But I am here to say she does.”

  “Have you spoken to her about it? Is this war what she wants?”

  Martin stared. “Need I ask her if she wishes the blackguard who raped her struck down? Besides”—his bright eyes fell suddenly—“she will not talk to me. She does nothing but sit and weep. Lambert broke her, that is what.”

  Rennie drew breath to speak, but he rushed on, “I will fight Lambert and all his ilk until the day I die.”

  “Or until everyone for whom you care does?”

  “Wren, do not be soft. The Normans would have us believe they are our overlords. They steal our land, our rights and our women. What is our purpose, if not to teach them differently? Is that not worth the dying?”

  “Yes,” Rennie answered softly. “Yet I would be sure I am truly fighting for what I believe. Talk to Sally,” she urged again. “Quite possibly she would rather have you alive than have her vengeance.”

  “Have me?” he asked, clearly baffled.

  Rennie leaned toward him. “You might wed with her, make a father for her child.”

  “Raise a bastard of Lambert’s?” he howled. “I tell you, Wren, I would far sooner die.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Mistress Wren, Mistress Wren! Martin has been captured, seized by Sir Lambert’s men—taken alive, we think.”

  The man who spoke had blood on his face and more splashed across his tunic. He still bore his bow upon his shoulder, but his quiver hung empty across his back, and he cradled his right arm close to his chest. His name was Micah.

  He, in the company with three other members of Martin’s patrol, stumbled into camp just before dark, the sole remnants of the party Martin had led out shortly after dawn. All day long, Rennie had felt uneasy, half her mind on the escapade from which Martin refused to be turned. Now, hearing these words, the tension within her broke. Had it been the danger to Martin that dogged her?

  She felt Sparrow stiffen beside her but did not take her eyes from Micah’s face. “What happened? How badly are you hurt?”

  Micah ignored the second question in favor of the first. “We had information a party of merchants would be on the York road, light guard, and enough goods and coin to pay the taxes of everyone in Oakham for the year. We went out early and lay in wait—but we were betrayed. ’Twas Lambert’s soldiers who came, led by the man himself.”