In a carrying, high whine he said, “Nay, but let her speak. She is a pretty thing, and may amuse us.”
“Bored,” Martin muttered under his breath. “He is frigging bored and wants to relieve his tedium.”
Sparrow tensed still further, though he would not have thought it possible. He watched, disbelieving, as Wren lifted her head and stood before the King, holding herself now like a queen.
When she spoke again, her voice came strong and echoed around the room. Aye, she had found her courage. The faint glimmer of hope in his heart died, however, when he heard her words.
“Great lord and king, I come to you on behalf of my father’s people, who are also your own.”
“Your father, child? And who might he be?”
“A high lord indeed, sire—the Lord of Sherwood. They call him Robin Hood.”
There came a general outcry, and John stiffened where he sat. “What?” His whine turned into a roar. “We have been told that Robin Hood—wolfshead, outlaw—is dead.”
“No, sire, he lives yet, a good steward to his people, and seeking your wise justice for them.”
“If he lives, why does he not appear here before us himself? Why send his daughter, however lovely?”
“He comes not, precisely because the name ‘outlaw’ has been settled upon him—unfairly, sire, since he has never done aught but be a good guardian to those who rely upon him.”
“He has done naught save kill our deer and steal our gold!” John sneered. “Aye, we have heard what goes on in Sherwood. If your father be so faultless, lass, why is the price of a wolf’s head settled upon him?”
“Unjustly, sire! Would you not do whatever you must for the sake of your subjects? No less he. Like a good father, he provides how he may.”
The crowd around Sparrow stirred, feeling the weight of those words. He and Martin were pressed forward a few steps as the onlookers strained to hear.
“We are not here to debate morality.” The whine had returned to John’s voice, but he no longer looked bored. “Speak as you will, and do not waste our time.”
“Aye, sire. In Sherwood, we have heard of the great charter you have ordained, that which honors you above all men and, indeed, above all kings who have ever reigned in this land.”
“Have you, by God?”
“Sire, men down the ages will sing praises of your wisdom and the fairness of your heart.”
“Our heart, is it?”
Beside Sparrow, Martin swore. Sparrow could feel his hate. But he began to think Wren might just get away with this madness.
“Sire, your laws will be declared peerless for their fairness and mercy. But I say they should be available to all men—the noble in his castle, aye, but also the woodsman in his hut, the shepherd in his wold, the landsman in his village. For are they not all born of this great land? And are you not King of all England?”
Mutters erupted all around Sparrow, a low-voiced current of approval. The crowd pressed forward yet again.
But John came to his feet as if drawn by reins. “Do you ask us for justice—for serfs?”
And Wren answered, her voice vibrating, “Sire, it must be available to all, or it is nothing.”
“Do you dare tell us what to do?” John’s question became a screech, but the damage had been done. Everyone there, from the high to the low, had heard the words spoken, and the idea Wren presented trembled in the air and glowed bright.
Beside Sparrow, the jubilant father had gone silent, his eyes wide with awe. And all around, Sparrow felt emotions surge like wonder. They had heard and seen the impossible take place. The lowest of the low, a server from the castle kitchens who also, somehow, claimed the place of a forest lord’s daughter, had declared that they mattered. Robin Hood’s own child gave them leave to own their worth.
The pure courage of it flared and infected everyone present. Sparrow’s spine stiffened, and he wondered if this single moment might not be worth Wren’s life and his own. Because this idea, now unleashed, would never fit back into the Normans’ sack of repression.
“Nay, sire,” Wren answered the King. “I pray only that you will extend your justice to one and all—”
“The Sheriff of Nottingham is dead!” The words burst onto the scene and cut the air between John and Wren like a sharpened sword. They turned every head toward the speaker and had the effect of silencing even the King.
Lambert, the bearer of said tidings, stood white as a ghost, his eyes fixed on his King. For an instant everything froze, and then, belatedly, Lambert bent his head.
“Forgive me interrupting, sire, but I have just come from the Sheriff’s chamber, where he has breathed his last.”
John parted his lips to speak. But before he could, Lambert’s gaze moved to Wren and narrowed. Emotions chased one another across his face.
“You!” he shouted. “Guards, here to me. Seize that wench!”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Move!” barked Martin, at Sparrow’s side. “Do not let them seize her.”
The fear in his voice matched that in Sparrow’s heart. Every protective instinct Sparrow had ever possessed rose up, howling. Should Lambert succeed in hauling Wren away to the dungeons or elsewhere, he might visit upon her any vile punishment he chose.
But an impossible barrier of humanity prevented their movement forward. The guards at the double doors had been engulfed, and strained at their places. The tableau on the dais remained mercilessly displayed.
He saw the King speak to Lambert, who now gestured wildly at Wren. He saw Lambert speak forcefully in reply, but he could no longer hear their words because the crowds in both chambers had become restive, their muttering grown into babble.
Wren stood as if pinned in place by Lambert’s glare, her back straight as a spear, displaying no emotion. But Sparrow could feel her terror and dismay; even from here he could. As must Martin; somehow, despite the press of bodies around him, he drew his sword, and Sparrow felt his courage flare.
“Let me through. Out of the way!” And, like magic, the crowd in front of Martin rippled, folk pushed and crumpled, and Martin moved forward.
Just as quickly as that, he and Sparrow were separated. A glance behind gave Sparrow no glimpse of the rest of their band. Nor could he now see anything of Simon, just Martin’s hood, well up to shield his face, migrating steadily to where the guards attempted to hold the doorway.
Sparrow pushed forward, but a solid wall of backs and shoulders prevented him. The gap Martin had formed was gone. Frustration raced through Sparrow, and sweat broke out all over his body. He could not stand here and watch the woman he loved far more than his own life die.
The crowd at the doorway rippled violently, and another outcry arose. The little girl beside Sparrow, still in her father’s arms, began to wail.
One of the guards went down. No one on the dais even noticed—they still argued loudly. The disturbance that was Martin moved forward. Would he be in time?
“Guards! Guards!” King John’s voice rang above the general rubble of sound. Sparrow saw Wren take a step backward as if to leave the dais. No guards had responded to John’s call, but the nobles around him, all armed in their own right, rose up.
He saw Wren take up the platter of sweetmeats from the table and swing it wildly at the nearest baron. Figs flew everywhere, and the platter broke across the man’s nose. General chaos broke out: John shrieked, Lambert bellowed, and half a score of voices demanded Wren’s seizure.
“I challenge you! I challenge you for her freedom.”
Martin’s demand cut across the thunderous noise like a clean wind. For an instant, everything fell silent. Each face on the dais turned, and Wren spun about.
Miraculously, Martin had won the steps to the dais. He raised his sword, and scarlet dust seemed to spark off the length of it and dance about his form. The breath caught, hard, in Sparrow’s throat.
Quite possibly, Martin Scarlet had been born for this one moment, all his anger, all his courage stored
and sharpened like the blade in his hand, allowing no refusal. He climbed onto the dais, and no one prevented him. He took the place at Wren’s side to face Lambert, and no one questioned his right.
This, Sparrow knew, had been Robin’s dream: that all men might stand equal on blessed English ground.
From what seemed an incredible distance, he heard Martin’s words. “Show me your sword, Lambert, if you be man enough.”
Lambert snarled. His blade came to his hand as if by magic, and he leaped the table, overturning it as he went.
A thousand thoughts now poured through Sparrow’s head. Wren should take advantage of the distraction and get away, disappear into the seething crowd below. But she stood as if rooted, far too close to the fight which, as soon as the two swords crossed, turned so vicious it once more silenced the onlookers.
All his life Sparrow had watched Martin fight, seen him work countless hours at the blade, both with and without his father’s instruction. But Martin had not yet recovered from his dire injuries. Even now, as he flung the mop of fair hair out of his eyes, and his hood with it, his wounds stood out, vivid, upon him. They were wounds laid at the order of the man he now fought so desperately, and Lambert’s furious expression left no doubt he recognized his opponent.
But whose hate might prove stronger? Lambert, a knight and a noble, possessed skill honed by every advantage. No one, however, could match Martin Scarlet’s capacity for sustained rage.
Through their shared connection, Sparrow could feel that rage and hate alive in the room. It danced around the two men who fought with raw and deadly intent. Martin had never fought so well, yet step by step Sparrow saw Lambert, his face an ugly mask, force him back to the edge of the dais.
The final blow came in a flurry of muscle and movement, a surge of impossible quickness that drove Lambert’s blade forward into Martin’s chest and out through his back.
The crowd howled and Wren screamed. The red glimmer Sparrow could see around Martin winked out, and he fell backward from the dais into the crowd, pulling from Lambert’s sword as he did so and leaving it in the knight’s hand, stained scarlet.
No! The word bellowed in Sparrow’s mind even though he made no sound. Rival, tormentor, companion, brother—Martin had been with Sparrow from the inception of his life and his world. Whatever he was, he could not be dead, for then how could Sparrow go on?
Unbearable grief rushed through him, rending and tearing his spirit. At least half of it was for Wren because, with all his undeniable courage, Martin had not succeeded in saving her.
Instead, Lambert—now on the same side of the overturned table as Wren—reached out and seized her, drew her back hard against him and raised the gory blade to her throat.
“Silence,” Lambert roared. “This woman is an outlaw, wanted for her crimes. She dies now.”
Quiet fell, enough to let Sparrow hear John’s indrawn breath as he spun.
“Do you usurp our authority?”
“No, sire. But this woman committed an assault upon me. She then fled to the forest and sought to lead others in the name of the outlaw Robin Hood. She is condemned by her own presence here.”
“That is for us to decide. Take her into custody—she will stand trial.”
“Forgive me, sire, but I do not agree.” A bright edge of madness now colored Lambert’s voice. “The Sheriff is dead. He passed to me his authority—”
“All authority in this realm is ours!”
Aye, and that about said it, Sparrow thought desperately. Yet Lambert’s desire for vengeance had hold of him and looked beyond reach of even the King’s reason.
“Sire, you do not understand. She will employ magic. If I leave hold of her now, she will flit away. There is but one answer for it.”
His sword arm jerked and the blade, smeared with Martin’s blood, bit the skin at Wren’s throat. She shrank against Lambert as a lover might, but her eyes ranged over the crowd, beyond desperate.
And found Sparrow.
He felt the connection flare despite her terror, her certainty she was going to die. In that instant, he felt her emotions as clearly as his own.
I love you. I will never leave you. You will hear my voice in the trees, forever in Sherwood.
Not yet, Sparrow returned. Stand still. Do not breathe!
He jostled his bow down from his shoulder. It came to his hands effortlessly, and with a feeling of strength. He never remembered snagging the arrow from the quiver or notching it. Silently he asked those pressed around him for room and, as they had for Martin, they moved aside just enough.
Just enough.
Though there was no time, though the scarlet blood had begun to trickle down Wren’s neck, he closed his eyes.
He stood again in the greenwood with his father at his side.
“I tell you, lad, you will never make the mark if you try too hard. You need to become what you are—what I named you. The speeding arrow—Sp’arrow. Do you see?”
Sparrow saw. He had to become what he had always been: intent, born of love.
He opened his eyes and shot the arrow. A shower of blue sparks erupted, and it flew over the heads of the crowd, past the guards at the double doors, above the gathered nobles. Sparrow dared not fail: Lambert held Wren with her body covering most of his. The barest twitch would end her life.
The arrow flew true, truer than any Sparrow had ever shot. It whispered as it went, the voice of Sherwood, the glimmer of light, the flicker of leaves, and embedded itself in Lambert’s right eye.
And it screamed aloud: This for justice.
Chapter Forty
“By God, by God, by—” Someone breathed the words: a prayer. Rennie discovered they came from her own lips. She staggered and nearly went down as Lambert fell away from her like a heavy cloak. She put a hand to her throat, and her fingers came away red.
She could no longer see Sparrow in the crowd. But Martin lay at her feet, and scores of eyes watched her, from the dais and below it.
The King spoke and she heard him not; her ears were stopped, filled with rushing music. But no—that was the sound of her own blood and her own heart, both pounding. She lived still.
The King moved toward her but remained on the far side of the overturned table. She spared one look for Lambert, sprawled on his back with one of Sherwood’s finest arrows protruding from his eye socket, along with a welter of blood.
She leaped into the crowd.
Hands welcomed her—not hard, punishing hands, and not noble hands. For the barriers at the doors had broken, and the common folk—her folk—now invaded the nobles in the great hall. She recognized several faces from the kitchen, some she had known most her life: the two lads who had been in the yard the day Lambert tried to force her, the boy who turned the spit, a bevy of women who worked now under Moll, the server who had climbed ahead of her onto the dais. They reached for her because she had spoken for them and because she was one of their own.
Behind her, John still shouted conflicting directions. “Stop her. Close those doors. Kill her. Attend our Lord Lambert.”
Those who had Rennie in their charge listened not. They sheltered her, and their whispers poured into her ears.
“For Robin.”
“For Lil.”
Rennie knew, then, it was love that defended her.
Martin’s body lay at the very edge of the dais. She turned back and reached both hands, begging her rescuers, “Please do not leave him here. Bring him.”
More hands bore up Martin’s still form. The tide turned and the sea of faces parted before them.
Where was Sparrow? Rennie still vibrated from that moment when their eyes had met among the many, caught and held. She had felt what he felt then, had been flooded with his love for her, and fully realized hers for him. Now, impossibly, she had lost track of him.
“Come.”
Lifted by the will of the many, she gained the double doors and then the room beyond. The outer gate drew near, and with it Sparrow’s face. She fell
into his arms, and he swung her up as if she weighed nothing. He spared one glance for Martin, who hung between a score of hands, head lolling. Dead.
Suddenly the rest of their band surrounded them and accepted the burden of Martin. They passed into the blessed, cool air while behind them voices cried for pursuit. Rennie stole one look over Sparrow’s shoulder; it showed her the crowd had once more closed, tangled, and filled the space behind them like a rushing wave.
They began to run, Rennie’s head bumping against the bow on Sparrow’s shoulder. She could feel Sparrow’s emotions surging through him as if they were her own.
****
“Down! Stop and put me down. I would see if yet he lives.”
“Love, he does not.” The breath came harsh in Sparrow’s lungs, and Rennie could feel weariness riding him hard. But they were now well away into the cover provided by the trees, as safe as they were likely to be. Sparrow panted, “Farther yet—he will be coming.”
“Who will? Who, Sparrow? Lambert is killed. You felled him.”
Sparrow stopped running so abruptly he stumbled. Those toting Martin paused, sagged, and lowered him gratefully.
Rennie slid down Sparrow’s body, her hands lingering on him, caressing his face. She realized, belatedly, she was weeping.
“No one will find us,” she babbled through the tears, “not before this is done. Martin—”
Sparrow made no reply, but his dark eyes burned on her. She dropped to her knees beside Martin and laid both hands on him. His tunic was sodden with blood, and his chest was motionless.
He looked like an angel lying there with the new green leaves arching above him, his face so fair despite its half-healed wounds, and devoid of anger. His lashes formed tawny golden arcs on his cheeks; his wild hair made a halo.
“Martin.” She began to massage his chest. “Martin, return to me.”
“Wren,” said Sparrow, his voice broken, “it is too late.”
“No!”
“Lambert’s blade passed right through him. We all saw.”
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