Eduard glanced up and a muscle jumped in his cheek. “How long before he will be missed?”
“Gisbourne? With the king coming—” Brevant’s eyebrows bunched together in a deep, hairy vee over the bridge of his nose. “Not much past dawn. Gallworm will be pissing himself to prove how efficient he is, so he’ll not let his master sleep until his usual midday debauch.”
A quick look told Eduard there were only two scored lines remaining on Henry’s night candle to mark the proximity of dawn, and he had to stop and peer again as if he could not believe he had slept so long.
Grimly, he tucked the last blade into the lethal array in his belt and clasped a hand around Brevant’s arm. “Can you still get to the princess? Can you bring her here now?”
“Now?”
“Did you not just say we have until dawn?” “Aye, but—”
“But what, my friend? Are you turning squeamish—or do you have a better use for your ballocks at the moment than testing the mettle of your own plan?”
Brevant stared intently. “You see to the boy, I will see to the lady.”
Eduard gave the captain’s arm an extra clap and turned to Henry. “Sedrick and Dafydd will have to be rousted and told what we are about. The horses will have to be saddled, including the extras.”
“Consider it done,” Henry nodded.
Eduard’s gaze found Ariel. Her eyes were rounded and dark, set in a face so pale it glowed in the candlelight. Her hair … Jesu, God … her hair … the creamy smooth slope of her shoulders … the change … the noticeable look of a woman who has discovered passion … all these things combined to stall his ability to think past the danger he was putting her in.
“Tell me what I must do to help,” she prompted determinedly.
“Go through the packs and find all the extra clothing you can. When the princess and Marienne are brought here, they will have to be dressed, quickly and warmly, to look common enough to pass as varlets. See to yourself as well and remember: warmth above all. It would raise suspicions if we were to leave without the packhorses, but we will be moving too fast to take them much farther than the first bend in the road. We can forage for food, but blankets and clothing … we must take all we can carry.”
“But … the princess? What if she still refuses to go?”
“She will go. Once Brevant has brought her from the tower, she will have no choice but to go. In any event”—he rested his hand briefly on her cheek—“Robin and I will be back here in plenty of time to tup her on the head and sling her over the rump of a rouncy if that is what is required.”
“Be careful,” she whispered.
“Be safe,” he murmured. “And until I get back, do whatever Brevant tells you to do. Promise me this.”
Ariel’s lips trembled apart and the best she could manage was a nod. He planted a swift, hard kiss over her mouth and walked out of the room. Henry and the captain were a beat behind, her brother passing a final, troubled frown over his shoulder before he dashed out into the stairwell.
Ariel held her breath until she could no longer hear their footsteps pounding down the stairs. The feelings of contentment, well-being, and self-confidence that had made her so boldly reckless during the night dwindled away with the last echo, leaving only an erratic heartbeat and a certain, chilling sense of dread in their place.
Robin concentrated hard on keeping his grip on consciousness. Twice it had slipped away from him and twice he had wakened no better off knowing where he was or why he had been brought here. Once, it had been the sound of voices that had blown away the suffocating clouds of insensibility, one of them gruffly familiar.
“What is he doing here?” Brevant had asked.
“The master was intrigued,” was the whispered reply. “So strong, so lean, such a handsome young Adonis. He had his guard watch for an opportunity to … ah … invite him along for the evening’s entertainment. The opportunity happened late, but happened, and, together with the news of the king’s arrival, you can see my lord is in a fine mood to celebrate. Of course”—a cackle of laughter brought the grating voice low enough to imply a delicious irony—“as always, he has to prove himself a man first. He is with his whore now, determined she should be able to bear witness to what an extravagant stallion he is in all ways. Alack, he will not be able to prove much if the boy refuses to come around. Curse those louts for being overly enthusiastic … I hope they have not killed him.”
Robin had forced himself to lay very still and not to react to the bony finger that prodded his arm, or the vile stench of the seneschal’s breath as he leaned close to check for signs of a return to consciousness.
“Mmm. I suppose as long as the flesh is warm, it will do.”
“Gallworm,” Brevant snarled, “one day someone will squash you like a bug.”
Another period of blackness had followed, not quite as deep or as long, for Robin had been aware of periodic bursts of laughter coming from nearby, and once … a woman’s clammy hand had smoothed over his brow, wiping his hair off his face.
The gesture, repulsive in the one sense, made him think of Marienne, and the way her soft white hand had reached up to tuck an errant lock behind his ear. His skin had prickled all over at her touch, and had made him desperate to kiss her. He wished now that he had. He wished it with all of his heart and soul. But he had more to thank, with his heart and soul, that she had already left him to return to the princess’s tower when the two men had stepped out of the shadows and cornered him.
It had happened so fast, he had barely put a hand to his dagger when the blow to his head had knocked all of the fight and most of the sense out of him. He had been aware, in a dim, sickening sort of way, of being slung over a pair of shoulders and carried like a sack of flour down a few turns in the corridor. He remembered stairs and he remembered coarse laughter. He remembered being dumped on the floor hard enough to hit his head again, and when he had awakened, he had been bound hand and foot, blindfolded, and had a sour rag stuffed in his mouth.
The voices of Gallworm and Brevant had come later, as well as another drifting slide into blackness. Now he was fighting nausea, anger, and frustration in equal parts, chafing his wrists raw in an effort to loosen the ropes twisted around his wrists.
There was only one man in the castle Gallworm would address as master, and that one person had eyed him with a distinctly carnivorous hunger all through the evening meal. Robin was not a fool, nor was he completely naive. He had heard of men like Gisbourne who harboured secret perversions. He had even heard the rumours about King Richard, but having met the godlike warrior once, he had found it too horrific to believe.
Robin strained so hard to pull his knots apart, he could feel the sweat beading across his upper lip. He sawed his ankles back and forth, winning some slackness there, but whoever had caught and tied him had taken no chances in losing him.
He collapsed a moment, wheezing noisily through his nose. His back was up against a stone wall but he could find no rough edges, nothing that might snag or pick into the cords. His knife and falchion were gone, naturally. He had his teeth if he could get to them. And if he could get to them in time.
Surely someone was due to come out and check on him again. With sweat on his face and a heartbeat that banged like an ironmonger working on his anvil, he could not hope to trick the next clammy hand that poked and prodded.
A volley of muted laughter spurred Robin into a burst of furious activity. He stretched his arms down and rounded them as much as they would go in an effort to wriggle his hips through the loop they made. He got stuck halfway through and rolled hard enough to bang his knee on the wall, but he persevered, grunting, straining, sweating his hips, then his legs and feet through.
He tore at the blindfold first and tossed it aside, then uncorked the filthy gag from his mouth, hawking and spitting twice to rid himself of the spurious taste. He had guessed— correctly—that he was in a small room adjoining Gisbourne’s main quarters. It proved to be no larger than a hound’
s room, and indeed, from the smell of the floor and stains in the corners, he half-expected to see the bristled face of a wolfhound standing guard over him.
Wary of the closed door only a few paces away, he brought his wrists to his mouth and started chewing on the knots in the jute, widening his visual search as he did so, hunting for anything that could be used as a weapon.
There was nothing. Not even a stick of furniture to break over someone’s head. The walls were bare stone with iron cressets bolted into the mortar. The room was lit by thick wax candles, not torches, one on either side of the doorway. The ceiling was high, rising in an arch that was probably continued in the main chamber. No door blocked the exit to the stairs, which were wide and well lit to ensure a safe descent. The upper reaches were naturally gloomier, with the walls and beams mossed with the ghostly weavings of a colony of spiders.
Robin was gaining some success with the knots when he heard a dull thud on the far side of the door. It swung open a few seconds later and a woman came staggering out, a hand massaging the shoulder she had just bounced off the wall.
“Well then? Awake at last, are ye? Oooooo”—she stumbled closer, squinting her eyes to see through the drunken haze—“ee said ye were a pretty one, and so ye are. Pretty enough to eat,” she added, grinning lewdly around a slick set of gums marked by a few stubs of teeth.
Robin pushed himself upright and sat with his back braced against the wall. The woman was big and blowsy, naked as the day she was born, with breasts like great heavy dugs that hung to her waist and juddered with each move she made.
Robin found enough spit to moisten his lips. “Untie me,” he whispered. “Untie me and I will make it worth your while.”
“Untie ye?” she screeched. “Nowt bluddy likely, sweet. Truth is, ee’s going to want ye tied even more, hand and foot to the bed posties so’s ee can do his best and his worst all of a time. When it’s my turn, though, mayhap then I’ll untie ye. But only if ye make it well worth my while.”
Robin muttered something under his breath and she swayed closer to hear, close enough for him to reach up and grab her by the greasy shanks of her hair and bring her head slamming forward into the stone wall. A grunt brought her down like a felled tree and set her mountainous rolls of soft white flesh sprawling over Robin’s legs. He struggled and kicked to free himself, and in doing so, slipped his ankles loose of their binding.
He was up on one knee and set to run for the stairs when another naked body appeared in the open doorway. It was Gisbourne. Once a formidable champion in the lists, he could still boast a muscular toughness; the sword he held to Robin’s throat did not waver by so much as a hair’s breadth even as he increased the pressure upward, forcing Robin to scrape and push himself to his feet.
“Surely you were not planning to leave so soon, were you?” he asked silkily. “And what have you done to poor Grisella? She was so looking forward to your company … as was I.”
“Not in this lifetime, my lord,” Robin hissed through a clenched jaw.
Gisbourne’s eyes widened and the point of his blade dug deeper, forcing Robin to stretch his neck to the limit.
“A lad with spirit,” he said, shuddering over the words. “I like that. So many come to me wailing and weeping … they bleat like little lambs and keen for their mothers … and usually spoil it all by falling into a dead faint. You do not look like the fainting type, Robin-in-the-hood. You look like the type who will fight me, aye”—he grinned—“right to the end. It would be a shame if I had to curb some of that fight from the outset. It would have to be a shame to have to slit a hole in your belly and lead you inside by your entrails … but I assure you, I will do it. And if I do, I can also assure you, you will come with me most willingly.”
Robin swallowed against the pressure of the blade and felt the edge nick into his skin. The thought was there, as pure and clear as the blue of his eyes, that all he had to do was lunge forward and the blade would open his jugular. But his eyes flicked briefly to the open landing at the top of the stairs, and the thought of death was replaced by the need to live. He met Gisbourne’s lazy stare again and offered a small nod of assent.
“How very astute of you,” Gisbourne breathed. He drew the sword back enough to challenge the look in Robin’s eye, and when nothing came of it, he withdrew the threat further and waved it toward the door. “After you, cheri.”
Robin took a step, then brought his hands up in front of him, reaching to catch the hilt of the dagger Eduard tossed him.
Gisbourne swung around to block the throw, but too late. As startled as he was to see the flash of steel streak past him, he was doubly staggered to see Eduard FitzRandwulf looming at the top of the stairs, his dark hair thrown forward over his brow, his scarred cheek pleated with a menacing grin. “What the—? Guards! Guards!”
Sir Guy looked expectantly down the stairwell but Eduard only shook his head. “Shout all you want, Gisbourne. They cannot hear you.”
The governor slashed his sword toward the landing and met cold steel for his trouble. Another thrust and sparks flew the length of both blades as they sliced together, venting fury to the hilts. Gisbourne whirled on the balls of his bare feet, his sword gripped in white-knuckled fists, swinging it like a hatchet at the level of Eduard’s knees. FitzRandwulf cleared the arc easily and parried with a backhanded cut that turned the governor far enough off balance to allow Eduard to kick out and plant a boot in the back of Gisbourne’s thighs.
Sir Guy’s legs went out from under him and he landed heavily on his knees, skidding several feet on the rough stone, leaving two streaks of skin and blood in his wake. He roared with the pain and scrambled back onto his feet, but by then Robin had severed through the rest of his bindings and was able to put the dagger to better use, jabbing it up and under Gisbourne’s chin, reversing their positions of only moments ago by making him dance backward to the wall and stand on tiptoes, his neck strained in a painful arch, his eyes bulging.
Gisbourne’s hand sprang open and he dropped his sword with a metallic clang that bounced a time or two off the stone walls before fading to a dull ring.
“How dare you raise a knife to me, boy. Move it now. At once. And perhaps I will let you live.”
Robin nudged the steel tip higher. His face took on a terrible maturity; his eyes burned with blue flames, contempt and revulsion aged him swiftly and savagely beyond his fourteen years. Having looked death in the face and knowing there was nothing to fear there, he could look a paltry creature like Guy of Gisbourne in the eye and scorn him. He could hate him too, not just for what he’d almost done to him, but for the delight he took in doing it to others.
Eduard was not unaware of the changes that had come over his young brother. If anything, he saw himself standing there, his thigh opened to the bone by the Dragon’s blade, and he knew Robin was angry enough, sickened enough, to kill Gisbourne just as he could have killed Etienne Wardieu. He also knew that killing Gisbourne would make the loss of Robin’s youth irretrievable, and for that reason alone, Eduard reached out a hand and laid it on his brother’s arm.
“See if you can drag yon hub of womanly beauty into the bedchamber while I settle a few matters with Sir Guy.”
Robin swallowed, brought the tremors in his arm under control, and nodded stiffly, lowering the knife by slow degrees as if it was the most difficult thing he had ever forced himself to do.
Gisbourne waited until the knife was safely lowered to the boy’s side before he straightened and glared fiercely at Eduard —a difficult thing to do stark naked and grayer than the cobwebs that floated overhead.
“Enjoy this moment while you can,” he spat, “for you are both dead men.”
“But still able to walk and talk,” Eduard said with narrowed eyes. “Which is somewhat more than you will be able to do with”—he glanced askance at Robin—“what was it Little-john said?”
Robin looked startled a moment, then quoted, “Not with two broken legs and a cracked skull.”
&nbs
p; “Ahh. So it was. And so it shall be,” he added softly.
Gisbourne saw FitzRandwulf lift his sword and watched in horror as the mighty shoulders put their all into a swooping swing. An instant later, Gisbourne’s senses exploded in a starburst of pain as the flat of the heavy blade smashed across both bleeding kneecaps. Robin had adroitly stepped aside to avoid the blur of steel, but as Gisbourne’s arms flailed and his body began to pitch forward, it did so in Robin’s direction. A reflex action brought the lad’s hands upward to fend off the possibility of catching Gisbourne and saving him from an unchecked fall. The dagger he clutched came up at the same time, and as Sir Guy plunged forward, the well-honed edge slithered between his thighs, met a limp protrusion of unresisting flesh, and sliced it off without undue strain on Robin’s wrist or … after the fact … his conscience.
Sir Guy’s scream was bloodcurdling enough to prompt a curse from Eduard’s lips as he swung his sword again, this time bringing the blunted end of the hilt smashing against Gisbourne’s temple, with enough force to send the black eyes rolling up beneath the lids, vouchsafing his inability to sound any alarms for the rest of the day.
The two brothers stood side by side, staring down at the broken sprawl of Gisbourne’s body, both of them wincing at the damage wrought by Robin’s dagger.
“Killing him would have sufficed, little brother,” Eduard mused.
Robin drew a shaky breath and flung the bloodied knife onto the floor. “At least he will have something to remember me by.”
“Remember you? I would hasten to suggest you never cross his path again. I would also suggest we waste no more time in pleasantries. Hopefully, by the time we hide these two and return to our own chambers, Eleanor and Marienne will be there, waiting for us.”
Robin nodded, managing to hold down his gorge while they dragged Gisbourne and the whore into the bedchamber and arranged them under blankets and furs to look as if they slept in blissful exhaustion. There was a deal of blood on the floor of the anteroom, but it could not be helped. A last glance and Eduard pulled the door shut behind them, clapping his arm around Robin’s shoulders as they headed swiftly for the stairs.
In the Shadow of Midnight Page 36