by Anna Burke
“They eat that much,” Midge muttered. “And Gwyneth?”
The urge to punch another tree nearly overpowered her. “The only thing that will help her now is money.”
“Why can’t she just join you?”
“Here? In Sherwood?”
Midge shrugged, and Robyn let the fantasy play itself out for a moment. “She wouldn’t last the winter. I’m not even sure I’m going to last the winter. And besides, Symon will cry, and nothing brings people running faster in the woods than a crying baby.”
“We could shove a stocking in his mouth,” said Midge.
John laughed. “Spoken like someone with too many nieces and nephews.”
“You have no idea.” Midge gave a shudder. “Anyway, I ran all the way here, and I’m starving. Do you have anything to eat?”
Robyn wrapped her arm around her cousin’s shoulders and led her back toward their camp, where a brace of rabbits hung from the branches of a tree, out of reach of scavengers and just waiting to be roasted. She pictured the sheriff hanging like the rabbits, then discarded the image. Hanging was too good for him.
“You know,” said Midge, glancing up at Robyn. “There’s always the fair.”
“What?”
“The purse at the fair. For the archery contest. It’s practically a dowry, and if you gave it to Gwyneth, she might even forgive you for pretending to be dead.”
Robyn tripped over a root, and the only thing that prevented her from falling headlong to the ground was her cousin.
“Now that would certainly wound the sheriff’s pride,” said John, twirling his quarterstaff thoughtfully. “You’re smarter than you look, Midgeon.”
“What did you call me?”
“Midgeon. Offspring of a pigeon and a midge.”
“Better a midgeon than a great ox.”
Robyn let the sounds of their teasing soothe her as she contemplated Midge’s words. Stealing the prize right from under the sheriff’s nose would not only wound his pride, but also be fitting. He’d hanged her brother for a mislaid arrow, but he’d failed to realize his mistake: he hadn’t hanged her too.
Chapter Sixteen
Marian breathed in the afternoon air and paused to wipe her face with her apron. Emmeline’s manor overlooked the forest, and from the top of this field Marian could see the river snaking through the distant trees. She could also see the road. Three figures on horseback trotted down it. Marian thought she recognized the rider on the milk-white horse. Hair that shade of red was uncommon.
“Emmeline,” she said, stepping over a freshly raked windrow of hay to where Emmeline toiled beside the other women of the manor. The manor was small enough that every hand was needed during harvest time, even noble ones, and though Marian had protested for the sake of Emmeline’s leg, Emmeline had not been swayed. She pointed toward the road. “Riders.”
“Seven shillings it isn’t good news.” Emmeline flipped the rake, leaning on the handle for a walking stick, and began the walk over the fields back toward the keep. The dirt track wound around the strip fields of the manor, packed by boots and hooves. The fields that belonged to the manor burgeoned with produce, for the weather had been fair, and the tenants’ fields looked equally prosperous.
“I hope it is not another summons to court,” Emmeline said as they walked.
“I shudder at the thought.” Marian took another breath of air. No perfume. No sewage. Definitely an improvement on Nottingham Castle.
Emmeline’s steward met them in the yard. “Guests, m’lady. The lady Willa and her men-at-arms.”
“Willa?” Emmeline frowned down at her clothing as she handed the rake to a passing stable hand. “I’ll see her now. Take care of her men and horses.”
“Would you like to freshen up first?”
“Willa, unlike you, does not stand by propriety. She won’t faint at the sight of me, I promise, Samuel. A basin for my face and hands will suffice. And send for Alanna.”
Emmeline’s receiving room showcased what little wealth her husband’s family had retained. The coat of arms hung over the hearth, and the chairs were all finely crafted, if old. Willa paced before them. Her long strides ate the floor and disturbed the rushes. “Emmeline,” she said the moment the door shut behind Emmeline and Marian.
“Willa, are you quite all right?”
Willa shook her head, lips pressed tightly together, and raised her hands in a hopeless gesture. “I am to be married. To Lord Barrick.”
Marian’s fists clenched in horror.
“Oh, my love,” said Emmeline. She took a few limping steps toward Willa and attempted to draw her into a chair, but Willa shook her head.
“I’ll die of it,” she said. “Or I’ll kill him.”
Marian remembered Lord Barrick. He had tried to corner her on several occasions, his breath reeking of garlic and ale. Sloppy, old, and prone to lashing out with his blackthorn stick at servants, children, and women alike, Barrick made Linley look like a lamb. The idea of Willa married to him was almost laughable it was so grotesque. Youth and beauty and spirit wed to a poisonous toad.
“Have you spoken to your father?” Emmeline asked.
“He won’t see reason. He’s too caught up in counting coins, and Barrick is the richest suitor in this part of England. He’s offered to help my father with the tax as part of the contract.”
Opportunistic bastard. No woman would have Barrick willingly, and no father would happily give his daughter into Barrick’s keeping. The ransom tax afforded men like Barrick an opportunity that made Marian’s stomach roil.
“What about a convent?”
“Barrick’s name is better than ours, and my father doesn’t dare renege on his word. Or so he says.”
“When are you to be married?”
“Just after Midsummer.”
“But that’s only a month from now,” said Emmeline, the color draining from her face. “Why the rush?”
“Perhaps so that I do not have time to kill myself before he plows me.” The bitterness in her voice could have soured wine. Marian watched Emmeline draw Willa’s hands into hers, her fair hair damp with sweat and her face luminous with anguish for her friend.
“My love,” she said, and Marian recognized the tone. It was the same one she used with Henri, sweet and full of boundless compassion. Willa’s lower lip trembled.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
Marian dug her nails into the palm of her hand. There was nothing Willa could do. She would wed Lord Barrick just as Marian would wed Lord Linley, and their fathers would profit from their daughters’ sacrifice. For the first time in her life, Marian found herself wishing her hands gripped a sword instead of the linen folds of her dress.
Alanna entered the room a moment later. The easy smile slipped from her face as she saw Willa’s expression. They stared at each other wordlessly, and despite the horror of the situation Marian felt that now familiar pang of envy. No one had ever been able to read her own thoughts as clearly as Willa and Alanna understood each other.
“Who?” Alanna asked.
“Lord Barrick,” Emmeline answered curtly for Willa, who didn’t seem capable of saying his name.
The color drained from Alanna’s face, and she crossed the room with slow, uncertain steps. Willa turned away from her. “I should have been my brother. I’d make a better man than he ever will.”
The idea hit Marian with the force of a mule’s kick. She wondered at how quickly it had come to her, and how much of her own longing for escape played a role. Willa would make a better man than her brother, William. She, at least, enjoyed the company of women, which was more than could be said of him. She had her twin’s height, too, and stubborn jaw. Marian had a sudden image of Willa dressed like the hazel-eyed outlaw, with her long red hair cropped and her brother’s sword in her hands. Willa could even wield a blade, thanks to her twin’s abhorrence for violence. The two had switched places during lessons for most of their childhood, at first to spare William,
and later because Willa enjoyed it.
As much as Willa vexed her of late, and as much as she wished she could rid her mind of Willa’s taunting words and haunting eyes, she could not bear to think of her friend broken. Lord Barrick was a death sentence. He’d put three wives in the ground already, and it was rumored they had not died from natural causes. Anything was better than that.
Even outlawry.
Could she find the woman again? The forest was vast, and the outlaws knew it well. Marian stood no chance of tracking them. But, she remembered with a jolt, they had said something about the fair. It was a chance. Slim, but a chance nonetheless, and that was more than Willa had right now.
“Will you stay the night?” Emmeline asked Willa.
“Yes. And then I must return or else my father will think I’ve run off, and had I any place to go you can be sure I would.”
Marian turned over the idea during dinner. So much could go wrong. She hated that her plan required taking advantage of Emmeline’s generosity in a manner that could end with Marian herself drowning for treason, though as she was the sheriff’s daughter she found this unlikely. Or she could ask Emmeline for help outright. Emmeline would aid in any way she could. That much she knew without question, but Emmeline and the people under her protection had far more to lose than Marian did.
I can’t involve her in this, she decided. Not yet.
She knocked softly on the door to Willa’s chamber later that night. The rush light in her hands cast greasy shadows over the walls.
“It’s Marian,” she whispered when she heard no response.
The door creaked open. Willa’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Alanna stood behind her with her hand on Willa’s waist. The gesture of intimacy would have made Marian flinch a few days ago, but tonight it served only to deepen her resolve. She could sort out her conflicting feelings later.
“What do you want, Marian?”
“I want to help you. May I come in?”
“How can you help me?” Willa said, but she stepped back and let Marian into the small guest room.
Marian wet her lips with her tongue as she searched for the right words. Willa’s glare challenged her, and for a fleeting second, she considered leaving her to her fate. It passed. They had been friends, once, before she’d walked into that kitchen. What she’d seen there wasn’t enough to condemn Willa. She squared her shoulders. “I lied about what happened to me in the forest. I wasn’t alone. Someone found me.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with me.”
“Hush, love,” said Alanna, her eyes fixed on Marian’s face with the terrible brightness of hope. A part of Marian broke as she looked at Alanna. However wrong, however sinful, the love in the minstrel’s face made her want to weep.
“I think I might know someone who can help you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Robyn tested the pull of the bow and sighted down an imaginary arrow toward the road. “What if we see somebody we know?”
“Don’t make eye contact,” said Midge, strolling along between Robyn and John. “Everyone will be drunk, anyway. Win the archery contest, give Gwyneth the purse, and we can be on our way by nightfall.”
“There’s no guarantee I’m going to win, Midge.” Her fingers itched as she spoke, and the thrum of the bowstring vibrated along her bones. She could win. A few weeks of shooting every day had honed her skills from excellent to superb, and the lure of winning the purse from under the sheriff’s nose and then presenting it to Gwyneth beat in her temples like drums. Ten pounds would save her family.
“You do realize Gwyneth might kill you. If I were you, I’d take my chances with the sheriff.”
“Then perhaps I’ll make you tell her I’m alive.”
“Lighten up, cos. There will be dancing, music, hot pies, and ale, and once you’ve told Gwyneth, the worst will be over and all you’ll have to worry about is staying alive.”
“You’re such a comfort, Midge.”
“That’s me.” She broke into song, her voice carrying through the coppiced woods. “Midge, Midge, balm for the soul—”
“Until they found her half dead in a hole,” Robyn finished for her.
“That was not where I was going with that.”
“And yet it is where you will end up if you don’t shove a loincloth in that mouth of yours.”
Her threats fell on deaf ears. Midge hummed to herself as they walked out of the woods and up the road toward the fields outside the city where the festival awaited. Robyn didn’t begrudge Midge her high spirits. Well, not entirely. It wasn’t lost on Robyn that the stress of keeping her secret wore on Midge almost as much as it did on her. At least Robyn didn’t have to live with the human consequences.
Nobody hailed them as they joined the throngs outside the city gate on the flat plain where trestle tables and tents stood, and merchants had set up their wares. Livestock bleated in pens, tended by children with long sticks, and Robyn glimpsed a troupe of minstrels and acrobats on the outskirts, practicing their routines to gleeful shouts and applause. The press of bodies overwhelmed her. She sidled closer to John, taking comfort from his bulk, and pulled her hood further over her head.
Midge vanished into the crowd and reappeared with foaming tankards of ale, her eyes alight with excitement. “There’s a bear,” she said, pointing behind her into the crowd. “And someone said there might be jousting later since the prince is here.”
Good, thought Robyn. That will hold everyone’s attention.
Twice she thought she saw Gwyneth ahead of her in the crowd. Each time she realized with relief that she had been mistaken, but as they milled about, listening to the minstrels and stopping to watch a few plays, her anxiety mounted. Gwyneth was here somewhere. She had to be.
“Robyn,” Midge said, pulling her toward the archery contest. “Look.”
Robyn looked. At first she didn’t understand what Midge wanted her to see. The judges’ pavilion bordered one side of the field, and men and women milled about beneath it. Robyn started. One of them looked familiar. True, the last time she’d seen that face it had been swollen and battered, but there was no mistaking Marian’s figure, even from this distance.
“Do you see it?”
“Huh?” Robyn tore her eyes away from Marian and followed Midge’s finger to the prize, which was being touted above the heads of the crowd by a brawny giant. The fat purse gleamed in the sunlight, the leather oiled and visibly bulging with coin. Her coin. The certainty of victory pulsed through her veins.
“Wish me luck,” she said to Midge, and approached the man in charge of the lists.
“Your name?” he asked.
“Robyn,” she said without thinking. By God’s blood, you’re an idiot. “Robyn Hood.”
“Take your mark, then. You’ve come just in time.”
Robyn noticed the other archers queuing and hesitated, looking back over her shoulder at her companions. Midge mouthed encouragement. John gave her a small nod, his eyes wary. She understood the unspoken words. John had her back, and if the worst came to pass, he would get Midge out of there.
The contest was arranged in a large field. Later, the ground would be sundered by the hooves of warhorses during the joust, but for now the grass remained green. Sheep dung spotted the verdant stretch between the rope strung across the near side of the field and the straw targets opposite.
“Take your mark,” the man repeated. Robyn strode out onto the field with the others, taking her place in the middle of the line of archers opposite a target. The broad shoulders of her competition blocked the pavilion from her sight, and besides—she couldn’t afford to think about Marian right now. Not with the straw target looming in the distance.
“Nock.”
Archers slid arrows onto strings. Some men fumbled, while others nocked with practiced ease, and Robyn noticed another woman down the line wearing a look of concentration almost as intense as the one Robyn felt on her own face. May the best woman win, she thought to herself
, pleased that she was not alone.
“Draw.”
She pulled the bowstring back to just below her ear. The fletching tickled her jaw. Around her, the world stilled as it always did before she made a shot, and the target occupied her entire field of vision.
“Loose.”
Her first arrow hit the bull’s eye just a little off center, but still within the mark. She waited for the spotters to jog across the green to call out who had made it into the next round. It felt strange to shoot at a stationary target after weeks of hunting game, and she adjusted her grip, calm settling over her while the archers who had not shot as well as she trickled off the field. The other woman, she was disappointed to see, was one of them.
“Nock.”
She selected her second arrow. The head glinted in the sunlight.
“Draw.”
Again, she took her aim.
“Loose.”
Another hit. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve as she chose a third arrow, not bothering to see who had left the field. It was almost too easy. The breezes that wafted by were gentle; she could not have asked for better shooting conditions. No leaves obscured her target, and it did not bound away when the wind shifted and delivered her scent.
The announcer called for a third round.
Her arrow thunked beside the other two. Grumbles arose from some of the men around her as they trudged to retrieve their arrows and depart, their loss no doubt quickly assuaged by drink. Let them go, she thought. She’d sold arrows to men like them: weak-willed, unwilling to put in the focus required for brilliant shooting, or men who didn’t need to shoot, didn’t need the deadly accuracy required for poaching or deterring wolves from a flock. Arrow after arrow left her quiver as the field shrank around her, until the rough voice of the announcer jerked her out of her trance.
“Gather closer together,” he ordered, shooing her nearer the pavilion. She jogged down the field to collect her arrows before joining the others. They would be judged on their last shots in the final rounds. This first bout had merely been elimination.
