Nottingham

by Anna Burke

  The sound of a distant door shutting threatened to shatter this illusion. Marian turned her head toward the door, still in Robyn’s arms, and Robyn’s lips brushed her ear. Marian shivered and nestled deeper into her embrace as the sanctuary of the stable remained undisturbed. “I need you, Marian,” Robyn murmured. Her lips found the hollow above Marian’s collarbone, then the swell of breast beneath it, and she would have gladly followed that course if John hadn’t cleared his throat loudly from behind her.

  She whipped around, blocking a disheveled Marian from view, and prayed her glare would turn her friend into a pillar of ash. It didn’t. John crossed his arms over his broad chest and smiled widely.

  “I came to check on a horse,” he said.

  “I hope it kicks you.”

  “There’s a trough of cold water in the yard. You might consider dunking yourself,” John offered. “And the lady.”

  Robyn wished John would stop smiling. The satisfaction in his grin only highlighted Robyn’s own frustration, and while a part of her was dimly aware that she should be grateful it was John who had walked in on them and not a nun or Emmeline, that part was very small and not inclined to argue.

  “Give us a moment,” she said.

  “You don’t have a moment. Emmeline’s man-at-arms is on his way.”

  “I should have drowned you in the stream the day I met you,” she said.

  “You could have tried. Oh, and you have straw in your hair, Robyn Hood.”

  Robyn cursed as she ran her hands through her hair. Marian had restored order to her own clothing, although her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glowed. Robyn paused, caught by the desire to kiss her again even with John watching.

  “Gwyneth wanted to talk to you,” John added when Robyn had collected herself as best she could. “And Emmeline was asking after you, Marian.”

  “Let us go, then,” said Marian, and she tucked her hand into the crook of Robyn’s arm with more dignity than Robyn could have dreamed possible. She let Marian tow her out of the stable and tried to keep her own face composed; her lips, however, kept curving upward, and she wanted to run like a child through the priory halls, shouting at the top of her lungs with the joy threatening to burst out of her like a summer storm.

  • • •

  Robyn joined Midge, John, and Gwyneth when she and Marian returned, leaving Marian to Lady Emmeline and company.

  “I will make you listen to the entire song one day,” Midge said. “You can’t run forever.”

  “My legs are twice as long as yours. All I have to do is keep out of your range.”

  “Not if I tie you to a tree.”

  “You’d still have to catch me, first.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t need to do that. John?”

  “Sorry, Robyn. I’m going to have to side with your cousin on this one. And I am faster than you.”

  “Traitor. I will promise to plug my ears with wax.”

  “Not until you’ve heard the verse about you and ‘Little John.’”

  Robyn shook her head in defeat and turned to Gwyneth. “Have you forsaken me, too?”

  Gwyneth put her hands on her hips and looked Robyn up and down, her eyes lingering on Robyn’s clothes. “You look so much like your brother,” she said. The change in subject shifted the climate of the group, but Gwyneth didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “I have something for you.”

  She left the room, leaving Robyn sober and silent, and returned with a long, thin parcel wrapped in supple leather. Robyn recognized the shape. Her hands shook as she accepted the gift and removed the wrappings to reveal a bow.

  The wood gleamed, polished smooth by familiar hands and waxed with beeswax from her uncle’s hives. She stood the longbow on one end of its stave and ran her index finger down it, memories of her brother overwhelming her. This was one of his bows, carved by his hands and tested with his arm. Robyn blinked past the sudden prickling in her eyes. Let them fly, little bird, she heard him say from the depths of her memory. The grip warmed to her palm, a perfect curve, strong, powerful like Michael’s shoulders had been and supple as the muscles she had prodded with curiosity as a child, jealous that her own body did not have his shape.

  “Thank you,” she said past the lump in her throat. Gwyneth closed the space between them and placed her small hand over Robyn’s.

  “It’s a heavier draw than yours, but it will shoot farther. Michael was making it for you. I finished it.”

  The lump in her throat grew into an ache that filled her lungs. Michael. She put her other hand over Gwyneth’s. Midge, too, stepped closer, wrapping her arm around both of their waists as they stared at the bow between them. John kept a discreet distance.

  “It’s . . .” She wanted to tell Gwyneth how perfect it was, and how much she had needed it, but her tongue refused to form the words. She felt Michael’s love in the smooth grain of the wood, and now that she looked she noticed that this wood bore a higher polish than their usual stock. She pictured Gwyneth rubbing it with an oiled rag by the fire while Robyn was hunting, using some of her carefully hoarded strength to finish the gift her husband had started.

  “I miss him,” she said instead. “I miss him so much, Gwyn.”

  Gwyneth pulled her hands free from Robyn’s and embraced her, resting her head on Robyn’s chest. Midge joined her. Robyn looked down at their heads, one blond, one brown, both precious. Her family. She held them tightly to her. Lying to Gwyneth and pushing Midge away had been a mistake. These were her people, and the things that had happened to them were none of their faults. Taking the blame for their circumstances onto her own shoulders wouldn’t change that. There was only one person to blame for the pain the three of them carried, and she would make him pay for their tears in blood.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Midsummer dawned with clear skies and a hot bath. Soaking was a rare privilege, and if Marian submerged her head in the copper tub so that only her nose and mouth remained above the surface, she could tune out the sounds of the maid fussing over her gown in the next room and think about what lay ahead.

  Tonight, after the banquet and the dancing and the inevitable suitors, she would see Robyn. Her body thrilled at the thought. She had been able to think of little else since she’d left the priory with Emmeline and Alanna. Every time she closed her eyes she felt Robyn’s mouth on her skin, and her fingers remembered the feel of Robyn’s hair tangled between them. Beneath the water, she ran her hand over her ribs and across her breasts, trembling as her palms brushed her taut nipples.

  “Marian?” Alanna said.

  Marian emerged from the water with a splash, spraying Alanna.

  “Sorry if I startled you,” Alanna said, holding her hands up to ward off more water. “Emmeline told me to bring you some of her bath oil.”

  Marian hoped the heat from the water explained the flush in her cheeks and accepted the bottle. Alanna turned to go.

  “Wait.”

  The tub had been drawn in the small bathing room in Emmeline’s quarters in Nottingham castle. The stone made each splash echo, and she sat in the copper tub with her knees drawn up to her chest as Alanna leaned against the wall. Alanna had bathed earlier, and her dark hair was still damp in its braid.

  “Want me to wash your hair?” Alanna offered.

  “That would be nice,” said Marian, though that was not why she had asked Alanna to stay. She relaxed as Alanna rubbed the oil into her hair, her nimble minstrel’s fingers massaging her scalp.

  “Have I told you how much I missed you?” she said.

  Alanna laughed. “You could have asked a maid to do this for you.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  “True. I do have a gift.” Her hands worked on a knot at the base of Marian’s skull. “Can I ask you something, Mare?”

  “As long as you keep doing that.”

  “Robyn.”

  Marian opened her eyes. “Robyn?”

  “I’m a minstrel. I watch people
and make up songs about them for a living.”

  Marian hummed the opening bars of “The Ballad of Robyn Hood.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “I’m taking a bath.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing with Robyn?” Alanna sluiced water over Marian’s head to rinse out the oil, giving her a moment to think about her answer.

  Her body knew what it was doing—or at least what it wanted. She’d been trying very hard not to think beyond that, because the answer to the question was a resounding no. Robyn was not just a woman. She was an outlaw, and not even just any outlaw. She was an outlaw who had stolen directly from the sheriff of Nottingham, which made her the last person in the world Marian should entangle herself with. She raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug.

  “I didn’t think so,” said Alanna. “Here.” She pushed Marian’s hair over one of her shoulders and poured a handful of oil onto Marian’s skin, rubbing it in deftly. Her touch was intimate and comforting, and it occurred to Marian that she’d never thought of Alanna as anything other than a friend, for all that they both desired women. There was so much she didn’t understand about this new part of herself.

  “I can’t help it,” she said. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, but when I see her, I—”

  Alanna squeezed her shoulder. “I understand.”

  “How did you know, with Willa?”

  “I didn’t at first. Remember when she kept getting those horrible spots?”

  “She even had them on her rear. I remember her complaining about them to Emmeline.”

  “That’s when I knew.”

  “Really?” Marian turned in the tub to give Alanna a look of horror. “But she was hideous.”

  “Willa of Maunnesfeld has never been ‘hideous’ a day in her life.”

  Marian sighed, partly in jealously, partly in amusement. “You don’t need to remind me. Do you know what my father said when she went missing? ‘At least she won’t outshine you anymore.’ Or something like that.”

  “During her spotty phase, I found her crying on the stairs because her brother wouldn’t let her borrow his sword. She shouted at me to leave her alone.”

  “That sounds like Willa.”

  “And that’s when I knew.”

  “That she was a terror?”

  “That I could never leave her alone.”

  “You fell in love with Willa because she yelled at you?”

  “I fell in love with Willa because she’s not afraid.”

  “Not because she’s beautiful?” Marian asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “There are lots of beautiful women, and all women are beautiful in their own way. Even I.”

  “Alanna,” said Marian. She’d never heard Alanna talk about herself like this, and it twisted her gut.

  “I have my voice. Willa has her will. And you, my love,” Alanna said, taking Marian’s chin in her hand and shaking it gently, “are a little bit like her.”

  “I am not like Willa.”

  “You’re not willful? You don’t act on impulse? You don’t fall for the one person in the entire world you shouldn’t?”

  Her words were so close to Marian’s own thoughts that she almost questioned whether Alanna had spoken them aloud.

  “I haven’t fallen for anyone,” she said, but lying to one of her closest friends, while naked, was significantly harder than lying to herself.

  Alanna’s lips quirked in amusement. “Well, you did fall off your horse. I’m working on a song about that bit, but I think I’ll leave out the hornets.”

  “Probably for the best. I’m not sure what rhymes with grotesque.”

  “Statuesque?”

  “My point exactly.”

  “I just want you to be careful, Mare. Your father wants her dead. You know that.”

  Which reminded her that she needed to steal the arrow from his house. She didn’t have a plan for that, yet. She’d been too caught up in the prospect of seeing Robyn again.

  “My father wants a lot of things.”

  “Your father is the sheriff of Nottingham. Unlike the rest of us, he can get what he wants.”

  “Then what do you think I should do?”

  “I don’t know. Just tread carefully.”

  “She’s coming here tonight.”

  Alanna listened while Marian explained about the arrow and its implications.

  “You could have just burned it,” Alanna said when she finished. “There’s no real reason for her to meet you here.”

  “I know.” The bathwater had grown cold, and goose bumps erupted on her skin. “I just . . . It’s Midsummer. The viscount wants to marry me soon, and I just want something that is mine before it is too late.” She hated the hot tears that pricked her eyes.

  “You want Robyn.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if she agreed to come, then she’s as much a fool as you. Luckily,” she added, holding out a towel for Marian, “you have me. I’ll help you get out of the castle.”

  • • •

  The rest of the day dragged on. The feast day, in theory, was in honor of Saint John the Baptist, but saints were far from Marian’s thoughts as she sat through multiple courses of food and drink at Emmeline’s side. She felt her father’s eyes on her throughout the afternoon, and periodically men asked her to dance in increasingly drunken revels. Flushed from wine, she didn’t even mind, and laughed at their jokes as her mind conjured images of Robyn. Even the viscount couldn’t spoil her mood; she let him paw at her through three consecutive dances before breaking away.

  Then, toward evening, a terrible thought struck her. What if Robyn didn’t come? What if she thought better of her decision and realized how foolhardy it was to set foot in Nottingham? She set down her goblet and stared at the crowded banquet hall, fear making the laughter raucous and the music shrill. Robyn would come. She’d promised. Her unease offended Sir Horace, who left her in a huff when she failed to respond to his question three times in a row. She felt her father’s disapproving gaze as the knight stalked off.

  “Marian?” asked Emmeline, taking Horace’s place at her side. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I just think I need some air.” She pushed herself away from the table and stumbled toward the doors and away from her friend. Her feet felt too light and her head too heavy. I drank too much, she realized, leaning against a wall to catch her breath. Servants passed her carrying still more trays of food. Boar, deer, rabbit, duck, pheasant, cabbage, pies, pastries, tarts, sugared carrots, bowls of peas and baby onions, anything and everything available this time of year.

  I can’t stay here a moment longer.

  She knew she should go back and tell Emmeline and Alanna that she was leaving and, more importantly, make some excuse to her father, but her feet carried her down the corridors and out of the castle.

  Nottingham, too, celebrated. The streets were packed, and she was jostled with every step, the hem of her gown muddied and her skirt stained from brushing past dogs and sheep and dirty children. None of that mattered. She let herself into her father’s house and shut the door behind her, breathing heavily.

  No one stirred. Even the housekeeper seemed to be out celebrating, an image she amused herself with for a moment before climbing the stairs to her father’s study. The handle of the door was cool beneath her hand. She pushed it open, bracing herself for a shout, but it too was empty, and the room smelled of leather and parchment and wax. The door shut behind her with a comforting click as the latch fell into place.

  She’d never been allowed into her father’s study alone. Here he did the king’s business, and the king’s business was far too important for girls to meddle in. She touched the wood of the desk with the tip of her finger. Solid. Imposing. Furniture trying to assert its influence on the room. Her giggle took her by surprise. She clapped a hand to her mouth and looked around her, terrified someone might have heard, before she reminded herself that the house was empty. Get h
old of yourself, she thought.

  Drawers, shelves, cabinets, and chests lined the walls. Marian searched them all. Most of them contained papers: warrants, accounts, and lists she could barely read, for her father hadn’t thought it necessary for her to learn her letters. Emmeline had taught her what little she knew. Shipments. She recognized that word and paused, perusing a list that only made partial sense to her, and pocketed it. Perhaps it would help Robyn.

  There was a pile of warrants on his desk, too, held down by a carved figurine of a wolf. She moved it to one side and the picture on the first sheaf drew her attention. The artist had clearly never seen his subject. He’d kept his lines vague, relying on shadow to convey the ominous effect of the broadsheet. Marian read the words as ice settled in her belly.

  Wanted: The man calling himself Robyn Hood.

  Reward 10£, dead or alive.

  5£ for his associates.

  She stared at the parchment until her eyes watered. The likeness was poor. That wouldn’t matter. Ten pounds was more than most people could hope to make in four years. Bounty hunters would seize upon this opportunity like hounds to the chase, and there was nothing Marian could do to stop them except warn Robyn before these pages were posted all over the shire.

  Suddenly the arrow didn’t matter. It never had. Her father was determined to see Robyn hanged, regardless of her identity. One more piece of evidence wasn’t going to make a difference. The important thing was warning Robyn. She took one of the drawings and folded it carefully into her belt, then stared around the office.

  Her eyes fell on the locked chest in the cabinet. She hadn’t looked in there for the arrow, but she knew what it contained: her dowry. A mad urge struck her. Dowries were intended as incentive and security. Her children would inherit her wealth, but if her husband died, or if she could prove grievous mistreatment, she could fall back on her dowry. She willed her mind to tell her where he’d hidden the key. He didn’t keep it on his person. She remembered that; it was somewhere in here. Somewhere her mother wouldn’t have approved of, he’d said.