by Anna Burke
“Will,” she said, “I want you and Alanna to stay here. If Marian finds her way out, bring her to the priory. Tom, get Lisbet out of here and go to back to the priory right now. Midge, you’re going with them. Don’t argue—Gwyneth will not lose two family members this day. Explain to Tuck that we might need sanctuary. We’ll regroup there.”
“What will you do?” asked Midge.
“John and I will head back to the main entrance and see if Siward’s found Marian, and then we’ll take out the sheriff.”
She turned and headed back the way she had come before any of them could raise further protests. John caught up with her in a few strides. Her heart, which had thundered painfully on her flight, now settled into a steady rhythm. Kill him, kill him, kill him, it beat, and her legs no longer burned with cramped exhaustion. She felt fleet as a deer and sure of her purpose. This was where she belonged. Who she was. A hunter.
They slowed as they approached Siward’s camp. Thick moss muffled their footsteps, and both of them moved in a crouch by the lake until they could just make out the clearing through the reeds.
Nearly twenty brigands paced the space in the gray morning light. They looked over their shoulders every few seconds as they waited for their leader to give them instructions. Siward, however, stood still. It would have been a clean shot if shooting would not have exposed them to a return volley.
“We should get the hell out of here,” one of the brigands said. “We don’t have the girl. He’ll kill us.”
“Yvette will find her,” said Siward.
“Yeah, but what if she doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll stick you in a frock and send you out to the sheriff instead.”
“It was that bastard John, wasn’t it?” said another man. “Wanted the reward for himself. He knows the caves. Could have come in the back way.”
The others agreed in a loud chorus. Siward raised his hand and they quieted. “If it was John, then we will find him and his friend and . . .” he trailed off, and his head whipped around to face the east. Robyn felt it, too. Faint, almost past hearing, but unmistakable through the bedrock. Hoofbeats. Horses must have died last night to get a message to Nottingham that quickly.
“In,” Siward said with a snarl. His men obeyed him at a dead run. Siward remained in his court a minute longer. His thin, wiry shoulders looked fragile from her vantage point. One day, if she was lucky enough to survive that long, this was how she would look. Gaunt. Undernourished. Aged prematurely from a life of constant watchfulness and driven mad by loss, all of it thanks to the man riding toward them. Would she also grow cruel, as Siward had, stealing from neighbors who already had little enough for their own families? She wouldn’t prey on village girls, though, she reminded herself. Nor would she style herself a queen.
“They don’t have her,” she said. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or more worried.
“They will soon if Yvette’s on her trail. We need to find cover.”
“Where?” The lake at their back offered no room for retreat.
“There.” John pointed up the face of the crag to the tree cover above. It would provide them with a clear view of the ground below.
“Do we have enough time?” she asked.
“We don’t have any choice.” John crawled through the reeds for five more paces before breaking cover and sprinting for the rock. Robyn followed with the bow slung over her back.
The rock face was three or four stories high, but there were natural fingerholds and toeholds beneath the vines. Robyn thought of Lisbet and their cleft camp and tried to channel as much of the girl’s squirrely spirit as she could. The wound on her left hand broke open and began to bleed as she worked her way up after John. They passed a shadowy alcove that gave her pause.
“Trap,” John said when he noticed her slowed progress. “No way out.”
Robyn climbed on.
They gained the summit just as the sound of hooves reverberated across the lake. John pulled Robyn over the lip of the rock, and they lay in the undergrowth panting as the line of riders came into view.
At least thirty men and horses filled the valley. Leather and mail creaked in the morning air, and the horses let off clouds of steam from their flaring nostrils.
“Here, my lord,” said one of the riders. His clothing identified him as a forester, but Robyn stifled a hissing breath. She recognized that voice: Cedric.
“Siward,” another man called loudly. She didn’t recognize him, but his massive shoulders and metal helm suggested he was a professional soldier.
No answer issued from the cave.
“Establish a perimeter,” the soldier ordered. Half of the riders took off, crossbows loaded on their hips. The other half remained at the cave’s mouth. Hounds gathered behind the riders. Scent hounds, with their long ears and low bodies, snuffled at the ground. Marian’s scent was all over the clearing. The remainder of the dogs made Robyn very glad to be high out of reach. Ten towering alaunts strained at their leashes, foam dripping from their jaws. While they were normally used to hunt large game, she’d heard of alaunts being set on men before. These dogs seemed eager to give chase to the first thing that moved.
“Siward,” the soldier called again. “Show yourself, or we’ll set the dogs on you.”
Robyn imagined running from one of those beasts down a dark tunnel. Siward, apparently, had the same visceral reaction to the idea, for he spoke from the depths of the cave.
“You’d set hounds on your own daughter, Pierrot?”
A man spurred his horse forward. The black stallion arched his neck, and Robyn’s fingers tightened on the bow. She loosened an arrow in her quiver and laid it along the string.
“Bring her forth,” said the sheriff.
“And lose my leverage? I think not.”
“Without proof that you have her, I’ll give the order to flush you from your filthy den like the vermin you are.”
“If it’s proof you want . . .” A stone flew from the cave mouth. Robyn strained her eyes to see what was attached to it, but saw only a flash of blue. Cedric bent to pick it up and handed it to the sheriff.
“A blue ribbon,” said Cedric.
The sheriff clenched his fist around the silk. “Let me see my daughter, and I will spare your life.”
“I believe I requested silver.”
“I do not bargain with rats.”
“Even rats that have your sweet, sweet girl? Thus far I’ve managed to keep my men from spoiling her, but desperate men do desperate things. I promised them silver. Without that, they may take their own reward.”
“I will have any man who touches her drawn and quartered.”
The bickering continued. Robyn surveyed the trees around her, keeping her eye out for reinforcements. Grim lines etched John’s face.
“Siward doesn’t stand a chance,” he said.
Robyn and John had never accounted for a hostage situation in their plans to eliminate their enemies. Thirty soldiers would not have been dispatched to prevent a robbery. A rescue mission, however, was different.
The voices ceased their exchange. Breath held, she watched the sheriff turn to the soldier. She couldn’t hear what they said, but their gestures suggested they were devising a strategy.
Marian was somewhere in the caves below. The circumstances of her appearance came back to Robyn: the Midsummer gown; her solo ride; the discrepancy in the time frame she and Robyn had agreed on. Something had gone wrong. She strained her eyes to better see the sheriff. Had he discovered that Marian had stolen her own dowry? Had someone seen Marian leaving the city in Robyn’s company? Whatever the reason, she’d fled from her father. Robyn was certain of that much. “Promise me that you won’t be the one to kill him.” The arrow burned in her fingers.
Do you see now, little bird? Michael’s ghost whispered on the wind. She closed her eyes at the irony. Unwittingly, she’d made the same fatal mistake as her brother. The sheriff would never let his daughter run away with an outlaw, ju
st as he couldn’t accept Gwyneth’s refusal. Marian’s capture had set into motion things Robyn couldn’t control. He’d hunt them until his last breath or Robyn’s, regardless of the cost.
Robyn almost wanted to laugh. If she killed the sheriff, she and Marian would be free, but Marian would never forgive her. If she spared the sheriff, he’d hunt her to the ends of the earth. There was no world where they lived happily ever after. That only happened in Alanna’s songs. Robyn focused on the place where the sheriff’s chain mail gapped at the neck.
She couldn’t have Marian.
But she could have revenge.
She pulled back the arrow and took aim, preparing to release, and then the sheriff bellowed a command that split the morning air and sent her arrow skittering over the surface of the lake as she recoiled in dismay.
“Release the hounds.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Marian woke with her face pressed against the stone and no idea of how much time had passed. Silence met her ears. No one shouted her name, and no searching footsteps stirred the stones, just the soft plink of dripping water and the grumbling of her belly.
Well, she thought, rubbing her sore wrists. I suppose this is an improvement. Sunlight flitted overhead, interrupted by passing clouds that sent shadows flying across the uneven surface of the stone surrounding her, but she could not tell if it was morning or afternoon. She knew she was lost. Exactly how lost remained to be seen, but the silence pressed against her ears, along with the uncomfortable knowledge of the crushing weight of the earth above her. Maybe Robyn will find me, she told herself.
Is that who you want to be?
The thought was so foreign to her she almost believed that someone else had spoken. “I haven’t been here long enough to go insane,” she said aloud.
Just long enough to lose your self-respect. No one is going to rescue you. No one is ever going to rescue you, sheriff’s daughter. There must be a way out, and you must find it.
Fibers from the rope had embedded themselves in her skin, just as she’d suspected. She ignored the voice in her head as she did her best to pluck them out. Her clothing was damp and torn, and half her hair hung loose and tangled. She finger combed the worst of the knots and rewrapped her hair into one long plait. I could cut it off, like Willa. Pretend I’m a boy. Unlike Willa, however, she didn’t have a narrow frame or a twin brother’s angular face. Her body had decided her fate for her at the age of twelve, when hips and breasts had forced themselves upon her, along with the unwanted attention of men.
She peered into the low tunnel extending in either direction and wondered what it would feel like to be free of fear. Was Robyn free? She looked it, with her hunter’s grace and her bow. What would it be like to know that she could take care of herself without relying on the man she hated and loved in equal parts?
Her head ached with too little sleep and hunger as she stood. She couldn’t change her sex and she couldn’t change her lineage, but in the quiet, chill damp of the cave the spur that had goaded her out of Nottingham struck again, biting into her sides with its urgency, and she realized with a gasp of pain that there was one thing, at least, she knew for certain: she wasn’t going back. Not to Harcourt, not to Nottingham, and not to her father. If they caught her, so be it, but at least she would have chosen. At least she would have fought with her own words and her own will so that when they shut the bars of her cage she would have the comfort of knowing she’d tried to be free, instead of locking the door on herself.
Both tunnels looked the same. She thought she’d come in from the one on her left, but she couldn’t be sure, so she chose the right tunnel anyway, crouching low to avoid scraping her skull on the ribs of the earth as she took the first steps toward her new life, whatever form it would take, come whatever hell it would bring.
Footsteps whispered behind her not long after. Marian flattened herself in the nearest crevice and held her breath to listen. One pair of boots, no more. A light step. Her stomach clenched as her instincts told her who approached: Yvette.
Marian still had Siward’s knife. Aware that it was futile, she held it with both hands in front of her. The most violent thing she had ever done with a knife was cut meat at table. What was she going to do, kill Yvette, who could probably skin a man alive in her sleep? She didn’t even know where to stab. The footsteps paused. Her chest hurt from holding her breath, and she fought against the urge to breathe.
Her pursuer sniffed the air. Dread filled Marian at the sound. Could Yvette actually smell her? No, she told herself, but she hadn’t bathed in days and the sweat of acrid fear stained her clothes.
“Come out, m’lady,” said Yvette.
The footsteps came closer, stalking her in the darkness. What do I do? She wanted to run. Her legs trembled with the urge to flee, but she’d likely knock herself out on a rock. Her only hope was to remain as still as the stone around her until Yvette passed and pray that she didn’t hear the thundering of Marian’s heart. If she did, well, she had the knife. Maybe she’d get lucky.
Yvette drew nearer. In the darkness, blind, Marian found that she could smell Yvette. Wood smoke and sweat clung to the other woman and filled the passageway. If Marian smelled as strongly, she stood no chance.
“Come out,” Yvette said again. She had to be no more than a few feet away by now. Marian allowed a small stream of air to escape her nostrils as the need for oxygen overwhelmed her fear. If only she had something to throw, something to distract her pursuer. All she had was the knife. The footsteps stopped directly in front of her. She could hear Yvette’s breathing and imagined her turning her head this way and that like a dog on a scent, searching.
A real dog barked. It sounded faint, but Marian felt the brush of air as Yvette spun around. She recognized the catch in the other woman’s breathing. It was a gasp. Fear. The dog barked again.
“Alaunts,” Yvette said under her breath. Then she ran.
Marian listened to her receding footsteps with her mouth open, unable to believe her luck. One second more and Yvette would have found her. She lowered the knife. The next bark was still distant, but the noise echoed strangely.
Oh. Oh no. Suddenly, she understood. The dogs were in the caves. And they were after anyone inside.
She shoved the knife into her belt and fled after Yvette. Alaunts wouldn’t care that she was the sheriff’s daughter. Once loosed, only the huntsman could call them off, and the dogs she’d stroked and played with as puppies would be too caught up in the chase to recognize a familiar scent.
“Yvette!” She no longer cared about avoiding capture. Hiding wouldn’t do her any good when it came to dogs. The footsteps ahead slowed, then stopped, and she put out a hand to avoid running into the brigand.
“Keep up,” Yvette said when Marian’s fingers touched her shoulder. How Yvette knew her way in the blackness was beyond Marian, but she followed, stumbling, hands outstretched, and ducked when Yvette told her to duck until they came to an echoing cavern.
“Damnit,” Yvette said. Marian heard her turn as her feet scuffed a circle on the stone. She’s lost, she realized. Water dripped in the silence.
“How far do these caves go?”
Yvette didn’t answer. The barking was closer now, and more savage. And now screams came to their ears.
“Siward.” The venom in Yvette’s voice forced Marian back a step. “I told him to leave you where he found you. Your kind bring only ill luck.”
Marian didn’t know what to say to that.
“I will not die here.” A hand seized Marian and pulled her close. “Do you want to live?” Yvette asked.
“Yes.”
Yvette felt down her arm to her sleeves. “Then take off your cloak and gown. We’ll leave it for the dogs.”
Marian didn’t bother with her laces. She sliced through the bodice with her knife and stepped out of the crumpled remains, clad only in her shift and felt dancing shoes.
“This way.”
She let herself be towed alon
g, aware that Yvette planned to use her as leverage once they were out of the caves, but unable to think of an alternative. All the while the sound of fighting grew closer. Eventually she understood that was because they were running toward it.
“I said, keep up,” Yvette growled when she stumbled. “We’re almost there.” She slowed, and Marian heard the soft whisper of skin against rock. She put out her own hand to touch the wall and felt the grooves gouged into the stone at regular intervals. So this is how she finds her way. Yvette strode ahead of her with more confidence. Abruptly, Marian realized she could make out the outline of her body. Sunlight.
Now what? Do I stab her while her back is to me?
The growl sent Marian flinching to the side. The dog leapt past her and onto Yvette. Yvette screamed as teeth dug into her shoulder, and Marian wished she was back in the darkness, deaf to the agony in Yvette’s voice. Yvette fought, scrabbling at the huge dog with her bare hands. She must have dropped her knife when it lunged, Marian realized. This was her chance. She could leave Yvette to die, torn to pieces by hounds, and get out of these godforsaken caves.
Yvette screamed again.
“Hold,” said Marian. She put all the authority she could into the command. The dog hesitated. It recognized a hunter’s voice, even if it didn’t know the hunter—or perhaps it did recognize some aspect of her scent or sound from years ago. “Hold,” she said again. Yvette panted in the quiet. The dog still had her in its jaws, but it no longer savaged her. “Here.” She threw her weight behind the word, and the alaunt dropped its prize and trotted over to her. She felt its hot breath on her hand. “Good,” she told it. The dog shook itself and sat at her feet to await further orders.
Thank you, she prayed to whoever might be listening. She placed her hand on the dog’s back. Its short hair was damp, perhaps from water, perhaps from blood. Hard muscles quivered with excitement. “Stand slowly,” she instructed Yvette. The dog growled. “Easy,” she told it, and grasped its leather collar.
Yvette rose. She clutched her shoulder, and the arm attached to it dangled loosely. Marian couldn’t tell the extent of the damage in the darkness, but Yvette was lucky the arm was still attached.
