The knight tensed, unaware he was holding his breath until Robin nodded, and Little John sliced his bonds as well. He released his breath slowly, thankfully, and readied himself for whatever came next.
"Why in God's name did you attack the castle?" Robin whispered, keeping perfectly still. "You knew you could not win."
"Aye, but now they will think we tried and failed, will they not? They will not expect another attempt," Little John said softly. "We have horses ready. I will leave the nooses slightly loose around your necks. When I kick the boxes from beneath your feet, pull the rope from your neck and use it to swing off the gallows backward. Roll under the platform. Help will be there. Ride like hell for Sherwood and we'll join you after we take care of the sheriff and his men."
"What of Marian and Kendra?" Robin whispered, hardly moving his lips.
"No time," Little John shook his head. "We shall have to get them out later."
"Nay," Navarre said hoarsely, "I shall not leave without them."
"Nor I."
Their hangman sighed as if he'd expected their words. "Stubborn bastards, ain't you?"
"Aye," Navarre whispered again, "Though Robin's parents were married. I am the only bastard."
"But I confess to the stubbornness," Robin agreed, daring to wink in Navarre's direction, his good nature returning now that the odds were more evenly divided.
"Whist," Little John said, "the banty rooster and the strutting cock have finished. Be ready, lads, and we shall get you out of this yet."
Navarre nodded, and squinting against the mid-morning sun, searched the pavilion once again for Kendra. He found her, green and gold like a fragile morning flower. Suddenly he wondered if she knew of the escape plan, or did she think she was about to watch him die?
Kendra twisted her hands together in her lap, glad for the heavy cloak Garrick had thrown about her shoulders before leaving the chamber. The cold she felt had nothing to do with the weather. Ice seemed to harden in her chest as she watched Navarre and Robin Hood being led up the steps to the gallows.
She gripped the arms of the chair in which she sat, feeling helpless and filled with angry frustration. She was next to Garrick, whose place of honor was just to the right of John's huge throne-like chair. Marian and Friar Tuck sat to John's left, both looking self-conscious and nervous. Magda had been left behind at the castle and Kendra had no idea what was happening to her.
As Garrick and John stood and addressed the people, Kendra leaned across Garrick's empty chair, hoping to catch Friar Tuck's attention. The priest glanced her way and for an instant she saw the worry in his eyes. It disappeared as he shook his head the slightest bit and returned his now complacent gaze to the field. Marian stared down at her hands, but with Kendra's movement she looked up and in her eyes Kendra saw an echo of her own pain. She smiled reassuringly at the girl and felt the kinship between them renew itself.
It was obvious that Friar Tuck couldn't, or wouldn't, give her a sign or a clue of what was about to happen. The scribe was reading the charges now and she listened intently to his voice drone on, a terrible coldness twisting in the pit of her stomach as the words "hanged until dead" pierced the air.
Her gaze searched the field and the throng of people outside the barrier. Surely Robin's men were here. Surely they had not all been captured. Surely they would not let their leader die. But would they let Navarre die? Her throat tightened convulsively. If Little John managed to save the outlaw would he still let Navarre hang? Robin's men knew nothing of the new burgeoning friendship between the two. Why would they not simply shoot Robin's rope in half, throw him on a horse, and leave Navarre to hang? She closed her eyes against the sickening thought.
The sheriff and John returned to their places, the prince settling himself back in his "throne," Garrick standing beside him, his haughty face wreathed in satisfaction.
Kendra perched on the edge of her chair, the twisted knot in her stomach making her feel nauseous and shaky. She refused to look at Garrick, instead keeping her eyes fixed resolutely on Navarre. Straight and tall he stood, his head held proudly high, his shoulders unbowed. Kendra studied his noble face and wondered how she had ever doubted he was a hero. If only he could live, he would help England by the mere fact of his existence.
He is not going to die, she told herself fervently. Friar Tuck promised he would help him and couldn't possibly be sitting here calmly if he were about to die. She glanced over at the priest again and saw the tension in his face. The doubt crept in again quickly. What if his plan failed? He must not be too sure of the outcome or he wouldn't have that harried look, or be wiping away perspiration from his shiny brow.
Garrick whirled around just then, his black cape billowing from his shoulders, his triumphant smile widening as his gaze fell on Kendra. She could see he rightly judged the despair in her eyes and swept her a low, mocking bow.
"I do apologize for subjecting you to this tragedy," he said. "However, I find it quite an effective deterrent to those who contemplate rebelling against me. You do know how it works, do you not? The rope either breaks his neck, or leaves him to strangle slowly. A good hangman tries to position the knot in such a way that the death is a quick, painless one." His eyes gleamed down at her. "Unless he has been otherwise instructed."
Kendra couldn't speak, couldn't think. Her fingers curled tense around the arms of the chair on which she sat.
Garrick took his place, sweeping his cape from beneath him. He propped his elbows on the arms of the chair, steepling his hands together in front of his chest as he slanted a calculating gaze toward Kendra, as if waiting for her to speak.
Her heart in her throat, Kendra laid one hand on the sheriff's arm and looked up at him boldly, her voice a silken purr. "Please, my Lord Sheriff, put an end to this, and I will do whatever you ask. I will grant your every desire." She lowered her voice. "I will give you the secret to time travel and more. Name your price and I will pay it. Last night—"
Garrick cut her off with a downward gesture of his hand.
"Aye. last night the good father saved you, but do not believe that will happen again. I have plans for that meddlesome fool as well." Kendra shivered as she saw the promise in his cool gray eyes. "You will make good on your promise to me."
"Not unless you free Navarre," Kendra said, the palms of her hands suddenly clammy. "If you hang him, I'll die before I give you the secret of time travel—or my body."
The sheriff leaned back against the high-backed chair, a miniature of John's. He lifted one shoulder eloquently as he turned his attention back to the tourney field.
"Will you let Marian die too? And Magda? I think not. No, Navarre will die—he is too dangerous to let live—and your body will be mine, along with your mysterious secret."
"You can't do this," Kendra breathed, her fingers moving to grip the man's arm. "You can't let him die. He's your friend!"
"Was my friend." Garrick carefully unpried her hand and placed it back in her lap, giving it a proprietary pat. "You will find in life, my dear, that a friend is very much like a good horse. As long as he serves you well and faithfully, he is well treated. However, when he is no longer of any use to you, the most merciful thing you can do is put him out of his misery."
Kendra sat up suddenly straight, Garrick forgotten. A man dressed entirely in black, his face covered with a hood, had positioned Navarre and Robin in front of the first two nooses and now was dropping the knotted ropes over their heads. Her limbs moved of their own volition as she slowly stood, her heart thundering in her chest, seeming to keep time with the drums pounding the death knell across the tourney field.
"No," she whispered.
The hangman prodded the two men to step up on wooden boxes a foot high, then readjusted the ropes and glanced toward the pavilion.
"Are you ready, my lord?"' Garrick said to John.
"You are sure there can be no fear of reprisal?" John said, leaning toward the sheriff, his words low. He watched the gallows anxiously and Kendra s
aw, in (hat moment, how weak this would-be king really was.
"A goodly portion of his men await the gallows, my lord," Garrick assured the pretender to the throne. "The rest ran scampering into the forest like the cowards they are. Rest assured, there is nothing to fear."
"Very well, then," John said, sitting back and straightening his shoulders, "let it begin."
With an oily smile in Kendra's direction, Garrick raised his hand and brought it down savagely. In a matter of seconds, the boxes had been kicked from beneath the feet of the condemned men, leaving them to swing from the gallows pole.
"No!"
The cry was wrenched from Kendra as she stood, frozen, watching Navarre's body dangle from the rope. She screamed again and started down the steps to the field just as the chaos ensued. Suddenly the air was rent with shouts and curses as the crowd of Saxons outside the fence surged across the barrier and flooded the tourney field. The sound of swords clashing and arrows whizzing by rose up around Kendra, along with the tide of men, armed with daggers and clubs, wooden pitchforks and lit torches, swarming around the base of the pavilion, kept at bay only by the soldiers positioned there.
Kendra swayed, disoriented by the mob, feeling the precious moments tick by as she tried to push her way into the crushing throng. She couldn't see Navarre, so frenzied was the fighting. Looking desperately for help, she turned, then gasped and stumbled against one of the poles holding up the pavilion roof. With a cry, she tried to run into the crowd, but the sheriff grabbed her by the arm and jerked her back.
She fought him, knowing every second she spent struggling was a second of breath denied Navarre. Had anyone helped him? He was dying and she had to reach him. The sheriff slapped her savagely across the face and, like a wildcat protecting her young, Kendra attacked, clawing his face, kicking and biting as she tried desperately to get away, to reach Navarre. But Garrick's hands were like steel bands as he continued to hold her against him, parrying her blows. At last she stopped fighting and began to sob incoherently.
It was too late. Garrick lifted his fist above her and she waited for the blow to come, hoping it would kill her, hoping when she next opened her eyes it would be to find that at last she and Navarre would be where time was no longer a hindrance to their love. She prayed for the darkness to come quickly.
"Come, lovey," the old woman crooned, the long, tapered fingers gently combing through the auburn hair. "Ye must eat something."
Kendra ignored Magda's words and after a moment the priestess sighed and left her beside the stream alone. She stared idlely down at the tiny floating leaves being swept away by the slow-moving current of the brook, wishing her thoughts could be as easily swept away. It was sunset, the daylight fading quickly behind the trees of the forest. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Navarre was dead, and she wished she had died with him.
She didn't know what had happened back on the tourney field. Apparently there had been some kind of attempt to free Robin and his men, but it had failed. What had happened to Marian or Friar Tuck, she didn't know. She only knew that Navarre was dead, and Robin too, for she had seen him kicking at the end of his rope before the melee began. Navarre, Robin, dead, because of one man's evil. The hatred in her heart quickened and she touched the bruise at her temple, vowing silently once again to kill Garrick. She would find the right time and the right place and she would destroy his life as surely as he had destroyed Navarre's… and hers. The possibility of revenge was all that kept her alive these days.
"Ah, there you are, my dear. Daydreaming again, are we?"
Kendra looked up at Garrick, keeping the expression on her face carefully vacant, her eyes hollow. She had not spoken nor eaten since she had been knocked unconscious by Garrick, then awakened to find herself in a camp of sorts in the middle of a forest. Vaguely she recalled Garrick telling her that after the execution—her heart constricted at the thought—they would journey to find the wiseman, Cennach. Apparently, they were on their way.
"Come, come, do you intend to starve yourself to death?" Garrick said. He was his usual impeccable self, even when roughing it, she saw. His surcoat this time was a deep burgundy, trimmed with a wide geometric pattern in black, his under tunic also black, matching his ever-present black cloak.
Kendra shivered and pulled her own cloak more tightly around her, dreading the coming of the night and its freezing temperatures. She scrubbed absently at a spot on her gown, then realized how foolish her efforts were. Garrick had given her a more durable traveling dress of heather-gray wool, but it was already filthy. Her hand stopped moving against the gown and she sighed. What difference did it make?
Garrick knelt down beside her and distractedly, Kendra watched the disappearing sunlight play across his blond hair. Curious how some strands were white-blond and others honey-gold, she thought absently. Like the burnished colors on the back of a rattlesnake or a cobra, lovely and lethal.
Taking a deep breath, Kendra tried to refocus her attention on what the sheriff was saying. She found herself more and more slipping away to some inner world, away from the sharp pain of reality, a reality without Navarre.
"You will eat," Garrick ordered, "or I will make you wish you had. I have no desire to bed a scrawny wretch. Eat, or I promise Magda will suffer for your insolence."
He handed her a wooden bowl containing some kind of stew, along with a trencher, a sort of bread rather shaped like a spoon. With a sigh, Kendra took the bowl and dipped the crust of bread into the liquid, bringing the lukewarm food to her mouth. Garrick watched her chew for a moment, then cursing beneath his breath, turned and stomped to the other side of the campfire.
The mouthful of stew was difficult to chew, simply because it took too much energy. She was tired. Tired of living, she realized. What use was it, anyway, if everyone you ever loved was always taken away from you? What point in existing? She had found herself enshrouded in a depression so dark, so deep, that everything appeared gray. It felt as if she were encased in a tinted bubble, wrapped in a cotton haze, in full view of life's happenings, yet unable to reach out and touch the reality around her. Food had no flavor, color no beauty, life no joy. Navarre was dead. How could she go on without him?
Magda slipped up beside her just as she was setting aside the rest of her stew. Kendra drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, staring down at her leather boots as she waited for the woman to speak. She was unprepared for what Magda had to say.
"If there is a way, you must return to your own time," the old woman said softly.
Kendra sighed, wishing she would leave her alone. She wanted to lie down and sleep. The sun was setting and another long night lay ahead. So far, Garrick had kept his distance. But she knew that wouldn't last.
"Yes," she said wearily, "yes, I know."
"Nay, you do not know. The sorrow you feel over Navarre de Galliard's death is sharp, but whether he lives or no, you must needs return to your own time to prevent your own sorrowful death."
Kendra glanced back at her, her breath caught in her throat for a moment. "Have you seen something? Heard something? Is there any chance Navarre isn't…" her words faded away and she shook her head. "I saw him. I saw him hang. This is pointless. Garrick plans to kill me soon."
Magda sighed. "I fear the sheriff plans to keep ye quite alive." She stretched out one gnarly hand in front of her and opened the clenched fist. A rune lay there, the curious symbol catching the firelight. "And yet, death awaits ye if ye stay here."
"Without Navarre, what does it matter?" Kendra whispered.
"Does his babe that grows within ye matter?" Magda opened her other hand under Kendra's nose. Another rune lay there. Kendra jerked her head up, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Aye," the old woman said, her voice a mere whisper, "this rune says you bear his son. The other that you will both die in childbirth."
"No," Kendra said, her throat dry, her breath constricted there.
"Aye, yet there is still a chance. You must return to your own time."
Kendra's throat closed convulsively as the grief rolled over her. Gasping, she fought down the bitter emotion, determined not to fall apart in front of the sheriff. She must remain cool and calm if there was any hope of escaping him. Kendra glanced toward the man furtively, hoping he had not seen her bout with anguish.
Garrick looked up just then, and caught her gaze upon him. He turned and she saw he had the gun in his hand. A squirrel twittered in a tree nearby and the sheriff turned and lifted the pistol, took aim, and fired. The little animal dropped to the ground. A bird was also dispatched before Garrick laughed and tucked the weapon away. Then he gave Kendra a long, meaningful look as he resumed his place beside the fire.
Kendra turned back to Magda, her grief now replaced by panic, her heart pounding with new fear as she pressed her fingers against her abdomen.
"Help me go back," she whispered. Reaching out, she took the runes from the woman's hand, her fingers curling around the ancient stone.
Navarre sat beside Robin of Locksley, feeling old and tired. With the help of Little John they had made it out of Nottingham and into a secret hiding place in Sherwood Forest. Once there, Locksley would not allow his right-hand man to tarry, or lend him aid. He sent him straightaway to find King Richard and warn him of Garrick's treachery and the assassin—or assassins—stalking him.
Navarre leaned his head in his hands and shivered as the memories of the morning flooded into his mind. There had been a moment after he felt the noose tighten around his neck that a sheer, suffocating panic had seized him and he had known with a certainty that he was going to die. As the rope bit into his throat, shutting off his air, his feet kicking wildly beneath him, he had reached up with his freed hands to save himself—but the knot stayed tight around his throat. As he struggled to loosen himself, he had thought of Kendra. How unfair that after all of his years of wandering, of loneliness, he had found his heart mate, only to have her snatched from him by his own death.
Tess Mallory - Circles in Time Page 25
