Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy

by Champion of Sherwood

  Lark glared still harder. That stare said many things but screamed the truth only when it fell abruptly.

  “Oh.” Bits and pieces of wondering and conviction fell into place in Linnet’s mind. “You—and Falcon?” To be sure, she had teased Fal with that very prospect but had never guessed what lay in her sister’s heart. And that made a bold testament to Lark’s skill at deception.

  “No,” Lark said bitterly, “not me and Falcon—just me.” With miserable defiance, she added, “He does not see me, Lin, save as an annoyance. He has never really seen me.”

  A hard and undeniable truth. Dismay washed over Linnet in a rush, for if Lark had gifted Falcon Scarlet her heart she faced an uphill battle, indeed.

  “Why did you never tell me, Lark? All this time—how long?”

  Lark shrugged irritably. “Forever. Does it matter? By any road, I should think you would have guessed. I would think anyone would guess, even a fool. Even him.”

  “Falcon Scarlet is no fool.” Whatever else he might be, Fal possessed a quick mind, which, in Linnet’s estimation, numbered high among his other attributes.

  She reached out and touched her sister’s arm. She could feel Lark’s tension, and the force of her spirit battling, within. “Lark, is this indeed why you are forever pestering and tormenting him? Why you plague him so mercilessly?”

  “Why ask senseless questions if you already know the answers? His annoyance is better than no attention from him. And at least when we wrestle I can touch him.” An incredible expression—one Linnet had never seen before—invaded Lark’s eyes. In it combined desire and longing so intense it made Linnet catch her breath.

  “Oh, Lark,” she whispered.

  Lark shot her a burning, rebellious look. “There is no hope for me, and I know it. ’Tis but a matter of time before he speaks for you.” She broke off and then asked bitterly, “Or has he already? Do not try to deny it, Lin. You are a terrible bad liar. I can see everything in your eyes.”

  “He thinks he wants me. I am not so sure.”

  Lark raked her with another glare. “How could he fail to want you? You are everything a woman should be, soft and graceful, with healing in your hands. Not like me—a tiny, misbegotten throwback to our ancient ancestors who lived underground.”

  “You have your own beauty. Someday a man will come along with the wit to see it.”

  “I do not want ‘a man.’ I want Fal Scarlet.”

  “Well, then, love, perhaps we could work on your appearance just a tad, do something with your hair, and put you in a dress.”

  “Me, in a dress?” Lark had just forced an incredulous laugh when they both became aware of an uproar outside the house, the sound of many voices raised. A hand pushed the cottage door open and a head appeared—that of Falcon Scarlet himself.

  “Come swiftly, Lin. One of our raiding parties has just returned. They have a prisoner—and a plum picking at that. He is injured, in need of tending, so my pa says.”

  Both young women leaped to their feet. Linnet’s heart began to pound for reasons she could not understand.

  “A prisoner?” she echoed.

  Fal’s teeth flashed in a wicked smile. “A Norman, and high born, to judge by his fine clothing. ‘Norman git,’ my pa says, and no doubt worth a high ransom.”

  He withdrew, and the sisters exchanged speaking glances. Lark swore and ran out ahead of Linnet, who paused to gather supplies, her hands suddenly unsteady.

  This could only mean trouble of the worst kind. “May the Green Man be with me,” she muttered as she hurried out the door.

  Chapter Three

  “Silence, you stinking pile of Norman offal! You will speak when you are asked a question and not before, or are you too stupid to understand?”

  The words came accompanied by a blow, and not the first Gareth de Vavasour had received from the man who stood above him. It knocked him sideways into the dust, and he gritted his teeth against the ensuing pain. Determinedly he fought to remain silent; he suspected his left arm must be broken—better that than his right, his sword arm. But his injuries had not kept these feral bastards from binding his wrists behind him, and the agony of any movement made him want to retch. He battled that down also. He would not give these Saxon villains the satisfaction of witnessing his pain.

  His uncle, Robert de Vavasour—current Sheriff of Nottingham—was right about these serfs he said infested his domain. He had told Gareth they lived, bred, and behaved like vermin, without scruples or morals. From all Gareth had seen this afternoon, he could but agree.

  And this ruffian who now stood over him seemed the worst of the lot. Tall, with a wild mop of gray-blond hair and an even wilder beard, he was head of the band that had seized Gareth on the road to Nottingham. He bore a face full of scars and the fiercest pair of eyes Gareth had ever seen. They fairly spewed hate.

  Gareth wondered how many of his party now lay dead—killed by the band of outlaws who had taken him. In the company of a strong troop of soldiers, Gareth had been escorting a shipment of tax money and valuables, bound south from York, while journeying to join his uncle’s home guard at Nottingham. He had seen at least two men fall. Who would have thought mere peasants brandishing staffs and stolen swords could fight so well?

  He did not doubt he now found himself in the very depths of trouble. At best, he would be held for ransom. At worst, the scarred madman looming above him would give in to the desire that shone from his eyes and cut Gareth’s throat.

  Where was he? Thrown down at the center of a village, he had no way to tell. It looked a poor place of wooden houses and wandering chickens. Folk came streaming from every doorway, precisely like the rats his uncle had described, and stood staring at him. Small children with their thumbs in their mouths blinked, as at some new entertainment.

  Gareth strove to keep the disdain he felt from showing on his face. He supposed a thing like his imminent murder would prove exciting to such cretins as these. Ah, but he did not want to die! He had far too much he longed to accomplish first.

  Even as that conviction took form in his heart, he listened to the discussion taking place over his head.

  “We took them on the York Road,” cried one of the younger men proudly. “A stout company they were, but not stout enough. We fell upon them—whack, wham! And what were they but a band toting the Sheriff’s treasure? We took a coffer filled to the brim with coin and a smaller casque crammed with jewels.”

  Gareth closed his eyes briefly and choked down his humiliation. From whence had they come? The trees that bordered the road? The ground itself? He still could not tell, and he had been on watch. The peasants had seemed to materialize from the air of the dense, hot afternoon, to appear out of the green leaves overhead.

  “And this prize.” The fair-haired madman kicked Gareth in the side, not gently.

  “Aye, he will be worth a bit, will he not? Along with the Sheriff’s ill-gotten hoard.”

  “The King’s taxes,” Gareth said in a voice like dust. He lifted his eyes and directed a stare at the evil faces that surrounded him. “You have transgressed against your king. That is treason.”

  They laughed—the last reaction Gareth expected. Aye, when his uncle sent for him, he had indicated the task at hand—chasing down and eradicating the miscreants who infested Sherwood—was a fierce one. Gareth recalled how the letter had gone.

  Now that you have finished your training and have some service under your belt, I beg your foster father release you. I need your assistance in Nottingham in eradicating a plague.

  And so Gareth found himself in the center of the contagion and not likely to get away out of it alive.

  “Aye, and what are you worth, my fine peacock?” The scarred visage came closer as its owner bent and seized Gareth by the hair. “Tell us your exalted Norman name.”

  “We could torture it from him.” The suggestion came, shockingly, from a woman, a rawboned creature with a ravaged face. “No more than he deserves, Martin.”

 
So—his captor’s name was Martin, was it? Gareth tucked that information away in his mind for future contemplation. And he appeared to be headman of this pest hole.

  “Nay, we cannot do that, not half,” Martin replied, “else we would have nothing with which to bargain. I do not doubt this delicate flower would wilt under strong questioning. Whoever he is, I do believe de Vavasour will pay to get him back.” The man smiled a terrible smile. “Whole, more or less.”

  “Takes a lot to kill a man,” speculated a fellow from the far side of the human fence that now surrounded Gareth. “I dare say we could hack him apart bit by bit without killing him.”

  “I dare say. Put your knife away, Micah.” For the last speaker had drawn a wicked blade. “We cannot so indulge ourselves, yet.”

  “Let me take one of his pretty Norman ears to send de Vavasour. A little bloodletting will do him good.”

  “He is already bleeding freely,” the headman pointed out. “That wound to the shoulder does not look good, nor the one to his leg. He fought well,” the man added grudgingly, “for a piece of shite.”

  He leaned down and once more virtually spat into Gareth’s face, “Aye, that rankles, does it not? I suppose you are a fine champion among your own kind. Much good that does you against the likes of us.”

  Gareth was spared the need to answer by the appearance of a lad who pushed his way through those gathered to stare at him. Gareth’s eyes narrowed abruptly. Nay, no lad this but a woman clad in a lad’s clothing. Tiny, she was, with a head of wild, dark-brown hair tangled with burrs and a golden yellow gaze as dangerous as a raised weapon.

  She looked like she wanted to flay him alive, and he would not put it past her.

  What manner of folk were these that inhabited the fringes of Sherwood, who dressed their women as men and gave their children the spectacle of torture for amusement?

  Before he could decide, a second woman appeared. This one wore the proper clothing of a peasant, a plain brown dress covered with a rough, tan smock. Tall, willowy and lovely, she carried a bundle in her hands.

  She paused when she sighted him as if she had run into a wall, and her eyes met his with the force of a blow.

  “By the Green Man’s horns,” she breathed. “Thank all goodness you have not killed him yet.”

  ****

  “This will hurt,” the woman told Gareth, and he caught his breath. Each time she had told him so, it had proved true, and he believed her now. He braced himself for more pain and told himself he was nowhere near the end of his endurance. Was he not a proven knight? Had he not endured broken bones before, been tossed in the lists and taken many a hard fall?

  Aye, but then he had only needed to get to his feet and weather his injuries. He had not been surrounded by a pack of carrion ravens.

  True, he found himself, now, alone inside a dim hut with this woman. But he knew the scavengers still lurked outside—he could hear at least two men just beyond the door, no doubt guarding it, and talking to one another. The other noise outside had not abated. Folk seemed excited by the proposed spectacle of his death.

  But would they provide him this care only to kill him? The woman—Linnet, he had heard someone call her—had skill in her hands, quick and gentle. Already she had set his broken arm and now worked over the ugly wound at his shoulder, which brought her very close to him, indeed. She poured some vile-smelling liquid into the wound, and he caught his breath sharply.

  She had not lied: it hurt.

  “That will help keep the poisoning from setting in,” she said with brief asperity.

  “Does it matter? They wish only to kill me, that crowd out there. They will never send me to Nottingham, even should a ransom be paid.” He stole another look into her face. Nothing like he had imagined a Saxon peasant, she was entirely surprising. Aye, some of their women were bonny and reputedly lustful, with bountiful yellow locks and still more bountiful bosoms. None of that fit this woman at all.

  Her face floated above him, a pure, almost perfect oval. Most of her dark brown hair lay gathered under a head covering, but her brows soared like two dark wings over eyes so beautiful and unusual he scarcely dared look into them. Fringed by the longest lashes he had ever seen, they appeared liquid dark, bottomless and wild. In truth, she felt wild withal, despite her neat clothing, a foreign creature not meant for this place. Yet her hands remained kind and calm, her face serene—an intriguing contrast.

  “They will not kill you,” she said softly. “Though it will go better with you if you tell them your name so they can send word to Nottingham.”

  Gareth shook his head.

  A slight frown marred her smooth brow. “A word of advice—you will tell them, sooner or later. Spare yourself their persuasion.”

  “Torture, is it? As might be expected of cowards.”

  She withdrew slightly. “If you think those people out there cowards, you know nothing about them.” In defiance of her hard words, her fingers slid over his skin, applying some sort of unguent before pressing a cloth bandage in place.

  To Gareth’s surprise, he felt a prick of arousal. This was not the time, the place, nor the woman—beautiful as she might be.

  Someone—a man—thrust his head inside the open door of the hut. “All right, Linnet?”

  “Aye. I am nearly done.”

  Briskly now, her hands moved to the rent at his thigh. Once more he caught his breath, though not against pain this time.

  The wound there, he knew, was a grave one—had it landed a bit farther to the left, he might well never lay a woman again. She tore the cloth further asunder, only to find she had exposed more than the wound. She tipped back on her heels, and a lovely, deep color swept her face.

  Her eyes met Gareth’s in a look so deep and dark it pierced him to his soul. A wave of feeling rose between them, bright and intense. So powerful was it, for an instant Gareth almost supposed he could sense her thoughts, every whit as entangled as his own.

  “Ah,” she said softly. “I will be as quick as I can.”

  “Aye,” he said in a voice that sounded strangled. And just as well.

  Chapter Four

  “I do not want you alone with him again, Linnet. ’Tis not safe, nor proper.”

  Linnet raised her gaze to Falcon, who paced the floor of her tiny hut like a caged beast. Morning had come and with it a renewed sense of purpose. The village council had met, led by its headman, Martin Scarlet. And Fal had invaded her cottage with trouble in his eyes.

  That was the problem with Fal, Linnet reflected even as she gathered supplies to take to her patient—he was far too perceptive and intelligent to miss much. She knew he had been standing guard at the door and then hovering in the doorway itself yester evening when that exchange took place between herself and their prisoner, and it had raised all his instincts.

  Truth be known, it had roused a few of Linnet’s, as well. She could not say exactly what had taken place between her and the young Norman captive. She only knew something had.

  “Do not be foolish,” she chided Fal now. “I am a healer. Of course I must tend him.”

  Fal shot her a wild look. “Let someone else do it. I do not trust you alone with him.”

  “And why, Falcon Scarlet, would you fail to trust me?”

  Fal scowled. “Not you—I misspoke. ’Tis him I do not trust.” In the dim interior of the cottage, Fal’s eyes glowed green-blue and nearly feral.

  “What harm can he do?”

  “Aye, now there is the question. He might easily seize hold of you and wring your neck.”

  “But he has a broken arm, as well as two other wounds to hamper him.” He had a beautiful body, as well, and Linnet had seen more of it, last night, than she dared remember. A well-muscled chest sprinkled with light brown hair, smooth, tanned skin, and, below, muscular thighs. Ruthlessly, she pushed from her mind the image of what else lay below, which she had also glimpsed. But her fingers tingled again just thinking on it. The man might be a Norman and poisoned fruit, but he
made a potent temptation.

  Truth to tell, she had never before been so near one of her detested overlords. She had never gazed into one’s eyes, nor caught his scent. She shivered even now in response.

  Fighting the feeling, she spoke to Fal briskly. “I was not alone with him yester e’en. I knew very well you were there in the doorway. Come along with me now, if you will.”

  “I will, but Linnet…” Falcon came close and touched her arm. “I do not like this. You know what he is. He does not deserve your care but should be tied to a tree and left to die.”

  Linnet looked into Fal’s face and said gravely, “This is not like you.” She knew Falcon Scarlet to his bones. He was not a cruel man but for the most part a light spirit, full of joy. Now she barely recognized the expression in his eyes.

  “That bastard and his kind killed my mother and sister and have brought suffering to countless other good folk.”

  “Aye but not he, surely.”

  “They are all one. Never forget that, Lin—they are all one.”

  ****

  The interior of the hut was small and dim. A shelter for ailing beasts needing to be kept apart from other stock, it had been hastily cleaned out last night, save for some straw, and still contained an aroma of goats. As Linnet stepped in with Fal at her side, she saw the captive had been provided no comforts. He lay on the dirt floor with his good arm tethered to a spike in the wall. Linnet would not see a dog treated so, especially an injured one.

  He started up when they entered but could not move far, the tether being cruelly short. In the morning light that streamed in through the door, he looked wan, his fine clothing sullied and torn. But his gaze met Fal’s like a raised weapon and only moved to Linnet’s face after.

  What fine eyes they were—steady and bright, set under level brows, and of a color pale as clear water, a true gray. His hair spilled, mussed, across his brow, golden brown, straight, and shining with health.

  Aye, and a privileged life he had no doubt led, Linnet reminded herself. No hungry days for him, and no pinched nights in winter, listening to children cry from want. As Fal said, she needed to remember what he was.