by Sue Wilson
Mildthryth nodded, but looked unconvinced. Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she laid a knowing hand over Thea's forearm. "What I saw last night was a man whose prudence had flown, along with his self-restraint. You needn't make small of it, if what he did was unwelcome to you."
Something in the way the old woman looked at Thea made her blush in a fury of honesty. She could not admit to Mildthryth how bewildered she felt by the night's events, how she let the Sheriff's caresses and whispers wipe away nearly every reservation she had. Maybe it was unnecessary. She suspected Mildthryth knew already. There didn't seem to be a sneeze in the castle she did not hear, and where the Sheriff was concerned, she seemed to know far more than most.
Mildthryth picked up Thea's kirtle and tunic, shook them free of rushes, and tucked them under her arm. "Naught would please me more if he could find the solace and comfort of a woman's love," she continued, casting a thoughtful glance over her shoulder in Thea's direction, "but what has he learned of that? He has the power to command and the coin to buy. He's never needed more. Until now." She paused for a moment, and her gaze bore into Thea, missing nothing.
"What he needs, coin would never buy, unless he could find a way barter for more civilized behavior."
"Aye."
It was unreserved agreement. An awkward silence fell around them, until Mildthryth reached out and took the bread away. "Come now, lamb. You're shredding crumbs all over the sheets. Maybe 'tis not food you need, but an ear to listen."
Thea studied the gentle, line-worn face. She felt an unusual kinship growing with the woman, part admiration for her thoughts and boldness in speaking them, part discomfiture that she knew so intimately the Sheriff's vices and had not carved him into tiny pieces to feed to the hounds. How was it possible to see the beast for who he was and not detest him utterly? What did Mildthryth see in him that Thea did not?
"There's really nothing to say, Mildthryth. He did nothing more than...disturb me."
"Well, he excels at that. Of course, if it matters, I believe he would make it up to you."
"No, please, I want nothing more of him. If you've come to plead his case with me-"
"Now why would I do that, lamb?"
"Because you like the man, as confounding a thought as that is. And because you are his devoted servant."
Mildthryth beamed a rosy smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes with secret delight. As if she could contain herself no longer, she proudly announced, "And now I am to be your servant, lady."
"Mine? What need have I of a servant?"
Mildthryth dashed Thea's reservations aside with a good-natured smile. "Every lady needs a maidservant."
"But, Mildthryth, I am no lady."
"He says you are. So you'll be needing help with your hair and gowns and such."
She held up Thea's crumpled mauve kirtle with its intricately laced ribbons, and Thea released a small sigh of exasperation. Dressing was hardly a thing she needed help with before the Sheriff had bestowed upon her such complicated finery as kirtles that laced up the back, and too tightly at that. It was ironic that having Nottingham advance her station in life only made her more dependent. And now he had conveniently sent his servant, the heartwood of the castle grapevine, to be at her side. If this was the Sheriff's atonement for last night, he was even more devious than she'd given him credit for.
"Besides," Mildthryth continued, "the Sheriff did say."
"Well, the Sheriff says a great many things, half of which no one should heed."
"'Twouldn't do for me to be deaf to this one, lamb. He was quite stubborn about it. Said he wanted me to sleep at your feet."
"Did he? Does he not trust me, then?"
"Doesn't trust himself is more like it."
Thea swallowed hard and heat rose in her cheeks. "Mildthryth-"
"Don't you see? 'Tis his way of protecting you. And more than that, for you're his surgeon now, and 'tisn't fitting you be treated common. Now fuss if you want, for I know you chafe at his orders, but let him have this." She pressed her hand over Thea's shoulder, and it was that touch, solid with reassurance, more than the Sheriff's order, that ended Thea's objections.
Thea covered the woman's hand with her own. "I don't think I will know what to do with a servant, but I would like a companion. This place breeds loneliness, Mildthryth. The very walls are steeped in it. I'm not used to...captivity, to the isolation."
"There, there. 'Twill not always be so. Even the Sheriff can bend a ways. You'll see. Now I'll be fetching you a bath, lamb, and after that, 'tis time you had a turn about this place. The leech's garden is nigh as dead as the old buzzard himself, but if you lent it your hand, 'twould come back soon enough."
"A herbarium?" Was it possible there was something in Nottingham Castle she was eager to see? "Do you think the Sheriff's ready to bend that much? After last night, I hardly believe him to extend me the privilege of wandering about the castle grounds."
"The Sheriff needn't know. At least not right away. He's gone, you see."
"Gone?" Thea had wondered how she would face him again, and now she was spared that, at least for a time. A curious emptiness settled in her stomach where relief should have been, making the loneliness of Nottingham Castle keener.
"Aye. Twice yearly he makes a tourn of the shire, visiting 'round to hear the folks' disputes and pleas to the Crown in the hundred court. He'll be gone well a fortnight, him and the bailiff and his scribe and a dozen or so men-at-arms. He hates the times, for there are plenty who see him as corrupt. He's as likely to meet with hooting and vegetables gone foul than with the respect due his office. Still, he bears it nobly and has a shrewd eye for justice when 'tis meted out."
Thea could imagine little unpleasantness the Sheriff would bear "nobly," let alone agree with his particular brand of justice. "They say he sides with the landed, or more precisely, with those that would have John Lackland on the throne in his brother's stead."
"I wouldn't know, lamb."
Her tone seemed one more of deflection than of ignorance, and Thea pondered the extent of Mildthryth's knowledge. Surely a woman who was a veritable storehouse of information about castle goings-on and the Sheriff's personal habits would also have a grasp of other things thought to be beyond her ken. Thea reached for a piece of bread and chewed thoughtfully for a moment.
"Does he ever come here?" she braved at last.
"Who would that be, lamb?"
"Prince John."
The woman's face went blank, then two spots of color emerged high on her puffed cheeks. "Why would you think that?"
"The same way I know of anything that goes on in Nottingham Castle. Servants and soldiers talk." It was an outright lie, and Thea was surprised at the ease with which it rolled from her lips. She watched Mildthryth fidget with her tunic and felt a pang of regret that she had sought to gain information for Robin and his men from the first person to show her any kindness.
Mildthryth brushed a few meager strands of gray hair off her forehead and tucked them beneath her headrail. "Well, to be sure, the prince does favor Nottingham. Likes the forest, he does, for hunting. And few but the Sheriff can match him cup for cup of ale and still be upright enough to stagger off for a night of wenching. The Sheriff seems more tolerant of Prince John's vices than most-"
"Perhaps because he shares them," Thea interrupted with a wry downturn of her lips. "So they hunt and drink and deflower maidens-an alliance of nefarious spirits more than political brethren, would you say?"
"The Sheriff's loyalty is to the Crown."
"Aye, but which man wears the crown? Richard in prison? Or John, making sport in his brother's forest and in the chambers of his brother's castle in Nottingham?"
Mildthryth's face clouded over and her lips thinned into a tight line. "He's wary of you already, lamb. If you persist in asking these questions, you'll do naught but stir his suspicions."
"And you, Mildthryth? Will I stir them in you as well?"
The woman's blue gaze fixed on
hers, and for a moment, Thea was certain she had gone too far, that in her question was some implicit confession she had never intended to make. She stared back, pretending at equanimity.
"You're a strange one, lamb," Mildthryth said, breaking the tense string of silence between them, "thinking of kingdoms and crowns. 'Tis your own welfare you should be considering."
Thea's gaze dropped to the floor. She had been warned, or admonished-she wasn't certain which. All she knew surely was that if she were going to spy for the outlaws, she had best become more skilled in her methods. After all, if she could get nothing from an aged servant, what hope did she have of learning more from Nottingham himself?
"I'll go fetch your bath." Mildthryth ended the conversation with a generous touch. "Don't be taxing yourself with thoughts of thrones. Save your strength for that poor excuse of a garden. Now there are some weeds you can do something about."
~*~
The sun had risen higher and her room had begun to warm with the day's heat when she heard the lock turn on her door again. Not that a bath would be unwelcome. At least she could scrub away the scent of him, and the memories.
"That will be all, kind sir."
She turned toward the voice, a deep, graveled baritone, with a coarse pronunciation that was suspiciously familiar. The door closed behind a wide-girthed friar, clothed in a worn, nut-brown cassock whose cowl was drawn fully over his head. Her eyes locked on worn sandals and the indecorous expanse of two bared, hairy legs beneath the garment's raveled edges.
"If it's Mass ye're wanting, or absolution-"
The outer door shut, leaving her alone with the priest. "Father?" she asked, perplexed.
"Nay, thank God! Just a sinner like yerself!" The friar lowered his cowl to reveal a beaming, weathered face and green eyes alight with mischief.
"Holy Virgin! John? John!" Thea scrambled to her feet, her arms flung wide as she hurled herself into his solid embrace.
"Sh-sh." His rough fingers tapped against her lips. "Stop yer blabbering, lass. You'll have the whole of Nottingham Castle down on me and my poor disguise. God's oath, Thea, I'm nigh overcome with relief at the sight of ye."
She spread herself against him, hands clutching the scratchy cassock, her cheek burrowed into his chest. "If ever there were a more unlikely priest..." She laughed softly, joy spilling out of her. "'Relief at the sight of you'...John, you just don't know!"
She led him to the stone ledge and gestured for him to sit, then curled herself up beside the warm, welcome mountain of him.
"Well, it isn't the dungeon, but he's got ye under lock and key. What did you do, lass? Piss him off with yer nagging ways?"
"The Sheriff needs no help from me to stay in a stew," Thea said, contempt underscoring her words. "But, John, why are you here? How-? Don't you know there's a price on your head?"
"And when is there not?"
"I don't mean for some silly thieving you pulled off in your spare time."
"Ah, you mean this pack of lies." He drew a parchment bill from beneath his friar's robe.
Thea caught a glimpse of laboriously penned letters and the bold flourish of Nottingham's signature beneath a crude likeness of the giant's face.
John crumpled the page in his massive hand. "This be codswallop, lass. And a poor rendering of me as well. Did you ever see such a likeness? I could take flight with them ears."
"You stand accused of murder, John, be it lies or truth, and Nottingham Castle is not the place to be flaunting your face for all to see. By the saints, where is your caution?"
"Once I learnt where they'd taken ye, there was no keeping me in Sherwood. I thought to myself: the lass has been in that God-forsaken place nigh on a fortnight and, from what I heard, in that bloody monster's bedchamber half of that. Most souls would think you'd be in sore need to make confession of some sort or the other."
"Well, I haven't murdered him. Yet."
"Wasn't murder I was thinking of, lass."
"John-"
"So I borrowed Tuck's robes. A pitiful fit, wouldn't ye say? His gut-size were helpful a'right, but he's such a runt of a fellow. Aye, it's an ungodly sight, but what with a cart and a couple of kegs of ale, I passed right enough. Your guards were a bit overtaken with a sampling of the monks' good brew."
He turned to Thea, long index finger wagging beneath her nose. "You speak of caution, lass, but it's me what is walking free into this place, while ye-well, ye have fixed yerself good this time."
"But how did you know I was here?"
"Well, on account of the venison mostly. Will and me had gotten ourselves a deer, and there was a lovely, fat haunch of it I wanted you to have."
"A deer."
"I was careful, lass. I swear. I came to yer place by night, late, past Vespers, when no one was about. Well, nearly no one. There was a few what weren't saying their prayers. Anyway, when I came to yer place, I see you'd been overrun again."
"'Overrun'?" Thea frowned, confused and impatient with John's rambling tale.
"Aye. Gisborne and his men, back for more. Only this time I seen them there, going through your house and taking things what belonged to ye, packing them up, loading your bowls and medicines in their saddlebags, the bloody thieves. So I just lay low and watched and listened, and by their talk-well, lass, Gisborne is a muttering fool. I learnt what I needed to-that the bastard Sheriff had taken ye."
Thea looked away from him, her lip caught between her teeth. "He didn't...take me, John," she confessed. "I came, and mostly willingly."
John did not answer at first. She wondered if she had stunned him with the truth, wondered if it wouldn't have been kinder to forego the truth altogether.
"Maybe you'd best be explaining that," he said after a moment.
"He was hurt," she began carefully, "the Sheriff, I mean. Wounded. By an arrow, and alone. I don't know where everyone else was-his men. Dead, he said." The words came out in an uneven mix, rushing toward some end, halting at another.
She knew she wasn't making sense. Worse, she knew John had stopped listening to her fractured account and was making more sense of the feelings behind her words than she had ever wanted him to know. She gripped her shift, nails digging into the fabric.
"He was alone at my door in the middle of the night and I helped him," she blurted out.
"Nottingham wounded?"
"Aye."
"His men killed?"
"That was his story."
John's brows drew together beneath his furrowed forehead, and he dragged his hand through his shaggy beard. He did not speak for a long, uncomfortable pause, as if absorbing this part of the tale before asking her to continue. Thea waited, glancing uncomfortably at the door should Mildthryth appear with the promised bath.
"It weren't us what did it, lass," he said finally. "God's oath, I don't think any of us even knew, and Gisborne, for the talker he is, was silent on this part."
"He's not the fool you think." When it did not appear that John would question her further, she offered the rest, quickly, giving herself no time to reconsider. "It was serious surgery, John, and Nottingham insisted on riding back the next day. I-I protested. He insisted I come with him."
"The bastard does his bleeding share of insisting, don't he?"
"It seemed wisest. If he died-"
"Aye, lass." John nodded, his face carved in stone, a single muscle twitching beneath his whiskered jaw the only evidence of anger. "If he died...Damn, Thea, but you're too bleeding soft!" He stood in a fury, brushed her aside, and paced in a series of circles until the rushes all but swirled at his feet. "So you saved his hide and he rewarded ye with locking ye away. The man is a true and witless bastard."
"He made me his surgeon." There. The last of it.
John stared at her, disbelief making his honest face impossible to bear. "He did, did he now? Well, that takes it, then, don't it, lass?"
"I refused, of course, for all the good it did."
"Makes no difference," he muttered, his voice gruff.
"I'm taking ye out of here."
"John-"
"What did you think, lass? That I came so charmingly dressed to pass the day with ye discussing the seven deadly sins? Not a one of which that blasted Sheriff hasn't committed in his too-long life-"
"John, wait-"
"Enough talking, lass. Now here is my plan. After I seen Gisborne at your home, I fetched myself to Sherwood, told Robin what had passed with ye. I had it in mind to take those men what would come, break down the castle gates if need be to find ye, and if I could skewer that miserable beast what calls hisself Sheriff in passing-well, I would've done that, too. I do swear, they would've come-to a man, they would have. But then good sense overtook me-"
"As it so rarely does," Thea added.
"-And I knew our chances would be better alone. You and me, sneaking out past yer drink-sodden guards. I kept an empty barrel, and you'll fit a'right, if you scrunch up yer arms and legs tight-"
"John, listen-"
"Stop blabbering, lass. Are ye that dead set against being rescued?"
"John!" Her voice rose so insistently that Thea hazarded a quick glance at the door, sure to have roused the guards. "Pray will you listen a moment?"
She grabbed the outlaw's cassock and tugged his attention toward her with a mighty jerk. "There's something going on here."
"Right you are, Thea, and best we be leaving while we can."
"No, I mean treachery of some sort."
John quirked a wiry, overgrown brow. "And what did ye expect in Nottingham's own hell? A chorus of angels?"
"You don't understand. I heard it myself from the lips of some titled nitwit. Monteforte. Baron Monteforte. He as much as confessed the Sheriff has allied himself with Prince John. Not just he-but a host of other shire barons, as well-and although the Sheriff said naught to confirm it-"
"Slow down, lass. What are ye saying?"
"We've long believed that Prince John wants his brother's throne. That he is gathering men about him, powerful men, landholders, with finances and fortifications and weapons to rival the king's own army. That the Sheriff himself-"
Thea stopped, not realizing until she did so how tremulous her voice had become, how rapidly her heart beat. She took a breath and let it stagger out of her, slowing dispelling the image of the Sheriff's face, as graven in her mind as the Saracen scent in his chamber. "That the Sheriff is involved, too," she repeated firmly. "As we always knew."
