by Sue Wilson
"Your land is a burden to you, my lord?"
His lips turned up in a rueful half-smile, and mocking animation lit his gray eyes. "I have no land, woman. In that, you are far richer than I." The words could have sounded bitter, but did not.
He leaned close and whispered into her ear. "The rumors you've heard...all true. I am a bastard. Oh, come now. Wipe that righteous shock off your face. Surely you've thought so yourself on one or two occasions."
"It had nothing to do with your birthright, or lack of one, I assure you."
"I didn't think it did." His laughter was humorless, strangled short by a look of madness and intent. "Still, I am far from what you believe me to be." He straightened to full height, flinty gaze boring into her.
"I grew up in the stables. Scrawny, lice-infested, sleeping in the stalls with the horses and, if I was not religious about my chores, their leavings. Underfoot and in the way, if I were to believe what I was so often told by the stable master, by the lord of the manor, by his sons. Not unlike Simeon, I dare say."
He did not spare her time for a reaction. Perhaps he wanted none. His voice was tense, forbidding questions.
"I could have remained there forever. Spent my years foaling mares and breeding babes off some plump milkmaid of a wife. Had it not been for Guy."
"Gisborne?" Thea asked, confused.
Nottingham nodded. "Puling, whey-faced runt of Lord Gisborne's litter. The last left at home. Thoroughly spoilt, with an uncanny knack for demanding this or that."
"But how-?"
"Surprisingly, at the age of seven, I was plucked from obscurity in the stables by Lord Gisborne's own meticulous fingers and brought to the manor house. There I was looked over and questioned and, after what seemed an interminable time, told I would be staying...as companion to his youngest son.
"Yes, I'm quite sure the whole scheme was Guy's idea-fetch the stable boy up to the manor for the little master's amusement. After all, I knew well Lord Gisborne did not countenance the fosterage of orphaned barn brats, nor did he evidence the patience for the raising up of a ward.
"No matter. Even at so young an age, I had the sense to recognize a command when I heard one."
Thea searched the intently drawn planes of Nottingham's face, trying with difficulty to imagine a time when the man recognized any authority save his own.
"I was scoured and scrubbed clean," he continued, "dressed in clothes that were whole and untattered, and instructed to stumble through my paternosters and make confession of my innumerable sins. In time, I came to know the family as my own, at least in all but name. I even harbored the delusion that Lord Gisborne was my father, that he had sired me off one of his serving wenches, and while not willing to claim me as his son, did not want to see his progeny become nothing more than a runny-nosed boy mucking out stables."
"Were you his son?" Thea asked.
"I imagined it-the wealth, the prestige, the noble title affixed to my common name." The Sheriff laughed harshly. "In truth, Lord Gisborne, as I was always given occasion to learn, was not the sort to be soft-hearted about a by-blow from a night's indiscretion."
For a moment, his gray eyes clouded with a vacant stare. Then he snapped back to the present, continuing his recitation as if he were indifferent to the story of his own life.
"No, I was not Guy's brother, not even his cousin. I was-" He paused. "I was his friend, bought with no more than the snap of the lordling's fingers. Yet it was Guy's insistence that saved me from an otherwise bleak destiny.
"We were reared together, you see. Along with Guy, I received as much of an education as was due a noble's lesser son, which is to say we were trained to fight. To wield a sword, to wear armor, to sit a horse, and to make a favorable display of ourselves in the tourneys. Occasionally, when time permitted, there was even a modicum of hopeless training in courtly behavior, writing our characters with a semi-legible hand, and ciphering enough to make certain we were not thieved at the fair.
"Lord Gisborne had in mind to seek a position for Guy, something at court that would have been properly advantageous to a landless noble."
"And you?"
He shrugged. "I was dispensable. I'm sure he thought Guy would find his way more easily among peers of the realm. As it was, I scraped up a living in the lists, traveling from one tournament to the next."
"While Guy made his fortune pandering to nobility," Thea concluded.
Nottingham hesitated. "Guy followed me, unexpectedly and against his father's wishes. I don't think Lord Gisborne ever forgave me for that." His voice trailed off, and once again his expression grew bland, as if his mind had been taken by memories he preferred not to share.
"I cannot believe-"
"That Guy would turn down such a fortune for the uncertain life of a knight errant?" he finished for her. "I could not believe it myself, for all that we were friends. He assumed it would be some grand adventure, of course, perhaps some method by which he could rebel against his father's carefully laid plans. Even then, he was a fool."
Nottingham pressed his lips together, then braced his hands along the ledge of the parapet. "In time, we managed to get sold into the king's service. I was a fair soldier and won the king's recognition and later, for a price, this sheriffdom and permission to bring Guy along to oversee the garrison. It was the least I could do to repay him."
"It was a mistake," Thea voiced softly, as if to herself.
"One of my few mistakes. I believed I deserved this station, that I'd earned it with years of grueling service. When I heard that I could make the office profitable if I kept my wits and discretion about me, I was still innocent and foolhardy enough to believe it.
"It was, of course, a bald-faced lie. What this post did not cost me, the shire has robbed from me."
He turned to her, and his hands closed over her upper arms as if he could impress his meaning into her with sheer will. "Yet Nottinghamshire is mine, still mine, mine in a sense no lord, come to land or a title by birth, can understand. I bought it with my blood and the last coin I had, and kept it by labor far harder than any string of skirmishes I might have suffered through on the Welsh border. I am fated to it, if only through some ironic twist of fortune and chance."
His face was a mixture of pride and harsh determination she had not seen before-not a man who loved the land, but ravaged it because he had given himself to it, and thought it owed him something in return.
"I hardly see how it could be a burden to you then," she challenged. "One would think you would treasure it, like something precious, won by your sacrifice."
He glared at her, but his fingers uncurled from around her flesh. "I know what you are thinking, what they all are thinking-that I am but another invader. You were weaned on the tales, no doubt, of a dark Norman riding about the shire on a black warhorse, imposing order with whip and torch, robbing from peasant and manor lord and Church alike, amassing a fortune equal to the Crown's own, perhaps torturing and hanging the hapless poor when boredom set it."
"Is that not what you do, my lord?"
He laughed heartily, the rich, unexpected sound ringing from the battlements. "My duties are somewhat wide-ranging," he conceded with a cynical smile. "King Richard's crusade required coin, his ransom even more. Somehow I must obtain the shire's quota."
"By taxing the poor?"
"By whatever means I must."
"By force? By cruelty?"
"By whatever means I must," he repeated, each word embroidered with firmness. "It is not to fill my own pockets, I assure you. Were I found failing in my obligations to the Crown, I would be cast out penniless, with no hidden cache of funds siphoned off from the Michaelmas rents, without even a custodianship from which I might eke out a marginal existence. It's not that I am more honorable than the next man, Thea, for I swear to you I am not, nor do I make pretense of it. It's simply that the Crown requires revenue from as many sources as I can possibly invent, and more from ways I have yet to dream up. There is not a farthing to spare for
feathering my personal nest.
"I could, perhaps, abandon this laggard shire to some other fool, make a living as a hired soldier. But I prefer to sleep out of the mud and rain. I prefer evenings spent with ale and a warm woman. I prefer the threat of a single unknown assailant to that of an army of ill-intentioned Welshmen.
"Nor," he added, a lethal calmness in his eyes, "am I so easily defeated. I did not gain this post to be broken by dissident taxpayers and a few criminals on the loose. I do not command a garrison of soldiers to sit idly by, succumbing to this shire's bucolic charm. Nor do I have the authority to accuse and judge because I hesitate to pass sentence and see it carried out. Whatever rank I have, Thea, I've held because I'm bold enough to exercise the power given me. Misuse of the privilege of my office? Opportunism? Ambition? Greed? Call it what you will. Others do. The degree of my corruption has been so debated, my supposed abuses of power so exaggerated, I have lost clear accounting of my own offenses."
He shrugged with feigned indifference and gazed out over the countryside, an early morning breeze lifting the dark hair from his forehead. "Perhaps this sheriffing requires more diplomatic finesse than I possess, or am wont to employ. Perhaps I would fare better with the populace were I blessed with the golden charisma of their king. No matter. In the end, Thea, it isn't necessary that my subjects love me, only that they obey me. I do-I shall do-whatever I must to that end. I will have the tax moneys. I will have order," he swore. "A bastard's inheritance, this shire, but one I will not relinquish. It is all that I have."
Thea lowered her gaze, absorbing what the Sheriff had said, wondering how much of it was true, how much was said merely for her benefit, and which portion, if not the whole of it, Nottingham had come to believe himself. The soliloquy hovered between confession and apologia, interspersed with fragments of rare insight, and yet the Sheriff had overlooked-or couldn't see-the simplest failure of his logic.
"It is your very methods that lead your subjects to unrest, possibly to revolt," Thea said.
"Already to revolt," he corrected her. "You are forgetting your companions of the wood."
"Then hear the truth in what I say," she pleaded. "These are not unprincipled men who thieve and murder without a second thought. They're poor farmers, men who would rather be with their families, for pity's sake, than forced to an outlaw's life."
The Sheriff peered at her, the storm-gray of his eyes lit from behind with a glint of success. "You've come far, Thea," he murmured dangerously. "From claiming the forest is filled with no more than ghosts, to stating the obvious-that it is teeming with fugitives. Whom you know. And now you claim to know the conscience of these rogues, as well? How refreshing to have an honest admission from you. Tell me, what methods might I employ to wrest other truths from you?"
"I tell you nothing which you do not already believe to be true," she returned hotly.
"I make no such claim as to the innocence of these brigands, nor do I attempt to justify their actions."
"They have not the means for food, much less for taxes, yet you deny them even the right to feed their young," Thea argued.
"I deny them-the king denies them-the right to poach deer in his forest and lay waste to the royal lands," he said with misleading mildness.
"And for this-for the taking of a single deer-you would chop off a hand, a farmer's hand? How then is he meant to plow?"
"It is kinder than death."
"Their only crime is poverty!"
"They are tax evaders," he said, temper unraveling, "inspired to larger ambitions and more serious violations of the law by your Locksley. Thieving, murdering-"
"Surely imagined offenses, my lord, 'dreamed up' by an incompetent sheriff to explain to London why the tax moneys are not forthcoming." She deliberately chose his own words with which to accuse him, but in the next instant, she regretted her meager attempt at cleverness.
His face darkened, eyes iced over to reveal a cold rancor, and when he spoke, his words were clipped, as if he could not permit himself to voice his rage. "I do not 'dream up' the figures in my scribe's ledgers. Ten thousand marks taken in Sherwood in the last half year alone, and that, Thea, coin intended for Richard's ransom. Several thousand more stolen from individual citizens, innocent victims of these presumed-" he stopped and cleared his throat for effect "-farmers. And as for the taking of life, it amazes me how quickly the bloodless visage of young Hugh Monteforte has fled your memory."
"I have not forgotten," she said quietly. "But Sherwood is not the source of your ills."
"Damn it, Thea! Attack in Sherwood is so common my own men used it as a guise for that misbegotten attempt on my life! Who are you to deny what scores of witnesses have reported to exist? These men are cutthroats, fast becoming seasoned in the methods of the most brutal of highwaymen. Why can't they see? Their thievery only forces me to bleed their villages drier still. You make what they do sound noble. In your mind, you've vindicated their actions with half-truths and romantic notions of greenwood justice. You would make them out to be heroes and their crimes heroic deeds. You've developed some means, which escapes me, of shifting the meaning of honor, or carving nuances of degree into guilt, as if an empty belly excuses theft, as if murder should be pardonable if the murderer poor and the victim titled or wealthy."
"And you see nothing of their plight," she retaliated, "or won't see, because to do so would challenge your perverted sense of right and wrong or call into question the twisted code of morality you've invented for yourself. It's easier, is it not, to cloak yourself in the assurance that you are the king's appointed authority in this shire? Easier not to question your personal definition of justice too deeply, lest it prevent your enjoyment of hanging innocents from your gallows and flinging them from your castle walls, their entrails aflame."
"They are felons," he said evenly, "duly convicted."
"And those in your gaol?"
"Awaiting the arrival of ransom, most. A common practice."
"And are they tortured?"
"What possible use would that serve?"
"It would amuse you, I suppose. Relieve you, for a time, of the weighty responsibility of this sheriffdom."
"Inspect the place if you like," the Sheriff said. "In fact, I insist upon it. The prisoners could well use the care of the castle physician. After all, dead bodies hardly fetch their agreed-upon price."
Suddenly, Thea could think of nothing. Her head pounded with the effort of arguing and having her every charge against him dismissed as if it were meaningless.
What was this fate that they could stand side-by-side enjoying the peaceful birth of a new day, but could not speak to each other without dredging up every angry difference of mind that separated them? How could she even entertain the memory of his lips on hers when those lips spewed such blind, unfeeling words?
Wearily, she wiped her sleep-robbed eyes and determined she would listen no further.
"This is ludicrous," she said, as much to herself as to him. "There's not a soul in Nottingham who does not believe-who does not know-that your loyalties go no further than what is good for your own hide. Do you think you fool them? Or me? You said it yourself. You have no land. This position is your only means. You would not lose it to dereliction of duty lest you find yourself without your bed furs or your ale or your warm wench from the buttery."
"So it is Agatha again."
"It is not Agatha! It is a truth you will not hear!"
"And you are the one to tell me?"
"Someone needs to. Your precious advisers won't. Nor will your sycophant Guy or your guard or your scribe or your-"
"I get the point, woman. I am lord of a court of fools, is that it?"
"You are the fool, and lord of a great many fearful people."
"You do not fear me, Thea. Why is that?"
The question stopped her, for she had no answer. All that remained was the fiery energy between them, energy they tossed back and forth in a dangerous game. Now the game had ended, and Thea was left h
olding that odd energy in the pit of her stomach where it churned up longing and denial, courage and regret.
She turned away, unable to face him. "Because I am the biggest fool of all." She did not elaborate, nor was there a need to. The air filled with an awful silence, and when his fingers touched the curls at the nape of her neck, she started.
"You are a great many things, Thea," he said, his breath warm against her, "but you are no fool."
"And you-" The accusation broke in her throat.
"Yes, Thea? Who do you think I am?" He lifted her hair, planted his lips on her bared shoulder.
It was a gentle kiss, small and warm and tender and not at all warranting the jolt of sensation that charged through her. The feeling frightened her, for she knew what would come of it if she did not resist him. Unwilling to stop the verbal battle that was her only defense, she tightened her trembling jaw and threw words back at him like so many deadly aimed daggers.
"I know full well who you are. You are a self-serving tyrant who cannot think past your purse, your stomach, or your next bedmate."
"I see." He stroked his bearded chin as if considering her observation. "And mad as well, I'd wager, since there is no woman I've wanted more, despite the venom you're wont to spout at me. And yet-" He turned her in his arms. With the backs of his fingers, he caressed her cheek from jawline to temple, his glance slowly rising from her lips to her eyes as if he sought some betrayal of expression there. "And yet you are Locksley's woman, and I would not have you wanting him, preferring him as you do now, consoling yourself with lies about his nobility, and cooling whatever small flame of desire you feel for me with more lies about what wretched villainy I am."
She shook herself free of the hypnotic languor of his words. "Don't start with me, Sheriff. I know your ways and-"
"And?"
"And I would sooner throw myself from these ramparts than to endure another insufferable lesson in your sexual prowess."
