by Sue Wilson
Thea shrieked, and he pulled her back behind the cover of a cart as an arrow streaked by, skewering the skirt of her hastily donned shift to the ground. Another arrow skidded between the rows of stalls, leaving a trail of fire in straw and sawdust. Beside them, the dry haystack crackled into a spontaneous explosion of flame.
"Bastards!"
He filled his hands with the folds of Thea's skirt, where fire licked hungrily at the linen undergarment. With a savage bellow, he tore the shift from the arrow that pinned it, and flattened the flames with his hands.
The wooden stalls around them ignited like dry kindling, sending up plumes of smoke and heat. Through a gritty veil of tears, Nottingham could see a single soldier, crouched, running toward them.
"Castle gate?" he called out.
"Closed. Since nightfall, my lord!"
"And the bridge?"
"Drawn. I'd stake my life on it!"
"Where are they firing from?"
"The wall, sir." The soldier stopped, coughed. "Longbowmen. Four at least, maybe more, with eyes like bleeding falcons."
"Do you have them, man? Do you have the bastards?"
The Sheriff's shout was cut short by the fall of lighted thatch that spilled from the hayloft above, sending a spray of scarlet sparks pelting down on them. He shielded his face with his forearm and grabbed Thea with the other, bending low over her body as tiny pinpricks of flame fell across his naked back and shoulders.
Through the rain of fire came the familiar thunder of an arrow in reply-too close-and an answering bolt of lightning jagged through his shoulder. He stifled a cry of pain and clutched Thea tightly into the cave of his body.
Twice hit. Nothing mortal. He knew without looking that the arrow had taken a ribbon of flesh from his shoulder, but if they were not quick-
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He could feel the rivulets of blood scoring his back, raw lungs laboring to draw breath. His feet were lead, unable to move.
"Thea-"
"I'm here, my lord."
A wave of pain washed over him, and he lost her face in a gathering sea of darkness, lost even the touch of her fingers lacing through his. All he could see was smoke-
Curling in the mist, rising in slender spirals through the bare trees toward the drab, low-hanging sky. A tapestry of gray and white.
They were hours from Nottingham. In the thick of the wood. No one would see.
He shuddered back to his senses, fighting the nausea of time trading places. The soldier stood before him, puffing, face blackened beneath his helm. The Sheriff shoved Thea into his arms.
"Take her," he barked, as he ripped the crossbow from the man's stunned hand. "See her safely out of here!"
"But you, my lord-"
"Take her!" Sparing no time to see that his order was obeyed, Nottingham jammed his foot into the stirrup of the arbalest and drew the bowstring back into position.
"Now!" he yelled, knowing without looking that Thea had refused to leave his side; that she still clutched the shift to her breast where it fluttered in the smoky half-light of the stable like a foolish white target.
In another instant, he had nocked the square-headed quarrel and had run ahead of the soldier, the weapon raised to eye level, covering right and left as he cleared a path through the burning debris.
He could see the door up ahead. The clear night air raced into his lungs like ice water. They stumbled out into the bailey into a maddened throng of soldiers, stable hands, horses rearing out of control, neighing back to the others trapped inside.
When he turned and stared back at the stable, flames were piercing the roof. A riot of black smoke roiled heavenward.
He stood, shocked silent, listening to the death screams of horses, to the growl of fire out of control. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized the barrage of arrows had ceased. They knew exactly where he had been; they targeted only the stable. He swore violently, his hand flexing around the crossbow.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Thea start toward him and the soldier regain his purchase on her. She was alive. It was all that mattered. And he-
He had stopped feeling the fiery throb of his wounds, stopped feeling anything but an odd, fatalistic tedium that he had outlived them again-for now-and that he was tired of fighting, of trying.
Wearily, he glanced at Thea, still a struggling captive in the soldier's arms, her face, her hair, her gown grayed with ash. The crossbow dropped from his nerveless fingers as he started toward her-
And stopped. His heart drove the air from his chest. Wildly, he swirled around, eyes searching the bailey, squinting through smoke and tears and darkness at the faces. He tried to call the name, felt it clog in a throat seared raw, knew it was useless.
God in heaven, no! He was still in there!
The Sheriff whirled on his heel and looked at the raging inferno, watching the garish flames pierce and stab the black sky.
"My God! He'll die in there!"
No one heard the words; perhaps he had not even spoken them aloud. His mind had already closed the distance between the safety of the bailey and the inferno of the stable. His feet followed, slow, dragging at first, as he shoved his way through the crowd, then faster, faster, faster. Until he was running back into the fire's embrace.
~*~
"No!" Thea screamed, heat searing her lungs.
Gauntleted hands closed around her waist and dragged her backward. She heard the sound of her scorched skirts ripping from the soldier's hand and felt her hair tangle and tear on his mail gloves. The guard grabbed her again, pinning her fast against his body, as timbers of the roof crashed to the ground, sending up an eruption of sparks. A second scream could not get past her throat.
"Sweet Jesus, he has lost his mind!" someone nearby gasped.
"He's a fool-"
"Or a madman-"
A murmur fell over the crowd, and when the Sheriff did not emerge, a hush. Thea was dimly aware of people shaking their heads in bewilderment, others making the sign of the cross, breaths held in expectation. Time thudded by in a slow, dreadful cadence.
The soldier who held her loosened his arms beneath her ribs, while a collective sigh of hopelessness rose from the bailey with the billowing smoke. Thea closed her eyes over the tears streaming down her face.
"My lady, look!"
Swiping at her tears with a grimy hand, she stared in the direction of the soldier's outstretched arm. The entrance to the stable was a giant, fiery maw. Silhouetted against the nightmarish backdrop, a figure appeared, stooped against the heat of the blaze, half-running, half-stumbling. And in his arms-
Thea broke through the guard's hold and ran toward the Sheriff, a sob rising in her throat, tears coursing anew down her cheeks. They met midway, the crowd parting around them, a hiss of astonished whispers rising, then falling to an awe-stricken silence as Nottingham dropped to his knees.
Simeon wriggled closer into the Sheriff's embrace, small hands fisted in Nottingham's charred and tattered tunic, his thin shoulders racked with coughs.
"Shush, child, you're safe," the Sheriff reassured him as he laid the boy in Thea's arms. "Thea's here. She'll look after you."
Thea slipped a comforting hand over Simeon's until the child's fingers loosened their hold on Nottingham's tunic. She held him tightly like a babe against her, rocking him, letting him cough into her shoulder.
In time, Simeon breathed easier and turned a soot-streaked face up to hers. "A bargain, Mistress Aelredson?"
Thea's eyes filled with tears again. "Anything, Simeon."
"Promise, none of your bitter brews and I'll swear to a bath at first light."
She laughed and cried and hugged him close, brushing his cheek with her lips and feathering his long, ebony bangs back from his forehead. Then she glanced at the Sheriff.
Their eyes met for only a moment before he looked away, fear and vulnerability quickly concealed. His jaw hardened, his lips pressed together grimly, and when he looked back at her, his e
yes were glazed with angry defiance.
~*~
Aelwynn tipped up the glass of wine, swallowing in long, thirst-slaking gulps. She did not stop even when she had drained the cup, but put her lips to the wineskin and drank from it, willing the heady mixture to take her senses.
With shaking fingers, she unthreaded the laces at the side of her bliaut and shrugged out of the gown, leaving the pile of ivory samite like a pool of rich cream at her feet.
"Where have you been?"
She started, her heart pounding audibly in her ears and temple. Tossing her auburn hair back off her shoulders, she lifted her chin and turned around.
Gisborne lay sprawled on the bed, still dressed in stained, soot-covered mail. A cup of wine dangled between his fingers. "Following him, perhaps?"
"I?"
"Like a bitch in heat ever since he returned from Sherwood."
Aelwynn shrugged and walked to the bed, her hips swaying carelessly. "Were those not your orders? To find out what passed between the two of them in the forest? Well, lieutenant, I have come to report."
Gisborne dragged one muddy boot through the bedfurs, bending his knee; fluidly, Aelwynn slid between his open legs.
"Alas," she said, "I fear my earlier assumption was wrong. About your little herb harlot, I mean. It seems the passion she neglected to demonstrate in Sherwood was merely postponed. Or perhaps the Sheriff has a preference of which I was unaware. When last I saw them, they were taking their pleasures lustily on the stable floor."
Gisborne slammed down his cup. "Damn it, Aelwynn, make no sport of this. He was nearly killed tonight!"
"A true disaster. I hope you caught the culprits." She smiled silkily and rubbed her hands up his chest, gathering the fabric of his surcoat as she went. "Surely you were heroic, to have earned all this-" she pulled the garment over Gisborne's head and held it pinched between her thumb and forefinger before letting it drop to the floor, "-filth."
"You forget yourself, Aelwynn."
"And you, lieutenant, forget our plan."
"My plan," he interrupted, "is to save my cousin's undeserving ass long enough to see him join with Prince John, to see a trade of coin and armor and Nottingham Castle as a midland stronghold in return for royal favor. That is my plan, and nothing more-a position for myself as something other than the Sheriff's lackey-"
"A position as sheriff yourself?" she dared.
Gisborne stopped, his eyes narrowing to crystalline slits.
"You said you could do it," Aelwynn continued, "could do it better-"
"The drink has fogged your head."
"You said it."
"In a moment of frustration-"
"You meant it," she pressed, and this time she did not wait for his rebuttal. "And I believe you could. The runes forecast it, and opportunity is all around you. Tonight, for example. Had you been less quick to rally the troops...had you been...unavailable..."
Too late, she saw the dangerous turn in Gisborne's expression, sallow complexion flushing red with fury. He threw his cup across the room, splattering wine across the lime-washed wall. Before she could draw breath, his hands were an iron collar about her neck.
"He is my cousin," he said, lips flattening against his teeth in a feral growl. "Damn you to hell, he is the High Sheriff of Nottingham! You will not, for your self-serving means, bring risk to his life!"
"I?" The word croaked from her gullet.
"Do you think Nottingham a fool? Or me? We have worked too long, planned too carefully to let a common castle whore cast our fortunes to the wind."
"I would not suggest-"
"Wouldn't you?" His hands twisted mercilessly. "A murderer is loose, Aelwynn. You reek of burnt oak and stable dung, and your skirts are scorched. Should I arrest you now and save myself the trouble of finding some other unlucky bastard whose neck I can stretch to satisfy justice?"
Aelwynn gave a nervous laugh. "Your devotion knows no bounds, lieutenant. Your charges, however, are baseless. I started no fire. Remember, I fancy the man alive. His bed emptied, perhaps, but-"
Gisborne pushed her away, and threw his legs over the side of the bed.
"You're not leaving?" Aelwynn touched his shoulder.
Without looking at her, he stood and strapped on his sword belt and filled the sheath with his weapon. "There is work left undone, suspects to question-"
"But surely not tonight!"
He did not answer her, shoving past her as she clambered from the bed. Deliberate strides carried him across the room; the door shut solidly in her face.
A ragged breath shuddered through her. "Idiot!" she muttered. But that and another belly-soaking draught of wine did little to drown the niggling dread that curdled within her.
Gisborne's loyalty to his cousin was as stolid and unflagging as ever. He was a spineless leech, plastered to Nottingham's side, sucking, savoring, sharing the Sheriff's ambition, as if it were his own.
Worse, time was running out. She had made promises, taken payment, played the game of bored, disinterested concubine until her nerves screamed with impatience. Gisborne was no closer to assuming the role required of him. And the Sheriff?
The Sheriff was still alive.
~*~
Nottingham paused at the entrance to the barracks and surveyed the mayhem within. Soldiers pulled off hauberks and mail gauntlets and stacked shields and swords. There was a low, but audible undercurrent of discontent, a rumbling of oaths and curses flung aside with the discarded weaponry. From his particular vantage point, the Sheriff could not tell whether his men were disgruntled that they were called to arms or that the battle they had expected had never materialized.
He suspected they were as weary as he of skirmishes and ambushes, of protecting a castle in a forest-covered shire while titled knights and noblemen had traded such onerous duty for more glorious service under King Richard's banner. Nottingham did not fool himself that he had purchased his soldiers' loyalty with anything but harsh demands for respect and obedience, but they were good men, as soldiers went. Determined fighters.
Without making his presence known, he swept aside the pain of his own injuries as he scanned the scene. He had no wish to appear weak in their eyes, not after the night they'd just spent, first in the stable, then going through the town, door-to-door, searching for the arsonists. Once the first soldier caught sight of his lord and stood, straight and suddenly silent, a contagion of quiet spread quickly throughout the ranks. Men froze in mid-motion, and the only sound was the nervous clattering of a sword dropped clumsily to the floor.
The Sheriff gazed over his troops, meeting each pair of eyes individually in silent gratitude. Abruptly, he moved from his position in the doorway to the row of cots and tables littered with the casualties of the fire. No battle, no honor; just the same, inglorious deaths that seemed to follow him wherever he went. Tonight, again, men had traded their lives for his in this madness he did not understand, and could not end.
The barracks had been hastily converted into an infirmary and now served as makeshift morgue. Thea stood nearby, her sleeves soaked to the elbow in blood. She reached up and wiped distractedly at the loose tendrils of hair on her forehead, so intent on her surgery, she noticed neither him nor the pall that had settled over the men at his arrival.
The Sheriff watched her for a moment, observing with an odd detachment the swiftness with which she wielded her blade and stanched the flow of blood from her patient's open chest where an arrow protruded upright. Her lips tightened into a grim line of determination as the wounded soldier convulsed, then grew still. Her hands, which had been so sure and capable just moments before, trembled as she pressed her fingertips beneath the soldier's jaw.
"How many?" Nottingham asked, his voice subdued, but stern. He could see the very shock of the sound break through her concentration.
She closed the eyes of the man on the table and drew the linen sheet over him. Slowly, she lifted her head and met the Sheriff's gaze. There was no expression on her face, mer
ely the weariness and numbness of hours of futile surgery.
"Eight dead...now."
Nottingham cleared his throat. For such a feeble ambush, far too many had died. He passed along the row of bodies, lifting the white sheets back from each face in turn, counting off the names in a hushed monotone that grew louder and angrier with each man identified.
"FitzRobert...Greeley...Royce...Knowlesly..."
He approached another body, smaller than the others, and snatched the gauzy fabric away.
"Eduard," he pronounced, his voice dropping. "Knowlesly's squire. The lad had a way with horses, did you know? Loved them better than people, I think. Spent nearly all his time with Knowlesly's roan."
He stopped and swallowed, grimacing at the raw burn in his throat. He had seen the horrors of war, had even grown quite indifferent to them. He wasn't certain he would forget the horror of the boy's mail hauberk fused into blackened flesh.
"And the others?" he asked. "The wounded?"
"Two were but grazed, and there were some minor burns. Another-I've removed an arrow. Possibly-" Her voice faltered, and she looked away briefly before continuing. "Then there is Ned. Ned Godwinson."
"Yes?"
"The stable master."
"He lives?"
"I could take his arm," she said, "but he's weak. Either way, I do not think he will last the night."
The Sheriff nodded and rubbed his hand across his drawn, soot-streaked face.
"I will speak to the families," she offered.
"No," he interrupted tersely. "They were my men."
He squared his sagging shoulders, the movement a jarring reminder of torn flesh, and drew in a harsh hiss of breath to clear the pain. He felt her gaze on him, on the ragged rise and fall of his chest beneath the shreds of his sweat-stained tunic, on the shoulder and sleeve which clung to him, silk black-wet with blood.
When he looked at her, he could see only one thing: a forest woman, a sympathizer, the woman who, in another time, would have put her hands to the wounds of Robin of Locksley and his men.
Something inside him tore, some buried, hurting place she had begun to heal with trust and affection. Old torments poured forth as from a reopened wound.
