Lady of Sherwood

by Jennifer Roberson

  Her part was not to go into alehouses, but to find quiet places near the castle gates, lingering idly, moving from time to time so as not to draw attention. It was Alan and Will who would go into the alehouses to learn news of the sheriff’s activities and if he had any imminent plans for a public punishment, and Robin who would remain near the stocks and the block, where Much most likely would be taken.

  She was confident she could manage the subterfuge. No one would expect Lady Marian of Ravenskeep to be clad as a boy, carrying bow and quiver. Often people saw only what they expected to see. She would not withstand scrutiny, but there was no reason anyone should examine her so long as she did not draw the attention of the castle guards.

  She saw Robin examining each of them, as if he weighed their worth. But she knew him; it wasn’t that he doubted them. He worried now that he led them into a battle, that he risked their lives, that they put faith in his ability to see them through such risk. He was what her father had been: a natural leader whose mind worked in such a way that he was first to comprehend, first to offer suggestions for resolutions. Such men, regardless of birth, eventually were looked to by others as deliverance, if such was needed.

  This time it was Much’s deliverance. They none of them would shirk it. But neither would Robin merely fling them at the enemy with no thought to their fate.

  She caught his eye then. For a moment he was as serious as she had ever seen him, thinking of the task; and then he marked that it was she, remembered what he had asked in their bed the night before, and what she had answered.

  Unable to help herself, Marian smiled. Robin smiled back. It was a fleeting moment of intense privacy, of a shared past and future. It left a warm glow in her soul.

  He looked again at the others. The plan was simple, Robin said. Alan and Will were to find out what they could, then, like him, stay near the Square. When Much was brought out, Robin would, at an opportune moment—and from a distance—confront the sheriff and order the boy released. If he was not released—and Robin did not believe the sheriff would simply acquiesce—they would do what was necessary.

  “ ‘Necessary’?” Alan asked warily.

  Robin looked at him. Mildly he said, “That is why we carry longbows.”

  The minstrel rubbed one palm against his hosen, as if ridding it of sweat—or, Marian thought, wishing for his lute. He was musician, not mercenary.

  “Here,” Scarlet said roughly, “ ’tis only Normans we’ll be shooting.”

  Alan cast him a baleful glance even as Tuck blanched. “I would as lief not shoot anyone,” the minstrel declared.

  “We’ve done this before,” Robin said calmly, still not pressing.

  “Five years ago,” Little John muttered.

  “Here,” Scarlet said again, “you’ll be in the forest. What have you to think on?”

  “The sheriff killed those men,” Marian said flatly, making herself the target so Robin wouldn’t be. Accordingly they shifted to look at her. “You shot them to wound, yes? But he cut their throats.”

  “We tried only to wound,” Little John agreed. “But some died of our arrows.”

  “Then try to wound again, if necessary,” Robin said, shedding diffidence. “I won’t ask you to kill. But be certain the sheriff shall do more than merely try to chop off Much’s hands.” It succeeded in silencing additional protests, and he continued. “It is Market Day. In the confusion, in the aftermath, Tuck’s cassock and tonsure will buy him a moment or two to spirit Much away. Any man, even a Norman soldier, will hold a killing stroke at first sight of a monk. It should be enough time, particularly in the crowd.”

  Tuck’s face was pallid. “One does pray so.”

  Scarlet’s tone was uninflected. “What about the sheriff?”

  They knew what he asked, and why, but no one offered an answer.

  He leaned and spat, then nodded to himself. “So be it. He’s mine.”

  “Will,” Robin said, “our task is to get Much to safety.”

  “Aye, and so we will. But if, in this ‘confusion’ and ‘aftermath’ you speak about, an arrow finds that bastard’s black heart, who’s to complain?”

  “We want you alive,” Marian said with no little vehemence.

  Scarlet looked at her sharply, startled. Then he hitched a shoulder. “I’m not dying, am I? Just shooting.”

  “I’d advise against shooting him,” Robin said dryly. “It would complicate matters even more.” He glanced at the others. “Find rooftops. Find anything with height—and a clear means of escape—and go there. If we are fortunate, the threat of our presence will be enough. We’ll meet in the forest near the road, where we met last night.” He looked hard at Marian, no longer smiling, no longer conjuring between them the warmth of memory. “Keep yourself safe.”

  He meant her not to shoot, not to put herself in harm’s way. She looked at the others one by one, men who had faced danger, men who had, in the name of a king, been the cause of other men’s deaths. Tuck was troubled, as she expected. Little John was grim-faced, unhappy at being sentenced to hide in Sherwood even if he had no taste for killing. Alan’s elegant hands gripped the bow with none of the delicacy he tendered his lute. Scarlet, being Scarlet, wore no expression at all, though his eyes were dark with malice. Thinking, she did not doubt, of his poor dead wife, murdered by Norman soldiers.

  She thought of what they risked, and why, and for whom. “I saw Much,” she said quietly. “The sheriff beat him. Himself. He took his own hand to him, and he beat him bloody—and then told him he’d chop off both his hands. All because Much wouldn’t tell him where any of you were.”

  It was as much for Robin as for the others. And there was no more talk of keeping safe, of not shooting, of shooting only to wound.

  Tuck said, with startling simplicity, “God will see. God will hear. God will provide.” He crossed himself. “And God will forgive.”

  Huntington broke the seal and shook away wax fragments as he unfolded the parchment. He was aware of Ralph remaining next to the bed, lingering to see if there was business for him to conduct on his lord’s behalf. The earl had considered telling Ralph to hold the letter until later, but curiosity had caused him to give it his attention. He and the Sheriff of Nottingham had parted on civil but unproductive terms, and he could think of no good cause why deLacey would be writing him so soon.

  Unless it be to mend a wall he sees as broken . . . Huntington flattened the crackling letter and turned it into the light so he might better read it.

  “My lord?”

  He was staring. He realized it. Staring into space.

  “My lord?”

  He refolded the letter upon its creases and considered the import of the news, its implication, and the ramifications if he went forward with the carefully couched suggestion.

  “My lord earl?”

  Huntington smiled briefly and extended the letter to Ralph. “See to this,” he ordered. “Carry it out at once.”

  “My lord.” Ralph accepted the parchment and bowed himself out of the room.

  William deLacey calmly finished his watered wine as guards brought up the prisoner from the dungeon. He was somewhat startled to see how the eyes had blackened, how swollen was the face; apparently his blow had broken the boy’s nose. Much had contrived to wash himself, such as he could manage, but it served merely to point up the contrast between pallid flesh and purpling bruises.

  The soldiers brought him into the hall. When Much saw whom he faced, he recoiled visibly. Wrist manacles chimed. A throttled sound caught in his throat. DeLacey thought it was perhaps a whimper, poorly suppressed. “I shall not strike you again,” he promised comfortingly. “The next blow you feel will be the ax taking your hands.”

  The whimper became a wail. Much fought briefly, was subdued at once. When he realized there would be no escape, the boy sagged, trembling. His face was bloodless.

  DeLacey heard the scrape of wood against stone: Mercardier, still seated at the table, shifting on the bench to
have a better view. Smiling, the sheriff answered the incipient question. “It shall be today, you see,” he said. “Not a fortnight from now. He has friends, this boy, men who fancy themselves his defenders. I will give them no opportunity to put a plan in motion for rescue. This shall be done now.”

  Though Mercardier’s tone was uninflected, deLacey read disbelief into it. “You think Locksley would risk himself for this boy?”

  “I do,” he answered flatly. “He is a fool for such things as he interprets as just and righteous. His morals are entirely flexible. But this boy is a thief, an unrepentant cutpurse, as anyone in Nottingham may attest, and he participated in a heinous crime when he, with the others, stole a tax shipment intended for Prince John. Twelve of my men died in that theft. This punishment is not only merited, but overdue.”

  “Intended for Prince John?” Mercardier echoed.

  Inwardly deLacey chided himself. “Intended for the Exchequer,” he clarified with careful intonation. “Prince John was in Lincoln on behalf of the king, awaiting the shipment. But it was stolen by Locksley—calling himself Robin Hood, as if that would shield him against discovery—and his companions.” He smiled grimly. “I was present, Captain. I do assure you I am intimately familiar with what happened. In fact, I was the only survivor.”

  “How fortunate for you,” Mercardier said with no evidence of irony.

  The chains chimed. “For Lionheart!” Much cried. “For the ransom! Robin said!”

  “Robin,” deLacey observed, mocking the diminutive, “is as much a thief as you.” He gestured sharply at the guards. “Take him outside and wait for me. I’ll accompany you to the Square.”

  Marian watched as Alan, Tuck, and Will Scarlet disappeared through the city gate into Nottingham’s populace. It took no longer than a moment for them to become anonymous, merely bodies like any other. Alan and Scarlet, with longbows and quivers, would be taken for yeomen, even as she and Robin would be. Tuck was what he was, judged merely by cassock and tonsure; she did not doubt Robin was correct when he said the sheriff’s soldiers would not immediately attempt to stop Tuck or harm him, particularly before a crowd. As for Robin himself, she did not fear for his ability to remain safe; he had survived the Crusade, even captivity. He had fought—and killed—before.

  He stood with her now beside the city gate, bent over, ostensibly digging a stone out of his shoe. The hood shielded his face and pale hair. She kept her own face downturned, meeting no one’s glance.

  “Will you stay here?” he asked in a low voice, meaning outside the city where she would be safe. Not involved.

  She had known it would come. “You are three,” she said, counting only those with weapons; Tuck could do nothing from a distance. “You need me.”

  “You have never shot a man.”

  Marian gripped her bow, aware of the weight of the arrow-laden quiver over one shoulder. “And I hope not to do so now,” she pointed out. “I have a good eye. I can shoot beside them. The warning should be enough. You said so yourself.”

  “I said I hoped it would be enough.” He glanced up, hazel eyes serious. “Marian—”

  “I know,” she interrupted. “I shall be careful, I swear it. But so must you.”

  He nodded at the gate. “Wherever you go, make certain you have an escape. Stay away from unfamiliar alleys and lanes. Allow yourself room to run. If they catch you—”

  “I know,” she said again. “I do know, Robin.”

  He lingered, tense as a bowstring. Clearly he wanted to kiss her, to touch her, but would not, lest it draw unwanted attention. “Go,” he said.

  She drew a breath so deep it fair made her lungs creak, then turned on her heel and strode toward the city gate.

  Behind her, markedly altering his accent from nobility to peasantry, Robin called out that he’d meet her in the tavern called The Lion’s Heart. First, he explained loudly, he had to take a piss.

  Shrouded by the hood, Marian winced. Then she raised her hand in a brief gesture denoting agreement, and went on through the gate.

  Thirty

  Nottingham was always busy on Market Day, thronged with residents and merchants as well as peasants and tenant-farmers from the outlying regions. Robin used the crowd to hide himself among folk as he would among Sherwood’s trees.

  He had put off the fine clothing he’d donned at his father’s castle in deference to the earl’s insistence, though he had been glad enough to strip out of mud-laden tunic and hosen and put on dry again. Now he wore a plain gray summer-weight wool tunic, hosen with buskins cross-gartered to his knees, leather bracers, and the hooded capelet. He was hardly alone in the latter; it was not unusual to hear someone described as the “hooded man” or “the man in the hood.” The only risk he ran was if he came face-to-face with one of the sheriff’s men, and only if that man knew him by sight. Otherwise, he was merely a yeoman in Nottingham on Market Day, very like perhaps a fifth of the current population.

  Of course, once Much was rescued, the risks increased significantly.

  Robin’s mind was fixed upon that task as once it fixed upon the needs of war, the requirements of a man’s mind, soul, and body that permitted him to kill another man.

  He had never enjoyed war, not as the Lionheart relished it. He did not enjoy this. But he accepted both as his duty, to take lives, if necessary, in the pursuit of an honorable goal: to win back Jerusalem from the Infidel, and to keep Much from being maimed in the private battle Robin of Locksley—no, Robin Hood—now fought with the Sheriff of Nottingham.

  He could see neither Will nor Alan, nor Tuck, nor even Marian. Robin supposed that was good, for if he could pick them immediately out of the crowd they were too obvious. But it made him uneasy that Marian was absent, or as like to invisible as an outlaw in Sherwood Forest, mere shadow in the wood. He would far rather know where she was, so he could keep an eye on her and be certain she was safe.

  Have faith, he chided himself. They were none of them fools, nor careless with their skins.

  But Marian’s skin was more precious to him than his own.

  Have faith, he repeated, because if he divided his concentration with concern for Marian, he risked everyone’s life, including hers.

  Robin shook off the nagging worry and reconnoitered several alleys, lanes, and closes near the open square hosting stalls and wagons as well as the stocks, whipping post, and the block where limbs were struck off. He considered renting a room at an inn, an upstairs room with a window overlooking the square. But swift escape would be hindered by such things as narrow stairs, ladders, or even people who might prove loyal to the sheriff. Much was a thief; Robin did not doubt someone might attempt to stop him once the deed was done.

  And then he recalled Abraham the Jew, a money-lender with whom he had conducted business years before in the name of King Richard. The Jewish Quarter was not close enough to the Square to be ideally situated for his needs, but other buildings were. And a fair share of people who lived and worked in other buildings owed debts to Abraham.

  Robin wasted no time. He ran.

  In short order Marian discovered she had better chance than expected of remaining anonymous and unremarkable even near the castle gates. She was dressed like a great many others, and a great many others thronged the lanes and alleys as well as the square itself, browsing booths, stalls, carts, wagons, even cloths spread on the ground. Men and women shouted out their wares as others bargained with raised voices. A street minstrel, whose poor voice and lute skills would appall Alan, had attracted a clutch of young women who seemed inured to sour notes and wandering pitch. Not far from the gates stood the smithy, where the broad, sweating man before its open doors pounded hot iron against an anvil. Not far from him was a tinker’s wagon, where pots were mended; nearby a pack of street dogs fought noisily over a bitch apparently in season.

  Marian felt some of the tension spill out of her shoulders. She had focused solely on the danger, on the idea of what they risked despite the goal and her willingness; s
he had forgotten how noisy and crowded Market Day was. While the sheriff might find the audience he desired to see his justice meted out, they, too, could use the audience to shield them from the sheriff.

  Feeling better, Marian began drifting from stall to booth, from wagon to cart, keeping an eye on the castle gates. The castle was surrounded by a curtain-walled bailey with a sentry-walk atop it. But the walls were in turn surrounded by streets and alleys tangled up like skeins of yarn. It was small task to find a narrow, winding lane at one corner of the castle wall that gave out into the square even as it led away into the depths of the city itself, bisected by countless others. There was even a water barrel to catch runoff from the wall, and a bench, both providing reason to linger. She could slouch there at the corner unobtrusively with escape at her back, and a clear view of the castle gates from which the sheriff and his soldiers would issue with Much in their midst. Meanwhile, she could wander; deLacey would, as Robin noted, wish to parade his prisoner. There was time for her to take up her post at the wall.

  She nodded absently, then leaned the longbow against her shoulder as she wiped a damp-palmed hand against the hem of her tunic. Much deserved this. They would not fail him. But she would be a liar if she denied a measure of apprehension and anxiety.

  Get up, Robin had said. Find a high place, for the angle and the chance for escape. Well, she lacked the high place as well as significant height. But the castle gates were tall, and the sound of an arrow loosed from an English longbow, whining through the air and thunking into wood, was unmistakable no matter where it struck.