Lady of Sherwood

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Are you soldiers?” he roared, infuriated. “Or cowards? In the name of King John, I order you to do your duty! Find that boy! Find Locksley and the others!”

  “Sheriff!” called the voice he now recognized as that he most despised. “Your soldiers are wise men. I urge you to be the same.”

  DeLacey hung there on his knees, not testing Locksley’s resolve. But he addressed the audience, not the men who meant to stop him. Much was missing, swallowed by the crowd. And he knew he needed that crowd if his men were to find the boy. “He is a thief!” he shouted. “Will you give him up to murderers and rapists? To men who steal your coin?”

  “Taxes!” Locksley shouted. “Taxes collected from people who have no money with which to pay, and yet are made to pay. Again and again! How many of you paid your taxes five years ago, and then again, and then donated to the ransom for the Lionheart?”

  A massed shout went up from the crowd, followed by muttered commentary. At last a few of the soldiers were lifting crossbows, preparing to span them.

  Locksley called, “And how many of you were given some of your money back from that additional collection when it was taken back from King John, who wanted it for himself?”

  This time the shout was a roar of triumph. The soldiers aimed their crossbows not toward Locksley’s voice, but at the crowd.

  DeLacey swore under his breath. He was winning them, was Locksley. While they feared the sheriff and his men, they were malleable. But fear was clearly fading; his men had been slow to act, and the crowd was fast becoming a mob, spurred on by Locksley’s appeal. DeLacey hastily waved at his men to hold and made another attempt to recapture the spectators. “But how many times has that boy stolen for himself? How many times has your precious coin gone for a sweetmeat stuffed into his mouth, when you meant it for something else?”

  “And how many times have the tax collectors sent out by William deLacey threatened you and your families?” Locksley countered. “No one is safe. Only a matter of days ago the sheriff set his men on Lady Marian FitzWalter’s manor, turning the livestock loose and destroying furniture. If he is willing to do that to a knight’s daughter, how can you stand against him? He has set himself up as lord of Nottinghamshire, taking your money in the name of the king!”

  Thirty-Two

  Robin slid back in the narrow window and caught up his quiver, slipping it over one shoulder. He had no time to linger; best to make his escape now, to get out of Nottingham and back into Sherwood, where soldiers would find it difficult to track him and the others. He trusted Tuck to bring Much to the meeting place, and the others to make their ways as well. But his mind was on Marian even as he ran back down the crude staircase. He knew she was neither a fool nor a coward, but neither was she accustomed to being hunted. It changed a man, made a man think differently, to anticipate the actions and threats of others and respond accordingly. To be willing to do whatever was necessary. He had no doubt she could find her way to the meeting place, but she still needed to get out of Nottingham without being discovered or caught.

  “Taxes are necessary!” deLacey shouted. “Without taxes England will fail. How else do you suppose Crusades are mounted?”

  “Fair taxes,” Locksley agreed. “Collected by fair men. Is there anyone in Nottingham who has not been victim to an overzealous officer of the king?”

  The crowd roared denial.

  “Is there anyone in Nottingham who sees his family suffer so he might pay the taxes?”

  This time the crowd affirmed it.

  “It is the law!” deLacey shouted. “The boy must pay for his crimes. Give him back!”

  But it was too late. Much was gone, perhaps shielded by the crowd, perhaps spirited away to a building, or an alley, or hidden within one of the stalls. DeLacey drew in a breath to order his men to commence a search, and then realized it was futile. The crowd was clearly on Locksley’s side, thanks to his discourse about taxes. Horses could break through easily enough by virtue of trampling people, soldiers could even shoot various spectators, but either the mass of people would obstruct the search by the expedient of simple stolid numbers, or would panic into flight if soldiers began loosing crossbow quarrels or hacking bodies with broadswords.

  Panic could kill. He had seen it happen before. And the memory of the day would not be the sheriff’s attempt to carry out a lawful punishment of a lone boy cutpurse, thwarted by outlaws, but that William deLacey’s overzealous actions had caused the deaths of men, women, and children, killed by Norman soldiers.

  He had not survived in office this long by permitting wounded pride and fury to overcome political pragmatism. He had himself been a soldier, once. He understood the complex geography that lay between true defeat and strategic retreat.

  DeLacey climbed to his feet, glad to be off his knees. To an archer in the crowd, on the same level, he was no longer a target, but he knew full well Locksley and the others could kill him easily from their elevated positions; he knew also that they themselves knew it and were secure in that knowledge. With precise, deliberate movements, the sheriff gripped his sword hilt with his off hand and drew it. He dangled it from his fingers, then released. The weapon thudded to the ground.

  “Stand down,” he called, so that his men—and Locksley—could hear.

  Let Locksley have the day, have the boy. There would be another opportunity, and time for another plan.

  Marian tugged the hood forward to make certain it didn’t slide back in her flight. No one seeing her hasten by would name her a woman, merely a young man clad as a yeoman and carrying bow and quiver; but all knew the sheriff and his soldiers had been stymied by hooded archers, a known cutpurse rescued. Anyone who had been robbed would be likely to stop her if possible, to turn her over to the sheriff. Anyone who supported the sheriff—and she knew there were many in the merchant class and nobility—would assume the worst of her.

  She went into the crowd at once, however, knowing her best chance lay in losing herself among hundreds. Young man or not, yeoman or not, she was hardly the only one. If the sheriff meant to arrest everyone who wore a hood or carried a longbow, he would have to round up a fair portion of the populace.

  The spectators themselves were entertained by the rescue. As she moved through the crowd, she heard laughter and jests and sly commentary on the sheriff’s failure to carry out his duty, how Norman soldiers when faced with good English archers could only throw down their weapons and give way. The poorer folk had never been robbed by anyone other than the king’s tax collectors and deLacey’s obsessive attention to detail in the collections; they would applaud the rescue rather than decry it.

  Marian slid through a knot of men, then paused. Deepening her voice, she clipped off the syllables. “W‘at ’appened?”

  “W‘at?” someone asked. “Did ’ee miss it, then?”

  “Jus’ got ’ere, aye?” she muttered.

  In a tumble of words, laughter, and vulgarity, she was told by several what had happened: how the sheriff had been made a right proper fool of by Robin Hood, who had once before helped the poor of Nottinghamshire.

  A hand came down on her shoulder. Marian tensed into stiffness. “Aye,” a man said lightly in high good humor. “Good English archers as are better’n Norman soldiers! And ‘tis our taxes as pay for ’em!”

  “Taxes,” Marian rasped, then spat at the ground. This occasioned the same response from others; as they spat and cursed the sheriff, the king, and all tax collectors, she eased herself away from them and slipped through the crowd again.

  William deLacey had neither time nor patience with the cursing soldier who yet bore an arrow buried in his shoulder. The wound was unlikely to kill him; he was therefore living testament to the troop’s incompetence.

  DeLacey stomped back through the gates, ordered his dead horse to be disposed of, then bellowed for Gisbourne to attend him. Gisbourne arrived at a run, helm clasped under one arm. The sheriff eyed him blackly a moment, then gestured for the others to be gone. It left him
with his seneschal, who was looking more than a little trepidatious.

  “Gisbourne,” deLacey said silkily, “what just happened?”

  “Happened, my lord?”

  “What just happened, Gisbourne?” He waved an arm. “Out there?”

  Color stole up Gisbourne’s neck and into his face. “We lost our prisoner, sir.”

  “Had him stolen, Gisbourne! From under our noses!”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Not a man of yours made any attempt to stop the outlaws.”

  “Sir—there was some concern that you might be killed.”

  “Some concern that you might be killed,” deLacey snapped. “Do you think I don’t know the face of a coward when I see one?”

  The suspect’s face was stiff with tension. “My lord—it seemed a wiser course to protect you.”

  “Protect me! Me, Gisbourne? I had my horse shot out from under me!”

  “Well,” Gisbourne ventured. “Better the horse than you. My lord.”

  DeLacey shut his eyes a long moment. When he opened them again, he had regained some measure of self-control. “Gisbourne, you are to gather your soldiers immediately. Divide them into three troops. Send one to Locksley Village. Send another to Ravenskeep. And the third, Gisbourne, the third you shall lead yourself—into Sherwood Forest.”

  Gisbourne was plainly astonished. “Into Sherwood, sir? But—”

  “ ‘But’ nothing,” deLacey said. “That was Sir Robert of Locksley, Gisbourne. Or perhaps he has given that up in favor of a new name, one ‘Robin Hood.’ He has proven himself before all of Nottingham to be nothing more than an outlaw, and I will have him caught. All of them, Gisbourne. Your task now is to find them, arrest them, and bring them to me.”

  “All of them, my lord?”

  “All of them,” deLacey declared. “I was willing to let the boy go with the forfeiture of his hands, but this crime cannot be tolerated. Locksley is no longer the heir of a powerful earl, Gisbourne, but a disinherited outlaw, subject to the laws of the land. No pardons will be given by this king, Gisbourne. Therefore it is your task to catch him—to catch them all—and bring them to me.”

  “Will you execute them, my lord?”

  A new voice intruded, explaining matter-of-factly, “That shall be for the king to decide.”

  DeLacey snapped his head around, primed to upbraid the individual who dared interrupt the sheriff’s business. Then he recognized the man. “Captain,” he acknowledged grimly.

  Mercardier inclined his head briefly, but he looked at Gisbourne. “Do as the sheriff commands you,” he said simply. “Bring them in, every man. But their disposal shall be the king’s desire.”

  “You saw what they did,” deLacey said sharply.

  “Indeed,” Mercardier agreed. “They disgraced you, Lord Sheriff, disgraced your authority and the authority of the king, by whose whim you hold your office. I am certain you shall have your execution, but such determination is the king’s to make. Your task is merely to catch them.” The mercenary gestured briefly. “Redeem yourself, Lord Sheriff. Prove to the king you deserve his confidence.”

  Outrage boiled into deLacey’s throat like bile. “It was the former king who pardoned them!”

  Mercardier said, without inflection, “But I think this king is nothing like his brother.”

  The sheriff contemplated that statement a moment, seeking clues to implication. But the mercenary was impossible to read.

  And Mercardier continued, speaking to Gisbourne. “I saw the archer who shot the sheriff’s horse. He is not tall, and is markedly slight, very like a boy.”

  DeLacey was astonished. “You saw him shoot my horse?”

  “No, my lord. I followed the path of the arrow, and sought the archer. I found him.”

  “Yet you stand before me with no prisoner,” deLacey said with exquisite contempt. “Am I then to assume this archer escaped? From you, Captain? The Lionheart’s infamous mercenary, scourge of the Infidel?”

  Mercardier said simply, “For the Lionheart I would gladly have died. But not, I think, for you.”

  With great effort, deLacey suppressed his fury. Pointedly he observed, “You knew Locksley before this. Fought with him on Crusade.” There was no need to be more explicit. Mercardier would understand.

  Mercardier did. “Lord Sheriff, please recall I am a mercenary. I am not paid for, nor can afford complications of the heart. Should the present king wish my former comrade-in-arms to be executed for what he has done, be certain I shall carry out the command.” For the first time since the mercenary had arrived, deLacey recognized the dryness in his tone as irony. “You see, no man may accuse me of having a conscience.”

  DeLacey ground his teeth. King John had sent this man; he could not afford to antagonize him further. Not yet. Not until he had secured some promise from John that he, deLacey, would not be punished for what had happened this day. And he could not write him with a complaint of Mercardier until Locksley and the others were captured.

  “Perhaps,” the sheriff said, “I should have you ride out with Gisbourne. Who better to set a trap for an outlaw than one who knows how he thinks?”

  Mercardier did not so much as blink. “Were I hired by you, Lord Sheriff, be certain I would do so. Were I sent by the king to serve you in this, be certain I should do so. But I was not hired by you, and the king sent me to guard his tax shipment. Not to go into the forest looking for outlaws cleverer than you.”

  DeLacey glared. “And if I should prevail upon the king to have you aid me in this?”

  The mercenary hitched one broad shoulder in a casual shrug. “Then I would catch him, this outlaw you fear, as well as his companions. And I daresay I should keep them.”

  The sheriff decided then and there the day was a total failure. He had lost his incomparable example for other city pickpockets, had lost face before the citizenry of Nottingham, had lost a battle of wits with Robert of Locksley, and now even a humorless paid soldier bested him. It was time, he believed, he went back into the castle and called for wine. As much as he could drink.

  But there was one matter of business to finish first. To Gisbourne, he said, “Take the men. Go. Find Locksley. Find them all. Bring them here. Do not show your face within these walls until that is accomplished.” He paused, aware of Gisbourne’s quick glance at Mercardier. “Do I make myself clear, Gisbourne? Because I pay your keep and thus have the ordering of you even if I do not claim this mercenary’s service.”

  The seneschal’s eyes snapped back. He colored. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Go.”

  Gisbourne went.

  Robin struck a steady trot at the verge between road and forest. His ears were attuned to pursuit, but for the moment there was none. His goal was to move quickly without impediment for as long as he could, and then go into the trees. He longed briefly for Charlemagne, but he had left the horse back in the forest where they were to meet. Such was Sherwood’s architecture that a man on foot stood better chance of flight through its depths than a man on horseback. It was hard to be quiet when a mount crashed through all manner of foliage, leaving obvious spoor in the detritus of his motion. A man might slip into the trees and leave no sign such as a soldier might find, particularly a Norman lacking woodcraft.

  The soldiers would be angry, Robin knew, stung by deLacey’s insults and their own bruised pride. Their goal would be to find Much and the men who rescued him as quickly as possible, to placate the furious sheriff as well as redeeming their own failure. But such anger and haste would increase incompetence; it was stealth that might catch their quarry, not sheer numbers and might.

  Robin smiled grimly. Four more strides—and then he ducked off the verge into the trees, taking care to move quietly and carefully, leaving no sign, as he crossed into the depths. Let them try to find him. Let them crash through on horseback, alerting him to their presence. Let them curse their Norman curses, serve their Norman lords, ride their Norman horses, while an Englishman bred of English bone
led them a merry chase through the heart of an English forest.

  He found a deer track leading in the proper direction. It wound around through the trees, took him over fallen logs and across streambeds, but all the better. He began to jog again, finding a comfortable rhythm that put distance between him and the road, between him and any pursuit.

  Marian slipped into a deep-cut doorway near the gates leading out of the city to the road beyond. It was a poorer part of town, with ramshackle lean-tos doubling as shelter, and top-heavy, sagging buildings slumping toward one another across filthy lanes fouled with refuse. Children wandered by, shouting epithets as they pelted one another with stones and horse droppings; two women followed, clad in layers of shapeless skirts and tunics and tattered shawls. Marian reached beneath her own tunic and felt the locket there. Her spirit quailed from the thought—Robin had given the necklace to her—but she removed it regardless.

  When another woman came down through the lane, Marian whistled her over. She displayed the silver locket briefly, then shut it away in her hand.

  The woman was curious, but equally suspicious. She stopped out of reach, studying Marian from red-rimmed eyes. Then she grinned, displaying a misery of poor teeth. “ ’Tisn’t a whore, this’un, she said, ”not for a stripling boy!“

  Even a woman took her for a lad. Marian nearly laughed through her blush, but gulped it back down. She was careful with her accent. “Your skirt,” she said, “and your shawl.”

  “Skirt, is it?” the woman cried. “And leave me naked?”

  “You’re wearing two,” Marian pointed out; she had made certain of that.

  “ ’Tis cold in winter!”

  She matched the intonation. “ ’Tis near summer!”

  The woman gestured with her chin. “What’s that bauble worth?” “More’n your skirt and shawl. But never you mind, then, I’ll find sommat else.”

  “Wait!” the woman cried as Marian made to move. She glanced around furtively. “You’ll be givin’ me that bauble for a skirt and a shawl?”