Lady of Sherwood

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Taxes,” Mercardier said briefly. “Was this the last of the collections? May I expect to escort the shipment to the king very soon?”

  DeLacey opened his mouth to snap that no, it was not the last of the collections; that the captain had best not expect to go anywhere very soon—but almost immediately changed tack. Perhaps this was the opportunity he had begun hoping for.

  “I must have the accounting in order,” he said instead, keeping his tone light, “which requires me to inventory what has just arrived and add it to the rest. This will take time. But I think it possible you may expect to leave tomorrow. Will that satisfy you?”

  “It is for my lord king to be satisfied.”

  “Of course,” the sheriff acknowledged, making a supreme effort to remain agreeable. “And I am certain he shall be. This will be a positive way to begin his reign, I should think.”With precision he realigned the markers in the Receipt square on the painted cloth. “Tomorrow, Captain. Now, may I return to my work? Delays here will of course delay your departure.”

  Mercardier’s expression remained characteristically implacable. He inclined his head slightly in a passable imitation of civility, then turned and left the cell. DeLacey listened to the receding footsteps.

  When he was alone again, surrounded by stacks of chests, sealed scrolls, and the table bearing cloth, markers, and payment, he smiled. There was no humor in it. Only grim satisfaction. “By all means,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

  Then he began to muster in his mind the men he believed most capable of undertaking and completing the task, the plan he had developed while sitting at the table drinking too much wine, with too much time to think about desperate kings and clever outlaws and unmanipulable mercenaries, all of whom plagued his life beyond the extremes of tolerance.

  John would have his taxes. John would be pleased. John would be assured William deLacey was the only man for the office in Nottinghamshire.

  John would not be pleased to learn that his late brother’s prized captain of mercenaries was incompetent.

  As they took up various places to await Alan’s return, Marian realized that Robin had the right of it: the borrowed—or, rather, “purchased”—skirt and shawl had imparted a pungent and unpleasant odor to her hair, tunic, and hosen. In the tension of escape she hadn’t noticed; now she could notice nothing else. She shed both skirt and shawl with alacrity, caring little that it was in the middle of the clearing in front of everyone else—after all, she still wore hosen, tunic, and hooded capelet—and hooked both upon the broken ends of tree limbs. Then she took herself as far from the stench as possible.

  “Better they be burnt,” she muttered, “had we a fire.”

  Will Scarlet, leaning against a downed trunk with legs outstretched, snorted. “There’s many I know as would be grateful for such clothing.”

  Marian wrinkled her nose. “And welcome to them!”

  He shrugged. “Peasants wear what they can. Smell don’t matter, does it, when ’tis warmth you’re after.”

  She opened her mouth to retort, then realized she had none.

  “Aye,” Scarlet said knowingly. “ ’Tis hard for a lady to understand.”

  “Well,” Robin said lightly, as he leaned against the saddle and pad he had taken from Charlemagne’s back, “I was raised an earl’s son, and there were times when I stank.”

  “When?” Will challenged. “You, with serfs to clean and mend your tunics?”

  “In the Holy Land,” Robin said, “there was sun without surcease. Water, when we found it, was for drinking. Most of the army was ill much of the time with the flux, and other things even the physicians didn’t recognize. The Germans ate a spiced food they called sausage, the entrails of pigs stuffed with ground meat and—other things. They hung them from their saddlebows and carved off chunks as they went. In armor, leather, and mail, we never stopped sweating. It ran from our faces, down our spines, chafed our thighs. After a battle, there was the blood. And worse.” He shrugged. “I daresay none of you would have desired to be anywhere near me then. Certainly the first thing the Turks did when they took me was have me bathed.”

  Scarlet’s mouth dropped open. “Bathed?”

  Tuck, seated next to Much, looked baffled. “The enemy had you bathed?”

  “They believe in it daily.”

  Scarlet was horrified. “They bathe every day?”

  “Why not? They pray five times a day.”

  “To their Infidel god!” Scarlet expostulated.

  “Allah, Robin said. “Insh’Allah. ‘In Allah’s—God’s—name.’ ”

  “Allah,” Much mimicked.

  “Don’t teach him that,” Tuck said, scandalized. “Let the boy pray to our God, the Christian God!”

  But Scarlet was far less concerned with religion. “Whyever would they bathe you?”

  “They said I stank. At least, at the time I assumed that was what they meant, since I was dumped into a tiled pool almost immediately upon reaching the city. Later I learned the words for it.”

  By his expression, Will still could not comprehend why the enemy would bathe a prisoner. Marian, amused, sat down next to Robin. “I imagine men in battle pray to God more than five times a day.”

  “Five times an hour,”Robin agreed, reaching out to rub her back, “once battle is joined. It was part of the din . . . every man praying to his own God in his own language—and therefore begging the same thing at any given moment.”

  “Same thing?” Tuck asked skeptically. “Christians and Saracens?”

  “English, Norman, German, French, Moslem and Christian. We prayed for the things all soldiers pray for: glory, bravery, victory—and worthiness.” He shrugged. “If we die worthy, then there is release into a better world. For Christians it’s Heaven. For the Moslems, Paradise.”

  Scarlet grunted. “What’s this Paradise like? Full of people bathing?”

  Robin smiled. “How would I know, Will? I’m a thrice-damned Christian pig.”

  Marian laughed, luxuriating in his touch.

  Tuck, however, was horrified. “Don’t say such a thing!”

  “To them,” Robin clarified dryly, eyes alight. “Do you know, we have the same name for one another? ‘Infidel.’ To us, they are the Infidel. To them, we are.”

  “Oh, I have a name for ’em,” Scarlet said vehemently, but never got a chance to announce what it was as Robin sat bolt upright and gestured him into silence.

  They were all on their feet as the crashing sound approached, grabbing up bows and nocking arrows. But there was no need for defense: the noisy arrival was no enemy, but Little John.

  “Soldiers,” he said succinctly, out of breath. “On the road just outside of Nottingham. Gisbourne leads them.”

  “Did they see you?” Robin asked.

  The red-haired giant shook his head. “I hid myself.”

  “How many?”

  Little John told them. “But they’re well behind me. Gisbourne had them all halted in the road, telling which lot to go where.”

  Robin nodded. “They’ll divide. Some for Locksley Village, no doubt. Some Ravenskeep. The rest likely for Sherwood.”

  “Makes sense,” Scarlet agreed. “And easier for us. Fewer in the forest.”

  Little John looked at Marian, then dug a pouch from under his belt. “Here,” he said diffidently, and put it into her hands.

  She stared down at it, feeling the weight. “John—what is it?”

  Under the tangled ruddy thatch hanging over blue eyes, his face colored. “For you,” he said. “For your taxes.”

  “Taxes!” She unloosened the thong, then upended the pouch into her palm. Coins chimed against flesh.

  “Not much,” John said with regret. “ ’Twas all he had.”

  Marian looked at him. “All who had?”

  “The peddler.”

  “Peddler!”

  Will Scarlet let out a shout of laughter. “You robbed a peddler?”

  Little John looked only at her. “We’ll not
let you lose your home to the sheriff.”

  It took her breath away. Rendered her speechless. All she could do was stare, like a lackwit.

  Scarlet grinned. “Stealing’s easier than earning it, aye?”

  “John,” Robin said mildly, “was he a wealthy peddler?”

  The big man shrugged. “Wealthy as a peddler can be, I guess, from the look of his wagon and horse. No sense in robbing a poor one, is there? No money to be had.”

  “Indeed,” Robin murmured. He had removed the arrow from the bow. Now he set the broadhead against the back of his neck and began idly to scratch—gently—beneath his hair. He smiled at Marian, lopsidedly. “You yourself suggested the answer once. You and a man who was once Justiciar of England. We had to stop King John, you said, you and the Earl of Essex. To take the tax shipments from deLacey so that John would not have the money to pay his lapdogs, such as our beloved sheriff. Do you recall, Marian?”

  She recalled it. She had said it. She had not known someone else had suggested the same. But today they had committed themselves to outlawry in front of all of Nottingham, and such things as she had suggested on impulse in the depths of a night now were tangible. Had been acted on. It stunned her into silence.

  “You said,” Robin continued, “that as he would likely hang me anyway, I may as well give him reason.”

  “I would just as soon you didn’t hang,” she said sharply, finding her tongue again. “But that had nothing to do with peddlers. I never meant you should rob innocent people of their wages, only deLacey of the taxes.”

  “And the king,” he said dryly.

  Marian flushed as the others laughed.

  “You did say it.”

  “I said it,” she affirmed. “I was angry with the sheriff, after what he did to Ravenskeep. I wanted to hurt him. And to stop King John from taxing us all to death.”

  “We are angry with the sheriff,” Little John pointed out.

  Scarlet nodded. “And we would like to hurt him.” Then he added casually, “And you already shot his horse.”

  That stung. “The horse was an accident!”

  He shrugged. “How do you know he wouldn’t hang you for killing his horse? Because you’re a woman? Last time he meant to have you burned as a witch just because you wouldn’t marry him.”

  Tuck nodded. “And he took your name off the tax rolls.”

  “And near destroyed your manor.” That from Little John.

  Much said softly, startling them all, “No friend to you.”

  No. He was not. Nor had been for years.

  The world, she realized with a jolt of painful clarity, had changed for them forever. Because a man who was king had died. And such things as this moment, this comprehension of it, changed them further, even as happenstance and tragedy formed endings and beginnings for a man who knew how to seize them, to shape them in his image to further his own goals.

  A chill coursed over her flesh. “He has been waiting for this,” she said aloud. “This, or something like. For opportunity.”

  “Probably,” Tuck agreed, who had worked for the sheriff, albeit reluctantly. “He is a patient man.”

  “I am also thinking,” Robin went on, intent, she realized, on a wholly different beginning, “that soldiers will be entering Sherwood in search of us, and that they cannot possibly remain bunched together because of the terrain, but will end up separating from one another.”

  “Lone targets,” Scarlet observed, “make better targets.”

  It was decided, she knew. Without her. Because of her. In spite of her. Nothing she said would alter it.

  Little John nodded. “One by one. We’ll have their swords, and their money.”

  “Better soldiers than innocent men,” Robin said lightly, slanting a glance at Marian.

  “Like peddlers?” she retorted, wanting to shock them into common sense instead of dangerous fancy. And yet she understood. She knew why it appealed.

  “A wealthy peddler,” Little John shot back. “ ’Twouldn’t do to steal from a poor one.”

  Will Scathlocke, now known as Scarlet, laughed. “That makes it all right, then, aye? Steal only from the wealthy, never from the poor.”

  “But it still makes you outlaws,” Marian said dryly. “Merely discriminating.”

  Robin’s glance was level. “We were outlaws five years ago. We became so again the day Richard died.”

  She meant to protest that, to deny it to them all; surely not the very day King Richard died. But something entirely different issued from her mouth: Recognition. Acknowledgment. Even acceptance. “And today we reaffirmed it before all of Nottingham.”

  Scarlet grunted. “Should have killed the sheriff, lady, instead of his horse.”

  “No,” Robin declared. “We will not kill William deLacey. Why should we? Making him look the incompetent fool and getting him dismissed from office is far more effective a punishment than killing the man. Because if he is dead, he cannot be made to suffer the public humiliation we shall bestow upon him. He is a king’s toady. Being dismissed by the king would ruin his ambition, and in turn destroy his life.” He looked at Marian. “Would that suffice you, lady? To embarrass him, humiliate him, and have him turned out of office? So that he could not strike off any names from the tax rolls ever again?”

  “Nor make it possible for peasants to be taxed to death,” Tuck declared stoutly.

  Little John said, looking at Much, at the battered, still-swollen face, “Nor ever threaten children with the loss of their hands.”

  They all of them had suffered for so little reason. She could not name all the things deLacey had done to them, nor to so many others. She looked at Robin, Tuck, Scarlet, Little John, and Much, aware of a sudden lessening of the tension in her body. It bled out of her. Diminished entirely. Fear was gone. Reluctance was relinquished. Determination supplanted all other emotions.

  William deLacey had destroyed the lives they knew. He deserved the same.

  “Would it suffice?” Marian asked. “I should think: barely.”

  DeLacey, lingering at the table, still relaxing in the great chair from which he governed the shire, waved the servant in when the man paused, fearful of intruding. He accepted the proffered parchment, noting the fine hand, the seal set in ruby-colored wax.

  The sheriff felt a jab of anticipation. He sat upright, broke the wax, unfolded the letter, and read with great absorption.

  When finished, he stared down the hall into the distance, contemplating the successful courtship of opportunity and its consummation; the flavor of revenge, of pride restored, of a plan bearing fruition.

  The sound of his laughter echoed in the hall.

  Thirty-Five

  Well before sundown, Alan returned with hammer and chisel. No one, he said, had seen him, though he did not doubt at some point the theft would be discovered. “Sim or Hal,” he predicted.

  “John,” Robin said, “you are best for it.” And then he told Much what the boy was to do, as the giant took the hammer and chisel from Alan.

  Much sat down atop the huge fallen tree, astride the trunk as if he rode a horse. He leaned forward, offering one hand, and Robin settled the right shackle against the wood, taking care to turn it so that the lock was exposed. Little John, muttering of challenges, knelt beside the trunk.

  “There,” Robin said, indicating where the chisel point should go. He took it from John, set the point himself, then clamped both hands around the iron. He smiled at Much. “If he misses, he strikes us both.” But the glance he shot at Little John was far less sanguine.

  No one spoke. All watched with transfixed expressions. Much bit deeply into his lower lip, leaching the color away; Robin held the chisel steady in both hands. Strike well, John.

  The hammer was crude, made for driving bolts and poles, not nails. But the haft in Little John’s huge hand seemed slender as a reed. The giant eyed the chisel’s flattened end closely a moment, judging its size, then tapped gently with the hammer. Once. Twice. Thrice. The way
a blacksmith bounced his hammer against anvil as he worked hot metal.

  “Steady, lad,” the big man said, almost whispering.

  Once. Twice. No more than practice strikes, judging weight and distance. Little John glanced at Robin, who nodded. And then he raised and brought the hammer down, crushing its crude head into the end of the chisel.

  Robin felt the vibration run up his wrists and through his arms. Much cried out. But the lock split.

  John threw down the hammer as Robin lifted away the chisel, and yanked the shackle apart with massive freckled hands. “There, lad!” he cried. “You’re half free!”

  Scarlet, watching, grunted. “And still a hand attached.”

  “One more,” Robin murmured, and helped settle the other shackled hand upon the trunk, adjusting the chain. “This time you know what to expect,” he told Much. Then, “John?”

  Once again the chisel bit was set. Once again Little John tapped with the hammer to make certain of weight, distance, and aim.

  “Almost,” Little John murmured, raising the hammer. He struck once. Sharply.

  Hastily Robin tossed the chisel aside and peeled the shackle apart as the lock dropped off. He saw the chafing and bruises ringing the thin wrists. He had worn iron himself, and understood the humiliation as well as the pain. “You did well,” he told Much firmly. “As well as any man might do, even the Lionheart.”

  Much’s swollen mouth twitched into a brief smile. He lifted his hands into the air, turning them this way and that. So close, Robin knew, to losing them that he dared not truly believe he still claimed them.

  And he knew that feeling, too. “Marian,” he said quietly, “there’s a creek just yonder. Could you fetch some water?”

  In a matter of minutes the wrists were bathed and wrapped in strips of homespun torn from the odorous shawl. But this time no one remarked on the stench.

  Robin pressed Much’s shoulder. “You’ll do,” he said with casual comfort. “And now I need you to remain here, with Tuck and Marian. The rest of us have a task to perform.”