Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02]

by Lady of Sherwood

  Just outside the earl’s bedchamber door, Marian inhaled a deep and steadying breath. Ralph had at long last taken her cloak, so that she faced the earl in dry and decent clothing. Hastily she smoothed back from her face the tendrils of hair loosened from twin braids, tucking them beneath gauzy coif and narrow fillet. There was no complaint to be made of her bearing and apparel, but she did not doubt the earl would find something.

  Ralph knocked briefly, then unlatched and opened the door. His face was expressionless as he allowed her into the chamber, redolent of the sickbed and the cloying scent of beeswax candles only the rich and powerful could afford.

  Just inside, before comment might be made—and to be certain of self-control—she dipped into a deep and respectful curtsey. The door behind her thumped closed as she rose from the floor, and Marian realized she was to face the earl quite alone.

  She invoked whatever strength might be had from such powers as God, her will, and her conscience, then looked up on a spurt of self-confidence to meet unfriendly eyes.

  Huntington’s body was a narrow bundle beneath heaped covers of rich cloth and a quilt of pelts, propped up by layers of pillows. She had not seen him to speak to in several years; he was older, whiter of hair and thinner of flesh. The aging face with its bony prow of nose was pale save for mirrored spots of color burning high in withered cheeks. She could not be certain if it was born of fever or fury, for the look he cast upon her in no way mimicked courtesy.

  Marian folded her hands against the doubled girdle of her kirtle and drew another steadying breath. She brought her battle to Huntington’s field, where he knew the terrain far better than she. She dared not give him even a single blow that she could not blunt or turn with one of equal measure. “I came,” she said plainly, “against your express wishes. To see if indeed you were ill.”

  Huntington did not reply, though his eyes blazed at her.

  “You would lie,” she said, discounting his affronted expression, “if you believed it might profit you.”

  Huntington said nothing.

  “And a father might send a lie to his son in hopes the son would come.”

  The earl stirred then, a brief, angry spasm beneath bedclothes and pelts. His voice was raw from coughing. “I sent neither lie nor truth to my son. The king sent a messenger; I in turn sent him.”

  She picked her way carefully, but steadily, avoiding pitfalls with meticulous attention. “As it is true, it may be argued a sick man should send word to his son.”

  His tone, despite his weakness, was peremptory. “What word I send or do not send is my concern.”

  “He is your son.”

  “He lives elsewhere.”

  “Many sons do.”

  “Many sons do as their father wishes. If they hope to inherit.”

  “Your son does not bind himself to that duty.”

  “Fools and madmen,” he said, “turn their backs on duty.”

  “And on titles and great estates?”

  “By God,” he ground out, “you dare much—!” And lost the balance in a bout of harrowing coughing. His narrow shoulders jerked within the folds of his heavy robe.

  “I dare it,” she said when he was done, giving him no latitude even in illness lest he use it against her, “because it matters to me what becomes of him.”

  He drank water from a cup held in trembling hands, then rebutted her. “Because it matters to you that he should inherit an earldom.”

  “Yes.”

  He thumped the cup down on the bedside chest. “So that you might become his countess.”

  “No.”

  Contempt and disbelief were manifest.

  “I have a manor,” she explained matter-of-factly. “I have lands. I have myself. I need no man to give me anything.”

  “You come now to see if it is true that I ail, so you may judge for yourself if there is profit in it for you and how soon it might be yours.”

  Marian shook her head.

  The earl’s words were clipped. “You know the king is dying. You know also that his successor may not be so generous as to let you keep your lands. You may believe and declaim you need no one but yourself, but I daresay if Prince John or Arthur of Brittany scruple to claim your lands, to bestow upon some unwitting man your unwed and tainted hand, you would seek whatever rescue you believed my son could offer.”

  From somewhere Marian dredged up a calm smile. “You believe I wish to marry him.”

  He said nothing, believing it implicit. He would not waste time and voice on unnecessary confirmation.

  “He has asked,” Marian said, “more times than I can count. And each and every time I have refused. What need, my lord? He loves me without benefit of wedlock. He lives with me without benefit of wedlock. My reputation, as you have observed repeatedly, was quite ruined five years ago . . .” She paused. “And there are no bastards requiring a marriage to gain legitimacy as your grandchildren.”

  The earl’s tone was bitter. “You are a deceitful woman. You fancy yourself clever, I do not doubt, to say you do not want what you very badly need, but you are too young for cleverness, and of the wrong sex.”

  With effort she governed her temper. “Would you say the latter,” she wondered acidly, “to Eleanor of Aquitaine?”

  He pulled himself up against his pillows, glaring at her furiously. “You dare compare yourself to her?”

  With edged and brittle honesty, Marian asked, “How could I, my lord? She had two husbands, while I have none. She had, they say, countless lovers—while I have but one. She bore eleven children, albeit few survived. While I, my lord of Huntington, am like to bear none.”

  “None,” he echoed sharply.

  “Three times in as many years,” she said simply, “I have miscarried. In two years I have not even conceived.”

  It struck him into silence. He gazed upon her, rapt in her expression, in the rigidity of her posture. She saw him weigh out the words she said, the meanings of those words, the implications that some men might draw from those words. He knew now, she saw; was clever enough, had heard enough, to realize what she intended. And because he knew it and yet feared it could not be true, he said nothing, no word; made no exclamation, offered no sign of his opinion, lest he yet startle or drive her into the withdrawal of what he most wanted. He simply lay propped against his pillows, fever in eyes and cheeks, and waited to learn he had won the field with nary a battle begun.

  Marian met those hostile eyes and did not waver from the course she had set herself in the endless, senseless hours of empty bed and sleepless night. “A man needs an heir, my lord. And his son an heir after him.”

  Age-creased lips parted slightly. He took care to let his hands remain still upon the bedclothes, but she saw the minute trembling in the loose flesh of his throat. Disbelief. And burgeoning hope. “Does my son know this?”

  So many times she had thought to tell Robin, to give him the truth of the miscarried children. But they had each of them been barely begun, and she not even aware of their presence in her body until the cramping and bleeding came upon her. Each time she had, with only Joan’s assistance, tended what needed tending, that he might be spared. Let him believe her barren; and for all she suspected that might indeed be true, after two years.

  She would not be Eleanor deLacey, forced to wed Gisbourne because she had conceived, and she would not make Robin into Gisbourne, forced to marry because she had conceived. Will Scarlet’s notorious abduction of her from Nottingham Fair had quite ruined her reputation, and with no children conceived and carried to term, there was no need of marriage. In a world where women had no choice in their disposition unless they be queens, and then rarely, it was her only freedom: to tell the man she loved she would not marry him.

  “No,” she told his father. “He knows nothing of this.”

  “Then I will do you this kindness,” the old man said hoarsely. “I will grant here and now, within this chamber and of this moment only, that he loves you as you say, and has asked
you to marry him. And so I ask in return, granting these things: why then would he leave you?” He paused, honing the edge. “Or has he already left you, and this merely a shabby attempt to salve your pride?”

  A wave descended upon her. Marian was cold, cold and hot, all at once, and so angry so abruptly that she trembled with it. After a long moment, and with pronounced precision, she said, “If you wish an heir, my lord, I suggest you find a kinder question to ask.”

  “Of you?”

  “Of him. He is your son, my lord . . . make no assumptions concerning what shapes his actions, lest you shape in him an answer you cannot bear.”

  After a tense moment, the earl assayed a slight—and infinitely brief—smile. “Well said. Perhaps there is a measure of cleverness in you after all.”

  “I might thank you for that,” she replied coolly, “were I to respect the source.”

  Sallow face mottling again with angry color, he waved a curt hand. “Get out.”

  Marian held her ground. This time she employed a tone that mimicked his own, when he declared how a thing should be. “I have given you the key. Use it wisely. There will be no impediment from me as you seek the lock it fits, but neither will I refuse him should he ask me again to marry.”

  “Get out—”

  As he descended again into coughing, this time she went.

  Six

  DeLacey had ample opportunity to work his way through the myriad mazes of personal possibilities and political probabilities on the ride back to Nottingham. By the time he made his way through the tangled skeins of city streets, clattered his way into the castle bailey, and leaped down from the saddle to toss reins at a hurrying horseboy, he knew what he would do. And thus he did it as soon as he reached his private solar, stripping gloves from his hands and dumping cloak onto the floor. A servant had followed to divest him of such accoutrements, to clean the floor of smears and clumps left by muddy boots, but the sheriff merely waved him out again. Let the gloves, cloak, and brooch lie scattered on the floor. Other matters were of far greater import than the tidiness of his dwelling.

  If he would keep that dwelling.

  He found ink, a quill, and parchment, gathering them together with sealing wax, sand, and signet. He sat down heavily into the weighty chair, yanked it forward one-handed with a screech of wood on stone as he dragged parchment before him, and hastily uncapped the ink. For a moment he stared into space, retrieving the form of the letter he had composed in his head. Then he began to write swiftly and steadily, commiting himself, pausing only to reink the quill when it sputtered and scratched its way into indecipherability.

  ‘Good my lord,’ he began, adding flourishes, titles, and appropriate salutations in thick, uneven letters, ‘it grieves me to hear of such dire news as the grave illness of your gracious brother, our lord king. May God grant he recovers. But if you will in turn be so gracious as to pardon the need for plain speech in this unhappy time, permit me to remind you of the thoughts and hopes we have shared in the past.’

  He paused, considering phrasing again. Then dipped the quill in the inkpot and continued.

  ‘It is naturally my concern, as a loyal officer of the Crown, that you be adequately served by men you may trust. Be assured of my constancy, good my lord, in believing you an able and honest servant of God, of England, and England’s people.’

  Enough, deLacey reflected. John was no fool, nor politically naive. He would know the sheriff worked to save his office, to align himself now with the man he judged most likely to hold England. But he would also know the sheriff recalled those former discussions in infinite—and potentially dangerous—detail, and a shared passion for opportunity best able to serve personal interests.

  John would need powerful allies in England. He had years before angered many wealthy barons who, at one time, conspired to keep him from claiming England for his own while the Lionheart dwelled in his German prison. The man called Softsword and Lackland needed certainties and assurances that other men supported him, now that the throne could come to be contested. Sheriffs were not earls and dukes and counts, but they were nonetheless the abiding power within the individual shires.

  “Money,” deLacey murmured. “It comes to coin. Taxes collected, taxes delivered. A realm is governed by the coin that is spent, not merely a king’s whim and wishes.”

  Such taxes as those due for accounting at the preliminary session and to be followed by another at Michaelmas, sitting below in his dungeon.

  Smiling grimly, deLacey signed his name. Then dropped the quill and rose from his chair to pace the chamber, considering again potential repercussions of the course he had set.

  “Time,” he muttered. “John is in Brittany, with Arthur . . . will he yet be there to receive my message? Or will he depart for France? For England.”

  Abruptly he sat down again and drew up fresh parchment, sharpening, then reinking the quill. Twice he copied over his initial letter, changing nothing, then sanded, folded, and sealed all three sheets as individual letters.

  Best to send word to multiple places in hopes of reaching Prince John sooner rather than later.

  They had left behind Huntington Castle and were nearly to the Nottingham road when Marian reined in sharply. Joan, less handy with a horse, rode a little beyond, then laboriously turned her mount back.

  “Lady Marian? Lady?”

  Marian sat slack in the saddle, reins gripped in gloved, numb hands. “What have I done?”

  “Lady?”

  She pressed reins and hands hard against her face, speaking into leather-clad palms. “What have I done?”

  “Lady—” Joan wrestled with the horse, who wanted to be heading home again. “What have you done, then?”

  Marian’s horse, undirected, wandered to the edge of the track and began idly to graze.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. She shut her eyes tightly. “Oh, God.”

  Joan was now clearly alarmed. “Lady Marian!”

  She had thought it through. Worked it through. Knew the course, had selected the course, was certain of her choice. But now, in the light of day, with all the words said to the earl, she knew also the edges of panic crowding into her mind.

  “No,” she said, catching her breath. “His decision. His decision. Not mine. Not mine.” She released a gust of breath. “Not mine.”

  “Lady.”

  “I merely give him the chance, the choice.” She nodded. “Yes. It must be so. Let it be his choice. He will make it. One way or another.” She looked at Joan. “I have given him the freedom to make that choice, with no obligation attached.”

  Joan was mystified, but she held her tongue.

  “It must be so,” Marian repeated. “He will stay, or he will go. But the choice will be his, without obstruction or distraction.”

  “Lady Marian,” Joan ventured. “Whose choice about what?”

  “Staying,” she said. “Or going. As it should be. It isn’t mine to make. He should have opportunity to reconsider that he will be an earl, with attendant power and great holdings, responsibilities. Obligations to the name.”

  Realization dawned in Joan’s broad face. “Lady,” she said, “Oh, Lady Marian—he does love you!”

  Marian laughed breathlessly. “I know it, Joan. I do know it. But he must have a choice, do you see? He must have the choice presented to him again.” She gathered up slack reins, took control of the horse, who sullenly gave up ripping chunks of mud-rooted grass from the ground to be turned back onto the road. Marian punctured the air with a forefinger. “He has not thought truly about what will happen when his father dies. He does not know, has no conception. He has never lost a father, to know how it feels.” She prodded her horse into motion with determined heels. “I do know, Joan. And I have made the proper choice.”

  Joan let her stolid horse fall in beside Marian’s better mount. “Are you certain, lady?”

  “Oh, yes.” The moments of panic had passed. Her course was clear again, and her doubts disciplined. She took a deep breath,
held it, then released it on a gust of relief. “Yes.”

  Robin’s horse was fresh. The messenger’s mount was nearly blown, would require rest soon, and water, before Gerard was on his way again as swiftly as before. Therefore Robin did not doubt he could reach his destination first.

  But not Nottingham. Not Huntington.

  Ravenskeep. To warn the others. Then it would not matter whom the messenger told, or in what order.

  Mentally, Robin revisited his companions, contemplating transgressions that would merit punishment. Alan of the Dales would hang for tupping the sheriff’s daughter. Robin knew Eleanor had been the instigator, but perception was all. Alan had been accused, arrested, and thrown into Huntington Castle’s dungeon, intended to stand trial for forcing deLacey’s daughter; upon which verdict, no doubt, he would have been hanged with all expediency. The minstrel escaped that fate only because Sir Robert of Locksley, of his own volition and for his own reasons, bribed the dungeon guards to release him.

  Will Scarlet, once called Scathlocke, had murdered several Normans. It mattered little to such men as the sheriff, or Prince John—whose men they had been—that the Normans had raped and killed Scarlet’s wife. Will and his wife were Saxons, poor and powerless peasants. Scathlocke/ Scarlet would hang as much for that as for abducting Marian from the Nottingham Fair. And Little John, by wholly unfortunate circumstance, had been implicated in the abduction. He, too, would hang.

  Much would not. Much had killed no one, abducted no one, raped no one. But he had picked the sheriff’s pocket and would, according to law, forfeit a hand.

  Tuck was undoubtedly safe from hanging, or from having a hand chopped off, but his vocation was now tainted. He would never see the priesthood, would never serve God in any capacity beyond his limited purview, set forever apart from cathedral or abbey, apart from his order. Additionally, William deLacey would undoubtedly invent a fitting punishment for a man who thwarted the sheriff’s plan to marry Marian.

  And if such transgressions were not enough, all of them, at Robin’s devising and behest, had stolen money from the Lord High Sheriff, bidden by Prince John to redirect the tax shipment intended to help pay King Richard’s ransom to John himself, in Lincoln. The party of soldiers guarding the shipment had been foully murdered. But the sons and heirs of powerful earls, the beautiful heiress-daughters of honorable knights killed on Holy Crusade, would have transgressions overlooked.