Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01]

by Lady of the Forest

  Marian shut her eyes, cursing his mistake, until his hand on her chin brought her stiffly to awkward attention, heart banging in her chest.

  “Here, now,” the giant growled. “You say you want to trade her to the sheriff for our freedom. If you harm her, he’ll never trade any such thing.”

  Scarlet stared only at Marian, dirty fingertips on her chin. “You don’t know me,” he whispered. “You don’t know me at all. I’d never harm a woman.”

  Liar, she longed to say, spitting it into the stubbled face so very near her own.

  Scarlet rose, taking his hand from her flesh. He looked now at the giant. “The track to Nottingham lies that way.” He pointed. “They’ll be coming there. You’d best go set a watch, then come back to me when you’ve seen them. We’ll decide what to do then.”

  Don’t. Marian tried to catch the giant’s eyes. Don’t leave me here with him.

  “No,” the giant said. “You go and watch.”

  Will Scarlet smiled faintly. “Me, they’ll kill on the spot. You, they’ll listen to. You said so yourself.”

  Marian stared hard at the giant, trying to make him see that he put her in danger if he left her with Will Scarlet. Make him see. But the giant nodded agreement despite her silent pleading.

  Scarlet’s voice was steady. “Tell them if they follow, I’ll kill her. Leave them there on the track, then come back to me.”

  The giant moved close to the madman. “You’ll not harm her, Will Scarlet.”

  For a long moment they faced one another, one huge, red-maned man, and a smaller, darker, more desperate man. Then Scarlet took Marian’s meat-knife from his hosen and gave it to the giant.

  It was enough. The man nodded, cast a last glance at her, then strode off through the forest in the direction Scarlet had indicated when pointing out Nottingham’s track.

  Will Scarlet stared at her, malignancy in his eyes. “I’m going to tell you what they did. I want you to know. Every part of it. I want you to know. ”

  She stared back, uncomprehending, wary of the tone that promised to tell her something he wanted her to hear; that he meant for her to hear, because he knew it was a weapon against which she had no defense. Her plea to God was explicit: Don’t let this man touch me.

  Will Scarlet smiled slowly in a feral anticipation. “Little Norman whore.”

  Robert of Locksley—Robin—stopped as the boy motioned him to. He waited, watching the dirty, sharp-boned face as he listened intently to the boy’s halting explanation that Marian and the giant were very near. That Much was a simpleton, he knew; it had become very clear shortly after they set off after Marian. The boy said very little, and then only in single-word sentences, or half-framed, inarticulate phrases. He had been poorly treated through much of his childhood, and poorly fed to boot; he was small and slight for his age, hollow of belly and face, with the staring, hopeless eyes of a soul needing care and nourishment in a land that could give him nothing.

  This is how poachers are made. Locksley was aware of a growing dislike for the customs of his country, as well as his countenance of them. The Normans run roughshod over every Englishman, save those with the coin to buy their courtesy or interest, and then maim and kill the peasants who have no choice but to steal to eat.

  In the Holy Land, he had seen the same: the faces of starving Saracens before they were killed by Christians. War did that to people, stripping them of food so that soldiers could be fed, but England, this England, was not at war at home. Yet her people, from child to adult, suffered a fate like the enemy Richard fought.

  He would stop this. He would. But Richard was not in England, nor like to be any time soon.

  Much waited mutely. Locksley came back to himself, realizing he’d withdrawn so far from the present that the boy now was confused, staring at him in perplexity. Briefly he put a hand on Much’s thin shoulder, then nodded. “Find me what you can find, then come back quickly and tell me. I will have to make a plan.”

  The miller’s son nodded and left him, slipping into the deepening shadows as the day slid downward toward dusk.

  Locksley watched him go. Then, frowning thoughtfully, he examined the nearest cluster of saplings for one best suited to him. He had only a meat-knife, neither sword nor bow. His best bet then was to make himself a crude weapon from materials at hand. “Quarterstaff,” he murmured. “Length for leverage and distance, to ward off a giant who wrestles, or a man they say is mad.”

  He didn’t stop to consider what he would do if he faced both men. If it came, it came; by then, he hoped, Marian would be free, thanks to Much’s intervention.

  Shadows lengthened. The sun edged down the sky to dip below the canopied screen of overlapping treetops, filtered now through boughs and branches in a counterpoint of dark and light, a leafy chiaroscuro. Shadows lay long on the ground, reaching out importunately to touch the crumpled hem of the woman’s soiled kirtle.

  Scarlet stood before her, staring at the intercourse of shadow and woolen fabric. He saw the tips of bare toes whisked away beneath the kirtle. The stitches had all come loose; the hem was ragged and torn.

  It shocked him. He stared more fixedly yet, seeing things he had not seen, blinded to the world save for what he needed from it. Now he looked at the ruined kirtle and ragged shift, still damp and weighted by mud; the tattered remnants of a braid, ratted and snagged and tangled; the defilement of her face, bruised and scratched and dirtied—and bloodied on her chin where he had dared to touch her.

  It shook him. He felt it all over again, the pain, the fear, the futility, and the wild, killing, helpless rage that prior to that day had never touched his soul. Since then, it had lived there. Since then, it had shaped him.

  Will Scarlet knelt down. He crept forward mutely. He hunched at the despoiled skirts, reaching out to touch the fabric, to put the tips of his trembling fingers against the ruined wool.

  “No,” he breathed. She stiffened. But when she made to retreat, he caught a great handful of still-soaked kirtle. “No,” he told her hoarsely, and then looked up very slowly to find her staring at him white-faced out of blue eyes dilated black, with smudges beneath lower lashes and a welt at the corner of one, where the dusky birth of a bruise stained a flawless cheekbone dark.

  The gag had cut her mouth.

  “Don’t you see?” he cried. “There was nothing left to do!”

  But she was gagged, and mute. He saw the faintest of twitches in her face, in her lashes, as she recoiled from his outcry. Her body was perfectly stiff, but she did not move again.

  Scarlet knotted gouts of wool in both hands, kneeling before the woman like a supplicant before a priest. “She was young,” he whispered. “She was beautiful. Any man would want her, even a highborn man. But it was Will Scathlocke she wanted—it was Will Scathlocke she took. Though others wanted her—men better than him . . . it was Will Scathlocke she married. Because—she loved him, she said ... because she loved him. Because—she loved ... him.”

  The woman’s face was bloodless.

  His own contorted. “I am not—a man women love. I expected nothing of it. She could have had any man in the village, any lord in the castle—she was that beautiful. Like you ... like—you ...” He gazed up at her, seeing beyond the dirt and bruises to the bones and flesh beneath. “Pretty Meggie Scathlocke.”

  She didn’t so much as blink.

  “She carried my child in her body before the winter was out.”

  She swallowed heavily, trying to breathe through the gag.

  His pallor matched her own, beneath the stubble and filth. “And then—the Normans came. Six of them, d’ye see? Prince John’s men, aglitter with Norman mail, awash in bright silk surcoats bearing Norman arms ...” Dark eyes searched her own avidly. “D’ye see how it was? Can you know how it was? Pretty Meggie Scathlocke—alone in the hovel we had made into a home.”

  Her chest lifted raggedly as she drew in an uneven breath through the weave of the wool.

  He tugged at her skirts, cru
mpling the stained fabric in his rigid, trembling hands. “My Meggie, all alone—and six Norman soldiers—”

  Will Scarlet broke off, choking on his words. Abruptly he unclamped his hands, dropped the crumpled wool, lurched to his feet and three steps away, where he stopped, and stared, white-faced, with near-black eyes aglitter with something akin to madness.

  “Pretty Maggie Scathlocke, made to serve the Normans. Saxon Meggie Scathlocke, made again and again to whore for the Normans, until she could do naught for any of them, because they were all used up, and so they turned to things no decent man would think of, to continue their sport, their use of the Saxon whore.” His entire body trembled. “Do you know what a sword hilt can do to a woman’s body?”

  She twitched a single time. He saw the tears in her eyes spill over onto her lashes, then trickle down her face, making runnels in the grime.

  “Aye,” he hissed, “put yourself in her place. Be pretty Meggie Scathlocke with a baby in her womb, made to do such things for six Norman beasts.” He balled up his fists before her, banging his own chest. “Put yourself in my place, coming home to find her so, all sprawled out across the dooryard of the hovel that was our home, bleeding from what they’d done—dying from what they’d done, those foul godless animals who serve the devil himself, and him in a royal mask.”

  Her tears dampened the gag.

  Three strides and he was to her, reaching down to catch her arms. He dragged her to her feet, his face but inches from hers. Spittle struck her cheek. “Put yourself in my place, little Norman whore, and ask yourself why I murdered four of your own kind. Put yourself in my place, little Norman whore—and ask yourself why I shouldn’t do to you what they did to her!”

  Little John walked the turf-rumpled edge of the swollen stream, each long stride crushing grasses and ferns and flowers into the marshy bank. Here the trees were sparse, no longer shoulder-to-shoulder, breaking up into ragged clusters, then giving way to a clearing cut almost precisely in half by the fast-running stream. The rush of water over slick, rounded stones did nothing to ease his mind. He was not a happy man.

  “I’m a shepherd,” he muttered morosely. “I should be home in Hathersage tending my sheep, not out in the woods with a murderer setting traps for bloody Normans.”

  But he made no effort to leave. Outlaw, Scarlet had called him, though he had protested it strongly, yet outlaw he possibly was, or would be, once the thing was done.

  I shouldn’t be here, by God! Little John swore violently and kicked out a loosely seated rock, rolling it aside with a single thrust of his boot toes. He’d intended to take the woman back to the sheriff and return her safely, not try to buy a freedom he already had. But that boy had seen him with the woman, and by now the sheriff knew who else was involved with Will Scarlet. No man, seeing Little John, could mistake him for anyone else. Thanks to the boy, he was now counted as an enemy.

  “Easy as that, then,” he declared bitterly. “One day a shepherd, the next a wrestler, the third day a man meaning only to help, and the fourth day an outlaw!”

  He stopped short, glaring out into the water. Six paces upstream the water was bridged by a fallen log wedged into place with stones, mud, and kindling to afford steadier footing, linked on one side by a narrow trail leading deeper into Sherwood, on the other to the Nottingham track.

  Little John scowled at the rude bridge. His freckled hands knotted into his tunic, threatening the haphazard stitches. With a boot toe he dug repeatedly at a clump of turf until he broke it free, then kicked it flying into the rushing water. It sank immediately, weighted down with soil.

  His voice was a thick shout. “No help for it, is there? Now you’ve done your part.”

  The water gave him no answers.

  He heaved a huge sigh that lifted his massive shoulders and dumped then down again. He felt helpless as a babe.

  “Helpless as that woman ...” Working his mouth around the absence of a molar, he scowled bleakly across the water to the still-invisible track.

  Movement caught his eye. He squinted fiercely, trying to pinpoint the cause. Near twilight things often blurred, indistinct and transitory. But he saw it clearly enough. A man he didn’t know came quietly out of the trees into the clearing on the Nottingham side of the water, thick fall of blond hair made luminous by the setting sun. In one hand he carried a quarterstaff, though crudely cut and barely trimmed.

  Here it is, isn’t it? Little John drew in a breath to fill his massive chest. “You!” he challenged. “Have you come for the woman, then?”

  The fair-haired man stopped, inspected him, then leaned upon the staff. His expression was indistinct, though his words were clear. “So I have.”

  Little John bellowed again. “Are you of the sheriff?”

  “I am of myself.” The stranger spoke quietly enough, but pitched his voice to carry above the rushing of the water. “You have the advantage of me ... you know where she is.”

  Little John smiled. It won’t be so hard, after all.

  The blond main raised one brow. “Will you take me to her, then?”

  Little John folded thick arms. Better and better.

  “I don’t suppose you’d bring her to me?”

  This time Little John grinned.

  “I thought not.” The other took his weight off the staff and hefted it in the air. “Shall we fight for her, then? I win, you take me to her. I lose, I go away.”

  Little John’s eyebrows arched. No wasted words, with this one. “Normans send you, then?”

  “I came myself, upon my own business.”

  That Little John contemplated, along with the man himself. His clothing was drab and plainly cut, but he wore it like a lord. His accent was not of the highborn, but oddly heavy-handed, as if he worked at it. There were Saxons, Little John knew, who tried hard to please the Normans so as to reap the benefits.

  Accordingly he bent and spat, then bared big teeth in an unfriendly grin. “I’ll wrestle you for her.”

  The other appeared neither taken aback nor dismayed by the invitation. He smiled faintly. “I think not. I am not so immodest a man as to believe I can beat the Hathersage Giant.”

  Little John frowned. “But you’ll match me in quarterstaffs?”

  “I am but a fair wrestler. At the staff, I am better.” He looked beyond Little John’s head. “The sun begins to set. If this is to be decided while there is yet light to see by, I suggest we begin.”

  Little John barked a laugh. “You’ve a staff cut already!”

  The other tossed his across the stream and nodded as Little John caught it. “There. I’ll cut another.”

  “Oh no.” Little John flung it back. “I’m not so daft as that. I’ll find me my own staff, thank you.”

  The other planted his and leaned upon it again. “I’m waiting,” he said mildly.

  Much crept through the forest carefully, making little sound. He knew he was close, very close, because he had heard the murderer, Will Scarlet, shouting something. He could not make out the words, merely the tone, which spoke to him of grief and rage and decaying self-control.

  Marian’s in danger.

  It was a fully complete thought, unlike many of his. He was a creature of instinct, reacting to others rather than initiating action, save for his thievery. And that had come about merely because he had seen another do it once, and badly; the man had been caught, given over to the Watch, was sentenced by the sheriff, and had lost his right hand in a public display of punishment. Much had seen it all, but was dissuaded by none of it. The man had been slow, and clumsy; Much itched to try it himself. He knew instinctively that he was faster, and his fingers were defter. His father and mother had said so, when he lived with them at the mill.

  Times had changed. It was easier cutting purses from unsuspecting souls in Nottingham than working at the mill. But he didn’t do it often, not being a greedy boy, and he did it only then for the actual doing of it, not because of the money. Most of it he gave away when he had enough for fo
od. There were those whose lives were crippled by physical misfortune. From them Much learned he had value after all, for they never laughed at him, or called him simpleton. They just took the coin he gave them, and bought enough food to live.

  But Marian was special. She was unlike any of them. They shared a childhood bond, though she recalled none of it. Much recalled it all. “Nixies,” he murmured, and crept slowly through the trees until he saw movement, and heard the voice. The murderer, Will Scarlet, standing before Marian.

  Much hunkered down, settling quietly into the squatting position he had learned to hold for a long time. Robin had told him clearly to be certain of himself before he attempted the task, and to wait for a distraction. The distraction was to be provided by Robin himself, should the plan work properly; Much knew he was to wait, to give Robin time, or his part might not work.

  Marian, he murmured inwardly, peering through bracken and foliage to the stump on which she sat. His princess was all bedraggled. And she still lacked shoes.

  Locksley watched as the giant acquired a length of wood approximating a quarterstaff similar to his own. He kept his expression fixed, betraying nothing of his thoughts, but was vastly impressed by the sheer strength of the man. Using no knife or other implement, the Hathersage Giant strode over to the nearest stand of saplings, selected one he liked, and jerked it out of the ground.

  Locksley sighed inwardly.

  With his meat-knife the red-maned man pruned his tree judiciously, hefted it to test its weight and balance, then grinned balefully. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

  I’m sure I don’t want to do this ... but I think it’s the only way. Locksley hitched a shoulder. “Something to pass the time.”