Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01]

by Lady of the Forest

  Scarlet sagged, throwing his dead weight into Locksley’s arms, then he stabbed one foot against the ground as he hooked an ankle again. Locksley staggered and nearly went down, but regained his balance long enough to try the trick on Scarlet. Two stumbling, sideways steps sent them both into a bush, which gave way immediately and spilled them to the ground.

  Locksley banged his opponent’s head against the cushioning layers of disintegrating leaves padding the harder earth. Will Scarlet retaliated by scrabbling for a stick, which he smashed against Locksley’s face. The old wood, half rotted, broke up instantly, showering bits of bark and dried-out pith.

  Locksley shook it off, considering a similar action. A rock would accomplish much. But he didn’t want to kill the man, just overpower him.

  Will Scarlet reached up from the ground and caught double handfuls of wet hair. What—? Shouting incoherently, the murderer jerked Locksley’s head toward his own, using his forehead as a weapon. The dull smack was audible.

  Senses faded. Locksley was only dimly aware of Scarlet’s wriggling body twisting out from under his own, tipping him over onto his side even as he attempted to move. His limbs felt heavy and awkward.

  Scarlet was coughing on blood as he crawled out from under Locksley. He spat, spat again, then bent toward the ground and scooped up a rock. “This will do,” he rasped.

  The chapel at Nottingham Castle was tiny, dim, and damp. It smelled of mildew and rotting cloth, with the barest trace of stale incense and greasy tallow candles; a commingling of odors the sheriff somewhat ironically equated with sanctity. Clearly no one had cared for the chapel since the previous monk—Hubert, wasn’t it?—had died. DeLacey seriously doubted anyone had even been in it since then, a fact a priest undoubtedly would find abhorrent.

  DeLacey did not care. He was not a devout man, considering a man’s faith mostly unnecessary, but most certainly his personal domain and therefore subject to no prescribed public requirements—except, of course, when religion became a tool for acquiring—or using—power.

  Abbot Martin, for example—he knows a thing or two about using God for secular power. DeLacey smiled grimly, stepping just inside the chapel door. He was there not for his soul, which he considered safe enough because he paid to make certain it was, but for the newest member of his household, the monk called Tuck.

  The Benedictine knelt before the sadly denuded altar in an attitude of prayer, murmuring quietly. DeLacey assumed he addressed himself to God, as well he might considering what he’d done.

  The sheriffs smile lost its grimness. All to the better, for what I’ll need from him. “Brother Tuck.”

  The monk’s thick shoulders stiffened minutely, but he didn’t break off his murmuring. As deLacey waited impatiently Tuck finished what he’d begun, then eased himself to his feet and turned to face him.

  My God, the man’s been crying—!DeLacey was astonished, though he maintained a bland expression. The plump, placid face with its brown bovine eyes was warped by genuine grief. For Matilda? She’d had her uses, certainly, with regard to Marian’s welfare, but Tuck had never known her. Unless he grieves for the loss of his innocence, a not uncommon thing for a man lacking imagination, and the wit and ambition to use it. The sheriff smiled kindly, divulging nothing, exuding quiet admiration. “Surely God treasures a man such as you.”

  Tuck blotted briefly at his damp cheeks, then sighed heavily. “I am—unworthy.”

  “Why? Because you eat too much?”

  “No.” His tone was dolorous. “Because I allowed the woman to believe I was a priest. I—heard her confession.”

  “Ah.” The sheriff nodded, commiserating mutely.

  Tuck pulled at the folds of his rough-spun cassock, shoulders drooping disconsolately. “I was sent here because of my gluttony, and now I have compounded that sin with another.”

  “You comforted a dying woman.”

  Tuck nodded glumly. “So I told myself. It seemed the thing to do. She needed it so badly.”

  DeLacey folded his hands behind his back, relaxed and circumspect, offering compassion. “I daresay God understands. You are a good and faithful man. You placed the comfort of a woman before yourself. That can’t be a bad thing.”

  Tuck thrust his hands inside the heavy sleeves of his cassock. “Abbot Martin will say it is.”

  DeLacey permitted himself a small smile. “Abbot Martin—or martinet, as he is called—is an ascetic. Men such as he are best left to themselves, rather than the disposition of other men’s futures.” He spoke quietly, reasonably, without excess emotion. He judged Tuck impressionable, but sensitive; he would know when words rang false.

  The young monk’s fleshy face was genuinely anguished. “He will see to it I never complete my orders. As perhaps I should not—you see what I have done already.”

  DeLacey spoke gently, discarding even a hint of rebuke. “Punishment, if deserved, is best left to God.”

  Tuck’s expression was troubled. “Abbot Martin believes in earthly punishment.”

  What Abbot Martin believes in is pleasuring himself through excess scourging of others. DeLacey shook his head. “You saw a need and served it. In good conscience, you assuaged the fear of a dying woman. Imagine the state of her soul had she died with sins unconfessed.”

  “So I told myself.” But Tuck was patently unconvinced, trying very hard to reconcile beliefs he had been taught with those of his conscience.

  DeLacey’s brows rose. “Then you have the wit to understand that occasionally we must make the best of a bad situation, regardless of what may be expected, or required.” The sheriff smiled warmly. “You eased an old woman’s passing. No doubt there will come another time when you can assist someone in great need, even if part of you believes it should not be done.”

  “Yes, Lord Sheriff.”

  The lord sheriff laughed gently. “Ah, Brother Tuck, be not so discontent. This will pass, I promise ... but if it comforts you, know that even Abbot Martin has been required to perform certain—duties—in answer to a greater call than the one he might prefer.”

  Tuck blinked. “Abbot Martin?”

  “Oh yes. Even Abbot Martin. Even myself.” DeLacey spread his hands. “Life requires things. We do the best we can, then make our peace with God.”

  Sighing, Tuck nodded. “Yes, my lord—no doubt you are right.”

  The sheriff smiled, pleased with his work. “I am, Brother Tuck. Be assured of that.”

  Marian was cold, covered with gooseflesh. The fight between Robert of Locksley and Will Scarlet was abrupt, brutal, and vicious, more violent than anything she had ever seen. One man had given her no cause to anticipate humanity from him; the other had offered no reason to expect anything else. Yet both were stripped of the barest remnant, scrabbling in the leaf-powdered dirt in a primitive, visceral rite utterly alien to Marian.

  Two steps back, and she stopped. She wanted to turn away, to walk away, to shut her eyes to the violence, to stop up her ears, but something wouldn’t let her. She realized subconsciously she was not the prize, nor was she the cause, but merely an excuse for the battle. It would have come anyway. It had come anyway, in guises she recalled only as sullen mutterings, or silent but eloquent glances exchanged as the lord passed by.

  This isn’t over me. This is in spite of me. She chanced a glance at the giant. He gazed at the two men, the skin of his freckled face taut and shiny above the beard. The flesh near the eyes crimped as if he were in pain. Marian expected to see approval, or encouragement for Will Scarlet; the giant was, like Scarlet, peasant to Locksley’s nobleman. But what she saw surprised her. The giant understood better than she what the fight was about, but he did not approve.

  Then why doesn’t he stop—Something touched her wrist. Marian whipped her head on her neck to gaze in panic behind her. What she saw flooded her with such powerful relief she felt her knees wobble: Much, scowling diligence, working deftly at the woolen knots.

  She heard a man blurt an outcry. Robin? She couldn’t t
ell at all, which frightened her very badly. Hurry—

  They were going to kill each other.

  Hurry, Much—

  Slim fingers scrabbled.

  Wait for him ... don’t rush—She saw little but a flurry of arms and legs, and bodies flipping over. First one man was on top, then the other was. She could not tell who was who. Much—please—

  A pinch, a scrape, brief tautness. Then the wool was pulled away, and Marian’s hands were free.

  She tore at the gag, rolling it over her bottom lip, then yanked it past her chin. Instinctively she realized nothing she told the giant, nothing she screamed at Locksley or Scarlet, would have any effect at all.

  Two steps to the quarterstaff, the only weapon she saw, then three to the men on the ground. The faces were indistinguishable, contorted by effort and intensity.

  Shock rooted her. He has a rock. In a moment, he would use it to batter Locksley’s face, reducing it to mush. No time.

  She focused on the hair: Scarlet’s was brown, nearly black; Locksley’s was darkened by water, but not so dark as all that.

  Marian knew very well what to do. He’s going to kill Robin.

  “Lass—” The giant had seen her.

  I have to stop him. Marian lifted the staff.

  “Lass, no—”

  Don’t think—just DO—She smashed the quarterstaff into the back of Scarlet’s head.

  “My God—” the giant blurted.

  Marian looked down at the limp body lying sprawled across Robin’s. Her words were precise. “I’m not a whore,” she declared, “and I am not Norman!”

  Twenty-Nine

  Unable to move, Locksley simply breathed, and was grateful for the chance.

  I am not dead.

  Relief replaced surprise. Ragged in- and exhalations were loud in the silence, shattering the abrupt quietude. There were no further attempts by Will Scarlet to shred his flesh, to gouge out his eyes, or to batter his skull to bits. The respite was distinctly welcome, but also unexpected.

  Much of him was trapped by Scarlet’s unmoving bulk. The man’s face was near his own, slack chin pressing limply into Locksley’s tensed shoulder. He could see the closed eyes, the newly broken nose—my doing—the stubbled dungeon pallor vividly scribed by runnels of blood.

  What did I—? But no. Nothing. That he knew. Someone else, then. Little John—?

  No again; he recalled very clearly the giant had merely watched, letting them settle it.

  Something else stirred. He knew its name: pain, the old companion of undesired familiarity. Locksley grunted breathily, trying to detach himself from unwanted acknowledgment of discomfort. Pinned, he had little recourse to movement, even to turning or raising his head. And his head ached, with no little thanks to Little John’s ministrations; squinting, he peered over the mound of drab-tunicked shoulder and saw Marian standing near, quarterstaff clutched in both hands.

  She was pale as Will Scarlet, and no less disreputable. Her face was mud-smeared, scratched, viciously welted, and the corners of her mouth were cut. The faint smudge of a newborn bruise stained an elegant cheekbone. A damp but drying rat’s nest of black hair, yanked awry of its once-neat plait, formed a tangled tapestry on either side of her face. And the kirtle was a travesty: sodden, mud-freighted, shredded. Bare toes showed themselves in the rents of a ragged hem.

  Out of blue eyes dilated black, she stared at him mutely even as he stared at her.

  Recognition was abrupt, and exquisitely painful. Of—God—She was, in that moment, very like her father, who had met adversity with the same determination, the same intensity, save for one blatant fact: Marian Fitz Walter was unequivocally alive.

  With limbs and head attached.

  Even the expression—

  “Is he dead?” she asked.

  It shook him, that they could be so alike.

  “Is he dead?” she repeated.

  He wanted to shout at her, to say yes, of course he was dead; how could he not be dead, cut apart the way he had been? But he shouted nothing. He said nothing. He just looked at her, at Hugh FitzWalter’s daughter, knowing she meant Will Scarlet, not her father—and realized the task was done.

  Done at her own convenience ... And Robert of Locksley laughed. It was a quiet, breathy sound, barely discernable, but laughter nonetheless, that intentions could go so awry that in the end Marian FitzWalter had the saving of him. Expiation? he wondered. I fail to save the father, so the daughter saves me?

  “Is he?” she demanded, and he realized finally she was wholly consumed by the fear that her blow might have killed Will Scarlet.

  He owed her an answer. Locksley stopped laughing. “No.”

  Her tone was precise. “Are you sure?”

  She meant it. He heard the undertone of fear. “Yes,” he told her clearly.

  She relaxed minutely. He saw it in the slackening of her grip upon the staff, in the softening rigidity of her posture, in the loosening of her expression. “Thank God,” she breathed.

  Locksley’s teeth shut tightly. So very like her father.

  It did no good to remain pinned to the ground by the body of his attacker, but even as he tried to heave Scarlet’s body from his own, finding it difficult, Little John came forward to tend the task himself. Locksley somewhat breathlessly levered himself up to his elbows as the unconscious man was pulled aside and dropped onto his back. Scarlet’s head rolled slackly.

  “Alive,” the giant murmured, “whether intended or no.”

  Marian heard him. Color rushed into her face, then ebbed again. “What do you expect?” she snapped. “After what—” But she broke it off, saying merely, “You would have done the same.”

  Little John, kneeling next to Scarlet, twisted his head to look at her. He said nothing a moment, then nodded slightly. His tone was subdued. “Aye, lass. So I would.”

  She nodded back once decisively, then looked at Locksley. A brief, odd expression crossed her face and was lost as she moved. She knelt to drop the quarterstaff, then came to stand at his side. “You’re hurt.”

  He was, but forbore to agree. Instead, he pulled himself into a squatting position preparatory to rising, caught his breath between clamped teeth, and completed the motion. Once standing he wished he had not chanced it, wishing instead he’d stayed where he was, but it was done, and he preferred not to have her playing hen to his chick. It reminded him of his mother, and of childhood memories best left unrecalled.

  Marian fruitlessly tried to put into order the tattered ruins of her kirtle. “Have you horses?”

  Her hesitancy was at odds with the decisive way she had disposed of Will Scarlet but moments before. It underscored a vulnerability he had not marked until now.

  Laggardly he admitted it, because she deserved the truth: she was not her father.

  He stared at Marian. She was the same, exactly the same, standing before him with swollen hands working at wool, saying nothing, not even repeating her question, merely gazing back at him mutely, her face all scratched and filthy, her hair a tangled mass, her kirtle torn and muddied. Not—her father.

  She was exactly the same. She was entirely different,.

  The recognition was painful. It altered his view of her. It peeled back the layers he had applied of his own volition, of his own need, so as to look upon the woman without losing control. Such things were precarious. Such things were dangerous. She was dangerous.

  He knew it instinctively, reacting as beast, not man. Intellect failed him. Logic was nonexistent. The first trebuchet stone had smashed against the wall he had so painstakingly constructed around heart and soul to escape captivity, shattering the first layer into thousands of powdered fragments. I—can’t.

  He gestured sharply, recalling her question of horses. It was best they leave at once, if for no other reason than to occupy his thoughts. “We’ll go now.”

  Nodding, Marian began self-consciously to loosen the tangles in her hair. “Where is—?” She turned, searched intently, then wearily p
eeled a strand of hair from her eyes. “Gone,” she murmured, sighing. “I should have expected it.”

  Locksley mimicked her search. “The boy,” he said, comprehending.

  “He untied me ... and now he’s gone.” Marian smiled fleetingly, rubbing at her left wrist. “Much is—different.”

  He was, but Locksley had no time to discuss it. He glanced at Little John. “I’m taking her back. Have you an objection?”

  The giant rose. His hands hung slack at his sides. His expression was a mixture of futility and bleak acknowledgment. “Go,” he said roughly. “I’ll tend him; he did what he thought he had to, be it wrong or right.”

  Locksley held himself stiffly so as not to disturb his head. “You need not stay here. I will tell the sheriff the truth.” He felt more than saw Marian’s twitch of surprise as she looked at him.

  Little John’s hands rose, then dropped to his side. “ ‘Tis done.”

  “Is it?”

  The giant nodded. “Tell the lord high sheriff whatever you will. If he listens, I’ll be grateful. If not—well...” He shrugged. “I’m a peasant, after all.”

  Locksley smiled faintly. “I’ll see to it he knows the truth. My word as—” He checked.

  “As what?” Little John asked roughly. “A nobleman?”

  “As victim,” Locksley told him finally, fingering the lump on his head.

  The Hathersage Giant laughed, then flapped a wide hand at them both. “Go on, then. Take the lass with you. Will Scarlet will be thinking of other things when he rouses from the tap she gave him.” And then, more seriously, to Marian: “ ‘Tisn’t worth much, I know—but he didn’t know you were Saxon.” Color flared in his bearded face. “Neither did I.”

  In place of expected bitterness, Locksley heard self-possession. “I would have told you,” she answered evenly. “Had either of you asked.”