Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01]

by Lady of the Forest

  “Again, eh?” Eyebrows arched. “A helpful man, my son—or is there more to it than that?” He set down the apple and leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers against the chair. “Has he appointed himself her guardian, I wonder?—or does he merely desire to follow more easily that furrow which another man has plowed?” His distaste showed briefly. “Let the young man waste his seed where he will, but he might have chosen a more discreet woman. This one is carried off like the merest trifle at the whim of a lowborn peasant, and used accordingly ...” He sighed, tapping fingers. “Let him confine himself to women of his station—and quality!—if he must play hound to the vixen ... this FitzWalter girl is nothing but an impediment.”

  “She is of good family, my lord. Sir Hugh was knighted by King Henry himself.”

  “Did he make no provision for her care?”

  “None I have learned, my lord. Her mother is also dead; Lady Marian is said to be a ward of the king.”

  Huntington shook his head. “It is no wonder the girl is easy prey ... she should be married off at once before anyone else spies her frailties and tries to make use of them. She has some value, after all; Ravenskeep is a decent enough holding for the right sort of man.” He sat forward again, retrieving his apple. “Ah well, it is no concern of mine. But send Robert to me as soon as he returns. There are matters to discuss with him before de Vesci and the others leave.” “Yes, my lord.” Ralph offered watered wine.

  Much huddled damply in his muddy hollow, staring fixedly at the princess who was, most unexpectedly, being kissed by the prince. And kissing back, to boot. The boy, who had witnessed many a carnal coupling between his mother and father, between his mother and other men, between his father and other women, understood very well that kissing quite often led to something more. He waited, eyes stretched wide, but all his prince and princess did was kiss, then part. The prince mounted the horse and the princess went immediately back inside the wall, as if afraid to watch the prince leave.

  Odd, Much decided. When were they to couple?

  Apparently another time; the prince turned the horse and proceeded, somewhat leisurely, to aim the bay gelding toward the Nottingham Road.

  Much emerged. He darted from the tree to stand at the side of the track expectantly, hands tucked behind him and elbows stuck out from his sides. As intended, Robin saw him and reined in at once.

  He wore sherte, tunic, and hosen that did not quite fit, and a dark gray mantle thrown loosely over his shoulders. Pale hair gleamed dully in wan sunlight. “Much,” he said in surprise. “I thought you had gone back to Nottingham.”

  Much shook his head. “Marian.”

  A smile of wholly unexpected proportions altered Robin’s features. The austerity was banished, as was a certain coolness Much had marked before. “Marian,” he agreed. “Safe at last, Much.”

  Much nodded, grinned shyly, then slanted a speaking glance down the track.

  Robin kicked free of the left stirrup. “Come up?” he invited. “It’s a long walk to Nottingham. I should know, too—I walked half of it yesterday.”

  Much eyed the empty stirrup. To ride behind his Robin was incomprehensible; they inhabited different worlds.

  Robin smiled warmly. “Come up,” he repeated. “I’ll stop whenever you like.”

  The decision was made. Much darted to the horse, swarmed up the saddle nimbly with no need of Robin’s arm, and settled himself behind on the broad bay rump.

  “Robin’s horse,” he murmured. Then, in one of the few full sentences the boy had used in a long time, “Scarlet wanted it.”

  “Did he?” Robin tucked his booted foot back into the stirrup and guided the horse onward. “Well, the last time I saw Charlemagne, he was bound for Nottingham with a wounded Norman. Will Scarlet might well be sporting a knock on the nose; Charlemagne is not much tolerant of roughness.”

  Much thought back to his own portion of roughness, employed when Will Scarlet, the minstrel, and Clym of the Clough all wanted the bay horse that rightfully was his, because he meant to return him to Robin.

  “Charl-mane,” he slurred.

  “A great leader,” Robin said. “King of the Franks, and Emperor of the Romans. He lived a long time ago—almost four hundred years.”

  Much nodded.

  “I admire kings,” Robin said. “I always did, especially at your age, when I would pretend I was one. The second Henry was king then, so I’ve known two of them in my lifetime. They always seemed so heroic to me. Now that I know King Richard personally, I find it perfectly true.”

  It was impossible that Robin might actually know the king. Much supposed men did, but he had never met one on speaking terms with a king. “Lionheart?”

  “Richard Plantagenet; Duke of Aquitaine; King of the English; Coeur de Lion; Malik Ric,” Robin agreed, as if reciting an incantation. “If England is fortunate, she’ll have him back again. But only if we manage to raise enough ransom.”

  “Money,” Much said.

  “More money than I have.”

  Much thought about it. Then he dug down into his hosen, pulled free the leather pouch, deftly undid the knots. He reached around Robin and held out the pouch.

  Robin took it. “What is—? Much!” He halted the horse and twisted in the saddle. “This is my own purse.”

  Much nodded decisively. “Lionheart.”

  Robin’s expression was thoughtful. After a moment he tucked it away into a boot. “Lionheart,” he agreed, as if chastened by the thought, and gave rein to the bay again.

  Much was satisfied. He knew how to get money; nothing was easier. If it would buy the Lionheart back, whom Robin knew personally, he would steal every penny he could.

  Fifty

  Sherwood retained moisture far longer than fields and meadows because of its shadowed denseness. Water ran through prickly-edged holly, stuck on spikes all over thistle, beat down the climbing honeysuckle and the foxgloves with purple bells. Booted steps were muffled by damp, slick leaf mold piled up upon the black soil that was buried by multiple layers and seasons beneath the more recent deadfall.

  Little John perched atop a damp, lichen-clad rock and stared gloomily into the thicket of young birch saplings, scratching at his unkept aureole of bright red hair. Three or four paces away, screened by bracken and vines, the others gathered: Adam Bell, William of Cloudisley, Clym of the Clough, Will Scarlet, and Alan of the Dales. Wat One-Hand had been sent to watch the Nottingham Road, to signal if a likely looking victim appeared. This plan did not particularly please Little John, who was increasingly aware of a painful futility taking the place of mere frustration.

  He wanted nothing to do with this life, and yet he understood all too well there might be no alternative. Because of his remarkable height and vivid coloring, he was not a man who fit in easily anywhere. The wounded Norman who had survived the encounter to ride back to Nottingham simply could not forget to mention the huge red-haired man in the midst of the killings. Will Scarlet was right: neither the sheriff nor anyone else—any other Norman that is—would spare the time to ask Little John for his side of the story. All they needed to know was that the Hathersage Giant was present as Normans were killed.

  He heard the threshing of a man coming through bracken. A moment later the minstrel appeared, lute hooked over his shoulder and tucked safely between elbow and hip. Little was left of his finery. His plain sherte was soiled and torn, golden curls hung in damp disarray, and his pretty features were roughened by stubble and harsh usage, which dissipated the girlish look and lent him a measure of masculinity.

  But for all his dishabille, Alan’s crooked, engaging smile was as always present. “Thinking about leaving?”

  Little John grunted. “Why do you stay? You’ve more chance than the rest of us to go on your way.”

  The minstrel laughed, cradling his lute. “I am somewhat fond of my tongue.”

  “You could go to another part of England.”

  Alan hitched a shoulder. “I have a taste for the elega
nt life. I could go to the North Country, ’tis true, and lose myself there, but those lords are harsh and lacking in refinement. Their women are cold, I hear. No, I much prefer the warmth of great lords and ladies such as the Earl of Huntington—”

  Little John grunted skepticism. “Sherwood is harsher than the North Country.”

  Alan nodded. “A fair observation, giant—but think again. Where do you suppose my music comes from?”

  Little John shrugged indifferently.

  Alan laughed. “So answers a man with little imagination and no curiosity.” He set his spine against a tree and leaned indolently, fingering fretwork quietly as he caressed the strings. “Music does not spring forth from a well, my friend. Music must be inspired to truly touch the soul. The greatest of the troubadors understood this, and sought out inspiration.” He cast a quick glance around the closeness of trees and foliage. “Sherwood Forest is a magical place offering much for a minstrel in need of atmosphere. As for inspiration, well, I need only look to the three men yonder ... Adam Bell and the others are the stuff of legend. Did you not know of them before you met them?”

  Little John admitted he did.

  “There. You see? The peasants tell stories about them. They have fame, Little John ... and that is the root of my magic.” Very quietly, he raised music from the lute.

  Little John squinted disbelief. “And you’d stay here for that?”

  Alan shrugged. His expression was pensive as he pressed the strings into silence. “I fear I have little choice. The sheriff will see to it all the fine lords—and some of the lesser ones—know of my ‘crime.’ There will be no welcome for me.”

  It struck home in Little John, who recognized a similar fate for himself. He had known no welcome from lords, but he had a measure of fame as the Hathersage Giant. The sheriff need only put out word the giant was wanted, with a bounty on his head, and the fairs would prove deadly. He might give that up entirely and go back to shepherding, but how would he sell his wool? He was too obvious.

  He leaned and spat, then looked at Alan. “So—what becomes of a minstrel who can’t practice his trade?”

  Alan sighed, smiling faintly. “There is another audience. ’Tis not one I am accustomed to, preferring silk to wool, but beggars can’t be choosers. I can ply my trade in taverns and alehouses ... I’ll sing songs of Adam Bell, and live off the takings.”

  Little John grunted. “Not so much coin in that.”

  “No. It will have to be supplemented.” Alan grinned. “I can entertain our victims as they are relieved of their coin, and make a profit that way.”

  Little John stared in disbelief. “I like that!” he said. “Singing to our victims ...”

  Alan shrugged. “Better than being a victim.”

  A birdcall sounded. A moment later Adam Bell and the others came through to Little John and Alan. “Now,” Bell said tersely. “We’ve work to do.”

  Little John slowly stood up and followed the others as they made their way toward the road.

  At Ravenskeep, the storm had torn down much of the ivy, climbing honeysuckle, and the shrub roses Marian’s mother had tended for so many years. Canes were broken and twisted, or lay tumbled across the cobbles. Marian braided back her hair, found her scissors, and set about taming the mess.

  Hal had stacked his cobbles against the wall and now labored resetting the hinges on the splintered jamb of the front gate. Sim was back from the mill with flour, and Joan oversaw the replenishment of the kitchen and pantry. The hall floor was raked free of sodden rushes and now dried slowly in the damp; Roger’s progress with shutters and shingles was excruciatingly slow, so Marian set Sim to helping. Frequent glances at the sky confirmed her apprehension that it might rain again in the night; she did not relish having her hall soaked all over again.

  As she worked, she counted over what she knew of the losses the manor had suffered. Three-quarters of the hens were dead or in hiding, most of the chicks had been blown into sodden, shapeless little heaps of fluff, and the rooster, too, had been found dead. The hens who remained might not lay for days, which meant Ravenskeep’s inhabitants would have to buy or trade for the eggs they wanted, in the unlikely event anyone else had eggs to spare. The milk cows were safe, as were the horses and pigs, but the sheep still were scattered. Tam and Stephen had not come in yet and wouldn’t, Marian knew, until every last lamb was accounted for, be it alive or dead.

  “We need deer,” she muttered, working a flopping cane back into its place. “Were I an archer, I’d go into the forest and take a roe.” But she knew she wouldn’t. Killing the king’s deer cost a person a hand, or worse. Poaching was a high crime. “So, the king would rather see his people starve than lose a deer or two ...” Marian cut down a twisted cane and set it aside carefully, avoiding thorns. The few remaining rose petals were limp and ragged. “The Conqueror has much to answer for—first he takes England, then strips her people of the right to eat.” But Forest Law was unassailable; many had discovered, to their grief, that no lord tolerated an abuse of the king’s privilege. “Surely the sheriff has more to do than enforce the poaching laws against people who are starving.” She and her people were not close to starving, but many peasants were. And if their rude huts had been lost to the storm, they’d have less than ever. Poaching royal deer would become a necessity.

  And the sheriff would then catch those he could and lop off hands, or put out eyes, or toss them into the dungeon at Nottingham Castle, where none of them could work at all to feed their starving families.

  Marian stopped working. “They’ll send out boys.”

  She thought of Much, who had nearly lost his hand. She thought of other boys, maimed before they were grown, embittered by the crippling and turning to banditry because there was nothing else.

  She thought of the sheriff, who wanted to marry her. And then she thought of Robin.

  I don’t want to be doing this. I want to be with him. Then, more urgently, I don’t want to be here at all.

  Marian clutched at broken canes. Thorns pricked, but she did not notice. She noticed nothing at all save the certainty in her mind, blazing like a pyre. “I must go to Nottingham.”

  There was no other choice, clearly; what had taken her so long to see it? I will go now, and be back before Robin returns. We both of us have business to settle.

  Yet part of it was settled already; she had, in that moment, ceased to be the woman William deLacey knew. She was now someone else. Someone she much preferred.

  Marian laughed aloud. Eleanor said women have no right to choose ... but I have made my choice.

  Now it remained for her to declare it. The sheriff would be displeased, she knew, but Marian did not care. What mattered now—who mattered now—was the man she knew as Robin.

  Robin felt an odd affinity for the boy who rode pillion on the borrowed bay. That Much was simple, he knew, but it did not disturb or unsettle him, as it did so many people to be faced with someone different. Much said little enough, but then he himself had been a quiet boy, sharing little of himself with others. His father had made him less inclined than ever to talk of things that meant very much, for the earl had been a cold, rigid man who saw no use in boys who dreamed of kings and knights, and magical bowers where the faeries of old held court.

  So he had banished them to his inward self and locked Robin away, portraying himself as Robert once his mother was dead. She had understood the hunger in his soul and abetted his interests, but she had sickened and died, leaving him with no one but a father whose idea of shaping a boy lay in beating him free of dreams.

  Much was, therefore, eminently understandable; the boy was practical and quick, governing himself by the needs of the moment. That many of those needs concerned cutting purses from unsuspecting victims did not overly concern Robin; he had himself made shift where he could in trying circumstances.

  The bay horse borrowed from Ravenskeep was not as fine as those mounts to which Robin was accustomed, but considerably better than walking. All
ah knew—God knew—he had walked more than his share in captivity, for he was given no mount, and the journey from Sherwood while fever beat in his brain had leeched him of even the smallest willingness.

  “Charl-mane,” Much murmured.

  “Char-le-mane,” Robin corrected. Then, more properly, “Char-leman -ya—but Charlemagne will do. We English corrupt the tongues ... it is Salah al-Din, Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, not Saladin.” How many times had he been required to say it properly?

  “Sal-din,” Much echoed.

  “Salah al-Din—”

  The boy took it up immediately, mimicking what he’d heard. “Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub.”

  “Ya Allah!” Robin laughed. “We’ll make a Saracen of you yet—” But he broke off abruptly as the horse snorted alarm, for a group of men filed quietly out of the forest’s skirts to block the road.

  Will Scarlet bared bad teeth in an anticipatory grin. “We’ll have the horse,” he said. “This time, we’ll keep it.”

  Inwardly, Robin sighed. Scarlet’s face was bruised as his own was, and probably just as sore—especially the swollen nose—but the man showed no signs of reluctance to repeat the fight they’d begun once before.

  He cast a glance over the cluster of men. Two of them he knew: Little John, and Alan of the Dales, both of whom had the grace to look, respectively, reluctant and chagrined. Two of the other men held longbows with arrows nocked. Their companion stared back, arms folded across his chest.

  “No horse,” Robin told them. “You had your chance at mine, and lost it; he went off to Nottingham with that Norman you wounded.”

  “Too bad,” Scarlet jeered. “We’ll take it anyway.”

  Little John frowned. “Is that the boy behind you?”

  “Much,” Robin confirmed, as the boy leaned around him to glower at the others.

  Alan of the Dales wore a peculiar expression. “This is Adam Bell, my lord—” He winced as the title slipped. “Adam Bell, and Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudisley.”