Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01]

by Lady of the Forest

  From ahead, Much whistled a birdcall. Robin slapped a hand to Scarlet’s shoulder. “Now you will have your chance.”

  Scarlet rose to assume his own position, but lingered a moment. He touched his swollen nose. “A right smart blow, it was.”

  Robin laughed softly, reflecting on his fading bruises. “And I’ve only now begun to chew on both sides of my mouth.”

  Gisbourne sat in the sheriffs chair, nearly paralyzed from the multitude of thoughts filling his head. He feared it might burst, so packed was it with anxiety.

  “ ‘The devil is loosed,’ ” he murmured, quoting the message once again and knowing how true it was; the king would be furious. Richard was not John, they said—he did not foam at the mouth in his rage—but he was a large, physically strong man of incredible warrior skills in addition to temporal power. “He’ll come home and find out what his brother has been doing... he’ll learn what we’ve all been doing...” Gisbourne smeared his hands against his face, stretching it out of shape. “All I wanted was the woman, and the manor... I only did this for her.”

  He fixed on it instantly, comprehending the explanation, the motivation that justified a man in his circumstances. “For her, to make my way in the world... and I’ve nearly lost a leg, and now I may lose my place—” Gisbourne nearly squirmed, except it was too painful. “I know—I know—and the sheriff does not... nobody knows, here, save for me ... is there anything in that I can use for myself?” And then he laughed into the hall. “Think like the sheriff—is there a way I may salvage myself? Is there a way I can profit from this?” Laughter died. He gazed speculatively at the parchment in his hand. No one here knows... if no alarm is given, I may yet profit from it while the sheriff drowns in spite—Gisbourne smiled realization—and the woman may yet be mine, along with her manor, and I will be a knight in truth instead of in ledger books.

  When the first arrow flew, deLacey did not fully realize what it portended. From his place near the back of the wagon he saw only that the driver abruptly reeled in rein, jerking the cart horses up short. In the center of the road loomed a white-fletched arrow.

  “Hold!” someone shouted. “Leave us the wagon!”

  “Crossbows,” deLacey ordered crisply.

  “Climb down from the wagon and go!”

  DeLacey rode up toward the driver. “Leave now.”

  The driver lifted his whip. A small, quick figure darted in to catch and halt the horses, then sliced at and severed the reins. Control was lost instantly.

  “Kill him!” deLacey roared as the wagon lurched to a halt. The figure—a boy?—darted away again even as a crossbow bolt flew past.

  The wagon driver abruptly slumped forward—and then the soldier beside the driver was clutching at his chest and falling sideways off the wagon. DeLacey heard the harrowing hum of clothyard arrows loosed from English longbows, and knew what was to come.

  No—He saw a few arrows miss their human targets, while others drove through cloth, mail, and flesh. All around him men died instantly, transfixed by white-fletched shafts, or fell wounded until killed by other arrows. Horses also died, struck by wayward shots.

  John’s money—“By God, I say no—” He grasped first at his sword, meaning to unsheath it; then realized what folly lay in that. The attackers used longbows from dense cover, effectively stripping the sheriff and his Normans of the chance to retaliate. Already too many were dead. DeLacey’s only hope of survival was simply to get away.

  But the sheriff, dragging his own mount aside to distance himself from the wagon, saw an arrow slice across the shoulder of his horse, leaving behind a crimson furrow.

  He gathered rein but the animal reared, then crumpled forward as another arrow took it. DeLacey scrambled, trying desperately to wrench boots out of stirrups and throw himself free of the falling horse, but it went down too quickly, too awkwardly; an arrow plucked at his sleeve, another teased at his helm, and then the horse was down, collapsing, with one of the sheriff’s legs caught beneath the body, squashed between heavy flesh and the soft give of the still-damp road, which saved his leg from breaking.

  Alive—While all around him the others died, struck down from unseen archers armed with deadly longbows. His leg ached from pressure, but he knew the bone was whole. Must get free—

  But another horse fell nearby, kicking out in its death throes. One of the hooves glanced off the sheriff’s helm, snatching it from his head. Mail coif was knocked askew.

  DeLacey was abruptly vulnerable as air cooled his dampened hair, and acknowledged in laggardly fashion that his senses were fading from him, decreasing incrementally as his brain realized the truth: the hoof, smacking steel, had also jarred the skull, driving mail links into flesh.

  Who—? But the thread of thought was lost as blood ran into his eyes. The day turned black around him.

  Seventy

  Christians lay sprawled in the sun, intermingled with Saracens; in death opposing viewpoints dwindled to insignificance, except to the unbodied souls seeking heaven or paradise, dependent on belief.

  It was hot in the desert sun, too hot to live in mail, yet they did to preserve their lives. No one dared doff hauberks save in the safety of field pavilions when hostilities were ended. Even now the king wore mail, striding back through Acre’s streets—

  “No—” Robin squinted, then shook his head to clear it. He scrubbed a forearm across his face, ridding himself of dampness born of a foreign land, though the body was in England.

  He squinted again. The dead remained, tumbled from panicked horses like dice from a gambler’s hand. Despite mail hauberks, Norman chests sprouted shafts adorned with white feathers.

  Will Scarlet ventured out first, armed with a meat-knife, to learn the truth of the bodies sprawled across the tree-fringed road. He was, Robin thought, prepared to kill the survivors, if any had survived. But even that was dangerous; a spanned crossbow was discharged with little effort, and a bolt from a dying man could strike Scarlet before anyone could prevent it.

  “To the wagon!” Robin called. “Someone catch the horses—everyone else watch for living men.” He himself pulled up his hood to shield his face from all but the most discerning of wounded men, then made his way down through bracken to the trampled road beyond.

  From four directions they approached, converging on the bodies. Much went at once to the horses, catching a severed rein and looping it deftly through the snaffle ring to hold the wheel-horse in position, while the other men—bows drawn—approached cautiously.

  Scarlet moved among them, checking every body. He stopped at deLacey’s. “My lord Sheriff,” he mocked, “brought down beneath a horse.” He bent, knife in hand, as if to cut his throat.

  —Christian looters walked through Acre’s dead, cutting throats for no reason at all—and Richard would behead the garrison—“No,” Robin said sharply, then grasped at another truth easier to explain to those who had not been there. “Men dead of arrows mark us merely as outlaws—dead men with cut throats mark us as something else. You’ve a reputation already—shall you worsen it with this?”

  Scarlet spat onto the sheriffs unhelmed head. “Dead already, it seems,” he said. “But no arrow that I see.”

  Little John’s face was solemn. “Mine,” he said. “I shot his horse, not him.”

  Scarlet laughed. “Aye, well... a smashed head is as good as an arrow.”

  “Be certain,” Robin said sharply. “We can leave no one alive, or risk them learning who was responsible.”

  Laughing, Scarlet moved away to another body. The giant approached reluctantly, bent briefly to assess the bloody head, then straightened quickly. “He’s dead.”

  Alan laughed briefly, though it had a strained sound. “With him dead, I’m free. I can sing for my living again.”

  Robin unnocked his arrow, slid it home into the quiver, then hooked an arm through his bow to settle it across his shoulders. “Gather up what horses are left... we’ve money to carry with us.” He mounted the wheel, climbed
up into the wagon, then squatted next to the chest. “Key,” he muttered, then glanced at Much. “You’ve the deftest fingers—the sheriff will have the key.”

  “Here.” Little John stood at the team’s head. “I’ll fashion new reins so we can drive them back.”

  “No wagon—it will mark us too easily.” Annoyed by the hood, which muffled his hearing, Robin slid it off his head to lie across his shoulders. Everyone is dead—“Cut the horses loose; we’ll use them for riding, since so many others are dead, or heading back to Nottingham.” He was curt, but there was little time for kindness. No time at all, in Acre. “We’ll take every horse we can—ride back to Locksley with the money, then arrange with the Jews to send it to Longchamp ... Much? Ah.” Robin caught the key one-handed, inserted it in the lock and broke it open. Inside were sacks he tested for contents, cutting cord away.

  The others gathered around as he reached into the bag. “Well?” Scarlet asked.

  Robin looked at Much. “Lionheart,” he said, flipping the boy a shilling.

  Much caught it easily. “Lionheart.”

  Marian sat outside on the bench beside the hall door. Her kirtle-swathed lap was weighted with gold and gems aglint in the light of midday, and three wash-leather purses: the spoils from Robin’s first theft.

  Fingers turned over heavy rings so that gemstones glowed. Coin, gold, and jewels. Enough, she wondered, to ransom a king?

  Robin believed it wasn’t. He had gone to do it again.

  The thought was unexpected: What can I do?

  Little enough, she feared. He had left her behind to keep her out of danger because a woman was no match for the sheriff and his soldiers. Physically, no—but there must be something. If not thievery, something else . . . something different, but just as effective.

  Marian considered it, using deLacey himself as her model. Although he was a man experienced with weapons, he specialized in words: sly innuendo, straightforward information timed for the best effect, things left unsaid with all the keenness of a swordblade cutting into a man’s bowels. Selective manipulation—couldn’t I do the same?

  “Yes,” she said aloud. “If I can determine his greatest weakness ... decide what might hurt him most, even indirectly ...”

  Surely this sort of battle might prove as effective—and less physically dangerous—than what Robin attempted.

  Marian worked through repercussions, discarding ideas she considered difficult to execute, or too weak to be effective. I cannot count solely on myself . . . I need someone to help, to make it realistic. But who was there in position to pose the greatest danger to William deLacey?

  Marian laughed sharply. “The king, of course . . . or perhaps John, but the sheriff is his man . . .” She frowned, carrying the idea through with variations. And then the answer sprang forth.

  The enormity of it astonished her. It was audacious, and rife with possibilities if simplistic in execution. The problem lay in predicting a man’s reaction to what she had to propose.

  “But why not?” she said aloud. “Nothing would be lost. He would most likely disbelieve me and do nothing about it; if he did believe me—” Marian’s laugh was replete with irony. “He wouldn’t, but if he did—”

  She heard wheezing and glanced up; Tuck approached from the village. Despite the film of sweat glistening on his reddened face, his expression was one of contentment. He made his way to the well and pulled up the wooden bucket attached to the hemp, drank without pause until his thirst was sated, then dropped the bucket back down. He scrubbed a thick forearm across his brow. “Thirsty work, teaching of God.”

  Marian barely nodded, intent upon her new goal. “Do you think we can trust the reeve?”

  Tuck frowned. “James seems an honest man. He is a hard worker and takes his position seriously.”

  She looked again into the treasure in her lap, stirring the gold. “I think we should send this on to Abraham. If there should be trouble from what Robin and the others do, it would be best to provide as little proof as possible.”

  “Why not simply hide it?”

  Marian looked at him. “Adam Bell and the others did not join Robin. They owe us no loyalty. What is to keep them from coming back for this?”

  Tuck nodded slowly. His fleshy face was troubled. “I could ask James to go.”

  “We’ll wrap it in such a way he doesn’t know what it is.”

  Tuck nodded again. His bovine eyes were wiser than they had been the day before. “Is there anything else?”

  “You read me too well.” Marian smiled. “You said you can write. I would like you to deliver a message to the earl.”

  “The earl?”

  “Yes.” Carefully she put all of the stolen wealth into the rough sacking used to contain it. “A very particular message. It may prove as devastating to the sheriff as an arrow loosed from an English longbow.” She smiled at Tuck. “With less risk to the archer.”

  William deLacey roused when a small, deft hand searched in the folds of his tunic, his mail hauberk, and the quilted gambeson beneath. Had he not been trapped by the fallen horse and dizzied by the head wound, he might have protested, or caught hold of the wrist. But a muzzy head did not preclude wit; he recalled almost immediately that outlaws had killed everyone else, and that if he expected to live he had better behave as if he were dead.

  He lay slackly. His right leg was trapped beneath the bulk of the dead horse, the left still hooked to stirrup by virtue of his spur. His right arm was bent under his ribs, but his left was free, slack weight across his abdomen. The small hand reached beneath the arm, shifting it without squeamishness, then searched in folds and hollows. DeLacey’s unhelmed head rested against churned-up, half-dried mud. He felt blood matting the roots of his hair and seeping into his face, which tickled annoyingly, but he dared not so much as twitch in an effort to escape it.

  Better to itch, than to die for want of a scratch. His head ached profoundly, which did not surprise him, and his right leg was numb. He maintained a slackness of expression even as the hand approached his groin, searching for the purse. He nearly tensed when he realized the hand had found the key to the chest, and then understood that was what the hand had wanted all along. Not his purse, the key—

  Which meant the attack was planned specifically for the shipment, not a routine assault on whoever happened by. Too well planned, too organized —Someone who knew. Someone who had waited purposely to steal Prince John’s money.

  The key was pulled away. The hand deserted. DeLacey lay still and listened, hearing through the pain in his head the bits of conversation that might, if understood, tell him who the robbers were. He dared not open his eyes, not even a smidgen, or risk divulging his condition to someone who might be watching.

  Then one sentence cut through the fog of his head: “—ride back to Locksley with the money, then arrange with the Jews to send it to Longchamp.”

  Locksley. Jews. Longchamp. Very well organized.

  “Lionheart,” someone said, and was answered by a boy’s soft whisper echoing the name.

  For Richard? DeLacey was incredulous. They rob John to pay Richard’s ransom? And then nearly laughed: it made a bizarre sort of sense. John diverted money intended for Richard’s ransom to pay debts and block the king’s release, while someone else stole money bound for John to send to the chancellor, who would in turn send it to Germany. But who?

  The sheriff could not wait. If money were being distributed in the name of Richard the Lionheart, no one would look at dead men.

  He opened his eyes the merest crack, peering fuzzily through gummy lashes. He saw first the dark bulk of his dead horse, closer than anything else; beyond it the rear wheel of a wagon, the wagon atop the wheel, the lid of the chest thrown back—and a man squatting by it, flipping a coin to a boy.

  A man who had slipped his hood to bare his head and face, and the glare of white-blond hair cascading over shoulders.

  Robert. Robin. Robin Hood.

  William deLacey rejoiced.
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  Robin surveyed his party with some trepidation. Of horses not dead or missing, only four remained; as the sole expert horseman among them—Alan rode well enough, but peasants were too poor for mounts and rarely learned to ride—he took one of the saddleless cart horses. He gave the other to Little John simply because of his size, and told him sternly to stay on however he could; they could not afford to waste time gathering up fallen riders all the way back to Locksley.

  Alan and Will Scarlet inherited the Norman mounts with saddles, and also the bags of money: two to each horse, tied across the withers. Robin swung Much up behind him, then heaved the cart horse around with a signal effort. Trained primarily to pull, the horse responded sluggishly to the touch of snaffle in mouth and the prodding of a bootheel.

  He glanced at Little John, hugging his horse with his prodigious legs, and knew it would not be an easy ride. It was midafternoon, but they would be fortunate to reach Locksley by sundown. Alan was easier in the saddle, but Will Scarlet was heavy-handed, understanding only that the horse was to go forward, not that other signals might result in different responses.

  We cannot walk instead—the money is too heavy—Robin shook his head. Nor can we split up . . . we would make too tempting a target for others who do likewise. “Follow me,” he said finally. “Stay on as best you can.”

  Tuck retrieved creased, blank parchment from his things, as well as ink and quill. He sat with them clutched in his hands on the bench beside Marian, flushed face slowly whitening. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes.” She scraped dampened palms against the fabric of her kirtle. “Very certain, Brother Tuck. The sheriff has been fighting this kind of battle for many years, now—what is to prevent me from doing likewise?”

  “There is danger attached,” he said. “Perhaps not physical—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said quietly. “I will do this, Tuck. I may not fully approve of Robin’s methods, but I do approve his intent . . . I think we all of us should do what we can to bring King Richard home.”