by Lisa Hendrix
“I never want to travel by oxcart again,” she said earnestly.
Robert mumbled a quick “amen,” crossed himself, and rose to join her. “You could have ridden behind me.”
“It would have been no faster. We would have been here two days ago if we had come ahead on our own.”
“If we had, we might not be here at all,” Robert pointed out, though they hadn’t seen a sign of trouble along the way. “But no matter, for we are here. I see no crown. Where do you suppose it is? ”
Matilda spun slowly in place, carefully searching the glade around the pool for something that looked like the marker they sought. Nothing.
“Perhaps we should have a look at the riddle again.” Robert produced the folded bit of parchment from his pilgrim’s scrip and smoothed it across his thigh before he handed it over. “Here. You read it.”
“Oh, all right.” They’d puzzled over the scrap so many times neither of them really needed to look at it, but Matilda accepted it anyway and worked through her father’s bold but difficult hand to be sure. “It says, ‘Head on to abbey lands where the Fair One pours forth the season of her day. You will find what you pray for in the crown of the forest king.’ The Fair One is Our Lady, of course, and Lady Day is in spring, so it is clear he means that Our Lady pours forth a spring. A Lady Well. That much we’re sure of.”
“But there are so many Lady Wells, and many on church lands. How are you so sure he meant this one?”
They’d gone over this a hundred times—Papa’s support of the nuns at Kirklees, the fact that he’d mentioned Abbess Humberga in almost the same breath that he’d revealed his strange bequest, his odd use of English instead of his usual French to write the riddle so he could play off words like head on for Headon—but Robert still doubted. And no wonder, when Matilda doubted it herself. But she couldn’t give up, and she couldn’t afford to have Robert give up. She slipped her arm around his waist and leaned her head on his bony shoulder. “He did mean it to be found, Robin. He would not have made it impossible.”
He sighed forlornly. “Just impossible for me.”
“But not for us together.”
“You were never meant to be part of it. Why are you helping me?” he asked, as if the question had just occurred to him.
“Because I love you, foolish boy.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “And because I am helping myself at the same time. Come. We are missing something.” She dragged him to the center of the glade. “Look hard. A king with a crown. It must be here somewhere.”
But it wasn’t. They went over every stone and tree, staring until their eyes crossed, trying to twist each into a face, a head, a crown, or a cap. Robert gave out and sat down by the spring, rubbing his eyes, but Matilda refused. She took up a vantage point in the center of the clearing and began slowly turning in place, searching, all the while muttering. “Papa, you felon, where have you hidden it? ”
“Sst.” Robert’s hiss interrupted her. Turning, she started to ask what, but stopped when she saw his raised hand. He pointed.
A handsome red hart stood on the edge of the clearing, barely a dozen yards away, his eyes fixed on Robert. He stood proudly, his mane dark and heavy around his shoulders, and though his new antlers were just beginning to grow, they were thick and sturdy, and she suspected the rack he would carry come fall would be magnificent. They all froze for a long moment, Robert, the stag, and Matilda. Gently, she opened herself to the stag’s mind and felt his curiosity as he sniffed the air, but no fear at all. The stag turned and walked away into the forest and she let him go.
“King of the forest,” whispered Robert as he vanished.
Matilda started. “King of the forest. Robert, you have solved it! Quick, look for a stag’s head.”
“No need,” he said. He scrambled to his feet and dragged Matilda over to where they had prayed earlier. “Kneel.”
“We can give thanks after we have found it.”
“Kneel!” He practically pushed her to the ground, then dropped to his knees close behind her. Reaching over her shoulder, he pointed toward the top of the little hill from which the spring flowed. “We will find what we pray for. Look.”
It took her a moment, but once she saw it, her smile spread wide. There it had been all along: a great stone that gave the brush-covered hillock the rough shape of a huge stag’s head. And rising above it, a solitary oak, split and twisted by disease and age into the form of a stag’s antlers. “The crown of the forest king.”
They scrambled up the hill, leaving scraps of skin and clothing on the brambles as they went. Robert circled the tree, staring up. “In the crown. In the crown.”
“There. Look.” Matilda pointed. High in the tree, up above the last few living branches, there was a hole the size of a woodpecker’s nest.
“Surely not,” said Robert.
“There is a faint mark carved next to the hole. See? I think ’tis an F, for Fitzwalter.”
Robert groaned. “So high. Why would he put it so high? How did he put it so high? ”
Robert was not a climber. He never had been. When other boys had shinnied up trees, he had hung back, carving little animals in wood. Matilda still kept a clever squirrel he had given her before she went off to her fostering.
“He probably sent a page up,” she said. “As to why, well, he would not want someone stumbling on it by chance, would he? Go on. You can do it. You solved his riddle, and you can manage this task as well.”
“He never liked me,” mumbled Robert, as he prepared to climb.
Which was not strictly true, but this was not the time to argue the point. Matilda wrung her hands as he inched his way awkwardly up the tree, branch by branch. At last he stepped onto the highest living branch and wrapped one arm around the tree so he could reach into the hole with the other.
“Is it there?” called Matilda.
He shook his head. “I cannot reach the bottom. I need to be higher.” He hunched around the tree, searching for a place to put his foot. The stumps of two dead branches protruded from the tree, just enough higher that they might work. Robert tested one, then the other, and slowly eased up onto the second, using the first to balance himself.
Matilda moved back to see better. “Be careful.”
“I’m fine.” He wrapped one arm firmly around the tree and stuck the other back in to grope around. “I think I feel something. If I can just …” Straining, he shifted his weight.
With a crack, the dead wood gave way. There was one instant when Matilda thought he’d caught himself, when he hung, safe. And then he yelled and he was falling and all she could do was scream and throw herself out of the way.
He bounced off one of the lower branches and landed in a heap at the foot of the tree. Matilda scrambled forward. “Rob! Robin. Oh, sweet Mother, help him. Robin?”
“Unnh.” His agonized moan tore at her, but at least it meant he lived. Thank the saints he had missed the great stone, barely a foot from his skull.
“Lie still. Let me see if you are hurt.” Slowly, she sorted him out. Head. Arms. Legs. Oh, God, his leg. The lower part of his right leg lay at an angle so odd it made Matilda’s stomach heave.
“My leg,” groaned Robert, writhing. “I think ’tis broken.”
“It is. Hold still, lest you make it worse.”
“Is it bad? ”
“Bad enough. Be still. I must get your shoe off before your leg swells.” She unfastened the buckles and carefully eased the shoe off, then took out her knife and cut away his hose. “Now, let me find some sticks to brace it.”
He tried to rise up on his elbows, but fell back with another groan. “It is no use, Maud. I will never be able to walk.”
“You won’t have to, boy. Be at ease.”
Matilda glanced up, and for half a heartbeat, she thought it was Sir Steinarr coming up the hill. But no, it was only some other tall man with gold hair and a square jaw—though not quite so tall and square as Steinarr after all. “I would ask who you are a
nd where you come from, my lord, but I am too pleased to see you.”
“I am Sir Ari. I was below watering my horse and heard the cry.” He squatted beside Robert to examine his leg, his fingers moving deftly over the limb. He nodded to himself. “You will mend. Come. Let’s get you off this hill, and then we’ll put you back together. I will need those sticks you were going to find, maid.”
Matilda nodded dumbly, unnerved by the way this unknown knight took command, yet relieved by it and by having something useful to do. She found a pair of straight branches and carried them back to find Sir Ari cutting strips from Robert’s discarded hose. Working together, they trimmed the sticks to a good length and bound them to the wounded leg. By the time they finished, Robert was shaking, despite the warm weather.
“The pain is making him chill,” the stranger said. “You go on down and gather some boughs to keep him off the damp ground. We’ll wrap him in our cloaks. Mine is tied behind the saddle of my horse.”
“We carry our own blankets.”
“Good. Use both blankets and cloaks.”
She nodded. “But how will we get him down without a litter?”
“I’ll manage.” The stranger flashed a smile, then handed her his heavy knife, much as Sir Steinarr had a few days before. “Go on, woman. We’ll be fine. Won’t we, boy?”
Robert nodded, pale-faced. “If you so say, my lord. Go on, Maud.”
She scrambled back down the hill, leaving yet more skin behind on thorns, and began hacking off the branches of a young maple as though it were responsible for the scream of pain that rose on the hilltop. By the time the stranger came shambling down the slope with Robert slung over his shoulder, she had piled enough boughs to make a thin bed and covered them with one of the doubled blankets and Robert’s cloak.
Sir Ari held out a slim gray cylinder. “Here. When I went to pick him up, I found this under him. He said ’tis his.”
“I …” She started to deny it, but Rob piped up, “Hold it for me, Maud.”
It must be what he’d found in the tree. She took it and quickly slipped it into her scrip. “Thank you, my lord. It would have been a great loss.”
“No trouble.” Sir Ari shifted around to line Robert up with the makeshift bed. “You ready, boy?”
“Aye,” said Robert between gritted teeth.
“Down you go, then. Watch the leg.” With Matilda providing a steadying hand, the knight lowered Robert onto his good leg, then down onto the cloaks. Robert paled, but managed not to cry out again. “There’s a lad. Good job. Now, let us see to setting this leg.” Sir Ari started untying the strips so he could remove the bracing.
“Here?” Matilda quickly covered Robert’s torso with the other blanket and both cloaks. “Should we not take him to the village first? I can ride for help.”
The stranger shook his head. “Setting the leg will make the trip easier for him. And the sooner ’tis set, the sooner ’twill heal.”
“But you … Do not take this poorly, my lord, but do you know what you are doing? ”
“Maud, he is trying to help.” Robert winced as he lifted his head to scold her.
“ ’Tis a fair enough question, lad, especially when your leg is at stake.” He patted Robert on the shoulder, then turned to Matilda. “Maud, is it? I have set many a bone, and even a few of my own.” He held up a wrist and waggled it. “They’ve all healed well enough.”
“But—”
“’Tis not as grim as it looks,” he reassured her. “The break is clean and the skin is not broken. I can manage as well as any man, and far better than what you are likely to find in that village.”
“But—”
“Do it, my lord,” said Robert quickly. “I trust you.”
The man gave Robert a hard look, then nodded. He cast about for a sturdy twig, which he wrapped in a corner of his cloak. “Bite down on this when I tell you to. Maud, you are going to hold his shoulders down. Keep him still.”
“I will try, my lord.”
“Trying is not good enough,” said a voice behind them. “I will hold him, Ari.”
Matilda didn’t even have to turn. She knew that voice. It rippled down her spine to the very pit of her being and sent a flash of heat back up, so fierce it was all she could do not to groan.
But the stranger had turned and was grinning broadly. “Steinarr! What the devil are you doing here?”
Matilda didn’t need to hear the answer. She knew precisely why he was here. And she also knew she suddenly had a great deal more trouble than Robert’s broken leg.
’TWAS CLEAR SHE cared for the lad. Even now, with him drifting off from a potent mixture of exhaustion and poppy syrup, she fussed over him, straightening blankets and brushing the hair off his forehead.
Steinarr stood off to one side, frowning as Marian leaned over to press a kiss to Robin’s cheek, his glee at the boy ruining his own game tempered by the sight of the two of them together.
As he considered what he should do, the reeve of Headon drew Marian aside. He said something that made her eyes widen, then shook his head when she responded. She argued more vigorously, but the reeve shook his head again and walked away, leaving her standing there wearing a look of shock. Steinarr thought he could see the glitter of tears as she turned back to kneel beside Robin.
Ari came up beside him and spoke quietly in Norse. “If you’re going to just stand there, I may have a try at her.”
“Go away.”
“I’m just saying, if a man wanted to bed her, this would be the time to begin the wooing.”
Steinarr grinned at him. “Do you never keep that mouth shut? ”
“Not when there is something that needs saying. ’Tis clear you want her. Go on. Go to her.”
Steinarr glanced to Marian again—he had decided to keep thinking of her by that name so as not to reveal he knew anything more than what she’d told him. “’Tis the wrong time. She is far too upset, and we must leave soon to be away by nightfall.”
“ ’Tis a perfect time.”
“But she …”
“By the gods, have you been so long in the woods that you’ve forgotten how these things are done?” Ari thumped Steinarr on the back. “She is holding together in front of the boy, but she is clearly in need of a good, broad shoulder. Comfort her, tell her all will be well, then leave her be for the night. She will think better of you for it and be that much more likely to give you a tumble later.”
Think well of him? Little chance of that after what he’d done in Maltby. During the ride out from Nottingham, he had pondered how he might overcome the crude way he’d driven her off, but his ponderings had not included finding her in tears over Robert le Chape’s broken leg. He had no idea what to do.
He would have known, once. He would have moved in and won her away from that scrawny puppy without a second thought, but now he stood here, foxed by a bastard thief who was barely more than a boy.
Ari was right; he had been in the forest too long. More to the point, he’d been relying too long on the forthright give-and-take of whores, who needed no wooing beyond the flash of silver—a useful thing for a man who could carve out only a few hours in town once or twice each year, but it had made him lazy. He simply needed to recall what it was to deal with a real woman, albeit one who was pretending to be other than what she was.
Marian suddenly rose and started for the door.
“Now if I were you …”
Steinarr clamped his hand down on Ari’s shoulder and squeezed. “You are not, nor am I you, thank the gods. Stay here.”
He gave Marian a moment, then trailed outside in her wake. She veered away from the colliers, who had made a rough camp in the yard with their wagons and their herd of children, and went to stand beside the old mare, where she rested her forehead against the animal’s. As he approached, she glanced up. Her eyes went from weary to wary in a blink. “May I help you, my lord? ”
“The question should go the other way,” said Steinarr, rattled by the mistr
ust in those narrowed green eyes. “How fares your cousin? ”
“Sleeping.”
“With good fortune, he will do so until morning.”
“Good fortune,” she repeated hollowly. “I fear we have run out of that, my lord. The reeve wants a shilling. A shilling!”
“For what? ”
“For bed and board while Robin heals. He says he cannot give so much charity without the steward’s leave, and the steward left yesterday for Leicester.” She blinked furiously, trying to hold back the tears that welled up again. “It will not leave us enough to travel.”
Remember who she claims to be, he reminded himself. Play her game. “I will speak to the man. Surely you can work for your place, and Robin’s leg is not so very bad. A few weeks’ rest and he will—”
“We do not have a few weeks.”
“Of course you do. Your holy shrines will still be there when he is healed.”
“But not the—” She cut herself off. “Not Robin’s sister. She is frail.”
Steinarr bit his cheek to keep from smiling at the near slip, so obvious now that he knew the truth. “Surely your prayers can be heard from here as well as from Lincoln.”
She ducked her head, so her headcloth fell and hid her face. “We must finish our journey, my lord. We made a vow.”
He nodded as if in understanding, as if he believed her and comprehended why wandering around from cross to cross should bring special boons from the Christian god. “Perhaps you will find a way, then.”
She said nothing, just kept staring at the ground.
Steinarr could think of nothing more to say, so he took Ari’s advice after all. “All will be well, Marian. You will see. A good night’s sleep for both you and Robin will make things look brighter. Ari and I will go now, but we will make camp nearby and come back in the morning to check on you.”
She nodded wordlessly, eyes still downcast, and he backed away.
Ari was watching from near the door. As Steinarr approached, he shook his head. “You might have at least got an arm around her. Let her sob on your chest or something.”
“That might make sense if she were actually crying. You know, ’tis amazing any woman ever spreads her legs for you,” said Steinarr, and headed off to collect his horses. Behind him, Ari laughed and followed.
