by Lisa Hendrix
“My bond as a man that you will go all the way,” he promised, the suggestive warmth in his voice telling her precisely what he meant—and it had nothing to do with travel. As her cheeks flamed, he batted her hand aside and snaked his arm around her waist to tug her close. “There are more suitable ways of sealing such bargains, Marian.”
She twisted away from his kiss. “There is not yet a bargain to seal, my lord. That was not an honest vow of aid, and I will not be misled by your trickster’s words.”
He lifted his head a little to look down on her. The faintest smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “My honest vow, then. I will escort you where you need to go, in exchange for your favors as we travel and a pound of silver from your hand at the end. My bond. And now you, for women have been known to mislead as well.”
She flushed under his gaze, but lifted her chin and spoke clearly. “I will lie with you whenever you wish and pay you a pound of silver, in exchange for your aid and escort on the rest of my journey. My bond.”
His smile spread, tugging at his mouth. “Then the contract is made to your satisfaction? ”
Why did he look so pleased with himself? She reviewed what he had said and what she had said, but found no flaw in the bargain. Slowly, she nodded. “It is.”
“Good, for it is most certainly made to mine. A pilgrim’s kiss, then, to seal our pact.” Again, he bent to her.
She tensed, waiting for the deep plunder of the kiss by the church gate, the ravaging hunger that had stirred similar hunger in her. But it seemed he knew other tricks as well. This kiss was gentle, chaste, very nearly a pilgrim’s kiss after all, except no holy pilgrim ever lingered over a kiss the way this man did, drawing it out until it no longer mattered that she didn’t really want him, until her body lifted against him of its own accord, searching for more. When he finally released her, she hung there a moment before slowly settling back to her feet.
Something rough touched her cheek, and she opened her eyes to find him frowning down at her as he traced a line along her jaw with one fingertip. “You are hurt. What is this bruise?”
She touched the spot and found it tender. “Mmm.” It took her a moment to remember. “ ’Tis nothing. Robin struck me. He—”
Steinarr’s expression went thunderous. “Broken leg or not, I’ll teach that puppy not to strike a woman.” He whirled toward his horse.
“No!” She grabbed his arm, and for an instant, she felt the power of his anger, surging against the wall she’d thrown up. She pushed back and he faded. “ ’Twas not like that. He was asleep.”
He stopped, every sinew of him vibrating beneath her hands like the strings of a rebec. “Asleep? ”
“Aye. He dreamt he fell again. I tried to wake him and he lashed out.” She released his arm and stepped back. “Robin would never hurt me, my lord. Never.”
“Well. Good, then.” He looked away, avoiding her eyes. An awkward silence stretched between them.
Finally, Matilda cleared her throat. “He will be pleased to know that you intend to guard my safety with such zeal.”
His expression darkened again. “He knows of this … adventure of yours, then? He approves? ”
“No. Neither.” Her cheeks went hot, and now it was she who looked away. “Please do not speak to him of it, my lord. I will tell him ’tis only silver you ask in exchange for your help. I do not wish him to know what else passes between us.”
“Tell him or not, as you will. He is your cousin,” he said, his voice still rough with the dregs of anger. “When do you wish to set out?”
“Today. As soon as I pay the reeve for his care.” The quicker the better, before she lost courage. She turned back to the manor.
He fell in alongside her, leading his horses, and they walked back in silence. She kept up the wall between herself and the world, but even so, her mind spun out all the possible things he might do to her, as though he had somehow tossed the idea of them over the wall to taunt her. Worse, her body responded to each and every thought in ways that both excited and shamed her.
Once more she recalled the warnings the priests had given about the sin of self-pleasure. She had always thought they exaggerated, trying to instill fear in her because of what they knew of her and her childhood strangeness. But perhaps not. Perhaps they had been right all along about the trouble it would bring.
Perhaps they had been right about her.
“ YO U WHAT!” ROBERT sat bolt upright, then fell back to his elbows with a groan. “Ow. God’s toes, that hurts.”
“You must lie still.” Matilda hurriedly pushed a cushion behind him, and helped him ease back onto it. She smoothed his hair off his sweat-soaked brow. “Shall I get you more poppy syrup?”
“No.” He shoved her hand away angrily. “Are you mad, Matilda?”
She glanced around to see whose attention he’d attracted. She’d waited until the men had headed out to the fields after breakfast, but there were still a few people in the hall. Only a pair of serving girls, scattering fresh reeds over the old, seemed to have noticed, though, and all it took was a quick glare to send them back to their work. Matilda then turned the glare on Robin. “For the thousandth time, ’tis Marian. And keep your voice down.”
“You tell me you intend to go hieing off with some stranger and expect me to keep quiet? You are mad.”
“Sir Steinarr is not a stranger.”
“All but!” Robert shook his head in disbelief. “Thank the saints he has no interest in helping us.”
She stared at the tapestry on the wall behind him: the Virgin, turning away from the Devil to hold out her hand to a golden-haired angel. She should have asked Sir Ari. “The saints must want me to go.”
Robert’s eyes widened. “But he said no.”
“And now he has said yes. ’Twill cost us a full pound of silver, but he will take me the rest of way.” I’ll see you go all the way, he’d promised, and at the recollection, heat streamed through her and pooled just where he’d surely intended it to. The devil take him. “We can follow the clues and—”
“We? You told him what we’re really doing, then? ”
“Not yet.”
“How can you expect him to help you with the clues when he doesn’t even know that you’re looking for something? ”
“I will tell him.”
“When?” he demanded.
“’Tis not something I can simply blurt out when we have lied from the start. I will tell him when I must.”
“Bah. And in the meanwhile? ”
“In the meanwhile, I will figure out the clues for myself and tell him where to go. He will think the places we visit are part of my pilgrimage. And when I—”
“He is not a fool.”
No, he wasn’t, but she went on stubbornly, “And when I find it—”
“If you find it.”
“When I find it, we will come back for you. By then you will have healed enough to ride and we can go to Edward.”
“If we can find him. If we have time. If Sir Steinarr doesn’t simply take the prize for himself.”
That thought hadn’t even occurred to her, but when she considered it, she shook her head. “Why would he? He is being paid for his work, and the piece is worth little to anyone but you.”
“It is worth enough. And then there is Guy. What if he catches up to you? ”
“Then at least I will be with a strong knight who has already proved he will protect me.” She told Robert about the bruise, and as she spoke, her fingers drifted to her jaw.
“I hit you?” Aghast, Robert tugged her hand away to see the mark. “Ah, Maud, forgive me.”
She waved off his apology. “’Twas the poppy juice, not you. I only told you to show you that he is ready to defend me. Even from you.”
“Why? ” demanded Robin. The question left her stuttering for an answer, and he jumped on her hesitation. “Never mind. I know why. I have seen how he looks at you.”
“All men look at women in much the same way. Even yo
u. But I have his vow that he will see me safely through this, and I trust his word as a knight.” She cringed at the way she piled one lie on the other. She could offer him one bit of truth, though. “I have to try, Robin. I cannot just sit here and … and watch your bones knit!”
“And I cannot watch you go off with that man.”
“That man will help us, which is what we need just now.”
“What I most need is to know you are safe.” He blew out a despairing sigh. “You should go home, Maud.”
“Marian,” she corrected under her breath. “Marian, Marian, Marian.”
“You should go back, Marian. Ride straight to Lord Baldwin and marry him as you are meant to. At least you will be safe from Guy.”
“Safe? Beneath that old whale? He will die atop me and crush me to death.” And from what she knew of his habits, that would likely be the best of it.
Safety meant different things to a woman than it did to a man, or so she had concluded in the deep of the night as she’d laid out her choices beside each other: a month of Sir Steinarr or years of foul old Baldwin and the even fouler Guy. Father had thought to protect her by betrothing her to Baldwin, who had once been a powerful friend to Huntingdon. But with Guy waiting in the background for the older man to die, any safety Baldwin could provide would be fleeting. And then there was what Guy would likely do to Robert if they failed. No. They must complete this quest, and if that meant giving Sir Steinarr what he demanded, then that’s what she would do. Even now, with her body betraying her, she knew it was the right choice.
“No. My best chance lies with your success. And your best chance of success lies with Sir Steinarr.”
Robin shook his head. “I will not let you do this.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “’Tis not yours to say whether I do or do not, Cousin.”
“I am not your cousin,” he grumbled under his breath.
“You are for now,” she reminded him gently. “It will be all right, Rob. I will be all right. He is an honorable man. He has given me his vow.” One of those was truth, at least.
She could see Robert’s resolve softening, but she needed to distract him until he got used to the idea. She picked up the tiny corner of parchment he’d knocked aside when he sat up so quickly. “We just need to work out this clue. Harworth. It could be a town or an abbey or … or a horse, for all I know.”
“’Twould be an odd name for a horse. A place, surely.” He stared at the large piece still in his hand, then flipped it back and forth and squinted at it, much the way she had during the night. “I keep thinking if I look hard enough …”
“I know. But there is not so much as a scratch or pinprick.”
With a sigh, he handed the parchment back to Matilda, who carefully returned it and the scrap to the cylinder. “And what do you propose I do while you follow these clues that are not clues?”
She wiggled the cap into place. “The reeve agreed you could rest here while you heal. I will hold him to it.”
“Didn’t I hear him say last night that he wants a shilling? ”
“That was for both of us. ’Twill be less if I am not here.”
“And more because someone will have to care for me with you gone, no doubt. It will leave you little to travel on.” He plucked at a loose thread on the edge of his blanket. “Travel,” he repeated to himself. “Sir Ari travels a good deal, I think. Perhaps he would know what and where Harworth is.”
“That is a good thought. I will ask him.”
“I will ask him. I will say we need to know for your pilgrimage.”
“Then I have your blessing in this? ” she asked.
“No, but even a fool can tell when a battle is lost. Go on, fetch him, and bring Sir Steinarr as well. He will need to know where Harworth is, too, to get you there in good time.”
She nodded and hurried off, anxious to get on the road. Outside, she spotted Sir Ari by the well and started toward him, calling, “Your pardon, my lord. Where is Sir Steinarr?”
“I am here.” Steinarr stepped out from behind Ari. He was naked to the waist and he held a bucket, the contents of which he had apparently just poured over his head, for water ran off him in sunlit rivulets. He plunked the bucket down on the edge of the well and shook himself off, then picked up his chainse and started blotting his chest dry.
“I, um …” Her mouth went dry at the sight of all that bare flesh—flesh that she would undoubtedly come to know quite well over the next weeks. Her gaze flickered down to where his worn linen braes draped over the rise at his groin. She’d know that soon enough, too …
“Are you ready, then, Marian?”
The amusement in his voice jerked her eyes up, but too late. He grinned at her. He knew, curse him.
“No, my lord. I am not.” Fury and embarrassment lent her voice a steadiness she didn’t expect or deserve. She lifted her chin and met his eyes, challenging him to contradict her even as she felt her cheeks blaze her guilt like watchtower fires. “Robin wishes to speak to both of you, messires. If you please.”
Steinarr’s smirk vanished. He shook out his chainse with a snap and pulled it over his head, then snagged his gown from where it hung on the well crank and started for the hall. Ari fell in beside him, and Matilda brought up the rear, where to her consternation she could make out every ripple of muscle beneath Steinarr’s damp chainse as he worked his gown over his arms. And if the sigh that escaped her lips as he finally pulled the gown over his head was one of disappointment instead of relief, well … she was not going to be the one to admit it.
THE MAID HAD some steel to her, that was certain, Steinarr thought to himself as he stood aside to let Marian pass through the door, but the steel turned to honey as soon as she knelt beside Robin. Despite his irritation, he understood her concern. The boy looked terrible—better than yesterday, but still terrible. His hair was plastered to his head with the sweat of pain, and the skin around his mouth was taut and as pale as a trout’s belly. Even so, he managed a weak grin and a slight bob of the head in acknowledgment. “My lords.”
Steinarr nodded back. “How are you doing, boy?”
“Aching, my lord. But in one piece thanks to Sir Ari and you.”
“We could hardly let you lie there.”
“Some might.” Robin’s glance alit briefly on the reeve, who had come in through the rear door and was speaking with a serving woman in the far corner. “My cousin says you have agreed to take her to finish the rest of our pilgrimage.”
“You have?” Ari gave Steinarr an accusing look. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Steinarr warned him off with a scowl. “Because it is not your business.”
“Apparently it is not mine either, my lord,” said Robin to Ari gloomily. Steinarr barely kept the sneer off his face. Fool, letting his woman go off like this.
“Do you know where Harworth is?” asked Robin.
Ari nodded. “Near Blyth.”
“Closer to Tickhill,” said Steinarr.
“Then you know it as well, my lord? That was to be the next stop on our journey.”
“ ’Tis a twisted route you take,” said Sir Ari, frowning. “If you came from the west, you would have done better to go there first.”
“A pilgrim’s path is often long and crooked,” said Marian. “How long will it take to get there?”
“Two or three days.” Steinarr looked straight at her and grinned. “Depending on how often we stop.”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed over reddening cheeks, but she collected herself quickly. “Fine. Then I will pay the reeve his shilling and we can set out.”
“There is no need for that, maid.” The collier—Hamo, Steinarr thought his name was—had come in behind them, followed by two other men and a pair of women. “Edith told me what the reeve is asking. ’Tis too much for pilgrims to pay. We will keep young Robin with us and care for him. Edith here is good with herbs.”
“Would you let me? ” asked Robin, cheered by the idea. “Ah,
that would be good.”
“But they have no beds,” said Marian, clearly dismayed. She turned to the old woman, looking for help. “He cannot sleep on the ground, Edith.”
“Of course not. And he will not.”
“I have a traveling bed,” said Hamo proudly. “He can have it. It will not hurt me to sleep on the ground for a few weeks.”
“But a charcoal camp is so dirty,” protested Marian.
“And this is not?” Robin smacked the pallet beneath him and foul-smelling dust flew up in a cloud around him. “At least their dirt is the dirt of honest labor. They are kind folk, and I am grateful to have their offer.”
“As am I, of course,” said Marian, “But …”
“We will care for him, Marian,” said the fatter of the other two men. “He’ll eat as well as we do, and have good company while he heals. Ivetta here is a fine cook.”
“And I do know my herbs,” said Edith. “I know just how to give him ease and make that leg heal fast.”
“See, Maud? I know I will be better off there.”
With each point made, Marian’s expression eased, until she wound up nodding at the end, not even noticing Robin’s slip in using her eke name. She took his hand. “Are you certain?”
“I am.” Robin brought her hand to his lips for a quick kiss that made Steinarr’s shoulders bunch up. Robin looked up at Hamo. “How will you move me? ”
“Well, now, we’ve been thinking on that.” The collier scratched his chin. “Our wagons are too full up with gear and food to hang the litter proper, so we’ll need to borrow a cart.”
“What’s that about a cart? ” asked the reeve, coming up behind Ari.
“Young Robin here wants to do his healing out at our camp,” said Hamo. “We’d be needing something to haul him in.”
The reeve shook his head. “I cannot loan a wagon to you lot, not without payment and surety. The steward would have my hide for that, he would.”
