Lady of Sherwood

by Molly Bilinski

  “…no.”

  “Well, then,” Jemma said, just a hint of laughter in her voice. “It’s settled. Lady Outlaw.”

  “Remind me why I introduced the two of you.” Robin dodged the swat in her direction, giggling so helplessly at the expression on Lia’s face she damn near fell over.

  Backside of the building, she thought, stepping lightly on the roof of The Broken Bough. Third window from the left. She came up short of the edge, head cocked to the side. Third from the left looking at the building, or third from the left on my left?

  Robin dropped to her belly and inched out far enough to look down and count windows. If she had air enough to laugh, she would have. There were six windows across the building face.

  Only one of the two eligible to be “third from the left” was open. If it wasn’t the right room, well, she hoped whoever occupied it was too stunned at having an uninvited guest appear rather suddenly to put up much of a fuss at her leaving the same way.

  She intended for the whole process to go more smoothly than it had at Lia’s.

  It didn’t.

  One moment, she dangled from the roof. The next she was on her arse on the floor, bewildered from both the short trip and the shoe a startled Much had thrown her way. The shoe had come too close to the end of her nose for comfort, though Much’s aim—even half-asleep—was commendable.

  “Robin!”

  She took a breath and was subsequently buried beneath Ginny and Kitty’s flailing arms.

  “Hello—hello, I’m fine.” She hugged them back. “Are you lot all right?”

  “Fine.” Kitty smiled and handed Much back her shoe. “My bruises are faded.” She held out her arms.

  “I see.” Although they had clearly diminished to shades of yellow and green, Robin could still make out distinct handprints on Kitty’s forearms. “Very glad you’re all right.”

  The girls moved, and Robin shed her quiver and bow. Much had evidently gone back to sleep. Kitty and Ginny looked to be getting ready to do the same, and Robin climbed to her feet.

  In the corner, leaning against Jemma’s strong shoulder, was Maggie.

  “May—may I speak with you, Maggie? Privately?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

  “And just where do you think we’d be able to do that?”

  Robin winced. She had a point. There wasn’t a whole lot of privacy to be found in a single room shared by six girls. She glanced at Jemma, who rolled her eyes upward.

  “The roof,” she blurted, careful to keep her expression neutral though Jemma’s had warmed slightly with approval. “If we keep our voices low, we can talk on the roof.” She held her hand out, the tightness in her chest easing when Maggie took it.

  Once comfortably sat on the wood—or as comfortably as possible—Robin turned her face to the nearly full moon in the sky. She let her legs splay out in front of her, wiggling her toes in her boots. Beside her, Maggie had her knees drawn protectively to her chest.

  “I said some things to you, in the taproom,” Robin started. “To you and of you.”

  “Did you mean them?” she demanded. “What you said? Bag of bones and having never seen a man or—or fumbled…” She trailed off. Robin heard her swallow thickly.

  “No, I didn’t.” She turned and sat cross-legged so she could face Maggie, even though it put her on a tilt due to the pitch of the roof. “I said those awful things so they would let you go and come after me. Men like that… they’re not good to women. They were ready to hurt you to get what they wanted, and if they—if they had done something, then it would have hurt you. More so than they already did.” She gestured to Maggie’s blackened eye and the bruise along her jaw.

  “So, you didn’t mean what you said to them?”

  “Of course not.” Robin rubbed her thumb against her boot. “When you lay with a man for the first time, it should be something you both want to do. That gift of your body is something you have a say in. It should be good for you, too, with someone who loves you and respects you. Not with men like them. And not like that.”

  Maggie twisted her hands together, and then gripped her knees. “I’ve never—there’s never been anyone I’ve felt like doing that with.”

  “What you do with your body and when you do it, and who you do it with, is your choice. I loved Marcus, and I wanted—I wanted to celebrate that love. I was in an arranged marriage to someone else—someone I didn’t love—and I wanted to always have that memory of what it means to love someone completely.” She resisted the urge to wrap an arm around her belly. “I was ready and willing. What we had for one night was beautiful. You’ll know when you’re ready, and it’s all right if you’re not. It’s all right if you never want to. Your choices don’t make you any less for it, regardless of what you decide.”

  Maggie rested her cheek on her hands, smiling at Robin with tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

  “I’m so very sorry I hurt you with what I said.” Robin sniffled. “It was the only thing I could think of to get them away from you. I’m sorry.”

  Maggie reached out and wrapped her fingers around Robin’s, squeezing gently. “You are forgiven. You were forgiven then, and you are forgiven now.”

  Robin stretched out on her back, but she kept her hand in Maggie’s. She frowned.

  “What, Robin?”

  “You can’t see as many stars here as you could at ho—the manor.” She stared at the heavens. If what the church said was true, her parents were up there, watching.

  She hoped, at least, her father was proud.

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” Maggie said. “We were worried.”

  “You know I’ll always come back, right?” She sat up and looked Maggie in the eye. “That I’ll do everything I can to make it back to you lot. Promise.”

  Maggie’s lower lip wobbled. “I know. We know. We’re—we’re family.”

  “Yes. Yes, we are.”

  They stayed up there long enough that Jemma finally poked her head out of the window and asked if they were going to sleep up there. Giggling, they climbed down. This time, Much wasn’t disturbed—she just snored softly, shoe clutched to her chest—when they reentered the room.

  ***

  Robin found she could wander the streets of Nottingham in daylight hours if she adopted a disguise of sorts. Namely, she donned a dress, let her hair down, and hid her bow in Lia’s market stall. Her wanted poster was displayed in the square, and she’d snorted quietly when she’d first seen it. With her face depicted more wide and mannish than her features were in reality, it didn’t look like her at all.

  Even better was that someone had drunkenly mistaken her for a man.

  She smiled, humming softly to herself as she made her way through the crowd to Lia’s stall. She ran her fingers over the ribbon at the end of her simple braid, one she had done herself, where it hung over her shoulder.

  The woman she and Jemma had bought ribbons from before was missing, her stall empty.

  “She’s gone,” the tanner in the next booth told her. “Couldn’t pay her taxes or rent on her stall. Sold her hair to buy food for her and her little one.” He gestured to her head. “That’s a pretty penny you’re wearing.”

  “I’m not for sale,” Robin said, an edge to her sweet smile. “Where is she now?”

  The tanner shrugged. “Some alley. Or the whorehouse. I know someone who’d pay quite a lot for you. And the hair, too.”

  She rolled her eyes and ignored his leer as she walked on.

  “Had a good walk?” Lia asked as Robin slid into the shadows at the back of her stall.

  “The ribbon seller is gone, and the tanner is a piece of shite,” she said flatly.

  “No argument from me.” Lia crossed her arms over her chest. “Taxes. Taxes, rent, and food nobody can afford.”

  Robin continued to fool with the end of her braid. “She sold her hair.”

  “She got desperate. It didn’t help.”

  The crowd parted. Robin glimpsed a woman o
f wealth—and much of it, to have more than one personal servant—escorted by a young man and some commonly dressed footmen.

  Those who have, those who have not, and the gap between. She watched with sharp eyes as the group passed a boy in rags, filthy from the street, and thin enough to most likely not remember when he’d eaten last. They spared him neither glance nor coin. Robin bristled.

  “Nottingham’s large for a town, isn’t it? And on the road to London?”

  Lia didn’t answer. Instead, she turned and regarded Robin shrewdly.

  “That boy,” Robin continued, “is tiny enough and quick enough to be a pickpocket. If he gets caught, he’ll go to the Sheriff’s dungeon or worse. He knows this. But if someone were to give it to him—someone who’s life was already forfeit to the law—then it’s simple charity.” She defiantly met Lia’s gaze and said, “Nobody asks where charity comes from. That way, nobody knows, and when nobody knows, they can’t be hanged for it.”

  Silence fell between them, thick and tense.

  “There’s a road,” Lia said slowly, “through the forest. Good cover. Plenty of merchants go through, and the Bishop of Hereford uses it frequently. I’ll get you a list of those who need it most.”

  Robin smiled, though there was nothing ladylike about it.

  ***

  “You are out of your godforsaken mind!”

  “No more than usual,” Robin said blithely, arms crossed over her chest in the face of Jemma’s ire.

  “Well, now that we’ve cleared that up.” Jemma leaned against her staff and motioned across the clearing to Lia, who was once again studying the foliage with rapt intensity. “What do you think of this madness?”

  She shrugged. “Not my neck in the noose.”

  Robin knew she did it to stay a neutral party between her and Jemma, but she bristled anyway. “There are children in the streets.”

  “There were beggars in Lockesly, too.”

  “But we took care of them, didn’t we?” Robin’s voice softened. “Gave them extras from the kitchen. Took them in when we could, found others to do it when we couldn’t.” She pointed in the direction of Nottingham. “The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. We’ve the power and the means to help, so why shouldn’t we? A bit more coin makes their lives easier and might help ours, too. We can’t make Much’s money stretch further.”

  Jemma rubbed her forehead with a sigh. “This is highway robbery.”

  “And I’m already wanted for a murder I didn’t commit. I’ve nothing to lose.”

  “Except your life, if you get caught,” Lia added casually.

  “So we don’t get caught.” Jemma slapped her hand over her mouth, and then muttered, “Damn it.”

  “They never catch us, we never hang, and we give a helping hand to those who would otherwise be forgotten and left to rot.” Robin ran her fingers over the bowstring coiled around her wrist. “We take only from those who can afford it. I’ll not rob Peter to pay Paul.”

  Jemma nodded. “How do we get the money to those who need it most?”

  Lia glanced between Robin and Jemma, expectant.

  “How do we know it’s not a setup from your source?” Robin asked softly.

  “He is a man of God,” Lia said. “An honest one. He’d sooner share a meal with the devil himself than betray a friend.”

  She trusted Lia, and if Lia trusted this man of God, well… if Robin were wrong, she’d hang, regardless.

  “We’ll deliver the coin ourselves. Discreetly.” Robin rested her bow against her shoulder, and then nodded to Lia. “Show us our highway.”

  Robin woke in the pre-dawn light from a dream featuring Marcus and several small children, more than one of which had her eyes and nose. She breathed deeply through her mouth and rolled onto her side, wincing at the slide of her bare thighs.

  Nothing else in the room—none of the girls, even Ginny—moved. She was overly warm, and her body ached in places, mostly centered around her middle and near her hips.

  No. No, no, no.

  She reached down and felt between her legs, her fingers coming away wet and tacky.

  And red.

  Eyes wide, she stuffed her other fist in her mouth to silence her sobs.

  ***

  “How are we going to do this?” Robin leaned against a nearby tree and wrapped her arms around her middle.

  “Planning is your expertise,” Jemma said with a shrug. She sat on the ground, her staff next to her, and Robin thought if she stayed there long enough, she’d most likely fall asleep.

  “You’ve no idea at all? Nothing?” Robin looked over her shoulder.

  “I’m not the one who decided highway robbery was the way to solve not only our problems, but all of Nottingham’s as well.”

  Robin went back to staring through the trees at the road. She tried very hard not to imagine more of the little boy she’d seen in her dream—a little boy with Marcus’s curious eyes and her nose.

  A little boy who would never exist.

  “Brute force is out.”

  She jerked, flailed for a moment as she lost her balance, and then righted herself. “What?”

  Jemma snorted. “That was graceful. I said brute strength is out. There are only two of us, and anyone smart will travel with at least that many guards.”

  Robin glanced ahead at the bend in the road.

  They’re clever girls. They’ve brains in their head.

  “We’re clever girls,” she murmured. She twisted around to fully look at Jemma. “We’re clever girls. I might—I’ve an idea.” She smiled thinly. “You might not like it.”

  Jemma listened, her eyebrows nearly to her hairline. Robin had been right—Jemma said she didn’t like it. And yet, it was what they decided to do.

  ***

  I’m gonna kill her, Jemma thought, semi-reclined on the damp road, as though she’d fallen off her horse. Never mind she’d never been on a horse in her life—servants didn’t have need for riding lessons, did they?—but she’d seen Robin hit the dirt enough times to know how to angle her body to make it believable. If we make it through this, and it actually works, I’m still gonna kill her.

  “Move your bottom leg a little bit!”

  Her head snapped around to look at a cluster of leaves and low-hanging branches. “What?”

  “You look like you expect someone to paint you without your clothes on,” Robin carried on, humor evident in her voice. “Your leg should look like it’s broken, not like you’re looking for nighttime company.”

  I’m gonna kill her, and nobody is ever gonna find her body. Still, she shifted around a bit.

  “Better. Hold that, and, remember, you’re in pain. Crying might be helpful.”

  I’m gonna beat her over the head with her own bow. She made a rude gesture with the hand not holding her torso up, dutifully ignoring Robin’s snort.

  “That’s not nice. You’re supposed to be wounded and waiting to be rescued.”

  “And you’re supposed to be a bush,” Jemma returned flatly. “And unless you’re on fire, you’re not supposed to be talking.”

  Robin guffawed loudly, the most unladylike sound Jemma had ever heard come out of her mouth. “That would have to make you Moses, and Jem, you’re no Moses.”

  “And all this time, I thought you’d slept through church all those years.”

  If the sudden silence was anything to go by, Robin hadn’t thought of a witty retort. Jemma pressed her palm fully against the ground, and then froze at the rhythmic vibrations under her fingers. Hoof beats, sure as anything. She was willing to bet good money she didn’t have that Robin had either heard or seen what was coming up the road.

  “Help,” she croaked, trying to look over her shoulder and not move too much at the same time. “Someone, help!”

  The vibrations beneath her fingers continued, and she craned around as best she could, periodically calling for help as the first guard rode into view, followed by a carriage pulled by two horses.

  Enoug
h for a carriage, but not enough to require more men to guard it. Jemma huddled protectively in on herself as the horse and rider stopped close to her, only half-pretending. She didn’t need to be accidentally stepped on this early in the game.

  “What is it? Why have you stopped?” a voice called from somewhere behind her.

  “There’s a girl in the road.”

  There was the jingle of bridle and tack, and then another horse flanked her other side, effectively caging her between them. She ducked her head further, breathing into her sleeve to avoid the dust. Her heart beat hard and fast in her chest, but she kept her breaths as even as possible.

  “Horse throw you?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said meekly. She wished she’d smudged some mud on her face, maybe had Robin hit her for a bruise or something. She wasn’t sure just rolling around on the ground was going to be convincing enough, even with her faked injuries.

  “What is the hold up?”

  A new voice. She looked through her lashes and peeked around various legs—both human and horse—to see him. He was certainly above her on the social ladder, though not so far as to potentially leave her where she sat.

  It was more than she and Robin had hoped for when the day had begun, truthfully.

  “The young lady in the road,” the first guard who’d spoken to her said. “Thrown from her horse.”

  The man from the carriage crept closer. Jemma gave him the most pitiful, wide-eyed look she could muster. She saw the moment he decided to help her, his features softening.

  “Put her in with me. Gentle, now. We’ll take her to Nottingham and find her a physician.” He waved his hands, and then returned to his carriage, evidently trusting his men to carry out his orders efficiently.

  Jemma allowed them to help her to her feet, biting her lip to appear to stifle her cries of pain. Her head lolled, and she thought she saw a flash of movement among the trees. She whimpered when someone nudged her leg, and let them safely ensconce her in the plush carriage with her rescuer.

  Once the guards had disappeared, both of them riding ahead of the team pulling the carriage, Jemma tried to get situated with a wince.