Lady of Sherwood

by Molly Bilinski

  Heat flooded her face, and she had to work to breathe normally. It couldn’t be. There was no way—Gisborne had died in the flaming shadow of Lockesly Manor that night, by her own hand.

  Robin’s carefully constructed life as an outlaw teetered precariously.

  Out strode Gisborne to join the Sheriff, still the lithe and cruel predator she remembered. And there, starting on one side of his jaw and trailing down and over to his opposite cheek near his ear, was the pinked, raised flesh of a still-healing scar.

  She wheezed, an invisible band tightening across her chest until she thought her heart would explode. Gisborne was alive. He was well.

  He was in Nottingham.

  It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Robin knew God worked in mysterious ways—and sometimes had an odd sense of humor—but He wasn’t cruel.

  “Lad? You all right, lad?”

  She did a full-body shudder, glanced at the man next to her, and croaked out, “Fine.” It wouldn’t do to draw attention to herself.

  Her shoulders twitched, and she looked down the line of archers to see them all nocking arrows. She took a deep breath, shuffled her feet through the grass to ground herself again, and then pulled an arrow from her quiver.

  Best shot in England, she thought, sighting down the shaft. And I’m going to prove it.

  ***

  Up in the stands, the color drained from Jemma’s face at the Sheriff’s announcement. There was a sharp intake of breath next to her, and Much’s calloused, cracked fingers wrapped around Jemma’s own, squeezing hard.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” Much whispered. “The one who killed Marcus. Tried to force Robin into marriage.”

  “Aye, that’s him,” Jemma murmured. She pinched her thigh with her free hand, hoping she was somehow asleep on the floor of their room at The Broken Bough. Her eyes trained on Robin quick enough to see her go rigid. “Robin’s spotted him, too.”

  Movement further on down the row drew her attention. Jemma leaned out and watched Ginny climb into Kitty’s lap, clearly uncomfortable. Kitty rocked her gently.

  “They’re going to shoot now,” Maggie muttered, hands up by her mouth.

  “She’ll put it in the center ring, but it’ll be high,” Jemma said. She kept her voice low, loud enough for only the girls to hear. “She’s rattled.”

  Maggie snorted. “I would be, too, all things considered.”

  “She’ll find her calm.” Lia’s gentle but firm voice came from the other end of the row. “This is hers to lose.”

  “She won’t,” Kitty added, nose buried in Ginny’s hair. “She won’t lose this.”

  Jemma readjusted her skirt, and then propped the sole of one foot on her quarterstaff where it lay in front of her, Much, and Maggie. She’d outright refused to come to the contest unarmed, especially if something were to go wrong.

  With Gisborne there, the feeling that all hell was going to break loose grew stronger by the minute.

  “She’s made it to the second round,” Much murmured. She leaned forward, squinted, and added, “Not quite dead center, I don’t think. A little high.”

  “Come on, Robin,” Jemma whispered as the targets were moved back, and those who hadn’t made the second round stepped back to cluster closer to the spectator stands. “Come on, love.”

  ***

  “Nothing else matters,” her father said, adjusting her elbow. “When you have an arrow nocked, and you’ve sighted down your target, the rest of the world doesn’t matter. All that matters then is where that arrow goes, and that it flies straight and true. That’s the difference between hitting that painted circle on a tree and depriving those bunnies of their mother.”

  “I love bunnies,” Robin murmured. She drew the string back to her anchor point at the side of her mouth. “They deserve to have their mother.”

  “Good girl.” Robert smiled proudly as she released. The arrow landed with a satisfying thunk in the tree. “Always hit what you aim for.”

  Robin’s shooting was wired to her on a visceral level, tied to her very being. Gisborne—and his continued existence aboveground—made her nervous and jumpy as hell, but it couldn’t touch the part of her connected to archery. It was her lonely island in a sea of chaos and uncertainty, and though many times the waters had risen, nothing had yet been washed away.

  Nor would this be the time it happened.

  She’d pulled her first arrow slightly high, but once she’d found her breathing again, and ignored the Sheriff and Gisborne, she’d put the next arrow dead center in the target. The first two distances were child’s play. The third was designed to weed out the rest of them.

  “Sheriff’s best man, I am,” the man standing next to her boasted. “Best shot he’s got.”

  “Then why ain’t you gotten that damn outlaw yet?” piped up another voice from behind them. “He can shoot the leaves off a tree.”

  Robin smiled in the depths of her hood.

  He looked over his shoulder. “I’m workin’ on it. It takes a careful hand.”

  “Careful ham-hand, more like,” added someone else from the back. That sent the gathered crowd of disqualified archers snickering like washerwomen with good gossip.

  “Target’s a little smaller than the broadside of a barn,” drawled another. “Sure you can manage that, Roland?”

  Roland fumed silently, but must have realized retaliation would be futile. He turned his back to them, shoulders up around his ears.

  Robin tuned it out as the fourth target was finally in position, drawing an arrow from her quiver. She waited until the signal was given to nock, to draw, and then waited a beat after the cloth was dropped to fire. Breathing out with it, she watched it fly true to the center of the target yet again.

  “Aye, lad. That’s a good shot!” The same voice who had asked Roland about the broadside of a barn started up a cheer for her.

  The last three archers—apart from her and Roland—had been unable to advance at that distance, and she rested one end of her bow on the top of her foot while a group of boys moved the targets back again.

  She angled herself more, putting her back to Sherwood, though she never directly turned her face to the Sheriff and Gisborne. Roland stood stiff and angry beside her, though the crowd of other archers behind them had gone oddly silent. A few in the front were whispering to each other. It was worrisome, but not enough for Robin to give much thought to. She scanned the crowd in the stands for familiar faces, and she found them all in a line—Jemma, Much, Maggie, Kitty, Ginny, and Lia.

  Her girls.

  This was as much for them as it was for her. Yes, the law said they were criminals, but that didn’t mean they had to spend every waking moment afraid and on the run. What kind of life would that give them? Not much of one. Not when Much was a damn good baker, Maggie’s reading improved by leaps and bounds every day, Kitty could embroider just about anything, and they could collectively give Ginny something close to an ordinary childhood.

  As for Jemma? Jemma was the voice of reason all of them sorely needed, and Robin’s right-hand woman.

  “Hey! Hey, you, lad. Come here.”

  Robin glanced first at the boys still fiddling with the targets—they’d tipped one of them over, and the Sheriff himself had stood up, looking as though he were going to go out there—and then limped her way over to the assembled group.

  “My cousin saw that outlaw the Sheriff and his bumbling band of idiots can’t seem to catch one time,” the closest one said, barely loud enough for Robin to hear. “Best shooting he’s ever seen in his life, he says to me. And a kinder heart you couldn’t ask for. You’ve got a set of bollocks as big as church bells for coming here.”

  She stiffened slightly.

  “Easy, lad, relax.” He chuffed her gently on the shoulder. “There ain’t a one of us here in this crowd of archers you ain’t helped in some way. That coin you gave to Matty’s family? Helped him get a proper midwife, and that saved both mother and child.” He jerked his head to another m
an. “That one got to keep his house. Another put food on the table for his girls. And that one’s not rotting in a jail cell ‘cause he couldn’t pay his taxes.”

  She grunted to show she was listening as something warm unfurled in her chest.

  “You do good work. None of us’ll forget that anytime soon.”

  The targets had been set up, the Sheriff returned to his seat, and Roland was reaching for another arrow. She made to go. The man who’d spoken to her reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her closer.

  “Go and win that arrow, lad,” he whispered. “Your secret is safe with us.”

  Robin righted herself and hobbled away, very glad no one could see her face within her hood because she couldn’t seem to stop smiling stupidly.

  “This one’s gonna be tough,” Roland said as she came to a hopping stop. “You did well, boy. But you ain’t the best.”

  “Give him hell, lad,” someone shouted behind her. That fired up the rest of the archers, and the crowd of spectators, who harbored little love for the Sheriff’s favorite man.

  They released at the same time, Robin’s arrow a hairbreadth faster, and they hit with a solid thwack-thwack. Silence fell over the grounds. Robin rested the end of her bow on top of her foot again, a self-satisfied smirk no one could see twisting her mouth.

  Roland had hit the center circle of the target, low and right on the edge. Her arrow stood straight and proud from the exact center.

  The Sheriff sat in his chair, slack-jawed with disbelief. Gisborne, however, rose to his feet and went to the platform railing, eyes fixed on the hooded figure who’d made a mockery of the Sheriff’s best archer.

  ***

  Jemma had her free hand clapped over her mouth, her other crushed in Much’s surprisingly strong grip. Then again, the girl had been kneading bread dough for years, so it made some sense.

  “Best shot in all of England,” one of the girls—maybe Kitty, Jemma thought, as she couldn’t hear too well over the sound of her heartbeat thundering in her ears—murmured reverently.

  It was Ginny’s innocent, “Did she win?” that snapped Jemma back to the scene at hand, and she looked not at Robin, but at Gisborne.

  Gisborne—who stood like a predator tracking its prey as Robin made her way across the field to collect her prize.

  “Stay together; stay with Lia,” she said to Much, wresting her hand free. “Keep everyone safe, like you did that night at the manor.” She picked up her quarterstaff.

  “But—”

  “No buts.” Jemma leaned heavily on her staff to get to her feet, playing into the illusion it was a glorified walking stick. “Stick to the plan. I can’t focus on getting her out if I’m worrying about where you lot are, and what you’re doing.”

  “Right.” Maggie looked down the line, meeting Jemma’s eyes with a fierceness that said anyone who got in the way of keeping the rest of them safe was going to have an abrupt meeting with God.

  Satisfied, Jemma hobbled down the rickety steps as fast as she could manage while pretending to be crippled.

  Robin limped along, ignoring the scathing side-glances Roland periodically sent her. The group of other archers followed along behind them, and she felt bolstered by such support. Gisborne and the Sheriff waited ahead of her, the golden arrow and prize purse held by another of his guards.

  “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” Roland asked.

  She shrugged and croaked out, “Around.”

  Gisborne stared at her—through her, almost as if he could see her soul—and the corner of his lip curled upward in a snarl.

  He doesn’t know. He couldn’t. How would he have known I’d gone to Nottingham? She came to a stop, leaning on her bow, and did her best to look relaxed.

  “Impressive skills,” the Sheriff said. “I’d recruit you if you weren’t crippled.” He gestured for the guards to come forward.

  “No.” Gisborne held up a hand.

  Robin drew air into her lungs even as it seemed the rest of the field stopped breathing.

  “I knew of one person who could shoot like that,” he drawled. “Little more than a peasant.” He stepped forward, perusing her much as he had little over two months prior in Lockesly. “The one who’s been stealing from the rich to feed the poor. And the same one,” he added, darting out a hand toward her neck, “that tried to kill me.”

  She twisted. His nails grazed her cheek and ear, and then caught the edge of her hood. It came down, and when she straightened, standing a few paces back, she stood bareheaded for all to see.

  “You,” the Sheriff snarled.

  Robin shrugged again, most of her attention on Gisborne. He was the more deadly of the two of them, the sheer number of Sheriff’s men notwithstanding.

  “Do you know how I found you?” Gisborne asked.

  “Not particularly,” she said. “Nor do I care. I’m more interested in how you’re still alive.”

  “He did that to you?” Roland squeaked, drawing his finger back and forth across his throat.

  “She did that.” Gisborne bowed to her mockingly. “May I present Lady Robin of Lockesly, the Outlaw of Nottingham.”

  If Robin weren’t sure she was going to be arrested or outright killed on the spot, she’d have dissolved into hysterics at the Sheriff’s sequence of facial expressions. As it were, watching the man work himself into a fit of apoplexy was entertaining enough.

  “I will have you as I have wanted you, and then when you are begging for mercy, I will hang you,” Gisborne assured quietly.

  “I’d rather rot in hell,” Robin spat.

  “Seize him!”

  Robin ducked away from Roland’s ham-handed fist. The crowd of archers surged forward with a cry, and some of the more adventurous spectators, seeing the forming brawl on the field, emptied out of their seats to join in. They were followed in short order by many of their wives, as the opportunity to wallop on a few of the Sheriff’s men had presented itself, and they weren’t about to lose it.

  Chaos and general mayhem descended. Robin slipped through the crush of bodies and away from Gisborne. The golden arrow and prize purse lay forgotten on the ground—the poor man who had been charged with it had disappeared under an onslaught of bodies.

  A Nottingham guard reached for her only to stop short, his eyes crossing briefly before he slithered to the ground. Jemma stood behind him, eyes blazing and staff at the ready.

  “I think we should go,” she said calmly.

  “I think you’re right.”

  Men and women jostled them left and right. Robin latched onto Jemma’s free hand with her own as they fought the ebb and flow of the crowd. They were buffeted back and forth, gaining little ground only to lose it, and whenever they could get free, they met groups of the Sheriff’s men—aided by Gisborne’s few foot soldiers—and had to go back the way they’d come.

  Someone tugged on Robin’s sleeve.

  She whirled, arm back and ready to punch, but froze at the sight of a young man about her age with his hands up, palms outward. He glanced over his shoulder, and then beckoned her.

  “Who the hell are you?” Robin asked.

  His forehead furrowed, he motioned again, with more urgency this time.

  Robin absently handed Jemma her bow, and then captured the man’s face between her palms. She leaned in close—almost nose to nose—and stared into his eyes. They blinked back at her, no hint of malice or ill will to be found.

  “Betray us, and you’ll die painfully. Understand?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Go,” Robin said, giving him a shove in the direction he’d wanted them to follow anyway. Jemma handed her bow back, and the two of them followed him. He led them through the crowds, away from the Sheriff’s men, to the fringes of the field where it opened up toward Sherwood Forest. Here, he took off in a dead run, Robin and Jemma hot on his heels.

  They crashed noisily through the first few yards of underbrush and overgrowth, and they didn’t stop running until the screams
and shouts of the melee behind them had faded into silence and bird song.

  The path beneath their feet was worn, but unfamiliar. Robin drew an arrow only to hastily put it back in her quiver when he glared at her over his shoulder.

  Nearly an hour later, a cottage came into view through the trees, and the set of Robin’s shoulders relaxed fully when she recognized it. It was the same cottage that she’d seen on her way to the practice clearing, only this time, there was a robed figure standing barefoot in the yard.

  “And there’s the last of them,” the friar—the tonsure was a giveaway—said happily as they approached. “Well done, Alan. There’s some mead in the cottage for you, if you want it.”

  He flashed them a grin before disappearing inside the open door.

  “Welcome, welcome. Fetch the others, please?” he added as Alan came out again with a flagon in one hand. “They’re in the clearing.” He waited until Alan had gone on down the path to turn his sharp attention on Jemma and Robin. “I’ve heard quite a lot about the two of you.”

  “Uh, I don’t mean to be rude, but who are you?” Robin asked.

  “Friar Tuck, at your service.” A sly smile twisted his slender features. “Though you’ve known of me by another name.”

  “The Man of God,” Jemma muttered, leaning on her staff. “You’re Lia’s Man of God.”

  Tuck grinned brightly.

  Robin looked briefly toward the sky as the sound of many feet tramping the same path grew louder. She huffed out a small laugh.

  “Auntie Robin?”

  Jemma’s head snapped around. Robin dropped her bow and crouched to catch Graham as he barreled at her from the depths of Tuck’s cottage. She hefted him easily, balancing him on her hip as the girls poured into the yard, Lia and Alan following leisurely along behind them.

  “You’re all right!”

  “You won! You won!”

  “Where did you get the child?”

  Graham tucked his face in Robin’s neck at the onslaught of new people.

  “We’re fine,” Robin said. “I did win. And he came out of the cottage. Don’t you look at me like that, Jem,” she added, staring over Graham’s head and meeting Jemma’s look with one of her own.