Lady of Sherwood

by Molly Bilinski

  Quiet fell again, disturbed only by Alan’s humming and the snap-crackle of the fire. Alan snapped his fingers, caught Lia’s eye, and began to twist his fingers and move his hands again.

  “She would have liked this. Ana would have liked you lot, and what you stand for.”

  Tuck reached behind him and pulled out a large tankard. “The ones we love are never truly gone from us in spirit.”

  Robin blinked and looked around at the rest of them. Kitty was half-asleep, worn out from so much crying. Maggie stared into the fire, Kitty’s hand still clutched in her own. Will was sat forward, looking intently at his hands as they hung between his knees, elbows balanced on his thighs. Lia’s expression had softened, her gaze fixed in the direction of Tuck’s cottage where Graham—and Ginny—had gone to bed hours before. Much wrapped her arm around Robin’s calf while Jemma let out a contented sigh.

  She expected to feel something. If Tuck was right and the ones they loved were never truly gone in spirit, she should feel something, shouldn’t she? Shouldn’t it be as though her mother or father were there next to her, stepping right along the path of life with her?

  I was never the daughter she neither wanted nor deserved.

  No, Sabine had gotten the raw end of the deal when it came to Robin, and they’d both known it. But the others… the others could have this, this notion of never feeling lonely even when alone. They were owed that at the very least.

  Robin let Will pull her along by the back of her coat, shaking free of him only to fire another arrow at the Sheriff’s men. It went between two of them, missing a man’s nose by inches, and the pause he gave was enough to send at least three of them careening together. They landed in a heap. Robin looped her bow over her shoulder, digging her boots harder into the forest floor to keep up with Will’s longer strides.

  Up and over a small hillock they went, the cries and general mayhem of a number of trained footmen chasing after two groups of outlaws echoing through the trees around them. Robin paused by a large oak to make sure Jemma and Maggie were still well ahead of their pursuers.

  “Robin,” Will hissed, tugging on her elbow again.

  A crossbow bolt buried itself into the tree next to her shoulder. She yelped and nearly tripped over her own feet in an effort to get out of range again.

  “This way! This way!” He reached back for her again.

  She punched him hard on the arm.

  They rounded a bend on the deer path they were on. Will stopped, wrapped an arm around her waist when Robin drew level, and took them both the ground.

  “The fu—”

  He rolled them and kicked at a pile of leaves. A heavy, curtain-like thing fell over them. She wrestled her bow off before the string could choke her, and then lay still. The sound of footsteps grew louder, and she watched through a small crack as someone’s boots came into view.

  “They went over this way, I’m sure of it.”

  “Well, they’s gone now, ain’t they?”

  Another pair of boots joined the first.

  “Bloody useless, you are. Lettin’ ‘em get away.”

  The second voice took offense to that, and a small scuffle ensued. Robin stayed frozen where she was, her face half in the grass, dead leaves, and dirt crushed beneath her. It was only then was she aware of Will pressed against her left side, his arm still around her.

  Unexpected warmth bloomed behind her breastbone and in her belly.

  She swallowed thickly, rubbing her forehead on the ground.

  Evidently tired of their impromptu brawl, the two pairs of boots moved away, presumably heading back to the rest of their company. She shifted as though to get up. Will tightened his hold and murmured in her ear, “Wait.”

  “What is this thing?” she whispered.

  “It looks like the rest of the forest floor from the outside, but it’s built to hide under.” Will ducked his head and peeked out through the miniscule gap. “Same idea as a hare snare, but bigger. And different—designed to save lives instead of end them.”

  “Save our lives, you mean.” She didn’t want to readily admit it out loud, but it was clever.

  “Jemma and Much helped me put them together, and get them set up.”

  Robin brought her arm in front of her so she could rest her cheek on her armguard. “There are more of these?”

  “Four or five so far, scattered throughout Sherwood.” Will shrugged as best he could. “Tuck seemed to think they were a good idea, too.”

  “Did you ask everyone else first but me?” she asked, and then immediately wanted to take the words back.

  He looked through the small opening again. “I wanted to be sure they worked before I told you about them. They do,” he added. “They work as they should.”

  “Well, that’s good. Would hate to wind up dead and be unable to tell the others why.” Her belly flipped uneasily, and she refused to look at him.

  The silence between them was stifling. After several long minutes with nothing but the natural sounds of the forest around them, Will belly-crawled halfway out from under the cover. He shimmied free, stood, and lifted the heavy fabric off her.

  She took his proffered hand as she got to her feet, swearing she heard him mutter something that sounded like, “My lady.” It was a matter of moments for him to reset the little hideaway, and then they were off through the trees to find a familiar path home.

  A little while later, they met up with Maggie and Jemma, their faces flushed from their own run through the woods.

  “Another choice purse for us,” Maggie said with a grin, tossing the sack of coin to Robin. “Much talked about baking bread for the day.”

  “She’s a hell of a baker,” Will agreed, offering her his arm. She set her hand lightly near the bend of his elbow, and away they went.

  Robin clutched the purse until her knuckles went white.

  Jemma whacked her firmly in the shin with her staff. “Stop that.”

  “Ow—what?”

  She gestured to Robin’s figure as a whole. “That. Mostly with the eyes, and also the look. Stop it.”

  Robin shrugged. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Uh-huh.” Judging from her expression, Jemma clearly wasn’t having any of it. “Do you remember Edith? From Lockesly?”

  Even years later, Robin still bristled. “Of course I remember that—her.”

  Jemma looked over her shoulder to make sure Maggie and Will had gone far enough ahead so as not to hear them. Still, she leaned in close and kept her voice down, for which Robin was very grateful.

  “You had this look about you, when Edith started to go after Marcus with more than friendly intent.”

  Robin grunted, arms crossed over her chest.

  “You have that same look now,” Jemma said slowly, mindful to carefully pronounce each word.

  “I’m not interested in him that way,” Robin snapped.

  “Everything about you right now says differently.”

  Robin shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to say. I’m not—I don’t want him like that.” She looked briefly at the grey sky above them. “It’s too soon, anyway.”

  “It’s never too soon to love again,” Jemma said, leaning on her staff. “A heart should be like a poorly shut garden gate—able to always open with only a small push.”

  Robin snorted. “He was always such a romantic. Such a good heart, our Marcus.”

  “He was only a romantic for one lady in all of England.”

  Robin tossed her the purse and wandered off the path to collapse on an upturned stump. “I can’t, Jem. Even if—if there was something there—and there isn’t—I can’t. I’m not ready.”

  Jemma secured the purse away somewhere secret where it wouldn’t be noticeable or hinder her movement, and then made shooing motions until Robin slid over. She was able to at least get half her rear on the stump when she sat.

  “I think you can,” she said, stretching her legs out in front of them.

  “Well, that’s
nice.” Robin wrestled her bow off her shoulder and rested one end of it on the ground between her boots. “Care you tell me why?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.” Jemma sat up straighter and cleared her throat. “What you had with Marcus was easy.”

  Robin reared back and away from Jemma as if she’d been slapped, the color draining from her face. “Easy? Do you not remember all the times we snuck out of the manor? Or took longer in the market than we should have? Do you not remember the night he and I laid together as only man and wife should have, and the effort we went through in order to get out of the manor, and then back in? They killed him for it, Jemma, if you don’t remember.”

  Once again, Jemma rapped her in the shin with her staff, this time a little more forcefully. “Of course I remember. Don’t get snippy with me, you little shite. I’m the one who had to lie to the other servants when necessary, including the ones who directly answered to your mother.”

  Robin sniffed and clenched her jaw so tightly it made her teeth hurt. When she’d finally tamped down her temper, she asked, “What did you mean, then? When you said it was easy.”

  “I meant it was natural,” she said softly. “There was never any doubt in anyone’s mind that the two of you loved each other. Even as children. No one ever did anything to curb it, either, when we were younger. They let it be, and it grew—like wildflowers in the field—out of a good place. You never had to work for it or doubt it. Marcus loved you, and you loved Marcus.” She smiled. “You’d known him your whole life. You hadn’t known love in any other way. This is why you don’t think you can. Why you think you’re not ready. You don’t really know any other way to love than what you’d had for years and years. What had already been in front of you.”

  Mulling this over, Robin kicked her heel gently against the stump. Running her fingers up and down her bowstring, she stared off into the depths of the forest. “But what if I don’t want to love again? Part of me died with him, Jemma. I won’t be whole again.”

  “None of us are, love.” She rested her shoulder against Robin’s. “Ain’t none of us who we were months ago.”

  Robin closed her eyes. If she dug back far enough, past when they had decided to uproot to Nottingham for safety—and the irony of how that had turned out didn’t escape her—she could almost remember the feeling of Marcus’s fingertips as they trailed up and down her bare spine in the middle hours of the night.

  Maybe that was what Tuck had meant a few nights prior by the fire. Maybe it wasn’t going to be her parents who walked beside her, but Marcus instead. Or perhaps he’d moved on to a better place, seated in heaven with God where the church would have told her he’d passed to if they’d had a service for him like they should have. Like they should have had one for her mother and the others who’d died in the manor that night.

  “Do you feel whole, Jem?” Robin asked. “Or at least whole enough to be a person?”

  “I can tell right from wrong, those who use their power from those who abuse it, and know that we make a difference in those lives we touch,” Jemma said. “And that, right now, is more than enough for me.” She stood, and then leaned down to press a kiss to the crown of Robin’s head. “You’re a good woman, Robin of Lockesly, and good women deserve all the love they can get. Don’t make me have to tell you again.”

  Robin laughed softly. “Why do I put up with you?”

  “Because you adore me, and you would be utterly hopeless if I wasn’t around.” She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Come on, then, Lady Outlaw. It’s Tuck’s turn to make dinner, and you know what that means.”

  “Rabbit stew and honey mead.” She let Jemma pull her to her feet, and then wrapped the taller girl in a tight hug. “I would be utterly hopeless without you.”

  “This is what friends are for, love.” They separated. With her staff in one hand and one of Robin’s in her other, Jemma started down the path again. “Were you there when Lia was going through the latest market gossip?”

  “I was watching Kitty throw knives at a target. Did she say anything worthwhile?”

  Jemma chortled. “Well, it’s about the baker’s son and the one of the seamstress girls. You see…”

  ***

  No one was sure what had happened to the flute, but it was never seen again. Elena, however, had no such similar reaction when Lia came bearing a lute one afternoon. All of them then learned there was yet another facet to their tinker, and once Graham and Ginny were done jumping around and “dancing” to the music, they flopped in the grass, content to watch the older girls.

  “Something a little faster, Lia?” Maggie asked with a grin, pulling Kitty from the ground. Jemma waited until they’d gone through the first rotation to join them. Robin put her hand between Much’s shoulder blades and shoved her unceremoniously forward. Jemma caught her, and then twirled her into the dance as well.

  “That was unexpected of you,” Will murmured from somewhere to her left.

  “Not really.” Robin crossed her arms over her chest. “She’s too damn quiet, and I haven’t seen her smile, let alone heard her laugh, in too long.”

  Much held up her skirts so they wouldn’t get tangled in her legs. She grinned madly even as she bumped elbows with Jemma and Maggie.

  “It’s good for her,” she said, watching with a quiet pride as Elena joined them. Her expression was one of both sweet harmony and heartache. Robin had to turn away.

  “It’s good for all of them.” Will motioned with his head. “Why don’t you get out there?”

  “I don’t know this one.” Robin lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “There were dances for the common folk, and there were dances for everyone else. I wasn’t taught these.”

  Lia switched tunes. They partnered up, though Will solved their temporary problem of an odd number by pushing Tuck unexpectedly into the fray. The friar, his robe flapping about his skinny calves and bare feet, kept pace as well and as gracefully as any of them.

  Robin tucked the observation into the back of her mind for further thought.

  “Those hideaway spots are a good idea,” she said, and then winced at how out of place it seemed. “I should have told you that the other day. They’re a good idea.”

  “Thank you.”

  They watched the others in companionable silence until Robin gestured to the dancers. “Why don’t you get out there?”

  Will shook out one foot and then the other. “Two left feet and all that.”

  Robin, having had to stretch the truth almost to the breaking point on occasion—and yes, descend into a little lie when necessary—had become adept at spotting when someone else tried to do the same. Jemma was the best at it, though, and she knew if the other girl were standing next to her, she’d have thought Will wasn’t being completely truthful, too.

  She grunted, yet said nothing for the time being, just continued to watch him from the corner of her eye. His fingers tapped on his arm in time with the rhythm from the lute, and he shifted his weight almost continuously from foot to foot.

  Two left feet, her arse. It wasn’t that he couldn’t dance, it was—like her—that he didn’t know the steps.

  He’s not a commoner, she thought. It’s whether he’s a lesser noble or a greater one, that’s the question.

  There was a thud, a yelp, and a raucous round of laughter as Kitty, Much, and Tuck got tangled up and went down in a heap. Jemma rested her hands on her hips and giggled helplessly, while Elena’s grin stretched from ear to ear. Lia had to stop playing to wipe tears of mirth from her eyes.

  It took several minutes for everyone to calm down again. In that time, Robin gathered her courage and stepped forward.

  “Will you play another one, Lia?” Jemma asked quietly.

  Lia put her fingers back to the instrument as Robin wiped her sweaty palms on her coat, and then swished them around her hips, as though she were wearing a gown. She’d never danced in anything but, and she felt oddly naked to stand in front of him—in front of them—in he
r usual men’s clothing.

  “Surely you’ll know this one, Will,” she said, arranging herself in the starting position, palm up and toward him, waiting.

  Will visibly swallowed. As the music started again, he came forward. He stopped in front of her and bowed.

  Warmth bloomed in her belly even as her mouth went dry. She straightened her spine as he closed the distance between them, and then lightly touched his palm to hers. They waited until the melody started again, and Robin fell back into the steps she’d learned years ago from her mother and aunt.

  She’d been a mere girl the first time she’d attended a dance, hosted at a resplendent manor house on the outskirts of Nottingham. Old enough to be there and be spun on the floor by those considered eligible young men, but still childlike enough to not have anything serious come to bear between her and her partners.

  This was vastly different. She was vastly different.

  Will kept step for step with her, the heat of his body flashing close only to edge away again. He moved with the ease of one who had been bred for it.

  Who was this man who’d sought her out with simple intentions? The son of a baron, perhaps.

  “Your mind is spinning,” he murmured in her ear as the dance brought them together again, his arm securely around her waist. “Your forehead’s got wrinkles in it.”

  He spun away before she could reply. She glared at him the next time they drew close again.

  “You, sir, are a damn riddle.” She looked defiantly up at him as he moved them slowly in a circle. “One I am bound to unravel.”

  Will laughed, head kicked back. “You’re an archer and an outlaw. Are you a scholar as well?”

  Robin brought her hand up, as though to cradle his cheek. It was something she’d seen the older couples do—the ones who were either newly married or destined for it. She smiled sharply as he sucked in an abrupt breath.

  “I am what I am,” she said. “I learned my letters. I see no reason I can’t add to my list of talents.”

  “You’d have a list as long as your arm, I’d imagine, before you were satisfied.”

  An arm’s length apart, tethered only by their joined hands, Robin laughed loudly, a bright sound that surprised even her with its depth. She allowed him—and the dance—to gather her close again.