“You’re a remarkable woman, Sister Mary Catherine,” Robin said in awe.
“Tuck, please, if you don’t mind.” She drew herself to her full height, straight-backed and proud. “Sometimes, I think in the process of being Tuck, I’ve almost forgotten who Mary Catherine was.”
Robin smiled wryly. “You never forget. I was born Rhiannon of Lockesly, and part of me will always be her, just as a part of Elena will always remember who she was in tandem with her sister.” She laughed softly. “No, you’ll never forget Mary Catherine.”
“Well said.” Tuck fiddled with the jar of honey. “May I ask how you knew?”
“A feeling that something wasn’t quite right.” She picked at the bottom hem of her jacket. “There were things you’d said that I’d never heard any of the churchmen say before. That, and when we were dancing—you and the girls—you moved too gracefully for a peasant man. That’s what made me sure.”
She threw her head back and laughed, clapping her hands together. “Oh, what is it you and Jemma always say about the others?”
“They’re clever girls with brains in their heads,” Robin repeated dutifully.
“You’re a clever girl, Robin, with a brain in your head.”
“Do you—I’ll keep your secret, if you want me to.” She waited until Tuck looked her in the eye. “I’ll not say a word to anyone—even Jemma—if that’s what you want.”
Tuck put her hands on her hips. “I should. And yet… this is who I am. The others will understand.”
“We can keep Alan and Elena straight,” she said firmly, “I’ve no doubt we can know your sex, and yet still refer to you by the name you’ve chosen.” She smiled, a little sadly, and added, “After all, I may have been born Rhiannon, but I’ve always been Robin.”
“I believe some of us become who the world needs us to become,” Tuck said thoughtfully. She picked up the jar of honey. “The world needed you as Robin, and Robin you became.”
“The world needs all of us, then.” Robin crossed her arms over her chest. “You and me and Jemma, and the rest of us. They needed all of us, and I won’t take the credit for it.”
Tuck thoughtfully regarded the jar in her hands. “You’re a good woman, Robin. A good woman with a good soul.”
“Thanks, Tuck.” She rubbed a finger along the side of her nose, eyeing the honey in Tuck’s hands. “Do you, uh—can I try some of your honey mead?”
The grin she received was nearly enough to make her take a step backward.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
***
“Is she—is she sleeping?”
“No. I don’t think so. Last time Much walked by, she said she was humming.” Tuck stifled a giggle.
Jemma’s eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. “She’s all right, though?”
The friar shrugged and held up a tankard. “She’s finally been into the honey mead.”
She leaned her staff against the side of Tuck’s cottage and crossed her arms over her chest. “How much honey mead?”
“Enough that she’s somewhere between telling everyone I’m really a woman and confessing her undying love and affection for Will. So, not a lot.”
Jemma looked appropriately horrified. Tuck stifled a snort.
“I am so, so sorry.” Jemma rubbed a hand over her face. “Will hasn’t gone by here, has he?”
Chortling, Tuck answered, “No. He’s not been through here yet today.” Grinning, she added, “I really am a woman. Sister Mary Catherine, at your service, though I’d prefer if you’d call me Tuck.”
She stared openly. “Are you serious?”
“I’d swear on my copy of the Bible if it wasn’t somewhere inside the cottage, possibly being used as a paperweight.” For further proof, she pulled the sides of her robe tight to her torso again to show off the outline of the bandages binding her chest flat. “I really am a woman, just like you and Robin.”
Jemma’s mouth dropped open, and though she tried to say something, no words were actually heard. When she finally did find her voice, she muttered, “Son of a bitch, she was right.”
Laughing, Tuck disappeared into the cottage.
***
Still reeling, Jemma wandered over to where Robin lay sprawled on her back on the grass. There was an empty tankard near one outstretched arm, and the other was palm up, as though Robin had flopped down willy-nilly.
“I tol—I told you somethin’ was strange abo—about Tuck,” Robin slurred with a giggle.
Jemma rested her hands on her thighs, peering down at her best friend. “Are you drunk?”
“Me?”
“Yes. You.”
“O’ course not.” She hiccupped. “Maybe a littl’.” She thought about it further, and with a wince, nodded. “Yeah. I might be.”
“I think you are,” Jemma said with a laugh.
“S’okay, though. You’re here.” Robin looked earnestly up at Jemma’s face. “You’re pretty.”
She snorted. “Thank you. Why are you lying on the grass?”
“Because—because everythin’ was spinnin,’ and I decided tha’ the ground wouldn’t move.” Robin squeezed her eyes closed. “It was a good idea a’ the time.”
Never, in her wildest dreams, would she ever have imagined she might one day come upon Robin of Lockesly drunk on honey mead. Mead produced from bees kept by a friar who was really a nun in a man’s frock, deep in Sherwood Forest.
Child Jemma never would have predicted she would become an outlaw, either. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t quite remember what her child self saw her becoming when she got older.
“Lay with me, Jem. Watch the sky go by.”
With nothing else to do—and half wondering what was going to come spewing out of Robin’s mouth next—Jemma lay down beside her. Robin immediately took Jemma’s hand in her own.
“You—you remember doin’ this?” Robin whispered. “As children? When we’d go to the field?”
“I do.” With a cloudless night sky above them, it felt as though the world were very large, and they were very small. And yet, even with that feeling of insignificance, Jemma had always felt she still had a place, and that she mattered.
“Why’d we stop doin’ that?” Robin rolled her head, and the confusion in her eyes took Jemma’s breath away.
“Because we grew up,” Jemma said quietly. “We got older, and we knew there were other things that demanded our time. We couldn’t—we had no time for stargazing anymore.”
“Maybe we should make time.” She shifted onto her side and curled toward Jemma’s warmth. Her eyes closed, and after another hiccup, her breathing evened out.
“Perhaps we should.” She settled in and relaxed. Closing her own eyes, she almost felt as though the earth were cradling her gently. Holding her warmly.
Jemma opened her eyes and watched the clouds skitter by overhead, more at peace than she’d felt in a long time.
Getting over the wall into Nottingham, after Robin, Much, and Jemma had been nearly captured by the drainage gate, was not only more difficult, but it also required some acrobatics in moving from tree branch to wall. They did, after a few weeks, go back to using the drainage gate, and discovered, so long as they alternated both ways with no discernable pattern, they seemed to be able to come and go as they pleased.
It was better, however, if they did it more on the nights when the moon wasn’t full, or it was shrouded by clouds.
One such night allowed Robin and Will to go through the drainage gate into Nottingham and make their way to Lobb’s house to see what news their inside man had for them. Will had full movement and feeling back in his leg, though he ached fiercely on exceptionally cold and rainy days.
They crept in through the kitchen, also having decided it would be good to alternate whether they came through the front or the back, in case any too-curious neighbors watched. Robin pushed her hood back from her face the moment they were inside. Will locked the door securely behind them, and he waved her
up the stairs like the gallant gentleman he partially was.
Living as outlaws in Sherwood Forest had changed them all, some more strongly than others. Those little moments from Will—letting her through a doorway first, or resting his hand at the small of her back as he stood behind her—not only gave her butterflies in her belly again, but made her feel as though she were a real woman.
She hadn’t felt her femininity so keenly since the one and only night she and Marcus had lain together.
Lobb and Agnes waited for them at the table upstairs. Robin took off her bow and quiver, and then rested them against the wall behind her chair before she sat.
“Good to see you again, William,” Lobb said. “We weren’t entirely certain if you’d escape from that one, but I’m glad you did.”
“Have a biscuit,” Agnes added, pushing a plate his way. “You still look a bit peaky. Everything healed up all right?”
Robin watched in bemusement as Will blushed from his neck to the tops of his ears.
“Yes, thank you.” He took a biscuit.
All of them had learned to take at least one of what Agnes offered. As she’d been getting lessons from Much whenever she stopped by, Agnes’s creations had gotten quite good.
“It’s been quiet since your rescue,” Lobb said, reining them back to the task at hand. “The Sheriff still hasn’t accepted he’s been repeatedly bested by a woman, and Gisborne has been seen stalking the grounds of the Sheriff’s house like a caged animal.”
“That’s him deep in thought, then.” Robin shuddered. She remembered watching him do something similar at the manor in the early days of their acquaintance, well before she knew of the bargain he’d struck with her mother.
“There’s been an influx of poor into Nottingham from up near Barnesdale Forest.” Agnes offered the biscuit tray to Robin, who obligingly took two. “All of them have said the same thing.”
“The Bishop of Hereford has collected every last penny he can from anyone, and he’s making his way to Nottingham.” Lobb tapped his nose and pointed to Will. “You’ve dealt with the good bishop before, haven’t you?”
Will nodded. “That’s where my wanted poster came from.”
“That’s generally what happens when you rob someone of any sort of standing,” Robin said dryly.
“He’s taken everything from them.” Agnes rung her hands together fitfully. “He came looking for payment in full for the rent of church lands, and some of them have literally nothing left.” Her eyes grew wet. “They’ve come to be beggars in Nottingham.”
“He’s the human version of a horse’s arse,” Will said, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest.
“We’ll take care of it.” Robin looked at each face around the table. “We’ll figure something out, and we’ll relieve him of some coin.”
“That’s really all we’ve heard,” Lobb said. “Nothing new from Gisborne and the Sheriff, and that the Bishop is going to make his way to Nottingham.”
“Thank you.” Will took another biscuit as he stood. “These are very good, Agnes.”
“Much is a wonderful baker,” she said proudly. “Such a clever girl. You all are, really.”
Robin adjusted her quiver, and then looped her bow over her shoulder. “We try. We do have to stay one step or so ahead of the law.”
They took their leave of Lobb and Agnes, deciding to meander through the quiet streets of Nottingham. Will offered her his arm. Robin rested her hand in the crook of his elbow, and if one disregarded the time of night, and their various weapons, they could have been any other young couple going for a stroll. After a few random turns and some doubling back, they decided it was most likely safe enough for them to go either back to the drainage gate, or to the spot on the wall that was easiest to cross.
“You’ve an idea or three stuffed away in that head of yours,” Will said as they went along.
“I do. Trying to decide which to follow through with is a most difficult decision.” She said it as though she were instead trying to decide between which two gowns to wear to an important dinner, rather than concoct a plan to rob an important clergyman of his collected tax money.
He snorted. “Care to share with the rest of us?”
“Us? Have you a mouse in your pocket?” She blinked innocently at him.
“You’re not funny.”
Robin giggled. “I’m hysterical.”
“You are certainly something,” Will muttered. He had to let go of her when she aimed a stiff-fingered jab at his ribs. “You—you—”
“I know where you sleep,” she said dryly.
“You know where everyone sleeps, because we’re all neighbors.”
She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “You want to hear my plan or not?”
Will leaned against the nearest building, half in shadow. “It’s not whether I want to hear it or not, it’s whether we can actually pull it off.”
“We can pull off just about anything we set our mind to,” she said slowly, rubbing her thumb against the bowstring tight across her chest. “That I can promise you.”
He nodded. “Then what is your idea? What trap will you set?”
Though Robin shrugged calmly, her smile was sharp and white in the darkness. “We’re going to invite him to dinner.”
***
“Do we look like shepherds?” Much asked, pulling at the cloak of grey wool she wore. “I’m not sure we look like shepherds.”
“We’re supposed to look like dancing shepherds, not dancing witches.” Robin winced as Alan flinched. “Sorry, Alan. I didn’t—I’m sorry.”
Alan sighed without sound and signed slowly. Much squinted and cautiously said, “You’re fine. And you’re right. We should look like shepherds. It was just a bad—bad time?”
“Memory,” Jemma corrected softly. “Bad memory.” She caught Alan’s eye, and then watched his hands move. “Thank you for your apology.”
“Maggie?” Will called.
The girl in question halted her conversation with Kitty and looked over. “What?”
“What do I look like?”
“Besides an idiot?” Maggie leaned back, taking them in as a whole group. “You look like a bunch of shepherds without a flock.”
Hands on his hips, he turned back to Robin and raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you dare laugh.”
“She said you looked like an idiot.” She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “I’m a bit inclined to agree.”
“Would you like to carry the dead deer to the middle of the road, instead?” he asked.
Robin blindly aimed a pinch at Jemma’s side. She yelped and skittered away, failing completely to hide her giggles. “Of course not, William. And deny you that feat of strength? Never.”
Will turned first to Jemma—who was laughing so hard she was doubled over—and then to Much, who watched the proceedings with calm amusement. “Why have you put up with her for so long?”
Much shrugged. “Why do you think I spend most of my day in a bakery in Nottingham?”
“You’re a little shite, you know that, right?” Robin said even as she smiled and gathered her robe so she wouldn’t trip over it on their way to the ambush spot in the woods.
“I’d say she learned from the best,” Tuck added, shooing them all down the path. “Lia left for the other clearing a little while ago. She’ll get the fire started.”
“Wonderful.” Robin adjusted the lay of her bow and quiver under her cloak. She led the way, and Will—with a fat deer slung over his shoulders—brought up the rear.
There was no way they were going to let the Bishop of Hereford anywhere near the clearings they’d built cottages in and called home. Robin, in fact, wanted the vile little man as far from that place as she could get him, while still within the protection of Sherwood Forest. They were going to use another set of clearings in which to prepare their fire, roast the deer, and provide the Bishop with a dinner he would then pay very dearly for.
Will flopp
ed the deer down as soon as they reached the right point in the road.
“Now what?” Much asked.
“We wait,” Jemma said as she dropped to sit on the ground. She’d feel the beats of approaching horses long before they were heard. Her staff rested next to her.
Robin leaned against a nearby tree and dropped into the same frame of mind she used when sighting down an arrow—one of patience, calm, and quiet. She watched Alan and Much settle on the grass and hold a conversation in nothing but signs and hand gestures. Alan would sometimes reach over and gently correct Much’s movement, then make her repeat the sign until she knew it by heart.
Tuck arrived at almost the same time Jemma whipped around to mouth to Robin, “They’re coming.”
“Get ready to make merry,” Robin said with a grin, pulling her hood low.
Jemma scrambled to her feet. Much heaved Alan upright, and the six of them formed a circle around the deer.
“This feels odd,” Much muttered.
“You look odd,” Will whispered in return.
The sound of horses and tack could be heard from down the road. Jemma shoved at Robin’s shoulder, and together, rather haltingly, they began to dance around the deer as though they were indeed poor shepherds making a merry holiday.
“What is this, then? Who are you doing this for?”
Robin stepped out and bowed low. “We keep sheep all year. Today, we felt inclined to be merry.”
The Bishop leaned forward over the neck of his horse. “You have killed a king’s deer to do so, and for such a small company!”
“Of course.” She straightened. “We wouldn’t kill one of our flock. Not for a feast like this.”
“You shall hang for this,” he said, his eyes torn between watching the rest of them still dancing and focusing on Robin. “The King shall know of what you have done, and you shall hang for it.”
The others behind her slowed to a stop. Robin shifted slightly, enough to have access to her bow and quiver, if need be.
“A bishop should show mercy,” Tuck said from somewhere off Robin’s right shoulder. “It seems a tall price to take so many lives in exchange for one deer.”
Lady of Sherwood Page 19
