“You’re thinking too damn loudly again,” Jemma muttered, poking her in the side with a couple of stiff fingers.
“I can’t help it.” Robin glanced to her right. Ginny, having been lulled to sleep by the gentle swaying of the horse beneath her, rested heavily against Will’s chest, safely ensconced in his arms as he loosely held the reins.
“Yes, you can.” Jemma poked her again.
“Would you—stop it. Or I’ll make you walk the rest of the way to London.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Are you sure about that?” Robin grinned, drawing the hackney back a little to avoid running into the horse Lia and Graham rode. From what she could see of the little boy, she guessed he was fast asleep, too.
“It’s just about the only thing I’m sure of right now,” Jemma said thoughtfully. “That and you’re thinking so hard I can practically see the smoke rising from your ears.”
“What if we get there, Jem,” she murmured, “and the king sees us, and then decides to lock us away in the Tower of London forever?”
“It’s a possibility.” Jemma rested her chin on Robin’s shoulder. “It’s a possibility that he sees us, and then orders us to be hanged or tortured or beaten or any number of awful things.”
Robin’s stomach sank to her knees. That was what she was afraid of—that the King would look at them, and then decide they should spend the rest of their lives being miserable on the rack or in a dungeon.
Then, of course, there was the matter of murder.
She wasn’t guilty of killing the Sheriff’s kinsman—he’d ran his head into the bar at The Gilded Crown, even if she’d goaded him on, and the knife in his ribs had only added insult to injury—and although she’d slit Gisborne’s throat when she had the chance at the manor, she hadn’t killed him. She thought she had, but Gisborne alive and breathing at the archery contest had proved her wrong.
The Bishop’s men, however, were a different story.
At least three of them were dead in the road after that battle. Try as she might, Robin couldn’t remember clear enough what had happened. She knew she had hit one high in the chest with an arrow, and then she was on the ground…
“Jemma?” she asked quietly.
“What, love?”
“Did I—the day on the road with the Bishop, do you remember what happened?”
She felt Jemma stiffen slightly against her back. “The day Kitty died?”
“Yes.” If she closed her eyes, she could still see Kitty’s smile as she danced around the fire with the others. “What do you remember about that day?”
“I remember how peaceful she looked,” Jemma said softly. “She was—she smiled, a little. At the end. I remember she told me not to cry.” She rested her forehead against Robin’s shoulder and drew a shuddery breath. “I remember—she made us promise to continue to do right.”
The road ahead of Robin blurred a little, and she swallowed thickly.
“You didn’t kill all those men, Robin.” She shivered against Robin’s back. “You couldn’t have because I’m responsible for the one who killed Kitty.”
“How many?” Robin whispered. “How many did I—?”
“One.”
“There were three dead. I’m not the best at sums, but…”
Jemma locked her arms around Robin in an effort to prevent her from turning in the saddle as she quietly said, “Much. No—she’s made her peace with it. Like I have. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my sisters, and that man of yours. Nothing. That’s my promise to God.”
“I was willing to murder Gisborne.” Robin saw, for the moment, the manor ablaze again. She blinked it away, looking instead upon the road ahead. “I was willing to murder a man as revenge for murdering Marcus and for seeing me as nothing more than a prize to be won or lost. I was going to kill him if he hurt you or any of us.”
What was the difference, really? Gisborne’s life against one of the Bishop’s men? They were both God’s creatures, and it was against God’s commandments to kill. And yet she had. So had Jemma and Much. Maybe Will had, too, even if he hadn’t since he’d been with them. She knew the measure of him as a man since she’d met him, and it more than satisfied her.
She glanced down at her fingers wrapped around the reins. Those hands had loosed the arrow that had taken a man’s life. The same hands that had clutched at Will’s shoulders and raked through his hair as he made love to her, the same hands that had pressed against the wound in Kitty’s side, hoping to keep her spirit within her body.
Jemma’s fingers clenched briefly in Robin’s coat. Those hands had killed, too, just as surely as they also braided hair, smoothed the wrinkles from Robin’s forehead, and signed with Elena. The same way Much’s hands kneaded dough and wove flower crowns with Ginny.
“I would do anything for you and the rest of them,” Robin whispered. “We are the sum of our parts and then some.” They were outlaws. She could neither change nor deny that, and she didn’t want to. “We are the Ladies of Sherwood.”
And they weren’t going to let anyone forget it anytime soon.
***
Robin’s first impression of London was that it was a mess of buildings all run into each other, it smelled funny, and it was over-crowded with people. While it was refreshing after the solitary nature of living with a small group of people in the forest, it was also very nearly overwhelming in its newness. The bodies around her, at one point, felt stifling, and the only reason they made any headway through the throng around them was because they were on horseback.
The moment the Tower of London came into view, Robin’s mouth fell open from the sheer size of it.
It was one thing to know somewhere in England there was a ruling king who sat on a throne and governed as he saw fit and determined by God’s grace. It was quite another to have had enough education in the wider world to know the king lived primarily in London, and to imagine he had a sprawling complex.
Robin had never, in her wildest dreams or darkest nightmares, thought she’d be staring at the mass of stone and timber in person.
She expected to be hurried and marched through the halls to wherever the king sat. In fact, she spent her last few moments on horseback preparing what she would say to him in their defense.
Her words seemed woefully inadequate, even in her own head.
Mostly due to the fact she didn’t think it would end like this. Of all the ways she’d imagined her outlaw path to come to an end, having an audience at the Tower of London wasn’t one of them. A few arrows to the chest, maybe the hangman’s noose, sure, but this? This was beyond her in every way possible.
The guardsman who had saved them from Gisborne brought them into the courtyard and dismounted. Waiting for them were a dozen or so servants, and, if Robin’s guess was correct, a few ladies-in-waiting as well. Robin slid unsteadily to the ground, her knees wobbly after so much time in the saddle. Feeling more than a little self-conscious—and bowlegged—she staggered toward the one who appeared to be in charge.
She felt Jemma’s hand slip into her own, and she breathed more easily. Whatever would come next, they’d face it together, as they’d promised.
“How road weary you lot look,” the woman said, her eyes lingering on Robin’s mud-caked boots. “A washing, some food, and a bit of rest won’t go amiss, will it? Ladies shall come with me.”
Jemma reached over and unobtrusively tapped on Robin’s chin for her to shut her mouth where it had dropped open. Much nudged her in the back, and with Ginny holding tight to Maggie’s hand, the others began to follow. Elena swept Graham into her arms and blew a raspberry into his neck. The little boy giggled, waving to both Tuck and Will as he went by, much to Lia’s amusement. Tuck glanced at Will, muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “To hell with it,” and bustled after the girls. Robin spared one last look at Will as she let herself be led away, though he wouldn’t meet her eye.
“Friar?” the woman questioned, clearly confused.
“Sister,” Tuck said with a grin as Lia pulled the sides of her robe tight enough to show off the bandages binding her chest beneath.
“Oh. Well, then.” Robin was amazed to see how well she took it in stride. “I’m Beatrice, one of the senior ladies-in-waiting, and I will show you where you can get cleaned up. We’ll lend you some clothes so we might wash your own.”
Jemma looped her arm through Robin’s and murmured, “I think she means we stink, Robin.”
“You stink, maybe,” Robin whispered, “I smell like roses.” She giggled, stepping in line behind the rest of them.
It’s almost fitting, she mused. If this—if they’re going to hang me, and somehow let the others live, then it’s… it’s fitting they’re to go first into this new time in their lives.
Humming a snatch of some song or other, Jemma nudged her elbow lightly into Robin’s ribs. If it hadn’t been for the stone and timber, the guardsmen they left behind, and Will having been escorted off into another section of the Tower, Robin could almost imagine it being another day in Sherwood—the afternoon sun dappled as it came through the branches above them, Ginny and Graham playing in the grass, and the others scattered about. Tuck with her bees. Much handing out a sample of her latest bakery creation. Maggie and Lia with their heads bent together, strategizing over something. Her resting solidly against Will while Jemma looked on, immensely pleased with the situation at hand.
Robin glanced over at Jemma. She noticed that while Jemma had a small furrow in her forehead, she still looked inordinately pleased with the situation at hand. Robin smiled softly as a little bubble of hope bloomed in her breast.
***
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so clean. Her cheeks were rosy, her skin smelled lightly of lavender from the soap, and her hair lay free down her back to dry naturally. Robin had been content to wear the provided clothing until she noticed how much nicer her dress was than Jemma and Maggie’s. She immediately—and politely—refused it in favor of one that didn’t distinguish her from the others by the circumstances of her birth.
With her legs stretched out in front of her, she could look at her boots. When she tapped her toes together, even lightly, dirt and mud flaked to the clean floors.
“They can clean us up and take us out of the forest, but they can’t take the forest out of us, can they?” Lia said, flopping gracelessly next to her with a sigh.
“Nope.” Robin rubbed her fingers along the blue ribbon tied around her wrist. She leaned back against the cool wall. Servants and younger ladies-in-waiting milled around the room they were in. She could hear one or two of them talking with Ginny as they helped the girl get clean and dressed.
“Are—Rhiannon of Lockesly?”
Robin’s head jerked around, and she sat up ramrod straight on the bench. “You—how do you know that name?”
The young woman—in her early twenties, perhaps—tipped her chin in deference. “I met you once. At Lockesly Manor.”
Robin stood, her hands hidden in the folds of her skirt. She searched the woman’s face. Robin didn’t recognize her. “When?”
“Years ago,” she said. “There was a solstice celebration. My father and I attended, and you—you were small. You and I played under the table.”
“And smuggled sweets when my father wasn’t looking,” Robin said slowly. “We stayed up way too late, but your father sat next to mine, and they talked long into the night.” She squinted, and a face much younger and rounder overlay the one in front of her in her mind’s eye. “Cara.”
Cara grinned. “Yes.”
“You left a few years later.” Her grip on her skirt eased, her knuckles aching.
“For London.” Cara’s smile dimmed. “My aunt insisted I come to London. She knew a woman here in the Tower, and she knew they would take me as a lady-in-waiting, or a personal servant. I’ve always remembered how kind your father was. How is he?”
Robin took a deep breath. Jemma eased next to Lia on the bench. “He passed not many years after that.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “I’m very sorry. How is your mother?”
Robin wasn’t sure if the silence she heard was a ringing in her ears or that everyone in the room had gone mysteriously quiet. She folded her hands in front of her, her bowman’s calluses catching on her knuckles, and she let the action ground her.
“She… there was an—an incident. She passed earlier in the summer. The fire took the manor, as well.” Her statement had a foundation of truth to it, but she wasn’t sure how far and wide Gisborne’s reach was, and she couldn’t risk the others.
“An interesting way to put it, Lady Rhiannon.” A new voice, much older, spoke from behind her. “But not exactly the whole truth, is it?”
Robin turned slowly, eyes wide, and then bowed to the queen mother. She was regal from head to toe, and her sharp eyes missed nothing.
“Do you think the truth about Sir Guy of Gisborne is too much for them? That arson and murder aren’t things they understand immersed in politics here?” The queen mother glanced shrewdly at the gathered outlaws. “What is the whole truth, Lady Rhiannon?”
She glanced apologetically at Cara, and then dared to meet the queen mother’s eyes.
“My mother bargained me away to Sir Guy of Gisborne, and when I refused in order to be with another, Gisborne had him murdered. When my mother didn’t adhere to her part of the bargain, he burnt the manor to the ground with her and the rest of the staff in the great hall. Ginny, Maggie, and K-Kitty were the only ones to escape the blaze.”
“And away you fled to Nottingham after attempting to murder Gisborne.” She smiled sardonically. “We have eyes and ears throughout the countryside, Lady Rhiannon. Or shall I say, Robin, Lady of Sherwood?”
“That’s a more fitting title,” Robin admitted. “I am her more than I am Lady Robin of Lockesly, and Lady Rhiannon is, I think, more an idea than a person.”
“She is what might have been.” She made her way toward the bench. Lia hastily offered the queen mother her seat, and the woman sat with regality. “And we both know dwelling on what might have been gets one nowhere.”
Robin couldn’t agree more.
“The king shall see you in the morning, and he will wish to hear everything about you, your companions, and the merry mischief you seem to have raised for the Sheriff of Nottingham, though my understanding is that it has all been for the good of the townspeople.” She folded her hands demurely in her lap. “That alone may save you.”
The corners of Robin’s mouth twitched. Anything was better than being led straight to the gallows. Except, perhaps, time in the dungeon, though if she had to choose between the two, she’d choose a quick and painless death over an endless amount of torture.
“Now, I have always been fascinated by the lives of our lower class.” The queen mother made herself comfortable and gestured for the others—Jemma, Maggie, Ginny, Elena, Graham, and Tuck—to come closer. “Tell me of your time as outlaws.”
Robin opened her mouth only to close it. Where to start? With Gisborne’s arrival in Lockesly and Marcus’s murder, or the archery contest in Nottingham and escaping to Sherwood Forest?
Ginny lightly tugged on her sleeve. When Robin looked down, she whispered, “Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Start at the start.”
“I don’t know where the start really is,” she murmured back.
The little girl ran her fingers over the ribbon around Robin’s wrist. “Start where all of us are together.”
She glanced at the queen mother. The woman had an expression of indulgent amusement on her face, seemingly content to wait for Robin to gather her thoughts.
“The manor burned, and those of us left—Maggie, Kitty, Ginny, Jemma, and I—went with Much, the miller’s daughter, to her barn in order to spend the night.” Robin took a deep breath, her wild heart settling a little when Jemma wrapped her fingers around her wrist. “There we determined what we should do next, and together, we decided to go to Nott
ingham…”
Robin had—very politely—refused to see the king in anything other than the clothes she’d worn as an outlaw. The servants and most of the ladies-in-waiting—including Cara—had tried to get her to put on a nicer dress than the one she’d been wearing around the Tower, and she turned them down each time. It wouldn’t be fitting.
With her blue ribbon tied around the end of her simple braid, she rubbed her fingers over the bowstring coiled around her wrist. She’d been permitted to have it, even though her bow, quiver, and the rest of their weapons were locked safely away in the armory.
Jemma stood at her side, steadfast as always, and Robin’s fingers clenched with the almost physical need to have something to hold. She swallowed thickly, looking instead at the contrast of her dirty boots against the clean floors. She smiled gently, content in carrying a little piece of Sherwood with her, and glanced at the closed doors to the King’s receiving hall.
Their monarch, seated on the throne as part of God’s will, would be the one to decide their fate. He sat behind those doors, and it was to him that Robin would attempt to explain them. If she couldn’t sway his opinion completely for all of them, then she was going to insist the only one who should shoulder any blame was her.
It was, after all, her spurn of Gisborne that started this whole turn of events.
The door opened, and a servant dressed in livery appeared.
“His Majesty, King Richard, will see you now, though only one of you will speak, and only if you are spoken to.”
“Me,” Robin said flatly. “I am the outlaw Robin Hood.”
He looked her up and down, assessing her quickly. “We have heard much of you. More speculation than truth, I should say.”
There was the sound of a scuffle behind her. From the yelp, someone had driven an elbow in Maggie’s side to keep her quiet, and she’d retaliated by stepping on someone’s foot. Robin ignored it. Instead, she eyed the man—a servant who, by his pallor, hadn’t seen much of the outdoors in his life—with cool disdain.
“If there was such doubt to our story, we wouldn’t be here. I don’t believe the king has much time to waste for fools, though if you’d like to test that, I’m sure he’d permit you to send letters to both Sir Guy of Gisborne and the sheriff of Nottingham. Ask them about the outlaws in Sherwood Forest. Or, better yet,” she added scornfully, “ask the Bishop of Hereford about his dealings with Robin Hood. The mere mention of that name makes him turn a fetching shade of puce.”
Lady of Sherwood Page 23
