Romancing Robin Hood

by Jenny Kane

  As they’d travelled the weary miles back, Oswin had said nothing, but every so often he’d give his sister the familiar comforting smile he used whenever he was telling her everything was going to be all right. It wasn’t until he helped her dismount, tired and dusty from the road and the earliness of the hour, that Mathilda finally took her chance. Speaking under her breath, not sure if Oswin would want to share his answer publicly, she said, ‘Why are you working for the Coterels?’

  Dealing with the removal of her palfrey’s saddle, without looking at her, Oswin murmured softly into his task, ‘Rumour is rife that the Folvilles and Coterels are planning something together. Something big. My sister was kidnapped by the Folvilles, so where else would I go to learn all I needed to know about your safety than to their main rivals and now, it would seem, confederates? I wanted to make sure you couldn’t be implicated in whatever they are planning. When they heard I was your kin, they didn’t hesitate to appoint me.’

  Impressed by this unusually sharp thinking by her brother, Mathilda had no time to ask further of him. Robert was ushering them towards a plainly impatient Eustace and a taciturn Walter.

  Consoling herself with the fact that Oswin had headed to the Coterel manor of his own free will, and had not been forced into service as she had herself, Mathilda followed her new owners, employers, or kidnappers. She wasn’t sure who they were to her, or who she was to them any more beyond a bargaining counter; a fact, Mathilda realised, that made her no different from most of the women born into the families of the gentry, be they lesser ladies or princesses of the realm.

  ‘Off to bed with you, Mathilda.’

  ‘What?’ In her surprise and indignance she forgot her manners, squarely facing Eustace, ‘But I went all that way in the dark and …’

  ‘And now we don’t need you. You did a good job, but you must be tired. You will be allowed to see your brother before he returns to Bakewell. You were up all night walking the paths of Charnwood Forest, Mathilda; sleep now, while you can.’

  Without the presence of Sarah to back her up, Mathilda felt fatigue grip her, making her as tired as Eustace had suggested she was, and rather than wasting energy protesting, she headed to her cot hidden away in the corner of the hall. Privately, however, she vowed to stay awake as long as she could listen to the family’s conversation.

  Mathilda wrapped herself in her blanket to wait, alert for any sign of trouble, from either inside or outside the hall. It was of growing concern to her that not one soldier had come calling, and that the hue and cry had never been out hunting for Hugo’s killer. Why not? Had someone stopped them from hunting the murderer down, or was he so disliked that everyone was pleased the leatherworker was gone?

  Sat unmoving, so as not to giveaway the fact she was eavesdropping, Mathilda continued to speculate about the lack of effort being taken by the law towards finding Hugo’s murderer. It was so foreign to the usual pattern. The sheriff was generally overzealous in his keenness to wrap up a case and get the ‘guilty’ party parcelled up for judgement before the day of the crime was over. The fact that she had neither seen nor heard a soldier or a man asking questions made Mathilda wonder if any measures had been taken by the law at all. And if it hadn’t, then why not? There was a scrape of chairs, so Mathilda knew that at least some of the men had sat down; then at last, the sound of Eustace’s voice travelled across the hall.

  ‘Master Twyford, Robert tells me that you were the offering of surety from Nicholas Coterel, and that you have leave to stay with your sister until early tomorrow, when you must return.’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’ Oswin bowed, his large frame making rather clumsy work of the respectful gesture.

  ‘And I am given to believe by Robert that in an unprecedented gesture of compassion, Coterel didn’t take the girdle belt from Mathilda, but merely examined it. Can you explain to me why this was, Master Twyford, or am I to assume that Nicholas has merely taken a liking to your sister?’

  Mathilda could feel an embarrassed glow fill her cheeks as he caught the look of displeasure that this suggestion sent over Robert’s face.

  ‘My Lord Coterel felt it was enough that the gesture of the gift was made, he had no intension of doing more than examine it. Naturally he is more preoccupied with the nature of your forthcoming stratagem.’

  Eustace grunted, ‘And so he should be. This business with Hugo is poorly timed. Still, at least he is keen to carry on at a later date. Four months did he say, Robert?’

  Inclining his head, Robert said, ‘I’m sure that De Vere, La Zouche, and De Heredwyk will all be agreeable to the change in date.’

  ‘As long as it happens!’ Eustace banged a fist upon the table, ‘Never did I think this land would be at the mercy of a justice worse than Belers, yet this …’

  ‘Brother!’ Robert shouted the warning, gesturing to both Oswin and Mathilda, ‘we agreed to keep his name quiet did we not, to protect those who do not need to know?’ Turning his attention back to Oswin, Robert said, ‘The Lord Coterel gave you leave to tell me why he was keen to see the belt Mathilda wears. Will you please do so?’

  The belt again? Mathilda leaned forward, and pressed her ear as close to the dividing tapestry hanging as she could.

  ‘My Lord, on market day, one of the kitchen staff was instructed to purchase a new pitcher for the kitchens. When the girl served ale from it to my Lord Nicholas, he recognised the similarity of the pattern on it to one he’d seen before. To the design he had noticed on the girdle that surrounds my sister’s waist.’

  Mathilda sucked in a low breath. Of course! She knew she’d seen the pattern before, but hadn’t been able to recall where. It was on the pitcher being carried so carefully by the girl she’d seen walking away from the market when she’d been hunting for the Coterel manor.

  Obviously bored with the conversation now he’d heard Coterel’s response to his message, Eustace barked, ‘I fail to see why this concerns us.’ Robert, held up his hand. ‘Go on, Oswin. What do you and Coterel suspect?’

  ‘It occurred to my master that if Geoffrey of Reresby suspected that Master Hugo had been stealing his signature pattern, it made sense that he should have been hovering around the pottery stall to examine the ceramics for himself. It also gives him a motive for attacking Hugo.’

  The men were talking again, but Mathilda was unable to hear them properly. Pulling her blanket tighter around her shoulders, she tugged off her boots, her heart thumping so loud that she thought it would be heard and give her away. Creeping to the edge of the tapestry divider on her stocking feet, hoping her shadow wouldn’t cast across the hall and give her away, Mathilda could see the outline of Eustace’s back through the frayed needlework as he addressed Oswin, ‘You have other news on this matter?’

  ‘I do, my Lord. The pottery merchant Reresby has long been a plague in my family’s side. He has been undercutting my father’s prices for some time.’

  Eustace had run out of patience, and swooping around the table, he picked Oswin up by the neck, and rammed him back against the nearest stone pillar. ‘We agreed you would be returned to Coterel, we didn’t say in how many pieces. Now spit out whatever it is you are finding so difficult to trip off your tongue!’

  Forcing herself not run to her brother’s side, Mathilda watched as Robert unpeeled his older brother’s hand from Oswin’s throat. ‘He can’t tell us anything if you have your hand at his neck.’

  The glare Eustace gave his brother would have quelled a lesser man, but Robert held his stare. ‘We need to hear him speak!’

  With a sharp nod of encouragement from Robert, Oswin went on, ‘After Mathilda came to work for you, I ran. I knew the only way to find out what had happened to her while in your care was to disappear and grab information where I could. When I heard rumour of your future plans to work with the Coterels, I decided to get temporary employment with them.’

  ‘They took you just like that?

  ‘No, my Lord, they took me because I told them the truth. It pays
them to know what you are up to as much as it pays you to know as much as you can about them.’

  Walter snorted, ‘Well said. And …’

  ‘I saw Mathilda come to the manor to report to Nicholas before she went to help at the market. My Lord Coterel does not trust Master Hugo, and bid me follow my sister on the return to the market in case he treated her badly. Nicholas Coterel feared that Hugo would hold a grudge of jealousy against her for being held in my Lord Robert’s affection.’

  Walter snorted louder than before, reminding Mathilda of a disgruntled pig.

  Ignoring Walter’s derision, Robert pulled out a chair and bid their visitor to sit down. ‘What did you see or hear, Oswin? Don’t miss out anything.’

  ‘Are you sure, my Lord?’ Oswin spoke directly to Robert, whose face furrowed as he looked from Eustace to Walter and back again.

  Speaking frustratingly quietly, forcing Mathilda to risk taking another few steps from the curtains so she could hear, hoping that the men would be far too concentrated on each other and their conversation to turn around. ‘I know what is said behind cupped hands about me and Hugo, Master Twyford. As do my brothers. However, I would keep it from your sister if I am able, so please keep your voice down in case she is not yet asleep.’

  Mathilda took one noiseless step backwards, touched that he cared enough to want to shield her from the gossip that surrounded him, and glad that she hadn’t told him that Sarah had already confided to her what vile words were said about him and his fallen friend.

  Oswin still appeared uncomfortable, but he kept going, addressing Eustace directly, ‘May I ask, my Lord, which of your brothers decided that my father should pay for his slander with the kidnap of his only daughter? Was it the same brother who suggested to my father that your family could lend him some money to help his business recover from the damage Geoffrey of Reresby has done in the first place?’

  Robert froze to the spot, while Walter and Eustace stared at each other.

  After what felt like an eternity Robert finally asked Eustace, ‘Was it his idea?’

  Mathilda didn’t need to hear Eustace’s reply. Although no name had been accused, suddenly all the pieces fell into place in Mathilda’s head.

  The dagger appearing in her cell while she’d slept. The rumours about Robert that Sarah had shared with her. The finding of Hugo’s body so close to her father’s home. All of it. Everything was beginning to make sense – except for the lack of sheriff’s men hammering on the door asking questions.

  ‘Was it him?’ Robert spat the words this time.

  As the tension in the hall trebled Mathilda knew she had to act now; tell the brothers right away what she suspected. If she didn’t, she had the feeling that there would be another murder very much closer to home.

  ‘Grace? Grace, are you with me?’ Daisy was sat on the opposite side of the table squinting into the sunlight. ‘Sorry I was so long, it took ages to track down Marcus. He’s got stuck delivering a calf that got halfway into the world and then decided to go back.’

  ‘Sensible calf! I don’t blame it!’

  ‘Grace?’

  ‘Sorry! I was about to catch a murderer, and to be honest, I think I have the plot a bit muddled; plotting a murder is a bit like doing a jigsaw without the benefit of seeing the picture on the box and having lost three corner pieces.’ She lay her pen down and massaged her wrist. She’d been writing so fast that Grace hadn’t noticed how much it throbbed until the pen hit the table. ‘I’m out of practise with a biro! Obviously more used to the keyboard these days than I thought.’

  ‘If you were about to proclaim that the butler did it, then does that mean I’ve interrupted you at the vital moment?’

  Grace smiled up at her friend, ‘Daft woman! I was only distracting myself while I waited. The whole thing will need rewriting once it’s all drafted anyway. Plus I can’t remember if slander was a crime back then or not. I don’t suppose you can?’

  Daisy laughed, ‘I doubt if I ever knew in the first place.’

  ‘Rob would know.’ A cloud passed over Grace’s face. It was the first time she’d said his name out loud for days.

  Speaking softly, taking her friend’s arm as they walked along the gravel path back towards the house, Daisy said, ‘Why don’t you ask him? It would be a question you genuinely need an answer to. It might help break the ice.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You didn’t see his face when he left me. For him I am a closed subject. Anyway,’ walking faster, sticking a smile onto her increasingly sun freckled face, Grace said, ‘let’s forget about Rob and Mathilda and everything for now, you’re getting married tomorrow! So, tell me, how’s Wendy getting on in there? Has she organised you to within to an inch of your life yet?’

  ‘She is a bit daunting!’ Daisy steered Grace back towards the hall, ‘On the other hand, she is very good at her job, knows exactly what she is doing, and best of all, has just opened a bottle of vino for you and I to share while we decide where to put the flowers, and wait for my parents and Marcus’s brother to turn up for the rehearsal.’

  Glad that she had Daisy’s wedding to occupy her mind fully for the next few hours, Grace obediently turned the corners of her mouth up at the edges, and even managed to make her laugh sound convincing when Daisy joked about her getting together with the best man.

  ‘It’s traditional you know, Grace! Best man and bridesmaid. And in this case it would be so cool.’ Daisy looped her arm through Grace’s, ‘because then we’d be sister in-laws!’

  Chapter Thirty-three

  As every new hour of the day before her wedding passed, Daisy looked more radiant. Gone were the nervous bubbles of tension that had burst out every now and again over the past week. A calm confidence that everything would be all right had taken over, partly from the effects of the wine and the sheer efficiency of Wendy, but not only that. Grace noticed that each time Marcus was mentioned Daisy glowed a little rosier, and her eyes shone a little brighter.

  When he’d eventually made it to Hardwick Hall, Marcus was rather more bedraggled than he’d intended to be after a lengthy fight with a stubborn calf and a frighten heifer. As he’d scooped his future wife up in his arms, the love between them had been so blatant that Grace had felt she could reach out and touch it.

  Now, tucked up in her own comfortable hotel room at six o’clock on the morning of the wedding, with her bridesmaid dress hanging in its protective cover on the wardrobe door, Grace gave up hope of settling back into sleep.

  Her dreams had been full of pseudo-medieval images of her and Rob sat either side of a vast oak tree in the middle of Sherwood Forest, with him chivalrously apologising for overreacting to a crime she didn’t commit in the first place.

  Despite knowing it was hopeless, Grace found herself wishing all over again that she really could talk to Rob, albeit without the Sylvain setting. To explain that she hadn’t meant to hurt him. But how could she after having left it for so long? If she’d called Rob straight away … but she hadn’t, and now she couldn’t because any contact from her so late in the day wouldn’t seem genuine; it would sound like a bunch of feeble excuses.

  Daisy had always told Grace she was too stubborn for her own good. Grace knew her friend was right, but she also knew it was self protection. Loving a hero who was unable to escape from a poster on a wall was so much safer than a caring for a living, breathing human being. Robin Hood could never hurt her, and would never let her down. ‘But then,’ Grace whispered into her pillow, ‘he can’t hug me, laugh with me, or give me a nerve tingling kiss, can he?’

  Grace sat up. She needed to finish her story. Now. This minute. Before the wedding. It had to end. For years she’d put off writing her novel. There had always been work to get on with, and the textbook to research for, plus the fear of being frowned upon for writing it in the first place. Maybe that was what had been holding her back.

  Perhaps it was her desire to write Mathilda’s tale that had been subconsciously consuming her attention since
she’d been offered the chance to write her sorely neglected medieval textbook, and not her Robin Hood obsession at all. After all, she had proved to herself that she was capable of loving a real human being now, one that actually existed, not only in real life, but in her own timestream too. It may not have brought her happiness, but at least she’d done it.

  ‘It’s time.’ Grace spoke into the mirror, ignoring her erratic bed-hair, ‘Time to tie up loose ends and then start afresh.’

  Feeling oddly comforted, if not totally convinced by this idea, Grace swung her legs out of bed, and grabbed her notebook, the scribbled on paper bags, and other random scraps of notepaper from her bag, that joined together to form the last part of her novel. It was time to sort this story out once and for all.

  ‘Mathilda! How dare you? I told you to …’

  ‘My Lord, please!’ Mathilda beseeched Robert, as she talked at top speed, ‘Forgive my interruption. I was listening, and I know I wasn’t supposed to be, but you must have known I would. And I must speak. It is very important. I think I know what this is all about.’

  Eustace pulled out a chair and thumped down onto it. ‘For St George’s sake, Robert! If she is to be your woman you’re going to have to learn to control her. Because I’ve damn well worked it out myself.’ The second Folville brother crashed his palm down upon the table in frustration. ‘Damn the man’s hide! He’ll be the death of all of us!’

  Swinging around to Walter, who was already standing, his hand on the hilt of his sword, Eustace barked the instruction that Mathilda had already anticipated he’d make. ‘Ride to Leicester. John, Thomas, and Laurence are there today. Tell them we need a family meeting. Now.’

  Mathilda’s raised her voice in warning, ‘You can’t just … it isn’t what you think …’ But her words were lost to the rapid flurry of activity.