Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] (19 page)

It was answer enough. Alan was briefly ashamed of his rudeness, but could not restrain the impulse to use the knife again. “I wasn’t sure you meant it.” Nobles made promises frequently. Rarely were they kept. That the earl’s son had actually come surprised Alan more than a little, certainly no less so than when Locksley had opened the trapdoor to the cell and lowered the ladder.

Locksley tossed more silver into the forgotten hat. “I suggest you take your earnings and go while you still have the chance to do so.” He paused. “Or do you value your tongue so little as to risk it to William deLacey?”

Alan hooked the lute over one shoulder, sliding it into place across his spine. “My lord—why? You bribed the guards, set me free . . . and now you give me silver. How may I repay you?”

“I have some acquaintanceship with captivity.” Still Locksley didn’t smile. “As to repayment—choose your partners more carefully, and the chambers to which you take them.”

Alan’s vision, caught by a splash of crimson color, focused beyond Robert of Locksley. “Oh God—it’s
she.
The sheriff was sniffing around her skirts—she’ll likely tell him—” Hastily Alan bent and scooped up the coin-splattered hat and tucked it inside his tunic. With a muttered word of thanks, he shouldered his way through the crowd and disappeared into an alley.

 

Marian pulled up the hem of Eleanor’s mantle as she walked, dragging the fabric out of the dirt. She blessed it for its length, for it gave her an excuse to keep her hands busy and free of deLacey’s intimacies, subtle though they were.

She had become increasingly aware of an undercurrent growing between them. There was tension in his body she had never seen before. Even his voice reflected it, in tone if not in words; as always he was eloquent, most fluent in flattery, but the compliments, though polished, had a quality about them that spoke to her of something she could not comprehend.

He was solicitous and generous, buying her cider, buying her sweetmeats, buying her anything she so much as happened to glance at, ignoring her protestations. His purse appeared bottomless, or his credit honored by all, and Marian took to staring groundward so as not to encourage his generosity.
If he thinks he can simply buy me
... The words were ash in her mind. If he knew what her father wanted, he need buy her nothing at all.

“A moment.” He paused to turn away, to examine something she could not see at the nearest stall.

Not something else . . .
Marian edged away from him, clutching the mantle more closely, wishing she might disappear into the crowd. It was possible. It would hardly be difficult to become separated, but such rudeness was inexcusable. Her mother, and later her father, had taught her better manners.

She caught the sound of a lute, the flourish of a final chord. Through the crowd she glimpsed him, in brief scattered slits between moving people, bowing over the instrument as his listeners applauded. Then a man stepped in front of the minstrel, blocking her view of him, and tumbled silver coins into the crimson hat.

Locksley?
It was. The fall of pale hair, the set of wide shoulders, the posture of his body. Unmistakable. She knew him instantly. And knew, without knowing
why,
that she would always know him.

Locksley. With a minstrel.

Marian moved slightly sideways, peering through the crowd, trying to see around Locksley. Yes, it
was
the minstrel, the selfsame minstrel, Eleanor’s jongleur. Alan of the Dales.

And Locksley
with
him. Putting coin into his hat. Marian twisted her head to look across her shoulder at the Sheriff of Nottingham.
It wasn’t deLacey after all
—
it was Huntington’s son who freed him.
Comprehension surged up.
He will have him taken
—

Without thinking of the consequences, Marian snugged the brilliant cloak around her body and darted through passersby, cutting diagonally across the street to the upended bucket to Locksley himself, brushing by his arm. When she arrived the minstrel was gone. “Oh good,” she said on a breath of relief. “The sheriff is over there—
just
over there—do you see?” She glanced back at Locksley. “Why did he come here? Why was he such a fool?”

His expression, as always, was masked. “I told him to come.”

“Here?” She nearly gaped, hiding nothing of her feelings. “Are
you
a fool, then, to send a man into danger? The sheriff would have him in a moment—no doubt he’d call up the guard and have his tongue cut out right here!”

He weighed her distress, though she did not know the result. Coolly he said, “I have no doubt of that.” Before she could speak again Locksley glanced back toward the sheriff. “The minstrel saw you looking at us. He thought you would give him away.”

It was astonishing.
“Why?”

Locksley’s gaze returned to her face. “He said, somewhat inelegantly, that William deLacey had been sniffing around your skirts.”

The heat of humilation took possession of her face. Marian knew of no words that could adequately express the embarrassment she felt. A strangled “No” was all she managed.

His examination of her was intense, lacking in pretension. She had told him the truth, but clearly he was unconvinced, relying instead on his own measurement of such things as honesty and honor. For that, she admired him, but wished his target were someone other than herself.

“No?”

“No.” Marian hated herself for being so unworldly. A woman like Eleanor would handle this so much better. She wanted to tell him she knew precisely what he did, measuring her against a private inner criteria, but held her tongue. If she protested too much he would count her false. “You did it, then. Not the sheriff.”

“DeLacey!” It startled him. “Why would a man so publicly humiliated
free
the man who ruined all of his plans?”

Explanations filled her head. None of them now seemed adequate for Robert of Locksley, who undoubtedly found her lacking in wit and conversation.
He will think I am a fool
. Well, perhaps she was. “I thought it was possible that he would quietly release a man he knew to be innocent.”

One eyebrow arched minutely. “And did he know such a thing?”

Marian nodded mutely, refusing to incriminate Eleanor any further.

For the first time since she’d seen him standing on the dais, Robert of Locksley smiled. It was a true, unfeigned smile, unhindered by self-restraint, dazzling in its power. “It does seem as though everyone in these parts is aware of Eleanor deLacey’s indiscretions. Perhaps I should be grateful to the minstrel for divulging them to
me
. ” The tone was exquisitely dry, inviting a reaction other than diplomatic obscurity, or overmuch discretion. At last, he was human.

Emboldened, Marian laughed at him. “The sheriff was very plain, my lord—he wanted to match his daughter with the Earl of Huntington’s son.”

“And so I am yet free of encumbrances such as a wanton wife.”

The smile was gone, but a glint of humor remained.
Do it now . . . there will be no better chance.
Marian drew breath. “My lord Robert—”

“Just Robert,” he said. “Or—Robin.”

“Robin?” It was incongruous. It did not fit a fully grown man, a former Crusader, freshly home from the king’s war. Robin was a
boy,
and he clearly not.

“My father named me Robert. To my mother, I was Robin.”

Marian stared at him. Such intimacy she had never anticipated, not from
him.
The tension she had seen and heard on the dais, in the chamber, was banished. Even the mask was gone. There was, in tone, in expression, an odd hesitancy. A kind of
need
, she realized, for acceptance on a level other than that offered by other people, yet wholly bestowed by his father.

Yet she had no time to pursue it, nor the courage to proceed. What she asked now was for herself, because that she understood. That she could control. “My lord—” She broke it off, seeing his eyes: fragile withdrawal. “Robin.” She swallowed tautly. “There is a bargain we should make.”

“Oh?”

She lifted her chin, refusing to show him the nervousness she felt. “There was a message sent from my father. The one you brought me the night before last.”

Tension returned fourfold, enveloping his body. So swift it was that she nearly gasped, astonished by his sudden stillness. The mask was back in place. The eyes, once amused, assumed a clouded darkness. Even the mouth was taut, and the scar along his jaw.
My God—what have I done?

“I recall the message.” Crisp, cold words, yielding no emotion.

This was a mistake.
But it was too late to withdraw. She had opened the subject. Now she must close it. “A bargain, my lord.” Formality was called for in the face of such austerity, such iron-willed self-control. “You say nothing to the sheriff of my father’s message, and I for my part say nothing to the sheriff of Alan’s whereabouts.”

The words were clipped. “You no longer know Alan’s whereabouts.”

That was true, but she had no other weapon. “He shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“He should be impossible to find, if I took pains to make it so.”

She stared at him, bargain forgotten in the face of compelling conviction. “Would you do that?”

“Yes.” It was distinct.

“Good,” she declared forthrightly, surprising even herself.

A hint of warmth intruded into frigidity. His eyes were speculative. “A bad bargain.”

Chagrined, she sighed. “But the only one I could think of.”

“Need you think of any?”

“I believe so, my lord.”

“To keep me from telling the sheriff a private and personal message your father intended solely for you.”

“Yes, my lord.” She did not hesitate, even though she understood how such a suggestion imputed dishonor to him. She did not know the man. She did not know of what he was capable, and she was beginning to learn that no man was
in
capable of doing things she found abhorrent.

Locksley looked beyond her, toward the stall where she had slipped away from her escort. “And you have no wish to marry William deLacey.”

“No, my lord.” With explicit emphasis.

Robert of Locksley looked back into her face. His eyes were unreadable. “Then perhaps you should tell him so.”

“I can’t.”

Brows arched. “Why not?”

“Not until he’s asked.”

“Will he?”

“Probably not. Most likely he will tell.”

The edge of his mouth loosened. “Yet you are here with him.”

The implication stung, as no doubt he meant it to. Marian glared at him. “You are not a woman. You have no comprehension of what a woman must be, in the face of a spoiled, powerful man who knows what he wants, and who is convinced he is the only one who knows what is best for the woman.”

“No,” he agreed, after a long moment of solemn silence.

“Nor ever can,” she reminded.

“No,” he said again.

She gazed up at him. He was considerably taller. “I will not marry a man who believes in cutting out the tongues of innocent men.” There. It was said. Clearly and forthrightly, begging no part of the question, leaving no portion unsaid or weakened by the courtesy that was all too often a crutch.
If I can say it like that when the sheriff raises the subject . . .
But courage spilled away. He
was
a spoiled man. He
was
a powerful man. And she merely a woman; what chance did she have?

“The sheriff,” Locksley said.

Marian stared at him.

“The sheriff,” he repeated.

This time she understood. This time she turned and looked, and saw deLacey approaching. His eyes, dark as death, were fixed on Robert of Locksley.

DeLacey turned at last from the stall to Marian and found her gone. At first he thought little of it, assuming she waited nearby, perhaps at an adjacent stall, but a cursory search did not discover her.

Difficult to miss, in crimson
—
ah, there she is.
A splash of the brilliant color betrayed her location but several paces away, on the other side of the street. Speaking with someone.
Who is she—? Locksley!
He did not know precisely why, but the discovery disturbed him. And not knowing why disturbed him even more.
Why?
Then, with a flicker of irritation,
No time, just now . . .
He let it go with effort, thinking instead of Marian herself and the recapture of her company. He wanted her with
him,
not wandering off to speak with others.

For the first time he had her to himself, separated from childhood, father, and maidservant. And he needed her to himself, as he had needed nor wanted no woman before
this
woman, not even the wives he’d married.
I am become a proprietary man.
But he knew that of himself. He also knew how to use it, to gain and to keep the things he most desired.

“Locksley,” he murmured intently. It was a habit of his to speak such names aloud, as if in the declaration he marked out the enemy. Locksley was Huntington’s son. One day, when the earl was dead, he would inherit all. Title, wealth, power. But Robert of Locksley was not an enemy.

Unless he insists upon it.
DeLacey arranged his face in a suitably pleasant expression and crossed the street to them.

 

Very smooth, Locksley thought. Without excess exertion, without too much insistence, William deLacey grasped Marian’s arm, forced her hand from beneath the mantle, and locked it into his elbow.

“Here you are,” he said. “I thought I had lost you.” Then, before she could speak, he smiled warmly at Locksley. “Robert! Had I known you intended to come to the fair, I would have invited you to join us.”

“Indeed.” It was as much answer as Locksley could offer. His attention was diverted by Marian’s face, marking the bloom of annoyance, the tautness of her jaw, the glitter in her eyes. A certain tension in her forearm told him she attempted to free her hand, but deLacey merely folded his own over hers and crooked his elbow more tightly.

“Join us
now
, Marian said, in an odd undertone of dictatorial desperation.

In it, unexpectedly, he heard the echo of her father, begging Locksley to carry a message if death were his fate that day. Tell her, he had said.
Tell her he will tend to her personal welfare, and the welfare of Ravenskeep. Tell her also I miss her. And please to tell her, I pray you, how very much I love her.

He had not done the latter. Or the one before that. He had told her merely that she was to marry the sheriff, who stood before Locksley now daring him to intrude upon the thing deLacey had marked for himself.

Tell her, FitzWalter had said.

But as Locksley gazed at the dead knight’s daughter, he found he could not do it.

 

Dismayed, Marian watched Robert of Locksley—
Robin
, he had said so—turn on his heel and walk away into the crowd. He had murmured something, something she did not hear, and simply disappeared, as if he could not bear to remain in her company.
Does he think me a hypocrite? Does he think I want this man?

“Marian.” DeLacey’s hand tightened on her own. “Marian—come. Forget his discourtesy . . . there are other things for your attention.”

He’s glad
Robert’s gone.
Annoyance captured her tongue. “Then let me decide them myself.” With effort, she yanked her hand from his imprisoning elbow.
Tell him. Just—tell him!
“My lord, I think there is something you should know.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Indeed?”

Impulsive courage wilted beneath the level gaze.
How do I say it, now that I’ve begun it?
Marian wet her dry lips, knowing she needed an inflexibility equal to his own; knowing also it was difficult to turn it back on him. He was, as she had said, a spoiled, powerful man. “I dislike assumptions,” was the best she could manage.
No spine. No spine at all.

“As do I.” He smiled crookedly. “I admit it: I am jealous.”

So swiftly the topic was changed. Or was it the same topic, merely turned upside down? “Jealous of Robert?”
Robin
was hers; she would not share it with him.

“Of Robert
of Locksley,
the Earl of Huntington’s son.” DeLacey gestured in self-deprecation. “What am I, after all, but a man in someone’s employ? He is a peer of the realm.”

“And you meant him for Eleanor.” It was a desperate ploy, designed to interject yet another person.

“But Eleanor is discounted.” His eyes were oddly avid. “Marian—”

“No.” She said it with every ounce of will she could muster. “I think—” But what she meant to say was forgotten utterly as she saw the boy next to the sheriff, a slight, slender boy with deft hands on deLacey’s purse. “
Much!
” she cried, astonished. And then, “Don’t hurt him!” as the sheriff shut a powerful hand around one bony wrist.

 

Now he had coin. Locksley went immediately to a wine-seller and bought a cup, which he drained at once. And another. It was heavy, powerful stuff, uncut by water, thickening in his belly even as it arrived.

More? No, he was not a drunkard, nor, for that matter, a drinker. He despised the weakness, the cowardice, that had driven him to it at all.

Marian FitzWalter
.

He turned away abruptly from the wine stall, striding into one of the narrow, twisty alleys hedged with close-built dwellings. There he paused as abruptly, hugging himself, and fetched up against a wall, banging shoulder blade and ribs.

Set to the task, he had believed it unnecessary. They all did, Richard’s men; no one envisioned defeat in the midst of Crusaders’ fever. When Hugh FitzWalter, assailed by premonition—or no more than the simple fear that wracked all of them, though none admitted it—had bade him speak to his daughter, Robert of Locksley accepted the duty casually, dismissive of its intent. He had, in truth, been annoyed by the request, not because of its content, but that FitzWalter had spoken of an ending, when so many of them preferred to think only of the beginning.

Richard made it so easy
. He shut his eyes and saw the woman before him.
Fitz Walter never said his daughter was beautiful
.

It was inconsequential. What did it matter? A woman was a woman, a daughter a daughter.

He had not bedded a woman for nearly two years.

A shiver wracked Locksley’s body. He opened his eyes and stared, transfixed, seeing nothing but the face of a man foretelling his future, in the midst of creating yet another for his only child.
Tell her to marry the Sheriff of Nottingham
. That, he had told her. The rest, he had not.
I gave her the message the wrong way round. Now, she is trapped . . . what grieving daughter will go against a dead father’s wishes?

She had declared her intentions: not to marry the man. But he had seen her eyes. He had heard her voice. He, as much as she, understood realities.

As much as her father had, on the day of his death.

 

A boy, nothing more. Swift, slender, agile. And very deft of fingers. He was skillful, like other pickpockets and cutpurses. But deLacey, this once, had caught him in the act.

The wrist was thin, bony, fragile, stripped of flesh and strength. But deLacey paid that no mind, shutting his own powerful fingers ever more tightly to insure the boy remained caught. He saw the warped mouth, twisting in pain, the brown eyes stretched wide in shock, the pallor of a face reflecting patent astonishment.

Surprises I caught him at it—and what is?—ah!
DeLacey caught the other hand, stripped the knife from it, then dragged the captured arm up so high it made the boy stand on his toes. “Cutting purses, are we?” And as the brown eyes flickered, “How many would mine have made?”

“Don’t hurt him!” Marian cried, reaching out to catch deLacey’s sleeve. “My lord—you’ll break his arm!”

“I’ll do more than that,” he promised, glaring at the boy. “By God, you little worm, did you think you’d never be caught? Did you think yourself immune to the lord high sheriffs justice?”

The boy hung there, shivering, rigid fingers extending clawlike beyond deLacey’s hand. The patched sacking tunic had pulled free of one shoulder, baring a knobby joint.

“Answer me!” The sheriff squeezed the slender wrist, grinding bone against bone. “Did you spit behind my back, swearing you’d never be taken?”

“My lord!” Marian again, closing hands around his arm. “My lord, I beg you—”

Tender-hearted, she was. He expected nothing else. But just at this moment he found it irritating. “By God, Marian—am I to ignore this? His hand was on my purse! I am the lord high sheriff. Need I more proof? Need I the testimony of anyone else?”

Marian’s face was nearly as pale as the boy’s. “You’re hurting him,” she said.

With effort, deLacey gave her courtesy. “Perhaps it would be best you returned to the castle. This is unattractive duty.”

Clearly she was alarmed. “Why? What do you mean to do?”

His patience waned. He had no time for this. First there was the minstrel, conjured out of a dungeon after destroying Eleanor’s chances; then Robert of Locksley, winning Marian’s attention; and now this
boy,
a common peasant cutpurse who dared to put lowborn hands upon the sheriff’s own purse.

“What do I mean to do? Why, treat him as he deserves to be treated! Boys who put hands where hands do not belong
lose
those hands.”

“No!” she cried. “My lord, I beg you—don’t do this! He’s a
boy—
”

“He’s a thief, nothing more. He’ll be treated as one.” Her protests were drawing attention. Even now passersby paused, gathering near to murmur among themselves. Someone said the Watch was on its way, saving him the trouble of bellowing for aid. “Marian—” He altered his tone with effort, striving for calm. “Go back to the castle, I pray you.”

“No.” Her hand was on the bared shoulder. “I know this boy, Sheriff. This is Much, the miller’s son. We’ve bought flour from Wat for as long as I can recall—and I daresay you have, too!”

“I daresay.” It was ground out between set teeth. Obviously she would not be easily dissuaded, but he had no intention of giving in; he had lost too much already. The boy was the final straw atop a bundle of resentments. “It makes no difference ...” He glanced quickly around the gathering throng. “By God, Marian, have a care for what you say. Do you question my authority before all of Nottingham?”

It struck home, he saw. She too realized the crowd increased with each moment. She, too, saw the avid eyes and moving mouths.
Now she will realize the magnitude of what she does.

Blue eyes were very bright as she looked once more at him. “No,” she said quietly. “I cannot let you do this.”

The Watch arrived: Norman soldiers in Norman dress, the livery of deLacey’s service. He handed the boy over at once, glad to be quit of physical contact, but gestured for him to be held where he was rather than dragged off in front of so many people. He wanted nothing more than to lop off the hand himself, here and now, insisting on public punishment as was his right, but to do so in front of Marian, who had made her opinion clear before an ever-increasing crowd, would likely destroy forever any regard she might hold for him. And that regard he wanted. Force was not to his taste. When Marian came to his bed, she would of course show maidenly modesty and a natural hesitation becoming to her rank, but he refused to entertain an angry or indifferent bed-partner. He had wasted himself on two cold women; he would not do so again.

But the
cost
. . . What was the cost? Loss of face before the people? Eleanor’s wantonness with the minstrel had already lost him too much. That story would get out no matter what he did to suppress it, and soon enough he would be the laughingstock of a peasantry who hated any man responsible for administering the law. He could not afford to be lenient with the boy, or they would construe it as weakness.

He glared at the boy. Weakness was dangerous. Weakness would destroy him.

 

Much stared at Marian. It was
she.
She hadn’t gone away after all.

Same blue eyes. Same husky voice. Same slenderness, wrapped in a woolen mantle.

But something
wasn’t
the same: something had frightened her. Something made her
scared.

In the tangled skein of his mind, that his mother said was simple, Much recognized fear. Much understood fear.

Marian?
he asked, though never once had he spoken the name.

“It’s Much,” Marian said. “Wat the miller’s son.
You
know Much, my lord . . . you know what they call him.”

Simpleton and lackwit. Much had heard the words. He recognized such things as pity, contempt, disgust.

The sheriffs mouth grew taut. “And now thief, as well.”

Marian?
Much asked. But Marian didn’t hear. None of them ever heard.

 

Locksley bought a meat pasty at a stall, ate it on the spot to assuage a dull hunger, then drifted aimlessly with the flow of the crowd moving out of the street and back into Market Square. Vaguely he thought of going home, but lacked the will to leave. It was simply easier to let himself be guided by the others. Habit, if nothing else; for too long the Saracens had ordered his life, while his mandate was merely to serve.

“Insh’Allah,
” he murmured reflexively, in the tongue they had made him learn, in the words they had made him speak, lest they remove the tongue from his mouth.