Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] (59 page)

He bestirred himself at last to slip both stirrups, then slid off awkwardly, slithering against leather and horsehair. He clung to the saddle a moment, holding himself upright, then lurched away and began to run in graceless disbelief down the hill into the pocket, where Huntington Hall had stood.

Save the remnants of shattered brick and splintered timber rendered useless by time or miscalculation to masons who wanted whole brick, and peasants who needed wood.

Robin walked among the ruins of his boyhood, ignorant of the rain. He kicked over broken brickwork, tossed aside cracked wood panels, and cursed the cold-blooded monster who could destroy one hall merely to build another to honor his vanity, so that all men might call him great.

He uncovered no treasures, save a single colored stone he had found in the brook down the hill, when he was six years old. A wine-tinted rock with a splash of white in the center, like a drop of blood, except the color was backward. He had decided the faeries bled white when humans pierced their flesh with magical arrows blessed by the nearest priest. It was a tale that amused his mother.

He had showed his father the stone, eager to repeat his tale. The earl, upon the hearing, had taken the rock from his grimy palm, boxed his ear for impugning the morals of a priest, then sent him to his room without a single bite of bread. Later had come the strap, when small Robin had hoped aloud the faeries would shoot his father with
their
magical arrows, so that he bled red.

Robin had never regretted his wish. He had regretted speaking it. After that he merely thought it.

He squatted in the rain, rolling the stone in a hand grown to manhood. The faeries were dead because his father had killed them. His mother was dead because his father had killed her by destroying her dreams of faeries; by leeching the life from her spirit like lye from bloody linens—
the bandages of the field, the ragged shreds of cloth wrapped around a gaping stump where a Saracen sword had cut through flesh and shattered bone, until the men who called themselves surgeons merely finished the job the Turks began—

Robin swore. He shut his eyes tightly. In the gentle spring rain of England he lived again in the Holy Land.

“Curse him,” he muttered raggedly. “He builds himself taller out of the wreckage of those whom he squashes.”

Even me,
his inner self said.
Even his son, if that son permits it.

Robin rose abruptly. Clutching the wine-tinted stone with the white blood of faeries on it, the sole living child of Alice and Robert walked out of his mother’s plundered hall toward his father’s rain-washed castle, unheeding of the horse who followed dispiritedly.

Servants, directed by Ralph, cleared away the detritus of the huge meal in the great hall at Huntington Castle. Hard bread trenchers were fed to the dogs, while the remains of fowl and venison were wrapped in bundles to be distributed once a week to the poor who gathered at the gate. Only then did English peasantry know the taste of deer without fear of retribution.

Business concluded, the earl and his guests relaxed, drank, and discussed all manner of political and casual matters bearing no relation whatsoever upon the king, his traitorous brother, or whether it was worth the money and effort to wager if the king would—or could—get himself an heir.

Eustace de Vesci drank deeply, as always, and his face showed the effects in heightened color, glittering eyes, and effusive—if crude—good humor. He leaned both elbows on the table and fixed Huntington with a sly, provocative stare. “Have her in,” he suggested. “Let us see the despoiled woman.”

Henry Bohun’s tone was dry. “Eustace, I think the wine overrides your good sense.”

“I want to
see
the girl, not bed her!” de Vesci cried. “By God, Henry, d’ye think I want what every outlaw in Sherwood’s had?”

“Perhaps,” Bohun commented. “There are men whose tastes are piqued by things out of the common.”

“Well, not
mine.
” De Vesci reached for his goblet and thrust it into the air in eloquent invitation: a servant scurried to fill it from a pitcher. “I like my women clean, pretty, and willing. If Adam Bell and his ilk have had her, she’ll be none of those things, now.”

Ralph answered Huntington’s beckoning finger. “Bring the girl in, Ralph. We’ll have this travesty finished before the night grows older.”

“Yes, my lord.” Ralph bowed himself away.

“Well,” de Vesci murmured, “here’s sport for a moment.” He drank deeply, then nodded at his host. “To your hospitality, Robert—not every man would take in a woman such as she.”

“A man should.” De Mandeville frowned. “I knew her father, I tell you—Hugh FitzWalter’s daughter is not a common whore.”

De Vesci scowled. “I say it does him credit. The Earl of Huntington is not known as a warm-hearted soul, yet now he disproves it.”

Unoffended, the earl arched a brow. “Warm hearts are filled with passion, which can lead a man astray. A cooler head is preferable.”

Bohun exchanged a glance with de Mandeville. “If there are wits in it, I agree.”

Ralph returned. “My lords. The Lady Marian FitzWalter.”

De Vesci turned eagerly, poised to extend jocular welcome. None was offered. His tongue fell into stillness as she walked slowly into the light. “By Christ,” de Vesci breathed. “ ’Tis a sin to despoil such as she.”

If she heard, she made no sign. Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex and Justiciar of England, set back his bench and rose. “Lady Marian,” he said warmly, “your presence honors us.”

Hereford, too, found his feet. “Indeed,” Bohun murmured.

De Vesci said nothing at all.

She looked at Huntington and raised her chin slightly, as a warrior might a shield. “My lord, I thank you. Were it not for your hospitality, we would have spent the night in a byre.”

Seeing her, the earl believed the byre preferable to his castle. The woman was dangerous. If she affected such experienced lords so, what could she do to his son?

A door boomed open from near the front of the hall. Robert of Locksley strode into the hall, shedding rain from his ash-hued mantle as he stripped the hood from his head. “You cold-blooded, cold-hearted bastard—”

The earl was on his feet. “Robert!”

The rage was abruptly extinguished by the swirled folds of kirtle and cloak. “
Marian?
”

A trembling Earl of Huntington read the truth in his son’s body before his heir even touched the woman.

 

Gisbourne, dropping gravy-soaked bread onto his tray, gazed at Eleanor in alarm. “He
knew.?
”

“From the beginning.” Her former contempt was banished, replaced by tense displeasure. “There was no need for me to go to him at all.”

Gisbourne smiled at that, and was further contented to see the slow flush burn her cheeks. It lent her sallowness some color. But he did not remind her he had protested; Eleanor was no lackwit. If he slighted her intentionally she would look for retribution. He had learned his lesson well.

“Well,” he said meditatively, “it is pleasing to learn I am of some value after all.”

“Be not so proud,” she retorted. “While you are useful, he will use you; prove difficult, he will discard you.” She looked meaningfully at his leg. “He might just cut
that
off.”

He dismissed her pettiness absently. He had escaped danger for the moment, and he had no intention of permitting himself to be used against his will in another of Eleanor’s schemes. If he stayed free of her, he could be the kind of seneschal the sheriff desired him to be, while drawing no suspicion that he courted Prince John’s approval.

Gisbourne recovered his crust of bread and bit off a dripping piece. “You must be pleased nonetheless. The Lady Marian is gone.”

Eleanor’s eyes glittered balefully. “For now. He’s left to fetch her back.”

The bite was suddenly tasteless. “
Now?
”

“He’s ridden out to Ravenskeep.” She shrugged. “Now, tomorrow, next week—does precisely when matter? He intends to bring her here and install her as his wife.” Her tone turned venomous. “We shall have to think of something else to rid ourselves of her.”

“
We,
” he reflected. “
We
”
could be dangerous.

And as dangerous to tell her.

Gisbourne merely nodded, chewing hard bread again.

 

Ravenskeep’s gate was not yet repaired, so the bailey welcomed William deLacey even if Marian did not. She could not, apparently; Joan, clearly shocked by the sheriff’s appearance, said her lady was not at home.

“She stayed with
you,
” Joan declared. “Because of the fever, you said.”

The sheriff found it intensely annoying to be required to explain himself to a woman with whom he had been so purposeful in an earlier contrivance. Lying, if one were not careful, could lay insidious traps.

He stood just inside the hall, dripping rain, while his equally soaked troop of Normans lingered out-of-doors in the bailey. He supposed he should bring them in, but he had expected Marian to offer the usual amenities. She was lax in authority, but never in courtesy.

When offered to others.
He glanced briefly around the hall, frowning disapproval. “It is wet.”

“Indeed, my lord,” Joan agreed readily. “Roger didn’t finish the shutters, and the roofs leaking again.”

“Ah. Roger.” He wondered if Philip de la Barre had found disaffected Roger sufficiently suitable for future use. “If you like, I will send workmen from Nottingham to help you in your repairs.” His gaze was penetrating. “We cannot permit your lady to live below her station.”

Joan flushed crimson. “No, my lord,” she muttered. “But—if she isn’t at the castle, where
is
she? You said she was in bed.”

“She was.” He had intended for her to be in
his
bed; the truth made him surly. “Apparently she felt herself sufficiently recovered to leave.” He shook his head, sighing. “She is of an independent mind. I would have sent an escort with her, of course—”

“Where
is
she?” Joan was now alarmed enough to interrupt. “My lord, ’tis raining, and near sundown—if there were a sun to go down—we can’t have the Lady Marian on the road by herself!”

Retreat was necessary before he floundered more obviously. “No indeed, Joan. I shall set my men to searching immediately.” DeLacey turned on his heel and strode swiftly out of the hall, shutting his ears to the woman’s distressed murmuring.

Where, then? he mused. Someone in Nottingham? One of the neighboring manors?
He checked just outside the hall as the rain renewed its assault. “No,” he said tautly. “She’ll have gone to Huntington.”

The troop formed up in answer to his sharply imperative gesture. One man brought his horse. “My lord?”

“Nottingham, for now.” He mounted quickly, swinging the cloak out of the way with a deft, practiced motion. “In the morning we ride again.”

 

In shock, Marian gazed at Robin. Water ran from his cloak to splash onto the floor where it beaded briefly in the rushes, then ran off to the beaten earth. She searched his expression raptly, looking for repudiation now that they stood before the earl and three lords of England in the castle that was
his
home—not hers where she was comfortable, where she knew herself well loved by people who mattered.
Can he love me now? Will his father permit it?

Pale hair curled damply where the wet had found a way in beyond the edge of the hood. He was white and tense and angry, though the anger died as he saw her, altered by an astonishment that transmuted itself to joy.

Her body roused to him in that oddly intimate moment in front of five other men: flustered servant, outraged earl, three stunned lords.

It was loud in the silent hall, the mute tension that sprang between them, ringing a pale echo off a tight-wound lute string stretched very near to breaking.

Then he touched her shoulder, threading his fingers through her loosened hair, and the lute string abruptly snapped.

“Have you had her?” the earl rasped. “Have
you
had this woman, also—like every outlaw in Sherwood Forest?”

From the tail of her eye, Marian saw the motion of Robin’s hand toward a sword that did not hang at his side, and for that she loved him the more. But she required no blood shed in the name of a petty truth.

“Yes,” she said clearly, speaking to the earl. “But not
also,
my lord . . . it was your son who made me a woman. Last night, in fact—at Ravenskeep, not in Sherwood. In my mother’s oratory.” She lifted her chin in answer to the challenge she saw building in his eyes. “But I think God didn’t mind. He allowed us to please one another without defilement.”

She felt rather than saw the stunned recoil of the others as Robin tensed beside her. Marian herself was strangely detached, completely divorced from the emotions that imprisoned everyone else.
It is because I am
too
angry; in a moment I will burst.

The Earl of Huntington pointed a trembling hand toward the screened door of the hall. “Leave at once. I will not have such language spoken in my hall.”