Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] (68 page)

“More man than you,” Little John jeered. “I only saw one of us on the road, and it bloody well wasn’t you!”

Clym reached into his hosen and jerked out the purse, then threw it to the ground.
“That
for your king’s ransom!” He spat onto the leather.

Robin turned to Bell. “You have a choice,” he said. “Come with me to Locksley, where there is food, ale, and a hall. We’ve more to discuss now.”

“Or?” Bell asked.

“Or not.” Robin shrugged. “I’ve another idea.”

“Like this one?” Wat One-Hand grinned. “I’m with you, then. This was the easiest job I’ve seen in a long time.”

“Aye.” Little John’s tone was derisive.
“He
did all the work.”

“My favorite kind.” Wat’s eyes were bright. “Won’t hurt to listen, will it?”

“He’s a bloody
knight!”
Clym cried. “What does he know of our life?”

“Something now,” Bell retorted. “As the giant said, only one of us was on the road, and it bloody well wasn’t us.” He nodded at Robin. “We’ll come, for now. We’ll eat your food and drink your ale and hear what you have to say.”

Much picked up the purse Clym had thrown down. He handed it to Robin. “Locksley.”

 

DeLacey supervised as Archaumbault ordered the shipment—an ordinary locked chest—placed in the sturdy wagon, then covered with sacking tied down with rough hemp rope. The castellan indicated no particular interest in what it was he intended to escort to Lincoln, merely that the loading be done quickly and properly. DeLacey watched, then motioned for the boy to bring over his own mount.

“My lord?” Archaumbault was surprised. “Do you come, also?”

“I have business with Prince John.” He gestured. “Here, de la Barre—”

But the young man, mounted only paces away, put up a delaying hand a bit too imperative for DeLacey’s liking. “My lord, if it please you—there are riders coming in. And speedily!”

“Who? Can you see them?”
What will delay me now?
“De la Barre—”

“No, my lord.” De la Barre cast a glance over his shoulder. “If you permit, I will go see who they are.”

“Do,” DeLacey suggested dryly. He glanced to Archaumbault. “Were we ever that young?”

Archaumbault’s eyes glimmered. “Yesterday, my lord.”

He was astonished.
Before God, the man’s made a jest!

And then de la Barre was back, taut-faced, stumbling over his words as he reined in his fractious mount. “My lord Sheriff—
they
are lords ... they speak of robbery, my lord!”

“What
lords?” But deLacey irritably waved him back. “Never mind—I’ll tend it myself.” He glanced again at Archaumbault. “Hold the wagon. We’ll leave in a moment.” Without waiting for the castellan’s answer, deLacey motioned for the boy to continue holding his horse and went forward, marking the clatter of hooves against cobbles and the shouts of an angry man.
Who is that?
Then his eyes widened.
Eustace de Vesci? What is
he
doing here?
—
My God, Henry Bohun
—
and Essex!
“Sheriff!” De Vesci reined in his horse so hard its mouth gaped. “My lord Sheriff—attend to this at once! We have been set upon and robbed—”

Geoffrey de Mandeville, less bombastic, said indeed de Vesci was right: they had been robbed.

DeLacey was astounded. “Where? In the city?”

“No.” It was Henry Bohun, Earl of Hereford, younger even than deLacey recalled, but it had been some time since last they had met, and then only briefly. “No, it was but a few miles back—”

“Between here and Huntington,” de Vesci finished. “Before God, that whoreson—”

DeLacey assumed a suitably disturbed expression, though at that moment he was less concerned with the robbery than he was with their presence at Huntington.
What were they doing there?
And then, thinking rapidly,
I wonder
—
does John know?

“A plainspoken fellow,” Bohun agreed. “Most unwilling to be cowed by our rank.”

A further astonishment; it overtook the first. “He
knew
you?”

“Not by name,” de Mandeville said, “but he knew our rank well enough. He took even our chains of office.”

DeLacey spun. “Archaumbault! To me!” He swung back. “I will undertake every effort to have this outlaw caught and hanged, my lords. I am appalled that men of your substance can be set upon so baldly—”

“And
boldly,”
de Mandeville said dryly. “He had companions in the brush, but faced us quite alone.”

“Whoreson,” de Vesci seethed. “He’s stolen a good man’s sword.”

That stopped deLacey. “An outlaw with a sword?”

“
And
a longbow.” Bohun shook his head. “I wouldn’t have tested him.”

The sheriff frowned. “No outlaw I know carries a sword. Longbows yes, some of them... but they are villeins, usually, peasants who turn to poaching and are outlawed for it”—he shrugged—“the occasional yeoman—”

“He stole a good man’s sword,” de Vesci repeated, clearly unconcerned by the sheriffs observations. “For that alone he should hang.”

“If he can be caught, yes.” Bohun sighed. “He wore a hood. His face was obscured. We’d not know him again if he stood here before us even now.”

“Robin,” de Mandeville said. “Someone called him Robin.”

DeLacey frowned. “You are certain?”

“Quite certain,” the earl told him gravely. “The voice was perfectly clear, as was the name. As if it were
meant
to be heard.”

DeLacey indicated Archaumbault. “This man is my castellan. I will set him and others on the trail... is there anything you can tell him about the man’s appearance?”

“He was hooded,” de Vesci snapped. “We saw nothing of his face.”

DeLacey sighed.
A hooded man named Robin. I need only walk out beyond the gates to see ten or twenty hooded men—and as for Robin? As many Robins as hoods.
“Anything else, my lords?”

Bohun, frowning, nodded. “He wore plain clothing, yeoman’s clothing, with good boots, and bracers—here.” He tapped one forearm. Green tunic, brown hosen—a belt, and a sword-belt—”

“And the hood,” de Mandeville finished. “A collared leather hood, like any yeoman might wear.” His expression said he knew well there was little to distinguish the thief from any other man. “A tall man, well-fleshed ... twenty-five or younger.” He shrugged. “Without a face, it is difficult to say.”

“Of course. I thank you for trying, my lord.” DeLacey glanced at Archaumbault. “I give you the duty.”

“Yes, my lord.” A glint was in his eye. “Shall I take de la Barre with me?”

“No.” DeLacey now was angry. This simple robbery had upset every plan. The three victimized lords had ridden in from Huntington, whose earl was opposed to John. It would not do to say where he was bound, or for whom his shipment was intended.
I’ll send it to Lincoln tomorrow.
DeLacey tugged at his robe. “My lords—may I offer you food? Drink?”

De Vesci threw himself out of his saddle, jerking the reins free. “By Ghrist,
yes!
And perhaps as we wait, your castellan will flush this whoreson free.”

“Indeed,” DeLacey agreed urbanely, wishing de Vesci to hell.

Marian cast a glance around Locksley Hall. She sighed, scrubbing hair back from her face.
There is nothing more I might do to improve upon the hall save what I have already done... and nothing else I can do simply to pass the time--
“Lady Marian?” The call came from outside: Tuck, who sounded triumphant. “Lady—he’s come back!”

She spun to face the still-empty door and could not help but think of her own condition as she had the hall’s: hair straggling down, kirtle snagged in girdle, the hem of her shift soiled and ragged.
Not even a coif to cover my head
—
oh God, could I not at the very least have washed my face?

Undoubtedly it was filthy, streaked with dust and grime. Marian attempted one-handedly to jerk the snagged kirtle free of girdle while the other rubbed at her face, and then Robin was in the doorway and she forgot all about the snagged skirt and the dirt on her face and the straggling hair stuck to her neck.

With the setting sun behind his back he was mostly in silhouette, but she knew him by a hundred intimate things. He stood within the doorway, filling up the opening.

Her body’s response was instant, astonishing her with its clamor. Marian laughed out loud, bursting with emotions she had never thought to feel, because she had not known, then, what it was to live. Inconsequentially, she thought,
Tuck’s prayers carry weight.

Rush-light warmed his features, glinting off sword and knife.
“Ya Allah,
but I need you—” And he was there within the hall, leaving the door behind, crossing the distance swiftly to catch her in his arms, to pull her against his chest, to murmur something into the tousled hair she had foolishly fretted over, something in a language Marian did not know, but full of abiding relief and an intense desperation assuaged now by her presence. “Say nothing—let me hold you... let me be human again ...”

And she let him hold her, let him hug the breath from her lungs, crushing her in his arms; knowing she needed it as badly, the simple power of touch, of possession, that had nothing to do with ownership and everything to do with reestablishing self.
My God
—
not even Eleanor said it could be like this
—

“Too long,” he rasped. “I meant to come sooner, I meant to come straight from my father, but there was something else—”

Marian gulped a laugh, too happy to let him fret. “You did send word, Robin—”

“I meant to come anyway, sooner... but I could not leave it, or risk losing the courage—” His mouth was against brow, then cheek, then lips, caressing with warm breath even as he spoke. “I am sorry, Marian—I cannot give what you deserve—”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“—and now there is something more that must be done—”

She closed his mouth with fingers. “Hush,” she told him, laughing softly. “Do you think I have so little faith in you that you must explain all to me?” She smiled to see the surprise in his eyes. Her own hands were busy as his were, sliding against his tunicked chest as she looped them over his shoulders, then up behind his neck through thick, pale hair. Her skin cried out for his. “I despised being alone, but now that you are here I cannot recall what it was.”

He shook his head, twining his fingers into her hair as she twined them into his, smoothing it back from her face. His eyes were dark and avid, his tone abrupt and ragged, but the words spoke of things other than the needs of his body. “You know so little of me ... of the things I can do, and have done—”

“I said, it doesn’t matter—”

“It does.” He pulled her more tightly yet into his arms. “Marian—it isn’t ended yet. It’s only begun. And all of it
does
matter. It must. Or there is no reason to do it.”

“Rob—” But he cut her off with his mouth, which sealed her own until she was breathless, then broke away with effort. In that instant she no longer cared there was no screen to shield their bed—
surely Tuck will ward the door
—

“Marian—I have brought men with me. They will stay here the night, some of them—I meant us to be alone, but there is something yet to be done, things to be discussed.” The tension made his face stark. “Some of these men you know.”

She cared about nothing else but Robin, not what he was saying; she wanted to kiss away the starkness of his face, to ease his tension with her body.

But gradually his words dissipated the sharp joy and pleasure of touching him.
“I
know these men?”

“The giant,” he said quietly. “The minstrel. The boy, Much—and Will Scarlet.”

Desire burned into ash. “You’ve brought
Scarlet
here? Why?”

“I need him—”

“Marian.” The flesh of his face was rigid. “I need him. I need them all. Those—and the others.” She saw there was mud in his hairline, and a smudge across one cheek. “Adam Bell, and others.”

Marian was astonished. “Adam Bell is an
outlaw.”

“A wolf’s-head.” His eyes were bleak. “I know. Marian—I said you knew little of me, of the things I can do—”

“—and have done,” she finished. “But—outlaws? Why? They are not your kind. Will Scarlet?” Marian shook her head. “We were well quit of him.”

“Not now. He is outside.” Robin drew in a deep breath and exhaled noisily. “I have broken with my father.”

It was what she had hoped against, rather than for; Marian had no desire to strip a man from his kin. “No,” she said sharply. “Robin—no.”

“It is done. I took nothing from his castle other than what was due me, or already mine...” His gesture encompassed the hall. “This is mine. Nothing more.”

She reached up and touched the residue of mud in the angle of one cheekbone. “You are both of you stubborn men. I said so to Tuck... and now you have infuriated one another so that nothing can be settled—”

“It is settled.” He pulled her hand away, kept it trapped in his own. “I have made certain it is. He will never condone what I have become, even for Richard’s sake.”

She was abruptly furious, angry with his manner and angry with her ignorance.
“Tell
me!” she flared. “Do not hint, do not hide in obscurity—tell me the truth!”

He caught her other hand, clinging to both of them. “I am made thief,” he said plainly, “by the vanity of rich men, and the poverty of poor. Not outlaw—
yet.
Not wolf’s-head—
yet.
But when they know, it will come. And it must come, because it must be done.”

She did not understand. “You said you would send the jewels to help the ransom. But that is done, Robin—what more can you do?”

“More,” he said only.

“Adam Bell,” she murmured. “And Will Scarlet. Outlaws, all of them.” She understood him now. “What have you done?”

He turned away, releasing her hands, and went to the door. A quiet word beckoned the others in, murmuring her name, something more, but she heard none of it.

Marian stood in the dimly lighted hall and watched the men file in. Some of them she knew. Some of them she did not. But
of
them, every one.

“Wolf’s-heads,” she murmured hollowly.
Oh God—not Robin
—

And then Much stood before her holding purses and chains and rings. He grinned his delight. “Lionheart!”

Marian looked over his head to Robin by the door, who denied none of it by gesture or expression.

“De Vesci’s,” he said, “and Bohun’s. And Geoffrey de Mandeville’s. They’re the poorer for it—but the king is closer to England.”

She did not look at the proofs of thievery filling Much’s hands. She looked instead at Robin, knowing now what he was; what he had made himself to bring the King of the English home.

 

DeLacey sat over the evening meal with his unexpected guests, discomfited by their presence but unable to discharge them. He was intensely relieved when a servant came in with a message, murmuring to him quietly that though unsigned it came from the Earl of Huntington. No answer was expected, merely action.

DeLacey, bemused, accepted it with apologies to his guests, then broke the seal and read it. When he had finished, he apologized once again and made a trifling comment about the responsibilities of a sheriff. The meal continued, and deLacey fretted inwardly until at last the lords excused themselves. No doubt they wished to share his company no more than he did theirs, since he was an avowed prince’s man; he wished them good night amidst their courteous assurances that they would depart at dawn, and his own that the matter of the robbery would be tended to with care.

As soon as they were gone, he sent for de la Barre.

 

Food, Robin had said; all of them were hungry. And so Marian carried out the duties of a proper chatelaine and ordered foodstuffs from the villagers to feed old- and newmade outlaws. Bread, pork, beef; the first fruits of early spring. Butter and cheese and ale. Locksley’s inhabitants believed they fed their lord; he had made himself something else.

Marian learned Robin’s companions quickly enough as she labored to feed them all: Adam Bell, small, dark and quick; William of Cloudisley was young, sweet-natured, and married; Clym of the Clough lacked a finger and all pretensions to simple courtesy; Wat had lost a hand for poaching. The others she knew already: Little John, Will Scarlet, Alan of the Dales, and Much.

But for Alan, who had good manners from his years of dining in great halls, and the giant, whose movements were measured so as not to overset things with his size, all of them lacked for refinement when it came to eating and drinking. They were rough men in general, unaccustomed to halls, and she found their habits disgusting as they clustered around the open hearth to eat and drink and tell rude jokes and stories. It was smoky there, but better since she had ordered the vent recut. Still, drifts hung in the air, thickening as the evening wore on. The hall was dyed ochrous by weak rush-light and russet coals: gilt and gold and amber.

Marian did not eat with the men but withdrew quietly to a safe distance and sat upon a bench. None noticed, save Robin, who slanted her an enigmatic glance she could not interpret but nonetheless remained with the others; and Tuck, who came with his own share of food and sat down upon the bench.

She smiled at him crookedly. “Pity for the outcast?”

“Ah, but
they
are the outcasts.” Tuck’s expression was pensive. “But God’s children as well... we must remember that.”

Marian raised her brows. “Surely God would enjoin them to bathe more than once a year, and to eat with less—exuberance.”

“No doubt they are accustomed to eating worse fare,” he told her quietly, picking at roasted pork, “and often stolen, I’ll wager... poaching, methinks, gives a man little time for refinement.”

It stung more than she expected, because he was correct. “And so I am rightly reproved.” Marian smiled to stave off his stricken apology. “No, Brother—who am I to revile them? But when I think what Robin means to do ...” She shook her head. “He is
wrong.”

Tuck’s expression was troubled. “Aye, Lady Marian—God does not condone men who steal from other men.”

“Regardless of his birth.”

Tuck gazed at Robin. The pale head was bent, the face obscured by hair. “He explained it well enough, and with surpassing eloquence—”

“But a thief is still a thief.” Marian’s jaw tightened. “Every single one of these men—even Much!—would be hanged if caught. And yet Robin swears to me it is the only way.”

“It is the only way
he
sees,” Tuck said. “There must be others, surely ... but this is the path he chooses.” He chewed thoroughly, digesting meat and thoughts. “He risks much for his king.” “Too much. I wish—” But Marian let it go. Robin had risen from his place near the hearth.

The loud jesting died, the ribald boasting replaced with curiosity as he stood before them all. “I swore an oath,” he said quietly, so quietly Marian had to strain to hear him, “when I went on Crusade, to free Jerusalem from the Infidel and pray at the Holy Sepulchre. All Crusaders did.” He looked at each of them, weighing them in their silence. “I swore an oath to my king that I would serve him before myself, to do what was required. At Acre, I killed men and women—”

“Saracens,” Clym muttered.

“—and served my God and king. And I was knighted for it.” His smile was grim. “Yet another oath.”

Cloudisley lifted his cup. “Here’s to the valiant knight!”

Robin did not even look at him. “And when I was captured by the Turks on the field near Arsuf, I swore yet a third oath: that I would win my freedom and return home to England.”

The silence was suddenly loud. Marian was acutely aware of small sounds made large: the fire in the hearth, the cricket outside the door, the rustling of bodies in rushes. “What is he doing?” she breathed. “What is Robin
doing?”

Tuck’s voice was as quiet. “Telling you what happened.”

“He’s telling
them,
not me!”

“Perhaps because he knows they require convincing.” Tuck’s brown eyes were filled with a great compassion. “Lady, this is confession. We are all of us his priests.”

“Here, now,” Wat said. “Captured?”

“I spent one year and one month in the company of the Turks,” Robin said. “They made me do many things, among them pray to Allah in place of my own God.” His face was a pale mask.
“Ya Allah. Insh’Allah. La ilaha il’ Mohammad rasul Allah.”

Tuck crossed himself.

“Had the king not ransomed me, I would be there still.”

Marian’s food was tasteless. She had no interest in it, or in anything beyond the words Robin spoke. Comprehension was painful. “This is why,” she murmured. “Honor, duty, respect—the oaths he swore... and the king who ransomed
him.”

“I will bring him home,” Robin said. “I will pillage even the coffers of the highest in the land to bring Richard home.”