Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] (8 page)

Eleanor bit into her lip. “Is it so bad a thing?” she whispered. “So bad a thing to want a man? Just to
want
a man?”

Silence was loud. When she could, Marian swallowed tautly. “I think . . .” Words failed. She knew nothing of bedding a man, nothing of need, save vague, inexplicable yearnings that occasionally troubled her sleep. But she
did
know there was an answer for Eleanor. “I think it isn’t the—wanting. I think it’s the
doing,
without the marriage vows.”

Eleanor laughed. “No. Even
with
the marriage, we’re not allowed to want.” She was but a handful of years older than Marian, yet her tone made her aged. “You don’t know, yet. And they won’t let you, if they have their way. They will marry you off to an old man and you’ll spend your life in his bed wondering if there should be more. And ashamed of your wondering.”

Marian said nothing. She found herself empty of words, empty of comprehension, aware with painful poignancy of emotions she couldn’t share.

Eleanor sighed. “Say again you will not tell my father. He wouldn’t understand. He slakes
his
needs, but my own must remain unspoken, lest he send me into the streets for the others to call me whore.”

It required something. “He is your
father—”

Eleanor’s teeth showed briefly. “He is a hard man.”

Marian did not answer, shut out of a daughter’s perception of the man who ruled her life.
Her
father was dead; her life, for the moment, her own.

“You don’t know him,” Eleanor declared harshly, answering a reprimand Marian had not offered. “Until you live with a man, you cannot know him. You don’t know his habits, you don’t know his tastes—you don’t know
him.”
She pressed the back of her hand against a damp brow. “I know myself. I know my tastes. I know my habits. I know what I
want,
and I know how to get it.” Dark eyes gleamed in dimness as she pressed palms against flushed cheeks. “I know my father very well. He is a hard man.”

And the daughter harder yet.
Marian did not smile. “A man must be what he is.”

“No.” Flat, succinct declaration. “A man must be what he
wants
to be, no matter the truth of it. If he acts as he truly is, he will never better himself.”

Marian did not answer. She watched Eleanor drag aside her skirts as she rose, steadying herself with effort, and take herself to the farthest pallet, nearest the door, to wait for the time she deemed proper to go to the man she wanted so desperately as to risk censure—or worse—by her father. Who was a hard man.

Slowly Marian lay back down, seeking refuge in wan lamplight. She stared hard-eyed through shadows at the heavy rafters overhead, contemplating the freedom Eleanor wanted so badly and her willingness to risk discovery in her pursuit of it.

After a moment she took into both hands the small silver crucifix she wore on a chain about her neck. Softly Marian whispered, “I don’t have that courage.” And more firmly yet, on a note of despair, “I don’t have that
strength.”

William deLacey touched fingers to his lips as if in passing, shielding the uncontrollable twist of mirth that seized his mouth. It was gone quickly, banished into bland serenity as he transformed the touch of his fingers to his lips into an idle rubbing of his chin. Inwardly, he rejoiced. How many other men would spend half a fortune to be where he was just now, at
no
cost, absorbing information and intentions known only to those closest to the throne of England? And how many other men would be as able to profit from it?

The chamber was small and excessively private, as John had demanded, lit by a single fist-fat candle placed on the table between them, and the dying light beyond the narrow window. The day diminished quickly.

They were alone, unattended by even a servant. DeLacey had, at John’s impatient motion, poured wine for both of them, then settled into the chair he had dragged off the wall to sit opposite the Count of Mortain.

The sheriff glanced thoughtfully at the chamber door. Huntington, no doubt, would profit as well or better from this meeting, if such it was, though with different motive. Huntington apparently aspired to no higher rank than he already had attained, and therefore would not see the confidences in quite the same light as deLacey. No doubt he would weigh the profitability in completely different currency.

But the earl was not present. Prince John had dismissed him to tend his guests, desiring, he said, that the highest ranking official of his shire discuss with the Count of Mortain the business of administering Nottinghamshire.

And so they did discuss it, albeit briefly. John explained he had gone first to the sheriffs city because that murdering peasant bastard was due to be hanged and he wanted to witness it. After all, it was four of the prince’s own men the peasant had murdered; he thought it politic he demonstrate to the people how much his men meant to him, and how deadly was such folly. It would not do to let peasants think they might kill with impunity.

DeLacey remarked that of course every man was important to John, and that indeed a public demonstration of justice was required—although initially he couldn’t recall the murderer John referred to. Gisbourne attended to the carrying out of executions, although deLacey witnessed them. It was only as he talked idly about other shire matters that he remembered the man in question. A peasant indeed, some nameless English villein—
Will something, was it?
—who had murdered four Normans in John’s service. Beyond that, he could not recall; it didn’t matter, really.

John quickly lost interest in the shire, muttering of unnamed nobles who plotted against him, and proceeding into a wandering, slurred recitation of his intentions not for Nottinghamshire, but for England herself.

The Count of Mortain slopped loose-limbed in the earl’s heavy chair. Prior to and during the meeting he had consumed countless cups of wine and now he suffered for it, though he did not appear to regret it. He propped himself up as best he could, stretching the flesh of his face out of shape as he planted a splayed palm against a reddened, puffy cheekbone. The eyes peering across the table at the sheriff were dilated, bloodshot, slitted.

“Have you bastards?” he demanded.

DeLacey hesitated only a moment. “Of course, my lord.”

John nodded. “As have I. As have we
all
—except for my lord Lionheart.” He snickered. “Lionheart. Capon
-balled.”

DeLacey waited. It was best. Prompting John might elicit suspicions, or turn his attention elsewhere.

“Capon-balled,” he muttered. Then, more clearly, “No bastards. No mistresses. He tumbled kitchen
boys.”

Still deLacey held his tongue.

John pulled himself more upright, though the line of his shoulders tilted precariously slantwise. “Do you know what that means?”

This at least he could answer, and correctly. “It means the throne of England is in jeopardy, my lord.”

“No.” It was curt. John leaned forward, clutching chair arms. “No, it does
not.
I am heir, Sheriff—there is no jeopardy so long as I stand to inherit.”

The candle flame between them smoked and danced in John’s wine-drenched exhalation.
Not
the correct answer. But then deLacey doubted John would credit him with the perspicacity to comprehend the right one, as Lackland would undoubtedly prefer to point out another’s shortcomings to the elevation of his own. “Of course,” he murmured.

“Of course,” John echoed pettishly. Then he slumped back into the chair, gnawing at a thumbnail. Dark eyes were oddly bright in guttering candlelight. “What do you want, Sheriff?”

DeLacey did not hesitate. “To serve, my lord.”

One dark brow arched.
“Do
you?”

“Of course, my lord.”

“And is that
all,
Sheriff? Truly all? Or merely the diplomatic answer?” But John did not wait for a response. He leaned forward intently. “All men want something. It isn’t a bad trait, you know . . . wanting breeds ambition, and ambition breeds noblemen.” He leaned back into the chair. “Sometimes even
kings.”

 

Locksley went out of doors because there he knew he could breathe. There he might find peace and freedom, and escape from expectations, parental or otherwise.

The spring evening was cool and exceptionally clear, showing the first pale light of stars. The moon crept above the top of the massive curtain-wall, toothed by crenelations and the square-cut merlons. So much masonry, now. He recalled very clearly when the building had begun, because he had protested. And his mother had been alive.

He walked with newborn shadows, taking solace in secrecy. No one knew he was gone. No one came after him. No one came to pluck at his sleeve and drag him back inside.

No one knew he was gone.

As a child Locksley had prized it, his retreat from his father’s world. The earl of course despised it, punishing his son many times for neglecting responsibilities, but Locksley had perservered. He made Huntington Hall his, and the forest surrounding it.

But Huntington Hall was vanquished, replaced by Huntington Castle.

He came to a wall. Stopped. Put both arms out and pressed fingers to the brickwork, touching hard, dark stone. Cold, impersonal stone, alien to his flesh. Alien to his soul.

The girl had said something of that.
“When I have been away, I have a ritual. I reacquaint myself, to see if things have altered. Room by room. Hall by hall. Perhaps you might do the same.”

But all the rooms were new. And all the halls remade.

He had prayed so many times—
let me go home again
—
all I want is to go home
—and eventually was heard. Eventually was answered. And now he
was
home. Other men were not.

Sir Hugh FitzWalter was not.

A tremor ran through him. Bare hands, sheathed in calluses, spasmed against new walls. Cold, dark stone, now unexpectedly transmuted—

—
to
a
warmer, paler stone of sun-painted, ochre-gold in the light of a desert sun
—

He shook it off literally, tossing back his thick hair.

—
someone shouted a prayer as the scimitar flashed in sunlight, cleaving air and flesh and bone. One limb, two; the man was abruptly armless—
“No,” Locksley croaked. Sweat ran down his temples, dampening his fair hair. He tucked his face into his arm, scrubbing it free of perspiration, then sank his splayed fingers deep into his hair, scraping it back from his face, tugging against his scalp as if discomfort might replace the visions within his skull. He turned and sagged against the wall, staring blank-eyed into darkness. Before him bulked the new keep. “No more,” he muttered. “I am home—what more can there be?”

More than he had expected. Less than he had hoped for.

 

DeLacey sat very quietly in his chair, daring no comment. He knew now John wanted something specific. He sincerely doubted John talked to men merely to pass the time. And since they had somewhat rapidly disposed of Nottinghamshire as a topic, clearly it was something else. Something John deemed currently important.
Or worth pursuing for future attention.
The Sheriff lifted his cup to stall, drinking only a little.
Does he
know
something about me? Or merely probe to learn possibilities?

“Ambition is required, if a man is to be a king.” It was a declaration. And then John swore viciously, battering his chair arm with a fist. “Can none of them see how much I care for the realm? How much I long to administer England as she should be administered?” He glared at deLacey. “I am
here,
do you see? Not capering about the Holy Land looking for Jerusalem!”

DeLacey held his silence. In a moment, as expected, John’s fury passed.

“I care,” John said forlornly. “I want to
protect
the realm. My brother absents himself and leaves her shores unguarded, stealing from her heart the men England requires to keep her people safe.”

The sheriff decided against mentioning that England—and her people—appeared to be quite safe, as Philip of France did not currently have designs upon her shores, and everyone else of any note was as drained of soldiers as England, since Richard’s passion for crusading had touched so many hearts.

John’s tone thinned into petulance. “Surely if my father had known Richard intended to absent himself with such rapidity and determined repetition, he’d have named
me
his heir.”

It was time to give him something. “Undoubtedly, my lord.”

John laughed. The candle flame curtseyed and bowed, nearly extinguishing itself. John lifted and studied the heavy chain of office slanting across his chest. When he dropped it, gold chimed. “How did you get your place, deLacey?”

A new tack. DeLacey hid his instant consternation. “I was appointed, my lord. By the king, your father.”

“And?”

DeLacey wanted to echo the question, trying to anticipate John’s goal. But he could not. “And so I served him, dispensing the king’s justice.”

John picked at a stain on his costly surcoat, but the dark gaze didn’t wander. “And was there not something else? Something more?” Fingers stopped plucking. “Were you not dismissed from office?”

A coldness invaded deLacey’s belly. With effort, he kept it from showing on his face. “My lord, I was.”

John once again inspected the chain of office. “And yet here you are.”

Damn him, does he want me to repeat what everyone knows?
But yes, of course John did; it was his way. “I was reappointed upon the king’s accession.”

“No.” John smiled. “You were not
re
appointed, Sheriff. You bought your way back to the office by paying my brother a predetermined sum.”

DeLacey sat very still. “Crusades are costly, my lord. The king required money.”

“And to get it, he sold off half the kingdom.” The chain was dropped again with a chime of finality. “Oh, don’t be so concerned, deLacey!—hundreds of
others
did it, as well. It was my brother’s idea . . . as you say, crusades are costly. The warrior-king was more concerned with the state of the Infidel’s soul than with the state of his own realm.” John’s color was high. “But he gave me Nottinghamshire, along with a few other counties—generous of him, was it not? To give the poor youngest son a pittance?”

Pittance indeed. John had married into property via Isabelle of Gloucester, and Richard had given him more: six great counties—Nottingham, Derby, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall—not to mention the honor of Lancaster. No more Lackland was John. Just as Henry was no longer king.

The Count of Mortain shifted in his chair. “Why did you not buy a higher office?”

DeLacey smiled thinly. “I couldn’t afford it. I bought what I could with my late wife’s portion.”

“Ah.” John laid seige to his other thumbnail. “But why
this
office? Why not another one?”

Tell him no more than you must.
He knew it instinctively. “I am known here, my lord. My policies are established. It seemed the sensible thing.”

“Sensible thing.” John smiled, spat nail. “And are you a sensible man?”

“I believe so, my lord.”

John grunted. His gaze, despite the wine he’d imbibed, was unclouded. “What do you
want,
deLacey?”

The sheriff tilted his head in quiet deference. “To serve you, and Nottinghamshire.”

John’s eyes lidded. The tautness of his body slackened even as the hard line of his mouth softened, hooking cynically. “Not precisely the answer I wanted. But for now, it will do.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Leave me, deLacey. And send Gilbert de Pisan here.”

De Pisan came and shut the door behind him. “My lord?”